Agent with a History (9 page)

“Who are all these people Sal?”

“Better question would be, who’s not here.
Homeland Security and half a dozen or so other agencies, I even
heard a guy mention that the CIA is involved!”

“In our case?” He looked down and mumbled
something.

“Speak up Sal!” I said sharply.

“They took us off the case.”

“They what?” I exclaimed loudly.

He just nodded.

I slammed my coffee cup down and headed for
the captain’s office. I burst through the door and he stood up,
“Where have you been Lisa?”

“Chasing down a lead. What’s this about being
off the case?”

“It’s true, you’re off it. You’re too
personally involved and the case has stretched passed our
jurisdiction. It’s apparently become an international affair.”

“I’m not giving this case up! I’m going to
find Rafferty’s killers and bring them to justice!”

“It’s no longer a decision for you to make!
Consider yourself temporarily relieved of duty! Turn in your
badge.”

I slammed it down on his desk and turned to
leave, “And your gun.”

I turned back, “They weren’t aiming for
Rafferty! They were aiming for me! Do you think it’s smart for me
to be on the streets without a gun you idiot!”

“You’re in contempt Lisa! The only reason I
don’t lock you up is because of the friendship we’ve had over the
years and the Lisa I know wouldn’t be acting like this! Now put
your gun down and go home and don’t come back until I tell you
to!”

I pulled my gun out of its holster and set it
down on the desk. In a calmer tone the captain said, “I’m sorry
about all this Lisa, but this is for your own good. You have to
trust me as your friend when I tell you that.”

“You know what they say captain, with friends
like you, who needs enemies.”

I closed the door behind me and went back to
my desk. I pulled a bag out of a drawer and threw what stuff of
mine there was worth keeping into it. There was little enough of
it.

I opened the bottom drawer and saw the sketch
book lying there. I grabbed it and stuffed it into the bag on
impulse. I didn’t need anyone drawing incorrect conclusions on top
of everything else, not to mention the private nature of the
sketches.

I slung the bag’s strap over my shoulder,
“Stay out of trouble Sal.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Start some fires and burn some bridges down
while I’m at it.” I didn’t wait around for him to try to convince
me not to, I just left.

The captains’ phone rang, “Hello?”

“How did she take it? Do you think she’ll
cooperate and stand down?”

“No she’s not going to stand down! I told you
that! It’s not in her to give up!”

“That is unfortunate for her.”

“Wait, what are you going to do?”

“That is no longer your concern.”

The line went dead and the captain put the
phone down shakily. He needed a drink, was his overwhelming
thought. He reached for the lower drawer of his desk and the
alcohol it contained stashed under some folders.

I was about to hail a cab figuring that would
be safer than walking, when a squad car pulled over in place of
one. The narcotics detective from the cell crime scene poked his
head out the passenger window.

“Heard what happened in there, raw deal! Can
I give you a lift to your apartment? Might be safer that way.”

I smiled with real appreciation, “Thank you
detective.”

I opened the back door of the sedan and in
stunned horror I felt a tazer jammed to my throat from somebody
behind me on the street, and then I was tumbling into the back seat
of the car.

I lifted my head off the seat and coughed. I
opened my eyes; I was still in the squad car.

“Sorry Lisa, you’re a good detective and I
hate to do this to you, but the powers that be say you gotta
go.”

“Then why don’t you just put a bullet in my
brain and be done with it?” I said slowly as my faculties came
unfrozen.

My throat hurt from where the tazer had been
jammed into it. I started to reach up to rub it, when I realized my
hands were cuffed together. “So, how’s it going to be?” I asked,
trying to find out more of what was going on.

“Harder than you deserve. Again I’m sorry,
it’s just the way it’s gotta be. No hard feelings.”

And that’s as much as either of the two men
in the front seat would say. I looked around and didn’t recognize
where we were in the city at all, but it didn’t look good. I must
have been out for a while.

I saw a street sign and something seized up
within me. This was a very bad section of the city. Cops didn’t
come here and if they did, they certainly didn’t come alone and
unarmed. I sat up straighter, which is when I saw the items laying
on the front seat between the two men. My badge and my gun. So the
betrayal went that far up the chain of command.

I couldn’t say that I had ever thought of
something like this being capable from, of all people, the captain.
Just went to show a person the value of not trusting anyone, but
that wasn’t right either. Some people you could trust with
anything. Rafferty would never have done this to me, even if they’d
had his family at gun point. Instinctively I knew with enough
leverage Sal might cave in, but I didn’t think he had any part in
this. I had no one left that I could really trust, unless perhaps
for one man. Could I really trust Flint?

I was going to have to find out, because he
might be my only chance if I was to survive past today. Everything
would come down to getting a hold of a phone. The remembered phone
number burned bright in my head with the urgency of my need. I had
to get a phone!

I’d never make it out of this section of the
city alone, especially without a gun. The squad car came to a stop
and the two men got out. The detective opened my door and started
to haul me out of the back, but I resisted. He tugged harder and I
gave up my resistance and we both stumbled backward from the car
and I brushed into him.

He reared back from me and backhanded me
across the face, as he drew his gun taking aim at my head.

“Nice try Lisa, but no dice! Don’t give us
any more trouble or you’ll regret it! Take the cuffs off!”

The patrol cop took the cuffs off, as I stood
still nursing my split lip with my tongue. Both men backed away
toward the car.

“You’re going to regret not putting a bullet
in my head while you had the chance detective!”

“I don’t think so.” He said, before he
slammed his door shut and they took off up the block of this slummy
corner of the city. As soon as they were far enough away I ducked
into an alleyway hoping to stay out of sight of any potential
enemies and brought the detective’s phone up to my ear, after I had
feverishly dialed the number that Flint had given me.

“Come on! Come on!” I whispered as the phone
rang and rang.

I had almost given up hope when his
unmistakable voice came on the line, “Lisa?”

I didn’t want to examine too closely the wave
of relief I felt at the sound of his voice and words rushed out of
me in a torrent.

“They set me up! The Captain’s in on it and I
don’t know who else! I don’t know who I can trust in the precinct!
You said to call if I needed help and, and…”

“You did the right thing.” He said cutting
off my stammering. “Where are you right now?”

I told him and the pause on the phone was
telling.

“That’s a bad area Lisa!”

I couldn’t help the quiver in my tone as I
responded, “I know. I saw my badge and gun on the front seat of the
car that they brought me here in. I think they made a deal with a
gang to make my death look like random mob violence.”

I thought I heard muted swearing from the
other end of the line. I didn’t know this man from Adam and yet I
could tell he cared and I needed someone to care right now because
I was losing it.

“If its gangs they’ve made a deal with they
won’t just kill me, they’ll...”

His voice cut me off, his tone serious and
confident, “Nothing like that is going to happen to you Lisa!
Understand me?”

I nodded jerkily, forgetting that there was
no way he could see such an answer.

“We’re going to get you out of there, you
have to trust me!”

I don’t know why I trusted this man, but
somehow I did. “I believe you, what do you want me to do?” As I
finished the words I saw movement further up the street from my
hiding spot.

“I’m on my way to you, but it will take me a
while. I have some friends that are a lot closer to you and they
are already on their way to you. Keep your phone on and with you.
It’s probably best for you to keep moving away from where they
dropped you off. And Lisa!”

“Yes?”

“Stay alive!” and then the phone went
dead.

It was clearly a gang coming down the street
and they looked like they were hunting something. Me!

I ducked back into the side alley and made my
way out the back end of it to the parallel street. Every person I
met on these streets would be an informant against me. I ducked
into side alleys and made my way up others. An old woman pointed me
out to a group of gang members and for several fast paced moments I
thought they had me, but I managed to slip away by ducking into an
abandoned old building.

I glanced at my phone, as I leaned back
against an old brick façade completely out of breath. It had only
been a little over a half hour, but I could have sworn that it had
been an hour or more since I had called my one and only
lifeline.

Sweat rolled down my face and I felt my shirt
sticking to me. My feet were killing me! The high heeled boots I
had worn to work today had been more of a fashion statement and not
a choice based on practicality. I wanted to take them off, but
braving the refuse and debris littered streets in my bare feet
would be risking my life in a completely different way than meeting
my end at the hands of a gang. I wasn’t that desperate, yet!

The thought of my bare foot plunging down
onto a discarded needle, likely contaminated with HIV, was a strong
enough thought to keep these stupid boots on my feet, for at least
a little longer anyway. I heard a stirring at the other end of the
alleyway and I took off running as bullets began to splatter into
the brick wall I had just been leaning against. I ran on down the
alley, as I was coated in the red dust of the bricks shattering to
either side of me as I ran the alley.

I felt a bullet burn across the top of my
shoulder and then another one past my outer thigh, but I didn’t
stop running. Out onto the street there were more of them. This was
bad! As a group they took off after me yelling and for fear of
falling wounded from a bullet I ducked down another side alley only
to find myself deceived.

It wasn’t a side alley. It was an old
recessed loading dock and the battered old doors were all locked.
No! A sob of fear at the reality of how badly I was trapped swept
through me.

I turned back to the main street only to find
an eight gang member posse ringed across it coming towards me. I
saw an old pipe and I grabbed it up. It wasn’t a great defense, but
it was something. They drew closer to me and I could see they were
laughing at my attempt at defense, even as their eyes scanned up
and down me hungrily. I took a firmer grip on the pipe and tried to
push down my fears of what was likely to happen in this dark hole
of the city.

“Hey baby we just as well do you with your
hands shot off as with them still on. Drop the pipe!”

My grip on it remained and I watched as the
ringleader brought his pistol up half hoping he’d miss my hands and
kill me by accident.

“I wouldn’t if I were you. I happen to know
someone who quite likes the lady’s hands the way the Creator made
them.”

The gang turned in mass to look at the
speaker who had approached out of seemingly nowhere to stand but
twenty feet from them. He was on the slim side and wasn’t very tall
standing only about 5’6’’, but it was how he was dressed that was
eye catching in an odd way. He had a sharply creased fedora
reminiscent of the gangster era of Hollywood on his head
accompanied by a matching Dick Tracy rain coat. The outdated outfit
was a little too ridiculous to take the individual wearing it
seriously, but there was something about the smaller man that said
seriousness was written all over him.

The gang leader spoke up, as he lifted his
gun toward the stranger. “What’s a little white funky dude like you
interrupting our date with the half-breed chick for? I’m gonna plug
you right where you stand white boy!”

The stranger tipped back his hat a little to
reveal a pair of cold slate grey eyes and then coolly said, “You
have five seconds to drop your guns and leave this place alive. I
won’t warn you again.” As he finished speaking the man’s hands
tucked the ends of the raincoat behind him partially revealing two
low slung shoulder holsters packed with what looked like .45
caliber automatics from the same era as his clothes.

The gang members looked at each other as if
to say ‘Is this guy for real?’, and then dissolved into laughter,
as they all started to draw their pistols. They were too late.

I had been mentally counting down the five
seconds. Their time was up. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t
seen it with my own eyes. One moment his hands had been at his
sides and then they were holding the automatics, as fire belched
out of them repeatedly. There had been eight gang members and there
were eight shots, every one of them a head shot. It had taken less
than a couple of seconds for the little man to clear the loading
area.

He stepped over the bodies as he came up to
me. He glanced at the pipe I still gripped in my hands and I saw
the corners of his mouth twitch. “The classic lead pipe was, no
doubt, a lethal weapon, when wielded by the likes of Mrs. Plum or
Scarlet, but the modern age calls for something a little more speed
oriented I think.”