Criminal Enterprise (28 page)

T
OMLIN WATCHED AS
Schultz’s whole body seemed to deflate. The big man sighed. “I surrender.”

He bent down and put the assault rifle on the stairs, then the machine pistol beside it. Straightened again, and held his hands high. Turned around slow to face the cop at the bottom. Tomlin looked past the big man to the front hall, where the cop stood, a young guy, his service weapon drawn. There were no other cops. Just the one.
The night watchman,
Tomlin thought.
Probably called for backup already. Time’s wasting.

Schultz walked down the stairs, slow and deliberate. Tomlin started down after, just as slow. Hoped the cop hadn’t noticed him yet. As he walked down the stairs, he pulled the pistol from his waistband, very slowly.

—

S
INGER WATCHED THE
big man descend the stairs. The guy had a look on his face like a death-row inmate, like he’d always known it would end this way. Singer kept his gun on him. “Easy,” he told the guy. “Take it easy.”

“I’m not going to do nothing,” the guy said. “It’s Tomlin you have to worry about.”

Singer reached for his handcuffs.
Police instincts,
he thought.
I knew something was up.
He pictured Tim Lesley’s face when he came into HQ with the two of these assholes. Wondered what Stevens would say.

The big guy was nearly at the bottom of the stairs. Singer backed up a step. Readied his handcuffs.
Deal with this guy first,
he thought.
Then worry about Tomlin.
He looked past the guy as he went to apply the cuffs. Just for a brief second, but that’s all it took. He realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

Tomlin stood on the stairs, halfway up. He was holding a polished black pistol. He was aiming it straight down at Singer.

Singer swore. Then the shooting started.

—

S
CHULTZ WAS NEARLY
at the bottom of the stairs, wrists out and ready for the cuffs, when he saw the cop’s eyes go wide.

“Shit.” The cop fumbled with his pistol. Dropped the handcuffs to the floor. Then the whole world exploded as Tomlin started shooting.

Schultz pitched down to the hardwood. Ducked his head, his ears ringing, half deaf. When he looked up again, the explosions had stopped, and the room smelled of cordite and blood. The young cop lay on the floor a few feet from Schultz, his eyes open, not moving.

Schultz rolled onto his back. Looked up the stairs at Tomlin and his pistol, the same pistol Schultz had tried to sell him a week before Christmas. Tomlin descended the stairs, slow now, his eyes moving from Schultz to the dead cop and back again. Schultz stared up at Tomlin. At the pistol. A .45 Sig Sauer P250. An online classified ad. A goddamn concussion and a mouth full of broken teeth. And now this.

Tomlin’s blue eyes were icy cold and malevolent. “Guess I should have done this the first time around,” he said. Then he pulled the trigger.

S
TEVENS’S CELL
PHONE
began to vibrate. He took the phone from his pocket and glanced at it. Rotundi. “You on the radio, Kirk?” Rotundi’s voice was urgent. “You following this?”

“No,” Stevens said, straightening in his seat. “What’s up?”

“Saint Paul police dispatch just put out a call for available Summit Hill units. Shots fired. Summit Avenue.”

Stevens felt his stomach flip. “That’s Tomlin. Where’s Singer?”

“Tried him on the radio,” said Rotundi. “His phone, too. Can’t reach him.”

“Let me try him,” said Stevens. “I’ll call you back.” He ended the call, and dialed Singer’s number. Waited as the phone rang, then a click, and Singer’s voice mail.
“Shit.”

Stevens was sitting in his Cherokee in a Payne-Phalen alley, a block or so down from Dragan Medic’s apartment. He’d been trying to decide whether or not to go home. Whether he should go back into Medic’s apartment and apologize to Windermere. Whether an apology was what she was after.

Shots fired on Summit Avenue.
Singer’s unreachable. Whatever Carla’s after, it’s going to have to wait.
He turned the Jeep’s engine over and pulled out of the alley. Drove onto Payne and parked in front of Medic’s building. Called Windermere. “Something’s going down at Tomlin’s house,” he said. “We need to get over there.”

A long pause. Then: “I’m coming.”

Two minutes later, Windermere opened the passenger door and climbed inside the Cherokee. Stevens hit the gas and pulled away from the curb. Drove as fast as he dared through the snow.

Windermere watched him. “What’s the situation?”

“Shots fired,” Stevens said. “Singer’s AWOL.”

Windermere looked at him some more. Then she shook her head and sat back in her seat. “Shit,” she said. “Connect the dots.”

T
OMLIN HELD
HIS
daughter close. “It’s over, honey,” he told her, guiding her around the bodies in the hall. “You’re safe now.”

It was no use. Heather buried her face in his shirt and sobbed. Tomlin rubbed her back and guided her downstairs to the basement, where Becca and Maddy and the rest of the kids were still huddled together in the rec room. They shrunk back when Tomlin walked in. “It’s okay,” he told them. “It’s all over.”

Nobody said anything. Nobody met his eyes. Slowly, warily, they picked themselves off the couches and carpet. Kept their distance as they drifted out of the room. Tomlin crossed to Becca. “Everyone’s okay.” He reached out to pull her to him. “Everyone’s fine.”

Becca stiffened when he touched her. She said nothing. “The police will be here any minute,” he told her. “We have to go.”

She shrugged out of his grasp. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Honey.” Tomlin could hear sirens in the distance. “It’s time to go.”

“Don’t call me honey.” She spun at him, shoved him backward. “I’m not your fucking honey, you liar. You fucking
murderer
.”

He ducked back. “I did this for us,” he said. “For you and the kids, believe me.”

“Bullshit. Bull
shit
.” She was crying now. “You killed those people for us? Those armored truck guards? You did that for us?” She shoved him backward again, harder. “Bullshit, Carter. Bullshit.”

The sirens were definitely out there, getting louder. Tomlin felt like he was drowning. “Becca,” he said. “We all had to eat.”

“Fuck you,” she said. “You could have found a real job.”

“I tried.”

“You tried,” she said. “You’re a failure. You’re a weak little man.”

The sirens were everywhere. “Becca—”

“That’s why you robbed those banks,” she said. “Why you killed all those people. You had to pretend to rape me just to get hard, you—”

He slapped her. Fucking bitch. Becca staggered back, her eyes wide. “Yeah, hit me,” she said, sneering. “You’re a big fucking man. Hit me again, you son of a bitch.”

Maddy burst into fresh tears in the corner. A couple of Heather’s friends lingered nearby, staring at him, shocked. The whole room suddenly felt foreign. Even Becca looked like a stranger. Tomlin heard her sink to the floor, sobbing, as he turned away. He walked out of the rec room and glanced in at his ruined model trains one more time, and then he flicked off the light and climbed the stairs to where Snickers still sat at the door, whining. Tomlin opened the door and the dog hesitated. Glanced back at him once and then dashed off, disappearing into the blizzard.

Tomlin walked up to the kitchen and into the front hall, looked through the window and saw blue and red lights reflected on the snowy lawn.
Shit,
he thought.
Out of time.
He stepped over Schultz’s body, and the young cop’s, and climbed up the stairs to where Schultz had dropped the machine guns.
At least we’re going out shooting.

He shoved Schultz’s automatic in his waistband, opposite his own pistol, and shouldered the assault rifle. Then he stepped back over Schultz’s body and walked into the kitchen, and there was Andrea Stevens standing by the landing, looking at him. “Coach Tomlin?”

She stood there, young and pretty and blond, a lot like his own daughter but confident, self-assured. She stared at him like she’d never been scared by anything in her whole life. Tomlin studied her, an idea forming in his head.
How much is a little girl worth?
he wondered.
How much would Stevens pay to get her back?

He’d mortgage his house. He would empty his bank accounts. Pay every last penny he owned.
Anyone would, for a girl like this.

Tomlin grabbed her. “Come on.” The girl screamed and struggled, but Tomlin held her tight, squeezed her so hard he thought he would break her in half, and he opened the door and dragged her into the night.

T
OMLIN DRAGGED
Andrea Stevens, screaming for her life, through the backyard and down the snow-covered ravine to Dragan’s street-racer Civic. The snow had blanketed the windshield by now, and the tracks out of the laneway were filled. Tomlin opened the rear door and shoved the girl in the back, put the assault rifle on the roof, and trained the pistol on her. “Don’t even move.”

He kept the pistol on the girl and looked around the car. Felt around the floor and came out with the half-roll of duct tape. “Turn over,” he told the girl. “Cross your arms.” He taped her arms behind her back, tight, and then taped her mouth shut to keep the little bitch quiet. Threw the assault rifle onto the front passenger seat. Then he climbed in the front seat, turned the key in the ignition, and stood on the gas. The goddamn car wouldn’t move.

The wheels spun, the engine howled, but the car stayed put. Tomlin shifted into reverse and tried to rock the car out. Didn’t work. The front wheels spun and the car rocked a little, and the air outside turned acrid with the smell of burnt rubber, but the car wouldn’t move. Snowed in.

“God damn it.”
Tomlin pounded on the steering wheel and looked in the rearview mirror at the girl, struggling, wild-eyed, in the backseat. He forced himself to calm down. Think. “We need a new ride
,
” he said.

Becca’s Navigator. Tomlin looked up the ravine toward the house. Gauged the distance.
Fuck it,
he thought.
I have an assault rifle and a hostage. Let those bastards try and take me.
He climbed out of the car and pulled Andrea out of the backseat. She struggled. He smacked her. She only fought harder. Tomlin grabbed her by her duct-taped wrists and dragged her to the ground beside the car. Lifted her to her feet and shoved her back up the stairs toward the house.

The girl didn’t go easy. Tomlin fought her up every step to the backyard. Across every inch to the driveway. Somewhere out front, more sirens sounded. Cops yelled. Tomlin could see them moving around inside the house, but they hadn’t come into the back yet. Soon, though, they would.

Tomlin dragged the girl to the house. Pushed open the side door and grabbed Becca’s key from the shelf on the landing. He ducked out again, pointed the fob at the snow-covered Navigator, and pressed the button once. The lights flashed as the doors unlocked, and he pressed the button again. Held it until the engine rumbled to life.

He hurried to the truck and pulled open the liftgate. Shoved the girl inside, slammed the gate closed, and made for the driver’s-side door.

Someone yelled something from the end of the driveway. Tomlin looked up and saw a couple police cars, a few indistinct figures. He lifted the rifle and sprayed a burst down the driveway. Glass shattered. People shouted. The shots echoed like fireworks as he climbed behind the wheel. He turned the wipers on high, cleared the snow from the windshield, then wrenched the gearshift into drive and stepped on the gas, and the big truck lurched forward, picking up speed as it descended the driveway.

Someone started shooting from the road, fast firecracker pops. Tomlin gritted his teeth and sped toward the police cars. A Saint Paul patrol car was blocking the driveway, and he spun the wheel hard, sending the Navigator careening over the snowy lawn.

Another shot. This one put a hole in the windshield. Tomlin gunned the engine and the truck rocked down the slope, bounced off an unmarked sedan, and jostled out to the snowy street as the police emptied their guns behind him.

He was driving too fast. More shots came at him, wild. Tomlin prayed they didn’t puncture the fuel tank. He stood on the brake pedal as the truck hit the road. It slid across the icy pavement and put a big dent into somebody’s Buick, ricocheted off the car, metal grinding on metal. Tomlin hit the gas again, heard the tires struggle for traction, and then the rubber found purchase and he was speeding off down the block, the police still shooting nonstop behind him.

He blew the stop sign and sped down the next block, glanced in the rearview and saw blue-and-reds approaching from the rear. He turned at the next intersection, kept going, kept turning. The SUV’s four-wheel drive held the truck to the road, and Tomlin knew the cops’ rear-drive sedans wouldn’t have a prayer so long as he kept the truck moving.

Andrea Stevens squirmed around in the back, yelling something through her gag. So she was still alive. The police hadn’t shot her. She was going to make a hell of a bargaining chip.

Tomlin blew stop signs until he came to the main road. Then he looked in the mirror. No cops.
They’ll be looking for this truck,
he thought.
You need to swap the plates and go hide somewhere. Then you can figure out what the hell happens next.

He felt very tired, though, and as he turned onto Seventh Street and drove away from Summit Hill, Tomlin realized two things: The first was that Becca’s cheesy workout dance music had been blaring out of the truck’s speakers since he’d climbed behind the wheel. The second was that he’d been shot.

S
TEVENS WRESTLED
the Cherokee through the blizzard toward Summit Avenue. Windermere watched him from the passenger seat.
He stuck around,
she thought.
That has to mean something.

They drove across Saint Paul in silence, Stevens’s brow furrowed as he focused on the snowy road. Then he pulled to a desolate red light and glanced at her and saw her eyes on him. He looked away, out over the windshield, and he sighed. She waited.

The light turned green, and he pressed on the gas. The Jeep slid a little, and then the wheels caught. Stevens glanced over at her again. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Carla.”

Windermere looked out the window, the whole city a snowbound apocalypse. “It’s fine.”

“What I said—” He followed John Ireland Boulevard into Summit Hill. “It didn’t come out how I wanted. I made a promise to Nancy. That was my point.”

“I got your point.” She didn’t look at him. “I thought I told you to go home.”

He drove another half block without saying anything. Then he looked at her again. “I had to at least stay until your backup arrived. Couldn’t just abandon you.”

“I’m FBI, Stevens,” she said. “I don’t need you holding my hand.”

He drew back as though she had hit him, and she regretted her words immediately. The Jeep suddenly felt claustrophobic. Windermere reached for the door handle and wanted to scream. Instead, she sat straight in her seat and stared out the front windshield. “Just drop me at Tomlin’s,” she said, hating how hard she sounded. “I can solve this damn thing on my own.”

Stevens shook his head. “I’m staying, Carla.”

“Bullshit. Go back to your family.”

“I have a BCA agent gone AWOL,” he said, and his eyes were hard now, his jaw set. “Like it or not, this is my case now, too.”

Windermere said nothing.

“Let’s just get this thing dealt with,” Stevens said. “Move on with our lives.”

He sounded so run-down that Windermere nearly cracked. She might have, had she not looked out the window at that instant and seen the blue-and-red light show in front of Carter Tomlin’s house.

Stevens slowed the Cherokee. Both agents gaped at the carnage. “Holy,” said Stevens. “Holy—”

“Shit,” said Windermere. Stevens released the brake, and the Jeep idled into the mix.