SHANK (A Wilde Crime Series) (28 page)

His
finger twitched on the trigger.

I looked into his cold eyes and
threw my dive knife at his heart. It stuck, six inches deep into his chest. Sal dropped the gun, his hands jerking to the hilt of the knife. Blood spilled from his mouth and he dropped to the floor, dead.

I sat up, tugging
at my t-shirt that covered a bulletproof vest. My plan might have been stupid, but I wasn’t crazy. I’d taken a bullet to the chest once this year, an experience I didn’t plan to repeat. I worked Sal’s bullet from the Titanium vest, wincing at the welt growing over my heart. That would leave a mark. I’d survived with only one or two busted ribs. Glancing at Sal, I grinned. It was more than I could say for him. 

Sal’s bodyguards
ran up the stairs sounding much like a herd of overweight mobsters. Shit. Time for escape plan B. Fucking plan A never worked. Pulling my M1911, I shot the widow in front of me. Glass shattered, falling like icicles in after a heavy snow. The rope I’d tied to the roof earlier, just in case, swayed in the late night breeze. But there was a problem, the rope stopped twenty feet short of the concrete ground. Fuck it. I glanced over the ledge, slipped the rope through my fingers, and jumped.

The
nylon rope burned through my black leather gloves and bit into the flesh beneath, but I held fast, spiraling down at close to twenty miles per hour. At the end of my rope—pun intended—I let go, free falling to the concrete below. I hit the ground. My legs sent shock waves of pain into my brain. My feet still worked so I used them to get the hell out of there.

I stayed in the shadows,
keeping to the alleys. My escape route led me to the bar in ten minutes at a sprint. My sprint turned into a limp since my legs felt like Jell-O, and my fractured ribs made it impossible to gather a deep breath.

I made it to t
he bar in fifteen minutes tops, out of breath and regretting each step as the pain in my chest intensified. Taking a bullet really fucking hurt, vest or not. I unlocked my door and flipped on the lights. The place looked sad as if it mourned Neil’s death too. I couldn’t believe Neil was gone. I’d known we’d lose him sometime, but not today.

I
staggered to the bar and grabbed a semi-cold beer from the cooler. I popped the top and poured a shot of Jameson into one of the few clean shot glasses. “To Neil.” I raised my glass in salute and repeated an Irish toast to the dead. “May the Lord welcome you in Heaven before the Devil knows you're dead.”

“
Hear, hear.” Frankie stood in the shadowy stairwell.

Shit, not tonight. I couldn’t handle being close to her
. Not when my heart felt so raw, like every nerve ending was hers for the taking. “What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice hoarse from whiskey, busted ribs, and a fair amount of lust.

“Did you honestly think I’d leave?
” She gave a small laugh. “That any of us would?”

I had hoped so. A
fter all it was for their own safety.

She came toward me, her eyes
scanning me for injuries. “What happened at Sal’s?”

I pulled
my jacket over the bullet hole in my shirt. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I went for a walk.”

She looked at her watch with a raised eyebrow. “It’s a little late for a midnight stroll.”

“I needed to clear my head.”

“
How bad is it?”

“Things could have gone better.”
I turned away from her, tossing back the shot and chasing it with the bitter beer. “It wasn’t Sal.”

“What?!?”

“I said it wasn’t Sal. He didn’t kill Neil. Someone else did.”

“Who?
Why?”

I wished I knew. “
Mike Morrissey, maybe. I don’t know but I intend to find out.”

“So Sal’s
still out to get you and so is this faceless killer who may or may not be a dead man? What are we going to do?” She gripped my shoulder, and I swung to face her. I wanted to lose myself in her arms, to forget the smell of Neil’s drying blood, and wash away the sound of Sal’s last gurgled breath. My bloodlust satisfied, I felt nothing but sadness and grief.

“Sal
isn’t an issue any more,” I said, quietly.

“Oh, God, Ian. What have you done?”

I shrugged. Nothing that he hadn’t deserved.

“Burgess will lock you up
and never let you free. Not only that, but Sal was connected. They’re not going to let you kill him and walk away.”

In the eyes of the mob, I would be a marked man.
To the cops, I was a cold-blooded killer. I shrugged and took another drink of beer. I could live with that.

The rest of the weekend passed in peace, or as peaceful as two days spent in and out of police interrogation rooms and dingy jail cells could be. An hour after my visit to Sal’s on Friday night, five cops burst into the bar, guns drawn. Frankie and I sat at the bar, her hand in mine when the room filled with blue.

“Let me see your hands,” a young kid fresh from th
e academy screamed, the gun in his hand pointed at my head. Guess I’m dangerous.

“Easy kid.” I raised my hands.
“I’m unarmed.” Only because my guns, knife, and bulletproof vest rested in a safe underneath the floorboards at my feet. I had expected the cops sooner. Hell, it was maybe a five-minute drive. Two with lights and sirens.

Frankie pushed back her bar stool, glaring at the cops
. I smiled and winked at her. She shook her head like I was a total moron.

The Kiddie C
op approached with a Taser. “I’m not a kid.” Zap. Fifty thousand volts raced through my body. I dropped to my knees, but managed to stay conscious. No easy feat. It felt like I’d stuck a fork in the toaster for twenty or so minutes. My teeth bit into my tongue and I tasted blood. Frankie ran toward me, screaming as my body bounced with electrical current. An older cop with a wide gut threw her to the floor before she reached me. He jammed his foot into her back, and twisted her arms to cuff her. “Looks like a two of one deal. Burgess will be happy,” he said, slapping the handcuffs around her wrists.

None to gently
the Kiddie Cop ripped the Taser prongs from my skin. What would happen if I smashed his pug nose in? Looking around the room at the trigger happy NYPD I decided against it, but just barely.

One of the other cops leaned over me. “
Detective Burgess would like to have a word with you.”

“Am I under arrest?” I slurred as my tongue uncurled.

“Of course not. What gave you that idea?” He clamped steel prison jewelry around my writs.

I laughed, it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “My mistake.”

The cops dragged me to my feet while two others held onto a sputtering mad Frankie. A part of me felt sorry for the cop holding her. She commented on his manhood, intelligence, and place in evolutional history with words so foul I nearly blushed, and I’d been a sailor.

“Shut up, bitch.
” The cop backhanded her. The blow snapped her head back and a palm print surfaced on her pale skin. I saw red. Before he knew what hit him, my shoulder met his doughnut-expanded waistline. He gave a squeak before smashing onto the floor. My knee crushed his windpipe. Zap. Another fifty thousand volts rocked my world. This time the lights went out.

******

I awoke in the back of a police car, my arms and legs shackled. The cop car pulled from the curb as Frankie was escorted, none to gently, to a separate black and white. The buzz in my head slowly faded, leaving a slight ringing in my ears. Arriving at the cop shop felt like coming home, comfortable, but filled with people you don’t like.

My mind flashed back to my first arrest.
Twelve years old. A wannabe tough guy busted for stealing Old man O’Malley’s 1975 Buick Regal. Why a Buick Regal? I couldn’t say, but Colin and I had it hotwired in less than five minutes and crashed it in two. The best two minutes of my short life.

The cops picked
us up a few blocks away, my face bruised and bloody from smacking it against the dashboard. They’d brought us in, and I called Billy for help. A six-inch scar on my back from Billy’s leather belt constantly reminded me of that day.

That was one of many teenaged beatings and arrests.
The day I turned eighteen I enlisted in the Navy at the insistence of my long-suffering probation officer. His ultimatum sounded something like: Join up or jail. When I arrived at boot camp I realized I’d fucked up.

But t
he Navy had given me something missing in my short life—discipline. Not the kind that came with a strap, but the type found when your ass was on the line, your only means of survival, your wits and guy fighting next to you.

The Kiddie C
op parked the car in front of the prisoner entrance. “Don’t try anything or I’ll juice you again.”

“Kid,” I said, “
Take some advice. Find a new career. You’re not cut out for this crap.” Contorting my arms under my legs, I slipped my feet from the shackles, ending up with my hands cuffed in front of me and my legs free.

The kid stared at me, mouth
open. He wasn’t going to last very long.

The older cop in the passenger seat shook his head sadly. “I told you to make sure the shackles were tight.”

“I…how did…,” Kiddie Cop sputtered.

The
older cop opened the back door and not so gently helped me out. Taking the perp walk from the police car into the station, I reviewed my alibi. The one Frankie and I had devised while waiting for the cops to show. The cop pushed me onto a hard wood bench in the holding area. He looped a metal chain to my handcuffs and locked it in place. “Wait here,” he said, laughing at his own joke. Cops were a riot.

I kicked back, closing
my eyes while I waited. Prison had taught me one thing: How to sleep anywhere at any time. A jostling of cops and chains roused me. I cracked an eyelid open, and grinned.

Two cops
wrestled with Frankie, trying to chain her to the bench opposite me. Things did not go their way. A third cop came to help, and the chain locked in place a few minutes later, but not without a few bruises and lots of swearing. They stepped away, and she curled up on the bench in surrender. The cops walked away like big men, but we all knew better.

“You okay?”

“This isn’t exactly how I intended to spend the night.”

“Don’t worry. They can’t hold y
ou for long.” On the other hand I might be in for the long haul. “If you get a chance call Colin. He has a lawyer friend who will get you out.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be all right.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek.

Burgess came through the side door and stepped in front of me. “Mr. Wilde, how nice of you to join us.” He nodded to a cop standing a few feet away. The cop unlocked my chain. Burgess then motioned to Frankie. “Take Ms. Hurley to interrogation room 2. Book her for obstruction.” The cop nodded, dragging Frankie to her feet.

“Leave her alone, Burgess. It’s me you want.” I stood, hands still cuff
ed in front of me.

“Nice try, but it’s not going to work this time. She’s going to pay for her own sins, and you will pay for yours.”
He smiled and led me away. I caught Frankie’s eye and winked.

“I’d like an attorney.” It wasn’t the first time I’d made the request. Nor was it the first time Burgess ignored me.

“Come on, Ian. Tell me what happened tonight.” Burgess paused
, pressing the record button on the tape recorder in front of me. “Sal killed your friend, and you wanted revenge. I don’t blame you.” The good cop routine. What a joke. He’d never be a good cop, and even his bad cop needed work.

“Fuck
off.” I leaned back on the steel chair and closed my eyes. We’d been at it for six hours straight. The same questions. The same answer: I want a fucking lawyer.

“
What do you think Frankie’s doing right now? She’s singing like a fucking canary, and you’re gonna fry. Hell, after what you did for her, you’d think she’d be willing to do anything for you, but that ain’t the case.” He tapped a yellow pencil against his teeth. The sound grated on my last nerve, but not nearly as much as the stench of stale cigarette smoke and lead-based paint floating around the interrogation room.

“What do you mean, after what I did for her?” I cracked
an eye open.

“It’s common knowledge that you took the rap for Chris’s death. Sal even knew it, but he was willing to
bid his time. Guess he took too long, huh?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I served my time
and I had nothing to do with Sal’s murder.” I closed my eyes again.

“So tell me about Sal. You went there tonight
—”

“No
pe. I was at the bar with Frankie all night.”

Burgess stood, throwing his chair against the wall. “Fine. Have it your way.” He ripped open the door. “I’m going to offer Frankie a deal, and when she takes it, you’ll never see the light of day again.”