‘The Trial’ Chapters 25-28

ELENA SIERRA HAD CURLED up in the backseat and leaned against the window. “He’s subhuman,” she said. “My father warned me, but I was eighteen. He was...I don’t remember what the hell I was thinking. If I was thinking.”

There was a long pause, as if she was trying to remember when she had fallen in love with Kingfisher.

“I’m coming to the trial,” Elena said. “I want to see his face when he’s found guilty. My father wants to be there, too.”

Then she stared silently out the window until we pulled up to her deluxe apartment building on California Street. Conklin walked Elena into the lobby, and when he came back to the car, I was behind the wheel.

I switched on the car radio, which broke into a cacophony of bleats and static. I gave dispatch our coordinates as we left Nob Hill and said that we were heading back to the Hall.

At just about half past six we were on Race Street. We’d been stuck behind a FedEx truck for several blocks, until now, when it ran a yellow light, leaving us flat-footed at the red.

I cursed and the gray sedan behind us pulled out into the oncoming lane, its wheels jerking hard to the right, and the driver braked at an angle twenty-five feet ahead of our left front bumper.

I shouted, “What the hell?”

But by the time the word hell was out of my mouth, Conklin had his door open and was yelling to me, “Out of the car. With me.”

I got it.

I snapped mental images as four men burst from the gray sedan into our headlight beams. One wore a black knit cap and bulky jacket. Another had a gold grille plating his teeth. The one coming out of the driver’s side was holding an AK. One with a black scarf over half his face ducked out of view.

I dropped below the dash and pulled myself out the passenger side, slid down to the street. Conklin and I hunched behind the right front wheel, using the front of the car as a shield. We were both carrying large, high-capacity semiautomatics, uncomfortable as hell to wear, but my God, I was glad we had them.

A fusillade of bullets punched holes through the door that had been to my left just seconds before. Glass crazed and shattered.

I poked my head up during a pause in oncoming gunfire, and using the hood as a gun brace, Conklin and I let loose with a fury of return fire.

In that moment I saw the one with the AK drop his weapon. His gun or his hand had been hit, or the gun had slipped out of his grasp. When the shooter bent to retrieve it, Conklin and I fired and kept firing until the bastard was down.

For an eternal minute and a half curses flew, and shots punctured steel, exploded the shop windows behind us, and smacked into the front end of our car. If these men worked for the King, they could not let us get away.

Conklin and I alternately rose from behind the car just enough to brace our guns and return fire, ducking as our attackers unloaded on us with the fury of hell.

We reloaded and kept shooting. My partner took out the guy with the glittering teeth, and I wasn’t sure, but I might have winged the one with the scarf.

The light turned green.

Traffic resumed, and while some vehicles streamed past, others balked, blocking cars behind them, leaving them in the line of fire.

There was a lull in the shooting, and when I peeked above our car, I saw the driver of the gray Ford backing up, turning the wheel into traffic, gunning the engine, then careening across the intersection at N17th.

I took a stance and emptied my Glock into the rear of the Ford, hoping to hit the gas tank. A tire blew, but the car kept going. I looked down at the two dead men in the street as Conklin kicked their guns away and looked for ID.

I got into the car, grabbed the mic, shouted my badge number, and reported to dispatch.

“Shots fired. Two men down. Send patrol cars and a bus to Race and N17th. BOLO for a gray Ford four-door with shot-out windows and flat right rear tire heading east on Race at high speed. Nevada plates, partial number Whiskey Four Niner.”

Within minutes the empty, shot-riddled Ford was found ditched a few blocks away on 17th Street. Conklin and I sat for a while in our shot-to-shit squad car, listening to the radio snap, crackle, and pop while waiting for a ride back to the Hall. My right hand was numb and the aftershock of my gun’s recoil still resonated through my bones.

I was glad to feel it.

I said to Richie, as if he didn’t already know, “We’re damned lucky to be alive.”

CHAPTER 28

TWO HOURS AFTER THE shoot-out Conklin and I learned that the Ford had been stolen. The guns were untraceable. The only ID found on the two dead men were their Mala Sangre tats. Had to be that Kingfisher’s men had been following us or following Elena.

We turned in our guns and went directly down the street to McBain’s, a cross between a place where everyone knows your name and the Star Wars cantina. It was fully packed now with cops, lawyers, bail bondsmen, and a variety of clerks and administrators. The ball game was blaring loudly on the tube, competing with some old tune coming from the ancient Wurlitzer in the back.

Rich and I found two seats at the bar, ordered beer, toasted the portrait of Captain McBain hanging over the backbar, and proceeded to drink. We had to process the bloodcurdling firefight and there was no better place than here.

Conklin sat beside me shaking his head, probably having thoughts like my own, which were so vivid that I could still hear the rat-a-tat-tat of lead punching through steel and see the faces of the bangers we’d just “put down like dogs.” I stank of gunpowder and fear.

We were alive not just because of what we knew about bad guys with guns, or because Conklin and I worked so well together that we were like two halves of a whole.

That had contributed to it, but mostly, we were alive and drinking because of the guy who’d dropped his AK and given us a two-second advantage.

After I’d downed half of my second beer, I told Conklin, “We weren’t wearing vests, for Christ’s sake. This is so unfair to Julie.”

“Cut it out,” he said. “Don’t make me say she’s lucky to have you as a mom.”

“Fine.”

“Two dirtbags are dead,” he said. “We did that. We won’t feel bad about that.”

“That guy with the AK.”

“He’s in hell,” said Rich, “kicking his own ass.”

Oates, the bartender, asked if I was ready for another, but I shook my head and covered the top of my glass. Just then I felt an arm go around my shoulders. I started. It was Brady behind us, all white blond and blue-eyed, and he had an arm around Conklin, too.

He gave my shoulder a squeeze, his way of saying, Thanks. You did good. I’m proud of you.

“Come back to the house,” Brady said. “I’ve got your new weapons and rides home for both of y’all.”

“I’ve only had one beer,” Rich lied.

“I’ve got rides home for both of y’all,” Brady repeated.

He put some bills down on the bar. Malcolm, the tipsy dude on my left, pointed to the dregs of my beer and asked, “You done with that, Lindsay?”

I passed him my glass.

It was ten fifteen when I got to Cat’s. I took a scalding shower, washed my hair, and buffed myself dry. Martha sat with her head in my lap while I ate chicken and noodles à la Gloria Rose. I was scraping the plate when the phone rang.

“I heard about what happened today,” Joe said.

“Yeah. It was over so fast. In two minutes I’d pulled my gun and there were men lying dead in the street.”

“Good result. Are you okay?”

“Never better,” I said, sounding a little hysterical to my own ears. I’m sure Joe heard it, too.

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“Okay. Good. Do you need anything?”

“No, but thanks. Thanks for calling.”

I slept with Martha and Julie that night, one arm around each of my girls. I slept hard and I dreamed hard and I was still holding on to Julie when she woke me up in the morning.

I blinked away the dream fragments and remembered that Kingfisher would be facing the judge and jury today.

I had to move fast so that I wasn’t late to court.

NEXT: Chapters 29-34

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