I got to the back bedroom and slammed my body into it. I tried again and each time I hit my body into the door I had to keep myself from throwing up. Finally, the jamb splintered and the door flew open. The four girls had retreated as far as they could on the bed and pressed themselves against the wall. I could hear their muffled screams through the duct tape, and they struggled against the tape to somehow protect themselves. One of the girls stepped off the bed and fell hard to the floor. The other girls heard this and I saw them struggle even harder against the duct tape and heard their muffled screams even clearer.
I went to Shony and undid her blindfold. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears and I could see her jaw muscles flex throughout her whole face as she screamed against the tape. I undid the blindfolds on the other three girls. Two of them cried and screamed and the other fainted.
“Listen to me,” I spoke as calmly as I could. “I’m here to take you away from this. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
The girls looked confused and only a little less terrified. The fainted girl stirred, opened her eyes, and looked up at me from the floor.
“I’m going to take off the tape now, but it’s very important that you stay quiet. Do you understand?”
They all nodded.
I carefully undid the tape and took it off their mouths as gently as I could. The tears ran down their cheeks and they all threw their arms around me at once. It was a reflex more than an emotion. A reflex based on terror.
I held all of them as tight as I could in a way that was as comforting as I knew how. Shony pulled back and looked up at me, confused.
“Who are you?” she said through tears, her voice still trembling.
“Walanda sent me.”
“My stepmom? She was killed.”
“The last thing she ever said to me was to get you.”
“She was a crackhead.”
“She was a whole lot more than a crackhead, Shony.”
One of the girls interrupted.
“Mister, can we go?”
“You sure can,” I said. “Let’s get you guys out of here.”
For a quick second, they were back to the teenage girls they should have been. A few squeals of joy and a few high-fives, and the four of them started racing to the side door. They ran about fifteen feet ahead of me toward the parking lot.
Through the kids’ squeals, I heard some other voices. I tried to call out to the girls and I tried to run to catch up. It was too late; coming through the side door were Tyrone, Bowerman, Stephanie, Melissa, and Lori. Tyrone had grabbed Shony and held a knife to her throat. They let the other three girls run away.
I pulled Espidera’s gun out from the back of my pants and pointed it at Tyrone.
“Drop the knife, Tyrone,” I said. “Leave the girl alone.”
“You ain’t seein’ things right, my man. You drop the motherfuckin’ gun or I open her neck.”
Shony was shaking and tears ran down her face, though no sound came out of her mouth. I held on to the gun.
“I ain’t playin’ with you. You wanna see her bleed?”
He stuck the tip of the blade into the flesh of Shony’s neck. A drop of blood followed by a small trickle flowed around the blade and down the front of her shirt. I slid the gun down and up against the wall.
“You see, you ain’t done nothin’ here. Ain’t nothin’ gonna change here, motherfucker. We own these people.”
Tyrone ran his tongue down the side of Shony’s cheek. She tried to recoil but he held her tighter and put more pressure on her neck.
“I’m even goin’ get me some of this tonight, man.” Tyrone started to slide his hand down Shony’s body as she let out an almost silent cry and the tears ran down her face. He was moving his hand to the snap on Shony’s jeans, still holding the knife to her throat, and smiling up at me. He undid the top of Shony’s jeans and began to pull down the zipper.
That’s when I heard the blast from the doorway.
Half of Tyrone’s head blew off and landed somewhere behind me. My ears were ringing and the room was filled with the smell of cordite. A shower of blood sprayed the wall and Tyrone fell face-or at least what was left of his face-first down on the floor. His blood sprayed all over the women next to him.
“Police. Up against the wall, hands in the air. You’re all under arrest,” yelled Officer Michael Kelley.
Shony ran to me and wrapped herself around me and let the tears come. She buried her face in my chest and sobbed and shook. In a matter of seconds, there were half a dozen police cars and a dozen or more cops at the halfway house. The cops had them all face down and cuffed, and then ushered the group of handcuffed scumbags into a paddy wagon. Blankets were thrown over the bodies of Dunston and Tyrone. Two cops carried a groggy, handcuffed Espidera past me. He was crying like a baby.
Kelley was too busy to talk, but it was great watching him work. When Shony had calmed down a bit, we walked to the parking lot where there seemed to be nothing but sirens and cops and confusion. It was then that I noticed that only one of the police cars was from the Crawford Police Department and the other five were from Eagle Heights. Kelley was out of his jurisdiction.
I ran out the door to the parking lot just in time to see the Crown Vic pulling up. It was the same two guys from before, but this time they had four more guys with them. When they got out of the car I could see they now all had windbreakers with “FBI” in gigantic letters on the back and “Office of Homeland Security” on the front. Pockmark had a lousy tape job on his face supporting his nose and it was caked with dried blood. He had “Special Agent Singh” embroidered on the front of his jacket. His partner had “Agent Wilkinson” stitched on his. They weren’t coming for me this time.
“Dombrowski, where is Gabbibb? We need to find him immediately,” Singh shouted at me.
“I don’t know. He got away and he has a cell phone on him. He was here about twenty minutes ago.”
“He’s got to be found. We have new evidence supporting his involvement.”
I looked toward Kelley’s patrol car and saw four civilians standing on the passenger side. With all the lights I couldn’t make out the faces.
“Hey Duff, busy night?”
“Jerry? Holy shit-what are you doing here?” Next to Jerry Number Two were TC, Rocco, and Jerry Number One.
“We took the ride with Kelley.” Jerry Number Two smiled. Shony’s three girlfriends were in Kelley’s squad car with blankets over their shoulders.
“Turn on the fucking Yankees game,” I yelled.
“Duff, I’m as big a fan as you, but man, forget about the Yanks for tonight,” TC said.
“Not that-it’s Clogger. Gabbibb has his plane wired to be blown up with a cell phone call and we can’t find the asshole. He’s got a dirty bomb ready to blow up Yankee Stadium.”
Jerry tuned in the Yankees. It was the bottom of the fifth and there were two outs. Singh and his agents gathered around Kelley’s car, listening.
John Sterling had the call.
“… striiiiike three. Giambi goes down looking to end the fifth. No runs, one hit, and one man on-”
“Fucking Giambi, lookin’ at a called strike,” Rocco said.
“Rocco! Jesus Christ…” I said.
Sterling continued.
“End of five and you know what that means… It’s time to flush out the Clogger. Annnnnnd here he comes… taking a wide sweep of the Stadium… the Clogger’s in special form tonight… and he heads for the center of the Stadium…”
Sterling did his trademark long pause. It was the longest and most dramatic pause I ever went through.
“… annnnnnnd Clogger cans it!”
And then we waited. The Foursome, Kelley, Singh and his men, the girls, the cops-everyone was silent and holding their breath.
And nothing happened.
Clogger literally flew off to the horizon on his way to Staten Island. A spontaneous cheer rang out in the parking lot. There were high-fives all around. I exhaled as hard as I can ever remember exhaling and slid down the side of Kelley’s car. I was exhausted in every way you can be exhausted.