“I’ve got the male half here at gunpoint. He’s bloody and armed with a large knife.”
“Copy.”
“I said put the weapon down!” Katie ordered again. She found herself wishing for that cold Pepsi.
The man’s trance-like stare ended and his face slowly broke into a grin. “I am going to carve you up, bitch.” He took a step toward her.
“Drop it!” she said, but her voice broke.
He took another step. His smile widened.
Oh God, she thought, I’m going to have to kill him.
In all the fights she’d been in, she could never remember thinking that someone would die. Wrestled down, punched, kicked, pepper-maced, but not die. She felt a stab of fear in her stomach as adrenaline washed over her. The roof of her mouth itched and beads of sweat popped out on her brow. For a moment, she thought she could smell freshly cut lumber. In the distance, she heard a car door shut.
Elliot took two more steps, reminding her of a lunatic Elmer Fudd.
Be vewwy quiet. .
She almost gave into hysterical laughter at the thought.
Concentrate, goddamn it!
“Stop right there!” she screamed at him, injecting as much force into her voice as she could muster. “Drop your weapon or I will shoot!”
The man slowed to a stop. She breathed a short sigh of relief, but then he chuckled and waved the knife. “Shoot, bitch,” he taunted. “Shoot, you fucking bitch. Shoot me. Shoot me. Shootme, shootme!”
Katie stared at him, trying to gauge just how crazy he was. As if sensing her indecision, he tapped his chest with handle of the knife. “C’mon, you stinking gash! Shoot me! Fucking woman cop slit!”
Katie barely heard the crude insults. She moved her finger from its indexed position into the trigger guard and onto the trigger. She was going to have to kill him.
“Adam-116, an update,” crackled the dispatcher’s voice over her radio. Katie ignored the transmission. With a sure hand, she placed her front sight in the center of the man’s chest.
“Come on, you whore,” he shouted. “Shoot me!”
Could she?
“I don’t want to shoot you,” she said gently, hoping to talk him down. “Just put the knife down.”
He must have taken her tactic as a sign of weakness. His manic grin melted into a mean glare, his teeth gritting hard. He stepped towards her, raising the knife. “I am going to cut you up, bitch. I am going to stick this knife in your-”
He stopped and flinched, waving the knife at his eye as if brushing away a fly. A small red dot was dancing in his eyes.
“Over here.” The voice was flat and deadly.
The suspect looked to his left. Katie followed his gaze and saw Matt Westboard behind a car, his pistol pointed at the suspect’s head.
Westboard tickled his crazy eyes again with the laser sight then moved the small red dot down to his chest.
“You take one more step, motherfucker,” Westboard told him, “and you are a dead man.”
2226 hours
Officer Stefan Kopriva swung the car around the corner as if it were on rails, the roar of the big-block engine loud enough to pierce the sound of his siren as he powered down Nevada Street.
“Adam-116, an update.” The calm in the dispatcher’s voice contrasted with Katie’s adrenaline-laced transmission moments earlier.
Kopriva whipped through the s-curves and cut the wheel hard to the right, turning onto Foothills Drive. He buried the accelerator.
“Adam-116 or Adam-114, an update.”
C’mon, Katie, Kopriva thought, his knuckles white, his forearms rigid as he approached Ruby.
“Answer up,” he whispered. He slowed briefly for the flashing red light at Ruby, checking left for traffic. There were two cars. Both slowed and pulled to the side. He pushed his air horn and blasted through the intersection.
“Adam-114, one in custody, code four.”
“Copy. Code Four, one in custody at 2227 hours.”
Kopriva shut off his siren and let loose a long sigh. He continued on to the scene in case they needed any help.
As he drove, he flexed his fingers and his forearms, working out the tension.
THREE
Monday, August 15th
1124 hours
James Mace rose sluggishly from the couch. His entire body felt itchy. The inside of his mouth felt like foul, dried leather. He scratched the side of his face. The stubble there had turned into a short beard. Sleep crust cascaded from his eyes as he rubbed them.
He glanced at the easy chair. Leslie lay curled into a ball with a blanket tossed over her. Where was Andrea? He lumbered to his feet and poked his head in the bedroom, only a few short paces from the living room in their small apartment. He saw her dirty blonde hair splayed across the pillow. She wore no clothing and used no blankets. He admired the curve of her back and buttocks, but averted his eyes before his gaze reached the needle marks on the back of her knees.
He plodded to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The wash of cold air from the fridge felt good against his bare chest. He stared at the wet, brownish leaves on a head of rotting lettuce. He wasn’t hungry, anyway, but you’d think with two women in the house, the place would be cleaner and there might be a few groceries in the cupboard.
Mace chuckled, a rasping cough that sounded decades older than his twenty-seven years. If his Army buddies could see him now. They used to tease him about being a virgin until after he turned twenty-one. Well, he took care of that on their first trip overseas.
They’d shut their faces now, wouldn’t they? He lived with two women and was balling both of them. And they both knew it. That had to top anything those guys ever did. Besides, they were squares for the most part, just drinking and women for them. They’d been afraid of the opium dens in Thailand. Mace hadn’t been.
The goddamn Army, anyway. Since when did you give elite troops like the Rangers a piss test? They accepted his claim of having eaten poppy-seed cake at the first failure. After the second one, his CO ordered him not to eat poppy-seed cake ever again. His third failure resulted in a dishonorable discharge. They had offered him that or a court-martial. It wasn’t much of an offer, but Mace recognized a parachute when he saw one.
So now what did he have for five years of service? No pension, his meager savings wiped out six months ago. His only trophy: a nice machete wound in the face, courtesy of a rebel in Panama.
Mace slammed the fridge door. Leslie stirred in her sleep. He stared at her. She was attractive, or had been, but still no match for Andrea. At least, that was the case before Andrea went to hell.
He needed a drink of water. Filling a plastic cup from Taco Bell with water, he allowed himself to gloat in his status as stud. How many men had two women? He did.
The tap water had a coppery taste to it and after only a couple of swallows he felt nauseous. He dumped the rest.
The couch beckoned to him. He flopped onto it and stared at the textured ceiling. He’d met Andrea before his hair even grew out after his discharge. She‘d proved to be the perfect medicine, accepting where others had rejected him. She soothed his pain over the Army, his family, everything. Definitely the best lay he’d ever had, and she knew where to find the good stuff.
He remembered how firm and luscious her body had been the first time he’d had her. So supple and willing. Over the months, though, it had deteriorated rapidly. Her breasts sagged, her athletic frame shriveled, and sores broke out. And, of course, the track marks.