drug abusers with body odor and some food that a resident had burned in a frying pan. He brought his pistol down to waist level and moved in a cautious sweeping pattern across the brown shag carpeting.
It was a small apartment with a kitchen and living room that merged into one space. Just off from the living room, an opened sliding glass door led out to a small concrete balcony surrounded by a brown wooden railing. Stoney saw his partner questioning a tall, heavy suspect that was kneeling on the cement with his hands behind his head. The man had a thick beard and long, matted brown hair. He was wearing a white tank top and cheap khakis with what appeared to be black hiking boots.
Stoney smirked at Troy and watched him reply with a middle finger from his left hand. His gaze shifted away from the balcony, and he was careful to navigate through the piles of garbage and contraband that littered the floor. There was a black oak coffee table with ashtrays and needles near the wall in front of the entryway. It was adjacent to a brown leather sofa that featured burn marks and soda stains.
The rest of the area was unremarkable, and Stoney noticed that there were dishes in the sink and on the counter that hadn’t received a proper cleaning in months. Aside from these repulsive features, there was a modest poker table with mismatched barstools and chairs used for meals and other activities.
“Coming back,” Stoney called out to the undercover officers who had made the initial breach. “Are you all clear?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” an officer shouted in a deep African-American voice, “can you cover the front door?”
“No problem,” he acknowledged, exhibiting a smirk of vindication for being slow enough to get the easiest job. “I just need to get eyes on you.”
“Come on back; we’re decent,” the other officer joked, causing his partner to chuckle.
Stoney stepped with caution down the narrow hallway to a single bedroom and saw two officers questioning an obese redheaded woman. She wore handcuffs that were a snug fit and sat upright on a bed with surprisingly clean sheets. A thin black officer was standing beside her with a notepad and pencil, taking notes as the woman mumbled phrases that were somewhat coherent. His heavier white partner was overturning items in the room, searching every viable hiding place for paraphernalia.
The Japanese officer waved to his undercover colleagues in a melodramatic pantomime and then turned back toward the entryway of the apartment. He heard a male voice scream from the balcony and rushed through the small piles of garbage in the hallway to investigate. Upon entering the living room, Stoney saw the bearded drug addict choking his partner and slamming him against the wooden railing. He readied his weapon and crept closer, aiming his pistol between the shoulder blades of the suspect. The officer stood just inside the open glass door, wanting to shoot the man without following police procedures.
“Let him go, or I’ll shoot you in the knees,” Stoney threatened with a wild gaze, watching Troy’s face turning red from a lack of oxygen.
The bearded criminal twisted around in a rapid fashion and held Troy hostage in front of his chest. His body was massive in comparison to the thinner police officer, which allowed him to drag the man like a vacuum. Stoney held his breath and tried to find an area of the drug addict’s body that was open for a nonlethal wound. He checked the meaty portions of the abdomen, along with the man's extremities, but could not find a safe target.
Stoney cursed his partner in silence and then saw the man release Troy’s throat. There was an instant where he felt relieved until he realized that the attacker had shoved the blonde officer toward him. The television star felt Troy’s body slam into him as if it had been thrown off by a bull. He winced immediately when the younger man’s head smacked against his, and Stoney found himself falling to the floor.
The older police officer cringed in disgust when he felt dusty junk mail and empty fast food containers sticking to his skin. He ignored the discomfort and reached up to check Troy’s pulse. His body relaxed when he noticed that his partner was still breathing.
Stoney gave Troy a gentle push and rolled his partner's body away to the left. He looked down near his feet where his pistol balanced against the side of his right shin. The Japanese man went cold with despair when he witnessed the bearded criminal reaching down to grab the weapon. His right foot shot sideways and moved the pistol aside out of instinct. This maneuver allowed Stoney to get to his feet and confront the drug addict.
Despite the officer's efforts to keep the firearm away from his assailant, Stoney observed in shock as the man scooped it up with his right hand. During a moment of pure inspiration, Stoney made a running leap onto the criminal’s back. The officer then wrapped his arms around the suspect’s throat, attempting to make him yield.
“Put the weapon on the floor, or I will shoot you!” The African-American officer commanded from behind the poker table in the kitchen. “Look, man, we’re not playin’ games here; you need to give up now!”
The massive crook went silent for a moment, breathing in a heavy rhythm that made his belly bow in and out above the coffee table. Stoney relaxed his grip and sensed that the man was about to give up, but his body tensed when he saw the 9 millimeter pistol pointing upward. His eyes looked around the room in a panic, and he tried to restrain the right hand of the suspect.
The drug addict began to spin in a clockwise circle and fired the pistol over his shoulder several times. Stoney felt pieces of the ceiling dropping on his forearms, and he watched the awkward aim of the gunman line up with his face several times. He grabbed at the throat of his attacker and wrenched his left forearm against the man’s windpipe. His bicep was pulling with desperate aggression like an animal that a hunter fired upon in the wild.
When the suspect felt his airway closing off, he fired the pistol in desperation and Stoney used his unsteady right arm to keep it away from his face. Every explosion from the gun was another attempt to remove the police officer from the planet. Each time the ringing got louder in his ears, he felt farther away from his beloved fiancé and the dreams they were bold enough to share. He saw the pistol moving closer to his forehead and wondered if any of this life had been worth his time.
Something long and black swung through the air, forcing Stoney to close his eyes. He heard an impact and opened his eyes to see a collapsible baton strike the suspect in the back of the hand. The pistol flew as though lightning struck it away, and the drug addict cried out in agony.
Stoney turned his head further to the right and saw the African-American officer answer the criminal’s cry with another blow to the back of his right leg. The Japanese officer felt the massive body collapse beneath him and released his grip to slide away from the offender. He got to his feet and stopped to catch his breath, but refused to take his gaze off of the ruthless criminal.
“I’ve got this, Stoney,” the other officer assured his colleague with a solemn expression, “you can relax. Hey, Stoney, I’ve got this…you need to go relax. If he moves, I’ll put two in the back of his head,” he added with a wink and a smile.
The television star stood up straight and took a moment to get his bearings. He then leaned down toward Troy to check his vitals again.
“I’m okay,” Troy spoke in a weak tone before Stoney could bend his knees. “My throat is worked over, but I think it’ll be okay. I’m sorry, brother,” he muttered in a state that was somewhere between consciousness and death.
Stoney patted Troy’s right leg as if to acknowledge that the apology was enough. He then stumbled out to the concrete balcony and rubbed his eyes in the sunlight. When Stoney saw how beautiful the day was from this vantage point, the television star sensed a surge of emotions. He asked himself why someone would try to end it all for another person who was just doing their job. Stoney's stomach became nauseous as he imagined the simple mechanics of a weapon that could fire a projectile at 1,000 feet per second.
“The finger squeezes the trigger,” Stoney said
to the courtyard between the apartment complexes, “and the pin hits the back of the round. The round explodes; the bullet spins...destroying everything.”
The Japanese man thought he heard the sound of a rifle in the distance and dismissed it as an eerie coincidence to his last statement. Something struck him in the chest and broke a rib on the right side of his body. Stoney was in immediate shock and felt confident that this was all part of his imagination. In his mind, an object hit the outside of his uniform and got caught in his bulletproof vest. But he knew that it was impossible. Even when his body slammed against the floor and he heard the other officers scrambling around him, it seemed like a dream.
“Where the hell did that come from?” The portly, white undercover officer asked his partner in a state of raw fear.
“I think it came from the courtyard,” his partner remarked with a tinny voice of doubt. “Get your head down and call for an ambulance.”
Stoney closed his eyes with a smile as his consciousness drifted; he knew it had to be a dream.
The Shots Fired Loft – Manhattan, New York
“Cut the cameras and go to commercial,” Mike said as he stepped onto the set in the middle of the living room. “Stoney was shot this morning