“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” the voice said with a hint of resignation. “But you can only take the jobs that come your way, and it’s a seller’s market out there, as I’m sure you’re well aware. After all, anyone can set a fire. It’s just not anyone who can do it with a certain sense of style.”
“How did you know I would be here?” Stephanie asked. “The scene was sealed a few days back, and I didn’t tell anyone where I would be today.”
“Why would you?” the voice asked. “Technically it’s one of your off days, but like me you never tire of your work. I’ve not had anyone of your skill level assigned to one of my jobs, and I enjoy the cat-and-mouse game as much as the next fire starter.”
“I’m the one who should be on your tail, not the other way around,” Stephanie said. The realization that a top-tiered torcher was tracking her daily movements had sunk in fast, her heart rate pounding into overdrive.
“That would be true, in theory at any rate,” the voice said. “But just as you would learn all you could about me, I found I needed to do the same with you. Just to keep our hide-and-chase on level ground.”
“Which leaves us where, exactly?” Stephanie asked.
“We’ve just reached the finish line,” the voice said.
Stephanie heard the click of the butane lighter, wheeled, turned, and fired off three fast rounds at the well-dressed man standing above her, his pale blue eyes glaring down at her as he clutched his chest and fell to both knees, blood gushing past his fingers and running down the front of his starched blue shirt and blazer.
The open lighter landed with a soft thud against her right shoulder, and she felt the rush of the heat from the flames set off by the gasoline that had been poured on her clothes and body. Within seconds, she felt the searing burn of the fire that was shredding through her clothes and scalding deep into flesh and bone. She rolled around in the soot and the splintered wood, attempting to douse the flames and bring smoke to the heat, the rush of intense pain she felt around her head and neck bringing her close to blackout, her mouth charred, her lungs clawing for air. Through the smoky haze, she caught sight of the man, still on his knees, his back against a wall, a thin smile on his face.
“Looks like I win,” he said, his eyelids doing a slow flutter. “I’ll die here, but I will always be a part of you. We are now as one, linked to the end.”
The man slid from the wall to the floor, his body still, his eyes open, soot covering half his face, a pool of blood forming around his waist.
Stephanie Torres was ten feet from the dead man. Her upper body was smoldering, the flames burning down to their last embers. She was numb to the pain and lay coiled with her legs up against her chest. Her breath came through her open mouth in small doses, puffs of smoke following gently in its wake. Her eyes were shut and tears formed at both ends and rolled down her cheeks, disappearing into the thick mask of burnt skin and soot that had been her face. Outside the charred window, a black-and-gray pigeon perched on a shaky sill and stared silently at the two bodies. Below them, police sirens swirled and twirled down barren streets and a small cluster of the curious had started to gather around the front of the burnt-out tenement. But Stephanie Torres was long past seeing or hearing any of the commotion that her shooting would cause. She was no longer an on-site investigator working the dead leads of a live case; she was a burn victim with a bled-out doer at a crime scene that was once again fresh.
But, in that burnt-out shell of what had once been a prosperous drug dealer’s den, within easy reach of a dead arsonist, Stephanie Torres had found the peaceful rest she had sought for so long. As the pace of her breathing pattern slowed and her blood pressure continued its downward spiral, Stephanie Torres was lost to the world that had consumed her since childhood and the horrible moments that led to the tragic deaths of her mother and her grandfather. On this day, Stephanie Torres finally rested.
16
Buttercup landed with the full weight of her chest and paws against the muscular man’s back, sending them crashing into the half-open door that led them inside apartment 4F. The two lead detectives were right behind them, guns cocked and drawn, aimed at the four men crouched and geared up for action in a crowded living room that was now a bevy of strewn furniture, tossed lights, and a television blasting out a recap of an early-season Mets-Phillies game. Buttercup held her position, eyes on her target, massive jaws locked around the fat of the man’s thick neck, two sharp teeth teasing his pulsing veins.
Steve Ramoni was crouched down, hovering just above Buttercup and the muscular man, whose face was scrunched against the patch of thin blue carpet that lined the foyer. Ramoni kept his eyes out for the other three men he knew were hanging bodies low and guns high deeper inside the apartment. “Nobody needs to die here today,” he said to the tall man. “Not least of all you, and if not me then the dog will see to it, buckets to bullets, that you sure as shit will be the first.”
“I give a fuck about you and your dog,” the muscular man said, drool forming against the edge of a lower lip. “So pull down and shoot it out if that’s what you came in here to do, but you picked the wrong room if you figure me to roll over on the words of two tea-bag narcos.”
“Not you I want,” Ramoni said. “You live, you die—don’t mean a dime’s worth to me. We’re here for Santos. If he’s in the room, we take him and him only. Neither me nor my two partners got a beef going with anybody else in here. The only one who can change that is you.”
“If it’s Big Moe Santos you huffin’ about, then you can pack your mutt and your partner and find yourself a cheap bar,” the muscular man said, finding it a struggle to both breathe and talk with Buttercup’s mass resting square on his back. “Leave his bald ass to me. I’ll jack him for you and earn myself some after-school credits.”
“You’re looking to tag him,” Ramoni said, “we’re looking to bag him. He’s got a full natural hanging over his head, and we got an eager ADA ready to offer him a nickel ride in return for some hard-nail finger pointing. Once he talks, he walks. What happens from then on, we can leave to the two of you.”
Bullets cascaded down on Ramoni, Frank, Buttercup, and the muscular man, nicking paint, floorboards, and ceiling, and the two detectives dived for wall cover and fired back with a heavy load of their own. Buttercup lay down flat across the body of the muscular man, her head tilted to one side, jaws still held tight around his neck. “I guess Big Moe can hear, no doubt over that,” Frank said, shouting above the rapid exchange of gunfire. “I’m surprised you just didn’t invite him over and ask him to pull up a chair.”
“I wanted him to hear us,” Ramoni said. “This way, he knows now he’s got a choice. Walk out the front with us or be carried out the back by Wilson here and his crew of hitters.”
“Looks to me like Big Moe went and decided on a Plan C,” Frank said, slamming a fresh ammo clip into his gun and firing three rounds into the smoke-filled room.
“Which would be what, you think?” Ramoni asked.
“Kill us all, right here and now,” Frank said. “And then run, balls to the floor, to the first out-of-town bus he can find. Disappear inside a no-name town where nobody but the local dealer will give two shits and a spit about when he comes and where he goes.”
“You two motherfuckers gonna go in there and wipe some ass or you plan to Lucy and Ricky the bastards to death?” the muscular man, Monroe Wilson, shouted back at them. “If that’s your direction, be wise to let me and this fuckin’ mountain dog loose to take care of some business while the two of you just talk it out.”
“You going to let me leave here with Big Moe?” Ramoni asked. “Take him where he needs to be before end of day?”
“I get him back when you set and done?” Monroe said. “And I don’t want to hear any of that witness-relo bullshit. I’m too old and too fuckin’ tired to go hunt his ass down in Phoenix, or whatever desert town you toss the flippers in.”
Ramoni looked across the small foyer at Frank
and waited for his nod. “Your call,” Frank said. “But I don’t know how the fuck you can get him back once we hand him over. The marshals will have a new name sewn in his clothes long before he even steps into a courtroom.”
“Then all you need to do is make sure I can spell that new name,” Monroe said, lifting his head less than an inch, but enough to catch the blur of the shadows closing in on them from the other room.
Steve Ramoni took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll make sure you get a name, Monroe,” he said.
“All right, then, blue bloods,” Monroe said after a short pause. “Now hows about you get Lassie here off my fuckin’ back and let’s see which of these homers screams when he catches a bullet.”
The firefight lasted four minutes, a fusillade of bullets bringing blood and ruin to a sun-drenched New York morning. Buttercup had rolled off of Monroe, on a head signal from Ramoni, and run into the darkness of the living room, the sparks from an array of weapons her only light and a series of harsh voices and loud moans her signal as to where she should bring into play her seek-and-stop police expertise.
One of the cornered shooters, a lanky Hispanic man in stained blue Fruit of the Looms and knee-high sweat socks with red-dye toes, stood with his back against a deep purple wall, a semiautomatic in each hand. The rapid-fire flow of his bullets pinned Ramoni in a corner of the small kitchen, a splintered white cabinet door and a Kevlar vest his only protective shields from the barrage. The bullmastiff moved like a ghost amid the firestorm, swinging her girth through the dark shadows, seeking out the best vantage point to take down her foe.
Buttercup was coiled across the room from the shooter, her hind legs ready to pounce, her mouth open and her large teeth exposed, eyes alive and alert. The shooter shot off the final salvo in his ammo load and let the two empty clips fall to the wood floor. He was quick to reach behind him for two fresh clips, taped to the small of his back in a row of six. Buttercup saw the move and was even quicker to make hers.
She hurtled across the room and caught the dealer at chest level, draining the air from his lungs and sending them both crashing to the floor, the guns scattered at opposite ends.
“Get your ass over here, Toilo,” the dealer shouted, unable to fend off Buttercup’s attack, her thick head hovering several inches above the man’s face, her breath thick as fog and clouding his already blurred vision. “And get this mountain lion the fuck off me.”
“Chill, Paco,” a voice from the far end of the room shouted back. “It’s only a fuckin’ police dog. Stop playin’ and toss him aside.”
“He’s as big as a fuckin’ police car,” Paco said, fighting to regain his breath, his lithe body hosed down in sweat. “I can’t do it by my own.”
“You’re right on that, Paco,” Ramoni said from the other end of the room, holding his fire. “Your best play is to give it up. You can do that by resting your hands flat on the floor, palms up. Once Buttercup sees that, she’ll know not to rip out your main vein and use it as floss.”
“Buttercup?” Toilo said, sneering out the word and not holding back on the chuckle that followed in its wake. “You can’t be straight serious? You hear that, Paco? You about to hand your balls up to a fuckin’ dog with a soft-toss name. You do that, you better learn how to sleep with your ass in the air.”
“She will kill you,” Ramoni said in a low but commanding voice. “Buttercup loves playing fetch and swimming in a cool stream. She likes to ride in my Mustang, the top down—rain, snow, or shine. She likes her steaks medium rare and wants her Italian bread dipped in homemade olive oil. But there’s only one thing that she really loves. Want to guess?”
“I give a fuck,” Paco said, trying to squirm his way out from under Buttercup, the bulk of the dog’s weight now resting on his chest. “And if you don’t say what you need to say to get her the fuck off me fast, she’s gonna love the feel of my gun up her ass.”
“If you’re thinking that, then that ganja has really fried your brain,” Ramoni said. “That dog will Dirty Harry you before you have a chance to lift one of your arms.”
Paco looked up at Buttercup through his glassy eyes and got back a gaze that made him shiver. “Can you and me talk it out, then?” he asked.
“I’m all loaded, guns and ears,” Ramoni said.
It was Buttercup who first saw the shadows of the two men in the hallway.
She lifted her head away from Paco and looked over Ramoni’s shoulders. Ramoni caught the move and turned. Frank had his head down, blood oozing out of a flesh wound in his right arm, and Monroe was nowhere to be found. Ramoni snapped his fingers and Buttercup eased herself up off Paco, her front paws rubbing now against the wood floor, her body poised to make a run and leap past the drug dealer and the two detectives in the vestibule, aiming for the hallway and the men lying in wait.
The two men jumped into the open doorway, each with two .357 Magnums in his hands, and began to fire down at the two detectives. Ramoni whirled and let off several rounds of his own in their direction. Frank was slower to react, reaching for his gun with his good arm, fingers gripping the handle, his strength sapped by the flesh wound. Within seconds, bullets once again began to fly, this time both inside and outside the apartment, the two detectives caught in a vicious cross fire, the risk of taking a hit coming at them from front and rear. Monroe jumped out of his hiding hole in a back bedroom and let loose with his own hailstorm, not caring who his shots took down, cop or thug. The gunmen were separated in distance by no more than fifteen feet.
Frank took a series of slugs to the chest, neck, and leg and fell over in a heap, his head landing hard against the wood floor, thick specks of dust coating the bloody left side of his face.
Monroe blasted away, heard a death grunt from the back of the apartment, and knew that he had dropped one of the three dealers. He looked to his left, saw Paco on the floor, jamming two clips into his semis, and smiled. “I told you not to go and fuck with a player,” he said. “Look around, motherfucker, and grab a deep breath. This is what the business smells like. This is what it brings.”
Paco managed to get off a round, which caught Monroe just above his right knee. Monroe grunted and tilted to one side, then emptied his chamber into Paco’s prone body, the kill shot blasting out the dealer’s left eye and causing his legs to twitch and spasm, blood doing a slow run down his face.
The two gunmen closed in on Ramoni, who was low on ammo and running out of room to seek cover. He tossed aside an empty gun and rushed the shorter of the two gunmen, both of them landing hard in the narrow hallway just outside the apartment. The second gunman turned, followed the flow of action, and took dead aim at the back of the cop’s head.
Buttercup caught him a second before he could push down on the trigger. Her jaw was locked on the gunman’s shooting arm, her teeth cutting through clothes, skin, and bone, sending a thick flow of blood across her face. The gunman landed a series of hard, closed-fist blows on Buttercup’s head, but the police dog held firm to her grip. The loss of blood and the weight of the dog brought the gunman down to one knee, his flurry of punches losing some of their force. Buttercup shook her head from side to side, ripping tendons and nerve endings in the gunman’s arm, eager to bring his movements to a halt.
The bullets were strays, shots from the gun of the man waging battle with Ramoni in the hallway.
The first shot caught Buttercup on the right flank, just about center mass, and pierced one of her lungs. The blow stung and weakened her rear paws. The second landed higher, creasing through the skin folds on her chest and bursting through several blood vessels. Both Buttercup and the gunman were soaked through with blood, the blue cement floor now the color of melted cherry ice. But despite the wounds, Buttercup held on to the bite, her teeth clenched, jawbone locked in, the man’s arm tattered and torn, muscle and bone visible beneath the sheared clothes. The gunman was fast losing his grip, his eyes doing a slow roll toward a blackout.
Ramoni heard the shots, and the tw
o low yelps that followed, and glared down at the gunman who had fired the rounds. He unleashed a flood of hard blows against the prone man, his fury fueled by anger and the sense of dread and loss any cop feels when a partner takes a hit. He lifted both knees to where they pressed heavy on the gunman’s shoulders and reached his right hand toward his ankle holster, his fingers gripping the handle of his loaded drop gun. In one swift move, Ramoni, ignoring the sharp pain of his own wounds, had the gun cocked and pressed against the gunman’s forehead. Ramoni gazed down at him, drops of blood dripping from a cut on his face and a sliced lower lip, his right eye shut tight from a series of blows to the head and a bullet that caught him just below the neck. “Shitty fuckin’ place we both picked to die,” he said, then pulled the trigger.
Ramoni fell off the dead gunman and crawled over toward Buttercup. Her head was resting on the blood-soaked floor, her eyes half open, her breathing a series of pained wisps. Ramoni stroked her cocoa-colored coat and ran a finger softly against the sides of her two gaping wounds. “You did great,” he said to her. “I’m the one went and messed it up. But I won’t let you die, Buttercup, you hear me? Not on me, not here, not now.”
Buttercup stared back and licked the right side of Ramoni’s face, tasting blood and bone matter, her massive head giving his a gentle nudge. “Hang to it,” Ramoni said to her, his vision starting to fade, the loss of blood from his multiple wounds turning the room into a drug-ravaged carousel. “Nobody good is gonna die here today.”
“Except maybe the two of you, that is.” Monroe Wilson’s immense shadow hovered over the badly wounded partners. “You got as much chance of seeing a police pension as I do of drawing a legit payday.”