Loose Ends

CHAPTER 49: DALE

  I approached the driver’s side of Ravella’s jeep to illicit a plot synopsis from the woman, Brenda Sutler. I tapped my badge on the window and showed her my revolver. In turn, she showed me the back of her throat. Her shriek moved a pesky pedestrian to gape at us. But the concerned citizen moved on, satisfied when I revealed the law enforcement credentials in my hands.

  Brenda Sutler had temporarily shredded her vocal cords, which granted me plenty of time to explain I was one of the good guys. One of the best in fact. She eventually identified herself and briefly described the absurd exigency in which she had found herself enmeshed. The ill-starred innocent actually believed Ravella was going to save the day.

  Now resigned--perhaps even willing--to take any amount of heat for overstepping my duties, I attempted to call it in. Brenda got in a dizzy and relayed the kidnappers warning about alerting the authorities. Aside from the fact that I, an authority, had already been alerted, I told her to take comfort in the fact that their threat was quite common and not to be taken very seriously.

  You have the record of my subsequent conversation with dispatch.

  As I hung up, two shots then rang from the apartment building. I pocketed my badge and demanded to know where the shots had come from. She pointed to the building. I probably rolled my eyes.

  I made the second call as I ran toward the building, thus explaining my breathless urgency on the recording.

  At his final tollbooth, Sonny Corleone ate a hundred bullets, give or take. James Caan, as far as I know, has never been shot even once. This is what I cogitated upon as I reached the front door, ignorant as to what nefarious dangers awaited me on the other side of the glass. I took a meditative breath as the skills I acquired in training and on the street resurfaced from the depths of my past. When I was sure I could do it, whatever “it” needed to be, I forwent further analysis of the Sonny versus James distinction.

  I entered. All was still. Mailboxes on my left. A staircase in front of me. A hallway to the right. No soundtrack to build tension, although if there had been, my heart’s drum solo beating in my ears would have obscured the score.

  Cock. Aim. Fire. Repeat as needed. The gunman’s credo. I cocked so as to have one less step to remember.

  Yes, the option of waiting for backup was available, but as a shameful option. The idea came, disgusted me, and then scurried off. Up or right were my choices.

  I chose the latter. I crept the hallway with wide steps, my revolver outstretched. I thoroughly examined every fuzzy fiber of the burgundy carpet, every dried brushstroke of the eggshell white walls, every grain of the wooden doors. My ears would’ve been of tremendous assistance, but it was impossible to hear beyond my heart shouting, “doom doom.”