A customer stood at the island with his hands up. His name was Alex Koutris. Koutris was an American citizen born on Naxos, an island off the coast of Greece. He was a medium-height, medium-build forty-six-year-old man with a dark mustache who co-owned a small diner in a rough neighborhood downtown. He came on at five o’clock for the night shift and worked until closing, leaving his place with the day’s cash at three a.m., when he walked through an unlit alley to his car. He carried a gun for protection. He had survived Guadalcanal and other fierce campaigns in the Second World War and was comfortable with the weapon. He was here to make his daily deposit before going into work. An envelope holding three hundred dollars was on the island before him. He had stood ten hours behind a counter to earn it, which made the money real. His gun, a snub-nosed .38, lay free in the side pocket of his yellow Peters jacket.
“Cash in the bags!” shouted Stewart, stepping around the wall, kicking open a swinging gate hinged in the middle of a fence. He stood behind the tellers, moving the shotgun from one to another, one woman and two men, all young.
They worked quickly, pulling the folding money from their cash drawers and placing it in white cloth bags they drew from under the counter.
“Thirty seconds!” shouted Stewart. “I will use this shotgun.”
The female teller stopped working, stood straight, and staggered. She lost her feet and fell to the marble floor. Her head made a hollow sound as it hit the floor. A circle of urine darkened her spring green skirt, fanned around her legs where she lay.
“What’s goin’ on?” said Hess, moving his guns catlike from the guard to the manager to the calm-looking man at the island, who was staring at him with no fear or expression at all on his face.
“Girl fainted, is all,” said Stewart. He pointed the shotgun at one of the two remaining tellers and swept the barrel to the fallen woman. “Finish what she was doin’,” he said. “Move!”
The young man went to her station and hand-shoveled cash into her bag.
Hess noticed the fat envelope on the island in front of the man with the mustache and calm eyes. He walked toward him, keeping his guns moving from the customers to the manager to the security guard lying on the floor. The female customer began to sob.
“What you got there?” said Hess, ugly beneath the mask, his mouth dry and frozen in something that was more grimace than smile. “What’s in that envelope?”
Koutris didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question.”
“It’s mine.”
“Step away from that table,” said Hess, and when the man didn’t move, he clicked back the hammer on one of his guns and put it to the man’s face. Koutris moved back two full steps, his eyes unwavering, and Hess snatched the envelope off the island top and slipped it into the pocket of his raincoat.
“I got the gun,” said Hess. “That makes it mine.”
“Koritsi mou,” said Koutris. It meant “my little girl.”
“What’d you call me?”
Koutris looked him over with contempt.
“What’d you call me?” said Hess, moving forward.
Koutris said nothing. Hess laughed and flipped one of the guns so that its barrel was in his hand. He swung the butt violently into the man’s nose. His nose shifted and caved, and his hands dropped to cover his face. Blood seeped through his fingers.
“Hey, Buzz,” said Hess with a witch’s cackle, looking for his friend through the bars. “I just fucked this greaseball up.”
Hess turned his head to look back at the man. The man held a snub-nosed revolver in his hand and there was blood on his smile. The man squeezed the trigger, and as Hess heard the shot he felt his throat tear open and saw blood dot his stocking mask. He fell backward and felt the sting and shock of the second shot as it entered his groin and he said “Buzz” and was on his back watching the pressed-tin ceiling of the bank spin and double.
Alex Koutris began to turn toward the tellers’ cages, seeing movement from the side of his eye, and was lifted off his feet by the blast of a shotgun. The copper load tore flesh off his face and peppered his neck. He tumbled and came to rest on his side, his cheek and shoulders slick with blood. His ears rang against the scream of a woman, and he thought, I survived the Japanese to die like this for a lousy three hundred bucks. He spit something pink and thick to the floor.
Koutris looked up and saw the big white man pointing the shotgun down at his face and saw the man’s finger press one of the two triggers inside the guard and closed his eyes and saw fire and his mother and nothing at all.
Stewart stepped away from the body, broke open the shotgun, held it vertical, and let the hulls of both shells drop to the floor. He leaned the barrels on his forearm, found two shells in his pocket, thumbed them into both chambers, and snapped the barrels shut. Stewart didn’t bother looking at the customers or tellers or the old security guard, now praying aloud, and he didn’t try to quiet the female customer, alternately screaming and crying, completely out of control. None of them would try anything now.
Stewart walked through smoke to a wheezing Hess, who was leaving a slug’s trail of blood as he back-crabbed convulsively on the marble tiles, still gripping both .38s. He stopped moving and his crossed eyes pinwheeled beneath the mask as he struggled to fix them on his friend. He voided his bowels. He arched his back and fought for breath.
“Shorty,” said Stewart, looking down at Hess. “We gonna get you out of here, son. You gonna be all right.”
Hess died as the words came from Stewart’s mouth.
Stewart looked through the plate-glass window at the Nova, still idling out front. He had heard sirens. He could not see the squad car out in front of the supermarket or the unmarked that had joined it. He could not see the uniformed patrolman, Troy Peters, edging his way along the storefronts toward the bank.
Stewart harnessed the shotgun inside his raincoat. He bent down, drew the security guard’s .45 from Hess’s waistband, released the magazine, palmed it back in the grip, and thumbed off the safety.
“Bring me them bags,” said Stewart dully, talking to the tellers who were still standing.
Stewart jacked a round into the chamber of the Colt. He blinked against the smell of gunsmoke, excrement, and blood.
One of the young men came from behind the tellers’ cages and handed Stewart three cloth bags heavy with cash. Stewart bunched them in his left hand, his right gripping the Colt. He walked slowly to the front door.
VAUGHN AND STRANGE watched Peters move along the drugstore and then the dry cleaners, signaling the occupants of those stores to step back and stay where they were as he kept one eye on the bank, his gun at his side.
Another squad car had come into the lot and blocked the exit. Vaughn had drawn his weapon. He stood with his gun arm on the roof of the Ford, aiming at the bank. Strange’s arm was fixed the same way, his gun sighted on the Nova. They were waiting for a white shirt with a bullhorn from the Sixth, along with more backup and an ambulance. The siren of the ambulance could be heard as it approached.
“What’d you hear?” said Vaughn.
“Gunshots and a shotgun,” said Strange.
“What exactly?”
“Two gunshots, evenly spaced. A shotgun blast right after that, and then another, ten, fifteen seconds later.”
“Sounds like we got some dead.”
“Shouldn’t we rush the place?”
“Hell, no,” said Vaughn. “The thing to do is save the ones still alive. You don’t want them killin’ hostages. Wait for Stewart and Hess to come out. Don’t let ’em get in that car.”
“What about Martini?” said Strange, one eye shut, sighting him down the barrel of the .38.
“We don’t have to take him now,” said Vaughn.
“Okay,” said Strange.
“Can you hit his tires from here?”
“I can try.”
“Because you gotta disable that car. I’m gonna be busy with Stewart and Hess.”
“I’ll
try.”
“Look at your partner,” said Vaughn, admiration in his voice. “That’s a smart young man right there.”
“Troy Peters,” said Strange.
“You both did good.”
Strange blinked sweat from his eye. He steadied his hand.
MARTINI, HIS EYES on the sideview mirror, had witnessed the violence inside the bank. He’d seen Buzz standing over the body of Shorty. He’d seen Buzz take the gun off Shorty’s body and take the cloth bags in his hand. And now Buzz was coming for the door. Buzz had heard the sirens, most likely, and knew that the police had arrived. He didn’t know that the big homicide cop, the one who got his gas at the station, had his gun trained on the front of the bank. He didn’t know that Strange, the black cop Martini had known as a kid, had his gun on the Nova. He didn’t know that the blond policeman was edging his way along the fronts of stores toward the bank.
Martini had not touched the gun resting between his legs. He wasn’t going to touch it. He’d never told Buzz that he would. Buzz had ordered him to wait, and that’s what he was doing. That’s all he would do. He wasn’t going to shoot at these men in uniform, who served like he’d served, like his friends had served, in the war.
Dominic Martini depressed the clutch and put the Hurst in gear. He thought of the men in uniform and found another gear. He revved the gas against the clutch. The needle swerved toward the red line on the tach.
Buzz Stewart pushed on the front door, opened it, and walked quickly out onto the sidewalk, directly behind the Nova. He heard a cop shouting from his right and, without turning, blind-fired his gun.
STRANGE HEARD TROY Peters’s command and saw his hesitation as the big man shot blind. He saw Peters take a bullet, drop his weapon to the side, and fall.
Vaughn fired at the big man and hit him high. Strange, as he had been ordered to do, shot at the tires of the Nova, hitting the grille and fender instead. The big man fired back at them, sending him and Vaughn down for cover as the rounds took a beacon light out and some paint off the roof of the squad car.
“We gonna go up together, young man,” said Vaughn to Strange with calm and assurance. “Now.”
Strange stood with Vaughn, ready to fire. They cleared the roof with their gun arms. They saw the Nova’s tires screaming on the asphalt, and the big man standing behind the car.
STEWART CHARGED OUT of the bank and saw two cops leaning over the roof of a squad car, pointing their guns at him. From his right he heard a man shout, “Police, drop your weapon!” and Stewart fired the automatic in that direction without turning his head. In his side vision he saw the cop go down. Stewart heard shouts from the lot and turned his gun that way and saw smoke and felt a slug hit him like a sharp punch. He stumbled back, firing wildly at the squad car, seeing a cherry light pulverized and rounds spark off the roof and the cops dropping behind its far side. He stood behind the Nova, hearing the clutch pop off the gas, seeing smoke pouring out from under the rear tires as they sought purchase, thinking, Those wheels are turning the wrong way.
The Nova caught asphalt and roared toward him. It jumped the sidewalk and lifted him up off his feet, taking him back through the window of the bank. Glass exploded sonically around him.
I been hit by Dominic’s car. I have been shot.
His legs were pinned between the rear bumper of the Nova and the edge of the marble wall that fronted the bank. A .38 slug had shattered his clavicle, tumbled, and lodged in his deltoid. He felt little pain.
That boy Dominic was born to fuck up. God, I am cold.
Stewart’s torso hung backward over the lip of the wall. He had dropped the bags of money. He had dropped the .45. The shotgun was harnessed, and he did not have the strength to pull it free. He heard men shouting and their footsteps as they ran toward him.
I’ve murdered a man and maybe a cop and they are going to kill me for what I’ve done. Well, I will take one of them with me. They’ll talk about me in bars forever if I do that last thing. I still have my derringer. It’s here in my boot.
He reached for his right boot and felt slime and cloth. He looked down. There was no boot or anything else below his right knee. A portion of his left leg hung there, smashed flat, connected only by nerves and muscle and the shredded fabric of his jeans. Most of it was gone. What wasn’t gone was red and wet.
Stewart screamed.
TWENTY-NINE
TROY PETERS HAD been shot in the right thigh. The bullet had exited cleanly, missing his femoral artery. The paramedics were able to stanch the flow of blood before loading him onto a gurney and into the van. The ambulance took Peters to the Washington Sanitarium, the Seventh-Day Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland, not far from the Capitol Savings and Loan. Strange decided to ride with him and told Vaughn that he’d see him at the Sixth Precinct station, where he would give his official statement on the events.
A doctor who had been shopping at the A&P attempted to stabilize Buzz Stewart, who had gone into convulsions, as a second ambulance arrived. Stewart’s blood ran from the sidewalk down to the street.
Dominic Martini sat in the cage of a squad car, his hands cuffed behind him, a bruise darkening his swelling jaw. He had been tackled to the pavement as he got out of the Nova, his arms raised in surrender, by one of the young policemen who had been blocking the exit of the lot, who then punched him repeatedly in the face. The young policeman’s partner, a thirty-year-old army veteran, went into the bank and tried to calm the survivors, keeping them away from the corpses of the shotgun victim and Walter Hess.
Strange sat on a bench beside Peters’s gurney as the ambulance sped down Eastern Avenue, heading into Takoma Park. Against the orders of the paramedic, Peters removed the oxygen mask that had been covering his nose and mouth.
“Call Patty,” said Peters.
“Vaughn’s gonna do it,” said Strange.
“I want you to tell her what’s goin’ on. Tell her it’s not serious.”
Strange motioned to the oxygen mask, lying loosely around Peters’s neck. “You better put that back on.”
“I don’t need it,” said Peters. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so fine to me. You got no color in your face.”
“That again.”
Strange chuckled and looked down at his friend. “Badass.”
“Go on, man.”
“Had to be the hero.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“You did okay.”
Peters shook his head. “I should have shot that sonofabitch where he stood. Instead, I hesitated. I didn’t have the guts.”
“Doesn’t take any courage to kill a man. What you’re talkin’ about, that ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed,” said Peters. “But if that guy had shot you because I didn’t shoot him first . . .”
“Forget about it.”
“I’m in the wrong profession.”
“Let me tell you somethin’, Troy: For a minute back there, I thought Vaughn was gonna order me to take out Martini. When he told me to hold my fire, I was about as relieved as I’ve ever felt.”
“So?”
“So, you’re not alone.”
The ambulance hit a bump and the gurney rocked. Peters winced, closed his eyes, then opened them and looked up soulfully at Strange.
“Derek?”
“What.”
“Hold my hand.”
“You ain’t even all that hurt.”
“Hold it anyway,” said Peters. “At least until we get to the hospital.”
“Aw, fuck you, man.”
Strange left Troy Peters, sedated and sleepy, in the ER of the hospital at around 5:30 in the evening. When he went out to the lot he found his squad car waiting for him, along with the two cops who had been blocking the exit of the parking lot.
“Hound Dog said you’d be needing your car,” said the older of the two.
Strange thanked him, got under the wheel of the Ford, and drove back into D.C.
br /> STRANGE WAS CONGRATULATED by several uniformed officers and the desk sergeant as he arrived at the station, for what he did not know. He took the handshakes and the pats on his shoulder without comment but wondered why they were directed toward him. It was his partner who had gone beyond the call. He did not feel that he had acted with any particular heroism; rather, he had merely survived a dangerous situation by acquitting himself in a passable, cautious, and workmanlike way.
In the squad room, he found an open desk and phoned Peters’s wife at her job, assuring her that Troy was going to be okay. She was on her way out the door to join him at the hospital and thanked Strange for the call.
“Troy thinks so much of you,” said Patty, a touch of the South in her voice. “You need to get over here for dinner, Derek. We been talkin’ about it too long.”
“I will,” said Strange.
He vowed to make the effort. There were already too many things to regret.
Strange hung up the phone and began the process of filling out the necessary forms related to the event, in triplicate, which the prosecutors needed before they could begin to make their charges. He smelled cigarette smoke and looked up. Vaughn was standing in front of the desk, a butt burning between his thick fingers.
“Detective,” said Strange. “How’d we do?”
“We got a full statement from Martini. He cleaned up a hit-and-run I been workin’ on, too. He was a passenger in the car that ran down this young colored guy the other night on Fourteenth.”
“Who was the driver?”
“Walter Hess. Buzz Stewart was riding shotgun. Martini gave it up on one condition. I told him it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“What was the condition?”