Bingo Barge Murder (21 page)

Pudge was now completely absorbed in the argument in the other room. I mouthed to Coop, “Ready?”

He nodded.

I exploded up from my seat. In two long strides, I was across the carpet. I swung the heavy book with all my might and felt horrifying, primal joy surge through me as it whammed into the back of Pudge’s skull. His forehead smashed against the doorjamb with a sickening thud. He slithered down the doorframe like a cartoon character. I dropped the book and wrested the gun from his limp fingers.

Coop and I stampeded through the French doors. Vincent stood in the middle of the café, sighting down the barrel of his gun at Eddy. She was near the front door, holding up a chair, lion-tamer style. Vincent glanced our way. In slow motion, he swung the gun toward us.

A freight train roared in my ears. I forgot the gun in my own hand and had no idea where Coop was. I blindly charged Vincent. His mouth opened, and I saw his eyes widen a fraction of a second before I hit him with a tackle that Chicago Bear “The Fridge” Perry would have been proud of. Vincent’s gun flew from his grasp in an arc that seemed slow and graceful. I didn’t hear it hit the floor. Didn’t hear anything but the cacophony in my head. My vision was muted and fuzzy around the edges. All I could focus on was a tunnel filled with the body of an evil thug.

We hit the polished wood of the Rabbit Hole floor hard. I landed heavily on top of Vincent, and I heard air whoosh out. I tried to knee him but caught his thigh instead. He grunted. One of his hands grabbed under my chin, squeezing my windpipe. I tried to suck in a breath, no luck. I took a wild swing at his head with my gun hand. I barely registered the fact I still had the weapon. Vincent let go of my neck and brought up his hands to block the blow just before I clipped his nose. He grabbed my hand and we struggled for the gun.

I frantically grappled with him, panicked to keep control of the gun. I tried to head-butt him but couldn’t manage enough force to get past our arms. Tied up in a deadly tug-of-war, I vaguely registered a growling noise. Was I making that ghastly sound, or was it coming from Vincent?

The metal edges of the gun felt knife-sharp against my palm as he desperately tried to pry it from my grasp. Then there was a violent explosion. The gun jerked hard in my fist, recoil traveling up my arm to my shoulder like lightning.

I shifted right, off-balance. Vincent bucked and rolled out from under me. I fell to my side.

It took a moment to realize he wasn’t coming at me again. He was curled in a fetal position screaming. Mutely, I scrambled backward as the fuzzy room reconstituted itself and once again became the familiar Rabbit Hole.

Despite a strange sucking sound in my ears, suddenly I could hear. I used a table to boost myself off the floor.

Vincent shouted, “—SHOT MY PINKIE OFF, YOU CRAZY BITCH! YOU, YOU …” He trailed off in a wail.

I looked at the gun miraculously still in my hand as Vincent howled. I caught motion out of the corner of my eye, and saw that Eddy stood over Vincent with her chair raised.

She said, “Come on, you big oaf, give me a reason to give you another lump.”

“SHE BLEW MY FUCKING FINGER OFF!”

Coop stood near the French doorway, his eyes wild. “Shit oh shit oh shit. You okay, Shay?” He held Vincent’s gun on Pudge, who sat slumped unresisting on the floor, awake but dazed, blood running down the side of his face.

“Jesus,” I croaked. “What—”

“Shay, you’re not shot, right?” he asked.

“No, no, I don’t think …” I gasped for air and looked at my midsection and legs, saw one knee covered with a dark, sticky substance. My stomach bottomed out until I touched the goo and realized it wasn’t blood. I gingerly sniffed then licked my finger. Thank God, I’d just rolled through a particularly gummy caramel mocha latte spill. “No, I’m okay.”

“Holy shit, little Miss Tenacious Protector,” Coop said, his gaze locked on Pudge, “He could’ve killed you!”

“But he didn’t.” I said. Suddenly my legs went noodly. I slid into a chair, panting and light-headed.

JT, Tyrell, and what looked like an entire SWAT team chose that moment to barge in the front door, and more chaos descended upon the coffee shop.

_____

By quarter after one, the semi-conscious Pudge and a bandaged Vincent were in the capable hands of the authorities. Eddy, Coop, Kate, Dawg, and I crowded in Eddy’s kitchen and sipped Eddy’s hot chocolate.

JT and Tyrell made a brief appearance after they hauled out Vincent and Pudge and told us to wait for them. I figured under normal circumstances, we’d be whisked down to the station to make official statements. The crime scene folks had already swabbed my hand for gunpowder residue and confiscated Vincent’s gun. I suspected that JT and Tyrell were doing everything they could to keep us out of after-arrest red tape so they could coordinate our next step.

Dawg made quick work of Kate, who was all over him, rubbing and smooching and patting his wiggling body. As she sat at the table, Dawg nosed at her lap, trying to keep her hands on his head. He scooted over to Coop for attention and continued around the table, lavishing adoration on all of us. I doubted he’d ever felt this much love in his entire life.

Kate said, “I knew something big was going on.” She fixed me with her trademark I-told-you-so glare. “Now you can’t be mad at me for talking to JT.”

“As usual, you’re right. I don’t know why I bother to argue.” My grin belied the tone of my voice, and I sat back, still feeling thick-headed.

Eddy was relating to Kate every moment of her time in captivity when my cell chirped. The caller ID displayed no number. I stepped outside, quietly shutting the screen door behind me, feeling once again like I was stuck in
Groundhog Day
.

“Hello?”

The cultured voice on the other end immediately raised the hackles on the back of my neck. “The timeline’s moved up. We want the nuts and the dog now.”

“Now? But—”

“No buts. You bring what we want and you’ll get what you want.”

My mind raced. The Rocky Rescue Plan had hardly been discussed. Coop, Eddy, and I had only the ability to concentrate on the present emergency, and now I realized we were in for more problems yet.

“We need more time—”

Rita butted in, unbecoming edginess pitching her voice up a number of octaves. “Maybe this will clear things up for you.” The sound became muffled, like a palm had covered the receiver. I listened but couldn’t quite make out the brief, jumbled conversation.

Then, “Shay O’Hanlon, ohhh—” the choking sound of a swallowed sob burst through the phone. I’d lost count of the times my heart had stopped in the last twenty-four hours.

Rocky’s voice quavered and he hiccupped. “Shay O’Hanlon, they hurt me so bad, Shay!”

The familiar backyard, the sounds of singing birds, and the whitish-yellow rays of the sun beaming down through leafless branches faded from my awareness, and all I could hear was Rocky’s yip of pain in my ear.

A quick intake of breath came from the other end of the line and then a loud, “Owie!”

“Rocky!” I said. “Rocky—”

“Please, please make them stop hurting me. I don’t like Miss Rita very much anymore, Shay O’Hanlon. Owwwww.”

“Rocky, I’m—”

“Please Shay O’Hanlon, it hurts bad. They said no police officers, Shay O’Hanlon—”

Buzz cut Rocky off. “Listen here, O’Hanlon. I want that truck, and I want my damn mutt. And I want ’em now,” he bellowed in my ear. “Go to that closed gas station next to Grizzly. Park behind the building. You don’t show, and Rita’s gonna do a whole lot more than make snot run from the little crybaby.”

The line disconnected on another yelp from Rocky. I snapped my phone shut and bent over at the waist, chest heaving. Fighting not to throw up, I tried to gain some control over my body. I wondered how much a person would take before they cracked up, broke down, or did both. Panic swirled through my brain.

What to do? I tried to hold my Protector instincts in check, but hearing Rocky’s cries brought out both fury and terror.

“Fuck,” I muttered and stood straight, forcing myself to breathe slow and deep. The nausea subsided somewhat, replaced by full-body shakes. I clipped my phone into its holster on the second attempt and clenched my fists tight. I needed a plan. I had to get Coop and Dawg away from Kate and Eddy without arousing suspicion. Then we had to figure out how to handle this. If I could only get to JT without alerting every cop around, I could explain the latest developments to her.

I jogged around the house and peered through the plate glass in the Rabbit Hole. Detective Johnson was in deep conversation with a couple of guys wearing black suits, and no one looked like they would take kindly to interruption. Four squads were parked in front of the Hole, and a cluster of uniformed cops were engrossed in conversation on the sidewalk.

JT was across the road talking to a man in a white oxford shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He leaned into her space, his finger jabbing the air forcefully as he spoke. The look on her face alternated between sheepish and defensive. His lips stopped moving and JT started to say something. Then he was back in her face again. I could only assume she was getting a royal ass chewing for not following proper procedure or some other cop infraction.

I could march up to them and ask to talk to JT and in the process piss off her boss even more, or I could try calling her on my cell once we were on the way. The cell phone idea won. I slunk from the front of the house and ran around the building to the kitchen. I paused at the screen door, watching Eddy bang the table with her fist. Kate’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then her forehead wrinkled as she followed the ins and outs of Eddy’s tale. I felt a twinge at the unfairness of my plight. I wanted to be as oblivious as they were.

With a whispered prayer, I yanked the door open and stepped inside. Coop was leaning back in his chair, one long leg crossed over his knee, a half-grin shadowing his face as he listened to Eddy embellish her story. I caught his eye, and gave a slight jerk of my head toward the door. The front legs of his chair met the floor with a soft thunk and he stood.

I said quietly, “Coop, let’s walk Dawg while Eddy finishes telling Kate what happened.”

At the mention of his name, Dawg bounced to his enormous feet from an old comforter Eddy had laid out for him. His sizeable rear wiggled back and forth at the sound of the word
walk
, and he skittered over and pushed his body against me in thrilled anticipation. I put my hand on the top of his head, relieved to see my trembling had subsided.

Eddy shot a look at me and then quickly returned her attention to Kate without missing a beat. This version of events had grown epic in proportion compared to the tale we’d heard earlier, and I’d have poked fun at Eddy under normal circumstances.

I called over my shoulder as the screen door slammed shut, “We’ll be back in a bit.”

Kate waved, too enthralled with Eddy’s growing-taller-by-the-second tale to pay much attention.

Coop had one hand wrapped around Dawg’s rope. I grabbed his other hand and dragged him past the garage and into the alley. “Coop,” I whispered urgently. “Come on!”

“What?” He was being yanked in half as Dawg pulled him one way and I jerked him another.

“Things have changed—Buzz and Rita want the nuts and Dawg now.”

“But—”

“Now,” I repeated. “Where’s the truck?”

We sped along the alley, Dawg trotting to keep up.

“It’s a couple of blocks over.”

“You have the keys, right?”

“Yeah … what happened?”

I rapidly filled him in about my phone call.

“Holy shit. But don’t you think that JT—”

“I already tried to talk to her. She was getting a serious reaming from her boss, and Johnson was busy inside with the men in black. I don’t want to get either of them in more hot water.”

“Isn’t that what cops are for? To get people out of hot water?”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. But I’d already burned up too much time as it was. “We need to go. I’ll call her once we’re on the way, okay?”

“Okay. Fine.”

I hazarded a look at Coop as we hurried along the cracked asphalt. His head was down, and his shaggy hair swung against his face, obscuring his eyes. He peered sideways at me, through the fine strands. “How are we going to get out of this mess?”

The truck was in sight now. I picked up the pace. Even Coop, with his long legs, had to step it up.

“Haven’t got that figured out yet.”

“I need to show you something. Here.” Coop handed me Dawg’s rope. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a gun. Pudge’s gun.

I stopped dead. “What are you doing with that?”

“The cops busted in and I freaked. With my record, I was afraid …” He trailed off and shrugged. “I stuck it in my pocket.”

“God, Coop, you should’ve—oh hell, never mind. Too freaking late now. Maybe it’ll come in handy.”

“You take it. I can’t believe I touched that instrument of death.” Coop gingerly handed me the weapon. It wasn’t much bigger than the palm of my hand. Not much we could do about it at this point, so I looked furtively around and slid it into the side cargo pocket of my pants. We resumed walking. The gun banged into my knee every time I took a step.