Kage (22 page)

It’s got a certain simple elegance to it from the criminal’s per-

spective. No need to fiddle with locks.

“At first?” Berger’s partner asked. He was leaning quietly

against the wall and his body language didn’t make it seem like

he was particularly interested in my answer.

“Yeah. Two things were wrong about it,” I replied. Berger

just raised his eyebrows to encourage me to go on. “In the first

place, this kind of crime usually targets someone who’s easy to

overpower. The elderly. Women.”

“They got in at your place,” Berger reminded me.

“It took three of them,” I said. “How inconspicuous did

that look? Three Hispanic guys piling through my front door?”

Berger shrugged. “They’re crooks,” he told me. “Nobody

ever said they were geniuses.”

His partner smirked. “Lucky for you. The old guy across the

street saw them force the door and called it in to 911. Probably

the only reason the EMT’s got to you before you pumped out.”

I said nothing while that thought sunk in. “What else?”

Berger finally prompted.

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“Huh?” I was still thinking about how close I came this

time to not waking up.

“You said there were two things that weren’t right about

this,” he reminded me.

I closed my eyes for a minute. “Yeah. The second thing was

that these guys were armed to the teeth. And it wasn’t street

junk. The knife was a pro’s weapon… “

“How do you know that?” Berger asked suspiciously.

I shrugged and the action tugged a bit on the leads to my

hand. I saw the lines on the monitor near the bed jump a little.

“You can feel it in the balance, the heft of a weapon,” I

explained. “Particularly something like a knife.” The cops

looked significantly at each other.

“You know a lot about things like this,” Berger said. It

sounded like an indictment.

I got a quick flash of a knife jutting from an eye socket. The

ring of gunshots. Blood. “Hey,” I told them, “they broke into

my house. They weren’t there looking for my social security

check or to steal the stereo.”

“What do you think they were there for then?” Berger

pressed.

I paused. I fidgeted a bit and the monitor spiked again.

“They were there to get… me.” I concluded.

“They came close,” Berger’s partner observed. He was

watching me half the time and eyeing the heart rate monitor

the other half.

But Berger was focused on me. He sat down in the chair

next to the bed, as if he had finally heard something worth his

time.

“And why were they after you, Mr. Burke?” he said quietly.

Berger’s blue eyes glittered. His partner didn’t move a muscle.

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I shifted in the bed. “I don’t know,” I replied, shaking my

head wearily. And it was partially true.

“You never saw these men before?” Berger pressed. He

sounded incredulous. I signaled no. He sighed and slipped a

folded piece of paper out of his jacket. It was a printout of mug

shots. He flattened the paper out and laid it gently in my lap. I

looked at the two pictures there. The photographs captured the

stolid features well enough, but didn’t convey the air of menace

these men had in person. I recognized them anyway.

“These two gentlemen are Geronimo Martín and Xavier

Soledad. They’ve got a rep on the street that’s pretty fierce,”

Berger told me. “They’re shooters. They don’t come cheap. And

they always work together.”

“They call them
Los Gemenos
,” his partner chimed in. “The

Twins.”

“These guys are not street punks,” Berger told me. “Various

law enforcement entities like them for a lot of different crimes,

but they always skate. You got a special job to do in the His-

panic underworld, you call them.” Berger looked at me with

those cold eyes. “And you’re telling me you don’t know why

these two came calling at your place?”

“No clue,” I said. In retrospect, it wasn’t the brightest move

I’ve ever made, but I was still trying to put pieces together and

wasn’t ready to share my suspicions.

I don’t think the detectives bought my claims of innocence.

They just looked at me for a few minutes, saying nothing. Wait-

ing for me to crack. I shifted in bed, moving my torso and feel-

ing the click and stretch of muscle and bone. A cart rattled by

in the hallway. Finally, Berger’s partner pushed himself off the

wall. “OK. Sure,” he concluded wearily. He nodded at Berger

and gestured with his head toward the door.

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Berger stood up and handed me a card. “You think about

it, Mr. Burke. What with all the excitement, I’ll bet you’re still

a little foggy on things…” He tapped his business card. “You

know the drill. Anything occurs to you, give me a call.” He

moved toward the door, and then turned slowly to face me.

“Think about this, too. The Twins. They were inseparable.

Word on the street was that they were lovers. When they came

to your place, it was just a job. But you put a blade in Sole-

dad’s brain. And Martín is still at large…” He pushed open

the door to the hallway and paused, the movement heavy with

significance.

“Rest up, Mr. Burke. Think hard. Whatever brought the

Twins into your world is not going to go away. Neither is

Martín. It’s personal now.” Berger looked at me impassively.

I looked back. We probably could have gone on like this for

some time, but he was a busy guy. He winked at me, and the

door swung close behind him.

I leaned back and shut my eyes. I could hear noise from the

hospital corridor: the squeak of shoes on the linoleum, an inter-

com page calling someone, the rattle of metal trays. I sensed the

change in air pressure as the door to my room opened again.

I expected to see a nurse, yet had a sudden alarming thought:

how good would the guard at my door be when a street psycho

like Martín came calling?

Art’s a big guy, and he pretty much filled the doorway. He

smiled at me. “Hey, back in the land of the living, Connor.

Pink, pretty, and patched up.”

“Me in a nutshell,” I agreed, relieved to see a familiar face.

Art gestured behind him with his thumb. “I ran into a cou-

pla guys from the 68th who are not exactly crazy about you,

though.”

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I shrugged. “They’ll have to take a number and get in line.”

Art sat down at the foot of the bed, resting comfortably and

eyeing me with an odd, contented satisfaction. “They seem to

think you’re holding out on them.”

I shrugged. “I’m still trying to sort things out myself.”

“I bet. What do you remember?”

I lay back and stared at the ceiling. Faint water stains marred

the acoustical tiles in one corner, the marks a reddish brown

like old blood. “I remember the three guys coming in. Two

with guns. One with a knife.”

“Right,” Art said. “One guy heads down the hall after Sarah

and you tussle with the other two. Correct.”

I nodded. “The knife came at me first. It was pretty crowded

and we were moving a lot. The shooter didn’t have a clean shot.

I got the knife away and used it on the shooter…”

“OK,” he nodded, recreating the scene in his mind. “But

the pistol got away from you somehow and the other guy got it

and started in on you?”

“I guess,” I replied, squinting. “Things get a little jumbled

after that.”

“I’ll bet,” Art commented. “Let me fill in some blanks. One

of the shooters— Martín—heads after Sarah. You shout out a

warning to her and when Martín comes through the kitchen

door, Sarah swings a plastic bag full of cans at him. It’s a freak

shot, but she catches him just right and down he goes like a

sack of potatoes. She hears all the excitement from the front of

the house, scoops up the gun, and heads your way.” Art looked

at me significantly. “Pretty impressive, Connor. There’s scream-

ing and banging and gunshots. She’s just escaped an attack by

an armed intruder. But your girlfriend heads
toward
the fight.”

He shook his head. “Most people I know would be running the

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other way.”

I nodded in agreement. “Good thing she didn’t.”

“Oh yeah. ‘Cause the third guy is, by this time, pretty pissed

and about to empty a pistol into you. Sarah gets him first. The

rest is history. She does what she can until the PD and EMT

arrive. They slip you into a shock suit and away we go…”

“They ID the third guy?” I asked him.

“Nah,” Art said. “Soledad and Martín usually didn’t take

on extra help. Whoever he is, he’s not local. I’ve got some old

friends keeping me up to date. They’re running his prints now

through the FBI’s IAFIS system. We’ll see what it turns up.”

I nodded. “Speaking of turning up, where’s Micky?”

Art frowned. “Your brother is out tearing a new asshole in

the Hispanic underworld. Shaking the trees and hoping he can

flush Martín.”

“And you?”

He sighed. “You know how Mick gets, Connor. There’s no

stopping him, but it doesn’t mean I gotta be a part of it. One

loose cannon is enough…”

My brother pushed the door open as if on cue, and stood

appraising me, his hands on his hips. He glanced at Art, who

stared back, his face flat and expressionless. Then Micky walked

toward me. “Well, you look a little better,” he said. “What’s the

prognosis?”

I shrugged. “They make sure that the sutures are holding

and I can get out of here.” It’s not exactly what the doctor had

said, but it was what I was planning.

“Good,” my brother told me. He looked Art’s way. “I don’t

think the uniform they got on the door is destined for great

things.”

Art shrugged, but said nothing. It wasn’t like them. My

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Kage

brother and his partner had elevated banter into a minor art

form. The silence between them now was not only unusual,

it was heavy, and the atmosphere was like that of a bickering

married couple being civil only out of consideration for guests.

“What is with you two?” I finally asked.

Micky waved a hand at his partner. “Nothin’. He’s just

being a pain.”

“A pain?” Art said, standing up and moving right into

Micky’s face. I’ll tell you what’s a pain.” He jabbed a finger into

Micky’s chest. “You, you moron.”

“Don’t gimme that…” Micky began in a snarl, but Art kept

right on going.

“You’re jumpin’ all over an official investigation. You’re

steppin’ on toes left and right and got nothing to show for it.

And you want a pain? Wait until ACLU lodges a complaint.”

My brother shrugged. “At least we won’t have to worry

about Internal Affairs.”

“Internal Affairs,” Art fumed, shaking his head. “You don’t

get it. We’re not on the force anymore, Mick. You start pissing

people off, they’ll pull our contract.”

“Hey,” Micky spat back, his eyes narrowed, “Fuck the

ACLU. And fuck the contract. Look at him!” He pointed in

my direction. “Those three psychos almost got him. One’s still

on the loose.”

“I know,” Art shouted. “But we gotta work this smart.”

A nurse peeked in the door, her face concerned. Both men

stood facing each other like animals, their eyes locked. They

never broke contact but simultaneously reached into their pock-

ets. I had seen them flash their shields in situations like this before

and the sudden realization washed across both their faces at the

same time: they had no shields. It was almost comic, except for

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the look, bug-eyed and angry, on their faces. The nurse pul ed

her head back into her shoulders and wisely retreated.

“Fellas,” I began.

Their heads swiveled toward me, their eyes bright and hard.

“Shut…” Micky began.

“Up,” Art concluded. Then they faced each other again. Art

took a breath as if winding up for more argument.

“You poke me one more time with that finger of yours and

I’m gonna bite it off,” Micky told him.

“Good,” his partner replied. “Maybe you’ll choke on it. Slow

you down a bit.” I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I detected a

slight smile on Micky’s face. Art sensed something as well, and

he pressed his case home. “We’re on the outside now, Mick. We

gotta work through channels on this. There’s too much riding

to let ourselves get screwed up ‘cause we’re pushin’ too hard in

the wrong places…” Micky stepped back and slouched against

the wall, looking from me to Art and back again. He sighed.

“You worry too much about the business,” Micky told his

partner.

“One of us has to,” Art countered.

“Wuss,” Micky said.

“Moron,” Art fired back.

It was the kind verbal ping-pong that could go on all day.

So I spoke up, as much to stop the bickering as to get some

information.

“Now that you’re ready to kiss and make up, can either of