Lethal Rage (17 page)

Manny pulled into the deserted lot — the plaza relied on pedestrian traffic — and they both got out, scanning the area. On the church steps across the street, several less-than-respectable-looking characters were simultaneously struck with a need to be elsewhere and casually hurried from sight.

Walking up to the store, Jack studied its interior through the glass front. Except for the clerk and one ancient woman with a walker, the store appeared as empty as the parking lot. He hadn't realized how the day was warming up until he and Manny entered the store's icy atmosphere.

While Manny checked out the aisles, Jack went to speak with the clerk. “You called?”

The middle-aged Asian man behind the counter said, “They gone now.”

“Okay. What were they doing?”

“They want to buy but have no money. They want for free. I tell them to get out.”

“Excuse me, officer.” The elderly lady had snuck up on Jack like some hoary ninja, the rubber feet of her walker making zero noise on the tile floor. She was advancing at a pace only a sloth could envy. Jack didn't want to break her momentum, so he stepped aside.

Manny joined him at the counter as the clerk rang up her purchases — a jar of instant coffee and a carton of smokes — and bagged them, then thrust them at her with a distinct lack of civility, before dismissing her from his notice. She shuffled off, her day's ration of nicotine and caffeine hanging from the crossbar of her walker.

Hell of a customer service.
Jack asked, “What did they do after you told them to leave?”

“They call me names.”

With your cheerful disposition, I can't imagine why.
“Anything else? Did they steal anything, threaten you, something along those lines?”

“They call me ‘fucking chink.'”

“And?”

“They leave. They go in there.” He pointed through the front window at the burger shop. “You tell them not come back. Never.”

“Can you tell us what they look like?”

“White, like you.”

Like pulling freaking teeth.
“Old? Young? Fat, skinny, short, tall? What were they wearing? Anything like that?”

“Not old. You find them in there.” The clerk thrust his finger toward the restaurant again and Jack had the distinct impression they had just been dismissed as brusquely as the ancient ninja. Jack returned the favour by walking away without another word.

When the doors sighed closed behind them, Jack turned to Manny. “You, too, can meet interesting and friendly people with an exciting career in law enforcement.”

Manny snickered. “We going to see if they're in there?”

Jack didn't really want to, but the puppy was still tugging at his leash and Jack figured Manny deserved a reward for his patience earlier this morning. “Yeah. Might as well see if they're planning a dine and dash.”

The burger shop was a tiny affair, boasting four tables along one windowed wall facing the parking lot and two along the street side. All the tables were full and none of the patrons — a mosaic of the offensive in sight, odour or attitude — appeared police-friendly. The blue haze of cigarette smoke hanging smoglike in the air did little to improve the atmosphere.

Good thing smoking's illegal in restaurants.
Jack walked up to the counter, a distance of three steps, and asked the overweight, middle-aged cook if anyone had just come in.

“I dunno. People come and go alla time.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of a nicotine-stained hand. “Why do ya wanna know?”

“Couple of guys just tried to make some purchases in the 7-Eleven without any cash. The clerk said they headed in here and we thought we'd save you the trouble of serving up some free food. But if you didn't notice anyone, that's okay.” He shrugged to show how much he really cared. “I'm sure you'll figure out who they are when they can't pay you.”

The cook's eyes narrowed as he turned toward two suddenly nervous guys sitting at a table facing Sherbourne. “Hey! You two numbnuts got the money to pay fer yer san'wiches?”

The guys in question, both young enough to be in college but ages past the possibility, exchanged uneasy glances.

“Get the fuck outta my rest'rant, ya fuckin' mooches! If I ever see ya come back in here, I'll fuckin' serve ya yer own fuckin' balls. Get the fuck out!”

They got the fuck out.

“Have a nice day, gentlemen,” Manny said as he held the door open for them, an amused grin betraying his sincerity.

The cook watched them until they disappeared around the corner of the 7-Eleven. He concluded the whole unsavoury event by horking a glob of vile-coloured phlegm into the sink.

“Thanks. Ya want some coffee or somethin'? It's onna house.”

Jack figured his thanks was as grudgingly genuine as the offer of coffee. “Thanks, but we just finished some.”

As if the cook's phlegm had been some signal, the rest of the patrons resumed whatever conversations they had suspended when the uniforms had come through the door. As Jack joined Manny, one of a quartet of seniors sitting at a table by the door raised a quivering hand to touch him on the forearm.

“Pardon me, officer.” His voice shook more than his hand. “Me'n my friends would just like to pass on our condolences for that officer who was killed t'other week. We're sorry to see a good man go like that.”

A quiet voice near the back of the room said, “I ain't. Good riddance to a fucking pig, I say.”

“Who said that?”
Jack roared, whirling to face the tables behind him.
“Who the fuck said that?”

Silence dropped on the room. Everyone was studiously looking elsewhere. One prick in particular at the last table was trying extra hard to look innocent. Jack noticed a black tank top, a mangy mass of dirty hair and arms covered in skull-themed tattoos. He must have considered himself quite the badass. Too bad the hand holding his coffee cup was trembling.

Jack stalked over. “Was it you?” he growled.

Mr. Badass kept his eyes down, but his coffee was sloshing over the rim of the cup.

“Was it you?” Jack smacked the stained cup from the guy's hand. It exploded against the wall. Jack planted his fists on either side of the guy's breakfast plate and leaned in, ignoring the other three people at the table. “Come on, fuckhead. Was it you? You got the balls to say something like that to my back but not my face? Say it again, tough guy. Or are you a gutless, chickenshit coward?”

Jack waited and the silence stretched. Eventually, reluctantly, the man met Jack's eyes, then quickly looked back at his half-eaten eggs.

“I didn' mean nothing by it,” he said timidly, sounding scared.

He was right to be afraid.

With one hand, Jack grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. He brought his face within kissing distance and snarled, “That man was my partner, fuckhead, and I watched him die.” Jack tightened his grip on the man's throat. “If I ever,
ever,
hear that you have badmouthed him again, I'll find you and I'll rip your fucking throat out. Do you understand me, fuckhead? Do you?”

The man nodded weakly as his face began to purple. Jack held on a moment longer, then released him. The man dropped to his knees, gasping hoarsely for breath. Jack shoved him back toward his table and surveyed the room dauntingly, hunting for further insolence but finding none. A chair scraped loudly in the silence as the beaten-down badass took his seat, his face still red, but from shamed embarrassment now, not lack of air.

Jack's rage was still up but beginning to cool. That could have been the end of it, should have been the end of it. But some people just never learn. Whether Badass needed to salvage whatever he could from the stinging embarrassment he had received at Jack's hands, or whether he was just stupid, it didn't matter. As Jack moved to leave, he had to have the final word, which he decided to express by spitting on the floor in front of Jack's boots.

Jack's response was immediate and brutal. He slammed Badass's face into the table. His breakfast plate broke beneath the impact. Jack held him face down in his eggs as blood began to blend with the grease and runny yolks. He yanked Badass upright. Bits of egg and congealed grease clung to his face as blood ran freely from his broken nose.

“You're under arrest, fuckhead.”

With one hand clamped in his hair and the other on his arm, Jack dragged Badass unresisting from his seat and propelled him to the door. Badass's feet jerked in a parody of walking as signals from brain to feet were temporarily scrambled.

Then Jack remembered Manny standing by the door, an involuntary witness to his unseemly actions. He had placed a fellow officer, a good guy, in a compromising position because of his mindless rage, a rage which instantly vanished beneath a wave of embarrassed guilt.

But with a single sentence, Manny proved his loyalty to Sy's memory. “Anyone got a problem with that?” he challenged.

Apparently, no one did.

“Listen, Manny, I —” Jack stopped to correct himself. “Will, I owe you a huge apology and my thanks.” They were out in the station's back lot, having just finished lodging Badass with his newly splinted nose and rapidly blackening eyes in the cells. “What I did was wrong and you didn't have to back me up on it.”

Manny, who so rarely was called by his given name at work, looked almost offended at Jack's words. “Hey, man, you didn't do anything I didn't want to do myself. And it's Manny. Sy gave me that name and I'm proud of it.”

Jack choked on his words and felt tears welling up in his eyes. And some said Manny deserved his bad reputation? With an effort, Jack composed himself while Manny pretended not to notice. “Thank you, Manny. That's about the best thing that I've heard since Sy . . . since . . .” He couldn't say it, not now, and it turned out he didn't have to.

“I know, man.”

“But still, what I did was downright stupid. I went after that guy without even thinking about his buddies at the table. It was stupid and dangerous.”

“No problem, man. I had your back.”

One last unpleasantness to cover. “What did the Staff ask you?”

Manny shrugged. “Wanted to know why that guy was all busted up. I told him he spit on you and was going to again if you hadn't pushed his head down. He asked if I thought you had overreacted and I said you showed remarkable restraint for someone who had just been assaulted in a vile and degrading way.”

Jack laughed and shook his head. What do you say to that? As far as Jack could see, there was only one thing. He held out his hand to Manny. “If you want, I'd be honoured to partner up with you.”

They shook on it.

“Jack, wait up.” Detective Mason snagged Jack as he was coming out of the change room. Jack and Manny had just finished working out on their lunch hour and were getting ready to head back out on the road. “I need to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Sure, Rick. What's up?”

“Not here, upstairs in the office.”

Curious, Jack followed the plainclothes detective up to the second floor, asking Deb, the platoon's civilian station operator, to let Manny know where he was.

On the way up the stairs, Mason commented, “I heard you rearranged Jesse Polan's nose yesterday.”

“Little prick spit on me.”

Mason raised a quizzical eyebrow. “That doesn't sound like Polan. He's a little chickenshit unless he's trying to prove something.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Hell, if he couldn't be honest with Mason. . . . “He might have been upset at me for choking him out after he badmouthed Sy.”

“That sounds more like him. Good going, Jack. Too many guys would have let something like that slide these days. I hear you're working with Armsman. Lot of conflicting opinions about him.”

“Manny's solid. Just a little overeager at times, that's all.” Jack felt he needed to add more, as if Mason's approval of his new partner was somehow connected to Sy. “I feel lucky to be working with him.”

Mason nodded as if he understood. “Sy always thought he was a good copper.” Those were the words Jack needed to hear. He realized Mason was making small talk, stalling until they reached the office. What was going on?

Mason led the way into the cramped office and asked Jack to shut the door behind him. Taftmore and Tank were the only others in the room. Mason motioned for Jack to grab a seat, then sat behind his desk. The Major Crime boss scrubbed his face and heaved a huge sigh. Mason was exhausted; that much was clear to Jack. He saw the same weariness in the faces of the two detective constables.

In waters of unknown depth and current, Jack stayed quiet, waiting.

When Mason finally spoke, it was to swear Jack to silence. “What I'm about to tell you cannot go beyond this room. Period. Not to Manny, not to your wife. Can you live with that?”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't know. I guess it all depends on what you have to say.”

“Fair enough.” Mason leaned back in his chair and fixed Jack with a penetrating stare. “We think we know who murdered Sy.”

Jack was blasted by the sheer enormity of Mason's words. “Who? Fucking tell me. Who?”

Restraining hands up, Mason urged Jack to be patient. “I said we
think
we know. We need your help to confirm it.” He yawned and scrubbed his face again.

What kind of hours had the unit been working since Sy's death? Did Jack think he was the only one affected by the murder?

“Before we get started, I want to thank you for your efforts with Sy. I talked to the paramedics who were there and they told me how you fought to keep him alive. They also said with a wound that severe, Sy would have had to been cut inside an operating room to have survived. You did all you could. I hope you don't blame yourself for anything.”

Jack had heard that before. It hadn't really helped then and didn't mean much today.

“I've gone over your statement to Homicide and your notes and I understand your frustration in not being able to give much of a description of the suspect. He hid himself well. Homicide is focusing on the victim he killed prior to Sy. If they solve that murder, they solve Sy's. I'm interested in only one detail of your suspect description. If it pans out, we have our man.”

Mason rocked forward, nailing Jack to his chair with his eyes. Jack was aware of Taft and Tank leaning in, as well. The first question was simple enough.

“The suspect was wearing gloves?”

Jack nodded. “Yes.”

“Black latex gloves?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure they were latex?”

“Ye—” The fervour in Mason's voice gave Jack pause. “Why?”

“Could they have been leather gloves?”

Jack went still. “You think he did it? The guy who killed Reynolds? But that guy used a razor, not a butterfly knife.”

“I know. It should have been a razor,” Mason mused quietly, almost to himself.

“What do you mean it should have been a razor? I don't get it.”

“Nothing,” Mason said, waving it away. “I'm so fucking tired I don't know what I'm saying half the time. What I meant was, if there was any fairness in the world, it would have been a razor so we could tie the two murders together.” He cocked his head at Jack. “But all we have are the gloves. You're positive they couldn't be leather?”

“No. They were too thin, too tight.”

“Bear with me for a minute, Jack. I'm not talking about gloves like the type you wear, with the Kevlar lining. Think about it, Jack. Thin, tight leather. Like racing gloves. Stretched tight over his hand, could it have looked like latex?”

Jack thought back to that night, still so fresh in his mind. He could see the suspect's hand holding the knife to Sy's throat, see the steel flashing in the shadowed light, Sy's blood fanning through the air —
Focus!
Jack ripped himself away from those memories, pushed himself, fucking grabbed his own thoughts and forced them to concentrate on the glove. The glove and nothing else. Black? Yes, without a doubt. Latex . . . or leather?

“The glove had a bit of a shine to it. I thought — assumed — it was latex, but I guess it could have been leather,” he admitted slowly, convincing himself. He nodded. “New enough to have a shiny finish to it. Or maybe it was sweat from the suspect wiping his forehead or something.” He looked at Mason expectantly and the detective was grinning. “Yeah, it could have been leather.”

“That's what we needed to hear.”

A tension that had been binding the three Major Crime coppers suddenly evaporated with an almost audible hiss.

“What difference does it make?”

Mason laughed. “All the fucking difference in the world, Jack. Tank?”

The Sumo-sized copper brought Mason a file and patted Jack on the shoulder. Mason opened the file and flipped a photo across the desk for Jack to view. In the mug shot, a light-complexioned black male stared unsmiling at the camera.

“That's Gregory Johri, the first victim that night. He was a small-time dealer who suddenly disappeared from the local scene a few months ago. We all figured he had ended up dead somewhere. No big loss. But then we find out he was peddling Black to the university crowd over in 52 and, more recently, in the entertainment district. His car was parked in the same lot where he was killed. When Homicide searched the car, they found a whack of Black. Seems our man had been selling all night and was returning to his car for supplies when someone offed him.”

“A rip-off?” Jack suggested.

Mason shook his head, grinning. “Nope. He still had a wad of cash on him and his car hadn't been touched. Granted, it could have been intended as a rip-off and the killer was interrupted by the witnesses who called 911.”

“But you don't think so.”

“But we don't think so,” Mason confirmed. “We believe Johri was the victim of . . . shall we say . . . severe disciplinary action.”

“He was skimming the profits?”

“Or working outside his assigned area, the university, on his own time. Either way, he was cutting into his boss's profits and was terminated, so to speak. And by the boss himself, we believe. Enter Anthony Charles, the man we think is the head of the Black organization.”

Mason cracked open a bottle of water and took a long swig. “Charles is 51 Division born and bred. His mother was a local crack whore. Unlike other local shit rats, Charles never used crack, though he certainly sold it. His younger brother was a crack baby and is fucked up to this day. You've met him, by the way.”

That startled Jack. “The brother? I don't — oh, fuck. The guy under the bed at the search warrant.”

“Exactly. Sean Jacobs. Different fathers,” he advised before Jack could ask. “Once we learned who Sean's brother was, it all began fitting together.”

“So if Sean is the brother of the boss, that would explain why everyone in the apartment tried to hide him and wouldn't give up anything on him.”

“Right again. Now, what did Sean like to wear in imitation of his older brother?”

“Black leather gloves. But that's a pretty big leap to make.”

“Trust me, it isn't a leap. We've been working our asses off trying to track down Charles. What we have been able to learn is that the Black boss is a very hands-on type of leader, the type who would prefer to carry out the execution of a disloyal employee personally, rather than delegating the task. And his trademark, his signature if you will, is black leather gloves.

“Charles is a very disgruntled young man. He sees what crack did to his brother through their mother and he blames society. White society. He's more than happy to sell crack to white university students. He'll also sell to poor black folks. In his eyes, if you're weak enough to be a drug user, then you're only useful to him as a customer.

“None of that is new information. It's straight from court transcripts at his last trafficking trial. That was about three years ago. When he got out, he dropped out of sight and not long after, Black started showing up on the streets and Sean was suddenly sporting gloves out of admiration for his brother.”

Mason fell silent and looked expectantly at Jack.

“Okay, I can connect the dots and it sounds good, but . . .” Jack said.

“Exactly: but. As in, try to convince a judge or jury. What we have is a bunch of impressive-sounding ifs and maybes. What we need is a solid fact. What we need, Jack, is you.”

Jack knew what they wanted, what they needed, but he couldn't give it to them, as much as he would like to. “I can't ID Charles. I only saw a corner of his head and one eye and even less when he killed Reynolds. No one would believe an identification based on that.”

“IDs have been made on less and have held up in court. Some witnesses who only saw a partial face have been able to ID a suspect based on certain features of the face but not all of it. All we need to do is take our theory to Homicide. They'll pooh-pooh it, of course, because we're just divisional grunts, not big-time homicide investigators, but I'll push for a photo lineup. What's there to lose, after all? And they'll agree, even if it's to make us look stupid. They show you the lineup, you pick out Charles and, if we're lucky, he decides he doesn't want to be taken alive.”

“And if I can't ID him?”

Mason studied Jack, then looked to his officers for confirmation. They both nodded.

“What if we could guarantee you'd be able to pick him out?” Mason slid another photo across the desk, face down. He kept it pinned down with one hand. “It's your choice, Jack. If you don't want to, I'll understand and this conversation will have never taken place. If, on the other hand, you do decide to accept my help, there's no turning back. Ever. We're in this together. If one of us goes down, we all go down.” He slid his hand free of the photo. “It's your choice.”

A warrant for the arrest of Anthony Tyrone Charles on three counts of first-degree murder was issued later that day. Jack heard it on the news as he drove home. And smiled.