No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella (21 page)

Blood from Alex's wound leaked out between
Blackstone's fingers. "You're going to be okay" Blackstone
kept repeating. Alex made no response.

Blackstone saw that the bullet had penetrated the
seat.

"Angie," he yelled. "Are you shot?"

"No," came her muffled reply

He told her to stay down. She offered no argument. He
started the car. A spray of bullets pierced the windshield in a line
above the top of the dash.

The back window blew out.

"Down," he repeated. He cocked the steering
wheel all the way to the left and put his car in drive. The car
rolled forward as he attempted to make a blind U-turn on the narrow
roadway The passenger windows exploded, showering them with chunks of
tempered glass. Blackstone put the car into reverse and backed up
into their previous position. The side of the car was no match
against the sniper's firepower. They were trapped.

Within minutes the air filled with the sound of
sirens and screeching tires. Police cordoned off the neighborhood and
announced to the populace to stay in their homes. Blackstone heard a
voice, amplified through a bullhorn and directed at the shooter
inside the house, say "Let's be smart about this."

The radio reported that the fire engine was on its
way It would be at least twenty minutes before the SWAT team arrived.
Blackstone didn't think Alex had that kind of time.

"Do the right thing," the negotiator said.
"You've got nowhere to go. Don't make us use tear gas."

Blackstone heard a door open and snuck a peek over
the dashboard. He watched as the suspect came out the front door,
hands held high above his head. When the shooting started again,
Blackstone was only a little surprised. The suspects head jerked back
as a round caught him between the eyes, plastering skull fragments to
the door behind him. Many other shots followed, but they were
superfluous. There would be hell to pay later. Too many witnesses
would say that the suspect had been unarmed and that the police had
gunned him down in cold blood.

"Too fucking bad, he thought.

If his hands hadn't already been occupied trying to
keep Alex's lifeblood within his body Blackstone might have been the
first one to pull the trigger and save the taxpayers all that money
Someday he decided, he would meet the guy who had drilled the
asshole. He would thank the guy personally But for now, he
concentrated on keeping Alex alive.

Angie poked her head over the back seat. "Is he
going to be okay?" she asked.

"I've got to get him to the hospital." He
took her hand and pressed it over Alex's wound. "Keep pressure
on it." He slammed the car into gear and shouted, "You're
doing good, buddy Hang in there."

Champions Cadillac blocked part of the road.
Blackstone rammed it out of his way

Champion shouted, "Hey!" but Blackstone
ignored him. He'd deal with that asshole later. Flooring the
accelerator, he calculated the quickest route to Marina Mercy
Hospital. The trip there was going to be the longest mile of his
life. On Washington Boulevard, he hung a left that sent them
skidding, but maintained control.

Angie still held on to Alex. The skin around Alex's
mouth had a gray cast to it. Blackstone jammed on the gas, and the
car shifted hard.

Dispatch reported unit after unit responding to the
999 call. Blackstone's unmarked unit had no siren. He flicked the
switch that caused the headlights to flash left to right. As he
turned south on Lincoln, he picked up a motorcycle escort.

The emergency room team was out in front with a
gurney when he pulled in the driveway of Marina Mercy Able hands
jerked open the passenger door and lifted Alex's inert body onto a
stretcher.

Blackstone came around to follow them inside. He was
the first to notice when Alex's skin began to twitch and jerk. Within
seconds, everywhere he looked on his partner's arms and face he saw
hundreds of tiny muscle spasms.

"What's happening?" he asked the attending
physician.

"Seizure," the doctor said. "One
thousand milligrams of Dilantin, stat," he yelled, pushing
Blackstone aside.

The team of medical personnel and their patient
disappeared behind the curtains of the treatment room. Blackstone had
never felt so helpless in his life. How was he going to tell Sally?

He walked back outside to his car just as Champion's
red Cadillac turned in off Mindanao. There was a screeching moan—as
the dented right front fender rubbed against the tire. Angie was
still seated in the back of his unit, blood on her hands, eyeing him
fearfully

He had a sudden fantasy of pulling out his gun and
shooting her in the head, then he'd go after the pimp. In his mind's
eye, he saw both their heads lolling against the leather headrests of
the red Cadillac.

"Are you hit?" a voice asked.
 
He looked up and saw that the speaker was Sergeant Mann. "No,"
he answered. "It's not my blood."

"How's your partner?"

"They're working on him now. I don't know."

"What happened here?" Mann asked. "What
were you doing at that house?"

"Assault complaint," he said, pointing at
Angie. "Victim ID."

"Does this involve a homicide investigation?"

"Yes, sir. " Blackstone pulled out his
notebook and flipped back a few pages. "There's a connection to
last Fridays sniper attack. As I'm sure you recall, the ammunition
recovered was military and tied to last month's National Guard armory
burglary in Kern County "

"Right," Mann said. "And you liaised
with Special Agent Claire Donavon, the one with all the moles."

"Beauty marks, sir. Yes, that's the one."

"Anything come of that?"

"In the works. She asked me to release a photo
of Garillo, the sniper victim, to the press."

"Why did she want that?"

"She didn't say"

"You still haven't explained why you and your
partner were here today"

"I put the word out on the street that I was
interested in any military weaponry that might have surfaced in the
last month."

"Go on," Mann said, head bent and listening
carefully

"Yes, sir. The female"— he pointed to
where she cowered in his back seat—"Angela Shaw, aka Angie,
reported an assault by a man with a grenade."

"Who's the yo-yo in the red Caddy?" Mann
asked. "Her pimp. He calls himself Champion" He didn't
mention the agreement to drop charges on Champion in exchange for
Angie's information. Technically the deal Blackstone and Bernie had
made with Champion was illegal, even though it went on all the time.
He didn't trust the sergeant well enough to risk getting Bernie's ass
in a sling. Besides, it really didn't make a difference.

"I think I'm getting the picture," Mann
said. "You went with Angela Shaw, the victim of an assault, to
apprehend her attacker—" he flipped open his own
notebook—"Darnel Willis."

"Was that the shitheads name?" Blackstone
asked.

"According to his driver's license," Mann
said. "Did Ms. Shaw identify Darnel Willis as her assailant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then what happened?"

"The pimp showed up unexpectedly Willis caught
wind of us, barricaded himself in the house, and started shooting."

"And that's when Detective Perez was hit,"
Mann said. "All that is pretty clear. But we're going to have a
problem mth the officer-involved shooting. Darnel Willis was DOA. Did
you notice where the first shot that struck him came from?"

"No, sir. There was a lot of activity at the
time and I was occupied with my partner."

"I saw the head wound on Willis," Mann
said.

"The exit wound blew out the back of the guy's
skull. We've confiscated all the officers' weapons who discharged
shots. I'm going to need yours also.

Blackstone retrieved his revolver from its holster
and handed it to the sergeant butt-first.

"The guys head was putty Theres no way a police
.38 could have done that kind of damage," Mann said. Blackstone
nodded. The police-issued .38 was notoriously underpowered. The
thinking was that a police weapon should only have the force
necessary to stop a criminal, but no more. The powers that be
reasoned that anything more powerful might put the innocent public at
risk.

"You know what they're going to say downtown,
don't you?" Mann said.

"Sir?"

"They're going to say an officer had an
unauthorized weapon."

"'They'll have to prove it, won't they?"

"Meanwhile, the press will crucify us. They're
already describing Darnel Willis as a motorist. Can you believe that
shit?"

Blackstone didn't know what to believe anymore. An
officer is shot in the line of duty and what was downtown worried
about? If a cop used a non-issue weapon. It was crazy totally crazy
Like his worst fucking nightmare come to life. The seconds leading up
to the shooting played over and over in his mind: Alex picking up the
mike; Alex bleeding and unconscious; his own voice screaming to Alex
that he would be okay

"I told him to get on the radio," he said.

"You followed procedure, right?" Mann
asked.

"By the book. "

Mann looked at him for a long time before asking,
"Anything else you have to say about all this?"

"No, sir," Blackstone said. What could he
say?

That he'd like to find the shooter so he could shake
his hand? "What should we do about these two?" he asked,
indicating Angie and Champion.

Mann sighed. "Kick 'em loose, for now. I'll
check with the DA and see if he's willing to file."

"All right."

"What are you going to do now?" Mann asked.

"I'm going to sit with Alex for a while. Sally's
probably on her way"

Mann nodded, then put a hand on Blackstone's
shoulder. "I'm going to need a full written report on my desk
tomorrow morning. Were you ever able to get the feds to tell you
anything about their case as it related to your homicide?"

"Agent Donavon hinted to me that Garillo had
been supplying her office with information?

"Then that really doesn't figure," Mann
said. "If this Garillo guy was an informant and hit because of
it, then why would the feds want to advertise that?"

The sergeant's question left him with a sick sense of
foreboding. Who was using who here?
 

19

OFFICER REESE TOLD Munch to call her Sissy She was
pretty good people once you got to know her, and Munch was doing her
damnedest to make a new best friend. It was apparently a slow day for
criminals in Santa Monica, as Munch had the entire holding cell to
herself. At midmorning, Sissy turned on the television and turned it
so Munch could watch, too.

A Beverly Hillbillies rerun was interrupted by a news
Hash. There had been a shootout in Venice involving fatalities.

"Motherfucker," Sissy said, staring at the
mug shot superimposed over footage of a body being wheeled into the
coroner's wagon.

"What?" Munch asked.

"That boy shot a cop."

Munch recognized the picture of the shooter. It was
Darnel, Lisa's Darnel, red hair and all. Son of a bitch.

Another picture appeared in the lower righthand comer
of the screen. The newscaster said something about Detective Alex
Perez lighting for his life after the late-morning shootout in the
canal section of Venice Beach. Munch said, "Oh," surprised
at how sad she felt. "I wonder if he has kids."

"I think so," Sissy said.

"I need to get a message to his partner,"
Munch said.

"Say what?"

"You won't get in trouble for letting me call a
cop."

"They told me no phone calls."

"A1l right, how about if you get a message to
him?"

"What's his name?"

"Blackstone, he's a homicide detective with the
Venice PD."

"What do you want me to tell him?"

"Tell him I don't work at a printing press, but
I need to talk to him." She could only hope that he would come
alone.
 

20

OTHER OFFICERS joined Blackstone at the hospital as
their shifts ended.

At one-hour intervals, the nurses allowed him
five-minute visits in the ICU. Standing over his partner's hospital
bed, he stared at thick layers of surgical gauze encasing Alex's
skull. White tape, crisscrossed under his nose and over his chin,
held the breathing tube inserted into his trachea still. His eyelids
glistened with Vaseline. The eyeballs underneath were absolutely
still. That couldn't be good. A nurse came in and checked Alex's
vital signs. "How's he doing?" Blackstone asked.

"Check with the doctor."

Blackstone elicited her promise that he would be
apprised of any change, and then went back out into the waiting room
and tried to pray