Red Line (21 page)

Sinclair filled their coffee cups and settled into the upholstered chair. He took a deep breath and began to tell Walt the parts of the story he’d never told anyone, the parts of the story that still woke him at 3:00 a.m. like a gunshot through his bedroom window.

A year ago, after following Moore for two weeks, Sinclair had spotted his car one evening on a trash-strewn residential street behind a rusted pick-up truck with four flat tires. Sinclair parked his rental down the street and slouched into the driver’s seat to observe. Alonzo Moore appeared in the doorway of an old, brown stucco house and pranced down the steps, through the chain link gate, and onto the street. Sinclair watched as Moore got into his banana-yellow Cadillac and crept down the street, his stereo blaring. Sinclair knew his routine. Moore would stop off at each of his spots, chat with his crew, and accept a roll of money. Sinclair followed, staying well back to avoid being spotted. According to the narcotics officers Sinclair had spoken to, someone else made the drug deliveries to Moore’s spots, and Moore never touched the drugs himself, so Sinclair knew he wouldn’t catch him holding. Moore
stopped at Thirty-Second Street, and Sinclair pulled his car to the curb a block away.

The sun had set an hour earlier, and the street lights cast a sickly, yellow glow over two rail-thin teenagers who Moore approached. Moore yelled something at them, but Sinclair was too far away to make out the words. Moore got into the face of one of them, still yelling, then grabbed him by his jacket with his left hand, stepped forward, and landed a powerful roundhouse to the side of his head. The young man slumped to the pavement as Moore pulled up the waistband of his black jacket and came out with a gun.

The adrenaline shot into Sinclair’s system. He simultaneously pulled the gear shift lever into drive as he keyed the handset of his portable radio and yelled into it. “Thirteen-L-Five, Code Thirty-Three.”

The dispatcher, hearing Sinclair’s excited voice, immediately responded. “Thirteen-L-Five, you have the air. What’s your nine-two-six?”

“Thirty-Second and Linden. Man with a gun. Two-forty-five in progress,” said Sinclair, using the code for assault with a deadly weapon, as he mashed the accelerator to the floor, rocketing directly toward Moore.

“Any units, two-forty-five in progress, Thirty-Second and Linden. Thirteen-L-Five on the scene,” the dispatcher relayed to all patrol officers in the sector.

By the time the first kid hit the ground from Moore’s blow, the other was several steps into a full sprint. Moore fired two shots at him before he disappeared from Sinclair’s view and then swung the gun back toward the one on the ground. Sinclair saw him lining up the barrel on the
motionless form on the ground as his car roared toward them.

Sinclair was bracing for the gunshot, when Moore suddenly turned toward the sound of the rental’s engine racing toward him. Sinclair knew that Moore only saw two headlights coming at him—the car and Sinclair invisible behind his high beams.

Moore swung the chrome handgun toward Sinclair’s car, and Sinclair jabbed the brake pedal and swung the steering wheel to the left. The tires fought against the ABS and the asphalt, and the car screeched and skidded sideways down the street. Sinclair ducked just as Moore’s gun spat out a fireball into the darkness, and the passenger window and windshield exploded, showering Sinclair with glass. The car jerked to a stop, and Sinclair rolled out of the driver’s door while smoothly drawing his Sig Sauer .45 from the leather holster under his windbreaker.

Sinclair poked his head over the hood. He was greeted with a bright muzzle flash and loud pop from less than fifty feet away. He ducked down, crawled to the front of his car, and peeked around the front bumper.

Moore was running. He crossed the sidewalk and onto the front yard of a house as Sinclair fired two quick shots toward him.

Sinclair jumped up and gave chase.

Moore was in full stride, crossing the small strip of crabgrass and weeds that pretended to be a front yard, and disappeared between two houses. As Sinclair sprinted across the sidewalk, he brought his portable radio to his mouth and yelled in short bursts through his heavy breathing. “Shots fired. At me. Suspect westbound through the yards.
Male black, twenty-two. Six-foot, one-sixty. Black jacket, blue jeans. Name—Alonzo Moore.”

The two houses were no more than fifteen feet apart. As Sinclair rounded the front corner of the first house, he saw a flash of movement disappearing over the fence. Two seconds later, he hit the fence with his left foot and catapulted himself over. He landed hard on both feet and scanned the backyard, seeing a dark form sprinting toward the far fence. Moore vaulted the six-foot wood fence without hardly slowing.

Sinclair sprinted across the yard, dodged an old Weber grill, and nearly tripped over a rusted tricycle in the dark. He grabbed the top of the fence and was ready to throw his right leg over but then stopped. There was no noise from the next yard.

He peeked over the decaying wood fence into another backyard, and a gunshot exploded in front of him. The bullet whizzed inches from his face.

He dropped back down, crouching behind the fence. His breathing came hard, his heart pounded.

A moment later, he heard the sound of splintering wood on the far side of the yard and peered over again. Overgrown weeds and junk covered the backyard. At the front of the lot sat an abandoned house. The back door swung on a broken hinge. “Thirteen-L-Five,” he whispered into his radio.

“Go ahead Thirteen-L-Five.”

“He made the first yard and turned north. I think he went into the rear door of a nine-oh-five house on Thirty-Second, between Linden and Filbert.”

“Copy. All units, suspect possibly entered abandoned house on Thirty-Second Street between Linden and Filbert.
First unit on the scene, advise,” the calm voice of the female dispatcher relayed.

Sinclair threw his right foot onto the top of the fence and gracefully swung himself over. He dropped softly to the ground in a crouch and listened. He heard the police sirens in the distance and a dog barking several houses away. An interior door banged against a wall inside the house.

He crossed the yard in a half crouch and stopped at the rear door. Fear and common sense told him to remain there and wait for the responding units. If Moore was smart—and no one survived on the streets of Oakland by being stupid—he would make his way out the front door and across the street before the patrol units got into position. However, if Sinclair moved to the front of the house, Moore could slip out the back and disappear before the units set a perimeter. Sinclair knew that one police officer cannot surround a house alone.

Sinclair stood there, hoping to hear Moore’s footsteps racing through the house and out the front door or to see his face in a window looking for an escape. The smell of rotting garbage piled outside the door filled his nostrils. The silence in the house told him that Moore was still inside, possibly lying in wait for someone fool enough to come in after him. Or he could be quietly moving toward the front, hoping to slip out and escape before more officers arrived.

Sinclair was not about to let Moore get away. There was a fine line separating courage and stupidity with cops, and Sinclair knew he was straddling it. He pulled a small Surefire flashlight from his pocket and slid it onto the accessory rails below the barrel of his pistol. He slowly opened the door and slipped inside the dark house.

He flicked the light on and swept his gun and the light beam around the small kitchen and then turned it off and moved against a wall. The kitchen opened into a small dining room with a closed door to the left. Sinclair had been inside old houses like this in Oakland many times and knew the door probably led to a short hallway and two bedrooms.

The stale air smelled of mold and cat urine. He stood there and listened. The sirens were getting closer, but the house was silent except for Sinclair’s breathing and his heart still pounding in his chest.

He took a deep, slow breath, held it for three counts, and slowly let it out, as he’d been taught years ago in the SWAT operator’s course. The slow, full breaths lowered his racing heartbeat. He repeated the combat breathing technique several more times and felt the calming effect.

The floor in the dining room creaked.

Sinclair crept forward, shifting his weight softly from foot to foot. He held his gun with both hands at a low ready with the light off. Defused light came in through the windows—enough to see the doorway and walls now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

Standing to the side of the doorway, he took three more slow, deep breaths and then moved quickly through the doorway, his gun up and sweeping across the room, the small flashlight mounted on his pistol illuminating the dining room.

A gunshot went off, its blast deafening due to the small room and its muzzle flash nearly blinding. Time slowed. Sinclair felt he was moving in slow motion.

He brought his gun up in the direction of the muzzle flash. Moore stood no more than five steps away and leveled his gun for a second shot.

Sinclair thrust his gun toward Moore and fired a double-tap, two shots as fast as he could pull the trigger.

The roar of his .45 was even louder than Moore’s gun, and the muzzle flashes lit up the small room like a strobe light.

The gun bucked twice in Sinclair’s hands from the recoil. He released the switch on his gun-mounted flashlight and the room became pitch dark.

He quietly moved across the room in the darkness and took another slow and deep breath. He awaited the onrush of pain, expecting to feel the warm, sticky, and wet sensation of blood oozing from his body.

Sinclair had been shot before and knew the adrenaline from the fight could mask the pain temporarily. Pain that would eventually come like a red-hot poker thrust deep into his body, every nerve ending screaming simultaneously, followed by a wave of overpowering weakness, and then unconsciousness as his body goes into shock.

He stood there for several counts, waiting for it.

It didn’t come. He felt nothing.

Moore’s bullet had missed.

Sinclair’s eyes scanned the far wall for movement, but he felt blind in the darkness after the muzzle flashes. He wanted to turn on his light again to see where Moore was, but he dared not give away his position.

Although he knew Moore might be right in front of him in the darkness, lining up his gun for another shot, he also felt safe surrounded by the darkness.

Slowly his night vision returned, and the shapes of a dining table, a hutch, and a five-foot-wide opening that led to the living room materialized.

“You muthafucka. You shot me.” The high-pitched voice came from the living room on the other side of the doorway.

“Alonzo, you shot at me first,” said Sinclair. “I would have been, what—the sixth person you killed?”

“Sinclair, it’s you who’s the killer. The
Tribune
say you killed two dudes before. You gonna kill me too?”

“Throw out your gun and you’ll live.”

“You shot it out of my hand. I ain’t got it.”

“You’re lying. Throw the gun toward me.”

“I ain’t fuckin’ with ya, man. The gat’s on the floor somewhere. It’s dark. I can’t see shit. I’m bleeding.”

Sinclair heard two sirens getting louder and then go silent. He knew that meant two patrol cars were pulling up. He switched on the flashlight attached to his Sig Sauer and approached the living room doorway.

Sinclair crept across the opening, his light illuminating the room in small slices as he moved. First he saw two feet with black tennis shoes. He inched forward and saw blue jeans and the bottoms of Moore’s legs on the filthy shag carpet.

Sinclair moved farther toward the center of the doorway.

At any second he expected to see the gun in Moore’s hand pointing at him. As he shuffled to his right, he saw Moore’s left hand resting on his belly, blood oozing through his fingers. Moore sat on the floor, leaning against a brown plaid sofa. The pistol was on the floor near his right knee. His right hand was on the floor an inch away.

“Don’t move,” ordered Sinclair as he stepped toward him, pointing his gun at the center of his chest.

Sinclair knew Moore could grab for the gun and get off a quick shot at him, maybe even before Sinclair could react.
Moore lay only two or three steps away. For a moment, Sinclair thought about taking those steps, reaching in with his left foot and sweeping the gun away. However, Moore could kick him as he moved, distracting him as he went for his gun, or just go straight for his gun as Sinclair moved and was off balance. Moore’s eyes bored into his, and Sinclair sensed the wheels turning in his head.

“Don’t move, Alonzo, it’s over,” said Sinclair, keeping the gun light trained on Moore’s chest.

“Shit, Sinclair. You got nothing on me.”

“How about attempted murder of a police officer and attempted murder of those two workers of yours you were about to kill?”

“Them boys ain’t gonna testify. And you ain’t in no police uniform. I tell the judge I think you some gangbanger trying to cap me. It’s self-defense.”

Sinclair kept his eyes on Moore’s right hand as it slowly inched toward the gun. “It’s over. Get your hands up.”

“Sinclair, you got no proof I killed nobody. But you—you the killer. Even the papers and TV news say so.”

Moore’s fingers continued to inch toward the gun. “Maybe I take a plea, do one, two years. But that’s all.”

Moore’s fingers stiffened—touched the gun. Sinclair waited for him to wrap his fingers around the gun but pulled the trigger before Moore could raise his gun.

*

Sinclair got up from his chair and walked to the hotel room window. The morning sun’s rays hit his face. The sky was clear, not a trace of morning fog. He felt his heartbeat slow.

Walt said nothing until Sinclair finally turned around and looked at him.

“I take it the department did a full investigation,” said Walt.

“The department and the DA’s office both ruled my shooting justifiable.”

Although the shooting was determined to be in self-defense, Sinclair’s superiors reprimanded him for his unauthorized surveillance of Moore and pursuing him into the yards and the abandoned house at night alone. They said it was stupid, foolish, and dangerous. Sinclair couldn’t disagree. If the media hadn’t gotten hold of the story and made Sinclair out as a hero, he knew he would have faced major disciplinary action; however, it would have been a PR nightmare for the department to do anything other than accept the accolades from the community for taking a vicious killer off the streets.