The Abbey (22 page)

I turned pages slowly as the implication sunk in. Karen had a cop on the payroll, and whoever he was, he wasn’t a rank–and–file officer. She had someone with access to personnel files. That meant Captain or above, which meant I had stepped into something way over my pay grade. That’s when I heard it.

Crunching glass.

Sunshine had new visitors.

According to my watch, I had been inside for twelve minutes. That was a pretty good response time if someone had called the police. Knowing what went on in the place, I doubted I was about to run into my colleagues, though. I extinguished my Maglite and grabbed my gun, sweat dripping down my neck and back.

Without a flashlight, the building’s interior was almost too dark to navigate. I could see the edges of walls, but that was about it. I crept into the hallway, hoping my footsteps weren’t really as loud as they seemed. None of the new arrivals said anything, but I heard their feet plod forward softer than they had before. A thin, opaque wall separated us. Six inches of insulation, drywall and building studs. It wasn’t much protection.

My muscles felt tight, and I had to fight the urge to spring forward, gun blazing. I paused against the wall, my breath coming in tight bursts. As I did that, I heard a shrill buzz, and then the air conditioner kicked on, creating a slight breeze that carried a whiff of gasoline. The air conditioner masked my footsteps, so I crept across the hallway and peeked around the corner. There were two men in the lobby; I couldn’t see one well, but the other carried a subcompact machine gun. I only caught a glimpse of it, but it looked like an MP5. Our
SWAT
guys carried them on missions. It was fast, accurate, and definitely not what I wanted to see at that moment.

I crept forward to see if I could get behind the receptionist’s desk for better cover. As if sensing my presence, the guy with the machine gun looked over. Our eyes locked at the same time, but he was the first to act. Automatic gunfire ripped through the lobby. I dove and landed flat on my Maglite. Pain ripped across my ribcage, while bullets pierced the drywall around me like paper. They thwacked into the receptionist’s desk, causing shards of particle board to smack into my face. I stopped thinking. The world only had three things at that moment. Me and the two shooters.

The shooters yelled at each other, but it wasn’t English. I army crawled back to Karen’s office for cover and squeezed three shots into the lobby. Glass broke and a bullet ricocheted against something metal. I knew I wasn’t going to hit anything, but I needed room to breathe. If they thought I was unarmed, they’d storm the corner, and there was no way I could win a toe–to–toe fight against two guys with automatics.

One of the shooters returned fire in controlled, three–shot bursts. The bullets smashed through the drywall inches above my head, causing my eyes to sting with sweat and dust. The gasoline smell I caught earlier became stronger, almost overpoweringly so. I realized something, then. They didn’t need to shoot me; they needed to keep me contained long enough to light the place up.

It was too dark to see clearly, but I could see shapes with my peripheral vision. I cast my eyes about the hallway, hoping I’d missed a window or emergency door earlier. I didn’t have that kind of luck, though. My body tingled, signaling that it was ready to move at a moment’s notice. I ducked my head around the corner to note the relative positions of the men.

My flashlight had served me well for a few years, but I’d rather lose it than my life. I crouched and threw it into the lobby. The heavy Maglite clanged against the far wall. The guy with the MP5 turned and fired at the noise. I fired five shots at his muzzle flare. In a movie, his finger would get stuck on the trigger, and he’d fall back, firing at random. Reality isn’t like that. He thudded against the ground. I stepped around the corner, my weapon in front of me, searching for the second guy.

For a moment, the world moved impossibly fast. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline. I saw a blur as the second shooter ran towards the exit. Before reaching it, he stopped, flicked open a Zippo lighter, and threw it at the seating area on the far side of the room.

The gas smell disappeared, and the air was ripped out of my lungs as a fireball engulfed the sofa, love seat, and carpet near the door. The top layer of my skin felt as if I were under a broiler. I didn’t have enough oxygen to breathe anymore. I had to move.

As I crossed the room, I spotted the guy I shot sprawled out in front of the receptionist’s desk. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Attempted murderer or not, I couldn’t let him burn to death. That wasn’t right. I bent at my knees and hoisted him on my shoulder. He was heavy, but I was running on adrenaline and barely felt his weight. My ribs throbbed dully where I landed on the flashlight. I coughed, nearly choking on black smoke.

I sprinted across the lobby, my lungs and throat burning. The room hadn’t seemed that long earlier, but two hundred pounds of dead weight and a fire can change perceptions. By the time I reached the door, the second gunman was peeling out in a Ford Mustang. The drywall and other building materials around me were catching fire, and black smoke billowed out around me. I stepped outside and sucked air. My legs shook, but before they gave out, I dumped my new friend on the hood of my car. The son of a bitch was probably going to leave a dent. At least it’d blend in with the others. He moaned, but said nothing coherent.

I slipped my gun into my holster and coughed so hard I nearly vomited as my lungs tried to expel whatever black matter had entered them. I breathed deeply, trying to catch my breath, and leaned on the hood. Pain coursed through my body every time I exhaled. It felt as if I had just run a marathon. As I stood panting, a rapid series of bangs erupted from inside the building. I jumped. Pain blasted through my side once again. The gunman’s hands were empty. He must have left his weapon inside, and unless I missed my mark, the rounds he hadn’t fired had cooked off. Thankfully nothing flew out at us.

We stayed for a few minutes like that. The heat was powerful enough that I could have roasted marshmallows from thirty feet away. Flame licked the aluminum siding around Sunshine’s front door. The roof would catch soon, and once that happened, the fire would be noticeable for miles around. Unless I got out of there quickly, I was going to have company.

I dragged the semi–conscious guy from my hood and pulled him onto my back seat. He gasped, and I got my first good look at him. He was probably thirty and had sunken cheeks and a star tattooed on his neck. I had shot him in the arm and shoulder, so his wounds weren’t immediately life threatening. If he got help, his biggest fear was an infection. And me, of course. I slapped him around until his eyes focused on me.

“You got someone you can call?”

He nodded, so I threw him my cell phone and climbed into the driver’s seat. I didn’t know much about my passenger, but I doubted he was on Karen Rea’s payroll. Drug dealers don’t often burn down their own facilities. More likely, he worked for a competitor. I tilted my rear–view mirror so I could see him. His chest bobbed up and down, so I knew he was alive even if he didn’t otherwise move.

I exited the complex and floored the accelerator. The road was so dark that I couldn’t see more than ten feet to my left and right, making me feel as if I were in a tunnel. Despite the fact that I was driving away from it, the orange glow in my rear–view mirror grew brighter and larger. My engine throbbed its way to ninety where I held it steady. The news about the fire hit my police radio when I was three or four miles out. Several units from the State Police radioed that they were en route a moment later. No one mentioned gunfire or fleeing suspects, so I was probably safe for the moment.

The first police cruiser blasted past with its lights blazing and siren wailing about five minutes later. A pair of fire trucks trailed not far afterward, rocking my cruiser in their slipstream. No ambulance followed, but that was just as well. If someone had been stuck in Sunshine, he would have long since been burned to a cinder.

I slowed down as houses replaced the soybean fields. As I got closer to town, the yards shrank, and the houses bunched together to form small neighborhoods. By the time I reached a sign announcing that I was in Plainfield proper, the street had widened from two lanes to four and sodium lamps illuminated the blacktop. Car dealerships, shopping centers, and restaurants eventually choked off whatever greenery there might have once been, leaving me surrounded by concrete as far as I could see.

My phone beeped as my passenger finally dialed. He whispered, but when he finished he barked the name of a bar I didn’t recognize before passing out. I twisted around and grabbed my phone from his curled fingers. With one hand on the wheel and one eye on the road, I searched through my phone’s memory for the last number. I redialed and started talking as soon as someone picked up on the other end.

“Who the fuck is this?” I asked.

“Who is this?”

The speaker’s voice was slow, and his accent was Slavic. I’d heard that voice on wiretaps a few times before. Generally speaking, Indianapolis didn’t have major crime syndicates like Chicago or New York. Our criminals were mostly disorganized, loosely–affiliated gangs. Still, there were rumors of organized figures muscling their way in. Most of those rumors turned out to be false or highly exaggerated, but one rumor refused to disappear. Konstantin Bukoholov. By all appearances, he was a wealthy, respectable businessman with interests in bars and clubs across town. If the rumors were true, though, the illicit portion of his business empire stretched from prostitution to murder for hire. He was a regular hero for our downtrodden criminal class and a favorite role model for many lawyers across town.

“I’m the guy with your buddy on my back seat. The one he tried to shoot.”

Bukoholov was silent for a moment. Plainfield’s main strip was dead at that time of night, but its stoplights were still as bright and as numerous as ever. I pulled to a stop as one turned red.

“What do you want?”

I breathed through my nose deeply and ground my teeth again. My dentist would probably never forgive me for that.

“Just some directions.”

Bukoholov never confirmed his identity, but he gave me directions to a part of the city I rarely ventured into. Fifty years ago, it would have been a thriving industrial center. Now it was a dump. Most of its buildings were old warehouses with broken windows and boarded–up doors.

As soon as I got off the interstate, I locked my doors and turned on my high beams so I could see the area better. I spotted two homeless men, one apparently slept, while the other received the attention of one of the area’s many prostitutes. At least he wasn’t spending his money on liquor.

I glanced in my rear–view mirror at the guy on my back seat. He skin was ashen, and his breathing was shallow. He hadn’t died yet, which was nice. I thought about dumping him on a corner and calling his boss but decided better of it. The people in that neighborhood could probably strip a corpse faster than they could strip a car. The guy’d be dead of exposure before his boss could even get to him.

I pulled up to the address my caller had given me and parked alongside the building. The curb was painted yellow, but I figured parking tickets were the least of my worries if a cop happened to come by. I undid my seat belt. The guy behind me moaned, so I looked in the mirror at him. His eyes fluttered.

“Don’t go anywhere,” I said, opening my door. He moaned again, but I ignored him and stepped out of my car. The street smelled like sulfur and exhaust. I locked my car before slamming the door shut and stepping onto the sidewalk. Bukoholov had directed me to a bar called the Lucky Bastard Saloon. I hadn’t heard of it before, which meant
IMPD
probably wasn’t keeping it under regular surveillance. Knowing what I did about its proprietor, though, I doubted
IMPD
was the only law enforcement agency interested in his activities.

I kept my head down and stepped toward the bar. The front door had a metal frame with glass panels painted black. I noticed a bullet hole in the bottom with broken glass shards radiating away from it in a sunburst pattern. I pulled the door open and held it to air the place out. The smell of liquor, sweat, and cigarettes wafted outside.

The main room was about half–full. There were maybe ten tables, a handful of booths along the walls, and a long wooden bar directly in front of the door. There were no glittering bottles of expensive liquor or flatscreen televisions. The Lucky Bastard wasn’t the sort of place its patrons went for a drink after work. It was the sort of bar you visited to get drunk, a state that most of its patrons were well on their way toward. I walked toward the bar. Most of the men I passed had more tattoos than clean skin, and all had rough, calloused hands. They were the men who made our city hum along, and their glares told me I wasn’t welcome.

I ground my teeth and ignored them, walking towards the bar. The bartender’s shoulders were broad enough that he probably had to turn sideways to make it through the average doorway, and he had faded black tattoos on both of his wrists. One was an elaborate star; the other looked like a knife tearing the flesh. If I had seen them on an American, I would have thought they were prison tattoos. Something told me this guy wasn’t domestic, though. He leered at me. His top front teeth were chipped, and his nose had clearly been broken and never fixed.

“This is a private club. You’re not welcome here.”

The guy’s accent was as thick as Bukoholov’s, but his voice was high, almost nasally. I fanned my jacket, exposing my sidearm; the bartender didn’t raise an eyebrow.

“Give me a shot and tell your boss that his guest is here.”

The bartender leaned back on his heels and stared at me for a moment. Eventually, he nodded grudgingly and reached beneath the bar. When he stood upright again, he held an empty shot glass and a half–empty bottle of Russian vodka. He put them both on the bar top.

“Wait here.”