Death of an Escort (15 page)

The problem was I wouldn't get to talk to
this guy, but there was the other one still in the parking lot.
That is supposing I hadn't killed him with my kicking.

The cops had hauled the guy to his feet. One
of them started walking in my direction. His gun was out.

"Hey!" he yelled. "I can see you. Stand
up!"

I didn't. I didn't think he could really see
me yet. He was trying to flush me out.

"Stand up!" he commanded. "Don't make me
shoot at you. Get up and let me see your hands."

I put my hands up and stood slowly.

"Walk slowly towards the car," he said.

I did, but I let my hands slide down to a
normal position.

"Get your hands up!"

I didn't.

"Get them up now!" he was starting to sound a
little frantic.

I stopped walking. "Or what? You're going to
shoot me?"

"Accidents happen," he said through his
teeth.

"I'm not the one you want," I said. "He was
shooting at me."

"We'll go down to the station and sort this
out," he said. "Now get your hands up!"

"No," I said.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.
The other cop was pulling something out of his belt. A taser.

I turned my head to him. "Are you going to
shoot me with that?"

"You are resisting an officer," he
responded.

"Fine, fine," I said. I put my hands back
up.

"Move to the car," he said.

I did.

One showed me how to stand next to it so I
could be searched. He showed me the correct posture from a safe
distance away, on the other side of the car.

I took the position with my hands against the
body of the car and my feet spread apart.

The other one came up behind me. "Do you have
any ID on you?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Where is it?"

"Find it," I said.

The cop sighed. "Do you have any weapons on
you?"

"Yes," I said.

"What?" He sounded surprised.

"Brass knuckles," I said.

"Really?" He sounded like he didn't believe
me. "Those are illegal. Where are they?"

"You're going to search me. Find them
yourself," I said.

He put a hand on the back of my head and
smashed it into the top of the trunk of the car.

"Look punk, I'm not in the mood for
this."

Before his hand let go, I had reached up and
gotten it. In a quickly executed Hapkido move, I had him on his
knees and in extreme pain.

All I had was his wrist and the palm of his
hand. It was twisted up at a weird angle. The cop backing him up
didn't have time to react.

"Get your other hand up," I said. He didn't.
I tweaked his wrist further.

Chapter 14

"Aww! Okay, okay, okay, okay. It's up. Easy!"
His other hand came up.

I could snap both bones in his arm from the
position I had him in. Also most of my body was covered behind his
kneeling figure.

The other cop looked confused. He wasn't sure
what all had happened. He had his weapon out, but he wasn't
pointing it at us. He pushed a button on his radio and began
calling for backup.

I was going to have to move fast now.

Cops had never been a favorite of mine. They
get in the way far more often than they do any good. And the good
they do is usually by accident. Cops were troublemakers, and
because of that I didn't feel bad about what I did next.

I gave a sharp twist to the cop's wrist. Both
bones audibly snapped, and he screamed. I let my body drop as he
was collapsing, but I got my fingers around his service weapon in
his holster.

The other cop started to bring his up, but
slowly, still unsure and not wanting to shoot his buddy.

I had no such issues, and as soon as I had
the gun free, I shot at him.

The first missed, but the second took him off
his feet. Hopefully, he was wearing Kevlar.

I turned the gun on the back of the car where
the guy who was chasing me was.

I shot the gun through the window. It
shattered and a shard caught me on the arm. It started
bleeding.

It would have been smarter to step back, or
open the door.

I opened it now. He cowered against the other
door.

"No, dude. Don't," he said.

I did. Three forty caliber bullets ripped his
body apart, and then tore through the door he was cowering
against.

The other cop was starting to sit up. I
walked over to him, and disarmed him. Then I shot him in the chest
again.

I wiped each piece clean that I'd touched,
and holding them with the edge of my shirt, I tossed them off the
road.

Then I wiped the car where I'd put my hands.
I wiped the back door handle too.

I found my gun lying in the grass close to
the edge of the road. The guy must have dropped it when the cops
stopped.

After all that, I jogged back up to my car.
The other guy was still there, and out like a light, but he was
alive.

Using the chain, I bound him and put him in
the trunk of the car. I got into the car and called my wife using
my disposable cell to call her disposable cell.

I had to call twice before she picked up.

"Hello?" she said tiredly.

"I'm not coming home tonight," I said.

"What?" She sounded concerned.

"I've had something come up. Business I had
to take care of," I said.

"You're not coming home?"

"No," I said.

"Please be safe," she said.

"I will. Goodnight," I said and hung up.

Then I drove away and headed out of town to
an abandoned area. Somewhere where no one was.

Somewhere where someone could scream and
scream and no one would hear.

Several hours later, I drove alone back into
town. It was very early morning now. It would be best if I wasn't
questioned by cops now. Given that, I drove under the speed limit
by three miles per hour.

My clothes were blood stained, but it wasn't
my blood. He'd been tougher than I expected. In the end, he
revealed nothing. I had to believe him. No one experiences the pain
I gave him and still uselessly clings to a lie.

Of course, that left the whole question
unanswered. Who had they been working for? The most reasonable
answer was Mickey, and that was the answer I was going with.
Despite the fact that I was unable to prove it.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to ghost the
other one in the backseat of the police car. Maybe he would have
known something.

Speaking of that, I was going to have to make
a confession for the killing. In a way, it had been in
self-defense. But, it wasn't completely necessary. I knew that.

In a day or two, I'd have to confess for the
death of the other punk that jumped me. The way I left him, and
where I left him, he'd be dead in less than twenty-four hours.

The scary part: I felt no regret. Normal
people can't do that. They can't kill someone and walk away like
nothing happened. A sociopath can do that, but a normal person
can't.

I can, and that means I'm nothing close to
normal. That scared me. I wanted normalcy, but I couldn't have
it.

Feeling tired, I turned the radio on to help
myself stay awake and on the road. An early morning news broadcast
was what I picked up first.

The newscaster said, "Breaking news this
morning, police are investigating a shooting and homicide on the
east side of town outside of the Lehman Business Park. Also, one
police officer was shot, but it is reported that he is expected to
make a full recovery. Anyone with any further information is urged
to contact the police department's twenty-four hour tip
hotline."

The guy on the radio droned on, but I tuned
him out. I was thankful the cop I shot was okay. The other would
probably have to have surgery to repair his arm.

There was a twinge of guilt about breaking
the guy's arm. That made me happy. Weird, I know, but at least I
have something of a conscience left.

Another thirty minutes went by. I drove right
past where the incident happened. It was cleaned up, but there was
an unmarked car and several people poking around the edge of the
road.

The sun hadn't really risen yet, and so they
had to use flashlights to help them search for whatever they were
looking for.

If nothing else, this should send a clear
message to Mickey to leave me alone. I was more than he can handle.
He's small potatoes as far as I was concerned.

I've had far better people try it, and none
had succeeded yet.

But in terms of the whole murder/suicide
investigation, he was still a very good suspect.

On a whim, I pulled into the office parking
lot of my building. The only other vehicle in the lot was a van
from an HVAC company.

My brain was fuzzy from a lack of sleep, but
I felt the need to get some clarity before letting myself get some
much needed rest. I parked and got out and stretched. Good thing it
was early and no one else was around. Looking down at my clothes,
it looked like I'd murdered someone.

More or less, I had.

I let myself into the building and walked up
the darkened stairs. It wasn't completely dark. Barely enough light
illuminated the hall and stairs. I'm sure the building owner was
required to have that by law for safety reasons.

I walked down the upstairs hall to my suite
or small office and let myself in. Inside there was a glow from the
streetlights below casting a ghostly light in the office. My
windows look out over the main highway.

I flipped the light switch on.

Light was everywhere. Too much light. I
didn't hear an explosion, but there had to be one.

The windows shattered and dropped like
sparkly confetti on the street below. Pain covered me like a
blanket. I was up sideways on the wall. I slid down and hit the
floor. And then I blacked out.

* * * * *

Beep, beep, beep.

It was an annoying sound. I opened my eyes.
Everything looked strange. There was an off-white or cream hue to
everything.

Slowly, I realized that I was lying in a bed.
Looking to one side and then the other, I saw chrome handles that
boxed me in.

Up above my head, a bag of liquid hung, and a
tube ran from it and snaked its way down to my hand.

I held my hand up. It was bandaged, and the
IV ran right into it.

I was in a hospital. Why?

What had happened? Oddly, nothing before this
moment was clear to me. My impulse was to sit up, but I checked
myself.

I didn't know why I was here, or anything
else for that matter. It was best to lie still and figure it out
for the moment.

I searched my memory for what had happened
before I woke up here. Nothing came to me.

Then I remembered the shooting at the
business park. Had I been shot? I didn't remember getting shot. No,
that wasn't it. I had taken that other guy out to the country and
beat the snot out of him.

After that I came back into town and went
home . . . or did I? I didn't remember ever getting home. Attacked
on the way? That didn't seem likely.

A little panic crept into my mind. What if
this was them? Had they done this?

For a moment, I panicked.

But I calmed myself down with the thought
that I was still alive. A nurse's face bobbed into my vision
overhead.

"Hello," she said. "You're awake now."

My only response was to blink,
involuntarily.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine," I said. My voice sounded more like it
came from a frog than from me.

"You need some water," she said. She picked
up a cup with a straw in it and held it to my lips. I drank half of
the liquid.

"Do you remember what happened?"

"Yes," I lied.

"Are you able to speak with a police officer?
They've wanted to talk to you."

"Okay," I said. She left.

Moments later a police officer was bending
down over me. He was wearing his cap and full uniform, but he
looked tired, like he'd been up a long time.

"Ray?" he asked.

"Yes," I said softly.

"I need to get your account of what
happened."

"Okay," I said. What had happened?

A nurse turned the light on and the room
brightened. The memory came back to me then. I flinched as if I was
in pain, remembering. The almost inaudible clicking of the light
switch brought it all back.

"What do you remember?" the officer
asked.

"I was going to my office—"

"What time?" he interrupted.

"It was early."

"Why? Is that the normal time you go there?"
His questioning method was aggressive.

"No," I said. "I'd been out all night."

"Doing what?"

"None of your business," I said.

He frowned. "It might be."

"I was out all night on business. I'm a
private investigator."

"I know what you are, Ray. What were you
investigating last night?"

"Officer," I said. "I'm not going to tell you
what I was doing last night. I was working on an assignment. That's
all."

"Okay," he said. "So you went to your office
at an abnormal time."

"I did," I said. "And I went inside the
building."

"Did you notice anything odd or out of
place?"

"No . . . yes," I said. "There was a heating
and air conditioning work van in the parking lot."

"Why was that odd?"

"What were they doing there at that time? I'd
never seen that contractor there before."

The policeman nodded and made notes. "What
was the name of the company on the van?"

"I don't remember for sure. It was a white
van with black, block lettering. I think it was 'Township HVAC',
but I'm not totally sure," I said.

"Hmm," he said and made some notes. "What do
you remember next?"

"I went into my office. I turned the lights
on."