Sons of the City (39 page)

And I was thinking, here I am, chasing a couple of scumbags down an alley. I’ve done this a million times before—going after muggers, purse-snatchers, shoplifters, burglars. This is the same thing, except now the scumbags happen to be Bravelli and Canaletto. It felt good, being so sure about what I was doing. It was like I had been a fish out of water, and for a long time I had been flopping around, gasping for breath. Now I had flipped back into the water, and I was swimming around, big smile on my fish face. And then I thought, North, you asshole, you’re about to get killed, and all you can think about is that you’re a fucking fish.

Where the hell were Bravelli and Canaletto? They had to still be in the alley. Maybe they had knocked on a door, got let in to the back of a store. But it was Sunday, all the stores were closed. Besides, they hadn’t been in the alley that long—it would have taken a while for someone to answer a knock, we would have seen something. No, the motherfuckers were here. I glanced up and realized I was directly below Doc’s secret lookout. Too bad he wasn’t there now to help us.

We moved quickly, staying low, and almost before we realized it, we were halfway through the alley. Could they really have run this far? I glanced back the way we had come. Had we gone past them, missed them in a doorway? There were a lot of nooks and crannies. Nick was still directly across the alley from me, fifteen feet away. We were both crouched behind Dumpsters. He looked at me, I knew he was thinking the same thing—maybe we had gone too far. If they were behind us now, we’d be easy targets.

Forward or backward, Nick asked with his gun hand. I pointed my gun hand toward the alley ahead of us. As I stood up from behind my Dumpster I heard a sharp crack, and at the same instant a sledgehammer pounded into my chest, and I was flat on my back, looking up at rain gutters and blue sky. I couldn’t breathe, it was like my whole chest was paralyzed. I’ve been shot, I thought, Jesus, I’ve been shot. I tried to draw in a breath but I couldn’t do it, I was running out of oxygen. I put my hand on my chest. I felt the tear in my shirt, and through it the torn nylon of my vest, and my fingers felt the slug, still hot, embedded in the vest.

I turned my head toward Nick, he was looking at me in panic. I wanted to tell him just stay where he was, but he jumped out in the open, toward me, and there was another crack, and he spun around and fell back against the wall. I tried to yell, but I couldn’t.

There was another shot, and pieces of concrete sprayed my face. I tried to look down the alley, and I thought, shit, I’m laying half out in the open. I drew in a breath and felt a sharp pain. I had to get back behind the Dumpster, out of the way. I turned on my side and raised myself up on one elbow, and I saw Canaletto step from a doorway. My hands were empty—where was my gun? I felt around behind me on the sidewalk, nothing, just broken glass. Canaletto was calmly walking toward me.

I pushed myself up so that I was half sitting now and I looked around and I still couldn’t see my gun, where was it, where was my fucking gun? I turned my head and there was Canaletto, three steps away, his arms outstretched, the dark hole of his gun barrel staring at me, its empty eye asking, Are you ready? And I thought of Michelle. It was too bad I wouldn’t get the chance to spend more time with her, I would have liked that.

I looked at Canaletto and tried to say “Fuck you,” but I could only mouth the words and then he started to smile and then the side of his head burst open, and he looked at me as if to ask, What just happened? and then he fell straight back.

Nick was half standing, both hands holding his gun, still pointing it at the spot where Canaletto had been. Then there were two quick shots, and Nick’s body jerked, and again he was thrown back against the wall, and now he was sitting up against it, like some drunk in an alley, there was blood pouring from his neck, and his shirt was turning dark red. Oh, my God, I thought, this can’t be happening, Nick’s going to die in this alley, we’re both going to die in this fucking alley.

I had to get to Nick, I had to get over there to try to stop the bleeding. I tried to raise myself up and my hand slipped under the Dumpster and I felt my gun, I grabbed it. I got up on one knee, my chest was still killing me, but I was able to breathe now. I was getting my equilibrium. I touched the bullet in my vest again. It hadn’t broken through the Kevlar, I could tell that. It hadn’t pierced my skin.

A shot hit the metal by my head and ricocheted somewhere into the alley. Bravelli had to be close by. I edged back along the wall and stuck my head up over the Dumpster. There were some cardboard boxes piled high, and I peeked through a gap between the two top ones. There was a doorway, ten feet away. Had to be where he was.

I held my gun with both hands and aimed at the doorway. C’mon, motherfucker, I thought, c’mon out. There was movement in the doorway, and I saw Bravelli’s head appear. I squeezed the trigger. The shot kicked into the bricks just past the doorway. Jesus, I had missed by three feet.

As I was thinking of what to do next, he suddenly came out of the doorway firing two shots at me, driving me down, and I heard his quick footsteps—he was running. By the time I was able to look for him again, he had disappeared. He had probably run only a short distance, to get better cover. But there were still doorways and Dumpsters all over the place, and now I had no idea where the fuck he was.

Nick was still sitting against the wall, hands at his sides, his eyes closed. I looked at his bloody blue police shirt, trying to tell whether his chest was moving at all. It was, he was definitely breathing.

“Nick,” I yelled.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me.

“Hey, Eddie.”

“Take it easy, Nicky, I’ll get you help.”

“I got him, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did good, Nicky.”

“Got that fuckin’ asshole.”

“Yeah, you got him, Nicky. You saved my ass.”

“Told ya, Eddie. Told ya I’d make it up to ya.” He smiled again.

“Just hang on, Nicky.”

“It’s OK, Eddie. Everything’s OK now.”

I needed to get him help right away. All these shots being fired, hadn’t anyone heard and called the police? Sagiliano’s was probably the only place on the alley with people inside today, and they certainly weren’t going to get us help. But the shots were echoing into the air. People had to be hearing them.

I stood up and raised my gun over the Dumpster. I saw a flash from another doorway, on the other side of the alley, and the bullet hit somewhere, I didn’t know where. I fired five shots at the doorway, and then three more as I sidestepped across the alley toward Nick. It was hard for me to move fast, but I was able to get behind Nick’s Dumpster and kneel down. I could hear footsteps again, and I stood up and saw Bravelli’s back and I fired four more shots. They all missed, and again he disappeared.

I turned back to Nick. His eyes had closed again. I grabbed his wrist and felt for his pulse. Nothing, I couldn’t find it. One side of his neck was covered with blood, I could see a bullet hole. I put my fingers on the other side of his neck. No pulse.

I laid him down on the sidewalk and started to give him CPR, but when I pressed his chest, blood just came out of his neck. Got to get him help, I thought, got to get him help. But I knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Nick was gone. All I could think of was. How am I going to tell Aunt Janet?

I checked my gun, pulling out the clip. Almost empty. I unsnapped the leather clip holder on my gun belt, pulled out a fresh clip, and snapped it into the gun. I had seventeen bullets, including the one in the chamber, and I wanted every one I could get.

How many rounds did Bravelli have left? I counted each shot he had fired. At least five. Six, if the one that had hit me was his. If he had a semiautomatic like mine, that meant he had at least ten left.

There had to be a way to get him. Each time I fired, I had driven him back. Maybe if I fired as I advanced, I could keep him pinned down.

It was worth a try. I came out from behind the Dumpster and started walking toward the doorway, firing as I went, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM. It was working—I was getting closer, and he couldn’t fire back.

But something was happening, the pain in my chest was coming back, sharper now, each time I fired. I knew what it was: after the adrenaline had kicked in, I had been almost normal for a couple of minutes, like a football player who can stay on the field even after a serious injury. But now I was beginning to feel it, and with each shot the reverberation was like a mule-kick to my chest. And it was slowing me down.

I had to keep firing to keep Bravelli pinned, but I was going too slowly, I was going to run out of bullets before I got to him. There’d be no time to reload. I had to get there faster. Each time I pulled the trigger, I counted how many rounds I had left—eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven. I was still too far away. I’d never make it. It seemed like forever, the steady BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, I knew I was moving but I didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

Still no sirens. A million shots and no one calls the police—what kind of neighborhood was this?

Six left, BLAM, five, BLAM, four, BLAM, three, BLAM, two, BLAM. Only one left. There was no way. I couldn’t make it. I was dead.

Bravelli’s gun flew out of the doorway, onto the pavement at my feet. What the fuck? Both his arms appeared around the corner. He was showing me he had nothing in his hands. I couldn’t believe it, he was giving up. He stepped from the doorway, hands high in the air.

“OK, I fuckin’ give up, OK? Don’t fuckin’ shoot, all right? Don’t fuckin’ shoot.”

I glanced down on the pavement at his gun. Six-shot revolver. The asshole had run out of bullets. No wonder he was trying to get away. He stepped into the middle of the alley, hands in the air.

And I was thinking, If there was ever a time in the history of the world when a cop could get away with killing someone, this was it. No witnesses, just me and Bravelli, and Bravelli would be dead.

He had just murdered a cop, so I’d be the hero, I’d get all kinds of fucking medals. This was what I had dreamed about all along. Killing Bravelli and getting away with it, killing him because he deserved to be killed. There was still one bullet in my gun. That would be plenty.

Bravelli was starting to get uneasy. “Just lock me up, all right?” He put his hands behind his back. “Just put the cuffs on, I ain’t going to give you no trouble.”

Fuck the cuffs. If he went to trial, he’d come up with some “witnesses” who would say that he and Canaletto were just walking down the alley, minding their own business. And he would strut out of the courtroom and laugh in my face.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” I said aloud.

Bravelli didn’t know what I was talking about, but I could tell he was starting to get scared.

“Nobody’s coming to help you,” I said. “You’re all alone.”

“You can’t shoot me, I surrender. You can’t shoot an unarmed man. That ain’t justice.”

I aimed the gun at Bravelli’s forehead. “Yeah? I’m gonna make my own justice.”

Why did I say that? That’s what Homicide had said, right before Donna was lying there dead with her eyes looking into nothing. I’m not that asshole, I thought, I’m not anything like that asshole. This isn’t the same thing—this is real justice.

And then I thought of Nick, going through the world making his own justice, too. I remembered how we had both waited outside Lucky’s for Bravelli, so much alike. Blood brothers. Now, it was almost as if it were Nick, not me, standing here, ready to put a bullet in Bravelli’s head. I was getting everything mixed up.

Shake it off, I told myself. Just kill Bravelli. Just kill him.

But I saw the crowd again, all around us on Locust Street. Only now I was part of it, thirsting for blood, for a feast of raw death. I tried to break away, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t get back into myself, back to the alley where I was standing. If I pulled the trigger I was going to kill Donna, I was going to kill Steve, I was going to kill everybody.

I lowered the gun, and as I did I gradually came back into the alley, into myself. Bravelli was there crying, tears coming from his eyes. There was a big wet spot on his pants, he had fucking pissed himself.

“Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me,” he kept crying, over and over again, like a little boy.

With my free hand, I got out my handcuffs. “Lie down on the ground, face first,” I ordered. He did it real quick.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

Still pointing my gun at his head, I snapped the cuffs on his left wrist, then his right.

“Get up,” I said.

He got on his feet. And as he straightened, I switched the gun to my left hand, and with my right made a fist and drilled it into the side of his head. My chest hurt, like I had been hit myself, a real sharp pain, and I dropped to one knee. Bravelli staggered backward, then tripped. With no way to catch himself, he fell, face first. I stood up and walked over to him and grabbed the handcuff chain behind his back.

“Get the fuck up.”

Again, the moment he straightened, I hit his face with all my might, and he went down again, onto his ass. It felt good, it felt real good, I didn’t mind my own pain that time.

“Get the fuck up,” I said.

He just sat there.

“You got two choices, pal,” I said. “My fist or my gun. Which do you want?”

He slowly got back on his feet. He was still bending over, on his way up, when my fist pounded into his right eye. He staggered back and somehow stayed on his feet, so I hit him again, in the mouth. He staggered back again, and looked like he was thinking of bolting. I raised my gun at his head, and he froze. His face was covered with blood, from above his eye, from his nose, from his mouth. His pretty face didn’t look so fucking pretty now.

I finally put my gun back in my holster. Bravelli seemed to relax a little, but I drew my arm back and put all my weight, everything I had, into the next punch, right into his jaw. I heard a crack, it was one of the greatest sounds I ever heard, his fucking jaw cracking. A searing pain ripped through my chest, but it was worth it, and I fell to the ground at the same time Bravelli fell. I thought I had knocked him out, and I lay there watching him, but after a few seconds, he opened his eyes.