Chapter 4

Now, the news anchors and their writers really were confused about how to cast my story. The three pimps were also drug and gun runners. I had just missed an ATF and FBI raid by about an hour. These three men were bad news, no matter how they were depicted. The locals agreed that Nyx was not so bad after all, and, just maybe, had been misjudged in their previous reports. The warrant against me was still outstanding, but I got the distinct impression that the police were not making any great effort to find Nyx. Of course, Oprah never said any more, nor made any effort to retract any of the bad things said about Nyx. OK, I had to admit that I just was not politically correct.

I was not as pissed off as I had been, so I backed off on my shoot-to-kill attitude. I could see the tension go out of Martha when I told her that. I put the Glock G31 into safe storage in case I ever needed it, but I had no plans for it right now. As things stood, I would go back to my previous modus operandi and stick with the spikes in my shoes and the baton to subdue my enemies. Either one could easily kill if I wanted them to, but I was less bloodthirsty now.

This looked like a good time to take another look at the Tom Cats. I had no better lead than the one I had used the last time, so I paid another call on my friends at Boston Samaritans. I got a look at a delivery schedule which happened to be the same route that I had been following when I was attacked nearly a year ago. This could be the key to finding the men I was especially looking for.

I staked out the last scheduled delivery point and waited for something to happen. Well, I was sorely disappointed! I could not spot anyone whom I could imagine would be the shadow for the delivery person. Either the shadow was too good at concealment for me, or the shadow had taken off before the end of the route. Frankly, considering the people involved, I was sure that the latter was the true reason. Since the whole thing was a put up job, lax or no coverage was to be expected. This immediately suggested to me that I should perform some mischief to embarrass the "protectors," forcing them to show up as advertised.

Well, I didn't want to hurt my friends, so I would look at all other possibilities before I went that way. Nevertheless, if that was the only way to get a solid lead, that's what I would do.

I went home, sorely disappointed. I moped around until Martha couldn't take it any longer and said, "Honey, you are just in too much of a hurry. No big problem has an easy solution. All you can do is keep trying. Why don't you make another trip out tonight? That should make you feel better."

I swear, that woman is uncanny! She knew exactly what I needed to shake me out of my funk. As usual, Martha had fixed a delicious supper, so I was all pumped up and ready to go by the time it got dark enough.

I decided to pay another visit to the red light district where I had met Archie. That seemed to me to be the most productive place I could go for the kind of prey I was looking for. I was walking at my usual pace, hoping to be picked up by a pimp, when I caught a strange movement out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't pin down what I had seen to attract my attention, so I faded back into the shadows and watched the recessed doorway which had attracted me.

OK, now I recognized what was going on. What looked like a wino sitting on a door stoop guzzling wine was actually a dope dealer. I watched for a few minutes and the pseudo wino eventually got up and moved to another stoop. He was visited there by a few customers. Eventually, he got up and wandered into a convenient alley. I wondered what he could be doing there, unless he just needed to piss.

He didn't come right out, so I made my way to the alley and peered in. It was a very long unlit alley, and I couldn't see anything at first. I slipped out my surplus nightvision monocular and looked through that. Now I could see clear to the end of the alley, but there was nobody in the alley. Now that was crazy, because the far end of the alley was blocked by a brick wall. I could climb that wall, but I doubted that anyone else in the neighborhood could do so.

The wino had not left the alley by my end, and he was no longer in the alley, so he must have left by some route. My curiosity would not let me rest until I found the answer to this puzzle. I kept the monocular in my left hand and my gun in my right. I got almost to the end of the alley before I found the door. It was recessed and was set into the wall without an obvious lintel, so it was very hard to see from the street.

I tested the door and found that it was easy to open. I looked in with my periscope and could see that it was the entrance for a set of stairs going up. There was plenty of light, so I had no problem with seeing, but somebody else would have no trouble seeing me, either. I would have been a lot more comfortable if there had been some shadows for me to hide in.

Just by habit, I looked all around before climbing the stairs, and that was when I saw the surveillance camera. Oh, shit! Without a doubt, I had been spotted. I could sure do some stupid things on occasion, and this was when I did one of them. For some reason that I would never be able to explain if somebody asked me, I have no idea why I decided to climb those stairs instead of running like hell.

Well, whatever the reason was, maybe my feminine curiosity, I started up those stairs, even though I knew that they knew that I was coming. At the landing at the top of the stairs, I did shed my coat and the rest of my disguise so that I could have complete freedom of movement.

When I got to the final door, I did what any polite person would do—I knocked. I'm sure that caught the people inside somewhat by surprise. Anyhow, the moment the door knob was turned enough to release the door latch, I jumped at the door and hit it as hard as I could with my hip.

The door went flying open and hit the doorman in the face with its edge. He was so surprised that he put up no defense and was knocked to the floor. I burst the rest of the way into the room and waved my gun around, prepared to shoot at the least provocation.

The wino was the one on the floor, and there were two other occupants of the room. One of them was a man sitting at a desk, and the other was a man sitting in a comfortable chair in front of the desk. The man in the chair had turned around without moving the chair, so he was not going to be making any sudden moves that I couldn't counter.

The man at the desk tried to get a gun out of his desk drawer. I was expecting that, so I was ready and shot him in the shoulder. At a range of only 12 feet, I don't miss. That .32 caliber bullet may be small, but it packed a hard punch at this range, and many of the bones in the man's shoulder joint were shattered. He was out of action for some time, but I didn't like the idea of leaving a loaded pistol lying around, even if it was an old model 1911.45 automatic. I ran to the desk and picked up the automatic, which I stuck under my belt.

I ordered the man in the chair not to move while I used a plastic tie to fasten the hands of the wino behind his back. I looped his feet together so that he was not going anywhere.

Now I was ready to deal with the man in the chair in front of the desk. I fastened his wrists to the arms of the chair, then I took the time to search his pockets. I started with him simply because I was already standing beside him. Son ... of ... a ... bitch! This guy was a cop! In fact, he was a police captain. I lifted his gun from his belt in the back, a standard issue Beretta. That, also, I stuck in my belt.