Wild Card

They formed two lines of three, with Crowe and Brown leading the charge. The Rainbow Arm’s front path was littered with broken beer bottles and debris. As they reached the stoop, the front door swung in, and the detectives froze. A little black boy emerged clutching a Fat Albert lunch box to his chest.

“Hey kid, get lost,” Crowe said.

The little boy’s eyes turned fearful.

Mink tried. “Son, go home,” he said gently.

The boy was dressed for school, but it was too early for school. Valentine felt a hot wire ignite his blood. It was a trap.

“Get away from the door,” he said loudly.

The other detectives did not move. They were seeing the frightened little boy, and not the threat. A spot appeared in the crotch of the boy’s pants.

“Move,” Valentine barked at them.

A black man with dread locks appeared in the doorway behind the little boy. He was holding a UZI submachine gun and had a crazed look in his eyes. Using the boy as a shield, he aimed at the detectives’ legs and started firing. It was the Prince.

Chapter 2

Valentine’s shotgun flew into the air, and melted into a hedge. His hand screamed with pain, and he brought it up to his face. A bullet had gone through his palm as clean as a paper punch. Falling to his knees, he saw black pools appear before his eyes.

“Help me,” Doyle gasped.

Valentine twisted his head. Doyle lay a few feet away, his thigh shredded by a bullet. The other detectives were scattered around him. No one was moving. The Prince shoved the little boy into the building, then stepped outside, and began executing them.

He capped Crowe between the eyes, stepped over his body, and did the same to Brown, his movements calm and efficient, like he had ice cubes in his veins. Then, it was Mink’s turn. Mink had taken a bullet in the leg, and lay sprawled on his side. The Prince put the Uzi’s smoking barrel against his cheek. “I don’t like to kill brothers,” the pimp said, “but with you, I’m gonna make an exception.”

“Please, don’t,” Mink whispered.

Valentine always carried two guns. The snub-nosed .38 was beneath the vest, and out of reach. He drew the derringer strapped to his ankle, and pumped two bullets into the pimp’s stomach. The Prince staggered backward into the apartment and disappeared. Valentine rose on wobbly legs, and saw Freed do the same. Freed’s thigh was bleeding, and he found his shotgun on the ground, pumped it, and entered the apartment dragging his wounded leg.

“Wait for back-up,” Valentine said.

Freed ignored him, and went in.

Valentine knelt beside his partner. Taking a snot rag out of his pocket, he ripped it in half. With one piece he plugged Doyle’s wound, with the other, his own.

“My stomach,” Doyle moaned.

“You get shot in the stomach?”

“Fucking french fries.”

Valentine expected to hear sirens at any moment, then remembered where they were. He started to go to the car to call for an ambulance when Doyle grabbed his leg. His partner had a stricken look on his face, and Valentine knelt down beside him.

“Crowe lied to us,” Doyle said.

“What do you mean?”

“We were chasing the Prince twenty minutes ago. He couldn’t have taken a shot at them.”

Doyle was right. Freed’s story was bullshit. Cops lied all the time, but not to each other. They had stepped into something.

The Uzi rang out inside the apartment. Valentine ripped away his vest so he could get at his .38., then stood up.

“Hang tough.”

“Be careful,” Doyle said.

The apartment’s doorway was wide open, and Valentine stuck his head through, and saw Freed lying motionless at the bottom of the stairwell with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Valentine guessed the Prince had been hiding at the top of the first floor stairwell when Freed had come in. Daylight was streaming into the building, and he could see that no one was hiding up there now.

He climbed the stairs with Doyle’s words ringing in his ears. The building had four floors, and at the top floor he paused to catch his breath. His left hand had gone numb, and he wondered how bad the damage was. The sound of someone inside an apartment throwing a deadbolt made him jump.

“Stay inside,” he called out.

“Yassah,” a woman’s voice said.

The Prince had left a trail of blood, and he followed the drops down a hallway to a corner apartment. Light flickered behind the peep hole. The Prince got off a round, but not before Valentine emptied his .38 into the door. He heard pounding footsteps and kicked the door down, then stepped into a dingy apartment with a radio playing in one of its rooms. It had a shotgun layout similar to the apartment he’d grown up in, and he went down a hallway to the kitchen. An open window led to a fire escape. He could hear the Prince on the roof.

“Excuse me,” a man’s voice said.

Spinning around, he discovered an elderly black man in a wheelchair. “Where did you come from?”

“I live here. I pray you’re the police.”

“That’s right. Why did you let the Prince into your apartment?”