Hair of the Dog, Gordon Carroll [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

gang-banger that had been hit in the eye with the towel reached for a gun in the front of his pants. Jerome choked the shotgun and blew him nearly in half at less than four feet.

Something hot and fast singed Jerome’s ear, and drywall started exploding behind him as bullets pocked the wall and ceiling. Jerome saw hands with pistols curving around the doorframe… praying and spraying. Jerome calmly aimed at where he thought their heads would be and pumped two blasts through the flimsy doorframe. Lifeless hands dropped their weapons to the asphalt.

Jerome grabbed the bloody gun from the dead banger’s waistband and started for the door. He had to draw the fire away from Clair. He figured the shotgun for six rounds, four of which he’d used up, and the banger’s pistol was a six-shot .38. He would have gone for more guns, but there wasn’t time and he couldn’t take a chance on Clair getting hurt, so he walked right out and saw two more bangers crouched behind a car to the left, both of whom looked up in shock as he emerged, big as life, from the darkness of the room. He sprayed them both with the buckshot, blowing them back away from the car and onto the parking lot asphalt where their blood began to run and pool.

Another Blood jumped up from behind a car to his right. This dude was young — maybe seventeen — with tats and sunglasses and a skewed BB cap against a close-cropped head of nappy hair. He was decked out all in red and black and he held a giant, chrome-plated, Desert eagle .50 cal in one hand, pointing at Jerome’s face. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, not so much as a click. Fool had forgotten to chamber a round. He kept fingering the trigger as if he couldn’t believe it wasn’t working.

Jerome emptied the last of the buck into his chest, the small flock of balls disintegrating the fingers and hand that held the gun before impacting his chest and lungs and heart. He died lying on his back, the sunglasses protecting his dead eyes from the sun’s rays.

Dropping the shotgun, Jerome pulled out the .38, which felt like a toy in his giant hand. He searched about, but there was no one else. He went back into the room, saw Clair sitting on the bed, her eyes big and round and scared. He went to her.

“It’s okay, baby. Daddy’s got you. Ain’t nobody gonna hurt daddy’s little Clair.” He put on his pants and a long sleeve button up shirt, then grabbed his bag with the money and guns and clothes and scooped up Clair.

Outside, they were almost to the green Ford Tahoe, when an engine revved and a car squealed into the lot at the far end, gunning straight for them. And in the distance, the sound of sirens coming their way. Jerome’s mind, slow in so many things, did the calculations instantly. He abandoned the Tahoe and ran, with his bag and Clair, between the buildings as the car screeched to a stop and Bloods began spilling out.

17

My phone beeped at 0647 hours. I pried my eyes open and saw Max looking at me, his big head resting on my stomach. I thought about scratching his head, decided against it, hearing Bill Murry’s voice inside my head… baby steps… and saw it was Ziggy calling.

“What have you got for me, Ziggy?”

“Ziggy pretty sure he knows where your people are, that’s what Ziggy’s got for you Mr. Mason. Ziggy heard some Bloods getting high, telling how they was gonna hit a big man and a girl over at the Magic Dust Motel, only you best hurry ‘cause Ziggy heard them say they was going over right then, and that was a few minutes ago, yes sir it was sure enough.”

I hung up without a word and punched in Aurora’s non-emergent dispatch number. For an instant, I’d considered calling the Senator, or even Jared Darling with Aurora PD, but decided there just wasn’t time.

“Aurora dispatch, could you hold?”

“No,” I said. “Gunshots, lots of them. I think it’s a gang fight at the Magic Dust Motel on Colfax and Chambers. Hurry, send everyone.”

I hung up. They might not send everyone, not with the scared little unconfirmed citizen call I’d dealt them, but they’d send at least a couple of cars and Code-3 too.

I jumped out of bed, threw on my clothes, a bullet-proof vest and guns, and called for Max to follow me to the car.

I made good time, it being a Sunday and early and not ski season, but still by the time I reached the Motel, there were police cars everywhere. Yellow crime scene tape stretched the entire perimeter of the Motel parking lot and I saw several sheets pulled over bodies lying on the quickly warming asphalt.

Panic gripped me. Was I too late? Was little Keisha lying under one of those sheets?” I rushed up to the closest cop. He stopped me, of course.

“Back to your car, buddy, nothing to see here.”

He was about forty, with a thick muscular body, bowed legs and a face that had seen too much sun and wind. His short-sleeved uniform was crisp and clean and tight around his hairy biceps. I pegged him for ex-military and long time cop. He held a clipboard with a crime scene log clipped to it.

“I’m Gil Mason,” I said, “Private Investigator.”

“Good for you,” he said, his eyes dull and uninterested, as if he’d seen a thousand of these scenes… maybe he had… “now back to your car. This here is a crime scene.”

“I’m working a case with Detective Jared Darling and the feds.” I held up my newly acquired Secret Service badge and his uninterested eyes suddenly got interested.

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“A little girl and a huge black guy were staying here. The Bloods may have set them up for a hit.”

“And that sits with the feds…