Powers of Arrest (Will Borders: Cincinnati Casebook 2)

They were still laughing as they left an hour later. The rain had stopped so they did not get soaked as Will did his slow-walk with the cane to the car, which was parked in a lot across Grear Alley. One big building, once the School for Creative and Performing Arts, filled the view to the north. Sirens were yowling off to the west. He opened the door for Cheryl Beth and closed it. Then he walked around the car, making an inventory of their surroundings, touching the raindrops on the trunk and fenders. His right hand was hurting from holding the cane. A couple was fighting fifty feet away. A man yelled, “You think because you’re beautiful and men want to fuck you…”

As he started to open the door, he felt something hard and cold right behind his left ear.

“Hello Detective Borders.” The voice was low, barely audible. “Your friends aren’t tailing you tonight.” A small laugh. “I guess they went for donuts. You’ve been searching for Kristen’s gun. I thought I’d bring it to you.” The barrel tapped hard against his skull. The fighting couple got in their car and drove away. They were alone in the lot now.

“Now don’t think about doing anything cute,” the voice said. “You’re going to do exactly what I say.”

If Will were not crippled, he would teach this man cute. If Will didn’t yearn for a future with Cheryl Beth, and couldn’t take chances with her so near, he would give this a lesson. When somebody was holding a gun that close, it was possible to quickly step inside the reach of his arm, inside his firing radius, and disarm him. It was easier when done from the front, but he could do it. He once could have done it.

The hoarse whisper continued: “The first thing you’re going to do is pull out your gun, left hand, please. Then toss it in front of you.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Will decided not to attempt to turn his head and look at the man.

“You’re going to do it, or I’ll shoot you now. Is that your friend, Cherry Beth, sitting there? She’s going to find out if I’m impotent like you said. I’ll fuck the little cunt in every orifice and then watch her die slowly. There’s nothing you can do about it. How does that make you feel, detective?”

He almost looked back, stopped himself. Will was very conscious of each breath, how it barely seemed to fill his lungs. He could see Cheryl Beth’s legs and lap, but couldn’t tell if she could make out his predicament. He asked, “Why did you pick me to send your messages?”

“Later. I may answer your questions, or not. But right now, quit stalling and pull out your gun with your left hand, toss it on the pavement in front of you.”

Breath in, breath out. His right wrist was aching, his hand gripping the cane tightly. His gun was an impossible six inches away.

“Agh!”

Will heard this half-grunt, half expression of pain as the gun that had been behind his ear went airborne and landed a few feet in front of the bumper. Somehow it didn’t go off. A black-clad figure fell to his side and rolled.

r />

Another man yelled, “Motherfucka’, what you think you doin’?” Then he kicked Will’s assailant in the side. “This here’s an officer of the law. Don’t you be disrespecting the po-lice!”

Will said, “Junior?”

“I made bail. Glad to see me?”

Indeed, it was the gang thug he had stopped from stomping the man beside Central Parkway on Monday. The shadow on the asphalt vaulted up and ran. Oh, to see a face, but there was none. And he had hair.

“Yes,” Will said, drawing his service weapon, “glad to see you. Get down.”

But big Junior was chasing the other man and blocking Will’s aim.

“I’m gonna nail you, sucka’. Citizen’s arrest! ”

“Get down, Junior!”

Junior’s three-hundred-pounds made the chase last, at best, a third of the way across the parking lot. Then he was bent over, struggling to catch his breath. The time elapsed for the clumsy pursuit, with Junior’s huge body in the way of Will’s aim, consumed no more then ten seconds. But it was enough. The man in black was gone.

Chapter Thirty

Two hours later, the twenty marked and unmarked units that responded to Will’s broadcast had scattered. The suspect was gone. The unmarked unit shadowing Will and Cheryl Beth had been drawn off by a report of a shooting three blocks away. It wasn’t a shooting. Someone had rigged a fuse with a cigarette to a string of M-80s which did a good job of impersonating gunshots. By the time the unmarked car from Central Vice got back to the parking lot, Will had already taken off, searching for the man who had held Kristen Gruber’s gun to his head. And it was Gruber’s—the serial number matched.

Now they cruised slowly through Over-the-Rhine. Cheryl Beth sat in the passenger front seat, Dodds in back. Nobody talked at first. She was certain that if she were hooked up to an EKG her heart would still show tachycardia. She blamed herself for those moments when Will was in mortal danger. The car had cloaked her from the threat he was facing. She couldn’t see what was happening until the gun flew in front of the car and the big black man was chasing someone. Will had given her gloves and told her to retrieve the gun, then, when she returned, he had revved the car across the parking lot, its spotlight sending a dazzling white cone against buildings and into alleys. After that, it seemed as if the entire police force had descended upon them.

“Here we are again,” Dodds said. “The three musketeers.”

“Let’s hope it’s a little easier this time,” Cheryl Beth said. “Last time, we were trapped in the basement of the hospital, nobody knew where we were, the killer had knocked you out, he was beating the crap out of me, and Will, who was stuck in a wheelchair, had to save us.”

“Details, details,” Dodds said.

Cheryl Beth prided herself on a professional steely calm, hard won in the five years she had spent working in the emergency department. But that was a controlled environment compared with this, even when a gang member would try to barge in and finish off the guy he shot an hour before. She hated to admit it: she was over her head. She stuffed her shaking hands into her lap. Her emotions roiled in a wild bundle of fear and adrenaline, some anger was down in there, too. The son of a bitch had nearly killed Will and he got away, almost as if he were a ghost. The city seemed bathed in an invisible evil.