Brass in Pocket (24 page)

Earlier he had marveled at driving on an airport tarmac, however lowly an airport it was. Now he was chasing a runaway plane over the pavement, surprised that it wasn't smoother. The speedometer needle crept up as he floored the accelerator, powering through the smell of exhaust coming from the plane.
ROP or LOP?
Greg wondered with a grim chuckle. He was gaining on the plane. Its wings bobbed as it bounced over the runway's bumps, its flaps making tentative up and down motions. Greg didn't know how long it had been since Benny had flown, so maybe he was trying to get used to the controls before taking off.

Which gave Greg some small hope of success.

He knew that blocking the runway could turn out to be suicidal, if Benny failed to stop or veer
away in time. He just didn't feel like he had a lot of choice. He was nowhere near a good enough shot to take out a tire, or to hit Benny through the plane's small windows. And even if he did that, what would stop the plane from swerving into him anyway? His best bet was to count on Benny's survival instincts, on his realization that even a long stretch in prison would be preferable to dying in a fiery runway collision.

He started to pass the plane. Glancing over for as long as he dared, Greg saw Benny in the pilot's seat, his bent spine hunching him over the wheel. Benny was staring straight ahead, with a determined set to his jaw and a ferocious gleam in his eyes. He looked utterly intent on his goal, as if nothing would dissuade him from this mad escape plan.

For an instant, Greg's hope wavered.

He wanted to stop this guy. This killer. Wanted to be able to prove in court that he had found the motive, and discovered the evidence that put the murder weapon in his hands. It wasn't just that he had spent all that time cutting plastic—it was what he had chosen this career for. He wanted to use science as a tool for solving crimes, because solving crimes meant putting bad people away, honoring their victims, and protecting those who might otherwise have been next.

But did he want it enough to risk dying for it?

Greg had unconsciously let up on the gas, just the slightest bit. Realizing his mistake, he pressed down again.
Of course I do,
he thought.
I risk death every time I go out into the field. Hasn't stopped me yet
. The SUV lunged forward. His ears were full of the roar of
engines, his Yukon's and the airplane's, battling for supremacy on the narrow runway.

Greg gained ground, starting to pass the plane again. He was running out of runway, so he was going to have to make his move fast. He edged past the plane's nose and kept going, pulling ahead. Then he saw the plane in his rearview, falling back. Was Benny giving up? Slowing down? Greg squeezed a little more speed from the SUV, then braked and cranked the wheel at the same time.

The Yukon fishtailed, skidding across the runway in a cloud of smoke and the stink of burnt rubber. The engine died. The abrupt stop jolted Greg, and when he caught his balance again, he looked out toward the airplane.

It came on fast. Benny hadn't slowed or stopped; Greg had simply outraced him.

And now Benny was going to ram him.

Greg pawed at the door handle. He had to get out, now—there wasn't time to start the engine again.

He just managed to get the door open when the airplane's wheels left the ground.

Greg threw himself to the tarmac and covered his head with his hands, anticipating the worst.

The airplane lifted off the runway, gaining altitude. It didn't veer from its course. Greg's last glimpse of Benny before the plane's nose blocked his view showed a man utterly intent on his flying, as if he didn't even understand what a close call he'd had. Greg glanced up to see the plane zoom over him, raising a fog of dust and debris, its landing gear barely clearing the Yukon's roof.

He stood up in the airplane's draft, wind whipping his hair and clothes.

Benny urged the plane higher, continuing the steep path that had carried him over the SUV. Greg watched him go. Twenty feet high. Thirty. Climbing fast. He figured he would have to call the FAA, to make sure that wherever Benny touched down he was arrested on the spot. Fifty feet.

At sixty or thereabouts, Benny tried to level the plane out. He had shot up at such a steep angle that it seemed to Greg as if it would arc over backward, perform a somersault in midair.

But he didn't have room for any fancy aerobatics—he wasn't high enough yet.

Seventy-five feet, and still climbing fast.

And then the engine noise changed abruptly.

Greg had been hearing its roar for so long that the sudden shift was as startling as a slap in the face.

He didn't know a lot about flying, but he knew what a stall was. Push the airplane up too steep a curve and you stall. Stunt flyers did it for kicks.

Only when they had plenty of room and time to pull out of it, though.

Benny had no room, no time.

The plane shuddered violently and dropped, tail first. Started to flip over. Benny worked the flaps.

Nothing helped. The plane hit the ground with a bang, crunching and folding like wet cardboard. Greg braced for an explosion that didn't come.

The plane deconstructed right in front of him, wings shearing off, fuselage compacting. The smell of gasoline was thick in the air, so an explosion might still be coming.

He had to get Benny out before it did.

Greg ran toward the airplane. Coming up behind him, he heard sirens, engines. His backup, airport safety personnel, maybe those paramedics he had called. He couldn't spare the time to look back. A bloody hand poked out through a broken window, weak. Chunks of glass embedded in its flesh sparkled in the morning sun.

Benny Kracsinski was still alive.

With greater urgency, Greg dashed forward. His foot caught a wet patch of grass, slipped, and he went sprawling. Caught himself on hands and knees and pushed up again, his forward motion barely halted. He realized he had cut his left hand on a shard of twisted metal. Blood wet his palm. He took another step—

—and then the plane blew.

One instant it was still recognizable in its basic essence, and the next it was a fireball, ballooning out toward Greg, hurling a wall of knife-edged debris and a concussive blast that slammed into him like a pro linebacker, pinwheeling him backward. Heat swept over him, pinning him to the grass.

Grass that reeked of gasoline.

Greg rolled, scrambled. Flame ran toward him along a dozen paths, like self-generating roadways cutting through open country.

He ran, slipped, steadied, and ran faster.

Ahead of him vague forms gathered, their details blurred by the red film that had settled over his eyes. Cymbals clashed in his ears, drowning out all sound.

Heat snaked up his left leg. He screamed—

—and cold foam struck him, arctic slush chilling him to the core, but it cut the heat—

—and pain consumed him, swallowing him whole, and as he dropped willingly into its giant maw, the world went black.

“T
HIS IS
CSI Supervisor Willows, calling for backup.”

“What's your location, Supervisor Willows?”

Catherine watched the front of the store from the street next to her SUV. All was still. Sunlight glinted off the big windows, blinding her to anything that might have been going on inside. “Select Stop Mart, on Eastern Avenue.”

“I already have a unit on the way to that location,” the dispatcher reported.

Catherine glanced up and down the street. Traffic was light, with no black-and-whites in view. “I don't see any on approach. There is one car here already.” She read off the identification numbers on the back of Liz Tavrin's car. “Why is another en route?”

“It wasn't an emergency call, but there's a unit en route. They're ten or fifteen minutes out.”

Catherine tried to rein back her frustration. “
Why
, dispatch? Who called?”

“Store security is what I show. A security guard caught a shoplifter. He's detaining for arrest.”

A shoplifter? Maybe someone with no cash, wearing bloody clothes? “Does it say what the suspect was after? Was it women's clothing?”

“I don't have that information, I'm sorry.”

“Well, see if they can get here faster. I'm going in.”

“I have to advise you to wait for the unit, Supervisor.”

“I have a uniformed officer on the scene already.” Catherine looked at Liz Tavrin. She hoped the lady knew her job. “And her partner might be inside the building. Just get that unit here as fast as you can.”

Catherine was about to click off the radio when another thought occurred to her. “One more thing,” she said. “Did this call go out over the air?”

“I didn't know who was in the vicinity, so, yes, it was broadcast as a general bulletin. About thirty-five minutes ago.”

“Thanks.”

Catherine didn't know a lot about Emil Blago, but according to his reputation he was an old school mobster, or wanted to be. Even a crime boss had to have goals, she supposed. Old school usually meant having police on the payroll. She still got a hard lump in her throat thinking about the murder of her friend Warrick Brown at the hands of a dirty undersheriff who had worked for gangster Lou Gedda. She liked to think better of her fellow officers of the law, but somehow when no one was looking, Las Vegas had turned into a very big city, complete with big city problems.

One of those problems had always been an overabundance of corrupt cops.

So, if Blago—or one of his gangland enemies—was after Antoinette, then broadcasting her whereabouts, however obliquely, might have been a bad idea. No telling who might have been listening in.

Catherine had to hope that no one else had put together the pieces that she had—that Antoinette, badly in need of fresh clothes and with no money to pay for them, might have resorted to stealing from a store she probably wouldn't have been caught dead shopping in.

Catherine smiled at that. You didn't have to be a CSI for long to see people caught dead in a lot of unexpected situations. There was a certain cleverness to Antoinette's choice of stores, which Catherine supposed also applied to the choice of the Rancho Center Motel—both were places a man like Emil Blago would not expect to find his wife.

“Come on,” she said to Tavrin. “We're going in.”

“In where?”

Catherine ticked her head toward the store. “Select Stop Mart. Have you ever been in there?”

“I've been in some of their locations, but not that one.”

“That's too bad.” She'd been hoping the cop knew the layout. Chances were good that they would go in, find the security guard who had detained Antoinette in a locked back room somewhere, and that would be that. Easy. Maybe Tavrin's partner was already taking custody, and the store's heavy walls and shelving had interfered with his radio. Then again, it might not even be Antoinette.
They might walk in and find a terrified sixteen-year-old kid.

You couldn't count on easy when you were dealing with people like Blago. Catherine wished she knew more about what had gone on in that motel room. Had Antoinette been the target, or Deke? Was Antoinette still being pursued? As a witness, or as the original object of the hunt? Who wanted her dead, if the latter was the case?

And where did Jim Brass fit in? That remained the biggest question mark about the whole affair.

She and Tavrin trekked across the parking lot, ridiculously vast and mostly deserted at this early hour.

Two of the few cars parked outside, both drawn up to the front of the store instead of back in the rows of painted slots, looked familiar.

The first was a black Dodge sedan she recognized as the unmarked unit driven by Jim Brass.

The other was a patrol car that she remembered was the one Officers Wolfson and Tuva drove. Now she knew the shoplifter was Antoinette, and there would be nothing easy about what was to come.

She tried to swallow back her anxiety. She was a scientist, not a cop. But her duties included both—she had sworn to uphold and enforce the law in addition to investigating crimes, and if her usual tools included fingerprint brushes and test tubes instead of guns, she had to be competent with the latter in addition to the former.

Today it might well be guns.

“Draw your weapon,” Catherine said. Her tone was quiet but forceful. It was hard to get the mixture
right—she wanted to sound calm, but any time you told someone to take out a firearm, you were also warning them that there might be shooting.

The weight of her Glock 9mm should have been comforting, but instead it felt like she carried ten pounds of trouble.

“What's going on in there?” the officer asked her.

“I'm not sure, but I have a feeling we're walking into the middle of an unpleasant situation. I think we should try to clear the store and hope all the people with guns are somewhere in the back. No guarantees, though.”

“Should we wait for backup?”

“We can't. Your partner might be in there. I know there's a friend of mine in there, and maybe a woman in danger. You don't have to go in, but I'd appreciate the assist.”

“All due respect, Supervisor, but you bet your ass I'm coming.”

“Good.”

Before they could reach the sidewalk outside the door, the shooting began.

Catherine heard the familiar crack and echo of gunfire, followed immediately by shrieks from within the store. The front double doors, glass and steel, burst open and people came running out. Store employees in matching canary yellow polo shirts and black pants were accompanied by a scattering of others, presumably customers. A young mother held on to the hands of two toddlers, trying to hurry them out of the way. A hulking bald guy with long whiskers wearing a leather vest, torn T-shirt, ragged jeans, and heavy black boots—Catherine guessed he
belonged with the Harley parked a couple of spaces from the front of the lot—stormed through the doors with a frightened look on his face. An elderly Asian couple, clutching each other by the arm, somehow managed to walk with what seemed to be a casual gait but at a rapid pace.