Savage Rage (11 page)

Jack looked down at himself with his one good eye. Blood drenched his uniform jacket and glistened on the black cloth. He smiled, then spat blood from between his lips, spraying the wall.

I must look like something out of a horror movie, but I'm alive. But Sy. . . .

Jack's free hand went to his throat frantically checking for a cut, but there was none.

“Jack?” Chalmers slipped hesitantly in front of him. “Jack, you okay?”

Jack turned to him and smiled, a full, teeth-baring grin. “I'm alive, if that's what you mean. Did you get the knife?”

“Um,” Chalmers held up the neck of the broken beer bottle. “I got the glass. There wasn't a knife.”

“That's what I meant, the glass. There was no knife.” Of course there was no knife. Willy had used a broken bottle, not a knife. Sy had been killed with a knife. Sy's throat . . . Jack pushed that thought away. What's done is done. The past is dead.

Chalmers was looking around uncertainly, almost nervously, still holding up the piece of bottle.

Yes, Jack could clearly see it was a bottle, thought he could even see a chunk of his skin impaled on one of the jagged stumps. He grinned at the idea.

Chalmers backed up from that grin. “Um, do you want to call for an ambulance, or should I?”

Still grinning but in an utterly calm, I'm-not-standing-here-covered-in-my-own-blood voice, Jack asked, “Have you cuffed Willy yet?” He couldn't see Willy, who was behind Chalmers, but he could still hear him. His cries had deteriorated to pain-filled whimpers.

“Ah . . . no. I wanted to see how you were.”

“I'm good.” That same pleasant tone. “Why don't you go cuff Willy before he decides to go get another weapon? I'll call for an ambulance.”

Chalmers stepped into the apartment, casting uneasy glances back at Warren. That smile, with blood smearing his face and lips, outlining his teeth and gums, was the freakiest thing he had ever seen. And Warren didn't even seem upset. If anything, he seemed happy! Happy that some nut had just carved up his face. Chalmers pulled out his handcuffs, wondering if he was cuffing the real nut.

“Dude, when I said we should meet up later, this isn't what I meant.”

Jack smiled. A normal, true-to-its-depths smile. And bloodless, since he'd had the chance to clean up. “Manny, what are you doing here?”

“Here” was Sunnybrook Hospital. The emergency room, to be exact. While Chalmers had struggled to cuff Willy — the pepper spray might have knocked the desire to fight, to provoke an officer into killing him, out of poor Willy, but he hadn't wanted to pull his hands away from his burning eyes — Jack had radioed for an ambulance and extra units. Willy had been hauled away after officers had gladly and none too gently Jack guessed, decontaminated him by shoving his head under the bathtub faucet.

The paramedics had bandaged Jack up and hustled him off to Sunnybrook. The Earl had followed in the scout car. And here Jack sat, or reclined, in a hospital bed waiting to be stitched up. The pain had subsided to a sharp ache and withdrawn to the area beside and above his right eye. Curiously, his migraine had taken a back seat to the cut, settling down somewhere at the back of his skull. He supposed the migraine didn't want to share the pain spotlight and was willing to wait until it could have the stage to itself again.

Jack was stripped down to his T-shirt and pants. The pants had only a drop or two of blood on them and could be saved, but his jacket and shirt were history. He had been drifting off when Manny had come in.

“I'm here on official business, brother.” Manny held up a camera case. “53 doesn't have a SOCO on the road, so I'm here to take some pictures. But we would have come up anyway, man, you know that. We heard you call for the ambulance but didn't know it was for you until they called me for the pics.”

“Is Jenny with you?”

“Yup. She had to hit the little girls' room first. Personally,” Manny said, fiddling with the camera, “I don't think she can take the sight of blood.”

“Yeah, right.” Jenny Alton was one of the toughest cops Jack knew. “I see you're still sporting that goatee. I can't believe no one's given you any grief about it.”

“It's a beard,” Manny said defensively, pointing at the pencil-thin line of hair outlining his jaw. “And there's been a few complaints,” he admitted.

“I still think with that cue ball you call a head it makes you look like a professional wrestler.”

“Yeah!” Manny whipped off his jacket and hit a Hulk Hogan pose. Thankfully, he still had the rest of his uniform on; Manny was a big guy and paid his dues in the weight room, but he was too much of a junk food addict to be posing.

“Know any good vets?” He pumped his arms in a double-bicep shot. “'Cause these pythons are sick!”

Jack laughed. He could always count on Manny to lighten things up.

“All I need is a good name.” Manny swung his arms down, back to the most muscular pose, quivering exaggeratedly. “Like Manny the Magnificent or Manny the Mighty.”

“How about Manny the Mental Midget?” Jenny suggested as she slipped into the tiny room.

Whereas Manny could brighten Jack's mood, the mere sight of Jenny upped his pulse. Tall and slim with just enough muscle to give her curves, she was one of the few policewomen who looked good in uniform. Good? Hell, downright sexy. Her raven hair, done up in a tight French braid, offset dazzling crystal-blue eyes.

Manny the wrestler went back to his camera as Jenny leaned in to give Jack a kiss on the cheek. “That's for being hurt,” she explained, then punched him, not playfully, in the ribs. “And that's for getting hurt. How could you let someone get that close with a weapon?”

“Your concern is touching.” Jack pouted, rubbing his side. “I could have had broken ribs, you know.”

“You don't. We got the story from the Ds when they called for pictures. Seriously, Jack, I'm sorry you're hurt and I'm really happy it isn't serious, but how could you let this happen? It doesn't sound like you.”

Jack studied his friends. Beneath Manny's joking and Jenny's anger, he saw their concern and understood it. The Jack who had let a kid sneak up on him at a house party and let a nut dripping with warning signs get close to him with a weapon was not the same cop who had worked the streets in 51.

Jack shrugged, feeling a twinge in his right shoulder. Old pains, new pains. “I was careless, I guess. Getting stale, rusty.”

“Dude, you need to come back to 51.”

Jack nodded. “I know.” A sudden grin split his face. “And this,” he touched the bandage, “is my ticket out of here.”

Jenny crossed her arms, unconvinced. “You really think that will fly with Karen?”

“How can Karen say it's safer for me in 53? She can't. Not with this staring her in the face. So let's get a look at it, shall we?”

Jack reached for the temporary bandage, but Jenny stopped him. “Shouldn't we wait for a nurse or someone?”

“Nah. The doctor's already cleaned me up. I asked them to hold off on stitches until pictures were taken. Come on, unwrap me.”

Jenny gently freed the tape holding a gauze wrap in place and began to unwind the material from around Jack's head. As she removed layers, Jack could feel dried blood clinging stubbornly to the gauze. Jenny pulled it free with a wet, crinkling noise.

“Don't take the dressing off yet, Jenny.” Manny moved in with the camera. “I'll take some overall shots first, then some without the dressing. More dramatic that way.”

Jenny smirked at him. “Guy takes the SOCO course and suddenly thinks he's an artist.”

Manny was unperturbed. “Some artists take pictures of people or landscapes. I photograph scenes of crime. My work — no, my art — allows the inarticulate to speak in eloquent volumes.”

Jack and Jenny groaned in unison. “How many others have you used that line on?” Jack asked.

“You're my first,” Manny declared proudly. “I'm really looking forward to saying it in court. Now, get naked for me.”

Jenny gently pulled the dressing away, trying not to notice Jack wincing whenever the bandage snagged on clotted blood. When the wound was fully exposed, Manny whistled appreciatively. Jenny frowned.

“You better hope the doctor uses small stitches, man. Other-wise, you'll end up with one big-ass scar.” Manny snapped a few final shots, then handed the camera to Jack. “Check it out.”

Jack studied himself in the digital display. Manny was right; it was going to be one hell of a scar. The jagged end of the bottle neck had made his wound messy. There was one deep gash, too brutal to be called a cut, starting on the outside of his right cheek, just below the eye. It slashed up on an angle through his eyebrow and faded out as it ran onto his forehead. Above this and beside the eye was a mass of smaller, shallower cuts, like veins branching out from a main artery.

An inch to the left and I would have lost the eye. Lucky.

“And you think if you show that to Karen she'll agree to let you go back to 51?” Jenny was still frowning.

“She'll have to admit that it's not as safe up here as she thought.”

“So she and her parents, I bet, will use it as an argument to quit the job altogether.”

“It's time I took Sergeant Rose's advice and grew some balls.” Jack crossed his arms defensively. “I thought you guys would support me on this.”

“We do, man. We just don't want to see you get divorced over it.”

“When were you thinking of putting in the transfer?”

Jack laughed. “Hell, I'm thinking of seeing the inspector before I go home today.”

A few hours later Jack was sitting in the scout car, his face freshly stitched and still numb from the anaesthetic, though he could already feel the freezing ebbing away, revealing the pain beneath it. He pictured a beach growing again as the tide slowly retreated. He touched the bottle of painkillers in his pocket appreciatively. He was going to need them soon.

“Did you want to stop anywhere before we go to the station?” Chalmers asked as he fired up the car. “Grab a coffee or something to eat?”

Chalmers had been hesitant, cautious even, around Jack throughout the time at the hospital. When Manny and Jenny had arrived, the Earl had disappeared entirely, supposedly to get some lunch. Maybe he thought Jack partially blamed him for what had happened. Whatever the reason, Chalmers was eager to please.

Jack checked his watch. “It's almost eight. We're already on the big clock, so why don't we stretch the overtime a bit?” He tapped the thick bandage wrapped around his head. “I don't think anyone will begrudge me another hour.”

“Sure, Jack. You want to get breakfast?”

“Nope. I was thinking we could drive down to 51. I need to have a word with the inspector.”

1714 hours

Jesse was feeling good. Better than good, actually. Absolutely fucking fine.

Ever since he had hooked up with Kayne, nothing could go wrong for Jesse. He always had money in hand and there was never a shortage of crack or whores; Kayne was very generous with his friends and he had only one friend. Jesse was intent on keeping it that way. He got to help Kayne on his “quest.” That's what the fucking guy called it: a quest to be the baddest mother-fucker on the streets. He wanted to be remembered or some shit like that. Jesse didn't care. As long as Kayne kept the money and drugs coming and Jesse got to crack some bones along the way, Kayne could carve as many Ks as he fucking desired.

But right now putting the boots to someone was not high on Jesse's list of priorities. In fact, Jesse was feeling far too fine to do anything other than lie back on the floor of his apartment and . . . just . . . feel . . . good.

They had just left some poor asshole in a laneway somewhere. If Jesse tried to remember where, he might be able to come up with the general vicinity, but really he just didn't give a shit. After relieving the asshole of his stash of marijuana, Kayne had cut open his forehead with the piece of slate he called his talisman. Then they went back to the room, feeling fucking fine on the liberated weed.

Jesse's room faced the street and was one of the two largest in the two-storey rooming house. Prior to hooking up with Kayne, Jesse had had limited cash and been relegated to living in one of the back rooms, a tiny cell he could cross in three steps. The place had stunk like shit and another resident had told him that the previous tenant hadn't left the room in years, not even to go to the bathroom. The talk of the building had it that when the police and ambulance had finally hauled the old fuck away, he had fucking cockroaches living in him. Not
on
him but fucking
in
him. And Jesse could believe it, too, for under that new paint smell had been a stench that made dead fish on the beach seem fucking appetizing. As soon as the warm weather arrived, he'd planned on moving his ass out of that shithole.

But then he'd met Kayne and everything had changed.

All it had taken was a wave of cash under the landlord's nose and Jesse was in the ground-floor front room, the previous tenant not knowing what was happening until his ass hit the sidewalk. Now Jesse had room for a bed, a couch, a chair and the room's crowning glory: a TV. True, the furniture was all old and ratty, having belonged to the last occupant and the TV only pulled in three fuzzy stations, but Jesse was living like a king.

With all the cash rolling in, he was contemplating some new tattoos. When his brain was clear enough to think, that is. Both arms were already sleeved in skull tattoos: skulls with snakes, skulls with knives, grinning skulls, skulls of all shapes and sizes. He was mulling over the idea of one huge, kick-ass skull on his back.

But that was for later. Jesse was sprawled on the floor, the cushions from the couch heaped behind him to prop up his head and shoulders. Kayne was in the chair, one leg thrown carelessly over a padded arm, his chin resting on his chest. Jesse thought Kayne might be asleep but couldn't tell in the shadowy haze: milky light wormed through the threadbare shades to tinge the smoke from the train of joints they had smoked a greyish blue. They had sucked back enough of the weed to envelope the whole building in its sickly sweet stench, but none of the residents had complained. They all knew to steer clear of Jesse's new friend and his new friend's temper. Word was circulating that he was the crazy fucker carving people up, writing his name on their faces with a knife or some shit like that. Jesse was sure the residents knew it was best to leave well enough alone.

Jesse studied his . . . friend? No, not friend. Guys like Kayne didn't have friends. They had . . . followers, that was it. Kayne wanted someone to watch as he smashed people, someone to admire him and gush over him as he ripped open face after face with his talisman.

“Talisman, my fucking ass,” Jesse muttered, dragging deep on his rolled cigarette. “It's a fucking piece of rock.”

“What the fuck you say?” Kayne's eyes had cracked open, but his chin was still propped on his chest and the words had come out slurred:
Whuh thuh fuck you shay?

Jesse's heart lurched. “Nothing, man. Just wish we had some rock.”

“Get some later,” Kayne mumbled —
Geh shum la'er
— as he drifted back to sleep.

Lisa, the green-haired whore Kayne had taken into his troop, was passed out on the floor by Kayne's feet. Her mouth twitched at the mention of rock.

Jesse blew out a shaky breath, then soothed his nerves with another drag. A deep one. If Kayne had understood what he had said . . . Jesse wiped his brow, his sedated mind all too able to imagine a bloody K torn into his skin. And he would be lucky if Kayne stopped there. His attacks had escalated in the last few days; they were more vicious each time he pulled out that chunk of stone. Jesse figured it was only a matter of time before Kayne killed “one of the weak ones,” as he called them.

Or was killed himself.

How long before he ran into someone with a gun? Or someone who got tired of his antics and simply ordered him gone? Or maybe, most likely, one of these times Kayne wasn't going to be the baddest fucker in the fight. It could happen.

Jesse wriggled his shoulders, walking them up the cushions till he was sitting upright; he could never think well lying down. He looked at Kayne, drooling on his naked chest. Really looked at him. His torso and arms were heavy with sinewy muscle, not the swollen size of some steroid freak — Jesse had seen enough of them during his time inside — but big like pit bull muscle. Size that said the man behind the muscle could seriously fuck you up, as Kayne had done many times over. But could it last?

Kayne might have worked out like a madman in the pen, but now? Now he was on a steady diet of crack and those muscles would not last long. Jesse had seen it before: guys came out of the pen jacked to the shit, but then they get back on the crack and in no time they were fucking toothpicks. Once that happened to Kayne, people would be lining up for a shot at him. Jesse figured it would be best to get as far from this questing freak as possible. Guilt by association and all that.

But for now life was good. No need to bail quite yet.

Jesse leaned over, shoved a dirty finger up his left nostril to plug it and blew out his right one. Or tried to. Ever since that fucking cop had broken his nose by smashing his face into a plate of eggs — completely undeservedly; he hadn't done a damn thing to warrant such abuse — it always clogged up when he smoked. Breathing through it was a pain in the ass and for months he had endured taunts of “egg face” and “egg snot.”

Jesse snotted a yellowish lump onto the floor and sniffed back what was dribbling down his lips. Staring at the snot as it soaked into an old cigarette butt, an idea came to him. He turned from the snot to Kayne and the idea took hazy shape in his cloudy mind.

Jesse fingered his crooked nose and smiled.