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Talking with Martha

Chapter 3

Jack Chow leaned back in his leather Michael Amini office chair, both feet on the desk
eating a grilled cheese sandwich when the phone rang. “Hey, Stinky! So what’s the
deal?” Jack shifted around in the chair, dropping his feet to the floor and grabbing the
keyboard. “Ok…yeah…ok…got it. I can grab a train in the morning and you can meet
me at Grand Central. Got it…yeah…” Jack was tapping the keyboard and looking at the
screen, “ok, I’ll get in on the 9:47, see ya then.”

Jack hung up the phone, tapped another key and the strange spirit writing again, appeared
on the wall.

“You know Jack, if you call Dr. Hun, she could probably help,” Anne’s robotic voice
spoke from the hall as she brought in a diet cola.

“Yeah, I know, but it is still the middle of the night in China. I need to wait till around
eight or nine let her get her morning coffee, or tea” Jack walked to the image again.
“Anne, does this look like a hand print to you?”

“One moment Jack, and I will analyze the image,” Anne stood very still as the image
grew larger, then cropped an area, larger again, then cropped again. Finally several red
and blue lines appeared in multiple configurations blinking on and off again, connecting a
series of white circles. “Jack, the smudge you see has a fifty-seven percent probability of
being a hand print. If it is a hand print, then the probability that it is a male between five
feet eight inches tall and five feet ten inches tall is seventy-three percent.”

“Thanks, great job,” Jack called back as he was trotting out of the room. “I’ll be in the
lab. Call Hun around nine and pipe her to the lab.”

At the far end of the hall was the bedroom. Jack sat down on the four poster king size
bed and tossed his New Balance 854’s into the corner of the room. Jack’s feet and hands
were big for an Asian but he just couldn’t bring himself to buy custom made shoes no
matter what Cato said. Besides, Kelvin was the one who tried to take Anne home to meet
his parents after three days of the Dew pool party.

Jack opened the closet and took out a while nylon suit and a pair of anti-static shoes from
a zip lock bag hanging on the rear wall. Changed, he stepped inside the walk in, pushing
a small button on the underside of a shelf that opened an elevator to the lab. Jack loved
this because it made him feel like a James Bond character; the mad scientist going into
his secret lair. No, wait, maybe now since he was working on a mystery he was the
Batman.

The door closed and Jack descended to the lab some forty feet below the house. It is
surprising what eighty million dollars will do for fixing up the place. Jack grabbed a
stool next to the primary control console. He’d start here. Once Jack sat down, the

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desktop began to glow a soft blue. The female voice that answered the door when Shu
arrived, also greeted Jack.

“Hello Jack, I have checked your vitals as you entered and your heart rate and blood
pressure seem elevated. Are you sick or in love?”

“Neither Martha,” Jack named the computer interface after his famous neighbor. She
was just so nice. “I need to go to New York to help Stin…Al on a case. A police thing.”

“I see. By Al do you mean detective Shu?”

“Yes Martha that is who I mean. You met him today.”

“So how may I help you Jack? I can recommend several restaurants, arrange for a hotel
and car service, perhaps I can select some appropriate evening entertainment?”

“No, nothing like that,” Jack was twirling on the stool like a school boy at a soda
fountain. “I need some test equipment to take with me to examine the area where the
spirit writing appeared.”

“Very well Jack, I think I can help. Do you want to purchase the equipment or make it
yourself? When will you need it?

“Well I need it by tomorrow morning, so which ever is faster,” Jack replied.

“I see. Jack, are you aware that the writing found in the subway was at the scene of a
multiple homicide?”

“No,” Jack leaned on the desk, “how do you know it was?”

“While Detective Shu was here I created a phone trap for his cell phone and after
reviewing the numbers stored I also created traps for the other phones he calls. At the
same time I accessed the computerized police reports that corresponded to Detective
Shu’s conversations and the GPS location of his phone for the past 48 hours.”

“Jesus, Martha,” Jack stood up with his hands on his hips, “what the hell has gotten into
you?”

“Just following the protection protocol you established last year while you were working
on the particle transfer project. As you said, ‘Don’t trust anyone, especially the cops or
the feds’.”

“Ok, ok, I remember now,” Jack paced the floor in frustration, “but turn it off for Shu.
He’s practically by brother for god’s sake. Well, since you have the information anyway,
tell me what the story was in the subway. Don’t read to me the reports, consolidate and
give me a summary.”

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“Very well Jack, by the way your blood pressure and hear rate has risen, you should sit
down.” Martha began the summary. “The reports say that ten individuals were slain on
the platform of the Whitehall subway station around three AM. There is no apparent
motive and no physical evidence other than the dismembered remains of the victims. All
victims seem to have died in a similar manner. Head was severed, followed by the limbs
and the torso cut in half last. According to the coroners report, the entire incident
occurred in seconds.”

“That is amazing,” Jack was holding his hand over his mouth, looking toward the ceiling.
“And no physical evidence. Hmmmm. Ok, I’m going to need a portable gas analyzer, a
CO2 laser, a profilometer, a clean room quality vacuum, some specimen jars and zip lock
bags, a one meter scale and a case of Stewart’s root beer.”

“Is the root beer to be used for testing,” queried Martha.

“Nah, I just noticed we were out, so I figured I’d better let you know,” Jack was now
doodling on some notebook paper.

“I will have a status in an hour Jack.”

Jack was not paying attention to Martha right now; he was busy jotting notes and
structuring hypotheses as to what could have happened on the subway platform and if he
could reproduce the spirit writing in some manner. Sitting under a work station at the far
end of the lab Jack found a Plexiglas box he had made for some gas dispersion tests he
did a couple of years ago. His goal was to see just how long it took an air freshener to
disguise the presence of methane gas in a room. He was trying to find a way to
automatically hide the smell of someone farting at a party, but this sounded a lot better.

Jack placed the box on the work surface and connected a braided hose, used to transfer
high pressure gasses. Next, he connected the line to a smoke generator, the kind they
used in the wind tunnels when they measured the air flow pattern around the profile of a
car, or airplane wing. The problem was, as the smoke came out, it just filled the box no
matter how slow or how quickly he opened the valve or what pressure differential he
used.

On a whim, Jack pressurized the box with sulfur hexafluoride gas. Since the gas is
heavier than air Jack figured this might keep the lighter smoke from dissipating quite as
quickly. Although the results were not entirely as Jack had hoped, the gas did produce a
uniform two dimensional dispersion boundary. Next, Jack dropped the temperature in the
container to minus forty degrees Fahrenheit to slow down the molecules. Much better
results, he could slow down the dispersion of the smoke long enough to create two lines
of a character.

“Not great, but headed in the right direction,” Jack thought, and made some notes on the
paper.

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A chime sounded, “Excuse me Jack, its Martha, may I interrupt?” Martha’s voice was
seemingly coming from everywhere in the room.

“Sure Martha, what’s up?”

“I have those items you asked for. They should be here in four packages by Federal
Express and the others will arrive via DHL. All of the items you requested should be
here by ten PM at the latest,” Martha seemed unusually satisfied with her
accomplishment even though she was a computer program.

“Great, make sure you have carry cases for everything. Did you get the root beer?” Jack
suddenly seemed thirsty.

“Yes Jack, I can have Anne bring it down if you like. By the way Jack, Anne has tried
several times to reach Dr. Hun, without a response, shall I have her continue?”

“Yeah, keep trying. Say, is it after eight o’clock already? Man where did the time go?
Tell her to try the University too, sometimes Hun sleeps at her office,” Jack was off to try
another experiment.

“Very well Jack, anything else?” asked the voice.

“Yeah, buy a Land Rover for Dr. Hun and have it delivered to the University before
lunch, make sure its got dual fuel tanks,” Jack was thinking ahead.

“The University at Wuxi?” asked Martha

“Duh, it wouldn’t do her any good at Berkley would it?” Jack was now rummaging
through a storage cabinet.

The problem with being a genius is there is just so much stuff you want to find out about.
Jack had done so many experiments on so many different materials he found it hard to
locate the things he needed. Finally, behind several helium containers he found what he
was looking for, ballistic gel. And right next to the gel was the spruce bones.

The helium containers were leftovers from the going away party they threw for Martha
Stewart when she moved. She had been gone for a year when the idea struck that he
should have had a party; the fact that she was gone had little impact on the fun everyone
had. Jack and a college buddy named Tommy Wallace got the idea to fill up a bunch of
inflatable pool toys using the helium, wrapping them with the pool cover and tying the
whole thing to a big wheel Tommy had been riding around the pool.

It worked great. In no time Tommy was forty feet above the pool being carried by a
strong wind towards the ocean. Apparently, he landed on some investment bankers
yacht. The two got drunk together and came up with an idea for making special

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mattresses for burn patients and now Tommy was living in LA with some model in a
multi-million dollar house on the beach.

The ballistic gel was purchased after Jack had watched an episode of Myth Busters where
they were seeing if they could project a playing card by flinging it and injuring someone.
Jack thought it was supposed to be a James Bond trick or something like that. Anyway,
he made a form of himself to see if he could make an ink pen that would shoot a
projectile that could kill someone. Turns out the Myth Busters test was a failure, but Jack
made a very deadly pen.

After watching some later episodes, Jack saw that spruce pretty well matched the strength
of a human bone so he had some made to make a more realistic model. The pen’s
projectile easily shattered bone and kept on going. Jack figured he could have killed two
guys with that pen if one stood behind the other.

The plan was now, to make a model using both, the ballistic gel and the spruce bones and
see what kind of force it would take to slice of a limb, or cut a torso in half. Jack quickly
mixed the gel, readied the form and positioned the spruce elements in their respective
locations. Jack was suspending his wooden rib cage when the chime rang.

“Jack,” came Martha’s voice, “Anne has Dr. Hun on the line. You were correct she was
at the University. Would you like me to route the call to the lab phone?”

“Put her on the speaker, I’m in the middle of something,” Jack mumbled slightly as he
had several pieces of florists wire in his mouth.

“Jack, are you there this is Hun?” called Dr. Hun’s heavily Chinese accented voice.

“Hey doc, good to hear your voice; how goes the work? Been up to the gold fields
recently?” asked Jack, now positioning the gel mix for pouring.

“I was up there last week Jack, it just keeps coming. We found some figures much like
Qin's terracotta army at Xi’an, but much older. My guess is they were supposed to be
guarding the gold. I’ll know more after a couple of months of excavation. The
government has given us anything we want since you made the deal to give them the
controlling shares of the mining venture,” Hun’s voice was full of excitement.

Jack finished the pour and wiped his hands on his chest. “Sounds amazing doc, did you
get a chance to look at the picture I emailed you?

“Yes, I just finished. The characters are very old. I can only translate one word which is
revenge,” Dr. Hun explained.

“Yep, me too! So what about the rest of the characters?” Jack was pushing the gel’s form
into a curing oven.

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“I’m not sure, but if this is what I think it is, by that I mean spirit writing, then this is an
incredible photograph. Oh, I can make out one more word, it’s P’an Hu.,” Dr. Hun’s
voice was fading in and out due to the poor connection.

“What’s that mean?” asked Jack and he set the oven’s timer.

“It’s actually a name. P'an Hu is represented in various Chinese legends as a supernatural


dog, a dog-headed man, or a canine shapeshifter that married an emperor's daughter and
founded at least one race. I guess in our modern day context, we would probably
characterize him as a werewolf,” Dr. Hun sounded a little incredulus as she finished her
statement. “Are you looking for werewolfs instead of gold these days?”

“Maybe,” replied Jack. “I can’t say too much about it right now. Can that guy you told
me about translate this? You know the wacky monk guy?”

“Probably, but I’m not sure where he is right now, somewhere in the mountains I suspect.
No phones or electricity up there. He’s kind of like the Phantom from the comics. They
say he lives forever and fights evil,” again Hun was nearly laughing out loud. “No way
to get back there without a Land Rover though. I could probably rent one in a week or
two if I looked around. Is this important?”

“Yeah, it’s important enough that there’s a Land Rover sitting outside your door. Jump
in and start looking doc. Gimme a call just as soon as you find this guy.” Jack didn’t
wait for a response. He was looking for some steel he could form into an ax or a sword.
He needed to make something to hack up that body he was cooking.

After a few minutes, Jack found exactly what he was looking for, or maybe the “what’s”
he was looking for since he found several workable objects. His first choice was a meat
cleaver from the kitchen. It was made of good quality steel, heavy and around eight
inches long. Next, he found a length of steel angle. He figured he could grind an edge on
this, harden the steel and then hone it sharp. He also found a butcher knife, a shovel and
a box of Rice Krispie treats. He discarded the idea of using the knife, or the shovel, but
decided on taking the treats back to the lab so he could eat as he worked. It was now past
midnight and plenty of work left to do.

Treats in hand, Jack decided he would need some help if he expected to get this all done
before he had to catch his train. Anne came into the room with the packages from
Federal Express and DHL. She placed them on the workbench.

“Is there anything else I can do Jack,” Anne asked in a flat robot kind of tone. Jack
needed to fix that, give more expression to her voice, more like Martha.

“Yes you can Anne; you’ll need to access your industrial programs.”

“Of course Jack,” Anne responded. “What would you like me to do?”

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“I’d like you to build a guillotine,” Jack headed to a large grinding wheel to put an edge
on his steel bar.

*****
It had been a long day for Danny after meeting with Fat Sam. Danny took a cab back to
Shirley’s Diner. He could feel a strong need for a piece of pie and some hot coffee.
Lucy saw him getting out of the cab and had the coffee ready in the corner booth Danny
generally frequented. He liked to keep his back to the wall and the door where he could
see it clearly.

Danny slid into the booth, “Thanks Lucy”, and took his notebook and several scraps of
paper from his coat.

“You workin’ or eatn’” Lucy was eyeing two young black males that had just moved to
the stools at the counter.

“Both,” Danny smiled. “I think this may be a two slice job.”

“Tony,” Lucy called, “Danny’s got a two slicer today, so you better plan for a couple of
tunas on whole wheat to go.” Lucy knew Danny better than he knew himself. A two
slicer always meant Danny was going to be in some deep thought, probably two pots of
coffee and two slices of pie, always apple. When he was done, maybe an hour or two, he
would walk the streets, talking to hookers, junkies, homeless guys and a few shop owners
that dealt in “special” items. Lucy made sure he had something to take with him.
Sometimes he ate the sandwiches, but most of the time he either gave them away or
shared them with some hooker or bum as they talked

Danny wrote down what Fat Sam had told him about the additional work the “guys” had
been doing just to keep their place of business clean. Danny knew that from time to time
punks, or bangers would get high or nuts and bust up a bum or a hooker, now and then
killing them, but not often. He could never recall anyone chopping them up, that was
something you reserved for the professionals that were sending a message. Obviously it
was a particularly strong message, but a message.

“Nah,” Danny thought, “this was different. This asshole likes killing; he gets off on it.”

Danny finished his last bite of pie and downed his coffee. As he stood he noticed one of
the black males had left and had been replaced by a skinhead with tatoos around his neck
and down his left arm. He and the black kid were argueing and the white kid was
reaching around to the back of his pants to pull out a small caliber pistol.

Danny reached out and grabbed the kids thumb, bending it back to his forearm pulling his
hand hard up to the back of his head and with the other hand, pulled the gun from his
pants.

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“Hey there Nancy,” Danny spoke next to his ear, “this a real gun or a piss pistol?”

The black youth started to stand up.

“Whoa, there son, anyone talking to you?” The look in Danny’s eyes was a clear
indicator that he needed to stick to his stool like super glue if he expected to see his
moma tonight.

Danny took the .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol and stuck it into the ear of his new
friend. “Ya know if this were a real gun, it could put a pretty neat little hole in this nice
smooth head you got here.” Danny was rubbing his chin on the kids head. “Course it’s so
small, don’t think the bullet would come out the other side, even with that crap you call
brains in the way. What do you think?” The kid said nothing. “Apparently your mother
did not teach you manners. This is where you say ‘Yes, sir.’”

The kid responded with the appropriate ‘yes sir’ as directed.

“Good boy. So here is the plan. See I been needing one of these little toy guns for my
collection and you just decided to give it to me as a special gift cause we are friends,
right?” Danny pulled back hard on his thumb

“Yes Sir,” he winced.

“Good. Tell ya what. This is where I come to eat and these are my friends, so if you
come back here I would be unhappy, and you don’t want me to be unhappy do you?

“No Sir.”

“You learn very fast for a moron. So, here is the plan moron. Your little playmate and
you are going to haul ass outta here and not come back. And so you know, I don’t really
care if you shoot each other or not since it will save me the forty cents for the bullet to do
it myself. But, now this is the important part. I hate paperwork, so if you off each other
around here, I’ll have to do some paperwork and that will piss me off. You don’t want to
piss me off do you?”

“No Sir.”

“Good, now go far away and play nice.” Danny shoved the kid out the door with such
force he fell to the ground and skidded several feet before coming to a stop. The black
kid dashed out the door, stepping on the one on the ground disappearing around the
corner.

“Thanks Danny,” Lucy said giving him a hug and handing him his sack lunch with the
tuna sandwiches and a Koolaid juice box. “Haven’t seen those two around before today.”

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“Don’t think you will be seeing them again either,” Danny held up the bag, waived and
started down the street.

Over the next several hours Danny managed to share his sandwiches with a hooker
named Candy and a homeless guy named Phil. Candy was probably around thirty,
looked fifty and probably felt like ninety. She was a junkie doing six to ten balloons on a
good day and hooking to pay the pimp that supplied her. The half tuna sandwich was
probably the only solid food see’d see this week. She and Danny sat on the back seat
some one had tossed in the alley after gutting some guy’s Lexus. The car was gone, but
the seat remained.

“Real leather,” Candy stroked the seat with one hand while eating the half sandwich with
the other. “You want to party later after this. No charge, you’re a good egg Marks.”

“Thanks Candy, but you know I don’t mix pleasure with business. Seen any new johns
around, maybe a little weird?” Danny handed her his Koolaid box.

“All johns are weird. You mean any weirder than the ususal?” She took a long skip.
Junkies loved something sweet.

“Yeah, maybe like they are scoping out the area for something other than a party.”
Danny took a bite from his half of the sandwich.

“Nah, but to tell you the truth, I been pretty wasted for the last couple of nights. Think I
got some bad stuff, ya know. I was so out of it, I saw this dude who was like a dog, and
then a guy, but like still had this head like a dog. Not a dog like a poodle or nothing,
more like a guard dog, something really mean.” Candy gobbled down the last bite.

“You mean like a german shepard kind of dog?” Danny handed her another half
sandwich, “that kind of dog?”

“Nah, well, yeah but meaner and brown or grey or something like that. And here is the
part where I knew I was way out of it. This guy like floats off the ground, right up into
the sky and is gone.” Candy downed the end of the Koolaid.

“So where was this, I mean where were you at when you were having this halucination?”

“For real? I was laying right here. It looked so real, I mean if it were real it would have
been just across the way. See that sign over there,?” Candy pointed at a torn billboard for
a Hooters. “He floated right in front of that sign.”

The billboard was located in a vacant lot, adjacent to a freeway overpass just behind
some chain link fencing that wasn’t doing much of a job keep out anything or anyone.
Dannys stepped through the gapping hole in the links, making his way across the lot
toward the sign. The lot has covered with old booze bottles, broken syringes, old
newspapers, a mattress and what looked like the remains of a 69 Chevy Nova. Danny

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stooped and looked and the naked face, where the grill would have been, and the smooth
lines down the rear quarter panel.

Danny patted the front fender kindly “Sorry you had to end up here darling. This was no
way to treat a lady.” Danny recalled his own youth and the 69 Nova that had been his
first new car. Who knows, this one might have been his.

The posts for the billboard looked like four old telephone poles lined up, one next to the
other separated by about six feet. Even from a distance, Danny noticed the poles looked
like someone had taken an ax to them, perhaps trying to cut them down. As he
approached closer he noticed the tale tell staining of the ground; a kind of black to brown
color on the dirt and the occasional weed.

He walked along the edge of the area, careful not to disturb any evidence that might have
been left behind; knowing the crime scene guys who would have his ass if he screwed
anything up. No sign of a body but there was no doubt, something was killed here and it
left a lot of blood. There was still the who and the why to be figured out, but that was
another department. What was a sure thing was that Candy had seen something. Danny
was sure it wasn’t some flying german shepherd, or the alien from the Brookyn Bridge,
but there was something going on here and the two were probably connected.

Danny called in to the watch commander, reported the possible homicde and stayed on
scene till the squints arrived. As the crime scene unit started there work, Danny noticed a
movement just beyond the center support for the overpass. He told the crime scene guys
he was gonna go “return some of this rented coffee”; in other words, take a leak and
stepped into the shadows.

“Hey bud,” Danny called, “it’s alright. Come on out, I ain’t gonna hurt you. Look, come
on, I got a tuna sandwich if you want it.” Danny heard movement from a pile of wood,
old boxes and what appeared to the the doors of the old Chevy. Danny walked slowly
toward the sound.

“Stay where you are,” the voice commanded. It was obvious the voice was strained from
age and booze, sleeping in the cold and probably more than one disease.

“No problem,” Danny replied. “I can leave the sandwich right here if you like.”

“Fine, leave it on the ground and step back.”

Danny did as he was told and waited. From inside the heap stepped a man in a knit cap,
old brown coat, military style pants and shoes. Though he looked to be sixty, Danny
could tell by his gait that he was probably more like thirty.

“So, you ex military? Maybe Vietnam?,” Danny tried to start a dialogue.

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“Yeah, but not Nam. Afganistan mostly,” the man reached down to take the paperbag
with the sandwich inside.

“See anything strange here?”

“Who wants to know? You a cop?”

Danny took a step closer. “Yeah, I’m a cop, but I was a ranger before I was a cop, First
Battallion. Destert Storm for me.”

“Look, man…I don’t see nothing I don’t hear nothing and I don’t need nothing.” The
Afgan vet took a bite from the sandwich and sat down on the ground.

“Listen,” Danny squatted, “I think somebody was murdered in the lot over there and I’m
trying to find out who and when. Any ideas?

“I can tell you it wasn’t me,” chewing slowly. “When I killlem’, it’s one under the ribs
and one across the throat.”

“So someone was murdered there?” Danny waited.

“Something happened, but I didn’t see it. I heard like some dogs running and howling,
then the wind started to blow and I heard this like humming sound. Wasn’t long after
that I heard somebody scream. Real short like and then kind of a gargling sound then
nothing,” he reached into the bag for the other half sandwich.

Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty and a few one dollar bills. “Here,
take this.” Dannys shoved the bills into the vets hands. “My name’s Marks. You need
anything give me a call,” Danny handed him his card.

“Thanks man, the name is Love, Robert Love.”

Danny stood and turned heading to one of the black and whites to grab a ride home. He
spent a while listening to the squints talk technical crap about dirt, heat, humidity and
some coefficient of coagulation. Finally he had hand enough, found a kid with keys and
left.

Danny walked down the street, past two vacant lots and a stripped Escalade before he
came to the front steps of his building. Mrs. McConnell’s television was still on, blue
and red lights flickering through the sheer drapes, though Danny was sure she had fallen
asleep watching the news. A widow for nearly twenty years now, her husband had been a
beat cop in Jersey for ten years; killed by a punk stealing a car. Ed had seen one too
many Clint Eastwood movies and thought he could stop the kid by standing in the middle
of the road and yelling, “Halt” while pointing his .38 at the windshield. The kid was
fourteen and Ed had just turned thirty.

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Grace kept a shotgun by the door. Well, more than an ordinary shotgun, her husband had
bought it from some ATF auction limited to law enforcement officers. It was a monster;
officially, it was an Armsel Striker, a twelve-guage shotgun with a twelve shot rotary
cylinder magazine. The force called it a Street Sweeper, but she called it “Sonny”,
because “he took care of his momma.” The gun was heavy at nearly ten pounds loaded,
but Grace McConnel was no princess. She looked like one of those lady wrestlers from
the fifty’s standing six feet tall in her bare feet. Some drug puke broke into her place a
few years ago; before Danny could get down stairs she had busted his arm and heaved
him through the front window. The junkie was in the clinic for six weeks before they
could arraign him. Lucky for him he didn’t meet up with Sonny or he’d be doing life
under a dirt blanket instead of five to ten for an attempted burglary.

If it had been earlier in the day, Danny would have tapped on the door twice as he headed
up the stairs to his apartment. But, it was late, Grace was bound to be asleep so he’d let it
pass for tonight.

The bulb was out again at the bottom of the stairs so Danny would have to remember to
tell the super about it. Better yet, he’d just replace the bulb himself since waiting for the
super was like getting an appointment with Donald Trump. Never going to happen.
Danny reached up and turned the bulb slightly and it began to glow brightly again. He
thought about it for a second and then shook this head slowly. “Danny, you’re getting to
be like an old woman. You see boggymen in every shadow.”

Danny was four steps from the second floor, just far enough up so he could see the
bottom of his door, when spotted the broken toothpick on the floor. Someone had opened
the door of his apartment and had either come and gone, or was still there waiting for
him. If they were gone, fine, they were gone; but if not they had probably seen him from
the window and were waiting for him to come up the stairs, probably looking out the
peephole right now.

Danny reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone as he walked up the
final steps and moved closer toward the door. He hit speedial number one; Shu’s cell.

“Hello Mom,” Danny began even before Shu could speak. “Just got home, and I wanted
to let you know that apple pie was great.”

Shu leaped from the bed grabbed his pants, stepped into his loafers and reaching for his
gun. Danny was at his appartment and was telling Shu something bad was about to go
down. “On my way Danny, hold on.” Shu called into the phone.

“Thanks mom,” Danny reached for his keys as though he was about to unlock the door.
“Love ya,” Danny was now talking to dead air as Shu had hung up the phone and was
calling backup to Danny’s appartment. “Tell Aunt May I’ll drop by tomorr…” Danny
saw movement behind the peephole. He faked dropping his keys to the floor and as he
did he reached for his Glock and flung his body away from the handle side of the door to
a position flat on the floor, behind the wall.

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There was a loud “fwudt” sound then the sound of shredding metal as the door knob blew
off the door and down the stairs. Four more of the thudding sounds followed in rapid
succession as the face of the door buldged outward with convex forms that looked like
metal egg shapes; two of them split on the surface revealing cottonly strands of fiber
through the torn metal.

The door slowly swung outward into the hall its inside shattered by the large caliber
rounds that had been fired. Danny attributed the lack of sound, to a silencer on the
weapon used. That meant he was dealing with a professional and not some dope head
looking for a wide screen he could snatch and grab.

What the professional did not know is that Danny had glued a piece of Kevlar he got
from the SWAT guys to the inside face of the door and then covered that with a sheet of
aircraft aluminum. Danny reached inside his pocket for his backup clip; nothing there.
Probably still in the dresser. “Shit,” Danny whispered.

There were two choices to be made here. The smart one was to lay low in the hall and
wait for backup. The second was to get into the apartment dissarm, this clown and find
out who wanted Danny to have a box seat at Arlington.

“I pick door number two, Bob.” Danny leaped through the oppening, diving toward the
kitchen. Two shots struck, first the door post and second the wall that divided the kitchen
from the living room. The second shot blew the door off the cabinet on the opposite side
of the wall sending cerial across the kitchen. Danny caught a glipse of the shooters hand.
It looked like he was holding a cannon with a muffler from a Honda stuck on the end.

“Hey,” Danny called, “you just ruined my box of Count Chocula, what’s the matter with
you?”

“Sorry Danny, just business,” the voice called back.

“Say, is that you Bishop?” Danny called then leaned around the side of the wall letting go
shots in the general area of where he last heard the voice. At the same time he oppened
the refrigerator door and reached for the Baretta.

Two shots hit the fridge sending Danny scrambling for more cover. “Yeah Danny it’s
me; so how ya been?” replied Bishop from the darkness. “Sorry bout your gun in the
fridge. I got it right here ya know.”

Danny could hear the sound of Bishop reloading. Danny figured the cannon he was
holding was a Desert Eagle shooting fifty’s. That meant seven shots to the clip. That
also meant one clean shot and he would be Shu’s former partner. Danny dove for the
dining room table, flipping it on its side as he landed and just as quickly Bishop leveled
two shots into its now verticle top. Wood splintered the metal understide driving
toothpick size chunks into his arm and chest.

1
Danny fired two more shots over the top of the table back into the living room toward the
hallway. One made a thud ripping kind of sound. “Hey Bishop, you all right?” Danny
was hopping he had winged him.

“Yeah fine, thanks for asking. I’m afraid your recliner aint’ do’in nearly so good though.

Bishop let go two more shots and the top third of the table exploded leaving Danny with
precious little cover. Danny fired two more rounds into the blackness where he had last
seen the flash. He was pretty sure Bishop was hiding in the hall now, maybe as far as the
bedroom.

“So Bishop,” Danny was stalling hoping for Shu or backup, realizing neither would be
here for another ten minutes or more. “How’s your sister, still asking about me? Oh
yeah, and who wants me dead?”

“Don’t know Danny. A guy gives me ten large and says ‘kill Danny Marks tonight’. Ya
know Danny I got a reputation to maintain. Yeah sis says hi. Would have invited your to
dinner Saturday, but you being dead and all, it just didn’t seem to work”

“Well thanks for the offer anyway. So what if I give you fifteen G’s and we call it
even?”

“Nah,” Bishop let go another round driving more wood into Danny’s chest. “I like you
and all, but it would ruin my business reputation plus I would wind up dead. Ya know.”

Danny reached over to feel his way to the box under the window. If he could slide it
over, he could reach his stash under the floorboards. Danny slipped his hand from behind
the table only to feel cold and obviously dead flesh. Looking up at the ceiling was Fat
Sam, face distorted from a severe beating and his throat slashed.”

Danny fired another two rounds into the hall. “Bishop, why did you kill Sam?”

“Wasn’t me Danny,” Bishop fired another round, this one near Danny’s foot. He was
homing in on the sound of Danny’s voice. “He was dead when I got here. Looks like
someone worked him over pretty good before they sliced his throat. Not a good cut job
either. I think he took a while to die. Pissed me off to see it, now I gotta find a new
supplier for my professional tools. Can’t get this stuff as Sears ya know.”

Danny reached beneath the floor boards and found the end of a nylon rope, the kind you
use for mountain climbing. It was secured to a metal ring screwed to the floor joists
below. Danny always figured if there was a fire, he could lower himself to the street
using the rope.

Bishop fired another round, this one shattered what remained of the table and Danny’s
source of cover all at the same time. This would be it.

1
“BALOOOM!!”, was the next thing Danny heard as the front window exploded outward
to the street. Danny turned to the open door to see Grace and Sonny taking aim to fire
again.

“You alive Danny?” Grace called

“Shoot the hall,” Danny called back, rope in hand heading for the window

As Danny was jumping for the window, Bishop fired another round, wide of Danny’s
new position, striking the dining room wall. Grace saw the flash and let go with Sonny in
three rapid fire bursts. None of the shots hit Bishop, but the flying plaster and wood
temporarily blinded him. He fired wildly toward the door and grazing Grace’s hip
sending her to the floor in the hall.

On the street below, Shu was navigating his unmarked car over the curb, demolishing a
line of trash cans and some guys bike before coming to a stop in front of Danny’s
building and just in time to receive the shower of glass from the expoding window in
Marks apartment.

Danny was halfway down the side of the building when Bishop got to the window.
Bishop fired twice, missing Danny but putting two holes through the top of Shu’s sedan
and narrowly missing Shu in the process. Shu flung the door opend and clawed for the
pavement. Danny hit the top of the car with enough force to blow out the rear window.

Bishop ejected the empty clip and shoved in a new one, Danny clearly in his sight and
Shu under the car on the driver’s side. Bishop lowered the Desert Eagle for a clean kill,
Danny stunned, prone on the top of the car. “BALOOM!!!”

Bishop could see the lower part of this righ forearm and hand, still holding his street
cannon soaring out the window. Before he could feel the pain, another blast passed
through his spine sending bone and shreds of his heart out the front of his one hundred
dollar shirt. His eyes glazed as the final blast took off the left side his head sending him
tumbleing out of the window, hitting the trunk of the car and onto the sidewalk.

Danny looked up through the blood and brain matter that covered him to see Grace and
Sonny at the window, blood running down her side, half the curlers out of her hair.

“You ok Danny?” Grace called from the open window.

“Yeah, but you coulda just grazed him,” Danny called back

“Are you freakin nuts?” Grace called down looking at Sonny. “You owe me fifteen
bucks for shells and another fifty for a new housecoat. I need to go check on the cat and
make sure he is ok.”

1
“What the hell is going on Danny?” Shu helped him off the top of the car. “Who was
that?” Shu said pointing up to the window, “and who is that,” he said pointing at the body
on the ground.

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