get the hell out of here, please, I’m waiting for somebody.”
“You’re waitin’ for somebody? That’s why you’re sittin’ back here in the dark? Because you’re waitin’ for somebody?”
“That’s right. If Sly Cribbs comes in, send him straight back, will you?”
But Sly Cribbs never did come in, and he didn’t call, either. Gunner waited for him patiently right up until 10 o’clock, then tried to reach the kid by phone at home. It was like trying to get someone to answer the pay phone in a boarded-up gas station.
Gunner didn’t get it.
Then Matt Poole called, and it all made sense.
“You’re on some kind of roll, partner,” the cop said dryly.
In no mood for his repartee, Gunner said, “Every phone call has a point, Poole. You wanna tell me the point of this one?”
“You’ve got another friend in the hospital, Gunner. That’s what.”
Gunner sat upright in his chair, said, “Not Sly Cribbs.”
“Then he is a friend of yours. She isn’t just makin’ it up.”
“Who?”
“The kid’s mother. Charlotte Cribbs.”
“Tell me what happened, Poole. No more bullshit, all right?”
“You better come down here and see for yourself. Kid’s in a pretty bad way.”
“Where?”
“Daniel Freeman ICU. Just follow the red stripe on the floor, you can’t miss it.”
Gunner said he was on his way.
In a contest of who had the most medical hardware keeping them alive, Sly Cribbs would have undoubtedly beaten Jack Frerotte by a landslide.
In the dark, silent spaces of his room in ICU, the kid looked like something out of a sci-fi movie: smothered in gauze, encircled by instruments, wires and tubes and IV lines fanning out from his body like the tendrils of Medusa’s crown. The only indication that a living being lay at the center of all this chaos was the languid beeping of the machines tracking Sly’s vital signs.
“Kid took two hits from a forty-five at close range,” Poole said before Gunner could ask, standing outside the observation window looking onto Sly’s room. “One was a through-and-through that entered his right shoulder, went clean out his back. The other shattered his left collarbone on its way to a kidney. Doctors had to go in and get that one soon as they brought ’im in.”
“When was that?”
“Just after eleven P.M.”
“So what happened? Who the hell did this?”
“Looks like a carjacker. Over on Exposition and Vermont, less than six blocks from his home.”
“A carjacker?”
Poole nodded. “Perp fled the scene on foot, he’s still at large.”
“Anybody get a description?”
“He was a big guy with a ski mask on his head. The one witness we’ve got thinks he was black, but he says he can’t be sure.”
Gunner turned away for a moment, suppressing the need to curse aloud, then regarded Poole again and asked, “How bad is it? They expect him to make it?”
The cop shrugged, said, “Doctors say his chances are a little better than fifty-fifty. He lost a shitload of blood, apparently.”
Gunner nodded solemnly, fell silent for a moment. “You say the ’jacker left without his car? After shooting him twice?”
“Yeah. Seems kind of ass-backwards, doesn’t it? But it happens.”
“Cribbs’s car have a stick shift in it?”
“Yeah. A ’ninety-four Olds Ciera with a manual five, gotta be the first I’ve ever seen. You know about these assholes and sticks, huh?”
Gunner nodded again to say that he did. As a general rule, professional car thieves could drive anything with four wheels, but not every carjacker was so versatile. More than a few of them only knew automatics; they were lost behind the wheel of anything with a manual transmission. And time and again these idiots would make a move on a car, pop a cap in its driver if the driver complained, and only then see the five-speed stick rising up between the seats, rendering the car all but useless to them.
“I guess by now you must be wondering why I asked you down here,” Poole
“You’re waitin’ for somebody? That’s why you’re sittin’ back here in the dark? Because you’re waitin’ for somebody?”
“That’s right. If Sly Cribbs comes in, send him straight back, will you?”
But Sly Cribbs never did come in, and he didn’t call, either. Gunner waited for him patiently right up until 10 o’clock, then tried to reach the kid by phone at home. It was like trying to get someone to answer the pay phone in a boarded-up gas station.
Gunner didn’t get it.
Then Matt Poole called, and it all made sense.
“You’re on some kind of roll, partner,” the cop said dryly.
In no mood for his repartee, Gunner said, “Every phone call has a point, Poole. You wanna tell me the point of this one?”
“You’ve got another friend in the hospital, Gunner. That’s what.”
Gunner sat upright in his chair, said, “Not Sly Cribbs.”
“Then he is a friend of yours. She isn’t just makin’ it up.”
“Who?”
“The kid’s mother. Charlotte Cribbs.”
“Tell me what happened, Poole. No more bullshit, all right?”
“You better come down here and see for yourself. Kid’s in a pretty bad way.”
“Where?”
“Daniel Freeman ICU. Just follow the red stripe on the floor, you can’t miss it.”
Gunner said he was on his way.
In a contest of who had the most medical hardware keeping them alive, Sly Cribbs would have undoubtedly beaten Jack Frerotte by a landslide.
In the dark, silent spaces of his room in ICU, the kid looked like something out of a sci-fi movie: smothered in gauze, encircled by instruments, wires and tubes and IV lines fanning out from his body like the tendrils of Medusa’s crown. The only indication that a living being lay at the center of all this chaos was the languid beeping of the machines tracking Sly’s vital signs.
“Kid took two hits from a forty-five at close range,” Poole said before Gunner could ask, standing outside the observation window looking onto Sly’s room. “One was a through-and-through that entered his right shoulder, went clean out his back. The other shattered his left collarbone on its way to a kidney. Doctors had to go in and get that one soon as they brought ’im in.”
“When was that?”
“Just after eleven P.M.”
“So what happened? Who the hell did this?”
“Looks like a carjacker. Over on Exposition and Vermont, less than six blocks from his home.”
“A carjacker?”
Poole nodded. “Perp fled the scene on foot, he’s still at large.”
“Anybody get a description?”
“He was a big guy with a ski mask on his head. The one witness we’ve got thinks he was black, but he says he can’t be sure.”
Gunner turned away for a moment, suppressing the need to curse aloud, then regarded Poole again and asked, “How bad is it? They expect him to make it?”
The cop shrugged, said, “Doctors say his chances are a little better than fifty-fifty. He lost a shitload of blood, apparently.”
Gunner nodded solemnly, fell silent for a moment. “You say the ’jacker left without his car? After shooting him twice?”
“Yeah. Seems kind of ass-backwards, doesn’t it? But it happens.”
“Cribbs’s car have a stick shift in it?”
“Yeah. A ’ninety-four Olds Ciera with a manual five, gotta be the first I’ve ever seen. You know about these assholes and sticks, huh?”
Gunner nodded again to say that he did. As a general rule, professional car thieves could drive anything with four wheels, but not every carjacker was so versatile. More than a few of them only knew automatics; they were lost behind the wheel of anything with a manual transmission. And time and again these idiots would make a move on a car, pop a cap in its driver if the driver complained, and only then see the five-speed stick rising up between the seats, rendering the car all but useless to them.
“I guess by now you must be wondering why I asked you down here,” Poole
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