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chapter four
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HICKS
I pulled the cruiser into the Global Mall. Dispatch called in a disturbance at TGI Friday’s. Two armed Caucasian males were attempting to steal the weekend’s deposits from their safe. Whoever called nine-one-one gave little information other than that. Four units had been dispatched to the scene. We were nearly there. The other three units were five to seven minutes out.
“We are first on the scene. I know the place well,” I told him. “I’ll drop you off at the rear entrance in case they make a break for it. You can take cover behind the dumpster. I’ll enter through the front and check out what’s going down. The perps are armed so stay low, and if they run for it, don’t take a risk before backup gets here. Unless the path is clear, hang back and follow only. Do not engage two armed perps on your own. I’ll wait for back up before we make a move up front. Got it?”
Falco nodded, seeming cool as a cucumber. He obviously had no first day jitters. If he did have them, you couldn’t tell. Either way, I liked it.
I dropped him off at the rear of the place, near the loading dock and swung the cruiser around to the front of the restaurant. The business had a free-standing entrance separate from the mall. I killed the red and blue lights and looked at the cruiser clock. Backup was still four minutes out, or more. Through the plate glass I saw commotion. A white male was holding a blonde woman by the hair. He appeared to be holding a gun.
Shit! I couldn’t wait. My heart was racing. I loved action, and I loved danger—loved it. I slipped out of the cruiser, drew my weapon and used the shoulder mic to radio in. “Suspect spotted holding a hostage. I’m going in.”
“Negative, Hicks,” the watch commander replied over comm. “Wait for backup. They are delayed—now seven minutes out.”
“Shit!” I said to myself. Not good. There was no way I could wait seven minutes. I switched off the radio.
I opened the front door carefully, noting that the perp held the hostage between himself and me, gun pointed to her head. This man’s job was crowd control. The second one was undoubtedly in the back with the manager, stealing the money. The hostage looked scared to death. She was young, perhaps seventeen or so. The perp was sweating, looking pretty scared himself.
“Police Officer!” I screamed. “Drop the weapon and release the girl.”
“The cops are here,” the man screamed, loudly.
“Shit. Let’s go!” I heard a husky male voice calling from the back of the restaurant. The second perp.
“I said, drop the weapon,” I repeated.
“Fuck you,” the first perp cried out at me. He pushed the girl down and ran toward the back. There were about ten to fifteen patrons in the restaurant. When the perp ran, many of them screamed and began to scatter toward the door, some of them in my path.
“Move away,” I yelled.
I heard a gunshot.
Falco!
I wrestled my way through the patrons and headed to the back, holding my gun in both hands and pointing it directly ahead. I paused at the admin office and pointed my gun inside. The manager stood behind the desk, his face sweaty and white as a sheet. He pointed toward the exit. The exit door was ajar.
I busted through the exit door fully prepared to fire.
“We’re clear,” I heard Falco say. Both perps were on the concrete, face down. Their weapons had been kicked aside, out of their reach. Falco had one perp already handcuffed and was in the process of cuffing the second one. A gym bag, undoubtedly filled with money, was about six feet away.
“Toss me your cuffs,” he said.
I holstered my weapon and handed him my cuffs, “Nice job, Falco,” I called out. “What happened?”
“These two came running out of the back like their asses were on fire,” he said. Falco’s back was to me. He was kneeling over the perp with one knee dug into the man’s back.
“Both of these geniuses had their weapons slipped down their belts in the back,” he continued. “I commanded them to halt. They didn’t. I fired a warning shot and that’s when they hit the ground.”
“They look like a couple of pussies,” I said. “They probably pissed themselves when they heard that . . . car backfire.”
“What?” he said.
“You didn’t fire a warning shot,” I said. “That was a car backfiring.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just trust me on this, Falco.”
I felt a strong hand grab my hair and yank my head back. I heard the sound of a gun cocking. It was a third perp. There were three, of them, not two. Shit. One of them must have been the lookout. He could have easily hidden near the back door when I came charging through. He snuck up behind me. I felt the cold steel of his gun barrel on my right cheek.
“Toss your weapon, pig!” he screamed at Falco. “Uncuff my friends. And you, cop lady? Don’t even think about pulling any of that Kung Fu shit to get away. I’ll put a bullet through your temple, I swear.”
Falco slowly unholstered his weapon and stooped, giving it an underhanded toss. It landed six feet away. He stood, and held his hands forward, palms down, fingers spread, to show the third perp he was not a threat. He looked unbelievably cool. This was all going down in the back of the mall and fortunately there were no bystanders to get hurt if this got ugly, and it felt like we were quickly heading in that direction.
“Stay calm, blondie,” Falco said. “Let’s talk about this.”
“I said, uncuff my friends . . . now, pig!” he yelled again. This time I heard anxiety in his voice. I could also hear him breathing rapidly. I could literally smell the sweat on him. The dipshit had been eating refried beans.
One of the cuffed perps, stood and began running away. The other remained, frozen in place. Off in the distance I heard the sirens from the backup cruisers.
“Hear that, blondie?” Falco said. “That’s our back up coming. Drop your weapon now. No one has been hurt yet. This is simple attempted robbery. You shoot and everything changes and not in a good way.”
He had called the man with the gun to my head, ‘blondie.’ I could only assume the man holding me had blonde hair, but I couldn’t see his face. His pistol arm was resting on my right shoulder, so he’d know if I went for my gun. He still had a firm grip on my hair but my left hand was free. I touched a small can of mace on my belt with my fingers. I saw Falco’s eyes following my hand. He saw me.
Falco began to slowly walk toward me, his hands still in front of him.
“Stop right there, I mean it,” the perp barked, his voice sounding even more anxious.
“You hear those sirens, blondie?” Falco said. “That’s our friends. In about two minutes this place will be swarming with cops. There is no scenario where you get out of this. The way I see it, you have only a couple of realistic options. One, you drop that gun and raise your hands. I’ll tell the DA you voluntarily gave yourself up. You’ll do the time for attempted robbery, but that’s it. The other option is, you shoot her. You shoot a cop and my backup team will shoot you stone dead and your momma hears about all this on the five o’clock news.”
I heard blondie’s breathing escalate. My hand was positioned on the mace. If anything turned south, I was going to make a move. I had long since moved past my own fear. My adrenaline was churning. I was pissed and my anger was growing.
“C’mon, blondie,” Falco continued. “You look like a smart kid. You’re young. With good behavior, I doubt you do a whole lotta time. You have your whole life in front of you. Don’t do something stupid. Hell, blondie, you do this right and you’ll be out in six months.”
It was all a lie, of course. Attempted armed robbery, assaulting a police officer, detaining and holding a police officer, reckless endangerment, and who knows what else this punk already had on his rap sheet. Blondie was going away for a long time, but Falco, to his credit, sounded convincing.
I could both hear and feel the perp hyperventilating. Whatever was going to happen, would happen real soon. His rapid breathing stopped suddenly.
“Ok, ok,” he yelled out. “I give up.”
"Good," Falco said. "Drop the gun."
He let go of my hair and raised both hands but did not drop the gun as ordered. I spun around toward him, reached up, grabbed his shooting wrist and twisted the pistol from him—hard.
Blondie howled in pain, and bent over, holding his wrist. I used his gun barrel as a handle and slammed the son-of-a-bitch in the center of his back with the butt of the gun—hard. The perp fell to the ground with a thud, landing like a sack of flour. He curled up in a fetal position. I kicked him in the side with my boot.
“Ok, partner, that’s enough,” Falco called out.
“I should kill that motherfucker,” I barked out loud, turning back toward the perp, “Hey asshole, didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s not polite to grab a lady?”
I kicked him once more, even harder.
Backup had arrived. I stopped pummeling the piece of shit, wanting no further witnesses to my rage. I twisted blondie’s hands behind his back, more harshly than I needed to. He howled again. I used cinch straps to secure him. I felt blood trickling from my lip down to my chin. Blondie must have caught me with an elbow as I pulled his gun from him. I didn’t even realize I’d been hit.
Falco already had the first perp up and had begun walking him over toward the first backup unit. I could see him speaking with the officer in the passenger seat, undoubtedly telling them which direction the second perp had fled. The first backup cruiser took off again. In the meantime, a third cruiser arrived.
Thirty minutes later, the second backup unit had pulled away with the second perp and blondie in tow. I heard on the radio the first backup unit had caught up to the first perp and was bringing him in. The officers from the third backup unit were inside the restaurant, taking statements from the management, staff and witnesses.
Falco was driving. We were on our way to the hospital to get my lip checked out. Although I was clearly ok, it was regulation that all injuries get looked at by a doctor.
“You were cool under pressure back there, partner,” I said. “I liked what I saw. Thank you, by the way. You saved my ass.”
He smiled but shrugged, “Your welcome of course, but I don’t think you were in any real danger. I’ve seen kids like these a dozen times. I could see in his eyes that he was ready to crap himself. I doubt he’s ever even fired that gun. The other two were older. That’s why he was left to be the look out.”
“You didn’t notice him outside?” I asked.
“He was inside the whole time. He must had hidden as you rushed out of the back.”
“Probably scared to death.”
We pulled into the emergency room entrance. I checked out Falco one last time, doing my best to mask the adrenaline high I was on. The incident had revved me up and my juices were flowing. The action was thrilling. I needed a release. Poor Falco had no idea just how badly I wanted to pull off to the side of the road, pull his pants down, sit on his lap and fuck the ever-loving shit out of him right then and there.