Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (45 page)

“Those guys?”  The waitress shook her head and leaned closer to Justin to get a look outside.  “They’ve been hangin’ around here for weeks.  The manager’s rousted them a few times, but mostly they’re like pigeons.  They scatter for a little while, then they’re back with some of their friends.”

“Have you considered calling the cops?”  Kathleen wondered.

“Right.”  The girl snorted, which caused her breasts to actually jump against Justin’s ear.  “And end up a smear on the pavement.  No thanks. I’m not going down wearing satin shorts and a Santa hat.  Those guys are somebody else’s problem.”

When the waitress removed her breast from his ear and strolled off with the pitcher of tea, Kathleen boosted her hip to slip the phone from her pocket.  “Looks like I’m that somebody else.  I think it might not be a bad idea to call for a cruiser to do a little drive-by. And this is why I hate counter-narcotics,” she mumbled. “It’s not neat and clean, like homicide.”

“Homicide is clean?”

She waved a hand. “You know what I mean. Somebody’s dead, somebody killed them. Victim, perp.  Prohibition gives gangs like that one out there a lucrative black market because idiots like your skeevy blond are determined to cook their brains. It creates its own violence.”

She glanced out the window, then angled away to cut the glare of sunlight off the face of her phone.  Justin pushed his plate away, feeling guilty.  He knew what it was like to have his downtime interrupted.

He’d just opened his mouth to apologize when the plate glass window beside him exploded.

Justin dragged Kathleen onto the floor and rolled her under the table as glass rained down and screams erupted.  The steady rat-a-tat-tat of some kind of automatic weapon spewed bullets like deadly projectile vomit.

“Not the kind of drive-by I had in mind.” Kathleen’s breath came fast and hot in his ear.  “And I’m off duty.  My weapon is locked in its safe in the damn car.” 

“I’ve got your phone.”  He stretched out his arm to where the phone had fallen in the center aisle.  Blood smeared his hand when he picked it up.  “Are you hit?”  He leaned up just enough to get a look at her face, run his hand over her torso.

“Glass.  Just glass.”

“Like you can’t bleed out if a piece of glass severs an artery?”

“I’m fine, except… is that my sandwich under my back? Just –
ouch!” 
She sucked in a breath as his fingers found the two-inch triangle embedded in her side.

The napkin dispenser had fallen to the floor, and Justin grabbed a handful as he eased up her green sweater.  The creamy skin just under her ribcage bloomed bright red around the glass.  “This is probably going to hurt.”

“Thanks for the warn – shit. 
Shit
.”  He pressed the napkins to her side when she went white.  “Maybe you could just pour some of that salt in there while you’re at it.”  

“Call it in.” He handed her the phone, met her eyes. “Keep the pressure on that wound and stay down.”

“Justin, I’m a cop.”

“An unarmed cop who’s bleeding all over her sawmill gravy.  Stay down, keep applying pressure.  I’m going to see if I can help anyone else.” 

He left her muttering curses and crawled out into the aisle, rising to a crouch to keep glass out of his palms.  Cold air rushed in through the shattered windows, scattering paper napkins with its bitter breath.  From outside came an aborted scream, then the shrill peal of tires.  No doubt the rival gang making their getaway. Inside, Justin thanked God that the assholes with the Uzi or whatever it was hadn’t struck at the normal lunch hour.  He and Kathleen both kept odd schedules, and their three o’clock lunch date meant that Jug’s was mostly dead.

Empty,
he corrected, thinking of what the scene would look like in the parking lot.  Hopefully the restaurant’s patrons had been mostly spared.

“Oh God.  Oh God.” 

Justin looked to the left, saw the blond-haired kid propped against the wall outside the restroom.  His eyes were wide in a pasty, acne-scarred face, his trembling legs locked at the knee.  A dark stain spread along the front of his jeans. Justin called out as he duck-walked toward him.

“Get down.”
  He didn’t know if the thugs were all gone, and this guy was standing right next to a window.  “Are you hurt?”

The kid’s eyes wheeled in panic as Justin came closer.  “They shot him.  They shot Juan, man.  His head…
Jesus
.”  He started sliding slowly down the wall.

Justin reached out to help ease him down, pressed his fingers to the kid’s carotid and found his pulse.  Rapid, which was only to be expected.  But instead of the cold, clammy skin that indicated shock, the body beneath his fingers radiated heat.

“How much did you inject?”

“What?”

Justin pushed up the sleeve of the kid’s sweatshirt, found track marks.  But at least the stain on his pants wasn’t blood.  Apparently he’d pissed himself during the shooting.  “Looks like the glass and bullets missed you, but what’s the point, when you’re killing yourself?”

“Juan’s head,” the kid repeated, and Justin dropped his sweatshirt back into place.

“There’s nothing I can do for you here, but at least keep your head down until the cops arrive.”

“Cops?”  The kid looked panicked, and scrambled to gain his feet.  But before Justin could grab him, he heard
“Help me”
from somewhere at his back.

Justin wheeled, glass crunching under the heel of his sneaker.  The junkie nearly knocked him over in his hurry to get away, but Justin braced against the paneled wall.  The kid wanted to get his head shot off too, Justin figured it was his business.  Making his way around the corner he saw one long leg sticking out from behind a booth, blood turning the white sock and shoe crimson.  An empty pitcher lay across the aisle, chunks of ice floating in the brown pool of spilled tea.  Abandoning his crouch to move into a hunched run, he found himself looking into the shocked and terrified face of his waitress.         

“Help me,” she repeated faintly, and Justin saw the blood oozing between the red-tipped fingers she pressed against her chest.

“I will.”  Shit, what was her name? Kate. He remembered, because it was close to Kathleen.  “Kate, I’m a doctor, and I’m going to take a look at your wound okay?”

“A doctor?”

“That’s right.”  He eased her fingers back, saw the neat little hole piercing her tight shirt just above her right breast.  Her teeth started to chatter.

“Am… am I going to d-die?”

Not if he could help it.  “I’m going to take care of you, Kate.  I’m just going to ease you up a little to see if – I’m sorry,” he said when she drew in a pained breath, but he managed to find the exit wound high on her shoulder.  “I know it hurts, but the bullet passed all the way through, and that’s good.  It’s the ones that stay in there and rattle around that you have to worry about.”  He checked her pulse, found it thready.  She was losing a hell of a lot of blood.

“Kate.  Oh my God Kate. Is she okay?” 

Justin looked over his shoulder, met the frightened ebony eyes of one of the other waitresses as she crawled around from the back of the bar.  “She will be.  Are you hurt?”

“Just scared half to death.  Me and a couple of the others, we got behind the bar when they started shooting.  Hannah – the bartender.  She called the cops.”

“Good.  What’s your name?” he asked as he pressed his hand firmly to Kate’s wound.

“Shelley.”

“Shelley, I want you to go back behind the bar, see if you can find some plastic wrap and some kind of tape.  I need to seal up the bullet hole in Kate’s chest.”

“Got it.”  She crawled away, the beads in her braided hair clicking.

“Here.”

Justin flicked a glance toward the knife that appeared at his side, along with a slender, familiar hand.  “I thought I told you to stay down,” he said to Kathleen.

“I guess I fell up.  I’ll cut her shirt away while you apply pressure.  Sorry about this,” she said to Kate as she sawed through the clingy fabric.

“N-not like I’m m-modest.”

“With this body, why should you be?  You hit anywhere else?”  She pulled the ruined shirt away, and looked at the blood running down the woman’s leg.

“Looks like one grazed her thigh,” Justin glanced over.  “Grab some of those napkins on the floor.”

“C-cold.” Kate’s gold-shadowed eyelids started to drift, but Justin got right in her face and called her name. 

“Stay with me, Kate.  That’s it, focus on my eyes.  Kathleen, can you get my jacket for her?” He nodded to the windbreaker tied around his hips just as Shelley came back with the supplies.

“It’s just masking tape,” she said nervously and held that and the plastic out to Kathleen.

“It’s perfect, Shelley,” Justin said.  “Now can you take over holding that stack of napkins on Kate’s thigh so that Detective Murphy can help me with this?  That’s great.”

Kathleen spread Justin’s jacket over Kate’s bare, trembling legs, Shelley’s hand included.  “What do I do?” she asked Justin.

“We’ve got a sucking wound, which means air is moving in and out with each breath, so I need you to tear off two pieces of that plastic, maybe about four inches each.  Thanks,” he said when she’d finished.  “Now when I move my hands, I want you to spread the plastic against the wound, as tight to the skin as you can get it.  Perfect.  Almost done here, Kate.”

Kathleen watched him tape up three sides of the plastic with masking tape, talking to the waitress to try and keep her conscious.  Blood dripped from his hands, stained his gray sweatshirt, pooled on the tile, but his fingers didn’t slip or fumble.

“And the other side,” he said, and they repeated the process on her shoulder just as the first sirens sounded outside.

“Thank God.”  Shelley’s relief was palpable as she pressed disposable paper products to her friend’s leg, arms shaking from the effort.  “I didn’t think they’d ever get here.”

“A little under seven minutes,” Kathleen said, glancing at her phone.  “Justin, I’ll need to go talk to them.”

“You still bleeding?”  He looked over his shoulder to gauge the size of the stain on her sweater.

“Not much.  It’s just a little cut, and I’m keeping the napkins in place.”

When he’d satisfied himself that she wasn’t lying, he gave her a brief nod.  “Go ahead.  We’re okay here.”   

Kathleen laid a hand on his shoulder as she rose.  “You know, I’d say you’re a hell of a lot more than okay.”