Savage Rage (10 page)

The rest of the trip was spent in silence, Chalmers running licence plates, looking for an expired validation sticker, Jack sipping his tea. It was funny how he had been a major coffee drinker until Sy, who'd had coffee for blood, had been killed. Ever since then it was strictly tea for Jack. It hadn't been a conscious decision, just something that happened. He wondered what a therapist would make of it.

Okay, Jack. That's enough Sy for today.

He had to be careful. If he thought about his murdered friend too often, he started dreaming about that night in the alley. He couldn't afford another stint of nightmares. What was the old saying? Beyond here there be dragons?

Number 3000 Yonge Street was an old apartment building just south of Lawrence Avenue, the division's northern boundary. Beyond here there be 32 Division, the starting point of Jack's career.

Six years up there thinking I was a cop and all it took was one night in 51 to teach me I knew shit about being a cop. And now I'm stuck in a division so fucking dead it makes 32 look like a war zone.

“I don't know how much longer I can take this,” he told himself as he got out of the car.

“You're talking to yourself, Jack. Can't take what?” Chalmers joined Jack on the sidewalk, adjusting his uniform hat. That was another thing: a lot of the coppers in 53 wore their hats. The rule for hats in 51 was simple: they stayed in the trunk unless the media or the brass were about.

“Don't you ever get bored working here? Don't you get tired of doing alarm calls and medical complaints?”

“You kidding?” Chalmers asked incredulously. “This is a great division to work in. Nothing too serious, easy tickets and lots of hot women. They don't call it Yonge and Eligible for nothing. You don't like it here?”

As they headed for the building's front door, Jack considered lying. But why bother? He wasn't happy and he sure wasn't obligated to walk around with a fake smile plastered on his face.

“I'm bored out of my fucking mind.”

“Then transfer. I'm sure you could get back to 51. You spend enough time down there anyway.” The Earl sounded as if he didn't understand why Jack jumped on 51 calls in the first place. Or maybe he didn't want to understand.

“I can't transfer. My wife would kill me, even though I tell her there are days I'm so bored I could just quit altogether.”

“Maybe that's what she wants,” Chalmers said as he yanked open the lobby door.

Jack stopped in his tracks. That couldn't be what she was doing, could it? Jack knew Karen wasn't comfortable with him being a cop. What wife would be, after a murdered partner, death threats and a home invasion? But he thought she was okay with him working in 53, a division so quiet it was driving him stir crazy, so crazy he told her he would rather quit than work there. Is that what she wanted? For him to quit on his own, so it would be his decision and not something she forced on him? She wouldn't do that to him, would she?

“You coming, Jack?” Chalmers asked from the doorway.

“Yeah, right behind you.”

Would she?

“It's at the end,” Chalmers said, gesturing down the hall after they exited the elevator on the eleventh floor.

“It's always at the end.” Jack fell into step next to Chalmers and was a little surprised when the Earl moved ahead to knock on the door.

I guess when he knows the
EDP
isn't violent, he's willing to go first.

Chalmers rapped the corner of his memo book on the door. “Willy, it's the police. Open up.”

Willy opened the door and Jack immediately saw why he wasn't considered a threat. Standing all of five-two at best, he was a portly fellow with thin hair. Owlish eyes peered out from behind round glasses.

“Hi, Willy. You need a ride to the hospital?” Chalmers asked by way of greeting.

“No, I don't want to go to the hospital. They never help me.” Willy held the door open. “Please come in.”

The apartment was a small one-bedroom and impeccably clean and neat. Willy ushered them into the living room, then offered them a seat on the couch. The pillows and a knitted throw looked so precisely placed and proper that Jack didn't have the heart to sit down and he was positive Willy sighed in relief when they declined.

“So what's on your mind today, Willy?” Chalmers hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and rocked back on his heels. Maybe this was his Officer Friendly stance.

If the Earl wanted to handle this, Jack was more than willing to let him run with it. He hung back, surveying the apartment. Everything was as orderly as the couch. The magazines on the coffee table were fanned out decoratively, the glass cabinet holding porcelain figurines gleamed, not a trace of dust existed anywhere.

“The voices are back,” Willy explained.

His home might have been tight and organized, but Willy was a ball of nerves. His hands couldn't stop moving. If they weren't smoothing the front of his beige sweater vest, they were patting down his already flattened hair. What was left of it. Willy was a definite candidate for a good toupée or a shaved head.

Willy leaned confidentially toward Chalmers, lowering his voice to a whisper, as if hoping the voices wouldn't hear his confession. “They're telling me to . . . to kill myself.”

“And how are they telling you to do that?” Chalmers asked good-naturedly, playing the role of an indulgent father to a troubled child.

Willy darted his eyes at Jack, licking his lips nervously. “I don't know him. He looks mean.”

“He's new to the division, Willy. He's used to dealing with drug users, not nice people like you. That's why he looks mean. He's really okay.”

“Oh.” Willy licked his lips again while he adjusted his glasses.

“Doing a bit of drinking tonight, Willy?” Jack asked.

The way Willy jumped it looked like he expected Jack to hit him from the other side of the room. When he realized Jack wasn't going to, he settled down. Except for his hands, which went back to smoothing his vest.

“Why . . . why do you ask?”

Jack pointed at the round table outside the small kitchen. Four empty beer bottles littered its surface. One of them was broken, lying on its side and missing its long neck. The bottles were the only sign of normalcy in the apartment.

“The . . . the voices told me to drink them. They said it would help.”

“Yeah, I hear the same voice sometimes, too.” Jack righted the broken bottle.

“It's okay if you had some beers, Willy, it's your house,” Chalmers soothed, glaring at Jack over his shoulder.

Jack held up his hands in an excuse-me gesture.
Sorry for butting in on your big investigation.

“Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital, Willy?” Chalmers asked, turning back to the little man. “If you're thinking about killing yourself, it might be a good idea.”

Willy tucked his head between his shoulders, almost cowering and jammed his hands into his pants pockets.

If he pulls into himself any more, he'll disappear.
Jack's grin turned to a grimace as an errant bolt of pain stabbed his eye.
Fuck! Okay, Chalmers, if we're going, let's go. I need my drugs.

“Did the voices say how to kill yourself?” Chalmers asked. He seemed to be ignoring Jack's scrunched-up face.

Willy nodded, almost reluctantly, but said nothing.

“It's okay, Willy. You can tell me.” Chalmers placed a reassuring hand on Willy's shoulder.

Oh, for fuck's sake. It doesn't matter. Let's go.

“The voices told me . . . told me to . . .” Jack was rubbing the heel of his hand against his right eye in a futile effort to squash the pain and almost missed the furtive glance Willy shot his way. “It's not nice. It'll hurt.”

“Well, let's get you to the hospital, then. Okay? Do you need a coat? It's pretty chilly out there. No? Okay, let's go.” Chalmers started for the door.

Willy meekly followed, head bowed, muttering to himself.

It's about fucking time.
Jack was already waiting in the cramped front hall. His migraine was certainly kicking into high gear. He squinted against the suddenly too-bright light.

Then Willy was standing in front of him. “I'm sorry,” the meek little man said, freeing his left hand from his pocket.

Jack had time to think
About what?
before Willy swung at his face. Pain, sharp and instant, ripped by his right eye. He screamed and Willy was at him, slashing backhandedly, the jagged neck of the broken beer bottle clenched in his fist.

Jack got his arms up to protect his face and the glass tore through his jacket sleeves. He lunged at Willy, smashing him into the wall, then flinging him to the floor. Willy was screaming, thrashing and twisting beneath Jack. Almost blind — he couldn't see to his right — Jack groped for Willy's hand, desperate to get hold of the broken piece of bottle.

He felt Willy's hand punch into his side, stabbing at him. Would the Kevlar vest stop the glass? Jack clamped his right arm to his side, pinning Willy's hand between his upper arm and the vest.

“I want to die! Kill me! Kill me!” Willy screamed and went for Jack's eyes with his free hand.

Jack was almost completely blind. He hoped it was only from blood in his eyes. He could barely see Willy and the nut's left arm kept slipping away. Little or not, Willy was fighting Jack with a maniacal strength and it was only a matter of seconds before he tugged his left arm and the bottle neck free.

“Chalmers! For fuck's sake, help me!”

Richard “the Earl” Chalmers stood in the hallway, staring into the apartment, his face a perfect sculpted expression of disbelief. This wasn't supposed to be happening. What went wrong? Willy had been following him out the apartment like he always did, submissive and cooperative.

There had been a scream from behind him and Chalmers had turned in time to see Willy and Warren falling to the floor. What was that asshole Warren doing? This was supposed to be a quick, easy call. A short wait at the hospital — Willy always knew the right things to say to get admitted at least overnight — then back to the station for lunch, go out solo for the second half of the shift, get away from Mr. 51 Division Tough Guy Warren. Maybe take out the radar gun and set up on Mount Pleasant, no, Bayview would be better at that hour. Now Warren was messing it all up just to prove how tough —

Then Chalmers saw the blood pouring — no, gushing! — from Warren's right eye. The blood was raining on Willy, who was twisting and squirming under Warren, flinging blood everywhere, painting the walls inside the apartment door with it. What the hell was going on?

“Chalmers! For fuck's sake, help me!”

Willy might have been small, but the way he was thrashing about it was like trying to hold down a fucking greased pig. Jack's right eye was gone, cut or full of blood, Jack didn't know, but he couldn't see a damn thing out of it. He was losing his left eye, too, as blood coated his face. He shook his head to clear his eyes, but there was just too much blood.

He finally managed to grab Willy's right arm and pin it to the floor. He still had Willy's other arm trapped against his side, but he could feel it slipping free. A couple more tugs and Jack would be in some serious shit.

“Willy! Stop fighting!” Jack could feel blood, his blood, hot and wet, fly from his lips as he yelled. He pictured his face drowned beneath a mask of red and suddenly it was Sy beneath him, Sy's face covered in blood, Sy's blood pumping out from his severed artery, Sy's blood slicking Jack's hands as Jack fought for his partner's life, Sy's life draining away in rivers of red.

No! I'm not going to die. I won't let this little fuck kill me too.

Willy was still jerking his left arm, trying to free the hand holding the knife. Jack readied himself. Next tug, he was going for his gun.

Let's see this little fucker cut my throat with a couple of rounds in his chest.

Willy tugged. Jack went for his gun.

There was an angry hissing noise from beside Jack's left ear and the unmistakable smell — sharp, hot, abrasive — of pepper spray. Willy's angry screams instantly became wails of agony and still Chalmers hosed Willy down.

The spray burned Jack's throat. “Chalmers! Enough! Grab his left hand.” How Jack could hear the hiss of spray over Willy's screams he didn't know, but he knew the hiss lasted another brief second, then abruptly cut off.

Jack felt Chalmers fumbling behind him, tripping over their entwined legs.

“I've got it! I've got the bottle!”

Jack pulled away from Willy and stood up. He didn't care if Willy wasn't cuffed, he had to get away from the pepper spray. God, he hated that shit. Maybe it didn't work all the time on the assholes, but it always worked on him. Just a whiff of it could double him up with hacking convulsions. His throat felt as if it was lined with fire. His left eye was burning but not as badly as it should have been. The blood must have somewhat kept the spray out of his right eye. Thank God for small mercies.

Jack fumbled his way into the hall and drew huge, cleansing breaths. His throat was still a column of fire, but at least he wasn't hacking his guts out. He wiped at his eyes, steeling himself for a slash of pain from his right, but there was none. Another mercy. Willy must have missed the eyeball. The instant his eyes cleared, more blood, rushed back into the right, blotting part of his vision, but not before he glimpsed Willy huddled on the floor, pawing at his own eyes.

Serves you right, you little fuckhead.

Jack gingerly explored the area beside his right eye, wincing when his fingers touched raw, torn flesh. He gritted his teeth against the flare of pain as he pressed his hand to the wound.

There was a choked scream from down the hall. A neighbour, curious or concerned, had stuck her head into the hall and, seeing Jack, uttered a short shriek before slamming her door shut.