Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Sixty-Five

Turner, Backstrom, and Mayes huddled in the cop's personal Crown Victoria pondering how best to make use of Allah's tip to Backstrom while staring at the phone number illuminated on the dashboard. Allah had connected more dots for them, but they hadn't been able to make contact for more than twenty-four hours, and time had run out. Backstrom, however reluctantly, felt their best ally in this situation could be Watson himself since it was a poorly kept secret that the chief had been pressuring the Midway on coverage.

But who wanted to call the top cop and tell him, Uh, chief, the journalist you've been counting on to stop the street war is missing and may be dead, but the good news is he figured out what's going on before he disappeared!

Lt. Gonzalez's street deputies did a fantastic job tracking down one of the license plate numbers he'd given them.

He only regretted, as he squatted behind his bullet-riddled supervisor's SUV, that he might never be able to tell them how well they'd done and encourage them to aim higher with their lives.

Ironically, Gonzalez had not stopped at the warehouse for any reason beyond the license tag once he got the call that it had been spotted.

He still wasn't completely sure of what he was looking for. All he knew for certain was that the tag in question was registered to a 1968 Ford Shelby GT500, owned by a beauty supplier in Indianapolis, not a Volvo station wagon...though the same supplier did have a Volvo, as well.

But his approach to the wagon had been met with gunfire, and now he was pinned down.

There was no way Gonzalez could safely reach the radio inside his SUV. And because he wasn't on patrol, he wasn't wearing a portable. He felt stupid doing what he did next, but stupid and alive is better than the alternative. "Call 4559," he spat into his smartwatch, reciting the badge number, as he listed all officers in his cell phone's address book, of the only cop he trusted to sincerely have his back.

Two rings and 4559 began to answer but was cut off by a frantic Gonzalez shouting out his location and screaming, "Get here man! I need you. I'm 'bout to be hit!"

Shots rang out again – this time well over his head, and the lieutenant thought he might be safe, thanks to yet another punk kid who had learned to shoot every way but straight from movie and TV crime drama tough guys.

No such luck, though. They were firing over his head, behind him...on purpose.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes in real-time, Gonzalez wouldn't have believed the sight of Guttfeld zig-zagging towards him, head bowed, service weapon drawn, firing wildly upwards toward the third-story of the warehouse.

"I got you lieutenant! At your six!"

"Where did you come from," Gonzalez snapped. "You are a long way from home!"

"You really want to talk about that right now," the sergeant asked. "We happened..."

"We?"

Another volley whizzed overhead, and both men ducked lower to the ground before Guttfeld could explain further.

Before their attacker could get another round off, though, Forsythe roared into the parking lot, stopping the Crown Victoria between Gonzalez's SUV and the building. No sooner had he parked, than the younger officer rolled out of the driver's seat and belly-crawled his way to his partner and the twelfth police district's night shift supervisor.

After briefly conferring, all three men did a hard count together and then rose to different positions in unison and returned fire to the warehouse's top floor.