Black

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The aroma of wildly overpriced coffee filled the chilly atmosphere of the franchise café, its walls dutifully veneered with chrome and green lacquer, the furniture selected to create the illusory experience of a cozy, prosperous sitting room. That figures. The shop can afford eight-hundred-dollar lounge chairs, given what they charge for a simple cup of java, Black thought bitterly as he languished in the tortuous, crawling line, along with a hatful of other lost souls. His brooding reverie was interrupted by the ringtone of his phone. The spirited antipodean wailing of AC/DC drew stares from his fellow customers as Bon Scott shrieked "Highway to Hell." Black fumbled in his pocket before his fingers found the talk button.

"Black."

"Let me ask you a hypothetical question," Stan asked. No hello.

"Shoot."

"Let's say you had this famous movie star who went psycho, so you had to gun him down."

"I see this is really reaching."

"And let's say that thirty or so shots were fired from ten guns. Are you with me so far?"

"I know the answer. That's roughly three apiece. I'd have to get my calculator, but it's close."

"Thanks. No, the weird part is that none of the officers involved in the shooting will 'fess up to firing the first bullet."

Black thought about it. "Nobody wants to be the one who started a massacre. Especially since Hunter never fired a shot."

"I said this was hypothetical, remember?"

"Oh. Right."

"We'll get to the bottom of it, but it's just kind of weird. You were there. What do you remember happening?"

"A shitload of shooting." The woman ahead of Black in line turned and gave him an alarmed look. Black ignored her.

"Right. But do you remember where the first shot came from?"

"I thought it was off to the right of the house. One of the cops over there. You had enough of them."

"That's what I thought, too. But nobody on that side fired first. At least that's the claim."

"Won't ballistics figure that out?"

"Sure. But there are about eighteen rounds in your man. It'll take time to do matching on all of them."

"Your guys need target practice. Eighteen out of thirty? Yikes. What happened to shooting the gun out of the bad guy's hand?"

"We tend to focus more on shooting the bad guy."

"A sound approach. Roughly sixty percent of the time, if my math is right."

"You should have been an accountant."

"I should have been anything but this. At least the pay's lousy and the hours suck."

"Welcome to my world. Never mind. I was hoping you could narrow it down for me, but I guess not."

"All I can say for sure was that the first shot came from the right side of the house, if you're facing it."

"That's my take, too. Oh well. What's on your agenda today?"

"I was thinking about dumpster-diving for food."

"Well, good luck, then. I hear El Pollo is always a good bet. Muy picante."

"Thanks."

The woman in front of him approached the counter and issued an elaborate order involving Italian adjectives, sugar-free chocolate, an admonishment against fat of any sort, and a precise specification of the sort and amount of foam with which she wished her concoction crowned, before moving further down the line to pay, again eyeing Black like he was going to try to steal her purse. The aloof barista, a young man with plentiful tattoos, the jaundiced skin of a junkie, and a way of repeating back orders while managing to make them sound like an insult and simultaneously seeming disapproving of the choice, greeted him with a company-issued courtesy nod that conveyed a heady mixture of contempt, anger, and apathy.