Fabricated Lies: He Thinks He's the Hunter Read online

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Remo snaps back. “I saw you running your ass off.”

  “I slowed down so much I stopped at Gino’s for a slice of pizza.”

  Camilla, the dispatcher on the radio, interrupts them. “2516.”

  Bobby grabs the microphone. “See? Even Camilla wants you to stay.” He snaps the button. “2516 here.”

  “Green motorcycle making too much noise in the 7100 block of West Dickens. Also, an assault and robbery on 7000 block of West Grand by an eighteen-to-thirty-year-old on a green motorcycle.”

  Bobby replies, “Probably the same person.”

  “Check it out.”

  “10-4.” Bobby hangs the mic on the clip. “We’re not going to find this motorcycle. It’s on the other side of town or hidden in a garage.”

  “Right. We’re three blocks from Dickens Street. We’ll do a drive-by and show the neighbors we’re close, then head north to Grand Avenue.”

  Seconds later, a Yamaha motocross motorcycle zips past them.

  “Looky here.” Bobby grabs the mic again. “2516. We got a green motorcycle in front of us at Cortland and Nordica.”

  ፠

  The motorcycle swerves in front of the police car. The rider’s head, covered with a full-face helmet, turns back toward them, raises the left hand, and shoots a single finger in the air.

  Remo flips the toggle switches. “What the hell is with this guy?” Their siren wails as blue lights flicker across sleeping houses.

  The bike leans hard right at the intersection, then pops a wheelie.

  Bobby’s hand tightens around the grab handle above the window as he leans away from his door. “Look at this guy. Reckless driving, unsafe speed, ran a stop sign. Maybe drunk or high or both. I can finish out my ticket quota tonight.”

  Remo’s back stiffens. The two-stroke engine whines high as it jumps forward in a blink. “I didn’t catch the little shit’s license plate number. Did you see it?”

  “Maybe if your grandmother was driving, she could get a little closer.” Bobby points at the rider. “And that is not a little shit. Look at those thighs, frickin’ linebacker legs. You sure you want to mess with that?”

  The rider sticks a leg out for balance and leans left through another intersection.

  Remo taps the brake twice and cuts across a curb. Tires rip nine-inch ruts across a manicured corner yard and shoot a rooster tail of mud and grass.

  “Call dispatch for backup.” Remo’s mind flashes back to his Humvee charging toward Taliban soldiers.

  “Come on, Remo. We’re right behind him. He’ll slide somewhere. We can pick him up then. We don’t need help with a single motorcycle.”

  “Call, damn it.”

  Bobby pushes back into his seat and grabs the radio microphone. “2516, motorcycle turned on Armitage Avenue. We are in pursuit. Just turned north on Sayre, heading toward the railroad crossing. Traffic is zero.”

  “10-4. Need assistance?” Camilla asks.

  Bobby clicks the microphone button. “No, we got him.”

  Remo white-knuckles the steering wheel at the ten and two positions. “We do not got him. Tell Camilla we need assistance.”

  Bobby’s lips curl into a smile. “Hey, you told me to call. You didn’t tell me what to say.”

  Remo turns hard and feels the back tires slide. “Twenty minutes into our shift. I need a drink.” Turning left on Grand Avenue, he looks for the bike. “Damn, we lost him.”

  “Stop the car.” Bobby rolls his window halfway down. “Turn off the siren.” Blue lights shoot in every direction from the roof bar. He strains for any sounds. “I hear that whiny piece-of-shit engine revving. It must be getting closer.”

  From behind, the bike zooms past them, brakes and skids to a stop a hundred feet in front. The motorcyclist waves a middle finger at them again. Come get me.

  Bobby steps out of the car, pulls his service weapon from the holster, and aims. The bike jumps forward like a horse out of a racing gate.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Remo calls out.

  Bobby holsters his weapon. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to shoot him. I was aiming at the bike.” He closes the door. “Hurry up. He’s starting to piss me off.” Bobby buckles his seatbelt and snaps the shoulder strap against his chest, then pulls the mic off the clip. “2516, motorcycle heading south on Nordica Avenue back toward the rail line.”

  “Look ahead. The road narrows with construction near the rail,” Remo says.

  “We’ll lose him if he gets into the neighborhood streets again.”

  The bike crosses the tracks and turns onto a gravel trail along the side of the tracks. Red lights flash while the railroad crossing arms lower. Clouds open, rain pounds the car.

  “Hurry up and get across the tracks. We need to catch this bastard,” Bobby says.

  Remo floors the accelerator pedal, and the car bounces across the tracks. He spins the steering wheel ninety degrees right. Tires spit gravel while the vehicle slides and bangs against a metal garbage bin. The car speeds down the trail with a long brick fence to their left and the track to their right. A heavy downpour throws sheets of rain on their windshield. The wipers sweep back and forth while blue lights bounce off the brick to their side.

  Bobby looks behind him. A headlight the size of a yacht charges down the rail line. The brightness of two hundred thousand candelas fills the rearview mirror. Heat rises in the car. A horn with steel wheels blares.

  “Remo, we got a big-ass train bearing down on us. It’s moving fast.” Bobby looks out his side window and watches the gravel trail narrow. “Hey, buddy, we got a problem. This rail is about twenty feet from the car and getting closer.”

  A lightning bolt cracks open the darkened night with three seconds of light. A tree in a backyard explodes one hundred yards in front of them. The burning branch snaps off the trunk and falls across the brick wall to the ground, blocking their path.

  “Bobby, duck.”

  The branch slams against the grille and bounces against the windshield. Cracks streak across the glass. The broken wiper flaps in the air. Remo’s hands squeeze the steering wheel tighter.

  “Headlights out.” Bobby looks at the brick wall. “Remo, there are no blue lights. We’re running dark, and the train can’t see us.”

  “And I’m driving down the width of a bowling ball gutter.” White heat sears the back of Remo’s neck. He focuses on the round motorcycle taillight forty yards ahead.

  “The bike’s getting away. I don’t think I can catch him.”

  The train horn blares loud.

  “I don’t care about the bike anymore,” Bobby yells. “This hell train is going to shred us. We got to get off at the Neva Avenue intersection. It’s the next crossover.”

  Remo flashes back to Afghanistan. An RPG hit the Humvee in front of him, throwing white light and searing heat around him.

  Remo snaps back and watches the horizontal railroad crossing arms on each side drop at the crossover. Red lights flash. The motorcycle speeds through the middle of the gravel trail, passing the intersection. “He didn’t turn.”

  “Neva Avenue ahead.” Bobby glances behind him. “Forget the bike. We got to get off this trail.”

  “Can’t,” Remo yells. “The crossing arms on the right are down, and a damn semi-truck is on the left. If I try to get off, I’d T-Bone it.”

  The horn from hell blows long and hard behind them.

  “It’s on our ass.” The headlight, as bright as day, shines through the car. “It has to be less than fifty yards from us. It’s going to rip off my half of the car. We’re dead.”

  Remo’s fatigued fingers spasm on the bouncing steering wheel.

  “Look ahead. Not good,” Bobby says. “At the Harlem Avenue intersection, the trail dead ends. We have to turn. Remo, we have to get off here.” Bobby turns back. He can’t stop looking at the light like a moth attracted to a bug zapper. His eye muscles twinge, eyelids spasm. “Oh God, forgive me for all I have done. I confess a
ll...”

  “Shut the hell up.” Remo focuses on the Harlem Avenue railway crossing pole two hundred yards ahead. The wooden railroad crossing arms on each side of the track start to lower. Red lights flash at the intersection.

  “You got to get off, now!”

  Remo turns the wheel hard right. The car spins and broadsides the crossing arm, shattering it into a hundred pieces. The car slams into the corner of a dumpster with a hollow echo. The horn bellows down the tracks. Train wheels clackety-clack as they pass over the crossing.

  Remo turns the engine off. They listen. The bike is gone. The train is gone. The rain is gone, plunging them into silence. Bobby opens his door, leans out, and loses the roast beef sandwich he ate thirty minutes ago. Remo’s shoulder shoves his door open, and he steps out and leans against the car with his hands and head on the roof. “I need a drink. A big drink.”

  “What the hell are you talking about! You’re on duty. We just started.”

  “Don’t care.” He slips a small bottle of Bulleit Bourbon from his jacket. “Look, it’s only a pint, and half is already gone.” He takes a drink.

  “You wrecked the car. Someone might run a breathalyzer on you.”

  “Shut up. That’s not enough to do anything to me.”

  “That looked like fun,” a voice from the sidewalk says.

  Chapter 5

  Remo turns to find a weathered man with a dirty sheepdog face. He smells like he lives in the dumpster they hit. Legs crossed, he sits on a wet, broken concrete sidewalk. A bottle of gin, almost empty, stands between his legs. His life crammed in a stolen shopping cart. “You chasin’ that motorbike?”

  Remo slows his breath down. “Not now, old man. Not anymore.”

  “I saw where he turned. Wanna know?”

  “Sure, where?”

  The old man holds his hand out. “That’ll be a buck.”

  “A dollar? Listen, old man, I should bust you for...” Remo scans the stuffed shopping cart full of the old man’s life. “You been here all night? In the rain?”

  “This is my spot. I like the trains, and I know when every one of them comes by here, and I know who walks the track every night.”

  Remo flips out a five from his front pocket. The derelict snaps it up as fast as a cobra strike. His eyes squint at the nametag pinned on the shirt. “Thanks, Patrolman Wolf.” The bill disappears inside his shirt. “And now I know you too.”

  “It’s Officer Wolf, and don’t drink that five. Get some bread or cookies. At least buy something to eat, old man.”

  He scratches his sheepdog beard and points down the street. “That motorcycle went up the ramp of that parking garage. Got to go out the same way he went in.”

  ፠

  From the second level of the parking garage, the motorcyclist pulls the helmet face shield up. A woman stands at the edge and taps the Bluetooth button on the side of the helmet. “It’s Jersey. I have both cops close by me. You want me to kill them? I like killing cops.”

  The motorcycle engine pings as she watches the old man point his finger toward her. Remo and Bobby turn toward the garage as she listens to her call.

  “How the hell do I know what they look like? They’re over two hundred yards away, and it’s dark outside.” She slides out a six-inch-bladed knife from the inside of her boot. “Yeah, I know the deal. I bring them to you, but I won’t charge you any more if you let me do it right now—fine, I’ll bring them.” Jersey slides the knife back into her boot and watches one cop open the trunk. “Looks like you two get to live a little longer.” Jersey snaps the face shield down, climbs on the bike, and pops a long wheelie up the concrete ramp to the top floor.

  ፠

  Remo opens the trunk and grabs a rope. He turns toward the two-stroke engine noise in the distance. “Come on, Bobby.” Remo flips the Bulleit bottle upside down as the bourbon disappears down his throat. He rubs his sleeve against his mouth. “We got an asshole to arrest.”

  “Yeah? Do not fire that weapon. They’ll check you if you do.”

  Remo pitches the empty bottle into the dumpster. “All good.” The glass bottle whangs inside. He shakes the cobwebs from his vision as he paces ahead.

  A three-foot concrete wall surrounds the garage. Remo stands between metal pillars on each side of the entrance/exit way and rolls out the rope. “Here, tie this around each pillar. Make it chest-high. If he makes it back here, the rope should stop him.”

  “We should call for backup,” Bobby says.

  “Backup? Oh, you want backup now, but not when a train was up our ass?”

  Bobby ties the last knot. “Well, yeah, so what? Okay, okay, you were right. Backup would have been helpful.”

  Remo tightens the rope. “This should knock him off his bike when he comes by here.” Remo turns back toward Bobby. “How are you going to call for backup? No car, no radio.”

  “So, it’s the two of us, buddy. Don’t worry, we got him.” Bobby smiles.

  “Yeah, we got him.” Remo checks the magazine in his pistol.

  “What’s the plan?” Bobby asks.

  “You stay here, and I’ll walk up the ramp until I find him. If he makes it back down, then stop him.”

  “Stop him. How? He’s on a motorcycle. My guess is he’s not stopping at the toll booth. He’ll fly by past the posted speed limit sign of five miles per hour.”

  “That’s where the rope comes in. If the bike gets past the rope, then you got a gun—use it.”

  Bobby smirks. “Oh, so now use the gun. How about giving me the KA-BAR knife in your boot?”

  Remo’s hand scrapes across Bobby’s hair. “I should pull out the KA-BAR and give you a haircut.”

  “No thanks. Remember? Told you I got it cut yesterday.”

  ፠

  Remo’s fingers wiggle around the pistol handle. He steps toward the ramp while his eyes search the first floor. He hears nothing. Second floor, the same. His boots step slowly up to the third level. The overhead lights are out with broken glass on the ground. The moon hides behind blackened clouds; stoplights rotate green and red on empty street corners.

  Afghanistan bore blackened nights during Remo’s patrols. The misty air chilled their bones. Corporal Lowery, who constantly smiled and kissed a picture of his brand new wife every night before sleep, took the lead. A kid, not over ten, jumped out from behind a car and shot Lowery in the head. The kid was the son of the tribal leader and escaped justice.

  Remo scans the top floor of the garage. Four cars sit with few places for a motorcycle to hide. He pulls out his flashlight and sweeps the light underneath the vehicles. There are two motorcycle tires behind a car. Remo turns the flashlight off. His arms straight, his hands tight around the pistol, his finger fidgets around the trigger guard. He steps forward.

  The cycle kicks on, the engine rat-a-tats.

  Three quick steps to the front of the car, Remo calls out, “Freeze. Police.”

  The engine revs high and the bike shoots out over the trunk and hood. Remo ducks and rolls on the concrete and then watches it charge down the ramp.

  Bobby hears the whine coming toward him. His fingers spread wide as they brush against the pistol grip in the holster. Where is it? His hand slips the pistol out with the barrel pointing at eye-level. The engine grows louder. No headlight, no movement. He kneels in the middle of the exit row with the rope in front of him. Either the rope or a bullet will stop the bike. The transmission shifts while the engine noise peaks coming straight at him. An obsidian night hides everything.

  The bike jumps over the concrete wall to Bobby’s right as the headlight pops on in midair. A single taillight disappears in the night.

  Remo races down the garage ramp. Bobby stands alone with his gun at his side. He turns toward Remo and glances at the dirty uniform. “You roll around in the dirt up there?”

  Another train passes by the wrecked police car as the motorcycle engine fades away. Remo brushes the dirt off his shirt. “This will be a lengthy report, and the lieutenant i
s not going to like any of it.”

  Chapter 6

  In the police locker room, sweat and deodorant hover in the air. At the opposite end of the lockers, Sergeants Miller and Jackson laugh while they glance back and forth at Remo. Reaching inside the top shelf of his locker, Remo twists the top off a pint bottle of Bulleit Bourbon and gulps down a third. Remo is shirtless, with several small eagle tattoos on his muscular chest and arms.

  Bobby tucks his shirt in his pants. “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “Tattoos and bullet holes,” Bobby asks.

  “That’s the first time you’ve asked me.”

  “Okay. Let’s get down to it. How many pints today?”

  “Pints? Hmm, not sure.”

  “I want you to stop.”

  “Stop? Why?”

  “Did you leave that bottle in the car?”

  “No.” Remo replaces the cap and pushes the bottle to the back of the shelf. “To answer your first question, too many bullet holes, not enough tats.”

  “All eagles? Why?” Bobby asks.

  “I got all of them while in the 101st Airborne Division.” Remo points at his deltoid. “Like this one, my first, the best. Me and the tattoo artist were sober...mostly. After that, each bird is not quite perfect. One or both of us were drunk when he put them on.” Remo sits down on the wooden bench. His index finger pushes on the center of his deltoid. “Afterward, every time I got shot, it was in the eagle’s head.”

  The sergeants’ metal doors clang shut. “Wolf.” Miller adjusts his utility belt as he steps closer. “You’re out of uniform. You need to cut your hair. It’s too damn long for a cop.”

  “I’m still regulation. Get your eyes checked.”

  Jackson points at Remo’s chest. “Damn ugly shit tattoos you got. Get something respectable, like a clown. Oh, wait,” he chuckles. “You already got clowns.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant Asshole.” Remo stands and points to his lower abdomen. “I wanted to put a tattoo right here of the girl that went down on me last night, but I couldn’t find a picture of your mother.”