Part 10: Debacle

November 5th 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to post the next part sooner than later because it has been so long since I posted. I want everyone to know that I appreciate feedback. If you have something to say please say it. Whether it be a prediction, a complaint an edit, or a reaction to other people's comments. I am building the story as we go along and I am sure the more you all tell me the better a story we can create. I love silhouette for a number of reasons. I think in the last 4 parts I've been able to really raise the stakes and keep the flow believable. I'm dealing with some fun characters who i'm trying to really develop and make 3 dimensions.
1. Who is the guy with the white gloves?

“Listen! My fucking partner just died tonight alright! If you let anyone out you’ll go to jail for interfering with an investigation!”

His heart races as he pushes the button to the elevator. He steps in and presses all the buttons and steps out of the elevator before the door closes. He runs back over to the booth.

“I’m sorry for cursing at you.”

The security guard smiles with the phone to her ear and waves him on. He opens the door to the stairwell cautiously. His heart races uncontrollably as it swings towards him revealing a dank grey concrete stairwell. He swallows hard like an old cowboy does before a gun fight, and thinks of who will make the walk from his driveway to his front door in the morning.

Detective George Thomas steps are strained. I wish these damn pills would kick in, crosses his mind. The blinking lights in the stairwell flickers. He walks up the stairs gun first. He presses his feet lightly making sure not to make a noise. Not one sound can come from him. Think light thoughts he thinks. The full smell of urine penetrates his nose like strong cologne. He steps over the puddles extending from the corner of the platform in between the first and second floor. As he approaches the wall with the bright yellow 2 covering it he ducks. The door is light blue and the paint is chipping. It has a small square of glass in it. He rises up slowly to see out of it.

Ding!

The elevator doors open. He peeks up and surveys the second floor parking lot. Empty. He trots up the steps a little faster this time, still looking up the stairs for movement. Just then a shadow crosses in front of a light. He throws himself against the wall and tries not to breath. He grits his teeth in pain. He peeks out the window into the third level. Empty. His back asks him how many levels are in this complex. He has no answer.

His eyes focus as hard as they can up the stairs. The poor lighting makes it hard for him to see. He tunes out the hum hum humming of the electricity surging through the wires. Did I really see something or is my mind playing tricks on me, he wonders. Get a grip old man. Just then he sees the shadow across the light again. He spots a figure through the space in between the stairs. A hand in a white glove rests upon the railing up the stairs. Bingo, jackpot!

He hurries up the stairs as quietly as possible. He tries to keep from panting, but he needs a breather.
The number on the wall reads 9.

“I see them now,” The white gloved man whispers. He pauses for a moment as if waiting for someone to speak. George suspects he’s not alone.

“Yes, they think they’ve lost me.”

Images bubble and curdle in George’s mind. He’s thinks back to Nathan’s first police appreciation day when Nathan spilled coffee on George’s uniform. It was the first time George met Nathan’s wife, this was before the three children, the new house, and the affair. Everyone knew that Nathan had the most attractive wife on the force; Ally. Hometown girl from Tennessee, he had brought home from college. She had the sweetest southern accent. They strutted up the block looking like the morning view on an open lake. They were young and refreshing and reminded everyone of it with their bright smiles.
It was a beautiful day. The whole city was festive. They had sectioned off the block in front of the precinct. The street was multi-color balloons and signs that read things “like thank you for everything” and “real heroes”. The whole block smelled of hot dogs and funnel cake. The officer’s families were all out. The children ran around throwing balls and laughing. It had the feel of a mini carnival.
George watched as all the boys in blue went at each other’s neck. Nathan received the brunt of it that day. To initiate the new guys the older officers would joke on them pretty bad at their first celebration. It was a little ritual that the administration frowned upon but the officers kept up diligently.

“Nathan!” George spurted as they got close.

“George!” Nathan replied. The lovely couple came over. “This is my wife Ally!”

“Hello Al,” They made eye contact. George noted that was the first time he’d ever coveted his brother’s wife, but it was not the last. He couldn’t have known that Nathan and Ally would become his and Jeanine’s best couple friends. Nor could he have known that Nathan would go and get himself caught up with a coked up high school sweetheart who suddenly reappeared into his life. If someone would have told him that when Ally found Nathan knee deep in another woman one spring afternoon when she came home early from work because Ryan was sick, that she would have came to confide in him he would have died of laughter. He wasn’t laughing when the affair started, and he wasn’t the one who died.

I gave him such a hard time that day. He remembers the day when Nathan first joined the academy. He was a young guy, with the hard-ass of a hardnosed veteran. He was a cocky little son bitch, as George would sometime say, but he was hard working.

George looks down at his clothing covered in blood. He sees the blood on his fingertips. Nathan’s blood is on my hands settles into his mind. He had always heard the term to have blood on your hands but he thought the words never grasped the full meaning of it. His palms were highlighted velvet. Stained like the shirt Nathan ruined that day. His hands stained in death. He looks up at the man in the white gloves, the man who had stolen Nathan from his family.

George is brought back to reality by the raising tone in the white gloved man’s voice. He holds in a sympathetic whimper. What am I doing? I need a plan. I need to see his face, I’ll get enough information to put him away and at least I can identify him, he reasons.

“Black Yukon Xl, uh huh got it…I know…who is this guy?...one of our guys?”

Who was he talking to? He was right, this wasn’t just some young punk with a gun terrorizing a couple through the streets, not with the way this guy was shooting. This was an organization of some sort.

“...What is this some kind of family reunion why are we complicating this? Listen, I’ve told you I’ve already been engaged by the …”

George tries to listen with the discerning ear of a detective. His hands shake. His mouth is dry and tastes of cigarettes and fear.

“take her alive? I can’t do that… I don’t care they blew up Jimmy!” the man in the white gloves strains to control his voice.

“Crap, I think they heard me,” He ducks down. More than one pair of footsteps pitter-pat outside.

George shuffles back clumsily.

“What the!” the white gloved man looks down.

Bang ! Bang! Bang ! George jumps backward down the stairs. He fires back.

“You mother fucker!” The white gloved man screams without restraint. “Change of plans I’ll call you back,” he clasps the phone shut.

Pain buzzes through George’s back but holds his gun firm.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahah

a!”

“I’m getting tired of that stupid fucking laugh.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bullets come flying through the door at the white gloved man.

“So it’s like this now? I’ll play.” He says giggling. He pulls a second gun out from behind his back and cocks it. He kicks open the door and sends a round of shots that way.

Glass shatters. A car alarm is sound.

“Turn that off will ya!” The white gloved man shouts into the lot. He fires into through the broken glass square in the door. His laugh echoes through the stair well jumping in the spaces that the gunshots forgot.

George thinks to run.

“And you!” bullets ring down around George from above like metal rain. “You must have a fucking death wish! You’re chasing me? You’re following me?”

More shots ring down the stairs. George is stuck, if he tries to run he’ll expose himself. Quick, quick, quick I need a plan. But there was no escaping the moment, it was either kill or be killed. If I can just hold out until back up comes. I wish I would have requested swat instead of a CSI team, he thinks dryly.

“You don’t follow me, I follow you,” the deranged gloved man laughs. “Do you hear me old man? You fucked up.”

Engine humming, car tires screech, doors open and close. Yes back-up is here, took them long enough.

“Fuck!” the white gloved man kicked the door to the parking lot. He runs out of the stairwell shooting as the car shrieks away. George starts heading down the stairs as fast as he can. What was going on? If that wasn’t back-up who was it?

“Fuck! Ah you just ruined everything!” the white gloved man screams. His shout echoes through the whole complex.

George takes the stairs by leaping flights. Adrenaline overcomes the pain in his back. The door to the first floor bursts open as the Black Yukon Xl rams through the divider. The pieces shatter as sirens howl in the near distance.