Officer Burt Girard cursed under his breath
when Lieutenant Standish came into the duty room, ordering him to investigate a
situation that had developed in the red-light district on Lake Street.
Lake Street was under the jurisdiction of the
city police, it was Captain Dougherty’s turf at the Fifth Precinct, but when Standish
came into the room with orders, Burt knew better than to talk back; so he and
his partner got to their feet and put on their rain gear without delay.
They were out the door and in their squad in
less than five minutes.
Burt got behind the wheel and headed north
down the King’s Highway until it merged onto Dupont Avenue; six blocks farther down
the lane he took a right turn onto Lake Street.
They drove with the cherry rolling in its fishbowl
on the roof of the patrol car, but no siren. It was raining hammers and nails
and there wasn’t much traffic west of Nicollet Avenue.
They moved swiftly through the traffic lights,
until they came to a crowd that had gathered on 2nd Avenue in front
of the Round-up. He had to slow down to pass it. Their lieutenant had told them
the incident they were investigating had begun there.
Crowd control was already being managed by
beat cops from the Fifth.
They were on the lookout for Karl Thorrson.
Burt didn’t know him by sight, but he had
heard the man was hard to miss, he was purportedly ten-feet-tall; Burt doubted
that.
Any guy that big I would have noticed, he thought to himself.
Burt knew that Thorrson was a heavy hitter, though
relatively new in town. He was some kind of crime boss who had gone to war with
the old-power and won. He had taken over all of the rackets on Lake Street;
from the bridge to Pig’s Eye to the Big Island on Lake Minnetonka: liquor and
drugs, gambling and prostitution.
He had taken everything away from Colonel
Forrester, who had been running the city for generations, some folks said that
the Colonel had been in charge since before the city was founded; Burt doubted
that to…that would make the old man at least a hundred years old.
Liutenant Standish had given them an address and
told them to take a sweep through the alley between 4th and 5th
Avenue.
Burt took a slow-left turn from Lake Street into
that corridor when he got there.
At the entrance to the alley, he saw two Fifth
Precinct cops huddled together under an awning with their backs against the
brick storefront. One of them, an older fellow looked to be having some trouble
breathing, the other met Burt’s gaze as he passed them; the look on his face suggested
that he was seeking some assistance.
To hell with them, he thought. I ain’t getting wet for a
couple of city cops.
Burt’s partner had the same idea; he smirked
and shook his head as if he was laughing at their plight.
They rolled down the alley with their search
lamp blazing and came to a stop at a warehouse loading dock, where they did a
quick scan of the area. His partner thought he saw someone slip into a gap
between two buildings.
“Probably just a junkie,” Burt told him. “We’re
not out here to hassle the bums,” he said.
Not worth the effort to investigate.
Almost as soon as they had come to a stop,
another squad came down the alley from the opposite end, this one was a park
police radio car.
It pulled into a parking space in front of the
loading dock, and Burt followed suit. They were at the address Standish had
given them; the warehouse belonged to the giant they were looking for.
There was a cream-colored coupe idling on the
ramp that led up to the dock. There was a man behind the wheel and a woman
sitting in the back seat. Burt and his partner got out of the car and he was
about to approach the vehicle when there was a sudden flash of blinding light
and a thunderclap so loud it shook them where they stood.
The city lights went out for blocks.
Just then Burt heard the sound of a woman
creaming. It came from inside the warehouse. He and his partner ran to the back
door and went inside, followed by the two fellows from the radio car.
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