Tuesday
Wee Hours
Keri called Ray on her way over. She didn't want to but the Blue Mist Lounge was the kind of place that required backup.
"Sleeping?" she asked.
"I was," he snapped, sounding not too happy.
A pause.
"You're not," he realized. "And you need me."
"Bingo," she said.
He sighed audibly.
"And if you need me, it must be bad."
"Right again," she said.
"I hate you, Locke."
"I love you, Big."
He sighed audibly. There came a creaking noise, and she knew he was sitting up in bed.
"You're lucky I'm alone this time," he said. "What's the address?"
Fifteen minutes later, Keri pulled up in front of the Blue Mist and waited, knowing Ray would be there any minute. While she waited, she glanced over Auggie's rap sheet. He was a small-time crook and dealer but had a big-time temper. He'd spent sixteen of his thirty-four years incarcerated, mostly for assaults. There was no record of abductions but he had once kept a girlfriend locked in a bedroom closet for twelve hours because he thought she'd stolen some meth from him.
Ray showed up and she got out of the car and stood beside him.
He looked at the club.
"The Blue Mist, huh?" he asked. "Knew I could count on you to invite me to a classy date."
They approached the door silently, Ray stiffening, clearly, she knew, preparing for trouble.
Waiting for them at the front door of the club was a pit bull of a guard. But they flashed their badges and after he took one look at Ray, he stepped aside.
They pushed their way past him and up the stairs to the entrance. Loud hip-hop music blasted from the speakers. Keri noted that she was the only white person in the place and felt a little guilty at being relieved that Ray was by her side.
They moved quickly to the back VIP room, which had its own security guard. Ray nodded at him and showed his badge and he stepped aside as they entered.
The door closed behind them, blocking out the music from the main room. In here, a woman on a small stage in the corner was singing Billie Holiday. It was much busier than Keri expected at this hour early in the week.
They looked around. Ray nodded to a darkened corner of the room and muttered, "Mr. Dreadlocks."
Auggie sat in a large booth away from the crowd. Two women sat on either side of him. Keri recognized them both as working girls. They were snuggled in close, competing for his attention. A bottle of whiskey sat in the middle of the table, half empty, with glasses all around. The women laughed loudly at everything Auggie said and none of them noticed Ray and Keri walking over until they were at the table.
Ray slid in next to one of the women, who was wearing a low-cut red top. Keri remained standing.
"Hey, folks," he said pleasantly.
At first the woman looked taken aback, but once she got a good look at him, she smiled. Keri ignored the uncomfortable feeling of being slightly jealous of a prostitute.
Auggie didn't speak but his whole body had tensed up, reminding Keri of a coiled rattlesnake.
Suddenly the woman on the other side of him, who wore a too-tight tube top, slammed her hand on the table and said, "You're the Sandman!"
The woman next to Ray didn't understand.
"The Sandman! The boxer!"
Tube Top swung around to Ray's side and slid in until her thigh was fully pressed against his, putting him in a hooker sandwich.
"I can't believe the Sandman's in here!" she nearly shouted with joy.
Keri had been watching Auggie closely. In the space of about ten seconds, his expression had silently gone from suspicious to envious to fearful. And then she saw something flash across his face that she couldn't quite identify. It wasn't until he had jumped up onto the table and leapt down in the direction of the exit that she realized what it was: desperation.
Auggie was quick but Keri had been anticipating something from him and moved over to shoulder check him when his feet landed on the ground. He saw what she was doing and adjusted in mid-air so that they would collide directly, his nearly two hundred pound frame slamming into her. She was giving up nearly seventy pounds to him and knew that even though she was well positioned, she was going to take the brunt of the impact.
She was right.
His body pounded into hers with a force that knocked her off her feet and sent her rolling back across the floor. The back of her head slammed hard on the wooden floor but she used the backward momentum to roll in a backward somersault and pop right back up. She was upright but colors exploded behind her eyes as her skull screamed.
She realized half a second too late that she was directly in Auggie's exit path and that he planned to go through instead of around her. She bent at the knees to avoid becoming a tackling dummy but it didn't help much. He smashed into her and as they both fell, his knee landed in her gut, knocking the wind out of her. She felt the bile rise in her throat as she gasped for breath. Auggie scrambled to his feet and darted out the door.
From her prone position on the floor, Keri saw Ray desperately disentangling himself from the hookers and the booth. He ran to her but she used what little strength she had to wave for him to go after Auggie. He nodded and barreled through the door after his prey.
Keri lay there for a few seconds, gulping down air. As she rolled over and started to get up, she felt arms on her shoulder, helping pull her to her feet. It was Red Top and Tube Top. She nodded her thanks, still unable to speak, and stumbled out the door after Ray and Auggie.
"Which way?" she mumbled to the security guard. He pointed at the back entrance. She ran over to it and shoved open the door, which led to a rickety metal stairway in the club's back alley. She heard voices.
In the distance, she saw that Ray had Auggie trapped against a fence. The suspect tried to climb it but lost his grip and slipped down to the ground. Ray had been chasing him and was only ten feet away when Auggie whirled around with a gun in his hand. He fired.
Ray kept coming.
Auggie fired again right as Ray leapt onto him. They collapsed in a heap and Keri could no longer tell what was going on. She scurried down the steps, made the six-foot leap from the last step to the street below, and ran in the direction of the men. She was halfway there when she realized what was happening.
Both of Auggie's shots had missed. Ray had landed on top of him, pinned him down, and was proceeding to pummel the shit out of him. Auggie's face was a pulpy mess. He wasn't moving.
"Ray, stop!" she shouted. "We need him alive!"
Her words seemed to shake him out of his trance and he stopped punching. He rolled off Auggie onto his back and lay there on the asphalt, sucking in huge breaths.
Keri ran over and looked into Auggie's bloody swollen eyes. He was conscious. His breath was shallow but he was breathing.
"Hi, Auggie." she said. "We just stopped by to talk to you about one of your clients, a girl named Ashley Penn."
The man said nothing.
"But now you're under arrest for the attempted murder of a police officer. This could have gone so differently."
The man winced in pain and wheezed one word: "Cooperate."
Keri rolled him roughly over onto his stomach and yanked his arms behind his back to cuff him.
"Oh, you better believe you're going to cooperate, Auggie. Otherwise, this was just round one with the Sandman."
