Dark City Blue: A Tom Bishop Rampage (4 page)

Alice wasn’t there when Tom Bishop got home. At first he wasn’t worried, but as the hours passed he grew anxious. He paced the apartment, made coffee and turned on the television, but none of it put his mind at ease. Eventually he called her mobile phone only to find that she had left it in her room along with her purse.

All he could do was wait.

Everything was new to him. In the beginning, it hadn’t been easy. As Bishop had inherited his father’s temper, so had Alice, and sometimes their fights would last days. After each fight Alice would run to her room and pack the few possessions she owned. Then she would sit on the bed and wait for the bad news, the word to move on. Finally a knock at the door would come, Bishop would sit next to her and bumble his way through an apology. He hadn’t made many of them in his life up to that point; he wasn’t good at them, and most of the time he didn’t know what he was apologising for, only that it was important that he did. The words would come from his lips, strained and confused and rambling, but in the end Alice knew he never had any intention of putting her out onto the street.

Stacy hadn’t been much of a mother, and Bishop hadn’t been there at all, so in making up for lost time they went to all the places she’d never been taken as a child. Trips to the zoo, the movies, the beach; it was like a second childhood for both of them.

But, inevitably, Bishop had become what every father of a teenage girl was: a worrier.

He sat at the table and smoked half a dozen cigarettes before the detective in him had had enough. He pulled his leather jacket on and was halfway down the hall when he heard a sound that made every muscle in his body immediately relax. He looked over his shoulder to find Alice holding the old hand of Dory McHale, their elderly next door neighbour.

‘I was just being silly,’ the old lady said.

‘Mrs McHale fell,’ Alice said.

‘I was just being silly.’

‘You should have asked me to do it.’

‘I don’t want to hassle you.’

‘She was trying to change the batteries in her smoke detector,’ Alice said as Bishop helped them into Mrs McHale’s apartment.

Alice made her a cup of tea while Bishop changed the batteries in her smoke detectors along with all the light bulbs in the flat that had blown which she couldn’t reach.

Before she left, Alice leant down and gave the old lady a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll be by tomorrow to check on you.’

For the next week, Alice visited the old lady every day. She sat with her, made her tea, listened to her stories and brought meals around at dinner time. Alice began to remind Bishop of the vague and faded memories he had of his mother.

A week later the telephone rang and everything changed.

When Tom Bishop and Patrick Wilson arrived on the scene, the show was already in full swing. Patrol cars blocked both ends of the suburban street and flashing red and blue bounced off the faces of those with nothing better to do than watch the six o’clock news unfold in front of them. They parked by an ambulance in the safe zone and ducked under the tape. Two steps later, gunfire cracked through the air. Everyone hit the deck and held their breath.

Wilson gave Bishop a wry grin. ‘Where the hell did they get automatic weapons?
We
can’t even get automatics.’

After a couple of moments of silence, they rose to their feet and holstered their weapons. A pimply faced uniform hustled over. ‘Chief Inspector Wilson,’ he said, equal parts formality and eagerness. ‘Constable Leary, sir. I’ve been—’

Wilson cut him off. ‘You first on scene?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Wilson led the way though the blockade of patrol cars, ambulances and uniforms. ‘What have we got?’

Leary read from his notebook. ‘At 7:46 PM we received complaints about what appeared to be a domestic dispute. At 8:14, officers Schapiro and Bolden conducted a doorknock. A Middle Eastern man in his mid-thirties refused them entry. When Schapiro persisted, he was shot twice in the chest at point blank range.

Bishop looked at his watch: 8:46. ‘You isolated this area in thirty minutes?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good job.’

‘How’s Schapiro doing?’ Wilson asked.

‘Not looking good, sir.’ Leary motioned with an uncertain hand. ‘Every time we go near the building, they fire into the grass.’

‘Any idea what’s going on inside?’ Bishop asked.

‘No sir.’

‘How many shooters?’

‘At least four.’

They reached the wall of patrol cars that lined the front of the building and crouched down behind one. Bishop pulled a rifle scope from his pocket, leant on the bonnet and took a closer look. The Oak Park Apartments was a three-storey block with large windows that were mostly obscured by heavy curtains. A red light flowed out of one of the rooms on the top floor; every once in a while, Bishop would see a curtain shift for a moment before it settled back into place.

He dropped back behind the patrol car and leant against the door.

‘What do you see?’ Wilson asked.

‘Whorehouse.’

‘Hostages?’

‘I’d say more than a few.’

‘Call SOG,’ Wilson said to Leary. ‘We need a couple of snipers and a storm crew.’

Leary got on the blower and called it in. A moment later he said, ‘Fifteen minutes.’

Bishop lit a couple of cigarettes and passed one to Wilson. The pair of them got as comfortable as they could on the concrete.

‘What do we do?’ Leary asked.

Wilson eyeballed him for a moment. ‘We wait.’

Anxious. Eager. He couldn’t keep still.

‘Relax, kid,’ Bishop said with a smile that he meant to be reassuring. ‘It’ll work out.’

‘Call for Wilson or Bishop?’ a uniform yelled from a hidden position.

Bishop called back and somebody threw him a radio. He held the receiver to his mouth. ‘Bishop here.’

‘Detective, are you on-site at the Oak Park Apartments?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have a young lady on the line who claims to be inside.’

Bishop flicked his cigarette and sat up. ‘Put her through.’

The next thing he heard were the whispers of a scared teenage girl. ‘Are you a police officer?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I’m outside. My name is Bishop; what’s yours?’

‘Chloe,’ she whispered.

‘Chloe, can anyone hear you talking to me?’

She took her time answering. ‘No. I mean, I don’t think so.’

‘If you hear somebody, I want you to drop the phone. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

Bishop jammed the radio between his ear and shoulder, took out his notebook and pen. ‘Chloe, sweetheart, how many men are inside?

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are they all armed? Do they all have automatic weapons?’

‘I think so.’

‘Do you know any of their names?’

‘I don’t …’

She fell silent. Bishop held his breath. He murmured, ‘Chloe, are you there?’

A breath. Then, ‘There’s lots of girls here, maybe fifteen or twenty. I don’t know them all.’

‘You’re doing good. Where are you right now?’

‘In the basement.’

‘Does anybody know where you are?’

‘I don’t want to be here anymore,’ she said.

‘I know you’re scared, sweetheart. You’re doing real good.’

‘I want to go, I want to go, I want to go …’ She was cracking, her voice breaking.

‘Chloe, listen to me. I’m going to get you out. I want you to say it with me: I’m going to get out.’

‘I’m going to get out,’ she said.

Muffled thumps leaked from inside the apartment building. Every badge recognised the sound: gunfire.

‘Chloe?’

For a moment, he thought she wasn’t there, that she had hung up. Then he heard her whisper, ‘I’ll be a good girl.’

The thumps grew louder.

‘I’ll be a good girl. I’ll be a good girl.’

‘Chloe.’

Bishop covered the phone, called to Leary: ‘How long to SOG?’

‘Five minutes.’

Fuck.

‘I’ll be a good girl …’

The thumps stopped. The line went dead.

Bishop threw the radio aside and pointed to a uniform. ‘You!’ he yelled. ‘Shotgun.’ The uniform tossed it to him. Bishop racked it.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Wilson said, but he was too late. Bishop was already off and running.

For a moment, it appeared as if the shooters hadn’t seen him. Maybe they didn’t believe what they were seeing. When their minds caught up, they opened fire. Dirt and grass bounced up around Bishop’s feet. He aimed at the front door, squeezed the trigger and blasted a hole through the upper hinge.

Racked.

Blasted another hole through the lower hinge.

Racked. A third blast took out the lock. Then he dived through what was left and into hell.

The first shooter stood at the end of the hall. Bishop put a shell in his chest. Shifted his aim to the second shooter, off to his right, in a doorway. The force of the shotgun blast sent him through the wooden door. Dropping to one knee, Bishop tossed the shotgun, pulled his pistol and squeezed off a round, putting a third scumbag to sleep with a shot that took out the back of his skull.

His ears were still ringing from the gunfire so he didn’t hear the footsteps, but he felt the cricket bat slam into his back. The pain shot down his leg and up his neck at the same time. He fell to his knees. Dropped his weapon. His body was in shock. He needed a moment to push through the pain. The next blow would be coming at his head, he knew that much, and drew his elbows to his ears. The bat smacked into his forearm.

He was getting used to the pain, so when the hitter stepped back for a third blow, Bishop was ready. He caught the bat in his left hand and threw a right hook into the hitter’s knee. It buckled. He cried out in pain and crashed to the ground.

The hitter pulled a sidearm. A round went off: buried in the roof. Bishop wrapped one of his big hands around the hitter’s wrist, slammed it and the weapon into the floor. Drew up his fist and slammed it into the hitter’s face. A tooth scraped Bishop’s knuckle. Didn’t slow him. He kept pounding.

His eyes were vacant and his actions came from a place deep in his subconscious where the memories of his mother’s body slumped over the kitchen table lived. He remembered the vacant look on his father’s face. He remembered feeling helpless. He remembered never wanting anyone to get hurt again.

When he finally stopped, Bishop looked down. He had beaten the hitter’s face into the carpet.

Then Bishop remembered the girl on the phone. He climbed to his feet and picked up his weapon. Bishop worked his way up the narrow staircase. A submachine gun hung over the edge and randomly sprayed the wall.

Bishop froze, waited.

Held his breath.

The shooter peered over.

Bishop put one in his neck, another in his eye. His body slumped over the banister.

A row of doors lined the walls on the second floor. One opened, and Bishop swung his weapon toward the sound. The man was in his forties, dark, with a moustache. He held an MP5 to the head of a petite teenage girl in mismatched underwear. His other hand was wrapped around her mouth. Her snot ran over it. He yelled something in a foreign tongue and stepped backwards through the door behind him, closing it with his foot.

Bishop could foresee how the next hour was going to unfold. SOG would try to negotiate. Negations would fail. The shooter would put a bullet in the girl and one in himself and that would be the end of that. Bishop had to act,
now
.

He thought about how short the girl was and how tall the shooter was. He aimed accordingly. Took a breath and blasted one round through the door. He heard a thump, kicked the door open. The girl in mismatched underwear stood staring down at the corpse at her feet. Traumatised, but alive. To the right, the floor creaked. Bishop swung his weapon and took aim: more teenage girls. They said nothing, but they didn’t have to. Their eyes begged for help.

A muffled scream rose up from the basement.

Bishop whispered to the girls, ‘Stay here.’

He descended the staircase four steps at a time. Back in the foyer, SOG had just begun to sweep in through the front door.

Bishop found the basement door and kicked the bastard in.

It was dark, empty. Movement in the corner caught his eye:

Chloe.

He ran over, fell to his knees. She was drenched in blood. Coughed a spray of it into the air. Bishop tried to apply pressure to her wounds, but there were too many and he didn’t have enough hands.

‘Medic!’ he shouted. ‘Medic!’

Chloe tried to move.

‘Stay still.’

‘It hurts,’ she whimpered.

‘I know, baby. I know.’

‘Am I going to be alright?’

‘It looks worse than it is.’

Chloe grabbed hold of the back of Bishop’s head and pulled him near. She was weak, and struggled to say the words that eventually came out. ‘Justice. It’s Justice,’ she said.

The ambos ran down the stairs. Pushed Bishop aside and went to work.

It was dark; he couldn’t see what they were doing. ‘Is she going to be alright?’

‘Keep back, sir.’

Bishop did as he was told.

Slowly the ambos stopped working. One of them leant on his heels while the other wiped his face with the back of his hand, leaving blood on it.

‘Is she alright?’ Bishop asked.

‘No’.

‘I told her everything was going to be alright.’

The ambo began to say something comforting but Bishop wasn’t listening. He slumped to the floor and stayed there as the crime scene came alive around him.

He waited until after the Homicide detectives arrived, until after the photographs were taken and until Chloe Richards’ body was laid in a government-issued body bag and taken away.

What was left of the shooters was still in the lobby. Their blood was sprayed on the walls like a bad Jackson Pollock painting. His steps slowed when he saw what he had done to the hitter with the cricket bat. What was left of his face was a mash of bone and pink and it was hard to make out where he ended and the carpet began.

Bishop used the wall to hold himself up. He wanted to vomit but swallowed hard, pushing everything back down. He made it out of the lobby, onto the front steps of the building. He tried to get air into his lungs with gasping, deep breaths. Tears streamed down his face and he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking.