Authors: John Donohue
It’s got a certain simple elegance to it from the criminal’s per-
spective. No need to fiddle with locks.
“At first?” Berger’s partner asked. He was leaning quietly
against the wall and his body language didn’t make it seem like
he was particularly interested in my answer.
“Yeah. Two things were wrong about it,” I replied. Berger
just raised his eyebrows to encourage me to go on. “In the first
place, this kind of crime usually targets someone who’s easy to
overpower. The elderly. Women.”
“They got in at your place,” Berger reminded me.
“It took three of them,” I said. “How inconspicuous did
that look? Three Hispanic guys piling through my front door?”
Berger shrugged. “They’re crooks,” he told me. “Nobody
ever said they were geniuses.”
His partner smirked. “Lucky for you. The old guy across the
street saw them force the door and called it in to 911. Probably
the only reason the EMT’s got to you before you pumped out.”
I said nothing while that thought sunk in. “What else?”
Berger finally prompted.
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“Huh?” I was still thinking about how close I came this
time to not waking up.
“You said there were two things that weren’t right about
this,” he reminded me.
I closed my eyes for a minute. “Yeah. The second thing was
that these guys were armed to the teeth. And it wasn’t street
junk. The knife was a pro’s weapon… “
“How do you know that?” Berger asked suspiciously.
I shrugged and the action tugged a bit on the leads to my
hand. I saw the lines on the monitor near the bed jump a little.
“You can feel it in the balance, the heft of a weapon,” I
explained. “Particularly something like a knife.” The cops
looked significantly at each other.
“You know a lot about things like this,” Berger said. It
sounded like an indictment.
I got a quick flash of a knife jutting from an eye socket. The
ring of gunshots. Blood. “Hey,” I told them, “they broke into
my house. They weren’t there looking for my social security
check or to steal the stereo.”
“What do you think they were there for then?” Berger
pressed.
I paused. I fidgeted a bit and the monitor spiked again.
“They were there to get… me.” I concluded.
“They came close,” Berger’s partner observed. He was
watching me half the time and eyeing the heart rate monitor
the other half.
But Berger was focused on me. He sat down in the chair
next to the bed, as if he had finally heard something worth his
time.
“And why were they after you, Mr. Burke?” he said quietly.
Berger’s blue eyes glittered. His partner didn’t move a muscle.
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I shifted in the bed. “I don’t know,” I replied, shaking my
head wearily. And it was partially true.
“You never saw these men before?” Berger pressed. He
sounded incredulous. I signaled no. He sighed and slipped a
folded piece of paper out of his jacket. It was a printout of mug
shots. He flattened the paper out and laid it gently in my lap. I
looked at the two pictures there. The photographs captured the
stolid features well enough, but didn’t convey the air of menace
these men had in person. I recognized them anyway.
“These two gentlemen are Geronimo Martín and Xavier
Soledad. They’ve got a rep on the street that’s pretty fierce,”
Berger told me. “They’re shooters. They don’t come cheap. And
they always work together.”
“They call them
Los Gemenos
,” his partner chimed in. “The
Twins.”
“These guys are not street punks,” Berger told me. “Various
law enforcement entities like them for a lot of different crimes,
but they always skate. You got a special job to do in the His-
panic underworld, you call them.” Berger looked at me with
those cold eyes. “And you’re telling me you don’t know why
these two came calling at your place?”
“No clue,” I said. In retrospect, it wasn’t the brightest move
I’ve ever made, but I was still trying to put pieces together and
wasn’t ready to share my suspicions.
I don’t think the detectives bought my claims of innocence.
They just looked at me for a few minutes, saying nothing. Wait-
ing for me to crack. I shifted in bed, moving my torso and feel-
ing the click and stretch of muscle and bone. A cart rattled by
in the hallway. Finally, Berger’s partner pushed himself off the
wall. “OK. Sure,” he concluded wearily. He nodded at Berger
and gestured with his head toward the door.
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Berger stood up and handed me a card. “You think about
it, Mr. Burke. What with all the excitement, I’ll bet you’re still
a little foggy on things…” He tapped his business card. “You
know the drill. Anything occurs to you, give me a call.” He
moved toward the door, and then turned slowly to face me.
“Think about this, too. The Twins. They were inseparable.
Word on the street was that they were lovers. When they came
to your place, it was just a job. But you put a blade in Sole-
dad’s brain. And Martín is still at large…” He pushed open
the door to the hallway and paused, the movement heavy with
significance.
“Rest up, Mr. Burke. Think hard. Whatever brought the
Twins into your world is not going to go away. Neither is
Martín. It’s personal now.” Berger looked at me impassively.
I looked back. We probably could have gone on like this for
some time, but he was a busy guy. He winked at me, and the
door swung close behind him.
I leaned back and shut my eyes. I could hear noise from the
hospital corridor: the squeak of shoes on the linoleum, an inter-
com page calling someone, the rattle of metal trays. I sensed the
change in air pressure as the door to my room opened again.
I expected to see a nurse, yet had a sudden alarming thought:
how good would the guard at my door be when a street psycho
like Martín came calling?
Art’s a big guy, and he pretty much filled the doorway. He
smiled at me. “Hey, back in the land of the living, Connor.
Pink, pretty, and patched up.”
“Me in a nutshell,” I agreed, relieved to see a familiar face.
Art gestured behind him with his thumb. “I ran into a cou-
pla guys from the 68th who are not exactly crazy about you,
though.”
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I shrugged. “They’ll have to take a number and get in line.”
Art sat down at the foot of the bed, resting comfortably and
eyeing me with an odd, contented satisfaction. “They seem to
think you’re holding out on them.”
I shrugged. “I’m still trying to sort things out myself.”
“I bet. What do you remember?”
I lay back and stared at the ceiling. Faint water stains marred
the acoustical tiles in one corner, the marks a reddish brown
like old blood. “I remember the three guys coming in. Two
with guns. One with a knife.”
“Right,” Art said. “One guy heads down the hall after Sarah
and you tussle with the other two. Correct.”
I nodded. “The knife came at me first. It was pretty crowded
and we were moving a lot. The shooter didn’t have a clean shot.
I got the knife away and used it on the shooter…”
“OK,” he nodded, recreating the scene in his mind. “But
the pistol got away from you somehow and the other guy got it
and started in on you?”
“I guess,” I replied, squinting. “Things get a little jumbled
after that.”
“I’ll bet,” Art commented. “Let me fill in some blanks. One
of the shooters— Martín—heads after Sarah. You shout out a
warning to her and when Martín comes through the kitchen
door, Sarah swings a plastic bag full of cans at him. It’s a freak
shot, but she catches him just right and down he goes like a
sack of potatoes. She hears all the excitement from the front of
the house, scoops up the gun, and heads your way.” Art looked
at me significantly. “Pretty impressive, Connor. There’s scream-
ing and banging and gunshots. She’s just escaped an attack by
an armed intruder. But your girlfriend heads
toward
the fight.”
He shook his head. “Most people I know would be running the
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other way.”
I nodded in agreement. “Good thing she didn’t.”
“Oh yeah. ‘Cause the third guy is, by this time, pretty pissed
and about to empty a pistol into you. Sarah gets him first. The
rest is history. She does what she can until the PD and EMT
arrive. They slip you into a shock suit and away we go…”
“They ID the third guy?” I asked him.
“Nah,” Art said. “Soledad and Martín usually didn’t take
on extra help. Whoever he is, he’s not local. I’ve got some old
friends keeping me up to date. They’re running his prints now
through the FBI’s IAFIS system. We’ll see what it turns up.”
I nodded. “Speaking of turning up, where’s Micky?”
Art frowned. “Your brother is out tearing a new asshole in
the Hispanic underworld. Shaking the trees and hoping he can
flush Martín.”
“And you?”
He sighed. “You know how Mick gets, Connor. There’s no
stopping him, but it doesn’t mean I gotta be a part of it. One
loose cannon is enough…”
My brother pushed the door open as if on cue, and stood
appraising me, his hands on his hips. He glanced at Art, who
stared back, his face flat and expressionless. Then Micky walked
toward me. “Well, you look a little better,” he said. “What’s the
prognosis?”
I shrugged. “They make sure that the sutures are holding
and I can get out of here.” It’s not exactly what the doctor had
said, but it was what I was planning.
“Good,” my brother told me. He looked Art’s way. “I don’t
think the uniform they got on the door is destined for great
things.”
Art shrugged, but said nothing. It wasn’t like them. My
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brother and his partner had elevated banter into a minor art
form. The silence between them now was not only unusual,
it was heavy, and the atmosphere was like that of a bickering
married couple being civil only out of consideration for guests.
“What is with you two?” I finally asked.
Micky waved a hand at his partner. “Nothin’. He’s just
being a pain.”
“A pain?” Art said, standing up and moving right into
Micky’s face. I’ll tell you what’s a pain.” He jabbed a finger into
Micky’s chest. “You, you moron.”
“Don’t gimme that…” Micky began in a snarl, but Art kept
right on going.
“You’re jumpin’ all over an official investigation. You’re
steppin’ on toes left and right and got nothing to show for it.
And you want a pain? Wait until ACLU lodges a complaint.”
My brother shrugged. “At least we won’t have to worry
about Internal Affairs.”
“Internal Affairs,” Art fumed, shaking his head. “You don’t
get it. We’re not on the force anymore, Mick. You start pissing
people off, they’ll pull our contract.”
“Hey,” Micky spat back, his eyes narrowed, “Fuck the
ACLU. And fuck the contract. Look at him!” He pointed in
my direction. “Those three psychos almost got him. One’s still
on the loose.”
“I know,” Art shouted. “But we gotta work this smart.”
A nurse peeked in the door, her face concerned. Both men
stood facing each other like animals, their eyes locked. They
never broke contact but simultaneously reached into their pock-
ets. I had seen them flash their shields in situations like this before
and the sudden realization washed across both their faces at the
same time: they had no shields. It was almost comic, except for
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the look, bug-eyed and angry, on their faces. The nurse pul ed
her head back into her shoulders and wisely retreated.
“Fellas,” I began.
Their heads swiveled toward me, their eyes bright and hard.
“Shut…” Micky began.
“Up,” Art concluded. Then they faced each other again. Art
took a breath as if winding up for more argument.
“You poke me one more time with that finger of yours and
I’m gonna bite it off,” Micky told him.
“Good,” his partner replied. “Maybe you’ll choke on it. Slow
you down a bit.” I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I detected a
slight smile on Micky’s face. Art sensed something as well, and
he pressed his case home. “We’re on the outside now, Mick. We
gotta work through channels on this. There’s too much riding
to let ourselves get screwed up ‘cause we’re pushin’ too hard in
the wrong places…” Micky stepped back and slouched against
the wall, looking from me to Art and back again. He sighed.
“You worry too much about the business,” Micky told his
partner.
“One of us has to,” Art countered.
“Wuss,” Micky said.
“Moron,” Art fired back.
It was the kind verbal ping-pong that could go on all day.
So I spoke up, as much to stop the bickering as to get some
information.
“Now that you’re ready to kiss and make up, can either of