Hair of the Dog by Gordon Carroll (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

was both good and bad. Good in decreasing the chances for collateral damage, bad in the fact that we would stand out as targets.

Jerome said the woman was on the eighth floor… eight out of ten… that was a lot of floors. Too many floors to make it unnoticed. But of course, we had a plan.

38

Clyde threw the skinny little man across the room. Ziggy smashed against a dresser and bounced into an old tattered love seat that sat in the middle of the room.

“Sit,” said the Secret Service Agent. Two other SS Agents stood in the room, their faces straight and hard.

Ziggy righted himself and sat in the chair. Rockeeta and her pimp sat across from him on a sunken, broken-looking couch that rested against a wall. She smoked a cigarette, a little smile curving her still attractive lips.

“You should have let me give you that freebie, old man.”

“Yes, ma’am, Ziggy says it sure do look that way.”

“How many of you are there?” asked Clyde. His voice was even and calm. Almost gentle. That scared Ziggy a little.

“Ziggy says it’s just him, that he surely do.”

Clyde cocked his head, like a dog hearing something far off. He pulled out a black semiautomatic pistol with a silencer and shot Rockeeta’s husband-pimp through the forehead. The man’s head snapped back and forward and he fell to the side, leaning against Rockeeta who shoved him away. She started to scream and Clyde pointed the gun at her and she stopped, covering her mouth with her hands. The cigarette still poked between the index and middle finger of her left hand, sending tendrils of smoke toward the ceiling.

“How many?” repeated Clyde, as if he were asking for directions to the corner store.

Ziggy didn’t want to see Rockeeta’s brains on the wall, oh no that he did not want to see, so he nodded once and then spoke. “Ziggy says there’s me, a private investigator from Colorado and that girl you stoles, father.”

“Where?”

“Ziggy say we staying at The Chester Motel, down on…”

“I know where it is,” said Clyde. “Why are you here?”

“To get the little girl,” said Ziggy looking surprised.

“Any other reason?”

“What other reason would there be?” asked Ziggy, perplexed.

Clyde shot Rockeeta through the upper nose. What came out the back of her head made Ziggy recoil.

“Oh man,” said Ziggy. “You didn’t have no call to do that. Old Ziggy was telling you everything he done know. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Any other reason?” repeated the giant man.

Ziggy just stared at him..

Clyde held out his hand.

“Phone.”

“No, sir. Ziggy say he ain’t helping you no more. You gonna kill him anyhows, and you already killed the girl. So no, sir.”

Clyde put his gun away. He retrieved the phone from Ziggy’s pocket. He tapped the screen once and it opened up. Ziggy had never been able to remember codes very well, so he had no lock on it. One message appeared. It was from Gil Masson. Clyde listened to the message and nodded to himself as he clicked it off. He dropped the phone onto Ziggy’s lap.

Turning to the lead Blood’s member, an OG called Bad Blood, he said, “Zip tie him to the chair and gag him. You know what to do after that. They’ll be here by eight. Be ready.” Bad Blood nodded and started getting his boys in place.

Clyde turned to his second in command. “Start setting up the C4”. He pointed to several spots around the room. “There, there and there. Also both stairwells. And put the heavy loads in the apartment directly below here.” Clyde thought for a moment and then smiled. “And a good chunk under our friend here’s chair. I want this whole room to drop down into the fire.” He looked the man in the eye. “No screw ups.”

The man nodded and started setting things in motion.

Clyde’s phone vibrated. “Go,” he said.

“They here,” said the Blood on the other end.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah. They done kilt three of our boys already. I seen it all from up here. I woulda warned ‘em, but you said to just keep quiet and watch and let you know if they showed up, so that’s what I did.”

“How many?”

“Three. A white boy, a brother near as big as you, and a big bad dog that done took out Shiny Grill all by his own self.”

“You did good. Where are they now?”

“They going into the building to the north. I can’t see them anymore.”

“Stay put. I’ll call you when I’m ready. You have the gun?”

“Yes, sir. I have the gun.”

Clyde clicked off, allowing himself a smile. Everything was going according to plan.

“I want all my men out of here in ten minutes. No exceptions. Only Bloods stay.” Clyde gave a last look to the bound, gagged old man and left the room.

At twenty minutes to seven, we cautiously entered the building and made our way to the tenth floor via the elevator which amazingly worked. We located the roof access stairs and made our way up to the metal door, secured from the inside with a big padlock. I snapped the lock with a pair of small bolt cutters from the backpack. I sent Max through first to scout the rooftop and he padded silently along the perimeter until I gave him the down command. He downed and waited.

Looking across, we had a clear view of the building next door. We took turns peaking over the five foot retaining wall that bracketed the roof, scanning for the best place to make entry.

Night fully descended, leaving the area dark and humid and hot, with the Chicago evening sounds of misery and death echoing around us like some kind of vampire or zombie movie.

No one showed on the roof next door, which meant I might not need the short commando rifle with the collapsible stock and scope I’d brought for just that reason. Still, better to have and not need than to need and not have. Noting where Jerome had seen the