What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

of the house before the driver cranked the wheel hard, punched the accelerator, and drove on to the boulevard, the nose of the SUV touching the sidewalk, the rear hanging above the street. The doors flew open. Special Agent Brian Wilson came out of the driver’s side, pulling his 9 mm SIG Sauer as he approached the scene in a crouch. Greg Schroeder came out of the passenger side. He, of course, was carrying a .45.

Harry circled to his right, putting himself at the corner of the porch so that Jamal was now covered on three sides. Schroeder moved to Bobby’s left. Bobby was appalled to see a PI, a civilian, at a live crime scene.

“Stand down,” he said. “I mean it.”

Schroeder looked at him as if he had just been insulted. He didn’t leave, though, merely rested his weapon alongside his leg, the muzzle pointing toward the ground.

Chopper and Herzog watched the scene unfold from the relative safety of Chopper’s black van parked a few houses up the street. Herzog turned to speak to his friend.

“Don’t let Jamal go int’ the house, I said. Take him while we have the chance, I said.”

“Oops,” Chopper replied.

On the porch, Jenna was having a difficult time remaining on her feet. Jamal had to keep her upright with one hand while holding the handgun against her throat with the other.

“Please,” Jenna said.

“No one needs to get hurt,” Jamal said. “If you just let me go…”

He was staring at Harry when he spoke.

“FBI,” Harry said.

“C’mon,” Jamal said.

Herzog and Chopper kept watching through the front windshield of the van.

“Maybe we should get some popcorn,” Chopper said.

“Fuck this,” Herzog said.

He opened the driver’s side door and slid out of the vehicle.

“Where you goin’, Herzy?” Chopper asked. “Herzy, what are you going to do? Herzy? Ah, man.”

Herzog walked quickly along the boulevard to Jenna’s sidewalk, then up the sidewalk toward the house. Shipman and the others were so intent on what was happening on the porch that they didn’t notice him. Jamal did, though. His eyes grew wide with both recognition and fear.

“You, too?” he asked.

The others finally saw Herzog when he reached the porch steps.

“What are you doing here?” Bobby shouted. “Get back, get back.”

Herzog climbed the steps and stood directly in front of Jamal and Jenna.

“You done playin’?” he asked.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jamal told him. “This should have worked. I should be rich.”

“I used t’ think the same way.”

Herzog held out his hand.

“This is what you’re gonna do,” he said. “You’re gonna give me the piece. You’re gonna release the woman. You’re gonna let them arrest you. When you meet the county attorney, you gonna trade the doc-tor and his Oxy operation for a reduced sentence. Then you’re gonna do your time like a man; finish that degree you talked about while you inside. Then you gonna come out and make something of your life while you still young enough to do it. You said you wanted t’ go basic. A counselor I talked to when I was inside said sometimes it takes what they call a significant emotional event for you to get from where you at t’ where you need to be. What happened to me. This is your emotional event. Ain’t pretty. It is what it is.”

Herzog made a gimme gesture with the fingers of his hands.

“Either that or you gonna be just another brother killed by the po-lice,” he said.

Jamal slowly released the woman. Jenna collapsed to the floor of the porch and crawled away. Shipman shouted at her.

“Stay down, Jenna,” she said. “Stay down.”

Jamal set the gun in Herzog’s hand. The big man glanced at it, recognized it as a .32 caliber Walther, and thought it was probably the same gun Jamal had used to shoot me; that forensics could match it to the bullet they took out of my back easily enough. Herzog could hardly believe that Jamal had kept it. You never keep the gun.

“You just ain’t cut out for the thug life,” he said.

“What am I going to do?” Jamal asked.

“Nothing. You don’t say nothing. You don’t even tell ’em your name. Me and Chopper know people. We’ll send somebody t’ help. ’Kay?”

“Thank you.”

Herzog turned and walked back down the porch steps. Shipman and Harry surged forward.

“Put your hands on your head, put your hands on your head,” Shipman chanted.

Jamal dropped to his knees and did what he was told.

Herzog approached Bobby who was still standing in an Isosceles Stance and aiming his Glock at Jamal.

When he reached him, Herzog held out the Walther. Bobby came out of his stance and took the gun.

Herzog stepped past him and started walking back toward the van.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Bobby asked.

Instead of saying what was on his mind, Herzog just kept on moving.

While Jamal followed Herzog’s advice and remained silent, Jenna King couldn’t stop talking, which was fine with all the law enforcement personnel that had descended on her house. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, “excited utterances” were admissible in a court of law.

Jenna explained how she had met Jamal and became emotionally dependent on him. She explained about Charles and how Jamal had shorted his company. She explained about the night I was shot. She even gave a brief tutorial on opioid addiction.

“I sprained my ankle while jogging,” she said. “The doctor gave me OxyContin for the pain. I followed the prescription the first day, one tablet every eight hours, and then did the same the second day. I didn’t take any the third day. The fourth day my ankle ached a little bit when I tried to run prematurely, so I took more pills. The same the fifth day. And the sixth. And the seventh.

“I understand addiction. Sixty percent is genetics; the body is predisposed to become addicted. The other forty percent is psychological. The brain wants what the brain wants. It wasn’t like when I was on coke, though. I didn’t take opioids for the rush, for the high. I