One Who Knows

        Ntown is where the darkies are as some of the white establishment who are stuck in their southern roots called them.  The darkies otherwise known as African Americans if you are down with the political correctness agenda makes up the demographics of the area.  I was informed that Crimson was a night owl and could be found in the Groton Avenue apartments, Section eight townhouses where a lot of the element don’t attend church on Sunday.  I realize not everyone is into religion or the “Big Guy upstairs” but being raised in a very strict household I was taught that people have a moral code that we live by.   

        I try to teach Rena that same code but teenagers try to push those codes to a different perspective.  I believe that Crimson was one of those teenagers that lived under a different code and she still does or she wouldn’t be in the situation she’s in.  A lot of thecrew that made up her close confidants lived by her code and nothing else and if they went against her they didn’t see the next day.  Most of those who didn’t see the next day were executed by Crimson under orders given by someone higher up in the organization. 

I was determined to find out who that person was and getting to that point was going to consume me. 

         Russell, my mentor taught me that I should never let any case consume me or I would never have any balance in my life.  He lived by this because he tried to be in a happy medium all the time, which I struggle to do most of the time.  I believe that if you access a higher power most of the time your life can maintain a balance, but I’m not sure what higher power people are talking about.  Rena believes it since that is what her camp counselor at the summer “Bible” camp told her and she tends to believe a lot of it since she saw Belinda Krespion, a good friend of hers die in a horse riding accident.  Belinda always talked about heaven and hell and where we will go when we die, but I never believed in it.  I never believed in it because when I was a teenager living with mom and dad we had this guy who knocked on our door one day handing out tracts and when we didn’t answer the door he cursed us to hell. 

         I’ve heard a lot of people down here in Ntown curse a lot of people to hell and make good on their statements.  I know that if we ran into Crimson we would be having a  curse fest since her vocabulary didn’t go much farther than the foul mouthed tirades she was known for.    I had heard she cursed her own mom to hell which I feel is one of the worst things you could do.  I feel if you curse your mom and disrespect her in a way that shows your intelligence level you deserve a special place in hell.  I’m not trying to be funny, but I believe the one in charge down there is going to keep his eye on you whenever you take up residence there.

         It’s not a place I want to go to and I believe my mom said I would never go there. 

I know that Crimson is going to get a special invitation to one of the rooms down there.  I hope I’ll be there when it’s her time to go.  I want to wave goodbye to her and smile as she slides into the big hole in the ground.  I’m not sure if that is how it really works, but I would love to be there. 

         Gabe was walking a few feet ahead of me and sidestepping crack pipes scattered around the steps.  There were bouncer looking dudes and skinny thugs leaning up against the railings staring at us.  I gave a quick once over and scanned the group as though I was scanning a sharp shooters perch situated during a reconnaissance mission.  Each thug moved his coat to show that he was carrying a piece and they were not cap guns either. 

They were locked and loaded and would let everyone know that this was their territory and no one was going to come in and tell them anything else. 

         A brickhouse thug I lovingly nicknamed Brick stepped in front of me and blocked my view and my path.  He was big, ugly, and that left eye didn’t sit right as the scar inched its’ way across his eyelid.  There didn’t seem to be any visible space of flesh as every inch of his skin was inked and some looked like prison tats.  You can tell what a prison tat looks like because the ink is faded and not sharp.  One thing I gathered by looking at this guy was that he wasn’t the sharpest one in the crew because the engraving across his gold grill was misspelled.  Maybe he thought that was a cool way to spell “Ockside” and I’m almost sure it was supposed to be spelled Oxide. 

             Every which way I moved to try to get around, Oxide moved along with me and looked up the stairs.  I happened to look at the same time and saw a figure peering down from a railing above.  Gabe came up from behind oxide and gave a swift leg kick to the right knee which didn’t have any effect. That was the last kick Oxide felt.  Bullets whizzed past and slammed the walls around us as blood sprayed from Oxide’s face.  He fell forward crushing the wall as he slid down leaving a bloody smudge. 

         I looked at oxide and a pool of blood was getting bigger as it formed around his head.  I ducked closer to the railing to take a quick look to see if the figure was still there at the floor above when the banister in front of me blew apart as bullets sunk into the wood.  I fell back onto the floor and emptied my fifteen round clip at the figure above.  I saw the figure fall down grabbing at their lower leg and lost sight of them.  I noticed Gabe was putting a new clip into his weapon as he took cover behind some metal trash cans lined against the wall. 

         I was breathing hard like a fish flopping on the dirt.  “Are you okay?”

         Gabe was wiping his brow while looking at the landing above.  “Whoa, that was fun, I’m okay.” 

         I rose from my position holding my weapon out in front of me.  “We’re not done yet, the rest of the crew is close behind.” 

         Gabe followed up behind, his weapon outstretched in front of him.  “I’m ready and will take out the first thing that moves.” 

          My eyes darted back and forth trying to get a view on the one that I shot.  “I can’t see the one that I shot.”

         Gabe stepped over towards the railing still pointing his weapon up.  “I’m not getting a good bead on them either.”

         A shadow darkened the wall on the landing above blotting out the cracks and holes. 

         I advanced up the stairs with Gabe right next to me.  “This is Detective Sadie Markerson and anyone up there needs to show themselves, right now!”

         The shadow backed away as an oil can flew through the air and slammed the wall next to me.  Oil residue coated the wall and stairs behind me splashing my hair. 

         There were sounds of someone sliding across the floor as though they were dragging themselves, had to have been the one that I shot.  I continued to move on up the stairs stepping on used hyperdermic needles and shot a quick glance through broken railing spindles.  A figure, moaning was moving slowly towards the apartment door as blood made a zig zag pattern following behind.  Gabe sidled up against the door frame and peeked around the corner of the post and looked into the apartment and motioned for me to come up next to him.  I positioned myself next to Gabe and looked into the apartment and a mirror was on the wall down the hallway where a figure could be seen hiding against the wall.  The figure had a large automatic weapon pressed up against her chest ready to tear apart anyone who would get in her way. 

         I pointed down the hallway showing Gabe the figure in the mirror and he gave me  a nod.  “To the one standing beside the wall, you need to come out with your hands raised.” 

         A spanish accent with broken English yelled back at me.  “I’s no come, zhoo s come.”

         I smiled shaking my head ready for the game that was about to take place between me and my subject.  “Throw that weapon down and slide it towards the sound of my voice and do it slowly.” 

         Gabe inched into the hallway watching the subject in the mirror.  “You have nowhere to go plus I don’t want to do the paperwork if you happen to wind up dead in this standoff.” 

         The subject cleared her throat and laughed.  “Zhoo, no get me.  I’s stepped over u dead bodies and spit in u face. 

         The automatic weapon came up around the corner and bullets sprayed the wall and the floor around us.  Plaster chipped away as bullets ripped holes in the wall, linoleum tore apart from the floor and then she emptied the magazine. Bullets flew everywhere as the subject wasn’t watching where she was shooting making Gabe and I  dive to the floor.  We both returned fire and shattered the mirror into a crooked jigsaw puzzle giving our subject a distorted face.  I saw blood fly across, hit the opposite wall  spraying a pattern like a Pollock painting and then the subject’s weapon went quiet. 

         I looked up and didn’t see the shooter in the mirror anymore and noticed the weapon was lying on the floor, her hand was palm up.  Gabe and I got up from the floor and slowly moved to where the shooter was, keeping our weapons out front just in case she was playing games.  We both peeked around the corner and saw her slumped against the wall sitting on the floor with her head lying on her chest, blood soaking the front of her Simpson’s t shirt.  I felt her neck for a pulse and there was nothing and when I withdrew my hand it was colored with her blood.  I lifted her head and her neck was slit wide open like a gutted fish as Gabe cleared the room looking for other subjects. 

         In the center of her head was a dark circle where a bullet had entered giving her the look of a triclops if there is such a thing.  I got up and started to walk towards Gabe who was in the next room when I was unable to move because something grabbed my pant leg.  I jumped and looked down seeing the subject had a grip on me and was trying to say something through breaths that sounded like a clogged faucet.  I knelt down and placed my ear close to her mouth so I could hear whatever she was trying to say, but her muttering was so low.  I leaned closer with my ear touching her lips when she coughed up a wad of blood that coated my cheek and clogged my ear. 

         I looked into her lifeless eyes while wiping my face and ear.  “Who did this to you?” 

         She arched her back as a breath whistled through her bloody neck spitting blood through her mouth.  Her eyes rolled to the back of her head showing the whites and the burst capillaries while her body retched through the spasms of shock.  She moaned turning her head and vomited a green, mucousy phlegm of throat tissue and blood clot mounds.  It was hard to tell whether she was even breathing, her shallow breaths were almost unnoticeable except you could see her stomach rising briefly.  The breaths were  shorter and shorter and she looked like death was knocking.

         I brushed more of her hair off her forehead.  “Can you tell me who did this to you?” 

         Gabe came and stood over me.  “When you get a chance you’ll have to come and see what I found in the other room.” 

         I had my ear to the girl’s lips and nodded at Gabe.  “Did Crimson do this to you?”           She whispered into my ear.  “N n n n not Cri, not Crimson.”

She coughed up a wad of blood which slid down the side of her face and started to choke her making her hand grasp at the floor.    She arched her back as the pain coursed through her body making it hard for her to catch her breath as her eyes grew wide.  Death for her would’ve been a respite that should’ve come a long time ago, but for some reason  she was hanging on. 

         I didn’t want to leave her side, but there wasn’t anything more I could do, so I sat there and held her hand.  It seemed like an eternity for the EMT’s to arrive, but a short time had passed since I called and as soon as they knew the area was cleared they started to hook her up and rushed her to the hospital.  I was hoping that she was going to hang in there so she could be stabilized so that I could talk to her at a later time since there were a lot of unanswered questions.  I knew that they would sedate her so her pain would be minimal and maybe that would give her more of a fighting chance since there didn’t seem to be any witnesses. 

         I got up from my position and made my way to where Gabe was and almost fell on my rear as my foot lost traction in the blood.  I gingerly stepped around the pool of  blood that had coagulated on the floor so as not to disturb any evidence that may be left  behind.  I made my way into the room where Gabe was compiling a few items that were bagged and labeled.  There was a smell of decomposition lingering in the air which I  wasn’t sure if it was in this room or if I had it on my clothes from the other room.  It was an awful smell that I wanted to wash off me as soon as possible. 

         My sadness turned to interest when right in front of me in big, red letters on the facing wall was a handwritten sign which appeared to be blood.  It read Crimson was here, try to catch me, but I can run faster than all the blood being spilled.  Happy Hunting.