Cut Throat: Chapter 6 Close Isn't Good Enough

                                                    Part 6 - Close Isn't Good Enough

                                                                  by: Donald D. Shore

Continued from Chapter 5 Patience

He could see them from the roof across the street. The two men in suits who weren’t cops had gone into the boy’s apartment and come out. He’d watched them climb into the shiny Cadillac parked at the curb.

The one with the crew cut hairstyle was in charge. That would be the one to go after. The dark haired one was a soldier. Disposable.

They were in the car waiting.

Waiting for what?

Waiting for him. Waiting for him to come and finish off the eyewitness.

But Cut Throat didn’t care about witnesses. He wanted them. He wanted them to spread the fear.

He also wanted them to draw bigger game.

The jet-black uniform he wore would offer little camouflage in the white-hot daylight of the Los Angeles afternoon. It didn’t matter. He’d rely on speed.

Cut Throat stood, readied himself. Drew the blades from the scabbards on his back. He moved like an animal. Dropping down to the fire escape, bouncing off the rail, flipping away and diving down to the sidewalk below. Pedestrians scattered. A woman screamed. He was bouncing across the roofs of parked cars as bystanders aimed their phones at him, trying to catch the blur he left in the lenses of their cameras.

The hood of the Cadillac crunched beneath his weight and the two men inside screamed, cursing out in surprise. Doors opened. Guns drawn, they came around to face him. Cut Throat brought the edge of a blade across the dark haired soldier’s throat. He gargled away his last breath as he fell next to the gutter, a thick spray of blood jetting from his neck.

A fitting end.

Cut Throat rolled towards his victim, dropping off the Cadillac as Crew Cut fired two shots. Flakes of brick fell from where the bullets ended their trajectory.

Sirens.

Already sirens.

They were waiting of him, too.

He came around the front of the car in a crouch. Crew Cut smiled down at him, a big .45 held in his hands like a trained soldier. Cut Throat brought his blades up, twisting his torso, constantly moving.

“Drop your weapons!”

The shout came from down the street. Half a block away.

A flurry of steel tore the .45 from Crew Cut’s hands.

But he was quick. Almost as quick as Cut Throat. He brought his polished leather shoe up and planted it in Cut Throat’s face, smashing the cartilage of his nose through the thin mask he wore over his face.

Another shout of, “Drop your weapon or we’ll shoot!”

Cut Throat didn’t turn to look. He kept his eyes on the prey standing its ground before him. But he felt them. A half-dozen or so cops, all with their weapons drawn. He felt them closing in, cutting off escape routes, calling in support.

He needed to finish this. Finish it fast.

Crew Cut pressed his attack. A flying kick aimed at Cut Throat’s head. This time he was too slow. Cut Throat reached to block with his blades. A move aimed at severing Crew Cut’s leg, hit resistance, and deflected his blades. He recovered quick, dodged a thrown fist from Crew Cut, and came up with a slash across Crew Cut’s chest.

That opened him up. Crew Cut fell back, still on guard, blood seeping through his expensive tailored shirt.

POP-POP-POP!

Shots coming from the cops. Bullets pelted into the side of the Cadillac. One whistled past Cut Throat’s ear. He spun, sweeping his blades across Crew Cut’s Achilles tendon with no effect. Crew Cut was armored, at least partially.

The net of cops tightened. He had to go. Rethink his strategy.

More shots. Glass shattered. He felt the burn of a bullet graze his shoulder. He went down flat and rolled. Shots passed over him. Asphalt shards cut into him. He was up and running, rolling, twisting, dodging the hale of lead screaming after him.

Around a corner, an alleyway between two buildings. He sheathed his blades, vaulted off a dumpster, caught hold of a fire escape ladder, swung across the alley to the other building, and ran up towards the roof. Cops below him, screaming, impotent. Reaching the roof, he sprinted, leaped to the roof of another building, and he was gone.

“Keep your hands were I can see them!” Bledsoe shouted at Crew Cut, who he didn’t think of as Crew Cut, but as Slam, another thug with a street name. A well-dressed thug.

Crew Cut smiled, his hands raised as a dozen cops closed in.

“Hey, man, I’m the one getting attacked over here. That wacko came out of nowhere. I think he killed my friend.”

Bledsoe shifted his gaze, keeping an eye on Crew Cut. One of his officers checked the downed man’s vitals, as if it was necessary.

“Dead,” said the officer, coming away, his weapon still at the ready.

Bledsoe saw the other officers coming back from the alley where the psycho had run.

“He’s gone,” said Vick. He was second in command of this operation. A short man with burning eyes and thick chiseled biceps. Ex-military, now SWAT.

“Get up against the car,” Bledsoe ordered Crew Cut.

Crew Cut nodded, smiled, and complied.

“This is outrageous,” Crew Cut said as Bledsoe cuffed his wrists. “You don’t have anything on me.”

“We’ll see about that when we run that pistol you dropped, Slam,” he said, calling him by his street name.

“Yeah,” Crew Cut said, “we’ll see, alright. Then I’ll have your job, Detective.”

“Good,” Bledsoe said, turning the cuffed Crew Cut around and handing him over to two other officers. “I need a vacation.”

“Well,” Vick said, standing next to Bledsoe. The battle over, both of them watched the rooftops, waiting for the psycho to pop his head up again. “What do we do now?”

Bledsoe waited a moment, then shrugged. “You start cleaning up this mess,” he said, looking around at the pedestrians, thankful no one was screaming out with an injury from a ricochet or errant bullet. “Get that body out of here. I got some paperwork to do.”

“We were close weren’t were, Jimmie?”

Bledsoe stopped and turned back to Vick. “Yeah, we were close, Vick. But close isn’t good enough. We got to be right on top of him.”

To be continued...