MOSAICS: A Thriller by E.E. Giorgi Read Free Book Online Page B

drawers.
    We followed him outside through the back door. The sun glistened off the car roofs parked in the court. Two kids were playing hopscotch in the driveway of the adjacent apartment building. Everything else was as still as a postcard.   
    I scanned the windows of the upper floor as we filed up the stairs. “Do the rooms have back doors?”
    The manager shook his head. “Windows and fire stairs. And smoke detectors. All compliant, eh? All in order.” His words turned into wheezing as he huffed up the stairs. “Your friends, last time they came, they reported this and that, and safety hazards, and—”
    “They’re not our friends. Which door?”
    He lifted his first chin and pointed ahead. “Room two-eighteen.”
    We covered the sides of the door. Satish banged once. We heard nothing. I inhaled. “With goods,” I confirmed. I flattened myself on the hinge side and drew my Glock. Satish banged again.
    A feeble “Yeah?” percolated through the door.
    “Management.”
    There were steps, padding over carpet. Something dropped. Then more steps, away from the door this time.
    Satish beckoned to the manager. “Hey, I hear a moan inside, don’t you?”
    “Huh?”
    “The door,” I growled. “You want it to go bang?”
    The man fumbled with the key in the lock. As soon as the lock clicked I kicked the door and yelled the customary “Freeze, asshole!” A draft from the open window at the back of the room made the curtains billow. On top of the fridge, the microwave’s door hung open and yawned a familiar reek of burnt plastic. A heap of bed covers was piled on the floor, and the mattress still smelled of human heat and the last remnants of crack smoke. A lamp had fallen off the side table.
    I ran to the window, Sat checked the bathroom.
    “Careful with the TV,” the manager mumbled over short breaths. “I just replaced it. And no messing with the carpet. Blood especially—”
    A square had been cut out of the window screen. I leaned out and spotted the asshole running down the emergency ladder.
    “Fire stairs!” I yelled. Man runs, cops split. I holstered the Glock and climbed out on the windowsill. The drop was about twelve feet—not worth the risk. To my right, the metal frame of the fire escape rattled with Vargas’s steps. I grasped the lintel with one hand, reached for the railing with the other, and swung over. Pain shot up my spine. I ignored it.
    Feet dangling, I grasped the top banister with bot h hands, pulled myself up, hopped onto the fire escape and started down the stairs, the wall behind me radiating heat like a nervous animal. I cussed the dress shoes and fucking business attire.
    Vargas jumped down the last flight, landed on a heap of abandoned tires, and vanished in to a narrow alley lined with corrugated metal sheets and the slashed skeleton of an old couch. I jumped over the railing and leaped after him, following his adrenaline trail over the reek of urine and trash bins, the sky above me lined with cables and rusty clotheslines. 
    Pain gnawed my lower back . I ground my teeth and kept pursuit.
    Vargas climbed over a fence, tripped on landing, scrambled back up, spotted Satish at the end of the road, and double d back across the street. A red Nissan was pulling to the curb. The driver barely had the time to unbuckle before Vargas opened the driver’s door, yanked him off the wheel and shoved him to the ground. He didn’t get very far after that. Pain hammering through my chest, I pounced from behind and brought him down, face eating the pavement and Glock pressed against the back of his head.
    “Don’t shoot,” he squealed.
    I swallowed, barrel unmoving.
    The pain was making me blind with rage.
    I clutched Vargas’s arms with my left hand and blocked his lower body with my right knee and leg. Satish came from behind and snapped the cuffs around one of his wrists.
    “Track,” he said.
    I shifted. Vargas slowly peeled his face off the pavement. Blood crept down his nose.