Hammered: A Jewel to Die For

Okay, technically, I'd also sort of been responsible for a guy taking a header off a roof when Dinah and I were escaping back in '53, and I'd shot a punk mugger trying to put a knife to a woman's throat in '68, but he wouldn't have been nearly old enough to have son anywhere close to Reg's age.

No, he definitely had the wrong person.

"No, Sergeant Pardee, you didn't pull the trigger but you and this bitch's mother put my dad in prison—

It suddenly clicked: Red Hornaday! Dinah had testified against the gangster at his trial for racketeering and murder, and I'd helped bring him down in more ways than one.

"—away from me where he died. You're responsible, asshole, and now you're going to die for it. The grenade I planted at your apartment when we grabbed the girl was supposed to do it, but somehow that didn't work and, ahem, our former boss was pissed at me for trying. He doesn't get a say anymore so now I get to do it the old-fashioned way, with a bullet. A big-ass bullet, or maybe, all five of them?"

He laughed at the thought of making me hurt as I died so I took the chance, throwing the pipe I'd kept tucked under my arm as hard as I could. End over end it sailed, missing him by inches but smashing into the spotlight just behind him. It exploded in a host of sparks and went out as I dived and rolled to the side.

Doing this at almost 43 years of age was a hell of a lot harder than it had been as a teenager on the football field or even in my early 20s in Korea and the police academy. I grunted again after pulling up my pant leg as I ripped the duct tape off my upper calf, freeing George's snubby Colt Detective Special and started running to the side. I'd swapped my usual 4-inch Police Special with him for better concealability in hopes the bad guys wouldn't notice it below my pant leg.

Now, I hoped I'd actually be able to hit something with the smaller gun.

Reg's big revolver went off again, with the bullet ricocheting off the concrete slab just behind me, throwing up bits of concrete that pelted the back of my pants and stung where they connected with the back of my arm. Another shot rang out, I'm not sure from where, but by this time I was well into the darkness, far enough to the right of the light of my car's headlights, the only light remaining, that neither he nor anyone else could see me anymore.

Stopping behind a cast iron building column, I pulled a black ski mask from my back pocket and slipped it over my head. The sleeves of my black shirt, rolled up to this point, were quickly rolled down. Finally, I put on a pair of black leather gloves from my other pocket and prepared to go rescue Diamond. I mouthed a very short and silent prayer to that effect, hoping it would be enough, but knowing I'd do whatever it took to save her.

With my car running, at least three bad guys running around, Diamond crying and calling for me, and me in the old warehouse, there was a lot of noise. That had been good to help cover my escape but now that I saw myself as the hunter rather than the hunted, it wasn't so good. While they didn't have a clue where I was as I moved silently and as invisibly in the darkness as I could, I couldn't really tell where they were either.

"Les!" cried Diamond. That told me where she and at least one of her captors were, though in the warehouse, it was hard to pinpoint their spot or any of the others.

That changed a moment later when, searching for me, one of them pulled out a flashlight and started waving it around. The man was scared and he was calling out to his cohorts, "Reg! Tom? Billy!"

Someone yelled at the frightened man to shut up and was almost immediately lit by the flashlight's beam.

"Not on me, fool!"

I normally try to follow the department's rules and regulations about engaging with perps, and over my twenty years on the force I'd only been part of four officer-involved shootings. That one in '68 was the only one that resulted in death, and all four had been ruled good shoots. In actuality, four such incidents was about 3.6 more than the average officer with my experience, but I knew I was about to blow my numbers. This was Diamond and the odds were heavily against us.

Holding my Colt against the side of the column where I hoped it would hide most of the flash, I fired directly at the man in the light.

And ran as hard as I could as Diamond screamed my name again.

Reg's revolver blasted, once and again, giving me some idea where he was as the guy with the flashlight swung it toward where he thought I was and then toward Reg lighting him up squarely in the light. The new boss must not have been too happy with his underling, who may or may not have been part of his coup, for Reg's big sidearm swung up and blasted once, almost directly at the light before I could get a bead on Reg.

The frightened flashlight guy made a garbled cry and turned the light down on himself, possibly enough for him to see the hole and the increasingly bloody mess just below his sternum before he saw no more. He dropped the flashlight as he slumped to the ground; the light flickered as it hit and rolled away in a lazy semicircle. It sputtered and died a second later.

Two down, I thought. Since neither of them had been with Diamond, that left Reg and at least one other to go. I could only hope there weren't more.

Diamond gave me another clue to their position then, calling out my name again before her captor growled loudly, "Shut up, bitch!" and hit her. It was an awful sound, his fist hitting her face, and I felt sick that anyone would hurt her like that. My blood boiling, I silently swore to myself that he'd never hit her or anyone else like that again.

Footsteps, running away. As fast as they sounded, I hoped he was leaving her behind, but had no way of knowing if she was on his shoulder or slumped on the floor unconscious if he hadn't killed her outright.

Moving silently but as fast as I could, I started to follow when I heard a door open and the loud "Crunch" of something hitting bone immediately followed by a scream and what sounded like a body or bodies falling. There was the flash and sound of a gunshot followed by a second crunch and the screaming ended.

"Down!" called George Vaughan from that door. Hearing his voice was the best news I'd heard since entering the place a few minutes earlier. I'd dropped him off, dressed almost the same as I was now, about thirty minutes before I entered the warehouse parking lot, with George planning to slip into the lot undetected to stake out the area to account for as many options as possible, to provide backup, and, most importantly, to be a potentially unexpected ace up my sleeve.

Not knowing where we'd end up, he'd armed himself with my Colt revolver, a scoped Remington 700 rifle, that big-ass bolt-cutter we'd bought at the hardware store that would allow him to cut most locks to get into a lot of old buildings, and a sledgehammer, also purchased at the store, that wielded by someone his size would allow him to get in most of the rest, albeit, with significantly more noise.

George didn't mention Diamond so the guy must have panicked after hitting her and then run for his life before running right into his end. As anxious as I was for her, I couldn't help but give a little smile at the irony.

I was heading back toward where I thought she'd been when I heard Reg running that way, too. Not wanting to reveal my location, I knew it was a must if I was going to keep him from reaching her so I took a single shot in his direction, hoping to slow him down. It did, with him pausing to bring that hand cannon up to shoot off a round at me. With me running, he'd led my position by a little so I swear the bullet practically roared by my ear.

Yeah, with what little I knew of Reg, it almost had to be a .44 magnum, with him doing his best to emulate Dirty Harry. The good news was that he'd already fired six, I knew, but then he fired again.

The son of a bitch had reloaded! Fuck!

With no time left and no other options, I dived again, rolling, leading Reg to take a shot and then another at me. The first was wild, going who knows where, but the second was close, too close, going right over my head. Now though, with me prone, my arms extended, and him backlit by the lights of my headlights, I had him, firing a round and then firing again.

Illuminated as he was, I saw Reg shake on the first impact and then sink to his knees on the second before falling over. Clutching his chest with his left hand, he was struggling to bring the gun up in his right when I reached him and put my foot on his wrist.

"Fuck you, Pardee," he breathed, rasping. "You, you may have gotten me this time, but I'll live through this and maybe even go to prison for a while, you bastard. When I get out, though, I'll get you...and get that bitch girl someday, too, if it's the last thing I do."

With my foot on his wrist, I could feel him trying to raise his hand with that gun to take another shot at me so I shook my head.

"No, Reg, you won't," I replied as I pulled my ski mask off to let him see the anger on my face. I removed my foot from his wrist and, as he started to raise the big gun toward me, I aimed slowly and fired, ending him permanently with a completely surprised expression on his face in the instant before he died.

"No, not me nor my daughter, you won't, you bastard."

"Les," called Diamond as she staggered toward me, falling into my arms. Looking at me through a bloody and swollen face, she asked, "Les, what do you mean, your daughter?"

"Sweetheart, you are my daughter, aren't you?"

As much pain as she was in, she shook her head. "Eww! No! Yuck! Where'd you get that idea? Particularly after what we did the other night?"

"I was asleep, Diamond, and thought I was dreaming."

George had stepped up into the light holding the rifle he hadn't even used in his hands. As hot as it was, he'd taken his ski mask off too and I could see him grinning, having heard what we said.

"Holy shit," replied Diamond, "it was dark but I really thought you were awake. If you were asleep and did that, I can't wait to do it with you when you're awake."

George's laughter echoed through the warehouse as Diamond reached up and kissed me.

***

Though I didn't have time to contact Jack Stevens to stop his call, I used the radio in my car to stop about half of the NYPD from rolling in with lights, sirens, and enough fanfare to wake the dead. They dispatched what was actually needed for the crime scene instead plus a couple of ambulances and a coroner with a meatwagon. While I was doing that, George searched the rest of the warehouse, only to find nothing new.

It wasn't long before a number of squad cars and the ambulances arrived. To my surprise, the guy who'd been lit up by the flashlight guy had survived my shot but he died in surgery later in the night without ever saying anything.

One of the ambulances took Diamond to the hospital for observations over her objections while George and I dealt with the local cops and, an hour or so later, an intensely angry Lieutenant Otis Crosley.

He was particularly upset with me for deliberately killing Reginald Hornaday II, but I stressed that he'd been about to shoot me and it was, like in Korea, kill or be killed. I never mentioned anything about having had my foot on his wrist before that and the forensics guys, considering it a good shoot that put down a wannabe cop-killer, didn't look all that closely, missing (or, more likely, ignoring) the heel print next to where his wrist had originally been.

The final straw was when the officers found Reg's empty brass next to a column where he'd reloaded and then accounted for all of his shots, showing that he'd taken nine shots to my five. With a number of the guys admiring the Smith & Wesson and imitating Clint Eastwood, Crosley finally huffed, told me it wasn't the end of this, and stomped off.

That, I hoped, actually made it the end of it after all, particularly with the NYPD getting credit for rescuing the kidnap victim, recovering the counterfeit bills, and breaking up a counterfeiting operation.

The bills and the last part were handed over to Special Agents Kagan and Adison of the U.S. Secret Service with the rest of the information, but no word of Diamond's nighttime occupation was ever mentioned or allowed to leak out. Word in the department sometime later was that Kagan and Adison eventually tracked down the printing operation and recovered the fake plates, a lot of washed one dollar bills ready for printing as twenties, and some gallons of ink that still wasn't quite right.

Unfortunately for them, they never got a single conviction out of the whole mess, and George and I weren't all that surprised to never receive a thank-you call or note from either of them.

***

Taking George home, I thanked him profusely. He waved it off, saying, "That's what partners do. Now, I'm going to Jersey to get Jessica and Alicia now. See you on Monday."

I made it to Diamond's hospital room at just before 6 in the morning. One of the nurses didn't want to let me in but I flashed my badge, gave a gruff "Police business," and kept going. Seeing my determination, the nurse didn't try to stop me again.

I sat next to Diamond for the two or three hours as she slept, watching her, feeling so relieved she'd made it and that it hadn't been any worse than it was. She had a little bruising but the cut had been superficial, only requiring a couple of stitches.

Diamond was holding my hand and looking at me when the door opened to wake me from my slumber. "You're alive," she whispered, "and I am, too, thanks to you."

She squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers back but neither of us tried to let go.

***

The doctor released Diamond later that day, saying that he recommended someone stay with her for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours to help her and make sure she didn't have any seizures or anything else associated with a concussion or related brain injuries.

"Les will stay with me," she asserted before realizing what she'd said. "Ah, you will, won't you?"

"You know I will."

A couple of hours later, I took her back to her apartment and got her comfortably settled in. "Do you need anything else right now, Diamond?" I asked. "If not, I'm going to take a nap on your couch."

"I'm sorry, Les, but I do need something. One, call me Di. Diamond's too formal most of the time. Next, I need you to lie down on the bed next to me where we can watch over each other."

As tired as I was, I didn't argue.

***

"Les, I don't know what to do," she said later that day. "I...I was doing it for the money, but the danger makes it scary, and, well, I realize now that faking it with a guy I don't care about takes the joy out of it. I don't know if I can go back."

"Di, if that's the case, then quit and move on. Doing something you don't enjoy just makes you bitter inside, upset with yourself, and makes life no fun. Don't force yourself to continue something if it's not making you happy."

"I found what makes me happy, Les, but I don't know if that's enough."

"Give it time and you'll figure it out," I said, encouraging her, realizing that I needed to listen to my own advice. I was still thinking about that when she snuggled up next to me and it wasn't long before we dozed off again.

I did a lot of thinking between then and Sunday as we rested and I took care of her, but by Sunday afternoon she was back on her feet and I knew I had things to do to prepare to go back to work the next day. The disaster recovery people had cleaned and repaired my condo so I told her I was going out for a while but would be back to check on her that evening.

After retrieving my new key from the building super, I trudged up the stairs and made it to my door. The lock turned and I was about to open when Annie's door opened and she came out. I tried to focus on her face rather than her tight shirt and tiny shorts.

"Les, you're home! I've missed you so much."

She stepped forward to throw her arms around me but I stopped her, knowing that if she pressed herself against me the odds were that I'd fold like a house of cards despite my intentions.

"Annie, please, stop. I like you a lot but I don't think I can see you like that anymore. You'll be better off finding someone who really loves you and can make you happy. I'm...I'm sorry, but I'm just not the guy."

She looked like she was about to cry but she slowly nodded. "Thanks, Les, for telling me the truth and not dragging this out. I like you a lot, too, a whole lot, but I've been around long enough to know that it'll never work unless we're both all in. Still friends?"

"Always, Annie."

Realizing how exposed she was in that t-shirt, she crossed her arms over her boobs to cover herself, forced a smile, and then turned and went back into her unit. I exhaled slowly, hoping that I hadn't hurt her too badly but knowing she'd bounce back and be able to find the right guy if she looked.

***

I was back at Diamond's by nightfall with what I needed for work the next evening and Chinese takeout. I dished out the food and delivered it to her bed where we sat together and ate while listening to Linda Ronstadt. When Side 1 of "Silk Purse" ended, she asked me to change it to Side 2.

"Les, I've been thinking over the last few days. I can't afford to live here without, well, the extra cash I earn at night. I do still have my day job, thank goodness. I called my boss the other day while you were asleep—thank you for calling him, by the way—and he said he'd seen the story about me being rescued in the newspaper, so I can go back in a few days when I've recovered. I guess I can get a roommate to split costs, but I had another idea."

"What's that, Di?"

"Well, I don't have a roommate. And you don't have a roommate. Maybe?"

"Are you suggesting that we live together?"

"Maybe?" she repeated but with a grin this time.

I thought for a bit, knowing that I liked Di a lot but there were a lot of potential issues between us.

"Di, you know I loved your mother."

"I know, Les, and I did, too, but she's gone. Now we can love each other."

"Sweetheart, I'm over twice your age."

"Yeah, just think about how jealous all your guy friends will be with you having such a hot, young chick!"

Between her statement and her expression, I almost snorted the last bite of fried rice out my nose. When I could breathe again, I said, "You work days and I work nights."

"Les, I know. We'll have a lot of challenges and it won't be easy but we'll make it work as roommates, and, who knows? Maybe someday more."

"Are you serious, Di?"

"Never more serious. We just have to want to make it work on the first part and we can take our time and see about the 'more' part. Hey, it's a great time, too. I have about six more weeks on the lease for this place but I can sublet any time if the new tenant will sign with the landlord for an extension."

She had a good point, several in fact, so I thought for a little more before finally nodding. "Okay, roomie. I'm in if you are."

She grinned and, over my objection, got out of bed to walk over to the turntable. Taking Ronstadt off before the second side ended, she put on a new album and moments later Carly Simon was singing "Anticipation," the first song on her album of the same name. Diamond snuggled up next to me, looking into my eyes as the song turned from the sad lament of the first part to a glad statement of hope near the end. She started singing along at that point,

"And stay right here,

'cause these are the good old days,

These are the good old days..."

Before it ended, I found myself singing along with her, knowing it was true.

When the song ended, she rolled over on top of me and we started kissing as she cupped my cheeks with her hands while I slipped my arms around her and cupped her ass. She'd been wearing an oversized T-shirt and I was sure there was no bra under it but as I kneaded her firm rump, I realized she wasn't wearing panties either and I started running a couple of fingers up and down her slit when she spread her legs wide to sit atop me.