Whorl Read online

  Dave jerked awake and sat up on the couch, not sure why. Something had woke him up, but what? The TV was still on, some Adam Sandler movie, and Dave grabbed the remote and hit Mute. He grabbed the Kahr off the table and stood up, checking his watch. After three-thirty in the morning. Late.

  The garage door opened and Gina came in as loud as a car crash in her swishy nylon jacket and high heels on the kitchen floor. She looked at Dave rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “You’re here late,” he said. He checked his watch again, wondering if he’d read it right half-asleep.

  Gina set her big purse on the kitchen counter and looked at what he was wearing, with the TV on behind him. “I was hanging out with Tiffany and Kelly after work. You fall asleep watching TV?” she asked with a smile. She watched him set the gun down as she took off the white thigh-length jacket and hung it over one of the kitchen chairs. Underneath she was in an orange thong bikini above the red shoes, which had four inch heels. How she could drive in those he had no idea.

  “Apparently,” he said as she stalked over to him in her tall heels. He could smell the alcohol on her, and the marijuana, when she was six feet away. He blinked a few more times to get his head clear.

  “I am so fucking horny,” she told him, wrapping her arms around his neck. In the heels she was almost as tall as him, and her chest put his to shame. He wondered if the money he’d spent on health club dues over the years was more or less than what she’d paid her surgeon. She definitely had more to show for it. They kissed, and her tongue was all over his. The taste of alcohol on her was strong. Driving had probably been a very bad decision on her part. He grabbed her curvy ass with both hands and gave both cheeks a quick squeeze.

  “I’m a little grungy,” he told her. “I went jogging in these clothes, and didn’t shower.”

  She bent her head to the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply. Anyone watching would have seen her nipples harden inside the bikini top. “Perfect,” she murmured in his ear, and undid the drawstring of his shorts.

  CHAPTER TWO

  They’d done all the prep work and surveillance that they could, but the day of the thing they always arrived early and got eyes on. The Suburban was parked in a lot across 8 Mile, and they had a good view across the eight lanes of traffic and the grassy median.

  Not a lot of cars in the lot they were watching, and the normal amount of traffic on 8 Mile for 11:30 on a Saturday morning. Wilson had shotgun, and looked up and down the border with Detroit through the tinted windows. Nothing looked out of sorts, and there was nothing unusual on the scanner. Not that the lack of concerned radio traffic meant anything, there were always ways for units to keep in touch that didn’t involve police channels.

  “Fuck, let’s go,” Eddie said from the backseat, squirming. The tension in the car was palpable. Wilson ignored him, as did everyone else. They all had their heads on swivels.

  “Anybody got anything?” Wilson finally said.

  “Ain’t shit,” Eddie said.

  “I got nuthin, Top,” Parker said. Gabe, behind the wheel, just shook his head.

  Wilson took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this. Everybody remember what you’re supposed to do, where you’re supposed to be. Commo check.”

  There was a rustling as everybody put their headset mikes over their heads and switched them on. Thirty seconds later they’d verified everybody’s equipment was working, and Wilson took another deep breath. His heart was hammering in his chest. Getting too old for this shit.

  “Hoods,” he told everybody, and pulled the balaclava over his head.

  “You know it!” Eddie said.

  Gabe, now looking like a bulky ninja behind the wheel, checked to make sure traffic was clear and then pulled out onto 8 Mile. He angled across all four westbound lanes, hit the Michigan left around the median, and waited for a break in the eastbound traffic. When he had one he powered the Suburban across all the lanes, into the lot, and under the jutting roof.

  The valet was in a polo shirt with the club logo on it, and he had almost reached the driver’s door when Parker popped open the back door and shoved the AK in his face.

  “Shut up and fucking turn around,” Parker growled.

  “Shit!” the kid said, and froze. Parker was a big man, and muscled the kid, who looked like he was a college student, around to face the club’s door. As he marched the kid toward the entrance, one hand clamped around the back of his neck and the AK pointing past his shoulder, Wilson and Eddie closed in behind.

  Parker had the kid open the door and they went in quickly. It was dark inside the club, and the shit music was blasting away. Kid Rock, of course.

  The bouncer just inside the front door didn’t make a peep at the sight of the guns and was swept before them as they hit the main room. Parker shoved the valet away from him and moved left as Wilson and Eddie arrowed ahead.

  “Everybody get the fuck down!” Wilson yelled out into the big room, straining to be heard over the country rock. Holy shit did he hate this music. He brandished the AK on its sling, grabbed a man at a nearby booth and pulled him out of it by his shirtfront and threw him on the floor. “This is a fucking robbery. Get on the floor and shut the fuck up.”

  “Floor! Floor! On the floor!” he heard Parker and Eddie yelling behind him. He kept along the right wall, along the bar, and at muzzle point put about half a dozen customers and dancers on the floor.

  The skinny tattooed bartender looked like she didn’t know where to go. To get out from behind the bar she would have had to walk away from the man with the gun, and that didn’t feel like the best idea to her.

  “Climb over,” Wilson told her, gesturing with the AK. He then stopped and shouldered the rifle, pointing it at the heart of the man he knew was the floor manager as he stood up from a bar stool. About five ten, with a blonde ponytail, the guy was a serious body builder and probably ran two-fifty, all of it muscle. “We going to have a problem?” Wilson asked him.

  “Nope,” Shane replied. His hands went up. He was staring at the end of the rifle, and noticing just how steady it was. He had a .380 in his pocket, but one small pistol against three guys with AKs and body armor who looked like they knew what they were doing was a losing proposition. If they were just there to rob the place, fine, they’d never know he had a gun. If they decided to start capping people, that was something different. That happened, he was going down shooting.

  “Walk ahead of me,” Wilson told him. Shane turned and moved, and Wilson stayed two steps behind him, just out of reach, the AK leveled at his back. Jesus, this redneck was as wide as he was tall.

  Parker pointed his AK across the room at the DJ in his little elevated booth. “Shut that shit off and get down here!” he shouted. Kid Rock cut off in mid-sentence, and the dancers still frozen on the stages started climbing down awkwardly in their high heels.

  Parker stayed by the door and Eddie moved halfway down the bar to cover the middle of the room as Wilson headed for the back.

  “Get the fuck out there!” Wilson yelled at the dancers, waitresses, and “shot girls” he encountered cowering in the hallway, one of them still holding the tray of Jell-O shots. Bunch of skinny white bitches with fake tans, none of them with titties unless they bought ‘em, and not one sister. They sounded like screaming seagulls as they ran past him toward the stage where Eddie was shoving a big drunk guy off a chair onto the floor. Drunk before noon on Saturday. Nice.

  Shane stopped in front of the office door. Black steel, it had an electronic eye in the center, and a keypad off to one side. “Open it,” Wilson told him.

  “. . . I said get the fuck down! Hey!” Eddie shouted behind him, and the sound of the AK going off was huge. Wilson spun around and immediately saw that the big guy was either too stupid to know what he was supposed to do or too drunk, or he actually might have been trying to put up a fight. Eddie had fired a warning shot into the air, and as Wilson laid eyes on him he saw his partner buttstroke the fatass in the face. He went down th
en, moaning and bleeding.

  “Roo? You got it?” Wilson yelled at him, spinning his head back and forth, keeping an eye on the strip club Hercules in front of him as well as his partner. Eddie had been a bit twitchy lately, and a warning shot was a bullshit amateur move. Now, however, was not the time to lecture him.

  “Yeah,” Eddie yelled back. He kicked the man, hard, then backed away and swung his AK around the room. The dancers were crying and wailing like they were trying out for an opera.

  Wilson turned back to the assistant manager in front of him, and pressed the muzzle of the AK into the back of his neck. “I’ve got a key right here that can open that door,” he said threateningly.

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” Shane said quickly, and punched his code into the keypad.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he heard Eddie yell at the dancers.

  “Everybody empty your pockets, and don’t make me ask twice,” Parker shouted around the club, as the office door swung open. “Cash, cell phones, watches and wallets.” Wilson shoved the big man inside. Mr. Utley was in the office, sitting behind the desk, his hands up.

  Wilson pointed the AK at the chubby guy behind the desk, wondering just how much his suit cost. Probably thousands of dollars. Well, the guy was worth millions.

  “Open the safe,” Wilson told him. He gestured at the bodybuilder with the hand not on the pistol grip of the AK. “On the floor.” Shane went down without protest.

  Utley nodded slowly. “Not a problem,” he said, at least pretending to be calm. “We just opened though, you’re not going to get much.”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” Wilson warned him. “I know you got all your receipts and cash from Friday still. You hold out on me and shit’s going to get real painful.”

  Utley nodded again. “Fair enough. I did hit the alarm, though,” he informed the big man standing in his office. Dressed all in black like a SWAT cop, body armor and spare magazines for the rifle bundled around his chest, he took up a lot of space in the small room. Wearing some sort of face mask that left an oval for his eyes, and gloves, he could see the guy was black, but that was it.

  “Well then, you’d best be quick about it,” Wilson told him. “Bullet holes won’t make this place any classier.”

  Detective John George parked his unmarked unit at the curb on 8 Mile and got out, after first checking the side mirror to make sure no passing car took off his door. Hell, it had happened—not to him, thank God.

  On the sidewalk he looked at the club, then looked past it and back behind him. Not near an intersection, no banks nearby, mostly just parking lots…he didn’t see any place within two hundred yards which might have a working security camera that covered the club or its parking lot. Par for the course.

  COCONUTS. He’d been to a bachelor party here years before, he was pretty sure, although the strip clubs sort of blended together in his head. He wasn’t a strip club guy anyway—it was like going out to eat when you’re hungry, but only being allowed to smell the food, not eat it. An exercise in self-frustration, far as he was concerned. His life was full of frustration, he didn’t need to add any more.

  The lot was blocked by a marked unit, with a uniform standing next to it looking bored. George made sure his badge was visible as he walked by the officer but didn’t say anything. He was too damn tired, and this was supposed to be his day off.

  There had to be a good thirty people inside the club, maybe more, including half a dozen uniforms just standing around eyeballing the strippers, most of whom hadn’t bothered to put on any more clothes. At least they’d corralled all the strippers into one corner, out of the way. They did not look happy, like a bunch of wet cats. Actually, they had the same look that he saw on his daughter’s face, more often than not. Teenage girls were horrible. Shit, who was he kidding? He’d rather be working than at home, his wife in one ear and his daughter in the other, stereo bitching

  “Okay, Rodriguez, what do we have?” He called out to one of the detectives assigned to the task force.

  “Same crew,” Manny told him. “Unless we have a copycat four man team, using all the same gear.” Two other detectives, Bill Jordan and Ronda Sykes, closed in, waiting for their orders.

  “Okay, anybody taken any statements yet?”

  “Just started,” Sykes told him.

  “What was their ride? Same green Tahoe?”

  Jordan shook his head. “Black Suburban.”

  “Shit,” George said. “Probably stolen. Well, Bill, once we get the time they rolled in nailed down as tight as possible, I want you to go up and down 8 Mile as far as you have to, see if anybody’s security camera caught that thing driving by. Bank, party store, gas station, I don’t care. I want a plate.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

  George looked around, and up, but the ceiling was painted black. “They got cameras in here?” Yep, there they were. “Anyone take a look at the video?”

  “Not yet, Ringo,” Ronda told him. “The owner says all the cameras are working, though, so the whole thing should have been caught on tape. Or CD, or whatever they’re recorded on.”

  “Where are they, in the office? Get in there and sit on them. Right now. I don’t want anything getting accidentally erased.” He waited until she started off. “Anybody know if they were wearing ski masks?”

  Jordan looked at his notebook. “I’ve got two told me ski masks, some others said ninja hoods.”

  “Shit, let’s get these witnesses separated before they start polluting each other’s stories. Bill, get those uniforms working on that instead of staring at their tits. We got an owner or a manager?”

  “Owner is Craig Utley, he was in his office at the time, and he’s still back there as far as I know. Been waiting on you, figured you’d want the honors. Floor manager’s that dude right there.” He pointed.

  “Holy steroids, Batman. Okay, I’m going to talk to him, then the owner. Let me know if you get anything.”

  George had the guy by maybe an inch or two, but he outweighed the detective by twenty pounds, all of it muscle. Not that George had much muscle of his own….too much coffee, and fast food, and piloting a desk for too many years. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d worked out. And now balding, too, goddammit. Where had the years gone?

  “I’m Detective George, the lead on this case,” he said to the ponytailed Hulk. “You’re the floor manager?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What’s your name?” He dug out his notebook and a pen.

  “Shane McDonald. This the same crew that hit The Princess’ Diary and Goldfinger’s?”

  George shook his head. “I don’t know. You hear from anybody at the other clubs about what happened when they were hit?”

  The big man nodded. “Sure. When the Diary got hit the floor manager Rudy called me up and gave me the low down. I don’t know anybody at Goldfinger’s, but from what Rudy told me it sure seems like the same crew. Very professional. Body armor, AKs, spare mags, balaclavas, the works.”

  George looked up from his notebook. “You sound like you know a thing or two about it.” How many people even knew what a balaclava was?

  Shane smiled. “I know what a fucking AK looks like. Marine Corps. I did two tours in Iraq. These guys knew how to wear their gear, handle their weapons, and work the room. They were moving as a team, they were no gangbangers. Well…..”

  “What?’

  The manager shrugged his huge shoulders. “Well, one of them fired a shot into the ceiling, a warning shot. One of the customers was a little slow to move, get down on the floor. That guy, over there.” He pointed out a man getting attended to by one of the fire fighters, looked like he’d been hit in the face with something big and hard.

  “And?’ The warning shot might mean something. This was the first robbery out of the three where anybody had fired a shot. Or needed to, maybe. At least he knew now this crew wasn’t running around with toy guns, or those damn airsoft things that looked just like the real thing.

  �
��And nothing. I didn’t see him when he fired the shot, but when I looked over I saw him hit the guy, then it was pretty much over.”

  “Ummm,” George was thinking as he scribbled furiously on his pad. He had a number of questions for the man, and wasn’t sure which one to hit first. Where was the shooter standing, what direction was his rifle pointing, how—“Why weren’t you looking at him?” he asked the beefy manager. “Guy comes into your club with a rifle, I’d think you’d be looking at him.”

  “One of the other ones, the leader I think, was walking me back toward Mr. Utley’s office. I had an AK pointed at my head and was looking at the office door when he fired.”

  “Did he shoot straight up? Or—“

  “He called him Roo.”

  “What?”

  “The guy who had me, was holding onto me when the other guy fired the shot, he looked back over at him and said, ‘Roo, you got it?’”

  George lowered his notepad. “’Roo’? Not who, or you, or Lou?”

  “No, man, he was the length of a rifle away from me, and I’ve got good ears. Music was shut off at that point. He called the guy Roo.”

  Roo? Roo? Shit. He stood there and thought hard for several seconds. “You give your statement to anybody else yet? Any of the uniforms?”

  Shane shook his head. “No sir, you’re the first person I’ve talked to.”

  Oh, boy, this one might have blown wide open, but nobody’s going to be happy about it, he thought. “You think this other one, the one who called the other perp ‘Roo’, was the leader? Tell me about him.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mickey checked the menu. His eyes went to the prices first. After all, this was Georgetown, where he was once offered the option to rent a 650 square foot one bedroom apartment for a mere three thousand dollars a month. Unbelievable. Then again, all of D.C. was like that….at least the areas it was safe to walk in. Woodbridge, where he lived with Ben, was ten miles outside the Beltway and still expensive as shit.