The Fallen

McKenzie leaned forward, then sat back and took a deep breath. We knocked fists for luck. Chupa Junior stood on the porch in a swatch of light, took one look at us, then vanished inside.

“We’ve been made,” said Fellowes.

Mincher punched the Suburban to the far entry and swung sideways to block it. Two cruisers pulled up around us to seal it off. I glanced back to the first entry and saw our cruisers and slickbacks throttling the entrance, doors swinging open.

We trotted up the drive, Fellowes leading the way. The blue water splashed in the fountain and I could smell the damp sage from the hillsides. Our video shooter flared off to the side and kept pace with us, camera rolling.

Captain Fellowes knocked three times, waited a few seconds, and knocked again. Standing on the driveway behind him I saw a light come on upstairs, then another. Doors slammed. Voices touched the walls inside.

Fellowes signaled. Mincher and another officer slammed the battering ram into the fancy door. The brass burst off the wood, the door twisted open like something wounded, and Fellowes stumbled inside.

I heard shouting from the back of the house. Fellowes and three men ran down the foyer then branched off to the left. McKenzie and I followed but went right. A door slammed open in front of me and a young man shot out, saw us, and ran the other way. He wore a suit but carried his shoes and socks. Behind him tumbled a barefoot young woman with her dress almost on, her hair in her face, and a wild glint in her eyes as she tried to follow him down the hall.

I charged past the woman and caught up with the john halfway across the game room, yelling at him to stop. He didn’t, so I brought him down. We crashed hard into the leg of a billiards table and I could hear the balls clack apart up on the felt but I swung the guy’s wrists behind him and put a tie around them. He did not meaningfully resist. I ran back to find McKenzie in control of the girl, who was cuffed and demanding to see her lawyer immediately.

Two of our uniforms appeared to escort our suspects to the transport van.

More shouting from the back of the house then, but I couldn’t tell what was being said. In a suite off the hallway McKenzie and I surprised a couple still trying to get enough clothes on to run away. The man was middle-aged and plainly terrified. The girl was a very young Latina in a red slip. Her hair spread into a shiny black fan as she tried to sprint past me for the door. McKenzie took her down and they spit and argued in frightening Spanish while I let Middle-Aged put on his pants and shirt.

Suddenly the lights were out. A woman screamed upstairs, and a man yelled. A gun went off somewhere in the back of the house — a small-caliber handgun, 22 or .25 was my guess.

Two more quick pops rang through the chaos. A man screamed in pain.

Middle-Aged broke away from my grip and ran down the hall.

I yelled at him to stop but he didn’t. I saw his silhouette round the end of the hallway and head for the game room. I clambered in behind him, remembering where the billiards table was but miscalculating the jukebox location. I crashed into it, managing to stay upright. The French doors stood open at the far end of the room. I could see the faint moonlight outside and the shimmer of the pool on the window glass. Middle-Aged blundered outside and headed right.

I identified myself and ordered him to stop one more time. I caught up with him out by the pool house and took him down hard. He broke my grip with a nice turn of his wrist and struggled back to his feet. He made the spiked fence and I slammed into him as he tried to climb over, then fell to the ground and rolled once. He writhed away from me again. I picked myself up and clawed after him. But instead of running he stopped, planted his feet, and swung for my face. I leaned away from the blow and used his momentum to take him down again. I drove a knee into his back and used all my strength and weight to get his wrists together and finally cinch the plastic tie tight.

I stood up panting and really noticed what was going on around me for the first time.

The plan had worked. Our back-side interceptors were now marching off the girls and their johns two and three at a time. The lights on the cruisers bathed the scene in alternating flashes of red and blue and yellow, and the headlights of the transport van and the slickbacks cut through the scene with high beams powdered by the fog.

I recognized the San Diego fireman from one of Garrett’s videos. I recognized another face, though I still didn’t know his name. Carrie Ann Martier, wrapped in a white terry robe, looked at me as one of the Vice officers marched her past.

“Hi, Robbie,”

“Hi, Carrie.”

“Help me out here, will ya?”

“I would if I could.”

“All I did for you?”

“I’m cuffed too, Carrie.”

Then the wall exploded. A huge, headless shape blasted through a ground-floor French door, caught its foot on the broken glass, crashed to the patio, and rolled once. It came to its feet like a big, heavy cat and lowered the protective sport coat from its face. Chupa froze. He looked at me and at the other cops, then swung his immense arms and legs into rhythm and powered his way across the backyard toward the fence. He was limping badly. A Vice detective tried to tackle him but Chupa lifted him over his head and threw him into the pool. Another one climbed onto Chupa from behind but the big man shrugged him off. Another Vice detective drew down on him and yelled for him to stop but Chupa was already at the fence. A uniformed officer approached with his gun drawn but Chupa turned away from him and started climbing the fence topped by the elegant points.