Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (best book reader .TXT) 📕

back onto the stiff dead grass, his own gun coming up as the passenger’s face came out in a spray through the shattering glass.

“Holy shit!”

“What the fuck, man? What the fuck!?”

“I dunno!”

“J! You fuckin’ shot J!”

“I didn’t mean—I didn’t—”

“Shoot the motherfuckin’ pig! Shoot ’em!”

But the driver froze, his eyes wide and gun hand trembling as the passenger slumped over against the door, his skull pumping out what red it had left.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!” Barros shouted. He was squeezing his mic’s transmit button as hard as he could. Mind racing, fight or flight. He pulled his own trigger, never saw where the bullets went. The panic had taken hold and even though he’d trained for stuff like this, it was up in his face now. Jumped. He was being jumped.

But then the backseat door opened and as he saw a muzzle exit the door Barros just started shooting at it. The car rocked; more glass burst. The rear lights on the car changed; dropped in gear. The muzzle dodged, hidden behind the car door. It was far from bulletproof, but concealment is, in part, peace of mind. Any port in a storm.

When Barros paused for a split-second, that muzzle shoved out the door and barked with flashes of fire, and then Barros couldn’t breathe. He tried to back up further, get cover. He was already on the ground. Out in the open, trying to radio and shoot and crab walk and breathe and get up and communicate and live. He shot and shot again. The concrete under the car sparked. A chunk of dirt kicked up a foot from his thigh. The muzzle coming out of the car spat again and Barros’s radio hand went hot and numb. He slumped backwards, the cold of the ground grabbing hold of his spine. His radio was chattering hard and fast but he couldn’t make out the words. It was the strangest thing; he recognized the voices, recognized the words. Didn’t process any of it. It was getting numb, though. Everything burned but was still getting really, really numb.

“Get the fuck back in here!” from the car.

“Hold up.” The back passenger exited fully—taking the split-second he needed to shrug his hoodie over his head—took a huge step toward Barros, and squeezed off three rounds. Barros bounced with the impact, his vision a dazzling display of electricity and colorful spots. The gunman spun, whipped open the passenger side door, and yanked the dead guy out, tossing him like an empty soda bottle onto the curb. He jumped in the seat. “Ah, fuck, man.” He said, holding up his bloody hands from the mess. “Just roll, motherfucker! Roll!”

The 1987 tan Buick LeSabre, license plate 427 David King Sam, roared to life and charged off down the road, not turning on its headlights until it took the corner of Bales on two wheels and disappeared.

Officer Barros lay in the street, hearing sirens approaching. His entire body on fire, tasting blood, paralyzed by pain or impending death or all of it or something else entirely. His vest did what it could, but he knew he was filled with lead. Why the backseat gunman didn’t skull tap he didn’t know.

I pulled that car over because he didn’t have his headlights on, Barros thought as the first cop car rolled up to the curb and the next two raced after the LeSabre. Fucking headlights. Oh, Lindsey. I’m sorry, baby. Then he stopped thinking so much.

0127 hours, Carcasa PD

Officers Beau and Sri were docked in the parking lot of a burned-down fried chicken joint, their cruisers facing opposite directions allowing their driver’s side windows to line up. Heaters blasting, both men sat in the darkness.

“Anyway, that’s the dream, man.” Beau said. “Nothing fancy, just something big enough to fish from and give tours on.”

“You should probably leave the force and get a job making real money if you want all that,” Sri said, a cup of coffee next to his lips.

“My wife does alright. Better than me, actually.”

“You gonna go for corporal?”

“I thought about it. You?”

Sri shrugged. “I want off dog watch. That spot is for dog watch. If I got it—and I hear Kolbe is putting in for it so I doubt I’ll even be in the top three—I’d be stuck here until a corporal spot opened elsewhere. Could be a few more years.”

“Kolbe is putting in for it? I didn’t hear that,” Beau said, smelling Sri’s coffee and thinking he should get some.

“Yeah. I’m not gonna beat him. You might, though.”

“Sure,” Beau said with a laugh. “Hey, where’d you get that coffee?”

“The Gas Stop on 128th and Bucannon.”

“I thought they closed at midnight.”

“They usually do. The one on Trevor and 4th, and the other one on the Boardwalk, they do. That one on Bucannon is trying twenty-four hours now. See how it goes.”

“Oh, so they wanna be robbed more often, then?”

Sri smiled at that. Then their radios blared to life in stereo from both men’s cars.

“102, PD, 10-45.” Barros’s voice filled the parking lot.

Sri reached over and turned his radio down a little bit, said, “Always the go-getter.”

“Yessir,” Beau said.

“Copy, go ahead.”

“Stop location is westbound 139th at Rainbow, vehicle is an older model tan Buick LeSabre, license plate 427 David King Sam. Appears to be occupied two times, unknown race and gender.”

“10-4.”

“I wonder what he pulled ’em over for,” Sri said.

Beau laughed. “He’s got a problem on quiet nights. He’s got to do something.”

“Yeah. Dude, the first time I heard him say boy, it sure is quiet to try and jinx us into a good call, I almost kicked his ass.”

“Almost?”

“Oh sure.”

“Did it get busy?”

Sri chuffed. “It was New Year’s Eve.”

Beau laughed. They settled down for a moment, then Beau asked, “You think he’ll go for corporal?”

Sri shrugged. “He should. Barros would make a good one.”

“He said 139th and Rainbow?” Beau asked. When Sri nodded, Beau put his car in drive. “I’ll head that way. Just in case.”

“Roger that, bro. If you need anything, just holler,”