While the City Burns (Flynn & Levy Book 2) Read online

  Levy stood with her baton up and poised to strike, warning off any potential attackers. “I called for a bus, but they’re can’t get through.”

  “Where are they?” Flynn asked, adjusting his grip on the boy in his arms.

  “The command post.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A block from here,” Levy said. “On Rivington.”

  With a ring of cops around them, Levy pushed a path through the milling crowd. Flynn carried the boy, and the boy’s father followed. “Let’s go.”

  Division Street

  Lower Eastside, Manhattan

  Monday, November 27th 9:02 p.m.

  PATROLMAN LEON OLIVAREZ INSISTED they grab takeout from this funky Mediterranean place off Division Street. He slid their cruiser to the curb in front of the restaurant. Jordan Cabot moaned. He wanted Chinese from the noodle restaurant on Broadway.

  “We have Chinese like every tour,” Olivarez complained good-naturedly. One of the advantages of being assigned to the Seventh was they bordered Chinatown, giving them access to some of the best, most authentic Chinese food in the city.

  “I like Chinese,” Cabot told his partner.

  “I do, too,” Olivarez said, calling them 10-63, out of service. “Just not every night.”

  “Since we’re here,” Cabot said with a resigned sigh, glancing out at the Mediterranean restaurant storefront. “Get me that chicken shawarma wrap I got the last time.”

  Olivarez smiled and pushed open the door. “Now you’re talking.”

  The two men had been at the academy together. They each had nine years on the job. They’d worked different houses over the years, but always in Manhattan. Olivarez spent time in a plainclothes street crime unit, and Cabot had done a stretch in Emergency Services before his wife told him it was too dangerous for a father of two.

  The two had run across each other over the years. Keep in contact enough to say hi and even grab a cup of joe or hit a cop bar for a beer every once in a while. When they each landed in the Seventh, their request to ride together was a no-brainer. That had been four years earlier and they’d been partners ever since.

  “Kung Pao chicken tomorrow, partner,” Olivarez said, climbing out of the car. “My word.”

  “And that hot sauce, Kev,” Cabot called out before he shut the door.

  “Tahini.”

  “Yeah. That’s it.”

  Ten minutes later, Olivarez returned with three white paper bags and two Styrofoam coffee cups. He handled the hot bags over to his partner and climbed in, thinking how much better a couple of cold ones would go with the meal, but they were a few more hours away from knocking off, if they didn’t get sucked into doing a double because of all this rioting bullshit.

  “You get extra bread?” Cabot asked pawing through the bags as Olivarez pulled into traffic.

  “Yeah.” The smell of garlic lemon, fried onions, and tahini sauce filled the interior and made Olivarez’s mouth water. “It’s in there.”

  They parked a couple of blocks away in a cordoned off section on Straus Square where the row of blue Citi-bike bicycle rental stands started. The Square formed a triangle with East Broadway and Rutgers Street. Across from them would normally be a line of yellow cabs. None were there now. Most of the drivers were smart enough to go into hiding on a night where violence could suddenly erupt anywhere.

  With the cabs not there, it gave Olivarez and Cabot an unobstructed view of Seaward Park behind the black wrought-iron fence that ran along the length of the sidewalk.

  The radio blasted a call out for officers to respond to a vandalism call. Both men froze, waiting, listening until the location was given. They both sighed with relief hearing it was outside their section.

  It wasn’t like they didn’t crave the action, both men still did, even after all these years. But they were already three hours past their regular meal break time and had just come off two hours standing in the chilly, misting rain babysitting a row of storefronts over on Canal Street. They were wet and hungry and just wanted a few minutes to warm up and eat.

  Cabot passed a bag over to Olivarez. “What’d you get?”

  “The beef and lamb gyro,” he said with a smile, inhaling the aroma of sumac onions and tzatziki sauce. His stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  “Ummm. That sounds good. You gotta let me try some of that.” Cabot reached a hand out and Olivarez swatted it away.

  “You’re as bad as my wife,” he said. “If you wanted this, you should’ve ordered it.”

  “Jerk. I just want a taste.”

  “Fine.” Olivarez pinched a piece of beef off and dropped it on Cabot’s held-out napkin.

  His partner ate it and closed his eyes. “Ummm. Next time I’m getting that. Remind me.”

  Olivarez laughed and took a bite.

  He jumped when there was a knock on his window. “Jesus.”

  At his door was a young black man, about twenty years old. He had on a black puffy coat over a dark green hoodie, with the hood up. He leaned over and pantomimed roll down the window.

  Olivarez took a second to let his racing heart return to normal. “We need one of them off-duty lights on the roof like the cabs got.” He hit the window down button on the door.

  “Tell me about it,” Cabot agreed around a mouth full of food.

  A brisk cold breeze blew through the car, cooling Olivarez’s cheek and sent a shiver down his back where his t-shirt was still damp.

  The young man said, “Sorry to bother you, officers.”

  “What do you need?” Olivarez asked.

  “For you to die,” the man said. “Mother-fucker!”

  The man pulled a small semi-automatic from the pocket of his coat.

  He stepped back and faced the car full on. The gun held out in front of him, clutched in two hands.

  Olivarez dropped his food. “GUN!”

  The man pulled the trigger twice. The muzzle flared in the darkness.

  The first bullet hit Olivarez in the face, shattering his chin and lower jaw. Blood splattered over his face and down the front of his uniform. The second bullet struck him in the forehead and entered his brain. Olivarez’s head snapped back against the security screen between the front and backseat. The cage rattled. Blood dribbled from the neat, little black hole in his forehead.

  “Shit!” Cabot threw his food to the foot well and tried to pull his gun in the tight confine of the cruiser’s front seat. He failed to clear leather before the passenger side window exploded inward, spraying glass everywhere.

  A second shooter stood on that side of the car.

  The glass—or bad aim—caused the first bullet to crease Cabot’s eyebrow.

  The second bullet slammed into his neck, nicking Cabot’s carotid artery.

  The third round, unnecessary as Cabot was dead almost instantly, hit his temple as he slumped across the seat. The cop’s dead hand slipped off the half-holstered service weapon.

  Both cops were dead before the sound of pounding sneakers running away over the wet pavement was lost to the sound of cars traveling over wet pavement. A dog barking.

  Rivington Street

  Lower East Side, Manhattan

  Monday, November 27th 9:22 p.m.

  LEVY SHOVED ASIDE a blue and white sawhorse making room for Flynn, who carried the injured boy, and his trailing father. They hurried down Clinton Street, a side road that would take them to Rivington.

  At the corner, they found the mobile command post. It was a customized, converted bus, white with blue lettering, from which the high-ranking commanders could strategize while monitoring any situation with state-of-the-art equipment.

  An ambulance pulled to an angled stop in front of the command post. Its back doors sprang open and an EMT jumped to the ground, a medikit in his hand.

  The driver came around and joined him. Together they pulled a stretcher from the bus.

  Flynn gently laid the boy down. Checking him out, the EMTs pelted Flynn and the father with questions. Movin
g as one, they lowered the stretcher to the ground and hoisted it back into the brightly lit bed of the vehicle. One EMT climbed inside while the other closed one door and waited.

  “Hey, you riding with us or what?” he called out to the father.

  “Yes. Yes.” The father clasped Flynn’s hand in both of his and bowed slightly. “Thank you so much for saving my son.”

  “Come on. We’ve gotta go,” the EMT driver said. “Busy night.”

  “You’re welcome,” Flynn said. “Go.”

  The boy’s father quickly hopped up into the ambulance. The back door was slammed shut and the ambulance pulled away, full lights and sirens.

  “Now what?” Levy said. She glanced back up Clinton Street.

  Flynn followed her gaze. Reluctantly, he said, “I guess we go back.”

  Up the street, he could see shadowy figures running back and forth. The flickering glow of fires set in trash cans and even a car. Orange light blazed beyond the broken windows of several stores, the result of a tossed Molotov cocktail. Burglar and fire alarms whooped and the air horn of approaching fire trucks pierced the air.

  The Delancey Street march had become a full-blown riot. No, a fucking war zone.

  Flynn exchanged a look with Levy. Neither was anxious to rejoin the madness.

  About to do so anyway, they stopped when an officer in a uniform bomber jacket with sergeant stipes on the sleeves exited the command post. He glanced in their direction. “Hey! You two know a couple of detectives named Flynn and Levy, from the Seventh?”

  Flynn and Levy exchanged bemused glances. “Yeah,” Flynn said. “We might. Why?”

  “Good. Saves me wasting my time tracking their asses down. You two can do it.”

  Flynn tried to tell the sergeant they were who he was looking for, but he didn’t seem to care.

  He handed Flynn a slip of paper. “Like I don’t have enough to do on a fucking night like this.”

  Flynn opened the paper. It was a while you were out memo paper, creased in two. His and Levy’s names were written on it, along with their badge numbers and an address. Three intersecting streets: corners—Broadway, Essex, and Canal.

  Flynn held the note up in the air. “What’s this?”

  The police sergeant pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the command post. “Call from their CO. Guy named Whalen. Said there’s been an incident. Told us to find them, tell ’em to get their asses,” –he pointed at the note— “there.”

  “What sort of incident?” Levy asked.

  “He didn’t say, but he didn’t have to. I heard the call come in over the air. There’s been a shooting.” The sergeant shook his head. “Two cops are fucking dead.”

  Seward Park

  Essex Street & East Broadway

  Lower East Side, Manhattan

  Monday, November 27th 9:32 p.m.

  FLYNN SWERVED THEIR BATTERED, unmarked cruiser to the curb at the entrance to Seward Park. Several patrol cars, marked and plain, were there, circled around a parked unit. The driver’s side window was open. The passenger’s side window was gone. Only gummy white glass clung stubbornly to the frame.

  Emergency lights flashed blue, but there were no sirens. Radio calls punctured the quiet scene. The patrol car had pulled off Canal Street and was parked on a painted crosswalk adjacent to Straus Square. It was a popular spot for patrol cops to go on break because there were so many really good places to eat in the area. The hole-in-the-wall pizza shop next to the smoothie place was a particular favorite of Flynn’s. The spot gave them room to pull off the street but be in a position to roll quickly if the need arose.

  Strategically, it was also an open area, making it difficult to sneak up on if the officers inside were paying attention.

  Flynn and Levy joined a group of cops milling around the cruiser. Most were in uniform. Among them was Danny Toro, who nervously smoothed his thick black mustache, a grim expression on his face, and his partner Joe Lovato, his pencil-thin body wrapped in a thick blue parka. They were both still in civvies, having escaped the call to roll out in uniform for riot duty.

  Already the ghoulish lookie-loos were gathering. Their whispered speculation filled the air.

  A couple of uniforms were pushing them back to the sidewalk that lined Seward Park. Two more patrolmen were trying to establish a crime scene perimeter, unrolling yellow tape and stringing it from lampposts to bus stop shelters to hydrants.

  Flynn and Levy had thrown civilian coats on over their uniforms. A gray raincoat for him. A black trench coat for her. Levy wore her gold shield on her belt, cinched tight around her waist. He had his on a chain around his neck, pulling it out so it hung outside his buttoned-up coat.

  “Flynn and Levy. Homicide,” Flynn said, pushing his way through the uniform cops. “Danny! Joe!”

  Toro waved them over to the driver’s side door, where he and Lovato were looking down at what lay beyond the smashed-out window. Solemn expressions on their faces.

  “You two catching this?” Flynn asked.

  “Yeah, Whalen put us on it. He’s on his way down, too.”

  Flynn looked inside the open window and felt his blood run cold at what he saw. The cop’s lower jaw a bloody mess. His head leaned back against the security screen. His uniform was splattered in blood. He had a dark complexion. His black hair was graying at the temples and thinning on top. He had broad shoulders but jowly cheeks. His dead eyes stared up at the roof. Blood coated his neck and a trickle of red had leaked from a wound in his forehead and run down along the side of his nose like a red tear. It was still wet.

  The window was rolled down. His gun was holstered He’d never even reached for it.

  “Driver’s name is Leon Olivarez,” Toro said. “His partner’s Jordan Cabot.”

  “Either of you know them?” Flynn asked Toro and Lovato.

  “Seen ’em around the house. Enough to nod a hello to, you know,” Toro said.

  “I spoke to Shymanski,” Lovato said. Stan Shymanski, the four-to-twelve road supervising sergeant.

  Flynn knew him well. He had over twenty years in but hadn’t pulled the pin. Loved the job too much, he told Flynn once. Flynn wondered if he’d feel the same way after tonight.

  “He’s not taking it so well,” Lovato said. “Both cops had nine years in. Came through the academy together. Been partners here in the Seventh for the last four.”

  Flynn looked across to the partner slummed forward in the passenger seat It was a similar scenario to Olivarez. Cabot leaned toward the center of the car. His head lolled oddly to one side. He’d been shot three times: a graze across his forehead which had bled a good amount, a second shot in the neck which had bled a lot, too, and a third and final round into the temple. That wound barely bled at all.

  “The round to the neck killed him,” Levy said, having gone to that side of the car. “Hit the artery.” Blood coated his uniform and the door and had even spurted out through the broken window so a trail of blood ran down the side of the car’s door like dripped red paint.

  Food and a coffee cup were spilled in Olivarez’s lap. The brown liquid stained his trousers dark. More food was splattered in the foot well on Cabot’s side. He’d half drawn his weapon but hadn’t cleared leather before being gunned down.

  A thin cop with unhealthy pale skin charged through the crowd and ducked under the crime scene tape. He had a thick salt-and-pepper mustache and long sideburns. Sergeant Shymanski.

  “Stan, I’m sorry about this,” Flynn said.

  The road supervisor stood staring down at Cabot through the smashed-out window. A muscle pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.

  “What can you tell us?” Flynn asked gently.

  Shymanski ground his back teeth, seething with rage. “They were 10-63, on their fucking meal break.”

  “How’d the call come in?” Levy asked.

  “911,” Shymanski said. “Anonymous caller, said he was walking his dog, so he’s gotta be from around here somewhere. Said he heard some shots then
heard a window breaking, followed by more shots.”

  “Olivarez’s window’s rolled down. Too cold to be enjoying the fresh air,” Toro commented, noting Olivarez’s window was rolled down, not shattered. “His hand’s not even on his weapon.”

  “But Cabot started to draw.” Levy leaned into the passenger side window. “Olivarez opens the window, gets shot.”

  “Cabot starts to pull his weapon and gets shot,” Lovato said. “A stray bullet hits his window.”

  “No.” Levy looked closely at each of Cabot’s wounds. “He was shot from this side. Medium caliber. Close range. If the shooter killed Olivarez then circled around his RMP…”

  RMP meant radio motor patrol, cop shorthand for a patrol car, either marked or plain, like what detectives typically drove.

  “Cabot would’ve had a chance to draw.” Flynn glanced around at the group. “We’re looking for two shooters.”

  Levy leaned in even closer to Cabot and asked Flynn for his penlight. He gave it to her, surprised. She’d had a hard time dealing with the dead when they’d started to first work together. She aimed the beam on the wound in Cabot’s neck. When she straightened up she handed Flynn back his light. “Cabot was definitely shot through the windows. Bits of glass are embedded in the wounds.”

  “Someone came up to Olivarez, got his attention,” Toro said. “He rolls down the window and gets shot in the face.”

  “Executed,” Shymanski said.

  “Looks like it,” Flynn said, nodding.

  “Fuckers.” Shymanski punched the back door, denting the metal.

  Flynn grabbed him by the shoulders. “Easy, Stan.”

  Shymanski shook him off. “Don’t tell me easy. Two of my men are dead. Shot down like they were fucking nothing. Worthless.” He wiped a hand over his mouth. “They had wives. Kids, goddamn it.”

  He looked around at the crowd. Flynn followed his gaze. He got that feeling he always got at a public crime scene, like they were circus performers on display. There to entertain the crowds.

  Cell phones were held up high in the air, people videotaping.