Blood And Steel

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Detective Joshua Tooms was woken by the sound of banging. He sat up quickly and listened more carefully, just in case it was coming from inside the building. His wife was about to speak, but he raised his finger to his lips as a signal for silence. At first, he thought the banging was from a neighbour’s house, reasoning that the noise had travelled through the open bedroom window. He listened harder. The hammering was coming from downstairs. Someone was at his front door. His wife Barbara held on to his muscular arm for comfort. He patted her hand for reassurance. Tooms looked over at his clock: the display was blank, signifying a lack of power. Had someone cut the power to his house? Tooms rolled out of bed and stretched off his muscles, unwittingly showing off his large frame. Even though he was in his late forties, he was still in good shape. Years in the Marines had taught him to look after himself.

“Don’t worry, it will be OK,” he told his wife. “Just lock the door behind me and get ready to call 911.”

Barbara nodded and watched as he turned to his bedside drawer and pulled out his service 9mm Glock 17 pistol. He didn’t need to check it; he always had a full magazine of fifteen rounds and one in the chamber. The bullets were called critical duty—quite appropriate, he always thought. The 135-grain bullets were meant to put someone down, not just tickle them. He never turned as he heard the door close behind him; he just stopped and listened for the lock to be put on. Moving to the staircase, he saw his two daughters holding each other in fear as they looked down the stairwell, almost hypnotised by the banging. They looked up to see their father, who was now padding towards their rooms. Quickly they hurried away and locked themselves in, tears of fear running down their faces.

The downstairs was bathed in a vale of blue. Streams of moonlight flooded through the sitting-room window like the sun on a summer’s day. Tooms was thankful for the illumination, realising he’d left the flashlight in his car. He stood there in his sleeping shorts, the moonlight glistening off his large muscular form, making him look almost like a black gladiator. The banging became more violent, but there were no voices to let him know who was there. Cautiously he headed for the door, the Glock raised up in his right hand, leaving his left free. Again, the person hammered on the door, always in blocks of three knocks interrupted by a brief pause. He put his back against the wall next to the door, then breathed in a lungful of air to steady his heart rate.

“Who the f**k is there?” he yelled, expecting the door to be shredded by gunfire. “I’m warnin your a*s. I’m a cop. I’m armed, and I’m pissed, so you better answer up or get the f**k away from my house,” Tooms’s voice bellowed like a brown bear that had gargled a shot of whiskey.

“Tooms, it’s Tony. Open the door, man!” came a voice from the other side of the door. Tooms opened the door to reveal a white guy with short brown hair, wearing jeans, and a black three-quarter-length leather jacket.

“Tony, what the f**k, man? Why didn’t you call first? I could have shot your a*s,” Tooms said, exhaling the air he had been holding. Tony walked in through the open door and saw the three women coming down the stairs to see who was making all the noise.

“I tried calling, but some i***t who was higher than Armstrong ran into a transformer. Looks like the whole block has lost power. It must have affected the cell tower as well as the power lines, which means no phones,” Tony explained. He looked past Tooms’s large frame and, giving an embarrassed smile, waved at the now angry women who stood at the bottom of the stairs. Tooms reached over and tried the light switch near the door. He had tried the switch several times, to the point of not knowing whether it was in the on or off mode. The clicks filled the air, but no lights broke the darkness.

“You’ve come to check on me, man, now that’s touching, bro, you know I can take care of myself?” Tooms joked as he shut the door, and Tony made his way into the sitting room.

“Yeah, you got Barbara to hold ya hand, just in case it’s too dark,” Tony laughed. Suddenly the television and the lights came on, making them all jump. Tooms and Tony laughed at their cowardly display in front of the women.

“So, what you doin’ here, at…?” Tooms remembered that he didn’t know what time it was.

“Eleven o’clock. Sorry, man, but we picked up a fresh one,” Tony apologised. The two detectives were on call. The one thing Tooms hated about the job was that most people died at night or early in the morning. A social job this was not; however, compared to the army, it was a dream occupation. Being shipped off to God-knows-where at the drop of a hat wasn’t great for family life either. Joshua Tooms left Tony to make some coffee while he showered and got dressed. The girls had gone back to bed after saying their goodnights, leaving Barbara Tooms to look after their unexpected guest. Tony looked around the house, feeling a touch of jealousy. Tooms had the package: a great family and a nice house in a nice part of town.

“So, Tony, what you been you to?” she asked with a warm but weary smile. “Apart from dragging my husband out of bed in the middle of the night.”

“Not much, I am sort of seeing someone now … Sort of,” Tony replied nervously. He knew she would be firing a million questions at him, just because of that gossipy interest she had. He saw her eyes light up at the thought of meeting his girlfriend, and Tony could tell that she was planning a cosy dinner party to engineer it.

“So, what’s her name? Where does she work?” Barbara was suddenly awake as if she had had too much coffee.

Tony looked up thankfully at the staircase as Tooms came down the stairs, pulling his jacket on as he walked. It hadn’t taken him long, five minutes tops, but then he had had a lot of practice. Tooms crossed the room and gave his wife a kiss before heading for the door.

“OK, partner, you’re drivin’.” Tooms smiled as he opened the front door, and the two men stepped through into the fresh night air. Tooms looked around. He hadn’t even noticed it had been raining. Tony had parked in the driveway next to Tooms’s blue Honda Odyssey. As they got into Tony’s red Challenger, Tooms smiled as he looked over towards his house. It wasn’t a mansion or anything. It was comprised of just three bedrooms with a bit of a garden to make barbecues in the summer, plus a front porch where he could sit outside and watch the world go by, but most of all, it was home.

His parents had left it to them when they moved away. They had won on the lottery and decided to get that house in the Hamptons that they had seen once on holiday. It hadn’t been’ a big win, but it was enough for a couple of pensioners to live on.

“So, where we off to?” Tooms asked, taking a sip from his travel mug.

“Midtown, we got a woman found dead in her apartment.” Tony stuck the car in reverse and powered out of the driveway. Tooms blew down the small hole in the mug’s lid to cool down the coffee a little. His face held a saddened look, and he realised that this was going to be a long night.