Ed, staked out at 1st and Olive. His father’s shotgun for backup, a replay on his hunch.
Sugar Ray Coates: “Roland Navarette, lives on Bunker Hill. Runs a hole-up for parole absconders.”
A whispered snitch: the speakers didn’t catch it, doubtful Coates remembered he said it. R&I, Navarette’s mugshot, address: a rooming house midway down Olive, half a mile from the Hall of Justice Jail. A dawn breakout—they couldn’t make Darktown unseen. Figure all four of them armed.
Scared—like Guadalcanal ’43.
Outlaw—he didn’t report the lead.
Ed drove to mid-block. A clapboard Victorian: four stories, peeling paint. He jumped the steps, checked out the mail slots: R. Navarette, 408.
Inside, his suitcoat around the shotgun. A long hallway, glass-fronted elevator, stairs. Up those stairs—he couldn’t feel his footsteps. The fourth-floor landing—nobody in sight. Down to 408, drop the suitcoat. Inez screaming primed him—he kicked the door in.
Four men eating sandwiches.
Jones and Navarette at a table. Fontaine on the floor. Sugar Coates by the window, picking his teeth.
No weapons in sight. Nobody moved.
Odd sounds—“You’re under arrest” strangling out. Jones put his hands up. Navarette raised his hands. Fontaine laced his hands behind his head. Sugar Ray said, “Cat got your goddamn tongue, sissy?”
Ed jerked the trigger: once, twice—buckshot took off Coates’ legs. Recoil—Ed braced against the doorway, aimed. Fontaine and Navarette stood up screaming; Ed SQUEEZED the trigger, blew them up in one spread. Recoil, a bad pull: half the back wall came down.
Blood spray thick—Ed stumbled, wiped his eyes. He saw Jones make the elevator.
He ran after him: slid, tripped, caught up. Jones was pushing buttons, screaming prayers—inches from the glass, “Please Jesus.” Ed aimed point-blank, squeezed twice. Glass and buckshot took his head off.
Strong legs now, fuck civilian screams all around him.
Ed ran downstairs, into a crowd: blues, plainclothesmen. Hands pounded his back; men shouted his name. A voice close by: “Millard’s dead. Heart attack at the Bureau.”