CHAPTER TEN

Saturday 1:45 AM

Which came first? The screams or the gunshots? Two of each jerked me awake from wine-induced oblivion. I was still dressed and had not removed my shoes or my gun. I dashed to the window, pushed the drapes aside and looked across the street toward the noise.

Absolute bedlam had erupted around The Lucky Bar. Men ran from inside and the knotted crowd outside was scattering like a rack of billiard balls.

Two more gunshots blasted out from the bar.

I drew my weapon and picked up my phone and dialed 911 on my way out of the room. When the operator asked, “What is your emergency?” I reported gunshots fired and two or more ambulances required. The operator said she would dispatch teams immediately.

Next, I called Major Clifton. His men were more than likely patrons in The Lucky Bar. He’d want to know trouble had started and local law enforcement would need the help. He didn’t pick up his cell and I left a message while I was still on the move.

I entered the stairwell next to the elevator and hopped down the stairs two at a time. At the bottom, the exterior emergency door would have dumped me outside too far from the bar. Instead, I powered through the wall-to-wall crowd in the lobby, which had grown by at least a hundred people in the hours since I’d elbowed my way through in the opposite direction.

Surely there was a limit to how many people could be stuffed into this room. Fire codes, at the very least, were certainly being violated. This group was now frighteningly chaotic, too. The din encouraged my pounding wine headache to ratchet up a few dozen decibels.

Scanning the jammed lobby as I plowed my way to the front entrance, I saw no guns drawn or injured victims inside this building. Which meant all of the shooting, screaming, and damage was happening across the road.

The second I stepped through the Grand Lodge exit into the frigid night, sleet peppered my skin relentlessly. I slid my feet along the icy sidewalk like a novice skater, unable to run or even hustle. Simply staying upright and balanced was challenge enough.

Patrons continued to flood from the exit at The Lucky Bar. It seemed like five hundred people had crowded into the place, and now all of them were climbing over each other to get out. Given the ice-sculpture garden the parking lot had become, most of the fleeing patrons were heading for the hotel, with a few members of the hotel crowd fighting the tide on their way to the club to help.

Predictably, the combination of alcohol consumption and icy pavement proved only slightly less treacherous for the panicked strip club refugees than the firefight had. All across the pitilessly rock-hard, ice-glazed sheet gleaming from the bar to the hotel across the highway, arms and legs pin-wheeled madly, bodies were upended, bones broke with sickeningly loud pops and snaps, all to the hellish accompaniment of wailing screams from figures writhing in agony on the ice.

I’d have stopped to help, but the continuing shooting inside was the top priority.

By the time I’d shuffle-weaved my way across the road through the carnage and approached the bar’s entrance, I’d heard at least six more shots from inside. The music got louder the closer I slid. Ten yards away from the entrance, the wall of booze and stale cigarette smoke was still billowing out like an invisible, disgusting force field.

Until the locals arrived, it appeared that I was the only cop on the scene, and I had nothing remotely close to the muscle and firepower the situation required.

A wild-eyed man stood with his back glued to the wall just outside the open door, clearly too petrified to move. As I slid across the gaping doorway to him, the wall of booze-and-cigarette stench nearly knocked me over. Pounding music made quiet talk impossible, so I moved as close to him as I could get and leaned in to be heard.

“What’s going on in there?” I shouted.

“Some crazy dude had a fight with one of the girls. He started shooting. The owner and the bouncer shot back.” He shook his head rapidly from side to side. “It’s chaos, man. People screaming, bleeding. Girls crying. I was in the back and I ran out, but then the ice—”

“The shooter. What’s the shooter’s name, do you know?”

He shook his head rapidly again. “Never saw him before in my life.”

“Who’s in charge here? The owner, the manager—you know his name?”

“Owner’s Alvin. Him and kid, Junior, the bouncer, they been running The Lucky for years.” He ran a hand hard over his head, and his feet started to slide out from beneath him on the ice. He slapped his palm onto the wall again as if it might glue him upright. He kept his feet. “They usually take care of things pretty good,” he said, “but this dude’s some kind of whack-job.”

“And the woman? Is she his wife or girlfriend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Lotta strangers around here tonight on account of the road bein’ closed.” He tilted his chin toward the Interstate instead of peeling one of his hands away from the wall to point.

I looked directly into his eyes. After a moment, he refocused on me. “I’m FBI Special Agent Kim Otto. What’s your name?”

“Racine.”

“Racine.” I patted his arm. “I’ve called the police, but the storm will slow them down. You know this place. Can you help me out?”

“What, go back in there?” He shook his head violently from side to side, which moved his body away from the wall and caused his feet to slide again. When he’d twisted himself back into position, he said, “Are you crazy?”

Right. Crazy. Yes. For sure.

I took a deep breath. “Then can you at least stand here and keep everyone else outside? Don’t let anyone come in until the police arrive. Can I count on you to do that?”

He didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded. There was a fifty-fifty chance that he’d run as soon as my back was turned.

“Any military inside tonight?”

“Most nights some guys are here from Bird. Yeah, that’s likely.” Then he was shaking his head. “Maybe not, though. A night like this, they coulda been confined to base.”

“If they’re here, would they be armed?” Even as I heard the hope in my voice, the answer was obvious. If there were soldiers inside with weapons, this thing would already have been handled.

Racine shook his head. “Alvin don’t allow no guns inside. He says booze and guns are a bad combination.”

Alvin was a smart guy.

“Thanks.” I patted his arm again and nodded. “Remember. Nobody comes in except the police.”

I turned away from him and faced the doorway. The last gunshots had been fired a couple of minutes ago. Maybe the shooting was over. I flashed my head around the doorjamb for a quick look inside.

The only lights in the place were the pulsing red, blue, and green floodlights bathing the elevated stage near the center. Dancing poles, the stage. Not quite what I’d imagined when the truck stop deliverywoman brought my sandwich and wine three hours ago, but close enough.

Beyond that, the interior was too dark to see much except for the thick, stinking clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke layering the air. The music played at ear-splitting volume with a throbbing pulse, which my own blood began to rhythmically match.

Then I could make out a long bar across the front wall to my right, with liquor bottles, draft beer pulls and such in the usual places. The rest of the bar’s floor space was filled with square tables and empty chairs. A dozen or more had been overturned, presumably when their occupants panicked and ran.

That’s when I noticed the scrawny blonde dancer on her knees on the stage. Her naked skin was washed sickly green by the floodlight beaming down on her. Her forearms were flat on the stage and her head rested face down between them. Maybe she was praying. She definitely should have been. But from this distance, I couldn’t tell.

Next, as my eyes continued to adjust to the scene, I saw splayed face down on the floor not far from the stage two men, each with double exit wounds, center mass, in the back. Their haircuts suggested they were Fort Bird residents.

And finally, behind the bar along the front wall to my right, were two men standing in the shadows. Both were about five-ten and well over two hundred pounds. The older guy was bald and wide all over. I couldn’t see his face. The younger one was bulky. His tight black T-shirt fit like a second skin. His head was shaved. He had thick arms and tattooed forearms, but what I could see of his stomach was fairly trim, which made him seem oddly misshapen. Steroids, probably. Both held weapons aimed across the stage toward the back of the room.

I pulled my head back and flattened against the exterior wall next to my petrified sentry again to take stock of my meager assets and catalog limited options.

It had been maybe fifteen minutes since I’d heard the first shots and called 911. No help had arrived. I wore no body armor. Hell, I didn’t even have a flashlight.

Going in there alone and without proper protection would be stupid.

But my hair hung in icicle strings. My suit stuck cold and clammy against my skin. My hands had begun to cramp around my gun.

I couldn’t simply wait here until hypothermia set in hoping for divine intervention, either. Only one choice.

I took another deep breath, raised my gun. Falling on my ass wouldn’t be helpful. I shuffled my shoes around the slick concrete, seeking and at last finding solid footing on the other side of the threshold.

One, two, three—before I reached go, more gunfire erupted inside. The first shots came from the back of the room, followed quickly by return fire from the front. The dancer screamed.

I scrambled back into position against the wall and out of the line of fire.

From this close, though still camouflaged by the incessant music, the shots were discernibly distinct. Three weapons, not four or more. Which meant the two men behind the bar outnumbered the one in the back shadows.

Retroactively counting the shots was impossible and served no useful purpose, as any of the three shooters could’ve reloaded. But all three must have had plenty of ammo at the start.

Just as I chanced another glance around the door frame, another round came from the back of the room. The older guy behind the bar grunted and fell back against the liquor bottles. He slapped his left palm against his right shoulder and fired back.

Junior let out some sort of crazy war cry and released rapid-fire rounds in the right direction.

The man in the back kept firing, too.

I ducked out again. My ears felt like they’d explode with the double percussion impact of noise and the music’s rhythmic effect on my pounding heart.

Then, as abruptly as it had started, the shooting stopped again.

A beat passed. Two.

Now was my chance.

From the doorway, not because I expected it to make any difference, I yelled into the gale of deafening music, “FBI! FBI! Weapons down! We’re coming in!”