had parked in front of the main gate.
‘Careful on that ice, Perky,’ Vernon said, as his partner got out.
The twenty-five-year-old officer had joined NYPD intending to make sergeant inside three years. It hadn’t happened because it’s hard to shine when you’re partnered with a low-flyer like Vernon who’d sooner eat pie than bust criminals. Still, Vern was a nice old guy and Perkins earned enough to feed three kids, which is more than a lot of people could say during the worst economic depression in history.
Perkins rattled Unicorn’s main gate and saw that it was locked. Peering through the bars revealed nothing except the attendant’s booth and the up and down ramps. Only as he stepped back did he notice the small gate-within-a-gate. It didn’t appear locked, so he slid the bolt across and stepped through. A mouse scuttled from somewhere to somewhere else and he smelled the piles of fresh rubber out the back of the tyre shop as his soles squeaked on the concrete.
It seemed dead, but the unlocked gate was suspicious, so Perkins hooked the long flashlight off his belt. He shone it along the up ramp, then on to the down ramp where he saw a truck parked halfway up with its back doors flapping open. This was an unusual spot to park, but things really got interesting when he noticed small brown shoes moving around behind the rear tyres.
‘Bags are in, Leon,’ Jeannot shouted. ‘Ready for the next train.’
If it had been a man’s voice Perkins would have backed off and called for help. But he’d look stupid if he called in extra officers for a couple of homeless kids playing trains in a parking lot. And he was intrigued by that fact that this was a kid. Maybe the waiter in Bert’s had been right and he’d stumbled on a little gang that had robbed A&H Hardware. It was no career case, but it was the kind of solid police work that would impress the shift lieutenant.
Perkins flicked off his torch, backed up to the wall and stepped gingerly into the narrow gap between the side wall of the ramp and the body of the truck. He heard some thumping inside the truck and realised that the kid had noticed the torchlight and dived inside for cover.
As Perkins pushed gently to move the rear doors of the truck so that he could get past, a small bell sounded. He leaned past the end of the truck, noticing the door into the storeroom, and a rubber hose dribbling water.
He couldn’t see any movement, but he could hear breathing like a man doing physical labour and there was a deadness to the sound, as if it came from below. Perkins could make no sense of it, but whatever was going on he didn’t like it. It was time to back out, but as he turned around he saw two shotgun barrels aimed at his chest from the end of the truck.
‘I’m not here to hurt you, sonny,’ Perkins said warily, surprised by the determined look on seven-year-old Jeannot’s clay-spattered face. But he didn’t believe for one moment that someone so small would pull the trigger.
At point-blank range the muzzle flashed and pellets tore through Perkins’ face and chest, sending him crashing back to the ground. The recoil knocked Jeannot back inside the truck into the bags of money. He found his feet and jumped down, gun still in his hands, as seventeen-year-old Leon shouted from down in the hole.
‘What was that, Jeannot? What did I tell you about touching Dad’s gun?’
‘I shot someone,’ Jeannot shouted, as he moved closer and saw an NYPD badge shining on the blood-spattered chest. ‘A cop.’
Leon didn’t believe what he was hearing. He wanted to pull out of the hole and investigate, but he’d almost got the train home and when it was heavy it had a nasty tendency to jump the tracks if there was a sudden change of speed.
As soon as the train clattered into the station at his feet, Leon vaulted out of the hole and found his brother frozen stiff, staring at a big red mess on the concrete.
‘Is he dead?’ Jeannot asked.
Leon snatched the shotgun. ‘Jeannot, if your brain’s spread up the wall like that, you can be sure of it.’
Jeannot’s voice went all high like he was about to cry. ‘But,’ he blurted, after a pause, ‘Dad always told us to shoot first and ask questions later.’
Leon gave his little brother a pat on the