Cut to the Bone(111)

“G’wan, call your old man and talk dirty,” Hanrahan elaborated. “Then hurry on down our way. A medical convention just let out, so the fishing looks excellent.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Superstition said, saluting. Her shiny orange fingernails whipped up and back in Bubbles’s vintage gilded mirrors.

“You said that respectfully. But I know better.”

He disconnected.

Smiling, she hit speed dial ONE. Derek’s phone rang. He picked up. She heard him say “Sue.” She smiled and started to talk but then heard screams from the bar. She couldn’t make out the words, but she knew the unmistakeable tone.

“Trouble,” she said, her heart beginning to race with adrenaline. “I’ll call you back, hon.” She disconnected and hurried to the door, pulling it open and peering through the gap. One of the men from the doorstep encounter was holding a twelve-gauge pump. He noticed the movement and pointed it at her face. “Come join the fun, white eyes,” he jeered, waving the slaughtergun. “We’d hate you to feel left out.”

“Omigosh, is this a robbery?” Superstition wailed, praying the squad wasn’t too far away to pick up the microphone under her hair, which Hanrahan used to document her conversations with johns. “What are you three guys doing with guns?”

Robbery . . . guys . . . guns?

“Shit,” spat the driver, accelerating their heads into the rests. The shotgun rider called Hanrahan. “Robbery in progress at Bubbles,” he reported. “Superstition’s inside.”

“Oh, shit,” Hanrahan said.

“What we said,” Shotgun said. “Three guys with guns. She’s broadcasting live.”

“Pedal to metal,” Hanrahan said.

“This is a robbery! Get on the floor!” the man who’d elbowed Superstition shouted as he waved a Desert Eagle, a mammoth steel pistol whose forty-four-caliber bullets carved not holes but tunnels.

“Move it, whitey,” Shotgun said, jabbing Superstition with the hard black muzzle. She hurried toward the bar as patrons began diving to the floor. Desert Eagle ordered the bartender to clean out the cash register, but the earringed hipster froze like a deer in headlights. Desert Eagle raked his face with the gun, misting the bar with blood and cartilage.

“Give him whatever he wants,” Bubbles ordered.

“Smart move, mama,” Desert Eagle said. “Give us the money and nobody gets hurt.”

“Be advised, undercover officer is inside the bar,” Hanrahan huffed as he sprinted down the service alley behind Bubbles, leaping over potholes and trash. “She’s wearing an orange dress and high heels. Repeat, undercover officer is inside the bar.”

“Wearing orange dress,” the emergency dispatcher confirmed. “What’s your status?”

“Five in plainclothes, two minutes out. Tell responding units to run silent. Repeat, no lights and sirens, we don’t want to spook them into opening fire . . .”

The bouncer flexed his fingers as he reached for his dangling shirttail. Superstition spotted the familiar imprint through his tight black jeans. She caught his eye and shook her head. They only want money, she tried to tell him telepathically. Don’t be a hero and you’ll come out of this alive.

He gave her a dirty look as he pulled up his shirt. He wrapped his fingers around the checkered brown grips of his pistol and pulled it free of the holster. The third robber spotted it and swung his nine-millimeter pistol.

“No, don’t shoot!” Superstition yelled, lunging to shove the bouncer to safety as Shotgun and Desert Eagle joined Pistol for the kill.





“Shots fired!” Hanrahan barked as he ran. “ETA sixty seconds. We’re going in.”

“All units, active shooters inside bar, plainclothes team entering in sixty seconds,” the dispatcher told the blue tsunami. “Respond Code Three.”

Sirens lit up across Chicago.





The crowd erupted as flesh plugs sprayed from the bouncer. “Stay on the floor!” the gunmen screamed. “Throw out your wallets and purses!”

Instead, the crowd bolted, billiard balls smacked by the white. The unexpected uprising startled the gunmen into redirecting fire. The man with the three-day beard stutter-stepped, then collapsed. A shrieking redhead tried frantically to reattach her blown-off ear. Superstition lowered her head, ran faster. She snatched up the fallen bouncer’s pistol and pumped bullets into Shotgun, who’d turned his back to shoot women off bar stools. He collapsed, blood spraying from the four holes clustered between his shoulder blades.

Desert Eagle and Pistol swung her way, pulling triggers. She emptied the magazine at them as she leapt, forcing them to break off. She sailed over stools and black granite bar top and crashed into the back mirror, slicing herself from shoulder to elbow. She tumbled to the floor as the gunmen’s bullets blasted wine and whiskey, the glass shelves shattering and falling. Her ears rang from the thunderstorm.