Chicago Assault Read Online Free Page A

the three dead men, then looked at Hawker. “Still trigger-happy, huh, Hawker?”
    Hawker smiled. “It’s a reflex action. Whenever someone starts shooting at me, I start firing back.”
    â€œDid you kill the guy splattered on the pavement downstairs, too?”
    â€œSaul Beckerman?”
    â€œI don’t know his name. We haven’t scraped his I.D. out of the cement yet.”
    â€œNo. I didn’t kill Saul. These guys did.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œI was standing on a balcony on the twentieth floor with Saul’s wife. We heard a gunshot. A moment after we heard the shot, we saw Beckerman tumble off the balcony below us. I came running down. These three guys were just coming out of the apartment. When they saw me, they opened fire.”
    Chezick grunted and gave orders to the uniforms. As they went to work with their cameras and their tapes and their chalk, Chezick approached Hawker.
    â€œLet’s have it,” he said. “Your weapon.”
    Hawker drew the Colt Commander and handed it to the inspector butt first. Chezick wrapped it in his handkerchief without touching it. “You got a permit, I suppose.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œSelf-defense, right?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œYou have any witnesses?”
    Hawker nodded toward the corpses. “None you could hold a conversation with.”
    Chezick deposited the Colt in his trench coat pocket and took a step toward Hawker. His jaw was tight and his tiny, pale eyes were squeezed to slits. “The boss man isn’t going to like this, Hawker. He still hates your guts from when you were on the force. The press had a way of making him look like a fool, and you look like a hero. He’s going to make us go over this thing with a fine-tooth comb. If there are any irregularities at all, he’s going to try to nail your ass. He’d love nothing better than to see you playing one-on-one with rat shit in the state pen.” Chezick sniffed and scrubbed at his nose with a huge fist. “He thinks you’re trigger-happy. That’s why he says he canned you.”
    â€œI resigned, Chezick. Check the records.”
    For the first time, Chezick allowed himself a thin smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. And I don’t blame you, Hawk.” He pulled a notebook out of his back pocket and flipped it open. “So tell me what happened, old buddy.” His smile broadened. “And you’d better make it good.”
    So Hawker went over the story again. He went slowly and carefully, as Chezick scribbled in his notebook. Hawker’s only lie was the lie of omission. He didn’t tell him about Saul Beckerman’s request for help. And he didn’t tell Chezick about the note he had found in the Irishman’s jacket.
    â€œThen you didn’t actually see these three men kill Beckerman?” Chezick questioned.
    â€œHow in the hell could I?” snapped Hawker. “We were on the next floor—like I told you.”
    â€œSo, actually, you just assumed they killed him?” Chezick sniffed and checked his notes before he gave Hawker a probing look. “I don’t suppose you came running down here and found these three guys just coming out of the apartment and blew them away? You know, shoot first and ask questions later? And then, maybe, staged all the rest of this? Fired their weapons, wiped the prints off, then set ’em up. Could you have done something like that, Hawker?”
    Hawker felt the blood rising in his face. “Sure, I could have set them up. Any cop can set up something like that. But I didn’t.”
    â€œThe commissioner’s going to figure the worst.”
    â€œI don’t give a damn what he figures. It happened just the way I told you.”
    â€œThey killed Beckerman, and you interrupted their escape?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œNo doubt in your mind about that?”
    â€œGod damn it, Chezick,