Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) Read online

  Nickel City Storm Warning

  Gideon Rimes Book Three

  Gary Earl Ross

  Contents

  Gideon Rimes Series

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Excerpt One

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Excerpt Two

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Excerpt Three

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Excerpt Four

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Excerpt Five

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Excerpt Six

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Excerpt Seven

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Gideon Rimes Series

  Gideon Rimes Series

  Nickel City Blues

  Nickel City Crossfire

  Nickel City Storm Warning

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  Copyright © Gary Earl Ross 2020

  The right of Gary Earl Ross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted per the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1976. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Steven Novak

  Published by SEG Publishing

  Dedication

  For the brothers who share my DNA:

  Steve (fiercely independent businessman) and Rob (corrections officer and a generous soul).

  As well as my brothers from other mothers:

  Duane Crockett (electrician), Dennis Hollins (medical doctor), Scott Williams (mathematician).

  We all beat the odds for men who look like us.

  Also, in Memory of Bobby Edwards,

  more brother than cousin, investment advisor, inspiration for Bobby Chance,

  and Shelia Crockett, more sister than friend’s wife, tireless educator, peerless mystery fan.

  I wish you both had lived to read this one.

  1

  A brief stint with the Buffalo State campus police aside, after my retirement from the Army CID I worked for myself and only when I wanted—taking depositions for lawyers, serving summonses, investigating fraud for insurance companies, running deep background checks for employers and aspiring spouses, looking for people who sometimes didn’t want to be found, and providing security for stalking victims, trial witnesses, or visiting VIPs. Phoenix Trinidad, a full partner in a small but demanding law firm, was usually busier than I was. Our time together was mostly on weekends, though the demands of our professions sometimes leached into Saturday or Sunday.

  We were well into the second year of our relationship. Late April was colder and drier than usual but warm enough for the New York Power Authority to remove the ice boom, the steel pontoons that kept Lake Erie ice from entering the Niagara River and disrupting electricity generation. For the first time in more than a month, we had an unencumbered weekend and did our best to fill it. On Friday, after the chicken teriyaki stir fry I made in her kitchenette, we went to the Colored Musician’s Club on Broadway for an evening of jazz. We spent Saturday touring wineries in Monroe County, stocking up on reds and whites and grape seed lotion, Phoenix’s moisturizer of choice. After Sunday brunch at Canalside, the inner harbor development around the ruins of the terminus of the Erie Canal, we strolled from the Naval and Military Park to the Erie Basin Marina and back. Returning to Phoenix’s loft, we parked on Chippewa and walked up Main Street to Shea’s Performing Arts Center to see the matinee of War of the Worlds, a touring production of the hit Broadway musical mashup of the H.G. Wells 1897 novel and the Orson Welles 1938 radio adaptation.

  Now, having dined at the Buffalo Chophouse on Franklin, we were headed back to Phoenix’s place, where we would either play Scrabble or make love one more time before settling in for the next episode of an HBO series we liked. A slight chill was in the air.

  We were half a block from Chippewa, my blue leather jacket zipped to the neck and Phoenix’s left arm hooked through my right. A rusting red Chevy SUV slid to the curb ahead of us. Three men got out, all in jeans and dark jackets and two in baseball caps. They started toward us. Hatless and linebacker big, the man a step ahead of the others was the only one who looked familiar—early twenties, bulbous nose, short black hair with a sharp widow’s peak, a red and black neck tattoo curling above his collar. I was sure I’d seen him somewhere before but could not recall where. I might have dismissed them as guys on their way to a bar if Tattoo hadn’t locked eyes with me and kept his fists clenched tight.

  I stopped, easing Phoenix behind me. My work had been routine of late, things like depositions and summonses, and required no sidearm. Also, I had been carrying less when I was with Phoenix, perhaps to prove I didn’t need a gun to feel complete. Even though I’d had a small biometric lockbox installed in my car, my guns were in my safe at home, more secure than I was. So much for my denial of an inferiority complex.

  “Gideon Rimes, right?” Tattoo said, establishing himself as the leader.

  “Do I know you?” I said.

  “No, but I know you.” He grinned and his sidekicks chuckled, one of them nodding like a bobblehead. Tattoo ground a massive right fist into his large left palm. “Jasper Hellman says hi. He wants you to feel the pain first.”

  Before he could move any closer, I pushed Phoenix back another step and whipped out the small telescoping baton I kept in my right jacket pocket. A flick of my wrist brought it to its full length. As he drew back his fist, I swung for his face as if it were a tennis ball and felt the contact vibration through the thin leather of my driving glove. Left cheek lacerated, he stumbled into the man on his right. The man on his left caught my backhand with his right cheek, which also spurted blood. Then, in an overhead arc, I brought the baton down on the baseball cap of the third man, who was trying to keep the leader on his feet. He blinked and went down, taking Tattoo with him. I glanced at the man still standing. He was screaming, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” and clutching his cheek with both hands. Then he dropped to his knees. I turned back to Tattoo as he stuck a hand into his jacket pocket and fumbled to pull something out. I stomped his hand. Crouching beside him as he writhed and cried out, I wrenched a revolver from his pocket, tearing the stitching. A loaded Ruger GP100 with a three-inch barrel, the serial number scraped off. If he’d had small hand
s or the hammerless model, he might have got it out in time to pull the trigger.

  “I guess this was supposed to put me out of my misery after I felt the pain.”

  “Cocksucker!” he said.

  “What did you do to my face, fucker!” the second man screamed.

  Breathing heavily and still blinking, the man I’d whacked on the head said nothing.

  I stood and leveled the gun at them. Collapsing the baton against my thigh and sliding it back into my pocket, I glanced over my shoulder at Phoenix. Face flushed, she was clutching the shearling collar of her tan leather coat and leaning back against a tree thin enough to have been part of Buffalo’s beautification program ten years earlier. Eyes wide, she too was breathing hard. She pushed a shock of black hair back into place.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Fine.” She let out a long breath and opened the purse hanging from her shoulder. “You watch them. I’ll make the call.”

  B-District was on Main Street at the beginning of the Theater District, a couple of blocks away. Two cruisers arrived within minutes, a new black-and-white and an old white-and-blue. A wiry, thirtyish uniformed officer whose nameplate said McKelvey got out of the newer car. A hefty cop about fifty—Moss—climbed out of the second. Both were Black, but I recognized neither. The tableau, however—an armed Black man standing over three bleeding white men—demanded both draw their .40 caliber Glocks and order me to put my gun down.

  Crouching a heartbeat before they gave the command, I laid the Ruger on the sidewalk and raised both hands as I stood.

  Phoenix waited until McKelvey had bagged the gun before explaining she had made the nine-one-one call. “These men attacked us.” She handed her purse to Moss. “I’m a lawyer. My identification is in the lavender wallet.”

  “Yours?” he said to me.

  “Front left pocket,” I said. “Okay if I pull it out with my thumb and forefinger, or do you want to get it yourself?”

  With Phoenix’s purse in one hand, he had stepped out of his two-handed shooter’s stance. After a glance at the men on the ground, he tightened his grip on the Glock. “Slow.”

  Keeping my right hand up, I complied with my left—more slowly because of the glove. Moss stepped forward to take the wallet from my outstretched hand, which I then raised. While his colleague covered all five of us, the older man holstered his sidearm and examined our ID cards. After a moment he returned Phoenix’s purse but held onto my wallet.

  “PI?” He narrowed his eyes. “License. Concealed carry permit. You working here?”

  I shook my head. “We had dinner at the Chophouse.”

  “That your piece?”

  “Nope. I took it off the one without a hat.”

  “Lying bastard!” Tattoo said. “He hit us with a steel thingie and pulled a gun on us!”

  I shook my head again. “So much for a day of rest.”

  “We didn’t lay a finger on the sumbitch!” the other man with a gashed cheek said. He started to rise but the young cop motioned for him to stay on his knees.

  “They knew my name and said they had a message from a guy in Attica, a killer I put there when I was a campus cop. They said he wanted me to feel pain first. Then Tattoo here drew back his fist to swing on me.”

  “Steel thingie?”

  “Mini-baton, in my right jacket pocket.” I pointed.

  Moss stiffened. “Keep your hands up. If I want it, I’ll ask.”

  “I’ll take it out slow, thumb and forefinger.”

  “A legal carry for someone in security,” Phoenix said. “With court decisions on nunchucks and stun guns…” She took a breath, to steady herself. “Officer, these three men threatened us and began to attack. So my…” She gazed at me as if uncertain what to call me. I wasn’t her husband and was too old to be a boyfriend. Friend? So much more. Lover? Too intimate for present company. Partner might have worked if she weren’t a lawyer. “Gideon stopped them.”

  The cop narrowed his eyes at me again. “By yourself, with a baton.”

  “Yes.”

  “These men threatened violence and advanced on us.” Phoenix’s professional voice had begun to find its footing. “Mr. Rimes responded quickly, to protect himself and me. We will be pressing charges.”

  Tattoo looked at Phoenix, lip curling into a sneer. “Your word against ours, bitch!”

  “Only your fingerprints are on the gun, dipshit.” I twisted my upheld hands so he could register I was wearing driving gloves.

  “Don’t mean nothing,” he said. “I tussled with you to keep from getting shot.”

  Tussled? Who was likelier to be believed? A decorated veteran ex-cop and a lawyer in good standing with the Bar, both persons of color, or three good old boys, one of whom seemed to know Jasper Hellman and might even have done time with him? So far the cops on the scene seemed to be leaning toward our side, but their words wouldn’t be enough to verify what had happened before their arrival. I glanced over my shoulder, in both directions, and across the street for CCTV cameras or camera bubbles that might have recorded the sequence of events. Two hundred-plus city cams in Buffalo, thousands of private cams, cell phones, kids flying drones too small to register—but here, nothing. Video surveillance was everywhere, except where and when you needed it.

  “Can I put my arms down? Blood loss is making my fingers cold.” I looked at both cops as if to say, Come on, fellas! Listen to your gut. “If you need a character reference, call Terry Chalmers and give him my name.”

  Moss’s eyebrows went up, and he exchanged a look with McKelvey. Everybody in the department knew Terry Chalmers. A month earlier, he had been promoted to lieutenant in the Homicide Squad.

  “All right,” Moss said. “Here.” Hand on his gun, he turned to the three men on the ground as I pocketed my wallet. “Now, you gentlemen got ID?”

  2

  Their names were Joseph Snell, Lawrence Winnicki, and Corey Parker. Joey, Larry, and Corey, hapless lifelong running buddies, a kind of Kaiser Town Three Stooges. All of them had criminal records and had done time, but only Joey, whose face and tattoo I still couldn’t place, had a Class A felony in his jacket. He had spent three and a half years in Attica for firebombing his stepfather’s car and leaving the old man with third-degree burns on his upper body. The circumstance that spared Joey a sentence of twenty to life for arson and maybe even a charge of attempted murder was Big Jake Finnerty’s documented history of abusing his wife in front of his stepson and his stepson in front of his wife. Laid out by one punch at nineteen when he decided to defend his mother, Joey squirted charcoal lighter fluid into one of Big Jake’s empty bourbon bottles, lit the rag he stuffed down inside it, and bought an admission ticket to the same cell block as Jasper Hellman. He had been released two months before our encounter on Franklin.

  We learned all this before the preliminary hearing, scheduled for a week after his Monday arraignment. Unable to make bail and as an ex-con facing a bumped-up felony charge for possession of a firearm, he had been held over for what in New York had become rare, a mini-trial to determine whether he should be bound over for an actual trial. His too-ambitious public defender was gambling he could get the firearm charge thrown out before evidence was presented to a grand jury. Larry and Corey, however, had different public defenders. Each had pled to misdemeanor harassment and agreed to testify Joey had enlisted their help to beat down a guy who’d hurt one of his friends in prison. He had promised each a hundred bucks. Each denied knowing he had a gun.

  Over Scrabble Deluxe the Sunday night before the hearing, I wondered aloud how a jobless ex-con who lived with his now-divorced mother could scrape together two hundred bucks. Had it come from Hellman, who, as far as I knew, had nothing? If so, how much had Joey got to make a run at me? Enough to chance a trial when firearm possession alone could get him twenty-five years?

  Or maybe I was pissed I was such a cheap hit.

  Adding an S to BATHTUB and forming SIZED all the way down to the lower right triple word b
ox, Phoenix said, “You’re not a cheap hit, Gideon. You’re a priceless hit.” She calculated and wrote down her score—63—and then smiled. “Every time that sack of shit empties his sack of shit, he thinks of the guy who gave him the colostomy bag. The guy who took him off the street and killed his thrill run. To Hellman you’re Fort Knox on two legs, baby. He’s determined to blow a hole through the wall, even if he can’t walk away with anything.”

  “But I’m nobody to Joey Snell,” I said. “How’d Hellman get him to try? Commissary money? Cigarettes? Friendship? Why didn’t Joey plead out? Hellman’s a fool who went on a killing spree with his psychopathic cousin. He’s not charismatic enough to have disciples.”

  “Simple. He lied. He told Joey there was money stashed somewhere or gave him the name of some guy who’d pay him when you were dead. Whatever it took. He doesn’t give a rat’s fart about Joey, a tough kid but a few lumens short of a penlight. If he had any brains, he’d have Googled you first. You’ve been in the paper a few times, enough to tell a thinking person not to get too close. To shoot you from a safe distance.”