Stay For The Encore: Act Four
It was silent in the office of the Police Chief. Chief Avery sat at his desk, his face sullen and despondent. Romko leaned against a wall, his arms crossed. Governor Hargrove looked over the quick speech that she had readied for the occasion.
She had called an immediate press conference, alerting the media to be at the police station ASAP. The bodies of Blake and Whitten had been removed from the lot with little incident, but Hargrove was not going to let this become a card in her opponent's hand.
The media had already set up outside, and Hargrove was prepping herself, re-reading through her speech. Then her attention went from her notes, to Avery. She approached him, her heels hitting the hardwood floor, resonating in the room. Avery glanced at her as she now stood in front of his desk. He sat forward expectantly.
"We have a maniac, Chief Avery, in the streets. Two officers of this city have been brutalized, and it was meant as a message. We will not be intimidated. We will not entertain this brazen disregard of the laws that we uphold. I am going to address the media, and put the city on our side. And you, you will have to produce. We need that 'Guttersnipe' punk and we need him for our own form of public execution. We need him to become the face of the scum that have sullied the soul of this place. You find this criminal, or you will find yourself on those streets Avery. I'll make sure of that." Hargrove finished and left the room, heading out to the media scrum outside.
Romko smirked softly. He went to follow Hargrove, and stopped in the doorway.
"Come on Chief, don't make her wait." Romko said as he put on his police cap. He then marched out of the room.
Avery gathered his cap as well. He took a deep breath and looked around the room once more. All he had done, all he had sacrificed, was about to disappear. He had no faith in the quick apprehension of the Guttersnipe. This man was intelligent and sadistic. This would take a full scale effort, and if they went by the book, it would take time. Lots of it.
Hargrove would not approve. She wanted results, regardless of how they got there, and a lot of the force was falling into that train of thought. Maybe Avery was just becoming outdated, but he would not become the exact stereotype he had tried years to redefine. He headed out to the conference, and stood next to Hargrove as she began.
"People of our great city! We have seen a true tragedy today, an action of pure evil that has taken the lives of some of our officers here..." Hargrove began speaking clearly into the microphone.
————
"...our officers here, who have been working hard to make this city safe for all who live in it." Governor Hargrove said from the television screen in the pawn shop window. Claire Tactics, a punk watching from outside, scoffed at the Governor and turned to walk with her friends.
"Apparently we got a psycho cop killer on the loose. Wonder if he's single." Claire said as she chewed gum. Her blonde and green mohawk was not as perky today, she had run out of hair glue and would have to find some place to lift it from later. She had been walking the streets with her friend Gina Diva and Gina's boyfriend, Rat.
Gina just laughed at Claire, but Rat shook his head.
"You laugh now, but did you hear the report? The guy, Guttersnipe, he's a punk, and they’re gonna start targeting us, all of us, you just watch." Rat said as he walked with his hands shoved in his pockets.
"Paranoia, boy! We’re all just one bad night from kicking the bucket anyway." Claire said rudely. She wouldn't openly admit it, but Rat made a good point. As they walked down the clustered street, Claire looked at her reflection in the dirty windows of the small shops they passed. Cheetah print pants and a denim jacket with covered in patches was a easy way to get caught in the crossfire to come.
Claire tried to shake that feeling off. The cops would probably find the guy in a few days, and it would all be over. Nothing like this ever really made much difference anyway, and things never really changed. As they walked, they noticed several people crowding around another pawn shop window, some even running across a busy street to get there.
The three punks managed to squeeze in to see that the television was covering the same press conference as before, but something had happened.
There was a smoking and mangled cop car upside down on the police station stairs, and the podium was now just splinters covering the ground.
Claire pushed forward more and then saw the cameras were focusing on a body, pinned under the flipped cop car and smashed on the steps up to the police station. A few officers were working to try to free the body, but a pool of blood was slowly growing where the legs of the pinned officer were.
The camera panned to show the Governor, off to the side, also being assisted, her left leg bent in a disgusting angle, and her left arm hanging limp at her side.
The chaos was being picked up on the camera's microphone, and a few phrases stood out to Claire.
"Where is the driver...he had a green mask and black eyes...the Guttersnipe...where the hell did he go!?" The words came in panicked shouts from officers circling around the cameraman.
Claire looked over at Rat, his face pale and his body trembling.
STAY TUNED FOR PART FIVE TOMORROW
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