In Plain Sight Read Online Free PDF Page B

booth was old hat at the job. I could see him leaning back in a chair with a newspaper spread in front of his face. The attendant never noticed me walking across the lot into the decorative foliage on the other side of the concrete. I took a spot between two large evergreen trees and ate the mixed nuts and candy bar. I didn’t take a sip of the iced tea; I left the glass bottle of Nestea at my feet.
    I waited and ate until sirens began approaching from all directions. The parking lot attendant saw the rapid approach and raised the wooden bar for the cops. Five squad cars raced into the lot and took the handicap spaces. I picked around for cashews while the five cars shed their uniformed occupants. Eight cops in all ran into the hospital. The door was held open for them by an out-of-shape security guard who knew that the police presence meant it was time for him to get off his ass. He held the door and looked official until the men passed, then he just looked put out. I had finished the cashews and moved on to Brazil nuts when another car showed up. The car was not a squad car, it was a police sedan. It had no markings to establish its credentials, only the generic Ford features that let everyone know what kind of car it really was. As the car passed me, I saw the safety barrier for transporting suspects. I also noticed that Detective Sergeant Huata Morrison was driving. He paused in front of the entrance and put the car in park, but a security guard opened the door, pointed at the no stopping signs, and waved him away. Morrison put the Ford into gear and drove into the lot to find a spot.
    I left my spot among the trees and walked onto the lot. From his booth the attendant couldn’t see me moving out of my spot in the shadows. His back was to me, and his eyes were on something in his hands. He was probably on a cell phone — texting someone about the action.
    Morrison found a spot in the middle of the lot and pulled in headfirst so that the car faced the hospital entrance. I was ten metres away when he opened the door. I sped up my pace and closed the gap as he put one foot on the pavement. Morrison put down his other foot and got out of the car dragging his suit jacket along with him. His back was to me as he put the jacket on. His broad shoulders made it difficult, and he had to raise one arm high in the air to slide the jacket over his shoulders. His stance was wide, and just as his suit jacket slid on, my foot connected with his groin. Morrison had no time to scream because my arm was around his windpipe before he hit the ground. My right hand found my biceps, and my left hand went behind the big man’s head. The rear naked choke was textbook; the kick to the balls left the cop defenceless, and it let me get in tight. His powerful frame surged against the choke for a few seconds, but the hold won quickly. Some people can fight a sloppy choke for as long as they can hold their breath, but a good choke doesn’t attack the airway. The flesh and bone vise around Morrison’s neck cut off circulation, not oxygen, and no one can hold out against a loss of blood to the brain for more than a few seconds. I kept the choke on for another fifteen seconds before letting it go in favour of a grip under the sagged shoulders of the big cop. I backed into the car first and pulled Morrison into the driver’s seat.
    It took under two minutes to tape Morrison into the car. He was straight up in the seat, duct taped to the headrest. The tape covered his forehead and eyebrows; another section of tape secured his throat to the seat as well. Both of the cop’s hands were attached to the steering wheel at ten and two. I turned out all of Morrison’s pockets and put his phone, wallet, and gun on the dashboard in front of me; then I drank the Nestea and checked the lot. No one else had shown up, and no one had left the hospital. The lot was quiet; the only interruption came from the cell phone. Morrison’s