the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) by Stephen - Scully 10 Cannell Page A

vacant lot we'd assigned to the press now looked like the media center in Baghdad's Green Zone. Satellite uplinks, news vans with station call letters on the sides, a craft services section complete with a catering truck advertising five choices of hot meals.
    "American journalism at its finger-lickin' best," Hitch said, checking out the food truck. We walked past a phalanx of microphone-wielding reporters gathered by the gate. I knew a few of them. They all knew Hitch.
    "Hey, Hitch, over here!" they shouted, gunning off footage.
    "Sorry, guys," he said, smiling and waving like a red-carpet celebrity. "I'm working right now."
    They shot tape of us, but we made it past without giving an interview, and proceeded on up the driveway.
    "This was a good wardrobe choice," Hitch said to nobody in particular. "This rust suit looks hot on camera."
    Our evidence team showed up ten minutes later and we went to work with them, hunting with metal detectors for spent cartridge casings and stray bullets.
    Doing the math, if the clip contained sixty-four rounds, with nine bullets in our three vies and fourteen more bullets recovered from the crime scene, that meant if he shot 'til slide lock, there were forty-one slugs missing, and forty-four cartridge casings.
    After an hour we had found six more Makarov slugs and one more brass cartridge. By early afternoon, it was starting to be longer and longer between shrill electronic beeps. Hitch and I were bushed and took a break, stretching out under an umbrella on the pool chaises.
    At around three, we were both dozing when the metal detector lit up something.
    "Got a hit," the operator called out.
    We both rolled into sitting positions, rubbed our eyes, and ambled over to where he was working.
    The way you retrieved this stuff was with little forensic tools. Tiny Barbie-sized spades and brushes. Finally, the technician exposed the find, pulled a bullet out of the ground and dropped it into an evidence bag. But this one was much smaller than the 9 mm Makarovs we'd been digging up.
    "What the hell is that?" Hitch asked.
    "7.65 mm slug ," I replied, peering down at it.
    "So our guy used two weapons?" Hitch said.
    "Or we've got a second shooter."
    Hitch turned to me with a troubled look. "We don't want a second shooter, Shane."
    "Whatta you mean we don't want? You got the wrong verb there, partner."
    "It's way too late in Act One for a second heavy. Splits the focus."
    I glared over at him. It didn't even deserve a response.
    "I just don't think we should jump to conclusions," he persisted. "We don't know there was a second shooter. A second shooter? Why? Sladky had a weapon that could put out six hundred rounds a minute and for backup, he brings along some guy with a pathetic little 7.65 automatic?"
    "7.65 slugs originally came from Europe. Same with Makarov nines," I said.
    "I don't like it, homes. It's not working for me."
    By then I'd really had it with this movie bullshit. "How 'bout this?" I snapped. "What if our second shooter is Scott Berman's hot bitch lover from Sarajevo? She could be over here with the Czechoslovakian female fitness team, which maybe Karel Sladky coaches. All of them wearing tiny little string bikinis, glistening with baby oil. Berman discovers that these hard bodies are really trying to blow up LAX with a stolen Russian suitcase nuke but before he can go to the cops, he gets greased, taking our story down a whole new path with a lot of great shit for Act Two. Does that make it work any better?"
    "I know you're just playin' with me, but that's not half bad," Hitch replied.

    Chapter 16.
    While I called Jeb and told him what we'd found, Sumner Hitchens was talking to the metal detector operator. They were rummaging around next to the trash area where the 7.65 bullet was found, looking for another hit. Jeb wanted us to bring in the slug right away. As I hung up, I saw Hitch walking toward me.
    "Come over here," he said.
    "Find something?"
    "Yeah."
    I followed him across the