Then SWAT was in the room, two teams, ten men or more, guns everywhere, and she was holding up her hands in a protective reflex, saying, “It’s all right, guys. It’s over. I got him. It’s over.”
It was, too. Really.
The boogeyman was dead.
Epilogue
They called it “C.J.”
To Adam, this was the bitterest irony. The Los Angeles County Central Jail, to which he had been transferred this morning after two months of reconstructive surgery on his right hand, was known to its inmates by those initials. In the echoing cell block where he had been installed during the pretrial period, he heard the other prisoners yelling and laughing and cursing, and every other breath out of their mouths was “C.J.”
“Pissed off to be back in C.J., baby…”
“Hey, motherfucker, what you doing here in C.J.?”
“Food in C.J.’s pretty damn good compared with the shit I been eating.”
“You fucking with me, man? Ain’t nobody got nothing good to say about C.J…”
He shut his eyes. Even here, he couldn’t escape that name and the memories it stirred.
After a long time he found the courage to examine his cell. A commode in plain view. Two bunk beds. No window. Steel bars, cement walls painted green. The paint was layered so thick it felt spongy, like an encrustation of moss.
He sat on the floor, hands in his lap. His right hand had been repaired in a series of painful operations to knit bone and tendons and minimize the awful scarring. He had not regained full use of his hand-the fingers did not contract fully, and his fingertips were numb. He could barely hold a pencil. He would have to learn to write left- handed.
Write what? he wondered desolately. A resume for my job search? An ad in the personals? Yeah, that would work.
Single White Professional Man, 30, currently incarcerated, awaiting trial for attempted murder of ex-wife, seeks college-educated female for friendship, dating, maybe more. Background in criminal law a plus.
Perfect.
In all his fantasies of killing C.J., he had not imagined this outcome. His worst expectation had been a dramatic standoff with police, ending in his glorious death. He had not conceived of this slow descent into degradation and despair.
His condo had been sold in an attempt to raise money for his legal defense, but he had so little equity in the property that the gesture was largely futile. His BMW, of course, had been trashed on the night of January 31. Under the circumstances, his insurance company refused to cover the damages, not that he could blame them.
Brigham amp; Garner fired him as soon as his name hit the papers. The only member of the firm to visit him in the hospital was good old Roger Eastman, and he had come not in friendship but in anger. Adam’s “shenanigans”-that was the word Roger used-had bestowed unwanted publicity on Midvale Office Park, delaying plans to resume construction and jeopardizing Roger’s investment. “The wife will kill me when she finds out how much money I stand to lose,” Roger said darkly. “Not if you kill her first,” Adam replied, but Roger hadn’t seen the humor in this riposte.
Well, what the hell. Being an attorney was boring anyway. And he could always be a jailhouse lawyer. Trade legal advice for cigarettes or something. Trouble was, he didn’t smoke. Maybe he would start.
These thoughts ran through his brain, but most of his attention was occupied by his hulking, tattooed, buzz- cut cellmate, who had been introduced to him as Horse.
Why Horse? That was what Adam wanted to know. Throughout the morning, the question had assumed a strange urgency.
Was it because the man was as big as a horse? Or because he ate like a horse? Maybe he liked horse racing. Maybe his favorite movie was A Man Called Horse.
For hours Adam had worried over this riddle, while his cellmate sat on his bunk, stiff and silent. Finally he could endure the suspense no longer.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, meeting the man’s eyes for the first time.
Horse grunted.
“Why do they call you that? You know… Horse?”
“Nickname.”
“Yes, I gathered that much. But… why?”
Horse showed no expression. “ ’Cause I got a big goddamn pecker, and my homies say I’m hung like a fuckin’ racehorse.”
Well. Mystery solved.
“What are you in for?” Horse asked without stirring from his bunk.
“Awaiting trial. Can’t raise the bail. They set it high.”
“Don’t care about that shit. Wanna know what you did.”
“It’s all allegations. Unproven.”
“What they say you did.”
Adam sighed. “Kidnapping, assault, battery, attempted murder, aiding and abetting…” That was for withholding knowledge of Bluebeard’s Web site. “Couple counts of breaking and entering, possession of an unregistered firearm, other things.”
“Lotta shit.”
“It’s all unproven.” Adam clung to that word.
“You’re innocent, right? Sure. Everybody’s innocent. How long you goin’ away for, if they nail you on all counts?”
“Life,” Adam answered desolately.
Horse took this in without emotion. “You got money, I bet.” He was looking at Adam’s unlined face and the remnants of a stylish haircut.
“Not a lot.”
“You was makin’ money, on the outside.”
“Yeah.”
“Pullin’ down big bucks.”
“Getting there.”
“And you throwed it all away. Was it worth it?”
Adam rallied. “Yes. It was worth it. I had to stand up for myself. I wouldn’t let her walk all over me, you know?” He felt a man like Horse would understand. “She thought she could just sweep me out of her life, but I showed her. I taught her a damn lesson, at least. I let her know that nobody- nobody -fucks with me. Nobody makes me their bitch.”
Horse sat very still, absorbing this tirade. Then he said, “You might be wrong about that last part, bro.”
Adam saw that Horse was smiling.
And that smile made it real to him, all of it-this cell and the tattooed inmate and the shape of his life for the rest of his days.
C.J. met Walsh and Cellini for lunch at a coffee shop in Santa Monica, across the street from the palm-lined palisades. The topic of Gavin Treat was avoided for most of the meal. They talked of safe subjects-new departmental regulations that uniforms like C.J. didn’t like, Walsh’s fondness for Columbo and other cop shows, Cellini’s time on patrol, C.J.’s hobby of collecting antiques. Rick Tanner’s name came up. “I’m still seeing him,” C.J. said with a smile. “He can be a little bit of a jerk sometimes, but… I guess I don’t mind.”
