The Name of the Game is Death

he was uneasy. 'I want a statement from you about what you were doing in that parking lot,' he blustered. 'A signed, witnessed statement.'

I didn't say anything, and his face grew dark. He walked toward me, slowly. I sat still on the cot. 'I said I want a signed statement from you!' Edwards bellowed.

I -.at there. Any statement I gave him he could probably twist around for his own purposes. He'd get no statement from me. When I said nothing, Edwards made a movement with his left hand. Just a gesture. Testing my nerve. I ¦..it there 'God, how I love you Hoy Scout tough guys!' he said between his teeth. He loomed up over me as I continued to sit on the cot. He jabbed me in the ribs with a stiffened thumb 'Stand up when I talk to you!'

I didn't move I le slapped me. My head hit the wall behind m< One of the men with him made some kind of sound, whether assent or protest I couldn't tell. I couldn't see tin in All I could see was Edwards' bulk, his red face, and Ins let looking little pig eyes. My own were squeezed tight trying to keep the tears behind them. My face stung like fury. 'Stand up, damn you!' Edwards barked. He stiffened the thumb again and advanced it slowly toward my rib cage, waiting for me to flinch. I set my teeth and sat still. Edwards jabbed me in the ribs. He jabbed me again. And again. Each time it felt like a red-hot poker.

When I saw he meant to keep it up, I reached behind me and picked up one of my shoes by the toe. When Sergeant Edwards' arm moved again, I came up from the cot, fast. I smashed him right across the bridge of his nose with the heel of my shoe. I mean I hit him with every ounce I had in me. He went reeling backward, blood spurting like a geyser from his smashed nose. Only the men behind him kept him from going down.

He rebounded from them and leaned into me, clubbing at me with both fists. His weight bulled me backward, then down. On my way to the floor he hit me three or four more good shots. I hit him in the belly with both hands on my way up. Edwards knocked me down again.

There was a lot of noise and confusion. People yelling. People hurting me. I couldn't see very well. I went down and got up twice more. I think it was twice. My vision got worse. If I could have seen Edwards clearly, I'd have butted him squarely in the middle of his ugly face with the top of my skull.

But I couldn't see or reach him.

And after awhile I couldn't get up any more.

It seemed like a long time later I heard my father's voice. I wondered how he'd gotten there. His voice was loud and angry. '—Bet someone's going to pay for this!' he was saying. 'And I don't care if it's you, John!'

I opened my eyes cautiously. I could see from the left one. I was in an iron bed, covered with a white sheet, and my father and John Mullen, the chief of police, were nose to nose at its foot.

'Take it easy, Henry,' the chief said. He lived just up the street from us. I'd taken his youngest daughter to a school dance. 'I'll get to the bottom of it.'

'You're damn right you will!' my father said hotly. 'And I want the boy moved to a hospital right now!'

'Doc Everhard says it isn't necessary, Henry.'

'Don't try to tell me what's not necessary, John! I said right now! Don't think you can keep my boy from getting the treatment he needs just because you've got a stinking situation you'd like to cover—'

'I said I'd get to the bottom of it!' Flint-edge steel ridged Chief Mullen's tone. His voice had risen like my father's. 'The boy could have been at fault, too.'

'Fault? Fault? Good God, John, have you gone out of your mind? If he burned down an orphans' home, should he look like this at the hands of your men? I know this Edwards. A thug in a uniform. A disgrace—'

Chief Mullen had seen my opened eye. He walked quickly around the end of the bed. 'What happened, son?' he asked quietly. My father pushed in beside him, and they both stood looking down at me.

I had to make three starts before my voice would work. 'I—fell down,' I said finally in a breathy rasp.

'Fell down!' my father echoed incredulously. 'Fell?' He stared at me, then whirled on the chief. 'What kind of intimidation is this, John? I warn you, I'm going—'

'Take it easy, Henry.' There was a warning note in the official voice. The chief's shrewd-looking eyes were studying me. 'Don't forget we walked in here together. Don't let me hear you say 'intimidation' again.' He was still looking at me thoughtfully. 'We'll talk to him later.'

'We'll talk to him right now, damn it!'

Hut Chief Mullen finally got my father out of there.

I never told them any more than that, then or later. I never heard what Edwards told them, I didn't care. I think my father thought at first the beating had affected my mind. Right from the beginning, though, the chief came closet lo the Until Day after day he came to the house with path in questions. After awhile I stopped answering them at all. And eventually he stopped coming.

I was out of school for three weeks until my face healed up I still had three broken fingers on my left hand, and from shoulders to knees I was spotted like a leopard. I didn't remember anything about the fingers. Someone must have stepped on them during the melee.

Nobody at school—or anywhere else—knew what happened. I didn't say anything, and the police didn't say anything. I found out without too much trouble that the two men in the cell with Edwards that day had been Glenn Smith and Walter Cummin's.

I took to skipping classes at school, then whole days. I spent more time out of the house at night than I ever had. The first three marking periods I'd been on the honor roll, but when the school office called me in about my sliding grades, they said I might not graduate if I didn't straighten up. I didn't give a damn. I didn't think they could flunk me so quickly after the marks I'd carried, but I didn't care if they did. I was busy.

Glenn Smith was easy. He was a heavy drinker. Watching him, I found out he spent a lot of time in the Parokeet Tavern. He had a habit of parking his car on the street behind it, then walking up a narrow alley to the Parokeet's back door. Sometimes he was still in uniform.

He came back down the alley late one night, staggering a little. I took him from behind, and I lumped him good. I kicked in a few of his ribs, finally, and left him crawling on the ground like a wingless beetle. He never even got a look at me. I left the dimly lit alley, and I felt good all the way home.

The next morning Chief Mullen came to school and got me out of my history class. We went outside and sat in his car, where he talked for a long time. He didn't accuse me of anything directly. I knew he couldn't, because Glenn Smith hadn't seen me when he could recognize anyone.

The chief went on about the idiocy of people who attempted to take the law into their own hands. He talked like a damn fool. I'd. taken the law into my own hands, and I didn't feel like an idiot. I liked the feeling. When the chief saw the expression on my face, he stopped talking and opened his car door. I went back into the classroom.

Walter Cummin's took longer. Better than a month later I discovered his twice-a-week visits to a married woman's home a mile out of town. When I had his visits clocked reliably, I caught him coming out of her back door one night. I smothered him in wet potato sacking, and I got him down.

After they found him, an ambulance brought him into town.

Chief Mullen was at our house before breakfast the next morning. He was really warm under the collar. He asked me point-blank what I knew about Cummin's. My father saved me the trouble of lying. He jumped in and wanted to know if the chief was accusing me of anything. Either make a charge you can support, my father told Chief Mullen, or get out of my house. The chief hesitated, then left, red in the face. I almost laughed. My father didn't ask me anything afterward. He didn't seem comfortable with me.

Two down and one to go.

I smiled at Sergeant Edwards every time I passed him on the street. Every time I smiled, he scowled. He knew. I wanted him to know. His scowls were intended to let me know he wasn't letting his nerves get jumped up by any crackpot kid. lie watched himself, though. He watched himself so well I couldn't get anywhere near him with the right leverage. ^v

School finished and I graduated, barely. My college entrance credits were all shot. I'd have to pass exams to get in. I didn't take the exams. I hung around all summer, into the fall. My father, exasperated, twice demanded that I get a job if I had no intention of continuing my education. I paid no attention. I had a job. A job I had to do before I could look for another one.

Harry Coombs cornered me late one Saturday night when I was coming out of a cafe on his beat. He herded me to one side. 'I suppose I'm lucky they sent me away before they went into the cell with you that day?' he inquired. prodding me in the chest with his nightstick.