Iceman

“Yeah?'

“You have to WANT it real bad. Coach. What can I tell you?'

“I still don't see how—'

“There's a fucking lot you people don't see.” Schumway wheeled halfway around. “Thirty-eight million goddamn people in chairs and we can't get in the goddamn door of the fucking Buckhead post office. You wonder how I can play golf from a wheelchair, in the mud yet? Because I'm nothing but a poor CRIPPLE. You sell us short.'

“I wasn't being patronizing. I just wondered how you could keep from getting stuck.'

“Shucks, Matthew.” Suddenly the exact voice of Dennis Weaver. “You kin jess plain charm the maggots offen a daid BUFFALO when youuns wants to, caincha?” Schumway wheeled over and opened the door that overlooked his garden. “Do you know why there are no thirteenth floors in hotels?'

“Superstition, I suppose.'

“Wrong, Dickie-doo-doo. There ARE thirteenth floors in hotels, ya fucking dummy. They're just CALLED the fourteenth floors.” Chester of Gunsmoke again: “If they wuzn't no thirteenth floors, them fuckin’ buildin's would jess cave rat in, now, wouldn't they, Mister Dillon?” The front of the house and the back both jutted like the exaggerated profile of a concrete ocean liner. There were no balcony railings or protective barriers to spoil the lines. But Schumway rolled out on the concrete expanse like it was a foot off the ground. Eichord didn't even want to walk out there, much less roll out in a wheelchair.

“You know how I built this house?” Eichord followed him out, thinking this wasn't the scene I was going to play, but if it's ever going to work it'll work here.

“Nope.'

“The same way I beat my lawyer out of three hundred dollars on the third hole that day. The same way I wheeled out of the mud. The same way I sold more cars than any other Buckhead County Buick dealer last year. The same way I do whatever I want to do.” He spun around in the chair again, facing Eichord.

“You stab women with an icepick because you're very sick, Arthur. You're twisted inside. You're afraid they can see inside you. See that evil soul of yours. The evil that others put there when you were a little boy. You know it doesn't matter about the nice-looking outside. You're rotten inside. You're a nice red apple with a worm in the center.'

“Oh, Christ in heaven.” He put a hand over his stomach like he was in terrible pain. “Don't. Don't make me laugh anymore, man, I really can't stand it.” He giggled. “With a WORM in the center.” He laughed again and Eichord had to smile. “You're fucking unreal. Where do you GET your material?'

“I know you must hurt inside, Arthur,” still smiling. “But I can't let you hurt any more innocent women.” Eichord turned with his back to him for an instant and took something from his jacket, turning back quickly as Schumway said, “You're a pissant joke, cop. The world is made up of two kinds of people. You've seen the signs. Either lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way.'

Eichord saw how muscular the man was and he was controlled. Unafraid. Jack felt the weight of the Smith & Wesson in the oiled leather rig and automatically free-associated Smith & Wesson Oil in his mind. He felt perspiration on him under his clothing. Somebody had turned the heat up in the meat locker.

Schumway was about to make a move, he sensed. Tensing his hand, wondering if the man would spring out at him when he saw the thing behind Eichord's legs. Would he come out at him fast and hard? And he was notoriously bad with a piece. The slowest draw in the West. Wet-palmed. But he made himself move near, closer to Schumway. He dried his palm against his trouser leg, watching the man's muscles tense up. Eichord inching to the right, now, moving off the straight line he had drawn inside his head.

“Remember the movie Knock on any Door,” Schumway said, “it was ‘live fast, and die young?’ Well, my motto is. Party till you puke, take whatever you want, and never die. NEVER FUCKIN’ DIE.” He gritted his white teeth and Jack knew it would be now and he said look and Schumway looked—

“YOU DUMB CRAZY STUPID BASTARD!” The phallic black object sat perched very close to the edge.

“That's the original, by the way. A good, stiff wind will take it right on down. I'm going to destroy them all if I don't have your signed confession. Even if your lawyer beats the charges, you won't have your pretty babies anymore, eh?'

Schumway had to fight not to spring out of the chair and Eichord saw him put weight on his legs for that first instant before he could catch himself and just as he started rolling to save that precious black beauty Eichord felt a cold, hard pain in his chest as he forced himself to step forward shoving against the top of a wheel with his foot, all of his weight behind the leg, and Arthur Spoda was fast, springing out of the chair but too late because everything was in the air, Spoda and the wheelchair and the unbreakable casting of the deco treasure, falling through space and in a quarter-second the chair was going over and half a beat later it was all over and the hard concrete below was rushing up to meet Spoda and trapping the scream in his throat as unyielding concrete broke his fall and his neck.

Jack turned and went back in, heading downstairs to remove the copy of the black Futura from the scene of the accident. Again, there was neither guilt nor sense of relief. No tragic loss, certainly. Just nothing.

Nothing even to the extent that as he tied loose ends, tidying up doing the things that had to be done at the scene of this crime, he could feel a little hollow laugh building in there. Dark humor is, after all, the refuge of people in Homicide. You betchum.

Buckhead Springs

Driving home that night, he felt his mind sinking down into a slimy pit where he'd never allowed his thoughts to take him. Shit. He'd done everything else. He thought about the child. The child of evil. He wondered it ... Good CHRIST but he hated to let himself think it. But it might be better for everybody if he'd find a way to do away with the kid. There.

A blast of static over the radio made him almost jump out of his skin.

“Kay double A-Three.” Eichord's call sign to go over to the tac channel for a personal.

He switched the radio control and picked up the handset, keying the mike.

“Kay double A-Three.'

“Call Mrs. Severn, please.” The dispatcher's voice.

“Ten-four. Thank you. Kay double A-Three out.” He pulled over to a bank of phones in front of a grocery store and dialed the number of a telephone in a 7-11 near Dana's house, as per their private code.

“Yeah,” his friend answered.

“Nu?'

“Yeah, okay. Listen. Just, uh, don't say shit. Just listen to me. Don't say anything more. I mean, just be real quiet and listen. I know how you must feel, if I'm right. If I'm wrong—fuck it, but don't say a word. Just hear me out and don't make any comment. Don't say zip. I'll say my piece, and when I'm done with it, I'll hang up and you hang up and we'll fuckin forget about it. Forever, man. I wanna tell you somethin. I know you know how much I love you, man.'

Fat Dana was choking up, about to start bawling. The sentimental putz. “Fuck you. What I want to say is. I know YOU, too, asshole. And I know how something like what you done can eat at you. NO, DON'T TALK. DON'T SAY SHIT. If I'm wrong, fine. I think you offed those fuckers. I know you like a fuckin’ book. And if you did, you'll put yourself through seven kinds of hell over it. I have this to say to you—DON'T.

“We both know it's sometimes necessary to take a life in cold blood. We know sometimes there ain't no other way, Daddio. And we know that the end DOES justify the means. That's why there's wars and laws and cops and all that shit. I don't have the words to give you any comfort about it. It takes some big balls, and I just want you to know—right or wrong, I love you, and I'm always with you. Now fuck off,” he said, slamming the phone down as he often did to Eichord.

Jack got back in the car and turned his radio off. He smiled at the thought of Dana. I love you too, Fatso, he thought to himself. But he still had the bad feeling inside.

He got home and closed the garage door, went in and kissed his wife, and walked back to the room where Jonathan was playing. He looked in at the child, who immediately flashed small, bright black eyes in his direction, held for just a fraction of a second, then looked away with disinterest. Eichord stood there looking at the kid, thinking. Should I or shouldn't I? Knowing, sadly, that it would be a no-win deal either way.