Booked to die

My silence was like a nolo plea.

“I can’t do it,” she said.

“Then I’m leaving.”

I started toward the door.

“Wait!” she cried.

I stopped and turned.

“Please wait… please. Look, I’ll try, okay?”

“You’ve got to do better than that.”

“Help me, Cliff… please don’t leave.”

“I’m trying to help you. I don’t know what the answer is. I may only end up getting you killed…I don’t know. 1 know you can’t go on the way you are. So tomorrow morning, accompanied by me, you will drive out to the Jeffco DA’s office. You will swear out charges of kidnapping, assault and battery. I don’t know, it’s probably too late for the rape charge, but we’ll tell him about it and let the DA decide. Then we come back to Denver and find us a judge and get you a restraining order. If the son of a bitch comes near you after that, you will call a number I will give you and we will come and bust his ass. If you won’t meet me that far, there’s not much I can do.”

She didn’t say anything. I said, “We just keep going over the same ground. It won’t get any easier. One way or another, you’ve got to face it.”

“Don’t tell me what I’ve got to face. You won’t be here, you won’t have to face it. Why should you care? You just want one thing; you don’t care what happens to me.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. You hate him so much you’d use me to get him. At least be honest enough to admit that. Who was it that took me out of his place? If you’d left me alone I’d probably be fine now. He’d‘ve done what he wanted and that would be the end of it. But you had to take me. You had to put me between you, and now you tell me there’s nothing you can do. Go on, get out of here.“

I couldn’t go after that. I still didn’t know what to say to her.

“I don’t understand you two,” she said. “How do two men come to hate each other that much?”

“I don’t know. It’s not covered in the police manual.”

“It’s called human nature,” she said. “I guess they don’t have writers for that.”

Here’s how it happened. I put Barbara to bed and settled down on her sofa. I watched TV till my brain went limp, then I turned it off and lay quiet with my own thoughts. At 2:30 I heard a car door slam. I went to the window and looked out. Jackie was across the street, looking up at me. I knew he couldn’t see me with the light out, so I stood still and watched him. Poor Barbara, what a mess she’s in, I thought. He really is crazy, I thought—here he comes now, across the street, into the dark places under the window, up the stairs. In another moment I could hear his footsteps. I had maybe twenty seconds to decide what to do. Whatever I decided, there wouldn’t be any logic to it. None of this made any sense: it never does when you’re dealing with a Jackie Newton. I will kill him, I thought: when he comes through that door I’ll blow his brains out and take all the heat tomorrow. This was a rational, cold decision: in that twenty seconds all the consequences raced through my head. I saw it with crystal clarity: all the flak that would trickle down from City Hall to the cop on the beat. All over town tomorrow, guys in blue would be asking one question: What the hell was Janeway doing there at that time of night? Did I set Jackie up? Did I goad him, then execute him with no more thought than a gangster gives his enemy? Everyone knew I hated the man: even Barbara knew it, and she barely knew me. All this flashed through me with the power of instinctive knowledge, something as simple as your own name, something you don’t have to ponder or weigh. (live me some time and I could describe every memo and phone call, everything they’d be saying tomorrow from the mayor to the manager of safety, and from there to the chief of police. Give me time, I thought.

Then Jackie came to the door, and my time was up.

I eased back into the bedroom and woke Barbara. “Don’t make a sound,” I said. “Just get up and put on a robe. Jackie’s here.”

I had to put my hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. Luckily, I had anticipated that.

I got her up, though it wasn’t easy. She had gone rigid with fear. I pushed her into the closet and closed the door. Then 1 got in her bed and pulled the covers up to the top of my head. I’m as crazy as she is, I thought: I’m as nuts as Jackie. Is this police procedure? Is this the way you catch a guy? All I can say is, it felt right. I took out my gun and held it like a hot water bottle, tight against my heart. I savored the surprise Jackie had coming: I could hardly keep from laughing.

Nothing from then on seemed real.

I heard him kick the door in. It’s amazing how quiet that can be when it’s done in one swift blow. The unbreakable deadbolt ripped through the wood like so much cardboard and he was coming fast. He crossed the room in four giant strides and came into the bedroom. He jerked back the covers and even then I didn’t know whether to kill him. 1 came up with the blanket, the gun leading the way. “Kiss me, sugar,” I said, and I cracked steel against his head. He went down like I’d shot him, and before he could move I had the light on and the gun cocked against his head.

I had him facedown on the floor beside the bed, the gun jamming him behind the ear. One move and Barbara Crowell would have Jackie Newton’s brains for a throw rug. He knew it too: the blow had dazed him but he was