coming out of it now. He kept trying to look back at my gun. He was bleeding out of the left eyebrow where 1 had opened his head to the bone. I kept him there, kissing the floor for another minute while I patted him down. He wasn’t carrying anything, the arrogant bastard. I backed off slowly. “Just stay where you are, Newton. Don’t even think about getting up.”
When I was ready, I told him to get up. “Get against that wall,” I said, “face-first.” He didn’t say a word, just let his eyes rake me over like before. I was terrified so it must’ve worked. “Turn around,” I said again. I shoved him against the wall and jerked his hands behind him. Then I got the cuffs and shackled him. I made it tight; I didn’t care much about chafing him. I called Barbara out of the closet but she wouldn’t come. I called her again, louder.
“Just stand there, punk,” I said. “Keep your face to that wall and you might make it downtown in one piece.”
I went to the closet and opened it. Barbara was sitting with her hands over her eyes. I took her by the arm, but she looked to be in shock. I told her it was okay, she could come out now, but she didn’t seem to believe it.
“Come on,” I said. “You’ve got to get dressed and go downtown with us.”
She didn’t seem to understand simple F.nglish. She couldn’t look at Jackie, who had turned slightly so he could see her. Jackie knew what intimidation was: he knew what a hold he had over her. I kicked him in the ass, hard enough to break a bone, and he turned slowly back to the wall. Blood was everywhere, on the wall, on the floor, and all over Jackie.
“Get dressed,” I said to Barbara.
She didn’t move. I went to her closet and took out a blouse and a pair of jeans. “Go in the bathroom and put these on,” I said. When I looked in her face, I saw a picture of fear and despair so absolute it was heartbreaking. “C’mon, Barb,” I said, as gently as I could. “Get dressed, hon, we’ve got work to do.” She shook her head and dropped the clothes on the floor. I picked them up and guided her to the bathroom. I left the door open a crack, and every so often I peeped in and tried to talk her into her clothes. Put on the jeans, Barbara. That’s good. Now the blouse. Real fine.
Suddenly she found her voice. “Tell him to go away,” she said through the door. “I don’t want him here.”
When she came out of the bathroom, I took her under my arm and gave her a big hug. It only got the tears started again. She began to tremble and whimper and I didn’t know what to do with her.
Jackie began to laugh.
1 knew how to stop that. I whipped him around and cocked the gun and rammed it in his mouth. “Laugh now, asshole,” 1 said. He didn’t seem inclined to. I held him like that for a full minute, my eyes burning into his: I let him see my hand tremble, my finger waver on the trigger. “I may kill you yet, Newton,” I said. “Just give me an excuse, just any at all, and they’ll be picking pieces of your head out of that wall for a month. You got me, pardner?”
Jackie got me. I turned him to the wall and tried to work on Barbara. She had begun talking again, dangerous, mindless drivel in monologue, nonstop. “I think we could just let him go,” she said. “Just make him promise not to come back if we let him go this time.” The same thought came up, over and over, in different words. Let him go. Turn him loose. Get him out of here. Do this and Jackie, I guess out of gratitude, would leave her alone in the future. Bullshit, I said. She talked over my one-word argument as if I weren’t there. “Bullshit, Barbara,” I said, louder. This was not looking good: she’d make the worst kind of witness, assuming I could get her downtown to sign the papers in the first place. I don’t know what else I expected: the fact was that, for the first time in my career, I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to deal with even the most obvious problem. The victim was going to let Jackie walk: I had to’ve known that, so why was it making me so angry? I was almost beside myself with rage.
“Bullshit!” I shouted, loud enough to wake the block.
Barbara just stared at the floor and said she was sure he’d leave her alone if we let him go this time.
And Jackie was laughing again. He wasn’t, really, but I could hear him anyway.
Something frightening happened inside me. Sometimes it happens to an old cop when one asshole too many has been patted on the head and turned back on the streets—you want to go out and take care of a few of them yourself, the fast and easy way. A few cops had done it: maybe I would too. I grabbed Barbara by the scruff of her worthless neck and pushed her to the front door. Jackie I handled a good deal rougher. I pushed them down the dark stairs and into the deserted street. Barbara was still muttering about turning him loose. I told her to shut up and walk, and a moment later we reached my car.
I opened the trunk and got a roll of electrical tape out of my tool box. I fished a handkerchief out of Jackie’s pocket and told Barbara to bind up his wound with that. I didn’t want his crappy blood all over my car. But Barbara wouldn’t touch him, so I wrapped the tape myself, right over his hair. Then I pushed his head down and forced him into the front seat. Barbara said she didn’t understand why we couldn’t just let him go, if he’d just promise not to come back. 1 told her to get in back. I got behind the wheel and started the car. I made Newton roll over with his head against the door. Then I drove up to Speer Boulevard and turned north.
We weren’t going downtown, that much was certain. Jackie didn’t say anything, but there was a feeling of tension in the car, of an act yet to come. He had misread me all the way: I had seen the fear in his eyes when I stood him up with the gun in his mouth, and he waited now for a telltale sign. You assume when you’re dealing with a cop that everything gets played according to Hoyle. It doesn’t always happen that way. Cops roll with the tide like everyone else. The good ones don’t let the tide swamp them and so far I had been one of the good ones. But tonight I hadn’t even read Jackie Newton his rights.
I hit the interstate, heading north, then east. Now they were both quiet, waiting to see what I was going to do. I
