didn’t know either. I was driven by long frustration and the dim outline of a foolish idea. As a cop I had only two choices— let Jackie go or take him downtown and try to make a good case out of bad evidence—and I was quickly pushing myself to a third choice that, as a cop, wasn’t mine to make. Procedure was out the window, but as I drove that mattered less and less. All I can do now, as I look back on it, is plead temporary insanity. It works for the assholes, why not for me? Answer— I’m supposed to be better than that. I’m supposed to know what the law says. I knew this much: there comes a point when a cop stops breaking procedure and starts breaking the law. An arrest becomes an abduction, and blame shifts easily, almost casually, from his shoulders to mine. Go far enough and you might as well go all the way.
The city limit slipped past us and so, in my mind, did that fine line.
Ahead lay five hundred miles of open prairie. We were playing on Jackie’s court now, with his rulebook. That didn’t seem to please him much. I didn’t blame him; it wouldn’t‘ve pleased me either, in his place. I understood suddenly that this was a solitary thing between Jackie and myself: Barbara had no place in it; she was simply the instrument that had pushed us over the limit. I’m not thinking clearly, I thought— should’ve left her home. But by then we were fifteen miles out of town.
I pulled off the road. The morning was still very dark. I bumped along a dirt trail until I came to the river. There I told them to get out of the car.
Jackie found his voice. “What do you think you’re doing, Janeway?” His big bad silent act was finished. He was trying to sound tough but it wasn’t working: his voice was thick with worry. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said. Barbara said, “What are you gonna do, Janeway?” as if she hadn’t heard the question just being asked. There was no fear in her now, just wonderment. They had both glimpsed the shadow of my foolish idea.
“I think I’ll kill him for you, Barbara,” I said. “Would you like that?”
She didn’t say no. Again I told them to get out. Jackie was convinced: he turned to me and his mouth moved in the dashboard light as if to form a word, but nothing came out. He looked a lot like Barbara had looked back at the apartment. I guess real fear is the same all over.
We got out. A streak of light had appeared in the east and we began to see each other not as dim shapes but as people, faces, types. The thug, the brittle beauty, and me. What type was I? What type was I?
I gave Barbara my keys. “Here. Take the car and get out of here. Park in your spot behind the house. Lock it up. I’ve got an extra set of keys… I’ll come by for it later.”
She looked reluctant, suddenly unwilling to leave. “What are you gonna do?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“How will you get back?”
“Barbara,” I said, anger rising in my voice, “get out of here, right now.”
She got in the car and drove away. Jackie Newton and I stood alone on the empty prairie and looked at each other.
I pushed him down toward the river. He was trying to talk again—“Listen, Janeway,” he said—but I told him to keep walking and shut up. We came to a little grove of trees. Daylight was coming fast: I could see the fear working at him. I took off my coat. Jackie Newton watched every move I made. I folded my coat and put it on the ground. “What are you doing?” he said, his voice suddenly shrill. I was taking off my gun, unstrapping the holster from under my arm. I draped it over a low-hanging branch. “Head down that way,” I said, pushing Newton along a path by the river. We went about thirty yards. He turned and his eyes went past me, to the gun hanging from the tree. It drooped like a piece of deadly black fruit.
He began to grin as he realized that I wasn’t going to shoot him.
Slowly, he understood.
I had circled him a couple of times. The last time, I came in close and unlocked the cuffs.
All that stood between Jackie Newton and the gun was me.
“Okay, tough guy,” I said. “There’s the gun. Why don’t you go get it?”
He took a deep breath. The old arrogance came rippling back. He flexed his hands, rubbing the circulation into his chafed wrists. He threw the handcuffs to the ground and stood up tall.
“That’s the biggest mistake you ever made,” he said.
I walked up through the trees, alone. I had come with a question and was going home with an answer.
What type was I?
You’re a killer, Janeway. Oh, what a killer you are. I knew what Kong felt like after the big tyrannosaurus fight, how the soul of David must’ve soared when he cut down Goliath. I felt the joy of victorious underdogs everywhere. It was a crummy fight, if I have to hang a label on it. Jackie hit me with everything he had: when I didn’t go down, that was the end of it. His little chicken heart crumbled and broke into a thousand pieces. I ducked under his next punch and pounded his guts on the inside. He exploded in a hurricane of bad breath. I came up fast and got him on
