Booked to die

the button. He tottered and 1 punched him again and he went down. He sat on his ass in the dirt and I knew he wanted to quit but he couldn’t. 1 let him get up in his own time and I moved in and let him hit me. I started to talk to him. Fuck you, Jackie, I thought you had some balls. I punched his stomach into great swollen slabs of meat, then went upstairs, for his eyes and chin. He toppled and went down. He rolled in the dirt and I waited for him to get up. Three more times he got up, just enough to salvage some pride and get his face caved in. I punched him with both hands, butted him with my head, and put him down for the count.

Hallelujah, brother. I had no illusions about what this would cost me, and it felt great.

I looked back once. He was still lying in the dirt. I thought he had a broken nose and two or three cracked ribs. I had the skin peeled off my knuckles and a mouse under one eye. It didn’t hurt a bit.

A killer. God, I shoulda stayed in the ring.

The thug, the beaut, the killer.

Me.

I was finished as a cop. I strapped my gun on and threw my coat over my shoulder.

Soon I was on the highway, heading west. The morning rush hour was getting started and there was a steady flow of traffic into Denver.

I walked for a while, not wanting company.

My police career was over. I didn’t need a mystic to tell me that. A line kept running through my head, that famous speech of Lou Gehrig’s when he was losing not only the job he loved but also his life. Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

For the first time in years, 1 knew where I was going.

I flagged a state cop, showed him my badge, and let him drive me home.

16

Ruby seals and Emery Neff were working late, still pricing books from their big score.

They hadn’t been listening to the radio. The newspaper accounts were still twelve hours away, but the TV and radio guys already had it.

I wanted to buy something I couldn’t begin to afford.

“What’s the best piece of fiction in the store?” I asked.

Ruby showed me a Catcher in the Rye, crisp, lovely in its first-state jacket. I stared into the impenetrable eyes of J. D. Salinger and bought it.

Four hundred dollars, a steal.

“What else’ve you got?”

Ruby looked at Neff and Neff looked back at Ruby. They cleared their throats and went to work.

“Got some King, but I know you don’t care about that,” Neff said.

“Which ones?”

“Carrie, The Stand, and that book of stories…ah, Night Shift.”

“I’ll buy ‘em if you want to wholesale ’em,” I said.

“We’d consider that,” said Ruby, his face a wall of dignity. “Yes sir, I believe we would. We bought these right, didn’t we, Em? 1 think we could do a little wholesaling and still come out on top.”

I gave a little laugh. “I’ll bet you could.”

“Screwed a little old lady out of her life savings, kicked her shins and took her books away,” Ruby said.

“Now 1 don’t feel so bad, offering you three-fifty for the three of ‘em.”

“We’ll take it,” Ruby said in a heartbeat.

“Not so goddamn fast,” Neff said. “Ruby, these books don’t just walk in here every day.”

“Do I need to remind you again that the Greeks are at the gate?” Ruby said. “That’s not a wooden horse they’re knocking with, that’s a battering ram. And that’s not Helen of fucking Troy I hear calling my name.”

Neff just stared.

“Sold to American,” Ruby said. “Now, Dr. J, since you’re in such a buying mood, take a look at these.” He pushed a Lie Down in Darkness at me, the most beautiful copy I’ve ever seen of the only