imagination and wanted to stretch a point, but it was too intense. I needed something to help me relax, Mose said.
Jackie Newton gave me a long look from the far wall. I stared back at him. Levin was talking and shuffling papers. Mose was rattling on about a new lure he had found: fish were supposed to be able to smell it. A waitress brought Mr. Newton’s order, putting plates in front of each gentleman and another in front of the empty space where, a few minutes earlier, Barbara Crowell had been sitting.
“She sure is taking her time in there,” I said.
“Who?”
“Crowell.”
I got up and started back toward the rest rooms. Behind me, Mose called my name. “Hey, Clifford, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” There was a note of worry in his voice that almost matched what I suddenly felt in my heart. I went past Jackie’s table. Both Jackie and Levin looked at me as I went into the dark hall.
I called Barbara’s name.
Doors on opposite sides were designated by gender: pants and skirts. I knocked on the skirts and listened. I pushed the door open and peeped in.
“Barbara?”
I was staring at the outer wall of a toilet stall. I called her name again and got nothing. “Hey, I’m coming in,” I said, and did. I looked around the row of Johns and there she was, sitting on the floor. She held a small gun in her hand, and she was staring at it the way you imagine a medical student might look at a scalpel before his first operation. Tears were running down her face. She lifted the gun and looked at it, business end first.
“Hey,” I said, holding out my hands. “Don’t do that.”
It was a little .22 revolver. You can buy them cheap all over Denver without permits or hassles: a little gun, made for ladies and kids, but more than enough to do what she had in mind.
“Hey, Barb,” I said. I tried to smile and wondered if it looked real. It was real: a smile of fear. Softly, I said, “You know what they say about suicide, honey. Permanent solution to temporary problem. This gets you nothing.”
It gets me peace, she seemed to say. I came a little closer and tried to figure my chances. If I rushed her suddenly, without warning, I had about a dead-even chance of getting to her before she could cock the pistol and pull the trigger. She probably didn’t know much about guns—a point for my side. But I was still ten feet away—a big point for her.
“Listen, I’ve got a great idea,” I said. “You put that back in your purse and let me take you out of here. We’ll go to a place I know and we’ll talk it over. Okay? Okay, Barb? We’ll talk it over, and if I can’t give you at least ten reasons for living we’ll both kill ourselves. Now what could be fairer than that? C’mon, Barb. I’ll buy you a great dinner and we’ll work it out. I know you don’t want to do this.”
I stopped talking. She had cocked the pistol, taking away my only real chance. I felt a tightness in my chest, almost like hyperventilation.
“Barb, please… listen to me… Here, look at me.”
She did. Again, her misery was like a beacon, filling the room.
“I swear to God there’s a way out of this,” I said. “I swear there is. I promise you, but only if you do the smart thing.”
I could see it in her eyes: she was on the brink, right at the edge. I’ve seen three people commit suicide, and at the end there’s no doubt that it’s coming. They all look the same, drained of all hope.
I was going to lose her.
She spoke. Her voice was raw, the words ragged and broken. “I’ve left a note…It clears you… backs up everything you said…”
“It won’t mean anything if you do this. Are you hearing me? Barbara, are you listening to what I’m saying?”
“No.”
“Just give me one chance. One chance, Barbara, to prove what I’m telling you. I won’t even take the gun away from you, that’s how sure I am that you’ll see things different. Let me tell you something. Newton can’t do anything to me, and I won’t let him do anything more to you, either. I’ve got ways of fixing that bastard that he can’t even imagine yet. Just put the gun away and I’ll tell you about it.”
It was pointing at her right temple: her finger was on the trigger. She was going to do it. I couldn’t stop her. Janeway, if you’ve got any good quotes, you’d better get ‘em up now, because there isn’t going to be any tomorrow.
“I know a guy who can make Newton hate the day he first saw you. I’m not kidding. I wasn’t just yanking your chain that day when I told you that. Just put the gun down a little and let me say this. Just let me say this much, Barbara. Newton’s a master at playing the system for his own advantage. He’s got it all going his way—money, a sharp lawyer—he knows his rights, old Jackie does. The system’s all greased up for scumbags like Jackie Newton. So we’ll go outside the system. I couldn’t do that when I was a cop, but I damn sure can now. We’ll play Jackie’s
