'Police!' shouted Monica. 'Stop and put down the gun right now.'
'FREEZE!' shouted Walter.
Andrew stopped, blinking into the cruiser headlights.
'FREEZE!' shouted Walter, again.
'Put down the gun,' said Monica.
'It's not my gun,' said Andrew. 'Some guy was ... '
'Put down the gun,' said Monica.
Andrew bent down and set the pistol on the street, then stood. By the time he'd straightened up, Walter was on him, pulling his arms behind him and slamming his face onto the hood of the cruiser. Monica carefully picked up the pistol—a cheap .38 revolver; a classic Saturday night special—and put it inside the patrol car. She radioed in that the subject was in custody.
Walter undipped the handcuffs from his belt. He yanked Andrew's arms up high behind the back.
'Ow!' said Andrew. 'Listen, please! I'm not the ... '
'Shut up, punk,' said Walter, yanking Andrew's arms higher.
'Ow!' said Andrew. 'Please, I'm not ... '
'I TOLD YOU SHUT UP,' said Walter.
Andrew shut up. He was wearing khaki pants and a knit polo shirt. His nose was bleeding, and he was obviously terrified. To Monica, he looked about as menacing as Kermit the Frog.
'Officer Kramitz,' she said, 'maybe we don't need to cuff him right now, OK?'
Walter looked at Monica. 'We're supposed to cuff him,' he said. He was dying to try out his handcuffs. In his apartment, when his wife was out, he sometimes practiced handcuffing a chair to the dinette table, but he had never cuffed anybody for real.
'Let me just talk to him for a minute, OK?' Monica said.
Walter thought about arguing with her. He was feeling much less inclined to agree with her on police procedure, now that he knew he wasn't going to get to see her naked. Reluctantly, he said, 'OK.'
With Walter standing close, ready to pounce if necessary, Monica advised Andrew of his rights and asked him if he understood them. Andrew nodded. Monica asked him his name.
'Andrew Ryan,' he said.
'OK, Andrew,' said Monica. 'What were you doing with the gun?'
'I picked it up back there,' Andrew said, gesturing toward the alley. 'Some guy was shooting at us, and he dropped it, and I picked it up and ran.'
Walter snorted, to indicate that he, for one, was not buying this load of bullshit.
'Who was shooting at you, Andrew?' asked Monica.
'I don't know. Some weird fat guy, he kept yelling 'Freeze' and shooting at us.'
'Who was with you?'
'My friends Matt and Jenny.'
A synapse fired in Monica's brain. Andrew, Matt, and Jenny. She couldn't quite remember where she'd heard those names, but she knew she had.
'What were you doing back there?'
'Matt was gonna kill Jenny,' said Andrew.
'He was gonna what?'
'With a squirt gun,' said Andrew. 'It's just a game.'
'Oh Jesus,' said Monica, remembering now who Andrew, Matt, and Jenny were. 'Are you talking about that, whaddyacallit, Killer?'
'Yeah!' said Andrew. 'That's it! Killer!'
Monica sighed, wondering why these kids couldn't settle for the innocent diversions of her youth, such as drinking beer and groping each other.
A backup police cruiser arrived, siren yelping. Monica took Walter aside and said, 'Let's leave the kid with these officers and check behind the five-and-dime, see if there's a shooter back there.'
Walter snorted again. 'You believe this punk?' he asked.
'I just wanna look, OK?' said Monica.
'OK,' said Walter, 'but all you're gonna find back there is ... '
'POLICE! HELP POLICE!'
The hoarse shout came from the thick figure of Jack Pendick, Crime Fighter, stumbling out of the alley. Seeing the police cruiser, he lurched toward it.
'POLICE!' he shouted. 'POLICE!' He kept shouting it as he approached, until he was shouting it directly into Monica's face, thus giving her a strong whiff of rum fumes.
