15 Seconds

He could smell it. What the guy had done. It was all over him. He could just smell the sick filth all over that eely skin.

“Lemme see those hands?” Vance told him, his fingers wrapping around the stick. At the station, the guy would probably lawyer up. Plead it down to nothing. That’s the way it all worked today. Justice, whatever there was of it, had to be administered out here… Here, you still had to pay up for what you’d done.

“I said show me those hands!”

The guy curled up, not quite understanding. “Look, man, I-”

“I told you to show me those hands! And don’t be looking around. No one’s gonna help you out here.” Vance bent over and whacked him across the back with the stick. Just to let him know he was there.

The slithering eel let out a loud grunt, air rushing out of him. Ribs cracked.

Vance hit him again. This time up on the neck, his head rattling against the pavement. “I said, show me those hands!” He reared back and hit him again. Vance wasn’t sure what had made him so damn angry. He’d arrested people all the time. People who’d done far worse. Martinez just seemed to open something in him. Things he’d kept inside for a long time. This sonovabitch eel just seemed to bring it all out.

“You don’t seem to hear me, son…”

The guy was bloodied. Not answering back now. But Vance stepped on his right shoulder, pinning the guy’s arm, and brought the club down on his extended hand, hard as he could, bone and knuckle cracking.

The eel yelped and started to whimper.

“This’ll teach you where to put those hands, son…” Vance did it again. With the other hand. The water eel howling like a baby now.

Two uniforms ran around to see. “Jesus, Trooper,” one of them said, “what the hell you done?”

“Motherfucker reached for something,” Vance said, staring into the guy’s eyes. “You did reach for something, didn’t you, boy? So I boxed his hands.”

Didn’t matter what he said-in Jacksonville back then, no one was going to buy the story of a black man who was carrying a gun over a state trooper’s.

Of course, Vance didn’t plan on the whole thing being caught on camera either, some kids who, hearing the commotion, had come to the window of a nearby apartment house, their camcorders catching every second of what went on.

Every second except the part when Martinez took the guy down and kicked the fucking daylights out of him, insisting he was the one.

And how after it was all over, there turned out to be nothing in the car. No loot at all. And it being a Land Cruiser and all, and the car they were after turning out to be a Jeep. And how the sonovabitch had been at a cousin’s birthday party not a half hour before, just like he said.

The real suspect was apprehended after a shoot-out around the same time, three miles away.

“He’d done something,” Vance said at the inquiry. “I could tell.”

But Vance never said a word about what Martinez had done. Throughout the inquiry that followed, when all that footage was shown, including the testimonies of the officers who’d arrived on the scene, Vance just sat there, taking the rap. Immediate dismissal from the force. Loss of benefits.

He just figured, why bring down someone else’s life needlessly?

But over the years… at his lathe at the plant or lying awake in bed… or watching his wife withering away to nothing… or hearing Amanda and that pond scum Wayne laughing and giggling and then not saying much of anything down the hall… he often wondered:

Why he’d done it.

Then. At that moment. To that man. Sykes.

Brought down his own life too.

He never quite came up with the answer.

But whenever he recalled the moment when his life spun away from him, Officer Robert Martinez was always there.

Chapter Forty-Two

Vance said, “I need a favor from you, Bobby.”

“A favor? What are you crazy, Hofer? Calling me up like this? After all these years. If my wife picked up…”

“But she didn’t pick up. You did, Bobby. And I need something from you. It ain’t much. I figured I’m owed that from you. Don’t you think so, Bobby-boy?”

“I’m not ‘Bobby’ to you, Hofer. I’m not anything to you. I’ve got a family now. I know what you did for me back then. And Lord knows, I guess I am in your debt some. But that was years back. We’ve all moved on. I can’t even talk to you now. I’m hanging up now-”

“No, Bobby, you’re not hanging up. Not if you know what’s good for you. Not until you hear what I have to say. I ain’t looking for much, all things considered. Not so much at all, to make things square.”

Vance knew if Martinez was still listening, there was hell in his eyes.

“What is it you want, Vance?”

“How’s life been for you, Bobby? Good, I suspect. I hear kids in the background. I think you’re still on the job. I figure probably a sergeant by now. Pension. What did you say, we’ve all moved on…?”

“Not sergeant,” Martinez said begrudgingly. “Patrolman, first class.”

“Well, ain’t that grand. Me, Bobby, shall we say I haven’t been as kissed by fate. Having fully moved on… My wife died. Lung cancer. My kid’s a fucking drug addict who’s now in…” He stopped, deciding not to say where Amanda was. “Been operating a lathe press these last ten years. But got laid off. Guess my temper’s always been a thing to deal with, but you know that. Even lost my home…”

“I’m sorry, Vance,” Martinez said. “I am.”

“Yeah, sorry…” Vance said. “I bet you are. It’s just that ‘sorry’ is a big ol’ luxury to me now. Know what I mean? ‘Sorry’ is like having a bagful of cash. But cash you can’t spend. You just look at it. And watch it. And it looks back at you with scorn. Kind of laughing at you…”

Martinez didn’t say anything.

“So I’m giving you a chance. A chance to square an old debt. And a damn easy one at that. ’Cause, make no mistake, Bobby, it was me who gave you that happy life you’re living now. Who gave you those kids I hear. That rank. That pension you’ll be spending one day… I don’t have to explain it all. I gave ’em to you. You understand that, don’t you, Bobby-boy…?”

Vance could all but feel Martinez seething on the other end. And weighing his reply. Finally, he came back: “What is it you want from me, Vance?”

“Good.” He had him! Vance told the cop about this person he owed a comeuppance to. “This doctor. From down south. He got my ’Manda all strung out on these pills. She’s done a bunch of bad things. I just want him razzed, Bobby. That’s all. You know what I mean. He’s coming up your way. In a couple of weeks…”

“Razzed?”

“You know the routine. Just take him out of his car. Scare the shit out of him a bit. I’ve seen you work. I just want him to know he’s not so high-and-mighty. He deserves that. Got my little girl all messed up. You have a little girl, don’t you, Bob?”

“I do. Becky. She’s ten.”

“So it should be easy for you. You just think of her. You’ll know what to do. I just want you to scare the daylights out of him. You can even bring some pals in on it if you like. Just make the guy feel like his fucking world’s falling apart…”

“And I’m gonna find this guy, how… ?” Martinez asked. “You said he’s not from around here?”

“No. South. Palm Beach. But I’ll take care of all that, don’t you worry. You just handle your end. You just make him shit those pants, and you’ll never hear from me again. We’re clean. So what do you say? Easy, huh?”

“When?” Martinez asked, after a bit of time, thinking it over.