Lawrence glanced over. “I’m just saying, if you were gay, you wouldn’t be the kind of guy I’d go for.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Nothing personal,” Lawrence said.
“Of course not,” I said. As if it could be anything but.
“You could dress a little better,” he said.
We were both quiet for a moment. There was no traffic on the street. “So, let me try again,” I said. “Why’d you leave the force?”
Lawrence breathed out, sounded tired. “This isn’t for your feature.”
I slipped my pen through the metal spiral at the top of my notepad. “Go ahead.”
“I’d made detective about eight, nine years ago, I guess, and towards the end, last year or so, I was partnered with this guy, Steve Trimble, the guy you met last night. Okay guy, knew him back when we were both in uniform. Married, had a kid who must be in college by now. Didn’t seem to have any hang-ups working with a guy who was not only black, but gay.”
“The rest of the department, they knew?”
“I’m not keeping any secrets, man. This is who I am. You don’t like it, you can kiss my ass. Trimble seemed okay with it, we got along well, I got to know his wife, I’d go over to his place sometimes, hang out.
“We got a call one night. We’re plainclothes now, detectives, and we’re working some case, can’t remember what, but a call comes over, some sounds of gunfire in the west end, the warehouse district. We were a block away, I guess, so I thought maybe we should just take a stroll by, and Steve thinks okay, why not. So we turn off from this street of row houses, which is probably where the call came from, someone hearing shots, and we’re driving nice and slow, windows down, looking and listening for anything suspicious. And the thing is, it could be nothing, you know? Some old lady, hears a car backfire, she calls 911.
“We’re driving down between these two big industrial buildings when suddenly this car comes screaming around the corner ahead of us, one of these low-slung rice machine jobs with the dark-tinted windows, and Steve slides a flashing red light onto the roof, pulls across the street to block his way. Might be nothing, right, but it is suspicious, so few cars down there, this one appearing out of nowhere.
“So we try to flag him down, and he veers, going right up on the sidewalk and around, and by this time we’re out of the car, both of us, guns drawn, and Steve takes a shot, at the tires, because with the windows tinted you don’t know how many people are in the car, it’s just too risky. He doesn’t hit the car, but the driver’s losing control and hits a telephone pole a hundred yards up or so. The door opens and this white kid bails, starts running away from us, and Steve’s after him on foot and I go back for the car, turning it around and radioing in at the same time, looking for backup, and I catch a glimpse of Steve turning down this alleyway, elbow bent, gun drawn.”
Lawrence licked his lips, like his mouth had gone dry. “What we didn’t know, till later, was that this kid had just come from a deal gone bad, well, not from his point of view until we showed up. He’d gone to make a buy, and rather than hand over the money, shot his supplier. Gets his coke, keeps his cash. I try to head the kid off, so I drive around the block, and he’s coming out the other end of the alley when I get there. Steve comes right out after him.
“I end up cornering him up against the wall with the car. The car’s not actually touching him, I’m back a good thirty feet, but I’ve got the lights on him, and he’s got nowhere to go, and Steve moves into the frame. We’re both yelling at the kid, that we’re cops, to drop his gun.
“I’m getting out of the car, and with the headlights on, we’ve both got a good look at this kid, and we can see he’s got a gun held down at his side. And I still don’t have mine drawn, I just got out of the car, and the kid decides he’s going to shoot it out with us, I guess, and he raises his weapon to take a shot at me, and I figure, okay, this could be it, but Steve’s already got him in his sights. And then the kid fires.”
“At you.”
“Yeah. He gets off a shot, which hits the window frame of the car door. A chance in a million he doesn’t hit me. What I did next happened so fast, but it’s like slow motion when I replay it in my head. I draw my gun and take aim and drop him, one shot right in the chest.”
“He died.”
“He died.”
“And you’re wondering why it was you that had to bring him down. Because your partner must have had him in his sights, and didn’t fire.”
“It did kind of occur to me.”
“What did Trimble have to say for himself?”
“Comes over, says he was just about to shoot, but I beat him to it.” Lawrence shook his head, about an eighth of an inch in either direction.
“You didn’t buy it,” I said.
“He froze. The fucker froze. And I nearly bought it. And I had to kill that kid.”
“Who was he?”
“His name was Antoine Mercer, and he was seventeen, and he was a gofer, if you can believe it, for Lenny Indigo back then. And after that, I started thinking that maybe I didn’t like being in a job where you had to depend on others to watch your back. Figured I was better off looking out for myself.”
“What was the fallout?”
“Ah well, there was the usual lynching in the press. Cop kills kid. Your paper played a leading role.”
I felt my cheeks go hot.
“But that died down. Steve and I were still partnered together, but I couldn’t work with the guy. Couldn’t trust him to be there for me. And I started wondering whether I could trust any of them. Decided the only one I could trust to cover my ass was myself, and that’s when I decided to go it alone.”
“You quit.”
“I quit. I was good at being a cop, for the most part. Liked solving things, figuring stuff out, doing what’s right. But I figured I was better working alone.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
A shrug. “Well, you asked, and I don’t know. I don’t talk about it all that often. You seem a bit of an asshole, but you’re a likeable asshole, so what the hell? It’s a long night out here without something to talk about. Speaking of which, black Annihilator up ahead, doing more reconnaissance.”
The SUV, with its lofty military stance and blacked-out windows, looked every bit the predator as it rolled down the street, its headlights, set high amidst a massive network of metal crisscrosses that looked more like a set of shark’s teeth than a grill, shining toward us. Again, in front of Brentwood’s, it slowed.
“They like what they see. They’re getting ready, I guarantee it.”
And then, from the other direction, that same city police car, doing another sweep. No lights or siren, just heading down the street, doing a regular patrol. As the cop car came into range, the driver of the SUV gave the oversized vehicle some gas, pulling away from the men’s shop.
“He got spooked,” Lawrence said as the SUV rolled past us. “He might come around again, but I doubt it. Not tonight.”
He turned his ignition key.
“What are we doing?” I asked. I had an open coffee in my hand.
Lawrence was already cranking the wheel, swinging across the street.
“We’re leaving our stakeout?” I said. “What if it’s not them, and somebody else hits the store while we’re gone?”
“Oh, that’s them,” Lawrence said, straightening out and hitting the gas so he could keep the Annihilator in sight. “As long as we know where he is, I don’t think we’ll miss seeing the store get hit.”
I felt an adrenaline rush. My heart was starting to pound. We were in a chase. Suddenly my feature was getting a whole lot more interesting.
“Where’s the lid for my coffee?” I said, glancing down at the console and down around my feet. “Fuck it,” I said, and tossed it out the open window. Who needed caffeine to stay awake now?
5
