own department in Dallas was due to a bureaucracy mired in itself, along with my police superintendent, who sold me and Jackson out. This creep was worried about his own job, so he just made certain that the redskin would stay off the payroll, nailing the coffin shut on the Indian problem he'd had all along.”
“Nothing like having your superior go to bat for you,” she commiserated.
'The bastard was nobody's superior. His main interests were his own interests,” he replied. “But it taught me a valuable lesson.”
“Oh, and what's that?”
“Never get blindsided. Never assume anything, and never underestimate the depths to which human nature sinks.”
“So, you rehabilitated yourself physically, but it sounds to me as though you have a ways to come back emotionally. I mean, you've got to learn to trust again if you're ever to fully-”
“As you have seen, and so you shall see, this man is fully recovered in every way. I wear more body armor, sure, and I like it that way!” he said with a flourish of his large right hand, tipping his bottle at her and downing the drink in a final gulp. “Thank the Great Spirit, Houston wasn't being too choosy. That explains why Lawrence was saddled with the likes of me, wouldn't you say?”
“With a mandate and a federally funded program to train one thousand new foot soldiers in President Clinton's war against crime, and given your experience on the force, I really shouldn't-”
“Wonder? The redskin is put to great use now…
Some help I'll be in the war against crime here in Houston, sitting down in that hole Lawrence has found for me.
Then the bastard has the balls to pretend he likes me by telling jokes about… well, never mind.
“ He leaned back in the cushion, uncomfortable now.
“You okay, Lucas?”
“Can't sit in one place too long. Insides start to act up on me. A pain that is coming from deep within is always also a going-back pain, so it hurts both ways.”
An old Indian expression, she guessed. Want to get out of here?
Yeah, any ideas?
Park's not far from here.
“Park?”
“Municipal Zoo.”
“Animals… I love animals,” he replied. “They never ask anything from you, never take anything from you, and they never lie to you.”
She eyeballed him, wondering about the double entendre of his words. “That's certainly true, and lovely in the way you express it,” she finally agreed.
“So, let's do it. Let's go see some honest citizens of Houston. All in the zoo, right?”
She wondered just how seriously to take him. Was he kidding, half kidding, or deadly serious? Did he know that she'd told a few lies to get his attention? Was he including her in with all the dishonest citizens of the city, everyone outside of a cell? Was he saying that people in prison were more straightforward and honest than the average citizen, or was he just talking about animals? His mind seemed as agile as a fox's.
She grabbed the check, but not quickly enough. He grabbed her hand, pried the check from her and plunked a twenty over it. “This'll take care of everything,” he said.
Machismo in a cripple, she thought. Kind of nice, far. more so than in others. He was on his feet and offering a hand to her as she slid out of the booth. She sensed that it was important to him that she accept his helping hand. She imagined how difficult it must be for him to begin his career over again here in Houston, only to find the same foot on his neck as he'd had in Dallas.
FIVE
They took her car, and while she drove, he continued to talk more freely, as if a floodgate had been opened. He cursed the duty he'd pulled, paperwork, mold and ancient files.
“Everything about Dallas has become a curse then, hasn't it, Doctor? As a result of my prior experience in Dallas-Fort Worth as a detective, Lawrence assigned me to the Cold File Room, the pits, the bottom basement of police work here.”
“But he's familiar with your record, so he has to know you were a good detective. Maybe somewhere in the back of that thick skull of his, he's thinking why not put a man in the Cold Room who has the aptitude to do more than clerk the files?”
“Now that's some kind of wishful logic, Doctor,” he replied as they passed row upon row of dilapidated shops and abandoned houses. He wondered how much of his past she actually knew. She sounded as if she'd rummaged around in his personnel files, but if so, she'd have to have done so before they met in the Cold Room. She'd been setting him up from the beginning.
“He's got to know that you possess a good mind and a talent for detection,” she continued her lame attempt at bolstering his ego.
“I've got no such illusions, Dr. Sanger.”
“Meredyth.”
“What?”
“Call me Meredyth.”
He gulped and nodded and said, “I'm in the Cold Room for one reason. It's a convenience for the department, a place to put the cripple.”
“Well, you can't let them get away with it, now, can you?”
“What can I do about it? I'm just a rookie, on probation status. Hell, I haven't even finished all my class work yet.”
“You're still taking classes?”
“I'm finishing up with my last evening course. The one I kept putting off.”
“Which is?”
“Street Courtesy, or as the cadets call it, Bull on the Boulevard. Most of it amounts to filling in garbage in a little workbook that has absolutely no bearing on the real world.”
“Hey, you do what you have to do.”
He slapped the dashboard with both hands, creating a rifle shot of noise, making her start. At the same time, he nearly shouted, “I hate the classroom nonsense. Pretending to believe the crap the instructors hand out, pretending to like and respect both instructor and subject, when in fact I know they're generally full of it.”
“So, you think you know more than they do?” She managed a laugh.
“Fortunately, I do.”
She stared across the gulf between them.
“I tell you, it's true. Most of 'em have had no more than a year on the street, but because they couldn't cut it there, they teach. Those who can't do, teach.”
'That's a nasty bit of bumper-sticker logic. God, Lucas, I can just see you seething in the classroom like some overheated radiator about to explode. I hate those types in my class sessions.”
“But lives depend on what these teachers feed these rookies, so… so somebody's got to set them straight.”
“Set who straight? The rookies or the teachers?”
“Both, if the situation warrants.”
“Then maybe you should put in to teach rookies yourself, if you believe you can do a better job of it. You've got a hell of a chip on your shoulder.
Not sure I'd want to see you in a class of mine.”
He thought about this even as he countered, saying, “I just bet you're holy hell to please as a teacher.” He saw an image of himself before his instructors, and he didn't like what he saw.
He must project to his instructors the image of a wiseass, did-it-yesterday, know-it-all hard case. But he
