'Get the hell out,' Timothy said. 'Or say something interesting that makes sense.'
He took another step forward. Timothy stood, legs apart, hands ready. He was no stranger to violence. There were times when he welcomed it. He expected no problem in throwing out this intruder. He reached for the limping man's poncho.
The limping man ducked and in a crouch came up with a knife in his right hand. He stepped forward, flowing into the move and plunged the blade under Timothy's armpit, burying it to the hilt.
Timothy grunted, not sure of what had happened, thinking he had been punched, losing his breath. He reached for the limping man's hair, but the man knocked his hand away with an elbow and delivered a short, sudden chop to Timothy's neck.
Timothy went down with a moan, reaching out for something to grab, to hold him up. The pain under his arm had spread to his chest. He was sitting now, puzzled, dazed. He looked up at his visitor who kicked him in the chest. Timothy went to the floor on his back, panting, trying to catch his breath.
'You…you're…my only friend,' Timothy whispered.
'Not anymore. Not ever.'
Timothy felt the straps of his overalls being pulled down. Then he felt the overalls being pulled off.
'What?' he managed. 'Why?'
'You know.'
When the next wave of pain came, Timothy wanted to scream. His mouth was open, but nothing came out.
DJ Riggs sat, towel over his shoulders, cup of awful coffee in his hands. One of the narc cops who had caught him sat across from him. The other stood behind him.
DJ knew the drill. He knew the room. All these rooms and all these cops were the same. They had him. They could play back and forth, good cop, bad cop, we know what you did, do you know what's going to happen to you?, we don't need you to talk but it will go better for you if you do.
'You saved a baby,' the cop across the table said. He was young, younger than DJ, Hispanic, long hair.
'That buy me a ticket out of here?' asked DJ.
'Not hardly,' said the other narc behind him, a tall black man who looked like somebody on the Yankees DJ couldn't quite place. 'But it inclines us to listen to anything you might have to tell us.'
'Okay, I tell you I want a lawyer.'
'We can't help you once your lawyer comes,' said the Hispanic cop.
DJ looked at the wall. He could have been left alone and supplied all the dialogue.
'Yeah,' he said. 'And you want to help me.'
'Hell of a thing you did saving that kid, coming out of that doorway so we could see you. Hell of a thing,' said the Hispanic narc.
'We're inclined to be nice,' said the black cop behind him.
'Okay,' said DJ. 'I've got something. Deal is, I give it to you and it's good shit, I walk.'
'It would have to be damn good,' said the first cop.
'It is,' said DJ. 'I want it on tape and I want to hear your voices on that tape and I want my lawyer to hear the deal.'
'Deal is off the record,' said the first cop. 'You trust us or no deal. And there will be no deal anyway if you don't have some top quality information.'
DJ looked at them and said, 'I saved that baby's life.'
'You did,' agreed the black cop.
'Okay,' said Riggs folding his arms. 'Deal.'
'Talk,' said the black cop. 'Make it good.'
'Terrorist,' said DJ.
Neither cop seemed moved by the information.
'I dealt him some detonators.'
'You're a drug dealer,' said the Hispanic cop.
'I'm an entrepreneur,' said DJ.
'Go on,' said the black cop.
'He came to me. Don't know how he knew I was the man to come to. White guy, maybe fifty, one of those British accents, you know. I asked him if he needed bombs too. Not that I had them.'
'Of course not,' said the Hispanic cop. 'More coffee?'
'No. All he wanted was detonators. I happened to know where I could get a few. Hoisted from a construction site over in Jersey.'
'This man in search of detonators, he have a name?' asked the black cop.
'Everybody's got a name,' said DJ, 'but no one gives a real one to me and I'm fine with it.'
'That's all you have?' asked the Hispanic cop.
'He made a cell phone call. He didn't know I could hear him. Argued with somebody, said whoever he was talking to should calm down, that everything would be fine, that he'd meet him at Doohan's in the morning.'
'And when did this conversation happen?' asked the black cop.
'Last night,' said DJ. 'Did I give you enough?'
'We'll check your tale, talk to an assistant DA,' said the Hispanic cop. 'You can identify this British guy?'
'Damn straight,' said DJ. 'Am I walking?'
'You saved a baby,' said the black cop.
'You dealt detonators to a possible terrorist,' said the Hispanic cop. 'Homeland Security will want to talk to you.'
'And the FBI,' said the black cop.
'Hey, man, I saved the baby.'
'That you did,' said the Hispanic cop. 'It's in the mix.' He looked up over DJ's shoulder and nodded. The door opened behind DJ and then closed.
'I want a lawyer now,' said DJ.
'It's still raining hard,' said the Hispanic cop.
'Then he'll just have to slog his way over here. I'm through talking,' said DJ.
The Hispanic cop got up and motioned for DJ to do the same.
'How's the baby doin'?' asked DJ.
'High and dry. His mother's a crackhead. She lost track of him when she was high and the kid wandered off. Name's Linda Johnson. Know her?'
'Yeah,' said DJ, thinking there was an outside chance that he had saved the life of his own baby.
7
IT NEVER RAINED like this in Poland.
Well, almost never.
Waclaw longed for a command of English. Instead his grasp of the language was more of a whimper. To be fair, Waclaw had been in the United States for less than two weeks and the lessons he had taken in Poland had proved to be almost useless.
He was on vacation from his job in Lodz. Actually, it was more of a pilgrimage than a vacation.
Waclaw wanted to see his son and daughter-in-law and their children before he died- if he indeed was going to die soon. He had a liver disease. There was a hospital in New York City where his son Alvin and his family lived, a hospital that specialized in liver disease. Waclaw had an appointment at the hospital, but now the time of that appointment had long passed.
The geography here eluded him. His son and his family lived in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, he was told, was part of
