Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“Are you going to tell me the charge? Or would that ruin the surprise?”

“Attempted lewd and lascivious act with a minor.”

“This minor have a name? Or was this with all the minors in Blackburn?”

“Beth Golnick.”

“She tell you this?”

“Her mother filed a report this morning,” he said. “You got the girl into your car, or fucking SUV, right by the old mill. You told the girl you wanted her to service you.”

Yeah, I very much wanted to punch the man in the bazoo. But it was a joke to him, and to me, and the more I tried to fight him, the more I’d make his day. Judging from the food stains across his uniform, I didn’t believe he had a hell of a lot of things going for him. A second unit arrived and the cop I’d met at the courthouse got out.

The young guy with the military cut had on the same dark sunglasses. He stood cocky and sure, popping gum as he looked at me. His face had so many pits in it, it resembled pictures I’d seen of the moon.

“Thank God you’re here,” I said. “Officer Murphy and I were having a misunderstanding. I just know you’re here to straighten it out.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said. “Put the cuffs on him, Murphy. If he keeps talking, put a sock in his mouth.”

“‘O, speak to me no more; these words like daggers enter in my ears.’”

“What?” Murphy said.

“It’s a slick way of telling someone to keep quiet.”

They would arrest me no matter what I tried. I could kick both of them in the teeth, but they were dirty cops with guns drawn. When the dust settled, I’d be dead, and their version of the truth would win. I crossed my arms over my chest. It wasn’t much, but it was something. More cars zoomed past. The guys at the tire place hadn’t so much as turned their heads, finding threadbare tires a lot more interesting.

“Hands on top of the vehicle,” the pitted-faced cop said. “I got to frisk you before I cuff you.”

I shook my head and placed my hands on my Explorer. “Do me a favor?”

“What’s that?” the pitted-faced cop said. Murphy had sidled up to him and was giving the old stink eye.

“Be gentle,” I said. “I bruise easy.”

The young cop sighed and pulled the .38 I wore on my right hip. He handed it over to Murphy. Murphy called a wrecker for my Explorer and then I was chauffeured to the Blackburn Police Department.

25

They had me wait a great long while in a cinder-block room with a long table and four folding chairs. They’d taken away my phone, my .38, and my pen. I didn’t even have the pleasure of scrawling Officer Murphy Sux on top of the desk. My wrists were still cuffed.

So I sat there and waited. I paced a little bit, but the room was short and the pacing didn’t last long. I rolled my head around on my shoulders to loosen my neck. I thought about all the kids who’d probably waited in this same room. Dillon Yates, Van Tran, Jake Cotner, Ryan Bell, and Beth Golnick, who I thought wanted my help. I had little confidence there was any truth to anything the cops said. I imagined the city erecting a sign with a new town slogan: BLACKBURN, WHERE LIES ARE A WAY OF LIFE.

I wondered how Dillon was making out on Fortune Island.

I wondered if the Sox would return to the lovable bums of old.

I wondered if Bobby Talos would invite me to one of his yacht parties.

An hour later, Murphy opened the door and a man I assumed to be the chief walked into the room. He had receding gray hair and a wide florid face with bright blue eyes. He wore a blue uniform with four stars on each of his epaulets, an American-flag patch on one shoulder, and a patch that said CHIEF ARMSTRONG on the other. He sat down across from me without a word. He slipped on a pair of half-glasses he wore loose around his neck and read through a stapled report. His lips did not move as he read, which I took as a sign of middling intelligence.

When he finished, he carefully slid the paper to the middle of the desk. “What do you have to say for yourself, Spenser?”

“I’m a friend to dogs and bartenders everywhere,” I said. “Turnoffs are corruption and cops abusing their position. Especially for dirty judges.”

“Those are some big-time accusations,” Chief Armstrong said. “A lot to hear from a guy we caught cruising around with a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“I don’t start leering until they’re twenty-one,” I said. “Beth Golnick reached out to me. I met her regarding a case I’m working on.”

“I bet that piece of paper you carry around impresses these kids,” Armstrong said. “I understand you offered to let her polish your pistol.”

“I don’t mind waiting around for two hours in this craphole,” I said. “But there’s a quota to the bullshit I can hear in one day.”

“You weren’t making advances to Miss Golnick?” Armstrong said. He craned his head over his left shoulder to grin at Officer Murphy. Murphy’s big cheeks brightened with pleasure.

“Nope.”

“She appeared with her mother this morning,” Armstrong said. “The little girl was in tears. She said you told her you were a cop and needed her help to find out secrets about Judge Scali.”

“Jeez, you guys have it all figured out,” I said. “I think this is the part when you look at me over the top of your glasses and wait for me to quiver a bit. After you think I’m scared, good and scared, you kick me loose and tell me not to come back to these parts again.”

“No, sir,” Armstrong said. “You’re being charged with an attempted lewd act.”

“Don’t forget lascivious ,” I said. “You leave out the lascivious and the meaning of it all is shot to hell.”

Armstrong thumbed his nose. What was left of his hair was swept back in a large mound, exposing a lot of real estate on his forehead. He blinked at me a few times and pursed his lips. He thumped his fingers and then looked at me again.

“Who’s your client?” he said. “If you even have one.”

“You already know that,” I said. “You’re in cahoots with Officer Lorenzo.”

“What?”

“Cahoots,” I said.

“Are you trying to blackmail Judge Scali?”

I didn’t think that one deserved a response. I waited. Armstrong pushed the half-glasses farther up on his nose, read the report to himself again for emphasis, and then took off the glasses and looked up at me. “This will ruin your reputation,” he said. “No one will want to hire a guy with charges like this against him.”

“People have made up a lot of stories about me before,” I said. “It all works out.”

“I guess we’ll see,” he said, standing. I hadn’t moved. I sat very still and relaxed, keeping both Murphy and Armstrong in vision in case they tried anything.

Murphy reached into his pocket and handed over a digital recorder to the chief. The chief set it in the center of the table and pressed play. I recognized Beth Golnick’s voice immediately. She spoke calmly and without much emotion about our meeting last week. Some of it was true. Much of it wasn’t. A woman was asking her questions.

A: He offered to give me a ride to school.

Q: What did you say?

A: I said no. But he kept asking. He said he didn’t want the local cops to see us in public.

Q: Did he force you?

A: At first, no. He was quiet while we drove.

Q: When did he first touch you?

A: When we stopped near the school. He told me I was pretty. He touched my leg.

Q: And what did he say?

A: He asked me to do something for him.

I held up my hand. “Enough,” I said. “Not that I don’t enjoy the Lux Radio Theatre. Nicely done. I imagine this is what you had in mind when you arrested her in the first place. Really grand job. I have to hand it to you.”