Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

“No,” he said in that calm, level voice of his. “No, I want to come over. I want to see it for myself. Maybe I can even help you do it. That is, if you really want my help—”

“I can take care of it myself, thank you very much.”

“I’m not so sure. You sound chicken to me.”

“Chicken?” I said. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

“What’s your name?” he asked, unfazed by my suggestion.

“Tom,” I said.

“Tom what?”

“Just Tom, okay? I don’t want you reporting me.”

“I’m not going to report you. You can trust me, Tom. My name’s Ray. I’m your friend Ray. I’m here to help you.”

“Lot of help you’ve given me so far, pal.”

“I have,” Ray said. “Only you just don’t appreciate it. Now why don’t you tell me where you live? I want to come over.”

“As long as you promise not to interfere,” I said.

“Oh, I won’t,” Ray said. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I gave him my address. He said he lived only fifteen blocks away and could be there in ten minutes. We hung up.

I laid out some newspaper and started cleaning my gun.

“Why a nine-millimeter?” Ray asked from across my kitchen table. He was my age, with an altogether too intense look in his eyes. “Why not a revolver? Revolvers never jam. You never would have had this problem. You never would have had to call me.”

“If you must know,” I said, carefully reloading seventeen live rounds into the clip, “I really believed the nine-millimeter was the way to go. Right after I joined the academy, the department had just changed regulations to allow us to carry something more powerful than a thirty-eight.”

“Thirty-eight Special,” Ray beamed. “Standard police issue.”

“Yeah, in the old days,” I said. “Most of us supported the change, but the old-timers were opposed. They kept nagging at us that semiautos were unreliable and prone to jamming.”

“See?” Ray said. “They knew whereof they spoke!”

“They were so scared of the change, they drummed up other reasons. They thought that we youngsters would lose control and empty our clips into every unlucky punk who crossed our path.”

“Did they switch?”

“No. They kept their thirty-eight Specials. Switching would be like ending a love affair. Most of us under forty went for the nine-millimeters, though. We were the ones facing the front-line action. The gangstas were outgunning us, with AK-forty-sevens, sometimes. We had to be on as equal a footing as possible.”

“Thus the Glock,” Ray said admiringly. “It is nice, Tom.”

“Thanks. My Glock and I have been through a lot together. I had to use it once to stop a sixteen-year-old kid who was armed with a beautiful silvery Colt Double Eagle ten-millimeter.”

“Do tell!”

“The kid had just robbed a liquor store. I identified myself and asked him to drop his weapon. He refused to do so. He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, I guess, and I had little choice but to oblige him.”

“Good for you,” Ray said with a gleam in his eye.

“Ever since, I wished he could have got a bead on me and let fly. Anything to make it seem less like an execution. But to do that, he would have had to have had at least a few shells in his gun. Once the kid was down, we examined his Colt, and we found his magazine just as empty as mine was after I’d shot him.”

“Oh, too bad!” Ray pouted his lips. “Poor Tom!”

“It only takes a second holding that trigger down to let all those slugs come spewing out. I thought I only let him have a few, but the count we did of his chest came up seventeen.”

“Wow!” Ray said. “And you didn’t get in any trouble?”

“Of course not,” I said. “It was all okay. I’d done what I had to do to protect my fellow officers and the citizenry. My captain, Captain Feliciano, said, ‘Good work, son,’ and gave me this big slap on the back. ‘Don’t sweat it,’ he said. ‘He was asking for it, and you gave it to him. Go home and take a nice long shower. You’ll feel fine by tomorrow. ‘”

“Your captain sounds like my kind of guy,” Ray said. “Was he right? Did you feel okay about it the next day?”

“Sure, I felt fine. I mean really fine. I believed what my captain said. I’d done my duty. If the kid’s gun had been loaded, I might have gotten a commendation for saving the lives of all those pedestrians standing outside the store to watch all the fireworks. Officer Grant to the rescue. Handshake from the chief. Kudos from the mayor. Champagne all around.”

“Tell me about the other times,” Ray said huskily.

So I told him about the high-speed pursuit up the FDR Drive, when we managed to bring the driver to a stop, and I stayed by my vehicle to cover my partner while he approached the car, and the driver leapt out brandishing a Rossi 851 .38 Special in blued steel. I had no choice but to bring him down. Captain Feliciano later agreed with my course of action, and everything was okay.

Then there was the out-of-control traffic incident, when a Sikh taxi driver cut off a Jamaican bike messenger at a stoplight, and the messenger retaliated by shattering the driver’s side window with his bike lock and beating the driver across the turban with it, and the bloodied driver reached under his seat and pulled out a bright stainless Colt King Cobra .357 Magnum and aimed it at the messenger’s head with a shaky trigger finger. I was on the corner and calling for backup when I saw the gun. I pulled out my Glock, identified myself as a police officer, and told the Sikh to throw down his weapon. I gave him more time than I should have, really, but he kept the gun trained on the messenger. Again, I had no choice. I shot the driver dead and charged the messenger with assault as well as criminal damage to property. We later learned that the driver never understood a word of English, but Captain Feliciano insisted that I’d done the right thing. He even bought me a beer.

“I think this captain of yours has the hots for you,” Ray said. “He lets you get away with murder because he wants to get into your pants.”

“Feliciano? No. If you knew him, you wouldn’t say that.”

“Yes I would,” Ray said. “Isn’t that reason enough to go through with killing yourself? I mean, doesn’t that just disgust you? You’ve killed all these people in the line of duty, and you don’t even get any suspensions or reprimands because your captain thinks you’re a dish. Believe me. I may never have met him, but I know human nature. You’re his little buddy, his one special boy. He goes home at night and dreams of you, Tom.”

“I doubt that.” I laughed nervously. “Feliciano’s married.”

“As if that meant anything! Tom, don’t be so naive!”

“I left him a suicide note,” I said.

“You did?” Ray’s dark eyebrows rose. “Can I see it?”

“It’s sealed, taped to the bathroom mirror.”

Ray got up.

“No!” I said. “I told you, it’s sealed.”

“So we’ll reseal it!” Ray said, heading for the bathroom.

“It’s for his eyes only,” I said, getting up and going after him. I don’t want you reading it!”

“I bet it’s a love letter!” Ray shot ahead of me.

“It is not!”

Ray got to the mirror first and snatched the middle envelope of the three, the one clearly addressed to Captain Feliciano.

“Ha-ha!” Ray said, backing up to stand in the bathtub. “I’ve got it.” He ripped open the envelope, started reading it, and began to laugh. “Oh, this is great! I love suicide notes!”

“Give it to me!” I said, reaching out for it.

Ray snatched it away and started reading it aloud:

“ ‘Dear Tony’ — Tony, eh? You two are that buddy-buddy? You don’t call him captain? Oh, well, never mind — ‘Dear Tony, What you see is the end result of my wasted life. I don’t know what ever kept me going this long. I guess it was you. You were always there for me when the going got tough. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I would have even lasted this far.’ — Oh, Tom, this is a riot! — ‘But it’s all catching up with me, Tony. I’m a bad cop, and you know it. I can’t walk into any situation without my gun going off and leaving somebody dead. No matter what you say, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Someone should have taken me off into a room somewhere and punished me.’ — Oh, now you’re asking Captain Tony for a spanking! Tom’s been a bad boy! — ‘I don’t deserve to wear this badge. But what else can I do? This was my last chance. If I’m a failure at this, I’ll be a failure at everything else. I’ve failed at life. I’ve got no choice but to end it. Sorry for being such a screwup. Don’t bother sending flowers to the funeral. Save the money for yourself and Stella. Good-bye forever— Tom.’ ”