Paul Levine - Mortal Sin

Alachua spoke first, drawing my attention to him. “Mr. Lassiter, we must ask you to take a roadside sobriety test.”

“What for? Was I driving erratically? Was I speeding? Why was I stopped?”

Lawyers are trained to ask questions.

With amazing agility, the other cop turned away and spun around, his back facing us as he unleashed his right foot in an explosive kick that shattered the right rear brake light on the old Dodge. The ushiro mawashi-geri, the back roundhouse kick in karate, impressive because it’s delivered blind. “Faulty equipment,” he answered.

Then he faced me directly and smiled, and a chill went through me. The same short dark hair, the same broad shoulders, the same short, powerful legs.

“Jim Tiger! You’re a policeman?”

“Captain Tiger,” he responded calmly, the smile gone, replaced by the familiar taciturn expression of the guy with few words but a sharp machete. “Now, are you going to voluntarily submit to the sobriety test, or do we take you in?”

“In where? Where’s your station?”

“Back at the village, though sometimes we take a short cut through the saw-grass prairie.”

“That wouldn’t be a short cut,” I said. “The village is a straight shot west on the Trail.”

Tiger turned toward Alachua. “Mr. Lassiter wants to teach us geography.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’ve made your point. I’m not welcome in your territory. Fine. I’ll head home.” I started to move toward the cab of the pickup, but Alachua grabbed my shoulder. I could have shaken him off. I could have pivoted with my left foot and caught him in the gut with a hook. I could have done a lot of things, but I just stopped and looked at Jim Tiger. I was big and strong, but he was cruel and vicious. I could hit hard, but he could kill and do it without blinking, do it calmly and dispassionately. “I’ll take the sobriety test,” I said.

Tiger reached into his back pocket and smiled again. That made two in one night. He pulled out a silver flask that glittered in the headlights, blue sparks flying from the metal with each revolution of the police car’s light. He unscrewed the cap and offered me a drink.

“No, thanks. I never drink when my constitutional rights are being violated.”

“Drink it!”

I took the flask and sniffed at it. Cheap bourbon or something like it. “Who you saving the good stuff for, Jose Canseco?”

I considered the alternatives. Alachua still had his hand on his gun. Tiger still held his nightstick. In the movies, the hero would toss the whiskey in one bad guy’s face and kick the other one in the balls. But in the movies, they choreograph it. The second bad guy has the reflexes of a mollusk. He stands by and allows the hero to take out the first bad guy before being surprised himself. In real life, two against one is just a shitty bet. I took a short swig, letting a little of the warm liquid into my mouth but plugging the bottle’s opening with my tongue.

“More!” Tiger ordered. “Drink it all.”

Again, I sipped at the flask. “ Hmmm, good. Firewater strong medicine.” It was a line I thought Henry Osceola would like.

Jim Tiger didn’t share the chairman’s sense of humor. “Do you think Native Americans are funny?”

On the road, a pair of eighteen-wheelers rumbled past, kicking up dust clouds in the glare of the headlights.

“No. I just make bad jokes when I’m scared.”

“Mr. Florio was wrong about you. He said you were smarter than you looked.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Is there anything you want to tell us before we get on with this?”

“Did you hear the one about the bosomy blonde who was trying on dresses with plunging necklines?” I asked, stalling for time. They both stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “She asks the saleswoman if the dress she had on was too low-cut. ‘Do you have hair on your chest?’ the saleswoman says. ‘No, of course not,’ the woman responds. ‘Then it’s too low-cut.’”

“That’s enough!” Tiger shouted. “Drink it. Drink the whole thing. Now!”

I leaned my head back and let it flow. The whiskey was warm and raw in my throat. It was still gurgling down when I sensed movement in front of me.

A blur.

Oomph.

Tiger’s left fist plunged deep into my gut, and I spit whiskey all over my herringbone suit. I dropped to a knee, gasping. It wasn’t the hardest I’d ever been hit. It wasn’t the hardest I’d been hit today, but I wasn’t going to tell Tiger that.

I was sucking in air, and Tiger was talking. “Faulty equipment, driving under the influence, and resisting arrest. Get to your feet.”

I pulled myself up, using the rear gate of the pickup for leverage. I was huffing and puffing, but part of it was an act. Playing possum. Enough of the scaredy-cat.

“Cuff him,” Tiger ordered. He had backed up a step.

Alachua took his hand off his gun and reached behind his back to find the handcuffs. I needed a step to get to Tiger, but I didn’t want to leave my feet by lunging at him. I didn’t knowhow much quick I had left after having the wind knocked out of me, but I didn’t have a choice. I took the stutter-step on wobbly knees, feinted with the left, hoping to bring the nightstick in that direction, so I could have a clear shot with a short right at his jaw.

I didn’t get within two feet. Tiger saw me coming and lifted the nightstick toward my chest. It never touched me, but a green explosion caught me square in the sternum, a fluorescent flash that knocked my feet out from under me and sat me on my ass.

I didn’t see stars.

Stars would have been better.

My legs were noodles, my arms paralyzed. My teeth felt loose. My tongue was swollen, and my ears were playing Mozart’s Turkish March. I felt wet and clammy. I looked down. I had pissed my pants.

“Whoa, baby!”

It was Alachua. He was cackling. “Whoa, baby!” Over and over, or was it just bonging back and forth in my brain?

He cackled again. “Never saw the Zap Stick used before on a person. Holy shit.”

“Twenty thousand volts will do that,” Tiger said.

I was aware of the noise. A droning whir.

It made me want to sleep. Maybe I was in bed. But my head seemed to be bouncing off a metal floor. Cold metal. And that noise. It made my jaw ache. Or was that the cold?

I felt myself shiver. Trying to sit up now. Jerked back down again, my right arm refusing to follow the rest of me. Shaking my arm. A rattling. My wrist cuffed to a cold, rusted railing.

Above me, the moon. The sensation of movement. Fast. I listened to the droning whir. I propped myself up on one elbow and looked over a low railing. I was right. We were moving. Flying through a wheat field.

No, not a wheat field. A jungle, maybe. I’d been here before, but when? I couldn’t remember. A splash of water came over the rail and smacked me in the face. I tried sitting up. In a chair above me, a shadowy figure with his hand on what looked like a rudder. I started to say something. With his other hand, he picked up what looked like…no, not that again. I remember that.

The world exploded into green fluorescence.

Somebody said something. What was it?

“He smells boozy and pissy. Like my old abuelo. ”

I wasn’t flying anymore. No more water. I cracked my eyes open. I was lying facedown on a smooth wooden floor. It smelled of clean, fresh varnish. I wanted to lie there awhile.

“Are we going to wait for the boss?”

A different voice. Familiar. I’d have to roll over to see who. The last time I rolled over, somebody put me back to sleep.

“ El jefe’s busy making money. He gave me the papers, but he should be here in time for the closing.”

A chuckle. “The closing. I like that.”