Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

The point wasn’t to hurt me, it was to humiliate me. The soil was loose and sandy and he probably wasn’t even going fifteen miles an hour. The big fear was pieces of glass scattered across the lot, but the worst I got was the occasional scrape from small rocks. He was being careful without seeming to understand that simply by knocking me out he was already in trouble and probably on his way back to the state pen.

He went in wide circles. I didn’t try to get loose. That would give them too much pleasure.

He drove close enough to them so that they could spit on me, which they took the opportunity to do. But at least they didn’t hit my face. I imagined that my trousers and jacket were beyond even the healing powers of dry cleaning.

And then he decided to give me a little scare. He floored it. We tore across a long sandy patch that ended up near a creek at maybe forty miles an hour. Now there was pain.

Behind us the Devils were shouting and applauding.

And then it was over.

He shut off the ignition and shouted “Beers’re on me!” and then ran back to the crowd.

This was how the truly cool guy would handle himself. He had not given me any formal verbal recognition. He’d hit me, he’d dragged me around. But he hadn’t acknowledged me as a person in any other way.

And he still hadn’t.

They hailed their hero and then went back into the tavern, thunder of jukebox, unholy stench of toilet.

Leaving me to start the process of getting to my feet and untying myself. It didn’t take long and it wasn’t difficult. Restoring my dignity would be another matter altogether.

I was in the process of taking off my loafers and dumping the sand out when I heard the tavern door open. But I was already prepared for a return match.

Ray crutched his way over to me. “You all right?”

“All right? A tough guy like me?”

We both smiled at that one.

“He can be a real asshole sometimes.”

“I find that hard to believe, Ray. Seemed like a real nice fella to me.”

He moved a few feet closer for a better look at me. “No offense, but you sound kinda crazy.”

And I suppose I was. In a business like mine, whether I’m investigating for myself or the judge, you meet people who do their best to belittle you any way they can. I used to be able to deal with it. But as I got older I got tired of insults, innuendos, jibes. And when I got tired enough, I’d push back. These were almost always verbal battles.

But being punched out and dragged across a parking lot for the entertainment of a bunch of bikers — that was a special kind of debasement.

What I should’ve done was find a phone and call out the gendarmes to arrest him. And that had been my first impulse. But then I remembered that not only had I been humiliated, I hadn’t even done my job, which was to ask him about being spotted at the murder scene the other night.

Ray said, “Some of them’re afraid he’ll get sent back to prison.”

“Aw, that’d be too bad now, wouldn’t it?”

“They said to tell you he was only havin’ some fun was all.”

“A growing boy needs to have some fun, doesn’t he?” And right then I knew that I did sound crazy. That in my voice you could hear rage and tears that I couldn’t control. “I’ll tell you what, Ray. You go back in there and tell him to come out here by himself and we’ll talk.”

“You mean you might not get him sent up again?”

“We’ll see how it goes. Now you go back in there and tell him.”

He was still studying my face. He was still sensing how near being unhinged I was.

“Well, I’ll go tell him.”

“By himself, remember. And nobody else is to come out until I open the door. You got that?”

“I’m sorry this happened, Mr. McCain. I truly am.”

He stared at me a little more and then started working his pained way back to the tavern.

I flipped the trunk open, got what I needed, and when he went inside, positioned myself next to the door.

I knew I wouldn’t have much time. There was a back door, and a few of them would undoubtedly sneak out to back him up.

Like the good thug he was, he let some time go by. Get me nervous, uncertain, so he’d have the advantage when he strode through the door.

But I was neither nervous nor uncertain. I was crazy pissed is what I was.

And so when he was less than four feet from the door closing behind him, I moved.

He’d been looking straight ahead for me. By the time he decided to look to his left, I was bringing the tire iron down on the side of his head.

He did a cartoon take. He staggered backwards but for a second there he looked as if he was going to shrug it off, the way those professional wrestlers do after the opponent hits them with a chair.

He even gave me a little professional wrestler grin. But then blood bloomed on the spot where I’d hit him and his eyes got hazy and he collapsed. Just hit the ground in a pile of unwashed flesh, tattoos, and now free-flowing blood.

I just had time to drag him over to my ragtop before three of his buddies came running along the side of the building.

But they were too late. I had my .45 jammed into his face. He was still unconscious, sitting on the ground with his back to my passenger door.

“You boys go back inside. This is between us. If you stay inside for fifteen minutes, I won’t file any charges. I won’t even mention it to his parole officer. But if I see anybody before the fifteen minutes is up, I’ll have the cops out here and they’ll bust every one of you. Now get back inside.”

They had to sneer and threaten and make a show of it. But they knew they didn’t have any choice. One of them, the one most likely to have studied under Gandhi, flipped me the bird just before he disappeared into the stench inside.

It hadn’t taken much to calm me down. I’d hit him hard enough to draw blood and the sight of that blood was enough to pacify me.

As he came back to Planet Earth, I said, “Now I want you to tell me what you were doing out at Neville’s the other night.”

“Go to hell.”

Then I learned that I wasn’t quite as pacified as I’d thought. This time I pistol-slapped him right across the face and broke his nose. I hadn’t intended to, but fortune of war and all that.

He started crying. Not from the pain, I was pretty sure. But from the humiliation. He would have to go back inside and explain to them how somebody who weighed less than his left arm had knocked him out and then busted his nose.

“You’re gonna pay for this, McCain. You mother—”

And then I grabbed his hair and gave it a twist and raised him an inch or two from the ground. “Why were you out at Neville’s the other night?”

“I wasn’t! I wasn’t there!”

Screeching his words now. A good sign.

I gave his greasy hair another twist and then slammed his head against the door.

And then he collapsed. Emotionally. I let go of his hair. His head slumped. The blood was running faster and thicker from his head. He was snuffling up air through his busted nose. Crying and choking sometimes.

“You tell me the truth, I won’t press charges against you. And I mean the truth right now.”

“You bastard,” he said through the phlegm and blood.

“That’s not a good start. You want to try again?”

I was just about to step on his hand — sadism is a lot more fun than it sounds — when he said, The pictures.”

“The what?”

“The pictures. The photographs.”

“What photographs?”

“That we paid Neville to take of Phelps.”

“Phelps the cop?”

“Yeah.”

His nose was getting bloodier. I dug in my back pocket and pulled out my handkerchief. Tossed it on his lap. “Christmas came early.”