Steven Havill: Before She Dies

I saw Rod Ulibarri, the Posadas athletic director, plowing in from my right.

“Separate them out that way,” I shouted, and grabbed a shoulder. It belonged to a Posadas player, and I hauled him to his feet and shoved him backward so hard he lost his balance and crashed into the arms of a group of admirers. By the time Ulibarri and I had cleared five or six flailing bodies out of the path, I could tell we were about to reach the heart of the matter.

Then two things happened at once. My left foot hit a puddle of blood fresh from someone’s bashed nose and I slipped, crashing down on one knee. At the same time, someone grabbed me from behind. I weighed nearly 220, so whoever it was lost purchase, grabbing only a handful of Sam Brown belt and uniform shirt.

A hard wrench at my right side helped me regain my feet just as I realized with a stab of horror that my service revolver had been ripped from my holster. I turned and there was Sonny Trujillo, face flushed with excitement and who knew what pregame drug, holding the magnum out at arm’s length, muzzle pointed at my face.

A short scream off to my left was the only sound I remember hearing. At that instant Sonny Trujillo and I were alone in our own private universe. There could have been a full-fledged riot ripping the gym apart around us and I wouldn’t have noticed.

I locked eyes with Trujillo. He was a big, flabby kid whose favorite hobby was being a bully with the help of four or five friends. Now, his wide, ugly mouth was open with the delight of victory, with the realization that for once, he held all the cards.

He had reason to be delighted, of course. I, or someone in my department, had busted Sonny enough times that his rap sheet read like an index of every two-bit misdemeanor ever written… nothing very creative, since he and his buddies didn’t have enough brains for that. But in that moment, with my.357 magnum clutched in his grimy, coke-and-popcorn sticky hand, Sonny wrote himself a new chapter.

“Don’t be stupid,” I barked. That was a waste of breath, since Sonny Trujillo was nothing if not stupid. I held out my right hand. “Give it to me.” We became a stage show, playing in front of a live, paying audience.

“You’re dead, shithead,” Sonny said. He screwed up his face and pulled the trigger. The magnum’s hammer clicked on the empty cylinder at the same time that someone to my right yelped in terror.

I grabbed the revolver barrel with my left hand, yanking hard and twisting at the same time. Sonny didn’t release the gun in time to save his trigger finger from snapping at the knuckle. He staggered toward me and swung a clumsy fist at my head, connecting hard enough to break my glasses. Bright lights flashed and in reflex I lashed out, punching him squarely on the tip of the nose.

He collapsed in a heap, blood streaming down his face. His hand came loose from the magnum and I grabbed the revolver by the barrel like a club and spun around.

“Now the rest of you get off the floor,” I roared. I heard a siren off in the distance, but backup wasn’t going to be necessary. The combatants had had enough. I was sure that the sight of the crazy old cop with his blood-spattered potbelly and his handgun on the loose was enough to squelch the fun.

Arriving out of the crowd too late to do any good, Patrolman Pasquale grabbed Trujillo by the shoulders and spun him around so that the youth sprawled on his face. Trujillo howled in agony as his hands were twisted behind his back and cuffed. His mangled index finger pointed off in a direction of its own.

I tried to bend the frames of my glasses so they’d stay on my nose, then flinched as yet another blast of bright, white light filled the gym. I looked to my left and groaned. It wasn’t Trujillo’s blow to my thick skull that had produced lights. It was the electronic flash from reporter Linda Real’s press camera.

The sight of Sonny Trujillo, broken, bleeding, and in handcuffs, was enough to sober both sides. Glen Archer asked if I thought the game should be canceled, and I said no-hell, they might as well finish the stupid thing.

No one asked why my revolver had failed to fire. Maybe they hadn’t had the muzzle-eye view I had had. Maybe they hadn’t seen the hammer snap back and then forward.

By ten, the floor was clear, the teams were facing the toss, and Sonny Trujillo was in the county jail with every charge imaginable-and even some that weren’t-levied against him. Patrolman Pasquale had wanted the honor of booking the woodchuck. Why he thought paperwork was exciting I didn’t know, but I told him to have at it and that I’d be back in the office after the game to write up a statement.

That would give the doctor time to clean up Trujillo’s messy face and make sure that he wasn’t bleeding to death from my sock to his nose.

I watched the last few minutes of the game in relative peace. Posadas finally put that dog to bed, rolling up a forty-point margin.

The gym emptied at 11:05 and I breathed deeply as I walked toward 310, trying to purge popcorn fumes from my lungs. A second county car had pulled in behind mine, and Sergeant Robert Torrez got out when he saw me trudging down the sidewalk.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“I made sure Trujillo was behind bars, then I came on up,” he said. “I thought I should kinda stand by close.”

“The next one’s yours, bud.” I watched as the Wittner buses rolled by. There were no heads sticking out of windows, no shouts, no errant fingers. They hadn’t even stayed long enough after the game to take showers. It was going to be a delightful ride home.

“You want me to follow them out of town?” Torrez asked.

“Nah, they’ll be all right. No point in encouraging all the story-tellers. It’s going to be bad enough as it is.”

“Is it true what Pasquale said happened?”

I looked at Torrez and raised an eyebrow. “That depends on what he said.”

“That Trujillo had your gun.”

“That part’s true.”

The deputy had the good grace not to ask how I’d managed to lose the weapon in the first place.

“And he said you broke Trujillo’s finger when you wrenched the gun away from him.”

“That’s also true. And then he took a swing at me and broke my glasses. I punched him in the face. That ended that. Except I’ll probably end up being sued for fifty-million dollars by the son of a bitch’s parents.”

Torrez leaned against the front fender of his car. “Dang,” he said, as close to cursing as he was apt to come.

“What else did Pasquale say?”

“That he didn’t know as he’d have had the nerve to reach out and grab the weapon the way you did.”

I gathered the six cartridges and pulled them out of my pocket. “It’s pretty easy when you know the gun’s not loaded, Robert.”

Torrez stared at the ammunition and then a slow grin spread across his face. “Oh,” he said.

“Oh, is right. Did Pasquale remember to call someone to check Trujillo? To set his finger and stop up his nose?”

Torrez nodded. “Dr. Perrone was just finishing up with him when I left to come down here.” He managed to keep a straight face when he added, “Pasquale said someone from the newspaper was there and photographed the whole thing.”

“Yes.” The last of the traffic was clearing the lot. I stepped down off the curb and unlocked 310. “We can always hope she ruins the film in processing.”

Torrez grinned again. Levity wasn’t one of his strong suits, and two smiles in one evening was something of a record for him. “I guess Sheriff Holman will have all kinds of strokes tomorrow, then.”

“Serious ones,” I said. Martin Holman was as sensitive about bad press as any politician facing an election year could be. But something in the deputy’s tone made me pause. I pulled the handheld radio off my belt and tossed it on the seat of 310. “Is there something else I should know, Roberto?”