Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

Franklin and I looked at each other and nodded. This one was taking a little ride to the station, then maybe later to a nice padded cell somewhere.

“It’s not going to work,” he said. “You picked the wrong man this time.”

The gun came out before either of us could react, before we could even think of reacting. He moved with such insect quickness, I swear he was pointing it at us before we even heard the tape tearing underneath the table.

It was an Uzi. In a few years, Uzis would become a cliche, but in 1984, they were still a novelty. Every coke soldier wanted one. They showed us an Uzi at roll call once. The gun was made in Israel. It shot 950 rounds per minute, little nine-millimeter pistol bullets, with full metal jackets. And it didn’t sound any louder than a sewing machine.

“Mr. Rose,” I said slowly, “put the weapon down.” Both of my hands were on the table. Franklins arms were still folded. I didn’t know which one of us could reach his holster first. Or if we’d even have the chance.

“Tell me who sent you,” he said.

We both looked at the Uzi. I’m sure Franklin was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Although he had even more to lose than I did. He had two daughters, three and five years old. You want to see your family again. You don’t want to die in a crazy man’s apartment just because he thinks you’re his secret enemy.

“Mr. Rose,” I said. I tried to breathe. “We’ll tell you whatever you want. I promise you. Just put the weapon down, please.”

“I found this, you know,” he said.

He looked down at the gun for a split second. A cold shiver ran up my back. It wasn’t enough time to go for my gun. I needed him to look away for just an instant longer. Just give me a chance. If you’re really crazy, do something crazy. Go into a trance or something.

“I found this in an alley,” he said. “After one of your friends killed somebody. He didn’t see me there, but I was watching. He threw it into a Dumpster. Very sloppy.”

“Mr. Rose,” Franklin said. His voice was almost a whisper. “Please …”

“Don’t talk to me,” he said. He pointed the gun at Franklin’s chest. “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

Franklin swallowed.

“Now you,” he said, looking back at me. “Tell me how you did it. How did you turn white?”

“I’ll tell you after you put the gun down,” I said. “Just put it right there on the table.” Right hand down, unsnap the revolver, bring it back up. How long will it take? Should I just do it?

He shook his head. “Well, this is quite a situation,” he said. “Now I won’t know what color you are. I was afraid this might happen.”

Hand down, unsnap, raise and fire. Reach, rip, boom. I rehearsed the motion in my mind, hoping maybe I could shave off a fraction of a second. Hand down, unsnap, raise, and fire. Reach, rip, boom.

“You know, I’ve learned a lot at the hospital, doing my undercover work. At first, I didn’t want the assignment, but I was told that the chosen one needed me to be there on the front lines. I was told that the chosen one needed to know how the enemy killed people. What the latest techniques were. So we could develop the right defense.”

Franklin sat motionless beside me. I can’t do this. If I move, he’ll shoot me. I won’t even get close to my gun. He has to look away. Please look away, just for a second.

“You know what really gets to me?” he said. “You’re trying so hard to find the best way to kill people, you’re even killing each other. Is that just for practice?”

Silence. I looked into his eyes. It was like looking down a mine shaft and seeing all the way down to hell.

“You have no respect for life, do you?” he said. “The chosen one says that if something has no respect for life, then killing that something is not really killing. Especially if you use the same technique that they use. That’s the key.”

Silence. How could I have taken one look at those eyes and not known? I should have cuffed him the minute I walked in.

“So I’m not really going to kill you.”

“Mr. Rose…” I said.

“I’m going to remove you. That’s what the chosen one calls it. He calls it removing.”

“Mr. Rose…”

He moved the Uzi a few inches closer to us. “And do you know what the latest technique is?” he said.

Go for his gun? Knock it sideways? I looked at his hand. Is it tensed? Will he shoot if I make a move for it?

“Of course you know,” he said. “You all do. It happens almost every day. I’ve seen it in the hospital. I heard the doctors talk about it.”

You’re going to have to make a move. You’re going to have to risk it.

“‘Here comes another zip,’ they say. ‘How many zip’s is that this week? Five already?’”

“Mr. Rose…” I said. One more try to talk him out of it. Then I move.

“It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” he said. “Zip!”

I knew what a zip was. Franklin did, too. We had seen a lot of them that summer. The coke dealers would zip a guy if he moved in on his turf, or if he didn’t pay him soon enough, or if he just looked at him the wrong way. You take an Uzi and you give the guy a quick burst right down the middle of his body. Twenty, maybe thirty rounds from his head right down to his pecker. That’s a zip.

Move. Move now. Go for his gun. Now. Now!

I didn’t move.

He shot Franklin. Right down the front of him. The Uzi spat out the bullets with a sound like a cat purring. I went for my revolver. I felt the bullets hit me in the right shoulder. I didn’t know how many. I felt them all at once, like when a rising fastball glances off your mitt and catches you in the shoulder. I heard the sound of my gun going off, the man named Rose screaming.

I was on the floor, next to Franklin. He was still alive. Just for a moment. I saw his eyes looking at me and then he wasn’t there anymore. I tried to reach for my radio. There was blood on my hands, on my face, in my eyes. Blood everywhere.

I said something into the radio. I don’t remember what. I lay there on the floor and looked at the ceiling. There was a hole there. I didn’t get him. When the bullets hit me I shot straight up into the ceiling. Why did he scream? Did the sound scare him? Did he run away? How many times did he shoot me? How long until I die?

And why didn’t he put aluminum foil on the ceiling? All four walls, but not the ceiling? I looked over at Franklin again. I kept looking at him until everything went black.

“ Goddamn it, McKnight,“ Maven said. “Why didn’t you go for your weapon when he first drew on you?” He had been listening to me in silence as I told him the story. He was driving the squad car. I was sitting in the passenger seat. My voice had been the only sound in the car, all the way from Paradise to the Soo. We were almost at the police station. The sun had just started to turn the eastern sky from black to ruddy gray.

I went through a whole list of things to say to him. Places he could stick it. Things he could do to himself. Finally, I just said, “I don’t know why.”

He shook his head. We passed by an old warehouse building. Half of the windows were broken. Under the cheap light of a street lamp a cat sat licking its paws, oblivious to our passing. “So you’re telling me,” he said, “this guy has found you how many years later?”

“Fourteen years,” I said.

“All the cops you got in Detroit, you never caught the guy?”

“Well, Chief,” I said. “You see, that’s the part I haven’t told you yet.”

“What part?”

“We did catch the guy. About six months later.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They caught him hanging around another hospital across town. I had just left the force, but I came back in to identify him. I testified at his trial.”