Brad Parks - The Good Cop

“We probably got a lot of people who don’t like us,” the cop replied, annoyed. “What’s your point?”

“What if I served up two of them for you?”

“Depends who you’re talking about.”

“Some newspaper reporters. Couple of crackers.”

Famous had come up with this plan while he had been listening to his boys arrange this deal and was pleased with himself for it. It was the perfect double-cross. Especially since it would allow him to get payment out of both sides.

Little did Famous know just how pleased the cop would be to hear it, that as soon as he said those words-“newspaper reporters”-he had the officer’s attention. All the associates at Red Dot Enterprises knew full well about Carter Ross and the problem he presented.

“How are you going to serve them up?”

“’Cause I know where they’re gonna be.”

“And where’s that?”

“Depends,” Famous rasped. “What’s it worth to you?”

“It’s worth me not sticking a PR-24 up your ass the next time I see you out on that corner, Raynard, that’s what it’s worth to me.”

“I ain’t playin’ like that, Officer,” Famous said. “Have a nice day.”

“Wait, wait,” the cop said. “Talk to me. What do you want? You want a gun? I got some nines and some twenty-twos. Just came in. Brand-new.”

“Nah, man, I don’t want that kid stuff. I want me a Dirty Harry gun, a big ol’ forty-pounder. Something with some punch to it.”

“Fine, we can do that. It won’t be new, but I can get something out of the locker for you.”

“Yeah. And the next time me or one of my boys gets jammed up, we friends, right?”

“Yeah, nothing too big, but I think we can handle that.”

They made the arrangements, agreeing that when the cops saw Famous walk out of the store and light a cigar, it meant the deal was on.

And just like that, Carter Ross had been sold out. For a used gun and a get-out-of-jail-free card.

What had felt like a sanctuary-my little perch, wedged between solid objects and out of sight-was now my personal mousetrap. I was too hunched down to even think about vaulting over the magazine rack or trying to run. And I suppose that menacing hunk of black composite in Officer Hightower’s right hand made it all something of a moot point anyway.

With his nongun hand, he grasped the upper right corner of the magazine rack and swept it haphazardly out of the way until it ended up leaning at a forty-five degree angle against the bread display. He walked into what had been my box and grabbed a fistful of shirt and tie. His hand was roughly the size of an octopus, and he used it to pull me to my feet with a quick, effortless yank.

“Lace your fingers behind your head, sir. You are under arrest,” he snarled.

I turned to look at the Sikh in the box, to begin protesting the injustice that was about to transpire in his store. But the Sikh wasn’t visible. Bulletproof glass or no, he had probably ducked down the moment he saw that gun come out. He was a shrugger, after all. He didn’t want to be involved.

Hightower dragged me, stumbling, into the aisle, trained the gun at me, and repeated, “Fingers behind your head, sir, nice and slow.”

Since I didn’t have much choice, I complied with the order. “Two steps forward,” he ordered, and I did it.

Just as Hightower went to walk behind me, I saw his nameplate for the first time: LeRioux.

Officer LeRioux. Maybe in Louisiana that wouldn’t be a terribly unusual last name. But up here, there was only one other LeRioux I could think of having met.

“LeRioux,” I said. “I feel like I’ve seen that name on a few billboards around here.”

“Yeah, I heard you met my dad,” Hightower said and began handcuffing me roughly, slamming metal against bone with vicious delight.

His dad. Of course. They were both unusually tall, and now that I knew about the connection, I could see they bore some resemblance. It had just been hard to see because one was a uniformed cop and the other was a pastor in two-thousand-dollar suits.

But it made sense. Pastor Al had started his noisy, blustery call for an independent investigation, then had suddenly backed off-probably right around the time his son came crawling around, explaining to dear old dad that maybe some stones were better left unturned.

From there, the elder LeRioux had been acting more like a father protecting his guilty son and less like a pastor aiding his grief-stricken parishioner. That was the real reason he had instructed Mimi Kipps to avoid me. He knew she would just help me stir the pot, and he didn’t want that. Even when he showed up at her house moments before the BMF wannabes came cruising by, that was likely because Hightower-having used LoJack to tip off BMF as to my whereabouts-had told Dad that perhaps it was best to remove Mimi from the scene of the crime.

By the time I had all that figured out, Hightower had finished fastening the cuffs behind my back. I looked across the store and saw Ruthie was getting the same treatment, only his arresting officer was another familiar figure-Baldy Jones.

“You get that report written on my car yet, Officer Bryson Jones?” I called out. “What about that gun with the red dot on it? You put it in the evidence locker yet, or did you just sell that to some thug on your way back to the station?”

Hightower thumped the butt of his palm into the back of my head hard enough I thought my skull was going to separate from my spinal column. “Shut up!” he yelled.

“Oh my goodness, what have we here,” Baldy called out, holding up a freezer-size Ziploc bag filled with a white substance. “It looks like this gentleman had a big ol’ bag of heroin. I bet he’s going to go away for a long time, selling this much heroin.”

“That’s not-” Ruthie started, but I couldn’t hear the rest of it because Hightower was yelling in my ear.

“Not as long as this guy,” he bellowed. “Look at all the rock I found on him.”

Without bothering to look, I could guess that Hightower had magically found crack cocaine on me. Because, yeah, I always like to carry a few hundred grams on me. Gets me through the day when I need a little pick-me-up.

“Crack and heroin. Looks like these punks had a major distribution network set up,” Baldy shot back. “Good thing we got them off the streets.”

Baldy shoved Ruthie out the door. Hightower and I soon followed. I was slowly overcoming the shock of having my perfect hiding spot discovered and was reaching the obvious conclusion: the corner boys had flipped on us. I had even paid them five hundred dollars to do it. And that was on top of whatever they were getting out of the cops.

As if to confirm this fact, I heard the grating, raspy sound of Famous laughing at me as I was herded out on the sidewalk.

“See you later, Mr. Newspaper Hustler,” he said, the Black amp; Mild dangling from the side of his mouth. “Have fun with the five-o.”

Blocking him out, I did a scan of the sidewalk and nearby area, hoping to see a bystander gawking at me. A grandma. A workingman. A schoolkid. There had to be someone normal passing by at this time of the day, someone who might just listen when I screamed that I was a newspaper reporter being wrongly imprisoned by corrupt cops; someone who would act when I hollered for them to call Tina Thompson, the state police, the attorney general, or some combination of the three.

But there was no one in sight. The Fourth Precinct building was maybe forty yards away. And having been shoved off the sidewalk and onto the street, I could see that was where I was being led.