Linwood Barclay: Stone Rain

Some cops exchanged awkward glances.

“Now, Leo, you pretend to be a mental patient coming at me, with a knife, perhaps.”

Lesley had slipped away a few moments earlier and was off to the side, ready with her camera.

“Sure.” Leo took a few steps back, paused, put his fingers to his temples for a second, as if getting himself in the moment, and then he charged.

“Ahhh!” he shouted. “I’m crazy!”

Lesley was taking pictures as Gary Merker raised his Dropper stun gun and fired.

The streams of water were so small, and came out so quickly, that I almost didn’t see them. But the results were immediately apparent. There was a brief crackling noise as they hit Leo, and his body went into an immediate spasm, dropping instantly. Lesley moved in for a better shot. Given Leo’s size, there was quite a “fwump!” when he hit the mat. Everyone recoiled, wondering whether Gary had just murdered his associate and we would all be called upon as witnesses.

“You see!” said Merker. “Instant capitulation! And if I wanted to, I’d be able to shoot again immediately!”

Leo just lay there. Lesley got off a couple more shots.

“Uh,” said the woman cop who’d asked a question earlier, “is he okay?”

Leo was still not moving.

“Leo!” Merker shouted.

His face still pressed into the mat, Leo said, “Errr.”

“He just needs another minute,” Merker said. Slowly, Leo moved one of his arms, then another, and then he was slowly moving up onto his knees as most of his audience held their breath. With care, he got back onto his feet and dusted himself off.

Everyone, myself included, applauded. We were just relieved, I think, that he wasn’t dead.

“Of course,” Merker said, continuing his sales pitch, “during the period when he was down, law officers would have been able to cuff Leo, to subdue him. All you need is a few seconds to bring a suspect under control.” Merker walked over to Leo, put a hand on his shoulder while Lesley got an “after” shot. Merker gave her an annoyed look. “So, that’s twenty-eight times now. How are you feeling?”

“Absolutely,” Leo said.

A uniformed cop, a tall black man, stepped forward. “Mr. Merker, I’m the president of this police association, and we have a board that’s very hesitant about the use of these sorts of weapons. Has it been the experience of many other large city police departments that while stun guns are designed to be used in special circumstances to stop a suspect without actually killing him, once police have them, they start using them indiscriminately on suspects? Because their use is not fatal, officers aren’t just using them on dangerous psychiatric patients. Aren’t they using them on everyone from kids playing hooky to jaywalkers?”

It was an interesting comment, given who it was coming from. The police union head seemed pretty skeptical.

Merker was rubbing his nose again, one nostril in particular, like something inside there was really annoying him. He set his eyes on the questioner, almost accusingly. “Well, I guess if you’re saying that you think your own members aren’t responsible enough to handle these things,…well, then I guess you’ve got a problem.” There was some grumbling in the crowd, and I wasn’t sure whether it was directed at Merker or the union president. “Listen, I’m just here selling the hardware. I can give you guys good deals on these if you’re interested. If you don’t want them for yourselves, maybe you’d like to buy them for members of your family.”

Lesley was back beside me. “Got some awesome shots,” she said. “Did you see that guy go down?”

I nodded. “I thought he was dead there for a second.”

Three or four cops approached Merker after he finished his pitch, but I didn’t see anyone buying anything. As long as the stun guns were not being approved by the police commission, the cops would have to be buying them out of their own pocket.

“What if I could save you another fifty bucks?” I heard Merker tell one officer, but he still had no takers.

We found ourselves standing behind Gary Merker and his associate Leo Edgars at the elevator a couple of minutes later.

Merker turned and pointed to me. “You’re not a cop.”

“We’re with the Metropolitan,” I said, and offered a hand. Merker didn’t even look at it. “We came to cover your demonstration.”

“I didn’t know the press was going to be here,” he said. “I don’t think you should be doing a story about this.”

I shrugged. “That’s really not up to you,” I said. “The police let us in.”

“Come on, Gary,” said Leo, who was in the elevator and holding the door open. “I’m starving. You know gettin’ electrocuted makes me really hungry.”

Gary Merker was still steamed and shook his head in anger and frustration. Before getting on the elevator, he slipped a finger in and out of his nose at lightning speed, then flicked it at me. “That’s what I think of your fucking story,” he said.

The elevator doors closed. Lesley Carroll looked stunned. “Welcome to the newspaper biz,” I said to her.

“I’ve had better days,” I told Trixie, who’d just been foolish enough to ask me how things were going. So I told her.

“Have you talked to Sarah since this morning?” Trixie asked.

“No,” I said. “She tried me on my cell but I didn’t answer it.”

“That’s mature.”

“I’m just pissed, okay? And I know it’s not her fault. It was Magnuson’s call. He put her in an impossible spot.” I shook my head, looked into my creme caramel decaf lattacino thingie. I had no idea what it was. Trixie offered to buy when we met at the Starbucks, and I’d told her to surprise me. We’d grabbed a small table in the back corner and had snared a couple of comfy, leather-covered chairs.

“And we had such a nice time last night,” I said, more to myself than Trixie.

“What, did you go out or something?”

“No, no, we stayed in. Cost me twenty bucks, though.”

“Really? Sarah makes you pay for it? That’s actually a very reasonable price, you know, and if there were any extras, it was a real bargain.” She grinned slyly at me. She was looking particularly fetching today, in a black cowl-neck sweater, black jeans and boots, her black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

I ignored all that and said, “She’s got this interview coming up, for foreign editor, and it’s Magnuson’s decision, so she probably didn’t feel she could come to my defense. Figured Magnuson would accuse her of not being objective.”

“Because she sleeps with the reporter in question. For twenty bucks.”

“The money actually went to Paul,” I said.

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s too kinky, even for me.”

I took a sip of my drink. I didn’t know what it was, but it was sweet, and pretty good. “Anyway, look, these are my problems, not yours. When we spoke on the phone, you said you were in some kind of trouble.”

“Yeah, well, I did, didn’t I.”

“Sarah was wondering what kind of trouble you could be in that would bring you to call me. You need more chaos in your life? If that’s what you want, then I’m definitely your guy.”

Trixie smiled. “Sarah’s tough on you, you know.”

I went into self-deprecation mode and shrugged. “Look at what she has to put up with,” I said.

“I could put up with you,” she said, without a hint of sarcasm.

“So come on,” I said. “What’s up?”

She took a breath. “I figure, what with you being the only person I know who works in journalism, that maybe you could advise me on how to proceed.”

“How to proceed with what?”

“How to proceed with keeping some asshole from writing a story about me.”