Steven Gore - Act of Deceit

Hamlin watched him go, then stared at the receding figure like a salesman whose deal of a lifetime had been rejected by a customer.

In that gesture, Donnally saw Hamlin’s plan expose itself like a pervert opening his raincoat. Hamlin had intended to sign up Brown as a client, then call a press conference and display the hangdog lunatic as a victim of judicial abuse. He’d claim that the harmless, innocent man-child had pleaded no contest solely to end a miscarriage of justice, and then he would leverage that claim into a lawsuit against everyone who’d laid a hand on Brown, maybe even Donnally himself.

But Brown had walked away from it.

Why? Donnally asked himself. Too crazy to grasp his own self-interest? Rushing to reclaim his square of sidewalk in Noe Valley? Hurrying to get a blow job from a homeless crack addict behind a bush in Golden Gate Park?

Donnally watched the rain soak into Hamlin’s three-piece suit, then smiled to himself as the lawyer’s hair flattened to his head like seaweed on an exposed rock. Hamlin took a last look at his forty percent fee slipping away and then ran inside out of the rain.

B rown, head down, seemed to Donnally not to be following a chosen route, but merely his feet, as he walked the maze of streets, lanes, courts, drives, and parkways that composed the Dublin Commons housing development.

Donnally tracked him from a distance, the space between them stretching and contracting like an accordion, Donnally pulling to the curb while Brown made progress, then catching up to close the gap.

Brown finally made it out of the neighborhood and under the freeway and into an office park. Another campus, but this one for software developers, temp agencies, and Internet startups.

The rain let up, but a cold breeze from the Pacific catapulting the hills bore down, causing Brown to shiver as he stood across the parking lot from the Sweet amp; Savory Cafe at the edge of a five-acre business complex.

Brown finally walked toward the entrance, but instead of going in, he sat down next to its double glass doors and wrapped his arms around his bent legs and rested his head on his knees.

A creature of habit, Donnally thought. A mascot again.

After Donnally pulled to the curb, he noticed that the restaurant served only breakfast and lunch. If Brown had reverted back to Rover the Mascot, he’d picked a bad place to start. Lunch was long over and breakfast wouldn’t be served until tomorrow morning.

Donnally glanced at this watch. In ninety minutes the sun would fall behind the hills and the valley temperature would begin sinking toward the forecasted twenty degrees. At some point in the descent, Donnally figured, Brown would be ready to accept the truck as the closest, warmest, safest escape from an alien, frozen suburb whose only refuges for the transient bore the names of Hilton, Hyatt, and Radisson, not Rescue Mission or Salvation Army.

When Donnally looked up again, a security guard was rolling up in a golf cart. The cart rocked and its miniature American flag whipped as a blockish man with a bovine face twisted into a scowl climbed out and approached Brown.

Donnally recognized the swagger. It was of a failed cop-wannabe whose life had already peaked, either when he’d made a game-saving tackle during his junior year in high school or when he got laid for the first time later that night.

The guard stopped a foot away from Brown. He scanned the parking lot, then kicked Brown in the ribs with the reinforced toe of his black work boots. Brown grunted, flopped to his side, and then shielded his head with his hands.

The restaurant door swung open and a woman in a baker’s apron pushed her way between the two and then slapped the guard’s face with a wet dish towel, all the while screaming words that were unintelligible to Donnally from where he sat inside his truck.

The guard raised his hands in self-defense, but didn’t grab for the cloth or strike back.

She screamed at him again, then turned toward Brown, now looking up from the wet concrete, cowering and bewildered.

Donnally decided that he couldn’t take the chance of Brown either being rescued by the woman or escaping into the complex beyond, so he jumped down from the truck.

Brown alerted to Donnally crossing the parking lot toward him. His eyes went wide, then he scooted backward, trying to rise and run away at the same time.

The woman and the guard turned toward Donnally and, like domestic combatants interrupted by the police, joined each other against him. As the woman pushed the security guard into Donnally’s path, the hulk transformed himself from a misbehaving puppy into her Doberman.

Donnally flashed his retirement badge as he ran by them, the sight of the gold shield first freezing the pair in place, then uniting him and the guard in common cause against Brown. Donnally grabbed the back of Brown’s jacket, swung him down to the concrete, and kneeled on his back. The guard held his feet while Donnally snapped handcuffs on his wrists.

“What did he do?” the woman asked as Donnally rose to his feet.

“He murdered somebody.”

She gasped and covered her mouth with the towel. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

Donnally glanced at Brown lying mute on the wet walkway, then looked back at her.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”

He turned toward the security guard.

“I appreciate your help, but don’t go kicking people. Nobody appointed you judge and jury.”

A flash of lighting and a crack of thunder gave Donnally an excuse to haul Brown away before the two had a chance to ask enough questions to figure out that he’d already appointed himself.

“I t’s called kidnapping,” Janie said, standing at the foot of the stairs in the basement, her eyes locked on Brown. He sat handcuffed and chained to a metal workbench that was anchored to the concrete floor. She’d just returned home from a late group counseling session in the psych ward at Fort Miley VA hospital a few blocks away.

“He said he came here voluntarily,” Donnally answered, pointing at the tape recorder lying on the chair next to where he sat.

Janie glared at Donnally.

“Voluntarily? Like the way a cornered criminal surrenders voluntarily?”

“You could say that.”

“You’ve gone overboard on this.” She glanced back and forth between him and Brown. “I’m not sure which of you is more crazy.”

“I’m not crathy,” Brown said, rotating his head toward her. “It wath a lie. I’ve never been crathy.”

Donnally grinned at Janie. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to use the word ‘crazy.’ ”

“It’s not a diagnosis. It’s what we call otherwise sane people who go out of their minds just long enough to destroy their lives.” Her face flushed and she jabbed her fingers against her chest. “And take other people down with them.”

Donnally flicked on the tape recorder and held it out toward Brown. “You don’t blame Janie for anything that’s happened today, do you, Charles?”

Brown stared at her for a moment, then at Donnally, and shook his head.

“The tape recorder can’t see you. You’ve got to say it aloud.”

“No, I don’t blame Janie.”

Donnally switched it off.

“See?” Donnally said. “If he’s competent enough to enter a plea in the case, then he’s competent enough to let you off the hook.”

“What about the handcuffs?” Janie asked.

Donnally looked down at the tape recorder. “I don’t see any handcuffs.”

J anie was sitting at the kitchen table when Donnally returned from serving Brown his dinner. She had a half-finished glass of wine in her hand and an unopened box of Chinese takeout in front of her.