J. Konrath - Fuzzy Navel

“Sorry,” I say. “Does it hurt?”

He smiles. “I’m tough.”

“I know. Thanks for coming.”

“We’re friends. You call, I come.”

I’m strangely moved by that, but being a hard-edged homicide cop I respond with a strong, curt nod. Phin, however, holds me closer, actually hugging me. I give him a perfunctory pat on the back, wondering what the hell he’s doing, but not minding it terribly much. His skin is cool to the touch, and he’s got the barest hint of aftershave, something that smells like pine. No, it actually is pine. I brush a pine needle out of his hair.

His breath is on my ear, soft and warm. He whispers, “I dropped a.38 somewhere in the garage.”

I nod, slightly so Alex doesn’t notice. Then we mutually disengage.

“Hey, sis! You kill the bitch yet?”

Harry, from the living room.

“There’s been some, uh, complications, Harry,” I say over my shoulder.

“What complications?”

Harry’s not going to be pleased. I’m not either. Phin and I lead the way back into the house.

“Hey, Phin,” Harry says. “Welcome to the rave. You bring the Chex Mix?”

“Hi, Harry. What’s with the refrigerator door?”

“I’m neurotic. My shrink says I have a hard time letting go.” Then Harry notices Alex, and his eyes narrow. “What the fuck? You make a deal with Satan?”

“The snipers are coming,” I say, and the words taste lousy on my tongue. “We need her help.”

“What we need,” Harry says, “is to pound a stake through her heart, cut off her head, and bury the body on hallowed ground.”

“We can finish up our business later, sweetheart,” Alex says to Harry. “Where’s the circuit breaker?”

I stare at her, suspicious. “Why?”

“They’ll probably come in through the front door. We soak the carpeting with water, strip the covering off the end of an extension cord, wrap it around something metal, and put it in the puddle. They walk in, we hit the breaker, fry both of them.”

“They teach you that in psycho school?” Harry says.

Alex coolly regards him. “I should have cut your tongue off instead of your hand.”

“Why don’t you come over here and say that, so I can bounce this refrigerator door off your goddamn-”

“Enough,” I interrupt, giving Harry the palm. I actually like Alex’s idea. “What if they’re wearing rubber-soled shoes?” I ask.

“One of us stands by the door with a hose, soaks them when they come through the door.”

“Won’t it trip the breaker?”

“Circuit breakers are tripped when there’s resistence or surges. All we’re doing is running current. It will work.”

“We need to hurry.” Phin is staring out the front window. “They’re coming.”

“Get the hose and the extension cord in the garage,” I tell Phin and Alex. Then I hurry to the kitchen, turn on the sink, and fill a six-quart cast-iron pot with water. It’s really heavy, almost too heavy to lift. But I muscle it out of the sink and carry it at waist level, waddling to the front door. I spill the water all over the floor and set the pot down.

“Got the hose,” Alex says. “Phin is stripping the extension cord. I don’t think he trusts me with a knife.”

“I wonder why.”

I take one end of the hose, and hand the other to Harry. “You’re on squirting duty. Make sure you stay out of the wet spot.”

“I always do.”

I bring the hose down the hall, peek in on my mother.

“You okay?”

Mom nods, but she looks terrible. She hands me the flashlight. I check out Latham and Herb. Both are semi-conscious, and they also look terrible. Then I make the mistake of peeking at the vanity mirror, and I look worse than everyone. Sort of like DeNiro at the end of Raging Bull.

“Oh, Jacqueline,” Mom says. She reaches up to touch my face, and I flinch away.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

It’s the truth. All of the pain has sort of combined into a dull ache. Unpleasant, but bearable. Maybe I simply don’t have any energy left to devote to hurting.

I give Mom a quick peck on the cheek, and then it’s on to the laundry room. I set the flashlight on the dryer and turn off the water valve that leads to the washing machine. I unscrew the hose coming out of it, attach the garden hose, then put the water back on.

“Dammit, Harry! Quit it!”

Harry is apparently soaking Alex. If I had a sense of humor left, I might have smiled at that.

“Tell me when to hit the power,” I call down the hallway. “How are you doing, Phin?”

“Power cord is stripped. I’m plugging it in.”

“Wrap the stripped end around the cast-iron pot, then step away.”

I fight the circuit breaker door, manage to get it open, and poise my finger above the main button. A wave of vertigo hits. I ride through it without losing my balance.

In the silence that follows, I have a chance to think about a lot of things. One of those things is retirement.

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a cop. It didn’t take a psychoanalyst to figure out that my desire came from my parents. My mom was a cop, and she was my hero. My dad wasn’t in the picture, and his absence left a void in my life. I wanted to emulate my mother, and I became a control freak as a defense mechanism. The more control I had in my life, the less chance of being surprised, of getting hurt. My desire to protect myself, and my mother, evolved into a desire to protect others.

After a few years on the Job, I realized I couldn’t really protect anyone. It wasn’t any particular incident that stood out, any key moment that led me to this conclusion. It was just the day-to-day grind of seeing people getting hurt, all the time, without being able to save them.

I accepted it. If I couldn’t protect them, then at least I could catch the ones who were hurting them.

I’ve caught a lot of bad people in my twenty-plus years as a cop. I know I’ve done a lot of good.

But now, here I am. I became a cop to protect others, and now I can’t even protect the handful of people who are more important to me than the rest of the world put together.

Alex was right. It’s my fault we’re all in danger. If anything happens to Mom, or Latham, or Herb, or Phin, or even Harry, I won’t be able to live with myself.

I make a decision. A big decision. If we get out of this – no… when we get out of this, I’m going to hang up my gun. Retire. Draw a pension and get married and gain weight and spend life enjoying it instead of trying to fix it.

“Jackie!” Harry yells. “Alex just ran out the back door!”

No real surprise there.

“Phin went after her!”

“Did he finish the wires?” I call.

“No!”

Dammit. “Mom! I need you!”

Mom shuffles into the laundry room.

“Press the breaker when we tell you to.”

I trade places with her, holding open the panel door until she can get her finger on the button.

“I don’t like this plan,” she says.

There isn’t time to argue. I hurry back into the living room, spy the extension cord in a tangled pile on the floor.

A noise at the front door – someone trying the knob.

“Hurry,” Harry says. He’s got the hose in his hand, bent in a kink.

Something slams into the door. It shakes, but holds.

I find the end of the cord, stripped to bare wires. I reach for the cast-iron pot.

Three gunshots, incredibly loud. The door rattles.

I wind the wire around the pot handle, then scurry off the damp section of carpeting just as the door kicks in.

Two men in camouflage dress storm into my living room. They each have a huge handgun. One is wearing yellow aviator sunglasses. The other is the sniper I saw at Ravenswood, which seems like so long ago.