John Katzenbach - Just Cause

He clenched a fist in disappointment. He hated the idea of asking Cowart for admittance. He had wanted to slip into the apartment with the stealth of a burglar, to rouse Cowart abruptly from sleep, perched like a wraith on the edge of the reporter's dream, demanding the truth.

He heard a whirring, metallic noise behind him and turned swiftly, in the same motion trying to back into a shadow. A hand went automatically to his shoulder holster. It was the elevator, rising to another floor. He watched as a small shaft of light slid through the closed entrance door, passing upward. He lowered his hand. wondering why he felt so jumpy. Fatigue and doubt He looked back at the door in front of him, realizing that if someone spotted him standing there, they would in all likelihood summon the police, taking him for some intruder with evil intentions.

Which, he thought with a twitch of humor, was exactly what he was.

Brown breathed in deeply, clearing his head of exhaustion, concentrating on what had brought him to Cowart's door. He felt the warm breath of anger on his forehead and he rapped sharply on the thick wooden panels.

Cowart sat cross-legged on the floor amidst the ruins of his apartment, assessing his next step. When the four pistol-like cracks sounded on his door, his first thought was to remain still, frozen like a deer in headlights; his second was to take cover and hide. But instead he rose and walked unsteadily toward the sound.

He took a deep breath and asked, 'Who's there?'

Trouble, thought Brown to himself, but out loud, said, 'Lieutenant Tanny Brown. I want to talk to you.' There was a moment of silence. 'Open up!'

Cowart wanted to laugh out loud. He opened the door and peered around its edge. 'Everyone wants to talk to me today. I thought you'd be some more of those damn television guys.'

'No, just me,' replied Brown.

'Same questions, though, I bet,' Cowart said. 'So, how'd you find me? I'm not in the book and the city desk won't give out my home address.'

'Not hard,' the detective replied, still standing in front of the door. 'You gave me your home phone number back when you were getting Bobby Earl out of prison. Just a matter of calling the telephone company and telling them it was a police matter.'

The two men's eyes met and the reporter shook his head. I should have known you would show up. Everything else seems to be going wrong today.'

Brown gestured with his hand. 'Do I have to stand out here or may I come in?'

The reporter seemed to think this was funny, smiling and shaking his head. 'All right. Why not? I was going to come see you, anyway.'

He held open the door. The room behind him was Mack.

How about lights?'

Cowart went to a wall and flicked a switch. The detective stared around in surprise at the mess illuminated by the overhead light.

Christ, Cowart. What happened here? You have a break-in?'

The reporter smiled again. 'No, just a temper tantrum. And I didn't feel much like cleaning it up yet. It fits my mood.'

He walked into the center of the living room and found an overturned armchair. He lifted it up and set it on its legs, then stepped back and waved the detective toward it. He swept some papers from the seat of a couch onto the floor and slumped down in the space he'd made.

Tired,' Cowart said. 'Not much sleep.' He rubbed his hands across his face.

'I haven't been sleeping much, either,' Brown replied. 'Too many questions. Not enough answers.' That will keep one awake.'

The two weary men stared at each other. Cowart smiled and shook his head in response to the silence between them.

'So. Ask me a question,' he said to the detective, 'What's going on?'

Cowart shrugged. 'Too broad. I can't answer that.' Wilcox told me that whatever Blair Sullivan told you before he went to the chair, it fucked you up pretty good. Why don't you tell me?'

Cowart grinned. 'Is that what he said? Sounds like him. He's a pretty cold-blooded fellow. Didn't bat an eyelash when they turned on the juice.'

'Why would he? You can't tell me you shed a tear over Sullivan's exit.'

'No, can't say I did. Still…'

Brown interrupted. 'Bruce Wilcox just sees things differently from you.'

'Ah, well, perhaps,' the reporter replied, nodding. 'What would I know? So, you want to know what fucked me up, huh? Wouldn't listening to a man confess to multiple homicides shake your complacency a bit?'

'It would. It has.'

'That's right. Death is your line of business. Just as much as it was Sully's.'

'I guess you could say that, though I don't like to think of it that way.' Brown tried to obscure the sensation that the reporter had pinned him with his first move. He sat watching the disheveled man in his disrupted apartment. He wondered how long he could keep from grabbing the reporter and shaking answers from him.

Cowart leaned back, as if picking up an interrupted story.

'… Well, there was old Sully, talking my ear off. Old men, old women, young folks, middle-aged people, girls, boys. Gas-station attendants and tourists. Convenience-store clerks and the occasional passersby. Zip, zap. Just chewed up and tossed aside by a single wrong man. Knives, guns, strangled 'em with his hands, beat 'em with bats, chopped and shot and drowned. A variety of bad deaths. Inventive stuff, huh? Not nice, not nice at all. Makes one wonder what the world's coming to, why anyone should go on in the face of all that evil. Isn't that enough to listen to for a few hours? Wouldn't that account for my – what? Indecisiveness? Is that a good word? – at the prison.'

'It might.'

'But you don't think so?'

'No.'

'You think something else is bothering me, and you came all the way down here to ask me what. I'm touched by your concern.'

'It wasn't concern for you.'

'No, I suspect not.' Cowart laughed ruefully. 'I like this,' he said. 'You want a drink of something, Lieutenant? While we fence around?'

Brown considered. He shrugged, a single, why-the-hell-not motion and leaned back in his chair. He watched as Cowart rose, walked into the kitchen and returned after a moment, carrying a bottle and a pair of glasses and cradling a six-pack of beer under an arm. He held it up.

Cheap whiskey. And beer, if you want it. This is what the pressmen used to drink at my old man's paper. Pour a beer, drink a couple of inches off the top, and in goes a shot. Boilermaker. Does a good job of cutting the day's tension real fast. Makes you forget you're working a tough job for long hours and little pay and not much future.'

Cowart fixed each of them a drink. 'Perfect drink for the two of us. Cheers,' he said. He swallowed half in a series of fast gulps.

The liquor burned Tanny Brown's throat and warmed his stomach. He grimaced. 'It tastes terrible. Ruins both the whiskey and the beer,' he said.

'Yeah,' Cowart grinned again. 'That's the beauty of it. You take two perfectly reasonable substances that work fine independently, throw them together, and get something horrible. Which you then drink. Just like you and me.'

The detective gulped again. 'But if you keep drinking, it improves.'

Hah. That's where it's different than life.' He refilled their glasses, then sat back in his chair, swirling a finger around the lip of his glass, listening to the speaking sound it made.

'Why should I tell you anything?' he said slowly.

'When I first came to you with my questions about

Ferguson, you sicked your dog on me. Wilcox. You didn't make it real easy on me, did you? When we found that knife, were you interested in the truth? Or maybe in keeping your case together? You tell me. Why should I help you?'

'Only one reason. Because I can help you.'

Cowart shook his head. 'I don't think so. And I don't think that's a good reason.'