Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ I knew something was wrong as soon as I got to the door. It wasn’t locked and the stereo was blasting away. Jane always locked up. She was a stickler about it. And we never played the stereo that loud. So, I went into the house quiet like, but I coulda made all the noise in the world and nobody woulda heard over the Rolling Stones. It was Midnight Rambler and Mick was screaming through the speakers, ‘Rape her in anger,’ and his song about rape almost covered the sound of Glenna screaming from our bedroom.

“ I pulled my piece, ran down the hall and burst into the room. I found my daughter, my beautiful fifteen year old daughter, beat up and bleeding, on my bed, and this big, muscular punk was just climbing off her,”

“ Jesus,” Walker said.

“ I let him get as far as the floor before I emptied my piece into him. Then I untied Glenna and she dashed from the room and everything was quiet as it could be with the Rolling Stones tearing the house down and then Mick hit the chorus again, ‘Rape her in anger,’ he was singing and I went a little crazy. I reached into the nightstand, where I keep a loaded forty-five auto and I went out into the living room and shot the stereo. It was like I was killing the song.

“ Now the house is stone-cold-dead-silent, except I hear Glenna sobbing in her room. And, guess what? I hear this moan coming from my bedroom, so I go in to see what’s what and son of a bitch, if that bastard wasn’t still alive.”

“ You’re kidding?”

“ No, he was lying in a lake of his own blood, trying to hold on to his guts and whining like a dog hit by a car and that’s probably how he felt. I must have looked like a big black god to him, cuz he looked up at me and said out of his bloody mouth, ‘Help me.’

“ I blew his face off. Then I went out to the living room and called it in.”

“ Jesus,” Walker said again, “what did they do to you?”

“ I called it into Homicide. Fifteen minutes later, Jimmy Gordon, my partner and two other guys, Sammy Powers and Steve Hodges, show up. Jimmy tells me to pack some things for myself, Jane and Glenna. ‘Go to the school, pick up your wife, take a couple of weeks. Let us handle it,’ he says. And that’s what I did.”

“ What did they do?”

“ I never asked. However, I did see in the Press Telegram the next day that a white male in his early twenties had been found in a condemned house, beaten, tortured and killed. The result of a drug deal gone bad, the paper said.”

“ I didn’t know.”

“ Nobody does,” Washington said. “That was the start of everything going wrong. Jane blamed me for what happened. She thought if I would have been closer to Glenna, she wouldn’t have lied to us that day. It was just the way she had to deal with it. And I blamed her. I thought if she wouldn’t have been working, it wouldn’t have happened. She moved out six months later.”

“ That’s too bad,” Walker said.

“ Yeah. Things starting going downhill after the separation. I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I was pissing off the people around me, coming in late, leaving early, drinking, then came the baby-raper.

“ I was off duty at the time, at the Cerritos Mall. A couple of years had passed and I was just starting to get things back together. I went to the mall to get a pair of running shoes. I was going to get back in shape, quit the drinking. It was time to get my life straight again.

“ I had just pulled into a parking place when I see this man grab a little girl and throw her into his van. I threw old Power Glide into reverse and backed down the aisle till I was behind the van. I jumped out of the car and tried to open the van door. Naturally the perp wasn’t interested in opening up, so I yell, ‘Police, I’m gonna count to three and then I start shooting.’

“ That did it, he opened the door pronto and I could see that the little girl was crying. In just that few seconds the bastard had got the girl’s dress off and his pants down. I mean he was one jackrabbit-fast motherfucker and he really pissed me off, so I pulled him out of the van and pistol whipped him so bad that his face will never be the same. Then I started kicking him in the nuts till I was damn sure they were fucked up beyond repair.

“ I was about to shoot him, when some guy jumped out of the crowd that had gathered and ripped the gun from my hand. I guess if it wouldn’t have been for that good Samaritan, I’d have done a second degree murder. Anyway there were enough witnesses to make sure it could never be hushed up. They busted me back to sergeant and put me back on the street again. It could have been worse.”

“ We’re here.” Walker pulled up the driveway to Washington’s small apartment.

“ Call you in the morning.” Washington got out of the car.

He watched Walker’s taillights as he reached for, then rejected, a cigarette. He shook his head and stumbled into his apartment, more asleep than awake. He fell into bed without taking his clothes off.

He didn’t see the small green gecko scurry between his feet, then dash under the bed.

“ Hello Roma,” Jim Monday said as she rushed into his arms, no longer trying to hold back the tears. “What are you doing here?”

“ I came as soon as I heard you’d been arrested, but they said there was no bail set. They said I’d have to come back later.”

“ I know,” he said.

“ Oh, Jimmy, I thought you were so close. How could she do it?” She tightened her hold on him. “What are you going to do?”

“ We have to leave here.”

“ My car’s over there.” She pointed.

They walked, arm in arm, away from the police station and crossed the street. Roma led Jim to her car. A red Porsche Targa. She handed him the keys, like she used to do before he married her sister. Then she got in the passenger side. Roma hadn’t locked the doors, something his wife never would have forgotten to do.

“ It’s horrible about David,” she said. “He was such a nice man.”

“ I loved him like a brother.” Jim keyed the ignition, started the car.

“ I know you did,” Roma said.

They drove in silence for about a half mile, then Jim said. “Listen, I have to talk to somebody. I need to try and understand what’s happening. He checked the rearview, pulled over to the side of the road and parked.

“ Why are we stopping?”

“ So I can explain,” he said. Then he relived the horror, telling her about the gray Buick Regal. About how it looked like it might have been murder. About how he broke his arm. About someone shooting at him in the police car. About the lawyers that weren’t lawyers. About how he recognized one as the driver of the gray Regal. About how he killed them both. About how he found the dead policeman outside the room. About how he dragged him in. And about how he walked out of the police station. He didn’t tell her about the voice in his head.

“ What are you going to do?” she asked.

“ I don’t know.”

“ You can’t go home and you can’t go to the condo. The police will be waiting.”

“ I didn’t think of that.” He knew she believed him unquestionably. Julia would have asked a million questions, doubting every answer.

“ You can go to my place,” she said.

“ I think the white car back there is following us.” Donna interrupted his thoughts before he could answer. He looked in the rearview and saw a white Ford parked a block behind. There were no other cars parked on the busy street.

“ Are you sure?” he thought back. He was getting used to silently talking to her.

“ Yes, it’s been following us since we left the police station and it parked when you did.”

“ Roma, I think we’re being followed.” He started the car and eased back into the traffic.