Dave Barry - Big trouble

Walter undipped the handcuffs from his belt. He yanked Andrew's arms up high behind the back.

"Ow!" said Andrew. "Listen, please! I'm not the…»

"Shut up, punk," said Walter, yanking Andrew's arms higher.

"Ow!" said Andrew. "Please, I'm not…»

"I TOLD YOU SHUT UP," said Walter.

Andrew shut up. He was wearing khaki pants and a knit polo shirt. His nose was bleeding, and he was obviously terrified. To Monica, he looked about as menacing as Kermit the Frog.

"Officer Kramitz," she said, "maybe we don't need to cuff him right now, OK?"

Walter looked at Monica. "We're supposed to cuff him," he said. He was dying to try out his handcuffs. In his apartment, when his wife was out, he sometimes practiced handcuffing a chair to the dinette table, but he had never cuffed anybody for real.

"Let me just talk to him for a minute, OK?" Monica said.

Walter thought about arguing with her. He was feeling much less inclined to agree with her on police procedure, now that he knew he wasn't going to get to see her naked. Reluctantly, he said, "OK."

With Walter standing close, ready to pounce if necessary, Monica advised Andrew of his rights and asked him if he understood them. Andrew nodded. Monica asked him his name.

"Andrew Ryan," he said.

"OK, Andrew," said Monica. "What were you doing with the gun?"

"I picked it up back there," Andrew said, gesturing toward the alley. "Some guy was shooting at us, and he dropped it, and I picked it up and ran."

Walter snorted, to indicate that he, for one, was not buying this load of bullshit.

"Who was shooting at you, Andrew?" asked Monica.

"I don't know. Some weird fat guy, he kept yelling 'Freeze' and shooting at us."

"Who was with you?"

"My friends Matt and Jenny."

A synapse fired in Monica's brain. Andrew, Matt, and Jenny. She couldn't quite remember where she'd heard those names, but she knew she had.

"What were you doing back there?"

"Matt was gonna kill Jenny," said Andrew.

"He was gonna what?"

"With a squirt gun," said Andrew. "It's just a game."

"Oh Jesus," said Monica, remembering now who Andrew, Matt, and Jenny were. "Are you talking about that, whaddyacallit, Killer?"

"Yeah!" said Andrew. "That's it! Killer!"

Monica sighed, wondering why these kids couldn't settle for the innocent diversions of her youth, such as drinking beer and groping each other.

A backup police cruiser arrived, siren yelping. Monica took Walter aside and said, "Let's leave the kid with these officers and check behind the five-and-dime, see if there's a shooter back there."

Walter snorted again. "You believe this punk?" he asked.

"I just wanna look, OK?" said Monica.

"OK," said Walter, "but all you're gonna find back there is…»

"POLICE! HELP POLICE!"

The hoarse shout came from the thick figure of Jack Pendick, Crime Fighter, stumbling out of the alley. Seeing the police cruiser, he lurched toward it.

"POLICE!" he shouted. "POLICE!" He kept shouting it as he approached, until he was shouting it directly into Monica's face, thus giving her a strong whiff of rum fumes.

"POLICE!" he shouted, yet again.

"That's correct," said Monica, putting her hand on his chest and gently pushing him back a step, which nearly caused him to fall down. "We are the police. And who might you be?"

"They were gonna shoot her!" said Pendick.

"Who was?" asked Monica.

"Perpetrators!" explained Pendick. "They took her back there with a gun and… Hey! That's one a them!"

Pendick was squinting at Andrew.

"That's one a the perpetrators!" he said.

"It was a squirt gun, dork," said Andrew.

"And so you… what's your name, please?" said Monica.

"Jack Pendick," he said.

"So, Mr. Pendick," said Monica, "you saw these people with the gun, and then what?"

"I tailed 'em," said Pendick, proudly. "I was gonna be in lawn forcement."

"Good for you," said Monica. "Did you have a gun with you?"

"I got a gun," said Pendick. "Need it for my line a work."

"And that is?" asked Monica.

"Sunglasses," said Pendick.

"Sunglasses?" asked Monica.

"I got fired," explained Pendick.

"I see," said Monica, rubbing her temple. "And where is your gun now?"

"I lost it back there," said Pendick, gesturing toward the alley and almost falling down as a result.

Monica got the.38 out of the cruiser and showed it to him.

"Is this your gun?" she asked.

Pendick squinted at it.

" 'At's it!" he said. "Can I have it back? I need it for my line a work."

"Not right now," said Monica. "So, so you followed the perpetrators into the alley, and then what?"

"He was gonna shoot her!" said Pendick. "The perpetrooter! He was pointin' his gun at her!"

"His squirt gun," said Andrew.

"An' so I, I yelled, 'FREEZE! " said Pendick.

"And then what?" asked Monica.

"And then… " Pendick paused. For the first time, in his small, alcohol-drenched brain, he began to sense that perhaps he should be careful about what he said.

"And then what?" asked Monica.

"I don't remember," Pendick said.

"You don't remember?" asked Monica.

"No," said Pendick, shaking his head hard enough to make himself stagger. "No no no no."

A dozen or so tourists, lured by the flashing lights of the police cruiser, had drifted over from Coco Walk to watch the action. One was shooting video. Cops, criminals, guns — this was the Miami they had heard so much about. This would be something to tell them about, back home.

A Human Barbie Doll with long legs, tight shorts, and a tiny halter top being overwhelmed by exuberant, 94 percent silicone breasts came up to Walter and said, "Officer, what's going on?"

"We had a little shooting," said Walter, in a tone of voice intended to convey that he could not count the number of times he had been around shootings. "But we got it under control."

"Is that the one who did it?" the Human Barbie Doll asked, pointing to Pendick.

"We're trying to ascertain that now," said Walter.

He made his biceps as big as possible without audibly grunting. The Human Barbie Doll gave him a look that clearly indicated that she understood and appreciated the effort he was making. She thrust her twin balloons at him. Love was in the air.

"Officer Kramitz," said Monica.

"What?" he said, reluctantly tearing his eyeballs away from the HBD.

"Do you think you can keep things under control here while I take a look in the alley?" asked Monica.

"I can handle it," said Walter, his eyes back on the balloons.

Monica and two other officers went through the alley and spent ten minutes looking around the parking lot. They found one fractured car windshield with a bullet-sized hole in it; they found another car with what looked like a bullet hole in the door panel. They found no people.

By the time they returned to Grand Avenue, the tourist crowd had grown to around one hundred. A dozen Hare Krishnas had shown up and were expressing their spirituality by beating drums and jumping up and down. The HBD was still standing close to Walter, whose face had reddened from the effort of keeping his biceps at full flex for such an extended period. Several more police cruisers had arrived. So had Miami police detective Harvey Baker, for whom Monica summarized the situation.

"So," said Baker, "what you're saying is, for the second time, these three kids are playing this squirt-gun game, and for the second time, a real shooter shows up?"

"That's what it looks like," said Monica. "Except this shooter" — she nodded toward Pendick — "couldn't hit the planet he's standing on."

"Still," said Baker, "it's quite a coincidence, don't you think? A real shooter showing up both times?"

"This is Miami," noted Monica.