Thomas Cook - Sacrificial Ground

Frank quickly took the picture of Angelica from his pocket and handed it to the woman. “Have you ever seen this girl?”

The woman glanced at it halfheartedly. “She on the street?”

“Just tell me if you’ve seen her around,” Frank said.

“Naw, I ain’t seen her,” the woman said.

Frank took the picture and handed it to the man. “How about you?”

The man glanced contemptuously at the photograph. “I don’t deal with no white ass,” he sneered.

Frank stepped over to him. “What did you say?”

The man’s eyes narrowed into tiny, snakelike slits. “Like I done told you, I ain’t seen that piece. I don’t deal with no white ass.”

Frank could see Angelica’s body as it lay sprawled across the vacant lot. White ass. He could feel a terrible rage build slowly within him, and he knew that he wanted to take his pistol from his belt, press its cold black barrel into the man’s face, and pull the trigger again and again until all his strength was gone.

“Dead white ass,” the man said, as he leered at the photograph. “That’s all you got there.”

Frank could feel the nails of his fingers as they bit into his palms. “You’d better shut your fucking mouth,” he said thinly.

The man smiled confidently. “You stop the fatman. The fatman stop you. That’s the way it works.”

Frank felt his hands release, felt one of them as it made a slow crawl toward his pistol. He knew what it would look like. The man’s eyes would widen in one moment of frozen terror. For an instant he would believe that it was all an act: and then, for a single, shattering instant, as the sound swept over him and the bullet struck his skull, he would know that it was not, that a wild, passionate justice had finally overtaken him, and there would be no appeal.

“Not yet,” Caleb said, and suddenly Frank could feel Caleb’s fingers wrapped around his wrist.

“Get on out of here,” Caleb said harshly to the man and woman.

Frank stood motionlessly and listened to the couple’s footsteps as they rushed away from him. He could feel an immense exhaustion in his arms and legs, a heaviness in each cell of his body, as if he were being pulled downward by millions of tiny weights.

Caleb tugged gently at Frank’s arm, urging him out of the park. “You know, when I was a kid … still in uniform, I mean. Well, I had a partner. His name was Ollie Quinn. He had come right out of the country, just like me. Atlanta was like the big time for him. “ He shook his head as he and Frank continued to move steadily out of the park. “He should never have left the farm. He should have spent his little life fishing in the river and picking muscadines. But no, Ollie came to the big city, got a job on the force, and ended up walking a beat with me, night after night, listening to my bullshit.”

He glanced to the left, out into the park. “This was our beat, mine and Ollie’s. And one night we got a call. It was a domestic. Neighbors had heard a woman screaming, kids, too. From what they could tell a guy was beating up on them.” He turned to Frank. “Well, we headed over there, Ollie and me, and, sure enough, it was a domestic, all right. From way outside, we could hear that bastard tearing through the house, throwing people around. It scared the shit out of Ollie, and made him mad, too.” He took out his pipe and began to fill the bowl. “Anyway, we busted in, and dear God, Frank, what we saw. A couple of little boys beat to shit, lying unconscious in one corner. And just a few feet from them, the wife, slumped against the window with an extension cord wrapped around her neck. The man was all on her, strangling her with that cord when we broke through the door.”

He lit the pipe and the blue smoke sailed behind him as he walked. He looked like a locomotive cutting through the fog. “Well, we jumped this guy. Actually, I jumped him. I pulled him off the woman and threw him over to the other side of the room. Ollie went to the woman and started trying to untie the cord. That’s when she bit him. She sunk her teeth into his hand and wouldn’t let go. Ollie kept trying to get loose from her, but she kept bearing down on his hand, so he finally hit her.” He pulled the pipe from his mouth. “That’s when the man got loose from me. He just bolted right over me and slammed into Ollie full force. He started pounding on Ollie, and the woman started scratching at his face. I pulled the man off, but the woman kept at it, screaming at the top of her voice. Ollie finally got up, but the woman kept at him, screaming like you can’t imagine, Frank, like a wild animal, and clawing at Ollie’s face while he backed away from her. But she kept coming at him, with this scream, and clawing at him until his face was covered with blood, and he kept stepping back, trying to get away, but she wouldn’t let him. Ollie pulled out his pistol and waved it in the air, but she just kept on him, clawing and screaming, until he leaped away from her, Frank, and lifted that goddamn pistol, and shot her right between the eyes.”

He stopped dead and simply stared out toward the end of the park to where their car could be seen in the ghostly distance. Then he looked at Frank, his eyes glistening in the streetlight. “They sentenced Ollie Quinn to life for that, Frank,” he said slowly. “There was a lot of politics and a shithead D.A., and Ollie Quinn got life.” He glanced away, his eyes rolling upward to the phantom trees. “But he didn’t serve much of it. He hanged himself two days after the trial.” His eyes shot back to Frank. “And that husband? His name is Towers, Harry Towers. He still lives in that same fucking house. He’s had a wife or two since then, and he’s beat up on all of them, new wives and new kids. We still get domestics on him.” He smiled coldly. “He lives at Two Sixty-five Boulevard, Frank, and one day, after I’m retired, one day, Frank, when it feels just right, I’m going to go over to Two Sixty-five Boulevard, and I’m going to blow Harry Towers’ head off.” He looked at Frank pointedly. “But not yet, my friend, not yet.”

A few minutes later they were in the car together. For a moment Caleb sat motionlessly behind the wheel. Then, suddenly, he hit the ignition and pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator, pumping the engine wildly until it filled the air with an angry roar.

23

Frank began calling the galleries early the next morning, but all of them were still closed. He wasn’t sure when they opened, but he thought that Karen might know, so he called her instead. She sounded breathless when she answered the phone.

“I’m a little harried,” she explained.

“Why?”

“I’ve been packing for New York.”

“You’re leaving right away?” Frank asked unbelievingly.

“Within a few days, I hope,” Karen said.

Frank could feel all of his remaining strength drain out of him. “I’m sorry you’re going so soon,” he said quietly.

For a moment, she did not answer, and Frank could feel something in her as it reached out to him. He wanted to seize it like a bird out of the air and draw it gently into his arms. He loved her, he realized with astonishment, with the kind of feeling they sang about in those plaintive, heartbroken ballads Caleb sometimes listened to on the car radio.

“Listen, Karen,” he said softly, “I need to see you.”

“What about?”

He couldn’t answer her as he wished, couldn’t tell her that he wanted to be with her, talk to her and touch her until the bond between them had become so firm that nothing could draw them apart.

Instead, he stammered, “The galleries.”

“Galleries?”

“There are a few of them in Grant Park,” Frank said.

“Yes, I know. What about them?”

“Evidently Angelica sometimes hung around in them,” Frank told her, his voice now under control again. “And so I was thinking that you might want to check them out with me.”