Flash and Bang

by J. Alan Hartman

  Schanbein seems to notice me for the first time and takes a step my way.

  “Detective John Raven Beau.” His voice has a snarl to it and his men look at me. “Somebody called Homicide?”

  I shake my head. “I was in the neighborhood. Saw all the pretty blue lights outside.”

  That almost brings a smile.

  “Well, let’s hope we don’t need you.”

  “How long’s he been barricaded?”

  “An hour.” Schanbein glances at his watch. “Seventy-one minutes exactly.”

  I nod toward the woman with the ice bag. “His wife?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s the stiff on the phone?”

  “Police psychiatrist.” Schanbein gives me a pained look. He’s exactly my height, six-two, but heavier. We’re both thirty years old.

  The stiff hangs up the phone and punches in a number as three more people crowd into the kitchen—a lieutenant, a major and the police chaplain, Father Dennis Leonard moves to the wife and holds her free hand, the one not holding the bag of ice.

  I look more closely at her. She’s in her forties, her face lined and her hair just starting to gray. They all talk at once and I skirt them toward the back door, which is open. The chaplain shushes them as the wife says, “He never hit me before. Ever.” She starts crying, then quickly adds, “He came home angry and I started in on him about the cabinet. Needs fixing.” She wipes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. “He blew up. Blows up a lot. Yells but never, never hit me before ”—her voice fades and she adds—“now.”

  I step out the back door and keep going, off the back porch, across the lawn, all the way to Agrippa’s house. The back door is open. I step into a kitchen and can see into the den where Agrippa sits on the sofa.

  “Sarge?”

  He doesn’t move so I try again. “Sarge!”

  His head turns my way and I nod to him and move through the kitchen. His eyes widen as I ease into the den and immediately sit on a wooden chair that’s part of a dining room set that is behind Agrippa. We’re about twenty feet apart.

  “They sent you?”

  “Nobody sent me.”

  He looks back into the kitchen, then out the open sliding glass door, then back at me. “You’re uh. You not supposed to get this close to…someone with a gun to his head.”

  “I know.”

  I look around the room. The ceiling’s low and the walls are paneled. There’s an easy chair and a bigger sofa in front of a big-screen TV on shelves along the far side of the room, which smells of lemon cleaner.

  “Why you here?”

  I look back at Agrippa. “Came to sit with you.”

  He readjusts the gun’s muzzle against his temple and I see it’s a .357 magnum revolver, its hammer already cocked.

  “You come to a room with an expert marksman with a gun to his head and just wanna sit? You’re crazier than me.”

  “No one else was coming over,” I tell him.

  “What if I take you with me?” His voice deepens, anger in it now.

  “What would be the point?”

  His breathing increases and I feel goose bumps on my arms and can’t help staring into his eyes. He moves that gun I gotta jump and pray.

  The wildness in his eyes fades and one eye narrows at me.

  “OK,” he says. “Mister Big Shot Homicide Detective. You talk me outta this and you’re a big hero.”

  I just stare back.

  He looks outside again and I pull my gaze from him, looking around the room, realizing I know little about this man. Is he a hunter? Likes to fish? Is he a sports fan? There are no clues in the room. No deer heads on the wall, no stuffed bass or fishing poles. No Saints posters. Just some framed prints—an Audubon pelican, a blue heron, two Dana De Noux tree scenes and black-and-white pictures of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, ancient crypts and walled tombs.

  Agrippa’s sweating big time and it’s not hot at all. An autumn breeze flows through the house.

  “They called Homicide?” he asks.

  “Nope.”

  He looks at me again. “You just the cowboy they all wanna be, huh?”

  “Cowboy? Unfortunate word for a son of the Sioux.”

  “Yeah. Sioux. I remember I called you an Injun on the range and you said something about scalping me.”

  Don’t remember that exactly, but I usually warn people who call me Injun that it’s a racial slur before I show them my Obsidian knife, the one sharpened on one side only, the way the plains warriors sharpen their knives to skin buffalo or take a scalp or two.

  The phone rings and we both jump.

  “You mind unplugging that damn thing?”

  I get up and go over to the phone in the corner and unplug it from the wall. As I sit back down, he goes, “What I don’t get is. We never got along. You’re a hardhead on the range.”

  “I’m a hardhead all the time.”

  Sweat steams down the side of his face. “Why are you really here?”

  I look toward the sliding door. “They’re all yakking over there, not knowing what the hell to do. I just thought one of us should come over and sit with you until you decide.”

  “To do it or not, right?”

  I nod.

  “One of us? he snarls. “You gonna start telling me we’re all family? Brother cops and all that shit.”

  I shake my head slowly.

  “What’s your plan, Mister Detective?”

  “Sit here a while.”

  The man’s messed up. His face looks pallid, his eyes are bleary. He’s tired, drained. The man’s been beaten down. He’s gotta be around fifty. Been on the job a good twenty-five, thirty years.

  “My wife out there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How bad did I hurt her?”

  “She’s got a bag of ice against the side of her face. That’s all.”

  “Get outta here,” he snaps at me.

  I feel my heart beating now and take in a deep breath.

  He looks back out the sliding door.

  “I been down a while,” he says. “Long time. Tell my wife I love her.”

  “Tell her yourself.”

  He turns to me and I see the gun quivering. “You’re not gonna talk me outta this. There’s nothing you can say or do.” He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath. “I know all about suicide and temporary depression, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. The pain is real, man.” The eyes snap open. “And un…relenting.”

  “There’s medicines…”

  “I know!” He glares at me. “I know. Antianxiety pills. Antidepressants. But they won’t cure me. Dulling it won’t end the pain.” He pulls the gun away from his temple and shakes it over his head. “Only this will end the pain.”

  He gasps, takes in another breath and says, “I hit my wife, man. I hit her.”

  He shoves the muzzle against his temple and I hear my heart stammering in my ears as the seconds tick by, slow and purposeful.

  “I brought the anger. I took it out on her.” His eyes are moist now. “I let the cop into the house. I brought him in.” A tear starts down the man’s face. “I brought all the shit we do out there, all of it, into the house and took it out on her.”

  He leans back on the sofa and closes his eyes again, the gun shaking now.

  “I been bringing the cop home for years. Yelling. Breaking things. But I never hit her. Ever.”

  My cell phone rings and I almost jump out of the chair. I turn it off without looking at it, and Agrippa’s staring at me again. His eyes are asking if I know what he means. And I hope my eyes tell him yeah, I do.

  We both know the monster that dwells in us, how we use it in verbal confrontations with people—the cursing, the screaming at people to let it out so you don’t pummel some smart-ass to death. We see too much shit, and most of the time we’re unable to do anything except slap handcuffs on wrists. When we came out of the academy, it was us against the bad guys. It didn’t take long for it to be us against e
veryone who didn’t wear blue. Everyone…even our kin.

  “Must be easy for you,” Agrippa says. “How many you shot?”

  No. He thinks that since I was able to do what so many cops dream of doing, of personally ending a criminal career, I’ve found relief. But there’s no relief.

  “How many?”

  “Five.”

  “Remind me,” he says, and that’s good. If he wants me to talk about it, if he wants to hear about it, maybe, just maybe we can pass some time, maybe this will…deflate.

  “The first was outside the Second District Station,” I begin. “Man in a cowboy outfit.”

  “Yeah,” Agrippa says, “I heard about it.”

  “Man in a ten-gallon hat, leather vest, boots and spurs, two nickel-plated revolvers in a double holster rig.”

  “He shot at some cops, right?”

  “Went up and dared three cops to draw. They laughed, so he pulled out both six guns and peppered the front of the stationhouse. I dropped him with two shots. Caught hell for it. Indian kills cowboy.”

  He nods, eyes closed again. “What about number two?”

  “Armed robber from the K&B, Carrollton and Claiborne, got into a running gun battle with ten units. Fifty-four shots fired by police. Three hit the robber. All mine. The next was a rape-in-progress call. Rapist charged at me with a butcher knife. Then I shot the man who shot Cassandra Smith.

  “Cop killer.”

  “Got him in Exchange Alley.”

  “That’s four.”

  “The last one was in Bayou Sauvage.”

  “Don’t know that one.”

  “Another cop killer. Clyde Pailet.”

  Clyde was a swamp rat and drew me into the swamp, only I’m half Cajun and was raised on Vermilion Bay. Half Sioux and half Cajun. Deadly combination that Pailet discovered.

  I don’t go into the shootings right after Katrina. That wasn’t me, anyway. It was some sort of shadow-warrior, hunting down vermin. And as I sit here, I wonder if that’s what’s kept me from putting a gun against the side of my head. Has killing let me release the pressure, let the steam out?

  “I never shot anyone,” he says.

  “Then you’re lucky.”

  Sgt. Mike Agrippa opens his eyes and smiles at me and the hair stands out on my arms. No. Don’t smile. Don’t—

  The explosion is loud in the confines of the room. It reverberates as his blood and brains fly through the air. His body quivers and slowly slides to the floor. I realize I’m surprised he actually did it. I didn’t think he’d go through with it. I go over and see the top of his head is gone and know it’s no use.

  Footsteps rush in behind me. Schanbein and two E.M.T.s push by, one carrying a medical bag. I back away and go out the sliding door. The man with the binoculars is staring at me, and I turn my face to the distant sun and close my eyes.

  The widow stands in the back door of the house as I cross the yard. She watches me through tear-filled eyes. I walk up and look down into them and she slowly shakes her head.

  “What happened?” asks the major.

  “Ask the guy with the binocs,” I say as I keep looking to the widow’s eyes.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” This from the lieutenant.

  “I want a full report,” stammers the major. “Report for debriefing.”

  “I’ll put it in a daily.”

  “No daily report. I want a full report. You’re gonna be debriefed by the police psychiatrist.”

  A familiar face appears next to me and my lieutenant steps between the major and me.

  “This is a Homicide Case,” says Lt. Dennis Merten. “I’m in charge now, and he’ll put it in a daily.”

  The widow’s hand grabs mine as I start to move away.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “He was sorry he hit you. He said he loved you.”

  She’s a strong woman, standing there staring at me, wiping the tears from her face.

  “They told me who you are. You’re not one of Mike’s friends. Why’d you go over there?”

  “Nobody else was going.”

  For now that’s it. Later, I’ll drop in on her and tell her about the cop we shouldn’t let into the house. I’ll tell her later.

  Rosie’s Choice

  John M. Floyd

  Rosie Cartwright was sipping coffee and knitting a blue sweater for her grandson when she heard the tinkle of the bell on the front door of the shop. The two men who pushed through the door and into the air-conditioning weren’t typical customers. Both were stiff and solemn, and looked uncomfortable in their dark blue blazers. (It was, after all, early July.) Mostly, though, they were unusual because they weren’t women. Notions Eleven attracted mostly female shoppers.

  Once inside, the men seemed to avoid her gaze, pausing instead to examine the shelves and islands of knickknacks—at least that’s what Rosie called them—between the door and the counter where she sat. Rosie, who had put aside little Martin’s sweater and had already opened her mouth to say, “Can I help you,” shut it again and resumed her knitting. “Let browsers browse,” her daughter Nancy had instructed her.

  Rosie could hear the POP-POP-POP of fireworks somewhere outside and down the street. Irritating but understandable—tomorrow was Independence Day. There were always a few people who liked to start celebrating early.

  She took another swallow of coffee.

  After a minute or so the older and shorter of the two men looked up and caught her eye. “Notions Eleven,” he said, nodding toward the big backward letters on the shop’s front window. “What’s it mean?”

  Good question, Rosie thought. The store’s contents included everything from upscale glassware to tacky household ornaments—but they weren’t really “notions.” According to her dictionary, notions were items used in sewing—needles, buttons, pins, that kind of thing. Nancy had just liked the name. She had also liked that movie, Ocean’s Eleven. “You’d have to ask my daughter,” Rosie said. “It’s her shop.”

  The short man frowned. He and his partner exchanged a glance. “You’re not Nancy Bartlett?”

  “I’m Rosie Cartwright—her mother. If you came to see Nancy, she just left for lunch.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “And left you, as they say, minding the store.”

  “Tough duty,” Rosie said, holding up her knitting. “I suppose I’ll get used to it.”

  The short man had picked up a tiny porcelain elephant and was examining it. “Used to it?”

  “I’m new here. Just moved to town last week, from the East Coast.” Then, without really meaning to, she added, “I recently lost my husband.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  But his eyes, Rosie thought, didn’t look sorry at all. They didn’t look as if he cared one way or the other.

  Outside, the distant fireworks popped and banged.

  She glanced down at the gold watch on her wrist—the only thing she owned of any real value. Twelve twenty-eight. Nancy would be gone until one fifteen or so. “The truth is,” Rosie said, “my daughter doesn’t really need full-time help. Since you know her name, you probably know she’s only been open a month. But I’m part owner, and now that I live here, and I’m alone…well, I suppose I needed something to do.”

  “Then maybe you need us as well. You and Nancy both.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Instead of replying, the short man said one word, over his shoulder, “Charles?”

  Behind him, the other man nodded, walked the ten paces to the front door, and twisted the old-fashioned toggle that locked the door from the inside. The metallic sound was loud in the quiet room. Then he reversed the cardboard sign hanging in the window. Anyone approaching the door from the sidewalk would now see the word CLOSED.

  Her heart pounding, Rosie watched him return. When she looked again at the shorter man—the boss?—his face was blank, his expression neither happy nor sad, angry nor friendly. For a moment they studied each other in silence. A clock somewhere i
n the shop struck the half-hour.

  Finally he said, “What I mean is, we offer protection.”

  “Protection from what?”

  “From anything. Robbery, burglary, assault, vandalism, you name it. It’s not a bad area, Ms. Cartwright, but—as you might’ve noticed—this isn’t Beverly Hills. You never know who might walk in, or what they might do.”

  “What they might do?”

  “To you,” he said, “or to your property.” As he spoke the last word of the sentence, he opened his hand. The little porcelain elephant fell to the hardwood floor and shattered into a hundred glittering pieces.

  Neither of them looked down at the damage. Their eyes remain locked. With a great effort, Rosie kept her face impassive, her voice steady. “And you,” she said, “will protect me from these things?”

  “Just as we protect the other businesses in your neighborhood.” He moved closer, crunching through the broken porcelain until he faced her from the other side of the counter. “All of them have agreements with us. Isn’t that right, Charles?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Davis.” The taller man was leaning against a bank of shelves ten feet away, one hand in his pocket and the other resting beside a row of crystal vases. As Rosie watched, one of his fat fingers nudged the largest of the vases an inch closer to the edge of its shelf.

  She focused on Davis. “You two aren’t from around here either, are you?”

  “You recognized our accents?” He stroked his chin as if deciding whether he needed a shave. “You’re right, of course—we’re transplants too. Charles and I conducted this same sort of service in New York until our relocation some time ago. Years of experience in the industry, one might say.”

  “Until they ran you out of town?”

  For the first time, Davis smiled. “Until we recognized the greater rewards of sunny California. The only disadvantage is access—visiting our clients here involves a car. In the Apple we could walk everywhere, or catch the occasional taxi.” He studied her a moment. “Your accent is familiar as well. Manhattan?”

  “For a while. And Brooklyn.”

  “Small world. What did you do, there?”

  “We worked together, my husband and I.”

  “Of course.” He glanced over her shoulder, at a wall clock that had the twelve astrological signs instead of numbers. “I can’t say I’m not enjoying our chat, Ms. Cartwright, but I don’t have all day. I assume you’ll agree to do business with us?”