by Parnell Hall
I paused, looked down the street. It would be just my luck to have King walk up right then. But there was no one in sight.
I looked back at Raheem. “I’m glad you think I’m brave. I wish I were. But I wanna tell you something. Going into that building. Pulling me out. Calling the cops. That was really brave. You’re the brave one, Raheem. You.”
He still said nothing, but his eye glistened, as if a tear were trying to form.
That was more than I could take. I patted him on the shoulder, walked away.
The whole time Raheem hadn’t said a word. But then I hadn’t expected him to. And I didn’t really need him to.
He didn’t have to tell me the shooter was King.
Nothing propinks like propinquity.
50.
IT WASN’T EASY.
First, there was the little-boy-who-cried-wolf factor. Had you thought of that? Well, trust me on it, my stock with Reynolds was not high. The I-know-who-shot-me routine was not gonna be a particularly easy sell.
Worse, it required Richard and the whole shmear again, to make sure my rights were protected, to make sure nothing in my third statement would make me criminally liable for anything I might have said in my second or my first. And, believe it or not, Reynolds was not so free with the concessions this time. After the pasting Richard had given him the time before, I think Reynolds actually enjoyed getting a bit of his own back. But in the end they got it done and I told the tale.
Without Raheem, of course. Oh yes, he was in it, he had to be. I just mean without some of the details. Like him following King, hearing the shot, phoning the cops, pulling me out. Little things like that.
Now, I wasn’t really holding out on the cops. I didn’t know any of that. Raheem hadn’t confirmed it. It was all stuff I’d surmised. Nothing I could testify to in court. Surely I had every right to leave it out.
But it did leave a few gaps in the story. Not great with Sergeant Reynolds not in a particularly receptive mood to begin with and not inclined to be convinced. And when you came right down to it, by leaving out the Raheem Webb part of the story, all I really had left to support the theory that King had shot me was the fact the Black Death hadn’t.
To say I took a pounding on that one would be a gross understatement. This time Richard had not been able to get away with the my client-will-make-a-statement-no-questions-asked routine, and when it was his turn to bat, Reynolds tore me apart. I stuck to my guns and when the smoke cleared, when Reynolds had finished displaying an aptitude for sarcasm not likely to be surpassed in the twentieth century, he was finally forced to consider the basic concept. And what made my simple-minded premise convincing was the fact that it was so simple. Basically, King had to have shot me because no one else did.
If all that sounds confused, you gotta understand what I was going through just then. I mean in my own head. See, King being the one who shot me turned everything upside down. Ever since I’d been shot, I’d been scared to death to confront the shooter. To meet him face to face. Well, I’d confronted him all right. Actually taunted him, told him to fuck off. Stood right up to him without turning a hair and laid it on the line. So what if I didn’t know he was the shooter, the fact is he was. Did that really make a difference?
Yeah, it did. Of course it did. It’s no act of courage to go in the lion’s cage if you don’t know the lion’s there. Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s not guts. Case closed.
And what about standing up to the Black Death? He wasn’t the shooter, but I thought he was. Didn’t standing up to him make me brave?
Not quite. It was a little better than the other scenario, but not much. It’s no act of courage to go in the lion’s cage with a kitten, just because you think it’s a lion.
No, I would have to say the danger had to be both real and perceived as such.
Anyhow, I had all that going on in my head while Reynolds was questioning me. So it’s not surprising if my answers seemed a little off base. I finally had to say to myself, schmuck, stop your head. This guy didn’t shoot you to test your moral character. He’s a low-life scum who needs to be put away, now how the hell are you gonna do that?
I talked it over with Reynolds and MacAullif, once they were ready to listen, once Reynolds was done bashing me. I must say the general consensus was our chances weren’t good. We had not one shred of evidence, not even my testimony, since I actually hadn’t seen a thing.
It was suggested that I talk to him wearing a wire, but King didn’t strike me as the talkative sort. As I could recall, in all the times I’d seen him, “motherfucker” and “nigger” were the only things I’d heard him say. Illuminating, perhaps, but rather skimpy in terms of an admission.
In the end, Reynolds finally agreed to my plan. Which, believe me, wasn’t much. In fact, it was the type of plan, after which, in the old movies, one character would inevitably say, “That’s so crazy it just might work!”
In this case, frankly, there wasn’t much chance of it working. Still, it had basically two things going for it. One, if it didn’t work, there was virtually nothing lost. And, two, we really didn’t have anything else.
And for me, it had a third thing going for it. It solved my moral dilemma. About facing the shooter knowing it was him, I mean. Not that I wanted to do that, you understand. I just didn’t want not to do that.
At any rate, as I said, it was a rather stupid plan. Basically, it had only one real hope for success. Which, even given odds, I’m sure neither MacAullif nor Reynolds would have bet on.
That was that King was stupider than I was.
51.
KING WAS OUT IN THE street with three of his mules when I came walking up. Raheem wasn’t with him. I’d called his mother, told her to keep him home. As I neared the building I saw his face in the upstairs window. And hers. I hadn’t told her why, but they knew something was going down.
I hoped it wasn’t me.
Okay, champ, you’re on. It’s the lion’s cage, and it’s the real lion this time, and what’s more, you know it. Screw your courage to the sticking point. Whatever the hell that means. Schmuck, you want a literal translation? You got the gist. Let’s do it.
I walked up to King. He was leaning against the parked car. When he saw me, he shoved off from it, stepped out in the street. The three kids gave way, moved off, formed a loose semi-circle behind him.
I walked up, stopped, stuck my finger in his face.
“You’re through,” I said. “You’re finished around here. Don’t come around here no more. I see your face again, you’re goin’ down.” I jerked my thumb. “These guys too. They stick with you, they’re history. But that’s no matter, ’cause you won’t be here. Last time I’m lettin’ you walk.”
I patted my jacket pocket. “I got the goods on you now. You call me on it, we’ll let the court decide. That’s up to you. Me, I just want you out of here.”
I turned, walked off down the street. I didn’t look back. Don’t look back, someone might be gaining on you. She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back. Well, good for her. Toughest job I ever did in my life.
When I turned onto 146th my palms began to sweat. That was something—it meant they hadn’t been sweating up till now. I walked on down the street, still not looking back, and suddenly there it was.
The empty lot.
The rubble-filled lot where my body had been found. I’d missed that scene, thank you very much, lost it somewhere in the ether, so the last time I’d seen the lot was when I’d walked across it to the building beyond. The building with the fake wall, where the Black Death did his disappearing act. Nothing special in that now—like most illusions, nothing to it once you know the trick.
I turned, walked into the lot. I experienced the feeling of revulsion, a rush of fear. I kept going, didn’t look back. Crossed the lot, reached the illusion wall.
I stopped, just for a moment.
Jesus Christ, could I really do it?
And to what end? The
re was nothing special about this place to make King follow me here. The scene of the shooting, yes. But beyond that. There were no secrets that I might discover that King might wish to hide.
I tried to get inside the man’s mind. If he were following me now, if he’s back there where I am not looking—thank you Bob Dylan and Satchel Paige—what the hell does he think I’m up to? Why the hell does he think I’m here? No rational answer. No rational motive. The way I see it, it can only be a trap. Is that how you see it, King? No way for you to guess the answer—aside from a trap, I mean. No, King, it’s my own personal demons I’m wrestling with here.
I took a breath, walked around the illusion wall and into the door.
First room. Two doors.
Straight ahead, the road not taken. At least not by me. Taken by Lionel Wilkens, a.k.a. the Black Death, into the next room and out, the short cut to 145th Street.
Not for me. I turned right into the next room.
A wise man would have had a flashlight. A wise man wouldn’t have been there. If I were a wise man. No, that’s rich man. No matter, you aren’t that either.
My heart is beating a mile a minute, whatever the hell that means. My throat is dry. I know what that means. Good thing no more dialogue is required. Nothing required but staying on my feet, not passing out, not peeing in my pants.
Was that a footstep?
Not imagining things, not running like hell.
I passed on into the next room. Into the valley of the shadow of death.
Low expectations. A high-risk, low-yield situation. King would not be carrying. Not with three mules with beepers to keep him clean—that was the whole point. So King would have no drugs.
By rights, he would have a gun. You don’t shoot someone with your bare hands. A weapon figured. But not likely the one he’d used before. If not, what were we talking here? Illegal possession of a firearm. Big deal, even with the TV ads about the one-year mandatory. Wanna make book on what percentage serve it? No, just having it is no big deal. Using it’s the key.
Attempted murder, that’s the charge.
Let’s keep it that way.
I’m not facing him anyway. I’m just walking, not looking back.
Next room.
This is it. The room with three doors. Christ, what did I do? I checked out the one over there. And there was nothing, so I tried the one over there and what did I find? I don’t remember, I didn’t check it out because there was a sound and I came back here and—
This is the room. What the hell does it matter what I did, this is the damn room.
This is where it went down.
My blood is somewhere on this floor.
I took a breath and walked in. Waves of nausea engulfed me. My head was spinning, and suddenly I was swimming in the ether again. A drowning man going down for the third time.
this is the way the world ends fear is the way we die in spite of the tennis qua qua qua windy boy and a bit and the black spit of the Black Death
I shook my head to clear it. Get a grip on yourself. You’re here. You did it. And nothing happened.
Nothing.
There came a sudden flash and a roar like thunder.
Again.
Christ.
Again.
But no dull thud. Instead, another sound, the shrill whine of metal caroming off concrete.
Suddenly lights were clicking on. Flashlights, by people more prepared than I.
I blinked through the ether into the flickering light.
And there was King, struggling in the grip of two muscle-bound cops.
52.
THERE ISN’T MUCH MORE to tell.
The cops hauled King off to jail, and though it did not cheer me that he knew my face and now had every reason in the world to wish me ill, I had Sergeant Reynolds’s solemn assurance that this was one case that would not be plea-bargained down, one defendant who wasn’t gonna walk.
I had every reason to believe him. The gun King had in his possession turned out to be the same one he used to shoot me, reducing it from a long-shot bet to even odds whether he was stupider than I was. Thanks to that, the cops now had him dead to rights on two charges of attempted murder. They also had him on illegal possession of a firearm, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to kill, hell, maybe even armand assante for all I know. At any rate, there were a lot of counts, and Reynolds promised me none of them were gonna go away.
On top of that, Reynolds’s men had rousted the three mules—something I would not have approved had I known of it, but I didn’t and they did—and of course they were all carrying, so the cops were now putting pressure on them and their parents to have them all roll over on King, which it seemed likely they would. That added to the man’s woes to the tune of at least three counts of possession, possession with intent to sell, conspiracy to distribute narcotics, plus generally being an undesirable person. Even with crowded courts, turn-’em-loose judges and a criminally lenient parole system, the man was not gonna be around for a while.
And where was Raheem in all this? Absolutely nowhere, I’m happy to say. Raheem wasn’t involved. Oh, not that he stayed in the window like a good boy, just ’cause his mama said. The kid is no saint. He followed King, as you would expect, and saw the whole thing go down. The cops picked him up along with the other three, but they didn’t hold him. He had no beeper and no drugs. Just an innocent bystander like others, attracted to the scene.
How he’ll turn out, I don’t know. I can’t play social worker forever. And hell, by next year the kid will be my height and he’ll cream me on the court no matter what I do. It was important that I beat him at basketball, you know. Things might have turned out different if I hadn’t. For him and for me.
So maybe he’ll go straight, maybe he won’t, there’s not much I can do about that. But at least he’ll have better odds. ’Cause King won’t be in the way.
As to Melissa Ford, she has yet to stand trial. Just confessing to the crime doesn’t get you out of that. Of course, if she changed her plea that would be something else, but there’s no chance of that. Poindexter stepped in right away, disclaiming the confession, arguing that she was emotionally distraught and was not of sound mind when she made it and it shouldn’t be allowed in evidence and the whole bit. How it will all turn out I have no idea—thank god, I have absolutely nothing to do with the case. Aside from being a potential witness, I mean. But my best guess is she’ll probably eventually be convicted of something, do soft time at some fashionable detention center that poses as a jail, get out, go on talk shows, sell her story for a TV movie and become famous as the woman who did it for love.
And as for me, well, I got through it. That’s the best I can say. But somehow that’s saying a lot. Because there were times, many times, when it didn’t look like I would.
It’s not like I’m tougher now, or stronger now, or suddenly transformed into some macho figure that I’m not. But I still have the knowledge that I did it. And that counts for something. It counts a lot.
Like I said, there are things that happen and your life is never quite the same.
I think about it a lot in quiet moments, late at night when Tommie and Alice are asleep, or sitting in my office on slow days after riffling through the mail, or even driving to a signup in my car. The word “shot” will flash on me, and I’ll think back.
And sometimes it’s chilling. Sometimes I see the darkened room, the blinding flash, the ether, the void. Sometimes that’s the shot I see.
But sometimes not.
Sometimes I see the twenty-five footer, that sweet game-winner, spinning in the afternoon sun, arcing gently with the soft touch and dropping cleanly through the rim.
Books by Parnell Hall
Stanley Hastings private eye mysteries
Detective
Murder
Favor
Strangler
Client
Juror
Shot
Actor
&
nbsp; Blackmail
Movie
Trial
Scam
Suspense
Cozy
Manslaughter
Hitman
Caper
Puzzle Lady crossword puzzle mysteries
A Clue For The Puzzle Lady
Last Puzzle & Testament
Puzzled To Death
A Puzzle In A Pear Tree
With This Puzzle I Thee Kill
And A Puzzle To Die On
Stalking The Puzzle Lady
You Have The Right To Remain Puzzled
The Sudoku Puzzle Murders
Dead Man’s Puzzle
The Puzzle Lady vs. The Sudoku Lady
Steve Winslow courtroom dramas
The Baxter Trust
Then Anonymous Client
The Underground Man
The Naked Typist
The Wrong Gun
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44