Last Shot

by Jay Nadal

  Cops around the room nodded. They held their coffees or their waters, and they watched him. Except, one of them was glancing at his watch. Another was watching, but his eyelids were drooping, and he kept opening his eyes wide and glancing about as though to check that no one had caught him.

  They were the same as him. This was a sham. You did what you had to do to get back on the streets.

  “It felt good, Angela,” Cade finally replied. He kept emotion from his tone but enjoyed the savage pleasure from her widening eyes. She covered her momentary slip quickly.

  “In what way did it feel good, Thomas? Taking those lives.”

  He shrugged almost defiantly. “They deserved it.”

  “Okay, so it gave you some satisfaction to kill them? You acted as judge. I’m sure everyone has experienced something similar.”

  “No, Angela.” Cade used her name like a bludgeon. “It gave me no satisfaction. Just like shooting a rabid dog wouldn’t give me any satisfaction.”

  “So, in what way did it feel good?” she asked.

  “Because that’s what needed to happen. After what they did,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Murmurs came from around the room.

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Yeah, brother.”

  “Got what was coming to them.”

  Black and white, greenhorns and veterans. They were showing the first real feeling since the session had begun. Angela cast a quick look about the room, failing to hide her concern.

  “If we could return to Thomas’s actions. What I’m most interested in getting at is the source of the ‘good’ feeling”—she made inverted commas in the air with her fingers, and Cade loathed her even more—“Thomas felt when he shot two men dead.”

  “It felt right, okay? It felt good. I don’t know how many different ways you want me to say it. Those two would have got a few years inside for what they did, but it wouldn’t have been enough. It wouldn’t have been justice.”

  “So, you dispensed justice?”

  “I defended myself. My life was in danger. It was them or me. The end result was that they got justice. That’s what felt good.”

  There was a hint of exasperation in Angela’s expression now.

  “Ooooh-kay,” she said, drawing out the vowels. “And what would you do differently if you could?”

  Her pen hovered over the clipboard. This was the crux. All the bullshit thus far was supposed to let him see that it was wrong to take a life. All the talking was so he could admit that he felt ashamed, but that he was putting it behind him. The box would be ticked. His badge and gun would come back to him, and he would be back on the streets, a modern police officer.

  The others had all done it. Some had shown defiance at first. Some had shown resentment. Then they had given the words they were expected to give and had left the room cops again. Fuck that.

  “Nothing,” he drawled.

  “Nothing?” she asked, obvious confusion on her face.

  “Nothing. I would kill them both because it was their life or mine and because it was what they deserved.”

  The pen hadn’t moved yet.

  “Now, I know what I’m expected to say, darlin’. But I ain’t gonna say it because I don’t really care if you tell my captain that I’m not fit to carry a gun anymore. I could have played along with this game and said the right things, but I ain’t doing that anymore. Got that?

  “And don’t pretend that if some PCP-snorting junkie came at you out of the dark, with batshit-crazy eyes and a knife in his hands, that you wouldn’t pull the trigger just like I did and be glad about it. Out there, it’s a fucking slaughterhouse. Kill or be killed. Innocent people. Men, women, and kids being killed every damned day, and we pick up the shit afterwards. And I don’t intend to end up being buried just to preserve the goddamned human rights of an animal who gave up all pretense at being a man long ago.”

  Cade stood. The tirade had poured out of him like vomit. He hadn’t raised his voice, but it had been implacable and hard. It cut or crushed any attempt to interrupt. Angela appeared stunned. The others exchanged glances amongst themselves. Cade knew the looks. He could read them like a book.

  That guy just cashed his pension early or earned himself a desk job for life.

  Once upon a time, either thought would have made his belly clench tight. This job had been his life. Since Ellie went, there was literally nothing else. He pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and strode out of the room. Angela didn’t try and stop him, but he thought he heard the scratching of a pen.

  He came close to running out of that building. He went through the automatic doors of HPD’s downtown HQ and stopped on the sidewalk. He sucked in a deep breath. The air tasted metallic, like all city air tasted. But it was a damn sight fresher than that room had been.

  Trees lined Travis Street opposite, and there was a small park at the intersection down the street. The green contrasted against the uniform grays of downtown. Gray sidewalk, gray pavement, gray stone buildings. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the country. Maybe that was why he had spent so much time on the beat in Sunnyside.

  He started walking toward the park, ignoring curious looks directed at the man who had come out of police HQ like a bullet from a gun. His phone buzzed. He checked it before answering.

  “Hi, Rissa. Listen, this isn’t a good time, hon,” he said.

  “You’re going to have to make it a good time. I’ve got something to tell you, and you need to hear it. Where are you right now? Home?”

  “No, downtown. Another therapy session,” he answered.

  “I suggest you take some leave for a couple of weeks because your life is about to get very public.”

  “What are you talking about, Rissa?” he asked, suddenly very curious about the reason for her call.

  “So, you know the mother of one of those men you shot went to the press. ‘My seventeen-year-old boy was the victim of trigger-happy white cops,’ that sort of angle.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t seen any headlines for a few days now. You said the press would move on.”

  “Yes, if they couldn’t get the name of the officer concerned. Without the name, there’s no story. Do you see? Just a united front from Houston PD, and you can’t persecute an entire police force. But now someone has given the press your name.”

  Cade stopped in his tracks. “How?”

  “Come on, Tommy. You’re the cop. How do you think? Someone was paid for the information. I’ve had two editors approach me to write a story for them. They don’t know that I know you specifically, but they know I have a good source in the HPD. They want the dirt on you. The Chronicle is the biggest of them, but I hear some of the African American papers are sniffing around, too. I haven’t agreed to write anything. I just wanted to warn you. This could even go national. You’ll be hounded, TC.”

  Rage flared within him. “Fuck,” he snarled. “All I did was defend myself.”

  “I know that, but one of the men was cuffed, and they were both seventeen, FFS.” Rissa was getting angry, too; she was starting to swear. “Don’t be naive, you dumb A-hole. You know how that’s going to play in the press now they have a name to pin it to. They’ll drag up the Discount Liquor store. Another black man dead. They’ll try and make it a revenge angle, too, most likely.”

  Rissa’s words were a slug to the gut. Because she was right. And so was the press. Hadn’t he been consumed by a desire for revenge? Hadn’t he joined up with Bryant because he wanted Rivera’s death to be avenged? He wanted to punish the kind of people who had killed her. Made himself judge and jury.

  “Are you still there, Tommy? TC?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  The anger had drained from him as fast as it had come. He felt empty. Once upon a time, a slur on his integrity as a police officer would have been the greatest shame he could imagine. But he felt…nothing. He suddenly felt tired. Exhausted. His car was parked back at headquarters. It seemed too far away.


  “Just get out of the city for a while. Take a vacation. When they can’t get you for a comment, they’ll lose interest again soon enough. I’m sure the department will protect you, too.”

  Cade laughed. It was a sound that exploded from his chest and had no connection to actual merriment. It was a bark of derision.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Rissa.”

  “Why, what’s happened?”

  “Nothing yet. But the therapist isn’t going to give a good report. And I know what happens when cops get a bad psych evaluation.”

  “Well, JC, Tommy. You know the game, so just play along! I can’t believe you. Do you want to be fired? Then they really will throw you to the wolves because it’ll deflect attention from them.”

  “I don’t think I can anymore, Rissa. I just don’t think I care,” he said.

  There was silence for a moment. “Hey, come to my place. You can sleep on my couch for a few nights. I don’t think you’re in a fit state to be on your own anyway.”

  “Thanks for the offer, Rissa. But I’m starting to feel real hemmed in. I think I need to get out for a while. Maybe head out to the desert.”

  He had walked to what he had thought to be a small park. It wasn’t. It was just an ornamental garden attached to a gray office building that towered over it. For some reason, he felt disappointed.

  As he turned back toward the HQ building, he saw two men in gray suits walking purposefully in his direction. They were taking wallets from their jackets and flipping them open to reveal the shine of badges inside.

  “I’ve got to go, Rissa,” he told her and hung up.

  16

  “Thomas Cade,” said the nearest man. He was middle-aged and balding. His scalp was pink. “ I am Inspector Archer, IAD. This is my colleague, Inspector Hyram.” He indicated another middle-aged man wearing an identical suit. That one wore sunglasses and had a round face, almost a baby face. Neither wore any distinctive expression.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” Cade asked, keeping his tone respectful. Here he was, back in the game again. As though he didn’t know what a visit from Internal Affairs meant.

  “We would very much like you to come back inside with us,” Inspector Archer said.

  “And why is that?” Cade responded.

  “You know why, so stop dicking us around,” Hyram said.

  “A complaint has been brought to us about your conduct. I don’t intend to elaborate in public. If you would come with us,” Archer said.

  Cade followed the two IAD officers back to HQ. They walked him in through the main entrance, flanking him. Every cop that saw him would have known what was going on. They could have gone in through a back entrance, but this was all part of his punishment.

  The department had found itself under the spotlight, and it was pushing him in front to take the full glare. And he would be the media’s whipping boy. The dealers and the gangstas in Sunnyside and everywhere else in this city would carry on about their business, knowing that the cops couldn’t do shit without being hauled through the mud.

  He wanted to lash out at the two men. Knew he could take them. They spent their lives in these air-conditioned offices and in front of computers. They kept the guns that regulations required them to be issued locked away.

  Another room. Another sanitized, dehumanized room. Archer faced him from across a desk. A board behind him had several newspaper clippings and Xerox copies of reports attached to it. Sparrow Street, Discount Liquor, and several incidents for which he had received commendations over the years. Incidents he had thought he had long forgotten about.

  Hyram sat to the side, watching Cade while Cade’s attention was on the man opposite him. He had been part of enough interviews to know the mechanics, but he’d never been the subject of an interview before. Not as a potential criminal or a cop accused of misconduct.

  He should feel shame, embarrassment, anything. But there was nothing. He just wanted out. Out of this building. Out of this city. Somewhere he could see the horizon.

  “Officer Cade. May I call you Thomas?”

  “Officer Cade is fine,” Cade said.

  “Fair enough. Let’s play it that way. You’ve got no reason to be defensive with us. We are fellow officers. It’s our job to investigate any complaints that come to us. Our duty.”

  “Are you trying to justify yourself to me?” Cade asked.

  “No. Just explaining why you’re here. The night of September thirteenth. The shooting of two seventeen-year-old African-American youths at 1992 Sparrow Street, Sunnyside. Could you tell us exactly what happened?”

  “I already made out the report. It says exactly what happened in my own words,” Cade answered.

  “I would like you to repeat for me what happened,” said Archer. He had a slight smile that never touched his eyes.

  “No,” he said.

  With a sigh, Archer said, “I’ll make it an order, then.”

  Cade actually found himself opening his mouth to give his account again, to respond to an order from a superior officer. The instinct was ingrained after fifteen years. It had become his most instinctive reaction.

  He closed his mouth. He felt a curious sensation. He hadn’t felt anything like it for a long time. He felt free. Cade smiled, and Archer frowned, casting a glance at Hyram, then back to Cade.

  “Something funny, Officer Cade?” Archer asked.

  Cade shook his head. “No.”

  “Want to share with us what you have to smile about?”

  “No,” Cade answered.

  Archer sighed again. “I don’t think you appreciate how serious this situation is for you. You shot an unarmed, handcuffed man. That’s not good. You want to lose your job?”

  “I ain’t losing it. I’m giving it up,” Cade said, the freedom of those words wrapping around him.

  Archer opened his mouth, clearly expecting a different answer because he sat there for a moment with his mouth open.

  Hyram broke protocol in his surprise.“You’re quitting?”

  “Yep,” Cade said, grinning broadly.

  He felt good. For the first time in a very long time. He didn’t feel that his life was empty without this job. Without the badge. Without being a cop. The rules didn’t apply to him anymore. The orders couldn’t touch him.

  “So, if I could have paper and pen, sir?” Cade asked politely.

  He reached across the desk to take a sheet of paper and a pen from Archer’s side of the desk. He wrote out his intention to resign with immediate effect, signed, and dated it.

  “So, that just leaves the question of whether I am actually under arrest?” Cade asked.

  Archer was recovering his equanimity. “No, you’re not under arrest, Officer… Sorry, Mr. Cade now, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Cade said with a smile.

  “I can’t promise that charges won’t be brought based on our interviews with civilian witnesses and your fellow officers. And, of course, the department won’t be able to protect you from a civil suit. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  For a moment, Cade saw the glimmer of humanity creeping through. The bureaucratic facade slipped, and one man tried to give another the chance to take back a mistake. Except Cade knew it wasn’t a mistake. He didn’t know what he would do or where he would go. But he knew that he was done being a cop.

  The community he had once believed it was his duty to protect was now a sewer to him. A trash pile to be cleansed of vermin. He had once tried to see everyone he encountered as a person with their own story. He couldn’t see it anymore. All he saw was the crimes and the need, the terrible, overwhelming need to take revenge.

  He thought of Bryant. His gleeful, infliction of violence on those he deemed to be guilty. That would be Cade, too, if he continued. He would see the streets as his, his own personal domain to be ruled with an iron fist.

  It wasn’t about justice; it was about power, and there would be no difference between him and the gangsters. He would just be another OG,
ruling through fear until he reached the point where the uniform was taken away. Then he would just be an old man raging against a world that didn’t listen to him. Didn’t listen because it had only ever listened because he carried a gun.

  He took a deep breath, smiling again.

  “I know what I’m doing. Thank you, Inspector. Can I go now?”

  Archer sat back in his chair and blew out his cheeks in bemusement. He rubbed his hand across his pink, balding scalp. “Yes. You are free to go. I will contact your precinct to inform them of your decision. They will retain your badge and gun, obviously…”

  Cade stood and walked out of the room while Archer was still talking.

  When he left Travis Street for the second time, it was by the parking lot entrance. He dialed Rissa and tossed his phone onto the passenger seat on speaker. It went immediately to voicemail. He was glad.

  “Hey, Rissa, it’s Tommy. I just quit. I’m going back to my apartment to collect some stuff, then I’m heading out. Don’t know where to yet, or for how long. Just wanted to say thanks and don’t worry. I’m real good. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  He hung up and headed for the interstate.

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  Detective Scott Baker Series

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