Loving Time

by Leslie Glass

  Gagging, Boudreau tried to double over, but Mike was out of control. He didn’t let go. He didn’t let the man buckle and vomit on the floor as nature decreed. He kept his hold on the larger man, shaking and shaking him in a frenzy.

  “You sick bastard. Hijo deputa.” He held Boudreau upright by the throat so close their faces almost touched. “Culo,” he whispered. “Cagado.”

  Then he smashed Boudreau backward over the table and pinned him down with one arm. His other hand was clamped on Boudreau’s Adam’s apple, squeezing so hard the man couldn’t vomit, couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t catch the breath he’d lost.

  April was horrified at the pure animal rage of Mike totally lost to the world. He was crazed, didn’t know what he was doing. She’d seen this happen with other cops. Seen plenty of kicking and beating violent suspects on the street, seen cops so mad they could kill with their bare hands. The thing you did was open the door. Call for help. Subdue the cop.

  Stop it. Her job was to stop it.

  The suspect was choking. He was losing consciousness, was turning blue. Open the door, call for help. Subdue the cop. She couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. The tape clicked off. Sergeant Joyce was at home, sick. The A.D.A. wasn’t coming in until they had something. There was nobody watching behind the mirror. They were alone. Mike was covered with sweat. He was at the man’s throat, out of control. And April was too shocked to move.

  Then it stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Mike removed his hand from the suspect’s throat and pushed him off the table onto the floor.

  “Now apologize to the lady,” he said.

  sixty-five

  In about fifteen minutes Mike had cooled off and returned to being the professional cop. He had Boudreau back in the chair at the table and appeared to accept the man’s mumbled apology to April. It was clear he was not going to leave Boudreau alone to think about what he’d done. He was going to go on with the interview as if nothing had happened, calm and cool.

  April did not calm down, however. It was not unusual for suspects who hadn’t been touched at all to demand lawyers, then claim they’d been beaten and tortured. Mike had almost killed this guy. If Boudreau asked for a lawyer and complained soon enough, there might be bruises on his neck to prove Mike had lost it. She was nervous and unsure of what she should do.

  Healy was down at the courts waiting for a warrant to search Boudreau’s apartment. Aspirante was searching the basement of the Stone Pavilion. Their investigation was moving along. There was no way to change the configuration of who was doing what without Sergeant Joyce’s intervention. April had no doubt Joyce would take them both off the case if she knew what had just happened.

  Mike’s sweat dried. He’d calmed down, but the threat of violence lingered. April did not consider the problem resolved when Bobbie did not immediately ask for a lawyer, or when both men pretended nothing had happened. Or even when Mike got a uniform to bring in more food at twelve-thirty and Bobbie ate it. This was bad news, an unstable and potentially dangerous situation. She debated calling in another detective. But there were problems with that. All the detectives were out in the field. And even if everyone were in, she was not in a position to take any independent action. Mike was in charge. He was the supervisor of the squad and he had not adequately supervised himself. All she could do was stay in the room as long as Mike was with the suspect.

  April was deeply disturbed. She had worked with Sanchez over a year and had no idea he was capable of nearly killing an unarmed man in his custody with his bare hands. She could not take over the interview because the suspect hated Asians. But she could not leave, either. She was pinned to her chair for hours in the airless interview room as Mike tried to make the crucial bridge between Boudreau and the murder of Harold Dickey.

  She would not leave him. The balance had shifted and things had changed between them. It wasn’t simple anymore. When he’d shoved his own body between her and a raging fire months ago, Mike had viewed protection of her as his duty. He’d have done the same for a man, for anybody. Some cops saved the other fellow first no matter who the other fellow was. This defense of her honor today was mad and unreasoning, totally out of control. There was no excuse for it.

  April sat uncharacteristically mute. Over the hours, as Mike questioned Bobbie, she remembered all the times she and Mike had been alone together in tight places, in dangerous places, in boredom—in the maelstrom of other people’s violence. In extreme situations he would punch somebody once, jerk someone’s arm behind his back. But his way was to subdue quickly and efficiently. He wouldn’t use force unless he had to, and never extended it beyond what was necessary to get the job done. He had a reputation for being laid-back, almost too laid-back.

  Now she knew Mike’s self-control was new, learned relatively recently. The going-over-the-edge was an old thing. And now he wouldn’t look at her. He was ashamed, like a reformed alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon. That was how she guessed he’d been in the gangs when he was a kid, was no stranger to violence.

  She was stunned. She had thought she knew him. She thought she knew herself. Right and wrong always seemed so black and white to her—what you were supposed to do and what you weren’t. It was clear. It was written down. April always felt she would hold to the side of right no matter what happened or who was involved. She didn’t like violent people. Didn’t respect cops who went around bashing people who taunted them. But she still respected Mike, even after what he had just done. She knew that when she hadn’t stopped him, she herself had gone over the edge. And now they were both out there.

  But there was no time to talk about it. At three-thirty Daveys charged into the supervisor’s office, where the four detectives were reviewing their day.

  “Where is he?” he demanded.

  “Ah, Daveys,” Mike piped up from behind the supervisor’s desk; “we were just talking about you. Where’ve you been all day?”

  “Where’s the suspect? This is the second fucking time you’ve done this to me.”

  “What? Done what?” Mike protested. Aspirante and Healy shifted around in their chairs. April sat on the windowsill, probably for the very last time. The ivy was dead.

  “You’re supposed to cooperate. You kids aren’t cooperating.”

  “We worked according to plan today. You knew exactly what we were going to do. We did it. If you got a better offer today, that’s not my problem.”

  “All right, all right. Let me see the video.”

  Healy scraped his chair on the floor. Aspirante coughed. Daveys glared at them. “What’s your problem?”

  “This isn’t L.A., Daveys. We don’t have a video.”

  “No video?” Daveys was impatient and aggrieved. “Well, you got a confession, right?”

  Mike’s face was impassive. He glanced at April. It was maybe the third time he’d looked at her all day. He didn’t get a reading, so he turned back to Daveys. “We can link him with the Treadwell incidents. There were newspaper articles about Treadwell and her condom campaign taped to the wall in the basement room at the hospital, where he hung out. Also packages of condoms, scissors, paste, several fake IDs, different uniforms. Metal toolbox. Guy didn’t have any trouble getting around.”

  “What about Dickey?”

  Mike shook his head.

  Daveys made a face. “What’s the matter with you kids? Don’t you know how to do an interview?”

  “He said he didn’t do Dickey.”

  “Oh, yeah, then what was he doing there when Dickey was brought in to ER? What about the fucking scotch bottle?”

  “It’s at the lab, being tested.” Healy had found the Johnnie Walker bottle in Boudreau’s apartment, right in plain sight, just where Daveys had said it would be.

  “It’s a smoking gun,” Daveys said with satisfaction.

  Mike glanced at April.

  “What?” Daveys demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “What, for Christ’s sake? Don’t hold back on me.” />
  “Boudreau says he took the bottle out of Dickey’s office because Treadwell was setting him up with it.”

  “Treadwell was setting Boudreau up,” Daveys said with heavy sarcasm. “They were that close?”

  “Boudreau says Treadwell knew he was harassing her, so she decided to get rid of him.”

  “By murdering one of her oldest friends?”

  “Well, it’s complicated, Daveys. Dickey was Treadwell’s lover years ago. They were being named in a lawsuit over a patient who’d suicided.” Mike chewed his mustache thoughtfully.

  Daveys closed his eyes, then opened them. “You’re fucking up here. The guy had the evidence in his home. If it turns out the Elavil was in the scotch bottle, you have a smoking gun. What else do you fucking need here?”

  “Treadwell was with Dickey when he died.” April spoke up for the first time.

  Daveys rolled his eyes at her. “Ah, another country heard from. So, little girl, Treadwell was in the office. Boudreau was down on the street. So what?”

  “So there are two threads leading to the truth here,” Mike said. His eyes blazed at the FBI agent’s insult to April. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be interested in the truth? I thought I heard somewhere that the FBI was dedicated to uncovering the truth.”

  Healy guffawed.

  “What a bunch of fuckups. Where is he? You still got him here, don’t you?” Daveys demanded. His stony face was getting red.

  “Yeah, we got him,” Mike said.

  “Okay, give me a few minutes with him.” Daveys shook his head. “Do I have to do everything for you kids? Bring him out, I’ll show you how to get a confession.”

  “Fine.” Mike glanced at April again. This time her eyes flickered. She pushed off the sill and went to the bathroom.

  Sixty-six

  Bobbie was slumped in his chair in the interview room when Daveys walked in with his FBI credentials held in front of him as if he were warding off Satan with a cross.

  “Hi, Bob, ma man. I’m Special Agent Daveys, FBI,” he said.

  Well, look who joined the party. Bobbie felt like laughing. The other asshole. The Fed. This morning he’d been humiliated at work by spic-and-slope cops. The spic had tried to kill him, and it got him nowhere. Now they had to get this FBI crud he’d seen hanging around the bitch Treadwell to take a crack at him.

  “FBI, you hear that, Bob?”

  “So what am I supposed to do: shit in my pants?”

  “Most people do.”

  Bobbie snorted.

  “I see you’re a man with a sense of humor. How’re you doing with the police—they treating you all right? You want some coffee, a cigarette?” Bobbie didn’t reply, so Daveys shrugged and lowered himself into a chair.

  Bobbie watched the asshole with cold, pale eyes. He’d seen guys like this before. In the service they were the ones who used clubs to do their questioning and made up the answers after their victims were dead. He flinched when Daveys suddenly reached down to his ankle where a gun was strapped. He glanced over at Bobbie with raised eyebrows as he scratched an imaginary itch on his calf.

  “I want to make this easy for you, Bob. We know all about you. Everybody here knows everything there is to know about you.”

  Bobbie glanced uneasily at the tape recorder. The asshole hadn’t turned it on. Bobbie had a feeling it hadn’t been an oversight. He made some faces at the mirrored wall opposite him, wondered if anyone was watching on the other side of it.

  Daveys rubbed the side of his calf just above the butt of the gun. “Make it easy on yourself, Bob, tell me about Dr. Dickey and his drinking problem, how you put the Elavil in the old man’s scotch.” Daveys’s hand moved to the butt of his gun. “Let’s get this over with, save ourselves a lot of time and aggravation.”

  Bobbie licked his lips and glanced at the mirror again. Anybody out there, or was this asshole going to finish what the other asshole had started?

  “I didn’t off the bastard,” he said finally.

  “You didn’t—then who did?”

  Bobbie pulled on his ponytail. “You know who did.”

  “Oh, Bobbie boy, this is no way to treat the FBI. We’re not stupid, you know. We’ve got the goods here. We’re going to put you away for a long time for what you did to Dr. Dickey.”

  “Don’t give me this FBI shit. It means nothing to me.” Bobbie shook his head. They had nothing to charge him with. They had nothing on him that could put him behind bars for a single day, and this asshole knew it. He hadn’t killed Dickey. He wasn’t going down for it.

  “Sure it means something to you, Bob. The FBI is everybody’s nightmare. We don’t let go.”

  “I’m not going down for it. The bitch was in the room with him. Ever think about that, FBI?” Bobbie waved at the mirror. “Anybody out there? The—fucking—bitch—killed—her—old—man. You gonna let her get away with it?”

  “You know, Bob, you’re not being cooperative. Is that smart?” Daveys looked pained. “You want to be smart, Bob, don’t you? You don’t want me to think you’re stupid, do you?”

  “You’re trying to fuck me. Why should I give a shit what you think?”

  “Because I’m important to you. I can save your life—”

  “Can you?” Bobbie sneered.

  “—or I can end your life. What do you want it to be?”

  Bobbie was silent. He did not see a choice here.

  “You know, you’re never going to get another job, Bob. You’re done, finished. Your wiping Dickey is not just a suspicion of ours. We know you did it. Your girlfriend told us you killed him. She told us all about it.”

  Bobbie shook his head. Gunn wouldn’t have done that.

  “Yes, man, she did. She told us what a bad boy you are.”

  Bobbie squirmed in his chair, uneasy. “That’s a load. She doesn’t know shit about it.”

  Daveys laughed. “Believe me. I don’t lie.”

  Bobbie snorted. “Well, neither do I. I didn’t like him, but I didn’t off the guy. Why should I? His girlfriend did it.”

  “Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh.” Daveys got up and slouched over to the chair where Bobbie was sitting. “I don’t want to hear this cowardly shit about Dr. Treadwell. This is a life-or-death matter, understand? Life or death, Bobbie. So make it easy for all of us.” Daveys leaned into Bobbie’s space, crowding him. “I said, speak up.”

  Bobbie didn’t speak, didn’t move. He stared at Daveys.

  “Are you telling me you’re not a man, Bob? You know what I think you are? I think you’re an un-American sack of shit.” Daveys leaned closer. He whispered, “You smell like a sack of shit, too.”

  Bobbie looked down at the gun on Daveys’s ankle. He kept his silence.

  “You’re a chicken-shit coward. You kill like a girl, Bob. You’re a disgrace to your country. You fragged an officer in ’Nam. That’s as low as they go. How many innocent people have you killed since, you mulatto sack of shit?”

  The blood rushed to Bobbie’s head so fast he was almost blinded by his rage. Then Daveys backed away. For a second Bobbie thought he was going to take out his gun and shoot him right there in the interview room.

  “I want a lawyer,” Bobbie managed to croak out. Now he was scared, really scared. “I know my rights,” he cried. “You either let me out of here or you arrest me.”

  It was over, and Daveys knew it. He banged his hand on the table. “I want you to know something, asshole. It’s my job to rid society of vermin like you, and I do my job whether I like it or not.” He spun around and smacked the table again.

  “You’re a blight on this country, on the whole world, you hear me, you little shit? And I’m going to bring you down not because it’s my job—my job just makes it legal—I’m going to get you because I want to. And I may break you, and you may be dead first.” When Daveys finished talking and hitting the table, he walked out of the room and slammed the door.

  An hour later Bobbie was back on the street.

  sixty-seven

&
nbsp; Gunn kept trying the phone in the basement apartment all Tuesday. It rang and rang and nobody answered. Where was Bobbie? She knew he hadn’t shown up at work because she called and asked for him. The person who answered the phone in the maintenance office said he didn’t know where Bobbie was.

  Gunn was worried. When Bobbie got upset, he went out drinking. When he drank, he got in fights. She was glad she’d told the Chinese cop she had no picture of him, and there hadn’t been one out on display to prove her a liar. She was glad he’d never put a card with his name on the intercom board. Bobbie didn’t want to be found. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to find him. She felt so guilty for what she’d done.

  As the evening hours crawled by, Gunn became more and more concerned. She’d never liked the game of hide-and-seek when she was a kid. Concealment scared her. It always upset her to be in a game where she couldn’t see what was going on. Days had gone by, over a week had passed since Dr. Dickey drank from his scotch bottle and died. And every second she was more afraid. Last time Bobbie got in trouble, she was right there in the middle of it all, knew every detail of the incident, but was never in any danger herself. Now she was the one in trouble and didn’t know which way to turn. She had nobody but Bobbie, and he was out there somewhere, wasn’t coming home to her now that she’d been to the police station, had her fingerprints taken and talked to the cops. Bobbie would forgive her for everything else, but he wouldn’t forgive her for talking about him.

  The Chinese detective had given Gunn her business card last Friday, just in case she thought of something else. Gunn had put the card in her purse to be polite. This morning she took it out. She still felt guilty about letting the detective into her apartment and then not telling her the truth about what she’d done. Maybe Bobbie had seen the cop come in last night and was too unnerved by it to come home. Gunn was pretty sure Bobbie hadn’t slept in the building. Maybe the cop had gone to find Bobbie at work this morning and that was the reason he hadn’t shown up. Gunn hadn’t shown up at work, either. She hadn’t slept and was terrified because she was out of her depth and didn’t know what to do. She wished Bobbie would come back so she could explain everything to him.