A Man's Game

by Newton Thornburg

  Biting his tongue, Baird stayed out of the argument. He wanted there to be as much harmony between them as possible when they finally sat down with the police. He didn’t want the three of them to come off as so solitary and uncommunicative that the police might sense they were not in total agreement about the threat to Kathy. So he walked a fine line between his wife and daughter, trying to keep Kathy’s spirits up without giving Ellen reason to believe he was coddling the girl.

  Like most structures in downtown Seattle, the Public Safety Building was situated on the side of a hill. Being fairly modern, it was a drab edifice, a high-rise box with a skirt of reddish marble at the base and no-nonsense steel and glass above. In the lobby, Baird stated his business to an officer sitting alone at a raised desk. The officer, who looked like a clone of Jimmy Carter, told Baird to go up to the third floor, where one of the uniformed desk officers would be able to help him.

  “I know the man’s name,” Baird said. “Jimbo Slade.”

  The officer pursed his lips. “Slade, huh? The name rings a bell. Listen, go on up to five—the detective division.” He picked up his phone. “I’ll give them a call. You just wait in the hall there. Someone will come for you.”

  Baird thanked him, and the officer smiled almost as sweetly as the ex-president.

  On the fifth floor, along the corridor wall, there was a pair of benches, both partially occupied. While Baird stood and waited, Ellen and Kathy squeezed in between two elderly Asians and a young black woman who had the look and attire of a hooker. In time, a man came and got them, not introducing himself, just saying the one word, “Baird,” then indicating for them to follow him. He appeared to be in his late forties, a heavy, balding man with a dour, professorial look that he underscored by wearing thick, horn-rimmed glasses and walking like a duck, slapping along with his feet pointed out as he led the three of them around the perimeter of the bull pen.

  Baird, who liked detective shows on television, was surprised at how quiet and orderly this bull pen was compared with the video variety, which usually depicted police stations in New York and Los Angeles. Here there was carpeting and partitions and the decorous chatter of computer keyboards, not law officers and felons screaming at each other. Still, the detectives were armed, and there was at least one handcuffed man sitting next to a desk. On one side of the room there was a row of windowed offices with closed doors. Inside the bull pen, however, there was no real privacy, just clusters of three and four desks separated by the chest-high partitions.

  When the detective reached his desk, he pulled two nearby chairs over to the one already there and indicated for the Bairds to sit. As he sat down himself, he finally managed to tell them who he was, though still not offering his hand.

  “I’m Sergeant Lucca. What can I do for you?”

  Baird introduced himself and Ellen and Kathy, then briefly told the sergeant about Kathy’s situation. “It’s been going on for over two weeks now,” he said finally, taking a paper out of his suitcoat. “Last night I followed the man home to West Seattle. The name on his mailbox is Slade. He calls himself Jimbo. And this is the license and make of his car. Also his address.” He handed the paper to the sergeant, who glanced at it, then turned his attention to Kathy.

  “You’re how old, Miss Baird?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “And you want to make a formal complaint against this individual?”

  “Yes,” Kathy said.

  Looking vaguely troubled, the sergeant began to tap a pencil against the top of his desk. “You understand that this can’t be just a matter of language the man has used, or the fact that you don’t like him.”

  “I know that.”

  “Even under the new stalking statute, there has to be something the man does or says that constitutes a threat,” Sergeant Lucca went on. “A threat against your life or a threat to harm you in some way, force you—something like that. And even then—in the beginning—about all we can do is get a restraining order against him.”

  Kathy told the detective that Slade carried a knife and that he had taken it out as he walked along with her, that she had felt threatened by it.

  “What kind of a knife?”

  “A switchblade. When he took it out, it was just a pearl handle. Then he pushed something and the blade jumped out.”

  “Well, it’s against the law, of course, carrying a switchblade. But these days, with so many kids packing automatic weapons…” Sergeant Lucca shook his head in futility.

  “How about threatening someone with it?” Baird said.

  The detective barely glanced at him before turning back to Kathy. “Just what was the threat? What specifically did he say?”

  Kathy sat silent for a few moments, as if she didn’t know where to start. Then, breathing deeply, she began. Baird wondered whether Lucca could even hear her.

  “He said that I was going to be his woman and that I had no choice in the matter. He said I’d soon be on my knees, begging him to…to make love to me, and—”

  “That’s how he said it?” Lucca asked. “In those words?”

  Kathy looked at Baird and he nodded slightly, frowning, urging her to plunge ahead. And that was exactly what she did, in a way Baird had never heard her speak before. She took another deep breath and let it come.

  “No, he said ‘fuck.’ He said I’d be begging him to fuck me and suck his cock every chance I got. He said I’d learn to love the feel of his blade as much as his cock. And that the ‘coolest’ experience a woman could have was to be stabbed or strangled while she’s having an orgasm.”

  At this, even Ellen squirmed.

  But Sergeant Lucca still looked bored. “That was the way he put it—the coolest experience a woman could have, not necessarily you?”

  Kathy was leaning forward slightly in her chair, her hands clasped in her lap. She turned from Lucca to Baird, who wanted to reach across the desk and give the sergeant a good shaking. “For Christ sake, can’t you hear her?” he wanted to shout. “Can’t you see her?”

  “Yes,” she said now. “Only he didn’t say ‘woman.’”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘Cunt.’ He calls women cunts.”

  At the nearest desk, a woman had just sat down. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties and was unusually striking, with heavily lashed green eyes, olive skin, and short, wavy black hair. Because her desk was at right angles to the sergeant’s, and slightly behind it, Lucca couldn’t see her without turning and therefore wasn’t aware of her obvious interest in Kathy and what she was saying. The nameplate on her desk read: “Det. Lee Jeffers.”

  Lucca shrugged. “Well, there you go. As long as it was impersonal like that—I mean just a general comment about women, even a threat against women—it still wasn’t a specific threat against you.”

  Kathy looked as if she had been slapped. Baird gestured at the paper he’d put on the sergeant’s desk.

  “What about his name and license here? Jimbo Slade—aren’t you going to check to see if he’s got a record, or if he’s wanted?”

  At the mention of the creep’s name, the female detective looked up from her desk. “Slade?” she said to Lucca.

  Swiveling in his chair, Lucca lowered his glasses and gave her the kind of look a teaching nun might have given a noisy pupil. “You weren’t here,” he said.

  The woman shrugged. “I know. I’m sorry. Just go ahead.”

  Lucca’s smile was venomous. “Well, thank you very much, Detective.”

  “Look,” Baird said, “if you two know something about this Slade, we want to know it too. Does he have a record or not?” At the moment, he was looking across Lucca’s desk at the woman, but she suddenly had become engrossed in some papers before her.

  “Well, what about it?” he asked Lucca.

  Just then the sergeant’s phone rang and he answered it, saying nothing but an occasional “Yes, sir” or “No, sir” through most of the conversation. The moment he’d answered the phone, the female detective
had got up and left her desk, almost as if she were afraid Baird would start directing his questions at her. She went over to a desk occupied by a black man with a shaved head, her every move followed closely by the other men in the room, for she had a good figure and didn’t bother to hide it, wearing tight, faded jeans, cowboy boots, and a green-jersey turtleneck. As she spoke with the black man, she looked over at Baird. But seeing that he was watching her, she turned away.

  When Lucca finally hung up, Baird repeated his question. “I was asking about Slade. Does he have a record or not?”

  The sergeant obviously didn’t like being put on the spot. Assuming the same pained expression as before, he took off his glasses and absently began to rub the lint off them. He glanced at the female detective as she returned to her desk. When he finally answered, he did so without even looking at Baird.

  “Well, let’s just say the man is known to us. He’s got a juvenile record, but of course that’s sealed. And he served time in California for assault. Since then—up here—a couple of arrests, but no convictions.”

  “No convictions?” Baird said. “What was he arrested for?”

  “Suspicion of rape and assault. But we had no case. For all practical purposes, he’s got a clean slate.”

  “And you know all this just off the top of your head?” Baird pressed. “You don’t have to check his record? Punch it up on a computer or something?”

  “That’s right,” Lucca said. “It was a recent case. The charges were dropped. Which means he’s just like you or me. He enjoys the same rights as any other citizen. We can’t just haul him in and arrest him because he’s got a dirty mouth and a switchblade. But—as I said—that doesn’t mean we can’t try to get a restraining order against him. Your daughter doesn’t want him bothering her, and that’s understandable.”

  “Well, let’s do that then.” It was the first time Ellen had spoken. “Let’s do what’s possible at least.”

  The sergeant was grateful. “Exactly. For now, that’s all we can do.”

  “And what if he doesn’t obey the restraining order?” Kathy asked.

  “Then we can arrest him. If it’s a flagrant violation, he’ll find himself in jail. But usually in cases like this—not involving ex-wives and kids and such—usually the feelings don’t run so high. The offending party learns that his obsession is going to cost him, and he backs off. That’s what I think will happen here.”

  “And what if you’re wrong?” Baird asked.

  “We cross that bridge when we come to it—not before.” Lucca smiled coldly at Baird. “It’s the law,” he said.

  Baird had planned to pretend on the way out that he had forgotten to mention something to the police. He was going to ask the women to wait for him in the corridor while he went back. With Kathy and Ellen safely out of earshot, he was going to tell the police about Slade’s apparent homosexual whoring, figuring that this would impress upon them the gravity of the situation, the need to move swiftly against the man. But this was a plan made before Baird had dealt with Sergeant Lucca. Now he figured he already knew what the detective would say: that there was no proof Slade had engaged in prostitution, that homosexuality was not a crime, and that Baird would do well to calm down and leave police work to the professionals. Which was exactly what Baird had decided to do. He couldn’t see that he had any other choice.

  As they were driving Kathy to her job, Ellen couldn’t resist a casual dig. “Well, I’m certainly glad I came along. Can’t imagine what you’d have done without me.”

  “For one thing,” Baird said, “I might have punched out Sergeant Lucca.”

  “That would have been a big help.”

  “It would’ve helped me. I’d be feeling a lot better right now.”

  “I didn’t like him either,” Kathy said. “He made me feel like the guilty one.”

  Ellen sighed. “The man isn’t paid to worry about our feelings. He was just doing his job.”

  When he pulled up at Bonds, Baird told Kathy that he would pick her up at four-thirty.

  “I know, Daddy,” she said. “And I really appreciate it. Bye now. I love you guys.”

  She leaned forward from the back seat and kissed him on the cheek, then kissed her mother and got out. Baird did not drive away until she had reached the department store’s door, where she turned and waved.

  Ellen laughed and shook her head. “You’d think she was going to Europe.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “You wouldn’t what?”

  Not answering, Baird turned onto Olive Way, heading east toward home, so Ellen could pick up her Volkswagen and drive on to her job at the university.

  “You notice the kind of kiss she gives me these days?” she said. “You, she kisses on the cheek. Me, she gives one of those high-society busses, kissing the air about six inches away. You’d think she was Princess Grace.”

  “Princess Grace is dead.”

  “Princess Di, then.”

  Baird looked over at her. “Tell me, when was the last time you kissed her?”

  She shrugged and looked out her window at the freeway passing underneath them. In both directions, it looked like a parking lot filled to capacity.

  “When I felt her flinch,” she said.

  Normally Baird stopped in at Leo’s only three or four times a week, usually having just a couple of drinks before going home to a late dinner with Ellen and Kathy. This night, though, he seemed to need the vodka and the time alone, time to think through the problem of Jimbo Slade and an indifferent police department. He had known from the beginning that a restraining order against Slade was probably the most they could hope for, and apparently it was already in the works. But he suspected that Slade in all his swaggering splendor—ponytailed, leopardvested, half-naked—would barely glance at the thing before wadding it up and tossing it away, just as he had the parking ticket. And Baird couldn’t help wondering what he himself would do then. What he could do then.

  Tempting as Leo’s offer of assistance was, he knew he wouldn’t take him up on it. The problem wasn’t Leo’s; it was his. And anyway, Baird knew that when it came to protecting Kathy, no one was going to do the job better than he himself would. He knew he wasn’t as young as Slade, and probably not in as good shape, but then he wasn’t planning to box the man or race him in the four-forty. All he figured he would have to do was communicate with him, somehow get across the message that Kathy was simply off limits to him and that if he persisted in bothering her or harmed her in any way, there would be consequences beyond just another police arrest and interrogation. In other words, Baird would probably have to threaten the man, exactly how or with what, he wasn’t sure yet. But he had never lacked for imagination.

  Nevertheless, for a paper salesman, as for any law-abiding citizen, the idea of meeting and threatening someone like Slade was a scary one. If the creep became violent—well, Baird still had his pool cue, not to mention the gun in his briefcase, the tiny .25-caliber Colt automatic he had bought for cash from the late Bill Chambers, an ex-Norsten salesman who had been assaulted and robbed one night in the company parking lot, all without once reaching for the gun, which he too had kept for protection.

  Because Baird didn’t want to worry Ellen or Kathy, he had never told them about the gun, any more than he had mentioned the uneasy feeling he often had at night dropping off his orders at the darkened warehouse, the day’s collections in his coat pocket. At home he also kept a .38-caliber revolver in the table beside his bed. And finally, there were the rifles and shotguns bought back in the days when he had been an occasional hunter.

  At that point he caught himself and smiled at his sudden flight of paranoia. After all, it was thoroughly possible that Lucca might have been right about Slade, that the man would back off once he learned what his obsession was going to cost him. Or perhaps Ellen saw the creep clearest of all, judging that he was nothing more than a poseur, a fake, the kind of man who would not take a restraining order lightly. In any case, Baird felt
decidedly foolish in letting his fears for Kathy run away with him, even to the point of counting his weapons, none of which had ever been fired in anger.

  He pushed his empty glass toward Sally. “This is my last. Gotta be on my way.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I do. But it’s been real.”

  “It was good for you too, then?” she said.

  “But definitely.”

  When Sally served the refill, Baird took a third of it in a single draft. It felt like a sliver of ice going down.

  “You know a cop named Lucca?” he asked. “A detective?”

  She gave him a withering look, then turned herself into the Godfather’s meanest, most Italianate daughter, gesturing with a cupped hand. “Whatta you tink, huh? You tink every paisan inna world knows every udder paisan? Tell me, you know every mick in town?”

  “I’ve told you before, Sally—I’m not a mick. I’m a high-class Wasp-type fellow. I only come here to slum.”

  “Well, you sure picked the right place for it.” She shook her head. “Naw, I never heard of him. Why?”

  Leo came up behind her like a breaching whale. “What’d you say his name was?”

  “Sergeant Lucca.”

  Leo crooked a bratwurst finger and tapped the side of his head. “Boy, when it goes, it really goes fast, huh, Jack? And to think, she’s only forty.”

  Sally looked puzzled. “Why? You know the guy?”

  “Hell yes, babe. Don’t you remember, right after we bought the place from Kelso? We had a burglary—guy took mostly cigarettes and booze.”

  “And ruined the damn cash register too.”

  “Right. And who was the detective on the case? How the hell could you forget our old pal, Sergeant Lucca? Christ, I practically had to toss the asshole out on his ear.”

  Sally was indignant. “I didn’t forget, smartass! I just forgot his name!”