Dead on My Feet

by J. A. Konrath

  “Explain what you mean.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to be in control. But control is an illusion. Life doesn’t care about your plans. You can work hard to protect yourself against things, but things still happen.”

  “So why not lose control?”

  “Something like that.”

  She seemed to judge me. I acted like I didn’t care.

  “You’re an interesting person, Phineas Troutt. I don’t know what I would do in your situation.”

  “I can say the same about you.”

  “The difference is; I’m paying you and trusting you to deal with my situation.”

  “Which means I need to get back on the job. Harry will stay here with you.”

  “Where are you going?” Pasha asked.

  I winked at her. “I’ve finally figured out a plan.”

  Jack insisted on driving, probably because she assumed I was on drugs. Her car was a 1980-something Chevy Nova, which wasn’t a cool car when it came off the assembly line, and it hadn’t aged well. Besides the aesthetic issues, it also had a very uncomfortable passenger seat, like a five hundred pound sack of cement had been riding shotgun. Harry might have been onto something with Jack’s partner, Herb, gaining weight.

  I was grateful for the lady’s help, so I didn’t press the issue. Plus, it was nice to see her. I don’t know why it had been so long.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said. Lieutenant Mind Reader.

  “I just called you yesterday.”

  “You haven’t been going to the pool hall. Because I’d give you shit about chemo.”

  That’s true, Earl said.

  “Not true,” I countered them both. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy not going to chemo.”

  “I thought we established that you didn’t do psychoanalysis, tough love, or pep talks.”

  “This is ball busting,” she said. “I do ball busting.”

  This woman doesn’t put up with any of your bullshit, Earl said. I like her.

  “How have you been?” I said, cleverly changing the subject.

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  The giant strip mall that was Flutesburg unfurled before us, like we were riding an endless, rolling wave of suburban capitalist bullshit.

  Or maybe I was coming down off all the OTC meds I took.

  Just go play pool with her. What are you afraid of?

  “Fine,” I decided by myself without any prodding. “I’ll meet you for pool.”

  “When?”

  “When this business is over.”

  “You promise?”

  I appraised Jack. She was normally lower key than this. “Seriously? You want me to give you my word?”

  “Busting balls includes laying on the guilt.”

  “I thought it was just about insults.”

  “It’s that, too.” She glanced at me, her eyes crinkling. “You ugly bastard.”

  “Okay, you have my word.” I added, “Bitch.”

  “Can’t bust my balls. I don’t have any. That just comes off as misogyny.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I’m still busting your balls.”

  We passed a place called Bathing Beauties, which had a neon marquee with silhouettes of well-endowed women. A strip joint. Beneath the sign was a plastic banner that read CLOSING SOON.

  “How have you been, Jack?”

  Her lips formed a thin line, and she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Fine. I dunno. Shitty. Work has been slow. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Maybe both. Not a lot of murders is good. But it means I just sit around and watch my thighs spread.”

  “Your thighs look fine.”

  “You think?”

  Mr. Smooth, flirting with the older cop. Too bad she has a boyfriend, huh?

  “How’s the boyfriend?” I asked.

  She frowned. “He’s giving me that look.”

  “What look?”

  “The I’m ready to get serious look.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Conflicted. People I get close to…” she glanced at me. “Tend to get hurt.”

  “That’s up to them, isn’t it? Unless you go live on a deserted island, people are always going to be part of your life. You can’t control that.”

  “Says the guy who has been hiding in a pill bottle.”

  “I can be a hypocrite and still be right.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We drove past the same strip mall as before. Or maybe it was different. I hated the suburbs.

  “How about your love life?” Jack asked. “Seeing anyone?”

  “Whenever I can afford it.”

  “Sex workers?”

  “They provide a service.”

  “You don’t find that experience empty?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re self-medicating with prostitutes and narcotics.”

  “You’re only partly right,” I said. “I’m also abusing alcohol.”

  “I mean sex without emotional connections.”

  I thought about Annie. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to hurt the ones you love.”

  We came to a stoplight. There was an adult video store on the corner, a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE! sign hanging in the window. Things were tough all over. I wondered if it was yet another causality of the digital revolution.

  “Dr. Kapoor seems to like you,” Jack said.

  “McGlade told me the same thing. I don’t think that’s going to happen. The opportunity presented itself, and then passed.”

  “The thing about opportunities,” Jack said, “is that they don’t always go away. Sometimes they stick around until the moment is right.”

  “That sounds like some fortune cookie bullshit.”

  “It isn’t all about timing. Until it is.”

  “And that sounds like some horoscope bullshit.”

  “That’s not bullshit. Right time, right place is the reason everything happens. But there can also be right place, wrong time.”

  “So you’re talking about fate.”

  Jack made a face. “I don’t believe in fate. Nothing’s meant to be. But I do believe that the obvious can beat you in the head so many times, you finally accept it.”

  “Is that how you feel about Latham?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you ever felt that way about someone?”

  Jack looked at me. “Maybe. But I’m not sure the obvious has beaten me in the head enough times.”

  The light turned green. We stared at each other for maybe a few seconds longer than was comfortable, and then she turned left. The Flutesburg Village Hall looked like a low end McMansion, two floors, Tudor style, falling short of grand and landing squarely on tacky.

  As we parked, a familiar behemoth limped out the front door, his face a mosaic of bandages.

  “That’s Bruiser,” I said. “I shot him a few times.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You hit him?”

  “How could I miss him?”

  Jack didn’t seem to believe me. “What did you use? Spitballs?”

  “Might as well have. Thirty-two caliber. I think the bullets bounced off.”

  We got out of the car. When Bruiser noticed me, his eyes widened in obvious surprise. Must have heard I was dead.

  “Hey, Bruiser,” I said. “Funny seeing you here. I thought you’d be in the alley behind the high school gym, buying steroids.”

  “So, you’re still poking around. Who’s the pussy?”

  “The pussy,” Jack said, “is a Homicide Lieutenant. You kill anyone lately?”

  “You ain’t no cop,” Bruiser sneered, poking her in the shoulder.

  Big mistake.

  Jack was a blur of step-grab-bend-flip, and then Bruiser was on his back and she had a knee on his massive chest, one hand holding her badge and the other pointing her .38 in his face.r />
  I made a mental note to never get into a fistfight with Jack.

  “Assaulting a police officer is a felony,” she told him, her voice all business.

  “You’re hurting me,” he wheezed.

  “That’s where I shot him,” I pointed. “In the chest.”

  Jack did not remove her knee. She tucked her badge away and patted him down, fishing out a wallet.

  She glanced at his ID, reading in half a second before turning her eyes back on him. “Your parents named you Bruiser?”

  “I had it changed.”

  “What was your original name?”

  He mumbled something.

  Jack bore down on her knee. “Speak up.”

  “Sue,” he said.

  “You want to call a lawyer? I haven’t even arrested you yet. You want me to arrest you?”

  “My name,” he croaked. “Sue. My parents named me Sue. Like the song.”

  A classic country ditty, made famous by Johnny Cash. A Boy Named Sue. A derelict dad names his son Sue, to make him tough.

  Apparently it worked in real life, seeing what a large and mean fellow Sue had grown up to become.

  “Do you want to go to prison, Bruiser?” Jack asked.

  He shook his enormous head. “No, ma’am.”

  “I have a witness, saw you put your hand on me. I can bring charges anytime I want to. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you think it’s polite to go around calling women pussies?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Do you think I’m a pussy, Bruiser?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “How long did it take me to drop him?” Jack asked me. “A second?”

  “About half that,” I said.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do, Bruiser. You’re going to get up, go home, and do your best from now on to respect women. Because misogyny has no place in society. Got that?”

  His eyes were red, and tears were welling up. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jack got off him, keeping her gun out as he got to his feet.

  “See you later, Suzie,” I told him.

  Bruiser skulked off.

  We watched him for a few seconds, then Jack holstered her gun and we headed for the front door.

  “Goddamn, that guy was big,” Jack said. “You think he works out?”

  “Why didn’t you arrest him?”

  “Three reasons.” Jack ticked off fingers. “This isn’t my jurisdiction, so the paperwork would have been excessive. He just came out of the Village Hall, so he apparently has some connection to the local government, which could get sticky. But the main reason was purely logistical.”

  “Your handcuffs wouldn’t fit him.”

  “Bingo. Now let’s go talk to whoever runs this shithole town.”

  Mayor LaBeck’s secretary had breasts that were so large and defiant of gravity they had to be fake. I purposely moved a bit quicker than Jack, so I could speak first.

  “Jimmy Mulrooni to see Dennis LaBeck,” I said.

  If she knew I wasn’t Mulrooni, she was too smart to admit it. So much for my Sherlock Holmes mind tricks.

  Happily, Jack already had her badge out. “Is LaBeck in?”

  “I believe he’s in a meeting,” she answered, looking from Jack to me and back to Jack.

  “Interrupt it,” said my cop friend.

  She got on the Intercom. “Some detectives here to see you, Your Honor.”

  “I’m just finishing up, Eva. You can show them in.”

  Eva stood and led us to double wooden doors, which she double-opened as a dark, stringbeanish man headed towards us while talking over his shoulder.

  “I can change the sign if it’s offensive,” said the stringbean.

  “There’s nothing I can do, Mr. Kahdem.” He was loud, the kind of man who didn’t need a microphone for public speaking.

  “But the girls aren’t topless! You can’t refuse my liquor license!”

  “Good day to you, Mr. Kahdem.”

  “Let me do the talking,” Jack whispered.

  Mr. Kahdem blew past us, riding on a small cloud of rage.

  “The police here to see you, Your Honor.”

  “Thank you, Eva. You may go.”

  Eva closed the door behind us, and we faced the Honorable Mayor of Flutesburg. He was a handsome, fit man in his fifties, salt and pepper hair, bleached teeth the size of Scrabble tiles. LaBeck flashed those teeth at us as we approached his giant desk. Decorating his walls were dead animal heads; deer, elk, moose, and a bison. On various book cases and cabinets were smaller game, including a beaver, a red fox, two ducks, a pheasant, and a Canadian goose.

  On his desk was a pic of the mayor and a portly woman who was obviously his wife, artificially posed in front of an American flag. I found it odd that the picture was facing visitors, rather than LaBeck.

  I felt a headache forming behind my eyes, and a trickle of sweat started at my neck and began to take a long, slow trip down my spine. Withdrawal symptoms.

  “You’re detectives?” he asked.

  “I’m Lieutenant Daniels, Chicago Homicide.”

  “A bit out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

  “Did you kill all of these animals?” I got in before Jack could respond.

  “I hunt. These are a few of my trophies.”

  “I’ve never hunted deer before. Are they very ferocious?”

  Jack gave me a look. But I wasn’t ready to quit. My pain was returning, and a mean streak was tagging along. Couple that with diminished impulse control, and I shouldn’t have been talking.

  “Are you vegan?” LaBeck asked me.

  “I’m a carnivore,” I said. “But I notice a distinct lack of carnivores on your walls. Why not go after a bear? Or a mountain lion? Or maybe you don’t like it if targets fight back?”

  He smiled a practiced smile. “Please get to your point. I have a very busy schedule for the rest of the day.”

  “Got after dinner plans to shoot some baby squirrels?”

  The corners of his mouth dropped a millimeter, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. “What is it you people want?”

  Jack spoke before I could. “Was Bruiser Corrender just here to see you?”

  “How is that your business?”

  Not an admission of guilt, but it might as well have been.

  “I’m following up on an investigation. He’s a suspect. If you’re conducting business with him, I’d appreciate it if I could ask you a few questions.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t speak to that subject.”

  “You’re refusing to talk about Bruiser Corrender?”

  LaBeck continued to smile. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, making him look as dead as the mounted animals surrounding him.

  “You seem to know a lot of important people,” Jack continued. I followed her gaze, saw she was looking at the framed photographs in between the furry heads. “The President. The Vice President. The Governor.”

  “The Mayor of Chicago,” LaBeck said. “His Honor and I enjoy the occasional golf outing. Do you get along with the Mayor, Lieutenant?”

  “We don’t go on golf outings. I find he lacks… ambition.”

  I wasn’t sure where Jack was going with this, but I did notice, among all the pictures of LaBeck posing with various politicians, actors, and sports figures, was a small painting of a dog playing video poker. I guess even pop art was joining the digital age.

  “Ambition is an important attribute.” LaBeck nodded, and his expression became more open. “Are you ambitious, Lieutenant?”

  “I didn’t get to be a female lieutenant in the Homicide capital of America without knowing how to play the game, Mr. Mayor.” She stepped slightly in front of me. “Unlike my associate here, I understand the world is made up of two types. Predators. And prey. I felled my first mule deer when I was seven. Two hundred and sixty eight meters, with a thirty-aught-six Springfield. Got my name in the paper a
nd everything. It wasn’t the last time I’ve been in the paper, either.”

  My head was starting to throb with my heartbeat.

  “Impressive. And I must admit, Lieutenant, I have heard of you. You’ve appeared on the news, from time to time.”

  “Once or twice. I’ve been a Lieutenant too long. I fear I’ve hit the glass ceiling in law enforcement.”

  “I know the pay scales in Chicago.” LaBeck pretended to wince. “For all you do, you aren’t very well compensated. Now my police chief, here in Flutesburg, he has excellent benefits. And no serial killers or crazed madmen running around this town. Flutesburg is all about low crime, family values… and upward mobility. We could use an officer of your caliber.”

  On the surface, that didn’t make sense. Jack caught killers, and Flutesburg didn’t have any. But even in my diminished condition, I could see the bribe as clearly as if it were a fifty dollar bill tucked in with your license and registration.

  “I’ve been thinking of devoting myself to a different kind of public service.”

  The Mayor nodded. “Politics? I’m sure you’d be excellent. Might I ask your affiliation?”

  “Republican,” Jack said. “Like you. What do you aspire to, Your Honor? Are you content here in Flutesburg? A man of your… presence… would make an excellent governor.”

  He seemed to inflate like a warty bullfrog. “You flatter me, Lieutenant. Illinois currently has a Democratic governor. But I sense a change coming. This state, and this country, are on track to embrace more conservative moral values. When that change happens, some of us will be prepared for it.”

  “Let me give you my card,” Jack said, stepping forward. I noticed, when she handed it over, her fingers grazed his. “If you’d like to talk to me about anything, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “I’ll do that.” He stood and held out his hand. “It was a pleasure.”

  “The pleasure is mine.”

  They shook, held it too long, and then Jack walked past me and out the door. I trailed behind her, and didn’t speak until we got into the hall.

  “What the hell just happened?” I asked, irritated. “Other than you flirting with him, and lying about being a republican.”

  “What happened was you showed the restraint of an ADHD kid in a candy store, and I wanted to shoot you.”

  “Good thing one of us had restraint.” I raised a partial eyebrow. “Are you really a republican?”