It was full dark by 5 P.M. If you looked west, you could see the snowy peaks of the Front Range shimmering in the fading sunlight that had finally broken through the cloudbanks. But in downtown Denver, the snow was churned brown and gray by the traffic, and the streetlights sparkled like dream crystal.
Lindsey was moored to her laptop, so I walked along the 16th Street Mall, all the way down to Larimer Square. The office crowd lingered in warm bars, and snugly dressed young couples shopped and strolled. In a taphouse near Coors Field, I fortified myself with a MacCallen, neat. The jukebox played Sinatra, “One for My Baby.” I found myself missing Lindsey, even though she was only half a mile away. And missing Peralta: his capricious temper, his impossible demands, his quirkiness, but all somehow wrapped up in a package that made us feel safe and centered. There was one for Dr. Sharon to expound on.
Safe and centered. In the honest darkness of the bar, I recalled Lindsey’s words that morning.
“I thought we were the good guys.”
She had said it with a simple sadness as she played with my chest hair, molded against me and warm in the rumpled bedclothes.
“Every cop I ever knew wanted to do good,” she had said. “Why else would you put up with the bullshit? The same group of hopeless cases you deal with over and over, when you’re on patrol. The harassment from the lawyers and the politicians. I always thought, no matter what, at least we’re the good guys.”
I had said something forgettable and she had laid her head on my chest, listening to my heart. After a long time, she had said, “I got a call the other day from Yahoo. Can you believe it? They wanted me to talk to them about consulting on security.” Then she had gone back to monitoring my heart. Finally: “I would have said no. But this time-Dave, don’t hate me-I said I wanted to think about it.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” she had said. Quietly: “We wouldn’t have to move. Unless you wanted to live in San Francisco. Maybe go back to teaching and writing. Be safe.”
That’s where we had left it. When the last precious drops of single malt were gone from the glass, I walked three blocks to the red brick warehouse that held Beth Proudfoot’s gallery.
I was mortally afraid of falling on ice. It’s not like you got ice balance growing up in Arizona, and I never gained it in the years I lived in cold places. I had already had two near spills, which were almost worse than just going ahead and falling on my ass. So I walked down Blake Street like a little old man, listening like a Minnesota ice fisherman to the ground crunching under my shoes. The giving texture of the snow made a welcome echo. The hard surface of ice was a single note snap that made me wary. My slow pace made it easy for me to gaze into the broad, clean windows of the bright gallery and see the stocky man standing just outside.
He was all arm muscles and thick neck, warmed only by a light black windbreaker. He had a low center of gravity, but stood lightly, bouncing on the balls of his feet, looking at nothing in particular. Beyond him, the gallery was deserted. A purple neon sign glowed in the window in signature script: “Beth Proudfoot.” I felt my abdomen tighten.
“It’s closed,” he said in a slow, heavy voice.
“Why?” I asked.
He stared at me, surprised to be asked a question. His eyes were hazel concrete.
“Closed,” he said, more quietly. “Move on.” Then he held out a meaty hand toward my chest, almost, but not quite, touching me.
Quicker than he could react, I stepped forward, brought my arms across his forearm and knelt down. It was a neat move I learned years ago in the academy. He grunted and fell to the pavement.
“You can answer my question, or I’ll break your arm,” I snarled, forcing back all the fears and scruples that civilized living breeds in us. I leaned hard toward the pavement, forcing his arm, and he yelped.
“Who the fuck are you?!” he gasped.
“Wrong answer,” I said, and pushed again. I felt his radius start to stretch in a direction it wasn’t intended to go.
“Owwwww, shit!” he yelled. “OK, OK, we’re here to talk to the bitch. We’re on business!” He added, “I’m a cop.”
“Bullshit.” I reapplied the pressure.
“Ahhh! OK, shit, I’m a bounty hunter. I’m licensed. It’s a job, OK? We’re after a bail-jumper.”
The “we” stuck in my head like a sudden jolt of electricity. I stood quickly and kicked the guy in the stomach, hard. I pulled the Python and jammed it into his nose until blood came out.
“Listen asshole,” I said, “You come inside and I’ll just kill you. I won’t ask a question or give a warning. I’ll just blow your ass into eternity. Got it?” He nodded intensely and wheezed, but I knew I had only bought a few seconds.
I jerked open the door; the bell tinkled merrily. I crossed the hardwood floor quickly, heading to the back room. I could hear a woman whimpering, and then the sharp sound of a hand against flesh.
“You’d better give it up, bitch!” a man’s voice commanded. Then there was another slap. But that infernal bell had given me away, and before I could reach the archway to the back room, it was filled with bad guy.
“Stop or I’ll kill you,” I commanded, leveling the Python at his chest. I added the nicety: “Maricopa County Sheriff.”
He paused long enough to glower at me with hate. It was the driver from the parking garage. But outside the car, he was huge. Linebacker huge.
“Get on your knees,” I said. “Do it!”
He started down slowly. I didn’t see a gun on him, but I swear I would have shot him and taken my chances with a review board. He was big enough to kill me with his bare hands. I would have done him. But I caught his eyes sneaking a look over my shoulder, and then I heard the festive tinkle of the bell. I tried to use my peripheral vision and step sideways to counter whatever was coming in the door behind me. That was just the millisecond of distraction he needed to rush me.
In an instant, this human tank was coming for me, yelling like a banshee. It scrambled the circuits in an out-of-shape brain that had spent too many years in comfortable classrooms and bedrooms and drinking establishments, in the luxurious embrace of books and fine dinners and Lindsey Faith Adams. It was not even a second, but it was enough.
A horrific force slammed against my chest-I swear I could hear my ribs crack-and then I was airborne. The tasteful black cylinders of the display lights flew past my eyes, and then I was cruising sideways headed toward a trifold portable wall. Several brightly framed canvases came up to meet my face. I hit hard, pain shooting out of the top of my head. When I hit the floor, it felt like carpenter’s nails had been driven into my spine. Then the heavy man-shape in the air above me crashed down.
There was a time fugue where a round black fog started closing down my field of vision and I wasn’t there. But one word slammed through my traumatized brain and woke me: gun.
The goon had both his huge hands on the Python, trying to rip it out of my hands. I pulled it toward me, my arms screaming from the strain. The barrel swung toward my nose and I nearly broke my wrist pointing it back out. That fine, ribbed Colt 4?-inch barrel I had paid a premium price for. The steel glinted in the lights. His hands were gigantic and powerful, slowly overwhelming me, but his fingers seemed like delicate little ghouls invading to dislodge my hold on the trigger.
I wiggled like a madman and kneed him in the groin. He didn’t even grunt. He just kept up this rhythmic, weightlifter’s breathing. His breath smelled like a trash can in July. Suddenly other black arts of the street cop came back to me, and I pulled the gun hard toward me, then quickly pushed it back to him. The force of his grip snapped the heavy revolver back into his face. It crashed across the bridge of his nose, opening a wide, fleshy cut. He let up enough that I could crawl out from under him. He jerked up on his knees, looking like a rattler about to strike. Then I pistol-whipped him again across the jaw. He grunted and fell backwards.
The guy from the doorway sprang at me, but he was slow. I stepped aside and he crashed into a black metal table. The two men crawled around on the floor like large, dangerous roaches. One shook his head violently and tried to stand. I backed away and stepped through into the back room. Beth looked at me with wild eyes.
“Is there a way out the back?” I rasped. She nodded, and led us down a dark passage to the alley. Outside, I grabbed her wrist and we ran like hysterical refugees through the dirty, day-old snow.