Keeper Read online

  My thumb found the safety and I moved back just enough for him to see me flick it off. He did, his eyes going down and then coming back to my face. Hatred turned to terror fed by hatred, and in that moment it could have gone either way—resistance or compliance.

  “You wanted a piece of me, that right? How about I take a piece from you, Clarence? You chamber your first round? It’s double action, I pull the trigger, you roll the dice.” I pushed the barrel hard into his stomach, keeping it pressed there, waiting for his answer.

  When he didn’t speak I pulled the trigger.

  He screamed and his muscles went slack and suddenly I was holding him up in the rain with my forearm and the gun and no help from him.

  “Take that as a no,” I said.

  He couldn’t speak, shaking, trying to stand, scrabbling at the wet wall. The scent of urine rose off him, suddenly. I took my grip off him long enough to work the slide on the pistol. The round clicked into place loudly, assured, and there was no question this time. I put my forearm back under his throat and he began to sob as I jabbed him again with the gun.

  “Now, don’t start crying on me, Clarence,” I said.

  “It’s a fake,” he whimpered.

  “If you’re lying I’ll kill you.”

  “You’ll kill me anyway. It’s a fake, man.”

  With the gun as a prod we moved sideways to the phone. I took my left arm off Barry and felt for the phone cord, finding it and bringing the receiver to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Lynn, it’s Atticus. Clarence wants to tell you something.” I pressed the phone against Barry’s face.

  “It’s a fake,” Barry whispered.

  “Thank God,” I heard Lynn say as I brought the phone back to my ear.

  “Call the cops,” I said. “We’re at a diner on a Hundred Thirty-fifth at Eighth.”

  When the cops found us we were inside, Barry sitting at the counter, me beside him, his gun off to a side. The manager and waitress, the only people in the place, were concerned until I explained that Barry was a terrorist. Then the waitress spat on him. Barry took it, not moving, sitting in his wet pants, his hands flat on the counter. The manager went outside and came back with Barry’s wallet and the radio. Miraculously, neither had been stolen.

  Two uniforms led by Lozano showed up and I rose when they came in, backing away from the counter. Lozano came in angry, harried, and said without preamble, “Mirandize him.”

  The uniforms paused for a moment, unsure which of us he meant, then the younger cop went to Barry, and when Lozano made no protest, his partner followed. The pat down was thorough and slow, and the officer who did it made a lot of noise about Clarence’s loose bladder. Lozano glared at me while they cuffed him, read him his rights, and led him out. They read him his rights slowly, taking no chances this time. It was almost satisfying to watch.

  At the door, Barry turned, gave me a hard stare, and said, “I’m going to fucking do you.”

  I blew him a kiss.

  “Shut him the fuck up,” Lozano told the cops. After the door swung closed with a little tinkle of bells Lozano pointed to the Smith & Wesson on the counter and gave me the evil eye and I shook my head.

  Lozano said, “How’s the coffee here?”

  “Ground fresh daily.”

  The manager poured two mugs and we sat at one of the booths. Lozano sipped his coffee silently, and I didn’t feel the need to say anything, so I followed suit. I took the mug carefully when I drank, fighting my shaking hands, hoping Lozano wouldn’t notice. He did, I’m certain, but didn’t say anything. After a minute or two, the manager said, “Hey, you, uh, want this gun, here?”

  Lozano turned his head and nodded and the manager started to pick it up. “Stop,” Lozano said. It was a bark. The manager stopped, then shrugged and went to the pie case, scrubbing at the glass with a rag and not looking at us.

  The waitress sat down, saying, “Fucking city.” When the manager was finished with the pie case he went to clean the stool Barry had used.

  “You touch the weapon?” Lozano asked me.

  “I took it off him.”

  “You got a witness?”

  “No. But he’s got the empty holster, not me,” I said.

  Lozano looked at the ceiling and shut his eyes, saying, “This is turning into one bitch of a day. They kill the girl, then they pull this.” He looked back to the counter, then finished his coffee. “You’re sure the call was a fake?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Lozano turned to look full at me, and I tried hard not to look guilty. He raised the mug in his left hand, sticking his arm out as if signaling a turn. '

  “Fucking city,” the waitress repeated, and she walked to the coffeemaker and took the pot from the burner, then refilled our cups. Her uniform was powder blue and she wore white nylons with a run on the inside of her left leg.

  “What’d you do to him?” Lozano asked, looking again at the counter.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing made him piss on himself?”

  “I caught him on the phone making the threat. I took his gun when he tried to fight me. He lost bladder control when he lost the piece.”

  “You threaten him?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t believe me, and his body language made no bones about that. “Why’re you lying to me, Atticus? I thought we were friends, here.”

  “We are, Detective. I didn’t do anything to him.”

  He sipped some more of his coffee. “How’d you know he’s the one that phoned the threat?”

  “I heard him. He told me it was a fake.”

  “Did he? Anybody else hear that?”

  “Just me.”

  “So, you were following this guy? Eight hours after Katie Romero is murdered, you just happen to be following one of our prime suspects, a guy who threw a bottle at Katie’s mother? You just happen to be following a guy you already mixed it up with once? Tell me this isn’t what it looks like, Atticus.”

  I explained what had happened, including the meeting with Crowell, to set the stage. I did not tell him about pulling the trigger on Barry. Lozano drank his coffee in silence while I spoke, measuring my words with his eyes on mine.

  “Where’s the dick?”

  “Jeez, Detective. Don’t you have a better slang term for a private investigator?”

  “You prefer peeper? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She went after Crowell.”

  “We’ve spoken to Crowell twice already. You two shouldn’t have gone to see him. And following Barry, that’s loco. What the hell were you thinking? Why aren’t you watching Romero?”

  “She’s well covered,” I said.

  “Yeah, but not by you, and that’s your job.” Lozano finished his second cup of coffee, putting the mug down hard. “You worry me, Kodiak. If Barry says you used excessive force, if I find one single witness, I’ll rein you in and I’ll rein you in hard.” He stood up, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. He put a five carefully on the table and said, “The girl is dead, and that is rotten, sad action. Don’t make it worse.”

  “Don’t forget the gun,” I said. Outside, the rain had slowed and the streets were dark and slick.

  He stared down at the weapon, snapping on a surgical glove without looking at his hands. Then he took the pistol and dropped it into a paper bag provided by the manager.

  “This better not be your way of dealing with grief,” Lozano said. “You tell that peeper of yours to come talk to me, get this all straightened out. She doesn’t, I’m going to go looking for her.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I said.

  “You keep your head straight,” he said to me, and left.

  I used the diner bathroom after Lozano left. I stood in front of the mirror, leaning on the sink, for what seemed like a long time. My blood was roaring in my ears.

  If Barry had chambered his first round, he would have been dying from a gut wound even as I was staring at my reflect
ion. If Barry had chambered his first round, I would have been on my way to prison, and I wouldn’t be coming back for a very long time. If Barry had chambered his first round, I would have murdered him in cold blood while looking in his eyes, and I would have been happy doing it.

  The trigger had gone back before I had realized I was pulling it. The hammer had fallen before I knew what I had done. And when the pistol had dry-fired, all I had thought of was racking the slide and trying again.

  What I wanted to do was be sick, to vomit in the dirty, cramped bathroom at the back of this tacky diner. I wanted to throw up and get whatever was inside me out. I gagged over the sink, spitting sticky strands of saliva, but succeeded only in getting stomach cramps that pinched me from diaphragm to groin. Nothing came up; it wouldn’t let go.

  After a while I ran some cold water and splashed my face, melting the tears away. Then I cleaned my glasses and left.

  The walk to the clinic was short, the rain tapering from downpour to downtrickle, and I came to the comer of 135th and Amsterdam in time to see protest become pandemonium.

  The rain had done nothing to the crowd of protesters. A few had tried to cover up, pulling windbreakers over their heads to shield themselves, but that was all the consideration the weather warranted, except to an elderly woman on the east side of Amsterdam. Holding a sheaf of sodden photocopies in one hand, she tilted her head back and called out something about the cleansing power of God. Her and Robert De Niro.

  People were screaming at each other. A chorus of antiabortionists had started a chant of “Two, four, eight, ten, All you women want to be men.” NARAL and the Feminist Majority had trained countertroops, mostly women, from their teens to their forties, arms locked, an immobile line. They countered with, “Two, four, eight, ten, Why are your leaders always men?”

  A corps of police officers in riot gear were pushing people back across their perimeter line, their face shields still up, waiting for the order. The actual court-designated property line for the clinic was somewhere in the middle of the street, as arbitrary now as it had ever been. Both groups ignored it freely. The antis had rushed hard and strong, and now were being driven back. Both factions had crossed the line, where the officers held it, looking grim.

  Watching the bodies twist and press against each other, I realized how angry I was, and I felt the weight of the holster on my hip.

  And I knew I couldn’t trust myself.

  Parked up on the sidewalk was a large yellow Ryder truck, and I stepped around it, trying to get a look in the back. It was open and empty but for a young man sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. He had a compact two-way radio on his belt. He gestured to the sky and said, “Out of nowhere, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You fall back?”

  I nodded.

  “You should get back in there. Crowell’s coming.”

  “Really?”

  “You bet.”

  I didn’t move for a moment, and the young man continued to watch me. His face was small and soft, and his posture vaguely confrontational. He pulled the radio off his belt and held it against his thigh.

  “You’re not with us, are you?” he asked.

  “Depends. Who are you?”

  “Sword of the Silent.”

  “Ah, no, I’m not with you, then.”

  “You condone the murder of babies?” He asked it evenly enough.

  “There’s some debate about that. Calling them babies, I mean.”

  “All life is sacred. Only God has the right to take life. Baby murderers are no better than common criminals, protected by a godless president who promotes godless laws.”

  I was tempted to ask him if he was a vegetarian, but instead said, “Crowell teach you that?”

  “Our Lord taught me that. He died teaching us all that.”

  I said, “Actually, I’m Jewish.”

  He didn’t even blink. “Of course. I should have known. And you complain about the Holocaust, while another happens under your nose.”

  “Been nice talking to you,” I said.

  “I’ll pray for your soul,” he told me as I walked away.

  A car horn started barking, coming closer, and several people lowered their “Stop the Murder” signs and headed toward the source, the white Cadillac that Rich had driven up outside Crowell’s building. It parked illegally just long enough to let Crowell out. The rain had picked up again, and I tried to wipe my glasses off again but gave up and looked past the water drops. I couldn’t see either Bridgett or her car anywhere on the street.

  The arrival had an obvious effect. Both sides got louder. A lot louder. Crowell emerged from the Caddy, waving nonchalantly, like a movie star at a premiere. Other than a raincoat, he was dressed just as before. The moderates began backing to the opposite side of the street, trying to distance themselves from SOS. Crowell leaned back inside the car and brought out a bullhorn, then slammed the door. As the Cadillac pulled away, he began to speak.

  “Dr. Romero,” he said, his voice low and crackling. “Dr. Romero, can you hear me? What would you do if you had only five minutes left to live?”

  The crowd went nuts.

  Son of a bitch, I thought. He knows she isn’t here and he pulls this. Her daughter dead hardly eight hours, and he pulls this.

  Son of a bitch.

  The noise dulled to a low roar, then Crowell said, “Listen to me, now,” and the SOS crowd went silent. “Listen to me, now,” he said again. “Please, in the name of God and all that Jesus holds holy, please, do not murder any more babies. Stop your slaughter of those silent innocents who die beyond your doors. Your own child today joined the ranks of the fallen, and yet you continue. Oh, dear God, please stop, please do not let her kill any more babies, do not let her murder any more women or their children. Please ... oh, please.”

  Everyone was listening and everyone was still. Along the pro-choice line I caught a rustle of movement, some bowed heads speaking to one another, but that was all. The moderates had regrouped at the comer, and were watching the proceedings sadly.

  “Beloved, my Christian friends, we are now at a time where our resolve will be most surely tested.

  “We all have heard what has happened today. We all know the events visited upon Dr. Romero this morning.” Some people actually cheered. But then Crowell raised his left hand and they again fell silent. Raindrops beaded and dripped from the end of his bullhorn.

  “We do not rejoice in this,” he said. “As the Lord said to the Israelites on the shores of the Red Sea, these too are my children, and you will find no glory in their deaths.

  “We find no glory in the Lord’s punishments. Yet we must remain strong, our resolve must not falter. We have all heard of Common Ground. We have heard of the promise of peace through compromise. The events of this day surely speak to such a reconciliation, seductively draw us to more mainstream protests.

  “But it is a lie! There can be no common ground, there can be no rest, no peace, no reconciliation. This is a war of absolutes. We cannot just save half a baby, rescue only some of the preborn. It is all or nothing, all or nothing, and what has been visited upon Dr. Felice Romero this day, that is her punishment, and not ours!”

  This earned him more cheers and, finally, some aggressive booing and heckling. Crowell didn’t seem to mind either reaction. I could see movement at the second floor windows of the clinic, several scared and bewildered faces looking out of the waiting room above.

  “This is a house of sin, of horror and torture, of women trapped and bound, held helpless where their children are tom from them. Bloody and broken, these infants come from their screaming mothers. We must never forget this.

  “This ‘surgery,’ ” Crowell shouted, and he made the word drip with scorn, “this, ‘elective and ambulatory procedure’ is murder, bloody, calculated, state-sanctioned murder! It is barbarism, and it is, most of all, a crime against God! And we must never, ever, stop our fight! In the name of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must
fight on!”

  Crowell’s declaration echoed. A counterchant started, not quite on time, and instead of clear words it sounded like garbled tape, chewed and tom.

  This was just what his people wanted to hear. They were soaking up every word, assenting, nodding. Crowell wiped rain out of his eyes and said, at first softly, then louder and louder, “No common ground. No common ground. No common ground,” until the crowd picked up the cadence of the words, and began chanting them with him. The volume swelled, thunderously loud suddenly, swallowing up the counterchant of “Choice, choice, choice.” Then Crowell waved his hand once and silenced them again.

  “The Lord is vengeful,” he shouted. “The Lord is strong. The Lord will destroy that which offends Him. With fire and cleansing wrath, will the Lord purify this place.”

  Cries from everyone, Amens and Praise Gods and Go to Hells. Men and women exhorted Jesus to right now descend from heaven and smite everyone inside the building. And the crowd was moving suddenly, a great surge toward the clinic doors. I took a step forward.

  A window on the ground floor broke and inside the building, someone screamed. Another window shattered, then several, simultaneously. A woman shrieked and fell back, dropping her NARAL sign, blood on her forehead.

  During a portion of the Gulf War I had been assigned to coordinate the protection of a general, and we had been in Tel Aviv when Hussein started dropping SCUDs on Israel. They came at night, the few times they came at all, and they came out of a stillness and silence suddenly pierced by air-raid sirens and people desperate for their lives. There would be nothing, then the sirens, and then immediate movement, people frantically trying to bring loved ones to safety, to save themselves. It was a crowd mentality I had never seen before, people moving ferociously for one reason.

  This was worse. This wasn’t for survival. These people wanted blood.

  Everything I was wanted to move, everything I had ever learned told me to act, to do something. But I stood in the rainfall, on the sidewalk, inadequate, fighting the cold irrational rage of the mob. Lists of options presented themselves to me, courses of action and protection and security, and instead of doing what I was meant to do, what I was trained to do, I dropped anchor and just let myself be beaten upon by the rain.