The Sticking Place Page 17

  Denny put his thumb and forefinger together, wiggling his fingers in front of his face to simulate a fanning book. “Read this homie. You rode to work with me and can either come along or take a damn cab home.”

  “Here’s how it’ll go down,” Luke said. “I’ll take your keys and the divine Ms. Cleveland can ride you home.”

  “You got to start living man,” Denny said.

  Luke couldn’t argue Denny’s point. But he could communicate with a book and was clueless what to say to a woman he’d never met.

  Loud shouting suddenly blasted out from the nearest bathroom.

  Luke sprinted toward the ruckus, leaving Denny with the prisoner and the thudding and whacking sounds of a fight struck his ears as he got close.

  “Hold the sonofabitch down.”

  “Ow. Shit. Ow,” Luke could make out Shimmer’s voice along with the sounds of bodies slamming against concrete and the distinctive thud of a head against a hard surface. He rounded the corner to see Shimmer in a heap beneath the sink as Francie lost his grip on a shoeless foot and a one-shoed man blasted out of a three-point stance for the doorway.

  Luke knocked the man into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin that ended with a thud against the concrete floor.

  Reeling and dizzy, Francie tried to right himself and Shimmer lay in an unconscious heap on the floor.

  Luke picked up Francie’s radio from beneath the urinal and called for an ambulance as more officers ran in to help.

  “Come on,” Luke told his new prisoner as they walked outside. “Which one of these cars is yours?”

  “The blue Mercedes.”

  “The one with the Happiness is family home evenings sticker on the bumper?” Luke asked.

  “Yes sir. That’s the one.”

  33

  THE BOUNCER AT THE APACHE CLUB greeted Hartson and Francie inside the leather flap substituting for the front door and pointed out an old man at the bar. The old guy had clearly climbed the mountain that peaked at his eightieth birthday and was walking down the other side. He wore a collared white shirt with rolled up sleeves, open to the navel, and tucked into a pair of nylon running shorts. A gold medallion dangled from his neck and a pair of flip-flops rested against the metal bar that doubled as a foot rest.

  “He keeps trying to pinch the girls,” the bouncer told the officers as he led them across the floor. “I told him to leave and he told me to go fuck myself. I wanted to pick him up by those puny britches and toss him out on his ass, but the boss said to call you guys.”

  This had all the earmarks of an easy radio call. The geezer was an obvious nut case, but Hartson pegged him as a guy who’d be intimidated by the cops.

  The trio approached the old coot from behind and Hartson tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Mr. O’Malley,” he said. “Can we go outside so we can hear one another a little better? Your son here and I’d like to have a few words.” Hartson jerked his thumb in Francie’s direction.

  The bouncer and the old guy looked appropriately confused, but Francie understood Hartson’s shenanigans. It was the old, “here’s your look alike act alike daddy routine” cops liked to break into when meeting a truly outrageous character.

  Hartson, the bouncer, Francie and his new daddy, stepped into the sunshine. “What’s the problem?” Francie asked in a polite tone.

  “No problem, son,” the old man said. “Just having a good time’s all. No law against that, is there?”

  Hartson couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “You really are his son. I was just kidding because of the obvious resemblance.”

  Francie ignored him.

  “No law exists against having a good time,” Hartson said. “The problem is, sir, the manager doesn’t want you back in there.” Hartson paused to let his declaration sink in and got no sign that his statement registered. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

  The old guy’s calm facade simmered for a few seconds before shattering into pieces. He looked at Francie, at Hartson, and back at Francie again, and started quaking in a slight body quiver that graduated into a full-on Joe Cocker imitation. The old coot—who wore a pair of shorts that belonged in a Nair commercial—-ran to the base of a street lamp, threw his arms around it and pounded his head against its base. Blood gushed from his forehead with the first blow and got worse with each successive head butt until a steady flow of red sprayed the sidewalk.

  Hartson tried prying the old guy’s arms free. This was one strong old bastard and Hartson knew two things. It would be harder to subdue him than normal because he and Francie had to be easy on the old guy on account of his age. And he knew the gathering crowd wouldn’t take kindly to two officers fighting with an old man bleeding buckets onto the sidewalk.

  Hartson tried wrapping his arm around the geezer’s throat, but the old guy backed him off with an open mouth full of sparkling dentures that searched for his bicep. “Grab his hair and pull his head back,” Hartson said.

  Francie did as Hartson said and the old coot started shouting for help from the crowd. Big trouble was brewing and Hartson told Francie to let go of the geezer’s hair to make it seem a little less brutalizing to the aged son-of-a-bitch who was doing his best to chomp Hartson’s arm off.

  Francie pulled his portable radio to call for help, but the handie-talkie went skittering along the sidewalk.

  Seizing his chance, the old guy let loose with a vicious backward head-butt, catching Hartson in the chin and sending him reeling backward. Then the geezer loosened his hold on the light standard and started biting enormous chunks out of his own forearm and spitting flesh onto the sidewalk to mix with the coagulating blood.

  This amazing display shifted the crowd’s attitude. The concerned citizens, who’d only recently been outraged at the physical treatment of the helpless old man, started declaring the officers too incompetent to effect a simple arrest. But nobody offered any constructive suggestions.

  Hartson tried firming his hold on the geezer’s neck to pull his head back and stop the public display of self-cannibalism. It didn’t work. “Hit him in the stomach,” he told Francie.

  Francie hesitated.

  “Hit him in the fucking stomach with the baton,” Hartson said. Oh shit, he’d done it now for sure. Not only was he brutalizing this defenseless old man, he’d said a nasty word in public. He’d get complaints about that for sure.

  Francie pulled his baton to push it against the old guy’s abdomen, the action having its desired effect. The old guy reached for the baton, giving Hartson the chance to wrap his forearm around the old guy’s throat without getting a chunk bit out of his bicep. He slung the old coot over his back, cutting off the flow of oxygen to his brain through the carotid artery.

  From his vantage point, Hartson couldn’t tell if the maneuver had its desired effect. It was Francie’s job to shout out when the old guy lost consciousness. Hartson dropped the geezer onto the sidewalk, cuffed him and propped him against a knee to slap him on the back and snap him back to consciousness.

  “Shit,” Francie said as his sweat slathered the sidewalk. “Ain’t nothing simple anymore?” His words came out in wheezing pants. “We can’t take this old fuck to jail. They’d never accept him all chewed up like this, and we can’t take him up to County Mental because they won’t admit him without a medical release and we can’t drop him off at the emergency room ‘cause he’ll go ape shit and tear the place up.”

  Hartson looked around, hoping nobody was tuned in to Francie’s expletives. “So what do you want to do?” Hartson’s belly heaved from exertion as he asked the question.

  “We got no choice,” Francie said. He looked at the ridiculous old coot with the cuffs around his wrists, the chunks of flesh missing from his forearm and forehead and the blood rolling along his wrinkled face. He shook his head in disgust. “We have to take this, this piece of work, up to the University ER and baby-sit him while he gets patched up. Once we get the medical release, which’ll take forever because there’ll be doze
ns of indigents forming a line around the block, we’ll get the privilege of moving him over to Mental Health for the seventy-two-hour hold. The only good news is we’ll have plenty of time to write our reports while we hold the old fuck’s hand.”

  Hartson nodded in silence. It was the only workable alternative and a definite pain in the ass for two officers who just wanted to do a little foot patrol and pick up some easy numbers.

  Francie’s prediction of overcrowding came true as they neared the hospital. Mobs of prospective patients filled the parking lot, forming a sinuous line into the hallway. “Jeeeeesus, what a fucking zoo,” Francie said. “It’s a blinking nightmare from Hades here. We’ll be stuck here until, until, hell, I don’t know. We’re just stuck here. That’s all there is to it.”

  About five hours to the minute after they’d walked through the swinging doors of University Hospital’s ER, the intake clerk let them know the old “gentleman” qualified for admission. It turned out he had a serviceable insurance policy and University Hospital had a perfectly good psychiatric unit only too pleased to accept patients with legitimate medical insurance. It was a situation they’d never encountered before.

  “Shit!” Francie’s voice mixed with exasperation and relief. “If we’d known they’d admit the old fuck, we could’ve cleared here a long time ago.”

  “It’s your fault,” Hartson said. “You should’ve taken care of your daddy yourself.”

  Francie told Hartson to bite the big one and a silent instant followed when both officers knew it was time for the tired joke to end.

  34

  FRANCIE GRABBED HIS FLASHLIGHT AND PUSHED himself out of the car with Hartson following.

  The Plaza oozed with the usual denizens of the downtown night and Hartson reflected on the political hype and marketing slogans that touted San Diego as a modern “Camelot by the Sea,” “America’s Finest City,” and a veritable “Eden by the Ocean.” Which of the people on the Plaza, he wondered, best supported the notion that San Diego was paradise? Maybe it was the drunks huddled in the grass by the fountain? Possibly the Hare Krishnas bouncing, chanting and banging their drums and tambourines at the edge of the sidewalk? Was it the male prostitutes waiting for the public phones to ring with solicitations, or the heroin addicts scoring dope for money or sex? Was it the illegal immigrants who’d risked their lives crossing the border to wait for buses to La Jolla so they could perform menial jobs for too little pay, all the while under the threat of deportation? Was it the Bible-flailing preacher who threatened that everybody not believing like he did would spend eternity in hell? Was it the naïve runaways who thought life on the streets preferable to living with their screaming parents?

  They were the least of his problems now. Two men were sharing a joint next to the fountain and a shiver of dread shot up Hartson’s spine like a lingering neuralgia. The smaller guy seemed harmless enough, but his buddy, the one who looked like a metal skyscraper on a street of brownstones, might be under the influence of PCP. His shirt was tied around his waist and his chiseled torso moved like a gigantic robot constructed without the malleable joints and soft tissue necessary for fluid movement.

  Hartson had encountered Phencyclidine users on the beat and the academy had taught him how the stuff had got onto the streets. It first showed up as a surgical anesthetic for conscious patients in the 1950s, but was discontinued after a series of psychotic patient outbursts. Veterinarians soon tried using it on large animals like horses and elephants, but it caused violent psychosis in the animals too.

  Drug entrepreneurs eventually started manufacturing it and a new cottage industry was born. Street users ingested it by dipping cigarettes or marijuana joints into its liquid form and sucking it in with the smoke. Completely oblivious to pain and violently irrational, they transformed into malevolent super-beings; walking, talking, fire breathing nightmares for the cops who confronted and arrested them.

  Hartson glanced over his shoulder to make sure Francie understood the potential danger. If they were lucky, it’d be a simple joint so they could write the guy a ticket and get the hell out of there.

  The terror Hartson saw on Francie’s face made him consider walking away.

  After all, to most observers the two men just looked like they were sharing a joint. He and Francie could fake getting a radio call and get the hell out of there. The problem was, if the guy did turn out to be a duster and got violent, somebody would definitely get hurt. In Hartson’s mind, his only legitimate response was to look out for the safety of the people on the Plaza.

  He’d confront the smoking behemoth, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  He trudged forward, feeling a lot like a guy standing at the bow of a rocking boat and watching a monstrous storm rolling over the crest of the horizon. This particular storm took the form of a human being who stood about six-foot-eight. Although the muscular body displayed its athleticism, his stilted and jerky movements made him a look-alike for Boris Karloff in the Frankenstein movies.

  “How’re you doing tonight?” Hartson asked the question as soothingly as the fear in his voice would allow, intending his words to announce his arrival and avoid startling the gigantic duster who towered near the base of the fountain.

  The small man nodded silently, but his enormous friend’s hollow stare accompanied a rhythmic swaying motion and his voice carried a profound vibrato. “I hate cops.” He repeated the pronouncement over and over in an ominous drawl, which was enough to convince Hartson the joint was laced with PCP.

  Although he knew it, he also knew some defense attorney would try to convince an over-educated, under-experienced, black-robed jurist that sufficient probable cause didn’t exist for an arrest. If he didn’t get the probable cause, he’d be risking his life for nothing. The problem was, gathering the PC would almost certainly infuriate the giant angel duster.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to undergo a couple of tests for me,” Hartson said, mustering a mountain of deference in his voice. “You don’t mind, do you? I’m going to move this pen in front of your eyes. I’d like you to follow the movement with your eyeballs, without moving your head. Can you do that for me?”

  Hartson swiped another sidewise glance toward Francie who seemed a little farther away somehow. That couldn’t be right. Fear was messing with his perceptions. Francie had to be ready to pounce on this enormous duster glowering down, his terrifying red eyes looking like a malevolent comic book character’s, repeatedly muttering that he hated cops.

  Hartson focused on his own actions, trusting his partner and roommate to do the right thing. He moved the pen in a slow, sideways motion in front of the duster’s stony face, getting the expected result; horizontal nystagmus, an uncontrollable eyeball twitching at the extremes of the sideways movement. There was also the sweet odor of ether on the duster’s breath that completed the probable cause necessary to make the arrest.

  Hartson stole another furtive glance at Francie who seemed farther away somehow.

  “I’m placing you under arrest for being drunk on drugs, unable to care for yourself or the safety of others.” Hartson’s words rang hollow in his own ears. What did they sound like to the rock cliff with feet that swayed in front of him?

  Hartson reached for his cuffs.

  He expected to see Francie pulling his portable radio and asking for cover units. What he saw, was his roommate getting into their police car and driving off.

  He stood, frozen in a nanosecond’s time warp that lasted an eternity. “Would you please turn around and place your hands behind your back with your palms together?” His request came in a whisper.

  Luke knew Francie and Hartson were partnered up and wondered where Francie was going as he pulled into the vacated parking space, intent on asking Hartson’s advice on an earlier arrest.

  He heard a roar through his open window that sounded like a preternatural wind blowing through a rocky canyon. A collective gasp escaped from the crowd on the far side of the fountain. Luke sprinted fro
m his car to see Hartson lying unconscious in the fountain, his head resting against a water spout, blood mixing with the oozing water and turning it red.

  A spectacularly enormous person bent to pick Hartson up by the collar.

  Luke climbed the assailant’s back, wrapping his arm around an enormous neck to lift the giant away from the unconscious officer.

  The man exploded backward, rolling massive shoulders out of Luke’s grasp and taking a boxer’s stance.

  Luke ducked a punch and grabbed a massive leg. He drove forward, pushing his opponent toward his back, but got tagged by a quick downward right that sent him reeling before the duster drove a left hook toward his ear. Luke ducked. The roundhouse momentum pulled the duster off balance, giving Luke the chance for a double leg pickup. He lifted hard and drove blindly forward until they sprawled over a drunk who lay comatose in the grass.

  The duster grabbed at Luke’s gun as they rolled around and yanked it from his holster as they stood in unison. Luke shoved the barrel away from his chest. The first bullet dug into the grass. The second landed next to the first before they tumbled in a heap to the ground and the gun skipped along the sidewalk and into the fountain.

  The duster crawled toward the gun. Luke jumped onto his back only to be shrugged off and clobbered with an uppercut. Luke could barely taste the blood filling his mouth as consciousness drifted away and he fell into a heap next to Hartson in the fountain.

  Someone in the crowd had called dispatch and the arriving officers piled on top of the gigantic duster.

  Luke’s mind drifted back to him and he crawled toward the fray as officers flew into the air, arms and legs akimbo as they landed in heaps in and around the fountain. The duster grabbed another officer’s gun to pull it from its holster. Someone was going to die if Luke didn’t do something, but he couldn’t get there in time.

  He leaped into the fountain, the blood spraying from his mouth mixing with the spray of the fountain as he found the words from the scene when Banquo’s ghost appeared to Macbeth: