Throwdown Read online

  Sometimes Frank couldn’t tell if Wagner was really pissed off or not. It seemed like the real thing this time.

  “Jeff,” Wagner stopped at the door, half turned around, looked back at him, “appreciate it.”

  “Yeah – sure you do. Take a big step on the road to recovery and clear out your fucking driveway.”

  4

  It looked like nothing more than the usual closing time dustup outside of Saunders’ place. Wheelock didn’t even bother blipping the siren, just exchanged a quick glance with Kelly Randall before they got out of the car. They pushed their way through a small crowd of onlookers, the ones who hadn’t started to drift away as soon as they saw the police cruiser roll up.

  It was almost over anyway. One guy – big, a lineman-sized farm boy – was straddling another guy and basically pounding the shit out of him. Kelly stayed back and kept her eyes on what was left of the crowd while Wheelock moved in to haul the guy off.

  It went downhill fast. Wheelock had either underestimated the guy’s weight and strength or–more likely–had overestimated his own. He tried to jam his hands underneath the guy’s armpits, but couldn’t get a grip anywhere. The combination of weight and movement was too much.

  Randall’s instinct was to dive in and help, but one glance at the peanut gallery was enough to convince her otherwise. She decided she’d do Wheelock more good if she watched his back, kept an eye on them. She stayed where she was and tried to look authoritative and intimidating. At five foot four and one hundred and twenty pounds it wasn’t easy.

  She kept her hands on her hips and her eyes moving, watching the drunken kibitzers but glancing occasionally at Wheelock and his efforts to get this monster under control. The guy was huge, probably weighed two-fifty and change. Wheelock’s efforts to pull him off the other guy were so ineffectual that at first Randall doubted the man even knew Wheelock was back there. The whole thing was degenerating into bad comedy and Kelly felt the edge of a smirk creeping onto her face. Wheelock was still in a half-assed crouch, trying to pull the guy up and back, and he was doing it all wrong.

  Suddenly he lost his grip, flailing for balance, and for a second it looked like he was going to fall on his ass. He managed to regain his equilibrium just in time and then came in on the guy again, got his arm around the farm boy’s neck and pulled backward. Kelly saw the kid’s left elbow piston backward into Wheelock’s midsection.

  Wheelock jackknifed, releasing his hold on the guy’s massive neck and collapsing onto the asphalt. His eyes were wide, glassy, and he rolled over into a fetal position. His mouth was opening and closing like that of a beached fish, a desperate attempt to get air into his lungs. Randall could hear someone laugh. The farm boy didn’t even turn around, had his fist cocked for another shot at the guy beneath him, then apparently decided the poor bastard had had enough. He shrugged, breathing hard, and then heaved himself to his feet.

  “FREEZE!”

  Training had finally kicked in and she was surprised at the sound of her own voice, even more surprised that she already had the Taser out, arms extended. The guy looked just as surprised as she was, then slowly began to raise his hands, palms out.

  “Hey – I didn’t know – ”

  Come on, Kelly thought, really? Who else did you think would be stupid enough to yank on you like that? She’d never used the Taser except in training, wasn’t even that confident it would work on somebody this big. Even from five or six feet away she had to look up at him. She shot a glance over toward Wheelock but he was still on the ground, still curled up and fighting for air. The farm boy followed her glance, his eyes going wide when he saw Wheelock.

  • • •

  Wheelock knew that he looked bad, and what he saw when he looked up at the bystanders confirmed it. They were snickering, laughing at him. None of them made a move to help. He finally felt some air come into his lungs and managed to get to his feet.

  “You okay?” Randall asked.

  Wheelock just nodded, not trusting his own voice. With the way he felt right now he’d come out sounding like Porky Pig.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” the boy was trying to talk his way out, “I didn’t know you were cops.”

  “I want you down on the ground! Now!” Randall’s voice came out shrill, almost hysterical.

  “She wants you, man – go for it!” some asshole yelled.

  People were laughing at her. The guy looked even younger now, maybe not even twenty – Saunders didn’t give a shit about IDs. Trouble was he hadn’t done what she’d told him to do, still stood there with his hands out in a placating gesture. He looked scared, but Randall knew better than to take her eyes off him. The guy he’d been beating on was still down, blood all over the place, and all the kid had needed to do that were those massive hands. He was saying something to her in a soothing tone of voice, as if she’d been the one who’d just gone apeshit, not the other way around.

  Suddenly the guy folded up in front of her eyes, his face contorting as he dropped forward onto his knees. For a split second Randall thought he was just doing what she told him to do, but the movement was too jerky and violent for that. Then she saw Wheelock slightly behind and to one side of him, saw the big metal nightstick telescoped out to its full length, realized what had happened. Wheelock had come in from the kid’s blind side and swung the heavy nightstick hard at the back of his knees. Nobody could stay up through that. Even on his knees the guy looked almost as tall as Wheelock. Randall could hear a siren now, maybe a couple of blocks away and getting closer fast, and she instinctively glanced back over her shoulder. The siren signaled the end of the floorshow and the few remaining bystanders were already scattering across and out of the parking lot. She realized her mistake and looked back, half expecting to see the boy back on his feet and kicking the shit out of Wheelock.

  He wasn’t. He was lying on the ground and he wasn’t moving. Wheelock was looking down at him, the nightstick extended down along his right leg, and when he raised his head to meet Randall’s eyes he had a look on his face that she’d never seen before.

  5

  Wheelock handed over the guy’s driver’s license. Stephen Masters, twenty-one years old, the usual bad ID picture, a blocky face framed by a lot of baby fat.

  “We already ran him, no record,” Wheelock said. He sounded disappointed.

  “So what happened?” Brent asked. He didn’t need this, and he didn’t like the quick look Wheelock shot Randall.

  “He was out of control,” Wheelock said.

  “Where were you?” Brent asked Kelly.

  It came out like an accusation, although he hadn’t intended it that way. That was the way Kelly took it.

  “When we got there he had the guy down on the ground and there were a lot of people watching. Wheelock went in to pull him off and I stayed back to watch the crowd. You know what they’re like.”

  Brent knew. Closing time fights were such a regular occurrence at Saunders’ place that the old man could have printed a schedule and sold tickets.

  Randall had called him from the hospital around four am, told him what had happened. Or at least a version of it, Brent thought sourly. There was a gap there, a couple of hours when Randall and Wheelock could have compared notes, gotten their stories straight. The whole thing had sounded like trouble, and as much as he wanted to roll over and go back to sleep Brent had reluctantly decided he’d better get down there.

  Wheelock and Randall were in the ER hallway when he arrived. Both looked badly shaken up, Kelly Randall with genuine concern for the kid and Wheelock – well, Wheelock was Wheelock. He looked scared, probably for himself.

  A door swung open behind them and one of the residents came out. Another kid, Brent thought, this one some kind of Arab or something, heavy five o’clock shadow that did nothing to hide how young he was. He looked tired, pissed off. He was ignoring them, obviously on his way somewhere else, but Randall put a hand on his arm to stop him. He didn’t like it.

  “Is he all right?�
�� she asked.

  It sounded like she was just continuing a previous conversation. The guy looked down at Randall’s hand, waited until she removed it. Some kind of Muslim, Brent decided.

  “Lucky,” he said. It was hard to tell who he meant, “he’s conscious now.”

  Randall looked relieved, shot a glance at Wheelock. The doctor caught it, gave her a contemptuous look.

  “A concussion is serious. We will have to watch him.”

  Brent stepped in.

  “I’ll need to talk to him.”

  The guy looked up at him sharply.

  “Are you family?”

  Brent had been half asleep and in a hurry, hadn’t bothered wearing anything official. Everybody in town knew who he was anyway. Everybody except this guy.

  “I’m the acting chief of police here.”

  The doctor looked unimpressed.

  “Don’t take too long,” he told him, waving a peremptory hand at the door he’d just come from. For a moment it looked like he was going to say something else, but instead he just walked away. Brent turned toward Randall.

  “Kelly, why don’t you wait in the other room? I’ll talk to you after we finish up here.”

  Brent waited until she’d pushed her way through the door, then looked back at Wheelock.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “We were going by Saunders’ place, saw this crowd out in front, the usual stuff – one guy beating the shit out of another guy.”

  “So where’s the other one?”

  “Don’t know,” Wheelock shrugged, “lost track of him. He just took off.”

  “Couldn’t have been hurt that bad.”

  Wheelock looked defensive.

  “It looked pretty bad to us. The guy in there had him down on the ground just pounding him in the face. You can ask Randall.”

  “So what happened then?”

  “I got in behind him, tried to haul him off.”

  “Where was Randall?”

  “Watching my back.”

  That sounded a little more melodramatic than necessary but it was the right thing to do. Brent let it go.

  “So it was just you and him.”

  “Right then, yeah.”

  “Pretty big boy, huh?” he asked, casual.

  Wheelock nodded, eyes brightening a bit, a war story.

  “Yeah, around your size – he’s gotta be six-two, two thirty – maybe bigger,” he grinned nervously, just a flash and then gone.

  On a good day Gary Wheelock might go five-nine and one-sixty.

  “What happened then?”

  Wheelock looked embarrassed.

  “He caught me with an elbow, all right? Nailed me right in the chest, knocked the wind out of me.”

  “So you were down.”

  Wheelock’s eyes went somewhere else for a second and then he looked back at Brent.

  “Yeah. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything.”

  “What was Randall doing all this time?”

  “She saw what happened, took out the Taser, but the crowd was yelling and I think she got distracted. She looked away for a minute and the guy started for her and I took him out with the nightstick.”

  “In the head.”

  “Yeah, in the head–I had to put him down. He could’ve killed her.”

  “Once?”

  “What?”

  “How many times? How many times did you hit him?”

  “Once in the head, once before that. First time I got him behind the knees,” he saw Brent’s expression, shifted his weight uncomfortably, “she had the Taser on him but it looked like he was gonna go for her anyway.”

  “You just said she had the Taser,”

  “Yeah, she had it up,” Wheelock nodded, “but it didn’t look like she was going to use it.”

  Brent looked at him sharply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just – it just didn’t look that way. He was close and I thought he might, you know, lunge for her before she fired it.”

  Brent kept his expression neutral.

  “What happened then?”

  “I don’t know. She must’ve heard something because she took her eyes off him, turned away for a second, and that’s when he went for her.”

  Brent didn’t say anything, waited him out. Wheelock started talking again.

  “He was on his knees but then he started up off the ground, like he was gonna spring at her, you know?,” Wheelock shrugged, “I mean, it happened pretty fast. I just reacted.”

  Brent didn’t say anything, just stared Wheelock down for a moment. Wheelock knew enough not to keep talking.

  “All right,” Brent told him, “stay right here.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, left him in the hallway.

  • • •

  Kelly Randall was standing in the reception area when Brent came back out.

  “Okay,” he said, “talk to me.”

  What she told him more or less matched what Wheelock had said. Up to a point.

  “So when you looked away the guy went for you.”

  Randall hesitated.

  “Yeah – I mean, he must have,” she said, “when I turned back he was already on the ground.”

  “Why did you look away, Kelly?”

  “I heard something,” she shrugged, “maybe the sirens.”

  “So you took your eyes off him.”

  “Just for a second – yes.”

  “Wheelock said he hit the guy because he thought he might go for you and you wouldn’t be able to fire the Taser in time.”

  Randall’s eyes sparked.

  “I didn’t think I’d have to.”

  “So you didn’t think he was going to rush you, anything like that.”

  “No. If I thought he was going to do that I never would have taken my eyes off him.”

  “Sometimes they don’t do what you think they’re going to do.”

  “I know that, but – ”

  “Possible Wheelock saw something you didn’t?”

  Randall took a moment to answer.

  “It’s possible,” she said finally.

  Brent waited. She didn’t say anything else.

  6

  There were six curtained cubicles in the ER. Brent stepped inside the door, nearly bumped right into Ellen Tanner. She gave him a disapproving look, gestured toward the one in the middle on the left. He pulled the curtain aside, realized that for once Wheelock hadn’t exaggerated. Stephen Masters was bigger than Wheelock and Randall roped together, bigger even than Brent. He nearly overflowed the metal rails that cordoned off the sides of the bed. For all his size he looked young, almost cherubic. It was hard to imagine him beating on anybody. His eyes were open but they looked a little murky, glazed over.

  “How you doing, Stephen?” Brent asked him.

  It took the kid a moment to process the question.

  “I’m okay. A little dizzy.”

  I bet, Brent thought.

  “I’m Chief Williams – just need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I didn’t know they were cops – I mean police.”

  “I’ve heard that one before, son – what about the guy you were beating on in the parking lot?”

  “He started it. I was in the parking lot and he just came up and hit me in the side of the head.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “You must have done something.”

  “I didn’t. I was just standing there. I didn’t even know who he was.”

  Brent actually believed him. There was always some rocket scientist somewhere who wanted to take on the biggest guy in the room, especially someone who looked like Baby Huey here. Big mistake.

  “Did I hurt him?”

  “You must have, but he took off somewhere,” Brent told him,“while you were resisting arrest.”

  “Arrest?” the kid repeated, a look of incipient panic on his face.
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  “You heard me. You knocked one of my officers down and you were coming at the other one. ”

  “I didn’t know who they were,” he said, “not until I turned around. As soon as I saw who they were I stopped.”

  Brent let that ride, didn’t say anything, waited for Masters to fill in the ominous silence. He was surprised when the boy didn’t say anything more, just stared up at the ceiling. He looked scared to death.

  Brent was pretty sure he wasn`t getting the whole story from either Wheelock or Randall. A lot depended on the parents, both on their relationship with the kid and their general attitude toward law enforcement. Depending on how that went the town could be looking at some kind of lawsuit. Brent’s position as acting chief was tenuous at best. While no one really thought that Stallings would get his job back, that wouldn’t stop Ed Cunningham from bringing in somebody else. Cunningham carefully cultivated his nice-guy image, but he could be absolutely ruthless in protecting his political back.

  Brent stared at the kid, took his time as if he was struggling with a particularly weighty decision.

  “Okay, Stephen,” he said finally, “it’s against my better judgment but I’m inclined to give you a break on this. If I do that I don’t want to hear you’ve been running around town bragging about it. I hear something like that and I’ve got no choice but to charge you. Do you read me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the kid was already nodding vigorously.

  Maybe it was the right thing to do after all, Brent thought. He’d been the same kind of boy, back in the day, the big, good-natured kid who got forced into confrontations he didn’t want any part of.

  The kid was still stammering a thank-you as Brent brushed the curtain aside and walked out.

  7

  Jed Hopkins was sprawled on the couch in the little back room behind the motel office. No business this time of year, but he kept the office open a few hours a day anyway. It gave him a place to be. There was no use keeping the office open all night, and there wasn’t enough cash flow to pay somebody for the night shift. Nobody in their right mind came to Strothwood this time of year, at least nobody in their right mind who’d stay way the fuck out here in a dump like this.