When it got dark out, I snuck into the precinct parking lot and jimmied open the door of his car by sticking a hooked wire between the window and the frame. I thought it was great, me breaking into a car after so many years, and where was it? A cop parking lot. Better still, it was a cop’s car, and he hadn’t even set the alarm. I couldn’t help but laugh. I had a sharp knife on me from my kitchen drawer. All I had to do was wait.
He came out through the back door at midnight. He looked exhausted. His black suit was wrinkled, and even in the dim light of the parking lot the bags under his eyes were evident enough that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. I felt pretty bad too, having spent one whole evening hiding in the back of a car, but I’d gotten good at hiding out the last few weeks anyway, so it could have been worse.
He got to the car, got his keys out of his inside jacket pocket, unlocked the door, and got in the driver’s seat. He started it up, then tapped on the radio. Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” came on.
The idiot sighed.
Before he switched into drive, I got up off the backseat and sprang forward. He saw movement in the rearview mirror and went for his piece, but I was already upon him, the tip of the knife poking a tiny little hole into the underside of his neck.
He stopped breathing.
“Higgins,” he sneered, “you motherfucker. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, chief, just keep your hands on the wheel.”
“I told you you’d fuck up, and guess what? You just did. I’ll kill you for this.”
“Not if I kill you first.”
I put more pressure on the knife.
“Okay, okay,” he grunted. “What the hell do you want?”
“Well, I want you to drive, man. Get us outta here. There’s too many cops here.”
“Oh, really? At a police station? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me….”
“Can the sarcasm. It doesn’t go with the suit. Drive. And don’t do any bullshit signaling to anybody. No flashing headlights, no secret wave, none of that, cuz I’ll cut your fucking head off. You copy that?”
“Yeah, I copy.”
He put the car in drive and eased out of the space. We got to the street, and without direction from me, he made a left, avoiding the circus show outside the precinct. When we got a little farther away, I reached into his jacket with my free hand and relieved him of his piece. With that, I put the knife in my back pocket and sat back with the gun trained on the side of his head.
“You’re not such a big man now, are you? Not without your fucking gun.”
“Fuck you, Higgins.”
“No,” I said, “you won’t be doing that today. Keep going till we get to Old Sherman. From there, I’ll direct you further.”
“My wife knows I’m on the way home. She knows my schedule.”
“Tight leash, eh?”
“Higgins …”
“Just drop it, okay? You’ll be getting home soon enough, given you don’t fuck with me. Now, just focus on the road. Safe driving saves lives, you know.”
We got to Old Sherman Road. We took that about a mile north to where there was this little dirt road that went about a hundred yards into the woods and ended in the middle of nowhere. Why it was there in the first place was anyone’s guess. We took that little road to the end of the line, and then I ordered him out of the car. The point of the gun never strayed from his body. I came around and stood about ten paces in front of him.
It was pretty funny, if you got to thinking about it. In the last few weeks I’d held guns on more people than I ever had in my entire life.
We were in the middle of darkness, perfectly concealed. The only light came from the car, and I think this made Van Buren a little more nervous than he was when we were driving. For all he knew, there were wild dogs in those woods. Dogs that … well …
“Black Is Black” started playing on the car radio.
“I love that song,” I said.
“Okay already,” said Van Buren. “Get to it.”
“Arright. Well, first I want to apologize for the inconvenience. Your wife didn’t want you seeing me in the house. But basically, I’m going to need you to do a couple of favors for me.”
“Me? Do favors for you? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m for real, man. The way I see it, you pissed me off good and proper. Came into my home, cuffed me, treated me like a fucking scoundrel. Threatened me, even. You were the one making all those crazy phone calls, and you busted into my house and left that fucking note. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that one bit. You and I gotta even up.”
“I don’t owe you shit, Higgins.”
I fired a shot into the trees. He jumped. It was time to spin my web of lies and hope he fell for it. “You do owe me, cop. You have no idea. You see, I know you take crazy pills, and something up in your brain is way offtrack. You’ve been dedicating all this time to my ass when you could have been tracking down the killer. Instead you’ve been satisfying your dementia, and innocent people have died. All the while you’ve just been making things more complicated than they ever had to be.”
“Who told you about my medication?”
“I got sources, you prick. I’ll run it down for you. The arrangement Pearce and I had? You wanna know what it was? You wanna know how we were in cahoots? I was his garbage man,” I said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“All those cases you boneheads never solved? I solved ‘em. Motherfuckers never got brought in, but they got taken down all the same, and they’re all buried in these woods. Every single one of them.”
“My God.”
The gullible prick.
“Yeah, that’s right. You think you’re dealing with some run-of-the-mill punk? No, I’ve killed more men than you’ve ever talked
to.”
“You sick … bitch.”
“I’m not sick. I’m a public servant, just like you. Vietnam made me a machine. I’m just doing my job for America. Making the community safe. This shit with the Rose Killer has gone on long enough. Pearce knew it. He knew the feds couldn’t get the job done. That’s why he enlisted my aid, man. I’m gonna end it, and you’re gonna help me. Pearce was helping me, now it’s your turn.”
“Fuck you.”
“You wanted to know the deal, now you know. What are you gonna do? Play high-and-mighty with me? I think not. You’re not Mr. Untouchable yourself. Your prints are in my house, as are your handcuffs, also with your prints on ‘em. How’d they get there? You’re gonna fuck with me, I’ll fuck you right back. You can’t turn me in, because the second you do I’ll bring this town to its fucking knees. How do you think the public will react when they find out their tax dollars have been going to an executioner? You can’t do that to Pearce’s memory, man. You can’t do that to his wife. His unborn child.”
A minute passed.
He said, “What do you want?”
“I want your wallet.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Gimme the fucking wallet.”
He fished out his wallet, then threw it to me. I took out his license, pretty much just for show. I looked around in the sleeves a little more, then chucked it into the open car door.
“Now I know where you live,” I said, “and I know what your kid looks like.”
“Okay,” he said, “that’s enough.”
“What’s the boy’s name?”
“That’s enough!”
“Not quite. You’re going to get me the information I need, just like Danny did. If you don’t, or if you fuck with me in any way, I have a number of bombs—I won’t tell you how many—planted throughout this town. A signal needs to be sent to these bombs every twelve hours. When a signal isn’t sent, say, if I’m arrested and unable to, or injured, or something like that, then the bombs kind of take it upon themselves to blow up. You copy?”