I could see him now, a shadow behind a tree on Ninth near the corner. I don’t think I knew what I was going to do until that moment. She had reached the corner and looked both ways. He was now no more than ten yards away and could have caught her easy. But no… he was waiting for the big shock when he could grab her after she thought she’d made it. He wanted to see the fright, the heartbreak on her face. She had stopped on Ninth to look around, and I got out of the car and gave her the high sign.
I had my finger to my mouth, the universal gesture for quiet. I came up beside her and took her arm. With my other hand I got out my gun. I turned her east on Ninth, a course that would carry us right past the tree where he hid. She started to speak: I shushed her with a low hiss. The tree loomed up, then we were by it and Jackie leaped out. This all happened in less than five seconds. Jackie made a grab for my arm, still thinking it was Barbara he was grabbing. I said, “Hello, sweetheart,” and jammed him in the ribs with the gun. I saw him start to swing and I brought the gun up and let him taste the barrel, hard. It knocked him down and split both lips. He rolled over in the grass and got to his feet. He stood like a panther ready to spring and I stood there waiting for him.
Then nothing happened. He didn’t say a word: his eyes said it all. You are dead, Janeway, his eyes said, you are one dead cop. He had me quaking like Mount Saint Helens. With his eyes, Jackie said, I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but I am gonna bury you. With my mouth, I said, “I told you before, Newton, you better fix that door.” He didn’t think that was funny. He turned his evil eye on Barbara. She couldn’t look at him: her skin had gone white with goose bumps. I stepped in front of her and locked eyes with Jackie for what seemed like forever. He turned and walked away first. He was going up the hill toward her place, where his car was parked.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ll go a different way.” Again she had been taken by a fit of shivering. I draped my coat over her shoulders. “I’m gonna have to start charging you rent for this coat,” I said. It didn’t cheer her up. We cut up alleys and went in the back way to her place. I sat her on the couch and put on a pot of water for instant coffee. While it was coming to a boil I went to the window and looked down where Jackie Newton had discovered his flat tire. I saw him throw his jack halfway across the street, then flip off a passing driver who had blown his horn. He was a bad son of a bitch, Jackie. All that remained to be seen was how bad.
8
I got the coffee down from a cupboard. I found her liquor cabinet and stirred in a generous shot of brandy. She sipped it, then sat staring at the oval rug under her feet. I went to the window to check on Jackie’s progress. He was still in the stage of initial disgust and hadn’t done much yet. I should’ve punched two out, or maybe all four, I thought.
“How you feeling now?” I asked without turning away from Jackie.
Numbly, she said, “Why is this happening?”
“You’re letting it happen.”
I turned in time to see the anger in her eyes. But she didn’t say anything.
“You’ve got to play his game by his rules,” I said. “He’s like a bully in a schoolyard. Either you stand up to him or he kills you, piece by piece, day by day.”
Her voice trembled, from anger, fear, or both. “How the fuck do I stand up to that?” she shouted.
“Start showing him you mean what you say.”
She shivered, drawing my coat tight around her neck. “A week ago I’d never heard of the goddamn man. Now he’s got control of my life.”
“Take it back.”
“You keep saying that. I’m sick of it. It’s easy for you to say.”
“I didn’t say it was easy. But it may be your only choice.”
“Then tell me, please, what exactly do you want me to do?”
“Show some guts, Barbara. Maybe it’ll get you killed, but how do you know this won’t?”
I got her some more coffee. She had gulped the cup and it seemed to be doing her some good. Her shivers had subsided and in another minute she let my coat hang loose on her shoulders.
“For starters,” I said, “if he ever touches you again, get the cops involved. Don’t just hang up because I’m not there. I’m a homicide cop; you don’t need me here unless he kills you. There are other cops who handle this kind of stuff. I’ll give you some names; I’ll grease the skids downtown so you’ll get priority treatment. In other words, I’ll do what I can.”
She shook her head.
“Look, you had a start on him this morning, then you let him get away. He raped you. What you should’ve done right then was go to the hospital. Swear out a warrant. Let him cool his heels in jail for a few hours. Take him to Denver District Court. Take him all the way. If you get one of those lemon-suckers on the bench, he gets off. But at least he knows you’re ready to play hardball.”
“Which means I go to the morgue next time.”
“Or maybe there won’t be a next time. I’ve got a theory about our friend Jackie. If you show a white flag, he’ll tear you to pieces. Jackie takes no prisoners: he loves to take on people who won’t fight back. If you do fight, he’ll give you a hard look before he comes back again.”
“I think you’re wrong. I think he takes it very personally when you fight. I think he’s going to kill you for what you did to him today.”
“I’m not gonna argue with you. I didn’t become a cop because of my grades in psych. You asked me what to do and I told you. Rack his ass if he blinks at you twice. Get yourself a restraining order and then the cops can bust him if he doesn’t leave you alone. That’s the first step.”
“And the last. Oh, Christ, you can’t protect me.”
“We can try. We can do the best we can do.”
“Then what? You can’t take me by the hand and walk me to work. You can’t sleep with me…”
We looked at each other. She said, “What if you do the best you can do and it still isn’t good enough? What do I do then, challenge him to a duel? Quit my job and leave my friends and start over in another state?”
“I got no guarantees, ma’am. All I can do is tell you this— I’m on your side and so is the police department. We got a guy out there who thinks he’s one tough cowboy. Our job is to show him he isn’t. There are many ways of doing this, and some of them you don’t need to know about.”
She took a deep breath. “It’s really bad between you two, isn’t it?”
I gave her my sour little smile in return.
I told her I’d be back in a minute. I had looked out the window and seen that Jackie Newton was now hard at work on his flat tire. I didn’t want him to leave without saying goodbye.
I went down and sat on the coping and watched him work.
Jackie was into his silent act. It was supposed to be intimidating, and I guess it was. He knew I was there: I could tell by the way he breathed. He had scraped his hand and blood had oozed out between his knuckles.
I started a running line of chatter, thinking it would annoy him.
“I sure wouldn’t leave a car like that on the street,” I said pleasantly. “You never know when you’ll come back and find a door kicked in.”
He grunted over his lugs. I heard them squeak as he jerked on the lug wrench.
“There’re gangs around who do stuff like that,” I said. “Just bash up expensive automobiles.”
His lugs squeaked.
“Scumbags,” I said. “Everywhere you go.”
Squeak.
“It’s getting so you can’t do anything without running into some scumbucket who wants to take away a piece of your life.”