Let the fun begin, I thought.
4
We waited almost another hour before Jackie came home. We heard him first—the squeal of the tires, the angry, impatient growl of the engine. “Helluva way to treat a car like that,” Hennessey said. The Lamborghini roared past in a swirl of dust. It made the turn and went behind the house and into the garage. Jackie came out, looking as he had the first time I’d seen him, like some plastic hero from Muscle Beach. He was a serious bodybuilder: his arms looked like a pair of legs, his chest like a fifty-gallon drum. He had grown himself a mustache and he needed a haircut. The image was formidable, a guy you don’t mess with. He stopped for a moment and looked at the dog, and the anger began again. “Get out of that car!” he shouted, and the woman peeped meekly through the open garage door. “Come on, come on!” Jackie said. She was none too happy about it: I could see that even from where we crouched in the bushes. Jackie grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pushed her toward the house. They disappeared inside.
We waited. Nothing happened.
“Looks like the ball’s in our court,” Hennessey said.
“Yeah. Let’s go see the son of a bitch.”
We walked down the road to the car; then we drove back and turned into Jackie Newton’s drive, three officers of the law, proper to the bone. We stepped out and started up the walk. You could see the dog even from there, swinging grotesquely from the tree.
“Jesus, look at that,” Nasses said. “You boys see that last night?”
“See what?” I said.
Nasses gave a dry laugh. “Play it that way, then. I’ll help if I can.”
“Translate it for us, Nasses.”
“Don’t ask me to lie to cover your ass. I won’t volunteer anything, but don’t ask me to lie.”
“Ring the doorbell,” I said.
I had my badge pinned to my belt, like some cop on a TV show. I was pumped up: I always was when I was about to face Jackie. I heard him coming. The door opened and he filled the space.
“Mr. Newton?” Nasses said.
Jackie had seen me right off. He looked straight through Nasses and locked eyes with me. He probably didn’t even notice yet that Nasses was black.
“I’m Officer Nasses, Jeffco Sheriffs Department. These gentlemen are from the Denver police. They’d like to ask you a few questions.”
His eyes cut to my badge. Nasses had taken a little involuntary step to one side. There was nothing between Jackie Newton and me but two feet of violent air.
“Hello, Jackie,” I said.
“What the fuck do you want, Janeway?”
“You must be having trouble with your ears. The man just told you, I want to ask you a few questions.”
“You arresting me for something?”
“Maybe.”
“Go fuck yourself. Bust me right now or come back with a warrant.”
“How do you know I don’t have a warrant?”
“If you did you’d use it. Go away, you’re wasting my time.”
He started to close the door. I stepped past Nasses and put my foot in it. I started reading him his rights, thinking maybe it would throw him off, buy me a minute. At least if he slipped and said something, we’d be protected.
He listened, uncertain.
“Where were you last night?” I said.
I drove out on the plains. I was gone all night and, yeah, I had company. I got an alibi for any goddamn thing you want to dream up about last night.“
“Where’s your alibi, Newton? I want to see him.”
“Her, flatfoot, her… my alibi’s a girl.”
“Bring her down.”
“Come back with a warrant.”
Again he tried to close the door. Again I put my foot in it.
“I told you, Newton, you’ve got the right to remain silent. That doesn’t mean you can keep me from a witness. Now bring the girl down here or I’ll have your ass in jail for obstruction of justice.”
It was a bluff and I figured Jackie would know it. He didn’t know it, not for sure. He went and got the girl, who actually was a woman in her late twenties.
He had slapped her at least three times: there were that many distinct welts on her face. In another day she’d look like she’d been face-first through a gauntlet.
“Would you step outside, miss?”
She did. She was blond, and might’ve been pretty in a glassy kind of way. She wasn’t pretty now.
“What’s your name?”
“You haven’t got to tell him one fucking thing,” Jackie Newton said. There was an implication in his voice that she’d better not.
“What’s your name, miss?”
“Barbara.”
“Do you need help?”
She looked confused, scared.
“We can take you out of here if you want to go,” I said.
“She doesn’t want to go anywhere with you, cop,” Jackie Newton said.
“Miss?” I tried for eye contact, but I couldn’t get a rise out of her. “Did this jerk beat you up?”
“She ran into a door,” Jackie Newton said.
“You’d better get that door fixed, Newton. Looks like she ran into it three or four times.”
“She ran into a goddamn door, okay? You want to make something out of that?”
“Miss,” I said. “Do you want to go with us?”
“I don’t know,” she said shakily.
“We could go over to the car and talk it over. Come on, let’s do that.”
“She’s going nowhere with you, cop.”
“Don’t pay any attention to that,” I said. “If you want to go, you go. Fatso’s got nothing to say about it.”
I knew that would get to him. He balled up his fists and said, “I’ll show you fat, motherfucker. Take off your badge and I’ll beat your fuckin‘ head in.”
I gave him a bitter, pathetic smile, the kind you’d give a talking worm. I kept looking at him the whole time I was talking to her. “I want you to be very sure, miss, what your options are. It’s all up to you. If this jerk beat you up, you can file charges against him. He can do some good time for that. Maybe when he gets out he won’t feel so frisky.”
“I’ve had about enough of this shit,” Jackie Newton said.
“I don’t think so, Newton. You and me, we’ve got a long way to go with each other.”
“You wanna go now, Janeway? You wanna go now, huh? What do you say, cop, just you and me, bare hands, an old-fashioned fight to the finish.”
“I see you’ve been reading comic books again, Jackie. I wish I could accommodate you, I really do. You could show me how you beat up women and murder dogs. Or murder bums on the street.”
“Is that what this is about? Are you still trying to stick me with that?”
“I’m going to stick you with it, pal. You watch me.”
“Why don’t you fight me, Janeway? Just pick the place and time.”
“I wish I could. We don’t do things that way.”
“That don’t surprise me. Now if you’re all through, I’m going in.”
I had been working my way slowly around, putting more distance between Newton and the woman. Now I put an arm out and moved her completely aside.
‘Barbara,“ I said. ”Why don’t you come on with us?“
“All right.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Jackie Newton said.
“You wouldn’t do anything unless it was stupid or mean,” I said. I got my hand on her shoulder and guided her away from the house. We got her to the car and inside, and there she broke down in a fit of sobbing. Her whole body trembled. I took off my coat and covered her shoulders, but it was a long time before she was ready to tell us about it.
We let Nasses off in Jeffco and were coming down Sixth Avenue toward Denver when I started to get her story. Hennessey was driving and Barbara was huddled against the shotgun door. I was in the back, leaning over the seat. I started with the little things. Her last name was Crowell. She lived in a Capitol Hill walk-up near Eleventh and Pearl. She worked for one of the companies that did business with Jackie Newton. Yesterday was the first time she had seen him… socially. She was flattered that he had asked her: he was rich and some people found him attractive. No one had warned her what he was really like.