In the next instant, his mind processed the plastic thunking sound he’d heard when his foot made contact.
It was a prosthesis, he realized. A fake leg.
Chisolm was relieved. He snapped his handcuffs on Kevin and patted his pockets and waistline for weapons. Inside his pants on his hip, he found a long hunting knife. He removed it and tossed it several feet away. Then he patted Kevin on the back.
“Easy there, Marine. It’s going to be all right.”
Kevin swore at him. Chisolm kept his shin across the back of the man’s neck and accessed his radio.
“Charlie-143 to -145. I could use your help here.”
“-145, copy.” Lindsay’s voice came through static. He was out of the car and using his portable radio. “I’m walking in now.”
“Copy,” Chisolm said and replaced his radio. He gave Kevin another comradely pat on his shoulder blades. “It’ll be just a few minutes and we’ll get you into a nice car.”
“You’re weren’t no fucking Green Beret!” Kevin yelled into the floor.
Chisolm ignored the accusation. “Your leg injury happen in country, Kevin?”
“None of your goddamn business, you lying sonofabitch!”
He gave Kevin another pat. “Just be another minute.”
Kevin let loose a stream of profanities, ending with “shit-eater.”
“I think the ‘Nam mighta left you beaucoup dinky dao, my friend,” Chisolm said softy. “And I’m sorry about that.”
“Shove it up your ass! Fake Army son of a bitch!”
Lindsay appeared around the corner, loping along at his usual lazy pace. When he saw Chisolm on top of Kevin, his eyes flew open and he trotted over.
“What the hell, Tom? This guy fought?”
Chisolm shook his head. “Just tried to leave before it was quite time.”
“Jesus, what happened to his leg?”
“It’s a fake.”
“Oh.” Lindsay cocked his head to the side, then asked, “Jesus, Tom, you beat up a one-legged man?”
“Faker! Liar!” yelled Kevin.
Lindsay stared for another moment, then asked, “Is he under arrest?”
“What are you, my sergeant? Just grab that knife there and help me get him out to the car.”
Lindsay looked briefly for the knife on the floor, found it and picked it up. He gave a low whistle.
“Rambo,” he said.
“Come on, Bill,” Chisolm said, breaking his reverie. He and Lindsay lifted Kevin into a standing position. Each took an arm and walked him toward the front doors. His prosthesis dragged on the floor as they walked and he hopped effortlessly along on one leg to keep up.
They walked past the snack bar. Both tuxedo-clad teenagers followed their progress with their mouths hanging open. When the threesome exited the front doors, the bug-eyed ticket girl joined the gawker’s club.
“He still needs a good search,” Chisolm said, leaning Kevin against the car at the front tire. The two officers set about searching him. They removed all of his items and placed them on the hood. They found no more weapons.
“What’s your last name, Kevin?” Chisolm asked. “Is it Harrison?”
The prisoner stared ahead and said nothing.
Chisolm flipped open the man’s wallet. He saw a veteran’s hospital identification card in the name of Kevin Yeager. It showed his service dates as 1970-71. Chisolm slid it back into the wallet.
After the search, they awkwardly stowed a subdued Kevin in the back seat of Chisolm’s car.
Chisolm handed the wallet to Lindsay. “Do me a favor and run him. In addition to any wants, I need to know if there are any mental entries. And look for protection orders or anything like that. This might be some kind of Domestic Violence or something. The female half might be named Cindy Harrison.”
“Now who’s the sergeant?” Lindsay tried to joke.
Chisolm ignored him and walked back into the theater past the bug-eyed girl. Inside, he found the manager standing against the wall behind the ticket booth. A dark-haired woman in her thirties stood next to him. She held an infant in her arms, bouncing him softly.
“Cindy?” he asked as he approached.
“Yes, sir,” said the woman. He detected a southern accent.
“Then this would be Kyle,” he said, indicating the baby.
“Yes, sir,” she said again, and paused to kiss the child’s head.
Chisolm waved the manager away. The kid reluctantly retreated, wandering slowly toward the snack bar.
“He can’t see me from out there, can he, sir?”
“No,” Chisolm said.
She let out a relieved sigh. “Thank the Lord. How did he even know I was here?”
“He said he was riding the bus and passed by as you were walking in.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Listen, Cindy, what’s the story here? Is he your husband?”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, sir, he was.”
“When did you get divorced?”
“Oh, we was never married.”
Chisolm gave her a puzzled look.
“We was common-law married,” she explained. “Seven years together.”
“But not legally married?”
“Not like in a church proper, no, sir.”
“Is he Kyle’s father?”
“’Course he is,” Cindy said.
“He made some references that made me wonder, that’s all.”
“He called me a whore, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, I think that was the word.”
“That’s on account of I left him, sir. I was afraid for my baby, so I left.”
“Afraid of what?” Chisolm asked, but he thought he knew.
“Of him,” Cindy told him. “He wasn’t seeing his doctor or taking his pills like he was s’posed to. He started saying crazy things.”
“Like what?”
Cindy squinted at him. “He was in the Marines, sir. In Vietnam. And sometimes, when he doesn’t take those pills, it’s like he just never left.”
“What would he say?”
“That I was a traitor and working for the VC. Or sometimes he said for Nathaniel Victor, whoever that is. He held a knife to my throat one night, right after I told him I was pregnant.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Why?” she asked. “He didn’t leave no mark, so it’d just be my word against his.”
Chisolm let that go, mostly because she was right. “Have you applied for a protection order with the courts?”
“No, sir. Should I?”
“I think so. What do you think he’s capable of?”
Cindy pressed her lips together and tears spilled out of the corner of his eyes. “You wanna know the truth, officer?”
Chisolm nodded.
“I think he’d just as soon kill me and take Kyle for himself. He’s just as sure as can be that I’ve got some boyfriend and that I’m trying to keep his baby from him. Last time I saw him, he yelled at me that he wasn’t gonna see his baby raised by no gook-lover.” She looked at Chrisolm. “That’s what he called the Orientals from over there. Gooks.”
“I’ve heard that word once or twice,” Chisolm said. Hell, he’d used it plenty in another world.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”
Chisolm reached into his pocket and removed a crime-victim card. He asked Dispatch for a report number and when the dispatcher came back with the number, he scrawled it on the card. Then he handed it to Cindy. “There’s a number on there,” he said, “that you can call if you need a safe shelter. Also, there are directions on how to get a protection order. You should go get one tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she drawled, wiping her eyes with one hand. She gave Kyle a kiss on the forehead before asking, “What about tonight?”
“I’ll book him into jail and write a report,” Chisolm told her. “But he’ll see a judge in the morning and I’m sure they’ll let him out with little or no bail. If you get that order and he violates it, it’s a mandatory arrest and no bail.”
She nodded that she understood. “Maybe I ought to go back to Georgia,” she said. “But I think he’d just follow me there. ‘Sides, I got myself a good job here.”
“Get the order,” Chisolm said. “That would be my advice.”
“Thank you, sir,” Cindy said. “From me and from Kyle William.”