“YOU DUMB CRAZY STUPID BASTARD!” The phallic black object sat perched very close to the edge.
“That's the original, by the way. A good, stiff wind will take it right on down. I'm going to destroy them all if I don't have your signed confession. Even if your lawyer beats the charges, you won't have your pretty babies anymore, eh?"
Schumway had to fight not to spring out of the chair and Eichord saw him put weight on his legs for that first instant before he could catch himself and just as he started rolling to save that precious black beauty Eichord felt a cold, hard pain in his chest as he forced himself to step forward shoving against the top of a wheel with his foot, all of his weight behind the leg, and Arthur Spoda was fast, springing out of the chair but too late because everything was in the air, Spoda and the wheelchair and the unbreakable casting of the deco treasure, falling through space and in a quarter-second the chair was going over and half a beat later it was all over and the hard concrete below was rushing up to meet Spoda and trapping the scream in his throat as unyielding concrete broke his fall and his neck.
Jack turned and went back in, heading downstairs to remove the copy of the black Futura from the scene of the accident. Again, there was neither guilt nor sense of relief. No tragic loss, certainly. Just nothing.
Nothing even to the extent that as he tied loose ends, tidying up doing the things that had to be done at the scene of this crime, he could feel a little hollow laugh building in there. Dark humor is, after all, the refuge of people in Homicide. You betchum.
Buckhead Springs
Driving home that night, he felt his mind sinking down into a slimy pit where he'd never allowed his thoughts to take him. Shit. He'd done everything else. He thought about the child. The child of evil. He wondered it ... Good CHRIST but he hated to let himself think it. But it might be better for everybody if he'd find a way to do away with the kid. There.
A blast of static over the radio made him almost jump out of his skin.
“Kay double A-Three.” Eichord's call sign to go over to the tac channel for a personal.
He switched the radio control and picked up the handset, keying the mike.
“Kay double A-Three."
“Call Mrs. Severn, please.” The dispatcher's voice.
“Ten-four. Thank you. Kay double A-Three out.” He pulled over to a bank of phones in front of a grocery store and dialed the number of a telephone in a 7-11 near Dana's house, as per their private code.
“Yeah,” his friend answered.
“Nu?"
“Yeah, okay. Listen. Just, uh, don't say shit. Just listen to me. Don't say anything more. I mean, just be real quiet and listen. I know how you must feel, if I'm right. If I'm wrong—fuck it, but don't say a word. Just hear me out and don't make any comment. Don't say zip. I'll say my piece, and when I'm done with it, I'll hang up and you hang up and we'll fuckin forget about it. Forever, man. I wanna tell you somethin. I know you know how much I love you, man."
Fat Dana was choking up, about to start bawling. The sentimental putz. “Fuck you. What I want to say is. I know YOU, too, asshole. And I know how something like what you done can eat at you. NO, DON'T TALK. DON'T SAY SHIT. If I'm wrong, fine. I think you offed those fuckers. I know you like a fuckin’ book. And if you did, you'll put yourself through seven kinds of hell over it. I have this to say to you—DON'T.
“We both know it's sometimes necessary to take a life in cold blood. We know sometimes there ain't no other way, Daddio. And we know that the end DOES justify the means. That's why there's wars and laws and cops and all that shit. I don't have the words to give you any comfort about it. It takes some big balls, and I just want you to know—right or wrong, I love you, and I'm always with you. Now fuck off,” he said, slamming the phone down as he often did to Eichord.
Jack got back in the car and turned his radio off. He smiled at the thought of Dana. I love you too, Fatso, he thought to himself. But he still had the bad feeling inside.
He got home and closed the garage door, went in and kissed his wife, and walked back to the room where Jonathan was playing. He looked in at the child, who immediately flashed small, bright black eyes in his direction, held for just a fraction of a second, then looked away with disinterest. Eichord stood there looking at the kid, thinking. Should I or shouldn't I? Knowing, sadly, that it would be a no-win deal either way.
The cold, hard pain in his chest was still there, but Jack Eichord knew all too well what it was. So it was hardly an unexpected discomfort. After all, nothing sits quite as heavily in the chest cavity as a heart of stone.
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