"Scully?" Mayweather said, blinking his eyes frantically. Shane knew his prisoner couldn't see much, forced to look directly into the bright light.
"Mr. Scully! Let's have some respect for your host."
"You're gonna go away forever," Mayweather said angrily. "This is the most outrageous thing I've ever heard of. You're history. You'll both rot in jail for this. Sergeant Hamilton, you're smart, there's still a chance for you. Just turn me loose, I'll do what I can "
"Shut up and listen!" Shane said. "If I don't get exactly what I want, this is where you check out, Tom."
"You can't possibly be serious."
"Hey, asshole, think about it!" Shane screamed, performing now, trying to sound demented and out of control. "You think I'd pull this if I weren't desperate? You've got a fucking life-ending problem here!"
Mayweather's eyes darted around right and left, then back to center. All he could see was the blinding light of the sun gun and occasionally Shane's silhouette as he paced. Bathed by the intense glare, his pupils had closed up like a Main Street junkie's.
"You screw up down here, Tommy, and you're on the lobby wall." A place just inside the huge double doors at Parker Center where they put pictures of all the dead policemen, under a huge gold emblem of the department and the letters EOW end of watch.
"Now, here's how it goes. You tell me everything. I already know a lot, so if you even leave out one little shred, I'm gonna… I'm gonna park a nine between your eyes." Adding a little insanity into his routine, some Mel Gibson Lethal Weapon madness.
Street cops had to learn to play different roles to get confessions. "Loose-cannon homicidal maniac" was a favorite. Trouble was, once you'd seen the show, it rarely worked twice. Shane didn't think Chief Mayweather, with his shelfful of basketball trophies and high-profile sports background, had ever spent much time on the street. He probably went right from the Academy to Press Relations or the Chief Administrative Staff. Hopefully, he would be disoriented and frightened enough to buy the act.
"You wouldn't dare kill me. You wouldn't dare," Mayweather said, but he sounded now as if he was trying to convince himself, not Shane.
"You don't think I'll kill ya; watch this, asshole." He pointed Alexa's Beretta at the wall beside the deputy chief's shaved head. He aimed it wide so that the shot would ricochet off the concrete a few inches from Mayweather, then fly harmlessly up the tunnel, into the dark. But he wanted the bullet to be close enough for Mayweather to feel its draft.
Shane fired the gun. The echo of the 9mm pistol was deafening in the enclosed space. Chief Mayweather actually yelped when the gun fired. The slug hit inches from the side of his head, throwing plaster and dust in all directions, then whined away up the tunnel into the dark. Speckles of blood suddenly appeared on Mayweather's face where some flying concrete chips had hit his left cheek.
"Shit, Alexa, this thing pulls right," Shane said, keeping it loony and loose.
"Whatta you doing?" she shouted. "Are you nuts? Stop it! You can't kill him… You can't! I don't wanna go down for murder!" Picking up her cue perfectly, she turned on the camera without having to be told. Shane heard it whir softly behind him, and just like Coy Love, he stayed to the side, out of the frame.
"Okay, okay… I won't. You're right you're right. Jesus, what's wrong with me… It's just… Ahhh, fuck it! This guy is going!" Shane pointed the gun at the chief and pulled the hammer back. The metallic click echoed in the silence.
"Don't, Shane. Please!" she shouted, in standard Actors Studio over-the-top fashion. Mayweather was too panicked to spot their bad performances.
"Please… please stop him. Don't let him shoot me," the deputy chief begged Alexa. This was a new Tom Mayweather; no longer the officious police commander, this one was shitting his pants, pleading for his life.
"How can I stop, Tommy? You're such a hopeless prick. I can't believe all the worthless shit you've been pulling, starting with screwing me for Ray's death, going all the way up the penal code to double felony kidnapping."
"What're you talking about?" he said, his lips quivering, blood beginning to run down the side of his face where the cement chips had cut him, staining his collar.
"What I'm saying, Tom, is I want answers. Don't you get it? I'm fucking pissed off! I'm through taking your shit. You don't walk away from a bad FI down here. You get buried in this fucking wash!" Shane was taking time on his performance now, first working on his loony sound, then screaming, making it unstable and completely out of control.
"Look, I don't know what's going on," Mayweather blurted.
"Come on, you think I'm a fucking moron? You're the deputy chief, asshooolehe said, dragging the word out, leaning on it. "You're Burl's guy. You think I'm gonna believe that? You took all those files outta Zell's office. Your fuckin' prints are all over the folders." He was pacing madly back and forth, strobing the floodlight, keeping his head turned from the lens but throwing a moving shadow against Mayweather and the sweating concrete tunnel wall. The effect was eerie.
"I just get money. I don't ask questions. I do what I'm told." His voice shook badly.
"Is that how you can afford that shiny new sailboat?" Shane asked.
"I… I… Yes."
"And you know what? You know what? You know what I'm feeling?" He was rolling his words around like marbles in a tin dish. "I'm thinkin' you and Brewer and Ray and his whole fuckin' den are just scum-sucking pieces of shit! You sold out the fuckin' job for a fuckin' sailboat."
Mayweather was breathing through his mouth now. His fear was so pronounced, he'd forgotten to swallow; drool started coming out the right side of his mouth, running down his chin. He was close to snapping. Close to the edge of temporary insanity.
"Hey, Shane, calm down, for Chrissake. Whatta you doing?" Alexa said, seeing the dangerous change in Mayweather, not wanting him to snap and start babbling. "The man wants to talk why don't you let him?"
"Tom, you gonna talk?" Shane said, sounding a little more in control. "You talk, maybe you could live to go sailing again… Maybe just maybe. But I need answers, man. I can't take no more shit! I can't… I just fucking can't." A little insane exasperation.
"Let him talk, for Chrissake," Alexa persisted. "Go ahead, Tom. Just tell us."
"What… what is it you wanna know?" His voice was close to tears.
"I wanna know what's going on with the H Street Bounty Hunters. How come Ray's den was letting those bangers run free in Southwest?" Alexa asked.
"I don't know."
"This is just more fucking bullshit/" Shane screamed, and cocked the gun again.
"No, no… Please… Please stop it. What I'm saying is, I know they're being allowed to rob down by the university." His words tumbling out now… "The gangbangers were told to do whatever they want from Exposition Boulevard to the freeway, and the police would look the other way."
"Down by USC?" Alexa said.
"Yeah, the old University Division."
"Why?"
"I don't know. For the love of God, I'm telling you all I know, I swear it."
" Why are those Gs being told it's okay to caper south of Exposition?" Alexa continued.
"I don't know. I don't… All I know is Brewer, once when I asked him, said that he wanted to drive the crime stats up in that part of town."
"The chief of police wants to drive the crime stats up?" Alexa asked from the darkness behind the camera. "Why? His job performance depends on driving the stats down"
"I don't know. It's all he said."
"Tommy, this is all fucking, runny yellow bullshit." Shane shoved the gun out in front of him, right into Mayweather's face, the barrel pressed against his right cheek.
"Shane NO!" Alexa shouted.
"Stop it," Mayweather sobbed, his eyes bugging, straining to get away, the cuffs rattling against the metal ladder. "I don't know I swear it! All he said was he was trying to increase the number of uncleared crimes in that section of the city. Molar's den was setting it up, running it. They transported the H Street bangers after the arrests and turned them loose. Sometimes they blew the busts by not reading the Miranda or by losing evidence." He was glistening with sweat under the floodlight. Shane didn't answer, but recocked the gun. The sound echoed menacingly in the concrete tunnel.