The Crush (49 page)

When he had Wick somewhat subdued, he struggled to his knees and pulled his service revolver from his shoulder holster. He pointed it down at Wick. Tears of pain smarted in his eyes, but he could see the bore of Oren's handgun clearly enough.

Upon hearing the commotion, several other plainclothesmen rushed into the room. "Back out!"

Oren ordered. "Everything's under control."

"What happened?"

"Just a little misunderstanding. It stays in this department, understood?" When no one said anything, he shouted, "Understood?"

There were murmurs of consent.

Oren motioned with his pistol. "Get up, Wick."

"I'm not believing this. You pulled a goddamn gun on me?"

"Come on. Up. It might be a good idea if you went in the tank for a while. Cool off."

Oren glanced toward the door. "Thigpen, you got a pair of cuffs handy?"

"Not fucking hardly," Wick growled. He surged to his feet and head-butted Oren's belly. He heard the scuffle of feet behind him and knew the other officers were scrambling to assist Oren. Wick had the momentum, however, and succeeded in backing Oren into the wall. He placed a forearm across his throat while with the other hand he tried to wrest the pistol away from Oren.

"Take back what you said about Rennie."

Oren struggled just as hard as he.

The other cops were trying to pull Wick off, but he had adrenaline working for him. "Take it back!" His shout reverberated off the walls of the small room.

But it wasn't as loud as the gunshot.
That deafened him.

Chapter 33

Weenie had wet himself. It was the definitive humiliation. The second-grade nightmare had been revisited to validate his cruel nickname.

There was only one variation--today no one had noticed the dark stain on the front of his trousers. They'd been too busy trying to control the pandemonium.

Following the gunshot all hell had broken loose, and that was how Weenie had managed to escape. There were advantages to being small in stature and easily forgettable. In the aftermath of the shooting he'd been the last thing on anyone's mind.

When he saw an opportunity to slip out of the interrogation room, he had seized it. He'd used the fire-escape stairs rather than taking the elevator. It wasn't until he had exited the building that he realized he'd peed himself.

What had he been thinking when he decided to go to Fort Worth? Dallas had the more colorful reputation, but Fort Worth was wilder and woollier by far. The people over there thought they were still living in the wild, wild West. He'd barely survived thirteen years of its public school system and he should have known better than to cross into that testosterone-charged territory again.

All the way home--and the thirty-mile distance between the two cities had never seemed so far-he'd expected a squadron of police cars to come screaming after him.

But the FWPD had much bigger problems to deal with than one missing would-be confessor who had come to his senses. A bleeding cop was a major event, especially since it had been another cop who'd made him bleed. Probably no one in that room would even remember that Weenie Sawyer had been there to witness the shooting.

Even so, he was taking no chances. He figured he was long overdue a relocation. He would start looking for another place. All he needed was space for his lounger, TV, and bed, and enough electricity to support his computer setup.

When he moved he wouldn't leave a forwarding address.

In the meantime, a vacation to a tropical Mexican clime sounded good. Acapulco.

Cancun. Someplace where he needed more sunscreen than pesos. He'd go out to DFW
Airport and hop terminals until he found an available flight to a destination where he could enjoy peace and obscurity until things settled down.

With unsteady hands he unlocked his front door. He tossed his keys onto his TV
tray and entered his bedroom in a rush.

He groped beneath his bed for his suitcase. It was covered by a thick layer of dust, but he set it on his bed, unlatched the top and raised it, then turned toward his narrow closet.

He screamed in fright.

"Hello, Weenie." Lozada was leaning against the opposite wall, arms and ankles crossed, looking perfectly relaxed. And deadly.

Noticing the stain on the front of Weenie's trousers, he grinned. "Did I startle you?"

"Have-hi Lozada. How's it going? I was just--"

"About to pack." He gestured toward the suitcase. "Going somewhere? But then you've already been somewhere, haven't you, Weenie?"

"Been somewhere? No." He was trying very hard to keep his teeth from chattering.

"I've been calling you for a day and a half."

"Oh, I was, uh ... my phone's out of order."

Indolently Lozada unfolded his arms and legs and crossed to the rickety table beside Weenie's bed. He lifted the receiver of the telephone. The dial tone buzzed loudly.

Weenie swallowed. "Son of a gun. They must've got it working again."

Lozada replaced the receiver and came to stand close to him. "I was getting worried about you, Weenie. You rarely leave this dump of yours. So where have you been?"

Weenie had to crane his neck to look up into Lozada's face. He didn't like what he saw. "I-I'm sorry I wasn't around.

Did you need me for something?"

Lozada ran his index finger along Weenie's hairline. "You're sweating, Weenie."

"Uh, listen, whatever you wanted me to do, I'll do it for free. No charge. You know, because I wasn't here when you--"

"You've peed your pants, Weenie. What made you nervous enough to lose bladder control?"

Lozada removed a switchblade from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist and a deadly click, he opened it inches from Weenie's face.

The small man whimpered in terror.

"You'd better tell me what's got you so shaken." Lozada began to clean beneath his fingernails with the knife. "I'd hate to hear it from somebody else. If you withheld information from me, I'd be very disappointed in you."

Weenie considered his options, which were, basically, life or death. His life wasn't much, but it beat the alternative. "This-that Threadgill?"

"What about him?"

"He shot what's-his-name. The black guy.
Wesley."

Lozada's eyes narrowed to slits of mistrust.

Weenie's head bobbed on his skinny neck.

"He did. He shot him. I saw it. I was there."

"Where?"

"At the police station in Fort Worth. The big one downtown. They hauled me in for questioning," he lied. "But don't worry. I didn't tell them anything. Honest, Lozada. They tried several tactics to get me to talk, but--"

"Skip that. What about Threadgill shooting Wesley? I don't believe you."

"I swear," Weenie said, his voice going shrill. "First he went for me. Nearly choked me to death and would have if Wesley hadn't pulled him off. Then they got into an argument over that doctor."

He recounted their quarrel almost word for word.

"Wesley said some things about her that didn't sit well with Threadgill. He attacked Wesley.

Wesley pulled his pistol and threatened to have Threadgill locked up until he cooled off.

Threadgill was having none of it and went for Wesley again. They were in a struggle for the pistol when it went off.

"Cops came running in, all trying to figure out what had happened. There's blood all over Wesley. Threadgill's going berserk, yelling, "No, no, Jesus, no!"

Stuff like that. He was trying to get to Wesley, but other cops were holding him back." Weenie paused to push up his slipping eyeglasses.

"I don't think Threadgill meant to shoot him. It was an accident. But the other cops heard a heated argument before the gunshot, so they figured, you know, it was intentional. And Threadgill was a wildman. It took several men to handcuff him and haul him outta there."

"Wesley's dead?"

"I don't know. I sneaked out before the ambulance got there, but somebody had a handkerchief stuffed into the wound and it looked bad. He was gut shot, I heard somebody say."

Lozada backed up a bit and Weenie relaxed considerably when he retracted the blade of the knife. But Lozada's stare was still activating his sweat glands.

"A shooting at police headquarters is big news, Weenie. How come I haven't heard any bulletins?"

"They talked about that. Even during all the hullabaloo, everybody kept saying, "This is contained, understand? Contained. It's a department matter." They want a tight lid kept on it. Makes sense. A cop shooting a cop.

They don't want the public to know about it.

They'll probably tell the people at the hospital that Wesley's gun accidentally fired while he was cleaning it. Or something."

Weenie nervously cracked his knuckles.

He wondered about the departure time of the last plane to Mexico. Did you need a passport to enter Mexico or would a driver's license do?

"She kept my card?"

"Huh?"

Irritably Lozada snapped his fingers in front of Weenie's face as though to wake him up, then repeated the question.

"Oh yeah, a card you sent with some roses?

Wesley thinks the lady has a thing for you. That's what pissed off Threadgill. Wesley said she was playing him like a fiddle. Not in those words, but--"

"Do you masturbate?"

"Beg pardon?"

Before Weenie could blink, his male parts were suspended over the razor-sharp blade of Lozada's knife. "Do you--"

"What are you talking about?" Weenie screeched.

"You might not miss it for sex, but you'll be pissing like a woman if you don't tell me what you were doing in an interrogation room being questioned by Wesley and Threadgill."

Weenie was up on tiptoes, trying to maintain his balance. If he faltered, he'd be a eunuch and any chance he had of fulfilling his fantasies with an amiable se@norita would be dashed. "I was afraid of getting into trouble."

"So you ratted me out."

"No, I swear. God as my witness."

"There is no God." Lozada raised the knife blade another centimeter and Weenie squealed. "There is only Lozada and the laws of physics, one of which is the law of gravity. If I cut off your balls, Weenie, they'll drop like marbles."

"I went there to see what kind of deal I could make," he sobbed. "You know, in case they ever linked me to you. But then, Wesley got all worked up over some phone call you had made to Dr.Newton's cell phone. They thought you were in Galveston."

"I was."

"Then he got word that her horses had been shot. Miles from Galveston. Confused the hell outta them all. Anyhow, Wesley slapped me in a holding cell and sorta forgot about me, I guess. Until this morning. He let me shower.

Gave me breakfast. Put me in this room and told me to wait.

"When he came back, Threadgill was with him.

I told them I had changed my mind, that I wanted a lawyer. You know the rest. I swear I didn't tell them anything." He was crying now, blubbering like a baby, but he couldn't help it.

Lozada withdrew the knife. "The only reason I'm not killing you is because I don't know how to destroy your computers and be certain I'm also destroying all the data they contain."

Weenie wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

"Huh?"

"Get to it, Weenie," Lozada said softly.

Weenie swallowed convulsively. "You want me to destroy my computers?" Lozada might just as well have asked a mother to smother her child. Weenie had been prepared to take a vacation from his computers for a while, but to destroy them was beyond his imagining.

He couldn't do it.

Lozada's hand barely moved, but Weenie felt a slight tug at his crotch and a sudden draft. When he looked down he saw that his pants had been split open from inseam to waistband.

The knife was poised just below his crotch. The blade gleamed wickedly.

"Get to work, Weenie, or your foreskin is next."

Weenie had been circumcised, but, at the moment, that seemed a rather insignificant detail.

AS SOON AS RENNIE ALIGHTED FROM THE ELEVATOR
on the ground floor of the hospital, she heard her name.

Grace Wesley was entering the atrium lobby through the revolving doors. Rennie tried to catch the elevator and hold it for her, but the doors had closed and it had already begun its ascent.

Grace rushed up to her. "Please don't tell me he's dead."

"No, he's still with us." Grace's knees buckled and she might have collapsed had Rennie not been there to lend support. "He's still listed as critical, but they think he's going to make it."

Grace covered her mouth to stifle a sob of relief. "Thank God, thank God. You're sure?"

"I talked to them just now as they were wheeling him out of surgery."

Grace blotted her eyes with a tissue. "I was so afraid that by the time I got here ..." She was unable to speak aloud the horrible thought.