Try Fear (33 page)

“You can’t just come into a guy’s house. You can’t do this.”

“And for what I’m about to do, my role as an officer of the court and champion of justice is to inform you that after I’m
through searching your house and your car, and you, if need be, you have the right to sue me. You can take me to court. Maybe
a judge or jury will look at you favorably and say, this man deserves some compensation. Of course, you may have to do it
from a jail cell, but people are very flexible and open these days.”

“Am I supposed to just sit here while you go through my house?”

“I’m going to need you to lie flat on the floor while I tie you up. Got any duct tape around?”

“What is it you’re after?”

“You know what it is, Sparky. You think you can shoot a nun and walk away. But you tell me who put you up to it, maybe I can
help you stay out of the joint. You don’t want to go back to the joint, do you?”

“What are you talking about nuns?”

“How much hard time you do?”

“Come on.”

“The kid can ID you, the one you beat up. He can ID the stink in your hair. What is that junk anyway?”

“What ID?”

“You’re making this hard on yourself.”

He told me to perform an anatomically impossible act.

I gave him a love tap on the back of his thigh.

He shrieked. For a tough guy he sure made noise. Then he puffed a few times and said, “Someday I’m gonna find you.”

“After your kneecaps are replaced?”

He said nothing. I was tempted to do it. But I could almost see Father Bob shaking his head at me. And Sister Mary, waving
her Thomas Merton book. I wanted to argue with them, but I heard a scuffing sound behind me.

I whipped around. Sonny Moon and his hair filled the doorway.

We froze for half a second. Which is when Knuckles made his move. He was quicker than I anticipated, and got me around my
knees and pulled.

I slammed forward, still holding the tire iron.

Sonny moved fast, too. I saw his legs coming my way. I managed to whip the claw-end of the iron out, and caught his ankle.

Sonny screamed and the sound went through me like electricity from a generator. I realized again that part of me was truly
capable of killing someone. I could do it and sort it all out later. The law of club and fang. It energized me.

Blood spotted the floor around Sonny’s leg as I tried to twist out of Knuckles’ grip. But he started reeling me in, like a
marlin. He grabbed a fistful of my pants and I slid backward on the slick floor.

Then he gave me a fist to the kidneys. It scored. Emergency lights exploded in my head.

I struck with the iron and hit my own leg.

The pain was a numbing fire, in both my leg and my back. I had to start getting some hits in or I’d be chopped up.

Literally, because I saw Sonny now had a knife in his hand.

Some religion.

Desperation mixed with pain and I went wild.

I gave the iron a backward slam and heard the sickly sound of a head smash. Knuckles’ grip loosened. At the same time, blindly,
I shot the iron around about two inches from the floor. It found leg.

Sonny went down, screaming louder, but he went down on me, and his blade got me in the left buttock. It was a deep wound,
soft and almost painless at first, but I knew I would not be sitting for a long time.

What saved me from worse was having a tire iron perfectly positioned between Sonny’s legs. The pain I inflicted on him then
was a whole lot worse than what I had.

He shrieked so loud I thought he was miked. I pushed him off me, and rolled. The knife was still in my cheek. Fresh pain shot
through my backside and up my spine. With my left hand I got hold of the knife and felt the wetness of blood. With my right
I gave Sonny an iron shot to the head. He was out. Maybe even finished, sent to whatever god he thought he worshipped, or
to some hell reserved for bad hair.

I stood up, my left leg getting numb, but with two moonies on the ground. Sonny groaned. I was almost sorry to hear that.

I limped to a lamp in the open living room and ripped it out of the wall. I used Sonny’s own bloody knife to cut the cord.
I tied Knuckles’ hands behind him. He barely moved, moaning.

I went to the TV and cut that cord, and came back and tied up Sonny Moon.

The toaster in the kitchen gave me one last length of wire. I tied Sonny’s left leg to Knuckles’ right.

And then I made a search of the house.

A rifle was in plain view in Knuckles’ room. Leaning in the corner. If it
was
the rifle, the guy was not too concerned about being found out. Maybe Sonny Moon told him he was invincible, or invisible,
or could eat planets or something.

Just for good measure, I looked through the closet and found a couple of handguns, in cases. Knuckles had the look of an ex-felon.
If that were true, this would be enough to put him away for a good while.

I came out to the front and found the happy couple in the same spot. Knuckles looked the most aware. Poor Sonny’s eyelids
were fluttering.

“You’re in some hot water, my friend,” I said. “Ex-felon with guns. Not good. Why don’t you tell me who sent you. Was it Sonny
Moon here?”

Knuckles said, “You’re dead, man.”

I stepped outside, keeping the door open so I could watch them. I called Detective Stein. He picked up. I gave him the address
and the particulars. “I just solved a case for you,” I said. “Bring some Mountain Dew or champagne.”

I went back in, to the hall bathroom, and took care of my bloody cheek with a damp towel.

I wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests with my backside. I’d have to get it looked at. And forever I’d be marked with a
scar. I guess if you had to pick a spot for a scar.

Knuckles kept screaming about me being a dead man. So I took another towel, ripped off a strip, and gagged him. Then I went
outside again to wait.

A
BLACK-AND-WHITE PULLED
in about seven minutes later. Two officers, male, one old, one new.

The old one said, “You the guy who called the Southwest detective?”

“Stein,” I said.

“He’s on his way. What’s going on?”

“Two inside,” I said. “Attacked me with a knife. Weapons in plain view. I think we have an ex-felon in possession here.”

The new one was looking through the front door. “He’s got ’em tied up.”

“How’d you do that?” the old one said.

“I’ll explain when Stein gets here,” I said. “You might want to order up an ambulance. The rooster is going to need medical
attention.”

“Rooster?”

“Have a look. And don’t let them talk to each other.”

Stein arrived about thirty minutes later. Still no ambulance, but Sonny was now on a sofa in the house, covered with a blanket.
Knuckles was screaming from the kitchen, where the new cop was holding him.

Stein had a partner named Santos. Santos started talking to the older patrol officer while I talked to Stein.

“First thing,” I said, “make sure you question these two separately so they can’t cook up a story.”

Stein said, “And what’s
your
story?”

“You’ll find a rifle and some handguns in the bedroom,” I said. “The rifle will turn out to be the one that shot Sister Mary.
The screamer, he’s got to be the ex-felon.”

“You searched the house?”

“I did.”

“How?”

I was still holding the towel on my wound. I showed Stein the blood. “The one on the sofa is a street guru—he knifed me. I
came here to question the other one, who I followed here. The kid who got beat up, Daryl, he said—”

“Where is he?”

“Motel 6. He ID’d the smell of this guy’s hair. He thinks this guy is the one who bopped him. So I followed him here, and
knocked on the door. He didn’t want to let me in at first, but I convinced him.”

“How?”

“Let him tell you.”

Stein scowled.

“And so,” I said, “if you know your Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the amendment does not apply to private citizens, so long
as they are not working in concert with law enforcement. That’s why I didn’t contact you first. I didn’t want some tricky
lawyer, somebody like me, arguing for exclusion of the weapons because I was acting as your agent. So now I’m giving you the
observation, and I suggest you get a warrant before going in. Then we’ve covered all the angles.”

“You’ve done some thinking about this,” Stein said. “You realize, of course, you could be facing a big fat lawsuit from one
or both of these guys.”

“Be still my heart,” I said.

Stein smiled.

I
FAVORED MY
good cheek as I drove to St. Monica’s. When I got there, I told Father Bob what happened and he laughed.

“Very sympathetic,” I said.

He put me facedown in his trailer and started dressing my wound. It was the most humiliating experience of my life.

“Humility,” Father Bob said. “It’s a good thing.”

“Can we talk about something else? Can we talk about Sister Mary?”

“By all means. You want stitches?”

“No,” I said. “Just tape me shut. Just don’t tape the wrong crack, okay?”

“I think I’m capable,” he said. “Sister Mary is doing fine physically.”

“Okay, what’s that mean?”

“That’s as far as I can go.”

“Come on, tell me what’s wrong with her.”

“I was talking about your buttock. I’m through. That’s as far as I can go with it. You can get up now.”

I did. “What’s wrong with Sister Mary?”

Father Bob sighed and sat at his little table. He offered me a chair but, under the circumstances, I preferred to stand.

“I suppose it would be easier if you heard it from me,” Father Bob said. “Sister Hildegarde is going to officially sanction
Sister Mary, for being a recalcitrant. She is stating her opinion in a letter, which will go to the archdiocese, that she
has strong doubts about Sister Mary’s fitness to continue as a nun.”

My face got hot.

Father Bob put his hand on my arm. “Let us handle it from here. I’ll be speaking for Sister Mary.”

“I have a few words to say, too.”

“Don’t. You’ll only make it worse.”

“I don’t get you people.”

“Most people don’t get us. Leave it there.”

I started to say something but he gripped my arm harder. “Leave it there,” he said again. “Sister Mary and I believe that
God works all things for the good of those who follow him.”

“Which is another way of saying when people shaft you, it’s a good thing. No worries. God’s plan. And the Hildegardes of this
world take over, a little at a time.”

“Ty, you’re upset—”

“A couple hours ago I had a knife in my cupcake. Yeah, I’m upset. And now your commandant is putting the screws to the best
nun in the whole place. It makes me sick.”

“May I suggest you cool off?”

It took me the rest of the weekend to do that.

O
N
S
UNDAY MORNING
I called Daryl and made sure he was all right. He was. Basically watching TV and ducking out to McDonald’s, trying to stretch
my twenty bucks. I told him I’d get him more.

He said I was the man. So maybe I really was.

I called Sister Mary and we talked for about twenty minutes or so. Neither one of us mentioned the Sister Hildegarde thing.
But it seemed to be hanging between us just the same.

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING
I limped into court. The clerk and bailiff asked if I was all right, and I told them I’d had an unfortunate accident and
wouldn’t be sitting down much.

The bailiff said Preparation H was actually very good for this sort of thing. I think he was serious. I thanked him and said,
“Let us never speak of this again.”

I went back to chambers and met with Radavich and Hughes. “Tom’s not putting on rebuttal evidence,” Hughes said. “We’ll go
right into closing arguments.”

“Fine,” I said. “And can you explain to the jury that, due to a slight injury, I may have to stand for most of the proceedings?”

“Injury?” Judge Hughes said.

“I’d rather not go into it right at the moment, if you don’t mind.”

He shook his head. “You have a very dangerous way of practicing law, it seems.”

“My problems are all behind me now,” I said.

I went back in to a packed courtroom. The deputies brought Eric in. He looked tired. Or in complete denial.

Kate was in her usual spot. She was chewing on a scarf.

Me, I was chewing on the insides of my cheeks. There’s nothing like the anticipation of a closing argument. If you’ve done
your job, you’ll be okay once you start talking. It’s the lead anticipation that juices you. You try not to show it, but the
other lawyer knows what you’re feeling, because he’s feeling it, too.

Eric leaned over and whispered, “You nervous?”

“Me? Why should I be nervous?”

“Because they’re going to convict me. They hate me. There’s no way we can win this thing.”

“You’ve calmed me down now just fine, Eric. Don’t say anything else.”

J
UDGE
H
UGHES ENTERED
and called for the jury. The courtroom got real quiet. This is the high point, the closing arguments. Last chance at the
sale. What lawyers call the law of recency, meaning jurors tend to remember most the last thing you say to them.

You need a boffo exit.

In a criminal case the prosecutor gets to argue first, since he has the burden of proof. Then comes the defense, and then
the prosecutor gets one last bite at the apple, in a rebuttal argument.

Radavich was great. Workmanlike, dispassionate. Laid out his case in logical order, covering all the evidence, and leaving
Leilana Salgado until last. Then he got out the long knives.

He said, “And then the defense comes up with its only possible card, an alibi witness, but a complete surprise. Conveniently
waiting for maximum impact. You didn’t hear about this witness in Mr. Buchanan’s opening statement, did you? No, it was only
at the last second, with all the evidence pointing at guilt, that this woman is produced.”