We All Fall Down, Chapter 5

 FIVE 
  
       Everything was steaming. 
       Cumulus clouds of car exhaust rose through headlights as drivers, stiff-faced with anger and boredom, waited to get across the Red Bridge. Cirrus curls of breath drifted from mouths and noses as the cops leaned in to check passengers and apologize for any inconvenience. Feathery wisps of heat spiraled up from paper cups of coffee and were snatched away by the wind. The night had gone from chilly to cold, and nobody was happy about it. 
      Karen stood on the pedestrian walkway and stretched, bracing her legs against one of the bridge’s angled struts, then leaned against the railing. After an hour of blinking into headlights and peering into cars, her eyes felt like hot, gritty coals against her lids. Karen was sweltering inside her jacket, but every time she opened it she had to zip it shut against the river’s clammy breath. The water below was lost in darkness; the moon had gone down. 
     A mile north, at the other end of town, Hull and his crew were monitoring cars leaving along the Pelly Avenue Bridge. Three cruisers were roving along Bridgeborough’s darkened streets, sending spotlight probes between houses and along hedges. Peterson, who’d driven Karen here, had been called away for house-to-house canvassing. Anybody with a light on at this hour was going to find himself chatting with cops at his front door. Cops from Dawson and Whiston Park, two neighboring towns, were helping out. A couple of cops were even watching the railroad tracks by the old factories. Bridgeborough was bottled up.  
     Three cops watched the line of cars heading for the Red Bridge. When they saw somebody who fell into the general description of their suspect, Karen would walk over for a look. The signal for a positive ID would be Karen adjusting her cop cap. So far, the cap had stayed straight and firm on her head. 
    ”You look like you need this, officer.” 
     She turned and there was Scott Laughton, holding two cups of coffee. He was a patrolman, too, but with two years seniority on her.  
     ”You want to hear a Hull story?” Scott asked. 
     ”Uh,” Karen said. “Sure.” 
     They left the bridge and stood by the Boulevard Washateria, where an awning blocked some of the wind. Across the street, a pair of neon scissors opened and closed in the window of the Hair We Are salon. Scott kept his back to the bridge; Karen could see the other cops giving them curious looks.     
     Scott Laughton stood about two heads taller than Karen. He had a runner’s body and 
thick black hair that he brushed straight back. His forehead looked high and smart. In 
the uncertain street light, his eyes could have been anything from hazel to brown. As he spoke, he stared right into Karen’s face, and under his attention she found herself breathing a little faster, laughing a little louder. 
     ”Pete was just starting out on patrol duty,” Scott said, “he got some kids driving recklessly. He chased them down to Oliver Avenue — you know it?”

      Karen nodded. Run-down area of town, no curbs — whenever it rained, entire streets disappeared beneath sheets of water. As a kid, Karen had avoided the neighborhood: The Hanover boys and their toadies ruled Oliver Avenue. Crab apples in the summer, snowballs in the winter. Little warlords, demanding tribute in humiliation.  
     ”Pete figures he’ll use his great mastery of the town’s geography and head them off,” Scott continued. “So he tries to cut through somebody’s yard on Masterson Street, but it’s been raining and he has to swerve to avoid a teeter-totter, and he ends up bottoming out in this big soft patch of ground right over somebody’s leaky septic tank.” 
    Karen grinned. 
    ”Cruiser’s sunk to the top of the tires, he can’t budge an inch, whole neighborhood comes out to look. Took a couple of hours for the tow truck to finally pull the car loose, and then Pete has to go back to the station with shitty mud up to his ankles. Until he made sergeant, anytime the guys wanted to bust his cubes, they’d stand around him and start sniffing the air.” 
     Karen laughed. 
     ”Pete was an MP in Germany.” Laughton shrugged. “Guess he deals with everybody in that regular army way. Why’d you join?” 
     ”Excuse me?” Karen blinked. “Sir?” 
     ”Cops in your family?” 
     ”A dad, two brothers and an uncle, sir.” She couldn’t gather her thoughts, not with this guy scanning her face. The last time she’d been asked that question, by the reporter doing the item on her for The Three Rivers Tribune, she’d also been tongue-tied. Family was part of it, sure. Not the only part, but a big part. Most of the cops she knew operated from a mixture of idealism and pragmatism. Explaining the one sounded corny; explaining the other sounded mercenary.

     “Not in Bee-Bee, though.”

     “Not here. My mom and dad split up. The brothers were big enough to do their own thing. I stayed with mom.”

      “So you joined to carry on the family business?” 
      ”I guess mostly because it was the last thing anybody expected,” she said. 
      He grinned. “That’s a good line. I’ve seen you on the shooting range, you sink a lot of good ones. Been around guns a lot? Boyfriends like to shoot?” 
      ”Whole family’s into hunting and guns and shit.” What was with these personal questions? Was Laughton sussing her out before writing her up as a hopeless case? What did boyfriends have to do with anything? She tried to work up some proper annoyance, but his attention was flattering. Also depressing, because it reminded her of how little she had to talk about when the conversation turned to her personal life. 
       ”Working anything on the side?” Laughton asked. Karen laughed. Bridgeborough had a four-days-on, four-days-off schedule: most cops had another business going on their days off. At least four patrolmen did landscaping work. One guy did house-painting  in the summer and sold Christmas trees off a flatbed truck in the fall. By now, everyone had heard at least twice about his plan to buy a vacation home on the Redneck Riviera and retire at forty-three with his savings and a full police pension. 
       ”Trying to decide about that,” Karen said. “How about you?”    
       She didn’t get an answer: Somebody yelled and Laughton trotted over. 
       The small talk vanished from Karen’s memory. Had one of the drivers rung the bell? Karen stood ready, trying to appear uninterested as she scanned the waiting cars. She found herself staring at a blue ban with a massive bull fiddle wedged into the back seat. The rear bumper sticker proclaimed PROUD TO BE A PINEY, FROM MY NOSE DOWN TO MY HINEY. The driver was an oldish guy in a flannel shirt. He was heading south, across the Red Bridge and over into Burlington County, so he very likely did live in the Pines.  
       Now Karen was being called over. She skipped sideways between some cars and fast-walked the rest of the way. 
      ”They maybe found your scumbag,” Laughton said, breath steaming. “We’ll go ID him. Get in the car.”

We All Fall Down, Chapter 4

FOUR

Murphy slipped between a couple of houses, cut across a backyard, found an odd little path angling down behind a line of stores. A world of cops to his left, a chain link fence to his right. He peered through the links and saw that the path and the fence ran along the top of a big concrete retaining wall. About twenty feet down he saw cars, a big Quonset-type building, and the darkly glittering river beyond.

“THERE HE IS!” a man shouted, and Murphy froze like a rabbit, fingers laced through the fence. He waited. He waited longer. Nothing happened.

Fucking checkpoint. They must have started setting it up right after he blew into town looking for swag. Beautiful. Charlie Murphy – the man with impeccable timing.

Murphy continued creeping along the fence, following the slope downward. He didn’t look over his shoulder or try to see who had shouted. Just looking, just directing his mental energy at the main street might draw somebody’s attention. Murphy’s career as a burglar had been marked by enough close calls to convince him that sometimes the best thing was to blank out your mind, pull in your aura and become invisible. It had worked before. It better fucking work now.

Ahead of him, the slope tumbled down to a brightly lit street. Even as Murphy studied it, a cruiser slipped past. No good.

He was back in the shadows now, behind some garbage cans. A big deck made of pebbly concrete. Years of rainstorms had eroded the dirt, made the path into a shallow trench. The bottom of the chain link curled up here. Murphy pushed at it. There was enough space to slip through. The wall didn’t look too high at this point.

Murphy looked around, then scuttled around and poked his feet under the fence. Time for a little Indiana Jones action, he thought. He wriggled his skinny butt under the fence and twisted to face back the way he’d come. Another wriggle and now he was dangling down, holding onto the top of the retaining wall, wrenching his neck to look down into the shadows below. The lot was jammed with cars. If he pushed out with his feet and let go, he’d probably land on somebody’s hood.

That would dent somebody’s hood for sure.

And if the owner was around, he’d want to dent Murphy for sure.

Fuck it, Murphy thought, scuffing the tips of his shoes and letting go.

He fell only a few feet and landed on bonking, buckling metal. His feet shot out from under him and he slipped down and off the hood, got wedged between the car’s front bumper and the concrete wall. He two-stepped out of the space and crouched between the cars, breathing hard, keeping his mouth open, listening.

Nobody running. Nobody cursing.

Murphy stood and began walking with big, loping strides for the nearest door. Thick, sludgy bass notes were churning inside the brown cinderblock walls. A double-door banged open and a cluster of Goth types stumbling out, all black clothes and glittering face-studs. Murphy slipped past them and sidled through just before the doors chunked shut.

There was some dim lighting in the hallway to the restrooms. Other than that the place was all blue and purple shadows, people silhouetted against the stage lighting. Three guys in black leather and studs were making a racket on stage. Murphy’s ears went numb. His guts trembled with each thump of the bass drum. This was a good place to be invisible. It was also a good place to go deaf.

Murphy’s hands shook and his knees knocked. He traveled along the bar, backtracking and edging past clusters of people, found the bartender staring impassively across the field of heads listening to the group. He was definitely working the pro-wrestler look: wide arms, wide chest, shaved head, Ray-Bans and a dangling van Dyke. After a few moments, he deigned to look at Murphy.

“Coors, and a Wild Turkey on the side!” Murphy shouted.

The bartender cocked his head, ever so slightly.

“I said a Coors . . . ”

The bartender, no longer looking at Murphy, picked up a wireless microphone and screamed into it. Veins suddenly writhed across his temples and his neck. His voice cut across the bass-heavy chugging of the band: “PURPLE MUTHA FUCKAHS! ONE HOUR SPECIAL ON PURPLE MUTHA FUCKAHS! COME ON BRIDGEBOROUGH! LET’S GET FUUUUUCKED UUUUUP! PURPLE MUTHA FUCK-AAAAAAAHHHHSSSS!”

Murphy wheeled around, feeling his sneakers pull free of the sticky floor. The musicians didn’t seem to have noticed that somebody was screaming Purple Mutha Fuckahs! over their song. The guitarist’s white, mascara-streaked face dipped toward the mike stand and his grunting Cookie Monster voice joined the chugging chords. He was singing something about corpse grinders.

The bass and guitar dropped away. The drummer was doing a solo. It sounded like a truckload of bowling balls had been dumped at the top of a concrete staircase. A really long concrete staircase. Murphy’s head continued to throb along with the now-vanished bass line, and he realized he was getting the queen bitch mother of all headaches.

Something hard slapped the back of his shoulder. He turned, saw nothing but other backs. His boilermaker was waiting when he looked again at the bar. He tossed the drinks down his throat and went looking for the men’s room.

There were three. The first held two beefy guys transacting some kind of business. The second had another guy puking up what looked like Purple Motherfuckers – the house drink, Murphy guessed. The third was empty.

After hooking the door shut, Murphy pulled the little blue plastic shaver and the small pair of scissors out of his inside jacket pocket. He spread some paper towels on the sink, hunched over to study the mirror and went to work. A few snips, then he stopped for a good long attack of the shakes.
Like a side of meat, he thought. She sounded like a side of meat when she hit the floor. And her husband smiling at him as his wife’s blood speckled the floor. The top cop in town. The chief. The fucking chief of police. That Hormel-faced fuck was probably out looking for him right now, finish the job himself, put a bullet in Charlie’s ear and end his worries forever.

All my life I’ve been waiting to fuck up like this. It wound around and around his brain like a mantra.
Oddly enough, repeating everything about the hopelessness of his situation allowed him to steady his nerves and resume cutting. A few minutes later, Murphy wadded up the towels and flushed them. His eyes were bright and wet from the little stings of cutting and scraping, but his mustache was gone. It hadn’t been easy work, not with his hands shaking and his right arm still a little weak — numbed when the bitch cop’s flashlight had chopped the point of his shoulder.
He took off his black sneakers and braced himself against the sink, pushing the black jeans down, kicking them free. He always wore snug khaki pants under his jeans whenever he went on a job and might need to change his appearance in a hurry. The work was made difficult by his sprained wrist and the scrapes along his hands and arms – more forget-me-nots from the bitch.
There was a shallow cut along his forearm, the blood not yet congealed. He’d had to lie down behind some garbage cans while a cop raked the yard with his spotlight. There’d been broken glass on the concrete. That must’ve been what cut him.
The sight of his work clothes tangled on the floor brought to mind the sloughed-off skin of a snake. His old life. The new Murphy had been born in the police chief’s kitchen. The question now was, would the new Murphy be able to escape the old life? Before the cops closed in?

He didn’t have time for this. He spread some toilet paper and went to work on his hair, doing a not-bad job of cutting it shorter. It took time, though – the small-bladed scissors didn’t make for precision work. He wet his hands and slicked everything back, then checked out the new Charlie Murphy. Vidal Sassoon wouldn’t have been too happy, but it would do for tonight.

Murphy made a few more snips, then he stood on the toilet, pushed up a panel of the drop ceiling and shoved the jeans into the dusty space. Then he washed his hands and, working quickly, parted his hair in the middle. Leaving the men’s room, he hung the dark blue jacket on one of the hooks near the jukebox. The band, thank God, was taking a break.

Murphy angled through the crowd, heading for the door. Now that he’d done his Murphymorph, he felt a little more confident about talking his way past any cops. As long as he avoided another face-to-face with the bitch, he would be okay. Might be okay. Better be okay.

A big knot of leathered-up guys and their hooched-out dates were laughing, belching and yelling, moving big and wide, not caring about jostling people, staring around, eyeballing anybody careless enough to look their way. On another night, in another mood, Murphy might have tested it, stared at some bitch’s ass until her boyfriend tried to start a beef. Big guys were never as big as they thought they were. Off toward the stage, people were shouting for the band, and in Murphy’s mind the rhythm of their chant became the sound of the beefer’s bones breaking under his fist.

Instead, Murphy stared straight ahead, avoided focusing on anybody in particular. He needed his energy to get past the cops. Christ, he needed a plan. No doubt the cops had already impounded the car – all those stereos out in the open, easily seen from the street, what the hell had he been thinking? Shoulda thrown a blanket over those bad boys – a blanket or a towel or something. Leaving his cell at home seemed like a good idea at the time, when he was starting out, but he could sure as hell use it now.

One of the hoochies scanned him and mouthed something at her boyfriend, some standard-issue big guy with a mullet. The sound of her voice floated to him through the white noise of the bar: Is that what you mean by a skinny pussy? And the beefer said, Yeah babe, that’s exactly what I mean.

If he snatched that glass off the table and mashed it into the beefer’s face, that would sure change the tone of the conversation. The thought itself seemed to control him; he actually paused and turned toward the table. Goddammit. That just gave the beefer another chance to talk smack and if it got any worse, Murphy would have to do something, cops or no cops.

Murphy looked away, kept stutter-stepping around drinkers and yellers. All the teachers, parents, friends, counselors and parole officers who’d ever lectured him about his poor impulse control should have been there to see it – they’d have given him a standing O, no doubt about it. The beefer and the heifer were laughing louder than ever, drawing grins from other assholes, and he heard somebody shout Fuck and he realized he’d just stepped on somebody’s foot. He had enough time to see a skinny redhead chick hopping on one foot, mouth wide to reveal a faint glitter of a tongue stud, and her equally skinny boyfriend closing in, arm already swinging.

“Look man, I’m sor. . .” He ducked and raised his arm, managed to deflect most of the punch, but the guy’s knuckle scraped his ear. It hurt like hell and Murphy drove straight into him, sweeping him off his boots, driving him into the table where the beefer and the heifer were still working their big wet mouths and the sheer sweet bliss of hearing them scream in shock and pain almost made up for everything that had gone ass-sideways about the whole night. Then he crouched and ran through a gap in the forest of bellies, legs and crotches, making for the door, loving the sound of additional breakage that swelled behind him. Then something hit him from the side and he went down in a puddle of beer and dirt.

The weight on his back flexed and shifted. A sharp elbow raked down his back. Two other jackasses in their own fight, pounding away at each other, meat thumping meat. Murphy shouted, hauled himself up, almost managed to get clear, then one jackass climbed over another jackass and hammered a punch right into Murphy’s temple.

Fuck, Murphy heard himself scream. He grabbed the guy by the ears, ready to smack his head into the floor, snarled as fingers clutched his hair and hauled him up. No longer caring what he aimed for, Murphy threw a wild roundhouse punch and felt it connect. His knuckles lit up, but the pain would be worth it.

Wrong again. He was back on the floor in no time, shaking his head and blinking in astonishment as the cop cursed and rubbed his jaw.
A cop. A cop. I just hit a fucking cop.
“Officer,” he gasped, “I’m sorry. It’s a misunderstanding. I didn’t know you were a cop. I’m too fucking sorry for words.”
“No, shitweasel, you’re not really sorry.” The plastic quick-cuffs were out and open and descending as the cop crouched. “You’re gonna learn all about sorry, I promise you that.”
The plastic loops bit into his wrists and Murphy’s arms were jerked up behind his back. The cop yanked them tight, setting them right into the groove between hand and wrist. The cop shoved his fingers into the back of Murphy’s pants and extracted his wallet.
The cop read off the driver’s license. “Charles J. Murphy,” he said. “Very very pleased to meet you.”
This is it, Murphy decided. It’s all over. Now they know my name.
“Now you stay there,” the cop said from someplace far overhead, “while we see to your playmates. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
The bar was full of whining, wheedling pleading voices. Hey c’mon, man, I didn’t do nothing. Shit, it was this other clown. I was just protectin’ myself. Murphy arched his back and tried to get a look around. All he could see were black shoes, blue-clad legs and the bottom of the door as it opened to reveal the street. A wave of cold air rolled along the floor and covered Murphy.
It was only a matter of time, Murphy decided, until the bitch cop would march in, take a look and say, That’s him. That’s our guy. Or the chief, worse yet.
The outside air flowed around Murphy. The sudden chill made it easy to remember the snowy field. The blood on the ground. The way it felt to be there, too scared to move, watching his father’s broad back getting smaller as he headed back to the trailer. Wondering if the hatred could warm him enough to keep him outside.

Of course, it didn’t. Eventually the cold drove him inside, and everyone pretending it was all just a bad accident. His father got him again. And before long, so would the cops.

We All Fall Down, Chapter 3

 

THREE 
 
 
       A boxy rescue squad vehicle was parked on the front lawn. Red and blue lights followed Karen as she stepped up the path. More lights spilled in from the street, reflecting off the trophies in the living room. 
     The chief’s living room.  
     Karen stepped across the threshold of Thumper Kovach’s house. The Bridgeborough police department had sixteen officers, and it appeared every one of them was in action tonight. There were cops in the living room, cops in the hall. Too many of them had stopped what they were doing to look at her.  
     Karen didn’t want the attention. She tried to ignore the angry eyes by studying the trophies. First place in four different shooting tournaments. “Deadeye Dick” award from the county police academy. Best Coach award from the Police Athletic League boxing team. Each trophy was placed just so in a big glass display case, the kind you’d see in the lobby of a high school with a winning football team.  
     A familiar voice boomed from the interior of the house. It was Peter Hull. 
    ”McCarthy here yet?” he shouted. 
    ”Yes sir,” Karen managed to say. The wall of cops parted and she stepped forward. 
    ”C’mere, patrol man,” Hull rumbled from the kitchen. “Come meet the chief. Come have a word with the boss.” 
    For a high, screaming moment, Karen imagined turning and running out of the house. She could leave her uniform and badge in a garbage can, heave her police-issue Glock into the river and go back to night shifts at the warehouse. Or, better still, leave town entirely. Change her name and start fresh. 
    Instead, she kept walking. Any emotion that failed to serve her immediate purposes went into that secret lock box. It would have to be aired out later, but right now she had to keep walking and not collapse.  
    Hull, limping himself, came out of the kitchen and locked his fingers on her left bicep. He pivoted, hauling her to one aide, and Karen pictured herself flowing behind him, bringing her arm up and slamming her hip into him. Wouldn’t it be sweet to hear him hit the floor? 
    The floor. 
    Black and white tiles on the kitchen floor. A black-haired woman in a thick green robe. Karen recognized the chief’s wife. Pale white skin, paler now in death. All the paler because of the liverish colored handprint on the side of her face. Somebody had slapped her, hard, so hard that all five fingers were clearly defined. 
    And then she’d been shot in the forehead. A curl of gluey blood linked her head to the floor. One end had been blurred by a shoe print.  
    The chief’s eyes were squinched shut. Karen was reminded of the knuckles on a tightly-squeezed fist. She’d known Thumper was fat, but here – wearing only black exercise shorts, without the armor of a dress uniform and police gear to disguise the obesity – Thumper looked twice as big as she’d ever cared to imagine. The muscles were still there from the brawling days, when he’d earned the nickname Thumper, but the wrinkles and folds of lumpy blubber gave him a torso like a bulldog’s face. 
    Thumper lay beside his wife. One leg was bent back beneath him. The loose flesh of his neck was dark with blood. Karen could see enough to conclude that the killer had jammed the muzzle of the gun under Thumper’s jaw and pulled the trigger. She found herself concentrating on these details like a little girl staring at a flashlight, trying to ignore the darkness welling around her. 
    Then Sergeant Hull stepped in and switched off the light. 
    ”Some cop-killing asshole is out loose on the streets right now, Patrol Man McCarthy.” His voice was low and even, even if her ears registered it as a scream. “You had your hands on him. You let him get away. Now the real men on the force are gonna have to clean up the mess the wannabe-man made.” 
    The house was full of cops and EMTs. Not one looked at her directly. 
    ”Patrol. Man. McCarthy.” Hull said. “Describe for me in precise detail the suspect who just got away from you.” 
     Karen stood with her shoulders back. Her voice did not waver. “Caucasian. Blond hair, blond mustache, thin face with a weak chin. Stands about five-eleven. Wore black jeans, dark jacket, dark sweater. Track shoes.” 
      ”Matches what the tow-truck guy saw,” a cop called out. 
    ”They were towing, what, a Saturn?” 
    ”Saturn, yes, sergeant.” Karen staring straight ahead, recognized Mark Hanover’s voice. Another of the chief’s favorites. Hull’s, too.  
    ”We ran the getaway car he was driving along with it,” Hanover said. “The Saturn was boosted from the Deer Run mall. The Taurus he hot-wired was parked two blocks away from here.” His voice thickened and slowed. “From the crime scene.” 
    ”Thank you, Mark. Always nice to talk to a competent police officer.” Hull, who had never stopped staring at Karen, now brought his face closer to hers.  
    ”Get the fuck outta here,” he whispered.  
    Karen turned and walked out of the kitchen. She walked through an atmosphere of acid and ice, in which some cops stared at her and others studiously looked away. It was hard to tell which hurt more. Was she fired? No, Hull couldn’t do that right off the bat. There was a long night ahead. Time enough to help track down the cop killer. 
    ”The Dawson police’ll back us up on the usual Saturday night chickenshit,” Hull said. “Any brawls or domestics, they’ll handle it.” Hull suddenly shouted. “The rest of you know what to do! I don’t have to spell it out!” 
    Cops flowed past her. Across the grass, past the rescue squad vehicle, Karen saw Peterson standing by one of the cruisers. As she watched, he threw open the passenger’s side door and nodded.  
     The cruisers scattered in a swarm of red and blue lights. No sirens. Just the squawking of the radio and the muttering of voices as Karen stared straight ahead, not even sure where Peterson was taking her.

We All Fall Down, Chapter 2

 

TWO 

 
     “All right, sir, please stand straight, look directly at me and keep your feet together,” Karen McCarthy said. “Extend your left arm straight out to the side, then use your index finger to touch the tip of your nose.” 
     The guido slouched a bit and tensed his shoulders, making his pecs and lats swell out the tight T-shirt. Blue and red lights slipped across his body. He was two heads taller than Karen, with a gym rat torso and ropy veins along his arms. He had a strong chin and nicely shaped lips, but above the mouth his face took a Neanderthal turn: thick nose, tiny eyes set way back in their sockets, one long temple-to-temple eyebrow and a low forehead capped with oily curls. It looked like God had set out to make him beautiful, then given up halfway through the job. 
     Karen’s police radio squawked. “One last time, sir,” she said. “Extend your arm straight out to the side and touch the tip of your nose.” 
     “That ain’t what you want me to touch,” he said. His three buddies, still in the Jeep Cherokee, laughed loud. Over his shoulder, Karen could see the other four cops diverting another car from the conga line along the Boulevard, sending the driver into the parking lot and the ranks of orange cones. The cops looked happy, as well they should. They were all getting time and a half, and the clock was about to shift into golden double time, all funded by a state law-enforcement grant. Their work on this Saturday night would pay for Saturdays to come. Only the need to maintain some semblance of traffic flow through town kept them from pulling over every car and subjecting each driver to a full Martha Graham field sobriety test. 
     The guido’s stance altered, ever so slightly, and Karen decided he was about to make a move on her. She felt a little flutter in the bottom of her stomach: anxiety, tension, even a bit of anticipation. Karen had two years of aikido classes wired into her nervous system; she automatically ran through the five basic immobilization techniques. Karen also had six months of county police academy training under her belt, and that was the route she decided to take with this clown.  
     She allowed her gaze to drop to his chest, giving her an all-encompassing view of his arms and legs – if he were to make a move, she’d be able to react that much faster. She distracted him by holding up the summons book in her left hand while the right hand settled on her PR-24 baton: a long stick with a short handle set at a perpendicular angle. If he made a grab for her, she would whip the baton out and across in a tight, fast curve, letting the grip swivel in her hand so the baton would snap against his ribs, where a fine lacework of nerves lay between the bones and the soft skin. Then she’d have him down on his knees, locking his head into a triangle made up of the baton, the handle and her bicep, and she’d twist him into positions not seen since humans began walking upright. 
    All of a sudden, she kind of hoped he would try something. It was an unworthy thought, she knew – in aikido, that kind of giving-in to rage was called losing one’s center. At the next class, her sensei would be very interested in hearing how she’d handled this confrontation. 
     Then Pete Hull materialized at her side. He had a way of vanishing, then reappearing whenever Karen was having a tough time. “Patrolman McCarthy,” Hull said, “why isn’t this situation under control?” 
     ”It is under control, sergeant. This gentleman seemed reluctant to perform the sobriety test as instructed, and I was about to advise him — inform him of the — advisability of doing so. Of doing as he was advised.” 
     “That’s very well put, officer.” Hull shifted as he spoke, and Karen took note of the slight limp. “You go take over on pursuit detail.” 
     “Excuse me, sir, but I was already Elmer for the first two hours of the roadblock.” 
     “It’s not a roadblock, patrolman, it’s a motor vehicle checkpoint. For that, you’ll be Elmer twice in one night. You can brag about it in your performance review.” Hull gave a flat staccato laugh and Karen spun on her heel, glad nobody could see her blush as she stalked across the parking lot. She was going to be Elmer Fudd and chase wabbits – those drivers who, upon finding themselves in line for a drunken-driving roadblock, suddenly remembered a pressing engagement somewhere in the next county. Since very few drivers were actually foolish enough to try to get away, Elmer duty was mainly a chance to sit in the pursuit car and drink coffee.

     The parking lot sloped at a faint angle. Bridgeborough perched on a low ridge at the juncture of two rivers that flowed along its east and south sides. At the northern end, the Pelly Avenue bridge acted as a span over a deep gully and a gateway into another realm. Southbound drivers left behind the sprawl-land of Dawson, with its shopping malls and looping highway interchanges and landscaped farm fields sprouting McMansions and starter castles, and entered the working-class troll kingdom of Bridgeborough, where low brick buildings hunched close along the Boulevard and there were at least as many bars as churches. The supermarket marked the point where the Boulevard started to angle downward to meet the Red Bridge, where drivers had the option of continuing south or heading west to the more prosperous duchies of Alleton, Whiston Park and Scourby. Or they could take one of the side streets and follow the hill down to the Waneitch River, where boats bobbed along the old marina and the most ambitious scum-heels headed for Reilly’s, the kind of place Karen’s cop grandpa called a bucket-o’blood, Karen’s cop father called a fuck-or-fight joint, and which Karen’s cop colleagues called the plugged-up toilet of the universe.            

Patrolman McCarthy. Sergeant Hull always pronounced it Patrol Man. Movies and TV shows were full of hot-babe cops with pistols strapped to their thighs. In the real world, most cop shops had yet to see their first women recruits, and probably never would – the female trailblazers of the Seventies and Eighties had reached retirement age, and not many were stepping up behind them.    
      The pursuit car was parked at the far end of the lot, behind a drive-through bank that allowed cops to watch the lined-up cars with only a slight chance of being spotted. Her mood lifted when she saw Warren Peterson behind the wheel. He looked bored, but that was nothing new. Karen had known him since they went through the police training academy together, and the face he presented to the world always wore the expression of a nice but slightly impatient uncle who would pretend to be interested in what someone was saying, but really wanted to get back to watching the game.     
    She crossed in front of the car, letting him see her coming. Once inside, she smiled pleasantly and said, “So, Warren, how’s your sex life?” 
    Peterson didn’t miss a beat. “I’m married, Karen. I have a three-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl. My sex life comes from listening to the single guys talk in the locker room. And watching Sesame Street. That’s when you know you’re a dad, when you start getting turned on by kiddie shows.” 
    “You wanna get it on with Big Bird?” 
    Peterson scratched his chin thoughtfully. “That could be interesting. But it’s Maria I’m really after.” 
    “I’m not as cultured as you are. Who’s Maria?” 
    Peterson idly stroked the onboard computer mounted at the bottom of the dashboard, where the cigarette lighter and change tray would have been on a civilian car. The radio squawked and chattered. “She’s one of the three hotties on Sesame Street,” he said. “For a while I dug Gina the veterinarian and the girl playing Maria’s daughter, but upon mature reflection I have decided Maria’s the one for me. Older woman, but still very babe-alicious. Milfy. She also knows how to fix things, too.” 
    “Your wife’s gonna fix you, she hears this bullshit –”  
    “You kidding? She’s got a thing for Oscar the Grouch. Says he reminds me of her. Or her of me.” Peterson stiffened slightly as a driver started to turn. The driver spotted the cop car, stopped and angled back into the line. “What’s the next movie? You gave me three good ones in a row now.” 
    “What did I loan you? I forget.” 
    ”The Hustler.”  
    “I got the sequel,” Karen said. “The Color of Money. Sucks ass, though.” 
    “Tom Cruise, weird hair?” 
    ”That’s it.” 
    “I’ll pass. Sergeant Hull sent you here? Still giving you crap?” 
    “Why should tonight be any different?” 
    Peterson flicked at the key in the ignition. “I’ll leave you with the keys to the kingdom, then.” He got out and waited while Karen came around. “You coming for dinner still?” 
    ”Saturday? I’m there.”  
    Karen had settled in behind the wheel when Peterson tapped the window. She powered it down. 
    “The Hustler,” he said. “Good flick, but one thing I don’t get.” 
    Karen nodded and waited. 
     ”At the beginning, when Paul Newman’s beating the crap out of Minnesota Fats at the pool table, and Minnesota’s backer comes in to watch. Who’s that actor?” 
    ”George C. Scott.” 
    ”He sits and studies Paul Newman for a while and then he tells Fats to keep playing ’cause the kid is a loser. What’s up with that?” 
    ”I guess he figured that Paul Newman couldn’t walk away while he was still winning. He was gonna keep playing until he couldn’t play any more. So even when he’s winning, he’s gonna end up a loser because he doesn’t know when to quit.” 
    ”Huh.” Peterson straightened up and adjusted his cop cap. His waist, while still trim from the academy, showed signs of softening. “I know some people like that.” 
    He ambled off without another word, leaving Karen to chew over what he’d said.  
    Had he been talking about her? Peterson had a way of giving his statements a little extra spin. It was a habit that had gotten him into borderline serious trouble at the county academy on at least two occasions that Karen knew about. 
    Had he been telling her something? Karen worried at it a bit, then concluded that no, Peterson was still on her side. When somebody nailed a dog kennel sign from the county SPCA over the entrance to the women’s locker room, Peterson had been honestly angry about it — he’d even gotten into a shoving match with a patrolman who’d been smirking at her. She hadn’t told Peterson about the dog collar and leash she’d found dangling from a handle in the shower. Those little tokens were still in her locker, against the day they might come in handy for some payback. Standard cop humor was so relentlessly crude that Karen sometimes wasn’t sure if she was getting shit because of her sex or because of her greenhorn status. But a dog collar? She was going to have to make somebody pay for that one. 
    Karen shifted and squirmed. The uniform was a bad fit for her big-boned frame. She’d have to start putting aside money for tailoring.   
      Karen stared at the profiles of the drivers, willing one of them to do something stupid and break the boredom. Murchison Street curved in along the north edge of the shopping center and formed a Y-intersection with the Boulevard. Anybody looking to pull a fast one would have to do a K-turn in heavy traffic and race up Murchison, by which point Karen would nail him. If by some chance he got past her, he would have to puzzle his way through the labyrinth of Bridgeborough’s south side, where the streets looped and tangled against a low ridge and the Waneitch River. The Boulevard, with a bridge at either end, was the only way in and out of the town, and there were checkpoints at both ends tonight. 
      A flash of memory cut through the fog of resentment and made her smile. Her first day on the job, helping keep traffic moving past a rear-ender on the Boulevard. Rain hammering on her cop cap. An elderly woman had marched up with an umbrella and demanded that Karen use it to keep dry. Karen, recognizing her sixth-grade home room teacher, had smiled and groped for a polite way to tell her that no beat cop under any circumstances would be caught dead —   
      Horns blared and faint curses drifted in over the asphalt. Some idiot was trying the guilty K-turn. Karen threw the cruiser into gear and roared over to the Murchison Street driveway. She came out just as the car rounded the curve: a green Taurus. 
       She put on the overheads, burped the siren and angled into the car’s path. The driver kicked on his high beams, zapping her right in the retinas, then used the driveway of one of the houses to ride up onto the curb and flash past, leaving a clatter and tumble of garbage cans in his wake. Karen whooped and cut a hard right turn, but one of the cans wedged against the carjack bumper. She backed up to get free of the can, then floored it as the Taurus’ tail lights switched off. 
       The asshole was driving without lights down Vail Street, a long, slightly crooked street that intersected with Apple Avenue, another long, unbroken route. She’d have plenty of time to catch him — sure enough, there was the quick flash of the brake lights. She clawed for the radio and reported in as the Taurus veered onto Apple Avenue. She checked off the charges as she drove. Disregarding a stop sign, along with fleeing and obstruction. Reckless driving. The chase had hardly started and Karen already had four tickets in mind for the guy. A nice jolt of adrenaline, a running start on her monthly quota of tickets and double-time pay — not bad for a night’s work. 
       She snatched up the microphone. “Car five, pursuing green Taurus with rusty patches, eastbound on Apple Avenue.” 
       The dispatcher’s voice: endlessly dry, endlessly calm. “You gotta plate?” 
       ”Uh, negative, suspect driving without lights.” 
       Apple Avenue ended in a T-intersection with Hansen Street: a right turn would send him back to the Boulevard, while a left would take him to the Loop and the high school. She pulled to within ten yards of the suspect when the brake lights flashed and cut left. The Loop, then. 
        She rounded the corner, fishtailing slightly in a most satisfactory way, then roared down Hansen Street. She was just screeching onto the Loop when she realized she’d lost the Taurus. 
       Shit. 
       She circled the high school once, making sure the parking lot was empty, then cut back up Hansen Street. She kept her lights off as she approached Apple Avenue. She spotted the Taurus about four houses away from the Apple Avenue intersection. He’d cut in between a van and a camper and let her blaze past. 
       Karen angled the cruiser in behind the Taurus, cutting off retreat. She peered into the car, saw it had been hot-wired. She turned on her portable radio, then decided she’d better check in. She inadvertently left the portable on, and when she switched on the dashboard radio, the blast of feedback made her yelp.    
       ”McCarthy, pursuit unit. Green Taurus, uh, vehicle abandoned at Apple and Hansen. Beginning search of area.” 
       ”Description?” 
       ”Haven’t seen him yet. Just the car. Backup would be nice.” 
       ”On the way. Keep us posted.”  
       Karen switched off the dashboard radio, then stepped out with her long flashlight held shoulder high, ready to club down. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the street light, then moved along the sidewalk, betting the driver had headed for the Boulevard. She kept the flashlight off, not wanting to announce her presence by waving it around. When she came to a dark area, some possible hiding place, she flipped the switch quickly, getting a glimpse before moving on.    
       Be thorough, but be fast. The scumbag could have decided to run for it. 
       Or he could be trying to hot-wire another car. 
       Or he could be waiting to jump her. 
       The houses along here were packed in close, and most had fences. She kept her mouth open slightly, trying not to let the rush of her breathing mask any sounds. At some point during the chase, she’d passed from excitement into tension. This was her first solo situation. Normally, the voices of her instructors clamored in the back of her skull while she was on the job. Now all was silent.  
     Something scratched to her right. Karen let the flashlight blaze as a dog roared at her – white teeth and red werewolf eyes flashing behind chain links. A Rottweiler, maybe. It kept raising hell as she walked away, making so much noise she wanted to go back and hit it with some pepper spray. 
      She crossed Apple Avenue and continued checking along Hansen. This block had some spillover businesses from the Boulevard: a secondhand store, a music studio, a liquor shop. A few more yards and she’d round a bend, be within eyeshot of the Boulevard. Wood steps angled up the side of the music studio. Karen gave them a long, careful look, wondering if she’d have to go up. Maybe she should do the alley first. 
       The flashlight picked out bottles, flattened cartons and unidentifiable crap. The beam slipped along the bricks and disappeared when she tried to probe into the far end of the alley. She’d have to go in and check it out.  
       A cop could get hurt in a situation like this. A cop could get killed. A cop could end up bleeding to death on the concrete while a line of fellow officers stood less than a hundred feet away, engrossed in the task of making sure everybody on the Boulevard had an up-to-date inspection sticker. 
       Her radio squawked. Standing where she was, with the street light behind her, she was probably a great target. Karen stepped sideways, toward the stairs, and a bottle clinked somewhere back in the alley. 
        ”Police officer!” she called out, flicking the light around. “Come out here right now!” 
        Karen waited, feeling her nerves shrink tight around her heart, and she reached for her radio. Another clink of a bottle, and a man’s voice said: “OK, I’m walking out. Don’t get jumpy. I was just taking a leak.” 
       ”Come out here right now!” she shouted. Her right hand held the flashlight, ready to strike down. Her left hand unsnapped the gun holster. 
       ”Like I said, don’t get jumpy.” She took him in as he stepped into the light: a little under six feet tall, thin build, loose black jeans, black athletic shoes, dark blue sweater, dark blue jacket. His face was lean and slightly hollow-cheeked, with a weak chin and blond hair worn a little long over the ears, combed at a slant across his wide forehead. Slightly puffy lips under a thick mustache. 
       ”I was just taking a leak, is all,” he said. “I’m sorry, but there’s some things you can’t put off.” 
       ”I want to see some ID,” Karen said. “Take out your driver’s license.” 
       ”Sure.” He was still coming toward her. 
       ”Stand right there, keep your hands where I can see them and take out your wallet.” 
       The lips twisted in a derisive grin. “Well, if I reach for my wallet one of my hands is gonna be out of your sight.” He stepped forward again. 
        ”Stop right there!” She put a hand on her gun and the grin vanished. 
        ”Yeah, OK, fine, it’s cool, don’t get mad.” He gestured past her. “I think my wallet’s in my car there.” 
         She didn’t turn around to look, but the distraction worked anyway because Karen noticed something odd about the guy’s hand. She took her fingers off the gun and he plowed into her, pushing her back against the wall and pawing at the holster. She fought clear and slammed her flashlight onto his shoulder, making him yell, and then he was inside her reach, swearing at her and spilling stale coffee breath across her face as she blocked his wrist.  
       As soon as her back was to the alley, the guy tried to cut and run, but Karen held on to his arm. Now they were both cursing, the guy making another grab for the gun, and Karen chopped down against his wrist. The cursing gave way to silence and scuffling feet as they grappled, then the guy yowled in surprise as she dropped, keeping a grip on his jacket and shirt, pulling him down as she rolled onto her back and kicked her feet into his body. His momentum carried him up and over, screaming all the while, and for a moment he seemed to be trying to walk on his hands as his sneakers scraped the brick wall and a few coins drizzled from his pants. Then he hit the pavement with a thick grunt, while Karen rolled easily to her feet. 
       ”That’s it, scumbag,” she yelled, and as she straightened up the top of her head slammed against the wood stairs. 
       She froze in a private universe of pain, and the guy used the interval to throw a bottle that cracked against her kneecap and shattered by her feet. Somewhere out beyond the wall of sparks, Karen could see him slipping around the corner of the alley. 
     Her feet crunched glass. She hunched over and cradled her head, hearing herself squeal “Fuck fuck fuuuuck” in a thin, keening whine. There was no sign of the asshole out on the street. Karen limped to her cruiser, using the rest of her strength to keep from crying. 
       ”Requesting immediate backup,” she told the radio. “Suspect fleeing on foot. Caucasian male, blond with a mustache, tried to evade the roadblock. Isn’t anybody else going to help me out here?” 
        ”On the way,” the dispatcher rasped.  
        Karen tried to trot in the direction the suspect had run. Her first step hit the concrete sidewalk; a shock wave rippled up through her body and squeezed into her skull, pushing her brains up through the crown of her head. She was still wincing and rubbing the sore spot when three cruisers blazed in: one from the Boulevard, one from Apple Avenue and one screeching to a stop on Hansen Street. 
        Cops were swarming around her, asking if she was OK, demanding to know where the guy’d gone. One of them dashed up Hansen Street. 
       ”He hit you?” somebody asked. “Bottle?” 
       ”Bottle on the knee,” Karen gasped. “Oh fuck, my head.” 
       A voice fizzed on their radios. “Nothing yet. No sign.” 
       Flashlight beams flickered and stabbed. “Gotta gate open here, dog going nuts,” one cop shouted. “Maybe he jumped the fence.” 
       Hull’s voice on the radio. “Somebody tell me they got ‘im.” 
       ”Negative,” somebody said. “Suspect still at large. Officer injured.” 
       ”Which officer?” 
       ”McCarthy.” That faint sound on Hull’s end — was he cursing? “He got away from her? How bad’s she injured?”   
       ”I’m OK,” Karen told the radio. 
       ”Yeah, right now, anyway,” the cop said. Weiss. Green eyes under a Marine buzz cut. Thick lips that twisted whenever he looked at Karen.    
       ”The fuck’s that mean?” she snarled, the pain pumping up her anger. 
       ”Go talk to the sergeant, see what the fuck that means. He wants you to report in right now. Go.” The other two cops paused to watch. Not doing anything, but keeping tabs. 
        ”I’m gonna look for this asshole. I can’t go to the station house yet.” 
        ”You’re not going to the station house. We got a B&E and a shooting. Your scumbag was probably the one did it.” Weiss told her the address, and as he spoke Karen felt dizzy. Felt the ground splitting open right under her feet.                                               

We All Fall Down, Chapter 1

Where does the hand become the wrist?

Where does the neck become the shoulder? The watershed

And then the weight, whatever turns up and tips us over that

     razor’s edge

between something and nothing, between

one and the other. 

                                      — Simon Armitage, “Gooseberry Season” 
 
  
 ONE 
    

     It’s all the moon’s fault, Charlie Murphy thought to himself as he stared into the barrel of the beefy man’s gun and waited to die. 
    It all fit together. If the moon hadn’t winked at him while he was working the night street outside, he’d have simply loaded the car stereos into the back seat of his car and gone home to his girlfriend. Instead, he was sitting in this strange kitchen, trying to look away from the corpse and the blood on the floor, watching the light glitter along the barrel of the nine-millimeter as the thick arm lifted it into position and —  
 
    Murphy’s mind, frayed by terror and the aftereffects of a three-day methamphetamine bender, carried him back an hour or so. He’d been using his screwdriver to break into cars. Two in the morning and the air was sharp with the first chill of fall — nippy enough to keep windows closed but not so cold that he needed to wear anything heavier than a jacket over his work clothes. Two in the morning and not another soul around to hear the soft punk of metal and the light click as his screwdriver nudged each lock mechanism.  
    He worked quickly, going by feel, not even pausing as he looked around and read the neighborhood. His girlfriend had opened his eyes to the finer points of real estate. Now Murphy could look at the close-packed houses — Cape Cods and bungalows from the Forties and Fifties, split-levels set sideways on tiny lots, the occasional time-traveler Victorian — and see that the neighborhood was middle-class only at first glance. Most of these houses had two, even four mailboxes by the front door. It was working class all the way, and people here put their spare cash out on the street — the curbs were lined with sport utes, sport cutes and muscle cars with enough sound equipment to blow the bark off trees as they rumbled past. Their car alarms were the crappy kind that went off so often nobody in the neighborhood paid attention, except to curse. Every puff of wind set off a scattering of electronic hen-clucks, letting Murphy know which vehicles to avoid until he was ready to leave.     

     Murphy scuttled along the street with his screwdriver and his gym bag, leaving a trail of cars with big holes in the dashboards where CD players had been. He used the screwdriver like a magic wand, popping locks and opening doors, leaving little damage apart from the scratches on the door and the nicks on the dashboard. Murphy considered that the mark of a craftsman — something that made him a gentleman bandit, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, or Clint Eastwood in Absolute Power. 
    Murphy was no fool about his choice of getaway car, either. Your average meth-head might have boosted a muscle car or a flashy SUV, but Murphy understood the strategic value of a low-profile set of wheels. He’d cooled his heels at the mall bus stop, watching people park and hustle inside. He’d finally chosen a Saturn parked by a couple with two small kids — they looked like they’d be spending an hour at one of the restaurants, maybe catch a movie at the cineplex. Murphy had the car wired and rolling within moments. Honestly now, who would expect a crook to be driving a Saturn with two child seats in back?    
     Those child seats now held several plastic bags stretched taunt and angular by dashboard sound equipment. At the rate he was going tonight, Murphy would bag enough goodies to keep his girlfriend in style for the rest of the month. After performing a few more screwdriver-assisted open-sesames, he’d stroll up the hill, hop into the car and pay her a visit at the doughnut shop. He’d swagger in and do his John Wayne voice: I’ll take a cuppa that black stuff, li’l lady, and whatever crullers yer eatin’ tonight, you just put ‘em on my tab too. Maybe they’d torch the Saturn, get the girlfriend all hotted up and give the couple a complete insurance write-off at the same time. Another thoughtful gesture from Charles Murphy, a criminal with class.   
 

    The beefy man clicked off the safety on his big shiny automatic. 
     The sound drew Murphy back to the present, back to the acrid smell of cordite in the air and the shiny line of blood across the toes of his black sneakers. The barrel rose to the middle of Murphy’s face and —   
 
     The moon had been the main culprit, but the methamphetamine played a part, too. At the end of a three-day crank binge, Murphy’s pupils were dilated enough to give him cat’s vision as he scanned the yards and houses. His hands shook slightly and his legs felt rubbery as he walked — the crash and the long sleep that followed a meth bender couldn’t be far off — but his brain still fizzed. With the crank angels singing inside his skull, Murphy had feet with wings and fists like rocks. He was ready to do battle with anything that showed up along the street. 
     So when the moon came out from behind the shredded clouds and flooded the street with light, Murphy spotted a rear door swinging loose in the breeze. It was on one of the bigger houses in the neighborhood, a Cape Cod with plenty of yard and a screened-in back porch. Separate, shed-type garage with a little driveway off the side street. A small garden fenced with chicken wire. Murphy fixated on the play of moonlight along the metal weave, then snapped out of his trance as the door waved to him again. It would swing open very slowly, then retreat whenever the wind kicked up. At the last moment, it would bounce off something that kept it from closing completely. Another tatter of cloud slipped across the moon and the scene darkened a shade or two, as though God had been trying to get his attention and was now switching off the spotlight. 
     Murphy thought it over, then he set the gym bag behind the nearest car. He slipped across the driveway and stepped into the back yard.  
     The door beckoned again, and he saw that a throw-rug had bunched against the frame, muffling the impact as the wind tried to slap it shut. 
     Murphy put on his gloves and held the door still. There were two Trek bikes leaning by the inside door, without any locks that he could see. He squatted and crab-walked through the porch, keeping himself below the window sills, and ran his fingers along the spokes. His girlfriend had talked of wanting a bike. Now he could give her a really good one, courtesy of these dummies who didn’t lock their doors. And look over there — a power drill with an orange extension cord, neatly bundled. 
     Murphy shook his head in disgust. Leaving all this good stuff out in the open — these turkeys were just asking for trouble. People with nice things should take care of them. Getting cleaned out would be a relatively painless way for these clowns to learn that lesson. Not only was Murphy a craftsman; he was an emissary of reality. 
     He stretched his legs and studied the inside door. He idly checked the doorknob, not expecting it to be unlocked, then shook his head as the knob turned in his gloved hand. 
     God, these people were dumb. It was like they wanted to be burglarized. Murphy grinned as he took one last look around, before going inside. There was a stack of pipes a few feet away. Murphy stared at the open end of one pipe —  
     
    – the barrel of the gun.       
     “Anything you wanna say?” The beefy man was enjoying the situation. 
    Don’t think about it, Murphy told himself. Don’t think about the gun. Don’t think about the dead woman. Instead, he thought about moving through the dark house. Checking out the knives in the kitchen had seemed like a good idea at the time. But that was when everything had gone wrong. 
 
    During a burglary, it always made sense to find out which drawer held the knives. Do that right off the bat. A smart crook never carried any weapons — that kind of thing would add aggravated assault to the list of police charges if, God forbid, the night went wrong. The average kitchen held all the weapons anyone could need. Not that Murphy wanted to stab anybody, but he might have to grab a steak knife to fend off some outraged homeowner who’d watched too many action movies. 
    The hallway ended with stairs to his left and the living room spread out before him. The venetian blinds were closed but Murphy’s eyes pulled in enough light to make out what appeared to be a trophy case at the far end of the room. No doubt the house was occupied by some jocko who’d never gotten over the glories of his school days. Murphy doubled back toward the dining room. Here was what he’d hoped to find: a display hutch full of nice dishes and a drawer loaded with fancy silverware. He pulled out the neatly folded linen tablecloth and started spreading it on the dining room table. He was almost finished when he felt a faint vibration through the floorboards, muffled by the carpet but still detectable, and the kitchen light clicked on behind him. 
    Murphy moved with a tweaker’s jacked-up reflexes. In three heartbeats he was around the counter and off the carpet, racing across the kitchen tiles, closing in before the woman in the thick green robe could even turn her head. His left hand came up and around, slapped tight across her mouth; his right hand pressed the tip of the screwdriver into her ribs. The top of her head came up to his mouth, and curly black hair tickled his nostrils as he hauled her backward. 
     “Shut up,” he hissed in her ear. “Shut up and do like I say and you won’t get hurt.” She nodded, her breath puffing hard and fast against his fingers. The crank angels trilled and he pulled her closer, feeling her body through the robe. He wondered what her face was like, but even with the crank fumes swirling through his head he knew it would be really stupid to turn her around, give her a look at him.  
     Murphy dragged her back, using his elbow to snap off the light as he pulled the woman into the dark hallway. The light had been hurting his eyes, anyway. The woman twisted in his grip and Murphy cursed as he shook her. He stopped when he saw the big shape coming around the stairs. The woman saw it too, and screamed into his hand. 
     “What the fuck?” The shape had a rough, blurry voice. 
     “What the fuck is right!” Murphy yelled, doing his best to sound like a crazed junkie. No more Cary Grant, not in this situation. “You fuckin’ stand there and don’t try to fuck with me.” The long hallway was behind him now. Maybe he could push the woman down, kick the guy in the nuts and run for the back door. It wouldn’t take long to reach the Saturn, and then he’d be gone in seconds flat. 
     The shape did nothing for a moment, then it turned and marched into the living room. 
Murphy was so jacked by the crank angels that instead of using this chance to run, he flared in rage at the man’s disobedience. “I said stay there, motherfucker!” he screamed, jabbing the woman to make her yelp and tremble. She put out a hand to brace herself against the wall, and one of the framed pictures thumped on the carpet. 
     The living room light clicked on, along with the hall light. Murphy squinted, trying to adjust, then he stared at the framed pictures, now clearly visible. What he saw made him dizzy with fear.  
     “Holy shit,” Murphy said as the man returned. Over the man’s shoulder, Murphy saw trophies from various police academy competitions. Many of the trophies were topped with brass figurines of a man aiming a gun. Marksmanship awards. The guy was a police. Murphy had just managed to get himself caught burglarizing a cop’s house and manhandling his wife.   
    “Oh Jesus fuck,” Murphy moaned as the man raised his right hand and pointed the thirty-eight at him. The man nodded toward the pictures — pictures of himself in police uniform, smiling with other uniformed men — and grinned. 
     ”Looks like this is your lucky night,” the cop said. He had a face the color and shape of a Hormel ham, and his smile was a tiny crescent of white within blotchy skin and broken blood vessels. He stood about a head taller than Murphy, with thick arms and a big, hard-looking gut that curved out below his chest and forced down the waistband of his black shorts. A nine-millimeter automatic gleamed in his left hand. 
     “Don’t,” the woman managed to say, and her voice snapped Murphy out of his trance. He poked the tip of the screwdriver into the soft flesh beneath her chin. 
     “Put that gun away or I’ll stick her,” Murphy said. 
     The husband’s smile stretched a little at both ends. He moved in close and reached around the woman, pushing the muzzle of the thirty-eight into Murphy’s side. “Whaddya think’ll happen’a yuh then, scumbag?” he asked in a playful voice, pushing hard as he shoved the muzzle of the gun lower. Murphy let go of the woman as the husband thrust him back against the wall. The husband’s eyes, nestled between heavy lids and puffy saddlebags, were the same pale gray as his hair. Spit-colored eyes. 
     The crank angels stopped singing, and the screwdriver fell from Murphy’s hand. “OK, man, I’m sorry, OK?” The gun’s sharp muzzle seemed to be plowing a furrow through his flesh as the man slipped it across his lower belly, poking hard against his shriveling genitalia. “Hai mean, hai …” Murphy managed to say, then sudden panic stilled his voice.  
     “Yuh sorry?” the husband said in a mock-puzzled tone. “Yuh were talking so mean an’ scary just before, an’ now yuh sorry?” He pushed a little harder and Murphy, feeling his guts turn into bubbling gelatin, dropped to his knees. The sharp rim of the barrel cut into the skin of his forehead. 
     “No disrespect?” the man said. “None at all?” 
     “No man, I … wuh!” The man was using the gun to lean on his forehead. Murphy’s jacket scraped against the wall as he leaned over, then fell to the carpet, trying to escape the pain and the pressure. The husband stayed with him, chuckling, shoving his nose into the carpet as though he were a dog that had just made a mess. 
     “I dunno, yuh seemed so scary just then. Tough dude with his screwdriver against my wife’s neck? Howzat suppos’a make me feel?” Murphy’s eyes were shut. The blood roared in his ears. The husband took the gun off his head, then jabbed it into the back of Murphy’s neck. “I mean, a guy could get pretty upset, yuh know?” More jabs: his shoulderblade, his side, his arm. Each one left a tingling spot on Murphy’s body, creating a little opening that let another few drops of his courage leak away. “Yuh still scary?” 
     “I’m not sssss,” Murphy whispered. “Not ssscary.” 
     “Scuze me?” The gun took a slow trip up his back, bumping along the vertebrae. “Say again?” 
     “Ha … haim nah … t’scary.” 
     “Not even a lil’ bit?” 
     “Nuh.” 
     “Not even like a lil’ mouse? Not even that scary?” 
     “Nuh.” 
     “Yuh not a tough dude anymore? Just a lil’ piss ass mouse?” 
     “Yeah, yuh … ma’mouse.” 
     The gun drew back. Murphy stayed put, clutching the carpet like a mountaineer hugging a cliff. When he tried to rise, the man put a foot on his back and forced him down. Murphy hit the floor and screamed. 
      “Ask permission before you get up in my house,” the husband said. 
     “Can hai … p’lease …” 
     “Well, sure, since yuh asked nice.” Murphy slipped a couple of times before making it to his feet. 
     “Get back inna kitchen.” Murphy obeyed, blinking as the man clicked on the light. He stopped dead as he saw the woman leaning against the kitchen counter. Behind him, the husband gave a tight, wheezy laugh. He was drunk. Drunk and giggling like the whole thing was a private joke, and he alone knew the punchline. 
     The woman’s left eye was swollen almost shut. The bruised handprint across her cheek was so clear and distinct Murphy could make out all five fingers, like a red shadow on her face. 
     “Jesus shit, lady!” Murphy cried. “Oh my God!” He turned to the husband. “I didn’t …” he started to say, then stopped as the man grinned. 
     “Have a seat,” the husband said, and Murphy dropped into a chair. The woman was picking up the cordless phone. 
     “Put it down, babe.” The man spoke gently, but the woman dropped the phone 
with such alacrity that Murphy guessed this particular tone of voice was his standard warning of trouble to come.  
     “OK, good. C’mere an’ get behind me, away from this shitheel.” 
     She nodded and stepped forward, using both hands to clutch shut the top of her robe. When she was within arm’s length, the man raised the thirty-eight and fired into her forehead. The gun’s discharge sounded like a block of wood hitting concrete. The woman didn’t fly backward or perform any Hollywood death theatrics. Her head rocked a little, then her knees hit the floor and she bowed slightly, dropping sideways, landing as quickly and heavily as a sack of flour. A thin gusher of blood leaped from her head and drew a speckled crescent on the light blue tiles, dappling the toes of Murphy’s sneakers. 
     Murphy drew his breath so quickly it became a scream. He hunched forward, spreading his knees and clutching the legs of the chair to keep himself steady. The woman had fallen into an accidentally graceful pose, with her left arm up and back, hand curling over her shoulder as if to brush away a fly. 
 
    Murphy’s thoughts fled one last time, all the way back to the start of the evening. Back to his girlfriend, back to the taste of her mouth. Clothes stretched tight over her soft heat. Abandoned houses that smelled like museum storerooms. A series of houses, each one a way station on the path leading to the huge empty mouth of this man’s gun. 
    Murphy and the girlfriend — they had to stop what they were doing. Murphy would stop it.  
    Give me one more chance and I’ll stop it, he promised. I’ll go straight. 
    I take it back. 
    I take it all back. 
    Let me go. Let me put it right. Let me do what I have to do —      
 
     A heavy chunk brought Murphy’s head up. The man had set the thirty-eight on the counter top. “That one’s yours,” he said. 
     Murphy was still working out the implications of the statement as the man raised the nine-millimeter. 
     “This one’s mine,” he chuckled. He was watching Murphy’s face, waiting for understanding to blossom before he finished the job. 
     A little smile as the muzzle of the nine rose to point at Murphy. 
     “Looks like this one’s on you,” the man said. And —                   
 
    Here comes the bullet. 
    Let me take it all back. 
     
    And Murphy’s hands dropped to the legs of the chair, down where the crosspiece braced the two front legs. He grabbed the crosspiece and one leg, all the while watching the tendons in the man’s wrist tighten and drag at the muscles inside his forearm. Murphy’s legs bunched and flexed and lifted him off the chair, raising him so his arms could flex and bend and swing the chair up from between his legs. One clean and graceful motion, as pretty to witness as any slow-motion athletic feat on television. 
     See the chair tip back and slide through Murphy’s legs. See the back of the chair scrape along the floor, then rise in a steep arc and crack into the beefy men’s wrist. See the gun tumble free of the man’s hand and thump against one of the chair’s wood legs. A clash and rattle of broken glass, somewhere out of sight. Did the gun go off? Who could tell? Try picking out that sound when your heart is pounding like a heavy mallet striking a wall, when the hands holding the chair adjust their position and reverse the arc, bringing the back of the chair down and into the beefy man’s wet mouth. How could anyone hear a gunshot when the air was full of the thump of wood hitting flesh, with the tiny, almost imperceptible click of teeth breaking and scattering free of the loose face?  
    Chair and man fell across the dead woman. Flesh hit floor with a meaty smack as the chair splintered and cracked. Even in his pain, the man could glare at Murphy over his ruined mouth, then roll to one side and paw after the nine-millimeter. Murphy had just enough presence of mind left to stamp hard on the man’s ankle, then his foot. The man bellowed, as much in rage and frustration as pain, and the sound pushed Murphy up the hallway, to the front door and the greasy brass doorknob turning in his hand and the blessed cold air welcoming him as he opened the door to freedom and safety. 
    Murphy had just enough light to see the big figure on the front step, blocking his way. They stared at each other in purest astonishment, then the figure gasped and slapped a hand down across its belt. Something glittered on the chest. Oh shit oh shit oh shit another cop. Murphy bent and drove to one side. The other guy was thinner and harder than the slab-faced ogre inside the house, but Murphy caught him off guard — he stumbled back into the wrought-iron railing and toppled as Murphy leaped free and pounded away.        
    And the moon, capricious as always, slipped out from behind its mantle of clouds to fill the street with light and shadows. Bright enough to let him see down the street and take in the sight of the tow truck and the Saturn being hoisted like a fish on a line. Dark enough to give him a sheltering tunnel between two houses. Murphy ran into the tunnel, riding his screaming nerves like a surfer cutting up the face of a big wave, trying to get up the crest before the blue wall curled over and closed around him.

     He ran for a couple of blocks, staying on the grass whenever possible, then paused with his back to a tree, mind and heart racing. He still had his screwdriver, thank Christ. And just over there was a nice, inconspicuous Taurus that could get him out of town nice and fast. Out of town, out of the state and maybe even out of the country.

     Within seconds he had opened the car and within minutes he was on his way. And while he worked, every other heartbeat, he was convinced that the big sloppy police chief was only a few steps away, ready to put a gun behind Murphy’s ear.       

Fair warning

As I warned a couple of days ago, tomorrow I’m going to begin posting a novel, We All Fall Down, a chapter at a time here on my blog. E-mailed reactions will be welcomed. The regularly scheduled cute dog picture will appear as well.

Do the Scalzi

I celebrated the fall of 2008 by sending my agent a nonfiction book proposal and the completed, polished manuscript of a crime novel. Shortly after La Agent fired off some submissions to various interested editors, the publishing industry began rending itself with layoffs, budget cuts, and severe restrictions on the purchasing power of the editors who survived the staff reductions.

What’s that you say? Great timing, Steve? Tell me about it. The editors who didn’t get the ax got the workloads of those who did. The nonfiction proposal is finally getting some atttention, but a year after the novel manuscript went out, its fate is still an open question. Things are tough out there. 

Maybe you’ve heard about John Scalzi, a very good SF writer who posted an entire novel online, chapter by chapter, via his blog. He did it because he wanted people to read his work. He ended up getting a book deal and went on to become a successful novelist, but all that was after the fact. The chief thing is, he wanted his work to be read.  

I like my crime novel, a lot, and I want it to be read. So on Wednesday, with my agent’s full blessing, I’m going to start posting it a chapter at a time. It should be complete by late December, at which point I’ll post a short essay describing how I came to write the novel, and the sources of inspiration for the (rather unusual) main character. I’d be delighted to get comments from readers, but they should come as e-mails to moi. Comments will be switched off for the individual posts. If you want to send me a few bucks in exchange for the posts, that would be nice, but mainly I want to get some daylight on the novel.

Friday finds

Want to give this year’s Halloween celebration a Lovecraftian flavor? Then Propnomicon is the site for you.

Now here’s somebody who really does it up brown for Halloween. The Martian invasion alone must have required a second mortgage.

A Chicago boy, Roger Ebert, writes about another Chicago boy, James T. Farrell.

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, and the wages of literary fame.

An evolved writer and thinker talks about evolution.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns. John Scalzi considers the economics of the writing market in Fitzgerald’s era, as does Walter Jon Williams.

Writing the life of a writer who has already written his life quite well.

More than most writers, James Tiptree Jr. lived by silence, exile, and cunning — or, in this case, like an opossum.

A close encounter of the Pauline Kael kind.

Naturally, “Low Rider” deserves the top spot for any list of the “Top 10 Cowbell Songs.” But where the hell is “Mississippi Queen”?

Inspired film geekery over at Trailers From Hell, which gives directors a chance to riff about their favorite movies over the trailers for said movies. You get Eli Roth giving mad props to Forbidden Planet, Bill Duke singing the praises of The Spook Who Sat By the Door, Allison Anders rocking out to Privilege, and Larry Cohen getting paranoid over the original Invaders from Mars.

Listen up

A podcast on the pitfalls of publishing yourself.

Don’t believe in writer’s block? Don’t tell that to Nicholson Baker.

Discussing (and, one hopes, dispelling) myths about Nietzsche.

A talk on the difference between plot-driven and character-driven fiction.

Writing, listening, etc.

John Brown talks about emotion in writing, and depression in writers.

Susan Johnston asks: When do you do your best writing work? I’m a morning man, myself.

C.M. Mayo and Pam Jenoff talk about writing historical fiction.

Lawrence Wechsler talks about the future of literary journalism.

Two poets, Jack Hirschman and Neeli Cherkovski, talk about life with Charles Bukowski.

Terence Taylor says: If you really want to write, you’ll find a way to make it happen.