filing an accident claim,” I said. “But my guy up at the body shop on Indiantown Road is going to get some business.”
Silent again, I watched the aqua glow from the pool flow through the bedroom window and dance on the ceiling.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Sherry said.
I took another drink and laid it out for her, from the time I started tailing Andrés Carmen, until I left Chief Hammonds’s office. Like most good detectives, Sherry’s a good listener. She let the story come out without interruption, and in the end said, “Jesus, Max.”
“Yeah, I think I said the same thing a couple of times tonight.”
Sherry reached over and put her hand on the side of my face, slid her fingers into my hair, and gave me one of those “poor baby” looks. The show of affection was nice. Though I’ve never been one who expects the whole sympathy thing, everybody’s human.
I took her hand and kissed her palm. “I love you, baby,” I said.
“I know you do, Max. Sometimes I just don’t know how you can.”
— 10 —
OK, ENOUGH OF
what if
, Booker. You’ve got to stop talking to yourself: What’s done is done. You’ve got to catch up and live in the real world. Right?
Yeah, but in the real world, people are walking around on two fucking legs. You’re not. In the real world, people can walk up a set of stairs. In the real world, you used to squat three hundred pounds, and now you can’t even climb out of this chair on your own.
All you can remember are those goddamned dimmed headlights, knowing they were going way too fast, and that total lack of screeching brakes. And hey, guess what, your stupid life did not flash in front of your eyes. You just reacted. They say you jumped, and that’s what saved your life, such as it fucking is. Next thing you know, you’re lying in a hospital bed and you wake the hell up and get as much of a grip on what’s happened as you can, given that when you look down there’s no lumps in the sheets below your waist.
Fuck it, you don’t even want to look—so you don’t. For days, you don’t. Even after the docs come in and give you all that bullshit about how amputees can do anything anyone else can. And they know it’s a shock, but medical science has come such a long way… blah, blah, blah.
So you’re pissed. And you’re always gonna ask: Why you? Who the hell did this to you? And you hold on to that anger ‘cause you know what? It makes you feel a little bit alive. Why the hell haven’t they caught the rat bastard who did this to you? Six months and they can’t find a car thief? Hey, I’m a cop, too. And every cop, not just the fucking detectives, knows that people repeat a story like mine. It gets told in some sleazy shooting gallery somewhere, some fucking bar, on some shit-heel corner with a bunch of losers hanging out smoking and trying to build themselves up, so they can be better than the loser next to them: “Hey, man, you seen that shit on TV about the cop who got his legs chopped off on I-595? Whoa, awesome, dude.”
“Yeah, I heard Jimmy the Fuckup did it.”
“No way, Jimmy the Loser? That kid who’s always stealin’ cars when he’s fuckin’ high?”
“Yeah, Petey the Prick said he was doin’ forties with Jimmy and he told him he was all fucked up and drivin’ an old boosted Chevy and smacked ass into the back of somebody on the freeway and pinched that cop and just got out and boogied.”
“No shit. Did Petey turn him in, man? There’s a big fucking reward out for anyone rats the dude out. If Petey didn’t, I sure as hell will.”
Which is why you gotta be even more pissed—I mean, come on! The sheriff’s office put a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information out there a week after it happened, and they haven’t gotten a single lead worth a damn? Fuckups talk when something like that goes down. Somebody’s gotta hear something—unless it wasn’t just some fuckup.
I mean, you have to wonder about
Silent again, I watched the aqua glow from the pool flow through the bedroom window and dance on the ceiling.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Sherry said.
I took another drink and laid it out for her, from the time I started tailing Andrés Carmen, until I left Chief Hammonds’s office. Like most good detectives, Sherry’s a good listener. She let the story come out without interruption, and in the end said, “Jesus, Max.”
“Yeah, I think I said the same thing a couple of times tonight.”
Sherry reached over and put her hand on the side of my face, slid her fingers into my hair, and gave me one of those “poor baby” looks. The show of affection was nice. Though I’ve never been one who expects the whole sympathy thing, everybody’s human.
I took her hand and kissed her palm. “I love you, baby,” I said.
“I know you do, Max. Sometimes I just don’t know how you can.”
— 10 —
OK, ENOUGH OF
what if
, Booker. You’ve got to stop talking to yourself: What’s done is done. You’ve got to catch up and live in the real world. Right?
Yeah, but in the real world, people are walking around on two fucking legs. You’re not. In the real world, people can walk up a set of stairs. In the real world, you used to squat three hundred pounds, and now you can’t even climb out of this chair on your own.
All you can remember are those goddamned dimmed headlights, knowing they were going way too fast, and that total lack of screeching brakes. And hey, guess what, your stupid life did not flash in front of your eyes. You just reacted. They say you jumped, and that’s what saved your life, such as it fucking is. Next thing you know, you’re lying in a hospital bed and you wake the hell up and get as much of a grip on what’s happened as you can, given that when you look down there’s no lumps in the sheets below your waist.
Fuck it, you don’t even want to look—so you don’t. For days, you don’t. Even after the docs come in and give you all that bullshit about how amputees can do anything anyone else can. And they know it’s a shock, but medical science has come such a long way… blah, blah, blah.
So you’re pissed. And you’re always gonna ask: Why you? Who the hell did this to you? And you hold on to that anger ‘cause you know what? It makes you feel a little bit alive. Why the hell haven’t they caught the rat bastard who did this to you? Six months and they can’t find a car thief? Hey, I’m a cop, too. And every cop, not just the fucking detectives, knows that people repeat a story like mine. It gets told in some sleazy shooting gallery somewhere, some fucking bar, on some shit-heel corner with a bunch of losers hanging out smoking and trying to build themselves up, so they can be better than the loser next to them: “Hey, man, you seen that shit on TV about the cop who got his legs chopped off on I-595? Whoa, awesome, dude.”
“Yeah, I heard Jimmy the Fuckup did it.”
“No way, Jimmy the Loser? That kid who’s always stealin’ cars when he’s fuckin’ high?”
“Yeah, Petey the Prick said he was doin’ forties with Jimmy and he told him he was all fucked up and drivin’ an old boosted Chevy and smacked ass into the back of somebody on the freeway and pinched that cop and just got out and boogied.”
“No shit. Did Petey turn him in, man? There’s a big fucking reward out for anyone rats the dude out. If Petey didn’t, I sure as hell will.”
Which is why you gotta be even more pissed—I mean, come on! The sheriff’s office put a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information out there a week after it happened, and they haven’t gotten a single lead worth a damn? Fuckups talk when something like that goes down. Somebody’s gotta hear something—unless it wasn’t just some fuckup.
I mean, you have to wonder about
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