he said.
“Pull over,” said Ackerman.
“What for?”
“Do it. We’ve got to go through their pockets. If they’ve got drugs or too much money on them they’ll have to answer different questions.” The salesman coasted to a stop, then executed a perfect unconscious parallel-parking job, backing right to the curb. But then he forgot to take the car out of gear and it lurched into the car in back with a crack, rocking it a little. The man in the front seat seemed to understand what was happening to him and pointed to the pockets he couldn’t reach. In the back seat, Ackerman found that the unconscious man was more difficult. His limp, dead weight was enormous. There were little glass tubes of crack hidden in all his pockets, and a huge roll of bills in his jacket. The last thing Ackerman found was an automatic pistol at the small of the man’s back, unfired and probably forgotten in his terrified dash to get away. He slipped it into his coat pocket.
He was aware as each second passed that he could easily raise the .357 Magnum and kill the salesman, then the man beside him, and walk away. Drug dealers had always been crazy and unpredictable, and he had stayed away from them. They always seemed to him to be driven by some horrible, aching greed that would make them feed until they burst, like ticks. He had never heard of one who had stopped because he had decided he had enough money. They just kept getting more bloated and voracious until they died in some violent explosion of overconfidence or madness, or the sheer physical principle that when a hoard of money got big enough it created its own predators to disperse it.
His reluctance to be rid of them had something to do with how young they were, and how spectacularly inexperienced. They were so alien to him, he sensed that the environment that would allow them to survive was a place he had never been. In the old days—he recognized that his urge to use that phrase trapped him in the past and made him only a visitor in the present, but he had no choice—these small entrepreneurs would have been co-opted and trained in the iron discipline of the local organization, or else swept away. The only explanation for these tiny gangs of boys in the streets was that anarchy must have descended on the world.
The salesman stared at him over the car seat, and Ackerman could see that he was sweating and frightened. He took pity on him. “Okay. Here’s what we do: you pull up the driveway where the ambulances go. Get as close to the emergency-room door as you can, and keep the motor running.”
The salesman drove to the blue sign that said E MERGENCY and A MBULANCES but nothing else. As he took the turn, he swung wide and had to jerk the car to the right to avoid an ambulance with its lights off gliding down the drive to return to its garage. “I’ll kill that fucker,” he hissed.
Ackerman knew that if he allowed the salesman to get frightened enough, his deranged mutterings might develop into a real intention, but he decided to ignore them for the moment because the Jaguar was now moving up into the bright yellow glow of the sodium lights. As soon as the car coasted to a stop, Ackerman got out, pulling the wounded man out behind him by the ankles. As he stepped back to duck under him for a fireman’s carry, he stepped on the foot of a man behind him. He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
As he turned back toward the car he still held the image of the man, a tall, barrel-chested policeman wearing a light blue shirt with little epaulets on the shoulders, and such a burden of metal and black leather around his waist that he looked a yard wide. There were a flashlight, a nightstick, a canister of mace, a pocketknife in a black leather case, ammunition and the heavy black knurled handgrips of the service revolver, all creaking and clicking as he bent to look inside the car. He heard the policeman say, “What’s wrong with him?” and he answered, “I can’t tell,
“Pull over,” said Ackerman.
“What for?”
“Do it. We’ve got to go through their pockets. If they’ve got drugs or too much money on them they’ll have to answer different questions.” The salesman coasted to a stop, then executed a perfect unconscious parallel-parking job, backing right to the curb. But then he forgot to take the car out of gear and it lurched into the car in back with a crack, rocking it a little. The man in the front seat seemed to understand what was happening to him and pointed to the pockets he couldn’t reach. In the back seat, Ackerman found that the unconscious man was more difficult. His limp, dead weight was enormous. There were little glass tubes of crack hidden in all his pockets, and a huge roll of bills in his jacket. The last thing Ackerman found was an automatic pistol at the small of the man’s back, unfired and probably forgotten in his terrified dash to get away. He slipped it into his coat pocket.
He was aware as each second passed that he could easily raise the .357 Magnum and kill the salesman, then the man beside him, and walk away. Drug dealers had always been crazy and unpredictable, and he had stayed away from them. They always seemed to him to be driven by some horrible, aching greed that would make them feed until they burst, like ticks. He had never heard of one who had stopped because he had decided he had enough money. They just kept getting more bloated and voracious until they died in some violent explosion of overconfidence or madness, or the sheer physical principle that when a hoard of money got big enough it created its own predators to disperse it.
His reluctance to be rid of them had something to do with how young they were, and how spectacularly inexperienced. They were so alien to him, he sensed that the environment that would allow them to survive was a place he had never been. In the old days—he recognized that his urge to use that phrase trapped him in the past and made him only a visitor in the present, but he had no choice—these small entrepreneurs would have been co-opted and trained in the iron discipline of the local organization, or else swept away. The only explanation for these tiny gangs of boys in the streets was that anarchy must have descended on the world.
The salesman stared at him over the car seat, and Ackerman could see that he was sweating and frightened. He took pity on him. “Okay. Here’s what we do: you pull up the driveway where the ambulances go. Get as close to the emergency-room door as you can, and keep the motor running.”
The salesman drove to the blue sign that said E MERGENCY and A MBULANCES but nothing else. As he took the turn, he swung wide and had to jerk the car to the right to avoid an ambulance with its lights off gliding down the drive to return to its garage. “I’ll kill that fucker,” he hissed.
Ackerman knew that if he allowed the salesman to get frightened enough, his deranged mutterings might develop into a real intention, but he decided to ignore them for the moment because the Jaguar was now moving up into the bright yellow glow of the sodium lights. As soon as the car coasted to a stop, Ackerman got out, pulling the wounded man out behind him by the ankles. As he stepped back to duck under him for a fireman’s carry, he stepped on the foot of a man behind him. He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
As he turned back toward the car he still held the image of the man, a tall, barrel-chested policeman wearing a light blue shirt with little epaulets on the shoulders, and such a burden of metal and black leather around his waist that he looked a yard wide. There were a flashlight, a nightstick, a canister of mace, a pocketknife in a black leather case, ammunition and the heavy black knurled handgrips of the service revolver, all creaking and clicking as he bent to look inside the car. He heard the policeman say, “What’s wrong with him?” and he answered, “I can’t tell,
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