City Problems

CHAPTER ONE

Early Sunday, Time Unknown

PAIN. DEEP, SHARP pain, physical and spiritual, forced her up from whatever merciful blackout zone she had found. That was the first thing she noticed.

The next thing to break through the barriers of her consciousness was the whispering. Drunken, panicked whispering. Nothing concerning her or the horrible things that had happened to her, nothing about her pain. They were worried about themselves, not her. Like bad things had happened to them, but not to her. She could not make out many words, but none of the words she comprehended were about her.

It was like she didn’t matter.

Then, motion. She was still in the back of the truck, rolling down some unknown road, bouncing occasionally and hitting her head on the truck bed so the pain would scream again and again. She tried to touch the hard, wet spot on her skull, but stopped when she realized her hair was clinging to the truck bed and her right arm was trapped beneath something, or someone.

One of them is sitting on my arm.

The knowledge froze her. Her right arm was a useless thing; the moment she tried to move it they would know she was awake, and they would hurt her again. She tried to swallow the scream building inside her, and felt her tongue swell with the effort. Breathing became more difficult, and she thought she might choke. Her body fought for air, her lungs suddenly working hard, and she feared they might realize she was awake. But the truck’s bone-rattling motions apparently disguised her feeble efforts to breathe. She concentrated on inhaling and exhaling slowly through her nose.

Don’t panic. Don’t let them know you are awake. Don’t let them hurt you again.

She calmed down, and tried to figure out where she was. Everything smelled of beer and whiskey and wet grass.

She risked opening her eyes, afraid of what she would see, then grew more afraid when she saw nothing.

God, it’s dark out here, wherever this is. Am I blind?

No. After a moment, she could just barely make out the dark, tinted windows of the truck bed cap, which revealed a darkness slightly different from that inside the truck. The window shapes seemed to shift, as though the glass were fluid. No real light got in through those grimy windows, and she could see no faces to go with the voices that surrounded her.

The truck hit a new bump. The back of her head slammed the truck bed, and she closed her eyes against a nebula of swirling colors and a host of dagger-stab pains. As the pain slowly dulled, the colors faded slowly, but she still saw them even after she opened her eyes again. She felt it very important to open her eyes.

The mad kaleidoscopic whorls persisted, but beyond them she thought she could discern half-formed images. Boys. Sneers. Booze. Faces that shifted from human to monstrous. Smiles full of fangs, with spit and grunts and curses forcing their way through sharp, clenched teeth.

Next came more sounds, and she struggled to determine if they were real, or if they were memories. Music cut through the hum of tires on pavement. Droning rock, heavy bass. It made her head and body throb. It seemed she’d been hearing it forever, even before her universe had been reduced to pain and fear and darkness.

A flare of light blinded her. The orange flash illuminated a leering face, and a sulfuric odor emphasized the hellish, uncaring eyes. The match flare vanished with a swish, and only the bright glow of a cigarette was left. The tossed match landed on her cheek, burning her, and she yelled and kicked.

Jesus! She isn’t dead!

Oh, fuck, man!

Hush, a voice said. The weight pinning her right arm to the truck bed lifted, and a rough hand slapped her face. She did not see the blow coming, so the sudden sharpness was worse for being unexpected. The sting of it was so distinct she could feel the salt of her own tears on the smacked skin. She stifled a scream, and chewed her lip.

Better, the voice said. Someone else snickered.

Guys, maybe we should—

Shut the fuck up! Jesus!

One side of the truck bed brightened, and she heard the whine of a big rig rolling past. For just a second, she could see the silhouettes of her tormenters. She tried to memorize their positions, envision herself kicking out into their faces, hurting them back.

Then the darkness returned and someone slapped her again. Hard. She gave up fighting, then.

No, she said. Please, no.

She tried to tell them she would never, ever tell anyone what had happened if they would just let her live. She got out three words before a smack in the face made her eyes water and the foul boozy taste rise in her throat again.

Shut up, bitch!

No. No. No. She fought again, though she could not see. Her arms and legs were sluggish, responding slowly when she tried to kick or punch or scratch. Fingers coiled like snakes around her wrists and ankles. Her shins and elbows rapped painfully against the cold truck bed, and something sharp dug into her right shin.

She felt herself sinking again, back into oblivion.

CHAPTER TWO

Tuesday, 11:10 a.m.

I HAD OLLIE Southard’s head tucked under my right armpit, with enough pressure to cut off his damned howling. That caused a vibration against my ribs that tickled, but a cop has to learn to ignore that kind of thing.

Ollie’s ordinarily a gentle giant, and he wasn’t bellowing at me. He was yelling at the guy who had pissed him off.

That guy was on the bar floor, bleeding from the nose Ollie had probably broken. The skinny guy, a stranger to me, dug his boot heels into the wood floor to scoot away from me and Ollie. His hand wandered toward his belt in a way that said knife.

The music—something by Soundgarden, I think, but I did not really know—suddenly stopped. Watch it, Ed! Stranger’s got a knife.

Yes, Tuck. I see that. Tuck owns the place, and he’s a friend of mine, so I did not want him involved. Now duck behind the bar.

I’m a fairly big guy—six feet, two hundred pounds—but Ollie had fifty pounds on me and stood a head taller. The guy scooting across the floor was dark and skinny. He looked like he should have been able to easily duck a big, slow man like Ollie, but he hadn’t. Maybe he was drunk. Or high. Or both.

I already knew he was stupid.

I wouldn’t have grabbed Ollie at all, but my attempts at peaceful mitigation succeeded about as well as my date nights lately. Just as I’d yelled freeze, Ollie had snatched up a wooden chair and wielded it like a club, ready to bash the skinny guy. Cops aren’t supposed to let stuff like that happen, even on their days off, so here I was trying to quiet things down. A well-timed armlock and a hard pivot got the big fellow under control. The chair he’d grabbed tumbled harmlessly aside, but one of its legs broke. I hoped Tuck wasn’t going to make me pay for that.

Ollie smelled like old socks soaked in cat piss and sprayed by a skunk. The other guy smelled like a gallon of some body wash that was supposed to make supermodels swoon and strip. I suddenly wished this tussle had taken place in the open air rather than within the dim confines of a one-bar town’s one bar.

The advantages I had over both of these brawlers were sobriety and training. That, and the fact I knew Ollie Southard would not go for my gun. Ollie absolutely hates guns, and writes letters to the editor every week to make sure everyone knows he hates guns. The editor actually limited Ollie to one printed letter a month years ago, which Ollie never stops bitching about, but Ollie writes them anyway. Ollie believes the NRA is an evil cult, so I knew he’d ignore my weapon.

Even so, I kept my left arm locked down tight over the holster while my right arm played boa constrictor around Ollie’s throat. Sometimes, cherished opinions about the evils of guns wilt under combat conditions.

My sobriety was purely accidental. These jokers had started fighting before Tuck could finish pouring my first glass of Commodore Perry, so I had not yet had a single drop of India pale ale to drink. This made me want to throw some punches. I had planned a good day, and these guys were fucking it up. Despite the provocation, I was determined to resolve this as peacefully as I could. I am a professional. I can be reasonable.

I had intended to take a few hours off from my job as a sheriff’s detective in northern Ohio farm country. We’d gotten a guilty verdict that morning on a guy who’d tossed his wife down the stairs, breaking both her legs, an arm, and her ribs. She was an addict, and her husband had claimed someone else had hurt his wife, probably a dealer tired of taking bad sex instead of money for his product.

The husband had discounted her claims that he had been the one who attacked her, saying she was probably too damned addled on heroin to have any goddamned idea who had thrown her down the stairwell, and maybe she had just fallen down the stairs all by herself because drugs made her woozy. Why would we listen to anything a drug whore said anyway, he asked on the witness stand. He called me both a liar and a motherfucking liar, after having sworn on the Bible, no less, so help him God. The prosecutor had objected to defend my honor, of course.

I took no real offense. Cops get used to being called names, even in farm country. Instead of taking umbrage, I just watched Baker Thomas, the husband. I watched him the way a raptor watches a mouse, and I could not help noticing how goddamned pleased he seemed every time someone mentioned Kate’s injuries.

Heroin is a real goddamned problem around here, just like everywhere, and people were ready to believe Baker Thomas when the crime happened. This was just one more drug incident to them, they thought. Drug whore got hurt? Meh. How’d the Browns do last night?

But the guy’s reaction to her fall had seemed a bit off from the start, and I had never quite believed him. Neither did the deputies working with me. He always seemed to be in on some private joke. Sometimes, you just know when a guy is guilty, whether you have the evidence or not.

He had presented us with what seemed like a solid alibi, though—witnesses who swore he was at a bar while his woman got busted up. It had taken me a month to break that alibi, but I eventually used my powers of persuasion, by which I mean I put one of those witnesses against a wall until he shit his pants, and that convinced the guy to talk. That cracked things open, and we proved Baker Thomas had stolen heroin from his wife and traded it for lies that established his alibi. Now the husband was on his way to prison.

I call that a good day.

My plan had been to take the rest of the day off, drink some beers, and get Tuck to play some Steve Earle and Willie Nelson on the good speakers, instead of his usual hair band shit. That plan was now in jeopardy because the skinny stranger had snarled something about fucking faggots at the talking heads on the TV screen just as Tuck had tipped the tap handle for my India pale ale.

The man’s timing was unfortunate. Ollie, who had been sitting nearby draining a double bourbon, planned to marry a big bearded guy named Rush who looked almost like Ollie’s own twin. Read into that what you will, but I don’t care to examine it too closely. Anyway, Ollie didn’t like the stranger’s comment about gay people one damned little bit. Words were exchanged, drinks were spilled, and the next thing you know I’ve got a very large smelly man in motorcycle togs locked under my arm and a scrawny perfumed stranger scooting across the floor and leaving black marks from his boots.

My damned cell phone was buzzing in my pocket, too. That probably was a work call, and another reason to be cranky.

I locked my eyes on the skinny stranger, who had a pinched face, goatee, and dark arched eyebrows that made him look like a ring-master at a circus run by Stephen King, or maybe Neil Gaiman. I hoped to keep the combatants apart long enough for them to see sense. I knew Ollie and figured he would calm down quickly. I did not know the scarecrow with the broken nose, but if he gave up, I thought I might even get out of this mess without paperwork. There was a chance of that, anyway, as long as the string bean on the floor didn’t pull the knife.

He pulled the knife.

I rolled my eyes at the switchblade that suddenly appeared like a magician’s paper bouquet in his right hand. I’m a cop. Drop that.

Fuck you, the idiot said, trying to get up.

The key to such situations is remaining calm, dispassionate.

I shoved Ollie away, calmly and dispassionately, and he crashed into the wall. I considered calmly and dispassionately kicking knife boy in the nuts, and figured I had every right to do so. That would have been unprofessional, though, and probably would have gotten my leg sliced. I drew my weapon instead.

Mine shoots a lot farther than yours, I said. Drop the blade.

He dropped the blade, but something in his demeanor told me he had stared down the barrel of a gun before.

Shove that thing as far from you as you can, I ordered, and he complied.

I stepped back so I could keep both men covered, even though I was not too concerned about Ollie.

Ollie moaned, Holy shit.

It’s going to be OK, Ollie. I looked at the skinny idiot. I am Detective Ed Runyon, Mifflin County Sheriff’s Office, and you both are under arrest. I recited the rest of the Miranda stuff. I don’t think either guy was really listening.

I can’t get arrested, Ollie said. Rush is gonna be pissed.

You can kiss and make up later, I said. I can’t ignore a bar fight, Ollie. I really wished to hell I could ignore it, but taxpayers wouldn’t like it, and neither would my boss.

The phone in my pocket kept buzzing.

Ollie inhaled deeply, hands on his knees, and blew out a loud sound, something between a whoa and a whew. It could have been a blowing whale, it was so loud. He spun, lost balance, and fell back against the wall again. With that additional data, I concluded the double bourbon had been Ollie’s third.

One of the traffic signs that pass for fancy decor at Tucker’s Bar and Grill clattered to the floor as Ollie slid down on his ass. The sign said Falling Rock Zone. I didn’t have time to laugh at that or make a wisecrack. Neither did the huge dead buck’s head hanging above.

Somewhere behind the bar, I heard Tuck say thanks. He popped up from cover and placed his cell phone on the bar. Help is on the way, Ed. Dispatcher said they are close by.

The stranger stayed on the floor, and snarled a bit. Fucking cop, man. This was a setup.

You are under arrest for attempted assault with a deadly weapon, I told the stranger. I aimed at his sweaty face. Plus, you know, actual assault. Probably some other shit. I will figure it all out later. Do not move.

He didn’t move.

Me, too, Ed? Ollie’s question was expressed mostly in burps.

You’re under arrest, too, Ollie.

Damn, Ed. Sorry. His face, the part that showed through all the beard, anyway, was beet red. It got redder.

A few minutes later a siren split the air somewhere nearby, and I heard tires squealing through a tight turn. Another siren sounded from the north, and I heard a cruiser brake hard outside.

Hail, hail, the gang’s all here, I said.

Tuck had a short-barreled shotgun leaning against his shoulder. I popped your brew into the fridge, Ed.

Thanks. Best service anywhere. My phone was still vibrating, but I ignored it and kept an eye on the man on the floor. You can put the shotgun away, Tuck. Cavalry’s coming.

Right.

Soon after Tuck had put away his shotgun and Ollie had started breathing normally, Deputies Scott Baxter and Irwin Trumpower came through the door, guns drawn. Bax was low, Trumpower was high, and they made it look just like on TV. Trumpower was more Hill Street, while Bax was more Mayberry, but still, just like on TV.

The guns went back into their holsters pretty quickly, though. Irwin, the senior of the two, spoke. Got it all under control, Ed?

Looks that way, Trump.

Do not call me that. His forehead, which always looked crinkled with concern even when he was telling a dirty joke, folded into deeper furrows.

Everyone calls you that, I said. Have for years.

Not anymore, Trumpower said. He added under his breath, I watched the news today. Fuck that fucking guy.

Should’ve heard him this morning, Baxter whispered, aiming a thumb at Trumpower. Madder than a wet cow on a Tuesday.

What does that even mean, Bax? Bax was known for having a blender somewhere between his brain and his mouth, and things came out of him a little mixed up.

Just means Irwin was upset about being called Trump, is all. Baxter looked a little wounded.

OK, I said. Irwin it is. Cuff these guys for me? The gentleman there on the floor first, please. A count of assault against each, and attempt with a deadly on a peace officer against Skinny. Bag the knife there, too. It’s under that table. I pointed. It belongs to Skinny. Got his nice, grimy fingerprints all over it.

Trumpower cuffed Skinny. Baxter, who swears he’s older than thirty but looks like he should be playing the nice teen boy next door on an old-fashioned sitcom, cuffed Ollie and raised his eyebrows. What started it?

I holstered my gun, and pulled my phone from my pocket. That one there, I said, pointing at Skinny, exercised his free speech rights to say nasty things about gay people. Ollie exercised his free speech rights to call Skinny a stupid piece of shit, if I recall correctly. He might have called him a fucking stupid piece of shit, actually. I wasn’t really taking notes. Anyway, things sort of went downhill from there. The marketplace of ideas in all its glory, the epitome of civil debate. Like Twitter, only you could actually smell it.

Huh? Baxter never knew what the hell I was talking about, which evened the score a little bit regarding my inability to translate his habitual mixed metaphors into English. Trumpower got a laugh out of it, though. He had a good sense of humor, even if teasing him about his last name apparently was a bad idea now.

Never mind, Bax. I finally glanced at my phone, and it buzzed again. It was the sheriff calling. I did not answer immediately. You guys have any idea why Daltry might be calling me? He knew I had a date with a few beers.

No idea, Trumpower said. "He doesn’t have