Gun Machine

Sixteen

TALLOW, SCARLY, and Bat tumbled out of the Fetch sometime after eleven. Tallow wasn’t drunk, and he was quite deliberately not completely relaxed, but he felt better about the world than he had when he’d entered the place. Bat and Scarly were, however, in states of reasonably confused refreshment.

Scarly put her hands in her pockets and smiled up at Tallow. “We are going home now. I am going home to my wife, and Bat is going home to his whatever Bat does when no one is looking.”

“Save the phone number for the night before your next day off, will you?” Bat giggled.

“You incredible fuckbag. That’s it. You’re paying for the cab, and the cab will drop me at home first.”

“Whatever,” Bat said, still giggling as he started off down the street. “Let’s find a fucking cab, then. G’night, John.”

“Night.” Tallow smiled and watched them stagger away. Ahead of them, he could see a man in pink denim pants and a knitted cape and hat half limping, half skipping toward the pair, singing something Tallow couldn’t make out. Another street guy. Mismatched sneakers. Obviously mentally ill and, from the way his limbs jerked, probably also physically ill. Scarly must’ve given him her scary glare, because Tallow watched the poor man dance around her and Bat like they were on fire.

Tallow laughed, quietly, and stood there for a moment more, in front of the alley, and looked up at the sky. A few stars had poked their way out through the scattered cloud and light pollution. He wondered, briefly, about those places he’d heard about, where you could see all the stars at night. People had told him about being able to see the Milky Way. He could never imagine how that was even possible.

These were stars enough for him.

He felt a hand yank at the laptop bag in his fist.

The man in the pink pants and knitted cape was next to him, trying to drag the bag away from Tallow with one hand. His mouth was fixed in a snarl, and Tallow smelled ethanol and eucalyptus panted out through the gaps in his teeth. He was shockingly strong. He pulled again, and Tallow felt his fingers give around the handle of the bag.

Which still had his firearm in it.

Tallow then saw, in the man’s other hand, a short green plastic children’s ruler, a wedge snapped off the end to make it into a point, looking like it’d been roughly ground against curb or sidewalk to sharpen it. For a millisecond Tallow noticed and registered a cartoon Indian chief’s face printed on the plastic, just above the man’s grip, smiling and giving the peace sign.

At which point, Tallow stopped thinking. He got his other hand around the back of the man’s neck, used the man’s momentum from his yank at the bag to spin him around and drive him face-first into the alleyway wall. Tallow heard the shattering of the man’s teeth and the crunch of his nose crushing inward. The man made a noise like a snorkel trying to suck air through tar and collapsed.

Tallow heard Bat saying “John?” closer than he’d expected. He turned to see that Bat and Scarly had run back to him.

“My gun’s in the bag,” Tallow said, breathing fast. “I took it off when I went into the bar.”

“Shit,” said Scarly, looking at the pile of man in the alleyway mouth. Tallow wondered why she sounded impressed.

Tallow’s brain kicked back into gear. “You see any CCTV around here? I don’t want to have been seen.”

Bat found the green shank. He didn’t touch it, just poked at it with his shoe. “Jesus, look at this. Why does it matter if someone saw you? The asshole could have killed you.”

“Because my firearm wasn’t secured, because the asshole has no face now, and because I’ve been put on the Pearl Street case to fail. I’m being set up so they can take me off the force for PTSD.” He was suddenly cold, and his heart rate was up like a runner’s, and he was saying too much. It wasn’t good enough. Tallow held a breath and closed everything down, looking at his unconscious assailant. That was a Jim Rosato move right here, he thought.

Scarly was already looking up and down the street. “No CCTV coverage. But the longer we stay here chatting like morons, the better the chance of someone else coming out of the bar or just wandering by.”

“Give me your lighter,” said Bat. There was a sharp snap of professional appraisal in his voice that made Tallow hand it over without question.

“It’s just a disposable,” Tallow commented.

“Good,” said Bat, prying the top off with surprisingly strong fingers. “You only touched him at the back of the neck, right?”

Tallow nodded. Bat emptied the lighter fluid over the back of the man’s neck. He then kicked the shank back into the man’s potential reach.

“You’re going to set fire to his neck?” Tallow asked, not completely certain that he wanted to ask that of a CSU or get an answer.

Bat tossed both parts of the lighter as far down the alley as he could. “No. The butane will fuck up any epithelial cells you might have transferred to the back of his neck. Just in case anyone gives enough of a shit to check him over.”

“Go home, John,” said Scarly. “Now.”

And Tallow would have, were he less fascinated by the abrupt transformation of his companions.

“What do you think?” asked Bat, stepping back to survey the picture.

Scarly leaned to one side, squinted. “Kick his head around so it’s facing away from the street. It’ll look more like he’s sleeping rough.”

Bat used his toe to shift the man’s head. The man gurgled. “Fuck it,” said Bat, and kicked him in the temple. The man’s head turned; now he was facing the alley.

“Good enough. Go home, John. And if you take your gun off again for any reason I will shoot you myself and then we’ll make it look like you committed suicide. Am I making myself completely clear here?”

“Yeah,” said Tallow.

She gave him a shove in the shoulder to start him across the street. “We’ll see you in the morning. C’mon, Bat, let’s find that cab.”

Tallow stopped, turned to them, and, with nothing more useful to contribute, simply said “Thank you.”

Bat gave his weird grin. “Hey. We’re partners now.”

Tallow went back to his car and started for home, having decided once and for all that CSUs really were completely insane.