Chapter 63
I WAS IN MY OFFICE. Pearl was asleep on the couch. It was raining outside, and the colorful umbrellas over boots and fashionable raincoats were flowering once more on Berkeley Street. The office door opened. Pearl's head went up. Royce Garner came in and closed the door behind him and pointed a gun at me.
"I'm going to kill you," he said.
With his orotund voice, he sounded like Richard Nixon. Pearl growled.
He turned toward her with the gun, and I shot him at an angle in the backside, so that the bullet passed through and lodged in the far wall. Confined by the small room, the gunshot hurt my ears. Garner fell over. Pearl jumped from the couch and scuttled behind my desk. Still holding the gun, I patted her as I went past her to Garner.
"Should have kept the gun on me," I said. "I'm a lot more dangerous than Pearl."
"You shot me," he gasped. "You shot me."
I picked up his gun carefully and went back to my desk and put it in a large plastic Baggie. I put my gun back in the holster. Then I called 911 and ordered up an ambulance.
"Help me," he said. "I'll die if you don't help me."
"No you won't," I said. "You got shot in the ass. You're not even bleeding that bad."
I went to the sink and got a hand towel and folded it up tightly and walked to Garner and squatted down beside him.
"Oh, God," he said. "This hurts. I'm bleeding."
I pressed the towel against his wound.
"Roll over so you're lying on the towel," I said. "It'll be like a pressure bandage."
"I can't move," he said.
"Oh," I said. "Well, maybe you will bleed to death."
He groaned and struggled over onto his side and groaned again, but his weight was on the wound and the towel. I stood and leaned my butt against the front edge of my desk. Pearl peered bravely around the edge of the desk at Garner.
"Ow," he said. "It's, like, burning."
"Ambulance is coming," I said.
"I wasn't ... going to ... shoot you," Garner said. "I just wanted to talk."
"Which is why you brought a gun and pointed it at me and said. . ." I dropped my voice, imitating him: "I'm going to kill you."
"I wasn't going ... to."
"Sure you were," I said. "I'm the only one that knew about the pictures and all. With me dead, you'd have everything back under control. You would be president of a nice junior college. The kid would be away for life. Beth Ann would be hauling your ashes again, and you'd have a nice alternative to the alcoholic oinker you married."
"No," Garner said. "No, I was just going to talk. I can give you some money, maybe. I'm an educator. We don't have a lot."
I shook my head.
"Pal, you don't have anything at all," I said.
I could hear the siren sound in the distance. Pearl crept out from behind the desk and went to Garner and sniffed at him. She was interested in the blood.
"Don't let her hurt me," he said.
I said, "Pearl."
And she came.
I said, "Sit."
And she sat.
I knew it wouldn't last, but it was pretty impressive.
Two uniforms came into my office first, then two EMTs, then Belson. When Pearl saw Belson, she stood and wagged her tail and walked over to him. The EMTs got busy with Garner.
"I saw the call and recognized the address," Belson said. "I didn't want to miss out on anything."
"Too bad it's not a happier occasion," I said.
I went to my desk and got Garner's gun and handed it in its bag to Belson. He took it and handed it on to one of the uniforms.
"This might be evidence," Belson said. "Try not to lose it."
"He tried to kill me, officer," Garner said as importantly as he could.
The EMTs had pulled his pants down to put a pressure bandage on the wound, so that sounding important wasn't easy. Belson looked down at him for a moment or two, scratching Pearl's ear absently.
"Goddamn," he said to me. "You got another one."