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But it wasn't just the danger right then and there. He resented that portable
cage-for-the-arms, that turned him from Torrie Thorsen into something helpless
and dependent on the goodwill of people he didn't know and didn't much like.
No, this hadn't been the time to break free, not caring what the consequences
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were. But maybe next time would be. He'd be ready then.
"Hey, shit happens, er..." he looked down, ". .. Thor-ian. Sorry about the
cuffs, but, you know ..."
"Yeah, Stan, I'm sure shit does happen."
Sergeant Donaldson, badge number 615, a white-haired, thick-set, fiftyish man
who reminded Torrie vaguely of Charles Bronson, wrinkled his forehead as he
looked down from his place behind the counter. "Stan?"
"Your name isn't Stan?"
"No. It's Bob. You can call me Sergeant Donaldson, if you don't mind."
"And you can call me Mr. Thorsen, Sergeant Donaldson. If you don't mind."
After a moment's hesitation, Donaldson's broad face split in a
not-entirely-friendly grin. "Okay; I get the point. It's just procedure, you
know, Mr. Thorsen."
"Right, sure."
Yes, Torrie knew what it was. Standard procedure. Standard city police
procedure.
In the city, everybody was always suspected of anything, and if you saw
somebody who was only trying to help standing over a body, you assumed he was
a vicious murderer, and you pointed guns at him and threatened to shoot him,
and you slammed him up against the side of a building and handcuffed him.
Then you threw him in the back of a cop car, and you made him call you sir
while you first-named him, and the combination of that and the fact that
you've got the guy goddamn handcuffed and in the back of a police car, sitting
behind a wire grating, gives you some sort of psychological edge in wringing
information preferably a confession out of a guy.
And if he actually did what you think he did, so much the better, right? It
was the old Ed Meese "If they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be suspects"
thing.
It also came far closer than Torrie liked to taking away his dignity for
good. Asking permission to go to the bathroom didn't sit well with him, and
from the moment the cops had put the cuffs on his wrists, the thing he had
wanted to do most of all, silly as it sounded, was to take a leak.
And maybe, even, if you didn't get him to confess to whatever it was that you
suspected him of, maybe he had something else to hide, something that he'd
blurt out in exchange for a Coke, or a trip to the bathroom, or just a kind
word and a pat on the head.
And maybe Torrie had come too damn close to talking for his own comfort.
Maybe. Maybe the only thing that had stopped him was that he knew he wouldn't
be believed.
"Relax," the cop said. "There's no charges, no yellow sheet, and hey, once
this all shakes out, I'm sure the chief is going to write you a nice attaboy
for all your help." He shrugged. "Not that I think that running out into the
night to chase down a scream makes a lot of sense for civilians, but it's
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brave enough."
He tore open the yellow envelope and dumped the contents on the counter. "One
watch, Winton's Triple Calendar which means it isn't likely to be fake; who
fakes a Winton's? stainless, expensive. Very nice." He looked up. "Don't see a
lot of mechanical watches these days. One knife, handmade, also very nice, and
we're not going to look closely and see if it's an automatic, you being a hero
and all, Mr. Thorsen, rather than a scumbag. Fifty-three dollars and
forty-six, no, forty-seven cents in cash, a ring of assorted keys, one wallet,
complete with credit cards, see separate inventory, attached, and why they
bothered to grab that I don't know unless it's because they like making work
for me like the damn separate inventory, attached. Two condoms." He reached
behind the counter and came up with a long brown paper package, wrapped in
string. "One antique sword, wrapped up nice so that you don't get hassled on
your way home, open it and check it if you want to."
He spun the clipboard on the counter and slapped it to a stop with a
practiced motion. "Signhere, Mr. Thorsen, unless you want to claim you're
missing something, in which case you signhere, and list the missing
propertyhere, Mr. Thorsen." He handed the clipboard to Torrie and was silent
until Torrie signed with a quick scribble. "And yeah, I'll say for the record
that you and your friends were a bunch of idiots to stick your dicks out like
that, but shit, boy, you got guts. Not a lot of sense, but a lot of guts."
Torrie couldn't help smiling. "I'll tell Maggie you said that," he said.
"You do that, Mr. Thorsen. The girl's got balls, too." He took out a business
card and scribbled something quickly on the back of it. "This isn't exactly a
get-out-of-jail free card, Mr. Thorsen, but if you ever run into just a little
problem in this city, you give this to the officer and ask him to call me, and
I'll see if maybe, just maybe, the MPD can cut you a little slack." He slid
the card across the counter, and then waited until Torrie tucked it in his
shirt pocket before he stuck out a thick hand. "We okay, Torrie?" he asked,
his head cocked ever-so-slightly to one side.
"Sure, Bob," Torrie said. The cop's handshake was firm, but he wasn't a
squeezer. "You bet."
"Well, then, you take care." Donaldson picked up his pen and used it to point
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