An Ordinary Decent Criminal Read Online Free Page B

“Hasn’t my client been allowed to go to the bathroom yet?”
    Walsh didn’t move his hand from the gun. “He was busy confessing. He got all caught up in unburdening his soul and time just flew.”
    Thompson stepped a little closer to Walsh and his knuckles whitened around the pen.
    “My client is also looking a little battered. That didn’t happen when he was in your custody, did it? That would be unfortunate for you.”
    “That kind of shit just breaks my heart. Don’t worry, your client was treated like gold here. Pure gold.”
    “Fine. After this I want to see whomever’s in charge.”
    Walsh was acquiring an audience as cops in uniforms and plainclothes showed up along with clerks to peer in like spectators at azoo. The smells of fresh coffee and tobacco smoke filled the interrogation room and made my stomach knot and I realized I was real close to pissing my pants. Elena Ramirez, the cop from the house, was in the front row and watching blank-faced.
    “That’d be Lieutenant Ross. He just got in. He’s reading Haaviko’s statement in his office. I’m sure he’d love to speak with you. Let me set it up.”
    The pain was growing worse and my head was aching. My voice slurred when I spoke and my tongue felt fat and thick, like an un-inked stamp pad. “Can I please use the bathroom?”
    “Sure.”
    Daniels stepped forward at Walsh’s gesture and started to usher me off to the left. My eyes were tearing and I wondered if I was going to throw up again. I stopped worrying when I realized there was probably nothing left in my stomach to throw up, even if I wanted to.
    “Mr. Thompson, come with me, please,” I said.
    I blinked back the tears and looked directly at Walsh.
    “Please, I just don’t want to get beaten again.”
    Everyone flinched and then slipped back to work and a twitch started under Walsh’s right eye, but he remained silent as Daniels led me and Thompson to the bathroom. We passed through a big room full of desks with glass-walled offices on two walls and interview rooms along the third. The fourth wall was covered in corkboard tiles holding notices and pictures and that held doors to the bathrooms.
    Daniels looked at me impassively. “Leave the stall open.”
    The cop leaned back against the sinks and watched me with his arms crossed while Thompson turned around to wash his face. I used one hand to brace myself while manipulating the soft, plastic zipper down the front of the overalls. The overalls were one piece and it was a practiced humiliation that made it necessary to remove your clothes all the way down to the ankles to use a toilet. I did it without thinking and pissed a weak, pain-filled arc.
    I stared and puzzled out loud. “Red?”
    The bowl filled as I watched but my brain didn’t register at first.
    “Red means blood.”
    It came out in a trickle, diluted with urine, and the pain spiked and I doubled over as Thompson and the cop rushed over.
    “Oh shit.”
    Suddenly the cop was trying to hold me up and then I heard Thompson dialing his cell phone and asking for an ambulance and then I passed out.

5

    The hospital bed was a deeply comfortable nest of crisp white cotton and I was out, out, out.
    The five milligrams of generic Valium the nurse had forced on me hadn’t been necessary and I tongued it out once she’d left the room, but I had to keep it in my mouth because of the lady cop across the room from me. They’d let Claire and Fred in to visit and my wife squeezed my right hand, as it was closest. Each hand was handcuffed to the bed frame and the contact of flesh to flesh made me smile. From her arms, Fred looked solemnly down.
    “You want it?”
    I’d told her about the pill in my cheek and she shook her head. The cop raised her eyes at my whisper but nothing happened and she went back to reading an old issue of
Guns and Ammo
magazine.
    “Keep it, just in case. You look like shit. Consider it your kryptonite crucifix.” That made me smile something weak and