At Their Own Game Read Online Free Page A

 
    “You know him, Boss?” Brent asked.  
    I nodded slowly. “Knew him.”  
    “He any good?”  
    “Depends on who you ask,” I said, staring at the stark print on the business card. “The brass doesn’t like him much. Neither do most of the other detectives.”  
    I ran my thumb across the business card, but it was flat, no fancy embossing to be had. That figured. Kyle wasn’t that kind of cop.  
    “Why not?” Matt asked. “He seemed like a halfway decent guy to me. For a cop, I mean. Maybe a little intense, but…”  
    “He’s pretty much a case-solving motherfucker,” I said.  
    “Oh. Well, it didn’t seem to me that he had any kind of case. Not by the questions he was asking me, anyway.”  
    “He’s got a case,” I said. “You can be sure of it.”  
    “You think maybe he’s onto Randall or Ozzy?” Brent asked. “And not us?”  
    I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”  
    “Maybe the score, then?”  
    “No. It’s me. I’m his case.”  
    “How do you know that?” Matt asked.  
    I almost laughed.  
    “Let me tell you a little story.”  
     

FOUR  
     
     
    Growing up in the Hillyard neighborhood, arguably the roughest part of Spokane, they used to tell us kids that we’d end up either cops or criminals. Our teenage years served as internships, where we got to decide which way we’d go. Or maybe it was decided for us. I don’t know.  
    I do know that I avoided getting into any serious trouble. Yeah, I smoked a little weed and I stole some shit, but never got caught.  
    Eventually, I got to not liking the kind of person I was becoming. I hung out with people who were drinking and smoking dope constantly and ripping each other off. I decided that wasn’t me. I wasn’t like that. Wasn’t a bad guy. I even got a little self-righteous about it, and maybe that’s what eventually caused my downfall. Karma is a bitch, and she doesn’t forget.  
    So I became a cop. Maybe it was to prove I was different. And maybe for a while, I was. I didn’t know for sure. Truth be told, I still don’t.  
    When I first came on the job, I was as full of piss and vinegar as any other rookie. I bought into that bullshit about honor and service. Hell, maybe it wasn’t bullshit. Maybe it was real, and it just turned into bullshit later.  
    I remember riding around with my first training officer, a huge black man named Perry. He’d gone to Rogers High three years ahead of me, and played football. He was a brutal linebacker. One game, I watched him from the bleachers as he crushed the quarterback with a blind side sack, knocking him out of the game. The very next play, he sacked the backup quarterback, too. He didn’t knock the backup out of the game, but he must’ve put the fear of Perry into him, because that guy hurried his passes and threw air balls for the rest of the game.  
    Perry played college ball and then he hung it up. I always thought he’d have a shot at the pros, but when I asked him about it, he snorted.  
    “I’m not putting that kind of shit into my body,” was all he said, and I understood.  
    Perry was smart. Not only street smart, but he took advantage of that full ride to WSU and got his degree in criminal justice. On top of all that, for a big man, he still moved fast.  
    He showed me how to talk to people nice, and how to talk to them mean. He showed me how to chase bad guys and what to do when I caught them. He showed me how not to fuck up my paperwork, and not to trust the brass. Perry was good people, and a great cop.  
    All of that, and yet the best advice he ever gave me was the one piece of his advice that I didn’t listen to.  
    “Don’t ever,” he said, “ ever , sleep with another cop’s wife or girlfriend. Even if the man is fool enough to have one of each.”  
    We were driving slowly down Regal, checking alleys at three in the morning, looking for car prowlers.  
    I shrugged. “Okay.”  
    “I mean this, Stank.” Perry