Page 43 of Pro Bono

The doorknob turned, the door swung inward, and his arms were in motion, bringing the golf club straight down as soon as the space appeared. In the light from the hallway, he saw the head of the club land squarely on a man’s forearm. The man let out a sound that conveyed shock and pain and dropped to his knees, trying to grip his injured arm. Warren was already raising the club for another swing, but when it was halfway up, he saw a second man step up behind the first. He recognized him as the one who had fired a shot through his backpack yesterday, and also recognized the movement he’d made to pull the gun out of his jacket.

Realizing that he didn’t have the second he needed, Warren stopped raising his golf club, pushed off with his feet, and jabbed the club straight into the man’s mustache, so it hit the lower part of his nose and his upper teeth at once. The man staggered backward, both hands coming up to clutch his face. Warren saw blood flowing between his fingers. Warren brought the club upward again and swung it down on the first man’s back. The man let out a howl and began to crawl out of the doorway, but he was slow because his right arm was bent and held up to his chest.

Warren knew he couldn’t afford to ignore the man he knew had a gun, so he charged out over the crawling man’s back to reach the one he’d poked in the face. He swung hard at him in a diagonal, chopping arc, but the man saw it coming and dodged to the side, so the club’s head came down in a glancing blow on the man’s shoulder. Warren could tell it hurt, but it didn’t seem to disable the man, because his right hand slid toward the inside of his coat again. The man was ignoring the damage he had sustained and moving faster now, and Warren saw the arm moving to withdraw the gun from the coat.

Warren took a two-handed swing that met the man’s elbow as the gun hand emerged. In the instant when the impact pounded the man’s arm back into his coat, the gun went off. The bullet didn’t seem to hit anyone, and the gun slid down past the waist of his coat to the floor.

“Police! Nobody move!” The voice was loud and authoritative, but the man on the floor reached for the pistol on the carpet with his one uninjured arm. The same voice continued, “Go for it. Say hi to Jesus for me.”

The assailant seemed to realize he had no chance, and he slumped down onto his belly with his arms out from his sides.

Another voice said, “I guess Jesus will have to wait.”

The two men dressed in plainclothes stepped in, took the pistol, and put the second man belly-down on the floor. As they dragged the two intruders’ wrists behind them for the handcuffs, both let out groans of pain. “I think it’s broken,” the one with no mustache said.

“Shut up,” the other officer said. The two men on the floor didn’t seem to notice that he and his partner were a bit older than the usual responders to emergency calls. Their rough, authoritative manner carried the kind of confidence that came with rank.

The Black officer tugged the arm of the man with a mustache. “Get up. You’re under arrest.”

“Call for an ambulance. This guy assaulted us.”

The white officer said, “If you come easy, we’ll get you fixed up. If not, you’ll have to talk to the officers who come next.”

The man with a mustache struggled to get up, so the two police officers tugged him up. His friend saw that, and tried to get up, so they pulled him to his feet too. The Black officer said to Warren, “Sir, you’ll be contacted within a few minutes by officers who will take your statement. Please wait for them inside, and don’t clean up anything out here.”

“All right,” Warren said. He watched Copes and Minkeagan pull the two injured men down the stairs to the small lobby, out the front door to the street. Warren stepped inside and nearly bumped into Vesper, who was wearing the football shirt and pajama pants and gripping the biggest butcher knife from the block.

She said, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, so far,” he said. “How about you?”

“Nothing happened to me. I heard my kidnappers’ voices. Did they turn on you?”

“No, the opposite. I think Copes and Minkeagan must have been keeping an eye on me so I wouldn’t cut them out of the money I promised, and when they saw those guys had broken in, they followed them and pretended to be cops. They’re protecting their money, not us. And they have guns again.”

She said, “This is all so crazy.” After a moment she said, “You’re covered with sweat.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in a fight. I forgot how tired it makes you, like you strained every muscle. And when the adrenaline stops flowing, it leaves you feeling kind of hollow.”

Copes and Minkeagan pushed the two handcuffed men ahead of them to the Ford sedan parked thirty feet past the edge of the condominium building. Copes said, “Listen carefully. I’m going to ask you a few questions now. If you lie to us, I don’t know what my partner will do, but I know you’ll wish you were back up there with that guy and his golf club. First question. Is this your car?”

The man with the mustache nodded and the other said, “Yes.”

Minkeagan patted that one down and took a wallet from his pocket, then did the same to the other one, who also had keys. He unlocked the car, opened the door, and used the dome light to search the wallets. He held up a plastic card. “This one is an ex-cop. It’s an out-of-date ID from Missouri.”

Copes said, “Check the other one.”

After about five seconds Minkeagan held up another card, and said, “Him too.” Almost immediately he added, “This one’s older. He was a cop in Tennessee before that.”

Copes said, “You guys were fired. Did you really think you’d get hired here? You can’t just drive to a station in California and think your record hasn’t chased you here. We probably already have it.”

The one with the mustache said, “We weren’t looking for law enforcement jobs.” He had a hard time getting all of that said, and he’d started to bleed from his mouth again.

“I don’t judge. It makes me feel a little sympathy for you.” He looked at Minkeagan. “Do you think we could consider offering these two a break? A little professional courtesy?”

Minkeagan looked them up and down. “It depends on how bad they want out of this, and whether we can trust them not to be stupid. One chance.”

“Thanks,” Copes said. “What did you want with that guy with the golf club?”

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