This “gift” came to me when I was all of twenty-two years old. I was a m
iddling college football player who walked on to an NFL team carrying only fair ability, but a ferocious chip on my shoulder. I stepped on the field for the first game of the season after playing my butt off during the preseason and surviving the final cut. I’m on the kickoff team. My job is simple: Sacrifice my body to create mayhem and holes in the return team so other guys can make the stop. I run my ass down the field. I’m about to make mayhem. I’m running so hard that snot is flying from my nose and spit from my mouth. I’m being paid more money than I’ve ever made in my life. I aim to earn it. I’m about to lay some dude out, stone cold out.
And that’s all I remember. Dwayne LeCroix, a rookie out of LSU, was five inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter than me but apparently a force to be reckoned with, because he laid me out on that field with a hit I never saw coming. The dude blew me up, as they say in the NFL. He would be out of the league in four years with both knees devoid of cartilage, his left shoulder pared down to nothing but bone on bone, and his bank account overdrawn. He was currently residing in a max prison in Shreveport for crimes committed against his fellow humans, and he would die there one day either soon or distant. But on that day he walked away, fist pumping and sauntering like the cock over the hens, while I lay on the field unconscious.
And after that collision nothing for me would ever be the same.
Not a damn thing.
Chapter
7
DECKER OPENED HIS eyes when he heard the commotion across the street. Doors were being thrown open. Cars were squealing as rubber kissed pavement way too hard. Sirens sounded. Raised voices, metal clattering on metal. Heavy boots on concrete.
He stepped clear of the alley and looked across the street as patrol cars, sirens wailing, poured out of the precinct’s underground garage. More officers and plainclothes had burst out of the front door of the precinct and raced to cruisers and unmarked cars parked on the street.
He continued to watch as a bulky SWAT truck lumbered down a side alley on the precinct side of the street, made its turn, and then the driver slammed his foot on the gas and the metal rhino charged down the road.
Decker inched closer to the street, joining a bunch of citizens who had appeared from the crevices of their lives to watch this disturbing spectacle. He listened to the others to see if they knew what was happening, but everyone there seemed to be stunned by what they were seeing.
Decker hurried across the street when he saw the man emerge from the precinct.
“Pete?” said Decker.
The man was dressed in a suit with stains on the sleeve. He was in his early sixties, very near retirement, slightly stooped and with comb-over gray hair. He stopped and looked up at him. Decker could see that Pete Rourke had his service weapon out and was checking the mag.
“Amos? What the hell are you doing here?“
“I was just passing by. What’s going on?”
Pete turned pale and looked ready to collapse on the pavement. “Got some sicko at Mansfield High School. Walked in loaded for war and started shooting up the place. Lots of bodies, Decker. Mostly kids. I gotta go.” He let out a quick sob. “Shit, my grandson goes there. He’s just a freshman. Don’t know if he…”
He turned and stumbled toward his car, a light tan Malibu, fell inside, started it up, and left tire rubber on the street.
Decker watched him go. An army of cops heading to a shot-up high school? Mansfield High. Where Decker had gone, a thousand years ago.
He looked around as the sounds of the sirens dissipated. The folks across the street were dispersing, returning to their slivers of existence. Many were checking their phones for news. Decker did the same, but there was nothing as yet. It was all still just happening. However, the news would pick it up and then not let it go.
Until the next shooting came along. Then they would rush headlong that way.
Until the next one.
Decker stared up at the door to the precinct. He wondered how many personnel would be left in the building. Surely they would have kept some behind. They had a high-profile prisoner in a cage there.
He touched the bulge of the gun at his waistband. That would be a problem. A magnetometer was right inside the front door. He looked around and spotted the trash can next to the building. He walked over and lifted the top. It was barely a quarter full. Trash pickup wasn’t until the end of the week, he recalled. There was a rag on top of the trash pile. He slipped out his gun, wrapped it in the rag, and set it down in the can.
He looked down at his clothes. Another problem. He glanced around and saw the storefront. He had bought some things there before. A long time before.
Grady’s Big and Tall Shop.
Well, I’m big and I’m tall. Right now I’m bigger than I am tall.
He slid out his credit card. It had a limit. A pretty low limit. But it might just be enough.
He went to the shop and the doorbell tinkled when he walked in.
A well-dressed, rotund man came over to him and then just as quickly took a step back.
“Can I help you?” he said from a respectful distance. He probably thought Decker was homeless and looking to rob him.
Decker took out his wallet and flashed his PI badge. He did it fast so it looked like something else. He glanced down the street toward the precinct to add another layer to this subterfuge. Lying did not come naturally to him. And after the hit on the gridiron his filter had been vastly reduced, so it was even harder for him not to always tell the literal truth. He instinctively craved precision and was reluctant to accept anything less than that. Yet as a policeman who often moved in the underbelly of the criminal world, he had had to prevaricate. As a detective and now a PI, he had to be able to bullshit, otherwise his job would have been impossible. He had finally struck on a method that had seemed to work.
I will lie, perfectly.
He said to the man, “I’ve been working an assignment for too long. Let myself go. Chase rats you have to look like one. Gotta get back to civilization. Understand?”
The man had followed Decker’s gaze to the precinct and nodded. His manner relaxed. He even smiled.
“You’re not the first,” he said encouragingly. “We get lots of customers from the Burlington Police Department.”
“I’ve shopped here before,” said Decker.
“Sure, I remember you,” lied the man.
Decker shopped fast. Jacket, size fifty-four extra long. Pants, size forty-eight, which were still snug, and he let his belly droop over the waistband as many out-of-shape men did. He opted against purchasing a belt. His pants were definitely not going to fall down. Luckily his legs were long and he could get a pair already hemmed that fit. Shirt, mammoth. Tie, cheap but effective. Shoes, size fourteens. He opted for the faux leather. They pinched his feet. He didn’t care.
“Wouldn’t happen to have a brush and an electric razor?” asked Decker, looking in the mirror.
“In our toiletries section over here.”
“Briefcase?”
“Accessories, over here.”
He paid for everything on credit. When Decker asked, the clerk threw in a legal pad and some pens that he had behind the counter in a box of office supplies.
“They keep cutting our budget,” Decker explained. “How do we protect people if we can’t even afford pens?”
“It’s a crying shame,” said the man. “World’s going to hell. You interested in a tie clip or pocket square?”
Decker took everything to the restroom, rinsed off in the sink, rolled on antiperspirant he had purchased, buzzed off much of his beard, leaving only a shallow layer of fuzz over his chin, jaw, and upper lip, trimmed and tidied his hair, dressed in his new clothes and shoes, and put the old ones in the store’s bag.
He walked out carrying the bag and headed back to the precinct. The tie cut into his throat, and despite the deodorant, he already felt a bit sweaty under the armpits, though the air was cool. But he didn’t look like he had looked before. He hadn’t looked this respec
table even when he’d been a cop.
He added the bag of clothes to the gun in the trash can and marched up the steps of the precinct. He knew this was stupid. Insane. He hadn’t been gone that long from the force. He could be recognized at any moment, like with Pete Rourke. But he didn’t care. He really didn’t. This was his shot. Maybe his only one. He was taking it.
He cleared the magnetometer. There was one young cop in the