A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames (rocket ebook reader .txt) 📕

that, but Mullen, especially, could tell I was holding out. He was a good reader of people. His eyes in his big round head were shrewd, and he was one of those types who understood others but not himself. And I’m the same way. I’m not fat, but I have other blind spots.

When we got to the station, they put me in a small, windowless interrogation room and told me to wait. The room was bare and bleak and only had two chairs, one of which I was sitting on. There wasn’t even a table.

But so far, so good, I thought. They were just bullying me and had nothing.

Though if they were to interview my neighbors in the morning, I might be in trouble. Somebody could have peeked out and seen me leave and then come back in the Maverick.

But there had been no lights on in any of my neighbors’ houses, and cars, at all hours, wander up Glen Alder hoping to find a parking spot but almost never do, and then they make a U-turn in the cul-de-sac. So sounds of cars coming and going wouldn’t be paid much attention to, wouldn’t be remembered.

Of course, one of my neighbors could have had insomnia and been staring out the window, but…well, I was on the Dilaudid and feeling tough and sort of dreamy. Even the handcuffs weren’t bothering me.

Then a big man came into the room. One of the biggest I’ve ever seen, and he closed the door behind him. He was at least six nine, well over 300 pounds, and all of it was hardened with age like a thick tree.

He was in his early sixties—his hair was a grizzled white and cut to the nub like a Marine’s. He looked familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place him. Which troubled me. You couldn’t forget a specimen like this. His chin was huge and jutting, and his large, porous nose, veined by booze, looked like something that sucks along the bottom of an aquarium. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his old but powerful arms were covered in coarse red hair, like wire.

Where do I know him?

He sidled over to me and stood in front of me. His eyes were close-set and dilated. All iris, no pupil. Black circles.

“You’re Hank Doll?” he said. He had a deep voice. Was used to being listened to, obeyed.

“Yeah,” I said. “You work with the station commander?”

His answer was a large gun that suddenly blossomed in his hand.

A .357 Magnum with a hard wooden handle.

It had been tucked into the back of his pants, and he shifted the weapon in his hand and took hold of the barrel.

“You’re a fucking bastard,” he said.

Then he raised the gun into the air above my head, and there was enough time for me to think, Oh, shit.

Then he swung the handle down at my face, rotating his hips and putting all his weight into it, like he was swinging a baseball bat, and he aimed the gun handle right for the center of my bandage, and it exploded my wound, and I went flying off the chair and onto the floor.

I was seeing colors and lightning flashes, and I wiggled and crawled like a bug, and then I looked up and he was looming over me, a cruel god, and now I knew why he was familiar. In the father you could see the son. It was Bill Lusk. Carl Lusk’s dad.

“I’m sorry about your son,” I started to say, but that only seemed to make him more angry. He was wearing heavy black shoes and he kicked me in the head, and I saw what looked like a Ferris wheel made of blood.

Then I went to sleep, but did not dream.

7.

Thode and Mullen actually seemed to feel a little bad for me.

They had set me up with Lusk—the commander had no interest in seeing me; that had been a bullshit story—but they didn’t know Lusk would fuck me up as much as he did. So they drove me themselves to the Presbyterian and escorted me into the emergency room, flashed their badges, and got me seen right away.

I had told them in the car, “Don’t worry—I’m not going to say or do anything,” and they seemed to believe me, and they were right to. I’d been a cop once. I wasn’t going to sue the LAPD. I couldn’t. No matter what. It was a pride thing.

And I didn’t take it personally what Lusk had done. He was sick and had raised a son that was sick. His anger was with himself, but he took it out on me. Whatever he had done to his kid years ago, making him weak in the face of adversity, had loaded my gun with that bullet. A bullet that had been looking for him.

But still, I was the one who pulled the trigger. That was my sin.

So. Fine. Hit me with your gun. Kick me in the head. I’ll take it. There’s also a blonde I threw off a balcony that I need to be punished for.

Thode and Mullen left me on my hospital bed—this was getting to be like déjà vu—and Mullen said, in parting: “We still gotta talk about Shelton. You’re acting cagey and I don’t know why. So don’t think we’re done with this.”

“Okay, sounds good,” I said. “I love talking with you two.” I was playing the tough guy again, and then the nurses got them out of there.

I only had a mild concussion, which was lucky, and they stitched my face back up and put a fresh bandage on me; they also redressed my arm.

At 6:45 a.m., I left the hospital, even though I wasn’t supposed to.

I signed an “against medical advice” waiver, called a Yellow Cab from a pay phone, and went to the spa. I retrieved my car and stopped at the 101 Coffee Shop for scrambled eggs and four cups of coffee. Then I went home: everything was still in