SK01 - Waist Deep (2 page)

I remained in my seat as long as I could so that all the witnesses would see that it was him coming after me and not the other way around.
As he reached the row directly behind me, there were a half-dozen empty seats and he picked up speed, already cocking his right arm.
I waited until he reached the back of my seat and started to throw his punch before I moved.

Pushing forward with my good leg, the right, I moved to my left and brought up both hands.
Mullet-man’s fist whizzed by my ear.
I turned, reached out and grabbed his wrist and forearm, pulling him over the row of seats and into my row.
He landed awkwardly and his ribs smashed into the back of the bus driver’s seat.

Mullet-man grunted.
I thought for a second he might be through, but he snarled a curse at me and stood up.
I didn’t wait for him to get his balance, but stepped forward and whipped two quick rights into his face.
The first landed flush on the tip of his nose and snapped his head back.
The second caught him full in the mouth as his head was coming forward again.
The warmth of battle flooded my body.

He gave another grunt after the second punch, but didn’t quit.
Instead, he grabbed onto my shoulders and pulled me into a clinch.
I pulled back, but he leaned into me.
I tried to brace myself against him, but he twisted to his right and I had to plant my left leg to remain standing.

My left knee is pretty much worthless
,
so
we both crumpled to the ground.
Pain shot through my leg.

I heard his rattling breath and felt a mist of hot wetness on my cheek.
His nose was bleeding.
I tried to roll left, then right, but the rows of seats were too close together.
I brought my right knee up sharply, aiming for his groin, but it landed somewhere on his upper leg.

Mullet-man’s grunting became a continuous drone as he clutched me, trying to win the fight by simply holding me in place.
I worked my right arm up between our faces and slid it down to the side of his throat.
Once I thought I had his carotid artery pegged, I pressed hard with the knife edge of my hand.

“Fuck you,” he wheezed at me and let go with his right hand.
I tucked my left elbow in tight to my body, knowing what was coming.

The punch landed
up high on my arm.
I exhaled sharply.
He was strong and had gravity on his side.
My left arm and shoulder screamed at me in shock and pain, but I kept it in place.
I increased pressure on the side of his throat, hop
ing the technique would work. On patrol, y
ears ago
and a lifetime away
, I
once
put a
burglar
out using only one side of his throat, but that guy had a skinny throat.
Mullet-man’s throat was thick and he was more muscular than I thought.

His second punch hurt more than the first, landing in almost the same spot.
I held in a yelp and drove my knee upward again.
All that succeeded in doing was striking his buttock and sliding him upward.
My face ended up buried in his chest and the force of my carotid technique slipped.

Mullet-man delivered a third punch and this one crunched into my shoulder.
I tried to roll again, but he had me pinned.
I could smell old popcorn and the sticky sweet odor of soda.
In another punch, maybe two, he would pound my head into the concrete floor.

I relaxed the knife edge of my hand and curled my fingers around his throat.
With my thumb, I dug into the front of his neck.
If I couldn’t cut off the blood and put him out peacefully, then I
’d have
to go for wind.

His breath caught for a moment when my thumb found his windpipe, but he recovered quickly and drove another punch into my shoulder.
His fist skipped off the point of my shoulder and grazed my eye.
I kept my chin tucked to my chest and squeezed.

Suddenly, he disappeared, his weight lifting away from me.
I looked up and saw a giant in a green polo shirt lifting him in the air and pulling him away.

Two huge hands grabbed my shoulders and yanked me upright.
I held in another yelp.

“Let’s go, pal,” the voice that belonged to the hands growled in my ear.
“And no more bullshit, either.”

He didn’t have to worry.
I didn’t have any bullshit left.

3

We arrived at the security office together, Mullet-man and I, each with our muscle-bound escorts doing most of the work of locomotion.
My guy had an easier time of it.
I’m five-ten and lucky to be one-seventy.
Mullet-man was somewhere in the low two hundreds.

My left arm a
nd shoulder were throbbing. A
t the end of every throb was a knife-point of pain.
My left knee entirely skipped the throbbing part and just went straight to the knife-pain.

The security chief waiting at the desk was much smaller than the hulks that brought in Mullet-man and I.
There was something familiar about his face, but I dismissed it.
I was used to that feeling.
When I was a cop, I met thousands of people.
Some
of those
meetings weren’t so pleasant. S
o when someone looks vaguely familiar, I’ve learned to just let it lie.

“Coupla fighters,” my escort rumbled.

The Security Chief nodded and motioned toward two plexi-glass holding cells.
“Put them
in there.
I’ll call PD.”

My escort never broke stride, shoving me unceremoniously through the open door of
one of
the plexi-glass cell
s
.
I gave him a hard stare as he closed the door and slid the bolt into place, but I didn’t even rate a return glare.

“This is false arrest!” bellowed Mullet-man from his own cell.

“Pipe down,” his escort barked, pointing a meaty finger at him.

“I know my rights!” Mullet-man screamed back at him.

“I ain’t no cop and you ain’t got no rights in here,” growled the escort.
“Now shut-up or I’m coming in there with you.”

Mullet-man’s face paled
slightly
.
He wiped blood from his nose and mouth and looked at his hand.
His gaze found me and he pointed.
“You’re dead, asshole,” he promised.

“Funny how I’m still breathing,” I shot back.
“Pretty good trick for a dead man.”

“I’ll kick your ass.
I’ll –“

“I told you to be quiet!” bellowed his escort.
His eyes darted between us.
“And I mean both of you.”

Mullet-man turned away and muttered like a defiant child.
I rubbed my shoulder and flexed my arm.
My fingers grazed across
the hard scars under my shirt.
Even though the injuries were ten years old, they still hurt every day.
Getting into a brawl and
then being
hauled around by extras from a Schwarzenegger movie didn’t exactly help.

“Stef?”

I glanced up at the Security Chief.
He stood at the door of my cell, watching me.

“Are you Stefan Kopriva?” he asked.

I nodded.
“Yeah.
So?”

“I thought it was you.”

“I know you?”

“Yeah,” he said.
“I mean, you did.
Matt Sinderling.
We went to school
together.”

I looked at him closely.
I remembered the name.
Matt Sinderling.
The rolodex in my mind flipped through a hundred pictures and a hundred biographies in a couple of seconds.
Then I remembered him.

Vaguely.

He’d been one of those guys in high school who never said three words all the way through.
I tried to remember who his friends were and couldn’t.
He’d taken wood shop and metal shop, but didn’t hang out with the stoners.
I couldn’t remember him being in any sports.
He’d just been a guy I’d passed in the halls or maybe sat near in English class.

Matt didn’t seem to have grown into a man’s body.
He still had the slight frame of a seventeen year old late bloomer.
Only the whisper of gray at his temples and the lines near his eyes gave away his age.

“You don’t remember me,” he said.

“No, I do.”

“Nah, you don’t.
It’s okay.
I get that a lot.
I wasn’t exactly Mister Popular back in high school.”

“I do remember you.”
I waved my hand at the cell.
“I guess I’m just embarrassed to be here.”

He nodded his understanding.
“I heard you became a cop.
Is this going to be a problem for you?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mullet-man’s head whip around to stare at me.
I could almos
t hear his worried thoughts. I
decided to let him sweat for a little while longer.

“It’ll work out,” I told Matt.

“I hope so.”
He bit the inside of his lip and looked at me.
Finally, he said, “Kinda weird running into you now.”

I shrugged.

“Maybe…” he said, “Maybe you can help me with something.”

I didn’t answer right away.
Behind Matt, a uniformed officer approached the security station.
All hockey games have an extra dut
y officer working for instances
like the one I just got involved in.
It’s a good gig and pays well.
The waiting list to get on the detail is about eight years long.

I recognized the officer right away and he recognized me a moment later.
Glen Bates had been a Field Training Officer when I came on the job.
He probably had at least five years on then.
I did a quick bit of math and figured him to be near twenty years on by now.
And he still had a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth.

He squinted
at me
.
“Kopriva?
That you?”

Mullet-man was at the door as soon as Bates came into view.
“I want to make a complaint, officer.”
He pointed at me.
“This cop attacked me.
Look at my face.
I think he broke my nose.”

Bates looked back and forth between Mullet-man and
me
, shaking his head slightly.

“I mean it,” Mullet-man continued.
“I want to make a complaint against the police department!”

Bates removed the toothpick and glanced at it briefly before tucking it back into the corner of his mouth.
“Really?
A complaint
, huh
?”

Mullet-man maintained his polite façade.
“That’s right, officer.”

Bates thumbed towards me.
“Against him?”

“Yeah, man.
Look at me.”

Bates nodded and made a sucking noise with his teeth.
Then he glanced over at Matt.
“What’s the story here?”

Matt waved Bates over
. Bates
strode to him.
He watched us while Matt whispered to him.
I wonder whose account ending up being accepted as truth.
Mullet-man’s cronies?
The bus driver?
Or did they manage to get a couple of uninvolved witnesses who saw Mullet-man come barreling over the rows of seats to get to me?

Bates gave no indication as he listened carefully to Matt’s report.
After about two minutes, he nodded and clapped Matt on the shoulder.
Then he walked back over
to
our cells.

“How about that complaint, officer?” Mullet-man asked, but Bates ignored him.

“Here’s the situation, gentlemen.
By all accounts, this was a mutual assault.
That means we have three options.”

“Mutual?” Mullet-man’s voice was incredulous.
“
No way, man.” He pointed at Matt. “That guy said h
e’s a cop.
I wanna file a comp—
”

“He ain’t no cop,” Bates
interrupted
.
“Not anymore.
So shut up and listen to your options or I’ll decide for you.
My decision involves jail, not holding cells.”

Mullet-man shot me a dirty look, but remained quiet.

Bates nodded.
“
Good. Now, option one goes like this:
you both press charges
against each other
and you both go to jail for assault.
Any takers?”

Neither of us replied.
A
tickle of anger
sparked in my gut
.

“Didn’t think so
,” he continued without missing a beat
.
“
Option two is I take you both to jail for disorderly conduct.
Anyone interested in that one?”

Again, neither of us answered.
The tickle ignited into
a flame.
I struggled to will it down.
Bates’ words were familiar, even after ten years.
I couldn’t count how many times I’d used them myself
to solve similar situations
.

“No?
Okay then, that leaves option number three.
You both leave the Arena and go your separate ways.
Simple as that.”

Mullet-man spoke first.
“You sure he’s not a cop?”

Bates nodded.

“You could be covering up for him,” Mullet-man muttered, not looking directly at Bates.

“I guess I could be,” Bates told him.
“Why don’t you come down to Internal Affairs tomorrow.
Talk to Lieutenant Alan Hart.
He’ll show you a picture board with every officer on the department.
You won’t find this guy there.”
He jerked his thumb toward me.

“Maybe I will,” Mullet-man said.

Bates shrugged.
“Knock yourself out.
Meanwhile, which option are we going with right now?”

“The last one,” Mullet-man said.
“But this isn’t over.”

“It better be tonight,” Bates warned.
He turned his eyes to me.
“Kopriva?”