Final Justice Part 40

"You got cuffs?"

Detective La.s.siter sort of squatted on the ground, put her small flashlight in her mouth, opened her purse, and took from it a set of handcuffs.

She moved to place the handcuffs on the wrist Matt was holding. The young, tall, white male, realizing what was happening, resisted. Before he was adequately restrained again, Detective La.s.siter's flashlight had been knocked from her mouth and had fallen to the ground, in such a position that it shone directly on the junction of her legs, which, covered with pale blue panties, was now, due to the displacement of her skirt, fully exposed.

He heard the sound of a third siren dying.

"Thanks," Sergeant Payne said.

"Happy to be of help," Detective La.s.siter said.

"Put your foot on his neck," Sergeant Payne ordered.

Detective La.s.siter complied, and Sergeant Payne got to his feet.

"You're bleeding," Detective La.s.siter said.

"My, aren't we observant?" Matt said, and took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his face.

Matt started to pull the young, tall, white man to his feet.

"Keeping in mind that there is nothing I would rather do right now than rub your face in the garbage, get up and behave," Matt said.

"Not quite 'make my day,' " Olivia said, "But not bad, Sergeant."

I'll be a sonofab.i.t.c.h, she's laughing at me!

Another flashlight beam appeared, and a moment later, another. One was held by a uniform, the other by a Highway Patrol sergeant. The latter flickered across Matt's face.

"Payne! What the h.e.l.l happened to you?"

"What the h.e.l.l does it look like?" Matt snapped. He pointed to the uniform. "Put this gentleman in a car," he ordered. "He has not been Mirandized."

"What did he do?" the Highway sergeant said as he stepped closer to Matt as if he thought he was going to need some help.

Then, when his back was to the uniform and he could not be seen, he put something into Matt's hand.

Matt saw what it was. Three round pellets of a very strong brand of English mints.

"Chew those slowly and try not to breathe on anybody. I already gave some to your friend."

"Thanks," Matt said. "I owe you."

"So what did this critter do?"

"For openers, first running a red light and then leaving the scene of an accident," Matt said. "Give me thirty seconds and I can think of a lot more. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grand Am is hot."

"You sure you're all right? You look like h.e.l.l," the Highway sergeant said.

There were four city vehicles on Knight's Road: a Highway car, a patrol car, a sergeant's car from the Eighth District, and a Fire Department Fire Rescue vehicle.

Two paramedics were loading the pa.s.sengers of the Caravan into the Fire Rescue truck.

"I think the little boy's got a broken arm," the Eighth District sergeant said. "You're Detective La.s.siter?"

"She's La.s.siter. My name is Payne."

"You're on the job?"

No, you stupid f.u.c.k, I'm a concerned citizen who gets his rocks off chasing tall, young, white males through people's backyards.

"Sergeant, Homicide," Matt said.

"You want to go in with them? Or in your own car?"

"Go where?"

"You look pretty beat up, Sergeant," the Eighth District sergeant said. "You better have a doctor look at your face."

"I'm all right," Matt said. "I sc.r.a.ped it, that's all."

"No, you're not," Detective La.s.siter said. "Let the medics look at it."

It was the paramedic's professional judgment that while he had really done a job on his cheek, there wasn't much that could be done for it except clean it up and get some antiseptic on it.

"I live right around the corner," Detective La.s.siter said. "And I've got alcohol and hydrogen peroxide."

"That'll do it," the paramedic said.

Matt met Olivia's eyes for a long moment.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome."

"Can we find out if the Grand Am is hot?" Matt asked.

"He's running it now," the Eighth District sergeant said, nodding toward a uniform in a patrol car.

Less than a minute later, the uniform got out of the car and announced that the Grand Am had been reported stolen.

"Can you take him and hold him on that?" Matt asked. "I'll come by later and do the paper."

The District sergeant shook his head, "no."

"You know better than that, Sergeant. You're the arresting officer and you need to make the statement to the detective at Northeast."

The Highway sergeant stepped between them. "I'll get all of Sergeant Payne's necessary information and make sure the detective has it, Sergeant. Besides, we helped him to make the pinch back there, and I want to make sure Highway gets in on the paperwork. You know how it is."

The Eighth District sergeant looked at him for a moment, then walked away.

The Highway sergeant turned to Matt.

"Let me have your badge and payroll numbers. And I better have hers, too. Tell me what happened and how you hurt yourself so the Northeast Detective can doc.u.ment it if you need to go out IOD,2and make sure you touch base with the a.s.signed detective so you agree with the statement before he puts it on the '49."

"Thanks a lot," Matt said. "I owe you two now."

"You better let me drive," Olivia said.

"Why?"

"It looks like you scratched your hand, too. You'll get blood all over your pretty leather gear s.h.i.+fter."

He walked around the rear and got in the pa.s.senger seat of the Porsche.

Detective La.s.siter opened the door of her second-floor apartment, reached inside, flicked on the lights, and then motioned Sergeant Payne inside ahead of her.

"The first aid stuff's in the bathroom," she said. "The bedroom's just the other side of the living room."

He walked across the living room to the bedroom, noticing as he pa.s.sed through it to the bathroom that it was not messy, and that a white comforter covered her bed.

Intimate feminine apparel was hanging from the shower curtain rod. When she came into the bathroom, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it off and threw it behind the shower curtain.

She took bandages, swabs, Mercurochrome, and bottles of hydrogen peroxide and alcohol from a cabinet and then turned to him and started cleaning his face.

"That's pretty nasty," she said. "You sure you don't want to go to the emergency room?"

"I'm sure," he said.

Three minutes later, his sc.r.a.ped face had been cleaned with both hydrogen peroxide and alcohol. He had manfully tried, and failed, not to wince when the alcohol stung painfully.

"Let's look at the leg," she said.

"What's wrong with the leg?"

"The fence got that, too, I guess. In the car, I saw it. It's all b.l.o.o.d.y."

Three minutes after that, his leg had been treated with alcohol and hydrogen peroxide and painted with Mercurochrome, but not bandaged.

"Your trousers are ruined," Olivia said.

"I noticed."

"And let me see what you did to your hand."

"I guess I scratched it the same place I tore my pants, going over the fence."

She took his left hand in both of hers.

"That's a puncture wound," she said.

He didn't reply.

"You just can't leave it like that," she said.

He didn't reply.

She looked up at him. Their eyes met.

"What?" she asked.

"You know G.o.dd.a.m.n well what, Mother."

"I'm not your G.o.dd.a.m.n Mother."

"I know," he said, softly. "Your move."

She had not taken her eyes from his. She took her left hand from his and raised it to his unmarked cheek.

"Oh, G.o.d!" she said.

Ninety seconds later, atop the white comforter on her bed, while still partially clothed, Detective La.s.siter and Sergeant Payne came to know each other, in the biblical sense of the term.

And in the next half hour, now completely devoid of clothing, and between the sheets, Detective La.s.siter and Sergeant Payne twice came to know each other even better.

TWELVE.

[ONE].

Matt Payne awoke at five minutes to six. For a moment, he wondered why so d.a.m.ned early-he had two alarm clocks to make sure he was awakened at seven-and then he remembered some of what had happened the night before, and thought that might have something to do with it.

"Jesus Christ!" he said in wonderment, then went to his bathroom, which his father had described as being somewhat smaller than those found on old Pullman railroad cars.

He examined himself in the mirror over the toilet.

What the h.e.l.l happened to my face?

He remembered.

Sliding along the concrete driveway in hot pursuit of the critter in the hot car who'd run the red light and slammed into the Caravan.

"Nevertheless, sir, minor facial blemishes aside, you look like the well-laid man of fame and legend!" he said aloud.