At Their Own Game (16 page)

Jesus. I was a mess.
 

I heard some clanking in the kitchen, then some water running. A couple of minutes later, Helen returned to the living room. “I’m making some tea.”
 

A couple of smart ass remarks popped into my head, but I kept them to myself. Partially because she’d been so nice, taking care of me and all. And partially because tea actually sounded pretty good.
 

“What next?” Helen asked.
 

“I do like the doctor said. I rest.”
 

“Of course. But what about after that? What about when you’re well again?”
 

I gave her an inquisitive look. “What are you asking me, Helen?”
 

“I’m asking you about your work.”
 

“I thought we already had this conversation.”
 

“Well, we’re having it again.”
 

“Why?”
 

“You just got severely beaten, Jake. I don’t want that to happen again. So if I’m going to look after you, I need to know what we’re up against.”
 

I gave her a long look. Once again, all I wanted to do was believe her. Believe that what we had years ago was real. Too real for her to handle. That she went away to find herself and was back because when she did find herself, being with me made sense to her.
 

But I’d been thinking about things, especially since the insurance lady broke the spell of perfection up at the hospital. I’d been thinking that it seemed too convenient for her to show up now. Thinking that things didn’t really start going to shit until that happened.
 

I was starting to think what I should have thought right at the start. Something was fucked up here. And maybe it was her.
 

When I opened my mouth to start asking her questions, I was cut off by pounding at my door.
 

“Police! Search Warrant! Come to the door!”
 

Helen gave me a surprised, panicked look. “What’s going on?”
 

“I don’t know,” I said, struggling to my feet. “But I can guess who’s behind it.”
 

“Police!” The pounding resumed. “Open the door or we’ll force entry!”
 

“I’m coming!” I shouted. Then I turned to Helen. “Don’t answer any questions. No matter how benign they might seem, you don’t answer them.”
 

She nodded.
 

As I reached the door, the cop on the other side started pounding again.
 

“If you don’t open this door in three seconds –”
 

I twisted the knob and pulled open the door. It exploded inward, catching me in the forehead, stunning me for a moment. I was vaguely aware of staggering backward as bodies streamed into my living room.
 

“On the ground!” barked a black-clad cop with an MP-5 leveled at me. He wore a balaclava, goggles and a Kevlar helmet.
 

I blinked at him, and shook my head to clear it.
 

He obviously took that as a refusal because he stepped forward and drove the butt of the submachine gun into the pit of my stomach.
 

The air went out of me instantly. I sank to my knees, struggling to breathe.
 

“Do it!” the cop shouted.
 

Going the rest of the way to my stomach wasn’t exactly difficult at that point. I knew what was coming next, so I was careful to turn my head to the left.
 

The cop dropped his weight onto me, driving my chest into the ground. He quickly shifted position, pressing his knee across the back of my neck and pinning my head to the ground. My busted cheek screamed in protest.
 

“Don’t hurt him!” Helen yelled from somewhere behind me. “He just got out of the hospital. He’s—”
 

I heard the sound of tussling and a thud. Helen let out a surprised grunt.
 

“On the ground means you, too, lady,” said another cop.
 

I could feel the tremors in the floor from the tramp of feet going through my house room by room. The same familiar refrain was barked out over and over again.
 

“Where’s your friends?” the cop on top of me asked. “Where are they hiding?”
 

“There’s no one else here,” I grunted out.
 

“You sure?”
 

I grunted again, in the affirmative.
 

It took another minute or so for them to complete their sweep of my house. I knew they’d do a second, more measured sweep immediately after that. SWAT was nothing if not thorough.
 

When the sounds of “clear” bellowed throughout the house, the cop on top of me finally lessened his downward pressure slightly. “I’m going to handcuff you,” he said, “and then let you up. Don’t resist me.”
 

I didn’t say a word.
 

He took hold of my wrists and slipped on the flex cuffs expertly. I didn’t resist, even when he cinched them down. There was no point in doing so.
 

The cop slid his weight off of me, but kept on a wristlock. “Roll up on your side,” he said. “Toward me.”
 

I rolled toward him. He talked me into a sitting position, then gave me ballast to push against as I stood to my feet.
 

“You search him?” a hard voice barked.
 

“Not yet.”
 

“Then why the fuck is he standing up?”
 

“I figured it’d be easier—”
 

“Just search him. We’ll talk about it at debrief.” The rebuke was plain in his tone.
 

“Yes, sir.”
 

The cop kicked my feet out to the side so that I was in a wide stance. Then he performed a brusque search.
 

Great. He screws up and I pay the price.
 

When he came across my wallet, my phone, and my hospital paperwork, he tossed them on the coffee table.
 

“Doobie, search the couch for me,” he ordered when he was finished.
 

Another black-clad SWAT officer lifted the cushions of the couch. When he lifted the third cushion, he stopped.
 

“Gun!”
 

The grip on wrist my increased. I grunted in pain. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a gun there?” he growled in my ear.
 

“You didn’t ask,” I told him between clenched teeth.
 

“I got the gun,” Doobie said. “We’re good.”
 

He replaced the cushion and stepped away.
 

The cop forced me toward the couch, finally releasing me with a light shove. I fell clumsily onto the askew cushion.
 

I looked around for Helen. She was being searched by another SWAT officer.
 

“You need to have a female conduct that search,” I snapped at him.
 

“Shut up,” my cop said.
 

I turned back to him. “If requested, you’re required to provide a female to search—”
 

“I said shut up. I’m not required to do shit.”
 

“
State v. Meringue
,” I told him. “You might want to check your case law if you want to avoid a lawsuit.”
 

His eyes crinkled. I figured he had to be smiling behind that mask. “You might want to keep up on your case law, Stankovic. That ruling was overturned three years ago.”
 

I didn’t answer. He could be right. I’d made a point of keeping up with case law, but only as it pertained to my small slice of business. I didn’t pay attention to the rulings regarding opposite gender searches. Why would I?
 

“Piece of shit,” the cop muttered.
 

“What’s your badge number?” I asked him.
 

“Double-oh-go fuck yourself.”
 

“I want to see a supervisor,” I said. “Right now. And where’s your warrant?”
 

“It’s coming.”
 

“You took my door without a warrant in hand?” I asked incredulously.
 

I heard him chuckle underneath his balaclava. “No. It’s right outside.” He glanced at the door. “Check that. It’s right here.”
 

I followed his gaze. Detective Kyle Falkner stood in my doorway, a smug look on his face. He held up a packet of paper. “You looking for this, smart guy?”
 

It took a moment for the shock to wear off. Falkner spent that time giving me a gloating stare.
 

“Let me see that,” I finally demanded.
 

He tossed it onto the table next to my wallet. “Your copy. You can read it when I’m gone.”
 

“I want to read it now.”
 

“Well, then use your psychic powers to levitate that shit in front of you, and read away.”
 

I looked at him and then back at the officer guarding me. “You both realize that I will be filing an IA complaint, right?”
 

Falkner shrugged. “File away.”
 

“You’re both easily a demeanor beef already. And if this warrant isn’t bulletproof, I’ll add illegal entry and search to the list.”
 

“My warrant is air tight,” Falkner said easily. “And as far as a demeanor complaint goes?” He shrugged. “You think anyone is going to believe a piece of dog shit like you over me and these fine officers?”
 

“What about a witness?” I asked.
 

“Who?” He looked over at Helen, then laughed. “Oh, that’s priceless. Yeah, my bitch ex-wife would have
absolutely no motivation to walk into Internal Affairs and lie. She can get me in trouble
and
bail out her boyfriend.” He shook his head. “People try that all the time, Stank, and you know it. At best, it’ll be insufficient evidence. Most likely, though, it’ll get tossed.”
 

I didn’t reply because the son of a bitch was right.
 

Two more detectives wearing latex gloves came into the living room. Both gave me hard, disappointed looks.
 

“I’d be more worried about my own predicament, if I were you,” Falkner continued. “I mean, here we haven’t even started searching yet and we already found a gun? Aren’t you a convicted felon?”
 

He knew I wasn’t. He was just rubbing my record in my face.
 

“The gun’s legal,” I said. “And so am I. What’s your warrant for?”
 

“To search,” he said. He motioned to the other two detectives, who fanned out and started searching the house.
 

Falkner remained in the living room with me. Most of the SWAT officers filed out to the waiting armored vehicle, replaced by patrol officers for scene security. I recognized a couple of the patrol cops, but they studiously ignored me.
 

A female cop took the place of the SWAT officer who’d been guarding me.
 

“I want his badge number,” I told Falkner.
 

Falkner shrugged. “Do a public records request. Then you can read it in the report.”
 

I glanced up at the young officer next to me. She bore a pony tail and an earnest expression. The dichotomy of that almost made me smile. “Don’t be part of my complaint,” I told her. “What’s that officer’s name and badge number?”
 

“Please be quiet, sir,” she said, her voice firm and professional. “Or you’ll have to wait in my patrol vehicle until the search is complete.”
 

So much for that.
 

I sat silently while the detectives went through the house. Falkner stood in the room with a smirk on his face. Helen sat in the easy chair a few feet from me, her expression alternating between confused and angry. She didn’t say a word, though.
 

The detectives seemed more intent on making a mess of my house than on finding anything. The banging noises progressed in an orderly fashion until eventually they’d make a complete circle and were both back in the living room.
 

“What’d you get?” Falkner asked. He held out my gun, which he’d already put into an evidence bag. “I mean, besides this?”
 

One detective had a jewelry box in his hand. He flipped it open and showed it to Falkner. His eyes lit up.
 

“Stolen property, perhaps?”
 

“Most of that is my grandmother’s jewelry,” I said.
 

“Yeah,” Falkner said. “Every thief I know has a rich grandma who likes to leave him jewelry in her will.”
 

I looked away, sorry I said anything. I wasn’t stupid enough to keep anything hot here at the house. And if they didn’t know about the storage unit under a false name, then they weren’t going to end up with anything for all this effort.
 

“Book it onto property,” Falkner said. “Run the jewelry against our stolen property database.”
 

The detective nodded and headed out the door.
 

“How about you, Kookachoo?” Falkner asked the other detective, almost giddy.
 

“Nothing,” the other detective replied. “Unless you want to run his electronics for stolen.”
 

“Do it.”
 

“All right.”
 

“Anything else?”
 

“Well…”
 

“What?” Falkner asked.
 

The detective gave me a sideways look, then shrugged. “There’s a hiding place in the extra bedroom.”
 

“Really?”
 

“Yeah. Fake floorboards in the closet. Opens up into a space about two feet by four feet and maybe a foot deep.”
 

“A secret stash,” Falkner gloated. “What’s in it?”