First Blood (1990) (4 page)

Well, he would take it slow and find out. He sat on the corner of his desk opposite the kid on the bench, and calmly lit a cigarette. 'Would you like a smoke?' he asked the kid.

'I don't smoke.'

Teasle nodded and leisurely drew on the cigarette. 'How be we try this again. What's your name?' 'None of your business.'

Dear God, Teasle thought. In spite of himself he pushed away from the desk and took a few steps toward the kid. Slowly though, he told himself. Make it calm. 'You didn't say that. I can't believe I actually heard that.'

'You heard me all right. My name is my business. You haven't given me a reason to make it yours.'

'I'm the Chief of Police you're talking to.'

'That's not a good enough reason.'

'It's the best damn reason in the world,' he said, then waited for the heat to drain from his face. Quietly, 'Let me have your wallet.' 'I don't carry one.'

'Let me have your I.D. cards.'

'I don't carry them either.'

'No driver's license, no social security card, no draft card, no birth certificate, no -'

'That's right,' the kid cut him off.

'Don't pull that with me. Get out your I.D. cards.'

Now the kid was not even bothering to look at him. He was turned toward the guncase, pointing at the medal above the line of shooting trophies. 'The Distinguished Service Cross. Really gave them hell in Korea, did you?'

'O.K.' Teasle said. 'On your feet.'

It was the second highest medal he could get, ranking above the bronze star, silver star, Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Medal, and Distinguished Service Medal. Only the Congressional Medal of Honor ranked above it. To Marine Corps Master Sergeant Wilfred Logon Teasle. For conspicuous and valiant leadership in the face of overwhelming enemy fire, his citation read. The Choisin Reservoir Campaign, December 6, 1950. That was when he was twenty, and he was not about to let any kid who didn't look much older mock it.

'Get on your feet. I'm sick of telling you everything twice. Get on your feet and pull out your pockets.'

The kid shrugged and took his time standing. He went from one pocket of his jeans to the other, pulling them out, and there was nothing. 'You didn't pull out the pockets in your jacket,' Teasle said.

'By God you're right.' When he pulled them, he came out with two dollars and twenty-three cents plus a book of matches. 'Why the matches?' Teasle said. 'You told me you don't smoke.'

'I need to start fires to cook on.'

'But you don't have any job or money. Where do you get the food to cook?'

'What do you expect me to say? That I steal it?'

Teasle looked at the kid's sleeping bag against the side of the bench, guessing where the I.D. cards were. He untied it and threw it out unrolled on the floor. There was a clean shirt and a toothbrush. When he started feeling through the shirt, the kid said, 'Hey, I spent a lot of time ironing that shirt. Be careful not to wrinkle it.' And Teasle was suddenly very tired of him.

He pressed the intercom on his desk. 'Shingleton, you had a look at this kid when he came through. I want you to radio his description to the state police. Say I'd like him identified the quickest they can. While you're at it, check if he matches any description we have in the files. He has no job and no money, but he sure looks well fed. I want to know why.'

'So you're determined to push this thing,' the kid said.

'That's wrong. I'm not the one who's pushing.' 8

The Justice of the Peace had an air conditioner. It hummed a bit and rattled every so often and made the office so cold that Rambo had to shiver. The man behind the desk was bundled in an oversized blue sweater. His name was Dobzyn, the sign on the door said. He was chewing tobacco, and as soon as he took a look at Rambo coming in, he stopped chewing.

'Well, I'll be,' he said and rolled his swivel chair squeaking back from the desk. 'When you phoned, Will, you should have told me that the circus was in town.'

Always it came, some remark. Always. This whole business was getting out of hand, and he knew that he had better give in soon, that they could make a lot of trouble for him if he did not. But here the crap was coming his way again, they would not let up, and Jesus, he was just not going to take it.

'Listen, son,' Dobzyn was saying. 'I really have to ask you a question.' His face was very round. When he spoke, he slipped his chewing tobacco against one cheek, and that side of his face bulged out. 'I see kids on the TV demonstrating and rioting and all, and -'

'I'm no demonstrator.'

'What I have to know, doesn't that hair get itchy down the back of your neck?' Always they asked the same. 'It did at first.'

Dobzyn scratched his eyebrow and thought about that answer. 'Yeah, I suppose you can get used to just about anything if you put your mind to it. But what about the beard? Doesn't that get itchy in this heat?'

'Sometimes.'

'Then what possessed you to let it grow?'

'I have a rash on my face and I'm not supposed to shave.'

'Like I have a pain in my rear-end and I'm not supposed to wipe it,' Teasle said by the door.

'Now wait a second, Will. It may be he's telling the truth.' Rambo could not resist. 'I'm not.'

'Then what did you say all that for?'

'I get tired of people asking me why I grew the beard.' 'Why did you grow the beard?'

'I have a rash on my face and I'm not supposed to shave.'

Dobzyn looked like he had been slapped in the face. The air conditioner whirred and rattled. 'Well, well,' he said quietly, extending the words. 'I guess I walked into that one. Didn't I, Will? The laugh's on me.' He tried a brief chuckle. 'I walked right into it. I surely did. My, yes.' He chewed on his tobacco. 'Just what's the charge, Will?'

'There's two of them. Vagrancy and resisting arrest. But those are just to hold him while I find out if he's wanted anywhere. My guess is theft someplace.'

'We'll take up the vagrancy first. You guilty, son?'

Rambo said he wasn't.

'Do you have a job? Do you have more than ten dollars?'

Rambo said he didn't.

'Then there's no way around it, son. You're a vagrant. That'll cost you five days in jail or fifty dollars fine. Which will it be?' 'I just told you I don't have ten, so where the hell would I get fifty?'

'This is a court of law,' Dobzyn said, leaning suddenly forward in his chair. 'I will not tolerate abusive language in my court. One more outburst and I'll charge you with contempt.' He was a moment before he settled back in his chair and started to chew again, thinking. 'Even as it is, I don't see how I can keep your attitude out of mind when I'm sentencing you. Like this matter of resisting arrest.'

'Not guilty.'

'I haven't asked you yet. Wait until I ask you. What's the story on this resisting arrest, Will?'

'I picked him up for hitchhiking and did him a favor and gave him a lift to outside town. Figured it would be best for everybody if he kept right on moving.' Teasle leaned one hip on the creaky rail that separated the office from the waiting-space near the door. 'But he came back.'

'I had a right.'

'So I drove him out of town again and he came back again and when I told him to get in the cruiser, he refused. I finally had to threaten force before he'd listen.'

'You think I got in the car because I was afraid of you?'

'He won't tell me his name.' 'Why should I?'

'Claims he has no I.D. cards.'

'Why the hell do I need any?'

'Listen I can't sit here all night while you two have it out with each other,' Dobzyn said. 'My wife is sick, and I was supposed to be home to cook dinner for the kids at five. I'm late already. Thirty days in jail or two hundred dollars fine. What'll it be, son?'

'Two hundred? Christ I just told you I don't have more than ten.'

'Then it's thirty-five days in jail,' Dobzyn said and rose out of his chair, unbuttoning his sweater. 'I was about to cancel the five days for vagrancy, but your attitude is intolerable. I have to go. I'm late.'

The air conditioner began to rattle more than it was humming, and Rambo could not tell if he was shivering from cold or rage. 'Hey, Dobzyn,' he said, catching him as he went by. 'I'm still waiting for you to ask me if I'm guilty of resisting arrest.'

Chapter 9

The doors on both sides of the corridor were closed now. He passed the painters' scaffold near the end of the hall, heading for Teasle's office.

'No, this time you go this way,' Teasle said. He pointed to the last door on the right, a door with bars in a little window at the top, and reached with a key to unlock it before he saw that the door was already open a quarter-inch. Shaking his head disgustedly at that, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and motioned Rambo through to a stairwell with an iron banister and cement steps going down and fluorescent lights in the ceiling. As soon as Rambo was in, Teasle came through behind him, locking the door, and they walked down, their footsteps scraping on the cement stairs, echoing.

Rambo heard the spray before he reached the basement. The cement floor was wet and reflected the fluorescent lights, and down at the far end a thin policeman was hosing the floor of a cell, water running out between the bars and down a drain. When he saw Teasle and Rambo, he screwed the nozzle tight; the water flared out in a wide arc and abruptly stopped.

Teasle's voice echoed. 'Galt. Why is that upstairs door unlocked again?'

'Did I.? We don't have anymore prisoners. The last one just woke up, and I let him go.'

'It doesn't matter if we have prisoners or not. If you get in the habit of leaving it open when we're empty, then you might start forgetting to lock it when there's some-body down here. So I want the door locked regardless. I don't like to say this - it may be tough getting used to a new job and a new routine, but if you don't learn to be careful, I might have to look for somebody else.'

Rambo was as cold as he had been in Dobzyn's office, shivering. The lights in the ceiling were too close to his head; even so, the place seemed dark. Iron and cement. Christ, he should never have let Teasle bring him down. Walking across from the courthouse, he should have broken Teasle and escaped. Anything, even being on the run, was better than thirty-five days down here.

What the hell else did you expect? he told himself. You asked for this, didn't you? You wouldn't back off.

Damn right I wouldn't. And I still won't. Just because I'll be locked up, doesn't mean I'm finished. I'll fight this as far as it goes. By the time he's ready to let me out, he'll be fucking glad to be rid of me.

Sure you'll fight. Sure. What a laugh. Take a look at yourself. Already you're shaking. Already you know what this place reminds you of. Two days in that cramped cell and you'll be pissing down your pantlegs.

'You've got to understand I can't stay in there.' He could not stop himself. The wet. I can't stand being closed in where it's wet.' The hole, he was thinking, his scalp alive. The bamboo grate over the top. Water seeping through the dirt, the walls crumbling, the inches of slimy muck he had to try sleeping on.

Tell him, for God's sake.

Screw, you mean beg him.

Sure, now when it was too late, now the kid was coming around and trying to talk himself out of this. Teasle could not get over the needlessness of it all, how the kid had actually tried his damndest to work himself down here. 'Just be thankful it is wet,' he told the kid. 'That we hose everything down. We get weekend drunks in here, and come Mondays when we kick them out, they've been sick up the walls and all over the place.'

He glanced at the cells, and the water on the floor made them look clean, sparkling. 'You may be careless with that door upstairs Galt,' he told him. 'But you sure did a job on those cells. Do me a favor will you, go up and get some bedding and an outfit for this kid? You,' he told the kid, 'I guess the middle cell is fine. Go in, take off your boots, your pants, your jacket. Leave on your socks, your underwear, your sweat shirt. Take off any jewelry, any chain around your neck, any watch -. Galt, what are you looking at?'

'Nothing.'

'What about the gear I sent you for?'

'I was just looking. I'll get it.' He hurried up the stairs.

'Aren't you going to tell him again to lock the door?' the kid said.

'No need.'

Teasle listened to the rattle of the door being unlocked. He waited, then heard Galt lock the door after him. 'Start with the boots,' he told the kid.

So what else did he expect? The kid took off his jacket.

'There you go again. I told you start with the boots.'

'The floor is wet.'

'And I told you get in there.'

'I'm not going in there any sooner than I have to.' He folded his jacket, squinted at the water on the floor, and set the jacket on the stairs. He put his boots beside it, took off his jeans, folded them and put them on top of the jacket.

'What's that big scar above your left knee?' Teasle said. 'What happened?'

The kid did not answer.

'It looks like a bullet scar,' Teasle said. 'Where did you get it?'

'My socks are wet on this floor.'

'Take them off then.'