Rough Justice by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page B

hammering.
    The man lay on his back. His bulging eyes stared up at the ceiling. His chest heaved up and down.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œI hit him in the throat …” I said. “Choking … Where am I …”
    â€œChoking? On something?”
    â€œI hit him.”
    â€œIs he breathing.”
    â€œHe can’t breathe!”
    â€œOh Jesus. You hit him?”
    â€œPlease …”
    â€œWe have to do something …”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe’s not breathing at all?”
    â€œIsn’t this Emergency?”
    â€œWhat? I don’t … What?”
    â€œFor God’s sake, lady! Help me here! I hit him! Oh Jesus Christ!”
    The man’s chest was not heaving anymore. As I sat there, staring at him, talking into the phone, I saw his hand fall away from his throat. It bounced once before it settled on the floor. His face had gone a strange, sickening shade of blue.
    â€œSir … Sir …” babbled the woman on the phone.
    â€œNo. Oh no. Now look at him,” I said.
    â€œWe’ve got to do a tracheotomy.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHave you got a knife? Is he dying?”
    â€œWhat do I do?”
    â€œIs he dying right now?”
    â€œHelp me!”
    â€œOh Christ!”
    â€œHe’s dead, he’s dead.”
    â€œOh Christ! Oh Jesus!”
    â€œHe’s dead,” I said again. My voice came from far away. “He’s dead,” I kept saying. “I killed him.”

6

    â€œYou don’t know who he was.”
    â€œI told you: he was a kid,” I said. “He couldn’t have been much more than twenty. How the hell do I know who he was? He was just some kid.”
    I was in an office now. An office at the precinct house. A dirty cube of a place. I was sitting in a torn-up swivel chair next to a gunmetal desk. The desk was buried under papers and styrofoam cups. The death-green carpet was burned by cigarettes. The fluorescent gave off a dingy light. The white Venetian blinds had turned yellow decades ago.
    â€œAll right,” said the lawyer. “I know you’re upset.” He had cleared a place for himself on the edge of the desk. He perched there, hovering over me.
    â€œI’m not upset,” I told him. “I’m fine.”
    â€œIt is a difficult situation.”
    â€œThese things happen. I’m fine.”
    He was a natty, slender man, about fifty. Dressed in a tweed suit, wearing a bow tie. His face was long, rectangular. He had coiffed silver hair, thick silver eyebrows that hovered low over his mild eyes. His expression was calm, almost sweet, almost beatific. I don’t know why he made me think of an executioner.
    â€œMay I go on?” he asked very quietly, very gently. “I know it’s hard, but I’m trying to help you. I’m just here to try and help.” He was the lawyer the newspaper had sent. His name was Gerald Morgenstern.
    Absently, my hand went up to my throat. There was no bandage on it. I could still feel the groove in the flesh, the mark of the cord. I swallowed hard, testing for the pain. It was still there. “All right,” I said thickly. “All right. Go on.”
    â€œSo …” Morgenstern leaned forward. A lovable professor drilling his student. “You didn’t know him, and you didn’t let him in.”
    â€œWe went over this with the cops … Oh hell, all right. I didn’t let him in.”
    â€œThe door was locked.”
    â€œThat’s nothing. Anyone could pop it.”
    â€œThe detective said there was no sign …”
    â€œYou could pop it with a bobby pin. I’m telling you. I’ve done it.”
    â€œOkay, okay.”
    He held up his two hands in a gesture of peace. I sneered and looked away from him, looked at the filthy blinds over the window. Then I looked away from them, too: they made me feel shut in, trapped.
    â€œWhat time is it anyhow?”
    Morgenstern