Sergeant Roland paced the floor behind his large metal desk, not
looking at the teenage boy who sat, expressionless, on the hard wooden
chair across from him.
"Now see here, boy," said the sergeant. His voice was deep and
harsh, from smoking too many of the cigars from the gold plated cigar box
on his desk, a gift from Earl Sutherland, who owned a large law practice
in town and lived in a fifteen room mansion in the West End. Guests were
always offered a cigar, though few accepted. Now only Sergeant Roland had
one, clenched unlit in his teeth. "You have got to identify yourself," he
continued, enunciate every word in a slow southern drawl. When he spoke,
he took the cigar out of his mouth and waved it at the boy to emphasize
his words.
The boy looked to be seventeen, and was wearing faded blue jeans and
a worn leather jacket. His hair was long and dark, and it hung in his
eyes. The tired blue bandanna which normally held it back was lying on
the desk, along with two other items: A switchblade, and a gold money
clip. The money clip had the initials K.A.F. engraved on it, and held
well over a hundred dollars.
Sergeant Roland stopped pacing and leaned over the desk at the boy.
"Fine," he said, obviously annoyed. "Let's hear „your story." He sat
down in the plush desk chair and put his feet on the desk, leaning back
with his hands behind his head as the boy began to speak.
George Roland had been an Officer of the Law for twenty-four years.
He liked the title, and used it often. 'I am an Officer of the Law!' he
would bellow at drunks and no-good teenagers, chuckling as they scrambled
for cover. He was 6'1" tall and had been quite an imposing figure as a
Lieutenant in the Marines, back in the days of Vietnam. Now, however, he
was sixty pounds heavier and twenty years older, with a bad back from
carrying all the excess weight. He had an eye for criminals, though, that
had gotten keener over the years, and he knew it, just like he knew that
this punk was a bad apple the moment he laid eyes on him.
The sound of the boy's voice interrupted his thoughts. Roland
realized he had missed part of what the kid had said. 'Too bad,' he said
to himself, 'probably quite a story.' He began to listen.
"They heard the siren, so they grabbed me and the tall one put the
money clip in my pocket. When that cop got there, the kids told him I'd
tried to rob them." The boy paused for a moment, looking at the sergeant
with an appraising eye. "That tall kid is slick," he said. "He even
picked up the knife that he'd dropped and gave it to the cop. 'As proof,'
said the kid." The boy looked at Sergeant Roland. "As I see it, the
money clip's mine. He gave it to me."
The sergeant fixed a cold eye on him. "See here, son," he said, his
words as cold as his stare, "when you use a weapon to forcibly remove the
possessions of another person, you are not, and I repeat, not receiving a
gift." The boy began to stare at the ceiling with the same stony
expression he'd worn earlier, and Sergeant Roland began to get angry.
'This kid doesn't know he's put my ass in a sling,' thought the
sergeant to himself. This was the third time this year some derelict had
tried to rob one of the rich kids from the West End, and the Chief was
laying the blame square on his shoulders. He remembered his discussion
with the chief after the last one.
"George," said the Chief, "we have a problem here. The people of
Falls Village pay you a lot of money to keep your district clean. I don't
mean down to a break in here, a mugging there. I mean clean!" The chief
didn't smoke, so he used a pen to emphasize his points, waving it at
Roland and stabbing at his blotter with it.
Roland knew the Chief was a hardass, and the Chief knew he knew it.
This meant that Roland had better do something, and quick. He figured the
Farace kid's father had already talked to the Chief about this one, so
he'd be having another conversation soon. He looked at the kid, who
hadn't moved. "Come on, son," he said, "looks like you're going to be
visiting for a while."
"You can't keep me here," retorted the boy. "I haven't done
anything."
"Listen, punk!" growled Roland, his face red, "You are being detained
for unlawful possession of a weapon, assault with a deadly weapon,
attempted robbery, and refusal to identify yourself." His face broke into
a nasty grin. "I can think of several more if you'd like."
"Keep it in your pants," said the boy, getting to his feet, "I'm
coming."
Sergeant Roland got up quickly from behind the desk, and thrust the
boy towards a closed door at the side of the room. He opened the door and
followed the boy down the tiled hallway, his polished black shoes loud on
the linoleum. The hall was lined with doors on each side; Roland grasped
the boy's shoulder and stopped him before one of the gray metal doors,
featureless except for a small bronze plaque. 'Juvenile Detention,' it
said in small black letters, 'Room 7.'
Keeping his eye on the boy, he took a large key ring from his belt, and going through the keys, found the right one and inserted it into the lock, which disengaged with a loud click as he opened the door. "Get in," he said, as he shoved the boy into the room, slamming the door loudly behind the boy. Checking the lock, he glared at the door. "Lying little shit," he muttered, as he turned and walked back towards his office."
The boy's name was Jason Vincent, and he was twenty years old. He
had been walking the roads for four years, making his way slowly down the
East Coast, state by state, and had held many jobs along the way, some for
months, some for days.
He had thought that his last job, working at First National
Supermarket in Wilmah, West Virginia would have lasted for several months,
at least, but it had ended suddenly when the store manager, to hide the
fact that he was getting his own groceries from the back storeroom, had
accused Jason of shoplifting several hundred dollars worth of food. How
the manager claimed Jason had done it he didn't know, but Jason overheard
the phone call to the police, and left before they got ahold of him.
Situations like that were nothing new to Jason. In the four years he
had been on the road, he'd been accused of more crimes than he could
count, and he could count a lot higher than most people gave him credit
for. He supposed people had been doing it since time immemorial - blaming
the crime on the stranger, the person who nobody really knew.
This was the first time that the police had ever gotten hold of him,
though, and it worried him. He thought of the kids who had gotten him
arrested, and he grew angry. It wasn't the first time they had pulled
this trick either, he could tell. The tall kid was enjoying himself too
much. He supposed that he was lucky, though - he was sure that the tall
one would have cut him up with the knife it the cop hadn't showed up.
Now he was really in trouble, if he couldn't get out of this somehow.
He had left all of his belongings back in Wilmah when he had left in such
a rush, and it was likely that there was a general lookout for him in the
area. If this petty tyrant of a sergeant got it into his head to wire the
surrounding towns, he was really up the creek.
Right now, however, there wasn't too much that he could do, so he
began to look around the room he was in. It was a small bare room, not
quite a cell, about eight feet by ten feet. There was a low bench bolted
to one wall, and a sink. It wasn't exactly dark - there was a window that
had a heavy metal screen over it and a flickering fluorescent light in the
ceiling, but it was getting dark and little light came in the deep set window.
He tried the water, but nothing came out, and looking underneath the
sink, he saw that the supply lines were disconnected. Then he looked at
the ceiling once again, and it gave him an idea, for it was a suspended
ceiling, one with fiberglass panels held up by white metal cross-pieces.
It had probably been put in to hide the bare concrete ceiling, he figured;
standing on the bunk, he removed one of the panels, revealing an ugly
concrete surface just over two feet away from the suspended ceiling, as
well as several pipes that traversed the space between the two.
He jumped up and grasped one of the pipes, pulling himself up so he could see what was above. The upper area was the same size and shape as the room below, and was crossed by assorted pipes and wires. Jason saw the wires and grinned.
Roland was on the phone with Mrs. Farace when he heard the banging.
He had called her to verify what the officer dispatched to the scene had
told him.
"So then I looked out my window and saw that horrid boy fighting with
my Kevin," she said in an alarmed voice. "I'm so glad his friends were
there to hold back that ... that vagrant!" She spat the word out with a
vehemence that surprised the sergeant. "He might have actually hurt him
with that knife," she added.
"Uh-huh," said the sergeant. "Can you please hold on a moment?" he
asked obsequiously. "Thanks." Putting Mrs. Farace on hold, he went to
the door of the detention hallway and opened it. "Shut up," he yelled
into the corridor. "You hear me, you little shit!" The pounding
continued and the Roland marched purposefully down the hall. "You're
going to be very sorry," he muttered under his breath.
He got to room 7 and found the key, touching the door handle gingerly
before he inserted the key. He had seen a television show the other day
in which a prisoner had escaped by hooking up the electricity in his cell
to the lock, electrocuting the guard when he came to unlock the door. No
shock was forthcoming, though, so he unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The boy was sitting on the bench, glaring at him. "My water doesn't
work," he complained. "What kind of a place is this?"
Roland walked over at the boy and looked down at him. "'My water
doesn't work,'" he mimicked. "I'll give you water!" he yelled,
backhanding Jason across the face. Blood began to well out of a cut from
Roland's class ring, and he looked at the boy with a nasty smile. "You
got that resisting arrest," he said in a satisfied voice. "You've had
that coming since you got here." He looked at the boy, but he got no
response, and the boy remained seated on the bunk, holding his face.
"Here's your goddamn water," said the sergeant, walking over to the sink. "I just had my brother-in-law in here to check these last week." He saw the boy lean forward as the reached for the faucet, and a momentary feeling of alarm passed through his mind before 115 volts of electricity passed through his body and blasted away all thought.
Looking at the sergeant lying on the floor, with the scent of burnt
flesh assailing his nostrils, Jason felt ill. He reached for one of the
limp wrists, and tried unsuccessfully to find a pulse. Then he listened
at the unconscious man's chest, and his eyes widened in fear. He wasn't
unconscious! He was dead!
Jason stood up, unsure of what to do. He sure as hell hadn't meant
to kill him, and figured the best thing he could do was get out of there
as fast as he could. He looked down at the body, and took off the gun and
its holster, putting it on under his leather jacket. It was heavy and
awkward, and he felt very self conscious with it on. He picked up
Sergeant Roland's wallet, also, and looked at it guiltily for a long
minute before putting it in the inside pocket of his coat.
Jason left the room, looking back once at the crumpled body of the sergeant, and ran down the hall, feeling sick to his stomach. He paused in the office long enough to grab the knife, bandanna and money clip before fleeing through the window, glad that the sergeant's office was on the ground floor.
The next day Officer Brockman was at the front desk when Doug Manning
walked in. Doug looked around nervously, then asked if Sergeant Roland
was in.
"He's busy right now," said Brockman. They had managed to keep what
had happened fairly quiet, because they didn't want to alarm anybody in
town with news of an escaped would-be murderer. 'In reality, that kid is
lucky,' thought Stan Brockman. 'The kid obviously thought the sergeant
was dead, or he'd have tied him up or something. Good thing he didn't
know the sergeant was alive. He'd probably have zapped him again to make
sure.' Brockman didn't voice his thoughts out loud, however. He figured
the punk would go after the four kids who'd turned him in. Doug was one
of the four.
"Maybe I can help you," offered Brockman. "Is it about that punk we
brought in yesterday?"
"Yes," replied Doug, his face thin and drawn. "He didn't do
anything." He looked away nervously. "He's innocent."
"What the hell do you mean he's innocent?!" exploded Stan. "He
attacked you boys, tried to rob Kevin Farace, and almost killed the
sergeant!" Brockman, his face beet red with anger, leaned over the
counter at Doug. "Just what do you mean, Buster?"
Doug Manning, his eyes wide and his face pale, tried to answer.
"He...we...it's not..." He burst into tears and sat down on one of the
blue vinyl chairs across from the counter.
Officer Brockman realized that he had made a mistake and his voice
grew obsequiously soft. It wasn't smart to talk to people from the West
End that way, even the kids. They had a way of telling things like this
to their parents. "Hey, it's okay," he said. "Don't get all upset. I
didn't mean to yell, it's just that what happened bothered me a bit." He
paused. "Listen, if you'll forgive me, I'll tell you what happened, but
you can't tell anyone, not even your parents. Okay?"
Doug nodded, and Stan felt relieved. Something like that could cost
you your job, he thought.
"Good," said, Stan, and he told Doug what happened the day before,
surprised that the boy showed no trace of alarm that the kid had escaped.
"You know," said Brockman, "he might take it in his mind to come after the
four of you."
"I don't think so," he replied. Doug watched a lot of television,
and he had seen the same show that the sergeant had. It was a rerun of a
show called Stingray, and what had happened was that an undercover cop had
escaped from jail by wiring the lights to the door of the cell. The
jailer hadn't died, and neither had the sergeant. Doug figured that
somehow the kid had seen the same show, and he didn't think anything was
on the kid's mind but getting as far away as possible.
"Well, you'd better be careful," responded Brockman. "What did you
come here to tell me, anyways?"
"Don't you get it?" asked Doug. "He was set up. He didn't attack
Kevin, or try to rob him, or anything. Kevin put the money clip in his
pocket, and the knife was Kevin's, and the idea was Kevin's." He paused.
"And I'm sorry I helped. Is the sergeant all right?"
"What? Uh, yeah," stuttered Brockman.
Doug sat silently for a moment. 'I hope he gets away,' he thought to himself. To Officer Brockman, he said, "call Kevin about it. I'm going home." He got up and walked out, leaving Brockman staring, stunned, at his retreating back.
Jason walked along the side of the road in the vanishing light, the
sound of his bootheels loud in the stillness. He was wearing the same
worn leather jacket and faded jeans, but on his back he was wearing a new
day pack, bought with some of the money in the money clip. In the pack
was a box of Carnation Instant Breakfast bars, two oranges, and a leather
holster with a .357 semi-automatic pistol. At the top of the pack was a
green wool blanket that he'd hurriedly bought in a small store at the edge
of town.
After half a mile he came upon a small house at the side of the road
with a dirt parking lot in front of it. 'Smitty's General Store,' said
the aging Coca-Cola sign hanging from the front porch. The lights inside
were off; the harsh fluorescent lamp over the peeling red gas pumps was
the only light, but it was enough to reveal a squat blue U.S. Mailbox
sitting on the front porch.
Creeping up to the mailbox, Jason deposited the gun, the untouched walled, and the switchblade. He also put in the money clip, now empty except for a folded white piece of paper. 'I.O.U.' it said. '$185.'
The road led southward through the woods, away from the town. At the
top of a small hill, Jason turned and could see the lights twinkling in
the valley below. Hearing a car approaching, he faded into the
undergrowth as the headlights swept by towards town. As they passed, they
illuminated a roadside sign. 'Welcome to Falls Village! Enjoy your stay!'
Jason turned away and walked away into the night.