Virtual Light

22. Rub-a-dub

Whoever had grabbed her, she just kept kicking and punching, right up the stairs, backward. But he had her held out so far in front of him that he almost fell on top of her.

Then she was out on the deck, in what light there was, and looking at some kind of plastic machine gun, the color of a kid’s army toy, in the hands of another one of these big ugly raincoat guys, this one with no hat and his wet hair slicked back from a face with the skin on too tight.

“You drop her now, fuckhead” this one with the gun said. Had an accent out of an old monster movie. She barely kept to her feet when the one who was holding her let go.

“Fuckhead” the gun-guy said, like Pock Ed, “you try to make move or what?”

“War” the one who’d grabbed her said, then doubled over, coughing. “Baby” he said, straightening, then winced, hugging his ribs, looking at her. “Jesus fuck, you got a kick on you.” Sounded American, but not West Coast. In a cheap nylon jacket with one sleeve half ripped off at the shoulder, white fuzzy stuff hanging out.

“You try to make a move…” And the plastic gun was pointing right at the guy’s face.

“War-baby, war-baby” the guy said, or anyway it sounded like that, “war-baby sent me to get her. He’s parked back out there past those tank-trap things, waiting for me to bring her out.”

“Arkady…” It was the ofle in the plastic hat, coming up the stairs behind the guy who’d grabbed her. He had a pair of night-vision glasses on, that funny-looking center-tube poking out from beneath the brim of his hat. He was holding up something that looked like a miniature aerosol can. He said something in this language. Russian? He gestured with the little can, back down the stairs.

“You use capsicum in an enclosed space like that” said the one who’d grabbed her, “people’ll get hurt. Get you some permanent sinus problems.”

The tight-faced man looked at him like he was something crawled out from under a rock. “You drive, yes?” he said, gesturing for the hat-man to put the thing away, whatever it was.

“We had a coffee. Well, you had tea. Svobodov, right?”

Chevette caught the tight-faced man’s glance at her, like he hadn’t liked her hearing his name. She wanted to tell him she’d heard it Rub-a-Dub, how this other guy talked, so that couldn’t really be it, could it?

“Why you grab her?” asked the tight-faced man, Rub-a-Dub.

“She coulda got away in the dark, couldn’t she? Didn’t know your partner here had night vision. Besides, he sent me to get her. Didn’t mention you. In fact, they said you didn’t come out here.”

The one with the hat was behind her now, jerking her arm up in a hold. “Lemme go—”

“Hey” the one who’d grabbed her said, like it made things okay, “these men are police officers. SFPD Homicide, right?”

Rub-a-Dub whistled softly. “Fuckhead.”

“Cops?” she asked.

“Sure are.”

Which produced a little snort of exasperation from Rub-aDub.

“Arkady, now we go. These dirthags try to spy us from below…” The hat-man pulling off his night-glasses and dancing like he had to pee.

“Hey” she said, “somebody’s killed Sammy. If you’re cops, listen, he killed Sammy Sal!”

“Who’s Sammy?” the one in the torn jacket said.

“I work with him! At Allied. Sammy DuPree. Sammy. He got shot.”

“Who shot him?”

“Ry-dell. Shut fuck up.” Shot, Pock, Op.

“She’s tellin’ us she’s got-information-regarding a possible homicide, and you’re telling me to shut up?”

“Yes, I tell you shut fuck up. War-baby. He will explain.”

And her arm twisted up so she’d go with them.

Svobodov had insisted on cuffing him to Chevette Washington. They were Beretta cuffs, just like he’d carried on patrol in Knoxville. Svobodov said he and Orlovsky needed their hands free in case any of these bridge people caught on they were taking the girl off.

But if they were taking her in, how come they hadn’t read her any Miranda, or even told her she was under arrest? Rydell had already decided that if it got to court and he was called to witness, no way was he going to perjure himself and say he’d heard any fucking Miranda. These Russians were balls-out cowboys as far as he could see, just exactly the kind of officers the Academy had tried hard to train Rydell not to be.

In a way, though, what they were reflected what a lot of people more or less unconsciously expected cops to be and do, and that, this one lecturer at the Academy had said, was because of mythology. Like what they called the Father Mulcahy Syndrome, in barricaded hostage situations. Where somebody took a hostage and the cops tried to decide what to do. And they’d all seen this movie about Father Mulcahy once, so’d they’d say, yeah, I got it, I’ll get a priest, I’ll get the guy’s parents, I’ll lay down my gun and I’ll go in there and talk him out. And he’d go in there and get his ass drilled out real good. Because he forgot, and let himself think a movie was how you really did it. And it could work the other way, too, so you gradually became how you saw cops were in movies and on television. They’d all been warned about that. But people like Svobodov and Orlovsky, people who’d come here from other countries, maybe that media stuff worked even stronger on them. Check how they dressed, for one thing.