Artist Read Free

first door on the left, and went out the front.
    Adan went in first, screamin g at the top of his lungs. Dupond followed in time to see J.Lee Clive crammed into the narrow window, his bare feet sticking out of a pair of raggedy blue jeans. Adan leaped, grabbed one leg, and started pulling. Dupond stuck his pistol back in the holster, grabbed the other leg, and held on.  Clive rolled over on to his back, still in the window, half in half out the window. There was a gun in his hand and he was fighting to get it past the widow frame. Dupond reacted immediately, dropped the leg he was holding, grabbing for the arm. Adan dropped his leg, stepped back, and kicked Clive in the balls as hard as he could. The gun fell out on to the scraggly lawn under the window, Clive fell back into the room where he was smothered by Dupond and Adan, who got him cuffed then took a minute to catch their breath.
    “Good move,” Dupond said, trying to get his nerves settled.
    “It’s my specialty,” Adan replied. “I don’t like to take chances.”
    Clive had nothing to say and fifteen minutes later, he was on his way downtown in the back of a squad with Brooks and Weaver, leaving Dupond and Adan to decompress. The zippered bag held nothing but money and a few grams of coke. Dupond was relieved and disappointed at the same time. He got cranked on the action, always did, nothing he liked better. The pulse ratcheting quickness of a takedown, the clutching fear of weapons fired. It all ignited his nature. He’d once run six blocks through a housing project to tackle a suspect only to find, when he finally got him cuffed on the ground, that he’d dropped his radio. By that time a crowd was gathering and Dupond kept his weapon in his hand as the crowd grew larger, attracted by the sight of a single policeman. The protests had just begun when a squad car pulled up. The crowd scattered. Too much law. There was something about the chase that stirred his blood, whether it was physical or the mental back and forth of detecting, determining motive, gathering evidence then nailing someone to the wall.
    Now he and Adan, who lived cranked up , were going through the cool down phase. Adan was smoking a cigarette, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He blew out smoke, shrugging out of his vest.
    “You know, he’s going to walk. What’s the chances of that gun being the one he used to off the kid? The DA isn’t going to want to go ahead with a murder charge. Nothing to tie him to it but the guy in the store.”
    Dupond shrugged. “He’s smart enough to dump the weapon. We got him cold on the coke so that’s good for a year anyway. Maybe attempted murder of a police officer?” He knew when he said it that it wouldn’t happen.
    “So, what you’re saying is that a year from now he’ll be out and we’ll be chasing his ass down again.”
    “Yep,” Dupond said. He threw his vest in the back seat. “Only he’ll learn a few new tricks in jail and probably be better at doing what he does. Next time we won’t find the victim the next morning or anyone to tie him in. He’s a smart kid.”
     
     
    Police Headquarters was a slate grey monstrosity, a stolid granite building weathered by years and rain and exhaust. Green moss tinged the grout, creeping down the side of the building and staining the sidewalk. In the summer, the walls dripped sweat, in winter they held the outside chill. Homicide occupied the third floor, a long tiled hallway opening up on either side to offices jammed with desks. Dupond and Adan occupied the last office, along with six other detectives on rotating shifts. There was a constant parade of people moving in and out, maintenance men, patrolmen, attorneys, witnesses and suspects, the occasional wife or girlfriend. The interrogations rooms sat at the far end of the hall, the first thing anyone saw when they came out the elevator, steel screened windows and solid doors.
    Now at his desk, Dupond waded through stacks of