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That’s when you came in.”
    “Uh-huh. What about the titty girl?”
    “The…?”
    “The girl who came running out to flag us down.”
    “Oh, yeah. She came in to buy some beer and I sent her outside to get the police.”
    “So you weren’t injured.”
    “No, sir.”
    “Lucky man. I’d say this moke was definitely hopped up on some bad shit.” Fuller looked down at the killer, then said, “Okay. You go wait outside with the titty girl and make sure she don’t run off. You’ll both have to give your statements to the detectives.”
    As Joe Carr went out the door, Todd said, “Ambulance is on the way, Sarge.”
    “That should give us just enough time,” said Fuller.
    “For what?” asked Todd.
    “Watch and learn, rookie. Watch and learn.” Fuller found a broom behind the counter, then took it to the dairy case, pulled out a tub of margarine, opened it and stuck the tip of the broom handle into the margarine and twisted it around. “Got to grease up the old pole, see?”
    Todd stared at the wood twisting in the yellow goop in the plastic tub. Remembering a news story of police brutality from a few years back, his face got hot and the back of his neck went stiff with tension. He didn’t want to believe Sergeant Fuller was going to do what he thought he was going to do.
    “Bare his ass,” said Fuller.
    “What?” Todd swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t go down.
    “Pull his goddamn britches down. I’m gonna break him in for the butt fuckers in the joint.”
    “You’re not serious.”
    “Fuck I ain’t. In case this shit head survives his belly wound, I wanna give him something to remember us by. Hell, if Rhode Island had the death penalty, I wouldn’t be forced to do this, but it don’t, so I gotta dispense a little backdoor justice my own damn self. Now get his fucking pants down, rookie.”
    “No way, Sarge. I won’t do it.”
    Fuller stopped twisting the broomstick in the greasy goop and looked with narrowed eyes at Todd. “I’m giving you a direct fucking order, kid. You best think long and hard before you go against me. You want your cop career to be over before it starts?”
    “No. But this is an unlawful order. We could go to jail for this.”
    Fuller laughed. “Nobody can prove nothing if you keep your mouth shut. And you
will
keep your mouth shut.”
    “What about that security camera?” Todd pointed at the camera mounted near the ceiling behind the counter.
    “Shit, old Habib never puts tape in that thing. Cheap bastard. You gonna help me or not?”
    Todd shook his head.
    “You just fucked yourself, rookie. Wait till the guys hear about this. One day you’ll be in deep shit and you’ll call for backup and nobody’ll come. You’re about to become what they call
persona non grata
. That means your life as a cop is shit.”
    Todd clenched his fists. He fought the urge to hit the big man.
    Fuller pushed him backward. “Out of my way, asshole. I’ll do it myself.” He bent down, unfastened the unconscious man’s dirty jeans and yanked them down to the ankles. “No fucking underwear. That figures. Punk ain’t had a bath in weeks. And you’re throwing away your career for this shitbucket.”
    As the sergeant probed the cleft of the man’s buttocks with the lubricated broomstick, Todd weighed his options. He could walk out of the store to avoid witnessing a classic case of police brutality; he could stay and watch in consensual silence—or he could try to stop Fuller from abusing the man now officially in their custody. It was a tough decision for a rookie cop, and that damn church bell chiming endlessly made it hard to think straight. The sound got under his skin, all the way down to his bones and inside his skull. It was giving him a headache. And the headache made it even harder to think straight. It set him on edge. It pissed him off. It made him want to go at Fuller with his baton.
    When Fuller found his mark with the tip of the broomstick, he gave it