The Glitter Dome Read Free Page B

one he held in his hand, not the one that misfired in the Chinatown motel. And look at it, the cylinder so crusty with powder rings it could hardly turn. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had cleaned his unfailing surrogate cock. Yet this baby never misfired. If he treated the other one like this, what? Terminal scabies? More likely, treatment from some unlicensed Chinese croaker (compliments of Wing after a finder’s fee) so the Department wouldn’t charge him with Conduct Unbecoming an Officer for coming up with some kind of venereal Red Death. But it couldn’t happen. He regularly cleaned and lubricated and pampered the one that misfired.
    The glass was empty. He didn’t even remember draining it. He put the six-inch Smith & Wesson service revolver on the table in front of him. Lots of people are scared of their cocks. He was only afraid of the one that didn’t work. Marty Welborn confessed that occasionally his didn’t work these days. With Marty it was probably not booze but religion. Maybe they were one and the same? In any case, he was not afraid of the surrogate on the table. He’d carried it too long.
    Al Mackey staggered to his feet. The bump on his head was now marble-sized. He weaved his way across the kitchen and through the cramped boxy living room. He kicked his way through the litter: newspapers, magazines, an empty bottle of Tullamore Dew on the three-legged coffee table, which sagged whimsically, propped up by a stack of useless books on criminal law, criminal evidence, and criminal procedure. Books he had never been able to bring himself to study in all the years he had never troubled to take the lieutenant’s exam.
    He looked at those books, performing their first useful function, supporting the table he had broken two weeks ago when, even drunker than tonight, he had tripped over the goddamn cat.
    How he hated that ugly table. How he hated those books he’d never studied. How he would have hated being a lieutenant and sitting at a desk and sucking some captain’s ass. How he’d have hated the humilation of failing the lieutenant’s exam. God, how he hated that fucking cat .
    The tomcat was standing on top of the couch hissing at him, as mean and spiteful as ever—unblinking, glaring. Then the no-name cat turned away and began sharpening his claws on top of the already shredded sofa back, just as he had every day since that rainy night five months ago when the detective took in this nasty, skulking alley cat during a bout of drunken Yuletide sentimentality.
    Al Mackey watched the cat and smiled malevolently. It was perfect. It suited the mood, this blatant display of haughty destruction.
    â€œMaybe you want to go with me?” Al Mackey said to the cat, who looked up and arrogantly ripped deeper into the fabric. Tufts of cotton began to ball up and leak out. Al Mackey turned and staggered the few steps back into the kitchen. When he returned to the ruined living room he pointed the six-inch Smith & Wesson at the blazing yellow eye.
    â€œRight between your frigging horns,” said Al Mackey.
    The striped pearly tomcat narrowed the yellow eye and responded by insolently ripping the fabric yet deeper.
    â€œYou miserable prick!” Al Mackey said.
    The cat yawned . That did it.
    Al Mackey kicked the lawbooks from under the coffee table. The cat arched and screamed. The bottle of Tullamore Dew went flying. Al Mackey kicked the wrecked table again and the cat went flying.
    Al Mackey watched the remnant of Irish whiskey dribble out on the matted filthy Oriental rug, which like everything else in the bachelor apartment belonged to the landlady. Al Mackey heard the cat snarling as it retreated to its bed in the corner of the bathroom.
    Al Mackey was ready to show the world. He went straight to the closet. He pulled a sweat shirt and two pairs of jogging shoes onto the floor. He hadn’t done any running in two years. He kicked the