The Martini Shot Read Free

someone knows somethin,” I said, as I felt the car slow and come to a stop.
    â€œYeah, well.” Barnes pushed the trans arm up into Park. “I caught a double in Columbia Heights this morning. So I sure would like to clean this Jennings thing up.”
    â€œYou know I be out there askin around,” I said. “But it gets expensive, tryin to make conversation in bars, buyin beers and stuff to loosen them lips…”
    Barnes passed another twenty over the seat without a word. I took it. The bill was damp for some reason, and limp like a dead thing. I put it in the pocket of my coat.
    â€œI’m gonna be askin around,” I said, like he hadn’t heard me the first time.
    â€œI know you will, Verdon. You’re a good CI. The best I ever had.”
    I didn’t know if he meant it or not, but it made me feel kinda guilty, backdooring him the way I was planning to do. But I had to look out for my own self for a change. The killer would be got, that was the important thing. And I would be flush.
    â€œHow your sons, Detective?”
    â€œThey’re good. Looking forward to playing Pop Warner again.”
    â€œHmph,” I said.
    He was divorced, like most homicide police. Still, I knew he loved his kids.
    That was all. It felt like it was time to go.
    â€œI’ll get up with you later, hear?”
    Barnes said, “Right.”
    I rose up off the bench, kinda looked around some, and got out the Crown Vic. I took a pull out the Popov bottle as I headed for my father’s house. I walked down the block, my head hung low.
    Â Â 
    Up in my room, I found my film canister under the T-shirts in my dresser. I shook some weed out into a wide paper, rolled a joint tight as a cigarette, and slipped it into my pack of Newports. The vodka had lifted me some, and I was ready to get up further.
    I glanced in the mirror over my dresser. One of my front teeth was missing from when some dude down by the Black Hole—said he didn’t like the way I looked—had knocked it out. There was gray in my patch and in my hair. My eyes looked bleached. Even under my bulky coat, it was plain I had lost weight. I looked like one of them defectives you pity or ridicule on the street. But shit, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it tonight.
    I went by my mother’s room, careful to step soft. She was in there, in bed by now, watching but not watching television on her thirteen-inch color, letting it keep her company, keeping the sound down low so she could hear my father if he called out to her from the first floor.
    Down in the living room, the television still played loud, a black-and-white film of the Liston-Clay fight, which my father had spoke of often. He was missing the fight now. His chin was resting on his chest, and his useless hand was kinda curled up like a claw in his lap. The light from the television grayed his face. His eyelids weren’t shut all the way, and the whites showed. Aside from his chest, which was moving some, he looked like he was dead.
    Time will just fuck you up.
    I can remember this one evening with my father, back around ’74. He had been home from the war for a while and was working for the Government Printing Office at the time. We were over there on the baseball field, on Princeton, near Park View Elementary. I musta been around six or seven. My father’s shadow was long and straight, and the sun was throwing a warm gold color on the green of the field. He was still in his work clothes, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His natural was full and his chest filled the fabric of his shirt. He was tossing me this small football, one of them K2s he had bought me, and telling me to run toward him after I caught it, to see if I could break his tackle. He wasn’t gonna tackle me for real; he just wanted me to get a feel for the game. But I wouldn’t run to him. I guess I didn’t want to get hurt, was what it was. He got