I moved quickly. I leaned forward and planted one wide hand on the door to prevent him from shutting it. He began to shout, “What the fuck—” but the words were barely out of his mouth before I’d reached my other hand forward to pin him by his throat against the wall.
“Let’s go, motherfucker,” I growled. “You and I are gonna have a chat.”
His eyes bulged out of his skull as he gurgled, spit flecking on his lips. I threw him down the entry hallway and kicked the door shut, locking it behind me. I didn’t want to risk someone else coming home unexpectedly.
“Who the hell are you? How dare you assault me in my own home. I’m going to call the police right this fucking—”
“Shut the fuck up, John,” I said calmly. I turned and lifted the bottom edge of my shirt to show him the gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans. He turned white and stopped talking immediately. “Good man. Now, walk inside, and let’s have a seat. I’m not going to hurt you. I just have a few questions I’d like to ask.” I let the shirt fall back over my weapon. When he didn’t move, I raised an eyebrow and jerked my head towards the living room.
“Okay,” he mumbled, turning and shuffling inside. “This way.”
I followed him in. Something collided with my ankle and I looked down to see a curly-haired little dog planting its feet on my calf and looking up at me with its tongue out. “Cute pup,” I remarked.
“That’s Noodle,” he said. His voice was still shaking with fear.
“Come here, Noodle,” I said. I picked him up and placed him on my lap as I settled down on the plaid couch. “Sit, boy. You, too, John.”
John took a careful seat in the rickety chair that faced opposite the couch. He had put on a few pounds in the years since the picture I had was taken. A small potbelly stretched the fabric of his undershirt. “This is about what I saw, ain’t it?” he asked dejectedly. “The woman, Stanwell or Sanders or whatever her name was.”
I nodded slowly, keeping an eye on him as I petted the dog in my lap. Normally, I hated little rodent-looking fuckers like this, but for some reason Noodle was winning me over. He curled into a ball in the crevice between my knees and started to snore. “Tell me everything you remember,” I said.
“I knew it. You look just like the bastard who was there that night. The one who got all shot up.”
“Watch yourself,” I warned.
John blanched. “I’m sorry. Was he a friend of yours?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, I meant no disrespect. He was a mess, that’s all I’m sayin’. They did a number on him, poor fella.”
“Start from the beginning, John.”
He leaned back, sniffled, and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. “All right. I used to be on the force, yeah?” He pointed at a medal hanging on the mantle above the fireplace to my left. Albuquerque Police Department was stamped across the outer rim in big blue letters.
“Anyway, being a policeman ain’t exactly the road to El Dorado, if you know what I’m saying. Almost every guy in blue takes side jobs to make ends meet, put food on the table for the wife and kids, you know.”
“Sure.”
“Some guys do the seedier stuff—playing bodyguard for a mobster type, giving some of the coyotes a hand with pullin’ immigrants across the border, you know. I never had much of an appetite for that kind of thing, though. Too much risk. I ain’t much of a risk taker. But a man’s still gotta provide, and my ex-wife, being the money-grubbing whore that she was, didn’t make that easy on me. So I took a job working security at night for an apartment building that one of the biker gang guys owned.”
“James Sanders.”
“That’s the guy. I never met him personally; it was all set up through a buddy of mine, God rest his soul. But it was a steady gig, it paid pretty well, and there was never any trouble. Well, until all of a sudden there was.”
I dropped the dog and scooted forward onto the edge of the couch. “Keep going,” I ordered. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”
John sighed and scratched at a scab on the side of his head. “I don’t think you’re gonna love what I have to say.”
“I don’t care. Just keep talking.”
“Okay. So, this night, the night everything went down, I was at the desk up front, as usual. I’m half paying attention, half reading the newspaper, ’cause I didn’t expect anything, you know? Nothing had ever happened before! Not an ounce of a stir, and then, boom! There he is.”
“Who?”
“That’s the thing,” he said timidly. “I don’t know.”