Cop Job by Chris Knopf

Author:Chris Knopf [Knopf, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781579624392
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Published: 2015-07-09T12:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I had to go into the Village the next day to buy some weird little fasteners you can only buy from the hardware store on Main Street. After several years in the construction trade in Southampton, I’d begun to think the place stocked at least one of everything that has ever been made.

First, though, I stopped at the coffee place on the corner to resupply my giant travel mug drained on the ten-minute trip from the cottage. The shop was packed with the usual summer crowd, but I practiced patience and forbearance and got out of there after only growling at one young jerk in an exercise outfit who was too occupied with his smartphone to avoid bumping into me.

At the hardware store, I caught up with the various Latinos, Poles, and craggy old Anglos who worked the place, suggesting that my five-dollar sale likely assured the owner’s mortgage that month.

From there I walked across the street toward the bank and got hit by a big white van.

I was at the crosswalk, where an urgent sign in the middle of the road should have provided enough warning to the driver, and in fact, I saw him slow down as he approached. But then a woman behind me on the sidewalk started losing control of the little dog she was holding. Her insistent commands and the dog’s yelping pulled my attention away and by the time I looked forward again the van was right on top of me. I jumped back, literally, but too late to avoid getting clipped by the big truck’s left fender.

Even at low speed, the ballistic energy of a multiton vehicle is a lot more than the average human body is built to withstand. Even if you spend as much time in the gym as I do.

I spun like a skating routine gone terribly wrong and landed hard enough to hear the crack of my jaw as it hit the pavement. I’d been punched there a few times during my boxing career, but it didn’t prepare me for the shock to the brain and special effects that lit up before my eyes. My elbows and knees were also involved, though I was more interested at that point in staying out from under the wheels of the truck. I heard screams from the sidewalk and the screech of tires. And somebody yelling “son of a bitch,” though I think that was me.

When I stopped rolling I was hard against the curb. I looked up and saw a bunch of people staring down at me saying things like, “Is he dead?” One of the faces got a lot closer, and I recognized him as the driver. Jaybo Flynn, Jimmy Watruss’s young buddy driving Mad Martha’s refrigerated fish van.

“Holy shit, Sam, I’m so fucking sorry,” he was screaming. “Are you okay? Oh man, somebody call an ambulance. My fucking foot slipped. Jesus Christ, are you dead?”

“I’m not dead, Jaybo,” I said, pulling myself up. “I’m not even all that hurt, unless this blood means something.

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