The Killing Room by Robert Swartwood

Author:Robert Swartwood [Smartwood, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

THIRTY-ONE

“Jared?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you consider yourself a good cop?”

“What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I’m a good cop.”

“I don’t mean good at your job. I mean . . .”

“What?”

“You do consider yourself dirty?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“Where do you think? Things are getting out of hand. When we started this—when you first brought me on—it was clean and easy. You’d promised me that nobody would get hurt, at least not physically.”

“That’s because it’s a victimless crime. You said it yourself a while back, that the rich keep getting richer and leave the rest of us drowning in our own shit. That’s how I knew I could bring you on.”

“But you told me nobody would get hurt.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Do you remember Donald Gattis?”

Silence.

“Jared, I asked if you remember—”

“Yes, I remember him. Why are you bringing him up?”

“I’ve always felt guilty about what happened. It was like, what, two years ago? But the guy still haunts me.”

“I can’t believe you’re bringing up Donald Gattis. Especially since you refused to help me take care of him.”

“I told you from the start, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. And Gattis . . . Christ, we killed him.”

“We didn’t do anything. Remember, you refused to help.”

“He played his part so convincingly, didn’t he? He had us believing he had all that money.”

“He did have all that money. It’s just that he’d gambled it all away his first two days here.”

“We couldn’t let him loose. Couldn’t just . . . let him leave.”

“Of course we couldn’t let him leave. Why the fuck are you bringing this up anyway?”

“Where did you bury him?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why are you asking now? It’s been two years. Two years and you never brought him up once.”

“You’re joking, right? In the last twenty-four hours, everything has gone to shit.”

“You need to calm down, Ben.”

“You weren’t standing right there when that bouncer hit the floor. I was only a few feet away. Everybody was screaming.”

“Yeah, I know everybody was screaming. I was standing right behind you.”

“And then you told me we should split up to find Walker, and I went out through that exit door and . . . and Walker was right there. He could have killed me.”

“But he didn’t.”

“He shot at me!”

“He shot at the wall by your head.”

“Then, when I was on the ground, he aimed his gun right at my face. The gun didn’t even waver in his hand. It was like . . . like he’d done the same thing a million times before.”

“You’re being overdramatic, Ben. You just got roughed up a bit. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? Fuck you.”

“Benito.”

“I never wanted to be a dirty cop.”

“Christ, we’re not dirty.”

“My uncle was a cop. He was a good cop. Looked after me and my mom and my brothers after my old man went away. He’s the reason I became a cop. And he . . . sometimes I wonder what he’d say if he was still alive and knew what I had gotten into.

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