Chapter One
When you’re a small-time lawman run over by the streetcar of life, lying face down on the rain-soaked pavement of opportunity, you recognise some hard truths as they go floating by in the gutter of hope.
I’d learned plenty. They were etched on my beaten heart in fine little letters of pain. Guns don’t work underwater. It’s harder than it looks to pick a padlock with your teeth. Blowtorches make you sore. Never arrest a hooker who has a five o’clock shadow, mannish hands, a briefcase, and insists you call her Commissioner. I before E except after C. The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.
Whatever bum said that about the rain ought to have come here, to the 9th Precinct. Vice and homicide. It had been raining for 17 years. Ever since she left me. Ever since I first got passed over. I looked at my cracked window with the view of the Chinese laundry. The water was streaming down it like crocodile tears off a white liberal’s face. I lit my ninth cigarette of the night. Maybe it was the 10th. I’d stopped counting years ago, right after some quack had told me about something called ‘cardiac arrest”. I popped him for resisting an officer and defeating the ends of hedonism.
My Ronson flared up, and in the glow I saw the writing on the wall. It was my name. The glass in my door had been broken by stray slugs and jilted broads once too often, so I’d had it stencilled on to the paisley wallpaper next to the light switch. Detective Chuck ‘Norris” Nqakula. A tough name for a tough guy.
A figure loomed up outside the frosted glass, and I went for my piece. Two knocks on the door. I didn’t like it. Only triggermen and old mistresses knocked twice. I squeezed off half a clip, shattering the glass. Goddamn stray slugs. They were going to dock my pay again. The room smelt of gun smoke, cheap bourbon and stale dreams. Thank God I’d missed my name.
‘Mr Nqakula?” The voice was diabolically smooth, like Satan himself was pouring fresh cream over her tonsils. ‘Why are you sitting in there with the lights off?”
I squeezed off another slug for effect. It hit the ceiling fan that hadn’t worked in a decade. Goddamn. They’d dock me all the same. ‘I like to keep people in the dark,” I growled. ‘Step inside, babycakes. What can I do you for?”
There are dames and there are dames. This was a dame. If this broad had been in paradise, Adam would have eaten the whole cussed fruit salad. She had ‘jailbait” written all over her.
‘I’m sorry about the writing all over me,” she murmured. ‘I started doodling, and it was such a long wait —”
I threw my Maltese Falcon at her. It went wide and broke the window. It was turning into that kind of an evening. ‘What is it with you people?” I barked. ‘Nothing but complaints.”
She blushed. ‘It’s just,” she stammered, ‘I’ve just been assaulted, and I tried to phone, but —” She pointed to my desk, where my telephone lay off the hook.
‘Golden rule of being a stud cop, angel pants,” I shrugged. ‘Never give your real number to dames. Next thing it’ll be paternity claims and weddings and similar fruitiness.”
‘But you’re the police!” she cried. She had a gash on her hairline. I hoped she wouldn’t bleed on my carpet. They’d dock me for that.
It made me crazy.
‘Do you think you’re the only ones struggling with crime? I’ve got an ulcer just from thinking about it.” It was true. Every day I sat and just thought about crime, and now I had an ulcer. ‘In the townships, well now, that’s real crime. When they kill you in townships, you stay dead. And do you see them calling me every five minutes like a bunch of girls?”
‘Your phone is off the hook.”
I don’t do dames who crack wise. It was time for her to leave. I put a slug through her handbag. Then I lost my temper.
‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say nothing at all! Hit the road, hussy. Leave this country to honest folks who know how to behave like decent victims, who keep their yap shut and pay their taxes. Take your stinking elitism and go. You’re giving me a migraine.”
I slammed the door behind her, and the last pieces of glass fell out. I was too mad to notice. I looked out into the rain. Damn accountability, I thought. Damn it straight to hell.