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  The cop thought about it. “Fine.”

  Once inside, Lesley, who was in her early twenties and interning with the paper, hoping to get hired on staff in a few months, said, “Nice one.”

  Merker, a lean man with closely cropped black hair, pointed chin, and piercing eyes, waved what looked like a plastic toy gun in his hand as he performed for the officers in an open area at the front of the room. The floor had been covered with gym mats, which suggested to me that a demonstration of some kind was imminent.

  The gun in Merker’s hand looked as though it had been drawn by a cartoonist, with fatter, exaggerated edges.

  “But with the Dropper,” he said, “instead of two wires coming out, two highly concentrated streams of highly conductive liquid come out. Each stream contains a different charge, if you will, and when they connect with the target, fifty thousand volts are discharged, completely interrupting the ability of the brain to send any messages to the body.”

  Someone in the audience quipped, “Maybe that’s what happened to the chief.” More chuckling. Disputes between the chief of police and the rank and file were legendary.

  “Because,” Merker continued, “there are no wires to rewind, no gas cartridges to replace, it means that you can fire the gun more than once. Three times, to be exact. The unit needs no time between the first and second, and second and third shots to recharge or be rewinded, what have you. You can fire off three stun shots as quickly as you can pull the trigger. Now, this is not the first liquid stun gun, but is the first to come in a handheld, manageable size.”

  There was some murmuring among the police officers, about two-thirds of them male. A woman spoke up. “What about if we drop somebody with one of these? Is there any chance they’ll die? And if they don’t, are there any lasting effects? ’Cause, like, I don’t want to get my ass sued off.”

  “I wouldn’t want anybody hurting that ass of yours,” a male cop said, and everyone laughed, including the female cop.

  Merker shook his head confidently. “The subject is instantly incapacitated, for several seconds, as his central nervous system collapses, but within about fifteen or twenty seconds, he starts recovering. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  This caused even more murmuring, this time a bit on the agitated side, as if the police officers in the room were worried that they might be volunteered for a demonstration. But then, to everyone’s collective relief, a tall, lumbering, round-shouldered man in the first row got to his feet and approached Merker.

  “I’d like you to meet my associate, Mr. Edgars. He is, as you can see, a big, strapping individual, 240 pounds, six foot four. It would take a lot to stop someone like him. Even an officer armed with a conventional weapon would feel unnerved if someone like Mr. Edgars was charging him.”

  Edgars grinned. Somewhat stupidly, I thought. He had a kind of “gentle giant” quality about him.

  “But not only will the Dropper drop Mr. Edgars, it will leave him unharmed. Leo,” he said, addressing Edgars by what was evidently his first name, “you’ve been shot with the Dropper, in demonstrations such as this, how many times now?”

  Leo Edgars said, “Uh, I guess, I think…I don’t remember exactly, Gary.”

  Before any nervous laughter could erupt, Gary Merker said, in the tone of a carnival barker, “Twenty-seven times! That’s how many! Leo has been shot twenty-seven times and yet remains undamaged in any way whatsoever.”

  Leo grinned again. “Actually, Gary, I believe it’s twenty-seven times.”

  There were some nervous chuckles. There was the sense among all of us, I think, that Merker’s assistant was a bit of a dim bulb who could benefit from a few more volts.

  Merker smiled along with everyone else and then did something funny with his nose. He twitched it, pulled on it a couple of times between thumb and index finger. He turned away from the audience for a second to conduct some bit of nasal maintenance, then faced front again and said, “The Dropper is an ideal tool for dealing with, for example, mental patients. A hardened criminal, a rapist, a bank robber, you don’t lose too much sleep shooting one of those types even if they never get up again. But a, you know, nutcase who can’t help being the way he is, that doesn’t deserve a death sentence.”

  Some cops exchanged awkward glances.

  “Now, Leo, you pretend to be a mental patient coming at me, with a knife, perhaps.”

  Lesley had slipped away a few moments earlier and was off to the side, ready with her camera.

  “Sure.” Leo took a few steps back, paused, put his fingers to his temples for a second, as if getting himself in the moment, and then he charged.

  “Ahhh!” he shouted. “I’m crazy!”

  Lesley was taking pictures as Gary Merker raised his Dropper stun gun and fired.

  The streams of water were so small, and came out so quickly, that I almost didn’t see them. But the results were immediately apparent. There was a brief crackling noise as they hit Leo, and his body went into an immediate spasm, dropping instantly. Lesley moved in for a better shot. Given Leo’s size, there was quite a “fwump!” when he hit the mat. Everyone recoiled, wondering whether Gary had just murdered his associate and we would all be called upon as witnesses.

  “You see!” said Merker. “Instant capitulation! And if I wanted to, I’d be able to shoot again immediately!”

  Leo just lay there. Lesley got off a couple more shots.

  “Uh,” said the woman cop who’d asked a question earlier, “is he okay?”

  Leo was still not moving.

  “Leo!” Merker shouted.

  His face still pressed into the mat, Leo said, “Errr.”

  “He just needs another minute,” Merker said. Slowly, Leo moved one of his arms, then another, and then he was slowly moving up onto his knees as most of his audience held their breath. With care, he got back onto his feet and dusted himself off.

  Everyone, myself included, applauded. We were just relieved, I think, that he wasn’t dead.

  “Of course,” Merker said, continuing his sales pitch, “during the period when he was down, law officers would have been able to cuff Leo, to subdue him. All you need is a few seconds to bring a suspect under control.” Merker walked over to Leo, put a hand on his shoulder while Lesley got an “after” shot. Merker gave her an annoyed look. “So, that’s twenty-eight times now. How are you feeling?”

  “Absolutely,” Leo said.

  A uniformed cop, a tall black man, stepped forward. “Mr. Merker, I’m the president of this police association, and we have a board that’s very hesitant about the use of these sorts of weapons. Has it been the experience of many other large city police departments that while stun guns are designed to be used in special circumstances to stop a suspect without actually killing him, once police have them, they start using them indiscriminately on suspects? Because their use is not fatal, officers aren’t just using them on dangerous psychiatric patients. Aren’t they using them on everyone from kids playing hooky to jaywalkers?”

  It was an interesting comment, given who it was coming from. The police union head seemed pretty skeptical.

  Merker was rubbing his nose again, one nostril in particular, like something inside there was really annoying him. He set his eyes on the questioner, almost accusingly. “Well, I guess if you’re saying that you think your own members aren’t responsible enough to handle these things,…well, then I guess you’ve got a problem.” There was some grumbling in the crowd, and I wasn’t sure whether it was directed at Merker or the union president. “Listen, I’m just here selling the hardware. I can give you guys good deals on these if you’re interested. If you don’t want them for yourselves, maybe you’d like to buy them for members of your family.”

  Lesley was back beside me. “Got some awesome shots,” she said. “Did you see that guy go down?”

  I nodded. “I thought he was dead there for a second.”

  Three or four cops approached Merker after he finished his pitch, but I didn’t see anyone
buying anything. As long as the stun guns were not being approved by the police commission, the cops would have to be buying them out of their own pocket.

  “What if I could save you another fifty bucks?” I heard Merker tell one officer, but he still had no takers.

  We found ourselves standing behind Gary Merker and his associate Leo Edgars at the elevator a couple of minutes later.

  Merker turned and pointed to me. “You’re not a cop.”

  “We’re with the Metropolitan,” I said, and offered a hand. Merker didn’t even look at it. “We came to cover your demonstration.”

  “I didn’t know the press was going to be here,” he said. “I don’t think you should be doing a story about this.”

  I shrugged. “That’s really not up to you,” I said. “The police let us in.”

  “Come on, Gary,” said Leo, who was in the elevator and holding the door open. “I’m starving. You know gettin’ electrocuted makes me really hungry.”

  Gary Merker was still steamed and shook his head in anger and frustration. Before getting on the elevator, he slipped a finger in and out of his nose at lightning speed, then flicked it at me. “That’s what I think of your fucking story,” he said.

  The elevator doors closed. Lesley Carroll looked stunned. “Welcome to the newspaper biz,” I said to her.

  4

  “I’VE HAD BETTER DAYS,” I told Trixie, who’d just been foolish enough to ask me how things were going. So I told her.

  “Have you talked to Sarah since this morning?” Trixie asked.

  “No,” I said. “She tried me on my cell but I didn’t answer it.”

  “That’s mature.”

  “I’m just pissed, okay? And I know it’s not her fault. It was Magnuson’s call. He put her in an impossible spot.” I shook my head, looked into my crème caramel decaf lattacino thingie. I had no idea what it was. Trixie offered to buy when we met at the Starbucks, and I’d told her to surprise me. We’d grabbed a small table in the back corner and had snared a couple of comfy, leather-covered chairs.

  “And we had such a nice time last night,” I said, more to myself than Trixie.

  “What, did you go out or something?”

  “No, no, we stayed in. Cost me twenty bucks, though.”

  “Really? Sarah makes you pay for it? That’s actually a very reasonable price, you know, and if there were any extras, it was a real bargain.” She grinned slyly at me. She was looking particularly fetching today, in a black cowl-neck sweater, black jeans and boots, her black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  I ignored all that and said, “She’s got this interview coming up, for foreign editor, and it’s Magnuson’s decision, so she probably didn’t feel she could come to my defense. Figured Magnuson would accuse her of not being objective.”

  “Because she sleeps with the reporter in question. For twenty bucks.”

  “The money actually went to Paul,” I said.

  Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s too kinky, even for me.”

  I took a sip of my drink. I didn’t know what it was, but it was sweet, and pretty good. “Anyway, look, these are my problems, not yours. When we spoke on the phone, you said you were in some kind of trouble.”

  “Yeah, well, I did, didn’t I.”

  “Sarah was wondering what kind of trouble you could be in that would bring you to call me. You need more chaos in your life? If that’s what you want, then I’m definitely your guy.”

  Trixie smiled. “Sarah’s tough on you, you know.”

  I went into self-deprecation mode and shrugged. “Look at what she has to put up with,” I said.

  “I could put up with you,” she said, without a hint of sarcasm.

  “So come on,” I said. “What’s up?”

  She took a breath. “I figure, what with you being the only person I know who works in journalism, that maybe you could advise me on how to proceed.”

  “How to proceed with what?”

  “How to proceed with keeping some asshole from writing a story about me.”

  “What asshole would that be?”

  Trixie hauled her purse, a good-sized one, onto her lap and started rooting around. First, she pulled out a stack of mail and put it on our table so that she could better see what she had in there. “Just give me a minute,” she said. “I have a post office box, get as little mail as possible delivered to my home.” I noticed what looked like a Visa bill, possibly a property tax notice from the town of Oakwood, something from a car company labeled “Important: Recall Notice,” and a number of what appeared to be personal letters, none with return addresses.

  I lightly thumbed them. “Fan mail?”

  “Hmm?” Trixie said. “Oh, sometimes men write to me ahead of time, tell me what they want. They don’t want anything showing up in the ‘sent messages’ in their Outlook Express, if you know what I mean, in case the wife happens to read it.”

  “Sure.”

  She saw the recall envelope for, it seemed, the first time. “Oh shit, not another. Never buy a German luxury car, at least not a GF300. I thought the GF stood for ‘goes fast.’ Now I think it’s for ‘get fixed.’ It’s been recalled for the fuel injection, a power seat, cruise control glitches. Who’s got time to get all those things fixed? Open that, see what it’s for while I try to find this thing.”

  I opened the envelope, pulled out the paperwork. “Let me see here. Uh, okay, you’ve got extra-sensitive air bag sensors. Slightest hit on the front bumper can set them—”

  “Here it is.” Trixie slapped a newspaper clipping onto the table, then scooped all her mail back into the purse. I picked up the clipping. It was a column, with a guy’s head shot, and a name in bold caps: “MARTIN BENSON.”

  The headline read, “Council Misses Boat on Harbor Review.”

  “Something about the Oakwood harbor? What do you have to do with that?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I don’t care about the story. I just wanted you to see who the asshole was.”

  “Martin Benson.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What paper is this from?”

  “The Suburban.”

  Oakwood’s local, community newspaper. Light on news but heavy on inserted ads, it was delivered free to most of the town’s households.

  “I don’t remember this guy from when we lived there,” I said. When we had a house in Oakwood, I’d at least turn the pages of the Suburban before dropping it into the recycling bin.

  “He’s a new guy. Trying to make a name for himself. By fucking me over.”

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

  “Okay, this Benson guy, he hears through the grapevine what kind of business I might be operating in my home.”

  “You mean, like, a house of pleasure and pain.”

  “I offer pain. But some people do find that pleasing.”

  “Where do you think he heard about it?”

  Trixie shrugged. “Any number of people know. Clients. Former neighbors.” She gave me a look.

  “Not guilty,” I said.

  “He did a piece on Roger Carpington. He’s already out, you know. Maybe he told him something off the record, like, ‘Hey, you know what goes on in your supposedly respectable neighborhood?’”

  Carpington was a former Oakwood town councillor who’d lost his position after being convicted of accepting money to vote the right way on a housing development. Carpington had never been a client of Trixie’s, as far as I knew, but the man who’d been paying him off had been. He might have told Carpington about his recreational activities before having the life squeezed out of him by a python. (Hey, it’s a long story.)

  “But the thing is,” Trixie went on, “it doesn’t fucking much matter where he found out. The fact is, he suspects something.”

  “Okay, so how do you know that?”

  “He called me, says he wants to interview me. I say, what about? He says he’s doing a column about Oakwood’s kinkier side, thinks I might be able to help him o
ut with that.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to write about you. Maybe he just wants a freebie.”

  “Yeah, well, if I thought strapping him down and giving him forty whacks would keep him quiet, I’d do it. But I think he’s the real deal. He wants to do a story.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said I had no idea what he was talking about and hung up.”

  I had some more latte-thingy. “So did that take care of it?”

  Trixie shook her head. “He calls again, says he’d like to do the story even if I remained anonymous. So he can still do his story about kinky suburbanites. So I tell him again, I’ve got nothing to say. Then, after that, there’s a car hanging around the street, a little Corolla or something, the sort of car a guy working for a paper like the Suburban could afford. I see it enough times that I start to get suspicious, so I decide to go out there, see who it is, ask him what he’s doing. As I get close to the car, I recognize him from his picture in the paper.”

  She displayed the clipping, pointed to Benson’s face.

  “I’m about to ask him what the fuck he’s up to, and he starts to hold up his phone, and I’m sure it’s one of those goddamn camera phones, so I put my hands up over my face and run back inside the house.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m sure that didn’t look suspicious.”

  “So I’ve had to cancel all my appointments. I can’t have clients coming to the house, having their picture taken, running the risk of it showing up in the paper. I haven’t spanked a guy in over a week.” She spoke like someone who’d recently given up smoking.

  I shook my head. “So just lay low for a while, then. He can’t spend all his time parked out front of your house. He’ll give up after a while, go on to something else.”

  “I’m not so sure. I wish I knew someone who could scare the shit out of him, but you never know with journalists.” She looked at me and smiled. “Sometimes, when they’re threatened, they’re more determined than ever to write their story. It’s like the only way to stop them is to kill them.”