Read Crystal Meth Cowboys for Free Online Page B

know,
shoot
him."
    The bright red of Bell's cheeks contrasted nicely with his blue eyes, making them seem less watery as he gazedupon his rookie with a look of infinite patience. He waited a good five seconds before he said, "Are you through?"
    Wes placed his hands in his lap. Bell sat back on his barstool. Cosmo dunked pilsner glasses in the rinsing sink.
    "One," said Bell, thrusting an untapered index finger between Wes Lyedecker's eyes as if conducting a field sobriety test. "Say I pile on, jump in the fray. Now shithead has two guns to choose from and I'm too close to get a clean shot. Might waste my brand new partner by mistake."
    Wes remained silent.
    "Two." Bell held out two fingers. "The suspect was amped out of his skull." Bell withdrew his fingers. "Cop in Santa Barbara emptied 14 rounds into a speedfreek chasing him down the hall with a steel pipe. This was in the…one of those transient hovels on lower State." Bell's eyes wandered.
    Wes jumped in. "Sir, if you felt you were experiencing a life threatening situation that justified the use of deadly force…" Wes paused and hyperventilated, chasing words around his head. He would have to be quick. Bell was puckering up his lips to speak. "I believe I am correct in stating that departmental guidelines require an officer to command the surrender of the weapon before firing…at, you know, the subject with the weapon."
    Bell leaned his cheek on three fingers. "Did I say 'drop your weapon' before I fired?"
    "Well…"
    A thundercrack of fury flashed across Bell’s face. "
Did
I say 'drop your weapon' before I fired?!"
    "
Yes
. Yes, yes. But you didn't give him time to!"
    Bell swiveled to face Cosmo behind the bar. "This just happened. Off duty cop in Bakersfield's waiting in line at the supermarket. Nastyass homies burst in, waving gats, and demand dinero. Well, OK. Not worth a shootout in a public place to save a few hundred bucks, so the off duty o'ccerplays it cool. Then the head shithead pistolwhips a cashier when she's a little slow with the geet. The o'ccer unholsters his roscoe and, in full compliance with departmental regs, identifies himself as a police officer and says 'Drop your weapons', giving the homies all the time they need to unload their firearms in his direction." Bell pushed his glass into the gutter for another round. "The officer is now deceased."
    Bell looked over his right shoulder at Lyedecker. "No longer among the living, crossed the Stygian ferry, tits up, taking the dirt nap, wearing the pine kimono." Bell stood up and balanced himself on the steel tube that ringed the lower legs of the barstool, flung out his arms and, in the neon beer sign backlight, looking like Frankenstein's monster arisen from the slab, yelled, "He
dead
, Fred!"
    Cosmo filled Bell's mug with flat beer from the spill pitcher below the tap. He slid it across the bar and selected a quarter from Bell's dwindling pile of loot. Bell sat down and addressed his beer. "I hit that fuckstick, crown of the skull, the sweetest baton blow I ever landed in my life. I mean I parked that baby in the upper decks. And ol' Biker Bob just grinned. Like he liked it. Like…" Bell held his elbows out and spoke in a cockney accent. "Well, now…That's a bit of all right, that is!" Bell took a sip of flat beer. "That's when I knew I had to shoot him."
    This made sense to Wes, which infuriated him even more. He strummed his finger over the gouge wound on his palm. It was still raw. The naked man had been trying to tell him something. On the back of his brain plate Wes saw the man's pleading look as his hands gripped the butt of the nine millimeter in Wes Lyedecker's holster. He'd been begging.
    Wes said, "I think he wanted my gun to shoot himself," and Bell did a spit double take with a mouthful of beer. Cosmo stopped stacking bowls behind the bar. He looked fromthe cackling Bell to the morose Lyedecker. "It's gettin' late," said Cosmo. "Last call."
    Bell perked right up.