A Cold Day in Paradise (11 page)

I wrote the address on my pad. “What does this man look like?” I asked. “How will we know it’s him?”

“Oh, you’ll know,” he said. “In that neighborhood, he’ll be the only white man in that building, I’m sure. And if that’s not enough, all you have to do is look for the wig.”

“The wig? What kind of wig?”

“The man wears a blond wig,” he said. “One of those big blond wigs that come out to here.” He held his hands a foot away from his head.

“Big blond wig,” I said as I wrote it on my pad. “Anything else?”

“He’s a crazy white man and he’s wearing a big blond wig,” he said. He sounded tired. “What else do you need?”

W
E FOUND THE
apartment building on the comer of Columbia and Woodward. With all the work they had been doing in the downtown area, you didn’t have to go too far to see the “real” Detroit, the Detroit where Franklin and I spent most of our time either handling domestic disputes or responding to reports of gunfire. The building had looked nice in its better days, you could tell, but those days were long gone.

“How we gonna do this?” Franklin asked.

“How do you think?” I said. “We knock on doors.”

“I was afraid of that.”

We started on the first floor, Franklin taking one side of the hallway and me the other. If anyone answered our knocks at all, it was usually a woman’s frightened face peering out at us, a child or two or three behind her. On
the second floor, one woman was finally willing to help us. “That white boy, you mean? One with the wig? He’s up on the top floor somewhere. Craziest man I ever seen.”

We thanked her and went right up to the top floor. “She saved us a lot of doorknocking,” I said. “We should do something for her.”

“Nothing we can do,” Franklin said. A place like this always hit him a little harder than it did me. Detroit was his home. I only worked there.

The first door we knocked on, we found our man. He opened the door just a crack and looked out at us. The blond hair stood several inches over his head.

“Police officers, sir,” I said. “Can we talk to you for a minute?”

He looked at me and then at Franklin, and then back and forth again a few times without saying anything.

“Can we come in?” I said.

“Why?” he said. His voice was dead flat.

“So we can talk to you,” I said.

“Why do you want to talk to me?”

“Just open the door, please.”

“Does
he
have to come in?” The man nodded toward Franklin.

“This is my partner,” I said. “His name is Franklin. My name is McKnight. Can I ask you your name?”

“Ha!” he said. “Nice try.”

“Sir, open the door, please,” Franklin said. The man jumped at the sound of his voice.

“What do you want?” he said. “Why are you here?”

“We’ve just been to the hospital,” I said. “They tell us you’ve been harassing people there. Now, can we please come in for a moment and talk about it?”

He slowly opened the door. I took stock of him as I stepped into the apartment. Five foot nine, maybe, a little overweight. He had blue jeans on, old but clean, tennis
shoes, and a sweatshirt. No glasses, no facial hair. He would have looked almost normal if he didn’t have that damned wig on. “Harassing?” he said. “They said I was harassing people? Is that what they said?”

The apartment was small. One table with three chairs, a couch that probably folded out into a bed. A kitchenette and a small bathroom. A single lamp burned in the corner, giving a stingy glow to the rest of the room. No light came from the window. We weren’t even sure he
had
a window, because all four walls were completely covered with aluminum foil.

We just stood there and looked at the place. Finally, Franklin said, “Who did your decorating, the tin man?”

The guy looked at Franklin, pure hatred in his eyes. A little bell went off in the back of my mind. I knew something was wrong, but at the time I just assumed the guy was a simple-minded bigot. I didn’t think about what else could be going on inside his head.

“There’s a good reason for the aluminum foil,” he said.

“Yeah, I heard about this once,” Franklin said. “It’s to keep the radio waves out, right?”

The man shook his head. “Radio waves? You think aluminum foil keeps out radio waves? This is for microwaves.”

“Microwaves,” Franklin said. “Of course.”

“You said your name was McKnight?” he said to me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Would it be possible perhaps to have this …” He looked Franklin up and down. “… this individual step outside. I’d be happy to talk to you alone.”

“No, that would not be possible,” I said. I knew that Franklin had a long fuse, but I was starting to get a little worried. If our roles had been reversed, I would have already been fighting the urge to bend the guy’s arms behind his back and cuff him.

“I don’t get it,” the guy said. He started to rock back and forth from one foot to the other. “The two of you. Are you really partners? Do you work together every day?”

“All day long,” Franklin said. “Sometimes we even drink from the same drinking fountain.”

“This is very interesting,” he said. “This could be valuable information.”

“All right, sir,” I said. “I’m going to sit down.” I took one of the three chairs and sat down at the table. “My partner is going to sit down, too.” Franklin kept looking at the man, then finally sat down next to me. “Please, sir, have a seat.”

The man sat down.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“My last name is Rose,” he said. “That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

“No first name?”

“First names are personal names,” he said. “If you know somebody’s first name, you have power over him. I’ll never make that mistake again.”

Franklin folded his arms and looked at the ceiling.

“I understand you’ve been spending time at the emergency room at Memorial.”

“Is that what they told you?”

“Yes, that’s what they told me.”

“I may have stopped by there. Once or twice.”

“They say you’ve been there quite often.”

“And you believe them,” he said.

“Never mind them,” I said. “Have you been there?”

“I suppose I must have,” he said. “If that’s what they told you.”

“Mr. Rose, you’re not making this very easy.”

“Do you two really spend all day together?”

“Oh, good Lord,” Franklin said. I could tell he had heard enough. “What the hell is wrong with you, anyway? You’re
down there at the hospital scaring people all day long, acting like a lunatic. I mean, if you’re crazy, be crazy. That’s fine. Go see a shrink. If you’re doing drugs, get in a program. Do something for yourself. Or just sit up here in your tinfoil room, I don’t care. Just don’t be bothering people at the hospital, all right? They have enough problems down there without you hiding behind the plants. And what’s the deal with that wig, anyway? You look like that rock singer. What’s his name, Alex? The guy with the hair.”

“Peter Frampton?” I said.

“No, the other guy. From Led Zeppelin.”

“Robert Plant?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” Franklin said. “He looks just like him.”

“I think he looks more like Peter Frampton,” I said.

“Are you two about done here?” he said.

“No, I’m afraid not, Mr. Rose,” I said. “You see, we need to tell you something very important. And you need to listen to us. All right? You need to stop going to that hospital. Okay? You can’t go there anymore.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said.

“Why is that not possible?”

“I’m doing important work there,” he said. “I can’t stop now. Do you play billiards?”

“Mr. Rose …”

“You know what the eight ball does, don’t you? It divides the rest of the balls into the high and the low. The high frequency and the low frequency. The eight ball is black. Black for division and separation and death. The absence of light.”

“Mr. Rose …”

“The cue ball is white. All light, all colors, it’s all part of white. White is life and movement. None of the other balls can move until the cue ball moves.”

“Mr. Rose,” I said, “do you think maybe you should be
talking to somebody? Is there a doctor taking care of you? Is there any medication you should be taking?”

“This is a trick, isn’t it?” he said. “You’re in disguise.”

“Mr. Rose …”

“Very clever,” he said. “I have to hand it to you. You’re getting smarter all the time. You bring a big one to distract me.” He shot a glance at Franklin and then locked his eyes back on me. “And you just sup right in here like you’re one of us. You even sound like one of us. Very convincing.”

Franklin and I looked at each other and nodded. This one was taking a little ride to the station, then maybe later to a nice padded cell somewhere.

“It’s not going to work,” he said. “You picked the wrong man this time.”

The gun came out before either of us could react, before we could even
think
of reacting. He moved with such insect quickness, I swear he was pointing it at us before we even heard the tape tearing underneath the table.

It was an Uzi. In a few years, Uzis would become a cliché, but in 1984, they were still a novelty. Every coke soldier wanted one. They showed us an Uzi at roll call once. The gun was made in Israel. It shot 950 rounds per minute, little nine-millimeter pistol bullets, with full metal jackets. And it didn’t sound any louder than a sewing machine.

“Mr. Rose,” I said slowly, “put the weapon down.” Both of my hands were on the table. Franklins arms were still folded. I didn’t know which one of us could reach his holster first. Or if we’d even have the chance.

“Tell me who sent you,” he said.

We both looked at the Uzi. I’m sure Franklin was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Although he had even more to lose than I did. He had two daughters, three and five years old. You want to see your family again. You don’t want to die in a crazy man’s apartment just because he thinks you’re his secret enemy.

“Mr. Rose,” I said. I tried to breathe. “We’ll tell you whatever you want. I promise you. Just put the weapon down, please.”

“I found this, you know,” he said.

He looked down at the gun for a split second. A cold shiver ran up my back. It wasn’t enough time to go for my gun. I needed him to look away for just an instant longer. Just give me a chance. If you’re really crazy,
do
something crazy. Go into a trance or something.

“I found this in an alley,” he said. “After one of your friends killed somebody. He didn’t see me there, but I was watching. He threw it into a Dumpster. Very sloppy.”

“Mr. Rose,” Franklin said. His voice was almost a whisper. “Please …”

“Don’t talk to me,” he said. He pointed the gun at Franklin’s chest. “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

Franklin swallowed.

“Now you,” he said, looking back at me. “Tell me how you did it. How did you turn white?”

“I’ll tell you after you put the gun down,” I said. “Just put it right there on the table.” Right hand down, unsnap the revolver, bring it back up. How long will it take? Should I just do it?

He shook his head. “Well, this is quite a situation,” he said. “Now I won’t know
what
color you are. I was afraid this might happen.”

Hand down, unsnap, raise and fire. Reach, rip, boom. I rehearsed the motion in my mind, hoping maybe I could shave off a fraction of a second. Hand down, unsnap, raise, and fire. Reach, rip, boom.

“You know, I’ve learned a lot at the hospital, doing my undercover work. At first, I didn’t want the assignment, but I was told that the chosen one needed me to be there on the front lines. I was told that the chosen one needed to know how the enemy killed people. What the latest techniques
were. So we could develop the right defense.”

Franklin sat motionless beside me. I can’t do this. If I move, he’ll shoot me. I won’t even get close to my gun. He has to look away. Please look away, just for a second.

“You know what really gets to me?” he said. “You’re trying so hard to find the best way to kill people, you’re even killing each other. Is that just for practice?”

Silence. I looked into his eyes. It was like looking down a mine shaft and seeing all the way down to hell.

“You have no respect for life, do you?” he said. “The chosen one says that if something has no respect for life, then killing that something is not really killing. Especially if you use the same technique that
they
use. That’s the key.”

Silence. How could I have taken one look at those eyes and not
known?
I should have cuffed him the minute I walked in.

“So I’m not really going to kill you.”

“Mr. Rose …” I said.

“I’m going to remove you. That’s what the chosen one calls it. He calls it removing.”

“Mr. Rose …”

He moved the Uzi a few inches closer to us. “And do you know what the latest technique is?” he said.

Go for his gun? Knock it sideways? I looked at his hand. Is it tensed? Will he shoot if I make a move for it?

“Of course you know,” he said. “You all do. It happens almost every day. I’ve seen it in the hospital. I heard the doctors talk about it.”

You’re going to have to make a move. You’re going to have to risk it.

“‘Here comes another zip,’ they say. ‘How many zip’s is that this week? Five already?’”

“Mr. Rose …” I said. One more try to talk him out of it. Then I move.

“It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” he said. “Zip!”

I knew what a zip was. Franklin did, too. We had seen a lot of them that summer. The coke dealers would zip a guy if he moved in on his turf, or if he didn’t pay him soon enough, or if he just looked at him the wrong way. You take an Uzi and you give the guy a quick burst right down the middle of his body. Twenty, maybe thirty rounds from his head right down to his pecker. That’s a zip.

Move. Move now. Go for his gun. Now. Now!

I didn’t move.

He shot Franklin. Right down the front of him. The Uzi spat out the bullets with a sound like a cat purring. I went for my revolver. I felt the bullets hit me in the right shoulder. I didn’t know how many. I felt them all at once, like when a rising fastball glances off your mitt and catches you in the shoulder. I heard the sound of my gun going off, the man named Rose screaming.