15 Seconds (17 page)
Authors: Andrew Gross
I
t all began to take shape for Vance, on his way back to Acropolis, and he felt a renewed sense of purpose and life.
What he had to do to make Steadman properly pay.
Jacksonville. He had three weeks to make it happen.
It was all starting to come alive!
He spent close to a day driving around in his blue Mazda, hashing out the details. Simply killing Steadman now would be far too easy. He had to make him feel pain. The same pain Vance had felt. How it felt to have everything taken away. Everything he had built up in his life. Everything he loved. Cherished. Taken away.
He had to rob the man of everything he once held dear.
Because ultimately, Vance realized, Steadman was no better than any of the others, no better than Wayne, Dexter, or Schmeltzer. All those fancy degrees and accomplishments . . . put a gun to his mouth and he would shit in his pants like all the rest. Beg. Offer up everything he had.
How else could you make a man like him ever feel remorse? How else could you make him be accountable for his actions?
Vance knew that someone like Steadman felt that the way he was perceived by the world was just as vital as whatever he'd accomplished in his life.
His reputation. His prestige. Take all that away, and he was no better than a shit pile in a dust storm. You had to cut out his heart to make him bleed.
And that's what Vance would do: cut out his heart.
Like Amanda's had been cut out.
And he knew exactly how to do it.
Near Atlanta, he stopped and found one of those Internet cafés. Vance didn't know a whole lot about computers, but the waitress helped him. He looked up Doctors Without Borders and located the meeting in Jacksonville that Steadman had spoken of to his friend. At the Marriott Sun Coast there. On March 19.
And he saw Steadman's name on the list of speakers.
Everything knitted together. There was only one piece he had to add, and he thought he knew just how to do that. He needed some help to fully carry it out. And he knew where to find that help.
He'd waited years to use it.
Near his home, Vance stopped at a diner and found a phone. He dialed 411 and asked for a name. A name from deep in his past.
In Jacksonville.
Once, their lives had come together in a moment that could never be undone. It was more than a bond; it was a debt. A debt that had never been called or forgiven. Or even asked to be repaid.
Until now.
The line rang, and to his delight, a man picked up, kids shouting in the background. “Hello.”
Vance said the name that would unleash it all. “Robert Martinez, please.”
The Jacksonville cop hesitated.
“Who's this?”
Vance felt himself hurtled back in time. For a moment all the quiet mediocrity and held-in futility of his life fell away.
“It's Vance. So what do you know, old friend . . . ?”
Silence.
Vance leaned his elbow against the wall. “Been a long time, huh?”
H
erbert Sykes.
Vance brought the image of the black man's face back into his mind as clearly as if he were standing in front of him now.
Slim and wiry. Around forty, Vance had guessed. Reminded him of that comedian, Jimmie Walker, who was popular back then. Skin like blacktop, and those big, wide eyes. Slippery like an eel, Vance remembered thinking when he first came upon him. A water moccasin, slithering through the mud, looking for prey.
Except this time the snake bit him.
It was ten years ago.
Vance had just gotten off his four-to-midnight shift, and was finishing off a steak at a diner off the highway, about to head home, when the call came in.
“All available units, tenâtwenty-four.” A home break-in. In Deerwood. Dispatch said the husband and wife were locked in a closet while the intruder ran through their house. Their young daughter was severely beaten. Possible sexual assault.
The suspect was spotted heading west on Southside in a black SUV.
Suspect could be armed and dangerous.
Vance could have ignored it; he always knew this. He was done for the night, and on his way home to Yulee. But it was the part about the little girl that got him going.
Until that moment, Vance's life had been going in a steady, if undistinguished way. And that was fine with him. He had joined the local force straight out of the reserves. Never more than a high school degree, but he knew how to do what he was told and he didn't back down from trouble when it faced him.
Amanda was nine, and Joyce was working at the county clerk's office. They had a two-bedroom home. Paid things off. Maybe he drank a stage. Maybe he used the back of his hand when his frustrations built up. He was never very good at controlling them.
But they had a life, a good life, simple as it was. They even went away on trips together back then. Myrtle Beach once, and another time to Elvis's home in Memphis.
Vance threw on the lights and siren, tracking the chase on the radio. On a side street, he came upon them, second on the scene.
Martinez was on him first, and already had the guy spread up against his car. A black Land Cruiser.
“Sonovabitch claims he was nowhere near Deerwood,” Martinez said, recognizing Vance, a state trooper, but whose beat was local. “But lookie here what the boy had on him.”
Martinez held up a black handgun, his thumb and index finger around the trigger guard.
“Sumbitch is a goddamned liar,” Vance said, coming around the car with his nightstick. He could smell a piece of shit from a mile away, and this one, with those scared, buggin' eyes and multipocketed North Face jacket, driving a car Vance couldn't afford in ten years, had the smell all over him.
“You like to rob houses?” Martinez asked the guy, shoving him in the back with the stick. “You like to beat up on little girls . . . ?” he pressed. He let the stick slide down to the guy's ass. “Maybe do other things. Put your hands where they don't belong?”
“I didn't do shit to anyone,” the guy turned and said. Scared, but still indignant. “I was at my cousin's. Iâ”
Martinez kicked out the suspect's feet and made him fall to the ground. “Don't you be talking back to me,” he told him. Laughing. “I simply asked you a question, boy. So that's how you get your rocks off, playing with twelve-year-olds, you piece of gutter shit.”
He kicked him. Hard. In the stomach.
The dude curled up with a loud
ooof.
Then Martinez went after the legs and near his groin. Over and over. The suspect attempting to cover himself up and curling into a ball.
“I didn't do shit!” he yelled out. “I want my lawyer.”
“ 'Course you didn't do shit.” Martinez kicked him again. He pointed to the guy's gun. “This is all just fun and games! Right? You lying bastard . . .” He kicked him yet again. “Don't you worry, you don't need no lawyer, rat filth. You ain't ever gonna make it that far, boy, understand?” Martinez kicked him again, and the guy moaned. “So what'd you take from there? C'mon, we know where you were. We know what you were up to.”
This time he lifted his boot and stomped on the guy's head.
“Oowww!”
Vance felt his temperature start to rise and his hands squeeze around the club. He leaned over and peeked through the SUV's windows. “I don't see anything in the car.”
“Don't you worry about the car,” Martinez said to him. He put his boot on the black dude's skull, pressing it against the pavement. “So that's what you like to do . . . Put them slimy, little fingers up a twelve-year-old girl's nightgown?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” the guy moaned, scared shitless, eyes wide. “I wuz at my cousin's. In Westside. Call there!
Ask!
”
“He didn't do it.” Martinez turned to Vance. “What do you think about that? Says he didn't do it. You didn't do it, huh?” He stomped on the guy's head again, the guy rolling over in pain.
“Fucking piece of shit!”
That was when another car came up. Lights flashing, radio crackling. Martinez went around to meet it, leaving Vance alone, his blood pressure rising, alone with the pathetic, cowering animal who'd just put his soiled hands all over a twelve-year-old kid.
Slimy, black eel,
he remembered saying
.
He could smell it. What the guy had done. It was all over him. He could just smell the sick filth all over that eely skin.
“Lemme see those hands?” Vance told him, his fingers wrapping around the stick. At the station, the guy would probably lawyer up. Plead it down to nothing. That's the way it all worked today. Justice, whatever there was of it, had to be administered out here . . .
Here,
you still had to pay up for what you'd done.
“I said show me those hands!”
The guy curled up, not quite understanding. “Look, man, Iâ”
“I told you to show me those hands! And don't be looking around. No one's gonna help you out here.” Vance bent over and whacked him across the back with the stick. Just to let him know he was there.
The slithering eel let out a loud grunt, air rushing out of him. Ribs cracked.
Vance hit him again. This time up on the neck, his head rattling against the pavement. “I said, show me those hands!” He reared back and hit him again. Vance wasn't sure what had made him so damn angry. He'd arrested people all the time. People who'd done far worse. Martinez just seemed to open something in him. Things he'd kept inside for a long time. This sonovabitch eel just seemed to bring it all out.
“You don't seem to hear me, son . . .”
The guy was bloodied. Not answering back now. But Vance stepped on his right shoulder, pinning the guy's arm, and brought the club down on his extended hand, hard as he could, bone and knuckle cracking.
The eel yelped and started to whimper.
“This'll teach you where to put those hands, son . . .” Vance did it again. With the other hand. The water eel howling like a baby now.
Two uniforms ran around to see. “Jesus, Trooper,” one of them said, “what the hell you done?”
“Motherfucker reached for something,” Vance said, staring into the guy's eyes. “You did reach for something, didn't you, boy? So I boxed his hands.”
Didn't matter what he saidâin Jacksonville back then, no one was going to buy the story of a black man who was carrying a gun over a state trooper's.
Of course, Vance didn't plan on the whole thing being caught on camera either, some kids who, hearing the commotion, had come to the window of a nearby apartment house, their camcorders catching every second of what went on.
Every second except the part when Martinez took the guy down and kicked the fucking daylights out of him, insisting he was the one.
And how after it was all over, there turned out to be nothing in the car. No loot at all. And it being a Land Cruiser and all, and the car they were after turning out to be a Jeep. And how the sonovabitch
had
been at a cousin's birthday party not a half hour before, just like he said.
The real suspect was apprehended after a shoot-out around the same time, three miles away.
“He'd done something,” Vance said at the inquiry. “I could tell.”
But Vance never said a word about what Martinez had done. Throughout the inquiry that followed, when all that footage was shown, including the testimonies of the officers who'd arrived on the scene, Vance just sat there, taking the rap. Immediate dismissal from the force. Loss of benefits.
He just figured, why bring down someone else's life needlessly?
But over the years . . . at his lathe at the plant or lying awake in bed . . . or watching his wife withering away to nothing . . . or hearing Amanda and that pond scum Wayne laughing and giggling and then not saying much of anything down the hall . . . he often wondered:
Why he'd done it.
Then. At that moment. To that man.
Sykes
.
Brought down his own life too.
He never quite came up with the answer.
But whenever he recalled the moment when his life spun away from him, Officer Robert Martinez was always there.
V
ance said, “I need a favor from you, Bobby.”
“A favor? What are you crazy, Hofer? Calling me up like this? After all these years. If my wife picked up . . .”
“But she didn't pick up. You did, Bobby. And I need something from you. It ain't much. I figured I'm owed that from you. Don't you think so, Bobby-boy?”
“I'm not âBobby' to you, Hofer. I'm not anything to you. I've got a family now. I know what you did for me back then. And Lord knows, I guess I am in your debt some. But that was years back. We've all moved on. I can't even talk to you now. I'm hanging up nowâ”
“No, Bobby, you're not hanging up. Not if you know what's good for you. Not until you hear what I have to say. I ain't looking for much, all things considered. Not so much at all, to make things square.”
Vance knew if Martinez was still listening, there was hell in his eyes.
“What is it you want, Vance?”
“How's life been for you, Bobby? Good, I suspect. I hear kids in the background. I think you're still on the job. I figure probably a sergeant by now. Pension. What did you say, we've all moved on . . . ?”
“Not sergeant,” Martinez said begrudgingly. “Patrolman, first class.”
“Well, ain't that grand.
Me,
Bobby, shall we say I haven't been as kissed by fate. Having fully moved on . . . My wife died. Lung cancer. My kid's a fucking drug addict who's now in . . .” He stopped, deciding not to say where Amanda was. “Been operating a lathe press these last ten years. But got laid off. Guess my temper's always been a thing to deal with, but you know that. Even lost my home . . .”
“I'm sorry, Vance,” Martinez said. “I am.”
“Yeah,
sorry . . .”
Vance said. “I bet you are. It's just that âsorry' is a big ol' luxury to me now. Know what I mean? âSorry' is like having a bagful of cash. But cash you can't spend. You just look at it. And watch it. And it looks back at you with scorn. Kind of laughing at you . . .”
Martinez didn't say anything.
“So I'm giving you a chance. A chance to square an old debt. And a damn easy one at that. 'Cause, make no mistake, Bobby, it was
me
who gave you that happy life you're living now. Who gave you those kids I hear. That rank. That pension you'll be spending one day . . . I don't have to explain it all.
I
gave 'em to you. You understand that, don't you, Bobby-boy . . . ?”
Vance could all but feel Martinez seething on the other end. And weighing his reply. Finally, he came back: “What is it you want from me, Vance?”
“Good.”
He had him!
Vance told the cop about this person he owed a comeuppance to. “This doctor. From down south. He got my 'Manda all strung out on these pills. She's done a bunch of bad things. I just want him razzed, Bobby. That's all. You know what I mean. He's coming up your way. In a couple of weeks . . .”
“Razzed?”
“You know the routine. Just take him out of his car. Scare the shit out of him a bit. I've seen you work. I just want him to know he's not so high-and-mighty. He deserves that. Got my little girl all messed up. You have a little girl, don't you, Bob?”
“I do. Becky. She's ten.”
“So it should be easy for you. You just think of her. You'll know what to do. I just want you to scare the daylights out of him. You can even bring some pals in on it if you like. Just make the guy feel like his fucking world's falling apart . . .”
“And I'm gonna find this guy,
how . . .
?” Martinez asked. “You said he's not from around here?”
“No. South. Palm Beach. But I'll take care of all that, don't you worry. You just handle your end. You just make him shit those pants, and you'll never hear from me again. We're clean. So what do you say? Easy, huh?”
“When?” Martinez asked, after a bit of time, thinking it over.
“March nineteenth. He'll be flying into the airport. I'll pick him up there, and let you know what he's driving and where he's heading . . . But I think it's near the Marriott Sun Coast Resort. You know that place?”
Martinez said he did.
“Just scare the daylights out of him. That's all I ask. I told you, it's not much. You can even tell him it was from me if you like when it's all over. Yeah, I'd like that. Say hello to him. From Vance. Okay . . . ?”
“And if I do this right for you . . . ?”
“Then we're done. For good. Won't even light a candle at your funeral. 'Course, much more likely, you'll be lighting one for me first.”
Martinez didn't laugh. “March nineteenth?”
“March nineteenth it is, buddy. You free? I catch you on a good day, Bobby-boy?”
If Martinez had agreed with a bit more generosity of spirit, or at least a bit quicker, acknowledging his debt, Vance might have regretted how this “favor” would ultimately end for him.
But since he didn't, Vance decided not to waste a whole lot of pity on him. A debt was a debt, and Martinez was no angel. No angel at all.
“Just make him soil those fancy pants of his, Bobby-boy.”