Booked to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

Department. These gentlemen are from the Denver police. They’d like to ask you a few questions.”
    His eyes cut to my badge. Nasses had taken a little involuntary step to one side. There was nothing between Jackie Newton and me but two feet of violent air.
    “Hello, Jackie,” I said.
    “What the fuck do you want, Janeway?”
    “You must be having trouble with your ears. The man just told you, I want to ask you a few questions.”
    “You arresting me for something?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Go fuck yourself. Bust me right now or come back with a warrant.”
    “How do you know I don’t have a warrant?”
    “If you did you’d use it. Go away, you’re wasting my time.”
    He started to close the door. I stepped past Nasses and put my foot in it. I started reading him his rights, thinking maybe it would throw him off, buy me a minute. At least if he slipped and said something, we’d be protected.
    He listened, uncertain.
    “Where were you last night?” I said.
    I drove out on the plains. I was gone all night and, yeah, I had company. I got an alibi for any goddamn thing you want to dream up about last night.“
    “Where’s your alibi, Newton? I want to see him.”
    “Her, flatfoot, her… my alibi’s a girl.”
    “Bring her down.”
    “Come back with a warrant.”
    Again he tried to close the door. Again I put my foot in it.
    “I told you, Newton, you’ve got the right to remain silent. That doesn’t mean you can keep me from a witness. Now bring the girl down here or I’ll have your ass in jail for obstruction of justice.”
    It was a bluff and I figured Jackie would know it. He didn’t know it, not for sure. He went and got the girl, who actually was a woman in her late twenties.
    He had slapped her at least three times: there were that many distinct welts on her face. In another day she’d look like she’d been face-first through a gauntlet.
    “Would you step outside, miss?”
    She did. She was blond, and might’ve been pretty in a glassy kind of way. She wasn’t pretty now.
    “What’s your name?”
    “You haven’t got to tell him one fucking thing,” Jackie Newton said. There was an implication in his voice that she’d better not.
    “What’s your name, miss?”
    “Barbara.”
    “Do you need help?”
    She looked confused, scared.
    “We can take you out of here if you want to go,” I said.
    “She doesn’t want to go anywhere with you, cop,” Jackie Newton said.
    “Miss?” I tried for eye contact, but I couldn’t get a rise out of her. “Did this jerk beat you up?”
    “She ran into a door,” Jackie Newton said.
    “You’d better get that door fixed, Newton. Looks like she ran into it three or four times.”
    “She ran into a goddamn door, okay? You want to make something out of that?”
    “Miss,” I said. “Do you want to go with us?”
    “I don’t know,” she said shakily.
    “We could go over to the car and talk it over. Come on, let’s do that.”
    “She’s going nowhere with you, cop.”
    “Don’t pay any attention to that,” I said. “If you want to go, you go. Fatso’s got nothing to say about it.”
    I knew that would get to him. He balled up his fists and said, “I’ll show you fat, motherfucker. Take off your badge and I’ll beat your fuckin‘ head in.”
    I gave him a bitter, pathetic smile, the kind you’d give a talking worm. I kept looking at him the whole time I was talking to her. “I want you to be very sure, miss, what your options are. It’s all up to you. If this jerk beat you up, you can file charges against him. He can do some good time for that. Maybe when he gets out he won’t feel so frisky.”
    “I’ve had about enough of this shit,” Jackie Newton said.
    “I don’t think so, Newton. You and me, we’ve got a long way to go with each other.”
    “You wanna go now, Janeway? You wanna go now, huh? What do you say, cop, just you and me, bare hands, an old-fashioned fight to the finish.”
    “I see you’ve been reading comic books