The Bum's Rush Read Online Free PDF

Calm. Officer Friendly. We were just going to have a little relaxed
chat. Nothing to get excited about. Just a couple of good old boys
shooting the breeze. Not to worry.
    He was short for his weight. A grown-out gray crew
cut, combed straight up, gave him the appearance of being constantly
startled. The pockets of his soiled blue plaid jacket sagged like mail
pouches. From the right pocket he produced a small black Hitachi tape
recorder.
    "You don't mind if we record our conversation, do you?"
    "Go for it."
    He set the recorder between us on the table. In a
low, paternal voice, he assured me that this was a mere formality,
foisted upon us by a sincere but somewhat overzealous legal system.
When I seemed to agree, he pushed the recorder's red button, recited
the time, the location, and the date, and then read me my rights from a
small blue card he kept in the case with his shield.
"Do you understand your rights as they've been read to you?"
    "Yes, I do," I said. "And thank you for reading them to me, Detective Gogolac. I'd like to call my attorney now, please."
    "Just a sec. I want to "
    I interrupted him. "Perhaps you didn't hear me," I
said louder, scooting closer to the recorder. ' 'I want to call my
attorney now. I have nothing to say until my attorney arrives."
    "Come on now, don't be an "
    I half rose, moving as far as the cuff would allow,
and put my mouth directly above the recorder. "Are you telling me,
Detective Gogolac," I shouted, "that you are not going to let me call
my attorney? Maybe you ought to read me that part again about my right
to an attorney. I'm not the brightest guy in the world. Maybe I
misunderstood."
    Detective Gogolac took his toy and went home. A
uniform showed up about five minutes later with a phone, which he
plugged into the wall and banged down in front of me. He backed to the
door and stood there with his hands crossed over his fly, like he was
holding himself up by the balls. I called Jed at home.
    Forty-five minutes later, Gogolac made another appearance. He strolled in, hands on hips, seemingly amused.
    "We don't need anything from you, Waterman," he trumpeted.
    "We're on our third box of Kleenex next door. We
know what went down back there. Your girlfriend's giving them
everything but a blow job."
    He might have made me a bit edgy without the Kleenex part. The Kleenex was definitely overkill. I grinned right back at him.
    "My girlfriend? What the hell are you talking about? I thought she was your mom."
    He strolled around behind me. He leaned in and spoke over my shoulder. "They told me downstairs you think you're pretty funny."
    "You sure they didn't just tell you I was pretty?"
    He stepped around to the front, resting his big
hands on the arms of the chair. He pushed his face into mine. He had
pores the size of dimes and enough nose grease to lube a locomotive. I
held his gaze.
    ' 'Hell of a crop of nose hairs you got going
there, Detective. You ever think about maybe training them into
something decorative?"
    "Don't fuck with me, Waterman."
    "Jeez, Sarge, I never even realized that was an option."
    He levered himself back up to perpendicular. "You want to make this hard, don't you? That what you've got in mind?"
    "What I have in mind is conferring with my
attorney." There are few more pathetic sights than a grown man
flouncing from a room in a full snit. It was another twenty minutes
before the door opened again and Selena came shuffling in. A
beetle-browed matron with an Elvis hairdo and a stiff brown shirt
cuffed her to the chair directly across from me and then waddled out.
Selena gave me a wink and a smile. I could hear Jed's voice through the
wavy frosted glass.
    "Perhaps I haven't made myself clear, Officer Gogolac. I will confer with my clients in any goddamn way I see fit."
    "Detective Gogolac," the cop corrected. "That
fearsomely unfortunate fact merely validates my longstanding contention
that this department needs a complete standards and promotion criteria review."
    "I