screwed her,” Decker said. “No doubt about that. But I don’t think he cut her.”
“You’re saying the pimp slashed her and she laid it on your friend?”
“It’s a possibility,” Decker said.
“Anything’s a possibility. Just a matter of how much you want to play ostrich.” Beauchamps paused. “I busted your buddy a while back.”
Decker winced. “When?”
“A year, maybe two years ago.”
“What for?”
“Soliciting an undercover police officer.”
“Female officer?”
“Yeah,” Beauchamps said, grinning. “She was female. I worked the van. He was hobbling around the mean streets, saw our lady, and took the bait. Didn’t seem the least bit upset when he was arrested.”
Decker said, “Know if he was ever arrested for anything else?”
“You haven’t checked to see if he had priors?”
Decker shook his head. “I’d better stop acting like a dick and start acting like a dick.”
Beauchamps burst into laughter. “Loser friends can take it out of you. I had this old high school buddy, a real rotten SOB, but at sixteen, I thought he was great fun. He’s at Folsom now, and he keeps telling all his washed-out mutant relatives to contact me if they get into trouble. I don’t think a week’s gone by where one of those nut cases hasn’t called me up and asked for a favor or free advice. God, that jerk has caused me nothing but grief.”
“Did he give you a hard time?” Decker asked.
“Who? My loser buddy? Constantly.”
“No,” Decker said. “My loser buddy.”
“Not while he was here,” Beauchamps said. “Very cooperative. Served his time down here and that was it. He was a weird guy, Decker. Used to wash his hands about six times a day.”
“An LB,” Decker said.
“What?”
“A Lady Macbether,” Decker said. “Some of the guys in the platoon had a hard time washing away the blood and guts.”
“He was an army buddy of yours?”
“I hate that term—army buddy.”
Beauchamps shrugged. “Want me to get his rap sheet?”
“Yeah.”
Beauchamps punched Abel Atwater into the computer. A few minutes later, he handed the printout to Decker.
“Three priors,” Beauchamps said. “All for trying to buy undercover pussy. Horny little bugger.”
“It ain’t nice, but not exactly sexual assault,” Decker said.
“Maybe Myra made him real mad.”
Decker said, “Why would Myra Steele keep quiet about her pimp if he didn’t have anything to do with the assault? You’d think she’d get in touch with him first thing.”
“I don’t know what was inside the lady’s head, but I’ll tell you this. Some of the ass-peddlers get real pissed at their ladies for getting beat up—treat them like damaged goods. Hers probably has a vile temper, and maybe she doesn’t want any more pain.”
“She still in the hospital?”
“For sure. Likely to be there a while.”
“Where?”
Beauchamps shrugged ignorance.
“Know who’s paying the bill?” Decker asked.
“Nope. But I suspect she’s at County, and the city’s footing the expenses.” Beauchamps’s phone rang. He answered the call and said, “Andrick’s back.”
“Super.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“Torres and Hoersch were the first unit to respond to the four-fifteen hotshot,” Andrick said. He was in his late fifties, overweight, with a florid complexion. “There was a lot of commotion, a lot of blood, and they immediately called it in as an ambulance cutting. I got there about fifteen minutes later. The girl was being loaded onto the stretcher, your friend was cuffed, crying and bleeding from a huge gash across his head.”
Andrick unlocked his file cabinet and loosened his tie. Decker noticed he was breathing heavily, sweat stained his armpits.
“You okay?” Decker asked.
Andrick said, “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You don’t look so hot.”
“I said I’m okay,” Andrick answered tightly.
“Fine,” Decker said. “You’re okay. Can I see the file?”
Andrick tossed him the folder. Decker read a moment, then said, “The ambulance took the girl. Who took Atwater to the hospital?”
“I don’t remember,” Andrick said. “Someone must have called another, because they didn’t put the two of them in the same wagon.”
“Nobody was tending to Atwater’s head wound all this time?” Decker asked.
“Look,” Andrick said, unbuttoning his shirt, “you got a victim, you got a perp. One ambulance. You’re gonna lose some sleep because some rape-o asshole bled to death?”
“No.” Decker scanned the file. “You heard him say this? Or is this what the uniforms reported that he said?”
“Nope,” Andrick said. “Everything I wrote down in my notes, I heard with my own ears … What exactly did I write?”
Decker read, “‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Fuck, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.’”
Andrick said, “Yeah, I heard him say that. Those kind of statements don’t do much to clear your good name. Is it hot in here?”
“A little,” Decker said absently. Lost in thought, he remembered Abel uttering similar words before. One particular memory suddenly flooded Decker’s consciousness. Heavy fire. A gutted village. A little girl around six, her belly blown away. Abel standing over her, his eyes watering from all the smoke. He had whispered it:
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt anybody, honest to God, I didn’t.
Ugly recollections. He pushed them away and looked up at Andrick. His coloring had become pale, his skin pasty, dripping with sweat.
“Jesus!”
