The Fall and Rise of Cain. Greg T. Nelson

Darrington unit in Rosharon. He got early parole in exchange for information that busted some guards that were smuggling crack and cell phones into the maximum-security wing. Judging from the date, he came looking for you straight away. Musta really had it in for you. Did he ever make any threats at his trial maybe?” I thought about the times I’d been face to face with Jimmy Pecos. Some of those times I was undercover as “Danny Janas”, a name I had used occasionally, but the last time I had seen him was in the park when I had arrested him for murder and gunrunning. He had been crying like a baby and the only threats he ever made were to report me for breaking his nose.

      I weighed what Hershaw might know against what I wanted him to know and replied. “There wasn’t a trial, he confessed and pled out to manslaughter and robbery, sentenced to twenty-five years, I think.” Hershaw had taken a small notebook from his pocket and was scribbling as I spoke. When I stopped talking he wrote a few more lines and looked up at me. “Anything else you think I need to know?”

      “Before he started robbing dealers, Jimmy was a pretty good car thief, you might check around the parking lot for a hot car.” As I spoke the grin came briefly back and he glanced back at his notebook. “Yeah, a Ford Pickup, stolen from a Houston parking lot early yesterday, it’s parked next to your Impala. Your boy Jimmy had about forty five hundred in new bills in his pants pocket along with 300 grams of meth and a piece of paper with your address on it.”

      Hershaw was saying that a run of the mill dirt bag had gotten out of jail and come seeking revenge and from his point of view it made perfect sense. By giving me all this information he was also saying he didn’t have any suspicion that I’d done anything wrong. I didn’t need John Hershaw to know what I knew. Jimmy Pecos was scared to death of me and wouldn’t have come looking for me unless not killing me was even scarier. I also didn’t need him to know Jimmy never had more than a few hundred dollars at any one time in his life and if he had meth-amphetamines he would have holed up and used it unless he needed it for something else. I wondered to myself what this or any detective would have thought, faced with my corpse on the floor with a bag of meth and a wad of cash in my pocket. Old burnout of a cop killed in a drug deal maybe? Out loud, I decided to agree with the theory on the table, “Looks like Jimmy held a grudge.”

      Hershaw looked pleased and turned to the rookie, “You can leave Officer, it’s nearly time for shift change.” Without a word the kid nodded at me and walked out. Hershaw turned back to me, “You still planning to leave town, Mr. Cain?”

      “I can come down and give a sworn statement before I leave if you want,” I said standing and hobbled over to retrieve my cane.

      Hershaw smiled again, “Oh that won’t be necessary”, taking a small digital recorder from his front pants pocket, “You have any objection to my using what you’ve said here in the official record?”

      It was my turn to smile. He knew as well as I that my objections didn’t mean a thing. Texas, unlike some other states, requires that only one person in any given room need know about a recording device to make it perfectly legal. “Single Party Consent, Lieutenant, how about my gun?” I asked but I knew the answer.

      He turned to leave, “Sorry, it’s being booked in as evidence until after the District Attorney gets the report. We left the .380 in your bag. You been in many gunfights Mr. Cain?”

      He was looking towards the front door where the maintenance man had appeared with a hose to wash Jimmy’s blood away. I couldn’t see his face but his tone told me the smile was back and that recorder was probably still on. I replied as I moved around him and towards my bag. “Call me Rich, Mister makes me feel like a suspect”, I said smiling. “Just one, right before I retired.”

      He moved to the front door and continued watching the blood that was now streaming into pale brown strands to the edge of the walkway. “Yeah, I remember hearing about that. I wondered what had happened to you. How come you to be here in Cowtown?”

      I was taking off the Beretta holster and replacing it with the smaller one for the Bursa, “I grew up in Fort Worth. Been doing rehab at Harris Hospital. I’m moving around better now, thought I’d get the rest of my stuff out of storage in Houston, maybe say hi to some friends.”

      Hershaw was leafing through the notebook again. “Yeah, we found some old file stuff on you. Seems you messed up a couple of bouncers pretty good in a bar fight back in the seventies.”

      I had to work a little not to react at how fast he had gotten my history. It helped that I was putting my sports coat on to cover the gun. I remembered that night in County Jail with a swollen hand I had broken on Jake Fallon’s head. The police report wouldn’t say that Fallon was a bully I’d known in high school. I hit him because he grabbed the breast of the girl I was at Billy Bob’s Texas Bar with. The second bouncer just had the bad fortune to grab me from behind as I was wailing on Jake. Too long a story to give Hershaw. I gave a simpler answer. “Yeah, I was twenty-three, guess I had a kinda short fuse.”

      He stuffed the notebook back inside his coat. “So tell me, how does a guy with a felony arrest for Assault get on with HPD?”

      I pulled out a fresh cigar and reached for a book of matches, “Well they did drop the charges after some of the witnesses spoke up. I may have given them the impression I was leaving town unless trial dates kept me around.”

      I picked up the duffle and my cane and headed for the door, stopping to speak to the maintenance man. “Sorry about this, tell the manager I’ll pay for the door.”

      I couldn’t remember the guy's name but he stopped spraying water long enough to answer me, “I wouldn’t worry about it Mister Cain, that guy drove through the broken front gate that the manager is too cheap to get fixed. He’s more worried that you’re gonna sue him.”

      I thanked him for his trouble and made a mental note to give him something extra at Christmas. Hershaw was still waiting and fell into step as I moved towards the parking lot. “Here, I almost forgot. You might need this,” he said holding up my driver’s license. I took it and put the bag down so I could fish out my wallet. Picking it back up, I started towards my car and saw a wrecker backing up to hook up the stolen ford that Jimmy had come in. I slowed as I caught sight of my car. A 1968 Impala, jet black and the only one I had seen outside a car show since I was a kid. It had been my fathers and I had taken it to Houston after he died. I hadn’t driven it much when I was a cop since I always had a city car, but now it got regular use. Looking at it now I was imagining how easy it would be to describe to someone who needed to find me or someone who was waiting for me to get home.

      Hershaw surprised me with the same notion, “You know, it occurs to me Rich, whoever told Pecos where to find you just might have told him what a sweet car you ride around in. Need a ride to the airport?”

      I looked at the rumpled shirt and cheap slacks and thought to myself that John Hershaw was probably a lot smarter than he let on, a good tactic for any Detective. I still didn’t want him documenting any suspicions that Jimmy Pecos might have been paid to kill me. That would mean there was a live suspect for him to find and maybe Richard Cain needed to come downtown for a more thorough interview. “I kinda doubt there’s anything to worry about. If you have time, though, I could use a ride to Barnaby’s Pub. It’s out by the Dog Track. A friend is meeting me there.”

      He gave me the ace-in-the-hole smiles again, “Sure, get in.” I tossed my bag into the back seat and buckled myself into his plain looking Taurus. Hershaw eased through traffic with little regard for the speed limit and sounded casual when he asked, “So, quite a coincidence this asshole showing up the same day you’re headed to Houston?”

      I kept my eyes on the road since he seemed not to want to and I kept to the strategy of the fewer words the better. “Yeah, Jimmy never was too bright. He probably got someone to look me up on the Internet and just drove straight here. Guess I’m lucky I hit him at all.”

      This time instead of a smile he laughed, “Lucky, no I don’t think so. That Sergeant who was at your place, his name is Bailey. I broke him in when he was a rookie and I trust his instincts. Right after he got there, he called me and told me the story you