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Title: A Thousand Deaths Posted: 8/23/2004 |
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As he rounded the house, he swore he’d seen everything—dead bodies, unrepentant killers—but he’d never witnessed a colleague brought to his knees. It wasn’t the grief that shocked him. Every time his brother quit rehab, he played out a similar drama, but in the privacy of his own apartment. He’d never let another man see him break. While the sheer abandon with which Creegan wept repulsed him, he felt a pull—a desire to comfort him, to tell him that everything would be all right. Still, he turned away. If the tables were turned, if it were him kneeling in that pool, he could never live down the breech of conduct. He returned to the car, willing to forget what he’d seen. After all, he thought, flipping the coin between his fingers, Creegan would do the same for him. * * * For a detective, many details escaped his notice. Creegan’s lips, for instance. “Another round,” Creegan bellowed, his lips a perfect ‘o’ as they held on to the vowel long after he’d finished the phrase. Rivers dwelled on his puckered form. He’d never noticed how smooth and pink they were. The drink hadn’t been his idea, and it was supposed to be only one drink. Yet somewhere between the salty peanuts and the slow, almost torturous, strains of Billie Holiday, the bottles had multiplied. Now it was late, but he wasn’t ready to crawl home, and Creegan didn’t have a home to stumble back to. While a dozen bottles sat before them, the alcohol hadn’t made the voice in his head start to slur, the one that urged him to talk about his brother. After what he’d seen earlier, he wondered whether Creegan might understand about Ben. He struggled to get the words out. In his head, they rolled right off his tongue, but in reality, he tripped through them. “I was,” he began, but the light glinting off his bottle distracted him. “I was thinking.” “What about?” Creegan took a swig, and then wiped the stream that dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Rivers shook his head, but Creegan’s eyes caught his attention, wandering like a spotlight in the night sky. Leaning closer, Creegan whispered, “What about?” Rivers was on the brink, tethered to the status quo by a badge and the unspoken code. Cops don’t talk about it, whatever it was. He rested his shoulder against Creegan’s, and then reached for his drink. Lips pursed, he blew across top, making the bottle whistle. “A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man dies but once,” Creegan said as he stared intently at the bottles that lined the wall. “What does that make me?” Creegan had changed topics without ever knowing what they were discussing. Rivers was used to this—Creegan’s interest was as fleeting Ben’s commitment to straighten up and fly right. Feeling a familiar ache, Rivers turned away. He didn’t need to reveal what he’d managed to hide so well. As he signaled the bartender, he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. “Time to settle up,” he said, refusing to look Creegan in the eye. “Next time, you’ll owe me one.” -fin- Read the Sequel, Vacancy
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