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12
North had been here before, more than once actually, the little one-story cinderblock building with white paint and black, stenciled-on letters that said AUBURN POLICE DEPARTMENT. It fronted a small harbor on the lake, not far from the reservoir, and people who drove past it probably got a little goose of civic pride, looking at this unassuming bastion of law and order.
Inside, it was cramped, harshly lit by fluorescents, and it made North think of a rummage sale run by a hoarder. Lots of shit—lots of paper, lots of ancient desktops, lots of desks, all of it in too little space. And nobody was allowed to take any of it, clean things out, get rid of the junk, even though that was the whole purpose of a rummage sale. The reek of cigarette smoke battled some sort of piney-fresh cleaner, and the air was like glue. A little window unit had plastic streamers on it, fluttering as it puffed out what was supposed to be cool air. So you knew it was working, North guessed.
Shaw was using his handcuff like a maraca and humming.
A Black deputy—her nametag said Bonilla—watched them from her desk.
“Knock it off,” North said. It had been hours. Hours lost at that fucking resort, waiting with local law enforcement before they were turned over to the Auburn Police Department and Chief Cassidy. When North had asked why they were going to Auburn, nobody had bothered to answer him. And then hours here, handcuffed to this fucking chair and needing to pee like a mother. Hours while nothing happened, and that raised the hair on the back of North’s neck, because he thought it meant, most likely, that Cassidy was waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Hours of listening to Shaw try to transpose “Escape” (the piña colada song). Grimacing, he said, “I’m serious.”
Shaw broke off the humming long enough to say, “I’ve almost got it. The whole problem was the harmony, but I solved that because I realized if it’s an atonal composition, I no longer need harmony as the primary structural element.”
“What you need is a bullet to the head. How about it, Deputy Bonilla?”
She stared back at him.
North smiled. “Then how about one for me? A mercy killing?”
Nothing. Not even a glimmer. Maybe she was deaf. Maybe that was why she hadn’t killed Shaw already.
A door at the back of the station opened, and Chief Cassidy stepped out. North tried to decide if Cassidy was more of a human-sized pimple or a human-sized genital wart—probably the wart. Today, in an Auburn PD polo and jeans, the clothes making sure everyone knew his body was made up of hard lines and sharp vees and, in the right places, swells and curves, Cassidy looked more like what he probably was: a frat boy who’d never grown up, with gym time and lake time competing equally for his limited brain cells.
“You were a frat bro too,” Shaw whispered. When North glanced at him, unable to help himself, he added, “See? I am psychic. And not just for the goat-fucking.”
That, at least, got a reaction from Bonilla. Her eyes widened. So, maybe she wasn’t deaf.
Cassidy came over to them and stood there, hands on hips, looking down at them. North’s eyes were about crotch level. He sat back and stared. Then, when he felt like he’d made his point, he cut his eyes up to Cassidy’s and smirked. “See, most guys make the same mistake when they pad their junk—they go too big. Roll up a tube sock and stuff it down there, and nobody’s going to believe it. The trick is to start small. Tape a roll of quarters to your thigh, try that.”
“You’re an expert, huh?”
“You betcha.”
“He really is an expert,” Shaw said. “One time, back when North was in his fuckboy phase—well, pretty much all his phases have been fuckboy phases, except when we got moon-bound, so now he’s a fuckboy for one man only, and that’s me—but back when North was in his prime—”
“Excuse me?”
“—he stuffed one of the spring snakes, um, down there—you know what I’m talking about, the ones that are in a can of nuts, and then you open them and they jump out at you, and your aunt says, ‘I can’t do this, Phoebe, I can’t do this with Shaw anymore,’ and you’re not allowed to wrap Christmas presents after that—”
North rolled a finger. “Finish the story, bird brain.”
“—and that’s why we don’t celebrate Christmas with my family!”
“Jesus Christ.” North rubbed his forehead. Then he pointed. “Padding his tiny dick?”
“Oh! Right! He had one of those spring snakes in his, uh, pleasure pocket, and Bentley Dunn was going to go down on him, only North didn’t like Bentley because one time Bentley said I was too faggy, and so Bentley got a snake in the face.” Shaw laughed. “Only not the snake he wanted, if you know what I mean. He was all screaming and shouting, ‘My tooth, my tooth.’ It was hilarious.” Shaw seemed to take in his stone-faced audience, and in a quieter voice, he added, “I guess you had to be there.”
Cassidy studied them for another long moment. Then he said, “Gentlemen, in case it wasn’t clear from the handcuffs, I’m taking you into custody.”
“Great,” North said. “What are you charging us with?”
“Well, I’m not sure yet.”
“That’s going to be perfect when we haul your ass to court. Can you say it a little louder? Deputy Bonilla, did you hear my habeas corpus getting fucked wide open?”
“I don’t think you can say it like that, like, ‘my habeas corpus,’” Shaw said.
“Good point. Let’s call a lawyer and find out.”
