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“He smells dead.”
“He always smells like that.” I was prepared this time. I had my stun gun with me. I leaned forward, pressed my stun gun to Bender, and hit the juice button. Nothing happened. I examined the stun gun. It looked okay. I put it to Bender again. Nothing. Goddamn electronic piece of shit. Okay, go to backup plan. I grabbed the cuffs I had tucked into my back pocket and quietly clicked a bracelet on Bender's right wrist.
Bender's eyes flew open. “What the hell?”
I pulled his cuffed hand across his body and secured the second bracelet onto his left wrist.
“Goddamn,” he yelled. “I hate being disturbed when I'm watching television! What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
“The same thing I was doing in your house yesterday. Bond enforcement,” I said. “You're in violation of your bond. You need to reschedule.”
He glared at Kloughn. “What's with the dough boy?”
Kloughn handed Bender his business card. “Albert Kloughn, attorney at law.”
“I hate clowns. They creep me out.”
Kloughn pointed to his name on the card. “K-l-o-u-g-h-n,” he said. “If you ever need a lawyer, I'm real good.”
“Oh yeah?” Bender said. “Well, I hate lawyers even more than clowns.” He jumped forward and knocked Kloughn on his ass with a head butt to Kloughn's face. “And I hate you,” he said, lunging at me, head down.
I sidestepped and tried the stun gun on him again. No effect. I ran after him and made another stab. He never broke stride. He was across the room, through the open front door. I threw the stun gun at him. It bounced off his head, he yelled ouch, and he was gone, into the darkness.
I was torn between following after him and helping Kloughn. Kloughn was on his back, blood trickling from his nose, mouth open, eyes glazed. Hard to tell if he was just stunned or in a genuine coma.
“Are you okay?” I yelled at Kloughn.
Kloughn didn't say anything. His arms were in motion, but he wasn't making any progress at getting up. I went to his side and dropped to one knee.
“Are you okay?” I asked again.
His eyes focused, and he reached for me, grabbing a handful of shirt. “Did I hit him?”
“Yeah. You hit him with your face.”
“I knew it. I knew I'd be good under pressure. I'm pretty tough, right?”
“Right.” God help me, I was starting to like him.
I dragged him up and got him some paper towels from the kitchen. Bender was long gone, along with my cuffs. Again.
I retrieved the useless stun gun, packed Kloughn into the CR-V, and took off. It was a cloudy, moonless night. The projects were dark. Lights burned behind drawn shades but did nothing to illuminate lawns. I drove along the streets surrounding the projects, searching the shadows for movement, staring into the occasional uncurtained window.
Kloughn had his head tipped back with the towels stuffed up his nose. “Does this happen a lot?” he asked. “I thought it would be different. I mean, this was pretty fun, but he got away. And he didn't smell good. I didn't expect him to smell that bad.”
I looked over at Kloughn. He seemed different. Crooked, somehow. “Has your nose always curved to the left?” I asked him.
He gingerly touched his nose. “It feels funny. You don't think it's broken, do you? I've never had anything broken before.”
It was just about the most broken nose I'd ever seen. “It doesn't look broken to me,” I said. “Still, it wouldn't hurt to have a doctor look at it. Maybe we should make a quick stop-off at the emergency room.”
Stephanie Plum 8 - Hard Eight
5
I OPENED MY eyes and looked at the clock: 8:30. Not exactly an early start to the day. I could hear rain spattering on my fire escape and on my windowpane. My feeling on rain is that it should only occur at night when people are sleeping. At night, rain is cozy. During the day, rain is a pain in the gumpy. Another screwup on the part of creation. Like waste management. When you're planning a universe you have to think ahead.
I rolled out of bed and sleepwalked to the kitchen. Rex was done running for the night, sound asleep in his soup can. I got coffee going and shuffled to the bathroom. An hour later I was in my car, ready to start the day, not sure what to do first. Probably I should pay a condolence visit on Kloughn. I'd gotten his nose broken. By the time I'd dropped him at his car, his eyes were black and his nose was being held straight by a Band-Aid. Problem is, if I go see him now, I run the risk of having him latch onto me for the day. And I really didn't want Kloughn tagging along. I was fairly inept when left to my own devices. With Kloughn tagging along, I was a disaster waiting to happen.
