Riding the Rap

Raylan watched him as he spoke, Dale Junior staring straight ahead, rigid, arms extended, hands gripping the top arc of the steering wheel. Big hands with bony white knuckles. Raylan turned a little more in the seat harness to face him and raised his left leg a few inches to rest it against the edge of the seat. He could feel his service pistol, a Beretta nine, holstered to his right hip, wedged in there against the door. Handcuffs were hooked to his belt. A shotgun, an MP5 machine gun, his vest, a sledgehammer and several more pairs of cuffs were in the trunk. He had left the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office about nine this morning. Almost five hours up to Ocala then had to wait around an hour for the paperwork before getting his prisoner. By then it was after three. Now, more than halfway back, it was starting to get dark.

“The night I got stopped,” Dale Junior said, “I had like four beers and the potato chips while I shot some pool-that’s all. Okay, driving home, this place where I been staying with a friend, I’m minding my own fucking business, not doing anything wrong, I get pulled over. Listen to this: On account of one of my taillights ain’t working. The cops get me out of the car, tell me to walk the line, touch my fucking nose, they give me all this shit and take me in for a Breathalyzer. Okay, I want to know who says it’s fair. I’m clean three years, been working on and off when I could find a job, and now I’m go

Raylan got ready.

Dale Junior said, “Bullshit!” Turned his head and strained against his seat belt as he swung at Raylan backhand to club him with his fist and Raylan brought his leg up under the arm coming at him and punched the heel of his cowboy boot hard into Dale Junior’s face. The car swerved left, hit the grassy median and swerved back into the double lanes, Dale Junior hunched over the wheel holding on. By this time Raylan was out of his seat belt, had his Beretta in his right hand and was holding it in Dale Junior’s face, waiting for him to look over.

When he did, Raylan said, “Pull off the road.” He waited until they were parked on the shoulder before reaching around to get his handcuffs. He said to Dale Junior, “Here, put one on your left wrist and snap the other one to the wheel.”

Dale Junior, blood leaking from his nose, stu

Raylan held up his free hand for Dale Junior to look at and began rubbing the tips of his thumb and index finger together. He said, “You know what this is? It’s the world’s smallest violin. A fella did that in a movie where these six scudders wearing black suits go and rob a jewelry store and they all get killed. You see it? It was a good one.”

They drove on toward West Palm with darkness spreading over the land, Dale Junior getting used to the handcuffs, looking over as the marshal said, “Put your lights on.” Saying then, “Everybody’s got problems, huh? Different kinds for different people. Account of you think you’re tough you’re going up to State Prison where you’ll have to prove it.”

Dale Junior said, “You go

The marshal taking a few moments before he said, “Last month I went to Brunswick, Georgia, to visit my sons. One’s ten, the other’s four and a half, living up there with their mom and a real estate man she married name of Gary, has a little cookie-duster mustache. Winona calls the boys punkins, always has. But this Gary calls them punks. I told him not to do it, my sons aren’t punks. He says it’s short for punkin, that’s all. I told him, ‘I don’t care for it, okay? So don’t call them that.’ If I’d known about you then I could’ve told Gary your story and said, ‘That’s what a punk is, a person refuses to grow up.’”

“I asked you,” Dale Junior said, “if you’re go

“You hear your tone of voice?” the marshal said, sitting over there in the dark. “I’m not your problem.”

It was quiet in the car following the headlights along the Turnpike, neither of them saying another word until they came to the tollbooth and the marshal paid the man and they got off on Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm. The marshal told him to go east to Military Trail and turn right and Dale Junior told him he knew the way to Gun Club. Okay?

Now there were streetlights and signs and stores lit up, back in civilization.

“Your problem,” the marshal said, “you can’t accept anyone telling you what to do.”

Dale Junior only grunted, feeling another sermon coming.

The marshal saying now, “If you can’t live with it, don’t ever get into law enforcement.”

“If I can’t live with what?”

“Being told what to do, having superiors.”

Dale Junior said, “Oh,” slowing down and braking for a yellow light turning red, thinking, Jesus, what I always wanted to do, get into law enforcement.

It was as they coasted to the intersection and stopped they got rammed from behind.

Raylan felt himself pressed against the seat harness, his head snapping back and forward again. He heard Dale Junior say “God damn!” and saw him gripping the wheel, looking up at the rearview mirror now. Raylan got his seat belt undone before looking around to see the headlights of a pickup truck close behind the Cadillac’s rear deck. Now it was backing up a few feet, the driver making sure the bumpers weren’t locked together.

“Goddamn jig,” Dale Junior said.

Two of them, young black guys coming from the pickup now as Raylan got out and walked back toward them: the one on the driver’s side wearing a crocheted skullcap, the other one, his hair done in cornrows, holding something in his right hand Raylan took to be a pistol, holding it against his leg, away from a few cars going past just then, all the traffic Raylan could see coming for the next few blocks. They were by a vacant lot; stores across the street appeared closed except for a McDonald’s.

The pickup truck’s bumper, higher than the Cadillac’s, had plowed into the sheet metal, smashing the taillights on the left side and popping the trunk, the lid creased and raised a few inches.

Raylan recognized the revolver the guy held, a .357 Mag with a six-inch barrel; he had one at home just like it, Smith & Wesson. Raylan kept his mouth shut, not wanting to say something that might get these guys upset. This was a car-jacking, the guys were no doubt wired and that .357 could go off for no reason. Raylan looked at the damaged trunk again, studying it to be occupied.

The one with cornrows and the gun against his leg said, “You see what I got here?”

Raylan looked him in the eye for the first time and nodded.

The one in the crocheted skullcap walked up to the driver’s side of the Cadillac. The one with cornrows said to Raylan, “We go

Raylan shook his head.

The one in the crocheted skullcap glanced back this way as he said, “Come here look at this.”

The moment the one with the cornrows turned and moved away Raylan raised the trunk lid. He brought out his Remington 12-gauge, then had to wait for a car to pass before stepping away from the trunk. Raylan put the shotgun on the two guys looking at Dale Junior handcuffed to the steering wheel and did something every lawman knew guaranteed attention and respect. He racked the pump on the shotgun, back and forward, and that hard metallic sound, better than blowing a whistle, brought the two guys around to see they were out of business.

“Let go of the pistol,” Raylan said. “Being dumb don’t mean you want to get shot.”