Read Online You Can Die Trying by Gar Anthony Haywood - Free Book Online

Place and Forty-second Street, at Van Ness. Maggie said the kid just disappeared, the fucking alley was so dark, so he didn’t go in after him. He just stopped where he was and called for the kid to come out, and that’s when the little bastard opened up on him. Two rounds, Maggie said, one right after the other. He said he could hear the second slug go by, it came so close to his head.”
    “And that’s when he returned fire.”
    “Yeah. You don’t think he was entitled?”
    “How many rounds did he fire?”
    “Three. That’s what he told the IAD guys, and that’s what he told me.”
    “What about Officer Lugo? She count it as three rounds, too?”
    Kupchak started to speak, stopped, then said, “Officer Lugo said she couldn’t say how many rounds Maggie fired. She and Ford didn’t arrive at the scene until after the exchange of gunfire was over, she said.”
    It seemed to pain him to have to relay this information. One side of his face had appeared to grow harder than the other as he spoke.
    “But the kid was only hit once,” he went on. “That’s all. He took one round high on the right shoulder, up near the collarbone. The doctors said he should’ve made it, that he would’ve made it, he hadn’t been a bleeder. Maggie got a lousy break there.”
    Gunner started to point out that the break Washington got was even worse, but instead just asked, “What about the gun?”
    “The gun?”
    “Yeah. The gun. The one the counter guy at the liquor store didn’t see, but that McGovern said he found on the body. He find it just like he said, or was it a plant?”
    Kupchak tried to smile, but he was too insulted by the question to put much behind it. “You really expect me to answer a stupid question like that?”
    “Look at it this way. I think you just did.”
    Kupchak fell silent.
    Gunner tried to wait for the cop’s recalcitrance to play itself out, but it soon became obvious that he was waiting in vain. Struggling to keep his growing impatience out of his voice, he said, “Look, Sergeant. This isn’t ‘Sixty Minutes,’ and I’m not Ed Bradley. I’m not asking you these questions because I’m out to bury anybody, I’m asking them because I need to know the answers to them. McGovern’s ass was going to be in a sling if he couldn’t find a weapon on Washington, and he knew it. You think I need you to tell me he might have placed a drop gun on the kid in a spot like that?”
    Kupchak ignored the question.
    Gunner gave him a few seconds more to speak, then said, “Okay. You win. You can’t help me, and I can’t help you. Sorry I wasted your lunch hour.”
    Without another word, the black man started eating again, acting as if Kupchak had stood up to leave and was no longer sharing his table.
    Kupchak watched him eat for a long, silent moment, too bewildered and humiliated by his sudden dismissal to say anything. Gunner wouldn’t even raise his eyes to look at him.
    “So I don’t know if the fucking gun was a plant or not, all right? Maggie never told me, one way or the other. Way it looked, I guess it could’ve been a drop gun, sure. But so what if it was? What does that prove?”
    Gunner wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and regarded him again. “Prove? I don’t think it ‘proves’ anything. But it certainly seems to imply a number of things. Doesn’t it?”
    “Like maybe the kid wasn’t armed, after all.”
    Gunner nodded.
    “How the fuck did I know you were gonna say that?” Kupchak asked, grinning sardonically again. “You see what the poor bastard was up against? Who the hell was gonna believe there was a weapon, if he couldn’t produce one?”
    “I’ve got a better question for you. Why would he have found it necessary to ‘produce’ a weapon if Washington was already holding one?”
    “Because he couldn’t find the goddamn thing. What do you think?”
    “He couldn’t find it?”
    “No. He couldn’t find it. Maggie figured the kid must’ve tossed it before he got