Rowe Carlin was a divorced, balding, past-fifty, overweight black man, who also happened to be big-time columnist for the biggest newspaper in Washington DC. When he wrote something, everybody paid attention, and he often got invited onto the week-end talking-head shows as a “pundit.” On said programs and columns, he didn’t just tow the party-line, he dragged it like a dead body over anybody who disagreed with his predictable positions on abortion, school vouchers, affirmative action, and gun control.
Affable and articulate, Rowe could expound on any hot-button subject with all the talking points memorized better than any of them. One of his favorites was how necessary it was to get handguns away from everybody. Of course, he never bothered to tell them he didn’t include himself in that particular group of everybodies; and felt very comfortable living with that double standard.
In fact, he felt downright vindicated when he was awakened at 3:00 a.m. by the sound of the lock his patio doors being violated. At first, he couldn’t believe it! Some goof actually had the balls to break into his three-story Georgetown townhouse…
Well, that’s just fine. Because Rowe Carlin had something good for his punk-ass….
Reaching into the nightstand, Rowe produced his favorite piece—a 9mm Glock in polished stainless. Full clip, safety off.
Let’s dance.
Still in his Armani pajamas, Rowe padded down the back stairs. He could hear the hinges of the patio doors creak as the intruder entered his tastefully decorated parlor. Footsteps on the Barcelona tiles. Rowe eased silently through the kitchen, looked around the corner of the door. He saw a figure shrouded in a hooded sweatshirt, rimed in moonlight, searching for anything of value.
Without a moment of hesitation, Rowe dropped to one knee, raised his weapon in a two-handed grip and squeezed off three quick slugs into the guy, who dropped like the sack of shit he was. Turning on the lights, he wasn’t surprised to see it was a young, black crack-head he’d killed. Rowe smiled at a job well done.
Beyond the backyard garden wall, the siren of a police cruiser grew louder, closer.
They can not catch me like this. The embarrassment of being exposed as a… a mountebank spurred him to act quickly.
Rowe was a big guy, still strong. With one arm he hefted the punk’s body over his shoulder fireman-style, then out of his house, across the patio and through the back gate. When he reached the alley, he bent over to heave the corpse near the entrance to P Street—just as the black-and-white entered from the opposite end, flashers strobing everything in harsh blues and reds.
Headlights washed over him for an instant. Hastily braked tires scritched the gravel. Doors popped open.
“Get away from him!” said a voice of authority.
“Drop the weapon!” said its partner.
Jesus. Rowe suddenly realized he still carried his Glock in his right hand….
“No, wait!” he said, raising it to point straight up, in a show of helplessness. To show them he was the victim here. “I—”
But his arm never got that high.
Four .38 caliber bullets penetrated the silk of his pajamas, tumbling through the considerable lipoid layers of his belly and the strained tissue of his lungs. His blood bubbled out of him, and in that final instant, where time slowed and sagged like taffy being stretched, he realized what a terrible mistake had been made.
…a long time ago.
Looking up, he was only vaguely aware of the circle of faces that ringed him, looked down on him, as he stared up and beyond them to a circular nebula of stars and outward rushing pinpoints of lights.
“Take it… “ he said, the words wheezing from his ruined lungs like the notes from a broken pipe organ.
“Huh?” The voice of one of the cops.
“Please,” Rowe felt the earth spinning beneath as he stared into the infinite spiral of being and nothingness. “Please… don’t let them know I… I had this.”
The cop, in a sudden flash of comprehension, shook his head as if a disapproving grade-school teacher. “Oh, man, you gotta be kiddin’ me…”
Sadly, as the pinpoints began to dim, he desperately wanted to agree, but it…
…was
…too
…late.