Page 61 of The Right to Remain

“We didn’t cook anything up.”

“Please, spare me,” she said. “I don’t care if your client chooses to answer you or not, but here’s my advice. Next time the two of you meet, tell her to put on her big-girl pants and prepare for war. See you at the Arthur hearing.”

The swipe at Elliott’s gender seemed unnecessary, even malicious. Jack chose not to walk out with the prosecutor, waiting behind at the table until she pushed through the swinging gate and was out the door in the back of the courtroom. He walked alone to the exit, took the escalator down to the main floor, and left the building. His car was parked in the lot across the street. Yesterday’s cold front was a distant meteorological memory, and if January had started like “the new July,” it was ending like “the new August.” Jack was sweating by the time he reached his car, and his morning didn’t improve any when he saw whatlooked like a parking ticket under his windshield wiper. He reached for it and quickly saw that it wasn’t a ticket. It was a handwritten note. Jack read it to himself:

She’s a liar. She’s guilty. The killer is as plain as the bump on your throat.

Jack’s gaze swept the parking lot, looking, but he saw no one around. Then he tried to make sense of the note. If “she” was Elliott, it was written by someone who was less than accepting of his trans status. The “bump on your throat” was an apparent reference to the Adam’s apple, which Elliott lacked, as yet. For Jack, however, the note was not so much about the words. It was about the handwriting.

There was something about it—the slant and certain letters—that reminded him of Owen’s “suicide” list of “things stressing me out.”

Jack carefully placed the note back where he’d found it. Then he dialed the prosecutor on his cell phone, and she answered.

“It’s Jack Swyteck,” he said into his phone. “Thanks for picking up. I’ve found something I’d like MDPD to bag and tag as evidence in our case.”

Chapter 21

Theo was working that night, but not behind the bar at Cy’s Place. It was his undercover gig for Jack Swyteck, PA.

Even though the invitation to join “the revolution” had come directly from C. J. Vandermeer, Theo was expected to attend training sessions like all the other recruits. His first session was at 8 p.m. in the martial arts studio at VanPoll Enterprises. Theo was one of about two dozen trainees in the room, all dressed as they would for an actual confrontation with riot police in the streets—black hoodies, black sweatpants, and black running shoes. Headwear varied, but CJ and several others wore the black-and-white checkered keffiyeh, though it was hard to discern any genuine connection between this group and support for Palestine. The session started with CJ leading them in a twenty-minute exercise in shadowboxing. Then he called Theo into the center combat ring.

“Let’s see what you got, big man,” said CJ.

Watching CJ dance around him like a bug on a lightbulb reminded Theo of the countless gym rats in muscle T-shirts who’d confronted him in bars, liquored-up losers determined to prove their manhood by picking a fight with the biggest dude in the bar. It never ended well for them.

“You don’t want to do this,” said Theo.

He tossed Theo a fiberglass nightstick. “Come at me like a riot cop who wants to break my skull.”

“That’s a really bad idea,” said Theo.

“Yeah, how would you know? You look too stupid to tell bad from good.”

“Watch it, CJ.”

“Come at me, fuckhead. Crush my skull, if you think you’re so tough.”

Theo felt his anger rising. Nobody talked to him that way, especially in front of other people. CJ kept it up.

“I checked out your jazz club—Cy’s Place. Named after your great-uncle Cy. Your website says he raised you after your mother died. How pathetic. No one to take care of poor little Theo except a washed-up saxophone player who didn’t have the brains or the talent to get out of Miami’s Overtown before all the jazz clubs turned into crack houses.”

If CJ was trying to piss him off, it was working. “You’re pushing this too far,” said Theo.

“Clearly, your momma didn’t want you. What was your old lady, Theo? A drug addict? Street whore?”

“Last warning,” said Theo.

“Just as I thought. A druggieanda cheap whore.”

It didn’t matter that CJ was exactly right. Theo charged across the ring, straight at him. CJ adopted a martial arts defensive pose, but Theo had no intention of squaring up to fight him under the rules of martial arts or any other rules. If it was CJ’s intention to teach his trainees how to survive a street fight, he’d picked Theo at his peril.

Theo was like a charging rhinoceros, and CJ’s only answer was a maneuver that Theo had seen before at Bayfront Park, some kind of arm-drag tactic—“Out and away”—that CJ had taught his trainees to “de-arrest” themselves. Theo slammed into CJ at full speed and with the full weight of his body. The whole room seemed to shake as Theo landed on top and pinned him to the mat. Before CJ could even react, Theo was pressing the police baton against CJ’s throat.

“You’re lucky I don’t push this baton all the way to the mat,” said Theo.

“I yield,” said CJ, choking.

Theo pulled the baton away from his neck and stood over him. CJclimbed to his feet, took a minute to catch his breath, and then spoke to the class.