= Nothing More to Lose
  by George M. Scott

"Let me try to bring her out," Detective Brad Jansen said. The little house glowed from the klieg lights shining on it. The splashes of reds and blues would have afforded a festive air, were they not from the racks on top of police cars. Outside the bubble of light, the hot night loomed in silent anticipation.

Lieutenant Lucius Black worked the toothpick in his mouth and fixed Jansen with his squint. "Don't think so. She already shot her husband and we don't need you as a hostage. Damn these Santa Anas. Here it is nine o'clock, and it ain't cooled off a lick."

Jansen didn't want to think about the dry, hot wind. "But her kid's in there with her." His jaw tensed as he produced his cell phone. "What's her number?"

Black jerked out the toothpick and pointed it at Jansen. "Didn't you hear me? I said no."

"So what're you gonna do? Lob in some gas and hope for the best?" He didn't care if the Lieutenant saw him white-knuckling the phone and clenching his other fist.

"For your information, Sergeant, I thought we'd wait her out." He stuck the toothpick back in his mouth and started working it again. "That all right with you?"

"At least let me talk to her." Jansen pleaded. "Come on, Lieutenant." The smoke from the distant brush fires burned his eyes and stung his tongue.

Black studied him for a moment, then shrugged and sighed. "Oh, all right. But you ain't goin' in."

Jansen fought to suppress his grin as Black gave him the number. "Name?" he asked as he punched it in.

"Missus Webb," Black sighed. "And wipe that stupid smile off your face." Jansen quickly turned away and pressed "call." He put the phone to his ear and covered the other one to blunt the growl of the generator.

"Who is it this time?" a gravelly voice asked. The lady had smoked one too many Marlboros in her day, Jansen thought.

"Missus Webb?"

"Yeah, speak."

"This is Detective Jansen."

A fit of coughing rumbled over the receiver. "What happened to the Lootenant? Hav'ta take a crap?" Her laugh dissolved into more coughing.

"No. He's still here. Can I talk to you?"

"What you're doin' right now, ain't it?"

"I mean can I come in and talk to you face to face?"

He listened to a few seconds of labored breathing. Sounded like someone was using a dull saw on a thin sheet of plywood. Jansen glanced at Black, who was busy glowering and shaking his head.

"Tell me why," she rasped.

"Because I can help you to resolve this thing so no one else gets hurt."

More splintery sawing.

"You try anything, I'll start shootin'."

"Don't worry. I'm leaving my gun outside."

"Take it out so's I can see it through the peep hole."

"Okay. Just stay cool."

A sound emerged that could have been giggling. "Right. I'm about as cool as a piece'a chicken in a fryin' pan."

Smiling grimly, Jansen punched "end" and turned to Black, who was working his toothpick double-time and pinching the bridge of his nose. Jansen was about to speak when a SWAT Team member stepped up. "When you get close to the door, just step aside and I'll put one right through it." He was holding a .308 with a scope.

Jansen couldn't believe the prick. "Braca, go play with your gun someplace else."

"Look, there's only one way to deal with trash. Burn it."

"Get outta my face."

Black cleared his throat. "We don't need a pissin' contest here, men."

After holding Jansen's stare for a few more seconds, Braca flashed a nasty grin and left. Jansen glared after him, then said, "Okay, I'm goin' in."

"Damn it, Jansen."

"Don't worry. I'll bring her out. With the kid. And besides, we need to know the husband's condition. He could be bleeding to death in there." Jansen knew that would be the clincher.

Black removed his toothpick, examined it, and nodded. "Okay. You have half an hour. Watch yourself."

This time Jansen didn't fight the smile. "Yeah."

He took off his coat, handed it to Black, and walked slowly toward the house. It was one of those little California bungalows, complete with red tile roof and front porch, which would fetch upwards of half a million in certain areas. This wasn't one of those areas. The front yard consisted of dead weeds and old car parts. The only sign of life was a brave red geranium somehow hanging on in the flowerbed.

Ten feet from the front door, what was left of Jansen's smile vanished. He slowly pulled his gun from the shoulder holster, holding the butt between his thumb and forefinger. He held it up, then tossed it behind him. The hot Santa Ana wind tickled the back of his neck. Jansen missed the cool and colorful falls back east; out here in L.A. the fall turned to desert, and both brush and tempers burned in the heat.

The door clicked open, and he walked up the steps toward it.

"Hello?" he called out.

"Come in and shut the door behind you. No funny moves, or I'll put a bullet where it'll hurt." It was like the voice came from a cave.

Jansen took a deep breath and walked in. He squinted into a hot darkness smelling of cigarette smoke and stale beer and body odor and decayed dreams.

"I said close the fuckin' door!"

The raspy voice dissolved in the hot, heavy air. He pushed the door shut and walked in, trying to focus. Most of the light in the room leaked from around the edges of a heavy blanket hanging over the front window. A couple of candles tried to help with the light, but all they did was cast flickering shadows against the wall and onto the ceiling. Despite the heat, Jansen shuddered.

"Mommy, who's that man?" The voice came from a little girl huddled in the corner diagonally across from Jansen. From what he could see of her, she seemed okay.

"Hush, sugar. He's a policeman come to help us. Ain't ya, Detective Jansen?" He could almost taste her sneer. He wanted to spit and wipe his mouth.

A whimper came from the floor.

"Shut up, Harv!"

Jansen's eyes had adjusted to the dimness enough to see her kick a body lying in front of the sofa.

"Don't hurt Daddy," the little girl screamed.

"God bless her, she loves that bas-- ah, man. Ain't it a tragedy?"

Harv was flopped on his ample gut, hands and feet tied with yellow nylon rope. A ratty looking washcloth was stuffed in his mouth. He was nude from the waist down, and there was a red hole in his right butt cheek. Blood oozed from the wound like a tired fountain. Jansen knelt down, keeping his eyes on Mrs. Webb and her gun, and checked his neck for a pulse. It seemed strong enough.

"Don't worry," Mrs. Webb wheezed. "He'll live."

Jansen stood back up. "He needs the paramedics."

She started to reply but a paroxysm of coughing stopped her.

Jansen took a step toward her with his hand out.

She thrust the barrel of a gun in his face. "Back off, cop! Sit over there." She waved the gun toward the other side of the room. "So I can keep an eye on ya."

Jansen walked over and sat in a lawn chair. Several of its nylon straps hung down and brushed the floor. He glanced over at the fuzzy green blanket covering the window and felt like he was in an oven. Outside, the music of the crickets struggled against the drone of the generator and the crackle of radios and the buzz of voices.

He got a better look at the woman sitting across the room from him and suppressed a sigh. Her stringy brown hair was streaked with gray and her eyes were sunk so deeply into their sockets they seemed like faint stars flickering in a night sky. Her clothes hung as loosely from her skin as her skin hung from her bones. She held the gun in her left hand and a can of beer in the other. A cigarette dangled from her chapped lips. Booze and dope and hard knocks had pushed her age way past its probable mid-thirties. The candlelight dancing on her face didn't help.

The specter spoke. "First off I'd like to lodge a protest 'bout these fuckin' blackouts."

"Take that up with Edison. I'm here for a different reason. Talk to me, Missus Webb."

Harv moaned.

"Harv!" she barked.

The moaning stopped and she went back to nursing her beer. "Callin' me 'Missus' makes me feel old. I prefer Daisy."

Jansen almost choked on the incongruity.

A sadness washed over her face, and her eyes were fixed on the past. Then she looked at Jansen and smiled, ever so faintly. "Guess there was a time I used to look like one."

"All right ... uh, Daisy, tell me what happened."

"Caught him humpin' this slut and shot him when he tried to run out. Tried to hit his shit hole but missed. Ain't as good a shot as I used ta be."

"What happened to the, uh, lady?"

"Lady?" Her eyebrow arched and a sound came out that combined a belch with a wheeze. "She ran out the back."

"You didn't shoot her too?"

She sniffed with indignation. "No, I didn't. She's the one who called you, right?"

"Yeah, I guess she did. When did this bit of ugliness happen?"

She lit another cigarette from the one she'd just finished. Jansen was surprised her hands were so steady. She took a deep drag and yawned and coughed out the smoke. "I come home from the doctor's 'bout two hours ago, and found 'em in the bedroom bouncin' the mattress. I grabbed the gun off the table and started yellin'. And shootin'." She paused a moment, picking tobacco off her tongue. "Was all I could take." She drained the can, crumpled it up, and flung it down. It bounced off Harv's ass, skipped across the wood floor, and came to rest in front of Jansen. He moved it aside with his foot.

Following the can with his eyes, he caught movement in the dark corner beyond it. "She shot Blackie too." A flashlight snapped on, and a round, reddish-white face loomed up at Jansen. Jack-in-the-Box, he thought, with a start. The little girl was sitting on the floor next to the body of a dog. It looked like a shaggy black poodle. A dead shaggy black poodle. She was stroking its bloody fur. Jansen had thought he'd seen it all, but now he had a new bit of human depravity to add to the list.

"Little prick tried to bite me," the mother said.

The daughter started sobbing. "Blackie's a good little doggy."

Jansen wanted to reach out and touch her but thought better of it. "What's your name, honey?"

"Don't call me that. She calls me that."

"Do not. I call you sugar. Go get me another beer." The little girl stood but didn't move. "Go on now," the mother demanded, stomping her foot on the floor.

"Aw," the daughter moaned and shuffled off toward the kitchen. Daisy looked at Jansen and whispered, "She hates me 'cause I'm sick."

Jansen couldn't think of anything to say.

She pulled on her cigarette and launched into another coughing fit.

The daughter returned with the beer and handed it to her mother and went back to her corner. "My name's Stacy. I'm five. What's yours?"

Her face was streaked with dirt from the sweat and tears and her plump little body strained the seams of her dingy dress. Figures, Jansen thought, with the steady diet of fast food.

"Stacy's a pretty name. I'm Brad."

"Brad Pitt," she said, very matter-of-factly.

"Brad Jansen. Daisy, why don't you let Stacy go outside and play?"

Stacy whined, "I don't wanna."

Daisy looked with sleepy eyes at Jansen, then Stacy. She took a swig of her beer. "You'll be in foster again. You know that, don't ya?"

The word "foster" made Jansen's hands sweat.

Suddenly Daisy jumped up from the sofa and looked toward the front door. "What the hell was that?"

Jansen stood, his body buzzing with adrenalin. He'd heard it too. Hushed voices and the swish of heavy fabric and the crunch of boots. The cricket-music had stopped. Damn SWAT Team was making its move. He glanced at his watch -- fifteen minutes to go. Stupid cowboys!

"They're tryin' to sneak up on me!"

"Mommy," Stacy wailed.

Jansen swallowed hard. "Uh, Missus Webb. Daisy."

She swung around to face him. "You! You son of a bitch. You set me up. I trusted you." She pointed her gun at him again.

He held out his left hand as he reached for his phone with his right.

"Hold it, cop. What'cha got in the pocket?"

"Just a cell phone. Listen, I don't know anything about this. I'll call them off."

The gun didn't move.

"Hey, would I be so stupid as to pull a weapon when you got me covered?"

She looked at the door, then back at Jansen. "Okay. But you mess with me, I'll start shootin'. Take it out slow and easy."

He gingerly pulled out the phone and pressed the speed-dial number.

"Black."

"What the hell's going down out there?"

"Calm down, Jansen. The SWAT boys are just gettin' into position."

Jansen turned to face the window and tried to control his breathing. "Tell them to pull back. Tell them, Black. Tell them now."

"Yeah, Lootenant!" Missus Webb yelled. "Tell 'em, or I'll shoot your prize dick here."

"Sounds like the situation in there is outta control."

"It was fine until the Marines made their move. Tell those--"

"Fine. Fine. I'll tell 'em. But you don't have much longer."

"Yeah, okay." He punched off and put the phone back in his pocket.

"Head to the window, cop," Daisy rasped, motioning with her gun. "You're gonna be my shield while I check things out."

Jansen nodded and moved to the window. Daisy fell in behind him and stuck her gun in his back.

"Move the blanket so's I can see."

He pulled up a corner, letting in a sharp ray of light. The helmeted, black-clad officers were jogging back toward the line of patrol cars, where they disappeared, one by one, behind the kleigs, as if they'd slipped into another dimension. Jansen wished they had.

"Satisfied?" Jansen asked. The crickets had restored a semblance of normalcy.

"For now. Come on back and sit down."

He took his place back on the lawn chair as Daisy plopped down on the sofa. Stacy was crying softly in the corner.

"Your daughter, Missus, uh, Daisy. Don't you want her--"

"Yeah, yeah. I want her to go to Stanford. I want her to marry a nice, rich guy. I want her to be president of the fucking United States. I want her to give me grandkids.... And I want a million bucks. What I want.... Oh, hell." She picked up her beer and took a deep swig. Then she lit another cigarette.

"Don't you want her to live?"

She sighed and coughed out a cloud of smoke.

"And about your husband. He needs medical attention."

She looked up at the ceiling.

Jansen plowed ahead. "You were provoked. And you weren't trying to kill him. Probably get off with assault."

"With a deadly weapon."

Jansen shrugged. "Your daughter. If we could just, uh...."

"Come 'ere, baby."

Stacy jumped up and ran to her mother and climbed up in her lap and wrapped her arms around her neck. The little girl's body shook with sobs.

Daisy put her beer can on the floor, then rubbed and patted her daughter's heaving back. "Shh, shh. Don't cry, sugar. I-I'm sorry I shot your daddy. He'll be all right."

"Don't die, Mommy."

While she held Stacy, Jansen got a good look at her gun. It was an Army Colt forty-five. No wonder the hole in Harv was so big. At least the bleeding had stopped and he was still breathing.

"It's gonna be all right, sugar. You'll see. A special little girl like you is bound ta get a good family."

Jansen hoped Stacy didn't hear the lie. The foster care system would chew her up and spit her out -- into a life just like her mother's. He shook his head, then quickly said, "Stacy, time to go."

He got up and walked toward the pitiful scene. "Here, take my hand. I'll walk you out."

"Nooo," she cried. "I don't wanna go." It looked like she was trying to bore into her mother's body.

Daisy looked Jansen up and down. "Black hair, brown eyes. Sad eyes. 'Bout six-three, two-hundred. Thirty-five, thirty-six. Lean and mean. 'Nother time an' place, I could'a gone for you, big feller." Another time and place, her voice could've been sultry; now it was just sad. She hugged and kissed her daughter and rasped softly, "Now, sugar, you gotta go. I'll be all right. I'll see you soon."

"Promise?"

Daisy looked at Jansen with the saddest expression he'd ever seen. Then she smiled and looked back at her daughter. "Yeah, I promise." She gently pried her daughter's arms from around her neck and stood her on the floor. Just then the lights winked on, washing out the candlelight and transforming the misery from dim to bright. Jansen preferred the dim version.

"'Bout time. Oh, my gawd. Look at you. You're a mess. That face and that dress. And, Lordy, that damn dog blood on your hands. You look like a real ragamuffin. What'll child services think of me?" Daisy stood up. "Come on, I gotta get you cleaned up. Back in a minute, Detective."

"Uh, Daisy. I don't think--"

"You're not her mother. I am. I say she has ta be presentable."

"Mommy."

"Hush up and come on."

She took her daughter's hand and pulled her toward the back of the house. Jansen followed a few steps behind. When he saw them go into the bathroom he stopped. Hearing water running and Stacy complaining, he relaxed some, but he still kept his eye on the back door.

"Hey, cop. Find me a clean dress and a pair'a sandals outta her bedroom."

Jansen replied, "They have the back covered."

"Damnit, I ain't gonna run. Just shut the fuck up and give me a hand. Cops!"

"Okay. Okay." He walked into the bedroom that had the toys and looked for a dresser or chest of drawers. Instead, he found cardboard boxes stacked next to the wall. He selected a dress out of one and picked a pair of scruffy white sandals off the floor. Then, as an afterthought, he picked a pair of panties out of another box.

Jansen returned to the bathroom and reached in with the clothes. "Here."

"My, my, clean panties. How thoughtful. You a father?"

He felt the heat rise on his face as the terrible memories rose up from where he had tried so hard to bury them. "No." Then he turned and mumbled to himself, "Never."

"Just a sensitive guy, huh? And a hard ass homicide dick ta boot. Go figure."

Jansen thrust his hands in his pockets and walked back to the living room and studied his shoes. No matter how hard he tried he would never forget....

His mother sits on the sofa, hugging herself, rocking back and forth. She smells of whisky. She keeps saying, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." But her eyes say something else.

The boy screams and runs down the hall and into the bathroom. His little sister lies in the tub. Her head is under water and she isn't moving. He thinks, hopes, she's playing a game, but he touches her and knows she isn't.

He doesn't want to go into the bedroom. But his legs take him there. His father lies on the floor. He could be asleep or just resting. The blood shows he isn't.

The boy grabs his head with both hands. It feels like it's going to explode. He turns around and looks toward the living room. The gunshot makes him jump. A cold wave of sadness breaks and washes over him and pulls him under.

Oh, he knew about foster care. But he was older than Stacy when he started. He was a survivor. Yeah, right.

"Okay, we're ready," Daisy wheezed. "Hey, what's wrong with your eyes?"

He took out his handkerchief and wiped them. "Allergies. Hey, what a pretty little lady." Shiny face, brushed hair with pink barrettes, scrubbed hands, clean dress. And a brave smile, but one with the bottom lip trembling.

Daisy looked at him skeptically for a moment, then said, "Here, go with this beautiful man."

With a groan, she sat on the sofa and picked up her beer. Stacy slowly turned and took Jansen's outstretched hand.

"You comin' back, or's it gonna be the gas?" She guzzled down the rest of the beer, crushed the can, and started to throw it at Harv again. But this time she stopped and sighed heavily and dropped it on the sofa next to her.

Jansen smiled the best he could. "No gas. I'll be back soon as I'm sure Stacy's taken care of."

On the way to the door, Jansen took out his cell phone and again pressed the lieutenant's speed-dial number.

"Yeah, Black."

"I'm coming out with the daughter. Tell Children's Services to be ready."

"Right."

He punched off. "Okay, Stacy, let's go."

"Bye, bye, Mommy."

"Bye, sugar."

"I'll be right back," Jansen said. "Now don't do anything foolish. I'll be back and we'll talk some more."

Daisy chuckled. "Hey! What'm I gonna do? I got nothing more ta lose."

Jansen smiled and nodded and opened the door. Both he and Stacy put their hands over their eyes to shield them from the sudden glare of the kleigs. Stacy let out a little scream and grabbed his leg. Jansen picked her up.

The last glimpse he had of Daisy before he closed the door was her lighting another cigarette. This time her hands were shaking, and the light glinted off the tears on her craggy cheeks.

Jansen shook his head and walked toward the black and whites parked in front of the house. A young Latino woman dressed in a tan suit was standing next to Black.

"You better take her away from here," Jansen said to her.

"Come on, Stacy."

She clung to Jansen and sobbed, "Don't let them hurt my Mommy."

"I won't, darling. Now, you go with this nice lady."

The woman took her and left. Stacy looked over the woman's shoulder, her eyes smaller versions of her mother's.

As Jansen turned to Black, he saw Braca aiming his rifle toward the front door from across the hood of a patrol car. "Hey, rifleman, your services won't be needed. You can go home."

Braca gave him the finger.

A new toothpick wagged at Jansen. "How you doing with Missus Webb?"

"I'll have her out in a few minutes. Better get the paramedics ready for the husband. They can go in as soon as we're out. She nailed him in the ass with a forty-five. He's lost some blood, but he seems to be stable. Okay, I'm going back in."

"Be sure to get the hand cannon away from her before you bring her out."

Jansen smirked. "Well, yeah."

"Glad to see you still have that sense of humor."

All at once the door flew open and Daisy stood there pointing her gun at the police and coughing. Her body was shaking, but the gun was steady. In the light she looked like a wild ghost.

"You fuckin' cops," she yelled as she staggered out the door and down the steps. When she reached the ground, she started firing. Up, into the night sky. Jansen spun around and yelled, "Don't shoot. She's not--"

His words were cut off by the sharp crack of a .308. The bullet lifted Daisy in the air and dropped her like a rag in the dirt. The darkness seemed to swallow her for an instant, but the lights found her again. Her body twitched a few times, then lay still.

Jansen put his hands over his face. "Nothing more to lose," he said in a voice as dry as the wind, as dark as the night.

By day GEORGE M. SCOTT teaches cultural anthropology at California State University, Long Beach, and by night (and day) he writes in the genres of mystery, suspense, and science fiction. His short fiction has appeared in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Nefarious Tales of Mystery, Aphelion The Webzine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Without a Clue. Following novelist Tim O'Brien's advice, George continues to value "story-truth" over "happening-truth." Visit his Website at www.georgemscott.com.

Copyright (c) 2002 George M. Scott