I, Racki (Part V)

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Falcon down, all units respond. It was Officer Grout’s radio. Somewhere, something was going down.

Letting out a sigh, he said, “Hold on, I got to answer this.”

Headquarters, this is G-Licious. I went back to hitting Simon.

“A chopper has crashed and I gotta go.” He stared at us wistfully, but then clipped his walkie-talkie back on his belt. Simon bawled. “It went down just west of town out by the lake. They have to close off the area. Otherwise I’d join in, or invite you down to S-22. You did a good job taking care of this miscreant though, a case of good initiative taken by a citizen, a testament to Stone Creek thinking locally and acting locally.”

Simon’s crying was starting to whimper out. Fun’s fun, but I figured it was time to let the professionals have a go at him, so I asked Officer Grout, “Do we have time to take him down there now?”

Simon propped himself up against the pole and warily put up a hand. “Wait,” he said. Then panted, “You guys need to know how wealthy my parents are. There’s no need to take me anywhere.”

I remember the first time I saw S-22. It looked like a dimly lit dentist’s office, only a lot bigger. File cabinets lined the walls, in the middle an elevator for visitors and a freight elevator for those unlucky enough to be rolled in, and from the observation balconies you looked out over a warehouse of gurneys and scores of equipment you wanted absolutely no part of. And the Big Chart. The Chart…had the Rules, but if you were in S-22 it didn’t matter at this point if you followed them or not. It was a cold dark place, a buried place for abstract truths and pitiless men. Simon Rycene would find out today.

And down there was the Truth. The Truth always came out. It came out no matter how hard you tried to keep it in. They could always get at the Truth. They dug around for it with sharp pointy things.

So I helped Officer Grout drag this patrician nancyboy up across the racecourse walk bridge and down towards Town Hall. I looked around into the faces of the passersby and you could tell the out-of-towners by their slack-jawed gawky expressions.

Simon asked, “Are you…going to kill me?” Panic saturated his voice, soaking it.

After reflection, Officer Grout said, “It’s hard to say.” I saw him give me an appraising look and he added, “You’re not wearing your black beret. Your denim jacket, you’re not wearing that, either. You gave up your black beret and denim jacket.”

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