Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4), Nick Pirog [classic children's novels .TXT] 📗

seventy pounds. In a fight, there was no substitute for mass. I was a rhino. He was a squirrel. It was as simple as that.

“You don’t want to do this,” I said.

The three other officers and Chief Eccleston overheard the exchange and turned. One of the officers took out his phone and began videotaping. Maybe they all secretly detested Miller. Maybe they were looking forward to watching me kick the shit out of him and posting it on the internet.

I would happily oblige.

Miller took two steps forward.

I crouched, ready for him to tackle me to the ground, whereby I would roll on top of him and dangle a loogie over his face until he cried uncle.

Then it happened.

He rose up on his toes, twisted his body around, and pivoted on his front foot. It was lightning quick, and a nanosecond later I was on my ass in the dirt, my ears ringing, and my vision supernova white.

I wouldn’t know what happened until I was forwarded the video “Guy Gets Ass Kicked by Cop” by my sister two days later. After it had racked up nearly nine million views.

Miller hit me with a spinning back kick, smashing his foot into my temple at roughly sixty miles per hour.

I’d been punched in the face a handful of times, but I’d never been kicked. Lying on my back in the grass, I ceased to exist for two long seconds.

When my vision cleared, Miller was on top of me. I attempted to wriggle from beneath him, but he had my arms pinned to my chest. I could hear feet clomping in our direction as his fellow officers ran to root him on.

Now I understood why the other officer was recording with his phone.

Miller was some sort of badass.

I bucked up with my hips in an attempt to slip from beneath him, but he dug his knee into my side. “Stop,” he said calmly.

“Fuck off,” I wheezed. The seven seconds we’d been wrestling exhausted me and I felt like vomiting. It could have been from my poor cardiovascular shape or it could have been from the karate kick to my skull.

I tried to roll over onto my stomach, which I was able to do easily. Too easily. A second later, I knew why. Miller rolled onto my back and slinked his forearm under my chin, the other one behind my neck, creating a vice around my throat.

What we call in the business a “rear naked choke.”

I clawed at his arms with my fingers, but he only clamped down harder. I tapped his arm frantically. Finally, after six taps, he released me.

Ten seconds later, I was in handcuffs.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Chief Eccleston said. “He almost made it to the UFC.”

I held the can of Coke to the side of my face, which was swollen to near Elephant Man proportions. My lower jaw pulsated, and I was nearly positive one of my back molars was cracked.

“The UFC?”

“Yeah, after he lost his wrestling scholarship, he came back to Tarrin and started getting into Mixed Martial Arts. He won a bunch of amateur fights, then went professional. Did pretty good too, ended up getting on that UFC reality show they do. But he lost, never made it. That’s when he came back and went to the academy.”

I made a mental note to 1) look Miller up on the internet and 2) ask Wheeler how it slipped her mind to mention her ex was a fucking cage fighter!

I said, “I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to press charges.”

Eccleston laughed. “You assaulted him first. You assaulted a police officer.”

“He grabbed me.”

“He said he gently grabbed your arm.”

I rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt, exposing my triceps. The once rock hard muscle had atrophied by half and hibernated beneath a robust layer of fat. However, in this case, the fat benefited me, as it bruised more easily than muscle. My arm was red and beginning to purple where Miller grabbed me. “Does that look gentle to you?”

“That could have happened during the fight,” the Chief countered, “after you assaulted him.”

To the Chief’s credit, it could have. But it didn’t. Miller’s hand never touched my arm during the scrum. He was too busy choking the shit out of me.

I was on the other side of the table enough times to know it didn’t matter what a police officer did to you. It mattered what you did to them. And I’d pushed—which, sadly, is considered assault—a police officer.

“Fine,” I said. “I assaulted him. Charge me, do what you’ve got to do.”

“To be honest, I don’t really give a shit about the assault.”

I sat up in the chair a half inch.

The Chief took a sip from his can of Mountain Dew and said, “I’m more concerned with why you were meeting with Mike Zernan.”

I bet he was.

“And,” he continued, “why you killed him.”

“Are you out of your mind? I didn’t kill him.”

“We know you were there on Saturday.”

“Yeah, because I told Officer UFC that I was.”

Eccleston’s jowls flexed.

Maybe he knew a different way.

I hadn’t really given much thought to who Mike thought bugged his house. In all honestly, I pretty much wrote it off to paranoia. But if his house really were bugged, then it would make sense it was the Tarrin Police Department listening in, making sure he wasn’t talking about the case with anyone.

“Know what I think?” Eccleston asked. “I think you went out there last Saturday to scout Mike’s place.”

He was baiting me, trying to get me to say, “No, you asshole, I went out there to ask him about the Save-More murders.”

“You’re right. I wanted to get the lay of the land.”

“So you don’t deny it?”

“You know I didn’t kill him.”

“Oh, do I?”

He did. And maybe he even knew who did kill Mike. Or had a good idea. Hell, maybe it was him.

“Pretty convenient,” he said, “that you were the one who found him.”

“I’m pretty sure I know how to get away with murder.”

It was