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Back Dead of Winter Save as PDF
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If I was going to die that night, I wanted those fuckers to take away a strange sense of honor, pride and shame in who they’d killed.

Then again, what I carried in my pockets was all that I was. All I would ever be.

The trinkets or talismans of a life lived briefly.

I took nothing from my days as a Detroit cop.

One or most likely two of Bojing’s men would pat me down at the Belle Isle Park security booth. The booth where the folks from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources sporadically posted an officer who was highly trained at checking windshield park stickers, handing out maps and watching bass fishing competitions on an iPad. I had the feeling the regular DNR officers were off between the holidays or had been paid handsomely by Bojing to stay at home with families who had been threatened with gruesome deaths if they did otherwise. I would, of course, congenially submit to the entrance pat down, then not so congenially break the guard’s neck before he searched the back of my munitions-loaded SUV. I would park a hundred yards away from the conservatory and, carrying only the dead guard’s weapon, make my way to the conservatory hoping somewhere hidden in the thicket of old-growth pine and maple trees, the frozen-over ponds and fountains, were people who liked me enough to risk their lives for me.

I made one last call before heading off to Belle Isle.

“Leo?” I said.

“Snow?” Leo Cowling said in a sleepy voice. “What the hell you want? You know what time it is, niggah?”

“Late,” I said. “Very late for some of us. Listen. I know we haven’t exactly been pals—”

“You got that right.”

“And I doubt we ever will be—”

“Is this a drunk dial?” Cowling said. “’Cause if this is a damn drunk dial, swear to God Almighty, I’mo throw yo Tex-Mex ass in the tank for about a million mothafuckin’ years.”

“No drunk dial,” I said. “I’m in the shit, Leo, and if I don’t come out of this one, I just want you to know, yes, you’re an asshole—but an asshole I’ve come to respect. I might even take a bullet for you.”

There was a long pause. Then Leo said, “Talk to me, Snow. What’s going on?

“See ya round, Leo,” I said. “And remember: turquoise is not a man’s color, so burn half of your ties.”

Then I disconnected.

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