“You don’t know me,” he said at last, his voice as tight as a drum, vibrating with the tension within him. “My record was spotless.”

“I know that, Frank,” Vince said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, moving another two inches to the left. “I looked you up. I checked you out. Your service record is impeccable. You’ve always been a righteous stand-up guy. So why are you doing this?”

“It doesn’t count for anything,” he said. “Sixteen years. It all comes apart because I wrote some whore a traffic ticket, and the man I go back with all those years turns on me without blinking an eye.”

“I know from where you’re looking at it that wasn’t a fair shake, Frank,” Vince said. “But you’re not helping yourself here. Put the gun down.”

“It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not. You’ve been under a lot of stress, Frank,” Vince said. “Stress at work, stress at home. Everybody gets that. Put the gun down. We’ll work it out. You’ll take some time off, get a little help with that stress. Sixteen years with a spotless record. This night is just a blip on the screen, Frank.”

Farman shook his head. “You don’t know . . . It’s too late.”

“Your son is right down the hall, Frank. He’s eleven years old. He’s in trouble. He needs you, Frank. He needs his dad. You can put the gun down now. We can straighten this out so you can be around for him.”

“I tried to raise him right,” Farman said. “Same as my old man raised me. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“He’s got some problems, Frank,” Vince said, shifting over another step. “It happens. Who knows why? You’re the one who can still help him. A boy needs his dad.”

The color came up in Farman’s face again. He adjusted his hold on Dixon’s throat, flexed his fingers on the grip of his weapon.

“Yeah? Well that bitch called Child Protective Services on me,” he said. “Now I’ve got that on me.”

A bad feeling ran through Vince’s stomach as Anne’s words played through his head: . . . on my way home something really scary happened with Frank Farman.

“It doesn’t matter, Frank,” he said. “That’s just a misunderstanding. You’ve done your best. You’ve been a fine example to your son, Frank. Everybody here knows that. So, come on. Put the gun down and we’ll sit and work this out. Your arm has to be getting tired by now.”

“No,” Farman said, but he was sweating like a horse, and his gun hand was trembling.

Vince hoped for Dixon’s sake it had a heavy trigger.

Chapter 78

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