The man nodded. And Roger knew he was doing the same thing that so many others did. He was deciding that Roger was different. Strange. Special. But for once Roger didn't mind as long as it got the man the hell out of the yard.
"Okay. Have a good day."
The cop started back to his truck, and Roger felt a profound sense of relief, as though someone had removed a heavy burden from his shoulders. But just as the cop placed his hand on the truck door handle, something shattered above Roger's head. It sounded like breaking glass, and indeed a shower of glass fragments came down from the top of the house and fell on top of Roger and around his feet. Both he and the cop looked up.
"What the hell was that?" the cop said.
"I don't know."
"I thought you lived alone."
"I do."
And that fast, the cop was past him and into the house, leaving Roger behind in his bare feet and pajamas like he didn't even matter.
*
Roger froze for just a moment. Among the glass shards that shone in the yard like diamonds in the morning sun, he stood still while the cop—the cop!—ran past him and into the house, and Roger could imagine him going up the stairs and finding the girl in the bedroom.
Roger dropped the business card and started to move. He followed the cop, lumbering up the stairs as fast as he could go, and when he entered the bedroom he saw the cop standing over the girl on the far side of the bed, his gun drawn, and the girl whimpering and squirming halfway on the bed and halfway off. Her feet were bleeding, and the window was smashed. Somehow she had managed to work her legs free and swing them at the window, connecting with enough force to break the glass and alert the cop.
"Get down! Get on the floor! Now! Down!"
It took Roger a moment to realize that the cop meant him, that he was yelling at him to get down and get on the floor because the cop saw the girl and assumed all the things that he feared people would assume.
"Get down! Get down!"
Roger eased down, his hands raised in the air. It wasn't a simple matter for him to flatten himself against the floor, so he moved slow, and as he did, he never took his eyes off the barrel of the gun that the cop kept pointed at him, an angry-looking little black hole designed to bring about his death.
Roger made it to his knees. But he paused there.
The cop kept the gun on him, and Roger thought he saw it shaking just a bit, a slight tremor in the cop's hands that moved the barrel back and forth. He's scared, too, Roger thought. He's scared, and he's going to shoot me.
The girl continued to whimper behind the tape, and Roger decided he had only one real choice. He took his hands from their position on either side of his head and made a quick, thrusting motion forward against the side of the bed, driving the bed frame into the knees of the cop. The force of the blow knocked the cop off balance, causing him to fall forward against the bed, and when he did, the gun fired, sending a bullet over Roger's head and into the wall behind him.
The girl's whimpering increased in volume.
Roger got to his feet. The cop scrambled to regain his balance, but before he could, Roger was on him, gripping him around the neck in a headlock and pulling back with such force that the cop began to yell and Roger could feel the tendons in his own neck and the muscles in his arms straining until he thought they were going to snap like rubber bands.
But Roger kept going. He kept exerting pressure.
The cop flailed and brought his arms around, the gun still clutched in his right hand, and he appeared to be trying to aim it back at Roger, who saw the menacing black hole hovering in the air like a poisonous snake preparing to strike. Roger knew he had to do something else.
He summoned his strength for one more move. He planted his feet and made a quick pivot to the right, lifting the cop off his feet and bringing him down as hard as he could against the hardwood floor of the bedroom. When they hit the floor, the cop yelled in pain, and the gun fell to the floor. Roger tried to get up and get after it, but his right arm was pinned to the floor by the cop's body weight. Roger pulled, then pushed against the cop's body, releasing his arm and standing up. He expected the cop to scramble up as well, but he was still on the floor, moaning and trying to get his bearings after the body slam. Roger stepped over him and picked up the gun.
It was a new pistol, black and shiny, and the textured, perfectly manufactured grip felt strange in his hand after years of handling the old and well-worn shotgun. He pointed the gun at the cop, giving him a taste of his own medicine.
The cop shook his head and blinked his eyes. It took a moment for him to focus, but he eventually zeroed in on Roger.