Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [35]
Hardie took a few steps back, then ran up and placekicked him in the balls, sending the guy up and over the railing. He saw the guy’s legs kicking out like he was riding an invisible bicycle, and then he disappeared.
There.
Two down.
Who the fuck knows how many to go.
Which is exactly the moment Hardie went stiff, tried to curse, then hit the patio floor.
12
Swell.
—Clint Eastwood, Sudden Impact
AND THAT would be fifty thousand volts, motherfucker.
O’Neal gave him fifteen seconds in the back, enough to drop him. Then another ten seconds to discourage him from getting up again.
He hooked the Taser back onto his belt, then took the pen out of its zip case and popped the top. O’Neal didn’t know how this stubborn bastard had survived the wasp’s-nest blast—maybe they’d underestimated the payload for two people. But he wasn’t going to make it through this.
If O’Neal were ever to be stopped and searched by the LAPD, the pen could be easily explained as an EpiPen, used in case of an allergic reaction (and O’Neal had the requisite card in his wallet to back up this claim). But the pen actually contained a dose of something a mob-backed scientist perfected back in Vegas during the go-go sixties: an injectable heart attack. Works within seconds, utterly untraceable.
Heart attacks were the leading cause of death of men in Hardie’s age group, followed by cancer and strokes. Someone had actually come up with a stroke simulator, deliverable by injection, but why go for the third-most common when you could use the best?
O’Neal loved the pen.
He’d use it all the time if he could.
He lifted up Hardie’s arm for a direct vein jab. Sure, it would work if you stuck it pretty much anywhere. The muscles would absorb the toxin and diffuse it to the bloodstream soon enough. But O’Neal preferred the straight shot right to Aortaville.
He unlatched the safety mechanism with a flick of his thumb, then pressed down on the top to activate it.
Enjoy the afterlife, my friend.
One common misconception about the Taser is that it renders you briefly unconscious.
Au contraire.
You are completely cognizant. Entire body racked with the worst kind of pain imaginable, but cognizant nonetheless. You are even fooled into thinking you can speak, and most people think they’re delivering a Tourette’s syndrome version of the Get-tysburg Address at five thousand words a minute. But in reality, you’re not saying a thing. Your body has just ridden the lightning, and your mind is patiently waiting for it to come back.
Most people, that is.
Like most Philly cops, Hardie had had Taser training. And if you have Taser training, you have to ride the lightning at least once. It’s a rule. Just so you know firsthand what you’re dishing out.
Hardie’s first time became a kind of legend in law enforcement circles. Because just a few seconds after the training officer put the contact pads on Hardie’s back and gave him a fifty-thousand-volt kiss and started to explain the effects of the shock, Hardie coughed and began to stand up. He shouldn’t have. Not so quickly. The training officer blinked and halted his speech, kind of stunned. He quickly hem-hawed and said the unit must be defective or carrying a low charge, and he asked Hardie if he’d be up for another shot in a few minutes. Hardie told the training officer that if he came near him with one of those things again, he’d shove it so far up the man’s ass, he could use it as an emergency pacemaker.
Of course, this immediately made the rounds, and cops were calling Hardie “shockproof ” and trying to egg him on for another go, even placing bets as to how long it would take Hardie to get up afterward—five seconds? Eight?