Carver retrieved both and handed them over. He expected the cop to go run them, but he just examined both and stayed put.
“Any idea why I pulled you over tonight?” Rizzuto said. His radio chirped on his belt, and he turned the volume down.
“I think I was driving a little slow back there,” Carver blurted out, despite having lawyer parents and knowing that the correct answer to this question wasno.
“You were driving a little slow, and you were weaving.”
“Was I?”
The cop snapped his gum. He looked like he was enjoying himself. Fascist pig. No, something worse: one could at least bribe a fascist.
“That’s weird,” he said. “I might have been messing with the radio.”
“Uh-huh,” Rizzuto said. “Can you step out of the vehicle for me, sir?”
Carver exhaled and gave himself over to this turn of fate. Whatever. This wasn’t even the worst thing that had happened to him in the last hour. He would just have to fight it out in court with a $1,000-an-hour lawyer.
He stepped out of the car and allowed the cop to manhandle him.
“Got any weapons on you?” Rizzuto said, patting him down.
“No,” Carver said, staring down at the bright yellow lines which divided the road.
“You been drinking tonight, Mr. Novack?”
“No.” Fuck you, prove it.
“Oh, I think you have,” Rizzuto said, walking around him and getting in his face, shining a flashlight in his eyes. Carver shut them against the searing pain of this and saw bright red eyelid. “I think you’re drunk.”
“I’m not.”
“Drunk driving is a serious offense, Mr. Novack.”
Carver said nothing.
“And you’re lying to a sworn officer about it. Just lying right to my face. I think I’m gonna have to bring you down to the station so we can teach you a lesson.”
Carver cracked one eye open, startled. “Excuse me?”
Rizzuto lowered the flashlight, grinning at him. “You know what I mean. Me and my boys are gonna have to make sure you don’t do this shit again. I’m gonna throw you in the back, rough ride you for a while, and then we’re gonna take you to a parking lot and beat your sorry ass with batons.”
It was as if the porn Carver liked had come horribly to life. “What?”
Suddenly he heard a voice going, “Come on, dude,” from somewhere in the vicinity of the squad car. It sounded inexplicably like Chip’s voice. Carver looked around wildly, big blotches of light sweeping across his vision.
“Too much?” Rizzuto said, laughing.
“You blew it,” the voice said, closer now. It was definitely Chip’s voice.
Carver blinked furiously and squinted to see the blurred shape of his brother in front of him. “What the fuck is this?” he said, more disoriented than relieved.
“Aw, I was having fun,” Rizzuto said to Chip, ignoring Carver. “They don’t let us talk to people like that anymore.”
Chip knocked on Carver’s forehead. “Dipshit,” he said. “You don’t fucking remember Tommy Rizzuto? The Zute?”
“Me and your brother played football together,” Rizzuto said, spreading his arms. “Come on.Pussaaay?” He said this in a ridiculous voice and seemed to feel that it was a familiar catchphrase of his. “Where’s the love?”
Carver, who did not remember this person at all and wanted to kill both of them, just shook his head.
