68. Interview with James Bennett: Part 3

5 July 2011

– I’m telling you, if Silverstein hadn’t walked in with his fucking expensive briefcase and suit and haircut and started babbling on with his greaseball bullshit, I’d have closed in two days, max.

– Two days! [Mr. Bennett takes a moment to collect himself]

– It was eight years I’d been in Tallahassee back then, eight years I’d been living in this hellhole of a city, with its bratty college students and grumpy fucking retirees. Five of those years spent with the precinct. I wanted out, and Bishop would have been my way if it weren’t for Mr. Self-Righteous.

– So—I don’t know, I just snapped.

– Something burst inside and then I blanked out, can’t really explain it any other way than that. I tried, to the shrinks at the precinct. They just told me to stop drinking, get another psych eval and maybe I’d get detective again.

– Yeah, I guess, I was drinking a lot at that time, sure, but it had nothing to do with that. Shrinks say it did, chief said it did, but, [Mr. Bennett gives me a wry smile and opens his palms, shrugging] you know I didn’t want to hear that.

– Either way, when I came to, my hands were around the lawyer’s neck and his face looked like a huge, swollen zit. People were yanking me off of him and he sat there gagging and I stood there yelling and I looked up, and I’ll be damned if the Bishop kid wasn’t smiling in his fucking chair.

– Fucking smiling. I swear to God he was.

– Before I could even recognize the situation for what it was I was suspended for two weeks without pay. Before I even got back to my desk, actually. The chief was standing there when I walked in, just shook his head and made me hand over my badge and my piece.

– Finished my bottle of Jack that night. Wasn’t the celebration I expected it to be.

– I could just see the agents in D.C., shaking their heads in disgust. And that damn Bishop kid, in his cell that night, laughing his ass off. I bet on it. He laughed. At least once, at me particularly. I’m telling you, I got fucked on that case.

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