"Stop thrashing," Cole said, his voice dropping into that rehearsed, dead-level cadence officers use when they know microphones might pick up the echo.
I wasn't thrashing. I lay flat on the frost-hardened stone, my left eye swollen completely shut from the scald, my temple throbbing against the granite riser. The second cuff snapped over my left wrist, ratcheting three notches tighter than necessary, digging past the skin to bite against the radial bone. He pulled me up by the chain between my wrists, dragging my knees across the rough pavement before hoisting me upright against the stone pillar.
The heavy glass vestibule doors swung wide. Two uniformed officers jogged down the concrete ramp, their boots slapping the damp ground in sync. The taller one, a sergeant with grey hair clipped tight to his temples and a badge reading Miller, took one look at my face and then at the dark stain soaking the front of Cole’s duty jacket.
"What do we have, Dennis?" Miller asked, his hand resting casually on his stun-gun holster.
"Subject approached from the crosswalk aggressive," Cole said without hesitation, wiping a speck of dark foam from his lapel with his thumb. "Ignored two lawful commands to step back from the authorized personnel gate. When I moved to direct him toward the public lobby, he shoved two hands into my chest, knocked my beverage across my uniform, and attempted to push past me into the vestibule. I had to ground him to gain compliance."
"He dumped it," I said, my voice rasping past the heat in my throat. "He stood by the pillar, took off the plastic lid, and threw it into my eyes."
Miller didn't look at my face. His gaze traveled down to my boots, then across to the stained flagstones, and finally to Cole's spotless duty holster. "You got identification on you, mister?"
"Transit dispatch," I muttered, nodding down toward my chest where the plastic laminated card hung sideways against my canvas coat. "Certified maintenance logs for the liaison in Room 204. My hands never left my sides. Look at the delivery case under the bench. Look at the voucher. There isn't a drop on the paper."
Neither officer stepped toward the bench. Cole caught my upper arm with his bare fingers, squeezing hard enough to pinch the bruised muscle against the bone, and began walking me toward the side booking entrance beneath the granite archway.
"He's rambling, Sarge," Cole said smoothly. "Disturbed behavior. We'll inventory his bag downstairs after we process the intake."
Miller didn't challenge him. He reached down, picked up my heavy courier case by the corner of the leather strap, and followed three paces behind. He didn't look for the purple-stamped voucher resting beneath the bench. He didn't check the perimeter wall for cameras. He simply held the metal-clad service door open with his hip, letting the pneumatic latch hiss shut behind us, cutting off the rumble of Eighth Avenue traffic and sealing us inside the basement corridor.
The air in the processing wing smelled of floor stripper, sour coffee, and industrial bleach. Cole steered me down the narrow hall toward the intake desk, where an elderly booking clerk in civilian clothes sat behind three inches of scratch-resistant acrylic, tapping slowly on a mechanical keyboard. Fluorescent tubes hummed overhead in long, buzzing banks, their glare stinging the blistered skin on my forehead like needle points.
"Stand on the red line," Cole ordered, shoving me toward the tape mark on the scuffed linoleum. He reached into his pocket, retrieved his ring of department keys, and finally unlatched the handcuffs, leaving two deep, purple impressions ringing my wrists. "Empty your pockets onto the tray. Knife, keys, wallet, phone."
I set my transit radio, my personal ring of house keys, and my leather wallet into the plastic gray bin. My hands were shaking, not from fear, but from the adrenaline that comes when the ground underneath your feet completely dissolves. I kept my palms flat on the counter so the clerk could see them.
"Note my hands," I told the clerk behind the glass, keeping my tone level. "Type it on the intake sheet. There are no burns on my fingers. No coffee stains on my cuffs. Officer Cole claims I knocked a full cup from his hands into his chest. If I slapped a scalding drink, my palms would be scalded. My hands are clean."
The clerk paused, his fingers hovering over the plastic keys, then glanced up at Cole.