Tag Archives: Bosch

Caught in a double scowl.

He threatened to give me the over / under scowl. That dreaded scowl only the most celebrated police detectives have mastered.

I said I hadn’t done anything wrong.

He said, “Talk, I hold all the high cards here.”

I told him I didn’t play poker. Or crazy eights, or even solitaire.

He gave me the over scowl. “Put up or shut up.”

“Put up what?”

He placed a mirror on the table between us. “You have thirty seconds.”

“I might if I had a watch. But you guys took it from me. What time is it?”

He tapped one nicotine stained forefinger on the looking glass. “Time’s running out, punk.”

“Can I run with it? I have an appointment, you know.”

“Look at the glass, punk.” He tapped the mirror again.

I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t look at him anymore, and the Pooh Bears and Snoopys on the walls were driving me crazy. All the real interrogation rooms were full and the only thing left was this windowless, makeshift kids’ room used by cops’ kids and perps’ kids depending on what was going down. If only the World War flying Ace knew.

I looked at the mirror. He motioned for me to lean closer to him. I hesitated, but then did what he said until I was less than a foot away.
He tapped the glass again. “Down.”

Slowly, I lowered my eyes and then face. I don’t know how he did it. The mirror must have been slightly warped in some funhouse way, but there in the middle of the mirror was my face, and below and above was his face giving me the dreaded over / under scowl.

Somewhere in the night a Sopwith Camel drones peacefully, even blissfully behind enemy lines, its pilot unaware of the Fokker and the Flying Ace about to drive him to the ground. Somewhere, that ignorant pilot still has a chance. A small, slim chance, but a chance.

Not me.

I am caught in the rapid-fire vice of the over/under scowl and I can’t break free. I can’t escape. I can only feel his piercing eyes – all four of them – ripping bullet holes in my soul. Any hope I had, like the wings of my Sopwith Camel, are now tatters and flames, consumed in the hell caused by his over / under scowl.