The Lesson of Her Death

inexcusable neglect tonight in stride. Diane felt a huge burst of pride for her son, sending it telepathically out to him as he pulled on his head protector and shook his opponent’s hand.
    Jamie looked up into the bleachers. She waved at him. He acknowledged her in the only way that a competitor could respond to his mother here—by looking at her once, nodding solemnly then turning away. She didn’t mind; she knew he was telling her that he had received her psychic message.
    Jamie strapped the blue cloth marker on his arm, then reared his head back and breathed deeply.
    The whistle blew and the boys exploded into frenzy. Jamie’s legs tensed then uncoiled as he leapt at his opponent—a tall blond sophomore—like a striking snake. They gripped arms and necks, heads together. Spinning, spinning, feet snagging the spongy blue mat, inching like grappling crabs. Limbs confused with limbs. Dots of sweat flew. Faces crimson under foam protectors, tendonsrising thick from their necks. Furious scrabbling around the mat, hands were claws, gripping at knees and wrists.
    Diane shouted, “Go, go. GO! Come on, JAMIE!!”
    A brutal take-down, Jamie lifting the boy off the mat and driving him down onto his back. His head bounced and the boy gazed upward, momentarily stunned. Face glistening, Jamie pressed him hard into the mat furiously, his opponent’s arms flailing. Several blows struck Jamie on the back. They were solid strikes but they rebounded without effect.
    What was happening?
    Diane was frowning, aware suddenly of the quiet of the crowd around her. Then people in the bleachers were on their feet, shouting at the coaches and at the two boys. The blond opponent tried to muscle himself away from Jamie, a centimeter at a time, toward the out-of-bounds line, twisting onto his side, shouting. He’d given up and was bent on pure escape. Several people shot Diane shocked glances as if she were responsible for her son’s brutal attack.
    She shouted, “Jamie, stop!”
    His opponent’s arm was turning blue-gray under Jamie’s relentless grip, his legs kicked in despair. The referee’s whistle blew shrilly. Jamie didn’t let go. He kept driving the boy into the ground and twisting his arm, from which the red marker fluttered like a distress signal.
    “Jamie!” she called. “Honey …”
    The referee started forward. The sports-coated coaches were on their feet, shouting, red-faced, running toward the mat. The referee dropped to his knees and slapped both hands on Jamie’s shoulders. Jamie spun toward him and hit him hard in the chest. Off balance, the referee rolled onto his back.
    Diane screamed her son’s name.
    Jamie rose on one knee. Using all his leverage he bent his opponent’s forearm up up up.…
Thock
. Diane heard the noise of the break all the way up in thebleachers. She froze where she stood and raised her hand to her mouth, watching her son standing, smiling and triumphant, over the unconscious figure of his vanquished enemy. Jamie turned on the coaches and they froze. Then the boy held his arm out straight and high then closed his fingers into a fist. Diane saw him glance toward her as he ran out the open double doors to the football field, his arm still lifted in the macabre salute of victory.
    Detective Frank Neale was pretty much what Corde expected. Crew cut, blond, beefy, smooth ruddy skin. Too professional to put an
If we outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns
sticker on his Fitzberg police cruiser but dollars to doughnuts there’d be one on his (American) 4×4.
    But God bless him, he met Corde and Kresge after their frantic two-hour drive with a thermos of the best coffee Corde had ever tasted and four fat roast beef sandwiches. They ate these as they raced through the bleak streets of urban-decaying Fitzberg en route to what Neale described as an MCP in the parking lot across from the Holiday Inn.
    “MCP?” Kresge asked.
    Neale said, “Mobile command post.”
    “Oh.”
    Corde thought it wouldn’t be much more than a police car with maybe two radios, which is what an MCP in New Lebanon would have been. But no it was a big air-conditioned Ford van with room for six officers inside. There was a large antenna dish on the roof. Kresge pointed out the bulletproof windows in the front.
    “Jesus,” Corde whispered. “Maybe they got cannons, too.”
    No artillery but a rack of laser-sighted M-16s, a gray box containing concussion grenades and rows ofradios and computer screens and