Author: Lioness
Rating: PG
Legal Stuff: The Outsiders belongs to S.E. Hinton. Not me. All new characters/ideas belong to me, though. Thank you.
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You can't be a cop in this town without knowing Dallas Winston. Or at least knowing of him. I'd heard about him for a long time before I ever saw him. He was being hauled in for breaking in the windows of the school. The boy didn't even bat an eye.
But I saw something in his eyes. Yes, they were cold, and lacking of any and almost all compassion, but I knew that he hadn't done it. I deduced that it had been Keith Matthews. I didn't say anything. If Dallas Winston wanted to take the sentence for his friend, he could. It was the only good I'd ever heard of him. The good you heard of and the good you saw where two different things.
One morning, I had walked into the station, newspaper under my arm. I looked around at the buzzing people around me. "What's going on?"
A guy I knew, Harold Smith, grabbed the paper out from under my arm. "Glory, John, don't you read this thing?" He opened it up to the third page and pointed at an article. "The Cade boy, you know, the greaser who saved those kids from the church in Windrixville?"
I hated that term. Greaser. "Yeah, I know of him."
"He died last night."
"Oh. That's, that's terrible."
"Read the second to last line of this article." Harold instructed, pointing to it again.
I looked down and with horror I read that Dallas Winston had died. Shot down by the police. "Why did they kill him?" I looked up at Harold. "What did he do?"
"Pulled a gun on us."
"You were there?"
"I was the one who did it."
My eyes felt hot as I stood up straight. I grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against the wall. "Don't sound so damn proud of yourself! You killed someone. He wasn't even eighteen years old. Don't you get it? You took a life!"
He looked me with surprise. "Calm down, John. It was just Dallas Winston."
I felt my grip loosen on his shirt. I walked away from him wordlessly. I walked into my office, I guess. I don't remember. The next thing I knew I was sitting at my desk, looking through school records. I stood up and went into the Lieutenant's office and demanded to talk to Ponyboy Curtis.
I discovered that Ponyboy Curtis was sick, and couldn't see anyone for the next few weeks. About a month later, there was a knock at my door. It was Margaret the front desk receptionist. "John, you've got a couple of visitors."
My eyes ran over the paperwork, "Margaret, can it wait?"
"It's Ponyboy Curtis."
I looked up at her in disbelief. It seemed like ages since I'd wanted to talk to him. She nodded at me, and stepped away. A boy, fourteen or fifteen, with short, greasy blonde hair -It was mostly blonde, but it looked red around the roots- and green eyes walked into my office. He looked around, but he didn't look at me.
Behind him was a big guy. Really I saw of him were his muscles. I was a pretty big guy, but this guy could snap me in half without batting an eye. I was sure of it.
"Uh, I'm detective John Stanford." I stammered. I didn't realize how nervous I would be. "You can sit down."
The boy sat down, but the big guy kept standing. He crossed his arms, making his triceps bulge. I swallowed at the sight, but I looked back, at who I guessed was Ponyboy.
I looked at him. "Mister Curtis, you don't have to be nervous."
"Ponyboy." He mumbled, "Call me Ponyboy. That's my brother, Darry."
"Darrell." He said, extending a hand to me. I shook it, opting to call him Mister Curtis. I wasn't going to do any less unless he told me directly to call him any different. His eyes were a clear blue-green. I realized then that I had seen him before.
I sat down behind my desk. "Ponyboy, right now I just want you to, no. You aren't going to trust me, I know that. I know it was my kind who murdered your friend." Both Ponyboy and Darry (I felt comfortable calling him that in my mind only) both looked surprised when I said "murdered."
"But," I continued, "I want you to realize that I'm just a guy. And maybe I've been a cop for a long time. I've seen a lot. I've roughed up a lot of kids. Sometimes I wonder if I've been a cop so long that I just...stop feeling." I don't know why that came out. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to say. Or what I wanted to say at all.
But Ponyboy gave me a look like what had come tumbling from my mouth struck a chord. He nodded. "You dig okay." Strange, I felt so proud from that sentence.
I grinned. "Well, I'm going to, sooner or later, want to hear about you and your friend -Johnny his name?- killing that Soc in the park. But, right now, just talk to me. Say anything. It doesn't matter what it is."
Ponyboy began to talk, and what he said didn't make much sense, but I listened. "...and you know, Johnny was a good man in a rumble, but he couldn't hurt no one. Not on purpose. He was like a puppy that'd just been kicked around too much. His dad would beat on him. And that night at the drive-in, Two-Bit scared the holy heck out of Johnny and me. He was soused, but bein' Two-Bit you couldn't really tell. That's where we met Cherry-"
I interrupted for the first time, "Cherry? Sherri Valance?"
"Yeah, Cherry because of her hair. Everyone called her that."
"I talked to her. Her and Randy Adderson. Both claiming it was self-defense. That they -Two boys, David and Bob- were drowning you in the fountain in the park."
"They were on our turf. They came for us."
I nodded and wrote something -I can't really recall what it was- down on a pad of paper. "So, Johnny pulled his blade on Bob to keep you from drowning? So he could pull you out of the water?"
Ponyboy nodded.
"Sounds pretty brave to me." I mumbled, writing more down.
"It was."
I looked up. "What?"
"It was brave. Johnny ain't a murderer. He wouldn't of done something like that unless it was for someone. We were all the family he had, and he did everything for us. He risked it all for my life. I gotta say that was brave."
Darry rester a hand on his shoulder and I could just barely hear him murmur "Easy, Pony."
I nodded. A question racked my mind, but I knew it was out of line, and I didn't want Darry mad at me.
"Can I ask you a question?" Ponyboy said suddenly.
"Yeah, sure. Anything."
"How do you know it all?"
"I've talked to-"
"No, it's the way you talk. 'Soc,' 'blade,' no cop talks like that."
I looked at him for a minute. I reached out and turned the photo on my desk around. "That's me and my son. His name is Luke."
Both Ponyboy and Darry took a long look at the photo, until Ponyboy said suddenly, "I know him. He's in Tim Shepherd's outfit. He was at the rumble."
I nodded. "He's seventeen. I haven't seen him in almost two years. Can't be a real hood when your dad's the fuzz."
"You take this personally, don't you?" Darry asked me.
I looked into the blue-green eyes. "It's hard not to be biased in this investigation. A month ago, the night after Dallas Winston was killed, the man who did it told me that he was 'just Dallas Winston.' None of them knew that my son knew him. That I had met him a few times outside of a police capacity. Yeah, Dallas wasn't a 'good kid,' but he was a kid. One who just grew up too fast."
"You knew Dally?" Ponyboy asked.
"Yeah."
"You know, Dally, after Johnny, he didn't want to..." Ponyboy started. His voice began to get choked up, but I knew he was a greaser; couldn't cry in front of anyone. I was just grateful to see him fighting back tears. There were so many of them, Tim, Curly, Dallas, Luke, they just stopped so young. They just forgot.
Darry rested a hand on Ponyboy's shoulder again. "It's okay, Ponyboy."
He wiped away the few tears that had managed to escape. "Johnny was the only thing Dally ever loved. When he was gone...Dally was gone. It was like he didn't have anything left except a life of bein' a hood. His heater, his gun, it wasn't loaded, he was bluffin'. He told us that, and Dally, he may have been a JD, but he ain't a liar. Especially not to Johnny."
"I believe you. Now, the real question isn't about Johnny and Bob anymore."
"Excuse me, but why are they having an investigation anyway? Johnny's gone." Darry asked me, his hand still on Ponyboy's shoulder.
"Well, the investigation isn't on Johnny anymore. It's on Ponyboy." I sighed at their puzzled expressions. I hated to tell them this part. "After Johnny passed on, a Soc came in here tellin' us that it was the other way around. I guess he figured that it wasn't bad enough that a friend of yours died, but they had to get the other one who was there. Now, I believe you. I believe that it was Johnny who did it, and that he did it in self defense, but I guess you know better than anyone the Socs the throw their weight, and their money, around faster than a drag race."
"So basically they put a crooked cop on this case?" Ponyboy asked with a grin.
"Not crooked, just biased. I didn't know Johnny, I'd never even heard of him until I read about him in the paper. But I knew how tight a gang is, and I knew that his buddies would be missing him and they deserve to be left alone."
"You ever watch sunsets?" Ponyboy asked suddenly.
The question surprised me. "I did. When I wasn't so busy."
"That's how it goes." He nodded, "We done here?"
"Basically."
Ponyboy stood up from his chair and he and Darry went to walk out the door.
"Hey, you guys?"
They both turned around. "Yeah?"
"If you see Luke, say hi for me. He may not even acknowledge it, but at least he'll know he's always welcome back."
Ponyboy nodded. "I'll do that." And they walked out of my office. I followed them out to see three other boys waiting for them. I recognized the one to be Ponyboy's brother -they looked an awful lot alike- and I remembered him and the one next to him getting hauled in for disturbing the peace. It took me a moment, but I knew the one with the long rust colored sideburns was Keith, Two-Bit to the street, Matthews. That was all there was left to their gang. I could see them all questioning them on what I'd asked them about.
I smiled as I went back into my office. I turned the picture of Luke and I around so I could see it clearly. I hoped he understood the message I had sent out with Ponyboy. Luke was a smart kid, he would. I knew he would.
You can't be a cop in this town without knowing Dallas Winston. Or at least knowing of him. I never heard of any good of him. And now that he's gone, all will be left is the memory of a hood who never did anything worthwhile. But he had a friend, and he had a gang. I knew when you had that, you had it all. All that you need. That's the only reason I can sleep in peace.
End...