Back when
Matthew Scudder was still officially with the fuzz, he wasn’t exactly a stickler for the official rules. He did, however, have a set of his own, including the notion that if someone offers to buy you “a new hat,” you accept.* Officer Scudder wasn’t above keeping company with women in the oldest profession, and one in particular,
Elaine.
Friends of Matt S. (since he’s working the steps, I’ll use the program’s preferred nomenclature) likely know from previous volumes, that Scudder-brand justice doesn’t always align with that of the American legal system. Both, however, have certain shortcomings. For Scudder, this
may have included a little bit of staging in order to get a sadistic sociopath,
John Motley, without compromising Elaine’s operation.
Motley may be confused about Matt’s role in this all, but that doesn’t stop him from seeking vengeance upon exit from the big house. And Motley is one scary dude. I don’t know if he was trained in
Krav Maga or what, but Motley’s mitts are akin to those of a stevedore who lost his hand in a stevedoring accident and then got a hand transplant from an actual bear! Remind you of anyone?
I don’t know how, or why I strayed from my man Scudder for so long, but (shoutout to
Peaches & Herb) being reunited feels so good.
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* For those of you out there still living Scudderless lives, this translates to roughly $25.