Authors: Bernard Schaffer
“A dog? Papi, that sounds wonderful! Are you putting away the bad guys and rescuing babies too?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Do you remember Mrs. Hartwell who have the bodega on our block?”
“Yes,” Reynaldo said. “Is she all right?”
“A terrible thing happen to her. Some guy came into her store and pretended like he needed her to show him where something was in the back, and then he put a knife to her throat and try to rape her.”
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“Officer F
uller was walking by and did no see her at the register. He stuck his head inside the store to see where she was at and found the man holding her down. Thank God. She is okay now, but her husband won’t let her work alone any more. I told Officer Fuller that people like him are the reason you are now a police officer too. He said he cannot wait to see you and hear all about it.”
Reynaldo’s voice was quiet when he said,
“All right, Mama. You be careful up there. I will see you soon.”
***
Jim Iolaus watched the car go through the red light and pulled out after it. The driver stopped and waited for Jim as he reached for his ticket book and started to get it ready. Two kids heads popped up in the backseat, smiling at him and waiting.
Iolaus walked up to the car and the driver had
license and registration ready to hand over. Both kids were now looking up at him with wide eyes.
“I ran that light, huh, Officer,” the man said.
“Yes, you did.”
The man handed over his cards and said, “How much is the fine?”
Jim glanced at the cards briefly and then looked back at the kids, “How you guys doing tonight?”
“We’re good, police man,” they both said.
“I like that you both have your seatbelts on. I always wear mine too.”
“Daddy doesn’t wear his sometimes,” the older one said.
“Uh oh,” Jim said. “You hear that? They’re turning you in.”
The dad smiled and shook his head. “It’s amazing what they pick up.”
Jim handed him back the cards and said, “You’ve got some precious cargo on board. Slow down.”
“I will officer, I promise. Be careful out there.”
“Wait a second while I pull out and roll the kids windows down in the back, okay?” Jim went back to his car and waited to make sure the road was clear. He turned on all of the lights and activated his siren as he drove past them, waving as the kids in the backseat laughed and clapped.
***
Aprille rolled over and touched Dez’s face, running her fingers along his stubbled jawline. He kissed the tips of her fingers and her palm. “I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you too.”
“What time is it?”
She picked up her phone from the nightstand and checked. “It’s late.”
“Shit. I better get going.” Dez sat up and scratched his head, “Where did you throw my pants?”
“I think they’re in the living room.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “You’re an animal, woman.”
Aprille pulled the covers up to her chin and listened to him stumbling around in the darkness, getting dressed. He came back in a few minutes later and walked around the side of the bed. He smiled at her and leaned down, whispering, “I’ll give you a call tomorrow in the evening.”
“Do you want to do breakfast? I found this place that always made me think of you,” she said.
“I can’t tomorrow. I’m taking the family out for the day.”
“Have
fun
,” she said.
“Don’t be like that, hon. I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe I can even swing by in the evening.”
Tell him to get out,
she thought.
This was a terrible mistake. Kick this piece of crap out and call Marcus.
He
kissed her on the nose, “There’s something I didn’t tell you. I talked to your Chief today. I told him I want you back on the Task Force. I figured you had enough of writing parking tickets and were ready to start doing drug work again.”
Aprille did not answer him. Dez got up and said, “Get some rest, baby girl. You’re going to need it for tomorrow night.”
***
Frank was fucked.
There was nothing to say, no apology to make. He took his best shot and blew it.
Terminated.
No pension.
No health benefits for the kids.
No income to pay the bills.
Fucked.
He thought about Cole Clayton’s job offer and it stabbed him in the gut.
Like any Chief was going to hire a guy who tried to set up that last one he worked for?
He thought about telling his little girls that he was no longer a police officer.
Daddy does construction now. Daddy’s a bartender now. Daddy’s going to real estate school now.
Daddy doesn’t arrest bad guys anymore?
No. Now Daddy helps people find decent used cars at a gouged price, sweetie.
“Fuck!” he shouted. He took the department phone and smacked it against his forehead, “You stupid, stupid, selfish mother
fucker!”
He was nearly at the police station.
Erinnyes was pulling in ahead of him. He parked his car right next to his office door and threw his car door open so hard that it nearly swung back and closed. He stood by his car and screamed, “Park your piece of shit and get your fucking ass into my office!”
Frank did as he was told. He pulled up next to the Chief’s car and parked it. Moving on autopilot. He had numb hands and his legs were too heavy to move.
Erinnyes yanked open his office door and shrieked, “Now!”
Frank lowered his head and headed for the open door. He went into the office and stood there, trying not to cry.
“Badge!” Erinnyes shouted.
Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He tried to unclip the badge’s sharp post and remove it, but couldn’t get his fingers to work right. “Here,” he whispered.
Erinnyes snatched the wallet out of Frank’s hands. He opened it and started to fumble with the post, but his hands were shaking. “You piece of shit,” Erinnyes snarled. “You motherfucking disloyal pussy.”
Sweat dripped off of the Chief’s forehead, spilling over his face. He struggled with the post until finally throwing it back at Frank and shouting, “I don’t give a shit if you have to break it. Get it ou……………t.”
Erinnyes’ voice seized in his throat like something was caught in it. He rocked back and forth, trying to force the words out, but all that came out was a long, high-pitched whistle. He finally sucked in enough air to speak and managed, “Get that the…fuck…out of your wallet and give it to me.”
“You all right?”
Erinnyes reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. His hand came away drenched. He went to brace himself against the desk and missed its ledge, toppling over like a building, like King Kong from the Empire State Building. Erinnyes’ massive form hit the ground and he whacked his right temple hard enough to vomit.
“Chief?
” Frank said, frozen in place. “You all right?” He inched around the desk and peeked down, seeing Erinnyes’ legs shaking violently while he clutched his chest and gasped for air like a fish in a bucket. Erinnyes flopped around, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, his enormous face now grotesque in its purple shade and swollen fullness.
Erinnyes reached up for Frank, clawing for him,
eyes bulging. Frank did not move.
Erinnyes’
arm collapsed against his side and bile spilled out of his mouth and nose. Frank stared at him, then looked up at the office ceiling and checked for cameras. There weren’t any.
He went to the Chief’s door and opened it up
. “Hello? Anyone?”
No answer.
He went back inside the office and picked up his badge wallet and returned it to his back pocket. Erinnyes had stopped moving. “Hey. Chief. I’m going to go finish that report on the Polonius case like you asked. I’ll be downstairs if you need me, okay?”
He backed away from the desk
, watching it carefully. He slid out of the office and quietly closed the door, then turned down the hallway and bolted for the stairwell.
The tiles in the floor downstairs were loose, popping up in places from the water rotting the boards beneath. Beyond the detective’s office, it was dark.
The smell of scorched metal and smoke got stronger the closer he went to the closed officer door. Frank punched his code into the door and twisted the doorknob, throwing it open while standing on the outside looking in.
Everything was in its proper place and nothing was disturbed.
First and foremost, let me acknowledge those of you who’ve returned to read the sequel to the first novel. Thank you for embracing the story of regular local cops who are out there just trying to do the right thing. I regularly get emails from guys sitting in a patrol car somewhere telling me they are reading the book, sometimes laughing along with it, sometimes amazed to see their own lives captured in print.
I’d like to acknowledge Laurie Laliberte and her undying dedication to my work and the work of countless others. It is my eternal good luck that she tolerates me and supports me, and I am in her constant debt.
To my children, fiancé, and family, who stood by me this year to no end, even when the changes
in my life wrought by Superbia had major ramifications for them.
To my brothers and sisters who hold the line every day and every night. Get home safe.
Coming Spring 2013
Frank crashed into the detective office, taking out a stack of files under the light switch, missing it, and fumbling his way across the room. He careened sideways toward his chair and collapsed, reaching out to clutch the arms to keep himself off the floor. He ducked his head under the desk and vomited, managing to grab the rim of the rubber trashcan in time to spit out the remaining mouthful of hot bile. He glanced up at the clock on the wall and blinked fat beads of sweat out of his eyes until he could read the numbers.
How much longer before shift change? How much longer before they find him?
Thump.
He stopped moving, ear cocked toward the ceiling above him. Something was moving up there. He hadn't heard any doors open to the station.
Thump. The sound of footsteps.
Maybe it was the heater,
he thought.
Or maybe the fat fuck managed to resuscitate.
Frank pushed up from the chair and raced for the door, desperate to get upstairs. If he could just get to Erinnyes first, just get his hands on the bloated cocksuckers chest and pump it a few times he could at least say he'd tried to save him. That way, even if the bastard survived, nobody would know Frank had watched him code and ran for the door instead of calling for help.
He banged the walls of the tight corridor as he ran, kicking up dirty water from between the rotting floor tiles and tripping over the rubber mats stretched across them to keep people from slipping. He turned the corner at the bottom of the stairwell and froze, seeing a uniformed police officer standing at the top of the steps.
Frank swept his wet hair off his face and tried to swallow. "Hey," he managed. "What's up?"
The officer didn't speak. The lights above him were harsh and bright, cascading down on the murky hallway beneath, but Frank could see him back away from the top step and wave for Frank to come up.
"Okay," Frank said, playing it cool. Playing it off like,
what Chief who?
As Frank came up the steps, he realized he knew the cop but wasn't sure how. And it wasn't in a good way. This happened most often at restaurants. He’d be out with Dawn and the girls, sitting down at a table, enjoying themselves. A regular family, just like all the others surrounding them, and then Frank would happen to look up at the kitchen’s swinging doors as waitresses hustled out to take orders and Mexican immigrant busboys slung heavy trays full of dirty dishes back to be scrubbed, and there, behind them all, the cook and Frank would lock eyes.
He'd immediately know that he knew the guy from somewhere, knew it wasn’t in a good way, knew that this was not someone he wanted being responsible for the food safety of his family, and worst of all, by far, he knew that the guy recognized him. The guy saw Frank a mile off and knew how and where they’d met and in what way Frank had ruined his life.
To me, you were just another day at the office, buddy,
Frank thought.
It didn’t mean that much to me. Now please don’t poison my little girls.
Frank followed the uniform down the hallway. On his right were the doors he'd spent his entire career trying to not go inside. The vacated Staff Sergeant's office and the very-much occupied by a recently deceased fat bastard of a Chief's office. Frank expected the cop to stop at the Chief's door, thinking,
this is where they'll show me the body. This is where they'll take me into custody for leaving a man to die.
Instead, the cop walked past the doors and headed for the interview room. Hard light flared out from within and as Frank turned the corner, he squinted to make out the familiar gray table and the old man sitting opposite of him. Sitting in Frank's spot. Sitting where the interrogator sat. "Sit down," the old man said.
Frank looked down at the hard bench that was bolted to the cement floor. "I never sat on this side before."
"It wasn't a request, Frank."
Frank frowned at the old man and said, "I know you, don't I?"
"That's not important right now. You're here to answer some questions we have."
There was a two-way mirror behind the old man. Dark shapes appeared in shadow form from the other side, watching him the same way he'd watched a thousand skells giving a thousand bullshit stories. The old man watched Frank carefully, assessing his every sigh and what direction he looked in before he spoke, searching for body language cues and non-verbal communication proxemics. Frank instinctively coached himself on what to do. Don’t clasp your hands. Don’t fold your arms. Don’t be overly defensive. Don’t be passive if they accuse you of something heinous. Frank opened his hands and sat back, a physical gesture showing his intent to cooperate as he leaned back and said, "Now I know. How you been, Uncle Petey?"
Peter Lamia slammed his liver-spotted fist on the table, "Don’t call me that. That is not my name for you to call."
"It's how I know you. It's how Beth described you to me."
"Well this isn't about me, Frank. It isn't about the things I did or didn't do. I’ve been forgiven for that, you understand? I humbled myself and begged for salvation and accounted for my sins. What about you?"
"What about me?"
"What about your sins?"
"You mean the when I made a little girl put her mouth on my penis when I was supposed to be reading her bedtime stories? Oh wait, that’s right. That wasn't me. That was you."
"Does that make you a good man, Frank?"
"It makes me better than you."
"Are you. A good man. Frank?"
"Whatever I am is what you fuckers turned me into. But I'm still better than you."
Uncle Petey smiled slightly at that. He reached down on the bench beside him, under the table and came up with a case file stuffed with photographs and reports. He set the case file down in front of him and rested his elbows on it casually and sighed. The shapes behind the two-way glass shifted excitedly and Frank felt the hair stand up on his arms, the flesh all suddenly goose-pimpled. "If you're a good man, can you explain to me what's in this file, Frank?"
"What do I care what's in your file?"
"Well, we’ll be bringing your wife Dawn in here next and going through it very carefully. Very, very carefully, I can assure you. I wonder if she’ll care what's in it?"
Frank reached for the file but Uncle Petey moved with surprising speed and yanked it back. "How many times have you made an otherwise decent, God fearing man stand in front of a courtroom full of his family and friends and admit to their darkest deeds, Frank? How many times have you used one singular transgression to discolor a man’s entire life? To reduce him to the lowest piece of human garbage with one sworn statement? How many times, Frank?"
"A lot."
"I was a good man, Frank. A good husband. I was kind and honest and generous to those in need, but you labeled me a child molester. Like I was some sort of sick predator luring children into vans with candy. After you arrested me, my wife took ill and I couldn’t properly care for her. I spent the last year watching her deteriorate, until finally she passed away. You stole her from me! You ruined our lives!"
Frank shrugged, "I didn't tell you to go after that little girl. You did that all on your own."
"You weren’t there, Frank," Uncle Petey said. "You weren’t there to understand the intricacies of the situation and all that went up to it. To see how it evolved and became what it was. You just came in at the end and passed judgment."
Frank rolled his eyes and looked up at the two-way mirror, "Always with the excuses. You hear me out there? Every single fucking one of you pieces of shit can cry about what happened to you in the past that made you do what you did, but just because I sat here and nodded and pretended to understand, don’t think I did. Just because I was nice to you, don’t think I approved." He glared back at Petey, "You know something, it's a good thing we met when we did. I saved your ass from Vic that night because he was going to beat you half-to-death and I stopped him."
"That's right, and it was the only decent thing you've done," Petey said.
"But the funny thing is, I was wrong. Vic was right. He knew your family was going to protect you. He knew the court wouldn't put an eighty-year old into the prison system. He knew that putting his hands on you would be the only real justice you'd ever face, and I stopped him, and I regret it. If that happened today it would be me climbing in the backseat with you, you son of a bitch and I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it."
Pete Lamia picked up the case file and leaned back, eyes twinkling with amusement. "So proud. So self-righteous." He tapped the file with his fingers, "Everybody's got excuses for their crimes? I think you're right on that, detective. I think you are right on that."
Frank woke up snatching for the file, trying to rip it out of the old man's grip. His hands smacked into Dawn's back and she grunted in annoyance and muttered something. "Sorry, hon," Frank whispered. He slid across the bed, closer to her, pressing himself against her back and dropping his arm across her chest. He cupped her breasts through her nightshirt and laid his face down behind her neck, listening to her breathe.
He laid there like that for a long time, too agitated to sleep. He took a deep breath and rolled away from Dawn, searching the nightstand next to his bed for his phone. He held it down below the bed so the light didn't show and quickly punched in his four-digit code to unlock it.
He opened up his text messages and scrolled down to the most recent one, squinting in the screen's harsh glare as he typed,
"I can't do this anymore. I'm done."
Frank waited for the message to send, then he deleted the entire text thread. He scrolled through his phone's pictures and quickly deleted them. After that, he rolled back over and embraced Dawn again, kissing her on the shoulder and whispered that he loved her. She muttered something reflexively in response.
It was enough.