Wendy Hornsby - Bad Intent

“Oh, Mom,” she groaned, but she was too excited to get up a decent pout.

Mike grabbed her muscular arm before she danced away and pulled her against him. “Watch out for those guys. If I caught one of them out on the street in pantyhose like that, I’d have to arrest him for indecent exposure.”

She laughed. “You’re so weird, Mike.” She left us then.

“You’re so weird, Mike,” I said, taking his arm.

“What? Did she think I was kidding?”

We went down to the school office to hand over the tuition and sign emergency medical treatment forms, give the nurse Casey’s immunization records.

There was a form to list emergency contact numbers. After myself, I listed Mike’s office, then Guido’s pager. The fourth blank stumped me. Our former housemate, Lyle, was too far away to be of any immediate help, and he had no legal connection to help in the long run. I almost left the fourth spot blank, but after a pause, and as a matter of form, I wrote down Casey’s father’s number in Denver. Just writing the number made my palms sweat; Scotty was always a mess in an emergency. No matter what happened, I would not call him. I never, ever, wanted to go through a hassle involving him again. Ever.

When we left the school, we still had two and a half hours left. Pasadena was hot and smoggy. I was grateful that we were in Mike’s Blazer and not my car, because he had air conditioning and I did not.

“Where should we start?” I asked.

“South Pasadena,” he said, turning down Fair Oaks Avenue. “I think you’ll like the area. The locals stopped the state from extending the freeway through town. Screwed up the whole county freeway system to save their old trees, but did they care?”

“My kind of people,” I said.

“I thought so, too.” He smiled as he reached for my hand.

“I’m glad the department put you in the cooler,” I said. “It’s nice to have some time with you.”

“Just think, when I retire it’ll always be like this.”

“You wish.”

He didn’t argue.

I had no expectations about South Pasadena. In fact, I had never heard of the place until Mike mentioned it. As Mike drove south on Fair Oaks, I kept my eye on the odometer, measuring how far we were getting from Casey’s school. When Mike turned down a side street, we were still within bicycle-riding range for a young athlete like Casey. And a city bus ran straight up Fair Oaks.

The neighborhood we drove through was dominated by large, well-kept old houses dating from the 1920s and 1930s. A typical upscale California architectural mix: graceful mission-style white-washed adobe and red tile cheek by jowl with trim Cape Cod cottages, stolid red-brick Georgians, the occasional French country farmhouse. There were real yards, neat green lawns and mature trees that filtered out the worst of the smog, made the air seem cooler. Very nice, I thought. Maybe too nice.

I tugged on Mike’s hand. “Can we afford this?”

“We can probably find something in our range. Couple of guys at work live in the ‘hood. Bud-you met Bud?-he thinks he has a lead on a place that isn’t listed yet.”

“The old cop fraternity,” I said, squeezing his fingers. “Always takes care of their own.”

“We have to watch out for each other,” he said, “because no one else will.”

“Oh, look,” I said, pointing out the window. “Slow down a sec.”

We were passing a beautiful old Iowa farmhouse-style woodframe on a sweeping corner lot. It had a “For Sale or Lease” sign pegged in the middle of the immaculate lawn. I knew it had to be beyond our budget, but just in case, and out of habit, I pulled a 35mm camera out of my bag and took some pictures out the car window.

I admit that I use the camera as an interpreter; I don’t always know what I’ve seen until I have it on film. I wanted to pin the houses up on some wall for a while-pictures of them, anyway-get to know them.

Mike made frequent turns, apparently following no pattern, just cruising the neighborhood. He sped up or slowed down when he saw something-that’s what I thought he was doing. I was seeing it all through the lens of the camera I held to my eye.

Even as I fell in love with the area, I was growing edgy, as I do when there are big decisions to be made. Everything looked great, but were any of the neat-looking old men strolling on the sidewalks funny little old men who would bother my daughter? Were there sirens lying in wait for Michael behind the lace curtains? Were the sewers hooked up? Who would Bowser offend?

Mike seemed to be edgy, too, lost in thought, intent on the passing scene as he fiddled with the old handcuffs he kept dangling from his turn signal.

The cuffs were a standing joke between us. One night, just before we decided to cast our lots together, I cuffed him to the steering wheel and did him on the freeway while he drove. We both loved it, but it nearly got us killed. I had thought, now and then, when the magic grew cluttered with the daily chores, that I might try it again. Just for old time’s sake.

I touched his arm. “Why don’t you bring the cuffs in tonight? I’ll lock you to the bed and make love to you until you scream for mercy.”

“Uh huh.” He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were elsewhere.

I left him to his thoughts and raised the camera again. Mike’s driving grew more erratic. I was about to say something when he sped into a turn and then, halfway through it, slammed on his brakes. The car behind us didn’t make the stop in time and rammed us. I heard rubber bumpers connecting, but no grind of metal, no broken glass. The bump was sufficient to bang my camera into the side of my nose, though. I said, “Ouch,” but there was no one there anymore to hear me.

Mike had bailed out his door, with the handcuffs, even before the bump came. When I turned around, I saw him at the driver’s side of the red Toyota that hit us, roughly hauling out the driver. Mike twisted the man’s arm behind his back, snapped a handcuff on one wrist, slammed him up against the side of the Toyota, kicked his legs apart, and then reached out and caught the free, flailing hand and cuffed it, too.

By the time I got out of the Blazer spewing coherent questions like, “Wha? Wha?”, Mike was patting down this totally befuddled man whose questions more or less repeated mine, with some surprisingly clear obscenities thrown in.

Mike tossed the man’s wallet, some loose change, and a Swiss army knife onto the hood of his car. He flipped open the wallet, read the license, then threw it back down.

I still had my camera in my hand. I wiped away the blood running down from the side of my nose and I did what I do: I took pictures.

The prisoner was an overweight, middle-aged, ordinary looking fellow in shirt-sleeves. It was hot, but not hot enough to make him sweat that profusely. His glasses had been knocked askew and he tried to set them straight by using his shoulder. Mike fixed them for him.

“You have no right,” the man seethed, straining against Mike’s hold. “You can’t do this to me.”

“Sure I can. I just did.” Mike’s voice was controlled, but edged with something dangerous I had never heard before.

The man hissed, “Do you know who I am?”

“The license says George Schwartz, but suppose you tell me the rest of it. And while you’re at it, maybe you could explain why you were tailing us.”

“That’s bullshit. I wasn’t tailing you.”

“Mike?” I said, wondering which one here was the lunatic. Mike only shook his head at me, as in, Go away. I was alarmed, but I still trusted that Mike knew what he was doing.

“Let me rephrase the question,” Mike said to Schwartz. “Maybe you could explain why you were tailing us before I beat the dog shit out of you.”