Timothy Hallinan: The Bone Polisher

“Sonia and Al have written their own ceremony,” he said, and something like a muted groan went up from the cops massed behind me. “But before we proceed, I’d like to say a few words.”

“Only a few?” somebody whispered, and Hammond jerked his head around with a glare that could have knocked down a building.

“When I was told that Sonia and Al wanted to be married here, I have to admit that it threw me for a loop. A big loop. What do love and weapons have in common? But then I thought about it. Sonia and Al trained here to gain the skills that keep them alive in the field. Alive on the job. What could be more important to each of them than that their partner should remain among the well and, um, the living, able to give the love and support each deserves? They have chosen this job, our job, for society’s sake, a job that will take them out of the home they will create together and into the streets of madness. For each of them there will be many long and frightening nights and days when they can only hope that their partner’s survival skills will prove adequate to the danger of the hour. The bride and groom whose love we have come here to celebrate are veterans. Veterans who know how hard it can be to survive. Now they have, together, a new reason to live. Here is where they trained to live.”

“Fuckin’ A,” a cop said softly from behind us.

“And then I also thought about marksmanship. Cupid’s weapon was a bow and arrow. If Cupid were a modern-day mythical figure, his weapon would probably be a service revolver. The metaphor would remain the same: Love must take accurate aim. It must not only strike the heart, it must strike the right heart. Love wrongly given, wrongly received, has no place at this altar.”

Hammond shuffled, probably thinking about Hazel.

“And so I say to Sonia and Al, paraphrasing the pop songwriter Elvis Costello, ‘May your aim be true.’ ”

Sonia sniffled, and I thought, Elvis Costello?

“Sonia,” the chaplain said, “Do you have something to say?”

“I have come-” she began, in little more than a breath.

“Can you please speak up?” the chaplain asked. “I’m sure everybody here would like to hear you.”

“I have come,” Sonia repeated more boldly, “to give to one man something no other man can ever have. I know it is precious, but it can only be given freely, and only once. There are people here today who love me, and whom I love, and they know that the love I give today to Al can only make me love them more.”

The woman I guessed was Mrs. de Anza gave out a teary little whoop, and Orlando put a finger to his eye.

“A woman is a river,” Sonia said. “Love flows through her. But unless love flows in, no love can flow forth. I look to Al as the source of the love that will flow through me, to my family and friends, and ultimately to my child. Nothing is sadder than the woman in whom the source of love has dried up. I trust Al to keep the love flowing.”

I looked at Al, the source of love. Al looked at his feet.

“From now on, I say to Al Hammond, you are the source of my love. And you are the basin into which it will flow. I will make this promise only once in my life, Al, and I make it to you. I am honored to wed you.”

Al made a sound like someone swallowing his tie.

“Querido mio,” Sonia said, her voice quivering. “Yo te amo, para toda mi vida. Tu es mi corazon y mi esperanza. Por favor, dame tuyo amor siempre.” She lowered her head, the veil brushing against the blue trousers.

“And Al?” the chaplain prompted.

“Huh?” Hammond said, staring at Sonia as though she’d just emerged naked and pearly from the sea.

“You have something to say to us, don’t you, Al?”

“Yeah,” Hammond said, blinking heavily. “Yeah, I do.”

“You may begin,” the chaplain intoned, tossing Al the territorial teeth in a fatherly grin.

“Sonia,” Hammond bellowed, and then started at the sound of his own voice. “Sonia,” he repeated more softly, “I am here today to make you my partner for life. I ask you to partner with me, even when I’m working solo. I promise that our home together will always be my heart’s home. As partners, we will share equally, good or bad, and I promise to bring as much good as I can home with me. We both know how hard that can be.” He paused, and then added: “In this job.” He looked around the pistol range, and opened his mouth for a breath.

“I haven’t always been a good man, but I promise to try to be the kind of man you deserve. Sonia, I promise to love you and honor you, the same way you’ve honored me by promising to be my partner. I’m not much good at anything but the job, but I promise to work on our marriage harder than I work at the job.”

Suddenly the room went watery, and I had to blink. Hammond had lost his first wife because of his total absorption in the job.

“And I forget the rest,” he said belligerently, “but I love you all to hell, and I want to marry you.”

Some cops clapped.

“The ring, please,” the chaplain said, looking at me.

“Right here,” I said, handing it to Hammond.

“Repeat after me, please, Al. ‘With this ring, I thee wed.’”

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Hammond said, taking Sonia’s hand and slipping the ring over a slender finger.

“For better and for poorer, in safety and in danger-”

Hammond repeated the words.

“To love and to honor, to cherish and obey, until death us do part.”

“You bet,” Hammond said, nodding.

“Say the words, Al,” Sonia urged, and Hammond said the words.

The chaplain beamed at him. “You may kiss the bride.”

“God, I’d love to,” Hammond said. Orlando helped him lift the veil, and Sonia, dazzling and tear-streaked, gazed up at Hammond and tilted her face to his. Orlando looked at me and grinned, but it was pure show: His cheeks were as wet as mine. A couple of stolid macho jerks, we avoided each other’s eyes as the new man and wife kissed.

“By the power invested in me,” the chaplain announced, a beat behind the course of events, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

There was a general readjustment of feet, and a moment later we were headed back up the aisle. I caught a glimpse of Eleanor, sympathetic water all over her silk, before a woman pushed herself into our way, a woman not in uniform. At the moment I recognized her as Hazel, I heard my name being called over a loudspeaker.

Hammond stopped dead in his tracks, bringing all of us to a halt like a railroad collision, people piling into each other’s backsides.

Hazel stared balefully at Sonia and then at Hammond. She was wearing a sweatshirt and blue jeans, and her hair had been haphazardly bleached by the chlorine in the modest pool behind the house Hammond’s alimony was paying for. She glared at them like the harpy at the banquet, the uninvited fairy at the christening.

The loudspeaker blared my name again.

“Just wanted to see her,” Hazel called to Hammond. “Is she going to be nice to my kids?”

Hammond said, “What the fuck?”

Sonia put out a hand to silence him. “Al says you’re a wonderful mother. I hope we can be friends.”

“Well, hope again, honey,” Hazel said. “But don’t give my kids any trouble, hear?”

“I have my own child,” Sonia said, touching her stomach, “to worry about.”

From Hazel’s expression, as blank and astonished as the paper targets at the far end of the room, this was the first she’d heard about it.

“That call’s for me,” I said to the nearest cop, taking the coward’s way out. “I left the number on my answering machine.”

Hazel’s voice rose behind me as the cop led me to a phone mounted on one of the white walls. “Yeah?” I said into the mouthpiece.