Т Паркер - The Fallen

The aftermath of a fatal shooting is a tricky thing. You think you’re okay with what you did, and then you feel tremendous doubt that you did the right thing. You tell yourself there was nothing else you could have done. But you wonder. You think about all of the life you’ve taken away — the weeks and months and years that you’ve denied someone. You feel guilty for being alive, then angry about the guilt. You build yourself back up, one thought at a time, until you believe again that you did the right thing, and you remind yourself that you agreed to take this responsibility when you were sworn to serve and that you were the tool in what happened, not the cause. This is what you have to believe in order to go on. I shot and killed a man in the line of duty when I was very young. He had a knife, out and ready. He was three steps away from me and coming fairly fast. He had threatened to kill his girlfriend, then himself, and then he came at me. He had a long history of mental illness. They called it suicide by cop. It happened down in Logan Heights when I was on patrol. I was twenty-two, and he was twenty-five. He was baby-faced, blond-haired, and blue-eyed. His name was Duane Randolph. I thought about him on the way down from the Las Palmas.

On the phone that night, McKenzie covered her pain with bravado. She was eager to put the shooting behind her but I knew it would keep coming back. The counseling that the department gives us really helps, though it takes time. McKenzie talked awhile about Hollis Harris and how his world was bytes and gigs and jets and toys, and hers was crooks and guns and take-out food, and what sense was there in mixing the two?

“Maybe good sense,” I said.

“I love him,” she said.

“Then there you have it.”

“Not everyone ends up happy like you and Gina,” she said.

“You did the right thing today, McKenzie. You were alone up there and it wasn’t easy. You did the job. You got her out of there alive.”

McKenzie was quiet for a while. “How about you, Robbie? You okay?”

“I’m good.”

I watched the TV without sound until late. I fell asleep right there on the couch and dreamed of men falling from bridges and buildings into rich green jungles.

Late Sunday afternoon I called Vince. He sounded brusque and bothered and said he’d have to call me back. Ten minutes later he did, and his voice was changed.

“Sorry, Robbie,” he said. “Dawn and I been at it again about this. Look, Gina’s got a place of her own right here in Las Vegas. Nice little apartment. I’m going to give you the address but I need your word you won’t do something stupid, you won’t get loud or something with her. She’s my girl and I can’t let that happen.”

“I can’t get loud with Gina, Vince. You know that by now.”

“Maybe you two can work it out. Dawn says no, but what’s she know? Two people are two people. They find their own ways of doing things.”

“Thank you.”

He gave me the address. I wrote it down and stared at it: 414 Villa Bonterra, #B-303, Las Vegas.

I had just enough time to hit the Horton Plaza mall for a new suit. I had to buy one as is so I could put it on a few hours later, but I’m a forty-four tall, so it wasn’t hard to find. All of the forty-four tall trousers were too big in the waist but the salesman said safety pins and a snug belt would do the trick. The suit was navy wool and expensive. I got a new white shirt and a light blue tie in honor of Garrett Asplundh. A pair of new black shoes. When I got home I turned the trouser cuffs under and used duct tape to hold them in place. I looked in the mirror, tried to get the safety pins right, examined the finished product, and shook my head.

Dream Wheels opened at nine the next morning. I rented a silver Porsche 996 Twin Turbo because Gina had always wanted one. Cass said the new suit was sharp and my date was lucky. The car cost me nine hundred dollars for one day. I felt powerful and potent. I now understood why Garrett Asplundh had rented fancy cars and purchased expensive clothing to impress Stella.

I made the Las Vegas city limits in five hours and eight minutes. I was stopped by the California Highway Patrol and proffered my law-enforcement ID, which is a cheap trick when you’re driving a rental car over ninety. The CHiP looked over the Dream Wheels registration while telling me about a brother-in-law in National City who had season tickets for the Pads. He told me to cool it and get to Vegas alive. Heading into town I felt like a TV-show detective with my cool suit and killer car and the casinos wobbling up to greet me through a mirage of crisp desert air.

I found the B building of the Palacio Toscana apartments and drove the perimeter of the carports but didn’t see Gina’s car. The apartments were salmon-colored and new, with faux shutters swung back from their windows. There were flowers along the walkways. The Palacio Toscana smelled of fresh asphalt. I parked in the shade and spread a newspaper across the steering wheel. The afternoon was sunny but not hot.

An hour and fifteen minutes later Gina’s little blue coupe bounced off the street and into the lane of carports. I lifted the newspaper and watched her over the headlines, and she drove past me without turning. She swung wide right, then pulled hard left into her space.

As I walked toward her across the black asphalt she got out of her car. I could tell by the sudden stop of her head that she recognized me. I waved and couldn’t keep myself from smiling and walking faster. I remembered that there had been times like this when she’d run to greet me.

She had on a pretty blue sundress and blue shoes. Her hair was drawn into a ponytail that rose from a jeweled tube atop her head, then spilled over like a wild orange fountain.

“I’m not here for a scene,” I said.

“You shouldn’t be here at all. Nice car.”

I looked at her for a moment. “You take my breath away, Gina.”

“That’s why this is so difficult.”

“Should we talk inside?” I asked.

“Okay.”

Her apartment was upstairs. It had a view of buildings A and C, and the swimming pool, and a grassy park with a big pavilion for shade. A couple about our age sat in the shade of the pavilion, kissing unhurriedly.

I saw from the bland tan harmonies of the interior that Gina had rented the unit furnished. I looked at her. She was bright and radiant and as out of place as a ruby in a bowl of oatmeal.

“What?” she said.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

How disappointing, to watch the red squares of dishonesty pouring out of Gina’s mouth. I watched the colored shapes flow toward me, then slide over a rounded edge, like water going over a fall.

I remembered times when she’d meet me at the front door when I came home from work and actually pull me inside.

Gina took a deep breath and looked down at the tan carpet. “Here. Have a seat.”

I sat at one end of the tan sofa and Gina sat at the other.

“How’s work, Robbie?”

“It’s good.”

“Catch any bad guys lately?”

“One.”

“Do you still see the shapes when people talk?”

I nodded. “Kind of wish I didn’t. It just seems to get in the way.”

She looked down.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

“I can try.” She crossed her pale legs and folded her hands in her lap.

“I came here for a new life. I think there must be more.”

“More what ?”

“More everything. I know that sounds really shallow but I’m aching inside for something I can’t see and can’t identify and can’t touch. But I know it’s there. It’s right there, just past my ability to understand. Just out of reach of my words.”