Frank Zafiro - Beneath a Weeping Sky

“Oh really? And what are you? The River City History Channel?”

“No,” Sully said, “but I know a few things.”

“So do I.”

“Like what?”

“Like it’s called River City because it was founded by a river.”

“Oh, that’s good. Don’t stretch your brain.”

Battaglia shrugged. “It’s true. Deal with it.”

“So why’s Mount Joseph called by that name?” Sully asked.

“It’s named after some guy named Joseph.”

Sully slapped the steering wheel. “Another brilliant insight. Okay, Mensa boy, who was Joseph?”

Battaglia paused. “Some Indian, right?”

“Good guess. Yeah, some Indian. A chief, actually.”

Battaglia snapped his fingers and pointed. “That’s it. Mount Joseph was named after Chief Joseph.”

Sully sighed. “No kidding. So what tribe did he belong to?”

“Sioux?”

“No.”

“Pawnee?”

Sully shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Apache?”

“Oh, come on. The Apache live down in the desert.”

“We’ve got deserts around here. You ever been to Yakima?”

“ Real deserts,” Sully said. “As in New Mexico and Arizona?”

Battaglia shrugged. “A desert’s a desert.”

“It’s Nez Perce,” Sully told him. “Chief Joseph was a Nez Perce Chief. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. You didn’t learn this stuff in school?”

“Hey, I went to Rogers. We learned From where the sun now stands, I will kick your ass forever. And so what? At least I got that he was an Indian Chief.”

Sully stopped for a red light and looked over at Battaglia. “Fine. How about the river, smart guy? Why is it called The Looking Glass River?”

“Easy. It’s named after that Alice in Wonderland movie.”

Sully gaped at him. “You’re kidding me, right? I mean, you’re totally screwing with me here?”

Battaglia shook his head. “No.” He pointed at the stoplight. “Light’s green.”

Sully glanced up at the light and goosed the accelerator. “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

“What? You gonna tell me it’s not named after that Disney cartoon, then?”

“News flash. That cartoon was made back in the forties. The river was named about a hundred years ago. Do the math.”

Battaglia scrunched his eyebrows. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

Battaglia considered a moment. Then he said, “Well, wasn’t there a book or something that they based the cartoon on? It coulda been named after that.”

“Yes, there was a book. But-”

“See?”

“No, no, no, no ,” Sully said with an emphatic head shake. “The river was named after one of Joseph’s sub-chiefs, Chief Looking Glass. It was named after a man, not a cartoon.”

Battaglia shrugged. “I didn’t know that.”

“I know!” Sully said, nodding repeatedly. “You could fill a large museum with what you don’t know, Batts.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, you could.” Sully raised his hand from the steering wheel and mimed a headline in the air. “The Official ‘Stuff That Anthony Battaglia Doesn’t Know’ Museum. It’d be a huge building, too. Bigger than the Louvre.”

“The what?”

“The Lou-never mind. It’d be a big building and it would be full of shit. Just like you. That’s my point.”

“Whatever, dude. The only point I’m seeing is the one on top of your head.”

“Oh, har-dee-freaking-har.” Sully picked up the radio mike and held it out toward Battaglia. “Hey, 1972 called. They want their joke book back.”

Battaglia clapped his hands together slowly. “Ha. Ha. Ha .”

Sully re-hung the microphone, turned onto Dalke and killed the headlights.

Battaglia shook his head. “It still woulda been quicker to take Wall.”

Sully pulled to the curb two houses from the complainant’s address. “Guess we’ll never know, will we?”

The two clambered out of the car, shutting the doors quietly.

The home was a small yellow rancher with a well kept yard. A pair of lawn gnomes stood as stoic guards on either side of the concrete steps up to the front door. The officers climbed the stairs. Without discussion, each took up a position on opposite sides of the doorway. Battaglia rapped on the door.

After a few moments, a short pudgy man in his forties answered. He wore khakis and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt over a white tee. Sully glanced at the man’s thinning hair, which was plastered tight to his skull with gel and drawn together into a nub of a ponytail.

Ooh, he thought. A hipster.

“Good evening,” Battaglia said. “You called about a stolen car?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man said, opening the screen door and waving them in. The officers filed past him and into a living room furnished with post-modern furniture. Several stark, nude line drawings of Marilyn Monroe encased in neon frames dotted the walls.

Battaglia removed his notebook and flipped it open. “Tell me about this stolen car.”

The man sank into an armless futon. “It’s my Beemer,” he sighed grandly.

Battaglia’s eyes flicked to Sully’s, then back to the complainant. Sully knew what the glance meant.

I’m supposed to be impressed?

“And?” Battaglia’s tone held the barest hint of his unspoken sarcasm.

The man seemed to sense Battaglia’s subtext. “Well, it’s stolen.”

Battaglia nodded his head. The man pointed to his notebook.

“Are you going to write that down?”

Battaglia’s head stopped moving up and down and shifted seamlessly to a left to right head shake.

The man looked to Sully for help.

Sully suppressed a sigh. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Tad.”

“Last name?”

“Elway. Like the quarterback. You know, John Elway?”

Sully nodded. “I’ve heard of him.”

“I’d hope so. He’s only been to the Super Bowl three times and — ”

Never won yet, Sully finished silently. “What happened to your car, Mr. Elway?” he said aloud.

Tad stopped. “I told you. It was stolen.”

“Right. How exactly?”

Tad bit his lip in contemplation. “Well, I loaned it to a friend and it hasn’t been returned.”

“You loaned it?”

Tad nodded. “Yes.”

“To a friend?”

“Yes.”

Sully glanced at Battaglia, knowing his partner probably shared his thoughts.

This isn’t going to be a stolen car. It’ll be civil. An ex-girlfriend, probably. A drug buddy, maybe. Or a hooker.

“What’s with all the looks?” Tad asked, irritation plain in his voice.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Sully said.

“You two keep looking at each other like I’m lying or something.”

Sully shook his head. “No, sir. We don’t think that at all.”

“Then what’s the deal?”

“Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us about your car so that we can take your stolen vehicle report?” Sully suggested.

“No,” Tad said, his tone indignant. “Not if you’re both going to stand there and treat me like some kind of criminal. I’m the victim here.”

“That’s why I need to get this information from you,” Sully said.

Tad would not be so easily assuaged. “It’s totally unprofessional,” he continued. “The way you two are acting. Interrupting people and having all these sarcastic little looks back and forth.”

Sully took a deep breath and let it out.

“Don’t sigh at me,” Tad snapped.

“I didn’t sigh.”

“You did. You did just a second ago.”

Sully sighed.

“There! You did it again,” Tad said. “What is with you two assholes?”

Sully felt the heat of frustration creep up the back of his neck.