Frank Zafiro - Beneath a Weeping Sky

Katie considered. She had to concede that Westboard had a valid argument. Even in the ten days they’d spent in adjacent rooms at the hotel, Chisolm had shared little in the way of personal information. “You could have a point,” she admitted.

“I know,” he said, crossing Boone and cruising slowly. “And that point is what I meant.”

“Sorry, then.”

“Apology accepted. Now, answer the rest of the question.”

“I forgot the question.” She pointed at a house on the corner of Nettleton and Sinto. Two different insulation brand names were plastered across the unfinished outside of the structure. “That place has been waiting for siding for two years now.”

Westboard grunted that he knew, then gave her an impatient wave of his hand.

Katie sighed. “All right. It’s just that this last week has sucked. I’m holed up at the hotel on my off time. Then I have to ride with someone every day at work.”

“How has it been partnering up?”

Katie shrugged and glanced out the window. She saw a long-haired man in jeans and some kind of heavy metal T-shirt raking his small lawn under the harsh yellow porch light. He noticed the police car cruising by, stopped and stared. Katie raised her hand in a small wave. The man didn’t wave back, but continued to stare defiantly at them as the car rolled past.

“Nice to have your support,” Katie muttered to the closed window.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Katie said, turning away from the window. “Riding partners has been…interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

“Well, for starters, Battaglia hit on me all night long.”

Westboard’s eyebrows shot up. “No way.”

She nodded slowly. “Yep. That was ten hours of the married man waltz.”

“Ouch. I wouldn’t have figured that about him. Sully, too, then?”

“No. Actually, Sully went too far the other way, making sure that I didn’t take anything he said as a come on.”

Westboard’s face bore a surprised expression. “I wouldn’t have figured that, either.”

Katie laughed lightly. “It was kind of cute, but kind of annoying, too. And then when we ended up riding together two days in a row, it was even worse the second day.”

“Who would’ve known the twins were actually so different?”

Katie waved his comment away. “Ah, they were both pining away for the other by midnight, anyway.” She faked a deep voiced, Italian accent. “I wonder what Sully’s doing on that call. Let’s go see if he needs any help.”

Westboard laughed at her impression.

Katie shifted into a light, Irish lilt. “Let’s check up on Batts, lass. Just in case he needs some assistance.”

“That’s pretty good,” laughed Westboard. “I think you have them nailed.”

She shook her head in mock disgust. “It’s like they were going through withdrawals or something.”

“So how about Kahn?”

Katie wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Too much aftershave and too much bragging. All night long.”

“Figured that one. And Chisolm?”

“Chisolm was…Chisolm.”

“And now,” Westboard pronounced in a grand tone and a stately wave, “you have moi .”

Katie laughed at his pomp. “It’s not the company that sucks,” she said, although that wasn’t entirely true. Kahn’s braggadocio and not so subtle hints disgusted her as much as Battaglia’s flirting surprised her. But she was a big girl. She could deal with those things. “The part that bothers me is that I’m being treated like some kind of china doll. Like I have to be protected or I’ll break.”

Westboard shrugged. “Pretty big stuff that happened to you. And those threats…”

“Fine,” Katie conceded. “But I still don’t think they’d have gone to this extreme if I was a man.”

Westboard’s only reply was to continue rolling slowly forward through West Central. Finally, he asked her, “Does it matter?”

A warm spike of anger flared in Katie’s gut. “Of course it matters!”

“Why?”

“Would you like it if they treated you different”?

“No,” Westboard whispered. “I wouldn’t.”

“Neither do I,” Katie answered.

Afterward, they drove in silence for a long while, thinking.

Thursday, May 8th

Day Shift

1018 hours

Captain Michael Reott opened the office window. He reached out through the slanted opening and caught some of the cascading rain on his hands. Then he wiped the cool water on his face and the back of his neck.

“You should leave that open,” Lieutenant Crawford told him.

“Why’s that?”

“Get some fresh air in here,” Crawford said. “This office reeks of cigars. If the Chief ever comes in here — ”

“The Chief of Police doesn’t care if I smoke a cigar in my office. I’d be more worried if some smoking Nazi from City Hall came knocking.”

Crawford shrugged and stirred his coffee. “Leave it open, anyway, Mike. The cool air is nice.”

Reott agreed and left the window open. He sat down at his desk, reached into the drawer and removed a package of Rolaids. “Now I know why they pay us more than the line troops,” he said, holding up the antacids. “I bet I spend a thousand bucks a year on these little bastards.”

He removed two and popped them into his mouth.

Crawford chuckled. “That’s not why they pay us more, and you know it.”

“No, I suppose not,” Reott said, crushing the chalky tablets with his molars. “I guess they pay us because we’re the ones who have to make the tough decisions.”

“That’s some of it.”

“Some? What’s the rest, then?”

Crawford raised his eyebrows. “They didn’t teach you this at the FBI National Academy?”

Reott waved his comment away. “You want to tell me, then tell me. But don’t break my balls.”

“Fine. They do pay us more to make the tough decisions. But the thing is, most every one of those decisions will probably piss someone off, right?”

Reott half nodded, half shrugged in agreement.

“Of course it will,” Crawford continued. “It’ll piss off the citizens, or it’ll piss off the patrol cops. Or the detectives. It might even go the other direction and piss off your boss or God forbid, the Mayor. Point is, if it doesn’t piss somebody off, then it probably wasn’t such a tough decision.”

“Agreed. So what?”

“So,” Crawford continued, “if a good leader makes tough decisions and if making those tough decisions pisses people off, then pretty soon you’ll have pissed off enough people that pretty much no one will like you anymore.”

“You’re saying that we get a little more pay in case people start disliking us?”

“No,” Crawford corrected. “I’m saying that they inevitably will. And dislike is a weak word.”

“Oh?”

“The more accurate word is hate. They’ll end up hating you for it. As a leader, you’ll eventually become something of an outcast. When that social ostracizing happens, there’s only one thing left to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Drink.”

Reott blinked. “Drink?”

Crawford nodded. “Yep. What else are you going to do? Stop making those decisions? Start making decisions based on how popular it’ll make you?” He shook his head. “No. All you can do is say fuck it, and have a drink.”

Reott sighed. “You’re on quite a downer jag these days.”

“That’s life. You ought to be used to it, Captain .”

“I’m still trying to get my mind wrapped around your point,” Reott said, frowning. “The added pay is because I might become an alcoholic?”

“How’d you get to be a captain with that little brain?” Crawford asked, a roguish grin forming under his moustache.