Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

Four months after that photo was taken, Bone Slab Vogel was wrestling an unschooled amateur in Tacoma when everything went bellyup. Bone Slab took a boot to the kidneys and landed wrong. The amateur launched himself from the turnbuckle and dropped on him full tilt. Two broken cracked vertebrae and Vogel never stood straight after that. Four months convalescing and three months smoking bongweed and killing time. An uncle stopped by to talk him out of his funk. He suggested becoming a cop. Do something good.

“Come on. You‘re gonna miss it.” Detective Latimer hovered in the doorway, waving at his Lieutenant to shake a leg. Latimer was a Homicide veteran and a stickler for punctuality. He personally had hung the picture of the red-sequined Bone Slab a dozen times.

Lieutenant Vogel flattened the phone to his collar bone. “Can‘t you do it without me?”

“You gotta bring the cake out,” Latimer said. “Not me.”

Vogel snuffed, then finished his call. He hated these things; birthdays, promotions and retirements. The retirements most of all now. Two detectives, one Homicide, the other Fraud, had both clicked over into retirement and needed to be replaced. And here he was unpacking a cake to celebrate the last day for yet another cop. Detective Alex Papadopoulos was a solid workhorse that Vogel didn‘t want to lose but Papadop‘s wife was ill and he‘d crossed the early retirement line three years back. So Papadopoulos needed to take care of his family and now the Lieutenant was down three bodies in one unit. Not good.

The Ouzo melted the bottoms of the Styrofoam cups. Toasts were made, the Lieutenant said a few words and Detective Papadopoulos got choked up. The retiring detective said a few words himself, admitting that he was dreading what the day after would bring. How does one not go to work after grumbling about it for thirty years?

After the cake was gone, the Lieutenant took him aside and asked about his wife. Papadopoulos said they were taking it one day at a time. The man was scared, that was plain enough. Who wouldn‘t be? Vogel knew that Papadops had a huge family but he reminded him that he had family here too and if there was anything they could do, just call. Papadops thanked him

Both men‘s eyes became dewy and both became ashamed but, thank God, someone was already tugging at the Lieutenant‘s sleeve with a problem. It was Bingham.

Detective Bingham pulled him away to speak privately. Whatever it was, he didn‘t want to spill it in front of everyone else and ruin the party. Bingham was young for a detective and good looking to boot. His nickname around the office was the Panty-Atomizer. Poof.

“What is it?”

“Roberts is in the hospital,” Bingham said, keeping his voice low. “Not sure how serious it is.”

“What happened?”

Bingham shrugged. “He was with Gallagher.”

Gallagher. Vogel gritted the name between his molars. He was going to murder that son of a bitch.

DETECTIVE ROBERTS LAY in a hospital bed in with his left leg elevated, the kneecap shattered. He‘d injured that same knee when he was seventeen playing for the Lincoln High Cardinals. That was 1975, when Ford was President and American helicopters were being pushed into the Gulf of Tonkin. Shattering the same knee thirty five years later, Roberts was screwed. What the hell was he going to tell his wife? Work would be the worst. He‘d be chained to a desk and the only thing Roberts hated worse than paperwork was computers. And all of it because of one fucking prick.

“Gallagher.”

“Pardon me?” The nurse leaned over him to check the ECG, her boobs at eye level. He smiled at her. “Nothing”.

Roberts forced his eyes away and cast about for something else to look at. He caught sight of a face looking in through the window. Roberts raised his fist, middle finger straight up.

GALLAGHER WATCHED THE nurse fuss over Roberts. She was pretty. When Roberts flipped him off. Gallagher waved back, all friendly like. “Fuck you too, hoss,” he said.

“I should snap your neck in two.” Lieutenant Vogel came up the hallway and looked down at Gallagher. He probably could too, one handed. Gallagher was solid and built to punish but the Lieutenant stood five inches over him and outweighed him by a hundred pounds. To Gallagher, Vogel always resembled that bad guy in the Spiderman cartoons. Not as dapper as the Kingpin of crime, but Vogel was a tank who could drop anyone. With or without the red sequined tights.

“Once, just once, I want to find you in the hospital with your head stomped in. Not your partner.” Vogel‘s nostrils flared wide, something he did when he was mad. “What happened?”

“Asshole tried to rabbit. Put Roberts down pretty hard.”

“And you had nothing to do with it, izzat it?”

“I was trying to collar the shitbag.” Gallagher looked back in on his partner. Former partner, whatever. Roberts looked old, hooked up to all those machines. “How was the party?”

“Good. Too bad you missed it.”

“We were on our my way when we spotted douchebag in the parka.” Gallagher looked back at his boss. “Did Papadops have a good time?”

“He wondered why you were AWOL.”

“I‘ll catch up with him later, say goodbye properly.” Gallagher chucked at Roberts. “What are you gonna do with him?”

“What can I do? Bench him for the duration. Which he‘ll hate.”

“Yeah, well. Life sucks.”

Vogel felt his stomach turn to ice, that same feeling he used to get before he laid the boots to someone in the ring. “What the hell am I gonna do with you?”

“Quit saddling me with partners. Let me work alone.”

“What you need is a goddamn leash.” Vogel unwrapped a piece of gum, tossed it in his mouth. “And a psychiatrist to boot. When‘s the last time you talked to the staff therapist?”

“Don‘t. I will eat her alive.”

“How about early retirement? Think of it as a favor to me.”

Gallagher chinned the nurse in Roberts‘s room. “What are the chances she‘s single?”

THE PETTYGROVE BAR and Grill was on Stark Street, just off Second Ave. It had been a cop bar since the very beginning and that would never change. Situated two blocks from the site of Portland‘s first police precinct, the Pettygrove was the first watering hole a cop came across after a shift. The interior was dark, the wood mahogany and although smoking was verboten in bars since the nineties, the smell of it clung to the walls like a phantom cloud. The pictures on the walls were all of cops. Newspaper photos mostly, going all the way back to grim faced sheriffs in big moustaches.

Gallagher came in through the side door and scanned the room. Papadopoulos held court at a central table, flanked by detectives who had ended their day early. Gallagher ordered a round for the table and paid up. As he waited, he looked over at the now retired homicide detective. Papadop had been Gallagher‘s first partner when he moved from Assault/Injury to Homicide and he remained a mentor after all this time. Papadopoulos had a gentle way about him, not the hard shell most cops had. Not like Gallagher either. People talked to Papadop, opened up and spilled the beans. The old man was genuinely interested in people and what they had to say, no matter what they‘d done. Their sob stories and their improvised justifications for their heinous acts. Gallagher couldn‘t stomach it but he learned from the old man that if you just let people talk, they‘ll gladly hang themselves on the rope you trail out to them.

Jesus. He was gonna miss the old man.

They‘d finished the round and Gallagher ordered again. Papadopoulos protested, saying he had to get home but yet didn‘t move when the drinks came in. Of the cops at the table, all of them had been schooled by Papadop and none wanted to see him go. Latimer and Bingham subdued when Gallagher sat down, the party mood dampening. They didn‘t like Gallagher and Gallagher just grinned at them, liking it that way.