Lee Goldberg - King City

Wade wiped the glass off the driver’s seat and drove the Mustang to a body shop that he’d seen near his hotel. With no windshield or windows, the chilly night air blew through his car like it was a convertible. He’d cranked up the heat and aimed the vents at himself, but it didn’t help much.

He called his insurance company, sorted things out with them, and made it clear to the shop owner not to replace the plastic Bullitt crap. In fact, he asked if they could remove whatever was left of the Bullitt stuff inside the car as well. The shop guy thought he was nuts but agreed to do it for a few extra bucks on top of the deductible payment, since he’d have to order parts to replace the undamaged ones that they were removing. That was fine with Wade.

He rented a Ford Explorer, which was dropped off for him at the body shop, and made sure that he signed up for all the available insurance, which cost him nearly as much as renting another car. But after what had happened to his Mustang, and the likelihood of Timo’s retaliation, Wade figured the insurance was a wise investment. He transferred his gun locker from the Mustang to the rear of the Explorer and drove off.

His first stop was the Home Depot, where he bought the lumber and supplies that he’d need to patch and paint the station, stain the hardwood floors in his apartment, and clean and disinfect the squad cars.

His errands finished, he grabbed a hamburger at a Jack in the Box drive?through and ate his meal in his car as he drove back to his hotel for what he knew would be his last decent night of sleep for quite a while.

Wade checked out of the hotel and was eating his Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s by 6:00 a.m. He was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans because he didn’t want to get his uniform dirty loading up his stuff from the storage unit.

He didn’t have many belongings to move. He’d let Alison keep the house and just about everything in it because he didn’t want to make things uncomfortable for her or his daughter.

That was also what had cost him his family-his desire to protect them from discomfort.

After the confrontation in Roger Malden’s kitchen, and after being questioned for hours that day by the FBI and Internal Affairs, Wade returned to his New King City home to find Alison waiting for him. She was sitting at the kitchen table, watching the news on TV about the arrests. Brooke was at school.

Wade turned off the TV and sat down across from her and girded himself for another kitchen confrontation. But this time there were no guns, no terrified children. Just the two of them.

Somehow, he’d been more comfortable in Malden’s kitchen a few hours earlier than he was in his own kitchen at that moment.

Alison asked him when he knew that Roger and the other officers were corrupt. He told her that he suspected it almost immediately but didn’t know for sure until he’d been there about two months. That’s when he decided to go to the Justice Department and begin gathering evidence.

She was silent for a time and then said, “You should have talked with me about it before you went to the Justice Department.”

“What difference would it have made?”

“We could have discussed the alternatives.”

He shook his head. “There were no alternatives.”

“That was not for you to decide on your own,” she said, her voice steadily rising until her final words were almost a shout. “We are a family.”

“And that’s what I was trying to protect. This wasn’t about us. It was about dirty cops doing some very bad things,” Wade said. “If I told you what was going on, you would have become part of it. I didn’t want that.”

“That’s what you don’t understand,” she said, making a noticeable effort to keep her voice down, her anger in check. “I am a part of it. So is Brooke. What you do has consequences, and we all have to live with them.”

“If I told you what was happening, you would have had to live with it every day. Every time we saw Roger, Phil, Artie, and their families you would have had to pretend not to know what I knew. They would have sensed your deception right away.”

“You mean I’m not as good a liar as you are.”

“I was protecting you.”

“You were lying to us,” she said. “Every day for two years.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” He reached out to touch her hand but she yanked it away. “It’s over.”

“No, Tom, it’s all just beginning. There will be a long trial, constant media attention, and a lot of ugliness.”

“What other choice did I have?”

“You could have chosen us,” she said.

From that night on, Wade slept in the guest room. The two of them hardly talked except when Brooke was around, but then it was only a performance for her benefit. Brooke knew it and soon became as withdrawn from them both as Alison was from him.

Late one night after the trial ended, as the glare of media attention was finally dimming, Wade sat at the kitchen table eating some leftovers. Alison came in and dropped a set of divorce papers down on the table in front of him.

He glanced at the top sheet, then up at her. “Shouldn’t we talk about this?”

“Now you know how I felt,” she said.

“Is that what this is, Ally? Payback?”

She shook her head. “It’s consequences, Tom. You made a choice without us. You had to do what you thought was right. I’m doing the same thing.”

He left the next day. All he took with him were some clothes, a few boxes of books and CDs, a TV and an entertainment center, his recliner, some photo albums, a laptop computer, a mini?fridge, and all the guest?room furniture.

He put it all into the storage unit and himself into the hotel across the street, which was another storage unit, a place to shelve himself until his life started again.

And now it finally had.

Wade had all the furniture he needed for the apartment for now. He still had to buy dishes, cutlery, and cookware, a kitchen table, and a couch, but he was in no hurry. Paper plates, plastic silverware, and fast food would do fine for the time being.

He hired some day laborers who were milling around outside the storage facility with their own truck. They loaded his stuff in less than an hour and then followed him to his new home.

As he drove, Wade kept his eye on the rearview mirror, worried that his movers would turn around when they realized where he was heading, but they stuck with him. They unloaded his belongings into the upstairs apartment with amazing speed, eager to get their money and flee.

He couldn’t blame them.

While they unloaded his stuff, he taped some newspapers to the window to give himself some privacy until he could hang some drapes.

The movers dropped his box spring and mattress in the center of the living room and dumped most of his stuff around the bed. Wade hadn’t given any thought to interior design yet, anyway.

He walked them back to their truck and paid them off. As the truck drove away, he noticed that his move in had attracted a crowd across the street. They all seemed stunned by the sight. An alien invasion would have drawn fewer people and less incredulity.

A couple of the guys who’d trashed his car were among the lookie?loos, but Timo wasn’t one of them. His bashed?up Escalade was long gone, of course. It was a symbol of a humiliating defeat that Timo’s crew couldn’t let stand for all to see.

Guthrie stood outside his restaurant, leaning on his oxygen tank and smoking a cigarette. His daughter, Mandy, walked over to Wade just as the movers sped off. She was carrying a Styrofoam takeout box and a brown paper bag.

“I’ve seen a lot of people move out of this neighborhood,” Mandy said to Wade. “But I’ve never seen anybody foolish enough to move in.”