Lee Goldberg - King City

“Until I feel you’re ready to handle a shift on your own or we get some additional manpower.”

“When are you expecting those new guys to arrive?”

“I’m not,” Wade said.

Charlotte mulled it over for a long moment, then surrendered with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll take nights to start, if that’s OK with you, Billy.”

“OK by me,” Billy said.

“Your first shift is tonight,” Wade said. “That’s it for me. Any questions?”

“You aren’t wearing Kevlar, are you?” Billy asked, knocking on his own underneath his shirt as if it were a suit of armor.

“Nope,” Wade said.

“Why not?” Billy asked.

“Because they’re itchy and make you sweat,” Charlotte said, unconsciously scratching at hers. “Especially if you’re wearing a bra.”

“Don’t wear a bra,” Billy said. “We won’t mind.”

“It’s not about the discomfort,” Wade said. “It’s a personal choice. I believe that the vest tells people that you’re weak, that you’re afraid to get hurt.”

“So does a gun,” Charlotte said.

Wade shook his head. “That’s different. A gun tells people that you’re prepared to do whatever is necessary to enforce the law and maintain the peace.”

“So does a vest,” Charlotte said.

Wade shook his head again. “It undercuts you before you even walk into a situation. All you need is a badge.”

“A badge doesn’t cover your body,” Billy said.

“It represents something,” Wade said.

“But it’s not bulletproof. You may not have noticed, Sarge, but there are ten?year?olds out there carrying more firepower than us. You can empty your gun into this”-Billy knocked on his chest again-“and I’ll sit right up and blow your head off.”

“That’s the other problem with the vest,” Wade said. “It gives you a sense of invincibility that you don’t have. It makes you stupid.”

“You’re calling me stupid?” Billy asked with a cocky swagger. “With all due respect, sir, I’m not the one who thinks a badge is going to protect him.”

Wade drew his gun and shot Billy in the chest.

Billy was blown off his feet and onto the floor, where he lay flat on his back, wide?eyed and gasping for breath, the wind kicked out of his lungs by the impact of the bullet.

Charlotte rushed to Billy’s side. Wade holstered his gun and turned to see someone standing in the front doorway.

“May I help you?” Wade asked.

The man wore a burgundy silk tracksuit with gray trim and looked to Wade to be in his forties. He was short, tanning?parlor tan, his hair an unnatural shade of brown. But his most distinctive feature was his mangled nose, which had been broken so many times that it looked like a glob of clay. There was a gold chain around his neck, a Rolex around his wrist, and a couple of fat diamond?studded gold rings on his fingers.

“I’m Duke Fallon.” The man sounded like his sinuses were filled with concrete. “And I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee.”

Wade knew who Fallon was. After a bloody coup a few years earlier, Fallon became the leading crime lord in Darwin Gardens and used it as his base to expand his operations into other areas of the city. The MCU taxed Fallon on his additional revenue.

The mention of Fallon’s name momentarily distracted Charlotte from Billy. She’d opened Billy’s shirt to reveal a bullet caught in the Kevlar mesh in the center of the vest. There was no blood, and Billy was beginning to suck some air into his lungs again.

Wade looked past Fallon out on the street, where he could see an S?Class Mercedes parked in front of Pancake Galaxy, Timo and two of the guys he’d faced down yesterday glowering at him. There were a few people standing on the sidewalk, brought out of the shadows by either Fallon’s arrival or the gunshot or maybe both.

“That’d be nice,” Wade said and glanced over at Charlotte, who glared furiously at Wade. “Just give me a moment.”

“Sure thing,” Fallon said and stepped outside.

“The squad cars out back need to be cleaned and disinfected,” Wade said to Charlotte. “I’ll be across the street having coffee.”

“With a man responsible for countless killings and a good chunk of the drug trade in this city.”

“I’d rather meet him over a cup of coffee than the end of a gun.” He shifted his gaze to Billy. “Come get me when you’re ready to return fire.”

Wade went outside and joined Fallon on the corner. They both took a moment to gaze out at the onlookers.

“They seem surprised to see me,” Wade said.

“You can’t blame them. They saw me go in and heard a gunshot,” Fallon said. “They probably thought that I’d killed you.”

“Why would they think that?”

“I’m told that I have a nasty temper.” Fallon gestured to the station. “Apparently, you do too.”

Wade looked back and saw Charlotte helping Billy to his feet. “That wasn’t anger. That was a demonstration.”

Fallon smiled. “I like that. A demonstration. I might steal that from you.”

The two men strode diagonally across the empty intersection toward the restaurant. They took their time, everyone watching them.

“I saw you testify on TV,” Fallon said. “It was like the OJ trial, only with cops instead.”

The way Wade remembered it, the cops were on trial in the OJ case too-they just weren’t sitting at the defendant’s table.

“As I recall,” Wade said, “your name came up a few times during the trial.”

Fallon waved off the remark. “Nasty rumors and innuendo. But I don’t care about that. I’m just glad justice was done.”

“You mean you’re glad you don’t have to pay off the MCU anymore. You underwrote Roger’s kitchen remodel.”

“Is it nice?”

“He replaced the linoleum flooring with travertine and the tile countertops with granite.”

“What was he thinking putting in all that rock? It must be like eating in a fucking cave,” Fallon said. “How’s your kitchen? Does it need updating?”

Timo crossed his arms under his chest and amped up the intensity of his glower as Wade approached the S?Class.

Wade smiled and gave Timo a little wave as he passed. “Are you offering me a home improvement loan, Duke?”

“It would be a gift,” Fallon said, opening the door to the restaurant for him. “I give them to deserving individuals. It’s not very hard to be deserving.”

“It would be for me,” Wade said and went inside.

There were no customers inside, just the Guthries and a cook in the back, an old woman with her hair in a net. Peter Guthrie sat behind the register, snorting his oxygen, and Mandy was sitting at the counter, reading a newspaper.

Fallon went to one of the window booths. Wade took a seat across from him. Mandy approached with a coffeepot.

“What will you have, gentlemen?” she asked as she filled their mugs.

“Coffee is fine for me,” Wade said.

“You have any apple pie left, sweetie?” Fallon asked.

“We always save a slice for you, Duke.”

“I’d kill you if you didn’t,” he said with a grin, then turned to Wade. “I don’t like it when people leave me the crumbs.”

Wade took that comment as a clumsy allusion to Fallon’s reasons for overthrowing Gordon Gansa, who was dismembered while he was still alive, his body parts scattered throughout Darwin Gardens. Rumor was that Fallon cut him up with a handsaw and made Gansa’s crew watch, which effectively quashed anyone’s will to attempt a coup.

Mandy went off to get the pie. Wade took a sip of his coffee.

“I heard you had a little scuffle yesterday,” Fallon said.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“You were lucky. Did you know that the last cops who came here were gunned down?”