Jonathon King - Midnight Guardians

“She’s doing fine, Chief,” I said. “I’ll let her know you were asking about her.”

After we walked out into the hallway, the chief’s door was closed softly behind us, the sound of its quiet snicking making me feel it wouldn’t be long before I was back here again.

When I left Billy in the parking lot, he said he’d continue trying to call Carmen to warn her that there was a BOLO out on her brother’s car, and that he would be arrested if he was stopped. If the kid was illegal, he’d be looking at deportation. And that was the good news. If the guys who were after him found him first, he’d be dead.

On the way to Sherry’s I stopped at the 7-Eleven, again parking in the shadows, even though Hammonds said I was off the hook for now. I went in looking for a six-pack of Rolling Rock and was disappointed that they were out of bottles. I had to settle for the cans. I hate drinking beer out of metal; it’s so damned uncouth.

Back in my truck, I popped the first one, trying to relax and let some of the anxiety go down with the taste of alcohol on the back of my throat. Hammonds was old and cagey. I didn’t see him as the kind to give someone like me a free pass for nothing. He’s more the kind who works the system 24/7. In each new situation, he’d take away an advantage. Every person who entered his universe had a possible use. I knew guys like him back in my life as a Philly cop. They were ambitious. They were political. They didn’t give without getting back. It was the way of their world. Oh, we were going to dance again, Hammonds and I. I was going to have to tighten my moves.

I was halfway down the street toward Sherry’s when my fan belt started making a hell of a squealing noise. Even I was wincing at the shrill sound as I eased the truck up her driveway. I went inside from around back as usual, but the pool was silent. The patio doors were unlocked, and the only light on was the stove overhead. I locked up behind myself and found Sherry in the bedroom, lying on top of the covers with her mirror, staring at two legs.

“Hi,” I said, pulling the tab on one of the beers. The sharp crack of aluminum sounded like something breaking. Sherry hadn’t looked up at my greeting but turned her head to the sound.

“Since when do you go for cans,” she said, her tone carefully non-accusatory. I looked at the container as if I’d just discovered it in my hand.

“Yeah, you’re right. I always said I’d rather have a bottle in front of me…”

“Than a frontal lobotomy,” Sherry finished the old saw, but she was smiling when she did so.

I kicked off my Docksides, sat down on the edge of the bed, and propped my back against the headboard.

“Or maybe you just like the sound of crunching metal these days?” she said as she looked back down at her mirror, avoiding eye contact. I looked at the side of her face and noted the pinching of skin at the corner of her eye; she was having fun at my expense. I stayed silent and waited her out, a small victory.

“Well, I am a cop,” she finally said.

“So how’d you hear?”

She looked over and let the smile escape. “I have my sources.”

“Right! Any single woman cop who’s a pretty, long-legged blonde is going to have sources on the job who are interested in besmirching the character of the present boyfriend,” I said, matching her smile.

But something I said caused a flickering deep behind her eyes. She pushed it back, and then shook her head “All right, Mr. PI, a couple of uniforms did recognize the description of your truck on the radio and called me to see if you’d gone off your meds,” she said, slipping back into teasing mode. “The old beast didn’t sound too good when you pulled up.”

I took another hit of the Rolling Rock. “I won’t be filing an accident claim,” I said. “But my guy up at the body shop on Indiantown Road is going to get some business.”

Silent again, I watched the aqua glow from the pool flow through the bedroom window and dance on the ceiling.

“You gonna tell me what happened?” Sherry said.

I took another drink and laid it out for her, from the time I started tailing Andres Carmen, until I left Chief Hammonds’s office. Like most good detectives, Sherry’s a good listener. She let the story come out without interruption, and in the end said, “Jesus, Max.”

“Yeah, I think I said the same thing a couple of times tonight.”

Sherry reached over and put her hand on the side of my face, slid her fingers into my hair, and gave me one of those “poor baby” looks. The show of affection was nice. Though I’ve never been one who expects the whole sympathy thing, everybody’s human.

I took her hand and kissed her palm. “I love you, baby,” I said.

“I know you do, Max. Sometimes I just don’t know how you can.”

Ok, enough of what if, Booker. You’ve got to stop talking to yourself: What’s done is done. You’ve got to catch up and live in the real world. Right?

Yeah, but in the real world, people are walking around on two fucking legs. You’re not. In the real world, people can walk up a set of stairs. In the real world, you used to squat three hundred pounds, and now you can’t even climb out of this chair on your own.

All you can remember are those goddamned dimmed headlights, knowing they were going way too fast, and that total lack of screeching brakes. And hey, guess what, your stupid life did not flash in front of your eyes. You just reacted. They say you jumped, and that’s what saved your life, such as it fucking is. Next thing you know, you’re lying in a hospital bed and you wake the hell up and get as much of a grip on what’s happened as you can, given that when you look down there’s no lumps in the sheets below your waist.

Fuck it, you don’t even want to look-so you don’t. For days, you don’t. Even after the docs come in and give you all that bullshit about how amputees can do anything anyone else can. And they know it’s a shock, but medical science has come such a long way… blah, blah, blah.

So you’re pissed. And you’re always gonna ask: Why you? Who the hell did this to you? And you hold on to that anger ‘cause you know what? It makes you feel a little bit alive. Why the hell haven’t they caught the rat bastard who did this to you? Six months and they can’t find a car thief? Hey, I’m a cop, too. And every cop, not just the fucking detectives, knows that people repeat a story like mine. It gets told in some sleazy shooting gallery somewhere, some fucking bar, on some shit-heel corner with a bunch of losers hanging out smoking and trying to build themselves up, so they can be better than the loser next to them: “Hey, man, you seen that shit on TV about the cop who got his legs chopped off on I-595? Whoa, awesome, dude.”

“Yeah, I heard Jimmy the Fuckup did it.”

“No way, Jimmy the Loser? That kid who’s always stealin’ cars when he’s fuckin’ high?”

“Yeah, Petey the Prick said he was doin’ forties with Jimmy and he told him he was all fucked up and drivin’ an old boosted Chevy and smacked ass into the back of somebody on the freeway and pinched that cop and just got out and boogied.”

“No shit. Did Petey turn him in, man? There’s a big fucking reward out for anyone rats the dude out. If Petey didn’t, I sure as hell will.”

Which is why you gotta be even more pissed-I mean, come on! The sheriff’s office put a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information out there a week after it happened, and they haven’t gotten a single lead worth a damn? Fuckups talk when something like that goes down. Somebody’s gotta hear something-unless it wasn’t just some fuckup.

I mean, you have to wonder about the forensics on the thing. When the so-called detectives who are working the case come to you and say they couldn’t lift a single usable print off the inside of the car that almost killed you? A screwup like some Jimmy the Loser doesn’t go to the trouble of wearing surgical gloves and wiping down the interior of the car he’s joyriding in for the night. They couldn’t find any hair? No fibers? No empty Buds in the back seat with DNA all over the mouth of the bottles? Come on, man!