Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

“Pop,” Resnick said, “Jewish lawyers are a dime a dozen. How many Jewish cops do you know? Besides, you need someone who can help you fix all these parking tickets you’re racking up.”

His dad drove a cab for a living and the last thing Resnick wanted was for his dad to take on more shifts to try to help him out. So while his dad pleaded with him not to throw his life away, Resnick patiently argued that the police work would be good experience for a future career as a lawyer and in a few years he would go back to school at night and earn a law degree. Nothing his dad could say changed the fact that he was anxious to make a living so he could marry Carrie. He was crazy about her and more than anything wanted her to be his wife.

Eighteen months after they were married, Carrie gave birth to their son. Brian was one of those one-in-a-million type babies. He almost never cried and always seemed to break out smiling whenever Resnick picked him up. As much as Resnick loved his wife, he found that his feelings towards his boy were stronger than he could’ve ever imagined. Leaving him each morning to go to work was like ripping out a small piece of his heart. When Brian was two they discovered that he had a heart defect and needed a valve replaced with an artificial plastic one. The surgery was touch and go for a while, but his boy did okay.

Three years later the four packs of cigarettes Resnick’s dad smoked each day caught up with him and he died of lung cancer after a tough nine-month battle. Resnick’s mom died a week later – supposedly of a stroke. Her death, while maybe somewhat of a shock, didn’t really come as much of a surprise to Resnick. He knew his parents loved each other dearly and he could never imagine one of them surviving without the other. He was still reeling from the death of both parents when six weeks later he found out his son’s plastic heart valve was leaking and needed to be replaced. This time Brian didn’t survive the surgery.

According to Carrie, Resnick emotionally abandoned her then. He didn’t believe she was right, but he also didn’t see any point in arguing with her. He just couldn’t live within his own skin. It was that simple. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t sit still. There was so much pressure inside his chest – and the only way he felt he could breathe freely was if he kept moving. He started putting in extra shifts and taking any detail work he could, sometimes working twenty-four hours straight. Exhaustion helped. When he was exhausted he could sometimes fall into unconsciousness when he closed his eyes. The worst – the absolute worst of it – were the few times when he did dream. Brian was always with him in those dreams, and he’d have to wake up realizing all over again that he had lost his boy.

Two years later Carrie told Resnick that the day Brian had his first heart surgery was the day he lost his sense of humor. Maybe even his own heart.

Resnick stared at her dumbly. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“That’s what I mean, Alex. The man I married would have thought of something to say to make me laugh. Even if it was something very sad.”

“My wife, the eternal optimist.”

“That wasn’t even close.” She paused, the color draining from her, leaving her skin a pale white. “I’ve cried every day since we lost Brian. Sometimes for hours at a stretch. I don’t think you’ve cried once. I don’t think I’ve seen a single tear from you. You keep running from it, Alex, you won’t let your grief catch up to you. Unless you let yourself grieve, I don’t think we can fix things between us.”

Resnick didn’t disagree with her, but he couldn’t sit still either. He saw too much of Brian in her as she sat across from him, a pleading in her eyes as she waited for him to say something. He got up and left their modest two-bedroom house. He just couldn’t do anything else.

That was about it for their marriage. They didn’t talk much after that. There didn’t seem to be any animosity or hard feelings. For the most part his feelings for Carrie hadn’t changed since that moment when he first saw her on campus, but there was distance between them. A distance that he knew he created. Maybe she reminded him too much of his boy. Whatever it was he wouldn’t let her close the gap and after a while she gave up trying. They divorced shortly after the three-year anniversary of Brian’s death. A few years later Carrie remarried.

After Resnick got in his car he headed towards the studio apartment he had been living in since his divorce. Halfway home he had a change of heart, turned and drove to Lynn Memorial. Once he arrived at the hospital he talked with the doctor who had examined Mr. Wiseman when he was brought in. Along with a concussion, the old man had a fracture running along the front part of his skull and had also suffered some muscle damage in his neck. They were going to be holding him in intensive care for a few days for observation.

Resnick found Wiseman alone in his room. The old man’s head was bandaged, a thick brace around his neck. He stared glassy-eyed at the detective until a glimmer of recognition showed.

“You’re the police officer who shops in our store,” he said slowly, evenly, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I remember you. My wife told me how you helped today. Thank you.”

“I thought I’d see your wife here.”

“Why do I need her here weeping?” he asked. “I sent her back to the store. Let her weep there.”

“I read the statement you gave the other officer.”

“I tripped,” he said stubbornly.

“We both know that’s not true, Mr. Wiseman.”

He shrugged as much as his neck brace would allow. “Old men trip sometimes.”

“It’s not right what Viktor Petrenko did to you. It’s not right what he has been doing to hundreds of other people like you. I need someone to talk to me so I can send that piece of garbage to prison.”

“If it were just me…” The old man’s voice broke off and his lips started to quiver. He looked away. When he could talk, he said, “My wife, Anna, we’ve been married fifty-two years. No, I am sorry, all I can say is that I tripped.”

Resnick laid a card with his contact information on the night stand next to the bed. “If you have a change of heart and are willing to tell me what happened, call me.”

The old man looked back at Resnick, his half-closed eyes holding steady on the detective. “Would you be able to protect my Anna?”

Resnick couldn’t answer him.

“That’s what I thought,” Wiseman said, letting his eyes close. “All I can tell you is that I tripped. Excuse me, please, I am very tired.”

Resnick stood watching the old man as he tried to think of something more to say. Eventually he gave up.

After leaving Gordon, Dan stopped off at Shrini’s apartment hoping to catch him at home and got lucky when Shrini buzzed him in.

“Hey, dude,” Shrini said, greeting him at the door. “I’m surprised to see you. I thought you were going to call.”

Dan closed the door behind him and told Shrini to get out the bottle of tequila that he knew his friend was keeping. “We’re celebrating, man. The two of us are going to be bank robbers. The next Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.”

“All right, dude!” Shrini clapped. “Although I hope we have better luck than those two!”

Dan took a seat as Shrini searched for the tequila and a couple of clean glasses. He was amazed at how calm he felt. Almost as if he had had some kind of breakdown at Gordon’s and was now just numb to the whole idea of the robbery. Whatever it was, he was grateful for it.

Shrini had brought out the tequila, along with a lime and some salt. He poured the two of them shots. “So your friend, Joel, is going to be joining us?” Shrini asked.