C Box - Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

“Photos of what? ” I asked.

“I texted him back,” she said. “He hasn’t replied.”

She sighed. “You know how dramatic he can be. He won’t just tell us, he’ll want to show us.”

Cody stood in the doorway in a paint-splattered T-shirt and a three-day growth of beard. He’d overheard.

“Let’s take a drive downtown,” he said to me.

“Do you mind?” I asked Melissa.

“No,” she said, “as long as you’ll bring dinner home and not drink too much. Remember, you’ve got an early-morning flight tomorrow.”

As if I didn’t know.

IN SEVERAL NATIONAL SURVEYS, Denver has been cited as the least-overweight large city in the country, usually neck and neck with Portland. Health and recreation is a religion. I know this because I sell it overseas. In contrast, Cody sucked on his cigarette with a kind of junkie intensity, sat back in the seat, closed his eyes, and slowly blew the smoke out. He smoked with such needy and obvious plea sure that he made me wish I was a smoker.

On workdays, there was traffic. Lots of traffic. On those days I compared the street we lived on out in the western suburbs to a tiny seasonal creek, like the one that used to flow through the ranch my father managed for a while near Great Falls. Like that creek, our street/creek trickled into a busier residential street (or stream, in my analogy) which poured into a tributary (C-470) of a great rushing river (Interstate 70 to I-25) toward downtown. Once I became a part of the river hurtling down the valley toward the high-rises, stadiums, and inner city, I became a different animal, a fish fearing for his life. Currents of traffic coursed across lanes while the entire river picked up speed and volume. Outlets (exits) lessened the pressure only temporarily, because inlets (entrance ramps) produced greater flows. I was a little fish in an ocean of them. At night, like a spawning salmon, I would navigate the powerful river of traffic back to my sandy creek bed of origin where Melissa and nine-month-old Angelina would be waiting for me, and all would be right with the world.

Saturday-morning traffic was sparse on Interstate 70 into the city, although the situation was different westbound into the mountains. Several ski areas were already open because of the early snow and the snow they’d made from machines, and I’d never seen so many Volvos, Land Rovers, and Subaru Outbacks with skis or boards on top in my life. I imagined the occupants inside to be listening to Dave Matthews if they were under forty and John Denver if they were over.

We took I-25 to the Speer Boulevard exit and plunged into downtown, past the gentrified lofts near Pepsi Center and Coors Field, empty except for the homeless on the 16th Street Mall.

We parked in a lot that cost five dollars in a still-seedy part of downtown the developers hadn’t gotten to yet. Not that Cody paid. Instead, he badged the attendant as he strode past the booth. The attendant-tattooed, pierced, reeking of smoke-recoiled as if he were a vampire and Cody’s shield was a crucifix. I followed my friend to Shelby’s Bar and Grill on 18th. I knew it as a cop hangout.

The waitress knew him and bowed like a subject before her king, but with a smirk on her face to project her sarcasm. “Your throne is ready, sir,” she said.

Cody grunted and sat down heavily in a dark booth. I took the other side.

“Hit you both?” the waitress asked Cody.

“Jameson’s,” he said to her. “Three of ’em.”

To Cody, I said, “Three?”

When she went to the bar, Cody dug into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, said, “I’ve got a guy coming in to meet with us. I hope he still shows up, given my current status with the department.”

“About that,” I said. “How is the trial going?”

“It’s all over but the shouting,” he said. “The defense rested without calling a witness. The jury’s sequestered for the weekend, and Monday they’ll all come in and set that bastard free.”

I shook my head. “So there was nothing else on him?” “We had enough,” Cody said, lighting up. “We had more than enough.” He inhaled and blew a long stream of smoke at the NO SMOKING sign above our booth. The ban was statewide.

“You want to ask me if I set him up,” Cody said.

I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no.

And he didn’t answer.

Cody’s cell phone burred, and he went through a comic ritual of patting all of his clothing with the cigarette dancing in his mouth before he found it in his breast pocket and pulled it out.

“Yeah, we’re here,” Cody said to the phone. “And I already ordered, so come on in.”

He closed the phone and put it on the table so he wouldn’t lose it again. “Jason Torkleson just came up to detectives last week,” he said. “They assigned him to my squad. He’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like all of us were when we started. Before he could get bogged down with a caseload or get coopted by the lieutenant, I asked him to research Garrett Moreland and Luis and Sur-13 and put together a background report.”

The door opened and sunlight streamed into the dark room and a slender young man with pale skin and deep red hair came in grasping a manila folder. He was wearing a track suit, and he looked fit, as if he’d completed his morning workout shortly before the meeting.

“Is that him?” I asked.

Cody bent over and craned around the side of the high-backed booth and waved Torkleson over.

“Obviously, they’re still talking to me,” Cody mumbled.

After introductions, Torkleson sat down on my side so he could face Cody and present his findings to him. The file was on the table. The waitress delivered the three drinks, and Cody took his from her hand before she had the chance to set it down. He drank deeply, said “Aaaaugh,” and slowly lowered it. I sipped mine. It burned nicely.

“Starting early, eh?” Torkleson said.

Cody sang a line from a Louis Jordan song, “ What’s the use of getting sober, when you’re gonna get drunk again …” and laughed. I did, too. Cody had been growling that line for ten years.

“Maybe I’ll pass,” Torkleson said.

Cody’s expression went dead, and he beheld Torkleson with heavy-lidded eyes. “What, you keeping in shape?”

“Actually, yes.”

Cody said, “The word ‘actually’ is overused these days, and when it’s used, it’s not used correctly. You youngsters say ‘actually’ nearly as much as you use the word ‘like’ and ‘basically.’ They’re all unnecessary words the way you use them. Both are incorrect usage, according to my Helena High English teacher Ms. Lesa Washenfelder. Right, Jack?”

I nodded solely so Cody would move on.

To Torkleson, Cody growled, “Now drink your fucking drink.”

Torkleson sat back as if slapped. It took a beat, but he reached for his drink and sipped it gingerly, his eyes flinching at the taste.

The file just sat there.

“Aren’t you going to look at it?” Torkleson asked.

“Later,” Cody said. “Give me the gist.”

Torkleson looked at me, then back to Cody.

“He’s all right,” Cody assured him. “Anything you tell me he can hear.”

Torkleson tapped the folder. “I wish I had more in there, but there wasn’t that much information available. Garrett Moreland is the son of Judge John Moreland, but I think you already knew that.”

“We did,” Cody said, working his fingers on the tabletop like a blackjack player wanting another hit from the dealer. “Give me more.”

“Garrett’s mother…”

“We know that, go on.”

“There’s no rap sheet and as far as I can tell no juvie record.”

“Damn.”

“The only thing I could link to Garrett was his name showed up a couple of times on cross tabs-he’s listed as a known associate of a couple of gangbangers. I found that surprising.”