Charlie Huston - Sleepless

She was staring at the ceiling.

“You’re such a, God, I hate the word, but you’re such an innocent. I mean, how am I supposed to walk away from that?”

He didn’t say anything.

She shook her head, wondering at something.

“I’ve known you how long? Already I can see it. You’re destined to walk into traffic while reading a book. Or to get stabbed by a drunk asshole in a bar when you try to defend some tramp’s honor. Or do something even stupider like join the Marines and go get killed for oil because you think it’s the right thing to do.”

He knew the rest, every word, by heart, but he let her say it all.

“And how am I supposed to keep you from doing something like that if you’re up there and I’m down here? I mean, where did you come from? How did you drop into my life? You’re, God, you’re everything I don’t want. Hold me.”

He held her.

She yawned.

“I can only look after you all the time if we’re together.”

He held her.

She twisted partway around to see his face.

“Really together.”

He nodded.

“So let’s get married.”

She blinked slowly, smiled, nodded.

“Yeah, let’s get fucking married.”

Her eyes closed. She slept. Just as she had years before when they’d first had the conversation the morning after the first night they spent together.

Park stood, scooped her in his arms, walked down the hall, didn’t look at the blood-soaked towels on the floor, and carried her into the nursery.

Settling her into Omaha’s crib, curled and slight; she opened her eyes once more.

“Park?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Omaha?”

“She’s with Jasper.”

Rose nodded, closed her eyes again, nuzzled her chin against his palm.

“Oh. That’s good. She’ll be safe with him.”

He spent five minutes slipping pills one by one into her mouth, offering her water, and making sure she did not choke in her sleep. Then he sat on the floor next to the crib and put his hand through the bars to hold hers.

Her eyes moved back and forth under her lids; she sighed once, breathing deeply all the while, until her breathing shallowed. Slowed. And stopped.

Leaving the room, he looked at the gun on the floor, next to puddled blood seeping. He was feeling what his father had demonstrated with his shotgun. But he was not tempted to pick up the pistol. He had something he had to do.

At the back of the closet he found his uniform wrapped in a dry cleaner’s plastic. It had been over a year since he had worn it. In that time he’d become less disciplined in his workouts. The extra fifteen pounds he’d built up for the street through daily weight training and nonstop calorie cramming had fallen off. He had to snug his belt an extra notch, and his shirt hung loose at the shoulders and neck. He couldn’t find his pepper spray. His baton was buried under a pile of shoes. His hat, on a top closet shelf, carried a thick layer of dust. He had only one pair of navy socks to wear, holes worn in both heels. The Walther did not fit the holster as well as his old nine-millimeter had, but it would serve the same task if needed.

Uniformed, Park drove north.

He was still stopped at checkpoints but was never asked to exit his vehicle. He’d thought about digging his red magnetic roof strobe from the garage and trying to use the emergency center lane on the 405, but feared getting pinned in traffic amid uncleared wreckage. As it turned out, the surface streets were nearly as barren as the night before.

He saw few people on the sidewalks, and those rarely farther than several steps from their own yards or the doors to the occasional businesses that were open. A knot of them congregated around a storefront that had been pushed in and looted. He saw a man with an unmounted hunting scope scanning the eastern horizon, apparently trying to find the source of a smoke plume rising from the cluster of downtown towers. A hot wind was breaking up that plume and the others that were newly sprouted in Hollywood and south of the Santa Monica, a Santa Ana smearing the smoke over the basin all the way to the sea.

At the Pico check he overheard two Guards talking about a siege at the Scientology compound on Sunset. Three Super Hornets streaked overhead in tight formation, and they paused to watch them scream eastward.

One of them pointed.

“Navy.”

The other nodded.

“Looks like the Reagan just hit town.”

The first slapped his sidearm.

“About fucking time we got some righteous air support. See what the NAJis think of car bombs with a fucking carrier group offshore.”

The second shook his head.

“Fuck the NAJi. Those L. Ron Hubbard motherfuckers got more money than Jesus. Half the assholes in Hollywood are members. Don’t even want to know what they’ve been spending it on. Hear they got an armory in there, all the stuff Saddam was supposed to have, they really got. Say fuck the NAJis, drop some ordnance on that crowd before they have a chance to go Dianetics on all our asses.”

The Guard scanning Park’s badge waved him through.

There was a protest on Olympic, hundreds of sleepless shuffling down the street, silent except for occasional moans or a scream. A single banner poking from the middle of the crowd: DREAM.

At the Bellagio gate he was politely asked if he had an appointment. The Thousand Storks man asking the question wore nearly seventy thousand dollars’ worth of body armor, communications and computing equipment, and weaponry. Park told him his business was official. The Storks man looked at Park’s ill-fitting uniform and beaten-up Subaru. He looked at the badge he’d already scanned. It was valid. He nodded and told Park he’d have to be escorted to his destination.

The Afronzo estate was tucked at the end of the curl of Madrono Lane. Surrounded by the grounds of thirteen other homes, it lacked any views to speak of but was almost perfectly sequestered. Anyone caring to approach could either take the road or risk crossing the property of one of the neighbors before trying the security on the Afronzo grounds itself.

Driving in on the road, followed by two Storks in an open fast attack vehicle, Park pulled into the cutout before the road circled to the back of the house. There, with the Storks waiting, he sat in the car and wrote in his journal. Finished, he left it on the passenger seat and got out of the car.

Going up the steps, he straightened his clip-on tie. Unlike some of his fellow cadets, he’d been smart enough when he bought his first uniform not to ask why a clip-on. Those who asked were never answered, receiving a grunt of disgust at most. Rose had giggled at the tie, clipped it to her T-shirt collar. He’d laughed with her. Never explaining that it was worn because a normal tie might be grabbed by a perp during a scuffle and used to choke the wearer.

The door was opened as he stepped in front of it, held aside for him by Parsifal K. Afronzo Junior.

“Park.”

He waved to the Thousand Storks men, and they cut a tight U-turn and buzzed back down the road.

“Thousand Storks. I always get the feeling they’re in a constant state of sexual arousal under those uniforms. They’re nearly as fetishistic as Imelda and Magda.”

He looked at Park.

“Your uniform doesn’t fit.”

Park placed a hand on his holstered weapon.

“Parsifal K. Afronzo Junior, you are under arrest.”

Cager turned and walked into the dark interior of the house.

“Come inside, Park.”

Park took a step inside, hand still on his weapon.

“You are under arrest for the murders of Hydo Chang and his associates.”

Cager stopped walking and looked back at him.

“For what?”

Park pointed.

“Place your hands against the wall and spread your legs.”