George Pelecanos - The Night Gardener

Holiday walked to his car. He had positioned it exactly where it had been parked as he had drifted in and out of sleep the night he discovered the body.

He sat behind the wheel of the Lincoln and finished the rest of his Marlboro. He took a hit, examined the butt in his fingers, and hit it again before flipping it out into the road. He watched the smoke ripple up off the cherry smoldering on the asphalt.

Holiday glanced over in the direction of the fancy plot with the used-car-lot flags and propellers, and the signs with song titles related to plants and botany. He had felt that cold finger the day before, passing by the signs.

Let It Grow.

Those were the words that had come to his mind when the patrol car had passed by, sometime in the night. But at the time, he hadn't yet seen the sign.

Holiday squinted, staring at nothing, thinking of the white policeman and the perp in the backseat of the car. Then he saw his brother, playing air guitar and high, long-haired and long ago, in the basement of their parents' house in Chillum.

'Fuck me ,' said Holiday.

He laughed shortly, pulled his cell along with Gus Ramone's card, and made a call.

'Ramone.'

'Gus, it's Holiday.'

'Okay.'

'Hey, man, I'm at the garden. On Oglethorpe? I came up with something.'

'Go ahead,' said Ramone.

'The patrol car, the one I saw that night? The car number was four sixty-one. As in Ocean Boulevard.'

Ramone did not comment. He was trying to bring up a visual in his mind. The mention of the car number had immediately triggered something in his memory.

'It came to me 'cause my brother was a Clapton freak,' said Holiday.

'That's fascinating,' said Ramone.

'Should be pretty easy to check the Four-D logs, right? See who took out four sixty-one on the midnight that date?'

'Except that I'm busy. I'm heading down to VCB right now. We've got a couple of live ones in the box.'

'You get me the name of that patrolman, me and T.C.-'

'You're not police.'

'That cop could be a witness. You're gonna want to talk with him, aren't you?'

' I am,' said Ramone. 'Not you.'

'Me and Cook, we could, you know, check it out. With you bein' so busy and all.'

'You got no fuckin idea what my day is looking like,' said Ramone.

'All the more reason,' said Holiday.

'No,' said Ramone.

'Hit me back,' said Holiday, and ended the call.

Holiday got out of the car. He lit another smoke, thinking, He'll call me with what I need. I saw it in him last night. He felt sorry for the old man and deep inside he knows he did me wrong. He's not a bad guy, basically, always colors inside the lines, but that's not awful. He won't keep me out of this, even if it's against the rules.

Fifteen minutes later, Ramone called.

'I thought about it,' said Ramone.

He had, in fact, found his memory. The cocky blond patrolman who had been at the Asa Johnson crime scene was leaning on car number 461 when Ramone had first arrived. And he remembered the name on the uniform's faceplate: G. Dunne. But he wasn't going to give it up to Holiday. Doc and the old man were running on passion and desperation. Passion was always a positive. It was their desperation that worried Ramone.

'And?' said Holiday.

'I'd be nuts to hand over that information to you. It's not gonna happen.'

'I don't need you. I'll find it my own way.'

'Just do me a favor and don't act on anything unless you talk to me first.'

'Got it,' said Holiday.

'I mean it, Doc.'

'Understood.'

'That includes conducting your own investigation,' said Ramone. 'Impersonating a police officer is a serious crime.'

'Don't worry, Gus, I won't turn you in.'

'You're a funny guy, Doc.'

'Thanks for calling me back.'

Holiday hit 'end.' Then he dialed the number for T.C. Cook that he had programmed into his phone. Cook picked up on the second ring. Holiday thinking, The old man was waiting for me to call.

T.C. Cook sat at his kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. From back in the office, he could hear the squawk, dispatcher's voice, and patrolman's response coming from the Internet site on his computer. It was often the sole sound in his otherwise quiet house. The woman the VA sent, the El Salvador lady, she made some noise around here, livened things up. He looked forward to her visits, but she only came once a week.

Mostly, his days were long on boredom. He got up early, made out what he could of the newspaper, then spent time in his office or the workshop in his basement, looking for something to do. He waited for his mail around noon and took longer than necessary to prepare his lunch. He fought off but often succumbed to an afternoon nap. He tried not to watch too much television, though that was something he could do without frustration. But it was a passive activity, all take and no give. Cook was someone who had always lived for goals, and now he had none.

He wasn't mentally weak. He had more reason than most to be unhappy, but he would not allow himself the out of depression. There was little upside for him to getting out of bed in the morning, but he did so and dressed before breakfast, as a man would who was headed off to work.

Getting involved with the church was an option, but he wasn't much of a Jesus type. His wife had been a devout Baptist, a woman of strong faith. Some police clung to God, but the job and what he had seen produced the opposite effect on Cook. Now that he was closer to death, it would have been easy and understandable for him to fall back into churchgoing, but also, he felt, hypocritical. He had not been an attentive or particularly model husband, but he had loved his wife and been faithful to her, and if there was a God, and if indeed He was good, Cook believed that He would see fit to put him and Willa together again, whether Cook attended Sunday services or not.

Cook stared into his empty coffee mug.

His doctor had said to have only one cup a day, if he had any at all. That caffeine made his heart race, and Cook didn't need that. Thing of it was, the doctor had also told him that the likelihood of his having another stroke was high, and when it came, it could be worse than the last. Wasn't like not having a second cup of coffee was going to prevent that.

His circulatory system was fragile, the doctor said. No, I cannot tell you how long it will be before 'the next event.' Could be weeks and it could be years. All those decades of smoking and poor diet. We wish we could do more for you, Mr Cook. Another operation would be too risky. Unfortunately. Continue to lead an active but careful life. Take your medication. Bullshit piled on top of bullshit, on and on.

Cook looked over at the kitchen counter. He had one of those organizers, two pills in each compartment, separated by days of the week. So he wouldn't forget a day, or forget he had taken the pills already and swallow double the dose. This is what it had come to for him. If he lived past the next stroke, he would probably be one of those dudes, had dead arms and legs. Then the VA would have someone dropping by to bathe him. Put one of those bibs on him while he ate. Send some poor immigrant lady to wipe his old man's ass.

He'd sooner eat his gun. But that was a thought for another day.

Holiday had called. Cook had then phoned an old friend in the 4th District whom he had mentored in the early '80s, now a commanding officer. Cook told the lieutenant that an officer in 4D had done his niece a kindness and she wanted to write a letter commending him, but she could only remember the number she'd seen on his car. Cook had no niece, and the lieutenant's hesitation told him that he sensed the lie, but he gave the information out to Cook just the same. When Cook asked about the officer's schedule, the lieutenant told him, after a long pause, that he was on an eight-to-four that day.