William Lashner - Falls The Shadow

See, Gleason was a cop, and sometimes cops become cops because they like the power, the guns, the adrenaline rush of being on the front lines of someone else’s tragedy. And then sometimes they become cops because it’s a tough job that doesn’t pay near enough but needs doing and allows the men and women who take it up to maybe make a real difference in the world. It’s not always so easy to tell one from the other.

“You’re pretty damn good,” I said when he sat back down at the table. “You ever sing professionally?”

“Remember there was this rockabilly trend a couple decades back. The Stray Cats. Robert Gordon. The whole ‘Gene Gene Vincent, we sure miss you’ thing. Some of us just out of the academy had a group. I fronted and played rhythm guitar.”

“What were you called?”

“The Police Dogs. Played some of the bars around here. We were pretty good. Had offers from clubs in New York. But it was just a hobby. I always wanted to do what I was doing.”

“Police work,” I said.

He shrugged.

“It was a good thing you tried to do for Seamus.”

“He was a good kid.”

“Not everyone steps out to help like you did.”

“It wasn’t anything.”

“But I’m troubled here. You knew about his testimony in the François Dubé case?”

“Yeah.”

“And you knew that the defense would be interested in knowing about his former drug use, his misspent youth, how he was found by a cop in a drug house during a raid? You knew all that would be relevant, didn’t you?”

“I know the way it works. You guys on the other side take any little thing and twist it into something else.”

“That might be true, Detective. We all have our jobs to do. But when you learned he was slated to testify, why didn’t you tell anyone what you knew?”

“No one asked.”

“And you didn’t volunteer. You didn’t think Torricelli would be interested? Or the D.A.? They were basing part of their case on the kid’s testimony. You didn’t think they would want to know about his past?”

“He was cleaning up,” he said. “His future was bright. No one needed to know everything he had gone through.”

“Or about your relationship with an ex-drug abuser.”

“I told you, there was nothing wrong in it.”

“Maybe there wasn’t.”

“I was just trying to protect him.”

“Or maybe you were just protecting yourself. Like you said, everyone thinks they understand when they think the worst.”

He didn’t answer, he didn’t have to, the truth of it was writ upon his face. But if he had spoken up, things might have been so different. The D.A. would have turned over the information to the defense, she would have had to, and it would have been rough for Seamus on the stand, sure. It might have made a difference in the François Dubé case, sure, but it would have made a difference to Detective Gleason, too. Because if his commanding officers had known of his relationship with Seamus Dent, he never would have been assigned Dent’s homicide, he never would have rushed off rashly to confront Seamus’s murderer, he never would have killed the man, never would have been booted down to the auto squad. And he never would have been in this situation now, right now, with his fate in my hands.

“You should have told them,” I said.

“I know it now.”

“If they find out, they’re going to look again at that shooting.”

“Most likely.”

“It’s going to appear less like self-defense and more like a dark vigilante form of revenge.”

“It was what it was,” he said.

“But still.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It’s going to be bad.”

He shrugged.

“You understand I don’t have a choice.”

“I was just trying to do something good.”

“But that’s the way of it, Detective,” I said as I pulled out the subpoena I had typed up in my office and placed it gently before him. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

He didn’t look at it, he didn’t have to.

I emptied my second Blue Hawaii. The alcohol puckered my throat, the pineapple juice jabbed like a steel pick into my tooth. For a moment my jaw trembled and the blood in my head drained and the world grew pale.

Gleason reached out a hand and grabbed my shoulder. “Sakes alive, boy. What’s going on? Are you drunk?”

I shook my head and immediately regretted the action, the pain burrowing deeper with each shake.

“It’s your tooth, isn’t it? Let me give you the name of the dentist I was telling you about.”

“I have a name,” I said, grabbing into my jacket for the card Whit had given me.

“But you should give this guy a chance. He’s supposed to be relatively painless.”

“It’s the relative part that has me worried.”

“You need help, son. Really. I could give him a call.”

I put the cool of the glass against my jaw. “Who is he?”

“Pfeffer,” he said.

My eyes snapped open at the name.

“Dr. Pfeffer,” said Detective Gleason. “He’s the one who helped Seamus, and believe me when I say, based on what he did for Seamus, he’s an absolute magician.”

“Oh, Mr. Carl,” said Dr. Pfeffer’s receptionist, “we’re so glad you’ve come in for a visit. You’re looking well, I must say. And such a nice tie. The doctor is seeing another patient right now, but he’s certainly expecting you. If you could just fill out this new-patient questionnaire, we’d be so very grateful.”

It was bright in Dr. Pfeffer’s flat beige waiting room, too bright. The colors of the magazines laid out in perfect rows on the side tables were washed by the relentless incandescence of the fluorescent lights overhead, the air itself was conditioned by the jaunty Muzak pumping loudly through speakers in the ceiling. And then there was the pretty young receptionist herself, with her daunting cheerfulness, her own wondrous smile, her lies about my tie. Her perk made my aching tooth ache all the more. Walking into Dr. Pfeffer’s waiting room was like walking into a timeless, context-free capsule of dental cheer. We could as easily have been soaring to the moon as in a building in Philly, but wherever we were, we would show off our pearly whites and be jolly.

As I took the clipboard with the questionnaire, I noticed something strange on the wall beside the reception desk. Hanging in their wooden frames were an array of smiles, photographs of gleaming, perfect sets of teeth one above the last, just the smiles, nothing else, a sort of hall of fame of happy dental hygiene. I looked at all those perfect mouths, rubbed my tongue along the rows of my ragged teeth, and then retreated to one of the generic beige chairs and started on the questionnaire.

NAME: Sure.

DATE OF BIRTH: Getting a bit far away.

EDUCATION: Too much.

INCOME: Not nearly enough.

FAMILY HISTORY: Murky, at best.

HEALTH HISTORY: Surprisingly good, except for a tooth.

NATURE OF PROBLEM: Dental.

CURRENT MEDICATIONS: Sea Breezes at dusk.

HEALTH INSURANCE: Deficient.

DISABILITY INSURANCE: Why does this question make me nervous?

LIFE INSURANCE: Yikes.

GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: Huh?

GREATEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Excuse me?

DARKEST SECRET: You’re kidding, right?

PERSON YOU’D MOST LIKE TO MEET: A dentist. I have a toothache and I’d like to meet a dentist.

ARE YOU CURRENTLY IN A FULFILLING SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP?

That last question sent me back to the receptionist. “What is this all about?” I said.

“It’s the new-patient questionnaire, Mr. Carl. Every new patient fills it out.”

“But it’s getting a little personal. Like this question here about current relationships.”

“Well?”