T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

"Can I get anyone coffee?"

"What's burning?" asked McMichael as the answer dawned on him.

"Probably charcoal from the barbecue," said Bland. "We had pork tenderloin to-"

"Money," said Hector.

"Watch them."

McMichael hustled down the hallway, the old hardwood creaking under him, through what appeared to be the master bedroom, then outside through a set of French doors.

Hector barged past him to the smoking barbecue, kicked it over onto the patio and danced through the sparks and embers and smoke, spreading out the half-consumed stacks of bills. The outer layers of cash were curled and rimmed with orange.

McMichael dragged over the garden hose and sprayed it all down while Hector scuffed his boot bottoms across the lawn. He returned from a darkened corner of the backyard with a leather briefcase, raised it in one hand and let the lid drop open.

"What a dumbshit," he said.

They found Jerry and Mitzi sitting together on the couch in the living room. Bland's face was white. He looked like he was chewing something, then not. The four uniforms stood back, watching them with uncomfortable looks on their faces.

"We're going downtown," said McMichael.

Bland took a deep breath, rose and sighed. Mitzi stood and hugged him. Bland bent again, hands still cuffed behind him, settling his face into her hair.

"I love you, Mitz."

"I love you, Jerry." She was sobbing and trembling hard. "I did what you told me to, hon."

"You're the best gal ever."

Bland turned from his wife and kind of backed up against her. For one baffling moment McMichael thought he was groping her. Bland looked at him without interest. Then he bent over at the waist and a terrific explosion concussed the room. Mitzi collapsed. Bland straightened and arched his back and a second shot roared into the walls. A red hole opened on the stomach of his robe and his head flew back. McMichael ducked and cleared leather just as Bland's knees hit the floor. Then his face. The snub-nosed detective special was still locked in his cuffed hands.

McMichael remembered a time when he was six and asked his parents for a dog. His mother was against it because dogs were dirty and she was a fastidious homemaker and she had her hands full with baby Raegan.

Their little two-bedroom in Logan Heights shone like a jewel under Margaret's determined care. McMichael could remember the smell of lemon oil on the Sears Early American dining room set, of vinegar on the window glass and pine disinfectant on the linoleum floors. Once, his father, dramatizing some point about Margaret's domestic obsessions, had eaten a fried egg off the floor, rising with a victorious smile.

They didn't get the dog. Gabriel seemed to take this harder than his son. Though the specifics were no longer clear to him, McMichael recalled that Gabriel was around the house even less, and more than usually short-tempered.

But McMichael clearly remembered Gabriel showing up one Saturday afternoon around Christmas with a Shetland pony borrowed from a friend. He'd watched his father lead the shaggy animal up the walk of their house, push open the front door and slap the animal through with a hearty "Eeee- hahhh!" A theatrical fight had followed, with Margaret screaming both Gabriel and the pony back out of the house, Raegan wailing and the neighbors all gathered outside to see the show. Gabriel had led the horse around the block for hours after, every kid in the 'hood getting a ride. McMichael didn't see his father around the house again until midsummer.

McMichael thought of all this as he sat with Raegan next to his father's hospital bed early Thursday morning, three short hours after the catastrophe at the border and Jerry Bland's attempted murder-suicide.

Raegan's message had greeted McMichael when he finally got home that morning, well after two o'clock, his mind strangely disengaged and his guts just starting to unknot from the shock.

Tom, Dad's had an accident. He's okay, Tom, but some bones are broken. We're at General.

Captain Don Rawlings was dead.

As were Mason and Martin Axelgaard, and two of the gunmen on the catwalk.

And Jerry Bland.

Mitzi was critical.

Hatter had a bruise the size of a soccer ball on his chest: Mason Axelgaard's.38 soft-tip had almost- but not quite- made it through the vest.

McMichael let go of his father's hand when Tim Keller walked in, reeking of alcohol.

"Ah, Tommy. Like I told Raegan, we were on our way back from St. Agnes's- spaghetti night- and Gabe just walked into the street. The car wasn't going fast but it knocked him up on the windshield. Two broken legs, as you can see. And a concussion, too."

"I do see, Tim. Excuse us, please."

"I'm sticking with a friend, Tom. And don't be blaming me."

"Go."

"I'm stick-"

McMichael rose and guided Tim out by the collar of his jacket, slammed the door. He sat there with Raegan until the sun came up and Gabe finally opened his eyes, just barely visible beneath the gauze turban that covered his head.

Gabriel's eyes moved left to right, then back again. Then up and down. They found his daughter, then his son, and settled. His eye sockets were black and the whites were a bloody red.

"Tommy. Rae," he whispered.

"You're okay, Pop," said McMichael. "You're going to be just-"

"I love you, Dad," said Raegan.

"I never saw a thing."

"You don't have to talk," said Raegan.

"My head feels like they've got it in a vise."

He sipped some water that Raegan held up for him. A nurse bustled in and shot something into the IV drip, bustled out.

Gabriel's eyes closed and he slept.

McMichael lay on the floor beside the bed, a blanket under his head, his jacket zipped to his chin and his feet freezing cold. He dreamed of red waves breaking on black sand- wave after wave, set after set, endless red waves stacked all the way to the horizon.

He woke at first light to a nurse with a cup of coffee for him.

"Where's Rae?"

"She went home, Dad. Up all night."

"Good."

"Why is that good?"

"Hold my hand, Tom."

McMichael held the rough old hand, thought about the feel of that hand on his face back when he was seven and had stumbled into a glass coffee table. The glass had shattered and cut his cheek deeply, but McMichael had feared repercussions and had hidden in a closet. Gabe heard the sound and followed the blood trail. Gabe found him and helped him out and held his son's blood-and-tear-covered face in his big hands. The roughness is what McMichael remembered now, and the soothing, lighthearted way that Gabe got him into the bathroom and then to the emergency room for shots and stitches.

"Over the years, there's been a lot of talk about what happened to Victor Braga behind the Waterfront."

"Sure has, Pop."

"I think you should know the real truth of it, son."

"Yes."

"I did it."

"I know."

"How?"

"It lined up."

"I was angry. I was furious. I was looking for trouble. Your grandfather Franklin was a good and gentle man."

"It's okay, Pop."

"I didn't want to go to jail."

"No one does."

"So there it is. The policeman's old man damn near beat a boy to death and never paid for it."

"I think you paid."

"There's some truth in that, Tom. I don't know what to tell Rae."

"Tell her what you told me."

"Don't know if I can. Maybe you could."

"It would mean more from you."

"Same story, either way."

"Not really."

Gabriel was quiet for a long while. "Tommy, could you find me a cup of coffee like that, maybe put a nip in it? I feel a little off. There's a bottle in my coat, in that closet there. I remember checking it in the ambulance. Never broke! And they try to tell you there's no God."