Джеффри Дивер: Ninth and Nowhere

“Ahhhh... Ah...”

For a moment, Adam debates. Todd saw, Todd would tell. But then: No, I can’t do it. He cries, “Medic! Medic.”

Soon a shuffle of feet and the young man, hunched over, rolls into the spot between Adam and Todd. He glances at the wound on Adam’s leg and assesses it minor and then turns to the hemorrhaging soldier.

Who can’t be saved.

As his shivering death approaches, Todd tries to say something to Adam.

The lips seem to form a P . But then he goes still.

Every day for the past five years, Adam Rangel thought of the incident, thought of his friend’s eyes, thought that if he’d called for the medic sooner, Todd would be alive. What was he going to say that started with a P ?

He looked at the Colt sitting on the table.

Then: Fuck. Out of wine.

Most places that sold liquor weren’t open yet. He then remembered the Quik Mart on Ninth Street in the Nowhere District of town. He’d only been there once — it was a long hike — but he had a soft spot for the place, because the Indian clerk, Kari, the name badge said, used eighty cents of his own money when Adam couldn’t come up with the full amount for his bottle and the Hot Pocket. Kari was a huge fan of the Beatles.

Quik Mart it would be.

“I’m Patrol, yeah. Sure. But I haven’t been on patrol, lowercase p , in years.”

Fifty-nine-year-old Arthur Fromm was speaking to the watch commander of the 19th Precinct. A man who was twenty years Fromm’s junior. Short, intense, precise, as scrubbed as squash before going into the pot.

The commander was confused. “ On patrol?” But only for a moment. “Patrol Division, uppercase. Being on patrol, lowercase.”

Fromm nodded his long head.

“That’s funny.” Though the watch commander wasn’t smiling.

Fromm was tall and because he never seemed able to gain weight he was as slim as the day he graduated from the academy, eons ago. A fact that irritated many a fellow officer. His uniform was perfectly pressed. He sent it out. For years, Martha had ironed and rolled off lint every morning. The last time she’d tried, the fire department got involved.

The two men were in the hallway of the precinct house. Both started when a blast of March wind rattled the windows behind them. The building was 117 years old.

“I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important, Arthur.”

“Yessir, I’m sure.”

The commander was a captain, and even though the man resembled an Eagle Scout, Patrolman Arthur Fromm was respectful of authority. Always.

Yessir...

“I’m down two people in Riverside. We have to have it covered. The POS-Seven.”

This was a requirement ginned up by some pencil pusher in headquarters, stating in clunky bureaucratic prose that every district in the city had to have a requisite number of “personnel on site,” the count varying depending on population, but never less than one.

In this day of internet-connected squad cars, the requirement seemed antiquated. But there it was.

“Only for today. Mahoney and Juarez’ll be back tomorrow.”

It would be a black mark against the commander to let a district go unpatrolled. There was a reason more and more police departments were being called public-safety offices. The job of protecting the public was one of the reasons Fromm had signed on.

“All right, sir. Yes.”

The commander thanked him, though it had been an order more than a request.

“Riverside,” Fromm said.

Also known as the Nowhere District. Gentrification had largely passed the grim, pungent neighborhood by.

“That’s right. Larkin from the bridge to the park and Ninth Street. There’ve been some car break-ins. Graffiti. Muggings. Drugs. Don’t worry. It’ll all come back to you, Arthur. Do the things you used to do. Talk to shopkeepers. Ask kids why they aren’t in school. Drugs? Don’t bother unless it’s packaged for sale. Or it’s fentanyl. You know how to run a test?”

“No. It wasn’t a big drug back then.”

“You suspect that’s what it is, call it in and somebody from Narcotics’ll get right over there with a kit.”

“Yessir.” What he knew about fentanyl he knew from Discovery Channel true-crime shows.

“You checked out on the new Motorolas?”

“How different are they from the old Motorolas?”

The commander thought for a moment. “Supply’ll let you know.”

“I’ll get my coat and weapon.”

Fromm walked to the large cubicle he shared with another officer, a squat, cheerful African American woman named Delores.

“What’d Butch want?”

The nickname for the watch commander, thanks to the buzz cut, which in Fromm’s opinion was a bad fashion choice.

“He’s sending me out.”

“For coffee?”

“Ha. On patrol.”

He opened the drawer and pulled his utility belt out. It held a Glock 9 mm pistol, a Taser, extra magazines for the gun, handcuffs and a flashlight. The flashlight worked fine. He’d get new batteries for the Taser. He put the belt on. The weight was both familiar and disturbingly alien.

He asked Delores, “What’s the story on body cams? I read a memo but I don’t remember.”

“Optional for now.”

Fromm decided to pass. There was enough to think about with the rest of the gear.

As he left, she called, “You be careful, Arthur.”

He grunted her way and smiled.

In supply he got the Motorola, which worked exactly like the older version, though the sound was better. He swapped out Taser batteries. Then put his coat on, heading for the precinct’s front door.

Walking away from the comfort of his desk, he thought: Damn, damn, damn. I do not want to do this.

In his career as a beat Patrol officer, Arthur Fromm had his share of run-ins with all sorts of perps. Druggies — they were called “cluck heads” back then — and muggers and bank robbers. None of the incidents troubled him more than one would normally be troubled talking a crazy-eyed perp into setting down the knife he was brandishing.

But then, four years ago, Martha had started failing.

Little things at first, just forgetfulness. Then worse and worse. Dangerous too. The burning-uniform incident. Boiling eggs without putting water in the pan. Cleaning the living room walls with gasoline.

Of course, it was a complicated disease, layered. And there were the moments of crystal clarity and — eerily — memories of their early days together in far more detail than he could ever summon.

But good symptoms or bad didn’t matter. She was his wife of thirty-six years and he was going to make sure that she was taken care of until the end.

And so he’d transferred to Administration, where the odds were virtually nil that he’d be shot by a mugger or a husband in a domestic or one of the gangbangers from the crews that were moving into the precinct in increasing numbers.

Fromm had one month and six days till retirement, with a nice pension. He’d be home all the time and could dispense with most of the expensive full-time day staff.

Not religious by any means, he nonetheless occasionally prayed and he did so now.

Please, let me get to the end of watch today alive and unwounded.

Please, let me do nothing that would get me fired or brought up for conduct.

Let me get home to my bride...

He stepped outside into the damp, cool air, reflecting that at least the watch commander didn’t exactly cut him a break. The man could have juggled personnel and stuck Fromm anywhere in the precinct. But he’d given him Riverside. Part of Fromm’s job in Administration involved compiling statistics, and he knew that the Nowhere District was one of the meanest in the precinct — in the whole city, in fact. There’d been a murder there just last week — one gangbanger had killed another right in front of a middle school.