The Tin Man

by Dale Brown

  “Well, I heard this was the place to find all the grads,” Barona said cheerfully as he finally approached Patrick and Wendy at the bar and put out his hand in greeting. “I’m Arthur Barona. This is Captain Tom Chandler, one of my boys. We had a late-night meeting and thought we’d swing by to congratulate the graduates.”

  They all shook hands. “I’m Patrick McLanahan, and this is my wife, Wendy,” Patrick said. “Son of the former owners and honorary bartender tonight. Welcome.”

  “Ah yes, another of the Sarge’s sons,” Barona said. “Your father was a legend in this town.”

  “Is a legend in this town, Chief,” Craig LaFortier interjected, not looking up from his beer.

  Barona looked at LaFortier and nodded. “Hello, Craig,” he said, acknowledging LaFortier but his smile dimming a bit in irritation.

  Having been away from Sacramento for so long, Patrick hadn’t known about the strained relations between the city, the chief of police, and the rank and file. When he returned earlier that year to run the tavern, he had heard all the crass remarks against the chief, the sour jokes, the not-too-subtle digs, the derogatory and sometimes out-and-out hostile articles in the police officers association’s newsletter. But he assumed this was all standard employee-employer ribbing. The chief was accused of siding with the city against the cops in contract negotiations. That was understandable, of course-he reported to the city manager and the mayor-but to the cops on the street, the chief wasn’t “one of us.” He carried a badge under false pretenses, they thought. And, of course, every other problem associated with running a big police department was heaped on Barona’s shoulders, with budget and manpower cuts the big points of conflict.

  “What’ll you have, Chief Barona?” Wendy asked. “It’s on the house. We’re toasting the new officers tonight.”

  “Just an ice water, please,” the chief replied.

  LaFortier snorted his displeasure. “Can’t drink a real drink with the street cops tonight, Chief?” he asked.

  “I’ve still got a deskful of papers to go through, and alcohol just slows me down. It can screw up your judgment and make you say things you wish you hadn’t said too,” Barona said. LaFortier just shook his head and took a deep pull at his beer. Barona turned to Paul, held out a hand, and said, “So this is the new lion on the force. Congratulations on being named honor grad, Officer McLanahan. Fine job.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” Paul said, shaking hands. “I’m anxious to get started.”

  “We need tough, smart young troops like you out on the street, Paul,” Barona went on. “But Captain Chandler and I were remarking earlier that a man with your impressive background, with a law degree and as a member of the bar, might better serve the city in an advisory role at headquarters, or in SID. Plenty of high-profile cases coming through the system-good state and national visibility for a hard-charging guy such as yourself.”

  “I appreciate the consideration, sir,” Paul responded, “but I joined the force to work the streets. My dad said that Patrol was the only place to be.”

  “It’s true that Patrol is our biggest and most important division, Paul,” Barona said, his face indicating his surprise that Paul wasn’t embracing his generous offer. “But our job is to investigate crime, and that’s accomplished in many ways other than in a radio car or walking a beat. We have dwindling resources and manpower, and we can put our most talented young men and women in many different areas where their skills can be put to optimal use…”

  “So what you’re saying, Chief,” LaFortier interjected, still refusing to look up from his glass of beer, “is that Patrol, which is already only seventy-five percent manned, might lose another good cop to go work for you in your office or get stuck behind a desk in SID on another ‘task force’ or ‘special project’ that some politician in the state house or in Washington cooked up. Do you really think that’s such a good plan, Chief?”

  Barona was not smiling now. It seemed to Patrick that every cop in the place had moved three paces closer to listen. “Paul will still have to prove himself on the street, just like any rookie, Craig,” Barona said. “Alongside you, I’m positive he will be a standout. But he was recruited and chosen because of his unique background and education, and with all the necessary and vital programs mandated for us by various government agencies, we need to utilize every member of this department to their fullest extent.”

  “These ‘programs,’ Chief, are sucking manpower and resources away from everyday law enforcement and investigations,” LaFortier said, finally facing Barona. “Every time a new program gets started, another officer or two is pulled out of squads and stuck behind a desk shuffling papers and punching data into a computer. Some city councilman’s car gets keyed by some vandals in broad daylight, so we have a truancy task force, with six sworn officers dragging kids out of bed to go to school. You sent four of my guys to Mexico to work in some joint DEA-ATF task force, and they come back and say they sat out on the beach for four days. This so-called ‘new and improved’ community-oriented policing program took three officers off my graveyard shift just so you can…”

  Chandler tried to lower the temperature. “Craig, c’mon, ease up.”

  “Craig, those task forces are necessary in modern police-force management,” Barona responded, “and they bring in plenty of state and federal grant money to the department…”

  “Where is all this money, Chief?” LaFortier pressed on forcefully. “South Station is slated to get only seven new bodies next year, which won’t make up for the sixteen we lost this year due to layoffs and early-outs. Half our new radios are still in boxes because we don’t have battery chargers for them. We’re still using shotguns that didn’t pass POST armorers’ inspection two years ago; and we still don’t have enough automatic rifles for all the shift sergeants, when we should have them for every officer-”

  “Corporal LaFortier,” Barona interrupted, a stern edge to his voice, “now is not the time to go through the entire budget line by line with you. I’ll be happy to discuss it anytime during business hours. I came by to congratulate the new officers and wish them well.” He shook hands again with the McLanahans, studiously avoiding LaFortier and the others who had come over to lend him their unspoken support. “Whenever you get off graveyard shift again, Craig,” the chief said-meaning, Don’t ever expect to get off-“come by and we’ll discuss your opinions. Good night, all.”

  Barona continued his good-byes as he headed toward the door, leaving Captain Chandler with the others at the bar. “What was that, LaFortier?” Chandler asked when the chief was out of earshot. “You making a show for the rookies tonight, or what?”

  LaFortier looked at Chandler with disgust. Like Paul McLanahan, Tom Chandler had been one of the department’s hot young rookies when he came on the force twenty-five years ago. Tall, smart, tough, in excellent physical shape, and with a two-generation cop legacy behind him, Chandler was a fast-burner from the first day. He too had been assigned to LaFortier as a rookie to hone and polish his already-formidable cop instincts. He was promoted through the ranks at breathtaking speed.

  But Chandler had lots of outside interests too-namely, Las Vegas, gambling, exotic cars, and especially women. Like most high rollers, he had his good times and bad. When he was hot, he drove to work in a Corvette and wore silk suits; when he was not, he took the bus and wore mail-order polyester.

  He was now in his early fifties. Two divorces and seven years after making captain, he was struggling with a new marriage and a stalled career. As far as LaFortier could tell, Chandler’s newest tactic to try to jump-start that career and have any chance at all of making deputy chief or chief was to be the new department kiss-butt. “Since when did you become Barona’s doorman, Tom?” LaFortier retorted.

  “What do you want, Cargo?” Chandler asked. “The chief plays the hand he’s dealt.”

  “Bullshit, Chandler. I want what we were promised, that’s all,” LaFortier said, “and it’s his job to get it for us, not ge
t whatever he can for himself. The President promises a hundred thousand more cops on the streets, but after four years Sacramento gets half of what we were promised because the city can’t come up with the matching funds. After the North Hollywood shootout, they promise us more automatic weapons, better armor, better communications equipment, more training. We haven’t seen shit. My guys handle twenty percent more calls per hour than they did last year, but when I go to headquarters, I see all my guys sitting at desks writing memos or making slides for some presentation the chief is going to make on yet another trip to Washington. It sucks, Tom. Patrol is taking it in the ass again, as usual.”

  “ ‘If you ain’t Patrol, you ain’t shit’-is that what you think, Cargo?” Chandler asked. “All other police work is a waste, right?”

  “No,” LaFortier shot back. “But sworn officers to work a truancy task force, or a graffiti task force, or a ‘traffic-signal dodger’ task force? Give me a break. I need guys on Patrol, not giving speeches in front of the garden clubs on how we shouldn’t try to beat yellow traffic lights. Do away with all the bullshit, Tom, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “The chief comes down here to congratulate the new rookies, and you gotta dump all this shit on him with the whole place listening in,” Chandler said, shaking his head. “Real smart. Makes you wonder why the graveyard-shift roster will permanently have your name on it.”

  “You better get going, Captain-master’s waiting for someone to open the door for him,” LaFortier said acidly.

  Chandler shook his head in exasperation. “Even the solid cops turn bitter after a while, I guess,” he said, then turned up the collar on his overcoat and left.

  LaFortier finished his drink with a quick toss. “At least my ass is out on the street where it belongs, not sitting in a country club playing footsie with the mayor,” he said half-aloud. To Paul he said, “Tomorrow evening, be at the South Station by eight, ready for inspection, and we’ll go over a few things. Thanks for the party, Mr McLanahan.” LaFortier lumbered off.

  “Sheesh, he’s a big guy. They make bulletproof vests big enough for him?” Patrick deadpanned.

  “Oh yes,” Paul responded. “He looks like a big blue billboard.” He grinned. “Mr McLanahan,” he mimicked. “Sounds like you’re an old fart, bro.”

  “I am an old fart, bro,” Patrick said. “But I can still kick your ass.”

  “Have another drink, bro-you’ll stay in fantasy-land longer,” Paul shot back.

  But Wendy’s face was serious. “What do you think about all this going on between the cops and the chief and the city, Paul?” she asked.

  “I don’t think about it,” Paul replied. “Budget cuts are a way of life, but officer safety is never being compromised. Tensions will always exist, but the city and the chief always support the troops.” He smiled reassuringly, then put his arms around Wendy’s and Patrick’s waists. “It means a lot that you came up here from San Diego. I know the docs probably told you not to travel. You’re due next week, aren’t you, Wendy?”

  “Not for almost three weeks. And unless I was confined to bed, Paul, we weren’t going to miss your graduation. Besides, the boss flew into town, so we were able to hop a ride on the corporate jet. We head back tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Worked out perfectly then,” Paul said. Wendy gave him a kiss and scooped up more shot glasses and beer mugs. Paul turned to his brother. “Wendy looks great, and so do you. San Diego must agree with you.”

  “Yep, it’s great,” Patrick said. “Seventy-two degrees and mostly sunny every day. We love it.”

  “We didn’t hear much from you for a while there. It seemed like you dropped off the face of the earth last spring. Lot going on at work?”

  “Yes.” Patrick wasn’t about to tell his brother that he had been busy flying secret attack missions over the Formosa Strait, trying without success to keep China from devastating Taiwan with nuclear weapons-or that he and Wendy had ejected from an experimental B-52 bomber over central China, were captured, and were part of a prisoner exchange.

  “Well, at least can you tell me about this new company you work for? I remember you were forced to retire, because you came back here to work the bar-but then all of a sudden you’re gone again, and the next we know you’re in San Diego.”

  “I can’t really talk about the company too much either, Paul,” Patrick said. “They’re involved in a lot of classified stuff for the military.”

  “But you’re flying again, right?”

  Patrick looked puzzled. “Flying? What makes you think I’m flying again?”

  Paul gave his older brother a satisfied grin. Yup, he had guessed right and he knew it. “I remember your face, your talk, your entire body language when you were flying for the Air Force, bro,” he said. “You were one supercharged dude back then. You were groovin’, I mean, really getting into life! You look that way now. I know you’re all excited about having a kid and all, but I remember the only other time you were this-well, hell, alive!-was when you were flying, dropping bombs from big-ass bombers or flying some new supersecret plane you could never talk about.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s all this about secret bombers? I never told you…”

  “Don’t bother denying it-I know it’s true,” Paul said. “You practically salivate when something comes on the news about a war in Europe or the Middle East and the press thinks the Air Force flew a secret mission. Plus, you cut your hair-looks military-regulation length again.”

  “Mr Detective here,” Patrick laughed. “Just graduates from the academy and he thinks he’s Columbo. No, I work for Sky Masters, Inc., and that’s all I can say.”

  “I know you, Patrick,” Paul said. “This company you work for, they’re involved in some real high-tech shit, aren’t they? I mean, real twenty-first-century Star Wars stuff, right?”

  “Paul, I…”

  “You can’t talk about it,” Paul finished for him. “I know, I know. Someday, though, I’d like to know more about it. I’ve always been fascinated by all the stuff you could never tell me about, ever since you were flying B-52’s.” Paul hesitated, and Patrick felt that old telepathic connection again. It sounded silly, but it was nonetheless true: his brother could tap his head and find out all he wanted to know anytime he wanted. That was reassuring, somehow… “I know you had something to do with what happened to that aircraft carrier, and that nuclear attack on Guam,” Paul went on. “I got the same feeling when I heard those stories about the conflict in Europe between Russia and Lithuania, and earlier with China and the Philippines. You were there both times. You were up to your elbows in it.”

  “Someday, maybe I can tell you,” Patrick said with a smile. “Right now, all I can tell you is this: It’s really cosmic.”

  “Well, be sure to let me know when you invent a phaser and force field for cops on the beat,” Paul said, clapping his brother warmly on the shoulder before heading off to make another circuit of the room. “I’ll be first in line to try them out.”

  Her touch was light and soothing, loving and caring-but her hand was warm and moist, and as if a Klaxon had suddenly gone off, Patrick was instantly awake. “Wendy?”

  “I love you, sweetheart,” she answered.

  Patrick pushed himself up and peered at the red LED numerals of the clock on the nightstand; it read 5:05 A.M. He turned on his bedside light. Wendy was sitting upright in bed, her right hand still touching him, her left hand gently rubbing her belly. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  But she obviously wasn’t fine. “Are you having contractions?”

  “Oh, yes,” she replied, and he heard a twinge in her voice. If his wife ever used foul language, he decided, the likelier answer would have been, “Fucking-A, Sherlock, I’m having contractions!”

  “How long?”

  “A couple of hours. But no real pattern. Very irregular. It’s probably Braxton-Hicks again.”

  “Oh. Okay.” It was a lame response, but what
else do you say? ‘Gee, dear, you’re in pain, and I’m really concerned, but it’s not that pain, the official pain, so I’ll go back to sleep now’? Braxton-Hicks contractions, sometimes mistaken for real labor pains, had been a regular occurrence for Wendy all during her pregnancy. So things were stirring, but the action probably wouldn’t start for several days. Right? Wendy wasn’t due for another three weeks. And first babies were more often late than early-right?

  They had left the party downtown right after midnight. They were staying in a suite at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Sacramento, not far from the tavern. During the ride back to the hotel, he sensed that Wendy seemed a bit more uncomfortable than usual, but that was probably due to fatigue-her normal bedtime was closer to nine P.M.

  They probably never should have come to Sacramento at this stage-hers was the definition of a high-risk pregnancy. Wendy Tork McLanahan, an electronics and aeronautical engineer first on contract to the US Air Force and now an executive and chief designer for a small Arkansas-based high-tech aerospace firm, had spent most of the past two years in and out of hospitals after twice ejecting out of experimental military bombers, the latest just last June over the People’s Republic of China, along with Patrick and the crew’s copilot, Nancy Cheshire. Wendy had just recovered from her injuries from the first ejection when she was forced to eject from the second plane.

  Thankfully, she did not lose the fetus. After a brief hospital stay and a few weeks to recuperate-and be debriefed by what seemed like every agency in the US government except the Department of Agriculture-Wendy returned to work and kept on with her duties as vice president in charge of advanced avionics design at Sky Masters, Inc. until her maternity leave began two weeks ago.

  She was in great shape, the baby was fine, and she had insisted they could not miss Paul’s celebration. And after all that had happened over the past two years, Patrick wanted a family life, a normal life, more than anything else in the world. He hadn’t done much of the family thing for most of the last ten years, and he was anxious to get reacquainted with everyone.