The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Depends on what you’re using this Oort for. If you’re planning on running him for the Senate … well, in the present climate you’re gonna have a problem.”

  The next day felt surreal. Richard and Torres were on their final day together. Just before they headed out, Richard went by Weber’s desk.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?” he asked quietly.

  “Some. Bourbon is a great relaxer.”

  Valium, thought Richard, but he didn’t say it.

  “On a more mundane topic,” Richard said, “you’re not going to try pairing me with Snyder, are you?”

  “Yeah, I’m really stupid about personnel and can’t tell when people rub each other the wrong way. No, of course not.”

  “Sorry. I wish—”

  “Not happening,” and he was suddenly the lieutenant and Richard’s superior officer. “I don’t do that much street work anymore. It would make your situation here even worse, and we’re partnered on this … other thing. That’s enough.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Richard gathered up his radio and followed Torres out to the parking lot. It was a bright December day. The sunlight glittered on the gold tinsel of the Christmas stars hung on wires across Grand. They swayed in the breeze.

  “Would you like me to drive?” Richard offered.

  “Hell, no. We’ll take my truck.”

  “Okay.”

  “What the fuck kind of cop drives a fucking Volvo?” Torres added as they walked to the big Ford 4 × 4 pickup.

  “A safe one?” Richard suggested.

  Torres whirled back on him. “Don’t fuckin’ push it. So, you were a fucking little hero last night. I say you got lucky. We’re gonna be in my territory today. You keep your fuckin’ mouth shut.”

  They were searching for witnesses to a late-night shooting that had erupted at an impromptu party over on Edith Boulevard. They spent the day on it without notable success, and it was adding to the other cop’s general outrage at the world. It was now past four, and the cold winter afternoon was rapidly fading as they turned down the short street. On the north it dead-ended into the brown berm of the irrigation ditch. On the south it tee-boned into Cherokee Road and the graffiti-covered walls of an out-of-business indoor archery range.

  Someone had been very hopeful or lured by low rents, thought Richard as he studied the chipped and faded sign. This section of the North Valley was known for its dingy pawnshops and rundown bars, not high-end hobbies.

  He glanced over at Torres’s profile. The sun through the car windows gave the Hispanic’s skin the color and consistency of polished mahogany. Thick black hair sprang up and away from a low forehead and made his eyebrows look like escapees from his skull—particularly when he was frowning and he’d been frowning ever since their little exchange in the parking lot.

  Richard tried to keep focused, but it had been a long, boring day. He felt like the ventriloquist’s dummy standing mute on front porches and in a succession of living rooms while Torres asked questions. His thoughts kept drifting to Maria Rodgriquez and Miguel. And wondering if he’d been wrong to bring Weber into the Lumina. And wondering if he should try to get Angela out of the Lumina. He didn’t want to endanger anyone. And then there was his mother and the impending conversation with the judge.

  The truck rolled to a stop. Richard looked up at the house that was to be their final stop of the day. It shared half the lot with its neighbor and both were so small they had the quality of dollhouses. Richard was relieved that this house didn’t have any dogs. Most of their stops this day had involved dogs. Lots of dogs.

  They climbed out. The house next door had a blasted brown wasteland for a front yard, the boundary delineated by a six-foot-tall chain-link fence. Suddenly three large dogs of indeterminate breed and varying colors came flying around the corner of the neighboring house and flung themselves against the chain link, which twanged and rattled under the assault. Richard couldn’t control the flinch. Unfortunately Torres caught it and rolled his eyes.

  Torres walked up to the front door of their target. This house had as little vegetation as its neighbor, but no fence—and no dogs. There was a flicker of movement from the dingy drapes in the front window. All the endless stops this day had been routine, but this time Richard had a surge of disquiet as he watched Torres plowing doggedly up to the front door.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t just walk right up … ,” Richard began.

  Torres raised his hand to pound on the door. “Look, pendejo, when you do something to fucking deserve your fucking promotion,” he half turned to look at Richard, “then maybe you can tell me how to do police work.”

  His fist hammered sharply twice, then the door flew open. Richard was smarting under the unfair attack, but then he saw the glint of sun on metal and all conscious thought ceased.

  Richard found himself looking down the barrel of a gun he couldn’t recall drawing. The rough rubber on the grip rasped across his sweat-slick palm. Torres, his face twisted into a rictus of terror, tried to jump sideways. There was a simultaneous roar of a .357 magnum and the sharp report from Richard’s Firestar. The shooter jerked as Richard’s bullet took him. His head snapped back, and his arms raised like an evangelical praising God. That lifting hand meant the round from the perp’s magnum had parted Torres’s hair and torn across the scalp instead of blowing the policeman’s face off.

  Torres lay on the ground, hands clasped over his head, blood seeping between his fingers. He was cussing but tears laced and separated the words.

  For Richard, exhilaration washed up like a fierce heat, followed closely by horror. All the human-shaped targets in the world hadn’t prepared him for the reality and finality of his first kill.

  He had shot a man. He was dead.

  But maybe he wasn’t dead and Torres was helpless on his back in the dirt, while Richard’s gun hung limply at his side. Training reasserted itself. Rushing up the two small discolored concrete steps, Richard drew down on the perp. The magnum’s butt rested in the man’s open hand. Richard kicked it away and finally looked down at his handiwork.

  Where the man’s throat had been was a raw wound. A bit of neck bone gleamed wet and white through the blood and torn cartilage. The smell of blood hung over the body. Richard’s stomach heaved and before he could control the reaction he vomited. He managed to turn away so the bile didn’t land on the body. Acid burned his throat and the foul, sour taste coated his tongue.

  Officer down! Officer down! Get control!

  Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Richard whirled, jumped off the stoop and knelt beside Torres. The other cop’s curses had faded to mumbles and there were tears in his eyes. Richard pulled Torres’s hands away, terrified that he’d see brain, but there was only a long bleeding gouge.

  “Hang on. I don’t think it’s too bad.” The words tumbled and rattled out as he grabbed his cell phone and called. It was only about four minutes from his call of “officer down” that he heard a converging symphony of sirens drawing ever closer.

  Sergeant Danny McGowan leaned on the bar drinking a beer, shoveling peanuts into his mouth and watching the Patriots game on the TV hung over the bar. Kenntnis studied the man. The broad shoulders bled down into a wide, spreading waist. Judging by those shoulders the man had been an athlete in his youth. Now a shock of white hair crowned his head and the backs of his hands were ridged with veins and discolored by age spots. Kenntnis moved to the bar and ordered a single malt scotch. McGowan’s face was pugnacious, but the brown eyes belied the thrust of the jaw; they were soft and kind.

  “Sergeant McGowan?”

  “Who wants to know?” the man growled. There was a lilt to the words. Kenntnis guessed an Irish grandmother who had lived long enough to bequeath the music of her island to her children and grandchildren.

  In answer to the question Kenntnis slid over his business card. McGowan studied it with care, but made no effort to pick it up. He then gave Kenntnis an equally long look before pushing t
he card back. “I’m not retired yet, and when I do I’m stayin’ here.” A Puck’s grin pulled at the full mouth. “I’ll not be running away from the snow. I’ll shovel the white shit and outlive all them pansy asses who ran away to Florida.”

  “I don’t doubt it, sir, but I’m not, in fact, here to offer you a job. I’m seeking some information about …” Kenntnis broke off as McGowan came off the stool. McGowan’s big hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, and they were nose to nose, for Kenntnis had not retreated.

  “I sent that other bastard about his business and I’ll send you about yours too.”

  “I’m not here to do any harm to Richard. He works for me … .” Again he was interrupted as McGowan roared, “Like Hell he does. He’s a policeman in Albuquerque!” The bartender, face tight with concern, edged toward them. “Back off, Todd, I’ll not be needing your help.”

  “If you would let me finish I was going to add—in a manner of speaking,” Kenntnis said. “And Richard’s made detective, by the way.”

  That broke through the anger. The old cop frowned and rubbed at his head in confusion. “Now why the devil wouldn’t the boy tell me?”

  “Because I helped him get the promotion,” Kenntnis answered. “And therefore it’s tainted and he’s ashamed. Not that he’d brag anyway, it doesn’t seem to be in his nature.”

  McGowan stepped back to the barstool and sat down. “Okay, unlike that other bastard, you actually seem to know the boy.”

  “I assume you didn’t tell the other … er, bastard anything?”

  “Damn right I didn’t.”

  “Good, because unlike me he does intend to do Richard an injury.” Kenntnis paused for a sip of scotch.

  “What is it you’re digging for?” McGowan asked after a few swallows of beer.

  “Take a drive with me,” Kenntnis said. “I’d feel better in a less public venue.”

  Out on the rain-slick sidewalk McGowan pushed back his hat and gave a soundless whistle at the sight of the stretch limo parked in front of the bar. The driver opened the back door for them.

  “Just drive around until I tell you otherwise,” Kenntnis said and hit the button to roll up the dividing window. “Drink?”

  “Please. You got one of those single malts in there?” Kenntnis poured out a liberal shot and handed over the cut crystal glass. The cop took a sip and rolled it around in his mouth for a long moment before swallowing. He gusted out a sigh, then shook his head. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “A really rich guy who has Richard’s best interests at heart. I learned from the EMT what happened to Richard. Others also have this information. I expect they will use it, and … ,” he paused, wondering how to phrase this diplomatically. He gave up and just said it. “I’m concerned about Richard’s reaction.”

  “Then you don’t know him as well as you think, mister. He’s small and pretty, and you could break him with one hand, but you’ll never break him. He has a will of steel.”

  “He tried to commit suicide.”

  “That was before he had the calling.”

  “Police work, you mean?”

  “Aye.”

  “You make it sound like a religious vocation.”

  “It is for the good ones. They keep the monsters at bay.”

  Kenntnis smiled. “I think you’re one of the good ones, and that you taught Richard a very great deal.”

  “Well, I tried, and it must have took because he was able to stand up to the old bastard.”

  “And who is that?”

  “His father. Right old bastard, on the one hand talking about what lowlives cops were, and on the other tearing Richard down saying as how he wasn’t tough enough to take it.” McGowan drained the scotch in a long swallow. “Richard will never be pushed to try suicide again. You can take that to the bank.”

  Rhiana selected the bathroom at the Frontier Restaurant across the street from the university. It was a dive, open twenty-four hours a day, and she figured no one would notice or give a shit about a darkened mirror. The cloying smell of icing and cinnamon followed her to the back of the restaurant. The Frontier was famous for their plate-sized cinnamon rolls oozing grease.

  She closed the door against the roar of conversation and dropped the flow of numbers out of her thoughts. It was as if he’d been waiting for her. The colors boiled and coalesced and he was there.

  “I’ll have dinner with you,” she said, and left, unwilling to take part in any planning. That would make it a real betrayal. This was just … reconnaissance.

  Richard sat limply in an available wheelchair in the corridor of UNMH. Beyond the curtain a doctor and two nurses worked on Torres. The doors from the emergency waiting room burst open and Captain Ortiz strode in.

  The broad hand rested heavily on Richard’s shoulder. “Where is he?”

  With a jerk of the head Richard indicated the curtained cubicle. “There, sir.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ortiz walked through the curtain and the doctor’s outraged squawk became a low murmur of conversation. Moments later Ortiz emerged and joined Richard.

  “You’re going to need to talk to IAD, and you’ll be on administrative leave for a few days until the investigation is over.” He smiled at Richard’s look of alarm. “Relax, it looks like a totally righteous shoot. Joe said you saved his life out there.” Richard couldn’t respond. He just swallowed hard and nodded. “If you need to talk to somebody we’ve got shrinks available.” Richard nodded again. “And don’t think you need to be a macho asshole,” the captain added. “This is no easy thing. Do you feel up to writing your report?”

  Richard gathered his scattered wits. “Yes, sir.”

  Back at APD headquarters Ortiz kept his hand on Richard’s shoulder all the way into the building, and all the way up the elevator. He probably meant it kindly, but it felt more like the big man was trying to press Richard through the floor like a tent peg.

  They stepped through the doors of the bullpen, and a raucous cheer went up. Richard found his hand grabbed and pumped, his shoulders buffeted, shouts of congratulations, queries about the shooting, questions about Torres.

  He was pretty certain he never managed a coherent sentence. Even Snyder grinned at him, and yelled something about “Deadeye Dick.” To Richard’s horror the phrase went rocketing around the room.

  Then Weber was there standing in front of him. The brown eyes held worry, but he was also beaming with pride. Richard smiled shyly up at him.

  He had finally been accepted.

  The garment bag hit the floor with a dull thud. The living room was dark and chill. Kenntnis flicked on a torchiere lamp and kicked up the heat. The penthouse held that silence in which no living thing breathes.

  “Damn the girl. Where has she got to?”

  He quickly unpacked his suits, while waiting for Cross to come upstairs. It didn’t happen and Kenntnis took the elevator to the ground floor and out the back door. There was the sweet rotten smell of garbage in the Dumpster, and the faint hiss of a propane lantern shedding its muted light through the blanket hung over the opening in the cardboard shipping crate.

  Bending almost double, Kenntnis swept aside the blanket and entered the crate. What he saw shocked him. Cross lay huddled on an old mattress, blankets clutched tightly around him. His skin was stretched so tightly across his bones that his head seemed skeletal, as if the human envelope that contained the true creature was being burned away.

  Kenntnis squatted down next to the creature and laid a hand over his wrist. Cross pulled back his lips in a grotesque caricature of a smile. His gums were bleeding, staining his teeth.

  “We pissed ’em off bad last night. Richard and the new guy.” He coughed, spraying bloodstained spittle. “He’s okay. Closed a gate. Took back a snack.”

  “You’ve got to resist,” Kenntnis said.

  “I’m trying, but it’s beatin’ me down—the breaking and the hunting, the fighting and the finding my way home.�
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  “Do you think the girl can ward you?” Kenntnis asked.

  “I doubt it, and that girl wouldn’t do shit to help me.”

  “You haven’t given her much reason to.” The homeless god coughed wetly. Kenntnis held a bottle of water to the gray emaciated lips. “Where is she?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  “Could you find her?” Kenntnis asked.

  “If my brains were made of dynamite I couldn’t pop my eardrums right now.”

  Kenntnis gnawed at his lower lip. Something told him this was significant, but he didn’t have enough of the pieces for it to make a picture.

  He stood. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

  Three soft-footed waiters, two women and a man, orbited their table. Rhiana choked back an urge to giggle. Maybe this was the standard of service at the Artichoke Café, but she had a feeling some of it had to do with her and her companion’s looks. He was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater that heightened the effect of his high cheekbones and almost slanted green eyes. A lock of blue-black hair lay across his forehead. He tossed it back with a hand, and the waitress’s hand shook as she poured water into Rhiana’s glass.

  “So, you said you’d tell me why I was …” She hesitated, embarrassed to use the word.

  “Special?” he provided. “I will, but let’s not blunt the pleasure of a good appetite with business. May I order for you?” the man asked.

  “I … I’m a vegetarian.”

  “What a shame. I was going to order foie gras and oysters Rockefeller.”

  An internal struggle began. She had read about food like this in books and seen it in movies. But there was principle. He seemed to sense her dilemma. His hand closed around hers.

  “I won’t try to tempt you out of your beliefs, but consider. You are a superior being. The bounties of this world are yours to enjoy. Or at least to try once before you reject them. Then it truly is a sacrifice, and therefore worthier.”