by Lee Lamothe
“He’ll appreciate it.” The Road looked at the fella up the street, basking in the flashing blue and red lights. “Good that you’re getting out and about, Ray. So, how come, anyway, you’re out so bright and early, on the rover?”
“This fucking heat. With the bug and the Volunteers, here I be.” He rubbed his face. He had paint crusted on his fingernails. His hair was too long and greasy and he had an unshaped beatnik beard. He was going grey and his eyebrows seemed to be curling into his eyes. There was a benefit to the dripping hair: it obscured his missing earlobe, snicked off by a wild shot when he’d been gunned. His eyes were red from smoking out his apartment. Several gin and tap waters might have something to do with it. Under his raid jacket he wore a black leather biker vest with silver conches over a grey sweatshirt, black jeans, and scuffed short cowboy boots. The handle of his gun, riding in his boot, made a distinct bulge. His badge hung from a breakaway chain around his neck. “Yesterday they had me like this directing traffic down on the Eight while they untangled a wreck. One guy almost clipped me and I caught up to him in the gridlock and tinned him. ‘What the fuck’re you doing, man?’ He said: ‘You? A cop? Fuck, I thought you was gonna wipe my windshield. I lost so many wipers to those guys I got my own parking spot at Walmart.’ Duh.”
“What you do? You wallpaper him up?”
“Naw.” Ray Tate shrugged. “If I saw me, badge or no badge, standing the middle of the Eight looking like this, I’d speed-dial my lawyer, lock my elbows and floor it, brace for impact. Anyway, I went down to Stores and checked out the jacket. Enough’s enough.”
Up the street outside the window, a short blue-and-white van with a caduceus stencilled on the side stopped in front of the shooting victim sitting on his recycling bin. Someone had spray-painted balloons from the forked tongues of the twisted serpents of the caduceus and filled them with FOK YU in stylized Chinese characters. A brisk young black woman wearing a mask and a nurse’s habit climbed from the passenger seat with a handful of surgical masks dangling from her fingers. She stood at a good distance, speaking to the fella, then leaned and at arm’s length held out the masks.
The fella reluctantly took one and awkwardly tied it to his face. After the woman boarded the van and it slid away, the man stared after it for a moment, then removed the mask and used the point of his cigarette to singe a hole in it. He waved it in the air to stop the burn, then tied it back on and stuck the cigarette through the hole, exhaling jets of smoke through his nose.
“Road, I’m rolling. Thanks for breakfast.”
“No problem, Ray. Don’t breathe in.”
Ray Tate wanted a real breakfast even if he had to pay for it.
Prowling the streets, it was eerie still, seeing masked pedestrians and motorists making their way through the morning. The four big men in sports windbreakers and red ball caps sat on folding chairs at California Street, at the gates of Chinatown. Drivers had their windows up; cringing pedestrians avoided eye contact. A taxi driver sped by a well-dressed masked Chinese man waving him down with a rolled up newspaper; another taxi clipped by, wowing wide in the road. In the rear-view mirror, Ray Tate watched the Chinese man start the long hike up Harrison Hill, rhythmically slapping his newspaper against his pant leg in frustration. At a coffee shop an Asian woman in business attire, holding her briefcase against her chest, was blocked by a man in a white apron waving a spatula over his head, shouting, “We’re closed, we’re closed.” Behind him through the street-front window, Ray Tate could see the place was packed with hunched customers who lifted their masks to sip coffee or eat food.
Down at the waterfront where the river widened into the lake, there were dozens of boats bobbing off the city’s edge. People believed the bug was landlocked and those with sailboats or power monsters slept on them, barbecued meals on deck, had rifles or pistols at hand to repel the diseased. They kept an eye to the pennants on their masts, ready to weigh anchor and head for Canada if the wind changed. There was litter and beer bottles on the riverbank where vigilant groups of Volunteers had spent the nights, ready to go hand-to-hand with any boatloads of Chinese migrants trying to sneak in from Canada to steal the American dream.
He eased the Taurus down under the span bridge and across the access road, turning where it lifted at the waterfront. There was a bit of reluctant mist still locked in the hollows. The sun was screened behind fading fog that looked nuclear in the strengthening yolky light. The radio muttered and he sorted calls and warnings and requests with a casual inner ear. A fist fight at a bus stop; all free units to the airport for a protest over rumours Asians were being routed from Chicago; a call to shots-fired on Marlborough in Stonetown.
Everyone was getting a little goofy with the two- and three-shift days.
“Any unit near Bradford and Queen?”
“Scouter four solo unit, right there, dispatcher.”
“Report a naked male complainant covered in pythons. Possible mental incompetent. Ambo rolling.”
“Repeat, dispatch? Did you say …” The voice rose to soprano, “Py-py-py-py-thons?”
“Ten-four, four solo. Pythons.”
“Unable to respond, dispatch. I got ophidiophobia.”
“Sorry, four solo. I meant to say ... ah ... spiders?”
“Okay, then, dispatch. Through counselling I’ve overcome my chronic arachnophobia. I’m rolling solo.”
There were appreciative single clicks.
A disguised voice whispered: “All yoo-nits. Ray Tate’s on the road with a pencil.”
Ray Tate laughed. The Road.
“All yoo-nits,” the Road whispered. “Ray Tate’s looking to meet new friends. Call him up for an autograph.”
A serious youthful voice came over. “Sergeant Tate, come up on the air, please?”
A female charger, sounding like a breathy beauty queen: “Oh, Sergeant Tate? Ray? I’m in the Hauser North, building four, tenth floor, south end of hallway. I’m real lonely, honey, my puffy pal is no fun. Knock twice and let yourself in. Do come and sign me out and we’ll go part-tay …”
He ignored that call but was a little itched to take a run up there anyway, scope the thing out. She sounded fun, the kind of girl who could stand in human gases and be cute with a clothespin on her nose. Except for his ex-wife, who was a cop’s daughter, in his adult life he’d only slept with lady cops and a nurse who wanted to become one. Except for a woman from an art class he’d taken over in Chicago, he hadn’t dated in a year.
Another man’s voice: “We got one down in the gun smoke at Hauser South. Sergeant Tate, come up on the air.”
Another: “We got a gunfire stage on Branksome in Stonetown no victim. Sergeant Tate, come up.”
The transmissions broke with three fast clicks as Ray Tate pulled into the waterfront parking lot near an abandoned bacon stand. He cranked the volume.
A level, unpunctuated voice, fast: “Urban Squad Two solo request backup transport supervisor seven-seven Marlborough Road holding one solo at gunpoint one-eight-seven no outstanding no ambo required supervisor detective required roll the catering truck.”
A female voice came on. “You okay, U Deuce?”
Silence.
Four rapid responses: “Ghost ten rolling solo.” “Ghost four rolling lonely.” “Scout four wheelman stag on it.” “Scout sergeant one lonely.”
Ray Tate imagined the ghosters and scouts and prowl cars, wherever they were, turning and racing like iron filings toward the invisible pull of a violent magnet. There were a lot of lonelys, solo units, and stags on the road, wheelmen whose shotguns were down with the bug.
He unlocked the short shotgun racked under the dash and started a slow roll to the access road, sorting himself a fast route, leaning for his red Hello light in the passenger-side foot well.
A ghost car came over, the charger a melodious thespian. “Ghooooos-terrrr Ten on the stage, dispatch. One for the box, one for the bag, all secure, break off, units. Con-tinue the coroner’s catering truck, sil vous plais.�
��
“Ten four, ten. Thank you.”
“No, my dear, thank you for this opportunity to perform for you …” the stage voice giggled, “… and all the other little people.”
Appreciative single clicks.
Ray Tate listened a moment. When there was no further air, he rolled the Taurus back into the parking lot. He locked the shotgun rack, took off his raid jacket and got out, slipping his rover into his back pocket. He popped the trunk and took a sketchpad and some charcoal sticks from his briefcase, slammed the trunk and walked to the edge of the river and set up on a defaced bench under a parched tree. The gold buildings of Canada, across the way, were half lit-up by the struggling sun. The sails of the boats in the foreground were still in low dawn shadow, vague smudges. A moaning tanker eased like a relentless predator down the centre of the lake under a plume of screaming seagulls.
Gold buildings and trudging tankers weren’t going to do it for him. He’d had it with the lack of flesh.
He waited for inspiration, something to engage him. It wasn’t long in coming.
On a nearby sailboat a woman came above deck. She had long black hair twisted into a rope, wore a white bra and red shorts. She carried a bucket and looked around, then stripped off the bra and shorts. Balancing herself to the rhythm of the waves off the tanker, she bent over and dipped the bucket into the river and doused herself down with water. At the distance she looked undefined, a smear of light grey. Minimalist, of no detail, as though she’d already been sketched or painted.
It was a vision that stirred him on a lot of levels. It was human and sexual, obscure and specific; enough to allow him possibilities, to fuck a little with reality. He flipped to a blank page and clutched the short charcoal stick between his knuckles. He kept the woman’s graceful shape but used the flat of the stick like a wide brush to make a perfect, small dark torso in graceful pose; he made her hair spiky, the hint of her eyes wide and Asian.
The voice of the female charger with the puffy friend at the Hauser North Projects rang in his inner ear. His homicide target was coming out of the courthouse at ten. He decided if the Hauser North stage hadn’t been broken up by the time the target was either down for the day or in handcuffs, he’d push the Taurus up that way, maybe get a date or at least a few laughs.
He finished the sketch and softly blew the charcoal dust off of the thick page. The shape of the small dark woman was a shadow, but he’d managed to get the idea of detail in there; she was recognizable. The buildings of Canada were bare suggestions of sinister mountains looming over her and the boat. The woman looked very small and isolated.
“Hey, Picasso, yo.”
He knew what the voice was. He kept his hands still and turned his head slowly and waited.
“You got a reason for being here, Pablo?” The man was red-headed and almost too short to be a cop and he was grossly out of shape, comically dressed as a jogger, smoking a small cigar. He wore an unzipped fanny pack and Ray Tate could see his hand rested on the butt of a revolver. “You want to break something out for me?”
Ray Tate smiled. “I just said that to a mutt, myself.” He identified himself as Intelligence and said he was heavy at the ankle.
The thick guy sat down and held his hand out. “Brian Comartin. Traffic. You got a better gig than me, the artist thing. They got me running up and down the Riverwalk, pissing in the weeds. Get us a boatload of Chinamen, they say, stop the invasion.”
Shaking his soaking hand, Ray Tate saw his face was flushed. “You okay, man?”
“I haven’t lifted more than a pencil in ten years and they come down to Traffic Flow and say, ‘Hey, you’re a cop again, get your fat ass down to the river, run around, and look for wet Chinamen. You see them, surround them, we’ll get you some backup in, oh, about two weeks when we get somebody off the lung.’” He laughed but he was panting and looked a little frightened for his own well-being. “Jeez fuck. If I wanted to work, I wouldn’a become a cop.”
“How many you guys down here?”
“Me and two others. One from Projections and one from Computer Enhancement. For four miles of Riverwalk, three miles of lakefront, and who knows what the fuck all in between.” He shook his head. “This fucking city. You ask me, every illegal who sneaks over here is a vote for the American way of life. When I first came on, I worked Chinatown, I seen them working the sweatshops, fifteen-hour days, buck an hour, kick back a quarter to the boss, rent a bed for a couple hours sleep. No fucking way do I send workingmen back in the water. I see a bunch of Chinamen coming up out of the river, man, I’ll take ’em home, give ’em a cash job painting my apartment.”
Ray Tate laughed and got up. “I gotta go to court.”
The fat man looked shy. He said, “Let’s see, what you did? You do anything good?” He was embarrassed. He looked at Ray Tate looking back at him with suspicion. “I, ah, I got a thing, too. I’m into, ah, poetry.”
Ray Tate thought for a moment, then flipped open the pad.
The thick man stared at the sketch. “Oh, okay. That’s good, man, that’s like art.” He looked around as though imparting a secret. “You should be in a gallery or something.”
“Yeah,” Ray Tate held out his hand. “I should be in Paris in a beret.”
Chapter 4
The State Police detachment in Indian country was a single-storey cement-block building with chicken wire over the windows and a heavy door with a keypad beside it. The face of the keypad had been ripped out; exposed wiring drooped like bright entrails. Access to the building was done by mobile phone or over the two-way talkies the detachment officers carried around the clock, on duty or off. Shotgun pellets pockmarked the fascia of the building and there was a flaring scorch mark like a triangular shadow where someone had incompetently thrown a Molotov cocktail, short. Concertina wire was looped around the entire roof of the building. Three Ford Expedition four-by-fours with peeling State Police logos were strategically parked around the entrance, backed in on angles to take up as much space as possible. Each truck had suffered damage, ranging from raw punctures from deer-rifle slugs to graffiti that called for Red Rool. All the trucks had the wiring for roof lights but they’d been shot out with such regularity headquarters said Enough and sent lighter-operated dash lights.
Inside the building, Djuna Brown sat behind a desk pirated from the asbestos-laden schoolhouse no one allowed their kids to attend. The desk was deeply grooved with messages: RED ROOL ROOLS, STICK THE MAN, RIP KOPS, SP DOA DJA OK. SP stood for State Police; DJA stood for Djuna. She wore her authority as though it were a secret she only shared with an unlucky few.
“You know,” she said to the man opposite her, back-handcuffed to a heavy oak chair, “you know everyone’s got a … thing. You know? A thing? That sets them off, makes them crazy? Cops are like that. I know a guy just goes nuts at animal abuse, especially dogs. Another guy comes down heavy on people who speed near schools. Another cop goes off on guys that beat their wives. You following? A thing.”
The man in the handcuffs nodded. His head was huge; standing, he was about six-five, just short of a foot taller than Djuna Brown. His torso was thick and his weight was two-fifty, she knew from his file, exactly double hers. Both were dark-skinned: he with Native skin and a lifetime in the sun, trapping, hunting, fishing; she being more an inherited brown Caribbean coffee with a good shot of cream.
She gave him a peek at her authority. “Ronnie, I asked if you’re following me?” Her voice had a bit of lilt, just enough that if they were sitting in the dark, Ronnie would still know she was from a southern island.
His voice was rough and deep, the tone a little petulant. “I follow you, Djuna.”
“Sergeant Brown.”
He brooded, not looking at her face. She saw a moment of shame there. Everyone called her by her first name except her troopers. They had single syllables for her.
She waited for him. Ray Tate had taught her to make time her bubble, create a different kind of life in there, wait things ou
t. Chat endlessly and fill it with verbal free-form jazz.
“I follow, Sergeant Brown.”
She nodded and smiled her tiny pearly teeth, then sat back and put her feet on the desk. She wore red satin slippers decorated with bits of bright metal and beading. He looked at them and smiled sadly. Her uniform pants dragged back, revealing dark blue ankle socks, above them smooth brown hairless skin. Her tunic was opened against the heat in the close room and she wore a pure white T-shirt over a red sports bra.
She wanted to tell him something, but she wanted him to tell her something first. “Well, I’m sure you’ve got a thing, too, right, Ronnie? Something that just takes you out of who you are and you want to go primitive? No rules, no mercy, because of the wrong of it?”
He pondered a while, then nodded slowly. “The hunters in the airplanes. The wolves.”
“Right. The hunters and the wolves. Winter kill.”
“Machineguns.” He wagged his head. “The blood in the snow, they leave them there. Kill them, skin them, leave the carcass.” His face gathered red anger. “I want to —” He looked up beyond the watermarked ceiling and struggled against the cuffs with his shoulder to try to reach up.
She saw he wasn’t dull or stupid and she put her feet down out of respect. She wanted to uncuff him but there was no natural way to do it before she’d finished. She still didn’t know if she was going to have to beat him. “All right, my thing is bleeding children. When I rolled by your place and saw her, I wanted to just beat you with a stick. If I needed ten guys with me, okay, I’d find ten guys, easy. And you know, Ronnie, I’m not like that, right? Since I came back up here from the city with my stripes, things are better. Not great, they’ll never be great up here in our lifetimes, not for you, not for them.” She nodded at the closed office door; from the other side her troopers were banging their boots and bullshitting loudly in the shift room. “But right now, there’s no more Saturday night rodeos. No cops selling hootch to your people, catching the girls drunk, and banging them in the trucks. I catch a dealer from the cities slinging meth or crack, that guy goes for a walk on the traplines for an evening and when he comes back he’s got some serious winter mosquito bites. It hurts me to do that, that’s not who I am, but I try to make a difference.”
