by Lee Lamothe
The doctor called a phrase in a singsong language. The youth stopped in shock and Ray Tate stepped around Djuna Brown and kicked him in the groin. He went down and rolled under the Taurus.
“Nice one, doc,” Ray Tate said. “You parlez vous the lingo?”
“Ten years working medic in the camps in Asia.” He looked serene and professional, as though chaos was his milieu. “This is fuck-all, in the fullness of the universe.”
“Yeah,” Ray Tate laughed, “but tonight it’s all we got. Djun’, you okay?”
“Yeah. He spooked me is all.” She was frightened, but she laughed and was organized enough to have her gun pointing up. “Another nanosecond, that fucker was going to wear his ass for a hat.”
“Get the scatter.” He handed her the key. “We’re writing off the car.”
She holstered her automatic, stretched into the Taurus and unlocked the shotgun from under the dash.
Ray Tate caught the doctor checking out her butt. He went on the air. “Chief’s special, we’re abandoning our vehicle and heading on foot east into the command post. We have the shotgun, we’re salt-and-pepper male female, plainclothes both.”
“Units, be aware, chief’s special moving on foot, black and white female male plainclothes, shotgun visible approaching command vehicles from the west. Have consideration.”
Fifty feet up the block they saw a pair of Chinese youths in white T-shirts throwing outdoor tables and chairs through the window of Gratteri’s Italian. Teens, black and white and Asian, were looting high-end clothing stores, running through the streets with armloads of designer goods. A car caught fire with a whoosh of heat. And another. There were chants and whoops. Two abandoned vehicles were flipped. There was more chanting. Sirens were circling Stonetown, tightening as the units gathered closer. More windows went.
Djuna Brown started moving toward the group attacking the restaurant.
“Whoa, Djun’, fuck that. We only go to work for people.” He took his gun from his ankle and kept it down beside his leg.
A road sergeant, standing back and watching a car burn with a disinterested look on his face, glanced up and read them as cops right away. He pointed down Parson’s Lane. “Go around that way. You can’t get through up ahead.”
Ten strides into the tight, winding cobblestoned lane, a young cop with a high-pitched voice, wild eyes, and a noticeably bouncing Adam’s apple above his collar threw down on them and screamed, “Halt.”
They froze.
“It’s cool.” Ray Tate said calmly. “We’re cops on the job.”
“I’ll fucking shoot you. Drop the guns. I’ll fucking shoot you.”
“Chief’s squad special. Listen to the air.”
The young cop opened fire. In the endless flash of firing his face was a series of instant images, each one with a look of panicked wet dread, his mouth agape as though he were howling.
Ray Tate heard Djuna Brown scream his name as she hit the ground, the shotgun clattering.
He felt his heart crack and he dropped to both knees. Before the kid could round-out whatever was left in the Glock into him, Ray Tate shot him two-handed three times in the middle of the chest.
Everything was still. The Lane was crowded with smoky humidity. The sounds of racing engines a block away, the wail of sirens, the shouts, even the erratic gunshots and smashing windows receded as if he were going deaf by the decibel.
It was weird, firing into the uniform, feeling so calm he thought he himself had been shot and was ceasing to exist. His greatest pride after graduation had been putting on the blue, no longer being different but being part of something. Not a foster home, not a number on a state welfare charge account, not being on a rotating roster of household chores. Now he’d shot the blue.
He watched the kid, suddenly on the cobblestones, twitching.
He turned his head, slowly, as if his neck muscles were locked.
Djuna Brown, wearing only one of her little slippers, was on her side, fetal, both hands on the right side of her head.
He heard the clumping of boots and the road sergeant rounded the bend in the lane with his piece out and up. He heard the Road go on the air in the patented calm urgency only road sergeants had: “Ten thirty three Parson’s Lane shots officers down approach from the south.” As he spoke he kicked Ray Tate’s gun and the shotgun and the kid’s Glock to the rain gutter on the edge of the Lane. “Weapons secure.”
Ray Tate said, “Tate, chief’s special, I’m okay. My partner.”
“Gimme the outstandings.”
“No outs. He shot her, I shot him. In the chest, I hope. I had to stop him. He flipped out.”
The road sergeant went on the air. “No outstandings. Slow ’em down.” He walked over to the kid. “You’re one lucky fucker, kid.” He reached down and slid his hand under the Kevlar vest and probed. The kid moaned.
Laying on her side, Djuna Brown giggled and sat up as though she’d awakened from a happy dream. Blood dripped from the bottom of her ear lobe, where only the twisted fastener that had held her magical turquoise earring remained.
The road sergeant went on the air. “All in order. Don’t ask. It’ll sort.”
At the command post they waited for riot gear. Martinique Frost and Brian Comartin came up the line and stood with them.
Someone called, “Hey, back ’a the line, plainclothes. They ain’t startin’ the movie until we’re all in our seats.”
Without looking back, Marty Frost hung the casual finger straight up and there was laughter.
Djuna Brown was constantly touching her right ear where the blood was drying around the fastener. For the second time she said as if in a daze, “I saw it, Ray. It came out of the big light, heading straight for my face. It was spinning. I could hear it coming. Then at the last second it … it just veered and went for the earring. I saw it. It curved, like the earring was a magnet.” She giggled. She couldn’t stop giggling. Her head swung in giddy disbelief and the surviving earring shimmied.
Marty Frost looked back and forth at them and said, “What?”
Ray Tate told them what had happened in Parson’s Lane.
“How’s the kid?”
“Alive. That’s all he can ask for. Hurting like a motherfucker though.”
At the front of the line Ray Tate handed over his shotgun, gave his badge number, and made sure the issuing officer entered it into his notebook. They were given helmets, vests, and belts containing a baton, twist-tie handcuffs, and pepper spray.
The issuing officer looked at Djuna Brown’s ear and said, “Hey kid, you know you’re bleeding?”
“I bleed,” she said, giggling again, “for my love.”
“Cool, give me a call,” he said, holding out clipboard for her to sign. You could tell she’d charmed him. He leered. “Name and home phone number. If married, hubby’s work hours. If you want to wait for something that fits, we got Gap Kids sending over extra-petite vests.” He glanced down. “What’s with the slippers? We wake you up?”
Ray Tate said, “You got any stores on board, buddy?”
“Yeah, we got some pounders. Smallest’ll be too big but better than those cute things.” He called in through the open doors. “Boots, smallest, and better get a couple pair of socks.” A hand passed out a pair of black uniform boots and two pairs of socks. Djuna Brown sat on the truck bumper and took off her embroidered slippers, pulled on the socks and the boots. She laced them tight in neat double bows. Ray Tate took the slippers, balled them, and put them into his pocket.
A gorgeous lieutenant in a white shirt was standing at the front of the supply truck, assigning troops according to a chalkboard mounted on the side. She had the black-framed glasses thing going on, with French-plaited blonde hair. Ray Tate remembered a lonesome breakfast spent gazing at her in the Jank cafeteria, mute at her beauty, wanting to cross the room and ask if she dug art. But she’d got up and left before he could, and she walked as if in her own pastel world of enduring beauty. She had no wedding ring on
her ring finger, he noticed, but instead a twisted gold snake with a tiny ruby apple in its mouth.
Djuna Brown saw it. “Wow. That’s nice. Where’d you get that? You get that made custom?”
The lieutenant looked at the ring. “Yes. Nice, huh?” She gave Djuna Brown a mysterious smile. “A unique symbol of love, undying.” For a moment her face became sly.
Before she could saddle them with a hump detail, Ray Tate fastened on his belt and said, “We’re chief’s special. We’re a four-man independent.”
She nodded and made a mark on the edge of the chalkboard. The ruby flared in the electric light. “Okay, you’re Chief’s Special One. Roam. We don’t have enough rovers, so don’t worry about getting transport. Tie them up and leave ’em on the sidewalk, we’ll collect them up later.”
The remainder of the night was fire and thumps and crackling shattered glass. Rather than diminish, the rioters fed on the violence. The roving bands of angry Chinese kids grew in size and numbers and were joined by the socialist youth secretariat, mangy white kids in drab prole clothes and construction boots, masked anarchists in black fatigues, and more gangbangers out for some deep discount shopping.
Ray Tate led the way to the centre of Stonetown where they huddled up in a doorway. “Okay, rules of engagement. First, fuck property. Let them smash and burn, we hang back and keep moving, try to stay together. A cop gets in trouble, we go, all in. A civilian is in physical harm, we go to work. We go as a group. If any of us gets into the shit, we all pile on. No prisoners, then, no mercy. There’s gonna be mistakes, we’re all going to maybe see each other do stuff they shouldn’t do. Deal with it later. If we get real busy, fuck that twist-tie stuff. Use the baton to disable and keep moving. If they’re still on the street in the morning they’ll get swept up; if they get up before that, they aren’t going to do any more action.”
Brian Comartin was licking his lips repeatedly, his head jerking in every direction.
“Brian? Brian, you okay, man?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.” He made a little nervous laugh. He held his baton awkwardly and said with a weak smile, “This ain’t traffic control.”
“But it’s still control. We have to control them but we’re not here to cripple or kill them.” He tried to remember his training. “Keep your baton swings low. Short and choppy. Thighs, backs of knees, shins. The order is like this: push baton, low baton, the pepper spray, mid-level baton, high baton, and the gun, last resort. If we all do it right, there’ll be a lot of sore people in the cells in the morning but no one in long-term care with tubes up their noses.”
They edged out of the doorway. A squad of riot cops came up the street in lockstep, three ranks of ten, fully decked out in insect gear, pounding their batons on their shields and grunting loudly. They went through the block like a slow black wall, pushing inexorably without pause, simply walking over the rioters who fell under their boots. Behind the riot squad a half-dozen uniformed and plainclothes chargers were on the victims with twist-ties and subtle knee drops. At the end of the block the riot squad wheeled west with the plainclothesmen following like bottom-feeders.
Djuna Brown was jumpy in her loose helmet and swamping vest. Her face was tiny in shadow. She wore her utility belt bandolier-style, across her right shoulder to her left hip. Ray Tate took her helmet and adjusted the webbing. He adjusted the Velcro tabs until the vest was almost snug.
Ray Tate took Marty Frost aside and murmured, “Marty, if you can, keep an eye on her, okay? She just dodged a bullet and might think she’s supergirl.”
“Maybe she is. That curving bullet sounds pretty magical. Did it happen like that, like she said?”
“Yeah.” He thought it was spooky. At that range with the kiddie cop firing multiple rounds, it seemed impossible he didn’t take someone out. “Yeah, but she’s down to one earring and it’s gonna be a long night.”
The night was long on bedlam and his painterly eye saw stark charcoal scenes of brutality, blood and tears and debasement. He filed the images for a Paris easel and went to work.
They attached themselves to undermanned squads and teams when they could, helping clear rioters from streets so ambulances and fire trucks could get through. Mostly they twist-cuffed and stacked arrestees or shored up holes in the lines. Without gas masks, when they smelled tear gas ahead, they moved away.
As the night drew on, discipline wore thin. There was no supervision beyond what the cops found among themselves. No white shirts were seen in the streets. Sergeants and Roads spent most of their time in defensive mode. Their shouted instructions were ignored in the electricity of it. The rovers were shouted cackles no one could make out. There were cops with no radios at all. There were cops with no helmets or shields or batons. It was catch as catch-can. More than riot control, it was endless bouts of hand-to-hand combat. Suppress here, move there.
Better nature retreated before confusion, fear, and exhaustion. Wildfire rumours spread that a cop had been shot. That two cops had been shot. That a cop had been set ablaze. That a cop had been tossed from a roof. That a cop had his baton shoved up his ass. That a cop had been set on fire, shot, and tossed from a roof with his baton shoved up his ass.
Four rioters managed to isolate an old cop and they stomped him in chanting unison, trying to roll his body off his gun-side to get at his piece. They couldn’t, and in frustration they kicked his rimless glasses into his eyes. Eventually, they were piled on by chargers, who dragged them into an alleyway and, one-by-one, broke their arms and legs in a most businesslike way with their batons.
A firefighter, carrying a heart-attack victim out of a shop, was swarmed by a pack and beaten, the heart-attack victim left to die gasping in the gutter. The firefighter reeled on the sidewalk, his eye out of its socket, cradled in his palm. A black-clad man in a ski mask ran off with the firefighter’s hat on his head.
On one block a cut-off band of looters milled, kettled in by the riot squad on four sides with nowhere to go. Caught in the squeeze, they called for mercy. They were projects kids, laden with electronics boxes and clothing. Four plainclothes officers in headgear stood outside the kettle laughing at them. Then they threw their helmets on the ground, and took out their batons.
One yelled, “Open the gate,” and riot cops swung open a hole.
The plainclothesmen poured through into the kettle. The gate closed behind them, and they devoured the looters up like delicious crumbs off a cake plate.
No one was immune to their own nature.
With only one earring between her and death, Djuna Brown lost it entirely. She had a wild and brutal warrior side to her, tending to two-handed, high chopping swings and close-up shots of pepper spray. Her movements were wooden, stiff. Sometimes Ray Tate saw drool on her chin and she didn’t stop smiling. Shock, he thought, or maybe she was proving something to herself. In normal circumstances, after dodging a bullet, she would have been given time for reflection and counselling, the parsing of what might have been her final moment, the blessing of continued life and what to do with it. But there’d been no opportunity and she skidded. It didn’t matter who had tried to kill her, someone had, someone had no respect for her life, she was garbage to somebody.
Twice he had to move into her arrests and cut off the tight twist-tie restraints she reefed on screaming youths. He saw her drop her face mask and powder a looter’s jaw with a lateral swing of her baton, then start into him with her new boots when he was down and unconscious, stomping him out. Ray Tate crowded her up against a wall with his body and pushed up the visor of her helmet. Her face was in gaping passion he’d only seen in their bed or in the bathtub. But on the street it was sick.
“No,” he said. He grabbed her chin in his fingers and tilted her head back, hard until the back of her helmet touched the wall, and said, “I said, ‘No.’” But he wasn’t sure he’d got through to her.
Brian Comartin was in terror and that made him dangerous. Under the layer of fat were the jumping adrenaline-soaked muscles
of a young cop, under the refinement of champagne and fancy glasses was a frustrated middle-aged cop. He became all elbows and knees and chesty swagger as he recognized the results of his power. Once, he went up the alley with a gang of chargers dragging a gangbanger. When he came out he had blood on his baton and a satisfied smile on his face. When he got a young girl in army fatigues in a headlock and sprayed pepper directly into her face, Ray Tate stepped in and calmed him by appealing to his shrinking heart. “Stay with Marty, Brian. She needs backup. I’m worried about her.”
Only Marty Frost maintained. Her personal nature was strong; she had command. She ordered perimeters to be set up, supervised arrests, gave directions that were instinctively obeyed by wild cops. When there were outrageous beatings, she moved in and stopped them, but without making the chargers feel they were being over-controlled, that she was against them. Brian Comartin stayed close to her, keeping her back. They became a team and he seemed relieved that he had someone to obey, to feel he was protecting, someone to show his better angel to. Marty Frost took out a lot of shin, bicep, and thigh, and never touched a head.
They kept moving as a group. When they were alone, doing their own duty, they were mostly silent, breathing hard, moving through the lanes and alleyways, getting ahead of and cutting off groups of marauders. They found little groups of black-clad anarchists, veterans of street warfare, using the duck-and-jump. Hiding in doorways or under cars while police went by, then creeping out behind them and throwing bottles of gasoline or ball bearings or billiard balls. Ray Tate’s little crew did a duck-and-jump of their own and attacked, yelling, leaving the anarchists on the ground.
It was a long night and, when the sky lightened imperceptibly, they made their way out of the grid of Stonetown streets.
