by John Knoerle
Chapter 17
Wes Lyedecker stood on the front step of Florence Jillison's pre-war bungalow on a modest tree-lined street and rang the doorbell. He recalled the scene two nights before when he'd had to help Florence up the walk and root in her purse for the door key she couldn't seem to find, a sight that had set her giggling uncontrollably. Wes had to shush her repeatedly as he jabbed keys at the lock. Just as he inserted the winning key, a light had flared on inside the house.
Wes listened for approaching footsteps, considered ringing the bell again, didn't want to seem desperate, waited. He took three deep breaths, big gulps of air followed by long slow exhalations. It didn't help. He looked at his watch. 4:47 PM. If Larry Tenace wasn't already home from work he would be soon.
When Larry Tenace had opened the door in his bathrobe two nights before the look on his befuddled blue eyeballs had been the same as when Wes shook his hand for the first time. He had exhibited no sign of suspicion or surprise. Wes had slipped his arm out from under the giggling Florence and gently nudged her across the sill, saying 'Congratulations on your victory.'
Wes pressed the bell for the second time as Florence opened the door. She was wearing black spandex pants, a V-neck canary yellow overblouse gathered by a wide black soft leather belt with a gold buckle. Her feet were bare. "Wes, so glad you could make it. How are you?"
"I'm hangin' in there."
"And how's Sherri doing?"
"She's fine, last I heard."
"Wonderful. Did you have any trouble finding us?"
"Uh, no. You were right here."
"Come in, come in."
Wes stepped inside. He felt overdressed in his sports coat and slacks. He waited to see if Florence would greet him with a handshake, a quick hug, or a kiss. Florence closed the door and said "C'mon."
Wes followed Florence through the house, through the dark musty living room, down a hall, past the master bedroom and an old four poster piled high with lace pillows, past a bathroom, a guest room and a room with a small desk and a very large TV. At the end of the hall they entered a glassed-in porch that looked out over a garden bursting with impatiens, long-stemmed renunculas and pastel sweet peas wending their way up the back fence. Purple wisteria hung down from a trellis like grape clusters.
"Wow," said Wes.
"Isn't it grand? Larry's such a wonderful gardener."
Wes looked around and nodded appreciatively. Larry again. 'Did you have any trouble finding us,' she had said. Florence settled in a brightly-floral rattan couch in front of a circular, glass-topped table. Wes sat in the white wicker armchair to her right. She looked splendid. Wes noted with pleasure that her lipstick had been very recently applied.
Florence popped up from couch. "Shit, I'm losing it. I didn't even offer you anything."
"I'm fine," said Wes, rising after her.
"Well, it's almost five o'clock. I'm having a glass of wine," said Florence as she padded across the pale lemon plush and disappeared down the hall.
Wes looked around the room. A draftsman's desk strewn with letters and legal forms faced the garden. A folded up lap top sat on a window ledge next to a pot of violets. A combination phone/fax rested on a corner shelf next to a watering can. Wes wondered why in the world Florence had left a message on his phone machine requesting a meeting.
Florence whisked back into the room, a glass in each hand. "I brought you a bourbon. I figured you could use a real drink but I didn't know what you like so I figured all men like bourbon. Don't they?"
"Absolutely," said Wes, accepting the drink as they resumed their seats. He doubted that he liked bourbon but sitting across from the beautiful soon-to-be Mayor on her glassed-in porch at sunset, drinking cocktails and about to have a 'meeting', he felt quite sophisticated.
"We have got to stop meeting like this," said Florence, tucking up her knees and cupping her toes on the glass-topped table. Like her hands, her feet were slender, the pads of her toes long and elegantly tapered, the nails buffed and glossy with a hint of coral.
Wes took a sip. Once he got past the initial shock, the bourbon had a kind of sweet aftertaste. "Ha ha," he said.
Florence wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'm in the earliest of early stages but…I want to draft a proposal to the city council for a community based policing pilot program. And I want you…" Florence reached out and touched his arm. "…to help me." She tugged at his sleeve. "Aren't you hot in that thing?"
"Little warm," said Wes, shrugging off his sports coat and draping it across the back of his wicker chair. He hoped his anti-perspirant was working.
"Better," said Florence. She watched her toes wiggle as she said, "You have a stellar academic backround and you're certainly more up-to-date on the subject than I am. Could you…would you do me the favor of putting your suggestions for the program down on paper?"
"Umm, sure. Of course!"
"I knew I could count on you." Florence pushed at his leg playfully with her foot. When Wes snapped his leg back in place Florence placed her naked foot against his thigh and left it there. "Who knows, if we can get it funded - it should have a catchy title by the way, something like Citizen Oriented Policing System or somesuch - then we could maybe talk about appointing a bright eager young man as Officer in Charge." Florence fondled his thigh with her toes. Wes felt the fine hairs on the nape of his neck stand as one. He remained motionless, listening for the slam of a car door in the driveway, the skritch of a key in the front lock.
"That's very kind of you," squeaked Wes, slugged some bourbon, cleared his throat. "It's an honor really…"
"Buh-utt," said Florence, kneading his thigh.
"But I don't think senior officers would take kindly to a new program headed by a…relatively new officer."
"I didn't mean you," she said.
"Oh. Well I thought that…"
He shut up when Florence smiled her all-encompassing smile. She was teasing him. He returned the smile, surreptiously advancing his hand toward her bare foot. Florence sat up straight on the floral couch and tucked her hands between her legs. "Wes, I'm worried about all these reports of an influx of methedrine into the community. What's going on and what are we doing about it?"
Wes sat back at this sudden appearance of the Mayor-elect. He assumed the formal bearing of a subordinate. "Uh, all we can, so far as I know. I know the narcotics squad suspects there's a major meth lab in the area…" Shit. Was this privileged information? The hell with it. The Mayor-elect had a right to know what she was up against. "And we're pursuing the investigation vigorously. I'm sure we'll bust it wide open very soon."
Florence sighted down her eyebrows at Wes. "Who's 'we'?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Who is 'we'?"
"We. The members of the Wislow PD."
Florence cocked her head. "You haven't let Officer Bell talk you into anything have you officer?"
"No, no," said Wes to Florence's searching hazel eyes. Eyes that sparkled with superior wisdom and understanding.
"Any sort of personal agenda? Based on recent events?"
"No of course not." Wes wondered how she could know this.
"Wes, I've known Thomas J. Bell since he was a radio star in Santa Barbara. He emceed a couple wheelchair basketball events I organized. You think he's manic now you should have seen him fifteen years ago. Gawd. The joke used to be that Bell was like a large whirring object. At a distance he repelled you with…what do you call it, when something whirls around?"
"Centrifugal force?"
"Centrifugal force." Florence let the smile drain from her face. "And if you got too close he sucked you in."
"Well, I'm not…I mean…" Wes paused when the phone rang, grateful for the interruption. Florence leaned forward and touched his wrist. "We'll let the machine get it," she said softly, as if it could overhear.
Wes felt his pulse drum against her fingertips. Now that Florence had broached the subject he did have one serious bone of contention with Bell. The contract with the city
that Wes had signed declared a cop 'vested' after five years, pension guaranteed and more difficult to fire than a postal worker. Which meant Bell would have kept his job had Lester Krumrie been re-elected while Wes, as a rookie, would have been gone the next day. "I know that Officer Bell can be…Ow!"
"God, Wes, I'm so sorry," said Florence after digging her nails into the meat of his hand when the fax bell rang. The machine groaned to life, grinding out a shiny sheet. They both turned to watch its progress. Florence raised herself off the floral couch when the machine cut the page, attempting to read the upside down fax from fifteen feet away.
"I better let you get back to work," said Wes, standing.
Florence didn’t argue. She crossed to the fax machine and stared intently at the shiny sheet. Wes excused himself and walked back down the hall.
Chapter 18
"You've had private conversations with the Mayor and the Chief of Police?!"
"It's a small town, Mom. It's not like home."
Wes had gone straight home from his meeting with Florence, microwaved dinner, drunk two beers and called his mother. All he'd said was that both Florence and Frank Sunomoka had cautioned him about becoming too closely involved with his training officer. He sat at the kitchen counter with the Princess phone tucked under his chin.
"You should always be faithful to your partner. He's not on the take is he?"
"No, no."
"There's nothing worse than a crooked cop."
"He's not crooked, Mom. He's more…"
"What, dear? What is he?"
"Well, he's not very, uh, fastidious about certain fine points."
"I see. Do they really matter? These fine points?"
"They could get me fired." Wes could hear his mother silently complete the sentence, 'And quit this ridiculous TV cop show fantasy and return home to Boston where you belong.'
"You know what I mean. Does your partner's lack of…what's his name by the way?"
"Bell."
"Does Officer Bell's lack of fastidiousness tend to clarify or obfuscate the essential truth of the situation?"
Wes ran his hand through his hair. "Well…so far I would have to say the scale comes down on the side of clarify."
"Umm hmm," said his mother. "I'm afraid to death to ask you what you have been doing on your…rounds. I have been having the most horrific dreams."
"I'm doing fine on my rounds."
"All right."
"I am."
"I believe you."
"It's all the politics I'm having a hard time with." "You should try working in hospital administration." A sound like high wind through a narrow tunnel whistled down the line. After a long moment his mother spoke. "I don't have any brilliant wisdom to impart concerning office politics, Wesley. Except to say to thine own self be true. And cover your ass."
"Mo-om," laughed Wes.
"I know mother's shouldn't talk that way but you're a grown man now and I intend on speaking to you as one. I've been out in the workplace now for nine years, ever since your father left, and I've learned a few things along the way. Be scrupulously honest whenever possible, say as little as posible when you cannot and don't let the bastards get you down."
Wes shook his head. For someone with no wisdom to impart she had a lot to say. "Which bastards?" he said, hoping his mother would tell him whether to side with the Mayor-elect, the Chief of Police and the rest of the civilized world, or Officer Bell. Of course he hadn't told her that his left ear was still ringing from breaking up a fight between Bell and the watch commander, that he still had huge yellow-purple contusions on his chest and abdomen from being shot during a quasi-legal drug raid, that he had gathered a urine sample from the current Mayor and performed cunnilingus on the Mayor-elect. These were not the sort of things you could tell your mother.
"I think what you'll discover, what I've discovered over the years is that they're all bastards at one time or another, myself included."
"Oh, Mom, c'mon…"
"You don't know everything about your mother, Wesley. I always strive to be a decent person but there are times when they don't leave you any choice."
"Is everything OK, Mom?"
"Everything's fine."
"What times are you referring to?"
"It's nothing important."
This was why Wes avoided calling his mother. They were too much alike. "I should be home for Thanksgiving. Unless I have to work."
"Oh poo. Who works on Thanksgiving?"
Wes heard a sharp call-waiting click on the line. "Rookie cops I imagine."
"Is that you?"
"I think so."
"Then I'll let you go," said his mother and rang off.
"Hey, man, one of the all time great Star Trek episodes, it just started," said Bell after Wes clicked the button and said hello. "Get your nappy ass over here."
-----
In both length and duration the Wislow was one of the shortest rivers in the United States. Its source was the runoff from the mountains that ringed the town and thus it ran its seven mile course back to the ocean only during the rainy season, December through April. The river was already a few weeks past its peak as it flowed placidly down a wide sandy bed. A light breeze scalloped the surface making the moonlit water look like snakeskin.
"That little fuck really wanted to off himself, didn't he?" said Bell over his shoulder.
Cobalt blue sparks of moonlit dew burst from the tall grass as the blonde Lab streaked along the rutted path above the river. The German Shepherd romped by in hot pursuit. "Yeah," said Wes. "You could say he was dead set on it."
"Oh, ho. You make joke, no?"
"I make joke, yes," said Wes in his best imitation of Bell's imitation of a Russian accent.
"Drowning yourself in two inches of toilet water, man!" said Bell, shaking his head.
"He must've hyperventilated over the bowl till he passed out," said Wes.
"Or raced across the cell, dived headfirst into the can and knocked himself cold," said Bell. "That'd work."
Frustrated with their lack of progress, Bell had returned to the jail intent on convincing Ruben the jailer to give him ten minutes alone with Ramon the dealer. Ruben the jailer informed him that Ramon the dealer had committed suicide the night before.
"There was this child molester, state prison, I think it was Arizona somewhere. One night our Lord Jesus Christ appears to him in a dream and tells him to atone…atone..atooneee. So he goes to the prison laundry, snatches up some wire hangers and stuffs them up his butthole." Bell marched past the heavy-set German Shepherd. The blonde Lab romped through the tall grass up ahead. "I think he got sixteen up there before he expired."
"Ouch," said Wes. He tucked left to avoid the Shepherd's lolling tongue. The diatomaceous earth plant took shape behind a wall of windswept fir trees to the right. Wes wondered whether to tell Bell about his conversation with Florence. She hadn't asked him not to.
"I talked to Florence earlier."
"Yeah?"
"She wants my input on a community based policing plan."
"Is that all she wanted to talk about?"
"Well, she asked how the meth investigation was going. I told her the narcs were working it."
"Good boy." Bell stopped to let his panting German Shepherd catch up.
"Sir?" said Wes.
Bell stooped to pluck a burr from the Shepherd's coat. "Yessss?"
"Something's been bothering me about our DUI bust, and some of our other activities for that matter, and I know, well, I assume that…"
"Spill it already," said Bell and marched on. Wes followed, muddying his Reeboks on the rutted path.
"Um, well, I know you're a vested officer and all and I…"
"I'm not. Vested."
"You're not?"
"Nope. I'm just three years out of the academy. The other cadets all called me Pops."
"Oh. But you seem so…"
"I was a cop in Yermo for a year when I was twenty but that's about it. I got to
o old for radio, bummed around a while, tried advertising, ended up sleeping in my car. I hated to leave Santa Barbara but this was the only halfway decent gig I could get."
Wes lengthened his stride to keep pace. "So if any of these…extracurricular investigations of ours go sour…"
"I am toast!" said Bell gleefully, throwing up his arms, marching on. "And you're not cuz, one, your a rookie just doing what your training officer tells ya to and, two, Shitamoko really truly believes you’re him thirty years ago - bright, well-educated, completely anal." Bell stopped and turned around to face his baby boy. "You're here for as long as you want to be so don't go thinking I'm hanging your ass out to dry. I mean I'm sorry you got shot and pissed on and all, but hey, you're a cop now. That's the gig."
Wes was trying to think what to say about all this when the Labrador burst out yapping and tore down the steep river bank. The German Shepherd lept to life and tumbled down the bank after him. Bell and Lyedecker followed, skidding down the sandy incline, grabbing sinewy manzanita branches to slow their descent. The diatomaceous earth plant emerged from behind the curtain of fir trees as Bell and Lyedecker clattered along the river rock. Sodium vapor lights painted the sand-colored three-tiered structure a chiaroscuro of muted reds and greens, making it look like an ancient undersea temple.
The dogs yipped and sneezed below a rusty corrugated steel pipe that spilled a sickly stream of effluent into the river. "The Department of Evil," said Bell, smacking himself in the forehead. "Of course."
Chapter 19
Bell payed for his bottled ice tea at the counter of the Circle J Mini Mart. A three-hundred-pound Samoan woman took his money and rumbled around behind the counter on a stool, the only evidence of which was the sound of steel cast rollers stressing the linoleum. The woman gave Bell his change with a gap-toothed smile and a hand that had no wrist.
Wes waited at the door. He watched two big-boned men lean over the front counter by the magazine rack, scraping lottery scratcher cards with their hunting knives. They wore gray stubble, tractor caps and bluejeans. The larger of them sported green suspenders. The two men sheathed their knives and followed Bell and Lyedecker out the door and into a blustery spring afternoon. "Behind you," said Wes as the men lumbered up.
