At The City's Edge

by Marcus Sakey

  He could tell she noticed the evasion, but she didn't call him on it. "Yes, I like it."

  "Good at it?"

  Cruz opened her mouth. Closed it. The condensation from her water glass had dripped into rings on the table, and she dipped a finger in one, traced wet lines. "I used to think so."

  "Hey," he folded the napkin and laid it atop the remnants of his meal, "don't let this get to you. There was no way you could have guessed what was going on."

  "It's not that."

  "What then?"

  She paused. Said, "No one trusts me."

  "Why not?"

  "They think that I got assigned to the squad as a PR move." Her cadence slow, like she were picking her words. "Or that it's favoritism. No one believes that I belong there. How can I be a good cop if no one trusts me?"

  "Prove them wrong."

  "It's not that simple. There are a lot of… issues." She sighed, shook her head. "Can we talk about something else?"

  "Sure." He waited a beat. "Cubs or Sox?"

  Cruz looked surprised, and then laughed. She had one of those honest laughs, rich and good, and he grinned back at her. Realized he didn't think he'd heard her laugh before, and liked that it was his doing. It felt normal, a man and a woman sitting in a restaurant booth, talking, joking. No guns, no gangbangers.

  "I didn't leave the Army," he said, the words just kind of coming out. "I was discharged."

  She cocked her head, but didn't say anything.

  "They call it an 'other than honorable' discharge. What they give when you don't merit a formal court martial."

  "What happened?"

  He looked out the window. Everyday people, coming and going. The sun shivering the concrete. Girls on blankets in the park. In all, a perfectly normal morning in Chicago. Even now, months back, he still sometimes had moments when he couldn't believe it existed. Bikinis and billboards, neon and green grass.

  "We were on-mission, guarding a house. The brother-in-law of somebody's nephew, one of those things. There was a lot of that stuff there. Still is. Anyway, it was just another mission, nothing special."

  The squad bulky with body armor under desert gear. The acrid smell of sweat and the way the clinging dust itched. A silent head count, his hundredth of the day, terrified, always, of leaving a man behind: Jones, Campbell, Kaye, Frieden, Crist, Flumignan, Borcherts, Paoletti, Rosemoor, and Martinez, ten men. His ten men. Martinez clowning, saying that to really guard the house, they ought to be inside, where the owner was watching the Red Wings on his satellite television. Joining in the laughter, feeling good, the air soft with the approach of sunset, already tasting the ice-cold Gatorade that would be waiting in the chow hall.

  Then the sound of the engine. The joking vanishing instantly, replaced by operational paranoia. They'd moved as a team, weapons fixed, positions good, covering the entrance to the courtyard. He'd led from the front, the first to step onto the winding alley that fronted the place.

  "It was an ambulance, an old diesel job with black smoke coming out the back," he said. "I heard a loud pop, sounded like a blown tire."

  More real than the street outside the diner was his memory of that moment. The comforting weight of his weapon against gloved palms. The taut pull of the chin strap of his helmet. Dinner smells, cumin and black pepper and smoke.

  The ambulance had stopped a hundred yards north, in the center of the alley. Jason could see the doors wing open. Two dark-skinned men looked around edgily. One vanished around the back, then returned with a tire iron, squatted beside the front right of the truck while the other kept a nervous watch. Knowing, as Jason did, that in the center of a back street in insurgent territory, with no protection, with medical supplies and possibly drugs on board, they were only one thing.

  A target.

  Jason's orders were clear: Guard the house. Stay put until relieved. But there could be wounded in back. Maybe women, or children.

  "You never know, is the thing. Over there. One minute somebody is smiling and waving, the next they're aiming an AK-74." He shrugged. "But it was an ambulance."

  He'd ordered the squad to stay put, taken Paoletti and Martinez. Moving carefully, not hugging the sides. In a firefight, bullets rode the walls. Dark eyes watching from windows, always gone when he turned to look. The ambulance drew nearer a step at a time. A long hundred yards. He watched the men working on the truck, saw one of them stop, shade his eyes with his hands, wave them forward. Yelling something in Arabic, fast and guttural. Jason ignored him. The previous week a truck disguised as an ambulance had been loaded with bathtub-brewed dynamite and detonated amid a crowd of men applying for positions in the Iraqi National Guard.

  "Funny, but you remember the littlest things. The sun was setting, and I remember thinking how someday I would miss those sunsets. It's all the dust. Makes it look like heaven is on fire."

  The man squatting beside the tire had a thin dark mustache. A perfect bead of sweat hung at one end. He'd looked up and smiled, pointed to the spare beside him, said something unintelligible.

  Jason signaled Paoletti to watch while he and Martinez moved to the rear of the ambulance. His heart pounding. Not something you ever got used to, the realization that if things went wrong, you could suddenly not be there any more. Not be, period.

  At the rear, he'd leveled his weapon as Martinez put one hand on the handle. Nodded to him, ready to fire, thinking short, controlled bursts, thinking don't let this be the moment, and then Martinez had yanked open the rear door and raised his own rifle, both of them yelling Arabic phrases they'd learned phonetically.

  A wide-eyed boy about five years old stared at them from the floor of the ambulance. A man knelt over him, crimson fingers moving in his chest. The doctor glanced at them, turned back to the boy without a word. Didn't ask what they wanted, who they were, just worked to save the life of a child.

  "It'd been a shell, a mortar shell. Insurgents lob them all the time, and their aim sucks. No training and old Soviet hardware smuggled in from Afghanistan. This kid had been playing with his brother a mile from our FOB. The shrapnel tore him to ribbons."

  "Jesus," Cruz said. Her voice quiet. "What did you do?"

  "We set down our weapons and cranked up that ambulance like we were swapping a tire at the Indy 500."

  When they were finished, the little man with the driver had shaken Jason's hand, then put his right hand over his heart. Jason had repeated the gesture, feeling good. Watched them start the ambulance, black smoke farting out the exhaust, and stood aside to let them drive away. He and Martinez and Paoletti had smiled at one another. Started walking back beneath the burning sky. He remembered the warmth in his chest, the sense that he loved these men and would do anything for them.

  And when they'd gone about thirty feet, Jason heard a distant crack. His mind classified it, medium-caliber rifle fire, single shot, and then Martinez said, "Oh."

  Just that, "Oh," no scream or cry or curse, and then blood began to pulse from his neck, a thick, ropey flow, not spraying like an arterial hit but pouring fast, the top of his desert camos staining dark, no, no, Martinez, the nicest guy you'd ever meet, blood everywhere, Martinez with his hands at his throat like he could hold it back, his whole life pulsing through clenched fingers.

  Christ save him, Jason's first thought was relief that it wasn't him. And the Worm had been born in his chest, filthy greasy contemptible cowardly pansy useless outsider waste that he was.

  "A sniper shot one of my men," Jason said, and stared at the pattern of divots in the Formica table. Traced shapes with a rough fingertip. "I haven't talked about it with anyone since I came home, not even Michael." He scratched at his forehead, closed his eyes, able to see Martinez passing around pictures of Scarlett Johansson and claiming she was his fiancée, Martinez crying with laughter as he pummeled Jones with a chair in their X-Box wrestling game, Martinez who died before they could even get him in the Humvee, who coughed and clutched at Jason's arm and left fingerprints black and ragged. Just a boy
. "I don't know why I'm telling you."

  Cruz reached across the table and took his hand. The move surprised him, brought him back to the moment, to the simple pleasure of human contact, a living woman touching him. He looked up, met her eyes, watched her bite her lip like she was picking her words carefully.

  Then she said, "I slept with another cop. A married one."

  "What?" Confused.

  "That's why no one trusts me. He was a superior, a friend, and one time things got out of hand. Just one stupid time. But after it got out, everybody figured it was how I'd earned my place in the unit." Fire in her eyes on that, angry pressure on his hand. "So now no one trusts me, no one believes I have what it takes. And no matter how hard I work or how many cases I close, I can't go back and undo it."

  He didn't know what to say, just looked at her, felt her fingers warm and soft in his.

  "I know it's nothing like what happened to you," Cruz said. "I'm not comparing it, my problems at work to your war. I just… I don't know, wanted to tell you something. Tell you the thing that I didn't tell other people, the way you hadn't talked about what happened in Iraq." She stopped, started again, stopped. Looked at him. "Does that make any sense?"

  "Yes," Jason said. For a moment he let himself just meet her eyes and pretend that they were two normal people sharing secrets amidst the clatter of silverware and the burnt smell of coffee, like this was the morning after a date that left the world ripe with possibility. Then he sighed and took his hand from hers.

  "It's time."

  The street was wide and lined with trees in summer bloom. A gentle breeze set branches rustling, their shadows shifting liquid. Cars were parked along both sides, and well-dressed women with expensive hair drifted among the small shops. The fresh smell of bread rose from a bakery.

  "Looks clear," Cruz said.

  He nodded. "Hurry."

  They moved north on the sidewalk with the fastest walk that wouldn't draw attention. A car rounded the corner from Lincoln, and Jason tensed. "I wish we had a gun."

  Cruz didn't reply. Her apartment tower was born of the seventies, a plain, blocky structure with broad windows bouncing sunlight. From the lobby an elderly doorman smiled at her and touched a button on his desk, and the entry unlocked with a buzz.

  "Mr. Thomas," she said. "How are you?"

  "Fine, Ms. Cruz." The man nodded as they walked past. "You have a good day now."

  A hallway led off the lobby to the elevator bays, four shining doors. Cruz thumbed the call button while he rocked on his heels. His shoulder itched and his neck was sore from tackling the guy last night. Behind him, he heard the buzzer sound again, but couldn't see the lobby door from this angle.

  An elevator arrived with a soft ding, the doors opening as it settled. They stepped in and she hit the button for fourteen. The floor was soft carpet, and a polished brass rail ran along the back wall. Not showy, but definitely nice.

  "This isn't where I'd have pictured you living." Talking to fill the silence.

  "Whiter than you expected?"

  "No, just more, I don't know, poodle-owning."

  Cruz laughed. "It's not what my mother pictures either." The doors opened on a decorated waiting area, a side table with fake flowers and a mirror above it, like people were often choosing to hang out by the elevators instead of in their apartments. "Police have to live in the city. There's a joke, neighborhoods like Beverly and Garfield Ridge are called 'My Blue Heaven' because of the number of cops that live there. Nice enough, but it never appealed."

  "Why does this?"

  She shrugged. "Maybe because my mother can't picture it." They reached her apartment, a door at the end of the hallway beside the stairwell. She dug in her pocket for the keys. From down the hall came a chime, another elevator arriving at her floor. Cruz slid a key into the top deadbolt. "It's not that I'm not close to my mom, it's just that it's better when she's far away."

  Jason started to reply, then it hit. Another elevator.

  He spun, looked down the hall. The space was narrow and constrained, a long row of staggered doors with the elevator lounge halfway down and around a corner. Nowhere to hide.

  A male voice drifted down the hallway, the sound muffled. "Which way's her place?"

  "Over here."

  Cruz froze, her key in the deadbolt, her eyes mirroring his panic.

  He tried the door opposite hers. Locked. Glanced around.

  The stairwell.

  Jason pulled her after him, key ripping out of the lock. He fought the urge to throw open the door, stepped through quickly, then spun as she passed and caught the handle to ease the door closed so the spring-hinges didn't slam it.

  Bright sterile light, cigarette butts and gum stains. There was a small window in the door, and Jason flattened himself along the wall, Cruz close enough he could smell her perfume. Maybe he was wrong. Could be a neighbor. Hell, could be a pizza delivery guy.

  "-can't believe this shit." The gruff voice grew closer through the door.

  "Don't surprise me at all. You got the key from the doorman?"

  "Here." Metal tickled metal, and then the clean snapping sound of a deadbolt opening. "Ready?"

  "Go."

  Jason tensed, then heard a door slam open, the one to her apartment. He heard the men rush in, shouting Freeze!, their voices growing muffled by the walls of her apartment. Only cops yelled like that.

  He pointed down the stairs. She nodded, moved on the ball of her feet, lithe, one step at a time but quick as an aerobics routine. He followed, wanting to glance back up at the door but not daring, knowing if the police stepped into the hallway, the gesture could give them away.

  More dirty cops. Cold fingers closed on his heart.

  His fingers traced the chipped metal railing. Taking three steps at a stride, more jumping than running. The sounds of their footfalls echoed up the shafts. He watched the numbers drop on the fire doors, eleven, ten, nine. His breath came harder, not the effort but the suddenness of it, dead stop to mad hustle. Six, five, four. Cruz spun around a landing, and he focused on her, watched her body move, spare and economical. On the third floor, he stopped, said her name. "Finish up slow. Can't burst out panting."

  She nodded, started down again at a walk. One flight, a landing, another flight, and then the exit came into sight. He felt an urge to call Billy, promised himself he'd do it if they made it out.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  He nodded, and she stepped into a carpeted hall. Easy, confident, the kind of fine-looking woman who belonged in this building. He fell in beside, willing his pulse steady. Just stroll thirty feet of hallway, clear the lobby, and they'd be out. He concentrated on the little details instead of thinking, tracing the patterns in the carpet, counting the sconces in the hallway. His reflection distorted as they passed the bronze elevator doors. Almost there. He could see the sunlight spilling in the lobby windows.

  "Motherfucker, I look like I'm playin'?" The unseen voice from the lobby was familiar and filled with menace. Jason grabbed Cruz's arm, stopped her just before she stepped into view. Shook his head, listened.

  "You see this?" A whimper came from the front. "That's right. You right to be scared, old man, 'cause you don't tell me where the Cruz bitch lives, I'm going to work on you with this thing."

  Her eyes narrowed. She whispered, "Who?"

  "Playboy. The one who tried to hijack me." Fighting the urge to run, his fingers flexing. "Goddamn I wish we had a gun."

  She grimaced. "Back door."

  He nodded, followed her down the same nice hallway in reverse, carpet patterns and sconces. Around a corner, down another length of hall. "We can get out to LaSalle through here." She pushed open a door, and they stepped into a sweltering loading dock. High ceilings, hard rubber floor, the smell of trash. Roll doors on one wall. He spotted an exit twenty feet away just in time to see it open in an explosion of light, white sun stabbing into the murky dimness. Saw a figure coming through, barrel-chested man in blue, heavy belt – shit,
another cop – hands to his eyes, looking back at someone and saying, "Man, it's dark after that sun," and then Cruz pulled him out of the loading dock and back into the hallway.

  They stared at each other. Trapped. From one direction gangbangers, from the other cops, and nowhere in between for them to hide, no alternate routes. The stairs and elevator were too risky – the geriatric doorman wouldn't hold off Playboy for long. But if they stayed here, the police would get them.

  Jason grit his teeth and looked wildly around. Tried a door that looked like it led to a service closet, found it locked. Looked at a small decorative trash can, wondered if he could throw it. A trash can against a submachine gun. He shook his head. The door to the loading dock was in the center of the wall, and there was just enough space beside it that he could probably pack himself into the corner, hope the guy coming through didn't notice right away. Get the jump on him. Though he wasn't eager to swing at a cop, especially with gangbangers coming the other direction.

  Footsteps echoed from the loading dock. They had seconds.

  He looked at Cruz, saw the way she was assessing the situation, not frozen up but working it, and he felt a strange comfort in that, and then the idea hit and he yanked her into the corner by the door, putting her back against the wall and standing squarely in front of her, his shoulders spread as broad as possible, and then he said, "Trust me," and he kissed her.

  At first her lips were stiff, resistant. Then they opened, her tongue fluttering soft against his, her arms wrapping around him as she realized what he was doing, how right it had to look, how passionate. And maybe it was the energy of the moment, but as the door swung open and he heard the heavy footfall of a cop behind him, he found that he wasn't having to fake the passion, that he was genuinely hungry for her, the spice of tea faint on her lips, the earthy smell of the sweat on her neck, the strength in the fingers gripping his back. She fit against him, and his nerves strained forward, quivering.

  He was barely aware of the cop pausing behind him, could feel the tingling in the back of his neck. Then he banished all thought and concentrated on believing in the kiss.