by Brent Pilkey
“Yeah, Jenny’s a sweet one, all right. And the price of my silence has just gone up.”
“Thought I’d find you out here.” Jack gave Karen a quick kiss before settling in on the lounge chair beside hers on their back deck. When they had moved in last summer, the deck had been a pathetic little square outside the kitchen sliding doors and Jack had spent the summer building an extension that spanned the entire rear of the house. Now the original deck held the barbecue, and steps led down to the lower and much larger tier. There were plans for a hot tub and pool. The hot tub first and the pool when the kids they were hoping to have were old enough to enjoy it.
For now there was the deck attached to the home in the new development outside the city. And his wife lounging oh so provocatively on that deck. At twenty-six, Karen was just two years his junior and the woman of his dreams made flesh. Her dark blond hair, with natural, sun-kissed highlights, was loose around her shoulders tonight. She was wearing one of his old light-blue police shirts, which covered her to mid-thigh. She stretched languorously and the shirt pulled tightly across her breasts. He could tell — as he knew he was supposed to — she wasn’t wearing a bra. His eyes slid down to her tanned legs and he wondered what else she wasn’t wearing.
Her lounge chair creaked softly as she rolled onto her side, facing him. “How was work?”
“Good.”
Her shirt had ridden up on her hip. He hadn’t turned on any lights when he’d come out, but there was enough twilight left for him to see a faint tan line. Just the shirt, then.
“Hey, you,” she whispered, “I’m up here.”
“Sorry, I got distracted.” He let his eyes linger on the curve of her hip and the swell of her breasts before he looked at her smiling face. He loved it when she teased him, and she knew it.
“Anything interesting?”
He took a slow sip from his beer bottle. “I got into my first foot pursuit today.” He held the bottle out to her.
“No, thanks, I’m good. You chased someone? What for?”
“Spotted him selling some crack.” He sipped some more, then told her the story, playing up the effect running in the heat had on him. She murmured a “poor baby” in the appropriate spots, then burst into laughter when he told her how the dealer had taken off on him again.
“I’m glad my physical misfortune gives you so much pleasure,” he commented dryly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, giggling and wiping away tears. “It’s just something you never see in the movies.”
“That’s for sure.” He tilted the bottle again. He was learning there was a lot more to policing than what was in the movies. Unfortunately, before she met him, Karen’s only exposure to policing had been movies and television. There was her friend Barb, who worked in 32, but Barb was so incompetent she made the more laughable TV cops look serious.
“Did you catch him?” Karen asked when her giggles had finally dried up.
“Yup. Sy cut him off with the car and when he went to deke around the car I caught him with a beautiful tackle.” The altered version — a lie, he supposed, if he wanted to be honest about it — slid effortlessly off his tongue. Karen wouldn’t understand what had really happened. She wouldn’t understand that Jack had delivered a lesson for that little fuckhead not to run next time. She’d call it police brutality and they’d spend the rest of the night arguing. Better to keep some things to himself.
“And what was better, when Sy searched him, he found a bunch of crack on him. And it was new stuff, called Black. The boss of the Major Crime Unit told us about it on parade this morning. . . .” His voice trailed off as Karen slowly sat up, swinging her feet down to the deck.
“Did you have a good time after work with the shift?” She stretched again and the old police shirt, mostly cotton and worn thin, did little to hide her erect nipples.
“Yeah, it was a good time.” Sounding casual, uninterested, he stared at her breasts. All part of the game. “Had a couple of beers, some wings. Got to meet the rest of the platoon.” Didn’t have to lie about the tackle to them. Shut up, Jack.
“You like it in 51?” she asked, standing up.
“Yeah, I do.”
He sipped at his beer as she straddled his chair and slowly lowered herself onto his lap.
“You like working with Simon?” Slowly, oh so slowly, she began undoing her buttons.
He swallowed. “Yeah, Sy’s great. He asked me if I want to pair up. Be permanent partners.”
All but two buttons were undone. “Is that like going steady with him?” She plucked the beer bottle from his hand, pulled the shirt open with one hand, then ran the cold glass over her nipple. She shivered at its touch.
“Um, kind of.”
She changed hands, passing the bottle over her other nipple, leaving a wet trail between her breasts.
“More like being married, I guess,” he added, his voice suddenly hoarse.
She drank, tilting her head back, her glistening breasts exposed to the warm night air. She pulled the bottle from her lips and waggled it at him. “Want some?” He had no voice to speak, so he simply nodded. She tipped the bottle and let the last of the beer pour over her breasts, moaning at the liquid’s cold caress.
Jack wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, his tongue lapping at the drops on her nipples. His hands slid down and beneath the shirt to find her firm ass bare to the touch.
Their house was on the outside of a curve in the road, curling the neighbours’ backyards away from theirs; he’d hate to have to pause to go indoors. Karen seemed to agree.
Her lips and tongue kissed his ear. “Fuck me, Jack,” she whispered.
“Out here?” His voice was hoarse with desire.
She ground her hips on his lap. “Right here. You want to, don’t you?”
He most certainly did.
Sunday, 6 August
0900 hours
“Now, she’s out early.”
“Who? And what do you mean early? It’s nine o’clock,” Jack said, checking his watch. It felt like it should be later. In the past hour and a half, they’d done six radio calls: two house alarms, which turned out to be false, three medical complaints and an unwanted guest. To Jack it felt like theirs was the only car on the road, even though he could hear the other cars getting just as many calls as they were.
“Her.” Sy pointed at a woman standing on the corner of Dundas and Pembroke. “Usually, the only hookers out this early are the crack whores and she ain’t no crack whore.”
The woman in question was slender but without a crack addict’s wasted scrawniness. Her long blond hair, white tank top and blue miniskirt looked clean. She was leaning down to peer into every car that slowed as it passed her.
“Shall we see what brings her out in off-peak times?” Sy pulled the car out of the small parking lot at the corner of Sherbourne and Dundas and headed toward her. She saw them coming and, oh so casually, started to stroll away from the corner, northbound on Pembroke.
“Silly girl,” Sy chastised. “Going up a one-way street isn’t going to save you.”
But it did, temporarily. A moving van rolled to a shuddering stop on Pembroke and Sy had no room to slide past it. Their hooker glanced back at them and kept walking north, a little quicker, putting a little more distance between them.
Sy drove off along Dundas Street at a sedate pace. As soon as they were hidden by the barbecue chicken place — where so many cops and criminals ate — Sy hit the gas. He darted the short distance to George Street then hammered the brakes and sped north. He flicked on the roof lights as they raced the wrong way on the one-way street. They flew past Seaton House, the city’s largest men’s hostel, then slowed as they approached Gerrard.
There were two east–west laneways connecting George and Pembroke, one near the north end of the block and one near the south end. Sy killed the lights and crept the car along the northern laneway. Halfway along, a third alley ran north and south.
Jack would have to le
arn the division’s ants’ nest of main streets, residential streets, alleys and dead ends. Good thing 51 was so small.
“There she is,” Sy said. “No use running, sweetheart. I can see you,” he cooed softly.
As if sensing the scout car, she made an abrupt about-face, heading back the way she had come with as much speed as she could manage while trying to appear casual.
“I love how they do that. Like we don’t realize they’re trying to avoid us.”
“Maybe she’s just out power-walking,” Jack suggested.
“Yeah, and maybe she’s not charging forty bucks for a blow.”
“Forty? That seems kind of cheap. Not that I’m speaking from experience, you understand.”
“Forty for a blow in this area is actually on the high side. I was giving her the benefit of the doubt ’cause she looks clean.” Sy powered down Jack’s window as the car drew abreast of the woman. She was still clipping along at a good pace, determinedly not noticing them. “We can keep this up all day, honey. We have air conditioning, you don’t,” Sy announced.
She hung her head and waited for them to get out of the car. Sy stood in front of her; Jack took up a position to her right, just out of her peripheral vision.
“What’s your name?” Sy asked.
“Julie Lee,” she answered and Jack was impressed. He figured her blond hair was either a very good dye job or an even better wig. From in the car, he had taken her dark skin for a good summer’s tan, but now he could see it was more natural than that. He moved to get a look at her face.
“Lee doesn’t sound like a Filipino name to me,” he said.
“Who says I’m Filipino?” she shot back, a little too defensively. Her accent was slight, but “Filipino” came out “Pilippino.”
“Your name?” Sy asked.
“I told you, Julie Lee. You can’t stop me like this. I haven’t done anything wrong.” She took a step.
Sy blocked her. “Your name, now.” Impatience hardened his words.
“Jul —”
“Quit fucking around,” he snapped. “What’s your fucking name?”
How can he be so sure she’s lying? Jack could tell the hooker was nervous, and Sy wasn’t backing off. What am I missing here?
“Marquez.” She sounded resigned. “Jason Marquez.”
“Thank you.” Sy’s tone was back to normal.
Jason? But that’s — And then it hit him. Oh, crap! It’s a guy.
“I don’t get it. Why was she — why was he — avoiding us? He wasn’t wanted, wasn’t breaching any conditions.”
Sy shrugged. “Who knows? Force of habit maybe. Or maybe he’s had bad experiences with cops. Some coppers have a real hate-on for the trannies.”
“Trannies?”
“Transsexual or transgendered. Whichever one means someone going through the surgical process of becoming the other sex. I forget which one it is. I know calling them trannies isn’t politically correct, but if you want political correctness you’re working with the wrong guy.”
“How could you tell she was a guy?”
Another shrug. “Just got a feeling with that one. Usually, it’s not too hard to tell. The easy ones are six foot two with shoulders wider than mine and a five o’clock shadow. The Oriental ones are hard. For some reason, Filipino trannies are the worst, or best, whichever way you look at it.”
“That was scary,” Jack admitted, shaking his head. “If I’d seen him in a bar, I would’ve bought him a drink.”
Sy laughed but without much humour. “Don’t kid yourself. It happens. That’s why I warned him about hooking that far south. Usually, the trannies work on Maitland and the johns know what they’re getting. If some guy finds out he’s getting blown by another guy, Jason’s gonna end up in the hospital.”
“I guess he’s hooking to pay for the operation?”
Sy nodded. “A lot of them do. They get the hormone shots and boobs first. I guess getting the genitals altered costs a shitload of money.”
“Hell of a life.” Jack turned to watch the streets go by. They had the ac on and the windows up. Not even nine-thirty and it was stinking hot. Humid, too. Welcome to summer in Toronto.
“If we’re working together on evenings, we’ll do some 208s on the trannies up on Maitland and you can get an idea of what it’s like. Some guys don’t like talking to them, but if you treat them nice they’ll be nice back to you.”
“It’s easier to start out nice and move up to asshole level with someone than it is to start as an asshole and then have to work down to being nice.”
“Very good, grasshopper. You did learn something up in 32.”
“Blow me.”
“Not even two weeks in the division and he thinks he’s a tough guy.” Sy shook his head. “What’s 32 like? I belong to the 51 quarter-century club. I’ve never been that far north.”
“Quarter-century club?”
“Yup.” Sy nodded. “There’s a plaque by the front desk for coppers who have spent more than twenty-five years in the division.” He puffed his chest out. “I’m the most recent addition.”
“Congratulations . . . I think.” Jack thought about the two divisions. “First off, 32’s bigger. Hell, each patrol area is the size of 51, so it’s about ten times bigger. Lots of residential. Mostly middle class, I’d guess, but lots of money in some areas too. Some industrial spots and two big parks. Yorkdale Mall is always busy with shoplifters, frauds and the odd shooting. The division even has some Ontario Housing, but the Jungle is nothing compared to Regent Park.”
“So, not a lot of street-level crime?”
“God, no.” Jack laughed. “Some, but nothing like down here. I honestly think I’ve learned more in my two weeks here than I did in six years in 32.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it, grasshopper. You sure ain’t in Kansas anymore.”
Sunday, 13 August
1745 hours
“We missed you at church this morning, Jack. I thought you weren’t working this weekend.”
Jack swallowed his bite of salmon and wiped his lips before answering. Manners were very important at these Sunday dinners with Karen’s parents. “I had a paid duty this morning, Mrs. Hawthorn.”
“A paid duty? What in the world is that? And, please, call me Evelyn. How many more times will I have to tell you?”
“Sorry. Force of habit.” A habit you drilled into me while I was dating your daughter. “A paid duty is extra work you can do on your time off. Companies hire police officers —” not cops, not with the Hawthorns “— when they need security or traffic control. Not exactly exciting stuff, but this morning’s was six hours, so it was a nice piece of cash.”
“Missing church for money. That’s not very Christian of you, Jack.” Leaning back in her chair, Evelyn Hawthorn sipped her wine and managed to look both reprimanding and disappointed. But the look wasn’t wholly for Jack. A good piece of it was directed at Karen, who pretended not to notice.
Both women had had lots of practice with “the look” when Karen and Jack were dating. Karen’s mother never bothered to hide her belief that Jack was far beneath her daughter’s status. After two years of marriage with no signs the union was weakening, Evelyn only tolerated Jack. Her manner was chilly rather than civil.
“Oh, lay off the boy, Evie. With his salary, I’m sure he can’t afford to turn down any opportunities to raise some additional income.” While Evelyn tolerated Jack, her husband, Doctor George Hawthorn Senior, thank you, had no use for his son-in-law and rarely missed an opportunity to highlight Jack’s failings. And at the top of that list was Jack’s profession.
Karen’s father — Jack had no doubt the only reason he named his son George was so he could add that pretentious “senior” after his name — taught political science to open, impressionable minds at the University of Toronto. George Senior was a famous educator, lecturer and author; Evelyn was a retired social worker turned social activist, well known among the anti-poverty groups and at City Hall.
These idealistic and connected parents would have expected Karen to pursue a career in education or politics. How disappointed they must have been when she chose to be a grade-school teacher in the public education system, Jack thought with a touch of perverse pleasure. But a teacher, even a grade-school teacher, was still an educator, and a police officer was just a civil servant. A job that didn’t require much academic achievement.
Jack admitted his in-laws made a good-looking couple. Karen’s mother had a mature beauty that embraced her age, flaunted it, in fact. And George. . . . Well, slip a tweed jacket on him and hand him a pipe and he’d be the stereotype of a professor from the 1960s. Full black hair with just a touch of grey at the temples — very distinguished — probably made him the object of first-year-student fantasies.
“What does a first-class constable pull down these days, Jack? Seventy, seventy-five?”
“Around that.” You arrogant prick. You probably know to the penny what I make. “But now that I’m downtown, I hope to make an extra ten or fifteen on top of that with court and overtime.” Jack pushed his plate away, leaving his dinner, his very expensive dinner, half finished.
The Hawthorns were done with their entrees; it was time for the post-dinner Let’s Bash the Son-in-Law.
After a long and busy week, the last thing he wanted, or needed, was another bout of character assassination at the hands of his in-laws. Why couldn’t he and Karen have ordered in? Because family is important, she’d say.
And we wouldn’t want to deprive the parents of the evening’s entertainment.
“I can imagine so, what with the crime rate and all.” Hawthorn motioned for the waiter to clear the table. At least he had waited for Jack to indicate he was finished. Karen had ordered a salad and had been the first to finish. She knew the rules of the game all too well.
“When Karen told us you were transferring down to 51 Division, I did some checking.” George crossed his legs and brushed at his jacket. He cradled his wineglass, an almost exact imitation of his wife’s pose.
Jack snagged the waiter for a refill of his coffee. The restaurant might be out of his comfort zone and the meals on the small size, but the coffee was excellent. Damned if he was going to be abused with an empty coffee cup.
