Lethal Rage

by Brent Pilkey

  Jack shook himself back to reality. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Enjoying the scenery, were you?”

  “Just checking for a sheuggle, that’s all.”

  “Special 51, could you head back to Gerrard and Parliament? I’ve got another medical complainant for a collapsed male. Ambulance attending, time 1556.”

  “10-4, dispatch,” Jack replied tiredly. “Maybe we should just camp out there with them.”

  The dispatcher laughed. “Thanks, Special 51. I appreciate the help.”

  “A nice, hot day,” Manny mused, “and the drunks are falling like ten-pins.”

  Ten minutes earlier Manny and Jack had loaded a local drunk into an ambulance at the intersection of Parliament and Gerrard streets. Then Manny had headed east on Gerrard. When the second call came in, he pulled into Allan Gardens and eased into the shade of a huge oak, and both officers pulled out their memo books to write down the call and to give the second ambulance a head start.

  This was a lesson Jack had learned very quickly in 51: unless it’s a child, don’t rush to a collapse call. Let the ambulance or fire department get there first, which they usually did anyway. People who “collapsed” the most frequently were people you didn’t want to touch, let alone perform artificial resuscitation on. Drunks and drug users were typically not clean people.

  Especially in Pigeon Park, at Gerrard and Parliament.

  Call written down and ambulance given sufficient time to get there ahead of them, Manny slowly pulled out of the shade. The sky was a blue so clear it was almost white and the sun was merciless in its attack on the city. The park was all but empty. Even the hounds had abandoned it in search of air conditioning.

  Traffic was light and the few cars on the road appeared to be affected by the heat as much as the pedestrians, moving sluggishly and without great purpose. Sluggish was just fine with Jack. He was in no rush to reach Pigeon Park, not after their visit there just a few minutes ago, when they had found a Native guy passed out in his own vomit.

  “I wonder which one of his drinking buddies has gone down this time.”

  “I’m betting it’s the one with the nose that looks like a mound of mashed potatoes shoved in a fishnet stocking. He downed that last bottle pretty quick when he saw us coming.”

  “You’re probably right,” Jack agreed. “And thanks for ruining fishnet stockings for me. Karen likes to wear them when she’s feeling frisky.”

  “Sorry, dude.”

  Pigeon Park — really more of a parkette — was located at the northwest corner of the intersection. A small triangle of concrete and grass, it had a round fountain as its centrepiece. The fountain was dry — a good thing, according to Manny; it had something to do with skinny-dipping homeless alcoholics — but the park was still a favourite watering spot for some local Natives.

  The heat didn’t so much hit Jack as crush him when he got out of the car. The air was so thick with humidity that it was hard to breathe. How anyone could sit out in it and drink cooking wine was beyond him. It obviously took years of practice and the Pigeon drinking crew certainly had the experience.

  There had been three of them left standing — or relatively upright — when the first guy had been hauled off to the hospital. Now they were down to two. The third one was face down in a flower bed and it wasn’t Mashed Potatoes in Fishnets: he was still upright but tilting dangerously.

  The medics had rolled the drunk over and were attempting to wake him up, but consciousness seemed to be at least one bottle beyond reach. Manny plucked an almost empty plastic water bottle from a limp hand and gave it a quick whiff. “The good stuff,” he declared, dumping the last of the liquid and tossing the bottle aside.

  “Cooking wine?” one of the medics asked without much interest.

  “Nope. He’s moved on to rubbing alcohol. Mixed with a splash of Gatorade for flavour, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Wonderful. Okay, buddy. Time to wake up.” The medic placed a knuckle, safely covered in latex, on the drunk’s breastbone and rubbed hard and deep, grinding bone on bone. A hand twitched, nothing more. “Fuck, this guy’s really out.” The medic leaned forward, putting the weight of his upper body behind his knuckle. A small groan escaped the drunk’s lips and his hands flailed weakly before flopping onto the pavement again.

  “Here. Give this a try.” Jack passed his baton to the medic.

  “Cool,” the medic said, a mischievous twinkle lighting his eyes. He placed one end of the baton where his knuckle had been and rubbed. Hard. Jack could hear the blunt metal grinding on the bone and he imagined he could feel it in his bones.

  This time the drunk woke up or got as close to being awake as he was going to get. He lurched to a sitting position and the medics had to step quickly to avoid the swinging fists. The burst of animation was only that, a burst, and seconds later the guy was folding to the ground again. One medic got a knee between his shoulder blades to prop him up.

  Jack took his stick back and while the paramedics tended to their patient, he and Manny tended to the conscious drunks. Both were Natives — Pigeon Park was their preferred place for drinking — and they eyed the approaching officers suspiciously.

  “No need to get up, gentlemen,” Manny said. They were both seated on the flower bed’s knee-high wall. “We’re just going to take a little look around since we didn’t have enough time to during our last visit.”

  Stashed among the flowers and garbage they found an assortment of bottles and emptied five rubbing alcohol coolers.

  Jack looked up to see that the medics had managed to pour the drunk onto the stretcher and were loading him into the ambulance. “You guys want us to tag along?” he asked.

  “Nah, we got it. Thanks for the loan of the stick.” The medic slammed shut the ambulance doors, pulled off his latex gloves and turned to Jack and Manny. “Don’t know if you guys would be interested in this, but we were just in 295 Gerrard and there’s a guy dealing in the stairwell. Didn’t even bother to try and hide it when we went by.”

  With less than an hour to go on the last day of a very long day shift, Manny perked up like a puppy who had just spotted a squirrel. Jack sighed. In their few days together, Jack had learned that, when Manny saw a squirrel, all Jack could do was make sure the silly little puppy didn’t chase it into traffic and get himself squashed by a car.

  “What did he look like?” Manny asked.

  Jack could feel him tugging at the leash.

  “White guy, lot of acne, green shirt. He was selling rock to some black guys when we went by.”

  “Where in the building?”

  “East stairwell. About twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thanks, man. We’ll check it out.”

  In the scout car, Jack cranked the AC the second Manny had the engine running. Manny had the mike in his hand. “You don’t mind, do you, Jack?”

  Jack sighed again. “Fine. But if you get me in a foot chase in this heat, I’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll do the chasing, dude. Thanks.” He was beaming like a kid with a new toy.

  As Manny waited to merge with traffic, Jack watched the drunks. They were up and searching the flower bed, no doubt hoping a bottle had been overlooked. A pigeon near the scout car caught Jack’s attention. It was walking along the curb on rather unsteady legs.

  I’d swear the damn thing’s staggering.

  As he watched, the bird missed a step and slid off the curb. It hit the asphalt in a flurry of ruffled feathers. After several attempts to jump to the curb, it gave up and staggered off along the street.

  Crap, even the pigeons down here are drunk.

  295 Gerrard was diagonally across from Pigeon Park, a six-storey building holding down the northwest corner of Regent Park. There was no easy way to sneak up on any of the entrances in daylight, especially in a scout car, so Manny took the direct approach and parked on the grass in front of the building.

  “You got something against parking on the street?” Jack asked as they got out of
the car.

  “It’s rush hour, man,” Manny explained. “Don’t want to mess up traffic. Besides, this way we’ll have shorter to walk with our prisoner.”

  “Like he’s still here,” Jack commented as Manny ducked around the building to use the rear entrance. Jack took the front.

  From the outside, all the buildings in Regent Park were similar. Same brick colour, same design, same worn-down, despairing appearance. Inside, they were identical, right down to the depressing shade of paint and the stench of old urine. Jack wasn’t looking forward to the smell in this heat. Mounting the front steps, he tried to see into the building, but the door’s glass was reflecting the sun and everything beyond it was hidden.

  This guy better be gone, or I’m gonna be pissed.

  He yanked open the door and came face to face with the dealer, green shirt, zits and all. There was a split second of shocked immobility; then the dealer bolted, Jack hard on his heels. Who was the puppy now?

  The dealer ran with the speed only true fear can inspire and hip-checked open the stairwell door. The door swung closed behind him and through the door’s window Jack could see him pounding up the stairs.

  Jack hit the door in full stride, throwing out his left arm to slam it open. His arm passed through the emptiness where the glass should have been and his head rammed the metal edge of the window frame. He crashed through the door into the stairwell and ended up on his ass at the foot of the stairs. He grabbed the railing to haul himself up, but the cinderblock walls were spinning too fast for him to stand, so he eased himself onto the steps and hung his head between his knees. That’s where Manny found him moments later.

  “Jack! What’s wrong? You okay?” Manny squatted in front of him.

  At least Jack thought the blurred image in front of him was his partner.

  “Jack, you’re bleeding. I’ll get an ambulance.”

  Jack groped blindly in front of himself and managed to catch Manny’s hand before he could key his radio. “I don’t need an ambulance.” He gingerly touched his eyebrow and felt the sting of a cut. He hoped he wouldn’t need stitches. God, this was embarrassing enough without having to go to the hospital.

  Who had to stop whom from running into traffic?

  Jack raised his head and was happy to find that the walls were stationary and Manny was in focus. “I’m only going to tell you once what happened and then we are both going to forget it ever happened. . . .”

  Thursday, 14 September

  2130 hours

  Jack was fast asleep on the living room couch, a well-thumbed copy of Stephen King’s The Stand — the unabridged version, naturally — open on his stomach. He had retired, or retreated, depending on the point of view, to the couch and the world of Trashcan Man and the Walking Dude after a rather strained dinner with Karen. His return to work, to 51 in particular, continued to be a source of conflict between them, an irritant in their daily lives, and he had hoped to give her time to cool down. Instead, he had fallen asleep.

  The doorbell rudely jerked him from his slumber. He lay quietly, wondering if he had dreamed the sound of the chimes. He decided on dream chimes and his eyes were sagging comfortably shut when the bells tolled again. He swung his feet to the floor as he checked his watch, confirming what the twilit sky was saying.

  “I’ll get it, Jack,” Karen called as she thumped down the stairs to the front door. How someone so delicate could thump so loudly always amazed him.

  “Unless it’s a kid selling good chocolate, tell whoever it is to go away and call first next time.” Jack resumed his napping position, squirming his shoulders into the cushions piled behind him. He cracked open his book as a huge yawn cracked his jaws. “Sorry, Steve. Maybe later.” He deposited the book on the glass coffee table and folded his hands on his stomach.

  He heard voices from the front hall but tuned them out; Karen was handling it, he could go back to sleep. Unless, of course, they had company.

  “Jack! Don’t go back to sleep; my parents are here.”

  Oh. Fucking. Joy.

  “Did we wake you, Jack?” Evelyn was her normal resplendent self in a green silk blouse and slacks; she blew into the living room like some fairy something-or-other from the Emerald City. And, wherever the fairy mother-in-law was, Jack’s favourite bridge-troll-in-law couldn’t be far behind.

  “Jack, good to see you.” George Hawthorn was ultra casual tonight. A sports jacket and no tie? Jack was tempted to look outside, convinced he would see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bearing down on the house.

  Hawthorn stuck out a hand and Jack shook, noting — with petty enjoyment — a fleeting twinge across his father-in-law’s face. And Hawthorn was man enough to admit it as he rubbed his hand. “Quite the grip you’ve developed, Jack. All that time in the gym must be paying off.”

  “Oh, it certainly is,” Evelyn agreed. “Jack, you’re growing like an adolescent boy. Pretty soon you’ll be bigger than that Arnold fellow.”

  “I’ve got a long ways to go before that happens, Evelyn.”

  Her eyebrows twitched — in surprise or annoyance? — at the use of her first name. It surprised Jack as well. He hadn’t intended to call her Evelyn; it just slipped out. What the hell, she’d been asking him for years to drop the Mrs. Hawthorn thing.

  Guess she never figured I would.

  “Sorry about the greeting. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have cut the nap short.”

  “Jack,” Karen scolded him, “I told you at dinner my parents were coming over for coffee and dessert.”

  “Oh, sorry. I guess I forgot.”

  “Perfectly understandable, son —” Son? “— I imagine you have a lot on your mind these days now that you are back to work.”

  “That’s no excuse, Dad, and he knows it. And just for that, Jack, you can help me with the cheesecake.”

  In the kitchen, Karen busied herself with the coffee and cups while Jack got out plates for the dessert. The cheesecake, a behemoth of chocolate, occupied centre stage in the fridge.

  I must have been tired to miss that sitting there.

  “Did you catch that?” he asked her in a hushed whisper as they arranged everything on trays. “Your dad called me ‘son.’”

  “Well, you called Mom ‘Evelyn.’ I think it’s nice. Maybe the three of you are finally getting closer.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded, hoisting a tray. Yeah, right.

  They were sipping contentedly on coffee after the first round of cheesecake had been reduced to scraped plates. Jack was the only one who had opted for seconds.

  “So, Jack, how’s 51 Division treating you these days?” Hawthorn asked with all the subtlety of a hammer applied to a stubborn nail.

  Jack paused, a fork full of cake halfway to his mouth. “Fine,” he replied, suddenly on guard. He finished his dessert and swapped the empty plate for his coffee mug. Mug, not cup, and it all fell into place. His in-laws just stopping by for dessert. On a weeknight? Their casual — casual for them, at least — mode of dress. Karen’s homemade chocolate cheesecake, his favourite. An oversized mug for him when everyone else had a cup. No way would Karen let that pass, not with her parents visiting. And no way would she have let him wear the jeans and T-shirt he had worn home from work.

  He looked at the sitting arrangement. Karen next to him on the couch, between him and the front hall, and her parents opposite them in chairs, blocking the exit to the kitchen. He was cornered. Had they pinned him in purposefully? Or had it just happened? Either way, he was trapped and now that the chocolate bait had been taken, they were going to close the trap on him.

  Evelyn leaned forward to pat his knee. “We’d like to take this opportunity to express our condolences to you again for your loss and to remind you we’re here for you, for the both of you. If you need anything, all you have to do is ask.”

  “That’s awfully kind of you, Evelyn.” No surprised twitches that time. “But we’re doing okay.”

  “That’s not what we hear, son.” Hawtho
rn had his hands folded on crossed legs, the picture of an understanding adult ready to hear his child’s woes. Was that how he looked when his students grovelled for extra time on assignments?

  “It isn’t?” Jack eased back on the couch, mug in hand. This was his house and no way was he going to let Hawthorn play the adult. He turned to Karen. “I seem to be at a . . . disadvantage here, hon. Maybe someone can bring me up to speed?”

  Evelyn spoke. “Jack, we’re all worried about you. Karen has told us all about it. How you’re not sleeping well, your nightmares. . . .”

  “Gee, Evelyn, I guess watching my partner have his throat slit open in front of me might have something to do with that. Or maybe it was trying to stop him from bleeding to death by shoving my fingers inside his throat. Either one, I would imagine.” He sipped his coffee.

  Evelyn flinched.

  “Don’t you see, Jack? This is exactly what we need to talk about,” Hawthorn said earnestly, no doubt seeing the perfect segue to his argument. “Before you transferred to 51, you would never have spoken to Evelyn in such a tone. What happened to your partner was a tragedy, without a doubt, and you witnessing it is an ordeal we can only imagine. But the changes in you were occurring before that tragic night.”

  “So, am I to understand this is some kind of intervention? You want me to realize 51 is destroying my life?”

  Karen scooted over next to him and took his hand in hers. “Jack, I love you and I’m worried about you. My parents are worried about you.”

  He relinquished his mug and wrapped his hand over hers. She was the one he needed to convince, not her parents, so he spoke only to her. “Karen, what happened to Sy could happen anywhere in the city. Yes, 51 is rougher than 32 and other divisions, but I’ve told you, that can actually make it safer in a way. I’m more aware now of my surroundings at work and my own safety than I ever was in 32. I was complacent up there. Now, I’m not.” He laughed bitterly. “And besides, the odds of something like that night happening to me again in my career are astronomical. I could probably spend the rest of my career working naked and nothing would happen to me.”