The Waiting Hours

by Shandi Mitchell

  “Remove your hands from your pockets!”

  The male didn’t budge. Mike leaned into his handset. He was sweating. “Car 322. Ten-seventy-six, requesting assistance. Eyes on possible suspect. Uncooperative.”

  The male’s arms moved. He was sliding his hands from his pockets. Mike’s hand went to his weapon.

  “Slowly!” He didn’t sound in control. “Bring your hands out, away from your sides, palms up.”

  As the hands slipped from the pouch pocket, his flashlight caught the metallic glint of silver-grey. Mike drew his weapon and aimed his light on the perp’s hidden face.

  “Place your hands on the back of your head.” The perp placed his hands on the back of his head.

  “Now turn around and kneel down.” The perp turned, but did not kneel. Mike stepped away from the shield of his door, his flashlight crossed over his gun hand.

  “Do not make any sudden moves. Kneel. Now!” The flashlight beam jittered across the perp’s shoulders. Mike was aware he was driving it too hard, escalating the situation, but he couldn’t stop. With each step his back went into spasm. The perp was shaking his head in refusal.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he said.

  “Get down on your knees!” Mike roared. In the house across the street, an upper-storey light came on. He could hear the faint whine of sirens. His jaw was clenching. He was breathing heavily and his neck was pulsing. The perp’s calf muscle twitched. Do not make me run, you little shit. “ON YOUR KNEES!”

  The perp bolted. Mike’s finger stiffened on the trigger. He had a clean shot dead centre of the man’s back. He could stop it here. Fuck! He took off running, his utility belt slapping against his hips. He panted into the walkie, “In foot pursuit. Suspect armed. Heading north on Maitland…”

  The perp was running scared, deking left and right. Mike clomped heavily behind, each stride jolting his back. The perp sprinted across the street, lurched over the curb, and slipped on the grass. One white sneaker came off. Off balance, his head thrust forward, arms and legs windmilling, he regained his footing.

  Mike was bearing down on him. The perp’s hoodie had fallen back and he could see his scrawny neck. For twenty paces they were lockstep. He could hear his prey’s frenzied breath and his own laboured grunts. Five more paces and he was closing ground. Ten more paces and he reached out, grabbed the hoodie, and yanked back, clothes-lining him to the ground. He flipped him face down and pinned his arms hard behind him.

  The perp was gasping for air, sucking deep from his diaphragm. Mike ground his knee into his spine and snapped the cuffs around his thin wrists. The perp was smaller than he had thought. He wrenched him onto his side, twisting his wrists up towards his bony shoulders, and reached into the pouch pocket. He felt cold metal. Son of a bitch. He jammed the perp’s head to the ground with his elbow and from the pocket extracted a metallic grey spray-paint can.

  He looked at the face of the perp and saw a boy. The boy’s cheeks were wet and he was huffing for breath; his lips and nose were plowed into the grass; blood smeared his front teeth. It was the kid in the park, his hands plugging a hole in his best friend’s neck. Mike’s stomach heaved. He pushed himself off the boy, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hoisted him to his feet.

  “For Chrissakes, why did you run?” He brushed the dried grass from the front of the kid’s sweatshirt. He followed the kid’s furtive glance to the back of the school and the freshly painted mural of a gun-grey skull—its open bone jaw spilling musical notes. A misdemeanour. A mischief charge at most. He could have shot the kid. He had wanted to shoot the kid.

  He fumbled for the keys to unlock the cuffs. He was already making excuses in his head. The boy’s knobby knees were scuffed and grass-stained. One foot was bare. Sirens ricocheted around them. ETA one minute.

  “Get out of here,” he said. It was an apology. An offering. Absolution.

  Antoine looked up at him with white-hot eyes. “Fuck you, pig.” The boy staggered away and disappeared into the cover of the Square.

  Mike hurled the paint can as far as he could. He couldn’t stifle the whimper that doubled him over. He thought he might black out. Unfolding the accordion of his back, he limped to the curb.

  Wade was first to arrive on scene with lights and sirens baying. Her cruiser fishtailed around the corner. Mike waved his flashlight, directing her south towards the city. Away from him.

  48

  Hassan followed the winding highway, skirting the Basin back to the city. His reaction time was impaired and his eyes had hyper-sensitized to the stark light of street lamps searing the night. He gripped the steering wheel tighter and overcompensated for the slight curve ahead. He drifted over the centre line and tugged back into his lane.

  Soon there would be delivery trucks, street cleaners, buses, and cars shuttling bleary-eyed occupants with deep frowns and bucket-sized coffees. Kitchen lights were already on in a few houses. He stared at the yellow line slipping past his tires and jerked his eyes back to the road ahead. The waterside view flickered stuttering trees, bush, cheap motels, cheaper restaurants, power poles, railway tracks, guardrails, bush…a glimpse of ink-black water holding the city’s shimmering light.

  A domed roof emerged from the jagged cut-out of trees on the water’s edge. He had always admired the Rotunda. It reminded him of Baghdad’s shrines. It had been a music room built by a prince, perhaps for his mistress. It was all that remained of an estate that once contained gardens, grottoes, and pathways that spelled her name. The heart-shaped pond was still there, but her name had been erased by the bramble of a mere two hundred years. “Nothing lasts here,” he said. He glanced down at the book. He knew she wasn’t there. But sometimes he told her his stories anyway. It seemed less crazy than talking to himself.

  Trees gave way to guardrail and for several miles he had an unobstructed view of the harbour’s reflections and the second bridge’s lights stringing the sky. The one they called the new bridge, though it was thirty years old. This land was so young it couldn’t imagine its own death. Baghdad must have once believed that, too. Believed Muhammad’s words that the scholar’s ink would outweigh the blood of martyrs and the Golden Age of Islam would stand forever. They couldn’t have imagined the House of Wisdom razed. Or the grandson of Genghis Khan riding his Mongol horses across the Tigris over a bridge of a hundred thousand drowned manuscripts inking the river black with dying words. “Nothing lasts forever,” he said. He had read that somewhere, maybe on a bumper sticker. He half expected her to challenge him. It would be so easy to lose one’s mind.

  A cat streaked across the road. He hit the brakes too hard and the book plopped to the floor. His heart pumped from the startle of a near miss. He slowed to a crawl and strained to reach the book. His fingertips clawed it back up onto the passenger seat, as his eyes dipped below the steering wheel and the front wheel rumbled gravel. The cab fishtailed back to pavement. He wasn’t safe to drive. He took a breath and eased up to the speed limit.

  “Home,” he ordered. Bed, his mind countered.

  He turned the radio on loud, music that hurt his ears. A girl partying in the U.S.A. He didn’t slow for the next curve. The wilted wisteria in the dash vase bobbed and swayed. As he accelerated out of the bend, his mind registered something on the road. Something moving. Stop, his mind said. STOP!

  A man was in his lane. Shirtless and shoeless. He jammed on the brakes and the cab slid to a screeching halt, too late. He veered hard left and clipped the man. The man slammed over the hood against the windshield before slumping out of view. The radio’s bass thumped-thumped against Hassan’s chest. He shut it off, switched on his four-way flashers, and ran around the car despite his terror at what he might see.

  A man, skisn and bones, was leaning against the fender. His left arm hung loose at his side and his breathing was laboured.

  “Are you okay?”

  The man looked up but didn’t respond. Hassan looked for another vehicle on the road to tell him what to do. “I’ll call an ambul
ance.”

  “No!” The man stood up with the lurch of someone who had traversed a desert. His eyes wild and lost. On his feet were only socks.

  “Okay.” Hassan raised his hands to show he meant no harm. “No ambulance.” But he could see the man was in pain. “I can take you.” He cautiously opened the passenger door. “I can drive you.” The man sagged as though he might faint. Hassan reached to guide him in and the man staggered back.

  “Please, sit.” Hassan stepped aside to give him space. “Please.” Unsteadily, the man lowered his lanky body into the front seat. The sour stench of fear and sweat overwhelmed the cab. Before Hassan could retrieve the book, it was in the man’s hand. He held it gently on his lap. His dirt-caked fingers traced the letters of her name.

  “Is this the ending?” the man asked. His voice was dust and sand.

  Hassan took in the man’s sallow cheeks and the dark circles and deep lines around his eyes. His blue-grey irises were almost lost in the black pools of his pupils. This is what madness looked like. The man’s eyes met his. So this is how it ends, Hassan thought. Al-Hamdu Lillah. As Allah has willed; praise be to Allah.

  The man stared at him intently and he realized he had said the words out loud. Behind them, tires hummed. The whir of rubber on asphalt oscillated to an unnatural pitch and a bus appeared around the curve. The man laid his hands, palms down, on the book and his arms stiffened. He looked sickly yellow in the cab’s wan light. He was going to die in his cab. “Don’t,” Hassan said. “Don’t.”

  He ran towards the bus. “Help!” he hollered, flagging it down. “Help!”

  The off-duty bus roared past, blinding him in a vortex of dust. When he turned around, the man was gone. He wasn’t on the road. He wasn’t in the ditch. He looked to the heart-shaped pond’s impenetrable pitch-black woods. The open passenger door chimed.

  The book nowhere to be found.

  49

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  4:36 a.m. Her colleagues’ heads lifted expectantly. They were blaming the approaching storm for the rash of calls. Tamara checked her monitor. Mike’s car was parked back in the same spot, but this time he was responding to checks. Maybe he was cooling down after losing his suspect, or catching up on paperwork.

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  She pressed her ear to the headset and heard a gurgle. Male or female, she didn’t know.

  “Can you hear me? If you hear me, can you tap the phone?”

  The phone scraped something hard. Maybe wood. The floor.

  “That’s good,” Tamara said. “Can you speak?”

  A moan. Female. Tamara’s fingers flew across the keyboard, searching for a phone number and location. “Can you hold the phone closer to your mouth?” She closed her eyes and listened. She could hear breathing now. Slow and shallow. Medical distress.

  “Tell me where you are.” She heard a swallow and the smack of dry, sticky lips.

  “I thought I could do it,” the voice murmured.

  “What’s your name?” She pulled up the phone’s information. It was a cell phone with an unlisted number. “Tell me your name.”

  “Keira.” Her voice was an ocean.

  “I need you to tell me where you are, Keira.”

  The woman took a long, deep inhale. “I don’t want you to come.” The words exhaled slow and thick.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard, activating the location tracking program. “Are you in medical distress, Keira?”

  “No.” Weary and slurred. A younger woman’s voice.

  “Did you take something?” The computer searched for coordinates, bouncing radio signals from tower to tower calculating life or death.

  “Yes,” the voice breathed.

  “What did you take?”

  “Hmm…” She was drifting.

  “Did you take pills?” The pauses between question and response were lengthening. “Keira.” The name was sharp and brittle in her mouth. “I need you to answer.” She rolled her chair closer to the console. “Tell me what you took.” Her words were hard, non-negotiable.

  The voice sighed, “Doesn’t matter…”

  A map zoomed up on her screen. Half a city block was lit up with three hundred metres of variance overlapping an apartment building and a dozen row houses.

  “Keira, I need you to talk to me.” She typed simultaneously. 10-30. Suicidal. Female. Suspected overdose.

  “You have a nice voice,” the woman said.

  “Keira, tell me what you took.”

  “Everything,” she said.

  Over the cubicle, Colleen caught her eye. She was standing by for dispatch. Tamara shook her head. She didn’t have the address yet. She glanced to car 322 flashing on the screen. Mike was within the zone.

  “Are you in your home?”

  “…yes…”

  “Is it a house?” Her voice was strong and unbending.

  “…yes…” The s was barely shaped.

  She eliminated the apartment building from the map and softened her tone to sweet and caring. “What’s your last name, Keira?”

  The woman laughed softly. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Are the lights on in the house?”

  “…there’s nothing to see…”

  Her fingers paused over the keyboard, searching for the questions she hadn’t yet asked.

  The voice trembled, “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.” She didn’t have enough information. She couldn’t narrow the search.

  The voice balled up small and afraid. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be alone…”

  “Keira, tell me where you are.” She stared at the screen. Her words blinked back. Highest priority. Incomplete. Useless. She swung her chair around, turning her back to the monitors. As she spun, she glimpsed her supervisor. His eyes questioned if she could handle this. Again.

  She shut her eyes and pressed her headphones tight to her ears, “Let me help you.” There wasn’t a sound clue in the background. She couldn’t see in the dark.

  “It’s too late…he’s gone.”

  “Who’s gone? Was there someone there with you?”

  The woman’s breath faltered.

  “Who lives with you, Keira?” She glimpsed her shape on the floor, cell phone in hand. “Who’s gone?” Keep her talking. She had called them. She doesn’t want to die.

  “It all looks the same.” The woman gagged down the words. “It shouldn’t look the same.”

  “Who did you lose, Keira?” She counted the seconds between breaths. They could start knocking on doors. They should start knocking on doors.

  “Keira, please talk to me.”

  She heard the words as soft as a heartbeat. “Hallelujah, by and by…”

  She swung around in her chair. The highlighted block, the Square. She typed furiously. 10-18 urgent, 10-30/59 Sierra in progress. Drug overdose. She tapped the screen, zooming in tighter for the address. She said, “I’ll fly away…”

  “What did you say?” The voice crumbled.

  She made her wait. Dispatch EMT. The house number and street address blazed across her screen. Colleen waved, confirming she had the logistics. Her neutral voice called the action: “Ten-thirty in progress. Female, drug overdose, conscious. Police en route, ETA one minute. Ambulance en route, ETA eight minutes. Fire en route, four minutes. Forced entry may be required.”

  Car 322 was on the move.

  Tamara said, “I heard him play the piano.” In her mind, she was walking up the stairs past the white rose bouquets, past the palm streak on the mirrored closet, the pink chair, two fans, smiling photographs, and up the stairs to the boy’s bedroom and the woman lying on his floor in the dark with an empty pill bottle. Medically prescribed sleeping pills and antidepressants. Her arm outstretched. His name tattooed on her skin.

  “I was there,” Tamara said.

  The woman’s breath caught in her throat. One second, two seconds, three seconds—grief moaned from her lungs.

/>   “I was with him.” And they both knew what she meant. Car 322 slid across her screen. ETA thirty seconds.

  “Stay with me, Keira.” Her words were as soft as a final sustain.

  “By and by…,” Devon’s mother exhaled.

  Tamara looked to the tinted glass wall reflecting nothing.

  50

  “Police! Open the door!”

  Mike pounded again. A light was on upstairs. Other lights were turning on in houses next door and across the street. The Square was awash in red and blue. He kicked the hollow-core wood door and his boot broke through the shoddy material. Pain flared up his back. He kicked again and the frame splintered. One more kick and the door flung open. The paperwork to explain this entry would take hours.

  “Police! Is anybody here?”

  He followed the light up the narrow staircase. The house smelled of a home-cooked meal. He crashed up the stairs two at a time, tripping over the narrow treads. His walkie scraped the wall. The woman was in a child’s bedroom, sprawled face down at the edge of the bed, nested on a pile of boy’s clothing. Vomit puddled the floor. On the night table were two pill bottles, one empty, the other full. He squinted at the fine print. Codeine and sedatives. He searched for a pulse on her neck. The woman retched. The mattress smothered her nose and mouth. An ambulance screamed closer.

  Mike gently cupped the woman’s chin and lifted her head to clear her airway. A spew of vomit splashed his boots. In the deepest pages of his mind, he wrote down the name tattooed on her arm and marked three lines so he would never look there again. The boy’s mother gripped his trousers and her body heaved.

  He rubbed her back just like he had done so many times before to comfort his own children, wishing he could say something that wouldn’t be a lie.

  51

  The police officer at the front desk made Hassan repeat his story twice, and then he waited in the lobby another half an hour before a different officer escorted him to an interview room. Her handshake felt like she wanted to be elsewhere. The windowless cement-block room was smaller than a cell. It was crammed with a narrow table and three mismatched chairs. The air was stale and the fluorescents flickered. It reminded him of Before.