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“Calm down, honey. The poh-poh’s just checking on your warrants.”
The elevator doors opened to the ground floor, which contains three things: the lobby, reception and the jail.
Traffic warrant? Maybe, buried under all the other ones. She had an NCIC hit for an armed robbery two states over. The stupidity of humanity is unparalleled. She actually confessed that she didn’t think she was a suspect because they hadn’t found her yet. Yet. I love arresting felons, but I’d rather do it after my coffee.
And that was Clevenger and I’s first bust together.
The walk back to my office is bitterly cold, but still and quiet as a graveyard.
The snow dances in swirls as it falls, a ballet of flittering ice, distorting the sallow luminescence from the street lamps lining the avenue.
Eventually I get on my building’s street and I shake off the frost’s arresting grip. Two blocks later and I can see the office building loom over the skyline.
I fix my eyes to the building itself and its surroundings well before I get within its sights. As I walk calmly, hands in pockets, cigarette hanging from my mouth, my eyes inspect every shadow, every pool of darkness, every car parked along the street, every window that could be open to take a shot at me.
All this and I don’t see a thing. The street seems dead. But the best predators act deceased when their prey is expecting it to be alive.
I climb the steps to the front door and go inside. I shed a mantle of snow from my coat as if it were a sheath of dead reptile scales. My footprints follow me written in dirty puddles of melt. The elevator is slow as usual. The doors open with a creak. The button for my floor sticks. The two bulbs that should be dripping light into the elevator car flicker like they always do.
My floor greets me. As second nature, I examine the lock on my door. Look for scratch marks, chiseling. I look at the door jamb. The glass. Watch for black shadows moving through blacker shadows. Once, many years ago a guy I put in prison was waiting for me inside this very office. When it was over, we both left the building. I was on foot, he was not.
The door opens now, .44 Magnum sweeping the room. This is routine. I thump on the light switch. All the shadows evaporate. A quick look behind my desk tells me I am alone, and I sit down in the familiar old leather chair.
I open the bottom drawer and remove my whiskey bottle. A quick pull on it and I exhale with the satisfaction of a good whiskey burn.
Another long pull on the whiskey and I lean back. I draw my .44 and keep it resting on my chest as I shut my eyes to sleep for a few hours.
In an hour buried deep below midnight, the darkness is sliced in half. My phone rings as shrill and unwelcome as a mother-in-law. Clevenger. He never calls at this hour. Not unless someone is dead.
I answer.
Someone is.
24
I get out of the cab and walk up to my old partner.
Sleep still husks my voice. I light a smoke. I’m sure he can smell the whiskey on my breath. He eyeballs me, looking for my night cap. Flutter. I hand him the flask I keep in my jacket. He swigs. Swigs again. Clevenger doesn’t drink all that much. But he is tonight. A tell.
The lawn is all muddy, trampled snow and soaking wet from the fire engine. The rich smell of burnt everything clings to the air like souls of the damned; the burning, the char, the thick bulk of stench.
The roar of the blaze killed off an hour ago by water. The steam and the frigid air fight each other for dominance. Everything painted the colors of emergency flashers. Walkie-talkies squelching. My head hurts.
The ambulance crew puts the body in the back, shuts the doors. Any amount of solemnity that would accompany the duty of transporting the dead is washed out in flashing strobes of blue and red.
Neighbors still perch on their doorsteps. Cop cars in the driveway. Fire engine #3 alongside the road. Three ambulances; one a tomb. The smoke in the air burns my eyes. My shoulders collect small flakes of ash as they swirl about.
Clevenger points. Useless, but he fidgets at times like these.
“Arson,” he says. The sleep in his voice cracks under the weight of the word.
“How’d you pull the squawk on this one?”
“Not mine officially. If it were I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be drinking at the scene. Remember Riggens from Narcotics?”
“Yup.”
“His kid brother is a rookie over at Arson. Fresh meat like three weeks ago. His last beat as a street cop took him here for that call you asked me to dig up. The intruder, Benny whatever. I spoke to Riggens’ kid brother about it earlier; he filled me in and sent the file my way.”
