by James Tarr
“Game? What game?” Kennedy asked him.
“The World Cup, man, are you kidding me?”
“Soccer?” Kennedy said incredulously. “What kind of metrosexual douchebag watches soccer?” he asked. He turned his head to look at Dave, and Dave caught the wink. Kennedy then turned back to Peterson. “Buncha lawn fairies flitting about.”
Peterson’s eyebrows went up, and he pushed himself up in his car so he could see deeper into Kennedy’s. “Looks like you could use a little more flitting…” he said in a gay man’s voice, then let up on his brake and started to pull away.
“Was that a fat joke? Did you just make a fat joke?” Kennedy yelled after the departing car, sounding like he was mad, but when he pulled his head back in the window Dave saw he was smiling.
Dave thought about it for about a minute, then asked Kennedy, “How did he know they were Democrats?”
“What?”
“In the car, that he stopped. He said they were all Democrats. How did he know? Is that on a driver’s license when you pull it up on your computer?”
They rolled up to a red light, and Kennedy took the opportunity to look at the kid in the passenger seat. Was he fucking with him? From the look on his face, apparently not.
“Ninety-five percent of all blacks vote Democrat,” Kennedy told him.
Dave’s eyebrows when up. “Oh,” he said, finally understanding. He sat for another minute, then said. “I don’t understand it though. I mean, I believe your numbers, although I didn’t think it was that high. But, seriously, it doesn’t make any sense. Blacks are in much worse shape now, financially and culturally, than they were when FDR was in office. What has voting Democrat done for them?”
“Good to see that college education is paying off,” Kennedy said. “No, it doesn’t make any sense, but people don’t make any sense. And you know what I call that?” he asked the young man.
“No, what?”
“Job security.”
Half an hour later, on Van Dyke Avenue, moving south past the GM Tech Center. Kennedy pointed through the windshield. “Can you tell what month that tab is?”
Dave looked over at the small license plate sticker, indicating which month the vehicle’s registration expired. He saw DEC. “December,” he said.
“Are you sure? Shit, I need new glasses, it looks like February to me.” They rolled through the light at 12 Mile. Kennedy glanced over at the young kid in the passenger seat. “So, what do you think about the job, kid? Think it’s for you?”
Dave wasn’t expecting the question, and he hesitated in answering. “It’s….it’s not what I expected,” he admitted. “You’re such a slave to the radio, and so much of what you have to deal with is…..”
“What?” Kennedy didn’t look or seem angry, just interested in his answer.
“Bullshit,” Dave told him. “Car crashes, old ladies who can’t hear the phone ringing, husbands and wives fighting, traffic tickets, runaway kids. I mean, I’d rather do this than work in a factory, but I think I’d much rather do something where I could—” he almost said, ‘use my brain’, but thought better of it at the last second. “Do some investigating. Work cases.” The chatter on the police radio was nearly constant, with other units calling in license plates for traffic stops or arriving at or clearing calls. At first it had been horribly distracting for Dave, and carrying on conversations in the car with Officer Stone that first week had been really tough, with the radio a constant distraction in the background, until he ultimately decided to tune the radio chatter out.
“What, like homicide?”
“No, not really. More….federal, I guess. I’d love to be part of the FBI task force working on these bank robbers. Secret Service, working counterfeiting cases. DEA, doing drug cases. Something like that.”
“We’ve got detectives, we’ve got undercover guys working drug cases,” Kennedy pointed out.
“Yeah, but…..” Dave finally shrugged. “I guess I’ve always wanted to go federal, like FBI. But I wanted to do this internship, just in case I really liked it, or liked it more than I thought I would.”
“I got news for you, you’re going to have to deal with bullshit no matter who you’re working for, just the flavor changes. How old are you?”
“Twenty, almost twenty-one,” Dave told him.
“I remember when I was your age. Job’s not for everybody,” Kennedy admitted. “Me, I like working the town I live in. I live here, my parents live here, my kids go to the schools, it keeps me motivated to do the job right.” They cruised over “the ditch”, which is what all the Warren cops called I-696. The six lane, 70-mph freeway ran east-west and was below street level. Some stretches of 696 had steep grass embankments on either side, but at Van Dyke the walls were vertical concrete.
“I get that,” Dave told him. “I just don’t—
“Radio, all units, clear the air, stand by,” jumped out of the radio.
“What’s that?” Dave said. The female dispatcher had sounded a little tense.
“Shut up,”
The radio burst back into life. “All units, hold-up alarm at Michigan National Bank, 4860 14 Mile. Trying to make contact via a land line. Units responding?”
Before the dispatcher had even read out the entire address Kennedy had the car floored, and Dave held onto the door handle as the cop slewed the cruiser around two slow moving cars. If he’d thought the officer had been driving aggressively before, that was nothing compared to how he started driving after the call went out.
“George 10 is fifteen seconds away,” Dave heard.
“Aren’t we heading the wrong way?” Dave asked. They were heading south, and the bank was north and a little west of them.
“Red light, don’t fight, make a right,” Kennedy growled through clenched teeth.
“What?”
Kennedy didn’t answer and instead hit the lights and siren, then turned up the police radio. Cars ahead of them hit their brakes and moved to the side, and when they moved too slowly, Kennedy passed them using the center left turn lane. He took the corner at 10 Mile with squealing tires and headed west, engine roaring.
“Radio, George 10, just talked to the bank manager in the parking lot, suspects just fled the scene in a silver sedan.”
“George 10, you’re saying this was an attempted robbery?”
“Ten four, good alarm, multiple black male suspects with guns, they got some cash, then got spooked and took off. Couldn’t be more than two minutes ago.”
“Right turns are easier, almost everybody turns right,” Kennedy said to Dave over the roaring engine. “If they did that and they’re heading back to Detroit there’s a real good chance they’re heading southbound on Mound right now.”
Dave could see the medians of Mound road up ahead. It was a boulevard most of the way through Warren, with the wide medians plain grassy mounds, at their apex about three feet above pavement level. He wondered if the mounds on Mound were just coincidence. At 10 Mile, Mound was three lanes on either side of the median.
“Radio, Bravo 40, we’re southbound on Mound from Twelve behind a silver Monte Carlo, multiple people inside.” Dave recognized the voice belonging to Bravo 40 as belonging to Jacob Williams. Team Jacob. In the background of the call Dave could hear the siren behind Williams, and his partner on the PA shouting, ‘Pull over!’”
There was a two second pause, then Williams was back on the mike, sounding only slightly more animated. “Dispatch, Bravo 40, be advised they have fired at us, they are shooting out the windows.” Dave remembered that both Williams and his partner had done time in Iraq.
“Hold on to your shit, kid, this is why they give us body armor and guns,” Kennedy told him, then grabbed the mike and they flew toward 10 Mile Road’s intersection with Mound. The intersection was rather open, with a gas station at one corner, and a few other businesses, but no residences. “Frank 10 is holding at 10 Mile and Mound.”
“David 40 is two minutes away.”
Dave
earlier had deliberately been tuning out the radio traffic, but it seemed to him as if a lot of the cops had been on calls of one sort or another when dispatch hit the air with the robbery call.
“You gonna get in trouble for bringing me into this?” Dave asked him.
“A whole shitload, especially if you get killed,” Kennedy responded. He sounded completely serious.
At Mound Road the road planners who’d designed I-696 decided to shake things up a bit, and instead of having Mound cross over the freeway, Mound crossed under. The freeway also angled a little southward at that spot, and was just half a mile north of 10 Mile. Kennedy pulled into the big intersection, then drove northbound in the southbound lanes through a few cars which scattered in slow motion. Kennedy stopped a hundred feet north of 10 Mile and turned broadside to oncoming traffic, turning the driver’s side of the cruiser toward the oncoming threat. Dave looked past Kennedy’s chest down the gentle slope, under the freeway bridge, but didn’t see anything.
“Anything happens, keep your head down, and stay in the car,” Kennedy told him loudly, trying to be heard over their siren.
“Think they’re going to stop?” Dave asked him. The car had filled with the smell of overheated brake pads.
“Oh, we’re not going to leave it up to them,” Kennedy replied.
“DPD has been alerted, they’ve got units rolling,” dispatch said tersely, assuming this chase, like so many others, would continue southbound.
“Charlie 10’s clearing my scene, I’m one minute out,” they heard.
Dave heard them before he saw the two cars, Bravo 40’s siren and two roaring engines. They appeared underneath the overpass, the silver Monte Carlo in the center lane, weaving back and forth, the cruiser with its flashing lights right on its ass.
The Chevy headed straight up the incline toward them at what to Dave seemed an incredible speed. Kennedy had his foot on the brake but the car in gear, ready to floor it to get out of the way if he needed to. The bad guys would stop or they’d fly by him, trying to get back across the border into Detroit.
“I’ll tell you right now, this is going to end down in Detroit, with a crash and them bailing out of the car,” Kennedy said to no one in particular.
The two cars seemed like they were almost on top of them, and Dave thought they were going to get rammed. Finally, at the last minute, the getaway driver seemed to notice their squad car broadside across the road, blocking half the lanes. He locked up the brakes in a panic and started swerving across all three lanes. Bravo-40 was too close, and when the driver of the Monte Carlo hit the brakes and slowed down, the cruiser moved past the rear bumper of the sedan. The two cars connected at seventy miles an hour, and then suddenly both of them were slewing out of control, almost on top of Kennedy’s cruiser.
“Fuck!” he cursed, and floored his own cruiser to get out of the way, but the Monte Carlo was like a pinball, and Dave saw the front of the car heading straight at them through Kennedy’s window.
There was a huge crunch, like God crushing a beer can, and the air sparkled with flying glass. The world spun and Dave felt his head rebound off the headrest, and saw through the tilting, spiderwebbed windshield in front of him a cop car sailing past airborne, sideways and upside down.
They came to a rest with a rubber chirping jerk, and Dave couldn’t move for a second, too stunned at what had happened. What had happened? He looked over, and saw Officer Kennedy slumped against the door, which looked misshapen. The cop was making some garbled sounds, and moving erratically.
The impact with the fleeing car had spun them completely around once, and they were again facing the median in the middle of Mound Road. Sitting atop the grassy median, fifty feet from them, was something that hadn’t been there before: the silver Monte Carlo, with major front end damage. There were huge gouges in the turf from where the car had slid sideways to its current resting place. Dave could see movement, people inside the car, and steam spraying out from under the hood.
Where the hell was Bravo 40? He felt stupid from the blow to his head, but then saw the other police car, sixty feet away at his two o’clock. The other cop car was upside down and looked like it had rolled several times. It was half on the grassy median and half on the concrete pavement. Bravo 40 was facing him, and its windshield was completely spiderwebbed and crushed from the impact. He couldn’t see any signs of life.
“Sir. Sir. Kennedy! Bill!” Dave yelled at him, and got a groan in response, but that was it.
Dave instinctively ducked at a sound he didn’t at first recognize, then retroactively felt the pieces of glass hitting his face. He looked through the damaged windshield in time to see the man in the front passenger seat of the Monte Carlo fire another shot in their direction. The second bullet whanged off the roof of their cruiser.
“Bill!” Dave almost screamed. He grabbed the cop by the arm and chest and shook him, but the only thing that happened was Kennedy’s head fell forward, and Dave saw all the blood running down the left side of his head. Oh, shit.
Dave watched as the shooter climbed out of the Monte Carlo and start his way, firing three more shots as he advanced across the grass toward them. Dave could hear the bullets thudding into the car. Behind the advancing bank robber, Dave heard the getaway driver try to start the Monte Carlo. The starter turned and turned, but the engine wouldn’t catch. He heard yelling from inside the Monte Carlo, but for some reason it sounded very faint.
“Fuck! Fuck! Bill!” Dave yelled, without result. Then it felt as if a switch flipped in his head, and he ripped off his own seatbelt, which was restricting him. He then grabbed at the shotgun, but it was locked in the clamp.
He yanked and yanked at the gun, but the aluminum clamp held it tight, and he nearly burst into tears. He glanced out the windshield and saw the shooter had halved the distance to them. The man was tall and skinny and he fired another shot in their direction, cursing at them. The pistol in his hand looked huge. Dave heard the bullet hit glass and a thump, and Kennedy groaned.
“GODDAMMIT!” Dave screamed in frustration, then saw the button to unlock the shotgun clamp.
“No, don’t worry about me,” Dave waved off the Warren firefighter running at him with his medical kit. “I’m fine. Help Kennedy!” He could feel the blood trickling down his face, and his hands tingled, but he wasn’t in pain.
Dave backed away from their cruiser and looked around. Jim Stone, Charlie-10, was there, on one knee, half inside the upside-down Bravo-40, talking to the officers inside, and he waved the firefighter over. Two more firefighters were crowded into Kennedy’s window, working on him—the window was gone, but the door wouldn’t open. One let go of whatever he was holding and ran around the front of the car, then ducked inside the open front passenger door. His bulky coat blocked Dave’s view of Kennedy.
Drake, half of David-40, had his shotgun in his hands and was standing on the grassy median by the Monte Carlo. He was angry as hell and kept squeezing the shotgun stock, his knuckles turning white, but at the same time he looked like he wasn’t sure what to do.
The air smelled of gasoline and overheated rubber and radiator fluid. His hearing was still messed up, things just didn’t sound right. Dave wandered back to the rear of the fire engine and sat on the bumper, staring at the scene. Cars with lights and sirens converged from every direction. Within three minutes every road officer on duty was at the scene, the hell with the rest of the city, clustered around the cars.
Several cop cars with strange markings roared up from the south, and Dave saw them met by an officer. With some yelling and waving hands, he had them slew their cars to better block off Mound, and Dave saw they were Detroit Police Department units. Two more fire engines arrived, and the paramedic-trained officers crawled half inside Bravo-40 to work on the officers still in there. It was hard to tell through the trashed windshield, but it appeared they were still hanging suspended from their seatbelts
After a while, he looked down at himself. His hands were covered with K
ennedy’s blood, some of it nearly dry. What was still wet was amazingly red. It was all over his shirt and tie, too. It looked like he’d wiped bloody hands on his shirt, even though he didn’t remember doing it. He could smell blood, and taste tire rubber, and burning brake pads. The flashing red and blue lights made everything pulse in the fading afternoon light.
Booted feet appeared, and he looked up to see Jim Stone. The officer looked at him with concern. “Dude, are you okay? What the fuck happened?”
“I fucked up,” Dave said, his voice quivering. “I fucked up. The guy kept shooting, and he hit Kennedy. I couldn’t get the shotgun out, I panicked and forgot about the lock, and then I missed…..”
Just then Drake appeared out of nowhere, his face red, the shotgun still in his hands. “You what? What did you do, you little prick? If Kennedy took a bullet because of your chickenshit ass—” he came at Dave, letting go of the shotgun with one hand to grab for the tie at Dave’s throat. Two other officers nearby heard him raging and looked over, but didn’t move to intervene. Everybody’s blood was high.
Stone wedged himself between the two of them and pushed Drake back. “Cool your shit! Back off!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” Dave said to him. “Is he going to be okay?” He looked over, but none of the injured officers were visible behind the firefighters working on them. There was quite a crowd gathering. Mound Road traffic in both directions was forced into U-turns, and all the cars were just crawling along, the drivers gawking.
“I’m going to fucking kill you if he’s not! Wild Bill…” Drake’s voice tapered off, then he lunged forward again. He was bigger than Stone, and pushed him back almost to Dave, still sitting on the diamond-plate bumper.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Sergeant White appeared and shoved Drake backward. “Drake, go secure the suspect vehicle,” he spat.
Drake turned to him, his face red, but the sergeant got right in his face, moustache bristling. “Get your shit together and make sure there’s nobody hiding in the fucking trunk or something. And put the shotgun away.”