I smiled at the offer, yet declined it with a shake of my head. “Nothing but the best for you, huh? No, I appreciate it, boss, but I can’t. Really. I’ve pretty much knocked off work for the day, but there’s always that chance I could get roped into going back to the office. You know how Jughead can be sometimes, right? I mean, it literally took months to get in the guy’s good graces, and I don’t want to blow it by coming around with booze on my breath, at least not before three o’clock.”
He shrugged and reached for the pitcher, topping off his glass with a fresh head of foam. “Your loss, boy. But just for your awareness, I happen to know that Hammer kicks off his happy hours at two o’clock, and that’s every afternoon. If you ever need to get yourself some blackmail evidence, you know, a photo or two to tuck away for the next time you go before the promotion board, just slide by Bobby Hartin’s Sports Grille with your camera on any given weekday.”
I nodded in appreciation, taking a moment to commit the tip to memory. Even though I certainly wasn’t looking to make the mistake of getting promoted, it never hurt to keep an ace up my sleeve in case I needed to dodge another demotion.
“See, Goosey, that’s one of the great perks of retirement” he went on. “You just don’t have to worry about all the nonsense anymore. I want to have a beer, guess what? I drink me a fucking beer. After all, I’m a grown man. If it turns out the city’s got a problem with that, there’s no way for them to let me go without having to cut a pretty God-damned big check in the process.” He took a long swig, draining half of the pint glass in a single gulp, then leaned his weight back against the bench to cast a thoughtful gaze up at the acoustic ceiling tiles. “Come to think of it, I haven’t actually seen the inside of my own friggin’ office all week. Shoot, I hope I didn’t leave the computer on.”
His chronic absenteeism was an impressive feat, and I flicked him a mock salute. “Someday I’ll be on that level, Jim” I said, an obvious tinge of envy in my voice. “Someday. But hey, speaking of ducking work, what’s the low down on this special assignment, huh? You planning on getting a little wet with us tomorrow, or what?”
He grinned, then waved two fingers high in the air. The one employee behind the counter had been fully occupied with the task of spraying disinfectant into a long line of bowling shoes, but he put his life’s calling on hold to jog over and take our orders. The AMF Lanes wasn’t a place where I might’ve expected such prompt and attentive table service, and I was thoroughly impressed by the subtle way Jim demonstrated his VIP status. “What’ll ya have, Goosey?” he asked, casual as could be. “It’s on my dime today— your money’s no good here.”
I squinted to read the panel hanging above the bar, where all the house specialties were listed out in white plastic letters, line after line of deep-fried offerings jammed haphazardly up against one another. “Thanks, man, I really appreciate it. You know what? Let’s just go with... a basket of onion rings, extra grease. And bring me the biggest size Coke you’ve got. Heavy on the ice.” I probably could’ve eaten my way through at least half of the menu with ease, but chose a path of restraint instead. Whenever Big Jim’s generosity made one of its rare appearances, it was best to place an order quickly, before the guy had any chance to change his mind.
The pimply-faced kid gave a series of prompt nods, his mop of bright red hair shaking in a frenzy of obedience. He turned to Big Jim and asked, “And for you, Lieutenant Cobb?”
“The usual. Double cheeseburger, extra everything. You remember how I like it, right?”
The kid nodded once more, flashing a thin smile that raised up a long ridge of bumpy acne from cheek to cheek. He recited, “Lift the top bun, stack a side order of onion rings beneath three slices of cheddar cheese, and add six strips of bacon on top of that. Layer the whole thing over with ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard before closing it back up.”
Jim cocked a bushy eyebrow.
Our maître d’ held up one finger, paused to take a deep breath, then rolled right on along. “Hold off on the pickles, lettuce, relish, and anything green. Double order of fries on the side— extra ketchup on those, heavy on the salt.”
Jim returned the kid’s nod with one of his own, a tacit signal of his hard-earned approval. “That ought to do her. Gimme a refill on this pitcher while you’re at it, and I’ll take one of them Cokes too.” I spotted a flicker in Jim’s eye, as he reached down to rub a self-conscious hand over his stomach. “On second thought, better make it a Diet. You lane jockeys still give out free refills, don’t you?”
The kid lowered his notepad. “Lieutenant, you’re still working security here on the weekends, right? Well, uh... you know Mr. Barnes said that any of the cops on our roster can get their grub for free anytime?” He paused, then lowered a meaningful glance at Big Jim. “There’s no charge at all... but of course, you’re more than welcome to leave a tip.”
Jim let out a mean growl, waving the hired help away with a shake of his huge fist. “You want a tip? I’ll give you a tip, Junior! Better run that golf shirt through the wash tonight, or else you’ll never be able to get those sweat stains out of the armpits. Now beat it, me and my associate here got some things to discuss. Official police business, you dig?” The kid scurried off but sprinted back a moment later, staying just long enough to dump our two sodas and a fresh pitcher of suds on the table. Even after such a harsh tongue lashing, his service remained efficient and measured. He set the drinks down in a single, silent motion, then retreated behind the counter once more. I watched the kid closely as he worked, dividing his attention equally between two bubbling fryers and all the remaining bowling shoes. It was downright impressive, the way he juggled a spatula in one hand and a spray can of Dr. Scholl’s in the other. The bowling alley was nearly silent, all the lanes empty save the last one, where a pair of lonely senior citizens were half-heartedly rolling heavy balls down in the general direction of the pins. The two old birds plodded their way through frame after frame, moving with no particular sense of urgency, almost as if they were only bowling as a way to pass the time while waiting on the grave.
I turned my attention back to Big Jim, who was already making short work of the second pitcher. “So spill it already, boss. What’s up with the overkill on this hurricane thing, huh? I mean, I passed a line of cars backed up on 526 just now, must have been a quarter mile long! All of them were packed up and heading towards Columbia, looking like rats fleeing a sinking ship. I don’t get it, why’s everybody in this city acting as if they’ve never experienced a couple raindrops before?”
He snorted. “Same old routine, you know the deal. Whenever the media latches on to a story, they have to go and blow it all up, make things sound way worse than they really are. Then all these people go out and panic over nothing, and you know damn well CPD ain’t no better. Take looters for example, right? There’s absolutely nothing you can do about thieves— there really isn’t! I mean, if people are already inclined to steal, then all a hurricane means is more opportunity. What’s important, what really matters, is how people perceive things. So all Chief Greene has to do right about now...” Jim paused for a moment, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Excuse me... I mean, all Lieutenant Colonel Hedleyson has to do now, is, well, anything. Any damn thing at all, it really doesn’t matter what. And you should know this as well as I do, what’s CPD’s standard response plan for pretty much any kind of crisis?”
I slumped back against the bench seat, heaving out a loud sigh. “All previously approved leave has been cancelled” I recited from memory, having read that phrase many more times than I’d have cared to. “All officers are recalled for emergency duty, and should stand by for further instructions from their chain of command.”
“Right you are.” Jim paused as he fished around in his shirt pocket, coming back up with a half-empty soft pack of Winstons. “Throw enough uniformed cops at the problem to make it look as if you’re actually doing something, then keep the act going long enough for some other new crisis to pop
up.” He shook out a butt, snapped off the filter and let it fall to the floor, then flicked his Bic to fire it up. Jim sucked in a huge swallow of mellow tobacco smoke, clearly not troubled by the recent citywide ban on smoking indoors. Seeing as how there weren’t any other customers, I made a concerted effort to ignore the health code violation too.
“You know what, though, Goosey?” He asked the question philosophically, posing it towards himself just as much as it was directed towards me. “It just doesn’t matter. Not one bit of it, you hear? So what if Captain Russell went nuclear and pulled cops back down into the city? Big, fat, hairy, stinking deal. Let me tell you something, man, you’ve just got to learn to ignore this kind of nonsense. Rise above it whenever you can. You let all this petty shit bother you, it’ll just build up inside you and tear you down slowly. You let that happen, you’ll never last the full twenty-five years on this job.”
I nodded. “I hear you, Jim. I’m more than halfway to the promised land now— just cracked thirteen years at this old salt mine. It’s all downhill from here.”
He poured himself a refill and raised the glass high, a toast to my accomplishment. “That’s the spirit, kid! And hey, with any luck this hurricane’ll blow clear past us in a day or two, right? By this time next week, the two of us will be back here laughing about how much overtime we managed to claim.”
“You can say that again, Jim. I’m not above padding my statistics, at least when it comes to my timesheets.”
“Nor should you be, young man. Nor should you be. A little forgery never hurt anyone. If you worked those hours, or if you worked most of them, anyway, you should be getting paid for them. Freedom isn’t free, am I right?”
I smiled, savoring a feeling of inner peace that I’d never known before reaching a position of relative financial stability. For once in my life all my bills were finally current, including every last one of those high-interest payday loans, so any extra bread coming in would just be icing on the cake. “No arguments there, boss man. But what in the hell are we supposed to do with ourselves for all that time? The Captain was a little light on specifics this morning.”
“Yeah, that prick’s a little light on brains, too. Honestly, man, I just don’t think anyone’s thought that far ahead yet. Let me tell you what, though: speaking from a manager’s perspective, filling in the details isn’t exactly rocket science. That’s why Corporals and Sergeants exist, you know? They’re the ones who’ll tell all the beat cops where to post up. No, man, the hardest part of any kind of detail is simply turning up enough bodies.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it might surprise you to learn this, but not every cop in the Lowcountry shares your dedication, your commitment to duty. I swear, Goosey, you must have been the most senior investigator who didn’t call in sick after that last night’s weather report. I swear, I’ve never seen so many veteran cops who all had to leave town for family emergencies at the exact same time.”
The lane jockey bustled back over to drop off our plates, giving me a minute to reflect on my stupidity. I felt so low that even the superior customer service, which in my humble opinion could have rivaled any of Charleston’s finest white tablecloth restaurants, wasn’t nearly enough to pull me up out of my funk. I’d been so caught up living the good life the night before that I hadn’t bothered plotting out my moves two steps in advance. Never again, I promised myself, as I did my level best to drown my sorrows in hot, sticky grease. At least the onion rings were warm and tangy, just the way I liked them, and almost before I’d finished chewing the first one I was chasing it down with a second. Slathered in sweet tomato ketchup, the salty, battered snack made for one of the finest meals I’d had in a very long time. It was just what I needed to lift my spirits, a dose of therapy delivered through saturated fat.
As soon as the hired help had departed, I shifted my focus back to Big Jim. No doubt about it, the man was a finely-tuned eating machine, devouring his lunch with mechanical precision. He’d palmed the huge burger in one hand, hacking off massive bites while he shoveled in big bunches of salty French fries with the other. The Diet Coke sat before him untouched, small chunks of shaved ice gradually melting into the drink, and out of a morbid sense of curiosity I began counting the seconds, wondering just how long the man could go on that way without stopping to quench his thirst. Nearly two minutes and twelve giant mouthfuls later, Jim finally came up for air. I watched with fascination as Jim drained the soda in a single gulp, then followed it up with another pint of Miller Lite. Finally, once his greasy hands were free, he raised the empty soda glass high up in the air. The pockmarked kid was back on us in an instant, snatching the glass away and simultaneously dropping off a fresh one. As Big Jim topped off yet another glass of beer, he noticed my look of admiration and shrugged. “They know me here.”
“I guess so! Damn it Jim, how come you never told me about this hustle? Huh? All those years I’ve been chasing shoplifters away from the Harris Teeter, yet here you are, sitting on a damned gold mine! And come to think of it, I bet these guys don’t bother you with any of those pesky income tax forms, either. Cash under the table, am I right? What are you pulling in for this gig, anyway? Twenty bones an hour? Twenty-five? Come on, bro, you can tell me.”
He grinned, flashing two rows of bright yellow teeth. All those crushed-up layers of French fries made for an unpleasant sight, and I was forced to turn away. “Sorry, not sorry, bub. You know as well as I do, the quickest way to kill a good thing is by telling someone else about it. Cops can’t keep a secret to save their lives, especially not that loose-lipped crew of leakers and gossip whores that you run with.”
I had no choice but to agree with the man; he was a hundred percent correct. In a thankless, low-paying career like policing, a job which was basically nothing more than an endless string of menial duties, crappy work hours and never-ending streams of abuse, I’d come to view our clique’s regular bull sessions as one of the job’s few fringe benefits. “What can I say, Jim? The way I see it, those professional discussions aren’t just idle gossip— they’re my responsibility. As a detective, I have to keep my ear to the ground for any new rumblings.”
He laughed. “Yeah? Try feeding that line to your new boss, maybe that ox will be dumb enough to bite. Not me, though. Not this guy. Face the facts, dude: if you really had a clue what was going on this side of the Ashley River, do you think for one second that my guys in Central would still be catching all these burglary reports? Chrissakes, man! I got so many case files on my desk right now, I’m almost scared to set foot in my office! Seriously, you’ve got to take charge of your team. Tell some of those wet-behind-the-ears patrol rookies to set down their soy lattes and smartphones, maybe drive around on patrol once or twice each shift. I know they’re all busy hiding out indoors, sucking up the air conditioning and paging through the magazine racks at Barnes and Noble, but is it really too much to ask these kids to drive around the block every so often? Shake a couple jigs down on the streetcorner once a day, something like that? Christ, it’s not like they actually have to haul anyone to jail, either. As long as they put on a good show, act like they’re doing their best out there, word might get around that the heat is on.”
I knew Jim’s ribbing was good-natured, and his mood was infectious. “What, am I hearing this right?” I laughed. “Lieutenant Jim Cobb, the undisputed king of sham artists, is actually telling cops to hit the streets? Lord, save us! If only I knew where I left my notebook, I’d mark this date for posterity. This is a historic occasion!”
Jim’s neck veins flared, and I knew I must have struck a nerve. He crammed the rest of the burger into his mouth in a single go, causing both the buns and the meat to vanish into his swollen cheeks. From where I sat, it looked as if the man might have been trying to give his blood sugar a quick spike. “Listen here, bucko” he growled. “I know you don’t give a goddamn about your own job, but guess what? I’m damn near twice your age, and I’ve got damn near twice your time on deck. Got
that? There ain’t no gripe, moan, bitch or complaint that you could possibly come up with, not a one, that I haven’t already thought up.” He paused just long enough to swallow his food, washing it down with another half-glass of beer. “Son, I’ve been hating my job since you were taking naps in kindergarten, you hear me? And in all that time, the most important thing I’ve learned is, there ain’t nobody at CPD who really gives a damn about how much you accomplish. No, the trick is for you to do just enough work to keep the brass off your backs. No more, and no less. It’s a delicate balance.”
I nodded at his words of wisdom. “Tell me more, Swami Jim. Honest, I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
As Big Jim took a deep breath, some of the beet-red color began to drain from his face. I inhaled myself, hoping that wouldn’t be the day when the inevitable stroke finally came calling for my old boss. Jim grabbed one of the remaining French fries and pointed it my way, emphasizing his words with a series of sharp jabs. “No harm, no foul, kid. But it’s like this, right? Whenever people get jacked downtown, let’s say in the East Side, does anybody really care?”
“Not a damn soul.” I thought for a moment, but couldn’t remember ever reading any news stories about snatch-and-grab robberies down in the ‘hood. “Come to think of it, even the shootings seem to get cleared out pretty quickly, unless there’s an actual corpse involved. And those ones, hell, just as soon as the body snatchers hustle the stiff out of there, the block is right back in business the very next day.”
He tapped the side of his fat, veiny nose. “Exactly... so what have we learned here? Quite simply, unless white people are involved, nobody really gives a shit about any random killings down there in the ghetto. You call the street sweepers in to mop up the blood, file a couple incident reports that may or may not get read, and wash your hands of it all. But out here in the suburbs— and I really thought you would have figured this out by now— policing is a completely different ballgame. People on this side of the city seem to actually care about stuff, you know? It’s kind of weird.”
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