The Julian Year

by Gregory Lamberson

  Leaning forward, he kissed her. The gentle way she moved her tongue surprised him.

  Exiting the club on Mercer Street, Larry Palmer stepped into the cold night air and shivered. After driving Anibal and his family to the airport, he’d spent the rest of the day in a restless state, visiting bookstores, coffee shops, and art galleries. He had gone to a multiplex and sat through an action flick that wasn’t bad, but the trailers had left him feeling depressed because he doubted most of the movies would open by his last day in September, if at all.

  He ate dinner alone in his apartment, took a nap, then went out again. He had heard a lot about a new club called Lord Bi-Ron’s. But as he wandered the deep purple neon-soaked interior, glancing at the hungry stares of skinny, androgynous young men and the ambivalence of muscular women, he had broken out in a cold sweat. He had no desire for anonymous sex, no matter how wild and exciting. He didn’t know what he wanted, except to escape the pulsing techno beat that pounded the club, causing his rib cage to vibrate.

  Breathing in fresh air, he exhaled and debated whether to go home or keep searching for that intangible something his heart told him he needed.

  “Hey, faggot!”

  With his muscles tensing, Larry turned around. Two muscle-bound men wearing tight jackets to show off their biceps stood fifteen feet away. One looked Irish, the other Italian. Both had hard jaws and short hair.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Irish said.

  Measuring the two Neanderthals, Larry knew they wanted trouble. “None of your business.”

  Irish grunted. “Yeah? We’ll see about that.”

  The two men advanced, clenching their fists.

  Larry looked around the dark sidewalk. He saw no other pedestrians, witnesses, or soldiers. Mustering his courage, he pointed at them. “Stop right there. I’m a cop.” Why did I tell them that?

  Irish and his Italian cohort glanced at each other.

  “Yeah?” Irish said. “So are we.”

  Larry froze. I shouldn’t be surprised.

  Irish nodded at the club. “Your being one of us and one of them just makes it that much worse.”

  Larry lowered his voice. “Move along, fellas. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Too bad. You got it in spades, spade.”

  The thugs closed in for the kill, and Larry braced for a fight. He didn’t intend to go down easy.

  A female scream filled the night. All three men looked around, then up. A blonde woman in a red dress descended from the sky headfirst. Before Irish could move out of the way the woman smashed into him. Skulls collapsed, necks snapped, backs compacted, and two bodies flattened out as one with a sickening staccato that echoed in Larry’s mind, blood spraying across the concrete.

  The Italian flinched, his face spattered with blood.

  Dropping to one knee, Larry pulled his off-duty snub-nose .38 from its ankle holster and aimed it at the remaining man. “Get the hell out of here.”

  The thick cop looked at his partner with a helpless expression.

  “Go on!”

  The cop ran.

  Larry slipped his revolver into his coat pocket and looked up where the building met the black sky. He counted six floors.

  When Weizak awoke in the morning, Rachel was gone. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t taken anything.

  Seventeen

  February 14

  Rachel felt relaxed as she entered the 19th Precinct station house. Sex with Weizak had not been spectacular, but it had gotten the job done. She nodded to some of her fellow officers and went into the women’s locker room, where she stripped off her clothes and took a hot shower. She put on her uniform and crossed the squad room.

  “Konigsberg!” Lugones said.

  Turning, she saw the lieutenant standing in the doorway of his office.

  “Come on in,” Lugones said.

  With rising curiosity, she walked into his office and closed the door.

  He sat behind his desk wearing no jacket and looking as relaxed as she felt. “You’re done. Turn in your shield and your gun.”

  “What are you talking about? Today’s my last day. I’m working.”

  “Not anymore. I received one official memo from upstairs. Because of your birthday and the possibility that you might survive all this, your life’s been deemed too valuable to risk on the street.” He raised a printout. “So you’re out of here a day early.”

  “I want to finish my shift.”

  “Too bad. Those are our orders.” Lugones offered her the printout. “You’re to call this number. Apparently you’ll be reporting somewhere special at least forty-eight hours before your birthday.”

  Rachel studied the instructions. “Can’t I help out around here? I don’t mind answering the phones.”

  “What’s the point? You’re just taking your retirement a day earlier than planned.”

  “It’s still crazy out there. I want to help.”

  “You’ve done your duty. Go take a trip or whatever you have planned for yourself. See Paris. Spend time with your family. Most important, have a good birthday.”

  She held the paper at her side. “What if I don’t turn?”

  “Then we’ll call you and the other leapfrogs the chosen ones and throw a great big party for mankind.”

  “But what will I do?”

  “Beats me. But if you’re too important to carry a shield now, you’ll be way more important if you don’t turn.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I just want to be a cop.”

  “I don’t think you’re looking at this the right way. The G is looking out for you. If you pull through, you’re destined for greater things than riding around in a cruiser responding to 911 calls. You’re going to be a den mother for humanity or something.”

  “I’d rather carry a gun.”

  “No one says you can’t do both; you just can’t carry a department-issued weapon.”

  Shaking her head, Rachel unclipped her Glock in its holster from her belt and set it on the desk. Then she took out her shield and gazed at it. “This is who I am.”

  “Not anymore.”

  She set the shield down.

  “Go to your exit interview. It was good serving with you. I hope you surprise us all.”

  But you don’t think I will. “Thank you, sir.”

  On her way back to the locker room, Rachel passed a line of weary-looking police officers filing through the squad room to the basement roll call room. Her eyes met Ethridge’s. He stopped midstream in the flow of bodies.

  “I’m getting out of the shit a day early,” she said.

  “Maybe we could go out for a drink or something before your birthday.”

  “I still don’t date cops.”

  Ethridge shook his head. “Unbelievable. Can I at least have a hug?”

  “Sure.” Standing on her toes, Rachel set her chin on his shoulders and wrapped her arms around his.

  “Thanks for training me,” Ethridge said.

  Settling on her feet, Rachel resisted the urge to cry. “Take care of yourself out there, okay?”

  “Ten-four. I’ll be pulling for you.”

  She watched him follow the other officers down the stairs, then went into the locker room and took off her uniform. Before she left, she removed her off-duty revolver from its ankle holster and slipped it into her coat pocket. She took her time walking down the stairs, her footsteps echoing.

  On the ground floor she removed an envelope from her purse and slid it into Ethridge’s mailbox. She had bought the Valentine’s Day card as a joke to show him that she had a sense of humor despite the impression she had given him, but now that she was finished the gesture seemed more poignant.

  Exiting through the blue doors of the five-story precinct house, Rachel walked along the black iron railing on the raised level leading to the concrete steps and glanced down Sixty-seventh Street. On a pole over the doors, the American flag whipped in the wind. Empty cruisers lined the sidewalk, and pedestrians seeme
d to walk without fear in the building’s shadow. The distant sirens sounded less ominous in the sunlight.

  As she descended the steps to the sidewalk, she still felt confused about her forced retirement.

  Relax, she told herself. It’s just one day. Go home and lie around the apartment.

  Down the block, a car sped up. Rachel didn’t hear squealing tires or the rev of an engine, just the increasingly loud sound of a car heading in her direction. As she faced the Intrepid, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Sunlight glinted on the windshield, obscuring the faces of the occupants. But the car’s windows were rolled down.

  In February?

  The muzzles of machine guns emerged through the open windows, and in an instant Rachel dropped facedown to the sidewalk, which felt harder in the cold. Automatic gunfire erupted, and rounds ricocheted off the concrete behind her.

  As the Intrepid roared past her, she reached for her ankle holster, only to remember she had relocated her revolver to her coat pocket. Fumbling for the butt of the gun, she discerned three shadowy figures inside the car. Once the gun was free of her pocket, she sat up and swung her legs forward on the sidewalk with one knee raised. She fired at the retreating car’s back window three times. The first two shots splintered the glass into white spiderwebs, and the second shattered it.

  The car swerved into the wrong lane, where an oncoming SUV crashed into it head-on.

  Rising, Rachel kept her gun trained on the car. Had she hit one of the vehicle’s occupants?

  Doors opened on each side of the car, and two men and a woman clambered out, none of them exhibiting wounds. The unarmed male driver had long hair and a muscular physique. The other man, who looked almost skeletal beneath his coat, had spiky hair and clutched an AK-47. The short, plump woman resembled a housewife except for the small Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun she held close to her body.

  Rachel couldn’t imagine these three finding anything to say to each other at a dinner table, but they did share common traits: yellowish skin tones and dark circles around their dark eyes, which glinted in the sunlight. She remembered the peculiar eyes of the Asian man she had shot the day before.

  As the two armed Normans aimed their guns, Rachel fired at the gaunt man. She couldn’t tell if she hit him or not, so she fired again. This time he looked down at his AK-47 and dropped it, then sank to his knees as blood burbled from the midsection of his coat.

  The housewife fired a short burst from her submachine gun past Rachel, who jerked her head at the sound of a man crying out behind her. A uniformed officer who must have stepped out to investigate the gunfire toppled forward, his Glock sliding from his fingers.

  Rachel aimed her .38 at the woman and fired a round between her enormous breasts. The woman continued to fire in a haphazard manner as she staggered forward and coughed up blood. Then she pitched forward, knocking over a garbage can.

  The gaunt man had also fallen over, and the driver had reached inside the car. Now the man with the long hair brought a bolt-action rifle to bear on Rachel, who dropped to the sidewalk just as he fired. His round chipped at the station house wall, and Rachel scrambled for cover at the steps. She scooped up the fallen officer’s Glock and depressed the trigger. The driver twisted left and right, blood erupting from his chest, but Rachel continued to fire, her gunfire preventing him from dropping until she ran out of ammo.

  Allowing the Glock to drop at her feet, Rachel loaded her .38, snapped the cylinder shut, and walked over to the dead woman. Setting one foot on the woman’s shoulder, she kicked her over onto her back and studied her pale flesh, which was shot through with blue veins. Kneeling, she held the short barrel of her gun against the woman’s face and opened her eyes. The blood coating them appeared to be settling like stirred water.

  “What the hell?”

  Rachel sat facing Larry Palmer across the metal table in the interview room. “I always wondered what it was like to be in here. Now I know.”

  Larry gave her a reassuring smile. “Relax. I just want to figure this out.”

  “Nothing happened out there that hasn’t been going on for six weeks. The only difference is that all three of those Normans looked like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.”

  “Lugones is running a check on them now.”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “He took his family to Disney World.”

  She felt herself softening. “That’s nice.”

  “What has me worried about this thing is that it wasn’t just a drive-by. It sounds like they were waiting for you, and after they missed their chance they came back.”

  “That isn’t giving me much credit. I did shoot out their back window and cause them to crash.”

  “But they didn’t run, did they? They came after you with guns blazing.”

  “Normans have been known to do that.”

  “Not in concert.”

  “Why would they be waiting for me?”

  “Because you were born at 12:01 on February 29.”

  Rachel felt herself turning numb. “How would they know that?”

  “We’ve got a lot of missing Normans out there. They have access to the Internet just like anyone else. If they wanted to draw up a list of people who share the same birthday as you they could.”

  “For what purpose?” She already had a suspicion.

  “Maybe you and the other leapfrogs really are going to stay true to yourselves when the rest of us are either dead or foaming at the mouth.”

  “You think the Normans want to take us out?”

  “Maybe. I don’t like how those three looked any more than you do. Seeing them made me want to go someplace quiet forever.”

  Lugones entered the room wearing his reading glasses and carrying a file folder. “All three of those perps had birthdays the first week of January. If all the Normans who went underground look like that, they shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  “What about the ones who are already in prison?” Rachel said.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. You know the media isn’t allowed to see them. I think we can guess why. Any idea where you’re going to spend your vacation?”

  “If I do, I’m keeping it to myself now.”

  “Good. I’m sending a unit to escort you to your exit interview and then to your apartment.”

  “That’s it? I’m not under arrest for blowing those freaks away?”

  “You haven’t had your exit interview yet, so you’re still a cop. You may not have noticed, but we have no place to stick people who kill Normans.” Lugones turned to Larry. “Make sure she gets her gun back.”

  “I already mislabeled it,” Larry said in a deadpan voice.

  The squad car pulled over to Rachel’s apartment building on East Eighty-ninth Street.

  Rachel looked at the men up front. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Kyle Roberts said from behind the wheel.

  “Let me walk you to your door,” Ethridge said.

  Rachel didn’t argue. The shootout had left her feeling drained. Or maybe that had been the exit interview. Ethridge got out and opened the back door for her. First the interview room, now the backseat drive; she was experiencing the other side of police work step by step. Standing on the sidewalk, she gazed into her ex-partner’s brown eyes.

  “I have something for you.” Ethridge walked to the trunk and opened it. When Rachel joined him, he handed her a department-issued Kevlar vest. “Take this. Things are going to get even crazier for you. I can feel it.”

  Rachel accepted the vest. “I appreciate it.”

  “We’ll hang out here for a little while. If you need a ride somewhere and we’re gone, give me a call.”

  She knew she would never call.

  As Rachel climbed the five floors to her apartment, she felt unsafe in the hallways of the building where she had lived for four years and decided she was ready to leave the city. The sound of her key sliding in and out of the lock on her door echoed in the hall.
Stepping inside, she jerked the door shut, then locked it and slid the chain into place.

  Exhaling, she took off her coat and entered the overheated dwelling. She hung the coat in the closet, then walked past the small kitchen rubbing her arms.

  What the hell am I going to do with myself for the next two weeks?

  She wanted to spend her last week with her parents on Long Island, but not if doing so would endanger their lives. Either way, she had made no plans for the coming week. She liked the idea of going somewhere hot, like the Caribbean, but she knew she would have a hard time concealing a handgun while wearing a bikini.

  A red light flashed on the answering machine. Tossing the Kevlar vest on the sofa, she walked over to the phone and pressed a button.

  “Dear, it’s your mother. I hope you had a great last day at work. Your father and I can’t wait to see you. Please call and tell us when you’re coming home.”

  Leaning against one wall, Rachel noticed her reflection moving on the screen of her TV.

  But I’m not moving.

  Her body should have stiffened with fear. Instead, she whipped around in a half circle that put six feet between her and a male intruder. It took a moment for her to recognize the building super, a short Maltese man with black hair and a big beer belly. Now his skin was yellow and his eyes were slick red.

  Rachel suddenly realized that between working double shifts six days a week and catching up on sleep, she hadn’t seen Mr. Ilij since the insanity had started.

  Ilij swung a long crowbar at Rachel, who stepped back just in time to see the tool whistle beneath her chin and smash into the wall. As Ilij struggled to free the crowbar, Rachel reached for her gun, only to realize again that her ankle holster was empty.

  My coat pocket.

  Ilij jerked the crowbar out in a cloud of plaster powder, raised it over his head, and brought it down.

  Rachel stutter-stepped backward, and the crowbar crashed into the hardwood floor. Searching the apartment for a weapon, she grabbed a wooden chair, but as soon as she raised its legs in a defensive gesture, Ilij demolished the frame with the crowbar. As Rachel discarded the pieces and darted away, he shattered the round glass top of her table. Broken glass fell to the floor, and Rachel ran across the Oriental rug in the living room.