“I didn’t ask you that.”
“You know how cops are, Jack.”
“They’re all retirees here.”
“Sure. That doesn’t stop them thinking. They don’t say much, but they think, all right. They aren’t under orders here any more than you and I are. But we’re still cops and you don’t shake all that training and action. We still obey some rules that were never written.”
I grinned at him.
He scowled. “What’s so funny?”
“How come we’ll never be plain old civilians again?”
A faint grin twisted his mouth. “Would you want to?”
When I shook my head, the grin reached his eyes.
Then Kinder reached into his back pocket and brought out a small leather pad. He opened it, wrote a few things in it, took down some personal information related to my police work, then handed me the three sheets to sign.
I frowned at what I saw.
Kinder only smiled and nodded again. “I am authorized by the state of Florida to issue permits to carry a concealed weapon to properly trained personnel. I assume you have your own personal pieces with you.”
“A Colt Combat Commande... .45 caliber, a Colt 1911 model and a regulation old fashioned Police Co... .38 revolver. If you want samples of fired slugs, I’ll get them to you.”
“Nice, but not necessary. However, I’ll appreciate the effort. There’s a range on the west end of the village.”
I studied the ice-blue eyes. “How come you don’t trust me, Captain Kinder?”
“They used to call you the Shooter, didn’t they?”
“Only the ones who stayed alive.”
Kinder’s response was to watch me close, a knowing smile on his lips.
“Everything was legal, buddy. Justified and approved,” I said.
An eyebrow hiked. “Sure got you one hell of a reputation.”
“In case you’re wondering about it, I have no intention of improving on it.”
A tiny shrug. “Good enough.”
“Now, can I ask you something else?”
“Sure.”
“Sunset Lodge has got the highest concentration of cops, firemen and even retired federal law enforcement in the USA. They have equipment here that most cities would envy.”
“Anything wrong with any of that?”
I shook my head. “No, but how did it get that way?”
“Sunset Lodge was founded by a wealthy man who had been abducted by the old Dutch Schultz outfit in NYC. Two dedicated police officers tracked down the abductors, rescued the victim after a wild shootout, during which both the cops were wounded. The well-off victim became such a great friend of the police, and, by association, the firemen who had assisted in his rescue, that this place was his gift to Civil Service retirees. If you qualify, cost here is minimal. We are independent and well-funded. Well-protected, too.”
“Good enough,” I remarked.
“You’ll learn more as you go along,” he said as he stood up. He handed me a card and told me, “I can be reached through any of these three numbers. Call me for any information.”
“Tell me something now.”
“Shoot.”
I smiled at his choice of word and said, “What’s with this Garrison Properties outfit down the road?”
“They’ve been in business for fifteen years. Some upper-echelon mobsters are among the retirees, but we have no evidence they’re any more influential in Garrison than the retired dentists and lawyers. Lately they’ve been trying to class up their act — expanding their land holdings and putting in major lots, putting up major housing. And trying to capitalize on this place, I’d say.”
“But it’s been around fifteen years?”
“Yeah, and the clientele pre-existing those new fancy estates isn’t very classy. A couple of youth gangs operate out of there and word has it they’ve been selling drugs.”
“Any arrests?”
“Several, but money bailed them out in a hurry.”
“That’s all?”
“A couple of cars were stolen. One was recovered in Tampa and the other was in a ditch off the road. No damage to the vehicles, but two empty bottles of booze were found on the back seat of one.”
“Prints?”
“None that could be identified at this point.” He shrugged. “Probably juveniles.”
“Well, I’m glad to be here,” I said, rising. “Nice to be with the good guys.”
He got up, we shook hands, exchanged respectful if wary glances, and Captain Kinder was gone.
I took a two-hour tour of the Sunset Lodge compound until I had the area pretty well defined in my head. I saw four faces I recognized from Manhattan precincts but I didn’t call out to them. I passed the S.L. Station House, spotted one old sergeant who’d retired when I got my first promotion and two retirees from the Two-Two and suddenly I was feeling very much at home.
Then I turned at the end of the block and retraced my path to the building that looked so old but was so new. It was a surprise to see no uniforms showing, but everybody going in and out had that identical cop walk and when you looked at their feet, only two were wearing fancy footwear. The others still held on to their old brogans.
Parking was behind the building and I found a place, backed into it like everyone else did, making a quick getaway easy. Habit is a hard thing to break. When I got out of the car I hadn’t gone ten feet when a voice said, “Damn, look who’s here!”
Joe Pender had retired as a sergeant when he had put his full time in on the Job. Sergeant was as high as the husky redhead had wanted to go — his pension was adequate and he had made an outside job with another cop, renovating old buildings and renting them, so he wasn’t hurting for money.
I said, “Good to see you, pal. I didn’t know you’d retired down this way.”
As we shook hands he told me, “The wife’s doing. She’s a real Florida lover. New York got to be too much for her. You moving in?”
“Got a place over on Kenneth Avenue.”
“Fancy, man!” he laughed. “That’s where the brass have their digs. Got an old commissioner at the far end of the street with a pair of inspectors right beside him.”
“They still giving orders?”
“Hell no. This time we have a very democratic club.” He paused and nodded toward the building behind him. “Damn, Jack, let’s get you in and on the rolls.”
“I just got here yesterday.”
He wrapped his fingers around my arm and said, “And now is when you get back on duty.”
“Duty?”
“Sure. The guys would flip out if they tried to hide their cop background and just be plain civilians. We rotate helping Kinder out on security stuff. No rank, no roll calls, plenty of shooting matches on our own firing ranges.”
“Who buys the ammunition?” I asked him.
“We have reloading equipment. All calibers. Even the women get in on this action.”
“They safe to keep around?”
“Buddy, there hasn’t been a divorce since anybody’s been here. This retirement scene is the greatest. Jeannie and I damned near broke up until we moved here. Now we’re kissing and hugging all over the place.”
And Joe Pender was right. Sunset Lodge was a brand new beginning for a bunch of streetwise old police officers who had brushed the grime of New York and New Jersey off their clothes and took to the shorts and sunshine of Florida.
But they couldn’t brush the concept of police action from their station house. The walls still held typed and handwritten memos for member activities and in two locations were official mug shots of current criminals somebody in the big city was forwarding to the clubhouse.
“Like it?” Joe asked me.
“Like I never left home,” I remarked.
“Right. Now let’s get you signed up. Hell, you even get a badge again. Miniature, of course, but you get five percent off your bills over in the big cities. Just show the tin.”
I shook my head an
d followed him to the reception desk where I became semi-official in this new land of make believe.
I said so long to Joe and went back outside. A half dozen matrons in tennis outfits were squealing like little kids, all anxious to get to the tennis courts for their tee off times or whatever they called it. I had to stare for half a minute before I fully recognized them. The last time I had seen them they were two-hundred-pounders who had to shop in the big and tall ladies’ stores, emphasis on the big. Sunset Lodge had turned them into chorus cutie size again. I sure hoped their husbands appreciated them. Damn.
I got back in my car and pulled out of the parking lot.
When a cop went on the street for the first time, he felt like I do now.
Everybody was looking at him. He was being sized up.
The locals would need several takes. Is he good enough? they would ask themselves.
The bad guys would know right away. Would he hesitate to kill them? No. Not this one... not the Shooter....
I’d thought I had shrugged those reflections off a long time ago, but I guess I hadn’t. I drove down to the intersection of my street, slowed down and made the turn.
I’d never had a big dog in my life. Where would you walk one on a leash? How long would you stay out? I circled the block twice without seeing any signs of Bettie and her greyhound, then finally turned in to my driveway and went up on the porch and eased into a rocker. I sat there for five minutes and it was like waiting for a snake to strike. I was tense all over. My muscles had tightened into a ready position, poised, balanced, raring for the go signal.
Then I heard the yip and looked to my left. It was a short sound and it had come from a full-throated animal who had spotted something that pleased him and let out a noise to show his appreciation.
Like water spilling from an overflowing jar, the tension went away when I saw Bettie and Tacos come into my direct line of vision and I got up, walked off the porch and waited for her on the sidewalk.
Tacos told her she had company ahead. I heard the nearly muted whine of pleasure.
How the heck would a dog know about us?
So I wouldn’t startle her, I said, “It’s me, your new neighbor,” then added softly, “Jack.”
She wore black sunglasses and their blank lenses bore down on me. “I heard all about you a little while ago. The ladies over at the station house keep everyone well informed.”
“I know a lot of them.”
“So they mentioned. They all like you too. Did you know that?”
“Well, I’ve never been arrested.”
“They don’t arrest policemen, do they?” she asked me.
“The heck they don’t,” I told her.
She was carrying some mail and a few grocery items in an ornamented wire basket and I slid my fingers under the handle and took it from her. Was the mail in Braille, or did someone read it to her, I wondered.
I said, “You handle your dog and I’ll carry your groceries up the stairs. First good deed I’ve done all day.”
Slowly, she turned her head and appeared to look down at Tacos. “Strange,” she said softly.
“What is?”
“Tacos never moved to stop you from taking my basket from me.”
“Should he?”
“He’s extremely protective.”
“So am I,” I said with a grin. “He knows a kindred soul.”
I don’t know why, with her heightened senses, she couldn’t hear my heart beating. My own breath seemed muffled and the muscles in the small of my back had tightened annoyingly. But the oversized greyhound seemed to realize that something was happening and his eyes met mine for an instant’s inspection, then he tugged at his leash and walked to the porch steps, Bettie following him closely.
At the door she slid the key into the lock, turned the knob, let the dog enter ahead of her and said to me, “Won’t you join us for a cold drink, Jack?”
I didn’t answer her for a few seconds and she said, “We are neighbors now, you know.”
“And you have one oversized greyhound dog with big vampire teeth, if anyone made any moves against you.”
“Yes,” she agreed quite pleasantly. “That’s because he loves me.”
The minute delay in my answer almost spoke what was in my mind but hadn’t reached my tongue yet. I asked her, “How heavy is Tacos anyway?”
“A hundred and twenty pounds,” she told me. “All muscle, extremely bright, but too big to race and not enough dog plumage to stay warm while pulling a sled in heavy snow.”
“Where did you get him?”
“He was about to be put down. I rescued him at the track just in time. I wish I could have taken more of the animals, but this one licked my hand and gave me a knowing, pleading look and he became mine and I became his.”
“No offense,” I said, “but what is a ‘knowing’ look, when you’re blind?”
Without hesitation, she said, “Just that he knew I was blind. And that we both needed each other.”
I nodded and said a quiet, “Oh. I see.”
Her head turned and she looked at me. Behind her dark glasses I knew her eyes had somehow found mine. “Do you really?”
“Really,” I murmured.
“Have we met?” she asked abruptly.
“Now why would you ask that? This is my first time here.”
Without answering me, she walked to the kitchen. The layout of her place was the same as mine, the two houses built on identical architectural plans.
I heard the refrigerator open and shut and she came back with two glasses of iced tea and handed me one.
Then she sat on the edge of a big ottoman, sipped her tea a moment, and said, “A long time ago I had an accident. That is what I have been told. I have no memory of it at all, nor anything prior to twenty years ago.”
“Aren’t you interested in finding out any details?”
Bettie shook her head gently. “I’ve been told I have no living relatives.”
“Somebody pays your way here.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “He was the one who... let’s say adopted me after the accident. He’s gone now. Passed away, but he had everything set in motion.”
“There were no inquiries about you, over the years?”
“I understand there were. With the mental state I was in, I couldn’t care less.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said.
Her head turned and she was looking right into my eyes again. It was as though she had echo location like a porpoise and could zero right in on any sound. I wondered if she could hear me blink.
“The body can compensate for loss,” she murmured. Then, out of the blue, she asked, “Say my name.”
I waited a long moment, took in a deep breath, then quietly said, “Bettie.”
Unlike this young woman, I could see, supposedly. I had been trained to observe and fit pieces together so that any puzzle made sense. I could do all that, but this time I was drawing a blank.
She didn’t draw a blank, though. “Since you first spoke to me this morning your voice has had a familiar sound.”
“Like how?” I asked.
“Like how I know every sound my dog, Tacos, makes. I know what he is trying to tell me. I recognize his mood, his likes and dislikes. He recognizes mine. Somehow I seem to recognize your speech patterns.”
I wanted to blurt it out. I wanted to yell it out loud, but she had a mind that was bent out of shape and I didn’t want to put any further dents in it.
I said, “Well Bettie, I’m just an old New York City cop who might spout a lot of idiomatic language or get into some tough street talk, but I don’t quite follow your drift here.”
There was something very strange about the way she smiled at me. “It will come to me eventually,” she said. “Things always do.”
Her hand reached out, squeezed my wrist and she asked me, “Can you imagine what it’s like, having a new friend?”
I laid my other hand on top of hers and the big dog gave an odd
, throaty noise of pleasure.
“Tacos likes you,” she told me.
I let out a pleased grunt too. Then I said, carefully, “This may sound strange but... has anybody ever... tried to attack you?”
A frown creased her forehead while she thought, then shook her head. After a few seconds of further thought, she added, “I’ve never had any trouble with anybody. Everybody in this area knows everybody else. Everybody here looks after me, or tries to — I don’t really need much help.... Why?”
“Well, you’re a lovely doll, Miss Brice.” I tried to excuse my tone with a tight grin before I remembered she couldn’t see it. “I can see why the boys would keep an eye on you.”
“But you said attack.”
“These days,” I said, “the courts can label any type of action an attack. A lot of big-mouth wise guys draw some time for sounding off to unprotected women.”
“Tacos protects me pretty well,” she smiled back. “The only ‘big mouth’ I’ve run into lately was a young guy who made a nasty remark...”
“How young?”
“He wasn’t some old lecher. Since I couldn’t see him I can’t describe him, but his voice told the story. Anyway, he never came by again.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing. I just gave him what I thought was a dirty look, only maybe he couldn’t tell with me in sunglasses.”
I made a small probe. “Mind if ask something?’
“No. We’re friends.”
“Why do you wear them? Sunglasses, I mean. Your eyes are lovely.”
She thought about that. “Sometimes I can feel the sun on my eyes — almost as if the glare is bothering me.”
“Is it?”
Her head turned and she seemed to look in the direction of my mouth. I felt like kissing her.
She said, “I don’t know.”
“Explain.”
“At the end of the day I... I think I can see a red sunset.”
“Oh?”
“The doctors said it was simply a mental reaction. I realized the time of day that it was and expected a red sunset. A sense memory.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I wanted to tell them that they were idiots. I saw something. And it was a sunset. Nothing definitive, but the colors were there. Something bright and beautiful was shining at me.”
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