D.O.A.

by Charlie Thomas King

  Kent cursed and flipped on the turret lights, the red sedan not moving. Kent grabbed the speaker mic. “Pull over, dickhead!”

  “Dickhead isn't really the best thing to yell out on the speaker, there, bro.”

  Kent rolled his eyes and huffed.

  The driver of the sedan sat, bug-eyed, staring back at them, both hands frozen in place on his steering wheel. He wasn’t going anywhere; he was too terrified. White kid, looked young, probably eighteen, tops, from what the cops could tell by just looking. Shaved head. Typical Staten Island. Big chrome rims on the ride, tinted lights and windows to boot. Locke grabbed his hat, about to rhetorically inquire if they were going to do a car stop, but his new partner was already a few steps ahead of him. The RMP was in park and Kent was already throwing the door open. He lurched out, slammed the door shut behind him. He looked back, waved his partner out of the car. Locke winced.

  “Tactics, bro. Tactics,” Locke said as he opened the door. Kent was already full steam ahead to the other car, though, his ears paying absolutely no mind. Locke had barely reached the rear of the red sedan and Kent was already going off on the kid. Locke touched the trunk, stepped into a good field of vision for the interior of the car and let his eyes sweep over the strewn and jumbled contents of the back seat as Kent continued his tirade.

  Locke wondered why he thought taking Officer Kent under his wing would be a good idea. The rookie didn’t seem to listen very well, and certainly not to his advice. Locke had reckoned he could change The Job for the better, one newbie at a time. Set the new generation on the good path. It wasn’t working. He wondered where humanity was headed if its law and order themselves behaved so badly.

  By that point, Kent had worked up a good amount of steaming and was shouting now about the kid’s expired inspection sticker. Locke, slowly counting down from ten fumed inwardly. At one point, the kid had almost laughed, glancing a bit to the left and right, looking for cameras, thinking maybe he was being punked. Locke watched the teen’s expression change. Kent was waving his hands in the air, pointing at the tinted windows, cataloguing each and every summons he was about to rain down on the driver. Locke finished counting as the kid’s face registered his realization that Officer James Kent was absolutely not joking, far from it.

  “Ya know, the kid’s probably gonna lose his license,” Max said after they’d returned to the RMP, finished with the stop, finally heading to the deli.

  “Yup,” Kent said with satisfaction, grinning with just a touch of maniacal glee as the red sedan finally drove off. “Yup, I’m pretty sure he will. I’d say being on probation and getting hammered with a shit-load of summonses could do that to person.”

  “James, you know I hate this job. It’s nothing like what I thought it’d be, but I’m trying to make a difference here, you know? Not come in here complaining like every other guy does after he clocks in.”

  “Yeah,” Kent said, inching up to a parking space in front of the deli.

  “I’m trying to help you out, Kent. You know, I didn’t partner up lightly.”

  Kent pulled the car in a few inches from a beige sedan; without shifting into park, he looked at his partner.

  “I say this with all due respect, now. Do not pull that shit with me again. Got it? We handle our stops right or we don’t handle them at all. You get me, James?”

  Kent glared for a second, took a deep breath.

  “With all due respect to you, Locke, you’re not my fucking training officer.”

  “No. I’m your partner.”

  Without batting an eye, Kent reached for his radio. Still staring at his partner, he keyed the mic.

  “Two-Charlie?”

  Locke shook his head, turned his attention to his memo book to write in the car stop. He listened to Central ask for a final and his partner give one that told everyone listening he’d beat the balls off the kid that they’d stopped. The second Kent moved his finger off the button, the radio was filled with whistles. Kid was definitely losing his license. Kent turned to admire his six-fold handiwork of summonses splayed across the dash and reasoned to himself that time could be better served by finding tougher criminals to mess with, but then, he concluded logically, if only to himself, that even the biggest and the worst of criminals had probably started off with small stuff before racing on to felonies. Six infractions today, drunk driving tomorrow. Kent wondered why God let so much of the small stuff slip through his fingers.

  If God wasn’t going to right the wrongs of this screwed up society, then Kent was going to go ahead and fucking do it for him.

  Friday

  September 7, 2012

  10-13

  Kent shoved his right pointer finger into the face of the nearly toothless piece of white-trash standing there in front of him, yelled at him to just shut the fuck up. Dribbling saliva, the lips smacked twice, then clammed up under his lonesome gums. Deeply recessed eyes, dark and twitchy, watched the cop cup the radio on his hip and listen attentively. Sensing the cop’s revulsion, toothless began scratching industriously at his right arm as Kent’s radio fell silent. Every cop across Staten Island listened, hushed up from their previous occupancy, waiting to see who it was and where they were heading to help.

  The scream had sent shivers down Kent’s spine. The words were sharp and harsh, indistinguishable save for those two dreaded numbers cops prayed they’d never have to hear come over the air. Ten-thirteen. Cop-speak for send help before someone ends up in a body bag.

  After about three seconds that felt like just as many years, Central asked who had put over the call for help. She repeated her question twice more, still with no answer. The 122 Desk Sergeant called for a rundown.

  “Find out who that was, Central. Forthwith.”

  One by one, every sector of every command in Staten Island was raised starting with the 123. Kent looked over at his partner as they waited for their command, nodded towards him. Locke brought the radio up to his mouth, on the ready.

  “One-two-two-Adam?”

  “Good, central,” Locke said calmly. No sooner did he lift his finger from the key than the radio blew back up with more cries for help, it was coming from Sector Henry. An address this time, followed by another dreaded announcement - officer down.

  Kent looked over at his partner again, this time determination was writ across his face.

  Max rolled his eyes toward their RMP with determination, hit the mic, “Two-Adam, show us going.”

  Cops on meal ran from the station house, food flew to the floor of RMP’s, feet pinned pedals; plain clothes cops threw the cherries on. Everyone with a car hit the pavement, sirens blaring, lights flashing, to back up one of their own.

  A few yards onto Adams Avenue, below Richmond Road, Police Officer Daniels lay face down on the hood of RMP 4565. The dark skinned female was unconscious; her gun lay ten feet away on the grass just beyond the sidewalk. Daniels’ partner had his back pinned against their front bumper. McAllen’s light blue eyes were rolling to the back of his head. He was running out of time, running out of air, consciousness slowly dissipating, as had his partner’s. Huge, heavily-tattooed hands were closed around the cop’s thick neck; McAllen’s hands flailed in vain, death itself painfully strangling his breath away. The inked up monster had PCP coursing through his veins, some of which was surely seeping from the two bullet hits to his well-muscled shoulder, yet the wounds to his left deltoid did nothing to slow him down. Could he even feel them? McAllen wondered before everything went dark.

  Kent didn’t slow down. The other vehicles up ahead on Richmond Road seemed to stand still as he wove effortlessly between them. He had five more blocks to go and no one else had gotten to the mayhem yet either. Locke filled his hands, his left held down on the speaker mic of the RMP. At irregular intervals he’d ease up, let the sound of the sirens squeal. He created a symphony with the woops. His right hand hovered near his mouth, holding onto the black brick with NYPD etched in white. He keyed the radio as Kent pushed the gas pedal to the fl
oor.

  “Two-Adam. Rolling eighty-four.”

  Within the timeframe of the sentence, a beige Lincoln, a block away, appeared inches from the front of their RMP, then disappeared behind them just as quickly. The driver’s anxious eyes receded into the distance of Locke’s side view mirror.

  Still a block away, Kent skated through the final two cars of far too many to count. He tapped the brake five times in a second, switched back to the gas fluently, and drifted onto Adams. Their rear bumper sailed past a parked Altima on the corner, and just barely missed. Locke could’ve sworn Kent left some paint behind, but that was irrelevant now.

  The monster was standing on the hood of the RMP 4565 screaming as Sector Adam skidded down the block. Neither McAllen nor Daniels moved. Kent had the RMP tires just slow enough and Locke had his door open, nearly rolling out, he moved so quickly. He regained his footing in a heartbeat, seamlessly broke into a sprint. He never announced himself, no time for that. Just leapt at the bald-headed psycho’s legs, a fiend nearly twice his size.

  Kent watched his partner tumble off of the hood, the perp slamming his head as he fell along with. James cursed under his breath, screeched the car to a complete stop, didn’t even cut the engine, jumped out as he heard more sirens coming down the block behind him. He couldn’t hear his radio anymore, didn’t know who was putting themselves on scene, just glad they were doing it. Locke was wrestling for his life. Kent, not hesitating, got an elbow to his jaw as he joined the fray. He rolled back from the pain, regained his ground. This guy was enormous. Locke was on the ground, the animal pummeling Locke’s face with ham-sized fists. Locke crisscrossed his arms in front of him for protection; it didn’t help much. Kent snapped out his baton full length, went right for the elbow as it came back, before the beast could launch another attack. Twenty inches of solid steel cylinder met flesh and bone. Steel won the contest. Kent felt the vibration through his wrist like the bass from a subwoofer as the ungodly sound of bone cracking echoed the block. The perp screamed and jerked out his arm. Kent slammed down another hit at the perp’s outstretched hand. Screams of rage as fingers sounded off with brutal snapping.

  Locke used the opportunity, kicked a boot deep into the fiend’s groin. Kent rained down another steel blow, this one to the bloody, bullet-marked shoulder. Locke kicked again. The flesh train was losing steam, collapsing beneath the barrage of punishment. Locke’s face was a bloody mess. Kent couldn’t see his partner’s right eye anymore; it looked like a huge jar of runny, cheap spaghetti sauce had been dumped down the entire left side of Locke’s face. But the cop fought on. He kicked a third time.

  Kent threw another hit to the wounded shoulder and his partner snapped cuffs onto a limp, yet muscular arm as two more cops ran into the fracas. The unmitigated chaos seemed like an octopus was at work, pushing the perp’s face down to the concrete, grinding it down to the bone and delivering a savage beating. No one knew whose hands belonged to whom; the only rule in play – inflict pain on any part not connected to arms draped in navy blue. Locke and Kent fell out of the fight as four more cops ran in and managed, finally, to get the cuffs connected to both of the perp’s huge wrists.

  Sound filtered back in; Kent hadn’t realized its absence during the fight. He collapsed back on his rear, beside his partner - the bloody, jacked up mess. Kent used his partner’s one visible eye to gauge where Locke was looking; it seemed as if it gazed out at nothing. He grabbed Max’s arm, called out to him. No response. He tried again, got on his knees and snapped his fingers in front of that one good eye. Slowly it blinked, recognizance finally edging back in.

  “Holy fuck,” Max said, putting his hands flat out in front of him, bloody knuckles up. They were dripping. Likewise, his wrists. He wasn’t sure whose blood it was. He glanced at his worried partner, took a breath and coughed out some blood, pausing to spit out a tooth.

  “Fuck, did you just - I thought that was only in the movies,” Kent said, slack jawed.

  “I need a bus,” Max shot back. “I’m gonna need a fuckin’ exposure number now. Goddammit, that guy better not have something.”

  “Yeah, bro.” Kent looked behind him and saw only one ambulance, went over the air for another. He took a deep breath, looked over at McAllen and the EMT working on him. He was breathing, seemed to be semi-conscious. Another EMT had Daniels sitting on the grass; she was conscious now as well. Her gun was re-holstered. Kent looked at his partner with admiration.

  “You just saved their lives, bro.”

  He looked them over, then at the smiling rookie in front of him.

  “No, kid. We just saved their lives. We did.”

  Saturday

  October 6, 2012

  Coffee

  James rattled the ice in his plastic cup.

  “Seems like every time I leave these places, I end up smelling like coffee for the rest of the day.”

  Chris continued to sink down into faded brown leather, ignoring his cousin’s comment. James teetered on the back legs of a wooden chair a few feet away.

  “Have you called her yet?”

  James planted the chair, placed his cup down on the rectangular table in front of them, and stared out the windows that framed the coffee house. He wore a heather grey hoodie over a black tee shirt and light blue skinny jeans. He readjusted his black on black fitted Yankees cap. His eyes followed across the lanes of Richmond Avenue to the makeshift satellite precinct on the other side of the road.

  Three trailers sat, propped up in a reverse L shape about a yard off the busy street. The shades of the main compartment, the one that faced the Avenue, were dropped, but light shone from within. James still hadn’t been inside the annex, even though it technically belonged to his own command. There’d been no reason to do it.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t just do things. I need a reason,” James finally answered.

  “Of course you do.”

  Chris was slightly overweight for his mid-twenties, wore his dingy blonde hair shaped up and cropped close on top, the front gelled out in small spikes. He sipped his coffee; his light hazel eyes never met his cousin’s. He huffed, put his coffee down for a moment, pulled the bottom of his black sweatshirt over the waist of his dark blue jeans.

  James leaned forward, placed his arms across his thighs.

  “She… it’s her fault anyway, ya know?”

  “Really?” Chris looked up like a mother about to scold her child. “’Cause it seems, at this point, like it’s become yours, cuz. At least she tried.”

  “She tried? Come on, Chris. Tell me this. Is she still with him?”

  “What?”

  “It’s not a trick question. Is she still with him? You know, the asshole?”

  Bright blue headlights crossed through the parking lot just outside the coffee shop’s windowed walls. The beam pattern played across James’ face and disappeared onto Richmond Avenue as Chris waited out his answer.

  “Yes,” he said, head slung low. “Yes, James. She is. She’s with him.” Lifting his head and looking square at James, he asked, “But so what?”

  “So -”

  “So. What.” Chris put his palm up defiantly. “She’s a scared little girl. She lost her best friend when you lost Stacey. Let’s not forget that. I think you forget that. And she spent all her time consoling you instead of mourning for herself. She’s a saint, and you give her hell.”

  James tried to keep a hardened exterior, but he could feel his eyes becoming glassy. Some wounds were too easy to rip back open. Some wounds still too fresh, hadn’t even fully healed. Maybe they never would. It seemed odd to him that it was so easy to spark the pain sometimes. He struggled to swallow the lump gathering in his throat as he thought about Stacey and his mom. Maybe he really had forgotten how much it had affected Hallie.

  “Yeah… I suppose you have a point.”

  “I know I do.”

  James grinned despite himself. Chris shot back the same. Chris knew James better than he knew himself sometimes
.

  They had a go at their respective drinks just as two girls in their early twenties stormed through the front door, laughing. Both men looked up, had a hard time looking away. The girls smiled in their direction as they walked towards the counter.

  “I was gonna tell you to call her. But I guess Hallie can wait one more night,” Chris said with a wicked grin. James laughed in agreement.

  Chris leaned forward, staring obviously towards the counter. “That blonde in the yoga pants. What I’d do to her.”

  “Fine with me. I like the look of the other one better anyway. Ya know I’ve never fucked with a Spanish chick before? I know I like their fajitas, makes me think I'd probably like their pussies, too.”

  “So, let’s make sure you get a taste tonight, eh?”

  James laughed again and teetered once more, leaning back and balancing on the chair’s back legs. Chris raised his paper cup. James raised his own, nodded in agreement, “Deal.”

  Chris took a sip and added, “But then, after? Then you call Hallie.”

  Sunday

  October 21, 2012

  Parking Lot

  Chris huffed and rolled his head in a circle, “I can’t believe you still haven’t called her yet, man.”

  The end of Kent’s two-day swing, well past sunset, it was cold and dark in the back of the movie theater parking lot as they breezed through.

  “I’m sorry. I got a little busy that night,” James snapped back. Only two poles to shed light on the mostly empty parking lot. A third lamp flickered on and off haphazardly. Chris slapped at an unseen insect. Something felt off to Kent from the moment he and Chris exited the rear doors, his cop-sense tingling in overdrive. Dark brown eyes scrutinized the murk, trying to make out anything conspicuous. James wore his favorite midnight blue skinny jeans, a black tee, and a matching hoodie with colorful Nikes on his feet. The perfectly tapered coif he was sporting made James look more punk than cop, but mannerisms said something very different.