“James?” Locke’s words were shallow, lost in confusion. He couldn’t or didn’t want to wrap his head around it all.
“Oh man, Max. I messed up.”
“James.”
“I fucked up bad.”
“Locke?” Gracia yelled from behind them. She was tiring of her dance with the rookie. His patience with her was growing even thinner.
“God fucking damn it. He told me. He told me to do it. He fucking called me,” James cried, blood spraying off battered lips as he did. Locke’s face turned pale white, words completely lost to him now.
“Locke?” Gracia asked again.
“Yeah,” Max finally said, his face still lacking proper blood flow. “Yeah, Gracia.” He didn’t break eye contact with his friend. “He’s my partner... was my partner. His name is James Kent. And he was my partner. He’s a cop.” Reality was slowly returning for Locke, he began to stand. Kent mimicked his actions.
Gracia’s eyebrows did a wave. “What the fuck?”
The rookie stopped dancing, repeated her words.
And Locke lost it. Screaming curses, he wrapped both sturdy hands around his friend’s sweatshirt collar, brought their faces two inches apart. Kent didn’t answer the fury in front of him. Locke shook him, Gracia left the rookie, who’d finally lowered his gun. She grabbed her partner’s shoulders, tried to pull him back to reality.
“Locke! Locke! Stop it! Chill!”
Kent used the opportunity, threw a wild punch at the two cops. His fist missed completely, the loose cuff again slashed against Locke’s cheekbone. Blood sprayed the air, Locke stumbled back, tumbled into Gracia and the two fell to the ground.
“Gun!” The rookie yelled, raising his own back into the air.
“No!” Locke screamed. He looked back and forth between the rookie and Kent wildly as he jumped up. “Stop! Don’t shoot. He’s a fucking cop. He’s not going to shoot us,” he yelled at the rookie.
“Right, James?” he asked calmly, looking back at his old partner. The crooked cop.
Kent kept the gun by his waist, still pointed towards the ground.
Gracia was still trying to compute the full scope of the situation before her. She stood slowly. The rookie had his free hand on his mic, leaning into it, talking low.
Kent paced in small circles. “I messed up, man. I ruined everything.”
“You didn’t ruin everything, James. Come on, bro.”
“I did. I did, Locke. It’s over now. And I’m going to make it bad for all of you.”
“What are you talking about, bro?”
“When the media finds out I’m a cop? When they find out the fucking vigilante is a goddamn cop? They all flipped their shit when I killed those two in the parking lot. And that was justified, Locke. That was justified. But all this? What I’ve done now? It’s over, man. They’re gonna crucify us all for this. This is the beginning of the end.”
“Forget The Job, James. Let’s put the gun down and we can figure it out. I’ll be your arresting officer, James. I’ll do a walkthrough, be there with you the whole way.” He reached out a hand towards his friend as sirens blared in the background, but James jerked back. The rookie yelled again.
Locke looked back, “I told you to put that god damn gun down. He’s no threat to us! You’re making it worse.”
“No, Max. I made it worse. I ruined it all. It’s over. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but I can’t do this. I thought it was what He wanted, but I think I just made my bed in Hell. It’s over.”
“James! Stop. You aren't looking at reality, bro. When are you going to start listening to me, damn it!?”
James’ face tightened. Tears streamed as snot ran across Kent’s defeated face. He looked at the rookie, who’d stepped far enough over to have a clear shot. Gracia was transfixed on Kent.
Locke pleaded. James looked to the night sky.
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
James raised his arm, the gun aimed right at his old partner’s face. Locke’s eyes widened and the vicious bark of gunfire filled the air. Hole after hole ripped into James Kent’s vest, neck and face. Blood splattered towards the heavens, his eyes rolled back - just like the perps he’d shot.
Max screamed at the top of his lungs, lunged forward as James’ body tumbled backwards. Max felt a bullet rip through his clothes and pound into the back of his vest. He hit the ground wheezing. Gracia looked over at the rookie, hands still outstretched and trembling, the smoking gun staring off into the spot James used to be. The slide was snapped back, casings littered the ground. She put a hand atop the empty gun, lowered it. He blinked back to reality. He looked her way and she gave a swift right hook to his jaw, watched him crumple to the ground. Neither had anything else to say.
Max cradled James’ body and cried, still wheezing and intermittingly coughing. “There is no fucking Father, you idiot.”
Blood bubbled up from the holes in James’ body, he gasped for air, his mouth dripped blood as he exhaled his last with a distorted sigh.
Through the tears, Locke saw Gracia’s shoes approach, stop next to him. The sounds of sirens echoed as they drew closer. Locke trembled as he pushed his mouth to speak.
“Tell Central. Tell her, we need a bus.”
Tears slid off his face onto James Kent’s lifeless body.
“We need a fucking bus.”
Saturday
February 9, 2013
Epilogue
Locke put his face in his palms, elbows bent against the table’s edge. Police band radio code spat out from the black rectangle two inches to his right. Jen sat with her back against the wall, feet up on the bottom rungs of the chair next to her. Her left hand rested on the table near two paper plates with remnants of their meal, her fingers rapping against the wood. Neither said a word.
Jen eyed two Guido’s walking through the doors of the health food restaurant. They wore overly tight polyester warm up pants and their skin was bright orange, almost radiating; hard to miss against their tight white tee shirts.
“Little cold for that,” she mumbled under her breath.
The smaller of the two brown haired bulldozers winked as they passed the two cops. She shook her head sideways as a reply.
No thanks, juice bag.
His smile turned to a grimace; he continued to the register with his friend. Jen lost interest and looked at her partner.
“Call It a Wrap’s better than this junk. I miss the one-two-oh.
He didn’t look up from his palm plant. “Told you you’d liked it.”
“Well, less of those assclowns over there, too,” she said, thumb wagging towards the register. Locke still didn’t look up. “Want to head back out?”
“Yeah, just one more sec.”
“Why don’t you take some time off, Locke? You haven’t taken a day.”
The rest of January had been a blur of court appearances and meetings with brass. Now, new things were on the horizon for Officers Locke and Gracia. Max and his new partner had been promised promotion, Detective third grade was coming soon.
“I got none left,” he said, finally pulling his face up and staring weary eyed across the table. “I burnt everything I had last year. Plus some more. I already owe more than what came to me for the new year.”
“Okay, well one, I told you to go LOD from that fucking gunshot.”
“I took it in the vest. I’m not a pussy. You don’t go out for that.”
“Okay, well, agree to disagree there, partner. But aside from that, how’s it possible to get your days a year early?”
“It’s possible. If you’re in good with the XO. I had a... personal issue to deal with. Burnt my days like there was no tomorrow. Ended up ‘borrowing’ days from this year. Spent them out too.”
Jen shot him a bewildered look, “Musta been one hell of a personal issue.”
“Yeah, I seem to have those,” he said, planting his face in his palms again.
Gracia eyed the door as a teenage
couple came in. Watched them walk up to the register and grab menus. She turned her attention back to the disenfranchised cop.
“So, I gotta ask. I mean I’m not in the Two long. I’m sorry, but... well, if we’re gonna work together, I gotta know. Did you... were you?”
He lifted his head, tired but not angry. “Are you riding with a drunk or a druggie?” he asked on her behalf.
“Well,” she said, slightly embarrassed for asking.
“No. No way. Never touched a drug in my life and I can control my liquor just fine.”
“Fair enough,” she said. She wanted to ask more, but knew it wasn’t her business.
Probably wouldn’t get an answer anyway.
“Still, in the seven years I’ve been on The Job, I never seen someone use up that much time,” she pushed one last time.
She surveyed the exhausted man. He didn’t respond. He was hammered from the hard weeks that had just passed, hammered from not sleeping. Hadn’t had much time to keep up his hawk either. His head was a growing mess, a little bit longer in the middle, but hardly noticeable now. His navy uniform was wrinkled, but he still managed to look ripped - the real kind, not the steroid kind that the Guido’s paying for their protein packed plates of food paraded around daily.
“Ya know... even at your worst, you’re managing to look better in your blues than most cops at their best,” Gracia said, hoping to bring a smile to her partner’s face. He still didn’t look up.
“Although,” she added, “As much as we’re cop-stars right now, glad you shaved that beard, the CO was gonna flip.”
“Cop-stars,” Locke mimicked, then huffed. “Maybe I’ll get a shave note and grow it back just to piss him off,” he said, finally rearing his face, still vexed with grief.
“Eh. Who cares, anyway, right?” She grinned out of the corner of her mouth. He finally returned the favor, slapped his hands against the table.
“Yeah, who cares. We are the cop stars of the day. I should be able to rock a Williamsburg on my face if I want.”
“Ugh, that fucking place! And this dumb-ass, dirty generation.”
“You saying I look dirty, Gracia? Cause I coulda sworn two seconds ago, you were hitting on me again.”
She was about to defend herself when he laughed. She relaxed. He stood, grabbed his radio.
“Let’s go. Time to bang out some perps.”
Jen laughed loudly, “Whoa! What? That could definitely be taken way wrong!”
He smiled wide, shook his head left to right. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Jen. I know I look better than any cop you know, but come on. Let’s write some summonses.”
He slipped the radio back on his belt. Jen turned red and stood up. “That isn’t what I said.”
“Aw, come on, I’m depressed. Let a man dream.”
She pursed her lips. “Only a little bit.”
Max scooped up their garbage and dumped it as they walked out. He went to the passenger side, waited for Gracia to unlock the door and pop the locks for her partner. They both plopped into the RMP. Rear right fender had a gaping hole; the entire car looked like someone had sprayed it with now-frozen brown slime. The inside wasn’t all that much better. Gracia turned the car on with a huff, put her hands on the repugnant steering wheel.
“Seriously, though, who fucking eats a steering wheel?” she asked, minor woe over having to grip the stained, evidently gnawed-on wheel for the next few hours.
“Probably same idiots who stabbed the hell out of the fucking glove box,” he answered, pointing towards the six holes.
Locke went over the air, told Central they were back from meal early. Central handed them two jobs within as many minutes. The engine knocked and the transmission jumped as Gracia shifted into drive and pulled out of the lot and onto Bryant Avenue. Back to the grind of patrol. It was supposed to have been temporary. But there she was: Maxwell Locke’s official partner. Officer James Kent was a part of the past now, and Locke’s road with Gracia was just beginning.
An hour later, Gracia put her back against the RMP door, watched the hand scratching paper in the recorder’s seat next to her. She glanced out the window, showers trickling down outside.
“There's been something on my mind. About, well, some heavy shit.”
“Okay.”
“I just don't know. ‘Cause it's kinda… It's about…”
“About my old partner?” Locke never looked up, just scribbled away, flipping between the insurance papers under the NYPD paperwork.
Gracia shifted uncomfortably. “Um, yeah. How'd you know?”
Head stayed bowed, hands continued moving, “Because in the months we've been partners now, I've never seen you squirm like you are right now. Not about anything.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well… I wanted to know. What the hell was he talking about there? At the end?”
“Yeah. At the end.” Locke’s pen stopped moving for a second as he continued with his words. “He was always saying how the system was broken.”
“Damn truth.”
Locke looked up with a slight but obviously painful grin, “That’s what I said.” He went back to work. “But I also told him, the whole system is jacked. The world, not just the criminal justice system in New York.”
“Uh-huh.” She sat captivated, her attention fastened on his words. He asked her to run the licenses for him and handed them over. As she did, he went on.
“It’s supposed to draw us to something better. At least, I think it is. But for a lot of people… him included. For a lot of people, that thing is religion. But religion is based on delusions.
“Delusions.”
“Yeah, I mean, we kinda talked about this before.”
“I remember.”
He looked up, face squinted like he was sucking on a sour candy. “It's weird. I get it to a degree. I was there once. But if you take it too far… Fuck, if you let it take you too far…”
“Yeah… You get the assholes keeping gays from getting married.”
Locke looked her square. “Equal rights? That’s the least of it. As big as that is, mind you. What you get, is him.”
“Your partner?”
“Yeah. That's why he did what he did. I think… I think that he thought he was actually doing what his god wanted him to do.”
“That's…”
“Fucked up? Sick? Twisted?”
Gracia laid her hand on the computer keyboard, thumbed the licenses with her other hand as she puckered her lips and looked at the car accident in front of them, contemplating what her partner had just dropped on her.
“That sucks. It's enough to make you lose faith in the whole thing.”
“There was a time,” Locke said, still staring at his paperwork. “I sat there on the couch talking to this pastor. I told him that I wanted to help the church. Wanted to eventually help plant a church even. Maybe even with him. But by the time I met her…”
Jen couldn't believe this rare moment of exposure. She stayed silent, waiting for more.
“I meant it. To the core of my being, I meant it. I believed in Jesus Christ as my savior and everything. I believed and I repented and I prayed. I prayed so often. And I desired to please my god in all I did.”
“I had no idea.” She looked in awe at her partner. “I thought you hated Christians.”
He put down his pen, looked at Gracia. “No. No, I don't hate them. Well, maybe I do a little bit. But mostly, I feel sorry for them, I think. I feel sorry because I remember what it was like. To believe you know the truth, to know that so many people you love are going to burn in eternal torment. It's a burden.”
She looked into his heavy-laden green eyes, splinters of the fading sunlight crossed his face at odd intervals. “It's okay if you don't want to go on. I shouldn't have brought this shit up.” But she desperately wanted him to go on.
Locke cleared his throat, flipped the paper to the other side. “Yeah.” He paused, breathed deep before he spoke. “When you start to pull at the threa
d of Christianity… it's only a matter of time before the whole sweater comes undone,” Locke said, returning to his writing. “At the time I was warned of this, I mocked the idea. Surely, I thought, the greatest truth of the world would not be that easy to pull apart into nothingness. But sadly, because it isn’t true, it was all too easy to disintegrate.”
“You're kind of talking like a poet.”
Locke looked up with a smile. She returned the same.
“I've been told I can get… philosophical at times. I guess with James…”
“Yeah, I totally get it.”
“Fuck. Those days I thought I'd be a pastor’s assistant, or a pastor myself. But now I see through the fog I'd lived in for far too long. I just wish he'd seen it, too.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah. The real truth.”
“I'm not sure I know what I believe. I mean, I think there's God, though. I mean, don't we have proof? The faith that's survived thousands of years and all that?”
Locke breathed a sigh. “No, Jen. That's not proof. That's exactly what you said it is. Faith. That and wishful thinking. Now I see the real great truth of the world is that there are no gods. At least none that have shown themselves to us. The only thing we know for certain is that we are here. But we’re growing. Maybe one day we’ll get some real insight into some being greater than ourselves. Greater than the universe itself, the vast cosmos. But until then, I am content with the majesty of the unknown. Maybe you should learn to be okay with the same.”
“I don't really even know if I'm a very good Catholic, anyway,” she said with no real conviction.
“That a question or a plea for recognition, Gracia?” he asked, locking eyes with her again. She looked away, scrolled through the computer screen.
“They’re all clean. I’ll give ’em back their papers. Let ’em know the tow’s coming.”
“Fair enough.”
He handed over the insurance papers and she exited the RMP. He reviewed his work before asking Central for a recap of what other jobs she had lined up for them. Central talked, but Max didn’t hear a thing, his mind somewhere in the past. Couldn’t stop thinking about James.
D.O.A. Page 17