Superbia s-1

by Bernard Schaffer

  The Chief hung up the phone and Vic sat down in one of the chairs. “It’s a good time to pick up an investment property if you can swing it, boss. Looking for a vacation rental?”

  “Looking for my new home! I’m heading for life on the open range, buddy. Can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”

  Vic shifted nervously in his seat. “When do you think that will be?”

  “Could be tomorrow, could be whenever. The Township can’t seem to make sense of the numbers I gave them for my pension. As soon as their accountant makes the corrections and they cut me a check, you will have seen the last of me.”

  “Oh,” Vic said. “Any word on that promotion?”

  The Chief cocked his head in confusion, then his eyes lit up. “Of course! I’m working on that too. You have my word, before I leave, you’ll be at least a promoted detective.”

  Vic breathed out and said, “Great. I appreciate it, sir. I know you must have your hands full.”

  “I take care of the people who take care of me,” the Chief said benevolently. “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I need Frank to be exclusive to me for the time being, boss. I can’t operate not knowing where he’s going to be on any given day. We have a big job coming up, and I can’t have him running off to direct traffic every five minutes.”

  The Chief pursed his lips and thought on it without speaking for a moment. “The Staff Sergeant told me Frank wasn’t that busy yet in Detectives.”

  “The Staff Sergeant is wrong,” Vic said.

  The Chief finally nodded and pressed the intercom button on his phone, ringing Erinnyes. “Staff Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir!” Erinnyes’s voice said over the phone. There was a bursting-with-cheeriness to his voice that made Vic’s eyes roll.

  “Until the Detectives have wrapped up this case they’re working on, Officer O’Ryan is not available for other details.”

  There was a pause where nothing but the sound of labored, gurgling breathing came through the speaker phone. “Excellent, sir. If they need anything from patrol, just let me know.”

  The Chief hung up the phone and looked at Vic. “Problem solved?”

  “Until the day you walk out the door, it is.”

  “Try not to make too many enemies, Vic. I won’t be around forever.”

  * * *

  Frank parked his patrol car in the station lot and started peeling off his sweat-soaked uniform shirt before he even reached the door. There was a spot on his back that itched mercilessly under his bullet-proof vest that he could not reach. He ripped off the vest and pushed up against the nearest corner of the building, scratching his back against it like a cat. It felt like the wall’s stucco was ripping the skin right off but he did not care.

  He limped into the locker room, favoring his knee. His tee-shirt was stuck to his body and he pulled it away from his skin and fanned himself with the fabric. The locker door opened behind him as Frank sat down on the bench and rested his leg. A pill bottle rattled in his ear and Frank turned around eagerly, frowning when he saw it was just a bottle of Tylenol.

  “Did you use the last of the pills I gave you?” Vic said.

  “About fifteen minutes into the detail,” Frank said.

  Vic unscrewed the cap and dumped two more into Frank’s hand. “Take these. It will take the edge off.” He watched Frank swallow the pills with obvious dissatisfaction. “I’ve got good news. The Chief is giving you to me exclusively. No more interference from the Staff Infection.”

  “Do I still need to request the unmarked car?”

  “You’re just like my wife, you know that?” Vic said. “I bust my ass to give her what she bugs me for, and the second I do, she turns around and asks for the next thing. It’s like she has a list and her only job in life is to eliminate the next objective.”

  “Like the Terminator,” Frank said.

  Vic’s eyes lit up, “Exactly! You made your first movie reference, Frank. I’m like a proud dad. But anyway, I didn’t ask for the car. I figure we can just double up in mine.”

  Frank shrugged and slid his arms into his sleeves. “You realize I don’t have much faith in anybody’s ability to stick to their word around here, right?”

  “Does that include me?” Vic said.

  “That includes everybody.”

  A loud, high-pitched tone blared from the overhead speaker. Both men stopped talking and cocked their heads toward the ceiling. “Attention Seventeen cars, be advised there’s a one-vehicle traffic accident. Witnesses are reporting entrapment with multiple injuries. Fire rescue is en route.”

  “Shit,” Frank said.

  “Not our problem,” Vic said. “We’ve got other things to do.”

  “County to Seventeen cars, caller is reporting a Class Five inside the vehicle. Two juveniles are involved.”

  “Shit!” both men said. Vic turned and raced through the door with Frank at his heels, desperately trying to buckle his pants. Vic hit the door so hard that it cracked the cheap stucco wall with its handle. He tried digging in his pants pocket for the keys to his car as he ran. “Where are my keys?”

  “We’ll take my car,” Frank shouted. “You don’t have any lights or siren. We’ll get there faster.”

  Frank unlocked the patrol car and Vic leapt into the passenger seat, squeezing against Frank’s patrol bag and the plastic caddie hooked onto the seat. “Move that stuff,” Frank said.

  “Screw it, just drive,” Vic said. He fumbled with the microphone, trying to get it free of the radio. “County, we’re enroute. Any further details?”

  Frank threw on the lights and sirens, drowning out the radio dispatcher. Vic frantically pressed the volume button, trying to make out what was being said. “Just go,” he said, sinking the radio back into the holder.

  Main Street was thick with traffic along all four-lanes. Frank pushed the cars out of his way with the wail of his siren and threat of his front bumper. “Christ, don’t let it be a kid,” Vic whispered. “I just had a dead kid two months ago, and I can’t take another one.”

  Frank looked at the detective and saw that his face was white. Vic’s lip was trembling. “It’ll be okay, man. Just calm down.”

  “I just don’t want it to be a little kid. Please, God,” he muttered. “Please.”

  Frank peeled around the corner to see a crowd of people standing around a car in the middle of the road. A massive tree branch dropped across the roof, sunk below the door windows. People parted, except for the ones who were trying to rip open the rear doors. “Oh, Christ, it looks bad,” Vic said.

  Frank slammed his foot on the brakes so hard that the tires smoked. Vic flung his door open before they came to a stop and was nearly thrown headfirst into the crowd of onlookers, hanging onto the doorjamb by his fingertips. Vic scrambled out of the car and charged through the crowd, sticking his face against the window to see two little girls sitting in the backseat.

  Both of them, blonde haired and beautiful.

  Six years old at the most.

  Both of them, sheet-white and staring back at him with blank expressions. The smaller girl had a large shard of glass sunk deep in her cheek, an inch beneath her eye. The roof was crushed directly in front of them, blocking their view of the front seat.

  Both silent. Wide-eyed.

  Alive.

  A mangled hand was stretched across the steering wheel, fingers curled and intertwined. It was the only thing visible under the massive bulk of crushed aluminum. Frank came running up to Vic’s side, shouting, “How bad is it?”

  “Two girls in the back,” Vic shouted. “They need an ambulance, and they need to get the hell out of this car.”

  “What about the driver?” Frank stopped running when he saw the damage. He looked at the hand and crushed roof and said, “Oh.”

  “Help me get the back door open,” Vic said.

  “The fire department’s almost here. They’ve got the tools to-”

  Vic stuck his fingers into the door crease and
started pulling. He put his foot against the rear fender and screamed with effort, pulling so hard that his face turned purple. “Come on!” he screamed.

  Frank grabbed the top of the door, prying it away from the frame just as Vic lost his grip and the door cinched shut on the tips of Frank’s fingers. Vic immediately wedged his fingers into the crease again and yanked, allowing Frank to free himself. “I told you to wait for the goddamn Fire Company!” Frank shouted, staring at his swollen fingers.

  “No, goddamn it!” Vic pulled like an animal trying to free itself from a snare. Each time he pulled, the door tightened around his own fingers, crushing them, but he would not give up.

  Frank stuck his fingers back into the top of the door, “Being your partner sucks!”

  The two of them finally wrenched the door open and were able bend the hinges enough to create a foot wide gap. Vic ducked his head into the opening and said, “Can you girls come out of there on your own?” Neither of them moved. He held out his hand and said, “It’s okay. You’ll be safe out here. Come on, honey. It’s all right.”

  The girl with the glass in her cheek looked at her sister. The sister began to cry.

  * * *

  Frank drove back to the station, glancing down at the tips of his fingers every so often to see how much more they’d swollen and turned purple. He backed the patrol car into its spot and slammed the shifter into park. “This is just what I needed, Vic. Thanks a whole hell of a lot. I’m already dealing with my freaking knee, and now all my fingers are probably broken too, all because you couldn’t wait for the goddamn fire company! Everything everybody says about you is true! You’re a hot-shot, self-righteous, glory seeking bullshit artist! I’m done!”

  Vic did not speak. His own fingers were bloody and raw as he reached for the glove compartment, scratching at some unseen spot on the surface.

  Frank threw up his hands and said, “Whatever. Just sit here, then.” He got out of the car and threw the door shut. He walked into the station and headed for the emergency kit hanging on the wall to break open an ice pack. The cold stung his fingers, but he pressed them into the squishy bag. He waited a few minutes, then walked back to the rear door and looked out to see that Vic was still sitting in the police car, not moving.

  A few moments later, Frank opened the driver’s side door and sat back down. He held the ice pack to Vic and said, “Here. Take it.”

  Vic took the bag and pressed his fingers down into it, wincing. “Thanks,” he said.

  Frank waved his hand and looked out at the parking lot. “I missed a lot while I was out, I guess. We had a dead kid?”

  Vic nodded, but did not speak.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Vic shook his head.

  “That must’ve sucked. I hate seeing bad things happen to kids. I guess you’ve seen a lot more of that then most guys around here,” Frank said.

  Vic nodded quietly, and Frank could see that his eyes were starting to turn red. Vic whispered. “I started drinking pretty good after that one. Danni told me to either get help or get out. Nobody here knows it, but I moved out of the house three months ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you still get to see your kids?”

  “One night a week, both days on the weekends. The only problem is that I’m on-call and when I have them, I need to scramble to find somebody to stay with them so I can go in.”

  “Who do you use?”

  “My mom. She doesn’t live too far away. She’s been pretty good about it so far, but I can tell it’s getting old.”

  Frank nodded and looked at his fingers. The swelling had gone down. “I’m glad we got those little girls out.”

  Vic looked at his own fingers and then turned to look at Frank. He took a deep breath and said, “There’s something I need to ask you. Did you watch Colors yet?”

  “I did, when I was in the station, looking for ice to heal my ruined fingers. It was a good movie. I’m a fan of De Niro’s. He was good.”

  “De Niro wasn’t in the movie.”

  “Yes, he was,” Frank said. “Billy even said so. Bobby D. played the old head.”

  “Robert Duvall. Different Bobby D.”

  “Well the one I saw had all those guys in it, and it was a classic. Maybe you saw a different version.”

  “You are an idiot,” Vic said. He opened the patrol car door and slid out of the seat.

  “See?” Frank said. “This is good. I felt like we bonded just now.”

  “Go away,” Vic said. “I don’t like you.”

  “Oh, yes you do,” Frank said, hurrying after him. “We’re like Tango and Cash. Turner and Hooch. Cagney and Lacey!”

  Vic stopped. “Am I Cagney or Lacey?”

  “Which one was the lesbian?”

  “One of them was a lesbian?”

  “In the porno version, both were lesbians,” Frank said. “Sometimes, anyway.”

  “There is something deeply, deeply wrong with you, Frank.”

  * * *

  Frank looked at the picture on the wall behind his desk and said, “All right, so give. What happened to her?”

  Vic stared at his computer screen and said, “Maternity leave.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Vic shrugged and said, “Believe what you want.”

  Frank kicked his feet up on the desk and said, “You know what you are?”

  “What am I?”

  “A not-even-promoted detective. You know what’s worse than that?”

  “Not much.”

  “Being a not-even-promoted detective’s bitch, Vic. Being stuck down in the basement with you all day and night, and you don’t even trust me enough to tell me what happened to your last partner.”

  Vic turned around and said, “Come on, it isn’t that bad.”

  “This year I’ve gotten shot, killed a kid, watched my partner die in front of me, and none of that compared to what you’ve put me through these past few days. I ate baby shit, Vic. Baby shit. You never even had the decency to say you were sorry.”

  “I told you, I don’t say—”

  “I know, I know. Victor Ajax doesn’t apologize. Whatever.”

  Vic sighed and spun in his chair to face Frank, “What I tell you goes no further than this office, you understand?”

  Frank turned around and faced him, completely straight-faced.

  “I can’t take you serious when you look like that. I’m used to you looking goofy,” Vic said. “Two years ago we needed a young female undercover officer for a job I was working with the task force. I found Aprille when she was a cadet. She was hired here and immediately attached to me. I trained her. Kept her away from everybody. And we started building cases.”

  “She went right to undercover work with no street experience?” Frank said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Was she any good at it?”

  “She was the best. Better than anything I’ve ever seen, because she didn’t have any street cop experience, she didn’t have the attitude. She didn’t have the self-righteousness. She was just a kid. People sold her drugs like their hair was on fire.”

  “So why did she leave?”

  “She got pregnant.”

  Frank rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever. I thought you were being serious.”

  Vic leaned forward and folded his hands together. “I am.”

  Frank nodded with understanding. “Was it yours?”

  “No.”

  “Another cop’s?”

  “It was a person I thought I could trust. She thought he would do the right thing, he didn’t, and things got bad.”

  “How bad?” Frank said.

  Vic leaned back in his chair and said, “After she lost the baby? Pretty fucking bad.”

  7

  There was a soft knock at the door that made Vic jump off of the couch and turn off the television. He stood against the door and slowly turned the handle, backing up so that he stayed out of sight when it opened.

  “W
here is he?” his daughter’s tiny voice said.

  “I don’t know,” Dannaid said. “Why don’t you go in and look for him?”

  Penelope’s tiny head bounced past him, calling out, “Dad? Where are you?” She stopped and looked both ways, calling his name again. Vic reached down and poked her on the side, making her scream and giggle at the same time. He swept her up in his arms and buried his face in her neck, gobbling her up with kisses.

  Jason unslung his backpack at the door and said, “Hey dad.”

  “Come here!” Vic said. He pulled his son in close to his side and kissed the top of his head. “I’m so glad to see you guys.” He looked up to say hello to his wife, but stopped when he saw the short-skirt and tight shirt. Her hair was done up in curls and she’d put makeup on. “Going somewhere?”

  “I have a girl’s night out,” she said quickly. She smiled at him with pursed lips and nodded, standing in his doorway. Lying her brains out.

  Vic said, “Okay. Have fun.” He moved to close the door but Danni came through the door and started looking around the apartment.

  “You have dinner for them?”

  “I was going to order a pizza,” he said.

  She walked around to corner to his tiny kitchen and opened the refrigerator, inspecting its contents like a child welfare worker. She looked up at the cereal boxes on top of his fridge and said, “I don’t want you giving them nothing but sugar.”

  “I don’t always give them cereal,” he said. “Look, can you just go? I’d like to spend some time with the kids if you don’t mind.”

  She closed the refrigerator door and walked past him toward the kid’s bedroom. “I have a right to know what conditions the kids are living in.” She opened the door to the bedroom, seeing the daybed for her daughter and the small single bed for Jason. “They need their own rooms.”

  “No kidding. Right now, it’s all I can afford.” He could smell her perfume. He reached out to touch her bare shoulder with the tips of his fingers and said, “Or maybe I could just come home.”