Superbia 2

by Bernard Schaffer

  “Listen, what they did in Minneapolis is out of my control, but I’ll go get the Postmaster and you can file a complaint with him. Okay?” the clerk said.

  “Fine!” The customer turned to Reynaldo and said, “Am I wrong here?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I really don’t get involved with this.”

  “Well I want you to stick around. I need a witness for this.”

  Everyone was looking at him. Reynaldo felt sweat dripping down his back inside of his bullet proof vest. It was tight against his chest and he was having trouble taking a full breath. “Actually, sir…I have to get back to my car. Good luck with your package. Take care everyone.”

  He went through the doors and hurried back toward his car. “County to Seventeen-ten. You still on foot in the shopping center?”

  “Yes.”

  “A woman from the dry cleaners is calling in a suspicious male dressed as a police officer who came into her store. Can you stop by and talk to her?”

  Reynaldo was about to respond when Iolaus’s voice cut him out, “Disregard that. I’ll handle it. Seventeen-ten, wait for me around the side of the building.”

  Reynaldo slumped into his patrol car and flung his hat across the seat. He picked up the microphone and said, “Understood, sir.”

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, Iolaus drove around the back of the shopping center and pulled up to Reynaldo’s car. “Did you identify yourself as a police officer to that woman in the dry cleaners?”

  “I…I think so.”

  “She said you didn’t.”

  “But I was in the uniform and hat. I told her I was on a foot patrol.”

  “She said you made her feel intimidated and refused to tell her why you were in her store.”

  Reynaldo shook his head, “That was not what happened. I just stopped in to say hello.”

  “Say hello?” Iolaus eyed him for a minute, then leaned toward him through the window, “You got a thing for Oriental chicks?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you think that now you’re some big shot in a police uniform it gives you the right to harass women. Specifically, Orientals.”

  “Absolutely, completely not true. I just went in there to say hello, like I did at the Post Office.”

  “This isn’t some dating service, and I don’t want any more complaints about you from women. You understand me?”

  “Yes, Officer Iolaus.”

  “Good. You gotta remember something, she’s not from here. Where she comes from, every cop’s an extortionist or rapist or conscripted child soldier or some shit. She thought you were coming in there to hurt her, probably.”

  Reynaldo raised his hand and said, “I swear on my mother, I was only trying to do my job. In New York, where my mother worked, the police stop by every day to check on the store and see if she was okay. She knew all of them by name.”

  Iolaus shook his head sadly and said, “Those guys were just trying to bang her, buddy. Wise up. Anyway, this isn’t New York. Those people are animals up there. Worse than Philly even. They’ve got so many special units nobody knows how to wipe their ass. I’ve got a buddy who told me one cop sees a violation and calls it in, so a special unit comes to make the arrest. That unit calls somebody else to do the interview. Then some other goddamn special bullshit swoops in to take over the whole case and file charges. This, right here, what we’re doing, is more police work than any of those big city mopes will ever see because from start to finish, we do it all. You understand me? Now, I need you to go sit at the intersection of Smith and Beltran and monitor it for an hour. The township got a complaint about the lighting cycle and passed it along to the Chief.” Iolaus put his car in drive and said, “If you see any traffic violations call me and I will deal with them. The only thing I want you doing is counting cars.”

  Reynaldo did not speak. He realized he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly it was starting to shake. The rubber casing was twisting until it split under his hands. He drove onto the street with the words of Jim Iolaus ringing in his ears about someone, anyone, banging his saintly madre.

  ***

  “I wanted to kill him. Who the hell is he to say things like that?”

  Aprille nodded as she listened, stirring two maraschino cherries at the bottom of her glass of Sprite. “I’d have been pissed off too. You should have called him on it.”

  Reynaldo pushed away his half-finished beer and grunted in frustration, “People like him can say whatever they want to someone like me. Especially while I’m a probationary employee. What makes me mad is I become a police officer because it is respectable profession, and I want to protect people and help them. Instead, I count cars and cannot turn on my lights without permission.”

  Aprille had stopped listening the moment Reynaldo pushed his beer in front of her. She looked down into its rich, golden coloring. “You’re going to finish that, right?”

  “No, I do not even want it.”

  “You can’t waste it, Reynaldo.”

  “You want it? You can have it.”

  “No.”

  “It’s good. Want me to get you one?” He raised his hand for the waitress.

  “Put that down,” Aprille hissed. “I don’t want one.” She looked over to see if the waitress was still coming, but as she turned the restaurant’s front door opened. A pretty, professional-looking redhead walked in, laughing at something the man behind her said. Her companion came inside and looked up, seeing Aprille immediately. It was the devil himself.

  Dez Dolos smiled in surprise from across the room and headed toward her. The redhead followed after him, asking where he was going. Dez slowed down, letting her stay close to him, but never making contact. Close, but still far enough away to not reveal that they were probably fucking in his office every night after it closed, Aprille thought. Same old game.

  “I heard you were back,” Dez said. He turned to Reynaldo and thrust out his hand, “How you doing? Dez Dolos with the FBI. This is Wendy Lara, from the US Attorney’s Office.”

  “Nice to meet you both,” Reynaldo said.

  Aprille did not speak. She was looking at Wendy and Wendy was looking at her, both of them examining one another like spy satellites, pinpointing the other’s weaknesses and comparing assets. “Really, Aprille, how are you feeling?” Dez said. His face, the picture of friendly concern.

  “I’m a lot better now.” She sat up in her seat and peeked around him to look at the door, “Is your wife coming? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  The smile was stitched tight to Wendy’s face now, pinned to the corners of her cheeks. “We worked late on a case,” she said.

  “Oh? I bet,” Aprille said.

  Dez put his arm on Wendy’s elbow and said, “You folks take care.” He pulled her by the elbow away from the table and Aprille smiled as Wendy yanked away from him and started to yell at him as they reached the door.

  “Something tells me I don’t want to know,” Reynaldo said.

  Aprille looked around the tables and saw that the waitress was coming toward them. “If she comes back here offering me a drink, you have to tell her no and make her go away before I order one.”

  “Okay.”

  The waitress smiled at Aprille and said, “Do you need a drink hon?”

  “Go away!” Reynaldo barked.

  Aprille covered her face with her napkin as the waitress backed away from their table and tried not to giggle.

  9. Frank knocked on the frame of the Chief’s office door and said, “You wanted to see me?”

  “Come in and shut the door.”

  Frank felt his stomach turn over. The bastard has a surveillance camera on his property and caught me taking his trash, was his first thought. Frank shut the door and walked stiffly to the chair across from the Chief’s desk. He sat down and waited for it.

  “I received an email today with an interesting link to a video posted on YouTube. Care to guess what it showed?”

  Frank s
hook his head.

  “It showed you brutalizing a juvenile, and now, it is on the internet for the entire world to see. You have embarrassed me for the last time, Officer O’Ryan.”

  “You’re firing me?”

  “I’m moving you back to patrol, effective immediately.”

  Frank said nothing for a moment. He looked at the Chief’s desk and said, “Is this the part where you hand me a stack of traffic tickets that you’ve been saving for me?”

  Erinnyes’ face turned pale. “You son of a bitch.”

  “We both know you’ve been waiting to do this since the day I went downstairs. This was an event that was just waiting for an excuse to happen. You know why I went to see that kid that day? He mocked Jason Ajax at school about Vic’s death.”

  “I don’t care what your reasons were. It was Conduct Unbecoming, and you are lucky all I’m doing is moving you instead of suspending you.”

  “Fine. Whatever. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop anyway. Are we finished?”

  Erinnyes took a deep breath and folded his hands across his wide belly. His expression softened and his voice turned buttery, “Do you know something, Frank? I wish you saw the writing on the wall. There is so much opportunity for you here. We just hired a new officer, and there is a vacancy for Staff Sergeant. The second-in-command of the entire department. You see how that worked out for me, right?”

  Frank tried to focus. He’d never heard Erinnyes like this. “I don’t know that I would even want that job.”

  “You may not want it, but think about it this way. If you don’t take it, who will? Can you imagine someone like Jim Iolaus in the position? He’s no friend of yours, by the way.” Erinnyes let that sink in, then reached into the top drawer of his desk, “Even though you’ll be back on patrol, I still intend to make use of your investigative expertise. I got you something.”

  Erinnyes slid a brand new phone across the desk toward Frank, who picked it up and said, “I already have a phone.”

  “But this is a departmental phone that I pay for, so you can get rid of the old one. That’s extra money in your pocket. You can use it for any personal business you want, there’s unlimited everything on it. All I ask is that you answer it when I call.”

  “Am I still on the drug task force?”

  “Of course!” Erinnyes said. “You’re still keeping the office downstairs and doing the same excellent job that you’ve always done. Listen, just take your lumps and keep moving forward. You’ll be back in the saddle in no time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I swear to God.”

  Frank smirked. There was a flicker in the Chief’s eyes, something waiting behind the benevolent gleam, an alligator floating just beneath the surface of the dark, still water. “Well, thanks then,” Frank said. He shook the phone inside the box and said, “This thing is better than what I have now.”

  “Use it in good health, Frank.”

  ***

  Frank walked out of the Chief’s office with his new patrol schedule and headed for the roll call room. Jim Iolaus was sitting with Aprille and Reynaldo, reading aloud from the policy book. “This department will not tolerate sexual harassment of any kind. At no time will any officer use their badge of office to incur favor from any member of the opposite gender.”

  “But same gender is okay, right?” Aprille said. “You know, in case I want to take the old tongue boat to tuna town.”

  “That is sexual harassment, right there, what you just did,” Iolaus said. He opened his notebook and jotted something down. “I’m giving you a verbal reprimand.”

  “Who did I offend with that comment? The other women sitting in here with me?” she said.

  “Knock it off, Officer Macariah. Are we clear on the sexual harassment policy of this police department?”

  “Yes, sir,” Reynaldo said.

  “That includes Orientals for you, mister.”

  “Asians, you mean,” Aprille said.

  “Whatever.”

  Frank cleared his throat at the doorway and held up the new patrol schedule. “I hate to interrupt this thrilling sociological discussion, but I just wanted to let you know that Reynaldo is working with me starting Monday night.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m losing him?” Iolaus said.

  “Apparently so.”

  “And why the hell wasn’t I told this?”

  Frank looked at the phone sitting on the table next to Iolaus. He held up his box and said, “Hey, the Chief gave you one of these too? How do you like it?”

  Iolaus stared at Frank’s phone. “I’d like you to leave now,” he said softly. “I’m conducting training.”

  Aprille smacked Reynaldo in the arm and said, “You lucky shit!”

  Frank snapped his fingers and said, “Oh yeah, one more thing. The Chief said I’m supposed to start parking my personal car in the spot next to his outside. I know nobody’s there now, I just wanted to make sure you knew for the future.”

  Iolaus glared down at the page in front of him so intensely that it almost started to smoke. The page rattled in his hands. Frank stepped back through the doorway and winked at Aprille, who tried not to laugh.

  ***

  Iolaus read through the rest of the policy as fast as he could, not stopping to let anyone else take over, not asking if there were any “Questions, comments, or concerns,” when he finished. He put down the page, wrote down the time they finished training and said, “Hit the street.”

  Aprille smirked at Reynaldo as they got up, and Iolaus raced from around the table and out the door. “I hate you so much right now,” she said.

  “Why am I being transferred to another squad? Did I do something wrong?”

  “Well they can’t put me with Frank. Christ, we’d actually get some police work done in this town. Make the most of it, kid. You’re lucky to be getting away from Ensign Exfoliate.”

  Iolaus turned the corner toward the Chief’s office, and knocked on the door. “Hey,” he said.

  The Chief held up his finger while talking into his phone, “Dez? Chief Erinnyes. I delivered that message to our friend. No, I didn’t tell him who tipped me off.” Erinnyes started to laugh, “You should have seen the look on his face. It was priceless. Let me buy you lunch as a token of gratitude for keeping an eye on us. Sounds good.” He said goodbye and hung up the phone. “Yes?”

  Iolaus’ heart was beating so hard he felt it in his throat. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Between me and you, I meant. Is everything all right?”

  “Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you ask?”

  “I’m losing Reynaldo to Frank all of a sudden.”

  Erinnyes waved his hand, “I want you to focus on Aprille exclusively for now. You don’t need the extra baggage. I’m doing you a favor.”

  What about Frank’s phone? What about his parking spot? “So Frank’s back on the street then?”

  “Yes. Are you all right, Officer Iolaus? You look sweaty.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Erinnyes looked at his watch. “Shouldn’t roll call be over by now?”

  “We were training. Going over policies.”

  “Why are you sitting in the station doing that? Don’t they have binders they can take out on the street with them?”

  Iolaus swallowed, “They do, but I wanted to make sure they understood how we want them to do things.”

  “I want them done how they are written,” Erinnyes said. “That is why I wrote them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  “County to available seventeen car?”

  Aprille waited to give Iolaus the chance to respond, in case he had an aneurism over someone else answering the radio. When he didn’t, she picked up her radio mic and said, “Seventeen-nine, go ahead.”

  “Domestic in progress at the Shop-N-Bag. Customers are reporting someone manhandling
a disabled woman and mom is screaming at him.”

  Aprille hung up the mic and threw the car into drive. She clicked the emergency lights on and honked her horn, causing the cars in front of her to begin getting out of her way. She made it to the intersection when she looked in the rearview mirror and saw Iolaus’s police car pulling out of the station. “Fuck me,” she spat, and flicked the lights back off.

  “County to seventeen-nine?”

  “Seventeen-seven, County. Go ahead,” Iolaus said.

  “Complainant reports that the vehicle is now leaving the scene. Tag comes back on a PA handicapped tag, registered to Ralph and Mary Polonius of Ascot Way.”

  Aprille hit her left turn signal, trying to turn around. Ascot Way was only a few streets down. She could head them off.

  “Seventeen-seven to County, clear it out.”

  Aprille snatched the radio mic and said, “Say again?”

  “Clear. It. Out.”

  She threw the mic onto the passenger side floor as Iolaus’ patrol car drove past her. He did not slow down, and did not look in her direction.

  ***

  “Is that the car?” Frank said.

  “I think so. I only got a quick look at it.”

  Frank lifted the binoculars and squinted, trying to read the license plate. The rear windows of the van were tinted, and there were no street lights in the apartment building parking lot. Ophelia was crammed into the corner of the rear compartment, pushed up against the toys and coats stashed in the back. Frank leaned over her legs to get a better look, but the numbers on the license plate were unreadable. “We’re just going to have to sit here until he comes out then. If I can’t identify this guy, we’re screwed.”

  “It’s cold in here,” she said.

  “We can’t turn the car on or it will draw attention.” He looked around the seats and said, “There’s a blanket up here. Here you go.”

  It was soft and pink and had fuzzy images of elephants on it. Ophelia pressed it to her face and said, “Oh my God, it smells like babies. I love it!”

  Now it’s going to smell like a stripper, Frank thought. Have to wash that one as soon as I get home.

  A man came out of the apartment building and Frank sat up with the binoculars. “Is that him?”