by David Grace
“Well,” Diane said with a little smile, “not exactly, but we’re going to get married – I know we will. We’ve talked about it. Danny wanted to make sure that he would pass his probationary period but now that he’s proven himself I think we’ll make it official.”
Proven himself? Allison thought. By getting shot?
“Aren’t you worried about him having such a dangerous job?” Allison asked in an almost accusatory tone.
“It’s important work,” Diane said defensively. “It’s what he’s always wanted to do.”
“But what about you? What if the next time he’s not so lucky? Do you want to be married to someone who you know might go off to work one morning and never come home?”
Diane noticed that Allison’s face had gone pale and her mouth was tight and pinched.
“My mother’s friend, Irene, was married to a lobbyist,” Diane said. “Safest job in the world, right? One morning he was sitting outside a Starbucks, typing something on his iPhone, when some old guy got confused and hit the gas instead of the brake. He plowed his Buick across the patio and all the way through the front window. He killed Irene’s husband and a woman who was texting to her son. Whoever I marry there’s always the chance that he might walk out the door one morning and never come home. That’s why it’s important to marry the right person, so that you get the best life you can.”
You’re so wrong! the voice inside Allison’s head shouted. She struggled to control herself and instinctively grabbed the girl’s arm. “Diane, listen to me. I’ve been through this. I lost my husband. You can’t imagine what that’s like. I think about him every day. You never want to go through something like that. Never!”
“I’m so sorry,” Diane said and gave Allison a hug.
“It’s all right. It’s just that you seem like a nice person and I don’t want you to be hurt the way I was, I mean, marrying someone and then losing them so soon.”
Diane took half a step back and looked confused.
“Do you regret marrying your husband?” she asked a heartbeat later.
“What?”
“Knowing what you know now, if you had a time machine and you could do it all over again would you still marry your husband or would you pick someone else?”
“I loved Brian!” Allison almost shouted.
“I understand but you said that I shouldn’t marry Danny because he might be killed, that I should find someone safer, so I wanted to ask if you would do that. If you had the chance would you have broken up with your Brian and married someone else who you thought was safer?”
“No!” Allison said, almost in tears. “He was the love of my life!”
“Danny’s the love of my life,” Diane answered barely above a whisper.
Almost in horror Allison stared at the girl then, sobbing, fled.
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, Diane thought. Then another old homily slipped into her brain. Do as I say, not as I do.
A moment later Greg opened the door.
“He’s all yours,” he said then, seeing the tracks of tears on Diane’s cheek, his smile quickly faded to concern. “Don’t worry! Danny’s going to be fine, one-hundred percent. Good as new.”
Diane sniffled, gave Kane a massive hug, then ran past him into Danny’s room. Kane followed her with his eyes then reached in and closed the door. When he turned away he saw that the corridor was empty, that Allison was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTY
The paperwork required to document Bellingham’s case was worse than Kane had even imagined and the following Monday afternoon found Kane still typing and printing and filing. From time to time he’d glance up from the monitor and more often than not he’d catch Fred Immerson staring at him as if Kane were some strange and potentially dangerous dog that had wandered into Immerson’s yard. Kane knew that Immerson was making up his mental list of Kane’s triumphs and mistakes and that the final tally had not yet been determined.
On the positive side Kane had caught Brownstein’s and, presumably, Grant Eustace’s killer and had thwarted a plan to distribute massive quantities of a toxic drug. And he had discovered a traitor and a criminal in their own organization.
The negative entries on Kane’s ledger were equally serious. He had lied to Immerson about his investigation, not once but several times, lies that not only struck at the heart of the rules that governed the Office but evidenced at least a lack of trust and at most a lack of respect for Immerson himself.
Even worse than that Kane had been party to the arrest of a senior Homeland Security official. Yes, the man was a crook and a traitor but those sorts of transgressions were always better handled privately and quietly. Instead the public had now learned of the man’s crimes and that led them, inevitably, to wonder how many other Homeland Security officers, and by extension, how many government officials of all types, were despicable criminals who should not be trusted to do the nation’s work. And the worst of Kane offenses was that he had done all this through the offices of their prime competitor, the FBI.
Immerson wasn’t so much interested in punishing Kane for these past transgressions as he was worried what new mischief Kane might create in the future if some similar situation should arise. But any action against Kane, a transfer or demotion or tasking him to inventory the supply of paperclips in the Bismarck, North Dakota office, held its own risks.
Kane had a powerful ally and protector in Senator Arthur Denning who could be expected to make substantial trouble for anyone who messed with him. And then there was Sebastian Wren to consider. On the one hand Wren would naturally have the same concerns about Kane’s organizational soundness as Immerson himself but on a personal level Kane had done Wren a good turn. Upon Dawson’s arrest Wren had been provisionally tapped to fill Dawson’s position and unless Wren got caught screwing a coke whore on his desk during business hours his appointment was almost certain to be made permanent. Wren might feel a residue of good will for Kane and thus block any attempt at retribution for Kane’s bureaucratic misdeeds.
When all was said and done, Immerson decided that the scales were evenly balanced. Kane would get neither a commendation nor a rebuke but instead would be allowed to go along as he had before in the hope that if he were someday again faced with a similar situation that he would display a better sense of discretion. That was a faint hope indeed Immerson knew but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“Kane!” Immerson shouted across the bull pen and waved Greg to his office. Kane closed the door behind him and took his usual chair.
“I’ve been reading your report on Rosewood’s actions,” Immerson began. “Let me get this straight. He went over the fence at the location without waiting for backup?”
“Yes.”
“Then he fell off the top of the fence and lost his phone?”
“Yes.”
“He accosted this Ryan Munroe, a man suspected of already killing two federal agents, and failed to immediately cuff him or even search him for weapons?”
“Yes.”
“When Munroe first reached for his weapon Rosewood had a shot and he didn’t take it?”
“Yes.”
“He gave up his gun when he still had a chance to shoot Munroe?” Immerson asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Quite a list of mistakes, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes it is,” Kane agreed.
“He was your partner. You’re the man who was almost killed as the result of his failures. What do you think I should do?”
Kane frowned. Was it anger or regret, Immerson wondered.
“Here’s how I see it. Danny was never in the military and except for some firearms classes he never had any law enforcement training. He’s never been in combat or been shot at or been in any real physical danger. As far as I know he’s never even been in a serious fist fight. He found himself alone in a very dangerous situation. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to st
ay at the front gate and wait for back up. But he didn’t.
“When he spotted Munroe he could have gone back to the front gate and reported to the FBI when they eventually arrived. But he didn’t. When Munroe told him to put down his gun he could have done nothing, waited to see if Munroe actually shot me and then shot him in return. Instead he did a very foolish thing that he thought, wrongly, would protect me.
“After Munroe shot him he could have given up or tried to crawl away or played dead. He had never been under fire before, certainly never been shot. He was in pain, bleeding. He must have been terrified. What did he do? He pulled out a backup gun and killed the son of a bitch and saved my life. It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. I think you should give him a medal.”
“What if he screws up again? The next time you might not be so lucky.”
“He’s trainable. I’ll teach him what he needs to know.”
“All right,” Immerson said after a moment’s thought.
Kane stood but before he reached the door Immerson called after him, “I think you’re right, Kane.”
“About what?”
“That was the bravest thing I’ve ever heard. When you see Rosewood you can tell him that he’s passed his probation. He’s got the job if he still wants it.”
“Oh, he wants it,” Kane said. “You can take that to the bank.”
Greg’s phone was ringing when he got back to his desk.
“Kane.”
“Mr. Kane, It’s Ernie Ramirez . . . the manager at Denny’s. You asked me to run a tab for that homeless guy, Randy Foy.”
“Oh, sure. Is there a problem?”
“You said to call you when the money ran out. I think he’s only got one or two meals left on the tab you had me run. What do you want to do?”
Kane ran a fast mental calculation. If Randy was eating a meal or two a day, plus tip and tax, well, the timing was about right. Now what? Should he just keep on feeding this guy? For how long? A month? A year? And then what?
“Mr. Ramirez, can I call you back in a few minutes?” Kane took down Ramirez’s number and hung up. After his last dream about his brother Greg had dug out the little Buddhism book they had given him in the anger management class and he had been reading a few pages at odd moments every day. Kane rummaged for it in his top drawer and then began flipping pages and making notes. Ten minutes later he called Ramirez back.
“How long are you going to be at the restaurant?” Kane asked.
“Another couple of hours I guess.”
“Good, I’ll stop by.”
Forty-five minutes later Kane handed Ramirez an envelope.
“The cash is for you. Add it to his account. And there’s a note in there for him. I’d appreciate it if you’d give it to him and ask him to read it. Can you do that?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Thanks,” Kane said. After he left Ernie opened the envelope. It contained five-hundred dollars in twenties which he duly added to Foy’s account. He’s lucky I’m an honest man, Ernie thought, then picked up the note. He knew that he shouldn’t read it, but he did anyway:
“Randy,
“I know you’re hurting. I read somewhere that denying our pain only makes it worse. I didn’t listen then but now I’m starting to believe that they were probably right. They warned me that the more I tried to push my anger into a corner, to ignore it, to deny it, the stronger it would get, that it was like a seawall raised against the waves and that by fighting against them it would inevitably be broken.
“They told me that to be free of my anger I had to accept it, smile at it, and let it pass through me and wash itself away. I’m trying to do that and it seems to be working. I’m asking you to do me a favor – try to do the same thing with your memories. Stop fighting them. Stop trying to drug yourself into forgetting them. Accept them as part of you. Acknowledge them. Own them and then let them drift away when they’re ready to go and, most of all, remember that the past is dead but that you are not.
“I believe in you.
“–Gregory Kane”
Ernie read the note a second time but it seemed like mumbo jumbo to him. Well, it was none of his business. When Randy came in for dinner half an hour later Ernie told him that his friend had filled up his account with more money and he gave Randy the envelope and watched him read the note. After a minute the homeless guy stuffed the paper into a grimy pocket and walked over to his regular table without saying a word.
As the weeks went by Randy Foy slipped from Kane’s mind. Greg had told the manager to call him when Randy’s account again ran low but Kane never heard from Ernie Ramirez again.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
On the following blustery, rainy Wednesday morning the Chief Clerk of the Supreme Court released a bound pamphlet containing the Court’s Bench Opinion in the matter of Hoffkemper vs. The State of California.
The attorneys were accommodated first and then hundreds of copies were made available to the horde of reporters. While those endowed with speed reading skills madly flipped pages, more seasoned journalists focused on the name of the Justice who authored the opinion. Upon one reporter’s announcement that the decision had been written by Mr. Justice Wheeler jubilation spread among the citizens opposing Lyla’s Law and dread reigned in those supporting it as Justice Wheeler was generally considered to be leaning toward finding the statute unconstitutional.
Those interested in only the headline now jumped to the end to see if the opinion of the Court of Appeals had been affirmed or reversed while the rest scanned the decision for the details of the reasoning behind the ruling.
The opinion commenced with a recitation of the facts and the case’s judicial history ending with the finding of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the law’s provisions were unconstitutional as being in violation of the provisions of the Second Amendment. For the next several pages Wheeler summarized the arguments of the parties, pro and con and then, finally, got to the heart of the matter.
“The Constitution is a living document that must be read in a reasoned, reasonable and intelligent context against the background of the society that exists at the time each case is decided. When the Fourth Amendment was adopted there were no tape recorders, movie cameras, telephones, emails, automobiles or a thousand other such devices yet on many occasions this Court has been called upon to determine if, without a search warrant, the government’s recording of a telephone call, reading of an email, emplacement of a camera in a private residence, or the search of an automobile is or is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. To do so we have had to understand the intentions of the Founders in enacting that provision and apply those intentions facts of the case.
“When the Second Amendment was adopted ‘arms’ were single-shot, black powder, muzzle-loading rifles and America was a rural, agricultural society. There were no machine guns, multi-round clips, armor-piercing bullets, or the like. Nor was the country anything like the highly urbanized nation we have today.
“In the case at bar we must determine if it would have been the intention of the drafters that any citizen at any time should have the unrestricted right to freely possess and carry these modern weapons amongst crowds of thousands of people no matter how fearsome or dangerous those firearms might be. In short we must interpret a more than two-hundred year old rule in the context of modern technology and an urbanized society, both unimagined and unimaginable at the time the Second Amendment was adopted.
“The Respondents have argued that the language of the Second Amendment is absolute. Under their interpretation we would be living in a society reminiscent of the Wild West where armed men roamed the streets at will, immune to any governmental restrictions on their ability to carry loaded firearms. If that were the case then today we would be in an even more extreme position than the residents of Tombstone or Dodge City were a hundred and fifty years ago.
“In the days of Wyatt Earp and Billy The Kid at worst the weapons were single-action six-shooters with black-powd
er bullets while the modern-day gunslingers that the Respondents contend should be free to walk the public streets will be carrying semi-automatic pistols holding fifteen rounds or more or armor-piercing military-assault rifles with fifty shots in the clip. The notion that the Founding Fathers ever intended or would have ever countenanced such a proposition verges on the surreal.
“As the Petitioner has pointed out, even though the First Amendment absolutely prohibits the government from making any law limiting the freedom of the press it is clearly constitutional for the government to prohibit the publication of falsehoods, private information without the consent of the owner, child pornography and numerous other classes of printed materials, the apparently absolute language of the First Amendment notwithstanding.
“The Second Amendment is no less sacrosanct than the First. As such the right to bear arms is subject to the same level of reasonable interpretation and limitation in support of a compelling state interest as are the rights to the freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. If the government can constitutionally prohibit shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater in spite of the right of freedom of speech, prohibit having multiple wives in spite of the right of freedom of religion, prohibit the publishing of pictures of naked children in spite of the right of freedom of the press then the government can similarly constitutionally prohibit citizens who are not members of law enforcement, the military, or a recognized militia from owning high-capacity weapons so long as the prohibitions imposed are reasonable and are adopted in support of a compelling state interest.
“Given the frequency and lethality of the shootings of innocent citizens, not to mention members of law enforcement, with such high-capacity, rapid-fire weapons and the obvious danger they pose to the general public, we find that such a compelling state interest exists in this case. The so-called Lyla’s Law does not violate the provisions of the Second Amendment.