“C’mon, Boo,” Nowicki said, folding his hands over the clipboard and rocking on his heels and toes, “get it outta your bag and get it on. I can’t understand you. You paid two eighty-three thirty-four for that thing. The feds paid a third, the city paid a third—why wouldn’t you wear it just to get your money’s worth out of it, huh? I don’t get that. Cheap as you are?”
“I’m not cheap. I’m frugal. Frugal is not cheap.”
“Frugal is not cheap, huh? What’s ’at mean—oh I know what that means. You took it outta your clothing allowance, huh? So it didn’t cost you anything. How frugal is that? Is that what you did? Say you didn’t, I wanna hear you say you didn’t do that, c’mon.”
“So what if I did?”
“So it didn’t cost you a penny then, you chinchee mother-fucker—put it on! You take it off ten minutes after you’re out there, I don’t care, but you get shot there’s gonna be two witnesses said you were wearin’ it when I handed you the keys to an MU. Nobody leaves till he puts it on, you hear me? James? William?”
Rayford and Reseta both nodded and mumbled their assent. Neither one wanted Canoza to think they were piling on.
“My ass is gonna be covered here,” Nowicki said. “And you better be wearin’ it when you come back in tonight, Boo, understand? And every day from now on, you hear me? Come in again without it on, you’re sittin’ down for ten days no pay, I’m not gonna go through this shit with you again, enough’s enough, you got me?”
“I got you. Yes sir, Chief Nowicki, sir.”
“Cut the bullshit, just get it on, c’mon, everybody’s waitin’ here. Boo, no shit, could your head be any harder? You get one of the best fuckin’ vests money can buy, and whatta you say? It chafes me. Jesus Christ, Boo, I knew you wouldn’t spend your own money, I knew if anybody in the department would take it outta their clothing allowance it would be you.”
“Aw c’mon, lotta guys took it outta that, you kiddin’?” Canoza said, taking his duty belt and shirt off, draping them over the back of a chair, and getting his vest out of his gear bag and putting it on. “Two eighty-three’s a lotta money, man. We ain’t all makin’ forty-five somethin’ a year like some people, right, guys?”
Rayford and Reseta threw up their hands, shook their heads, and started backing away from Canoza as though choreographed.
“Uh-uh, ain’t touchin’ that one,”
“Not a chance, Boo, not one chance in one and a half, man.”
“Oh right, like I’m s’posed to call you pussies for backup.”
“Well see there, there’s your problem right there, Boo.”
“What?”
“Where the fuck’s your Commander shirt? No wonder you’re chafin’, Jesus. What? Oh don’t tell me—you didn’t buy any of them?”
“What Commander shirt?”
“We told you—oh listen to him, what Commander shirt? I told you, you gotta have ’em, they’re what keeps you dry, no wonder you’re chafin’. They let your sweat evaporate—c’mon, what the fuck, I got you guys a good deal on ’em, and look at you, that’s just a regular cotton T-shirt, you fuckin’ jaboney. Where’s your Commander shirt—in a fuckin’ drawer I bet, right? What am I gonna do with you?”
“You could sit on somebody else’s back for a while, Chief, sir.”
Nowicki threw up his hands. “Hey, Boo, what’re you doin’ here, huh? You lookin’ for a vacation, is that what you’re doin’ here? ’Cause no pay ain’t no vacation, my friend, and a suspension W-O-P ain’t no day at the beach either. My friend.”
Canoza shrugged into the vest, hooked up the Velcro, and held out his hands. “Look at this thing,” he said, looking down at the vest and then at Nowicki. “It don’t cover nothin’ below my belly button, it don’t cover my intestines or my genitals, it don’t cover my neck, it don’t cover my face or my head, you think the bad guys don’t know that? You think they’re nuts enough to shoot me, they’re gonna aim for my heart? Or my lungs? That asshole that used to work for Nixon, how many times did he say on the radio, hey, everybody, aim for their heads? You think that ain’t all over the Internet, huh? Every nutso out there knows we wear these things and they know how high they go and how low they go, and I just think it’s … it’s just givin’ us all a false sense of security when we put these on, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
“Oh. So it’s not about chafin’ anymore, huh? So now it’s a philosophical protest, is that what it is?”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s what it is.”
“Okay. Okay. Duly fuckin’ noted. Now that you got it on, Boo, here’s the keys to thirty-three. Reseta, you got thirty. Rayford, uh, thirty-one. And since Rayford had so much fun with the United Nations, I figured why change the lineup, so, uh, same sectors as yesterday. So go. Remember: nothin’ without backup.”
Reseta and Rayford left first, shaking their heads at each other over what they’d just witnessed. Rayford was shaking his for another reason. The United Nations. Depending on his frame of mind, he also called it Belfast, though there were no Irish there, or Palestine, though there were no Jews or Arabs there either, or Rwanda, though there were no Tutsis or Hutus there either. It was in the Flats, down by the Conemaugh River, four houses at the end of one block, separated by what had once been an alley now overgrown with stunted and mangled maple and walnut trees, grass, shrubbery of a dozen different varieties, and in one backyard, a rusting truck camper. There were also six dogs, three in one house, two in another, one in another, and none in the fourth. And no garages. Lots of tree branches, lots of leaves, lots of dog droppings, and only so many places to park.
Yesterday, Rayford thought he was going to have to shoot somebody, a possibility that had never come up in his four years in the air force or in his first five years and eleven months in this department.
Yesterday had started with the session in the marriage counselor’s office, and had ended with him dancing backwards and drawing his nine, shouting at Nick Scavelli, “Stop where you are! You move again, I’m goin’ shoot you and your wife both!” Today had begun with that phone call to Charmane. Normally Rayford did not put much stock in omens or portents or signs or predictions. Normally he believed that every moment in this life was as different as every breath he took. You breathed from the time you were born and you were dead when you stopped breathing, but in between, once you had breathed a breath, you were never going to breathe that one again. So even though this was a different watch on a different day, and he was breathing different breaths, he didn’t like the way today had begun because it was starting to look like how yesterday began. And he really did not like the way yesterday almost ended.
Even worse, it was a beautiful afternoon, perfect summer weather, not April weather at all, the humidity was down, the temperature was in the high 60s, no rain was predicted by the Weather Channel till the weekend, which meant the United Nations would be out and about again, barbecuing, tending their seedlings, washing their dogs or their cars, doing something outside because it was too nice to be inside.
What I need tonight, Rayford thought, is a good thunderstorm, one to rattle every got-damn window in the Flats, and I ain’t goin’ get it. Shit.
Rayford hustled across the narrow drive and opened the passenger door of Rocksburg Mobile Unit 31, a black-and-white Ford Crown Victoria, and set his gear bag on the floor and his briefcase on the seat. He wedged his flash and baton behind the briefcase, closed the door, and went around the other side, in time to see Reseta disappear downward on the other side of his MU. Then, just as quickly Reseta was back up. Rayford knew what he was doing: Reseta was going down on one knee, making the sign of the cross, saying a quick prayer, and popping back up as though he’d dropped his keys. Rayford knew better. He’d seen Reseta kneeling and crossing himself too many times now to think this time was any different.
What was different about it was that until right after last Christmas, Reseta had never done it at all before. Right after Christmas, Reseta had changed, that was all anybody knew
. And until last week, that was all Rayford knew. Then Reseta told Rayford what had brought the change about. And now all Rayford seemed able to do was ask himself why he kept forgetting to tell Mrs. Romanitsky about him. If anybody needed her prayers it was Reseta. A whole damn bunch more than me, Rayford thought.
Just then Canoza came down the steps from the station, across the parking lot, humming loudly, bellowing would be more like it, in da-da-dit-dat fashion, “Stars and Stripes Forever,” interrupting his humming to mock-whisper at Rayford, “Remember, you African-American asshole, nothin’ without backup.”
Rayford mock-whispered back, “I call for backup, you Italian-American asshole, you better have that vest on, that’s all I know.”
“And the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole, to see his asshole,” Canoza sang back at Rayford as he tossed his gear into his MU and then squeezed himself in, interrupting his furious humming to howl, “What the hell’s so hard about pushin’ the seat back when you get out? Bastards never push the seat back.”
Oh Jesus, Buddha, Allah, who’s ever out there, please don’t make me need backup tonight, please. Not that those two dudes ain’t the best backup a nigger could have, but please just let me keep my black ass in this motherfuckin’ vehicle all night. Except when I need to pee.
Rayford started the Crown Victoria, hooked up his seat belt and pulled out onto Main, heading south for four blocks before turning east on River Way and heading for the Flats.
And Momma, Rayford thought, if you see Junior, tell him I miss him so bad I could cry. Tell him just ’cause he never seen me cry don’t mean I don’t want to. Tell him everything be cool, all he gotta do is listen to you. And I miss you too, Momma. Wherever you are.
PATROLMAN JAMES Reseta turned north on Main and eased into the curb lane and stayed there through three traffic lights until he got to the intersection of Park Street. On the west side of Main, across the street from Rocksburg Middle School, were St. Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church and Elementary School. All of St. Malachy’s buses, five full-size and six vans, were lined up on the west side of Main from the church and back into the school playground. Reseta turned right on Park, waving and nodding at the crossing guard working that corner. On the opposite corner, another guard was working the intersection of Park and Maple, which ran parallel to Main. Rocksburg Middle School students who walked home used the doors on Main while all those who rode the buses used the doors on Maple, where twelve buses were parked on the west side of that street and lined up around the block and into the middle school’s parking lot.
Before Chief Nowicki convinced City Council to let crossing guards handle those two intersections, it had been the duty of a patrolman to handle both corners because one patrolman was all that was available at the beginning of the second watch. Whenever Reseta caught that detail, it made him nuts because there was no way one man could handle it. It was the kind of situation guaranteed to piss everybody off, the school bus drivers most of all. They had to live with the pigheaded wrongness of council’s not understanding the fact that one cop was needed on each corner. Fact was, while some Catholic buses were turning left to go east on Park, some middle school buses were turning right to go west on Park at the same time normal traffic was going north and south on both Main and Maple, Two schools, two intersections, twenty-one buses, hundreds of kids, and normal traffic in good weather was mess enough; toss rain or snow into the pot and what you had was traffic stew.
So Reseta was more than happy just to cruise the one block of Park to make sure the ladies in the goofy white hats and orange vests with their whistles and portable stop signs were on the job. What made him smile was how serious they were about their job, so serious they wouldn’t even return his waves. The most they would do was give him a slight toss of their heads or a raised brow. This made him smile because he knew they weren’t armed; if they had been he wouldn’t have been smiling. He believed in his heart that people who took their jobs that seriously shouldn’t ever be armed with anything more than a citation book and a pen.
He turned north on Maple, barely moving when he made the bend, 10 mph at most, but had to stomp the brake to keep from hitting two kids who sprinted out from behind the first bus in line, one chasing the other. When they got to the other side of the street, the second kid caught the first by the neck of his shirt, pulled him to the ground, grabbed his book bag and threw it up onto the porch of a house. When the kid who’d been pulled down got up and tried to retrieve his bag, the first one stuck out his foot, tripped him, and sent him sprawling face-first into the concrete steps of the porch.
Reseta jammed on the foot brake, put it in park, jumped out and sprinted to the fallen boy’s side, saying, “Don’t move, son, stay right where you are. You!” he shouted at the tripper. “Get on your knees, put your hands behind your head, and don’t move.”
Reseta bent over the fallen boy’s back and said, “Don’t move, you hear me? Stay right where you are, okay?”
“Why?” the boy mumbled, lifting his head and blinking up at Reseta. He was bleeding badly from the nose and less badly from the right cheek. His nose looked broken, but Reseta couldn’t be sure because it might’ve looked that way before the dive into the steps.
“Don’t move I said. Put your head down,” Reseta said, turning on the radio attached to his left epaulet. He called the station, ID’d himself, and said, “Ten-forty-seven Maple Avenue by the middle school. Young male, Caucasian, facial injuries, possible fractures, extensive bleeding, result of an assault.”
He got a 10-4 back while the tripper started to get up while whining, “Hey, I didn’t assault him, he tripped.”
“Shut up,” Reseta said. “I’ll get to you in a minute—I told you don’t move, who told you to stand up? Did I tell you stand up? Get back on your knees or I’m gonna put a stick across one of ’em.” That’s when he remembered that he’d left his baton and flash on the passenger seat. That’s how fast crap like this happens, he thought, and that’s how fast you forget even the basics. He reached around in back on his duty belt faking a move he hoped would make this kid think he had a collapsible baton back there. He didn’t. But the kid didn’t know that and the move worked. The kid knelt back down, but continued to whine that he hadn’t done anything, the other kid was clumsy, couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, was always tripping over himself, fell down every day, twice before lunch.
“Didn’t I tell you shut up?”
“Yeah.”
“Then who’s makin’ that noise? Not me. Not him either, he’s not sayin’ a word, so it must be you, and I just told you shut up. What, the connection between your ears and your brain, you unplug it or somethin’?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t talk, just nod your head if you understand me. Don’t say another word unless I ask you somethin’, you hear me?”
Tripper nodded, but Reseta could see he was bursting to whine and weasel his way out of what he’d done, so Reseta said, “I saw you chase this boy across the street, saw you grab him by his collar, pull him down, take his bag, throw it up on that porch, and I saw you trip him when he tried to get it, so if I were you, I’d shut my mouth and keep it shut.”
Reseta turned his attention to the boy crumpled half on the sidewalk, half on the steps. “How we doin’ here? Can you breathe alright? You feelin’ any pins and needles anyplace, your arms or your legs, huh?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Okay. That’s good. Now let me see you move your fingers. Don’t move anything else, don’t try to roll over, just move your fingers, that’s all I wanna see.”
The boy wiggled the fingers of his right hand. His left hand was under him and he told Reseta that.
“Okay. That’s good. Now if you can move your left hand without movin’ your neck, take it out slow and move your fingers on that one, okay?”
Reseta switched on his radio again and said, “Where’s my 10–47, huh? C’mon, guys, my bleeder’s still down here, I’m not lettin’ him mo
ve till somebody else decides he doesn’t need a body board. Still bleedin’ from the nose and cheek. Awright, 10–22 that, I hear the siren … and there he is, I see him now,”
The Mutual Aid ambulance, siren winding down, eased around the corner from Park and stopped in front of Reseta’s MU.
To the boy, he said, “Don’t move, you hear? You wait till they ask you questions, but you don’t try to move until they say so, you understand? I wanna be sure you didn’t hurt your neck here, the way you went into these steps, okay? Just talk, don’t move your head up and down like that—what’re you doin’, what’s wrong with you? You tryin’ to make me crazy? Don’t move I said.”
Three EMTs spilled out of the ambulance. Reseta briefed them and then got out of their way. He went to the tripper’s side and lifted him to his feet by his right arm and led him to the MU, where he told him to put his hands on the roof and spread his feet.
“Oh what, you think I’m holdin’?”
Reseta had started to pat him down but stopped and thought, you think I’m holdin’? What, am I in some kinda bad movie here?
“I told you shut up how many times now? You special ed maybe? Slow learner? Last time: shut up!”
Reseta continued his pat-down until he was satisfied the boy wasn’t holding any kind of weapon. He opened the back passenger door and told him to get in, sit down, and put his hands on the back of the front seat and to keep them there.
Reseta leaned in and spoke very softly. “I’m gonna ask you some questions now, but before you answer ’em—”
“When you gonna read me my rights?”
I am in some kinda bad movie, Reseta thought. I’m standing here in the middle of a beautiful sunny afternoon with a kid probably doesn’t even have hair on his balls, the kind of hairless prick likes to beat on people smaller than himself ’cause that’s how he makes himself feel big.
Saving Room for Dessert Page 4