Superbia (Book 2)

by Bernard Schaffer

  “It’s a work car.”

  She sat up in her seat, “With two kid’s car seats in the back?”

  “Will you turn that shit down? The whole idea is not to draw attention to ourselves.”

  She bounced up and down, dropping her rear end on the seat like she was crashing into the lap of a paying customer. He looked down, seeing the dark blue g-string under the low waist of her pants. Her tight tank top swooped low from her neck, showing the edges of her bra as it crushed her breasts together and thrust them forward. Frank looked away. “So what’s up? We got a new friend?”

  Ophelia fished a small piece of paper out of her purse. “His name’s Rico. He says he can get me whatever I want.”

  “Weed?”

  “Probably. I thought you wanted harder stuff?”

  Frank nodded, “I’d rather get pills or heroin or cocaine if he has it.”

  “He just said whatever I want.”

  “You think he was just trying to impress you?”

  She pointed to the phone number on the piece of paper and said, “Only one way to find out, babycakes.”

  Frank got out of his van and into the passenger side of Ophelia’s car. “Okay, text this guy and ask him if he can still get you something.”

  “Tonight?”

  Frank looked at his watch. “I have to be back at work by eleven, so probably not. But don’t tell him that. Let’s just see how for real this guy is.”

  Ophelia nodded and started typing on her phone. Hey honey! It’s Tink from last night. She showed Frank the phone, “Do you want to take a picture of it?”

  “Not yet. Let’s wait to see if he gets back to you.”

  The phone buzzed with a reply. Who the fuck is this?

  “Tinkerbell. From the club.”

  “Apparently you didn’t make much of an impression on him,” Frank said.

  “Bullshit. I was wearing my nurse’s outfit last night. Guys were eating out of my hand.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You didn’t see me in that outfit.”

  “I meant eat out of your hand. I’m pretty sure they’re dirty.”

  Ophelia squeaked in disagreement and rifled through her purse for a bottle of hand sanitizer. “I go through fifty of these a week! My hands are always clean.”

  The phone buzzed again. Da 1 wit da nice boots?

  “Boots?” Frank said.

  “He means boobs. See? I told you I have cute boobies.”

  She texted again. Yup! U coming out tonight? I was looking to get something.

  Like wut?

  Ophelia looked at him. “Ask if he’s got 30’s.”

  “How many?”

  “Let’s see how much he wants for them first.”

  Ophelia nodded and wrote: U said u had whatevs. Whats your $ on 30’s? “Now what?”

  “Now we wait.”

  Her phone buzzed again. Thirty per, less u buy 15. Then its $29.50.

  “Wow, a whole fucking fifty cents,” Ophelia said. “He’s trying to rip me off, Frank. Let’s go bust his ass.”

  “If he gets back to you, just ignore it. We’ll reach out to him tomorrow night or something.”

  “Want to see something cool?” Ophelia said.

  “Sure.”

  She handed him her phone and said, “Go over to pictures and click on it.”

  Frank ran his thumb across the screen and touched the photographs icon. The first one was of a small dog with ribbons tied around its ears. “Not that one. The modeling photos after it,” she said.

  It was Ophelia, naked in a field. She was stretched out across the grass, perfect in the sunlight and daisies with her back arched. “Keep going,” she said.

  Frank scrolled through the series, until the setting changed. It was Ophelia in a locker room shower, covered in soap. Each photograph was of her sponging the soap away, revealing more and more of her body. The pictures captured her from different angles, even from behind as she crawled across the tile floor. Frank went to the last picture and said, “Very nice.”

  “I just got them back from the photographer. Aren’t they awesome?”

  “I’m thinking the one in the shower where everyone can see up to your tonsils would make a nice Christmas card. I could hang it on my fridge.”

  “Ew, why were you looking so close at it then? I bet you like that one, don’t you.”

  Frank laughed and said, “Careful who you show them to. People are weird out here.”

  “But you liked them?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it? No smart assed answer?”

  Frank opened her car door and said, “I’ll give you a shout tomorrow. Be good, okay?”

  ***

  Halfway through his shift, the car in front of him swerved slightly, going over the double-yellow lines once, twice. A sudden brake, then it began building up speed.

  “Son of a bitch,” Frank muttered. The process of elimination began.

  I’m the only one working.

  But this guy is dangerous.

  I’ll follow him out of town and then he’s somebody else’s problem.

  And what if he crashes into a car full of kids?

  I’m not even supposed to be out here doing this stupid fucking job.

  So who is supposed to do it, then?

  “Mother fucker,” he shouted as he threw on the overhead lights. The street lit up red and blue all around both cars and the vehicle reared to the right and scraped against the curb, leaving a long black smear of tire marks along the cement.

  Frank slammed his door open and stormed forward, banging on the driver’s side window with his fist. “Get out of the car, asshole.”

  The driver looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. The whole car reeked of booze. “Three-six-nine,” he slurred. He tried to reach behind his back, but stopped when Frank shouted at him not to move. “I’m not carrying, officer. I’m on the job. My shield’s back here.”

  “You serious? How much did you have?”

  “A lot!” he said. “I’m lost brother. I’m so, so lost.”

  Frank opened his door and said, “Come on. Get out. I’ll take you home.”

  ***

  The city was quiet and covered over by a fog so thick Frank’s spotlight stopped just past the hood, blocked by a wall of swirling gray. He inched down the street, ready to brake at any moment for whoever wandered in front of his car.

  “You a detective?”

  Frank nodded, seeing that his passenger was looking at the gold badge pinned to his uniform shirt. “I have to cover the street sometimes. We lost two guys last year and are running really short.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Losing the guys or covering the street?”

  “Both.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I appreciate you not locking me up. I really do. I’ve got fifteen years on the job. My wife doesn’t work. It’s funny, but you take stuff like health benefits and steady income for granted until the moment you realize you might lose it. I’m not gonna fuck around anymore after tonight. This shit is too important.”

  Frank squinted to try and read the street sign above them. “My old man always told me we had to look out for one another. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much of that since I came on the job.”

  “What district was your Pop in?”

  “He wasn’t. He grew up here but worked in the county.”

  “But still, he was a stand up guy, yeah?”

  Frank laughed, “You have no idea.”

  “Turn right over here, pal.”

  Frank went down the back alley slowly, grimacing at each narrow pass the sides of his car made at open iron gates and diagonally parked cars. The cop still smelled like a brewery, but it was starting to wear off. He held out his hand and said, “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on your car.” Frank watched him head up the driveway, then navigated his way back to the street. Frankford Avenue’s traffic lights shimmered in the thick,
turning the billowing haze shades of brilliant emerald and menacing red.

  At the intersection, a bright light.

  It swung back and forth a few feet above the street. Frank drove closer and saw it was a lantern, carried by a man in a dark, heavy trench coat. The man was twirling what looked like an umbrella, holding it by the wrist strap and flicking it back and forth so that it spun and danced in his hand. Frank’s headlights caught the man and he realized it was no umbrella. The man was carrying a long wooden nightstick.

  The frontispiece of the man’s hat and the dull metal shield on his left breast were the same. Frank had seen them before in old photographs of city policemen back in the Prohibition era. Frank slammed on the brakes, but the man was already past his car, moving deeper into the fog and vanishing.

  ***

  “Dad, I’m telling you, it was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. This guy looked like he stepped right out of the nineteenth century.”

  Frank Sr. nodded as he squirted a pile of ketchup onto his hash browns. One of the waitresses looked up at the gastric noises coming from the ketchup bottle as he squeezed. “Uh huh. Sounds like it.”

  “That’s enough ketchup! Do you know how much sugar that is?”

  “What sugar? It’s healthy. It’s made outta tomatoes.”

  “No. It’s made out of tomato paste and sugar.”

  Frank Sr. reached for the salt and started shaking it over his food. “There, now it’s balanced out so it won’t be so sweet. You happy?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Look, you eat what’s on your plate and I’ll do the same. Do I pick on you for making the poor waitress go find you skim milk? No, I don’t. Even if I am embarrassed by it.”

  “Anyway, this guy had to be coming from a costume party or something.”

  “Or you imagined it.”

  “I didn’t imagine it.”

  Frank Sr. stabbed his hash browns with his fork and stuffed them into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment before he said, “Maybe you saw the Night Watchman.”

  “Who?”

  “The Night Watchman. Old Philly cop got kilt back in the twenties walking a foot beat. Supposedly he’s still out there walking around, trying to get back to his old station house.”

  Frank looked at his father in disbelief, then smiled abruptly and said, “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Frank Sr. instantly reached across the table and smacked his son on the cheek. He picked his fork back up and started to eat again. “You’re in public.”

  Frank looked around at the empty tables. “There’s nobody here, Pop.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “All right, all right. I’m sorry, okay? But this guy, he had to be pulling a prank or something. You think Philly guys dress up like that every once in a while to scare rookies? Maybe they saw my police car and figured I was one of them.”

  “Maybe,” Sr. said. “I can’t see anybody putting on a costume like that, though.”

  “This from the guy who spent half his career dressed up like a homicidal bunny rabbit?”

  Frank Sr. picked up his coffee cup and sipped from it. “When you say it like that, it makes it sound like it was something weird.”

  8. Iolaus pulled into the Chief’s driveway and put the SUV in park. The driveway was empty, but the front door was open. He put on his hat and slid out of the driver’s side seat to go knock.

  A plump, pleasant looking woman answered the door. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Erinnyes. How are you?”

  “Chief?” she called up the stairs.

  A voice boomed in reply, “Who is it?”

  The stairs creaked as Erinnyes made his way down them, leaning on the handrail, his swollen ankles and veiny legs visible between his white tube socks and tan bathrobe. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to pick you up, boss.”

  “Did I ask you to take me in today?”

  “No, I just figured.”

  “Who’s watching the other two if you’re here?”

  “They’re in the station with orders not to leave.” Iolaus followed Erinnyes into his sitting room and said, “I’ve got them reviewing policies until I get back. My radio’s on. I’ll know if anything comes out.”

  “I made you their supervisor so that things like this don’t happen, Jim.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, sir. Since I’m here, do you need a ride, or are you good?”

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Erinnyes leaned forward to listen when his wife picked it up. “It’s the surgeon, Chief. Do you want me to tell him you’ll call him back?” she said.

  “No, I’ll be right there. We need to get this taken care of.”

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Iolaus said.

  Erinnyes pushed him toward the door, “Get back to town and make sure those two idiots haven’t burned the station down to the ground.”

  “Okay,” Iolaus said. He took off his hat and headed for the car. “Something’s wrong w/ the Chief,” he typed into his phone. “He needs an operation or something.”

  “Oh yeah? Is he going to be okay?” his wife replied.

  “Not sure. I hope so.”

  “Well, if he isn’t, I guess you’ll just have to take over then.”

  “Ha ha. Guess so! Do you know his wife calls him Chief?”

  “Weird.”

  “I know, right?”

  He put the SUV into reverse and started to back down the driveway when he realized that Erinnyes was looking at him through the window. Iolaus lifted his hand to wave, but then the window was empty.

  ***

  Both officers were sitting in the roll call room when he returned, reading the Use of Departmental Computers policy (All computers and electronic devices are the property of the police department. All activity can be monitored.) and Uniform Policy. Aprille pointed to the section marked Female Officers and said, “At least I’m allowed to wear ‘nude nylons.’ Jealous?”

  Iolaus drew a circle in the air with his finger and said, “All right, time to hit the street. You two follow me.” He told them to follow him over to his police car and opened his door. “Do you both see what that is?”

  “I do, sir,” Reynaldo said. “The lightbar controls.”

  “Do you see it, Officer Macariah?”

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “I asked you a question.”

  “I see it because you’re pointing at it and Reynaldo just announced what it is.”

  “It is the controls for your vehicle’s emergency lights. It is also the thing you will not be touching unless I give you clear, express permission to do so. You will not go over the speed limit to respond to a call. You will not use your siren. You will not activate your overhead lights. Am I clear?”

  “Very clear, sir,” Reynaldo said.

  “So we’re not going hot to any calls. No matter what?” Aprille said.

  “That’s correct. Unless I give you permission.”

  Aprille shrugged, “Okay. If you say so.”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  ***

  Reynaldo Francisco drove through the shopping center, stopping his car to let every person on the sidewalk cross in front of him. “Hello, how are you?” he said. He smiled even when they did not respond.

  He listened to the other police officers on the zone calling out traffic stops and responding to calls. So far, they’d had nothing. Reynaldo parked his car in a parking space and unhooked his police microphone. “Seventeen-ten to seventeen-seven, come in please.”

  His radio crackled with Iolaus’s voice, “Go ahead.”

  “I’d like to do a foot patrol at the shopping center if that’s all right with you.”

  “Permission is granted.”

  A chorus of clicks erupted on the radio with a crackling voice shouting “Douche bag!” in the background. The county dispatcher cut all of the other radios out and sternly said, “All units on the z
one check your microphones.”

  The air was quiet after that, until a final, defiant click sounded.

  “Seventeen-nine, are you trying to reach County?” the dispatcher said.

  Aprille answered her, “No, County. I was checking my microphone like you asked.”

  Reynaldo got out of the car and put on his hat. He made sure his tie was straight and bloused his uniform shirt to keep it from sagging over his gunbelt. He passed a group of juveniles on the corner and said, “Hello, everyone.”

  The kids just looked at him. He kept walking. He opened the door to the dry cleaners and walked in, standing at the counter until an Asian woman came out from behind a rack of bagged clothing. “Hello there,” he said.

  “Is something wrong, Officer?”

  “No, I just wanted to stop in and make sure everything was okay.”

  There was alarm in her eyes, “Why wouldn’t there be? Is something going on?”

  “No, I was just doing a foot patrol.”

  “Oh…I don’t think cops do them around here.”

  Reynaldo nodded and waved his hand, “Have a nice day.” The woman leaned forward to watch him leave.

  He walked into the post office where a long line of people stood behind a nylon barricade, all of them holding packages and envelopes. Reynaldo went around the side to where one of the postal clerks was talking to an angry looking customer. The customer immediately turned to Reynaldo and said, “Oh, so he called the freaking cops? Real nice. First you rip me off and now you’re trying to get me arrested.”

  The postal clerk looked over at Reynaldo and said, “Nobody called anybody. I’ll be right with you in one moment, Officer.” He looked back at his computer and said, “Your package wasn’t delivered to Minneapolis until yesterday. It will arrive in California tomorrow.”

  “Then why the hell did I pay so much money for overnight shipping?” The customer turned to Reynaldo and said, “Officer, these people stole my money! Can’t you do something?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. I only came in to check on how everyone was doing.”

  “Everyone is tired of waiting for this dude to stop holding up the line,” someone called out from the back.

  “Hey, back off!” the customer said. “It was my granddaughter’s birthday yesterday and her gifts never arrived. Now these people are telling me it won’t get there until tomorrow.”