by Sean Lynch
“The hell it was. You fucked up my whole life.”
“Shit happens to all of us, McCord,” Farrell said. “We don’t always get to deal the cards; we only get to play them. Your hand didn’t have to mean dealing yourself out of a job; you did that all on your own. If it makes you feel better blaming me for your failure, so be it. But I’m done getting fucked with by you, your dim-witted brother, and your half-witted sidekick here.”
“Oh, yeah?” McCord said. “You think I’m the one fucking with you?”
“Damn straight. You’ve already beat the hell out of me; what more do you want? Do I have to listen to your whining, too?”
“Do something about it,” McCord challenged. “Call your buddies at SFPD if you still have any. Only thing is” – he showed his yellow teeth – “me and Tommy here have about fifteen Alameda cops who’ll swear we’re playing poker at a bachelor party in El Cerrito right now.”
“Then what are you two assholes waiting for? If you’re going to make a move, do it. You’ve got my gun; use it if you have the balls. Otherwise, get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
“Get him, making demands,” the pudgy cop cackled.
“How about you play these cards?” McCord said, his jaw setting. He threw a savage uppercut into Farrell’s stomach. Farrell gasped and again slowly slid down the body of his car. This time, however, instead of facing the parked auto, he kept his back to the chassis. He sat down heavily, both hands clasped against his middle. He leaned his back against the tire and tucked his feet under him cross-legged style. His hands dropped between his legs as he let out an exhausted breath, apparently no longer possessing the strength to hold them against his pummeled midsection.
“How do you like that?” Tommy the fat, disability-claiming cop asked, leering over him.
“No more than you’re going to like this,” Farrell answered, producing the Beretta .25 semi-auto from his ankle holster. From his position seated on the ground, the natural place to aim the pistol was directly at Tommy’s crotch.
It was instantly obvious to McCord and Tommy that Farrell had goaded them into slugging him into a sitting position where he could cross his feet under him and access the pistol strapped to his ankle.
Tommy the Alameda cop froze. His jowly face slackened and his eyes widened.
McCord didn’t freeze. He instinctively raised his sap to thump Farrell once again in the cranium.
Farrell swung the pistol around and fired. Since McCord was also standing over him, opposite Tommy, the Beretta’s barrel naturally gravitated towards his groin as well. At the sharp crack of the .25 caliber semi-auto’s discharge, McCord half shrieked, half gasped, dropped the blackjack, and fell to the ground, both hands squeezing his groin. Farrell immediately snapped the pistol back to cover Tommy, who hadn’t moved.
“Drop the bat,” Farrell commanded. Tommy opened his hand and the bat clattered to the concrete of the parking garage.
Farrell struggled excruciatingly to his feet, pulling himself up via the side mirror of his own car. With his gun hand, he covered Tommy.
“Kneel down,” he said once he was standing. Tommy complied. “Interlock your fingers over your head and cross your ankles.” Again, Tommy complied. “If you even think about moving, I’ll shoot you in the face.”
“Please–”
“Shut up,” Farrell cut him off. He walked shakily over to where McCord lay writhing, blood seeping between his fingers and staining his trousers. McCord’s face was ash white. He looked up at Farrell, unable to speak.
Farrell leaned over McCord, still keeping his Beretta trained on Tommy, and patted him down until he retrieved his old black .38. After ensuring the ex-cop had no more weapons, including on his ankles, he pocketed the Beretta and switched the Smith & Wesson snub to his gun hand. He tugged McCord’s wallet from his hip pocket.
He walked over to Tommy, who was crying. Stepping behind him, he placed the muzzle of his revolver against the back of his head. He felt Tommy’s body stiffen. With his left hand, he reached around and patted down the kneeling cop. He removed a stainless steel Smith & Wesson .38 from his waistband and found no other weapons on him. He pocketed the gun. He found Tommy’s wallet and took it.
Farrell walked around Tommy to a location between the two men where he could see and cover them both. McCord rolled from side to side, his fingers locked on his crotch, emitting animal-like sounds from somewhere in his throat. Tommy was openly sobbing but kept his hands clasped over his head as Farrell had told him.
Farrell reached inside his coat with his left hand and extracted his well-worn flask. Flipping open the cap expertly with one thumb, he put the container to his lips and took a swig that drained half its contents in one long gulp.
He then capped and replaced it, all the while keeping his revolver loosely poised at a place midway between his two captives. This time, when his left hand emerged from his coat, it came out with one of his unfiltered Camels and his battered Zippo. He lit the cigarette and took in a long drag.
“Seems like we’ve been here before,” Farrell finally said. Tommy was biting his lip to quell his sobs.
He set the two wallets in the hood of his car. Still covering the pair with his revolver, he rifled through them with his free hand until he produced their driver’s licenses.
“Way I see it, Officer Thomas Lerner,” he said, reading from their IDs, “and Former Officer Dennis McCord, I’ve got three choices.” His voice was tight with the pain he was experiencing in his head, gut, and back.
“First choice is to do what you two douchebags already think me capable of: shoot you both dead right now, throw your sorry asses in my shiny Oldsmobile, and dump you in the San Francisco Bay.” He took another drag on his smoke. “I’d love to hear what your alibi pals in El Cerrito would have to say when your bodies washed up in Oakland. My alibi is a retired superior court judge.
“Second choice,” Farrell continued, “is to open my car door and lean on the horn until somebody in one of the apartments upstairs comes down to investigate. They’ll call the SFPD, and you two dickheads will get arrested. I’ve got enough marks on my body to correspond to the baseball bat and blackjack you so thoughtfully brought. You probably wouldn’t do much jail time, Officer Lerner, but your police career would be over, just like your friend McCord’s here. A felony conviction, disgrace, and the loss of your pension probably wouldn’t do your marriage and health much good. And after the beating you threw down on me with that cut-down bat, your back-injury disability claim would look a lot like worker’s compensation fraud.” He exhaled smoke. “That’s a felony, too.” Tommy looked at the ground, afraid to meet Farrell’s eyes.
“But there’s a third choice,” Farrell said, mostly to Lerner, since he wasn’t even sure McCord was able to comprehend what he was saying. “You get up, take McCord out of here, and get him to a hospital. You could make up whatever story you wanted about how he ended up with a hole in his gonads. Cleaning your guns, Russian roulette, whatever. Then you get him to rehab and go on with your miserable lives. And count your lucky stars that I’m one of the good guys, like I already told you.”
Lerner looked up at Farrell, incredulous.
“I could have shot you both a Christmas ago and I didn’t; I’m not going to shoot you now. Stand up.”
Lerner rose tentatively to his feet. “Get him out of my sight,” Farrell ordered, pointing to supine McCord.
Lerner scurried over to McCord and pulled him to his feet. He draped one of the larger man’s arms over his shoulders. They both started for the entrance to the garage in a wobbly four-legged gait. Farrell stepped in front of them. Both men’s eyes met Farrell’s, McCord’s in pain and Lerner’s in fear.
“I won’t forget what you did to me tonight,” Farrell said, around the cigarette in his mouth. “You came to my home, ambushed me, and beat me down on my own doorstep. It won’t happen again.”
He spit out his cigarette and pressed the two-inch barrel of his Smith & Wesson
Bodyguard slowly against first McCord’s and then Lerner’s foreheads. On the shorter man’s brow, he thumbed back the Bodyguard’s shrouded hammer with an audible click. Lerner squeezed his eyes shut, squirting tears out. McCord just looked down.
After a moment, Farrell withdrew the revolver, lowering the hammer.
“That’s twice I’ve had you two numbskulls at the muzzle of a gun, and twice I’ve spared you. Three strikes and you’re out. If either one of you dickheads ever crosses my path again, so help me God, I will end your lives. Do you understand?”
Lerner bobbed his head repeatedly, McCord almost imperceptibly.
Farrell took out Lerner’s .38, extracted the cartridges, and stuffed the unloaded weapon back into the Alameda cop’s pocket. He did the same with their wallets but kept the IDs.
Farrell held up their licenses in front of their eyes before putting them into his own pocket with a flourish. His eyes hardened. “I know where your families sleep. Think it over.”
“You’ll get no more trouble from us,” Lerner said.
“I guarantee it,” Farrell said. “Beat it.”
CHAPTER 34
The day’s fierce heat was beginning to break as the sun started to dip below the hills overlooking Elsa Callen’s Napa Valley home. Kearns was on the expansive rear patio with Elsa, attending to the chicken, potatoes, and sweet corn sizzling on the barbecue. He was clad in a too-new-smelling, crème-colored short-sleeved shirt with a small alligator embroidered on the front, new khaki shorts, and new running shoes. He felt like a mannequin and said so.
Elsa was seated at a patio table nearby, enjoying a glass of white wine and the onset of evening. She had accepted Kearns’ offer to prepare dinner. Cody lay at her feet.
After concluding their clothes shopping, Elsa, Paige, and Kearns stopped at a supermarket and loaded the Jeep with groceries. Despite Elsa’s protests, Kearns insisted on paying and on a box of doggie snacks for Cody.
By the time the trio arrived home and unloaded their purchases, it was nearing dinner time. Paige excused herself to phone Alameda and check on her father. Kearns poured Elsa a glass of wine, opened a Bass Ale for himself, and busied himself slicing and prepping the chicken in a marinade he concocted with store-bought barbecue sauce, to which he added salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Elsa made a fresh green salad, despite Kearns’ insistence she was to relax. She also mixed a pitcher of margarita, telling Kearns she happened to know Paige was partial to the beverage. He wrapped the potatoes and corn in aluminum foil, and he and Elsa retreated to the patio to fire up the grill. Cody stood at Kearns’ feet the entire time he was in the kitchen and dutifully followed them both outside. Slipping Cody the occasional doggie treat when Elsa wasn’t looking may have had something to do with it.
“He likes you,” Elsa remarked, nodding at Cody. “He doesn’t always take to newcomers.”
“I’ve always hit it off with children and animals,” Kearns said. “It’s everybody else I have trouble with.”
“I find that hard to believe, especially with your gourmet cooking skills.”
“I’m no gourmet. I claim the skills of a bachelor, nothing more.”
“You’ve never been married?”
“Nope. Not even close.”
“I’m sorry,” Elsa said. “I’m prying again. Remember I said to tell me to mind my own business anytime you want.”
“I’m a stranger in your home, so you have a right to know who I am. I’ll tell you anything you’d like to know.”
Elsa sipped wine. “You’re not from California, are you?”
“Nope,” Kearns said again. “Born and raised in Iowa.”
“I should have guessed by your manners, if not by your accent. Is your family still back in the Midwest?”
“Don’t have any,” Kearns said, arranging items on the grill. “All I ever had was my mom, and she died while I was in the army.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What brought you to California?”
“That’s a long story. It’s also not a pretty one. Better save that for after we eat; I don’t want to kill your appetite.”
“I couldn’t help noticing the gun on your hip. Do you always carry one?”
Kearns instinctively patted his waist to ensure his shirttail was covering the weapon.
“Don’t worry,” Elsa assured him. “It’s not obvious. I caught a glimpse of it when you were trying on clothes today. I’m sure no one else saw it.”
“By ‘no one else’ you mean Paige?” Elsa nodded. “To answer your question,” he said, “no, I don’t usually carry a gun. In my current circumstances, I feel it’s better to be prepared.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. My husband had several guns and did a lot of hunting around here. Do you hunt?”
For a moment, Kearns eyes took on a faraway look. “Yeah, I’ve done some hunting in my time,” he said finally.
“What kind?”
“Big game,” he said, flipping the chicken. “The two-legged kind.”
Elsa pondered this. “You don’t hunt animals?”
“Naw,” Kearns admitted. “Not that I have anything against it. Did some hunting growing up. Nowadays, I try not to kill anything that isn’t trying to kill me.”
Kearns set aside his tongs and refilled Elsa’s glass. “How do you know I want another glass?” she impishly asked.
“How could you refuse?” he smiled back. Elsa laughed.
“It’s refreshing talking with you,” she said. “As much as I enjoy my solitude out here, I cherish good conversation.”
“I’ve never been much of a conversationalist.”
“Nonsense; you’re a natural. Besides, you were ambushed. My husband was a quiet man, like you, and over the years, I grew very skilled at drawing words out of him. You never had a chance.”
“You are skilled,” Kearns said. “I think I’ve said more to you in the past day than to anyone else in the past year. If I was ambushed, it was a pleasant trap.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“I should mind?” Elsa gasped in feigned outrage. “After all the prying I’ve done?”
“I was curious about your last name; why do you retain your family title?”
“Two reasons,” she said. “I was years ahead of my time in thinking a woman needn’t relinquish her family name to her husband, and because I married a guy named Elkenfeldt. Can you imagine going through life with a name like Elsa Elkenfeldt? People would have suspected me of being a fugitive Nazi war criminal.”
Kearns’ head rocked back in laughter. “You’ve got a point.”
“I wonder how Paige is doing.” she asked. “She’s been on the phone for over an hour.”
“Hopefully, it’s good news.”
As if reading their thoughts, the rear door opened and Paige emerged. She strode wordlessly past Elsa and Kearns and slumped heavily in one of the plush patio chairs. Cody wandered over and nuzzled her with his wet nose. She rubbed his neck. She also let out a long breath and ran both hands through her hair. As she did this, the shaved spot and stitches over her left ear became visible. She kneaded her temples and made no effort to speak.
“Well,” Elsa said gently, “are you going to leave us in suspense?”
Paige looked up at her aunt. “I don’t mean to be rude; I suddenly have a doozy of a headache.”
Kearns silently left the patio and went inside. He returned a moment later with a glass of water and the pitcher of margarita. He set down the pitcher and handed Paige the water and two aspirin.
“The whole glass,” he ordered, dropping the aspirin into her open palm. She complied. When she set her empty water glass on the table, he filled it with margarita.
“Thank you.” She took a sip. “This is a little stiff.” She winced at Kearns.
“So are you,” Elsa said. “Blame me; I’m the bartender. So, what’s the news with Gene?”
“Apparently, Dad’s doing a lot better,” she began. �
��He’s still in intensive care but only because Sergeant Wendt can better protect him from there. I spoke with Dad’s physician.”
“What’s his prognosis?”
“Good. There’s still some mild paralysis, but it’s improving dramatically. His memory and mental function seem as good as ever. Basically, the medical people think he’ll make a full recovery.”
“That’s great news,” Kearns said.
“It surely is,” Elsa agreed.
“The doctor said he still needs a lot of undisturbed rest. He told me to stay away. He’s under the impression that my presence upsets Dad.” Her eyes began to well up.
“Your father only wants you safe,” Kearns said softly. “It’s not that he doesn’t want you there.”
“I just want to be there with him,” Paige said, emotion heavy in her voice. “I know we haven’t been close since Mom died, but now, with the possibility of losing him… I…”
Paige’s voice cracked and two swollen tears slid down the sides of her face. Elsa went to her, knelt, and put her arms around her niece.
“Don’t feel badly,” she soothed. “Whatever might have come between you and your father doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that you have each other and you love each other.”
“Oh, Aunt Elsa,” Paige sobbed, burying her face in her aunt’s arms. “I haven’t been much of a daughter.”
Kearns sensed it was time to get another beer from the refrigerator inside the house, even though he’d brought a spare with him.
“Enough of that talk,” he heard Elsa say as he walked away. “You have all the time in the world to tell Gene how you feel. Everything is going to be fine.”
Kearns retrieved a cold Bass Ale from the refrigerator and drained most of it while watching Elsa and Paige through the kitchen window. They remained in an embrace for many minutes, and he waited as long as he could before loudly opening the rear door. Any longer and the chicken roasting on the barbecue would burn. He went straight to the grill, averting his eyes to the stone patio floor.