The Big Dive

by Bruce Most

  A stupid, uneasy grin cut across his shadowed face. “You wouldn’t do that, Joe. You’re one of us.” He tried to look me in the eye as he said it but couldn’t. “You recognize a good deal when you see it. It’s perfect. Who’s gonna believe a cop took this stuff?”

  “If it’s so goddamn perfect, Benedict, why do you look so damn nervous? Why do you believe I’d go for this?”

  He said nothing. He stared up and down the alley as if we were being watched.

  “Who else you got in on this deal, Benedict? Who the fuck is the ‘we’?”

  “I’ll explain everything in a minute. Wait here. I gotta get one more thing.”

  He headed for the rear door. I went after him but he raised a hand like a traffic cop. “Just wait.” He tossed the car keys toward me. I missed them in the gloom and they splattered to the cracked cement. “Put the radio in the trunk,” he said as I picked up the keys. “I got a place where we can stash it later.”

  I straightened up. “I’m not going to do that. Put the damn thing back.”

  He was nearly to the pawnshop, back into its shadows. He stopped and said in a banked voice, “I can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I’m sorry, Joe,” he said, his voice somber. “I have no choice.”

  He stepped through the entrance, pulled the door nearly shut behind him, and was gone.

  I stood in the alley, unsure what to do, stunned by my partner’s actions. Yeah, yeah, cops are supposed to arrest guys lugging stolen radios out of a store. It’s our sworn duty. But this thief was a cop, and cops don’t do that to each other. Not if you want to remain a cop. More than a fellow cop, Benedict was my partner. That made him as close to me as my wife. I saw more of him most days than I saw of Paula and our daughter Olivia. We held each other’s lives in our hands every day. What the hell was I going to do, tell him to come out with his hands up? Draw my gun and go in after him? Call dispatch and tell them the most honest cop on the force just burglarized a pawnshop and would they please send over a couple of squad cars?

  I stared at the rear door. Through the grimy window, the interior was pitch black. Between the passing cars and the hum of the rooftop fan, I couldn’t hear anything inside, either.

  The radio loomed larger than ever in the bleakness of the alley. I’d heard the rumors. Every cop on the force had heard them. Dirty cops. Dark riders. Cops who helped themselves to more than free lunches, free cigs, and a little scratch under the table. Cops who burglarized restaurants and hardware stores, cracked safes, carted off merchandise before owners arrived after a “real” thief hit a place. Cops even operating in rings.

  None had been arrested, and I suspected most of the rumors weren’t true. Still, you can always count on a few being bad.

  I just didn’t figure Benedict Greene for one of them.

  I paced the alley in both directions in the cool night air, alert for what, I had no idea. Where the hell was he? He said he’d only be a minute and several had already passed. Any moment I expected to see him carting out a kitchen appliance or shotguns or another fucking radio. Then what? I wasn’t a thief, I couldn’t let it ride. I wasn’t one of the “we,” whatever he thought of me. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to arrest him. Maybe I could talk him into putting it back. Maybe there was a simple, innocent explanation to all of this.

  Impatient, I strode toward the pawnshop, ignoring the crunching glass. I pulled my flashlight from my belt and ran its beam up and down the door. Someone had jimmied it open with a pry bar. My partner was not that someone.

  Then why insist no one had broken in, no need to “worry”?

  I drew my gun from my holster and flattened myself against the wall. Cool rough brick dug into my back.

  “Benedict,” I whispered through the ajar door.

  No response.

  Louder this time. “Benedict!” My mouth went dry.

  Silence.

  I pushed the door farther open. The hinges groaned. I leveled my gun chest high. “Benedict, where are you, goddammit?”

  A passer-by at either end of the alley could have heard me, but I didn’t care.

  “Is this a goddamned joke? It ain’t funny.”

  No response.

  “Goddammit, Benedict, get the hell outa there. Screw the radio. Let’s just get the fuck outa here.”

  Silence.

  Time to make a decision, and it wouldn’t be to call dispatch. I scanned the alley, sucked in a deep breath, and pushed the door farther open, ignoring the shrieking hinges. I flicked off the flashlight and slipped through the doorway. I stopped and let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

  “Benedict,” I said loudly.

  No sounds. Even the mice weren’t moving.

  I held my flashlight out at arm’s length and flicked it on. No shots rang out.

  I was in a backroom. A desk with ledgers. Pawn tickets pinned to a wall along with a pinup calendar two years out of date. Shelves cluttered with hocked items not ready for sale. A small workbench for repairing pawn. A wall clock ticked 10:44. A whiff of cleaning solvents and scorched coffee mixed with the smell of my own sweat.

  I crept to the open doorway between the backroom and the showroom. An exterior neon sign at the front of the pawnshop flickered red and green off two scratched glass cases of jewelry running down the center of the room. Guns, musical instruments, army surplus, toasters, sewing machines, radios and record players, brass table lamps, clocks, leather jackets, and a mish-mash of other pawn crammed the narrow aisles and cluttered the walls. A car passed on Curtis, headlights momentarily brightening the interior, highlighting a shattered side case.

  “Benedict!” Only my raw breathing answered.

  The cold heaviness of my gun filled my hand.

  My flashlight combed the shadows for the slightest movement. My ears alert for the faintest of sounds, for breathing, for any hint Benedict was okay—or someone lying in wait.

  Nothing.

  I sucked in another deep breath and stepped into the room, ducking behind the end of one of the center cases. I panned my flashlight across the side case with the broken glass. The beam caught a small pile of watches scattered on the linoleum floor, spotted with a dark liquid.

  My flashlight moved, then froze. The sole of a heavy shoe stared at me several feet beyond the watches. I inched the light. A second sole, this one worn unevenly along one side of the shoe. My hand shook as I panned the light up the legs. The body lay sprawled on its back. A uniformed body. Something long and wicked protruded from the middle of the chest.

  “Benedict!”

  I scrambled to his side and touched his neck for a pulse. A sticky wetness clung to my fingers. I jerked my hand back and shined my flashlight on his neck.

  Someone—someone hateful and ugly—had slashed my partner’s throat.

  I focused my flashlight on his chest. The killer had buried a large, black-handled knife in it. I pressed a wrist with my fingertips, holding no hope of finding a pulse. Blood drained in all directions, even under the glass case. I put my ear to his mouth and my hand on his chest, avoiding the knife sticking out of it, straining to hear a sound, feel a beat.

  Nothing but my own desperate breathing.

  I felt his dime-store notebook in his breast pocket, the one he’d scribbled in earlier in the evening. I tugged it out. The knife had narrowly missed piercing it. Blood stained the edges of the pages. I slipped it into my pocket next to my own notebook, and slumped against the glass case. The backroom clock ticked distantly, slightly out of rhythm.

  It was happening again.

  Dear god, it was happening again!

  Chapter 2

  Within two minutes of my “officer down” call to dispatch, the distant wail of sirens cut the darkness. One minute later, the first patrol car squealed to a stop in the alley nose to nose to our car where I stood waiting. Two uniforms emerged, one I recognized.

  Gary Evensky was a thin, sad-faced old timer of sixteen years whose uniform always hung on him
like rags on a scarecrow.

  “Who’s down?” he said.

  I nodded toward the open door of the pawnshop. “Benedict.”

  He started toward the door but I raised my hand and shook my head.

  “Ah, shit,” he said. He and Benedict had partnered once.

  “What the hell happened?” asked Evenksy’s partner. “Ives,” I think his name was.

  Before I’d called dispatch, I’d mulled over what story I would tell. There was no good story. No good lies. Not even a good truth. Just Benedict carrying that damn radio out of the pawnshop—and I knew how that would look to the department and the public. It would devastate his wife Ellen and son Timothy, and jeopardize his pension. The slugs on the force who detested his unbending honesty would smirk over their free coffee and cigs. As a loyal partner, I wouldn’t let that happen. Benedict was dead, why needlessly destroy his reputation?

  It wouldn’t look good for me, either, the truth. I could hear the detectives.

  You’re saying you partnered with a dirty cop for the last five months and you didn’t have an inkling? Until tonight, when he suddenly walks out with a radio in his arms? You sure you want to go with that story, Stryker? You sure you don’t want to come clean now before we drag it out of you?”

  More than anything, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Benedict was a dark rider. There must be a good explanation why he’d lugged out the radio, a reason he’d gone back in. Something wasn’t as it appeared.

  No, I wasn’t going to divulge the truth—not until I found out what the hell the truth was.

  “We drove down the alley and found the place broken into,” I said to the two patrolmen. “The asshole musta been hiding inside when Benedict entered. Killed him and fled.”

  Evensky stared at the pawnshop and dropped his hand to his holstered gun.

  “It’s okay. I cleared it.”

  He instructed his partner to go around front and stand guard at the door. Then he prodded for more details.

  I explained that we’d come across the large cabinet radio sitting in the middle of the alley behind the pawnshop. The rear door showed signs of forced entry. Benedict sent me around front to make sure any burglar couldn’t escape out the front door. He’d give me time before he’d yell “police” and enter through the rear door. It took me time to get around front, the pawnshop being in the middle of the block. I reached the front door and waited. No warning yell from Benedict. Nothing. I peered in the window and spotted a body on the floor. It looked like Benedict but I wasn’t certain. I yelled his name but no response. I tried the front door but it was locked. I broke the glass but still couldn’t open the damn thing.

  “You know Lennie,” I said. “Keeps the place locked up tighter than a fat lady’s girdle.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I ran back around here and went inside. That’s—that’s when I found him.”

  “You’re saying this asshole killed Benedict and escaped out the back door while you were goin’ round front?”

  I struggled to ignore the skepticism in his voice. “He musta. He sure as hell didn’t come out the front door.”

  Truth be told, I’d found the front door unlocked after I discovered Benedict’s body. The killer must have escaped through it while I’d waited in the alley. But I could hardly reveal that to investigators. It would raise uncomfortable questions. So I’d thrown the double deadbolts and the top lock, hurried around front, broke the door glass with my gun so the glass fell into the store, returned to our car, and called dispatch.

  Evensky stared at the pawnshop door, his features laced with confusion and doubt. “Why didn’t Benedict wait? Why did he go in before you got around front?”

  “I don’t know. Honest to God, Gary, I don’t know. Maybe he heard something that made him go in.”

  Why the hell did Benedict go back in? What was the “one more thing” he needed to get? Why were his last words, “I’m sorry. I have no choice.”?

  “You heard nothing?” Evensky pressed. “No one inside, no gunshot, no—”

  “No gunshot, Gary. The killer slashed his throat and left the fuckin’ knife in his chest.”

  “Jesus.”

  I motioned my hand to the alley rooftops. “The alley is noisy, too. Besides, he was likely killed while I was dashing around the block to the front door. I never heard a thing. No struggle, screams, nothing. Benedict never saw it coming.”

  My last words were about the only truth I told Evensky.

  More sirens. A second prowl car and Denver General’s black hearse meat wagon pulled into the alley. The driver said the M.E. was on his way. He and his partner lounged in their vehicle. No need to rush inside.

  Evensky ordered the lone occupant of the second prowl car to stand guard at the rear door while headed for the pawnshop. I snagged his arm, my voice low. “You don’t wanna go in, Gary.”

  He went in anyway. I remained in the alley. I couldn’t look at Benedict again, not like that.

  More uniforms arrived, squad cars clogging the alley and blocking the street in front of the pawnshop. A few arrived in private cars, off-duty officers tipped off by those on duty. The cop grapevine is faster ’n Ma Bell, especially when one of their own is brutally murdered in the line of duty.

  Wisely, the cop at the rear door kept the growing crowd out of the pawnshop. We didn’t need dozens of cops trampling through the crime scene. They were reduced to gawking through the front window like nosy civilians or milling around in the alley, speaking in hushed voices. Some pestered me with questions. “Who” was always the first, as Benedict’s name would not have gone out over the radio. The second question was always what happened.

  I repeated the half-truths and lies I’d told Evensky. My story had holes, but retained enough plausibility not to be out of line. If I’d been anyone but a cop—a Mexican, a Negro, a known felon—they’d have pounced on my story. They’d have called me a lying sonofabitch and leaned on me so hard my own mother wouldn’t have recognized me by the time they were through. But I was a cop, the victim’s partner. They wouldn’t figure a cop for lying about the murder of one of our own. And if the details of my tale didn’t quite add up, they’d attribute it to my being shaken by the events, distraught, my memory frazzled.

  The murder of a second partner would shake up anyone.

  My deeper concern was the impending arrival of the detectives. They would ask more probing questions, and ask them over and over, poking for flaws. They’d be less forgiving than my fellow uniforms.

  The medical examiner arrived, along with a photographer and two lab guys. They went inside. Interior lights flickered on. My district duty sergeant Ray Hawkins arrived a few minutes later.

  “Jesus, what the hell happened, Joe?” he asked.

  I gave him a quick report.

  “This is a fuckin’ nightmare,” he said gloomily before pushing on into the pawnshop.

  The pawnshop owner, a scholarly looking man named Lennie Kaberec, arrived and tried to get into his store, but was ordered to remain outside until detectives could interview him.

  A few minutes later, Gary Evensky came out, pale. He slowly shook his head. “Benedict was a good cop. That never shoulda happened to him.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement, even if many loathed Benedict’s zealous honesty.

  “Is it true you two found the radio in the alley, Stryker?” said a husky voice behind me. I turned to look up at Sergeant Dominic Zingano. He wore a cowboy shirt, cowboy hat, and boots fashioned from the skin of some exotic animal. Someone must have phoned him at home.

  “Yeah, it was there when we pulled up,” I replied.

  Zingano was the biggest damn cop I’d ever known, especially for an Italian. The guy stood like a damn oak tree with its bark peeled. Big Z, some guys called him. He could have played basketball for the Knicks except for a gimpy awkwardness in his movements. He worked the Morals Division, though every cop in the city knew of Dominic Zingano because he was president
of our Police Union. When he wasn’t collaring homos and hookers, he was battling the chief of police over wages and working conditions, and going to bat for officers who got in trouble with the brass.

  “It was sitting there in the alley? Like that?” he asked, staring intently at the radio.

  “No, it was turned on, blaring out Count Basie.”

  He frowned at my sarcasm. “Anything else taken?”

  Not one compassionate inquiry about Benedict or me.

  “The owner will have to tell us that,” I said. “But I’d guess some watches were snatched. One of the cases was broken. I found a few on the floor near Benedict’s body. The way I figure, he surprised the asshole and the guy dropped the stuff and pulled a knife.”

  “But you didn’t see it happen, right? You were off somewhere taking a piss or something.”

  I didn’t like the tone of his voice. I knew what he was thinking. What the others standing around us were thinking.

  How the hell did another partner end up dead—yet you end up alive?

  I ignored Zingano’s remark and reiterated the same lies I’d told everyone else who’d asked.

  He pulled me aside and said in a low voice, “You said you two found the back door jimmied open. Just between us, you and Greene didn’t jimmy it, did you?”

  “No! Why the hell would you say that?”

  “I want to clarify events so no false rumors start getting around.”

  “What rumors?” I challenged. Zingano was edging too close to what little truth I knew.

  “Anything that might call into question the integrity of our officers. As union president, it’s my job to ensure that the department and the public don’t get the—”

  A flash of light exploded in the alley.

  Everyone jerked to see Lou Sheppard lowering his four-by-five Speed Graphic. He yanked out the hot spent bulb with a handkerchief and tossed it to the ground.

  “Hey, Sheppard, get the fuck out of here!” barked Zingano.

  “Just doing my job, sergeant,” said the Rocky Mountain News crime reporter. He always carried his own camera. The Rocky’s photographers were never around when he needed them. He popped a fresh bulb into the flashgun and raised his camera. Bright light again froze us.