Jack was sitting in the staff sergeant’s office — an extravagant designation for a room crowded by two desks and used primarily as a corridor from front counter to lunchroom — with the platoon’s boss, Staff Sergeant O’Rourke. As far as staffs went, O’Rourke was one of the better ones. Tall and lean but with the beginnings of a desk gut, he had enough time on to have learned to let the sergeants and senior pcs run the shift. Yet he was still young enough to try to keep most of the shit that ran downhill from headquarters off his guys.
He was studying Jack, no doubt attempting to decide whether he was some of that down-rolling shit. “It’s good to have you back, but I’ll be honest, Jack, I’m leery of putting you back out on the road so soon.”
“I know: it’s only been three weeks. Trust me, I’ve heard that several times since I told my wife yesterday that I wanted to come back. But she’s back at work, she’s a schoolteacher, and I end up sitting around the house by myself. I’ve run out of things to keep me occupied.”
O’Rourke nodded sagely. “I can appreciate that, which is why I’ll let you back out, but —” he held up a cautionary finger “— on my terms. First, you go out as a special car. That way you can pick and choose the calls you want to go on. If you need some downtime, you can sit and relax. If all goes well, you can get back into the regular cars on evenings.”
“No problem. I can handle that. Thanks, Staff.”
Jack got up to leave, but O’Rourke put him back in the chair with a second finger. “And you go out as a two-man car.”
“Come on, Staff, I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You ride shotgun, or you go home. No negotiating. You can pick your escort, though. Deal?”
Jack laughed. “A deal would suggest we negotiated.”
“True, but . . .” O’Rourke shrugged.
“If Manny’s in, I’ll work with him.”
That definitely astonished O’Rourke. “You want to work with Armsman?”
It was Jack’s turn to shrug. “Manny’s a good guy. I’ve done some calls with him and I like the way he works.”
“It’s your funeral. Oh, shit, sorry, Jack.”
“It’s okay, Staff. Actually, I’m getting a little tired of people treating me like I’m fragile or something.” He snorted. “Maybe that’s the real reason I came back: to be treated like any other copper.” He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Speaking of which, I don’t think I can handle parade quite yet. All those sympathetic faces.”
“I understand. I’ll tell Armsman to meet you at the car. And Jack? I’m sorry about Sy.”
“Yeah, me too.” What else was there to say?
Jack was leaning on the scout car, sipping from a bottle of water, when Manny came out of the station. He spotted Jack and hustled over, an impossibly large duty bag banging against his leg.
“I thought only rookies carried bags that big,” Jack commented when Manny dumped it in the trunk. The car settled noticeably. “What the hell is in it?”
“It’s my crime-fighting kit,” Manny said by way of explanation. He was sporting a shaved head — out of necessity, to judge from the faint hairline running across the top of his scalp — and a goatee. Goatees were, of course, prohibited in uniform, but beards were allowed, so Manny did what so many others did. He had a trickle of a beard running along the bottom of his jaw and up to his ears.
“No one given you flak about the goatee?”
Manny tried to look indignant. “Hey, it’s a beard . . . technically.”
“I guess. It makes you look like a professional wrestler.”
“Gee, thanks, man.” He sounded like he meant it. “Listen, Jack, the Staff told me you asked to work with me and I just want to say that I feel, you know, kind of privileged that you asked for me.” He held his hand out.
Touched and a little embarrassed, Jack shook with him. “I just figure you don’t deserve the reputation you’ve got.”
“Thanks, man, but quitting time’s a ways off. You might change your mind by then.” Manny grinned and Jack couldn’t help but smile back. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.
“The Staff also tell you to drive?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And to keep an eye on me?”
“That too.”
“So you’re to be my chauffeur and babysitter.” Jack opened the passenger door. “Well, then, James,” he decreed in a snooty voice, “once around the park and then to a coffee shop. Your charge needs his caffeine.”
“Sure thing, man.” Manny hopped — actually hopped — into the car. Was he old enough to babysit? “Where to, m’lord?”
Jack considered. “Any place but the Baker’s Dozen at Wellesley and Sherbourne.” He wasn’t ready to face Sy’s coffee spot just yet.
“I’ll take you someplace special, then.” He dropped the car into drive but hesitated before hitting the gas. “Jack, I just want to say I’m sorry about Sy. He was a good cop, man.”
“Yeah, he was.” God, how many more times was he going to hear how sorry people were? It was amazing how such an innocent phrase spoken in honest sympathy could hurt. He’d had enough of sympathy. Let’s get over it and move on, folks.
Jack cleared them as Special 51 while Manny wove his way through morning traffic. Jack had experienced less darting and weaving on bumper cars. No bumps, though. Not yet, at least. In less time than Jack thought possible, they pulled up out front of the Second Cup at Church and Wellesley.
“This okay with you? I know some guys aren’t comfortable around here. I can get you your coffee if you want.”
“Relax, Manny. Gay Town doesn’t scare me.”
“Cool.”
The wide stairs in front of the coffee shop were empty at this time of morning. The stairs, locally known as the Steps, were a popular hangout and meeting place for area residents. As Manny said, many coppers were uncomfortable — in some cases downright terrified — about going into a coffee shop in the heart of the city’s gay district.
The door was propped open to exploit the morning’s relatively cool air and inside was dim and refreshingly free of conditioned air. A smattering of customers occupied a few tables, but at this time of day most people grabbed their morning commute coffee and left. As usual, two uniformed officers occasioned scrutiny and Jack caught one man giving Manny a prolonged — and favourable, if he had to guess — appraisal over the top of his newspaper. Manny didn’t notice. Or chose not to.
“Ooh, a big, strapping policeman in my shop! Well, slap the handcuffs on me and call me a bad boy.” The employee behind the counter pranced — pranced! — over from the pastry case to Manny. “I love the new look! Lemme feel, lemme feel,” he squealed, hands out, wiggling his fingers like a hungry baby reaching for a bottle.
Grinning, Manny bowed over the counter and let the employee run his hands appreciatively over his shaven scalp. “Ooh, I love a man with a big, bald head.”
“All right, that’s enough.” Manny laughed, straightening up. “Hey, Chris, how you doing, man?”
“Cool as always, dude, you know me.”
They clasped hands over the counter.
“Chris, this is Jack. Chris is the owner here.”
“They finally get smart and assign someone to keep you on a short leash?” Chris asked before reaching out to shake with Jack. “Sorry you’re the one to get the job.”
“It hasn’t been too difficult yet.”
“I’m sure it will be.” Chris was short and on the stocky side, almost a squished-down version of Manny, including the clean scalp. His grip was sure and firm, completely at odds with the personality that had fondled Manny’s head. “Hope we didn’t frighten you back there.”
Jack smiled. “Nope, but I was beginning to think I’d have to go wait in the car for him.”
Chris laughed. “I keep hoping, but the man is hopelessly, utterly straight. What can I get you, gentlemen?”
“Coffee for me,” Manny replied.
“The dark, right? What about you, Jack? Coffee?”
“Um, no. Tea would be good. Earl Grey if you have it.” He couldn’t say why, but the notion of coffee just didn’t feel right. Maybe coffee on the job would go the way of the Baker’s Dozen for now.
“That’ll be easy to remember.” Manny stiffened his voice, trying to sound authoritative. “‘Tea, Earl Grey, hot.’”
“Well, at least your TV references are more up to date.”
“What?”
Jack waved it off. “Never mind.”
“Here you go, gentlemen.” Chris waved Jack’s offered money away. “No charge for our boys in blue. Or should I say black, now that you’ve changed shirt colours?”
Jack shrugged. “It’s an old saying. Thanks for the tea. I appreciate it.”
“Hey, someone has to offer the olive branch between our two communities. Might as well be me.” The prance suddenly jumped back into his voice. “And if we get known as the place where the sexy policemen come —” he dropped a rather lavish wink “— to get their coffees, who am I to complain?”
Manny shook his head in mock disgust. “Play safe, Chris.”
“I always do, sweetie. If you want, I could show you sometime.” Seemed like Manny brought out the prancing side of Chris.
“You know I’m taken, man. Otherwise . . .”
“Yeah, yeah.” The prance was gone. “Get out of here, you big tease.”
“Excuse me, officer.” The second staff member behind the counter spoke up as Jack passed by. He was tall and thin with the pale complexion of a true redhead. He had hung back timidly during Chris’s banter but now hesitantly approached Jack. “I don’t mean to bother you, but are you the officer whose partner was killed a few weeks ago?”
Blood, vivid and horrible, flashing through the night air.
Jack pushed the damning image away. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Don’t say it. For the love of God, don’t.
“I recognized you from the news and I just wanted to say . . .” He faltered, swallowing nervously.
“You don’t have —” Jack jumped in, hoping to prevent the unbearable words, but the kid found his nerve and pushed on.
“I just wanted to say how much we appreciate the work you do. All of you, I mean. I guess I just wanted to say, well, thank you.”
Jack was speechless, not sure he had heard right. “Thank you,” he managed after a moment. “We don’t hear that nearly enough. Thank you.”
The kid bobbed his head and shuffled away.
“Where to?” Manny asked when they were settled in the car.
“Cherry Beach, James. I feel like having my tea lakeside.”
“Cherry Beach it is, m’lord.”
The two parking lots at the beach were about as busy as the tables in the Second Cup had been. The scout car bumped through potholes that slowly eroded the dirt parking lots every summer.
“Who needs speed bumps?” Manny muttered as he tried to navigate around the larger of the craters. He found a relatively level spot, parked, and they both got out to enjoy the breeze coming in off the lake.
“It’s nice down here. Almost feels like you’re not in the city,” Manny said.
“Yeah. There’s nothing like this up in 32. The closest we had was the reservoir in Lord Ross Park. Not quite the same.”
They leaned against the hood of their car and watched the seagulls and the occasional dog being walked. A few owners hastily tried to get their dogs on leashes when they spotted the cops, but Manny waved them away, occasionally calling the dogs over for a pat. One exceptionally friendly lab shared some lake water when he joyfully shook himself dry in front of them.
Jack and Manny exchanged brief personal histories like a couple on a blind date. Jack: married, no kids, house in Pickering, six years on the job. Manny: one girlfriend, not serious, renting a basement apartment in the city, three years on the job.
“How’d you end up with the nickname Manny?”
“Sy actually gave it to me. Just from my last name, I guess. Armsman, Manny. Not much to it.”
“Figured he would have called you Army, then, not Manny.”
“Army would’ve been cool, but someone said some other guy’s already called Army. Bummer.” He took Jack’s empty cup and tossed it with his own into the trash. “Ready to roll?”
They rolled. The typical workday morning calls spilled from the radio, the dispatcher’s voice frequently fighting static for dominance. Jack let the litany of house and business alarms, traffic accidents and drunks — it was still summertime in 51, after all, and public drunkenness had no off times — roll over him, oddly comforted by their familiarity. Manny kept off the main streets as much as he could, prowling the laneways and side streets, keeping up a pretty much one-sided conversation. He chatted about work, women, cars, work, the gym and work. Jack listened with half an ear, making appropriate noises when required.
“5103, 5110, in 6’s area. Disorderlies in the 7-Eleven at Sherbourne and Dundas. Two males refusing to leave. Time, 0831.”
Manny looked at Jack, eagerness in his eyes. Jack nodded and Manny swerved onto Sherbourne, tromping the gas.
“Take it easy, man,” Jack said. “It’s just some disorderlies.”
“I wanna make sure we get there before they leave.” He was like a puppy tugging at the leash. A freaking huge puppy.
“Whatever makes you happy. Special 51 to radio. We’re not far from that call at Sherbourne and Dundas. We’ll take it; no sense tying up two solo cars on it.”
“10-4, Special 51, thanks. 03 and 10, you can clear off the call, Special 51 will handle.”
The 7-Eleven plaza — although “plaza” was far too grand a word for the two stores — on the southwest corner was steps up from 230 Sherbourne, home of the cockroach-toe man. The convenience store faced Sherbourne across a modest parking lot and a tiny burger shop jutted out from the south end of the plaza like an overgrown wart.
Manny pulled into the deserted lot — the plaza relied on pedestrian traffic — and they both got out, scanning the area. On the church steps across the street, several less-than-respectable-looking characters were simultaneously struck with a need to be elsewhere and casually hurried from sight.
Walking up to the store, Jack studied its interior through the glass front. Except for the clerk and one ancient woman with a walker, the store appeared as empty as the parking lot. He hadn’t realized how the day was warming up until he and Manny entered the store’s icy atmosphere.
While Manny checked out the aisles, Jack went to speak with the clerk. “You called?”
The middle-aged Asian man behind the counter said, “They gone now.”
“Okay. What were they doing?”
“They want to buy but have no money. They want for free. I tell them to get out.”
“Excuse me, officer.” The elderly lady had snuck up on Jack like some hoary ninja, the rubber feet of her walker making zero noise on the tile floor. She was advancing at a pace only a sloth could envy. Jack didn’t want to break her momentum, so he stepped aside.
Manny joined him at the counter as the clerk rang up her purchases — a jar of instant coffee and a carton of smokes — and bagged them, then thrust them at her with a distinct lack of civility, before dismissing her from his notice. She shuffled off, her day’s ration of nicotine and caffeine hanging from the crossbar of her walker.
Hell of a customer service. Jack asked, “What did they do after you told them to leave?”
“They call me names.”
With your cheerful disposition, I can’t imagine why. “Anything else? Did they steal anything, threaten you, something along those lines?”
“They call me ‘fucking chink.’”
“And?”
“They leave. They go in there.” He pointed through the front window at the burger shop. “You tell them not come back. Never.”
“Can you tell us what they look like?”
“White, like you.”
Like pulling freaking teeth. “Old? Young? Fat, skinny, short, tall? What were they wearing? Anything like that?”
“Not old. You find them in there.” The clerk thrust his finger toward the restaurant again and Jack had the distinct impression they had just been dismissed as brusquely as the ancient ninja. Jack returned the favour by walking away without another word.
When the doors sighed closed behind them, Jack turned to Manny. “You, too, can meet interesting and friendly people with an exciting career in law enforcement.”
Manny snickered. “We going to see if they’re in there?”
Jack didn’t really want to, but the puppy was still tugging at his leash and Jack figured Manny deserved a reward for his patience earlier this morning. “Yeah. Might as well see if they’re planning a dine and dash.”
The burger shop was a tiny affair, boasting four tables along one windowed wall facing the parking lot and two along the street side. All the tables were full and none of the patrons — a mosaic of the offensive in sight, odour or attitude — appeared police-friendly. The blue haze of cigarette smoke hanging smoglike in the air did little to improve the atmosphere.
Good thing smoking’s illegal in restaurants. Jack walked up to the counter, a distance of three steps, and asked the overweight, middle-aged cook if anyone had just come in.
“I dunno. People come and go alla time.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of a nicotine-stained hand. “Why do ya wanna know?”
“Couple of guys just tried to make some purchases in the 7-Eleven without any cash. The clerk said they headed in here and we thought we’d save you the trouble of serving up some free food. But if you didn’t notice anyone, that’s okay.” He shrugged to show how much he really cared. “I’m sure you’ll figure out who they are when they can’t pay you.”
The cook’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward two suddenly nervous guys sitting at a table facing Sherbourne. “Hey! You two numbnuts got the money to pay fer yer san’wiches?”
The guys in question, both young enough to be in college but ages past the possibility, exchanged uneasy glances.
“Get the fuck outta my rest’rant, ya fuckin’ mooches! If I ever see ya come back in here, I’ll fuckin’ serve ya yer own fuckin’ balls. Get the fuck out!”
They got the fuck out.
“Have a nice day, gentlemen,” Manny said as he held the door open for them, an amused grin betraying his sincerity.
The cook watched them until they disappeared around the corner of the 7-Eleven. He concluded the whole unsavoury event by horking a glob of vile-coloured phlegm into the sink.
“Thanks. Ya want some coffee or somethin’? It’s onna house.”
Jack figured his thanks was as grudgingly genuine as the offer of coffee. “Thanks, but we just finished some.”
As if the cook’s phlegm had been some signal, the rest of the patrons resumed whatever conversations they had suspended when the uniforms had come through the door. As Jack joined Manny, one of a quartet of seniors sitting at a table by the door raised a quivering hand to touch him on the forearm.
“Pardon me, officer.” His voice shook more than his hand. “Me’n my friends would just like to pass on our condolences for that officer who was killed t’other week. We’re sorry to see a good man go like that.”
A quiet voice near the back of the room said, “I ain’t. Good riddance to a fucking pig, I say.”
“Who said that?” Jack roared, whirling to face the tables behind him. “Who the fuck said that?”
Silence dropped on the room. Everyone was studiously looking elsewhere. One prick in particular at the last table was trying extra hard to look innocent. Jack noticed a black tank top, a mangy mass of dirty hair and arms covered in skull-themed tattoos. He must have considered himself quite the badass. Too bad the hand holding his coffee cup was trembling.
Jack stalked over. “Was it you?” he growled.
Mr. Badass kept his eyes down, but his coffee was sloshing over the rim of the cup.
“Was it you?” Jack smacked the stained cup from the guy’s hand. It exploded against the wall. Jack planted his fists on either side of the guy’s breakfast plate and leaned in, ignoring the other three people at the table. “Come on, fuckhead. Was it you? You got the balls to say something like that to my back but not my face? Say it again, tough guy. Or are you a gutless, chickenshit coward?”
Jack waited and the silence stretched. Eventually, reluctantly, the man met Jack’s eyes, then quickly looked back at his half-eaten eggs.
“I didn’ mean nothing by it,” he said timidly, sounding scared.
He was right to be afraid.
With one hand, Jack grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. He brought his face within kissing distance and snarled, “That man was my partner, fuckhead, and I watched him die.” Jack tightened his grip on the man’s throat. “If I ever, ever, hear that you have badmouthed him again, I’ll find you and I’ll rip your fucking throat out. Do you understand me, fuckhead? Do you?”
The man nodded weakly as his face began to purple. Jack held on a moment longer, then released him. The man dropped to his knees, gasping hoarsely for breath. Jack shoved him back toward his table and surveyed the room dauntingly, hunting for further insolence but finding none. A chair scraped loudly in the silence as the beaten-down badass took his seat, his face still red, but from shamed embarrassment now, not lack of air.
Jack’s rage was still up but beginning to cool. That could have been the end of it, should have been the end of it. But some people just never learn. Whether Badass needed to salvage whatever he could from the stinging embarrassment he had received at Jack’s hands, or whether he was just stupid, it didn’t matter. As Jack moved to leave, he had to have the final word, which he decided to express by spitting on the floor in front of Jack’s boots.
Jack’s response was immediate and brutal. He slammed Badass’s face into the table. His breakfast plate broke beneath the impact. Jack held him face down in his eggs as blood began to blend with the grease and runny yolks. He yanked Badass upright. Bits of egg and congealed grease clung to his face as blood ran freely from his broken nose.
“You’re under arrest, fuckhead.”
With one hand clamped in his hair and the other on his arm, Jack dragged Badass unresisting from his seat and propelled him to the door. Badass’s feet jerked in a parody of walking as signals from brain to feet were temporarily scrambled.
Then Jack remembered Manny standing by the door, an involuntary witness to his unseemly actions. He had placed a fellow officer, a good guy, in a compromising position because of his mindless rage, a rage which instantly vanished beneath a wave of embarrassed guilt.
But with a single sentence, Manny proved his loyalty to Sy’s memory. “Anyone got a problem with that?” he challenged.
Apparently, no one did.
“Listen, Manny, I —” Jack stopped to correct himself. “Will, I owe you a huge apology and my thanks.” They were out in the station’s back lot, having just finished lodging Badass with his newly splinted nose and rapidly blackening eyes in the cells. “What I did was wrong and you didn’t have to back me up on it.”
Manny, who so rarely was called by his given name at work, looked almost offended at Jack’s words. “Hey, man, you didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do myself. And it’s Manny. Sy gave me that name and I’m proud of it.”
Jack choked on his words and felt tears welling up in his eyes. And some said Manny deserved his bad reputation? With an effort, Jack composed himself while Manny pretended not to notice. “Thank you, Manny. That’s about the best thing that I’ve heard since Sy . . . since . . .” He couldn’t say it, not now, and it turned out he didn’t have to.
“I know, man.”
“But still, what I did was downright stupid. I went after that guy without even thinking about his buddies at the table. It was stupid and dangerous.”
“No problem, man. I had your back.”
One last unpleasantness to cover. “What did the Staff ask you?”
Manny shrugged. “Wanted to know why that guy was all busted up. I told him he spit on you and was going to again if you hadn’t pushed his head down. He asked if I thought you had overreacted and I said you showed remarkable restraint for someone who had just been assaulted in a vile and degrading way.”
Jack laughed and shook his head. What do you say to that? As far as Jack could see, there was only one thing. He held out his hand to Manny. “If you want, I’d be honoured to partner up with you.”
They shook on it.