One Foot Off the Gutter (21 page)

“Doreen said that I had become a minus in her life. She said a whole lot of things. She said I was suicidal. She could not contend with that. So she said.”

That Doreen and Bellamy weren't an item anymore, it didn't surprise me. Without ever having met the girl, I could imagine how I'd feel if I had to deal with Bellamy as a lover. It must have scared her, knowing that a cop could die on you with no more warning than a knock on the door. Doreen had felt the fear, then she saw the end. She didn't want the taste of death in her mouth. I sympathized
with her. I felt sorry for Bellamy. The man had the most dreadful luck of anyone in the city.

“Well, what happened? I thought you two were doing good,” I said.

Bellamy guffawed. A full-throttled false laugh that started nice and mellow in his gullet, but ended up high and tight in his throat. “Yeah, we were cool for awhile,” he chortled, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth.

The antibiotics in the hospital had done something awful to his gums. The charity ward had damaged his teeth.

“We were peachy keen until I got shot,” he said without mirth. “That caused a problem. She said she didn't want to put up with the extreme behavior, you know what I'm saying? She said she already had two kids. She didn't need a third. Whatever.”

By saying those words, Bellamy acted like they had power over him. I understood for the first time why Bellamy didn't want to explain himself. He thought words exerted more pressure on a situation than they actually did. Bellamy thought words made a difference. It was sort of funny; my partner was superstitious.

For an example, take Bellamy. He didn't have a plan. That was not a wise idea, to be a cop without a home and without a plan. The absence of one vital need was harmful enough. Together, they were a disaster. You were a moving target for all seasons. You could take a fall and nobody would care.

“You need a single woman, Bellamy. Someone who can grow while hanging out with you.”

“Don't you think I can grow?”

“That's a very good question.”

The front door opened and closed with a slam. That had to be Alice. Bellamy shifted the chair back on its two hind legs and rolled his neck. Alice walked into the kitchen, carrying a plastic shopping bag tucked under one arm.

She didn't say hello to either of us, behaving as if she'd been in our company all afternoon. I saw Bellamy was looking at my wife's legs. Alice had gone out and gotten them waxed.

“Girl, you look great!” Bellamy enthused.

Alice recognized Bellamy, half in genuine surprise, and half in mock shock.

“So there you are! I was wondering when we'd see you again.”

She went over to him, and bending, she put her arms around his shoulders. It was a brief and not very passionate hug on Alice's part. Bellamy was fortunate to get that much from her. I understood why Alice was wary of Bellamy. The man had the work of annihilation written all over him. You could see it in the darkening of his once light forehead, and in the worn, ill-fitting clothes on his humped back.

Alice straightened up. She gave me a clandestine glance with her veiled green eyes. Uh oh, I told myself. She said to me, “What's Bellamy doing here? I thought you said this wasn't going to happen again. You said you and he were finished with that business.”

“Oh, so you think I'm trying to sneak around behind your back, is that it? Thanks,” I belched.

“Hey, Alice, ease up,” Bellamy protested. “I just got out of the hospital. I came up here on the bus to say hello. What's wrong with that?”

“You didn't have anywhere else to go,” I interjected.

“Gee, what a warm friend. AmIaleper or what?”

“Both of you, shut up!” Alice barked.

She glowered at Bells and me with her hands balled into livid fists. Her eyes narrowed; periwinkle-colored hate lines spread out at their corners. A trace of sweat hung to her upper lip. I had never seen her so mad before.

“What kind of trip are you playing on me?” she said to me. “And you,” she nodded at Bellamy. “What are you doing?”

“Tell her to lay off, Coddy,” Bellamy pleaded.

Alice thought about that for a moment, then replied, “All right, you're harmless. You don't know anything. You've been in outer space for a couple of months.”

“In a hospital bed, mind you,” Bellamy said evenly.

“But you,” Alice blithely continued, pointing a finger at my nose. “Why is it that every time Bellamy comes around, I feel you're trying to make some moves? Something real stupid. Something that could get you killed. Forget it, Coddy. You're just a cop. You weren't cut out to be a homeowner in San Francisco.”

I could not survive without my wife and my partner, but I wished they'd take a break from being who they were. I had nobody to blame but myself for not anticipating that Bellamy would show up on my doorstep.

“Where else could the poor loon go, Alice?”

“Coddy, I don't want to hear that silly excuse.
Whenever Bellamy's around, you're germinating a new scheme. You're using Bellamy as your foil.”

It was a transparent ploy that Alice saw through every time, though she could never stop me from carrying out my intrigues.

“What are your intentions?” she asked me.

“What are you saying?”

“You lost your car,” she fussed. “Am I getting warmer?”

“Don't talk to me about the car,” I scolded her.

Alice smiled for the first time since she'd gotten home. Now she was getting somewhere with me. I sat in the chair and let myself be used as a target.

“You haven't told me anything. Weeks go by. Then, all of a sudden, there's two cops sitting at my kitchen table. They're sitting in their usual locker room huddle. A couple of good old boys having a pleasant chat. Two tired ass cronies sawing away at the future with their mouths. I need an aspirin.”

“I got one for you,” Bellamy grunted.

“I've got a plan, Alice,” I said.

“I'm sure you do, dear. Can I have that aspirin, please.”

Through the closed windows in the apartment, I heard the traffic on Ignacio Boulevard. The car tires made a shimmering sound on the wet asphalt. I remembered the sound had pacified me as a kid. It had let me sleep at night. I watched Bellamy palm off an aspirin into Alice's hand as if they were turning a dope deal on the street. You couldn't get away from it. Even in my own kitchen. Alice and Bellamy were using the kind of body language that
made me think they were breaking the law. I knew it was symbolic, but I started to get upset.

“If you do something and fail, why can't you try it again? That's the scientific way to answer a problem. You experiment,” I said.

Alice smiled indulgently at me.

“You need a proper laboratory to carry out your experiments. You don't even have a car,” she replied.

Much as I hated to cop a self-critical attitude, Alice was right. I wasn't a scientist. Call it coincidence; Alice had studied me like a recipe.

“What about that girl you were seeing?” Alice said to Bellamy.

“Aw, she dumped me. You know, I'd only been seeing her for a few weeks before the, ah, shooting. I guess she thought I was too intense,” he grinned.

Bellamy's antibiotically-blackened teeth sprang into view. Alice noticed them immediately, but she didn't say anything.

“Well, chicken, I'm sorry to hear she dropped you, but I can't say I'm surprised. You don't have a home. You got shot. I bet your extra uniform got burned up in the car, too, didn't it?”

“How'd you guess?” Bellamy kept grinning.

“This is what you need to learn, Coddy,” Alice said, dropping into the third chair at the table. “You've got to recognize your own limits and not push at them.”

“I've got a plan,” I said.

“So? What am I supposed to do, pray in front of you?” she asked.

“Doreen said I was becoming a liability,” Bellamy said, talking over Alice and myself. Alice stopped to look at him.

“I told her that everything would be okay. It was the first time I'd gotten shot. I said my insurance rates would go up, but nothing else would change. I was still the same man. She didn't believe me. I cried like a baby. Man, that was ugly. She said she needed a bread winner. She didn't want to be a mourner at my funeral.”

“Are you finished?” I asked pointedly.

Alice admonished me. “Coddy, don't be rude. If he needs to talk, let him.”

“I didn't want to break up with her,” Bellamy continued. “We'd talked about moving in together. But when she came to see me in the hospital, I could tell right away that she'd chilled her feelings towards me. She brought me some flowers and a get-well card, but she didn't stay long. She said she had to take the babysitter home. The next time she came by, she dropped the news on me. She was through hanging out with a homeless cop.”

“He needs a home,” Alice said.

“Don't we all?” I replied. “We can't stay here forever, and Bellamy's got no place at all.”

Then I had an inkling. It made me think of the times during some fracas with the assholes when I'd stick my nose out from behind the corner of a building to see what was up the street.

“You look pale, Coddy. Why don't you and Bellamy pour out that beer? I'll make us a pot of hot tea.”

This inkling spread over me. A truth serum that got my adrenaline going. Worse than any gunfire in the
Mission's streets, unless I risked my life, I was going to stay in Novato. There wouldn't be any need to look for new destinations. As long as I stuck it out in that town, I'd be in limbo. Novato would bury me.

“I don't want any tea,” Bellamy said.

“What do you want?” Alice asked.

“Another beer.”

“Me, too,” I added.

Alice was tempted to say something else to me, but when she saw the familiar sparks flying in my eyes, she kept her mouth shut. Bellamy was leaning to one side in the chair with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

I looked at Bellamy, then at Alice. These people were the two points on the map that kept me together. They knew what I knew. To be born was one thing. To get shot down on the job like a rabid, sniveling beast was another thing. Somewhere in between, I was going to make a run for shelter.

There were problems with this approach. If I didn't watch myself, I was going to get sucked in deep. It was just a signal, a sign, a little-bitty voice in my head telling me to play it cool.

But I had a plan. I couldn't stop now. I was standing back and looking at myself enter a tunnel. There I was at the entrance, catching a glimpse of myself as I disappeared down the tunnel's bore. Follow me, the hole was saying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

a
few people were loitering in front of the abandoned building at the end of the street. An attempted armed robbery had taken place at a nearby television repair store. Rain was whipping across the Mission in bone chilling sheets. Anybody who was outside on the sidewalk was now seriously wet. It made me cold.

“This was the place I was telling you about,” I said to Bellamy.

Bellamy leaned on his cane, looked at the site of the attempted robbery, then at the other building.

“Have we been here before, Coddy?”

“What? You mean in the literal sense?”

“Really, Coddy.”

“No, we've only seen it from the street.”

There was something familiar to Bellamy about the address. The way he squinted, I could tell. Some people and several preschool-aged kids were crowding the door of the
groceria
at the corner.

“Maybe they know what's going on,” he said to me.

Bellamy was mumbling into the cowl of his yellow rain slicker. I peeped up at the sky; several drops of water landed in my eyes. I'd taken the call on my walkie-talkie: the robber was in the abandoned building.

“C'mon, Bells. Let's roll. We may have some action here.”

I reached into the slicker and unsnapped my holster. My breath was vaporizing under the mercury street lamps. My watch said it was five minutes past six. I could hear Bellamy's rubber galoshes splat against the pavement with each step he took on the sidewalk. He was a couple of paces behind me.

“Wait up, Coddy. I'm almost there.”

Bellamy's strength was returning now that he was back on active duty. His disability pay had expired after the maximum fourteen weeks so he filed a request asking to be put back on the roster. Bellamy's wish was granted immediately. His slot on the force had been empty since he'd been shot.

It was going to be another six months before we got a car. The station captain had reassured us, that as soon as the paper work was completed, it was only a matter of cutting through the red tape before we'd get our own patrol vehicle again.

“Let's go,” I said.

I went running down the cement; Bellamy limped along: it was understood that he would walk at his own speed.

An anonymous voice rang out: “Over here, officer!”

The house itself was situated a short distance from the street behind a scruffy evergreen hedge. A two-story abandoned building squatting on the western slope of Potrero Hill. The noise of the cars stuck in rush hour traffic on the freeway just beyond its back fence was maddening. I could hardly hear myself think.

I pushed past an old woman holding an emaciated chihuahua in her arms. On a hunch, I turned around, and reached out to chuck the dog under its wispy chin. The cur yapped and tried to bite me. I touched my cap in a brusque greeting and asked the woman, “You seen anything, lady?”