Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." (5 page)

The Shelter is not a cop bar, actually more the opposite; it is a private club owned and operated by the Khruschev’s, an old-school gangster family from the Ukraine. And even though the Khruschev’s are no longer the organized crime organization they were in the ’80s and ’90s, they aren’t exactly the Boy Scouts either. Most everyone—including the family themselves and, certainly, Cools’s coworkers—finds it odd that he drinks here.

But then again few know the real tale.

Eighteen years ago, while a young Officer Cools was leaving the scene of a shoplifting—the usual grab and run by a couple of local youths—something caught his attention. It was his first year on the force. And for reasons he can no longer remember, he was without his partner on that bright and sunny day. So as he walked alone past a dirty alleyway filled with overflowing dumpsters and newspapers blowing in the wind, he saw what appeared to be three big guys roughly escorting a fourth into the remote back entrance of The Shelter.

The man being tossed inside had obviously been severely beaten and didn’t look to be visiting for drinks and laughs. So Cools dropped his paperwork and unsnapped his holster before quickly making his way down the stinking alley. He was a lot faster in those days and probably entered the bar less than twenty seconds behind them, not realizing he’d lost his radio en route. They were no slouches either; they already had the guy in a chair, and one was beating him in the face while the other waited his turn, gun in hand. The guy delivering the assault was a stout man wearing a black leather jacket and low-cut T-shirt over thick chest hair and gold chains. The other, holding the 9 mm, was taller and dressed in basically the same attire. The victim in the chair was bloodied and bruised to the point his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him. And the fourth man, a much older and heavier man, stood behind the bar, holding a cannon of a gun. The only light seemed to come from the open door Cools was now standing in, wielding his service revolver. He locked on and yelled, “Freeze!”

Everyone suddenly turned to him, and in that second, for the first time in his life, he felt panic—even more so when he reached for his radio only to find it missing and began to realize none of them seemed ready to comply. Adding to his predicament, he’d never actually pulled his weapon before, much less on three tough-looking and armed men in a dark bar. His face said, “Oh shit,” and they read it plain as day. “Put your weapons down now!” he tried again, more forcefully. But no one moved an inch.

Hastily he formed a rudimentary plan. It was simple: if anyone raised their guns, he would shoot at the two younger men first and then dive behind the cigarette machine. It was one of the old-fashioned ones with the pull levers and looked bulky enough to slow some bullets. Again he shouted, “Put your guns down
now
and your hands in the air!” Still no one moved a muscle, and out of fear, neither did he.

He entertained the idea of slipping back out the door and making a run for it; probably his best idea thus far, just not anything that was likely to happen. Instead he stepped forward; keeping his weapon fixed on the taller man. “Put your hands in—”

“No!” yelled the older man behind the bar. “You do not understand as much of our situation we share.” A response in broken English Cools hadn’t prepared for in training. Neither was he prepared for the desperation in the man’s eyes, a man with nothing to lose. Still he stood his ground, not budging, not knowing what to do.

“Help me!” cried out the man in the chair, in strained echoes of pain.

“You shut the fuck up!” the short man said, as he hit him in the face, leaving a fresh red mark on the man’s forehead from his gold ring. Then he turned and scowled at Cools like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Everyone fucking freeze!” Cools stepped in closer, feeling it all about to go down, trying to keep one eye on the older man behind the bar while considering shooting first.

The taller man with the 9 mm stood, unmoving; Cools’s had a bead on his thinning hairline. The shorter man looked coldly into his eyes and said, “I think you should put down your gun, Officer, before someone gets hurt.”

Cools, awestruck by the man’s statement and demeanor, was coming up short of any real response, when the old man spoke again. “Why don’t we sit to table? We drink together. You can…eh…hear our plea.”

The old man spoke slowly with an assuring and honest tone, giving Cools the odd sense he was a man to be trusted. His request hung in the air as Cools considered an option not yet measured. All of a sudden, he felt no immediate danger. He ran the scenarios through his mind, which also was a little quicker in those days, and came up with two options: either shoot it out with these three guys, most likely getting killed, or do as they’ve suggested and learn why the man was in the chair in the first place.

“Okay, okay, but I’m keeping my gun!”

“Has…eh…anyone asked you to surrender to us your gun, officer?”

No, no one has asked for my gun, he thought, before gradually lowering his weapon. He cautiously walked over to the dimly lit bar and sat down. Behind him the taller of the two toughs moved to the backdoor and set the deadbolt.

“Don’t! Don’t do it!” screamed out the guy in the chair, just before getting belted again.

“What is it of mine you wish to drink?”

“Jameson,” Cools replied, wondering what this is all about, wondering if he had made the right choice.

“Do you…eh…know who you are speaking?” asked the old man, while pouring a glass.

“No,” Cools replied, speculating as to why he would. The man’s face was wrinkled with hardness and age, sagging of sadness, and the home to soft, soulfilled eyes, yet a face he’d never seen.

The old man took in a steady breath and ran his broad fingers through his thick black hair, combing it back, and stated, “I didn’t think so. Eh…you must be new, so I will fill you in with words and drink…You, drink.” He motions for Cools to start sipping. “My name Sergey Khruschev; I own this bar.” With that he slowly gestures his hand toward the other two and says, “These…eh…are my boys: Jorge and Koladiva.”

His words end in silence, just long enough for everyone to strangely look upon the obvious question in the room.

“And the guy in the chair?” Cools asks.

Sergey points to him accusingly. “He…eh…is a cockfuck. He needs taken care of! He’s done unthinkable thing; he…he…”

Then, before the old man could finish his words, he broke down, lowered his head, and wept in his hands.

Cools turned his attention to the guy in the chair. What did you do? Even through the guy’s bloodshot eyes, he could see guilt and shame all over him, and Cools knew this was more than an unpaid debt. He finished his glass and asked Sergey to pour him another, partly because he needed one and partly in an attempt to get down to it; it had always made him nervous to watch another man cry. Sergey complied like a generous servant and waited patiently for him to drink it down; he then composed himself and began to explain.

“His name Reuben. He is a Jew,” Sergey said in a crackling tone, pointing with an old shaking finger. “And he is kind of bum. So he marries my daughter, Sasha, and she is…eh…how you a say?—non-attractive of a woman. So we accept him as one of us. We think him as family, treat him all the same. Then also Sasha has my grandson, Nico, from previous marriage…eh…she is widower from. So my Nico is four years in age, and he complains of this, so we go Sasha’s house. We find videotape…videotape of
him
and Nico! He molests! And not just touch…I mean, eh…this motherfuck puts his cock in my Nico, and for this he will die today!”

With that Koladiva hit the child molester again.

“No!” Sergey yelled at his sons. “This officer needs a quiet time to think his mind through.”

“You can’t kill him! I can’t let you kill him!”

Sergey just shook his head, assuring Cools he is not a man to be told what he can and cannot do. “And who are you to stop me?”

“Then, what…are you going to kill me? I’m a police officer!”

“What I have set to do…I will do today, my friend. But only…eh…the guilty needs to be punished.” Sergey’s words reverberated in the room, followed by a moment of disoriented stillness, confusion.

Cools, trying to process everything, picked up the bottle of Jameson and went to a learned comfort zone—staring into the bottle, watching the brown liquid move back and forth. Sergey offered him a cigarette, but he didn’t respond. Rather he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his own, never taking his gaze from the swirling fluid. He lit up and took a deep drag, searching the bottle for answers. “We have to take him in. With the video, he’ll go to prison for a long time,” Cools pleaded, offering the better solution for both himself and the child molester in the chair.

“No!” Sergey yelled. “So he can live his days…eh…jerking off to my Nico. No he has to die. Today he will die!”

“You cannot be serious. I’m a police officer. I can’t…I can’t just let you beat this man to death—whether he is a pedophile or not!”

“Yes, you a can, and you will, and I want you…eh…to remember: I will beat this cockfucker! You can only arrest an old man to jail.”

“I
will
have to take you to jail and your sons along with you. Is that want you want?” he asked, raising his voice, raising the tension in the room. Sergey answered with his stare, pleading with him—threatening him.

“We’re not going to any stinking fucking jail, officer!” Jorge said, pointing his gun in Cools’s direction.

“No, you hold it down; we do not kill the police, nor do we have to kill this officer. I see it in his eyes. He only needs…eh…some time to make this choice…this only one choice.”

Cools opened his mouth, but nothing came out. There was no point to argue. He returned to the bottle, studying the flowing solution. Like the brown liquid, the moment rolled in slow motion. He could sense Jorge lowering his gun behind him and a slight humming in his ear. Are you actually considering this? Another drink, another cigarette, as he surveyed the room again, trying to get a fix on the situation, but nothing had changed. It was still a dark, empty bar with one child rapist bleeding in a chair and two other guys standing by with guns, all opposite an old hopeless man somehow making sense of it all. Then, more ringing in his head—this time an old television commercial slogan, he couldn’t recall what product only the catchphrase: “It sells itself.” It sells itself. Sergey wasn’t pushing any product; he’d simply made his pitch then set back to let it sell itself. Cools turned for a long look at Reuben, estimating his value. The man had dead eyes, no soul; and the gruesome imagery of him raping the young boy ran briefly in the young officer’s mind. What if it was my sister’s kid? My grandson? He was under no real pressure to make a quick decision; he was being fully respected and given all the time needed to process everything. Cools took one more look into Sergey’s hurting eyes, seeing his pain was genuine, his truth was real, and his intentions were justified. His thoughts began to scream. Fuck this guy! If he did this to anyone in my family, I would want to do the same—I
would
do the same! He now looked about the room through new eyes. All the men saw his transformation. Koladiva and Jorge knew they would soon return to their business, and Rueben slumped even farther into his chair, deeper into hopelessness.

“I was…” He pulled in a cleansing breath. “I was never here.”

Sergey nodded in confidence, reached out, and held Cools’s hands, saying, “We share this occasion for life.”

Then, with true clarity, Cools cleanly rose to his feet. He took a last look at the soon-to-be tortured to death child molester in the chair, who’d abandoned every wishful thought of being saved. Then, for Koladiva and Jorge, he slowly holstered his weapon. The deal had been struck: the simple notion that justice is far greater than any law had won the day. And there was nothing left for him to do except to simply walk out of the bar, back into a sun-shining world, with nothing except the occasional shoplifter to worry about.

A few days later, he returned to the bar. He couldn’t ignore the realization adhered to the memory of that day. It was calling him to revisit the place where he had become a man—a man of courage, of nobleness, a man who could make the tough decisions for the right reasons, one who had passed the test. He didn’t experience any guilt or remorse, only a warm sense of backdoor justice. It was a philosophy he would carry to his end.

When he walked into the dark bar, Sergey welcomed him as family, with a long embrace and an esteemed kiss to the cheek. He then led him to a round table near the back, facing the spot where just days before a monster met his end. They shared no words of the incident as was the custom. A short spell later, a pretty young girl brought him a bottle of Jameson, leaving him alone with his thoughts. It became his place of solace, his shelter, a place he could visit anytime and be treated with respect and left alone. The booth became his, as if he had a small piece of ownership in it.

Years later the old man passed. Cools attended the funeral out of respect and continued honoring him by never being a cop at The Shelter. And although he has never been asked to pay, he has always left a healthy tip on the table, a generous contribution to support the bar that he has been frequenting for the past eighteen years.

Tonight everything remains the same, the dim lighting, subdued conversation from its sparse number of customers, and nothing but time to slowly drown his thoughts. Above the bar sits a television that he barely notices until the ten o’clock news begins.

“You are watching The KUBE Channel 9. Top story tonight: a man murders his wife on a live radio broadcast earlier today in Seattle: was it a prank or the real deal? Also problems with local labor unions, and the latest in ecological concerns stemming from the disaster in the gulf.

“Good evening, I’m Tabatha Sterns, and to our top story: KUBE Channel 9’s exclusive interview with Joshua Siconolfi.” His
GQ
picture flashes in the corner of the screen, as Tabatha goes on about the details of the story, getting most of it correct—basically all true with a touch of ratings enhancement. Cools pours another shot, lights another cigarette. Tabatha eagerly fills in the details as a picture of Kimberly flashes on the screen, displaying a very pretty girl. Until that moment Cools had not thought about what a prime-time event this really is. Joshua, a good-looking playboy type, and his pretty young wife wrapped up in a sick and twisted story. The picture of Kimberly fades away, and a very photogenic Joshua comes onto the screen, standing casually in his well-lit yard, where he’s giving an interview to Tabatha.