Under a Raging Moon (9 page)

He stared absently at the promotion list for Captain. He’d heard r
u
mors that Captain Rainey would retire b
e
fore Thanksgiving. That opened up a slot. He occupied the number two position on the list, directly behind Lieutenant Robert Saylor.

Saylor. Hart’s lip curled. Saylor liked Chisolm, which pretty much summed up Hart’s opinion of him. He had no respect for any officer who curried favor with his troops.

Still, list position was only worth sixty percent on the promotions. Twenty percent went to seniority, ne
g
ligibly in Hart’s favor. The other twenty points were awarded by the patrol captain, based on performance reviews. He needed to find a way to impress the patrol captain. It was as simple as that.

But how? Reott was an old school, cigar-chomping leader who prized action above intellect. Hart knew he favored Saylor over him. So what could he do to reverse that trend?

With a barely perceptible sigh, Hart turned back to the FTO reports. He read absently about a brand new recruit named Willow. The radio, tuned to channel one, was turned down to the point of a whisper, but the high-pitched alarm tone came through clear. Hart turned up the radio.

“All units, hold-up alarm at 1643 E. Francis. Suspect is a single, white male, unknown clothing, long black hair, bearded, with a scar on left side of his face. Suspect displayed black handgun, then fled southbound on Pittsburg.”

Hart sighed in exasperation. That Scarface robber was making a mockery of River City PD. Already this week, the local paper ran a front-page story on the department’s seeming inability to nab Scarface. Shawna Matheson, the bubble headed blonde reporter on Channel Five, ended every broadcast from the scene of a convenience store with some kind of subtle barb at the cops.

“Units responding on Francis. Time delay is three m
i
nutes.”

Hart let out a mild curse, listening as the units drove into the area and set up a wide perimeter. A K-9 o
f
ficer responded as well, but Hart knew it was useless. Too much of a delay.

Someone has to do something about this!
He raged, then stopped sudde
n
ly.

Of course. Someone did.

He set aside Willow’s report and put a yellow notepad in front of him.

Someone should form a task force and work tirelessly until Scarface was brought down. Someone like him. Someone who would be the next captain on this department.

Lt. Hart wrote feverishly, drafting a plan to submit to the patrol captain in the morning.

2318 hours

Anthony Giovanni sat at the bar, sipping his light beer. Duke’s, essentially a cop bar, drew most of its business from off-duty or retired cops, their families and those who wanted to be around cops. This included some wannabes, usually coolly rebuffed. Others just hung out, never asking a cop to tell a story and frequently found themselves rewarded with a doozy. The clientele also included some badge bunnies, which was exactly what Gio was talking to at the moment.

She was a redhead, that soft strawberry hair rather than the wiry, copper color. Her green eyes caught his from the end of the bar almost forty minutes and a drink ago, and now they’d been dancing the pick-up waltz for a steady half-hour. She made the first sexual innuendo and after that, Gio set the hook.

When Johnny asked if they wanted another round, he looked at her que
s
tioningly.

“Okay,” she said. “Unless you want to go somewhere else.”

Gio glanced at the rise and fall of her bosom for a long second then met her eyes and flashed his best smile. “Just the tab, Johnny. Thanks.”

He paid Johnny and tipped him well. Johnny always clued him in on the new bunnies, so Gio always took care of him. As he slid off the barstool, he found something was missing. It took him a few moments before he realized what it was.

He felt no excitement.

The realization was a strange one for Gio. This chesty, beautiful, redheaded woman had consented to go home with him, yet he found himself almost bored before it had even happened. The promise of her breasts seemed empty.

At the door, he brushed past a woman that stopped him dead in his tracks. Their gaze met and locked for a moment. Her pale blue eyes struck him like a punch in the chest. Then she continued past him. Shorter than the redhead behind him (Gio struggled to remember her name was Tiffany), this woman had blonde hair, a trim figure and walked with confidence.

Gio watched her go, feeling a tug, surprised to feel it come from his chest and not his loins.

Those eyes…

Tiffany, his hand in hers, stepped ahead of him and pulled him toward the door. Giovanni glanced at her and the irritation on her face barely registered with him as they left the bar.

2322 hours

From his vantage point in the corner of the bar, Karl Winter watched Gio leave with the redhead, while at the same time ogling the blonde. Winter shook his head. Seated with his back to the door, Ridgeway hadn’t noticed.

“What?” Ridgeway asked, turning to look.

“Gio just left with the redhead,” Winter told him, glad he hadn’t taken Ridgeway’s bet earlier. “On the way out, he was eye-fucking the blonde over there.”

Ridgeway looked at the blonde, nodding with approval. “Good taste,” he said, then turned to face Winter. “Poor boy thinks too much with his little head instead of his big one.”

“A wine glass and a woman’s ass,” Winter quoted the maxim that every policeman had been told since time immem
o
rial. Those were the two things that would get a cop into more trouble than anything else. He wondered if they told the women officers something similar. Or if they had to.

Winter noticed Sgt. David Poole seated at the end of the bar. He considered inviting the sergeant to join them, but the way Poole hunched over his drink and the sour look on his face told Winter he didn’t want the company. Besides, Ridgeway seemed particularly gloomy tonight and one dark mood at the table was enough for Winter.

Ridgeway drained the bottle of Budweiser. “You want a shot?” he asked Winter.

Winter shook his head.

Ridgeway shrugged. “Forget it, then. Can’t drink that shit alone.”

Winter sipped his beer, his second. Ridgeway waved to Rachel, the waitress, for his fourth. After patien
t
ly waiting for almost two hours, Winter sensed that Ridgeway was about to crack.

Ridgeway paid Rachel and sipped the beer. His eyes avoided Winter’s. “Alice is having an affair,” he a
n
nounced; head down, looking at the table. “She wants a divorce.”

Winter pressed his lips together and sighed. Ridgeway’s first marriage had ended in divorce after eleven years when they both realized they hated each other. Vindictive as hell, his first wife, Cynthia, took him to the cleaners. Ridgeway was still bitter over it. Two years passed before he met Alice and things softened up. Now he and Alice had four years together. Winter guessed the problems had begun about a year ago when Alice, fourteen years younger than Ridgeway, stopped coming to platoon functions with him.

“She’s having an affair with a goddamn
fireman
,” Ridgeway told him. “Can you believe that? It’s not enough that I have to hear at work how everyone loves those hose jockeys. Now one of them is banging my wife.” Ridgeway’s voice sank lower but became more angry and intense.

Winter didn’t reply. His brother-in-law, Aaron, was a fireman in Portland, Oregon. He tried to think of something to say and failed. He took a long drink of beer instead.

Ridgeway shook his head, continuing to stare at his bottle. “I try to hate her, Karl. You know? Just hate her like I did Cynthia. But I can’t. I love her. If she asked me to take her back, I would, even after all this.”

“All of what?” Winter asked, feeling like he needed to say something.

Ridgeway motioned with his hands. “All of this. The sneaking around. The lying. The not calling.” He paused. “The leaving.”

Winter cocked an eyebrow. Ridgeway looked up and saw his expression. “Yeah,” he admitted. “She moved out a month ago. She is living with the sonofabitch.”

Jesus.
Mark Ridgeway can keep a secret.

Winter excused himself to use the restroom and gave Mary a quick call, telling her the situation. She u
n
der
s
tood, just like he knew she would. They exchanged ‘I love yous’ and he hung up. Her voice comforted him like a blanket. He wrapped it around himself as he joined Ridgeway to hear more about his lost love.

Friday, August 19th

0118 hours

“Easy, goddamnit,
easy!
” James Mace pushed Andrea away as she snatched at the small piece of saran wrap in his hand. “You’ll get yours, bitch. Now sit down and stop grabbing at me.”

Andrea sat obediently on the edge of the dirty couch and rocked slightly. Forward and back, forward and back. She wrung her hands and stared at him.

Mace shook his head in disgust. “Where’s Leslie?”

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know,” Andrea whined. “After you guys came back from the rip, you left again and then she left. She said you didn’t get much cash. Maybe she went out on East Sprague to work a couple of dates or something.”

“I got plenty of fucking cash!” Mace yelled. He waved the wrapped heroin in front of her. “I got this, didn’t I?”

Andrea hugged herself, rubbing her arms. “Yeah, baby, you did. You are A-Number-One.”

Mace grinned at her. He’d taught her that, how to talk the way the prostitutes in the Philippines did. She only used it when she wanted som
e
thing, though.

“You shoulda seen it, An. Some doofy-looking guy in his forties was behind the counter. When I stuck that gun in his face, he started to cry!” Mace let out a raucous, croaking laugh. “Fucking cried like a baby!”

Andrea grinned weakly and continued to hug herself and rock.

“You know,” Mace said, “I shoulda put a bullet right through his nose. Blown his fucking face all over the wall!”

He trembled, but not from his desire for a fix. He felt alive. He felt powerful. Like he was a Ranger again.

He should have thought of all this a long time ago.

“Baby...” Andrea pleaded. “I’m hurtin’”

Mace looked at her. “Yeah. All right. Bring me your spoon.”

Andrea scurried into the bedroom. Mace strode to the kitchen counter and pushed aside a pile of dirty plates. They clattered into the partially filled sink. He laid the drugs on the table, took his own works from the cupboard and removed his cooking spoon. He sensed Andrea at his side as he sliced off a thin piece of the brown, tarry substance.

“Here you go, baby,” he whispered. “Here you go, you fucking bitch.”

Andrea didn’t even notice his epithet. She stood, transfixed on the knife as Mace slowly brought it over and scraped the tar onto her spoon. She hurried to the bedroom where she kept the rest of her kit.

Mace put the remaining chunk onto his spoon. He thought briefly of Leslie out on the streets of East Sprague, looking to whore her way to enough cash to score. Well, forget her, then. More for him and Andrea.

Mace stared at the heroin.
Sweet Brown
. He sighed conte
n
tedly.
First I get to be a Ranger again and now I get the Sweet Brown.

God
damn
,
life was good
.

FIVE

Saturday, August 20th

Graveyard Shift

2205 hours

Chisolm cruised slowly along residential streets with his windows open, letting the breeze flow through the police car. The smell of maple trees, freshly cut grass and occasionally the remains of an earlier barbecue wafted through the window.

A week had passed since his dismissal from the FTO program. The event still bothered him and he couldn’t let it go. He was a good trainer. Hart, on the other hand, was a climber and a weasel. The man had no clue what made a good police officer. As a result, Payne, who should be looking for a job at the mall, worked with Bates, who Chisolm didn’t think too highly of, either. A solid officer, but way too easy on recruits. The chances of Payne getting fired while assigned to Bates were almost non-existent, a fact that Hart would have been aware of when he made the assignment.

Chisolm shook his head ruefully. Police officers in this town were asked to do a hard job. It required a compassionate soldier, something Chisolm tried to teach. However, the brass gave guidelines that required something of a cross between a counselor and a customer service represent
a
tive at a department store. Citizens appreciated being treated that way, but criminals laughed at it.

Suck it up and drive on, you old soldier.
No good pissing and moaning.

Chisolm turned onto Division Street and headed north. Aptly named Division, this north-south street d
i
vided the city in half, separating Adam Sector from Baker Sector. Chisolm continued north, turning west on Cleveland and dropping down to Corbin Park. A moment later, he realized that he was heading toward Sylvia’s old house.

Purposefully, he turned left and headed back to Buckeye.

“Baker-123, a traffic stop.”
Stefan Kopriva called over the radio.

“Go ahead, -123.”

“Eight eight one, Frank George Adam is the plate. We’ll be at Perry and Fairview.”

Chisolm liked Kopriva, one of the few younger officers who seemed to naturally buy into the old school philosophy of police work. He rode with Chisolm for about a week during his training phase when his regular FTO had been sick. Kopriva learned his lessons well. Work hard, work safe, don’t talk to the brass, and get the job done.

“Baker-123, start me backup!”
Kopriva’s sounded calm but Chisolm heard tension in the timbre his voice and the speed of his speech.

Chisolm whipped his car around and shot back to Division without bothering to call radio. He heard Janice dispatching Baker units. They copied but didn’t broadcast their locations, leaving the air as open as possible for Kopriva.

Chisolm tore onto Division and buried his foot in the accelerator. Some officers requested backup even when they stopped Grandma, and they kept backup there until Grandma’s name was cleared for warrants on the data channel. Other officers almost always went code four, such as Kopriva.
Esp
e
cially
Kopriva, who Chisolm knew had become somewhat of a code-four cowboy. If he asked for some quick backup, he wasn’t kidding around.

Chisolm activated his overhead lights, clearing intersections with his siren. He sped up Foothills, a win
d
ing road that intersected with Perry about a block south of Fairview. He approached Perry and swung left, his tires squealing. No other units had checked out on scene yet.

“Adam-112, on scene at Perry,” he told radio, rolling up next to Kopriva’s patrol car. The driver’s door stood wide open. Mid-way between the patrol car and a brown Chevy, Kopriva knelt on top of a black male sprawled on the ground. Kopriva held the suspect’s hands clasped behind his neck. Two other black males sat in the car, one in the front seat, the other in the back. Kopriva leveled his gaze over the top of his gun at the suspect car. Each occupant held his hands high in the air.

“-112, advise on additional units.”

Chisolm keyed his portable as he approached Kopriva, pointing his gun at the vehicle. “Keep them co
m
ing,” he said simply. Then, to Kopriva, “Any outstanding suspects?”

Kopriva shook his head. “No. Cover those two while I stuff this one.”

Chisolm drew a bead on the one in the back seat, then searched the back of the car with his eyes. The trunk appeared secure. He wondered if any other subjects were lying down in the back seat.

Kopriva holstered his gun and frisked the suspect on the ground for weapons. “Hello, Isaiah. Remember me? Your little drive-by, looky-look the other night up in Hillyard? You had me real scared.” Sarcasm dripped from his words. “By the way, you’re under arrest.” He lifted Morris to a seated position, then jerked him upright and led him back to the car.

Chisolm listened carefully, his eyes never leaving the Chevy. He knew Morris and it surprised him to see the gangster so quiet. Usually he had a lot to say. His nickname was “Cat,” taken from the personality in the cat food commercials. Chisolm mused that aside from colorful spelling such as ‘Lil Dawg or K-Illin’, gangbangers tended to lack originality.

The rear-seat passenger turned to look back and Chisolm yelled, “Turn around!” The head snapped fo
r
ward again.

The patrol car door slammed shut and Chisolm heard Kopriva return to his position. “Let’s wait for one more car, Tom. Then we’ll bring them out one at a time and cuff them. I’ve got nothing on those two yet, but I want them secure when I search the car.”

Chisolm nodded. A prudent plan. There was a difference between being brash and weighing the risks.

Two more cars arrived. Kopriva advised radio code four with those units on scene. He relayed the plan to the other officers while Chisolm maintained his watch over the passe
n
gers.

In an authoritative voice, Kopriva barked orders at the passengers, while all officers moved to the position of cover offered by their cars. He brought the front seat passenger out first and directed him to walk bac
k
wards to a spot between the patrol vehicles. There, backup officers quickly cuffed him. They conducted a painstaking pat down for weapons but found none. After that, they secured him in a patrol car. The officers used the same procedure for the backseat passenger, again without incident.

Kopriva thanked the officers and asked them to stand by while he searched the car. Chisolm went forward with him. “What the hell happened?”

Kopriva opened the driver’s door and laughed. “I recognized Morris in a car going the other way on Foothills. I knew he had a warrant, so I flipped around on him. As soon as I made the stop, Morris jumped out of the car and came running back at me.”

Chisolm raised his eyebrows. “No kidding?”

“Nope.” Kopriva leaned on the open door and spoke easily. “I could see his hands were empty, so I moved forward a few steps and waited for him. He was chattering about a mile a minute, threatening me and so forth. When I told him to get back in the car, he tried to push me.”

“Tried?”

Kopriva grinned. “Morris is a sissy without a gun in his hand. I just parried his push, grabbed his wrist, and foot-swept him. He went down hard. I think it knocked the wind out of him. After that, I just got control of him, drew down on his crew in the car and waited for the cavalry to arrive. Thanks for getting here so fast, Tom.”

“Always,” Chisolm said. “You want some help with the search?”

“Sure…” Kopriva said, distracted. He leaned into the car and removed something from beneath the dri
v
er’s seat. It was a magazine, fully loaded.

Probably a .380,
Chisolm figured.

“See if you can find the gun that goes with this,” Kopriva said.

Chisolm and Kopriva tore the car apart, but found no gun. At Kopriva’s direction, the other two officers pulled the suspects out of the patrol cars and searched them again. Still no gun.

Kopriva removed Morris from the back seat and searched him completely. In the process, he removed every item from the gangster’s pockets and set them on the trunk of the patrol car.

“Man, you better get up off me,” Morris told him.

“Shut up. Where’s the gun?”

Morris smiled. “What gun, cracker?”

Kopriva ignored him and completed his search. Not finding any weapons on him, he sat Morris in the back of his patrol car again.

Connor O’Sullivan approached. He tore out a page from his notebook and handed it to Kopriva. “Both these guys are clear, but neither one has a driver’s license. Here’s their info in case you need it for your report.”

“Thanks,” Kopriva said. He turned to Chisolm.
“Damn,” he whispered. “No gun, no crime.”

“Is Morris a convicted felon?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, then it’s illegal for him to even have the ammo.”

Kopriva frowned. “Not sure I can pin it on him. The mag was behind the seat. He was the driver.”

“It’s weak,” Chisolm agreed. “Could they have thrown the gun out the window?”

Kopriva shook his head. “I never lost sight of them.”

Chisolm shrugged. “Then all you have is the warrant and assault on an officer.”

“Assault on an officer. That’s still a traffic infraction, right?”

Chisolm chuckled. “It will be once the prosecutor is through with it.”

“Oh, well.” Kopriva sighed. “The Kitty Kat here is still going to jail. Let’s cut his bonehead buddies loose.”

Kopriva told the two black males they were not under arrest but were not driving away in that car, as ne
i
ther had a valid driver’s license. Chisolm watched as they transformed from meek to smug, rubbing their wrists were they’d been cuffed.

“What about him?” one asked.

“He’s under arrest,” Kopriva answered evenly.

“What for?”

“None of your business.”

The gangbanger snorted. “Shit, gee. He’s under arrest for being black. That’s all. That’s all it ever is.”

“I hear that,” the second banger answered.

“Thank you,” Kopriva said.

Both men eyed him strangely.

“What’s that?” one asked.

“Thank you,” Kopriva repeated. “I haven’t been accused of racism yet tonight. Normally, it happens four or five times a night. I get edgy if I don’t get in my quota. So thanks.”

The bangers exchanged a glance.

“Can I count this as two, since you both seem to be accusing me?” K
o
priva deadpanned. “Come on, man, I need the stats.”

“Cracker is crazy, man. Let’s get outta here.” Both men walked north on Perry, muttering to each other about racist cops.

“Nice work,” Chisolm noted, as the two gangsters walked away.

“Thanks.”

“See ya on the next one,” Chisolm said and returned to his car. He noticed O’Sullivan locking the doors to the Chevy as he pulled away and headed back into Adam Sector.

2223 hours

Stefan Kopriva searched for a country station, knowing full well that Morris reviled cowboy tunes. He turned it up and faded it to the rear.

“Baker-123, I’ll be en route to jail with a male for warrants,” he said into the radio mike and punched the r
e
set button on the odometer. “Mileage reset.”

“Baker-123, copy.”

Morris seemed about to have a stroke in the back seat, jerking around and screaming. Kopriva let him be for a few more seconds. He loved these trips to jail. No one in the patrol car but him and the bad guy. He could say whatever he wanted. It made up for all the times he had to hold his tongue.

He turned the radio down. “What’s the problem, Kitty-kat?”

“Hey, man, fuck you. Fuck you!”

“Awww, what’s the matter, Isaiah? Did that hurt? You did hit the pav
e
ment awful hard. Doesn’t feel too good to get your ass kicked by a little white boy, does it?” Kopriva allowed himself to gloat.

Morris cursed at him some more. Looking in the rear-view mirror, Kopriva saw a small raspberry on Morris’s cheek where he’d been held down against the pavement. Oh, well. Department policy stated that when an offi
c
er used the prone cuffing technique, a minor abrasion like that might occur. The policy, and the Chief himself, said that was just too bad for the arre
s
tee.

“You got the wind knocked out of you, huh, Morris? And an ow-ie on your cheek. That kinda sucks.”

“Kiss my ass, you white-boy, mother—”

Kopriva turned up the radio and sang along with Travis Tritt. He wished the song had been
Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares,
but all it took was country music of any kind to fuzz Morris up some more.

About a block from jail, he turned the radio down again.

“What, sir?” he asked in mock politeness.

“I said I want a picture of this.”