‘That it?’
‘Paul Loving is 10-98 for home in his cruiser, his son’s having an asthma attack.’
‘You might forget to put that on the report.’
Steffie gave me a reproachful look, as if she hardly needed me to tell her that. ‘What’s going on out in Shed B?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Well, nothing much. Normalizing. I’m out of here. If anything comes up, just . . .’ I stopped, sort of horrified.
‘Sandy?’ she asked. ‘Is something wrong?’
If anything comes up, just call Tony Schoondist, I’d been about to say, as if twenty years hadn’t slipped under the bridge and the old Sarge wasn’t dribbling mindlessly in front of Nick at Nite in a Statler nursing home. ‘Nothing wrong,’ I said. ‘If anything comes up, call Frank Soderberg. It’s his turn in the barrel.’
‘Very good, sir. Have a nice night.’
‘Thanks, Steff, right back atcha.’
As I stepped out, the Bel Aire rolled slowly toward the driveway with one of the groups Ned likes — Wilco, or maybe The Jayhawks — blaring from the custom speakers. I lifted a
hand and he returned the wave. With a smile. A sweet one. Once more I found it hard to believe I’d been so angry with him.
I stepped over to the shed and assumed the position, that feet-apart, sidewalk-superintendent stance that makes everyone feel like a Republican somehow, ready to heap contempt on welfare slackers at home and flag-burning foreigners abroad. I looked in. There it sat, silent under the overhead lights, casting a shadow just as though it were sane, fat and luxy on its whitewall tires. A steering wheel that was far too big. A hide that rejected dirt and healed scratches — that happened more slowly now, but it did still happen. Oil’s fine was what the man said before he went around the corner, those were his last words on the matter, and here it still was, like an objet d’art somehow left behind in a closed-down gallery. My arms broke out in gooseflesh and I could feel my balls tightening. My mouth had that dry-lint taste it gets when I know I’m in deep shit. Ha’past trouble and goin on a jackpot, Ennis Rafferty used to say. It wasn’t humming and it wasn’t glowing, the temperature was up above sixty again, but I could feel it pulling at me, whispering for me to come in and look. It could show me things, it whispered, especially now that we were alone. Looking at it like this made one thing clear: I’d been angry at Ned because I’d been scared for him. Of course. Looking at it like this, feeling its tidal pull way down in the middle of my head — beating in my guts and my groin, as well — made everything easier to understand. The Buick bred monsters. Yes.
But sometimes you still wanted to go to it, the way you sometimes wanted to look over the edge when you were on a high place or peer into the muzzle of your gun and see the hole at the end of the barrel turn into an eye. One that was watching you, just you and only you.
There was no sense trying to reason your way through such moments, or trying to understand that neurotic attraction; best to just step back from the drop, put the gun back in its holster, drive away from the barracks. Away from Shed B. Until you got beyond the range of that subtle whispering voice. Sometimes running away is a perfectly acceptable response.
I stood there a moment longer, though, feeling that distant beat-beat-beat in my head and around my heart, looking in at the midnight-blue Buick Roadmaster. Then I stepped back, drew a deep breath of night air, and looked up at the moon until I felt entirely myself again.
When I did, I went to my own car and got in and drove away.
The Country Way wasn’t crowded. It never is these days, not even on Friday and Saturday nights. The restaurants out by Wal-Mart and the new Statler Mall are killing the downtown eateries just as surely as the new cineplex out on 32 killed off the old Gem Theater downtown.
As always, people glanced at me when I walked in. Only it’s the uniform they’re really looking at, of course. A couple of guys — one a deputy sheriff, the other a county attorney –
said hello and shook my hand. The attorney asked if I wouldn’t join him and his wife and I said no thanks, I might be meeting someone. The idea of being with people, of having to do any more talking that night (even small-talking), made me feel sick in my stomach.
I sat in one of the little booths at the back of the main room, and Cynthia Garris came over to take my order. She was a pretty blonde thing with big, beautiful eyes. I’d noticed her making someone a sundae when I came in, and was touched to see that between delivering the ice cream and bringing me a menu, she’d undone the top button on her uniform so that the little silver heart she wore at the base of her throat showed. I didn’t know if that was for me or just another response to the uniform. I hoped it was for me.
‘Hey, Sandy, where you been lately? Olive Garden? Outback? Macaroni Grille? One of those?’ She sniffed with mock disdain.
‘Nope, just been eatin in. What you got on special?’
‘Chicken and gravy, stuffed shells with meat sauce — both of em a little heavy on a night like this, in my humble opinion — and fried haddock. All you can cat’s a dollar more. You know the deal.’
‘Think I’ll just have a cheeseburger and an Iron City to wash it down with.’
She jotted on her pad, then gave me a real stare. ‘Are you all right? You look tired.’
‘I am tired. Otherwise fine. Seen anyone from Troop D tonight?’
‘George Stankowski was in earlier. Otherwise, you’re it, darlin. Copwise, I mean. Well, those guys out there, but . . .’ She shrugged as if to say those guys weren’t real cops. As it happened, I agreed with her.
‘Well, if the robbers come in, I’ll stop em single-handed.’
‘If they tip fifteen per cent, Hero, let em rob,’ she said. ‘I’ll get your beer.’ Off she went, pert little tail switching under white nylon.
Pete Quinland, the grease-pit’s original owner, was long gone, but the mini-jukeboxes he’d installed were still on the walls of the booths. The selections were in a kind of display-book, and there were little chrome levers on top to turn the pages. These antique gadgets no longer worked, but it was hard to resist twiddling the levers, turning the pages, and reading the songs on the little pink labels. About half of them were by Pete’s beloved Chairman of the Board, hepcat fingersnappers like ‘Witchcraft’ and ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight’. FRANK SINATRA, said the little pink labels, and beneath, in smaller letters: THE NELSON RIDDLE ORCH. The others were those old rock and roll songs you never think about any more once they leave the charts; the ones they never seem to play on the oldies stations, although you’d think there’d be room; after all, how many times can you listen to ‘Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)’ before beginning to scream? I flipped through the jukebox pages, looking at tunes a dropped quarter would no longer call forth; time marches on, baby. If you’re quiet you can hear its shuffling, rueful tread.
If anyone asks about that Buick 8, just tell em it’s an impound. That’s what the Old Sarge had said on the night we met out here in the back room. By then the waitresses had been sent away and we were pulling our own beers, running our own tab, and keeping our accounts straight down to the very last penny. Honor system, and why not? We were honorable men,
doing our duty as we saw it. Still are. We’re the Pennsylvania State Police, do you see? The real road warriors. As Eddie used to say — when he was younger as well as thinner — it’s riot just a job, it’s a fuckin adventure.
I turned a page. Here was ‘Heart of Glass’, by BLONDIE.
On this subject you can’t get far enough off the record. More words of wisdom from Tony Schoondist, spoken while the blue clouds of cigarette smoke rose to the ceiling. Back then everybody smoked, except maybe for Curt, and look what happened to him. Sinatra sang ‘One for My Baby’ from the overhead speakers, and from the steam tables had come the sweet smell of barbecued pork. The Old Sarge had been a believer in that off-the-record stuff, at least as regarded the Buick, until his mind had taken French leave, first just infantry squads of brain-cells stealing away in the night, then platoons, then whole regiments in broad daylight.