After the Evil – A Jake Roberts Novel (Book 1) (16 page)

“Sprites.”

He asks if I know what they are.

“They’re bright red flashes with blue tendrils, that
blast out of the tops of thunderstorm cells for a few thousandths
of a second, for up to sixty miles.”

I had just read about them.

“T-G-F’s are terrestrially-generated flashes, or
upward lightning.”

I try to remember what else the article said. Harmon
goes philosophical.

“There is some real cool stuff going on in this
universe that we don’t pay attention to.”

He means Mika, and my lament slips out before I can
stop it.

“I wish she had stayed.”

“Hey man, you going to be okay?”

Harmon glances several times at me.

“Yeah fine, there’s no show here, keep moving.”

I play it down and quickly assert.

“It was just…good to be around her again, that’s
all.”

“I thought you were all hooked up with that Powers
woman.”

“I am, it’s just Mika and I go back a long way.”

To prevent another sad Jake story, he changes the
subject.

“Too bad we couldn’t find the runner. He’s dirty. I
can feel it. Why else did he take off? If he were just a fan, he
would have grabbed a souvenir. He was fast, Jake––fast.”

“Maybe he didn’t have time to grab a souvenir.”

That’s all I can think of to say. I don’t want to
think about it anymore. I’m burned out about it. I need some
Lori-time. My demons aren’t around when she is. Maybe it’s time to
reevaluate my career.

“When are we going to stop for a few cold ones?”

“We’re in the middle of the hood, Jake. A white boy,
sorry, a
red
boy like you can get whacked out here for no
reason, I’m looking for a safe place to—”

“STOP THE CAR!”

“WHY?”

“STOP THE FRIGGING CAR.”

The tires screech and the car skid into the curb. I
brace with my wounded arm because I’m not wearing my seatbelt. To
my right, between the crack house hotel and the Korean market, is a
dilapidated bar with a hand-painted sign over the entrance that
says “Chipper’s.” I look back at Harmon with a raised eyebrow and
the devil on my face. Clint “Dirty Harry” Eastwood couldn’t have
played my exit from the car better. Standing on the sidewalk, I
smoothly look left and then right. Sizing up the territory and in
plain view, I slowly undo the strap securing my holstered Glock.
Harmon walks around the car and comes up behind me contemplating my
apparent death wish. I confidently strut toward the door and stop
to read the sign. The two brothers on either side of the door are
in no mood for my being there. I step between them to enter the
bar. Harmon’s hand grasps my shoulder.

“Are you sure about this, Geronimo?”

I stop and turn toward my backup.

“A brave man once told me that if you are afraid to
enter, you might never know the friend that awaits you inside.”

“He’s dead now, right?”

Harmon is more nervous than anyone.

I smirk, but continue into hostile territory. It’s
the kind of place, where they check you for weapons at the door. If
you don’t have one, they give you one. When they see me, the loud
base tones stop, the casual conversations stop, and the balls on
the pool table roll to a stop. The bartender can’t believe his
eyes.

“What the fuck do you want?”

I can’t see Harmon behind me holding up his badge
over my head. Nobody moves. I think I’m doing great, so I head for
the bar and take a seat. Harmon puts his badge back into his
pocket, and slowly sits down next to me. His head snaps in all
directions, while I order.

“I would like a cold beer.”

I watch for movement in the mirror behind the bar,
and see a few cue sticks come down off the rack.

“Harmon, what’re you going to have?”

The bartender has an impressive vocabulary. He
shares his heightened curiosity in the form of a question.

“Are you fucking crazy? Ain’t nobody going to let
you walk in here for a beer, I suggest you get the fuck out, before
they bust up my place, and you with it.”

He spoke directly to Harmon at the beginning of the
sentence, but directed the end of his sentence straight at me.

“Do yourselves a favor, and get your black and white
cop ass’s the hell out of here.”

“THAT’S RED ASS, MISTER.”

The startled bartender leans back aghast at my
outburst.

“NATIVE AMERICAN. Two cold ones for my partner and
me.”

I recapture control through some mystical anger
management technique.

“And while you’re at it, buy the house a round on
me.”

The silence is like standing outside during a new
fallen snow. I think I hear Harmon contacting God behind me. He is
either cussing me out, or damning me for all of eternity. I hope
everyone in the bar heard the part about the next round, but all I
hear is a deep, powerful, single voice from a table toward the back
and to my left.

“Give the
red
man, and the black man, one
beer.”

As I turn to acknowledge the man, into my field of
vision comes the largest black man I have ever seen. He’s twice the
size of Harmon. He head is shaved. On either side of him sits a
skanky whore. He has gold teeth from one corner of his mouth to the
other, with a diamond stud in both front teeth. His Armani suit
must have cost at least a year’s salary. Two sawed-off shotguns are
on the table in front of him, along with one pink umbrella drink.
With the snap of two of his fingers, both the size of legs, the
music starts and another bank shot is made on the pool table. The
bartender pours our beer. Speaking with trepidation, Harmon quietly
gives me the man’s history.

“His name is ‘Chipper’ as in wood chipper. He’s the
man here, proprietor of the establishment. Rep is he cuts his
victim enough until the soon to be deceased bleeds out then it’s a
ride through the machinery. You think whoever killed Abrams is a
badass. There’s a bad ass. He knows it, too. And, he knows ain’t
nobody going to do anything about it.”

The urgency in Harmon’s voice intensifies.

“The man spent a dime, ten long, hard years in deep
solitary confinement. He killed several of his cellmates while in
the general population. They couldn’t prove it. The Warden wanted
him gone. They just quietly let him go. ‘Silent parole’ they called
it.”

My initial arrogance and demonstration of
fearlessness dissipates in light of Harmon’s revelations. Reality
torpedoes my testosterone level.

“And listen to this
red man
, you can’t kill
this guy, He’s been shot twenty-eight times, stabbed sixteen,
strangled once. They even tried to blow him up. He keeps coming
back. When cops are ordered to take him in for a violation, they
resign.”

“Let me get this straight, you’re saying there’s a
pretty good chance our partnership could end right here?”

“Oh, I thought you were just plain ignorant, but
you’re stupid, too?”

He shakes his head in mock ridicule.

I drink my beer, but try to be cool about it. I
figure if it’s my last, I might as well enjoy it. I thank the
bartender, who returns a derogatory social comment, as I toss a
handful of cash on the bar. Standing, I turn with my hands visible
to everyone in the bar. My partner leaves half a mug of ale behind.
Harmon scratches at the back of his head, while I look directly at
“the man” and nod a thank you.

“Don’t come back here.”

It is his terse warning. He points at the door. I
walk backwards, but facing Chipper. Harmon’s back is against mine,
as he takes the lead toward the door. As we step outside, we are
surprised by the new gang-tagged paint on Harmon’s unmarked. He
drives me home. I don’t have much to say because the last thing I
want is for some girly whimper to squeak out from my mouth. I sense
Harmon isn’t in the mood for clever banter anyway. Climbing out of
the car in front of my apartment, I throw Harmon a wisecrack.

“Good night honey, call me later?”

Harmon loses it.

“You’re one crazy bastard, DON’T EVER do that to me
again.”

After watching him drive away, I go inside. My
answer machine light is blinking and there is a message from Lori.
She’s going to see her daughter, and would catch up with me after.
She also said she missed me. I think about calling her. I think
about Mika. I think about “Chipper” and how I could have been
recycled mulch.

* * *

The face in the mirror refuses to tell me where that
young, energetic guy is now. I feel weak. A steady wind could
easily blow me down. My partner called and offered a ride, but I
told him I was going to “work out” by walking in. It isn’t that
far, and I need the exercise. Since Mika left, there’s no rush to
get there. I decide to secure my tie later as I slide my holstered
Glock into the back of my pants. It wasn’t possible to describe
just how glorious a morning it was from inside the apartment, with
the shades pulled down. Burly, cotton-textured clouds float over my
head and mares’ tails drift through the alto-altitudes. The sun is
already starting to singe the cobalt hue out of the sky. The
foliage is painted in deep shades of southern green. As I walk, a
gentle breeze wisps past my face.

Chipper didn’t kill me yesterday.

I wonder who will. Maybe it’d be a deranged suspect,
or a revenge-filled prison escapee, or maybe it’d be one of the
militia girl’s compatriots. The butt of my Glock digs into the
small of my back. The house is still blocks away, and for some
reason the walk feels farther then I remember it. My body is aching
and in sad physical shape. As I pass the newsstand, I toss a few
quarters at Sylvester, the newspaper guy, for a morning paper. He
looks like he has lived two lifetimes and yet he keeps going.
Tucking the newspaper under my arm, I pass by the parking lot and
scrutinize it to see who is already in. Harmon’s car is taking up
two spaces. “Pig” is still splattered across the hood, along with
other unsavory social slang, from the night before. Fairchild’s car
isn’t in his space, that’s good because now I won’t get the
“Where’ve you been, Roberts?” interrogation.

After climbing all three floors of “Cop Mountain” in
the only cop shop in the country without an elevator, I head for my
desk. A pencil ascends into the air above the cubicle next to mine.
It does several ascending rotations like it’s in the Pencil
Olympics. On its descent, I snatch it in flight. A head pokes up
above the cubicle wall.

“Hey, that’s my pencil.”

As I toss it back, the number two is snatched out of
the air like a frog tonguing a buzzing fly.

I think about Harmon Blackwell. He’s not only my
partner. He’s my best friend. He never loaned me money, or donated
a kidney for me, but I love him like a brother. I never found much
value in material possessions. I have Harmon. He keeps me going in
this crazy, screwed-up world.

“You beat the man in, you’re so lucky, Roberts.”

Harmon chuckles. It is a boisterous, devilish kind
of laugh.

“It’s a good thing too, because I’m not covering for
your sorry ass anymore.”

That’s what he says, but isn’t what he means.
Partners understand all of the intricacies of mood swings and
personality dysfunctions.

“Any new corpses lying around? I want something to
do, I’m bored.”

My feet find a place between some reports on my
desk. The usual anthill activity prevalent in the office any other
day of the week, is nonexistent today.

“
No body knows
…” one detective interjects
with a song.

“How are we going to justify our very existence?
We’re investigators, we need something to investigate.”

I complain while my sore arm pinches just to remind
me about the real world. Harmon leans across my desk. His grin is
wide.

“Chipper called looking for you.”

* * *

Ed flipped open the cover of his notepad.

“What have you got, I haven’t got all day, and I
need a name for the reward money.”

He wanted the guy to know he was an impatient man.
The guy was weird, jittery, and nervous.

“Not here, it’s not safe,” the man said.

Fairchild took the call early. He got to the office
before anyone else hoping to review the Abrams case file, and find
a hidden clue. Sometimes, the mind will see something it saw a
hundred times. All he wanted to do was help Mika. She was family,
special, and that meant a lot to Ed. He didn’t want to let her
down. He wanted his protégé to make it in the big time. The call
came in asking for him personally. There was no one else around for
backup. He had been there before, forced to deal with an obscure
nobody with some hot new information. The news had broadcast little
progress on the case, but mentioned the reward money was upped. The
male voice on the phone gave instructions on the meeting place. He
sounded sincere.

So there was Ed standing in a parking lot, with a
guy who claimed to have important information, and the guy was
terrified of something, or someone. The man in his late twenties,
blond hair, was concerned about his safety. Ed surveyed the
deserted lot and didn’t feel the same sense of urgency.

What’s with all of the drama?

“Let’s go inside. I don’t want to be out here where
we can be seen.”

The mysterious man walked away leaving Ed to ponder
the intrigue. Reluctantly, Ed followed him. He wasn’t at all
concerned about his safety, but as an avowed homophobic, Ed had
other distracting concerns about the guy. The man walked ahead of
him, and opened the door to a rundown, deserted warehouse, leaving
the door to slam in Ed’s face. That made him mad.

What’s with this guy?

Ed jerked the door open and went inside. It was
pitch black, except for the blinding sunlight stream through a
large window, directly across the way. Ed felt the painful, numbing
voltage from the stun gun, and it took him down. That was the last
thing he remembered. It had been too many years since Ed had worked
the streets. He wasn’t as sharp as he used to be. The skills of the
once lightning-fast, young detective had diminished during his
service behind a desk. When he started to come around, he had a
severe headache, and his vision was blurred. He was surprised to
find himself tied to a bed and naked.