One Foot Off the Gutter (22 page)

“I only hear what other people see,” she said.

She rested her head on the dog's muzzle and whispered an inanity into the creature's snout.

“Then tell me what you heard,” I demanded.

“Oh, it's nothing really. Someone tried to rob someone else and almost got caught. The only reason they didn't was because they pulled out a gun and got away,” she said, caressing the chihuahua.

“Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate your cooperation.”

The remaining folks in front of the place seemed to be dispersing. Some people wandered off towards Mission Street, while others crossed the swamp in the middle of the road, dashing into the
groceria
to get some things before the store closed for the night.

That was provident. I didn't want any interference during my search of the premises. I'd seen the house once before while on patrol. It was a ramshackle stucco villa that looked like it belonged in Los Angeles. Different from the
rest of the houses in the Mission, it even had a date palm tree in the front yard.

The woman kept talking away at my elbow, annoying me. “I think you'd better be careful, officer.”

I was suddenly alert, pierced in a mortal place. “What do you mean?”

Rain was splashing over the brim of my schooner cap and falling onto my brow. I puckered my lower lip and blew upwards, dislodging the drops that landed on the tip of my nose.

“You heard me. Someone might be in there. You should be careful. Now that's all I got to say. I brought poor Mitzi out here without her sweater, and the poor dear is getting a chill.”

A second later, Bellamy arrived on the scene. He was quite cheerful, singing, “What's up, Coddy?”

“This old bird was telling me to be careful.”

Bellamy inspected the woman and her dog.

“Well, what do you know? She must have liked you. You wanna take a look in that building? Might find a trespasser. Might not find anyone.”

I knew Bellamy would suggest an entry into the place. After what my partner had been through, surviving those gunshot wounds, it took some courage. Then again, that was Bellamy. That was how he healed the psychic damage caused by his injuries. That was part of the code. All cops understood the code: those who faced death, had to face it again.

“I guess we can do it,” Bellamy said.

I was interested in the building. Bellamy stared at the
villa, not showing anything on his face that would reveal how he felt about it.

“It's abandoned, isn't it?” he asked.

“That's right, Bells.”

“There's someone in there?”

“That's what the radio said.”

“Then let's go.”

Bellamy turned around and using his cane to guide him, he hopped onto a blue flagstone path, heading toward the building. I stood on the sidewalk and watched my partner's back disappear down the path around an evergreen hedge.

 

The rain was never going to stop. That's all I could think about when I caught up with Bellamy. The rain was hammering on the roof of the rental in Novato night after night. Treacherous, sibilant, hypnotic rain.

The house loomed over us. It was much larger than I had anticipated, exciting me. I grabbed Bellamy by the hem of his slicker, saying, “Wait a minute. Let's take a look at this.”

Bellamy stopped in his tracks and cleared the dryness in his throat. I pulled out my flashlight from one of the slicker's zippered pockets. I clicked on the beam and let it shine on the front door.

“You sure no one lives here?” Bellamy muttered.

“That's what the neighbors say. I've had my eye on it, ever since we started doing the foot patrols.”

“You want to go inside?”

“It's either that or wait for back up.”

I let the words sink in, allowing Bellamy to make a choice. I was content to play the situation either way. I'd like nothing more than to go inside and nail the asshole. Then get down to a thorough investigation of the property. But if my partner wanted to play it safe and wait for another patrol to assist us in our search, that was fine by me.

“Your call, Bells,” I said.

Bellamy rested the tip of his cane against the bottom step of the porch. Two large columns of redwood and plaster stood upright on both sides of a recessed, mahogany doorway. He licked his lips.

“Fuck it, Coddy. Even if there is an asshole in there, you want to go in, just so you can take a look around. And to hell with back up. Am I right?”

“You got it.”

“You're never gonna give it up, are you, my man?” Bellamy drawled.

“As long as we're living in Novato? No way.”

I clapped a hand on Bellamy's thin shoulder and said, “I'll tell you what. I'll take the lead. You cover me, say, twenty paces to my rear, and off to my flank, to one side on the porch, while I go through the door. If anyone's in there, I'll spring them, and you'll trap them, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Coddy.”

“You with me on this, Bells?”

“You know me, Coddy.”

Bellamy shook his revolver out from its holster. I did the same. Lightning crashed somewhere to the north, illuminating the satellite dish on the building next door.

“Thanks, Bells,” I blurted.

“For what, man?”

“For doing this with me. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. It's part of the...what did you call it?”

“It's part of the plan.”

“That's right. The plan.”

I jumped onto the porch and slipped across its painted concrete floor to the front door. Bellamy was three steps behind me, still talking, “Let's get some beer when all of this is done.”

I stole up to the door and touched its dull glass knob. It wasn't locked. I waited for a couple of seconds, then pushed the door open, moving it an inch. If someone had left it unlocked, the trespasser might be in a hurry. I gave the door another shove; it swung quietly open on its oiled hinges.

I crossed over the brink of the passageway and ran the flashlight across the hardwood floor. The ceiling was high and the floor was polished. There wasn't a stick of furniture in sight. It didn't seem abandoned, and there was nothing in sight to arouse my suspicions.

My bowels relaxed, letting the pressure in my lower intestinal tract drop down to a more tolerable level. There had been moments in the last few weeks when I doubted whether I'd ever be able to regain mastery over my own affairs.

When Bellamy was in the hospital, the job had been difficult. Sympathy for Bellamy's plight had dissipated. The station captain had sent me a memo that said a disciplinary hearing was scheduled for the near future.

“I'll let you know the exact date as soon as possible,” the captain had stated. “The loss of the squad car is unforgivable. I can't write it off into next year's budget proposal. The Chamber of Commerce has already written a letter of protest about the refunding of your vehicle.”

It made me think twice about whether I wanted to stick out the next couple of years in the Mission, trying to get a twenty-year niche on the force so that I could retire with a full pension. I needed the money. But I didn't know if my pride could stand it.

Maybe I would leave the force. I held the flashlight down, aiming it at my feet. Maybe I could get out of the Mission. Better yet, I would become a cop in another, smaller town. Some burg where the citizens and the other cops would appreciate me for my talent and skills, not like here in San Francisco.

It had taken me years to realize my own salt, my own worth. I deserved a better toss of the dice than the one I'd been handed. I stepped across the floor into the depths of the room. I let my mind flow along the trail of recriminations that soared out of my heart.

I felt bad about not visiting Bellamy in the hospital, but that couldn't be helped. My sense of compassion had been worn away until it had become a wall against the mediocre things in life.

Whatever I planned, the converse invariably happened. Irony added to the pleasure I felt when I was inside the rooms of an abandoned building. Since the beginning of summer, those rooms were the only places where I felt like a complete man. Why couldn't I be left alone with them?

I didn't want to arrest assholes in the Mission anymore than I wanted to assume further grief for the squad car or for Alice's happiness. Much less continued responsibility for Bellamy's health. If I had any smarts left in my head, I'd run away from all of my responsibilities.

A sliver of light meandered through the four panes of a tall window. I liked the window, and I admired the room. The house hadn't been trashed during its abandonment, something that was rare in the Mission.

I heard a rustling sound, maybe the scurrying of mice across the bare floor. Someone came out of the next room. A man's thin brown face emerged from the open doorway. “Who the hell are you?” I grated.

The man drew closer to the flashlight's ray, almost swaggering into the light. He didn't quail when I hit him in the face with the yellow beam. He stopped where he was, standing fifteen feet away from me.

“You shouldn't play around,” I said, holding my temper. “Just stand where you are and produce some identification for me.”

It took a moment with my memory jumping a groove, then I remembered the guy. First, in a blur of general understandings, then in a jumble of details. It was him. The phantom asshole in the green tin shack on San Carlos Street. The guy who'd gotten away with robbing a liquor store. I could have sworn the asshole was happy to see me. The guy was actually smiling. In spite of myself, I said, “What are you doing here?”

I didn't get an answer.

The revolver was limp in my hand. This was the magical
motherfucker who'd disappeared into nowhere. The asshole was much smaller than I recalled, but he was wearing the same expensive shoes, and had a chrome plated pistol.

“You're the
pendejo
that shot out the windshield of the squad car.”

It occurred to me that for the first time in my illustrious career, I was standing face to face with someone I'd exchanged gunfire with. The longer I stared at the robber, the more the man's face changed. His mobile features dissembled, then reassembled.

“Don't you got anything to say?” I said with a menace I did not feel.

“What is there to talk about?”

As quickly as the asshole came, he vanished. For a moment, I didn't know what had happened. I felt a slight breeze under my nose, then it was gone.

“Hey, where did you go?”

“I'm right behind you.”

I whirled around and trained the flashlight to where his voice had come from. I lowered myself into a combat-ready stance, aiming the revolver, turning to the right, then to my left.

It was such a fine building. Why couldn't it have stayed that way? Now there was more trouble, another obstacle for me to contend with. It had been that way since the beginning of time.

I held the revolver in front of me. Rain drops splattered on the window. A bird landed on the sill, squawked once and flew off. I was starting to think the perpetrator
had an advantage over me. What it was, I didn't exactly know, but the recognition was growing.

“I'm a San Francisco police officer. I can detain you right now. We had a report of someone attempting a robbery. You are a suspect in another unsolved robbery. The neighbors say an individual went into this building. Please identify yourself. It may make a difference in how we treat you.”

I turned the flashlight around, hitting the walls with the beam. First, this wall. Then, the next wall. The asshole hopped outside the light, moving in a neat circle around me.

The fear on my face must have betrayed me. It would have been fun, this clash of opposing wills, if it weren't for the fact that I'd been shot at by this very same man not so long ago.

“I'm asking you,” I repeated myself. “Please identify yourself.”

I pointed the flashlight and the gun and found nothing. I was positive the ghoul was nearby. I could feel the asshole was all over me, devitalizing me.

 

Bellamy stepped through the opened door, pulling his gimp leg behind him into the house. He peeked around the front room, and not finding Coddy, he shook his head. The rain was giving his leg a real fucking. His body had never failed him before; it couldn't start now. The pain was screwing him up, making him think back to Doreen.

Since Bellamy had shared a room in the hospital with a
pack of other charity cases, the few times Doreen came by, he'd never gotten much of a chance to be alone with her. The guy in the bed next to him had been a Hell's Angel mending a broken hip. The biker always had some friends coming by to give him cigarettes, and to bring him freshly laundered bandannas, so that he could have a clean one to tie around his ratty, salt and pepper hair every day.

Bellamy walked into the front room, pecking at the polished floor with the rubber tip of his cane.

“Coddy? Where are you? Are you in there?”

 

I heard Bellamy. Rain was hitting the window, distracting me with its insistent demand for attention. I speared the floor with the flashlight; the beam played off the wall, casting an aureole of gold against the shadows near the ceiling. The short hairs on the back of my neck stood up when the perpetrator stepped back into the circle of light. His quick and understated presence left me scrambling to find a position where I could defend myself.

The asshole took another step forward. I brushed up against the wall at my back.

“Halt where you are!”

My opponent was standing no further than an arm's length away from me. The robber was younger than my previous recollection of him. He was handsome and more womanish than I remembered, too. The flashlight's beam fastened onto his smooth skin and short hair. The asshole judged me with a shrewd glint in his eyes.