Dukkha Unloaded. Loren W. Christensen
This ain’t no goddamn bathroom. This is my house you’re in.”
The man stared stupidly for a moment at the hooded personification of ugly death—broken teeth, sprouts of whiskers growing out of moles, and a patched eye. He tossed his shaver quickly into his briefcase, its blades still whirring, and goosed the car into heavy traffic, nearly clipping a passing Volvo.
“Way to go, Louise baby,” a gruff voice called from behind her. “You told Mister Pussy what it is.”
She turned and snapped a military salute at two winos huddled in a doorway a few feet away. The tall one was Abbot and the short, fat one, Costello. They stood side by side, shoulders hunched against the morning cool, trading swigs from a brown paper bag.
Louise resumed her position against the wall and sucked hard on the last of her cigarette. A few street people passed, some nodding a greeting at her. Some new faces lately, she thought. She alerted on an old black wino across the street, a longtime skid row regular everyone called The Mayor. It was hard to see him with all the cars and trucks stopped at the light, but as usual, he was drunk out of his mind long before most people had their morning coffee. His tattered, brown overcoat was unbuttoned, revealing blue sweat pants, brown slippers, and a bare, bony chest. Hanging onto the signpost with one hand, he leaned into the street and waved his other at a pretty, young brunette in a red Honda.
The traffic signal changed to green for southbound traffic, and the pedestrian signals flashed Don’t Walk for the east/west foot traffic. Oblivious to the signals, The Mayor let go of the post and staggered into the street, heading west toward Louise’s side.
Abbot and Costello, who had also been watching The Mayor, shuffled from their doorway post and shouted at him to get back to the sidewalk. Louise tried to shout but realized her voice was too feeble to be heard over the passing traffic. She shambled over and grabbed Abbott’s arm. “He’s gonna get his ass kilt,” she cried into his ear.
“Well, I sure ain’t goin’ out there to rescue his drunkness, Louise,” Abbott said, taking a quick pull of wine from the bag.
The Mayor somehow made it across the first lane, accompanied by a cacophony of blaring horns and screeching tires. Louise, Abbott, and Costello moved to the curb’s edge, the three of them gesturing madly for him not to move as he precariously straddled the yellow line. Louise mouthed silently, “Stay, stay, stay.”
Because of the heavy volume of traffic from the bridge ramp, the signal held green thirty seconds longer than most intersections, extra seconds that seemed like minutes to Louise, as cars and trucks streaked by, some swerving, some sounding their horns, but not one vehicle slowing even a little. The Mayor was fine with it, swaying as if dancing to the sound and the fury. He held open his overcoat, exposing his bare chest and shouting drunkenly, “Ole!” at the charging herd of steel bulls.
Anxious, Louise kept looking from The Mayor to the traffic signal, and back, all the while willing the light to change to red. A city bus passed slowly, blocking her view for what seemed like forever. When she finally could see him again, The Mayor was looking back toward the sidewalk from where he had begun. What was he looking at? Louise strained her one eye to see through the streaking traffic to the other side of the street. She could make out two young men, teenagers, both standing next to the No Parking sign. They look weird, she thought, wearing all black clothes and knee-high boots. Like … what do they call them? Punk Rockers, or something. One had long, impossibly black hair and the other had not-as-long impossibly yellow hair.
“What are they doing?” Louise asked aloud, watching in disbelief as the yellow-haired one motioned with his right hand for The Mayor to come back to the sidewalk, while holding up the middle finger of his left. The other waved his hands for The Mayor to continue to cross the other two lanes over to Louise’s side.
Desperate now, Louise said, “They’re confusing the old fool.” She started to step off the curb but an angry horn drove her back. “Hey, you dirty shits!” she yelled feebly. “What you think you doin’?” The light finally changed to amber. “Thank God,” she whispered.
Traffic in all four lanes accelerated to beat the light. A white delivery truck next to the curb slowed to make a turn, blocking her view. She hobbled sideways a couple of steps closer to Costello to see around it, but still it was in the way. Costello could see, though, and his eyes widened.
He shouted, but his words were drowned out by a riot of screeching tires and blaring horns from the other side of the truck.
The truck moved on and The Mayor was gone.
Off to the right, bluish-white smoke swirled around the tires of a blood-red Nissan sliding sideways into the intersection. Underneath, a human form tumbling. A flash of skin, a pajama-clad leg, a flap of brown coat. Something pinkish shot out from under a tire and bounced across the pavement toward Louise. The Nissan rocked to a stop.
At Louise’s feet: a broken denture plate.
Across the street, the teenagers walked quickly away slapping each other on the back.
CHAPTER FOUR
One just doesn’t drop in on a deputy chief for a chat. There is a protocol. An officer or detective must ask permission from a superior officer in his unit to talk with someone on the fifteenth floor. But I don’t have a superior officer right now because having been off duty for two months my name has been dropped from the duty roster in Detectives and placed back in Personnel. Since I’m in limbo, I head straight up to the Chief’s Office.
Karen smiles as I approach her desk. “You’re coming to see me again, Sam? You do know I’m married, right?”
I snap my fingers and feign disappointment. “Darn. Hey, you got a sister?”
“An older one.”
“Better yet.”
“You here to see Deputy Chief Rodriguez?”
“I am.”
“Does he know you’re coming?” When I shake my head, she keys a button on her phone. “Chief, Detective Sam Reeves is here to see you. Yes, sir. Will do.” She looks at me. “Not as nervous this time?”
I smile. “More, but it’s not about seeing Rodriguez.”
“You’ll be fine, Sam,” she says like a reassuring mother. Like most personal assistants, Karen knows everything going on in the Bureau. She nods her head toward the hallway, and whispers, “He’s waiting.”
“Detective Reeves,” Chief Rodriguez says, from his doorway. “Come on in. Sit.”
“Good morning, Chief.” I sit in the same chair I sat in yesterday.
“You asked for twenty-four hours to decide and here we are at the twentieth hour. You going to take the job?”
Rodriguez is a cut-to-the-chase kind of commander so I’m not going to annoy him with what all went into my thinking. I’m especially not going to let him know about my issues with firearms.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good,” he says without emotion. “Your shrink cleared you?”
“It’s in the works, sir. We chatted earlier and I’m good to go. She’ll be sending her report over before noon.”
“Good,” he says, picking up his phone and tapping in a number. “Stand by. I’ll let Lieutenant Sherman know.”
BJ Sherman is the lieutenant in charge of Intelligence. Since a small unit such as Intelligence doesn’t have a captain, Sherman probably answers directly to the captain of Detectives or maybe to Rodriguez himself.
“BJ, Tony here,” the Chief says. “Sam Reeves is on board … Right, I’ll tell him. The Fat Dicks check in with you yet? Good. I’ll have Reeves’s personnel file sent over to you, and I’ll make sure he’s back on the books. Good … Okay, he’s on the way.” The Chief cradles the phone.
“Do you know Lieutenant Sherman?” he