Sal
Trevino shivered as he lit his cigarette, cursing both the sub-zero
temperatures and the laws that wouldn't let him smoke in his
office. It had been a good twenty years since that regulation had
passed and he still hated it, especially in the winter. When indoor
smoking in public places first became outlawed, he figured it was
gonna be the kick he needed to quit but found out rather quickly how
wrong he'd been. The addiction was far more powerful than any wind
chill Mother Nature could throw at him. So, there he was, at
fifty-four years old, standing on a sidewalk in front of the downtown
police headquarters freezing his balls off while sucking down as much
nicotine as he could before the bone-chilling temperature forced him
back inside.
He'd
been a cop for over thirty years, the last fifteen of them spent in
the detective bureau. He viewed it as mostly thankless work but kept
himself going by believing that he was doing some good for the
community. He thought back to when he'd started, a bright-eyed kid
right out of college who was ready to grab the world by the nuts and
twist until it bowed to him. That never happened, and the spark that
was once very present in his eyes had faded like his hairline. He
thought every day about putting in his papers and calling it a day
but he stayed on simply because he didn't know what he'd do with
himself if he retired. He wasn't married any longer, and his kids
were well out of college and he rarely spoke to them as it was, so
there wasn't any family to spend time with. It would just be him
alone, on his couch, watching TV and maybe taking the random security
guard gig at banks and department stores around the city. The thought
of that appealed to him about as much as his annual prostate exam, so
he kept going. He remained on the job, investigating burglaries and
murders which seemed to be happening at a much higher frequency than
when he'd started.
"Yo,
Trevino, they brought your buddy in last night," Billy Stewart
shouted as he came walking down the sidewalk.
"What?"
Sal asked, having no idea what the young uniformed cop was talking
about.
"They
caught him pissing on the bank. Nabbed him for exposure."
"Who
are you talking about?" Sal asked as Billy headed for the main
door.
"The
homeless guy. The one they call Pops. Isn't he one of your charity
cases?"
Billy
held the door open for Sal, who dropped his smoke onto the icy
sidewalk and put it out with his shoe.
"I
help the guy out sometimes. He's harmless," Sal said as he went
in through the door. He waved to the security officer who manned the
metal detectors and walked by. He went down the hall, to the left and
up the flight of stairs that led to his office with Billy following.
"Where
they put him?" Sal asked as he took off his coat and put it on the
rack at the top of the stairs.
"He's
down in holding. Gave him his own cage and everything," he said.
**
The
detective bureau was large, taking up half of the second floor of the
building. Sal entered through the glass door and hung his coat on a
wall peg just inside. He maneuvered through the array of desks until
he got to his, which was against the wall by a window which
overlooked Main Street. Aside from his computer and an array of file
folders, his desk was bare save for a small cactus that someone had
given him because it was pointed out that his workspace lacked any
"personality". He didn't see the point of decorations. He liked
it organized and figured all that other stuff was clutter. He didn't
mind the cactus because it was self-sufficient and didn't require a
lot of attention. He grabbed a file and opened it in front of him.
"Anything
new on that?" said Mike Sikorsky as he sat down at the desk facing
Sal's. He'd been partnered up with Mike for the better part of
two years, and even though he was about ten years his junior Sal
liked him. He was a good detective - smart, fair, and didn't give
him a hard time. He respected Sal for his seniority and experience.
"Nothing
yet, but they'll hit again soon. I'm gonna go over the security
tapes again later and see if we missed anything."
Mike
nodded and said, "I'll go over the interviews we did. There's
gotta be something in there that we're not seeing, something
that'll give us a lead on who these guys are. You don't commit
four robberies in three weeks and not leave anything. They all slip
up."
Sal
knew that was true, but they didn't have much. Four convenience
stores on the lower east side had been hit and it was the same every
time: Two guys in black masks came in with guns, one stuck his in the
cashier's face and the other worked as lookout. They took the cash
from the drawer and a carton of cigarettes- Marlboro reds. They left
as quickly as they came and hadn't left a clue and they were always
in and out in a matter of minutes so nobody on the scene had time to
recognize them. Sal figured they had to be local because they knew
the layout of the shops they hit and exactly where the cameras were,
managing to stay off the tapes as much as possible. The only images
they'd been able to capture had been of their backs.
"I
want to get somewhere on this before they stick up another one,"
Sal said, "You been outside? I think I've got frostbite on my
joint."
"What,
you pissing outside now like Pops? Should I start calling you Fido?"
"I
prefer Cujo," Sal remarked.
Mike
laughed. "What you got on your plate today?" he asked.
"I
gotta go to lockup and pay Pops a visit. Make sure he's okay."
"You
really care about that old guy, don't you? Who knew? Sal Trevino
has a heart!"
"Keep
that quiet," Sal said as he stood up, using the top of the desk for
support. His left leg had been bothering him recently, and he chalked
it up to his arthritis being agitated by the cold.
"He,
Sal," Mike called as he was walking away. He stopped and turned.
"Why
don't you stop by on Christmas? Maggie and the kids would love to
see you."
"I
got plans," Sal said, and walked toward the door that led out of
the office.
**
The
holding cells were down in the basement, and Sal had to sign in with
the guard in order to get in. They knew who he was, so they didn't
give him much of a hassle. He had to leave his gun, which would be
locked in a safe until his return, but he didn't mind. He didn't
figure he'd need it down there. He was buzzed through two sets of
gates and led to the area where they were keeping Pops. He was at the
end of the hall in an area that was lovingly referred to as the
"drunk tank," which was surprisingly empty. Pops sat inside his
cell on a metal bunk against the wall, clad in a blue hooded
sweatshirt and dirty jeans. He wore tan work boots that looked as if
he'd fished them out of a dumpster.
"Hey,
you ok?" Sal asked through the cage door.
Pops
looked up and grinned.
"Sal!
How you been, my brother?"
He
got up and walked over to the set of iron bars that ran from floor to
ceiling and leaned in toward Sal.
"What
was going through your skull, whipping out your piece where people
could see?" Sal asked him. The violated building had been the Key
Bank near the outdoor ice rink.
"I
was drinking, not thinking," he told Sal.
Pops
was a fixture in the community, a black man in his early seventies
who'd been living on the streets for as long as Sal could remember.
He was friendly and never aggressive in his panhandling tactics. He
liked to hang out outside the coffee shops in the summer, striking up
conversations with the local college kids and whoever else would
spare him a moment. He accepted change and cigarettes but never asked
for it. These things were just given to him because everyone liked
him, including Sal. He seemed to appreciate conversation as much, if
not more, than the donations.
"You
gonna be alright in here? I could call in a favor and get you out."
"No!
Don't do that!" Pops answered, "It's colder than Hillary
Clinton out there! I'm fine right where I'm at!"
"You
sure?" Sal asked, "You piss on that wall on purpose so you'd
have a warm place to stay?"
"I'm
not saying I didn't," Pops said with a laugh, "But I'm not
saying I did, neither."
"You
could go to one of the shelters. They love you there."
"Screw
that, man. If I have to listen to those whiners one more day I'm
gonna lose my mind. That's all them folks do in there, you know.
Bitch and moan about how bad they got it and not appreciatin' what
they do have."
He
shook his head and Sal laughed.
"And
you can, huh?"
"Sure
do!" he said, "I'm alive. I'm warm. I got friends. Hell, I
got the legend of the detective squad comin' and checkin' up on
me. That's pretty good, I say."
"You
got a better attitude than most of the jagoffs upstairs," Sal told
him, "Maybe I should hire you and put you on the job. You think you
could handle being a cop?"
"Hell,
naw. I ain't workin' for the man, even if that man is you."
"I
hear that. I wouldn't want to work for me, either. I've heard I'm
kind of a prick."
"You
look stressed, Sal, what's that all about?"
Sal
sighed, "It ain't really stress. Just more annoyance. I got
called in on those robberies that've been going on for a few weeks
now. You hear anything about them?"
Pops
thought for a minute, then said, "Yeah. They got old Herman down on
Peace Street. Old man probably shit himself when they came in waving
those guns around. Nobody bothers Herm, man. He's been running that
store since the sixties. He gets respect."
"Yeah,
that's what I was thinking. That's why I'm assuming these are
kids. Bangers probably. They don't give a damn about respect."
"It's
gotten bad down there, man. Kids shootin' kids. I stay out of the
old neighborhoods now. Not safe there."
Sal
nodded in agreement. The east side had always been a problem area,
but it had gotten progressively worse in recent years. Sal blamed it
on the economy, because no jobs equaled more crime. He got frustrated
because he couldn't fix it. All he could do was make arrests and
get as many guns off the streets as he could. But there were always
more guns and more people using them, and most of the time they were
just kids - teenagers who didn't know any other kind of life. He
felt bad for it, and he wished that there was a solution, because
locking these kids up didn't make any difference. He wished that
there was something he could figure out to make it all go away. He
wanted to show those kids that there was a better way of living that
didn't involve looking over your shoulder waiting for that bullet
to find you. That's how they lived, though, and even though he saw
it with his own eyes almost every single day he didn't understand
it.
"I
felt safer in Saigon, man," Pops said, "At least there you knew
who your enemy was."
"I
didn't know you were in 'Nam, Pops. I was in the army for awhile
out of high school. They kept me stateside, though. I did four years
then came out of it and went right into the academy."
"You're
lucky," Pops said, walking back to his cot and sitting back down,
"I saw some fucked up shit over there. I came back different than I
went in. I think the heat got to me."
"Yeah,
I bet it did. What did ya do when they shipped you back? Did you have
any family?"
"Nah,
man, my momma died when I was a teenager. She raised me alone. I flew
back and I came home to nothing. Just a country that didn't seem to
give a shit. I blew through my savings pretty damn quickly. I had to
do everything for myself. No help from nobody. You see how that
worked out, huh?"
Pops
laughed and Sal found himself wondering how the guy could keep his
sense of humor with the hand he'd been dealt. But he did, and
that's what made him Pops. Sal wanted to be able to do more for
him, but he'd never accept more than a few bucks of charity from
anyone. He was proud and tough and Sal respected him for it.
"Good
news is you're probably gonna be out of here by tomorrow," Sal
told Pops, "You make sure you got a place to stay, alright? Go to
the damn shelter."
"I
promise," Pops said.
"I'll
be here when they let you out. I'm driving you to the place in case
you forgot where it is."
"Yeah,
man, sure. I gotta see Reggie, anyway. That fool owes me money and
I'm gonna need to pay the fine they're slapping me with."
"You
do that, then" Sal said before he walked away, knowing full well
he'd be taking care of it himself in the morning.
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