$200 and a Cadillac

XXIV



Mickey awoke to the ringing, sitting upright, alone and groping through the darkness for the phone. His hand went along the edge of the nightstand and knocked a glass to the floor—where it rattled but did not break—before finding the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Chief? This is Billy, at the station?”—as though Mickey wouldn’t know who it was—”A 911 call just came in.” Billy said it like it was the most surprising thing in the world. But even in Nickelback they got a call at least once a month.

Mickey groaned and turned the light on next to the bed. He took down the address and told Billy he’d meet him there. Mickey checked his watch—it was barely ten o’clock—awfully early for him to be sleeping, and awfully early for an emergency too. In Nickelback, most residents didn’t readily invite the police into their homes and they usually called 911 only when someone was dying or already dead. The early hour made him sure it had to be a medical problem. He debated calling Paul Kramer right then, but decided to wait.

Mickey hurried and dressed and rushed from the house. It was a standing mandate that he always be called when a 911 came in, but they were generally later at night, after the shift change. With his three deputies working nine hour stretches, staggered around the clock, there were only three hours a day when they overlapped for an hour—eleven to midnight, seven to eight in the morning, and three to four in the afternoon—that covered the beginning and end of the workday and one hour each night when the drunks and crazies were in the thick of it. Other than that, each man was on his own, with Mickey working days and playing clean up.

But at ten, it was Billy who was alone on duty, and sending Billy out to a 911 on his own made Mickey nervous. If something serious went down, the kid didn’t have what it took. Mickey knew it. Everyone else probably knew it too. But the town was small and dying and desperate for cheap help. Who else was Mickey going to get in a town like that? And after all, that same desperation was how Mickey had gotten hired in the first place.

Except for the lounge at the Golden Dragon, the town was already dead quiet. The sun was long down and, although the concrete and asphalt were still radiating their tremendous daytime heat, the air was beginning to cool itself into a fine desert evening. Mickey went through the back streets quickly, without referring to the address he’d written down and stuck in his pocket. The town was too small to get confused.

He saw the flashing lights up ahead and pulled the Suburban in behind the police cruiser. Billy was at the front door. Mickey could see Ron Grimaldi illuminated in the doorway. They stopped talking and both watched Mickey as he came across the yard and stepped up on the small porch.

“Chief,” Billy began, confused, “he says he never called.”

“I don’t know what this is about,” Ron began, his voice resonant with a confidence surely gained through his verbal berating of the young officer. “I never made any 911 call. You guys must have the wrong place. Hell, I’m the only one who lives here.”

“That may be, Mr. Grimaldi,” Mickey spoke as he continued forward, coming right up to the doorway, “but we still have to check it out.”

“Hey, what is this anyway? Some kind of shake down? I didn’t make no goddamned 911 call.” Ron stood firm in the doorway, but Mickey stuck his shoulder through and began to slide past Ron and into the house. Ron dropped a hand onto Mickey’s shoulder and took a step back. “Whoa there, Sheriff. Hold on a second. I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.”

Mickey glanced down at the hand on his shoulder and felt a pulse of rage flow through him. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Mickey grabbed Ron’s wrist and lowered it off his shoulder. “Mr. Grimaldi,” he began, slowly, keeping his anger and surprise controlled. “I’m sure you can appreciate that Billy and I have a job to do. When an emergency call comes in, we respond. If you think there’s been some kind of mistake, we can check into that after we have a look through the house.”

Ron’s eyes darted back and forth between Mickey and Billy, who stood on the porch like he was lost. A moment of silence passed. Mickey could see that Ron recognized his misstep. It was evident in his eyes. After another second, Ron put his palms up in front of him and backed away. “Hey man, do what you gotta do. I’m just saying, I didn’t make no call, that’s all. But hey,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I got nothing to hide. Be my guest.” He motioned toward the living room with his hand.

Mickey stood in the center of the room with his hands on his hips, just above his gun. The room was done in black leather furniture and chrome and glass tables. It had a clean but dated look—expensive, but terribly out of style—Mickey noticed a small pipe sticking out from behind a lamp on an end table. Mickey suspected it had been hastily tucked away when the red and blue lights flashed across the window. Mickey wasn’t interested in it, but it could be a reason to make an arrest if it turned out he needed a reason. The coach’s behavior was odd enough to put Mickey on guard.

“Billy,” Mickey pointed down the hallway, “check the rooms back there.”

“Right away, Chief.” Billy darted down the corridor, flipping on the light switches as he went.

Mickey eyed Ron, still standing near the doorway, trying to look like he didn’t care about two cops rifling through his house. Near the door, a small cluster of baseball bats leaned into a corner. Under the circumstances, they should be considered weapons, and Mickey tried to lead Ron away from them. He turned and walked through the living room and into the kitchen. “The team looked pretty good tonight.”

He could hear Ron following. “Yeah, they’re doing okay. It’s tough to get them to practice. No discipline, you know how kids are.”

“Sure.” Mickey stood in the kitchen. It was a large, galley style room with cabinets dating from the fifties. Mickey imagined very little of it had been replaced since the house was built. The stove and refrigerator were newer, but still quite old. It had the feel of a kitchen where no serious cooking ever got done. Much like his own kitchen. There was a door in the wall at the end of the room. Mickey pointed to it. “This go downstairs?”

“Yeah, there’s a little cellar down there. Mostly full of junk.”

Mickey opened it and flipped on the light. A bare bulb revealed a set of steep wood stairs. He went down them and peered into the small room below. It was piled with ice chests and other camping gear. Along one wall was a large stack of old cardboard boxes filled with mason jars. On top of them was a dusty textbook about nonlinear optical physics.

“You do a lot of canning?” Mickey asked, as he came back up the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Oh, that stuff was here when I moved in. I’m just lazy, I guess.” Ron leaned against the counter with his back to the sink and his arms folded across his chest.

“How long you been here?” Mickey knew the answer, more or less, but was trying to keep the small talk going.

“Oh, about four years.”

“Where were you before that?”

“I worked at a refinery in Houston.” Ron shifted his weight and scratched behind his ear as he spoke. But despite the agitated nature of his movements, there was a certain smugness to his voice. It was almost as if he were daring someone to prove him wrong. Mickey guessed it was connected to Ron’s having his home suddenly invaded by police. He sensed a palpable outrage just below the surface of their mundane conversation.

Mickey nodded at the comment about Houston and waited for Billy to return from the other end of the house. As far as Mickey could tell, there wasn’t anything going on and perhaps the 911 call really had been a mistake. The silence between them lingered and Mickey filled it. “You come out here for the job?”

Ron nodded, “Yep. Driving forklift.”

Just then, Billy entered the kitchen and stood, looking at the two of them. He shook his head as he spoke. “I couldn’t find anything, Chief. I don’t understand who could have called.”

“I told you.” Ron shrugged. “I didn’t call 911. Hell, you hear all the time about people calling and no one ever showing up, but I’ve never heard of the cops showing up when no one calls at all. Seems kind of funny to me.” The way he said it made it clear that he meant suspicious, not humorous.

“I’m sure you can understand,” Mickey began, turning to walk back through the living room, “we have a protocol. You always have to go through the house in case there’s someone trapped somewhere.” Mickey turned back and grinned at Ron. “Those are just the rules.”

“Hey, I understand having rules. But they’re your rules, not mine. I never asked anyone to hook me up to the 911 system, and I’d be perfectly happy to be taken off the list.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not a system you can opt out of. If you’ve got a phone, you’re hooked up. That’s the problem with rules, I suppose. You don’t get to pick and choose the ones you want.” Mickey let Billy go out first and turned and stood in the open doorway. Ron still had his arms folded across his chest and an arrogant grin on his face. He stood, feet shoulder width apart, solid and confident in the center of his living room, having been proven right and knowing it.

For a second, Mickey contemplated walking over to the pipe behind the lamp and arresting the son of a bitch. Something about Ron bothered him. But then he thought about the paperwork. And then he thought about the fact that the 911 call really had been a mistake. He shouldn’t even be standing there. He should never have seen the pipe to begin with. Let it go, he told himself. What would be the point of arresting the guy? To get even with him for being pissy? To make a point of who was the most powerful guy in the room? In the end, it would only underscore the hypocrisy of his own life—enforcing a law he didn’t believe in, merely to prove to himself that there was some kind of order in the universe—but that wasn’t really why he did the job, was it? If there was a reason at all, surely it wasn’t that.

Mickey took hold of the doorknob and nodded. “Well, we’re sorry to bother you. Have a good evening. See you at the next practice.”

On his way back to the Suburban, Mickey watched a stray dog pissing on the back tire of Ron’s truck. The dog watched Mickey cross the lawn, balancing on three legs with the fourth raised and the trickle running through the dust on the wheel. When the mutt was finished, it scurried across the yard and seemed to vaporize into the darkness. Mickey stared into the void after it, struggling to see something more. A picture, an image, an answer to a question not yet formed.

But there was only Billy, with his nagging aura of uncertainty, emerging from behind him to ask whether Mickey thought it strange that the 911 call had apparently been false. “Isn’t that strange?” the young man asked.

Mickey climbed into the Suburban and started it. “The world’s full of strange things, Billy,” he said through the open window. “I’m not even sure this qualifies.”