Savage Rage (15 page)

“Oh, yeah.” Manny nodded enthusiastically. “Hey, wasn't that the day we were in that little restaurant over at Sherbourne and Dundas and you —”

Jack groaned theatrically, knowing what Manny was going to say.

“— smashed that guy's face into his eggs?”

“Admittedly, not one of my prouder moments.”

“Dude, that was awesome!”

“Oh, yeah, really awesome. Losing my temper, assaulting someone —”

“Dude, that guy deserved it.”

“— in full view of witnesses, I might add,” Jack continued. “And I put you in an awkward position. I repeat, not one of my better moments.”

“Dude,” Manny protested earnestly. “That guy spat on Sy's memory and then he spat on you. I think you showed remarkable restraint.”

Jack wouldn't admit it, but driving that asshole's face into his breakfast plate was one of the most satisfying feelings he had ever experienced. At the same time, though, he had a weird feeling, but he couldn't nail it down. Something about the guy, a crackhead judging from his scrawny build. Jack couldn't picture his face, but he remembered arms sleeved in skull tattoos.

He shrugged the weird feeling off. No big deal. “Getting back to my point. Our roles have been reversed. I'm the babysitter and you are the babysat.”

“Oh, mannnnn. . . .” Whining did not become Manny. “What did Greene say about me?”

“Surprisingly, it had something to do with your attitude, appearance and behaviour, if I recall correctly. I told you that goatee was going to get you in trouble.”

“It's a beard,” Manny defended automatically. So automatically Jack wondered how many times and to how many supervisors he'd said it. “I'm not getting rid of it.” Manny protectively stroked the emaciated strip of hair running along his jaw line.

“The
beard
aside, what else have you done to piss him off?”

“Nothing! Dude, I swear —”

“Save it for the courtroom,” Jack scolded. “Come on, Manny. I know you and there's no way you'd stay quiet about Greene.”

Manny stopped at the Gerrard Street edge of the park and avoided answering Jack by easing out into traffic. Pedestrians might have been light in the park, but in the still-wintry weather, rush hour was alive and bloated. Despite the heavy traffic, drivers in both directions were eager to stop to let the police car in. Drive around in a white police car and other drivers would needlessly yield the right of way so often it was almost irritating. But throw on the lights and siren and the police car became invisible. Go figure.

Manny slid into the street's sluggish flow and Jack pounced on him.

“What did Sy tell you about talking with supervisors?”

Manny made a point of not looking at Jack. “Dude, I didn't —”

“What did Sy tell you?”

“Dude, you gotta —”

“What did Sy tell you?”

Manny's bald head drooped between his shoulders. “‘There's no such thing as off the record with a supervisor,'” he quoted sheepishly.

“Very good, grasshopper. Now, what did you say
off the record
to our new glorious leader?”

“Not much, really.” Manny cast a quick look at Jack. “I just told him things were different now than back when he was on the road.”

“Uh-huh,” Jack snorted disbelievingly. “And did you happen to use any words like
ancient, prehistoric, antiquated?
Anything along those lines?”

Staring straight ahead, Manny confessed, “I may have said something about him being an outdated relic.”

“Fuck, Manny. You're lucky he didn't document you for insubordination. He said something about formally cautioning you?”

Manny nodded.

“More than once?”

Another nod.

“He told me he's looking to document you or transfer you.” Jack let that sink in for a second or two. “Or both.”

“Dude, he can't make me leave 51!” Manny protested.

“He can and he will. Greene strikes me as the type of guy who knows rules and regs inside out. So far he hasn't done anything wrong, just stupid. He wants me to bring the platoon together as a team while he stomps on our morale.”

“You got any ideas, man?” Manny asked, looking hopefully at Jack. “Like what you did with the gloves? Dude, that was beautiful.”

“This is a little trickier than just tuning up any asshole you find wearing leather gloves.” Jack slumped in the passenger seat, chin propped in hand. It seemed everyone was expecting him to take on the mantle of leadership, whether he wanted to or not.

“All right, Manny, it's four-thirty. Time to get out of the laneways.”

“Aw, c'mon, Jack. We've still got time.”

Jack levelled a steely glare at Manny, using his new scar to its best advantage. “Listen, you've been crawling around the laneways looking for trouble for the last half hour. Time's up. You find anything and you're doing the overtime on your own.”

Manny shuddered comically. “Dude, don't do that. That scar makes you look all evil like.”

“Really?” Jack brightened. “What kind of evil? Dracula evil or Terminator unfeeling cyborg type?”

“Definitely Terminator, man. I'm jealous.”

Jack laughed. “Well, maybe if you're lucky, you'll screw up one day and get one of your own. Now, out of the alley. Don't make me say it.” He gave Manny his best cyborg stare.

Manny giggled. “Do it, man. I gotta hear it.”

Doing his best Arnold impersonation, Jack slowly faced Manny and said, “Get. Out.”

Laughing, Manny manoeuvred the car through the laneway's tight corner behind the beer store on Gerrard. He'd spent at least the last half hour cruising the division's labyrinthine laneways hoping to stumble over something that would kill the time. The day had turned out to be on the slow side and instead of rushing to get the calls done before the end of shift they had found themselves clear with nothing on the pending screen. A crackhead smoking up, a whore blowing some guy, a hound sucking on a bottle. Anything to pass the time, but the laneways had been as quiet as the radio.

Manny turned north on Seaton Street and eased to a stop at Gerrard.

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Jack grumbled. He nodded toward his window, then leaned back so Manny could see.

“That's rude.”

Not ten feet away, on the thin stretch of grass between the sidewalk and the beer store's west brick wall, a man stood, swaying gently, as he urinated in full view of the pedestrians, rush-hour drivers and police car. And it was a hell of a good piss, judging from the blissful expression on his face. Almost too blissful; he was coming awfully close to pissing on the twelve-pack Jack figured the guy had just bought.

“There you go, grasshopper. A quick ticket for pissing in public and then we head in.” Jack laughed at himself.
Quoting movies, calling him grasshopper. I'm turning into Sy.

Jack advised the dispatcher and they got out of the car, Manny armed with his ticket book, as the man shook off the last few drops.

He noticed the cops as he was zipping up. “Thorry, offithers,” he slurred around a happy grin. “I hadda go.”

“Apparently. You know, you could have gone around the corner into the alley.”

The man, unkempt from his ripped runners to the tips of his greasy hair, nodded in solemn agreement with Manny.

Manny, standing in front of the man with his gun side bladed away, gestured to the busy street, its cars and pedestrians. “Do you think all these nice people on the way home from work needed to see you pissing on the sidewalk? Didn't your mother raise you better?” Manny shook his head in disgust. “Let's see some ID, bud.”

“I'm thorry,” the man repeated as he dug out a battered wallet.

As he dropped his head to dig through the wallet, he teetered forward. Manny reached out a gloved hand to gently set him upright. Jack, positioned on the man's right and slightly behind so as to be out of sight, raised an anticipatory hand, but it wasn't needed. The drunk wobbled but didn't go down. Showing off his remaining teeth with a shit-eating grin, he proudly handed Manny his ID.

“A Seaton House card? This all you got —” Manny consulted the hostel's card “— Eric?”

Eric nodded, big loopy nods, each one threatening to overbalance him.

Manny reached for his mitre, then looked at Jack. “Should I run him?”

“And if he comes back wanted on some chickenshit warrant?” Jack asked around Eric's tilting shoulder.

“Right.” Manny tucked the radio in its carrier and flipped open his ticket book.

“You ain't givin me a ticket, is you?” Eric suddenly perked up.

“'Course I am. Can't have you pissing wherever you want, now, can we? What would my mother think if I let you walk away from this without suffering the appropriate consequences?”

“Fuck your mother!” Eric proclaimed defiantly and snatched his ID back.

Or tried to. Manny neatly stepped away and Eric reeled forward, saving himself from an embarrassing face-plant in his own urine by thrusting out an unsteady leg. Bent nearly horizontal with his legs stretched out beneath him, he swung blindly at Manny and once again almost dumped himself.

With an amused grin, Manny placed his hand on Eric's head and pushed ever so gently. Pinwheeling his arms, Eric tottered backward. For the briefest of moments, he paused, his balance within reach, his arms and one leg thrust out like some fucked-up scarecrow. Then gravity, aided by brain cells stewed in cheap alcohol, won the contest and down Eric went. He fell on his ass, avoiding his steaming puddle but still making a decent
splat!
in the soggy ground.

“Sorry, dude.” Manny shrugged apologetically and snapped open his handcuff pouch.

Jack shook his head. By the time they got mumble-fuck to the station, searched, lodged and the paperwork done, it would probably be close to an hour of overtime. If they didn't have to wait long to parade him, that was. Overtime on his first day back at 51. Jack, thinking of Karen, could hear the argument already.

They flipped Eric over in the mud to snap the cuffs on and then hauled him upright. At the car, they leaned him over the trunk for the search, more of a thorough patdown; the complete, smelly, disgusting strip search, one of the things they didn't tell you about at the police college, would come later at the station.

“I've got this, Jack.” Manny quickly swapped his leather gloves for latex; Eric was muddy and damp and leather tended to absorb fluids.

“I want muh beer! Don't you forget muh beer!” In his indignation, Eric's alcohol-induced speech impediment had cleared up.

“Shut up,” Manny advised Eric. Finished with his lower half, Manny raised him off the trunk to search his threadbare lumber jacket. Jack stood by, his left hand clamped around Eric's right arm.

“I want muh beer.” Eric turned to Jack, his face dripping soupy mud. With all the dogs in the neighbourhood, Jack wondered how much of the goop on Eric's nose and chin wasn't mud. “Go get my fuckin' beer,” he ordered and jerked his head at Jack to emphasize his earnestness.

Jack turned his head, but mud still splatted onto his cheek and neck. It was cold and he could feel the slime trail as the mud slid to his collar. Jack let go of Eric and wiped his neck and face, flinging globbing muck to the sidewalk.

“I said, get muh fuckin' beer.”

“That's it, fuckhead.” Jack reached for Eric, murder in his eyes, but Eric was too drunk to notice.

“Jack, people are watching,” Manny cautioned fervently, his voice pitched so it wouldn't carry to the small group of curious spectators.

Jack stopped, one hand on Eric, the other twitching at his side, eager to draw back and let fly the punishment. He looked at Manny, who shook his head ever so slightly.

“Witnesses, Jack.”

“Yeah, Jack. Wit-sees. Go get muh beer.” Eric grinned like the moron he was, too drunk, too stupid to know how close he had come to a trip to the hospital.

“You finished the search?” Jack asked through gritted teeth.

“Yup, all done.”

Jack yanked open the car's rear door. “Get this shit out of my sight.”

They stuffed Eric into the back seat and Jack slammed the door on his demands for them to “get muh beer.” Jack reached into the front seat and grabbed some napkins from under the visor — there were always napkins under police car visors; cops were notoriously sloppy when it came to eating in cars they didn't have to clean — and wiped the mud off his skin.
And it's only mud
, he kept repeating until he was satisfied he was clean.

“Dude, that was close. You looked like you were going to kill him.”

Jack drew a deep breath, held it and blew the tension out with it. He balled up the napkins and tossed them onto the passenger floorboard — notoriously sloppy — before trusting himself to speak.

“Tell the truth, I felt like murdering him. I haven't lost my temper like that since . . . I can't remember when.”

Oh really? How about with Karen's dad? Hm?

“If'n I was you, I'da slugged 'im one.”

The tiny crowd of onlookers, hoping for some real-life police brutality, had drifted away disappointed. But standing at the front of the scout car was an ancient black man bundled up in a thick parka despite the flush of spring in the air. At his feet was a small and equally ancient dog.

A grin banished the scowl from Jack's face. “Phil. Good to see you.”

“I thought it was you, Officer Jack, but I wasn' sure. Haven' seen you aroun' much these days.” A matching smile stretched the already taut skin around Phil's mouth.

“They had me tucked away someplace safe and boring. How are you doing?” Jack took Phil's hand gently, not wanting to cause the elderly gent any pain; his hands were misshapen lumps, the knuckles swollen grotesquely by arthritis. “Manny, this is Phil, we met last year.”