Cop Out (3 page)

“And you both want your message, your product, as it were, to reach the shoppers on the Avenue, right?”

This time the nods came more quickly.

“So here’s what we’ll do. You’re familiar with Hyde Park Corner in London, their sacred ground of free speech. Why not have a Hyde Park Corner here in Berkeley? We have speakers in Sproul Plaza on campus, but no place set aside in the city itself. And Telegraph’s the primo place.”

“Aw right!” Whistles and bass cheers from half the audience seemed to startle Hemming. Beside him Brother Cyril’s thin lips curled up into a disbelieving smile. Not much of Serenity Kaetz was on camera, but it was enough to show a fist clamping down hard.

Hemming held up his hands. “Let me finish. Telegraph Avenue is primo but not perfect. Perfect is the corner of People’s Park, near enough to be seen on Telegraph, and with a speaker system every word can be piped out there.”

“Hey! What the—” came from the audience.

Brother Cyril’s thin smile vanished, his narrow features sucked in tightly, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as if desperate to plug the venom about to spew forth. His fingers squeezed into fists. He didn’t speak, and the only thing that revealed his fury was a slight, uncontrollable bobbing of his Adam’s apple. I felt I could see a hard black knot smoldering behind it; he would never be able to swallow without its blocking his windpipe.

Hemming reached a hand toward the preacher’s shoulder, then seemed to reconsider. “And here’s the added good you’ll be doing, Brother. You’ll fill the park with righteous men, believers. You’ll create the kind of atmosphere drug dealers hate. Your message will be cleaning up People’s Park.”

Serenity Kaetz’s expression turned to one of amazement.

But Hemming didn’t see that. His eyes never left Cyril. Perhaps it took the brother a minute to realize how bad he would look refusing the deal. Or perhaps he spotted unintended possibilities in Bryant’s offer.

“A fair deal, right, Brother Cyril?” Hemming’s voice fluttered.

Cyril stood stone still for a moment before extending his hand to Serenity Kaetz. By the time she shook it, she was smiling. Cyril’s sucked-in expression never changed. The theme music rose, the camera moved in close on the clasped hands, and the credits rolled.

I stretched. “How long do you give that deal?”

Pereira tucked a foot under her thigh. “It’s four days to Thanksgiving. If Brother Cyril doesn’t manage to empty the Avenue of buyers this weekend, the truce could make it for two weeks. But if he ruins the biggest shopping weekend of the year, I’d say we’re out there in uniform, batons in hand, by Sunday.”

Howard groaned. “And by Monday both the vendors and the brothers will be ‘victims’ and we’ll be the bad guys.” He glanced at me. “Or we will be if your friend Ott has anything to do with it.” He didn’t move, but his hand resting on my shoulder tightened. “So, Jill, it’s five o’clock. Shouldn’t the phone be ringing?”

“Come on, Howard,” Pereira said, “Ott’s a Berkeley person; his time is fluid.”

“Right, fluid like water under the dam. Jill, when has he ever called back? Ever?”

Howard was right, more or less. And when he got around to telling me I should have known better, he’d be right too. But understanding that something is your own fault rarely makes you feel better.

I glanced at the detritus of chips and dip. “We’re going to need something for dinner. Vietnamese?”

“I’ll keep a pen handy so I can take a message when Ott calls.”

“No gifts are necessary,” I snapped.

“My gift, Jill, was not telling anyone but Connie where you went this afternoon.” Howard was still standing next to me, his hand stonelike on my shoulder, his voice as cold as I’d heard it in interrogations. “I didn’t tell your friends that you rushed out to accommodate a guy who shits on them.”

Connie grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. “I gotta go. Bryant Hemming’s going to be interviewed on the local news tonight. Be interesting to hear his take on the mediation. He’s on at six. I gotta rush.” She was jabbering, trying to propel herself away before things got worse here.

As soon as she was out the door, I pulled loose from Howard’s hand. “I’ve had enough hassle already today. I don’t want to deal with your attitude about Ott. Call in the order to Da Nang, and they’ll have it by the time I get across town. If I hurry, I can get back in time for the interview.”

I was out the door before he could answer. No one in the department liked Ott, of course. Plenty of officers held him in a special contempt. But Howard’s reaction was different; I could see it in his suddenly pale face, hear it in his icy voice. He should have felt the affinity I did for Ott’s commitment to his principles. Howard, the King of Sting, should have applauded Ott’s maneuvers, but their similarity in that regard just scraped him closer to the bone.

No one hates conflict more than Howard, particularly conflict in his home and most particularly with me. There was a level to his scorn of Herman Ott that I didn’t understand. If I hadn’t been so annoyed, I’d have done the wise thing and found out what caused it.

I
STOPPED AT A
phone booth on University Avenue and called Herman Ott. He didn’t answer.
Of course
he didn’t answer. He wouldn’t have picked up the receiver if Ed McMahon had been calling. “Ott,” I said into the phone, “you contacted me; you dragged me to a meeting for nothing. You said you’d call me by five—half an hour ago—and now you don’t even have the courtesy to reach over and pick up the receiver. I know you’re there.” I
didn’t
know, but I was too pissed to deal with that. “Call me at home. Tonight.”

Maybe he’s
not
there, I thought, as I drove across town to the Da Nang Restaurant on San Pablo Avenue to pick up dinner. Maybe he was going out of town, and he wanted someone to know.

But I couldn’t believe that Ott would leave town. And if he did suddenly, why would he use me as his tether? Surely he had friends and associates he trusted more than a police officer.

But that was the thing: he didn’t. His associates were not the types you would trust with your files, much less your life.

I pondered that while I picked up the coconut satay and chicken brochettes, and if I hadn’t had the food in the car, I would have swung by Telegraph Avenue and bearded Ott in his den. His reason for not getting back to me wasn’t the issue; even the animosity he’d spawned wasn’t it. The bottom line was that a police officer doesn’t keep her sources by allowing them to blow her off.

When I got home, Howard was sprawled on the couch, left arm hooked over the back, right leg stretched across the coffee table. He looked back to normal. The truth, I knew, was that he didn’t want any more dissension. That was fine with me.

“Bryant Hemming’s already on,” he said, nodding toward the TV. He hadn’t looked up. That was fine with me too.

I put the cartons on the table and plopped on the ottoman. On the television screen Bryant Hemming was smiling. The man looked so pleased it was hard not to be pleased for him.

Next to him at the news table Jason Figueroa, the young anchor, made a quarter turn toward him. “What’s this we hear about your being called to mediate in Washington? You’ll be focusing on your specialty—disputes with bureaucracies, right? So, does that mean the Berkeley way has finally become legitimate?”

Bryant Hemming nodded. In a light denim shirt and chinos, he could have been a Cal professor or a checkout clerk at Andronico’s Market. A man giving you something. “This is an important—a vital—project, if I do say so myself, and I’m delighted such a prestigious foundation in Washington is getting behind it.”

“The Mutual Respect Project,” Figueroa slid in. “We’ll be following your progress with it, Bryant, in a weekly segment here on the evening news. And we—”

“Here’s why it’s so vital.” Hemming leaned forward. “People are pissed off all over. Like these homegrown militiamen, and the radical right, and the radical leftists; everyone is pushed to the wall. But the thing is they’re not bulldozed by one big force, ‘the government.’ They’re pecked to death by a flock of smaller, often unintentional tyrants. Phone company marketers interrupting their dinners. People just want to mail letters and use the phone and get on with life. But see, these bureaucracies keep pecking. And when the citizen tries to deal with them, there’s no one to take responsibility. All people want is to be treated fairly and with respect. Bureaucrats want to be viewed as serving the public, but most of the time they just don’t know how.” He was looking right at the camera, imploring me to understand. Just as he’d done on
A Fair Deal
and just as effectively.

“And are they happy when you point them out?” Figueroa asked, barely controlling a grin.

Hemming had his smile in place too. “Well, Jason, a bureaucracy that sloughs off its clients isn’t likely to treat its workers much better. It’s demoralizing to represent a department people hate or, worse yet, scorn. What’s the TV image of the postal worker? Do you think letter carriers like to be portrayed that way? Of course not. Wouldn’t they rather work for a place they could be proud of?”

Howard laughed. “Are we talking Utopia here?”

“—Washington power brokers,” Figueroa was saying. “Won’t you be stepping on toes asking them to compromise?”

Howard held up a finger. “Translation: Those guys don’t want to compromise; they want to win. Hemming better watch his ass.”

On the screen Bryant Hemming simply smiled. “Good mediation means everyone benefits. The Mutual Respect Project is a great breakthrough. If it takes hold, think of the difference it’ll make. We can nip people’s fury in the bud. The project will save lives, not just through a lessening of tension in everyday life…”

Figueroa didn’t utter the word
overblown
, but the sentiment was barely masked on his face.

Hemming took a quick breath, a debater’s breath. “If people thought the government, the IRS, the post office, were fair…If people treated each other with respect…”

“What about Brother Cyril—”

“No,” he snapped. “Let’s focus on the greater impact of the Mutual Respect Project. This is critical,” he said, back in stride. “Because, really, what choice do we have? In an age when anyone can buy a gun, when you can blow up a building with fertilizer, how are we going to protect ourselves? More police, more metal detectors, more roped-off areas—if you think that’ll make you safe, then you’re really talking pie in the sky. No battalion of guards or miles of barbed wire can keep out a crazy committed to killing.

“The only chance we’ve got is to go at conflict from the other end. When you’ve got a disgruntled employee with a bomb, there are two things to look at. We know there’s no way we can prevent him from making the bomb. Maybe, though, we can keep him from becoming so disgruntled.”

“An inspiring concept, Bryant. But all great generalities come back to the particulars. Brother Cyril. What happens when he’s preaching half a block off Telegraph and the street vendors bring in a band and drown him out. What happens to your mediation settlement then?”

Hemming’s smile looked fragile. “Mediation stresses the integrity of the parties involved”—he paused for an instant—“but occasionally people do have second thoughts, and we are prepared to consult with them. It’s part of our service—”

“But you’ll be in Washington. Gone.”

“Bryant Hemming will be gone, yes. The Arts and Creativity Council, the umbrella organization for our mediation service, will still be here, headed by my fine assistant, Roger Macalester, an old-time Berkeley hand.”

“Lucky Roger,” Howard said. “Hope he’s got a mop.”

“I never heard of Brother Cyril till he started marching down Telegraph like it was Palm Sunday. Who is he anyway?” I hadn’t meant the question to throw us into shoptalk. But if I had mapped out the evening with the goal of improving it, I couldn’t have taken a better turn. When I was going through my divorce years ago, and Howard and I were bent on ignoring the attraction that itched beneath every epidermal centimeter, we clothed our unacceptable urges in the garb of talking cases. We spent long, intense evenings palpating the pulsating questions of warrant data, digging our fingers deep into the hidden meanings in suspects’ interviews. Looking into forbidden eyes, brushing against fingers, talking ever more intently till our words barely bobbed above the sea of wanting.

Talking shop had served us well. It still could.

But Howard took the bait only halfway.

H
OWARD HEADED UPSTAIRS.
N
ONE
of the tenants was home, but any of them could burst into the living room at any time, with any number of friends. Howard was the chief lessee of the house, and it was his—in theory. Practically, the only rooms he controlled were his bedroom and the section of mine in which he stored his excess stuff. He longed to buy this place, which was entirely too large for us, and have space for every friend traveling through town, plus a study, breakfast room, library, game room, and never to have a whim he couldn’t house. It unnerved him that I could go on comfortably without so much as putting my mark on his bedroom, where we slept, or unpacking my cartons in my furnitureless room next door.

I checked for messages, though Howard surely would have told me if Ott had deigned to call (he hadn’t). Then I followed Howard upstairs.

He settled on his California king-sized bed and leaned back against the headboard.

“So, Cyril?” I prodded, punching my own pillow into sitting shape.

“Cyril’s been around Monterey County for a while. Had a storefront church, one of those that make you wonder how he comes up with the rent.

Then he hit on the idea of soliciting guys from the halfway houses to hoist and carry for minimum wage.”

“Hoist and carry what?”

Howard shrugged. The product wasn’t his point. “I know this type of guy,” he said, his voice lower, “from when I was a kid.”

This, I realized, was why Howard had moved upstairs. He rarely mentioned his childhood and never without a flurry of embarrassment as if he had exposed a raw and suspicious rash. He had grown up in a series of valley towns to which his free-spirited mother had flitted, alighting for months, weeks, or on more than one occasion fewer than seven days, yanking her son from the hope of security time after time. For Howard, the lure of stability grew so seductive that he chose a career protecting the kind of life he’d never had and a house he could spend the rest of his life rehabilitating. As if she understood the symbolism, his mother had never even been to this house. She still moved so often that Howard had no address for her, and his annual contact was likely to consist of a box of cookies she sent on a whim—with no return address. But she held sway in his mind, the ultimately alluring absent parent.