Dream Walker (3 page)

Once he had sufficiently timed himself out and was sure he wouldn’t physically abuse expensive department equipment, he gently pressed another key so he could read the call details.

911 Hang-Up: 508 Magnolia Ave. Male juvenile whispering “Two sticks and a bucket” repeatedly before disconnecting. No answer on callback.

Mathis checked his watch. 4 a.m.
Are you fucking kidding me?
This was supposed to be “nap time,” not “deal with fucking bullshit time.”

He reached for his Starbucks. Every Friday he held Briefing at the local ’Bucks, making the officer with the fewest arrests for the week pay for the Watch’s order. That officer only got a reprieve if another officer came in late for his shift. And
that
officer only got off if another officer had been a complete idiot in some way or another during the workweek.

They all could pretty much count on it always being F’in G’s turn to buy. The rookie still hadn’t figured his way around the rodeo yet. If he wasn’t running late, he was too busy correcting his crap-ass reports to make any arrests, or he was making some other boneheaded mistake.

The ’Bucks buy tonight was earned the night before when F’in G decided to key up the radio to inform everyone that it had started raining in his part of town. Mathis had to school him on department policy about frivolous use of the radio and remind him he was a police officer, not the weatherman.

Mathis took a sip from his cup and sucked in a cold, gelatinous film of caffeinated smegma. His Grande, Quad Shot, Non-fat, Caramel Macchiato was now an
Iced,
Grande, Quad Shot, Non-fat, Caramel Macchiato with a head of slime. Spit or swallow were his only choices. With nowhere to spit the wad out, he forced it to the back of his throat and swallowed, praying he wouldn’t upchuck.

Mathis gouged his fingers into his eye sockets again.

The dispatcher keyed up the radio, breaking what should have been the blessed silence of a seasonably slow, winter morning.

“M27, with S21, respond to a 911 hang up detail at 508 Magnolia. Line disconnected. No answer on call back.” She repeated the basics of what was already written in the call, except now, she sounded pissed. Having to pick up her fat, left toe and push down on the radio pedal must have been too much for the ol’ gal because you could hear the I-already-lifted-my-index-finger-to-send-you-this-fucking-detail-and-now-you-are-making-me-break-from-eating-my-Hot-Pocket-to-talk-to-your-dumb-asses attitude in her tone of voice.

Fuckin’ dispatchers.

Obviously, the watch didn’t give a gnat’s ass about a punk-ass kid prank-calling 911 at zero-dark-thirty in the morning to break from their Angry Birds game and dispatch themselves to the damn call. So dispatch decided to send F’in G with a Sergeant for a cover.

Not. Fucking. Cool.

Briefing topic for next week: dispatch yourself to the fucking call so your sergeant doesn’t get sent with the rookie.

Mathis looked up the address on the MDC’s mapping system. 508 Magnolia Avenue. Nice neighborhood. Tree-lined streets of old Modesto, classic homes occupied by doctors, lawyers, and business owners with spoiled, punk-ass kids who think they are being cute calling the 5-0.

Well, he was sure getting ’em now. Once they heard S21 being dispatched as a cover, the whole watch hopped to. Mathis watched as all the little po-po cars in the city blipped across the map toward Magnolia. Second briefing topic: every single officer in town does
not
have to respond to a prank call detail...depleting resources...blah, blah, blah.

Mathis shut the laptop screen. Its fluorescent glow was hurting his eyes. At 52, he was getting too old for this. Admin had practically begged him two years ago to use up his sick time and go out to pasture so they could promote some ass-lickin’ golden boy up the ladder. But Mathis had outright refused. They couldn’t make him. This was the career that he built—he got to decide when it was time to walk away.

The brass finally left it alone. Although his no-holds-barred, shoot-from-the-hip style never earned him bars, Mathis was one of the very few leaders in the department that officers actually listened to and respected—the last of a dying breed.

Which was really what kept him from retiring. The
dying
part. Mathis had a very good gut feeling that if he stopped doing the second best thing that ever happened in his life, he’d either die of boredom or that the overwhelming grief that he’d been carrying around inside would finally do him in.

It wasn’t that he never dreamed of retirement. He had once. He had planned his whole career around 3 percent at 50; he maxed out his 401k, made investments and paid off his mortgage. He was going to sell his house when the real estate market was so ripe he would have pocketed four times the purchase price then immediately drive over to JZ’s and pay cash for the Dream Ride 50-footer with the master bedroom suite and oversized kitchenette. Then he was going to head out to fulfill his lifelong dream of seeing every state in the union with the best thing that ever happened in his life, Denise.

He was going to be the pilot, Denise, the navigator, just like she had always been, the navigator of his life, the magnetic north of his heart. When the cancer had eaten through to her lymph nodes before they ever knew it had already attacked her breasts, his well-thought-out path toward his Golden Years evaporated from under his feet.

She didn’t even have a chance. There was nothing high maintenance in her death, just as there had been nothing high maintenance about her life. She was ill a month, then gone. Nothing long and drawn out. A few kisses, a short goodbye; and just like that, Mathis was left without his compass, without his soul.

Mathis made a left onto Sycamore, then a right onto Magnolia. There were three units there already. No wait, four. Officer Simmons decided to break from his nightly Code 7 at his beat-wife’s house to show up at the call. Hell must have frozen over.

Mathis parked two houses to the east of the 508 address, noting that F’in G, was standing outside his vehicle, directly
in front
of the house, shucking it up with all the swagger of a douche bag. Piss poor officer safety, that’s what that was. Third briefing topic: even if it is a stupid, fucking call, do not park in front of the incident address...blah, blah, blah...you’re buying the ’Bucks.

The dispatchers were the ones who christened an officer with his nickname—and they were always spot on. Special Ed, Dingleberry, Speed Bump, Captain Chaos and F’in G were just a few of the apt monikers that had been bestowed upon fuck-ups over the years. If you were a decent cop, they called you by your name.

“Heeeeeeeeerrrrre’s Johnny,” hollered F’in G as Mathis pulled himself out of his patrol car.

He must have heard the ol’ timers at the department refer to Mathis as “Johnny” in the locker room. It was a gentle ribbing about his karaoke inclination. Mathis didn’t even sing Johnny Mathis. They shoulda called him Dierks or Merle or Waylon or Willie. Actually, they should just call him Bob. That was his name. That’s what dispatch called him.

And F’in G? He shoulda been calling him Sergeant, or better yet,
Sir
. Briefing topic number four: policy review regarding insubordination.

Mathis decided to approach the house with the rookie after all and teach him a lesson about
real
command presence: making your leather squeak just right, turning up the volume on your portable so the punk-ass could hear the radio chatter, jingling the jail cell keys on your belt and assuming the bladed stance at the door like you were prepared to kick his ass if need be. This would make a very intimidating impression if Punk-Ass happened to be watching from a window.

Mathis and F’in G made their way up the front path of the white colonial style home with classic columns on the porch. The front door was painted bright red. Some kind of feng shui thing, Mathis supposed.

Once they reached the door and assumed the position, Mathis rang the doorbell, slow and deliberate.

Diiinng Doooong...

They stood there for a time, allowing the parents inside to have their “what the fuck?” moment. F’in G took this pause in the action as an opportunity to spit some of his chew juice into a potted plant. Mathis thought about adding another briefing topic, but decided briefing was already going to be 30 minutes too long.

“Chew is out of uniform standards,” he growled instead. “Get rid of it or gut it.” F’in G looked surprised, apparently forgetting he had half a can of Cope in his bottom lip. He scrambled to scoop and spit it out in the planter.

Real. Fucking. Classy.

Mathis rang the doorbell again.

Diiinng Doooong...

Mom should be shooing Dad outta bed about now, urging him to get some chones on and see who was at the door.

After another bit of waiting, it was time to whip out the Maglight and rap on the door, real loud.
Rat-Tet-Tet-Tat-Tat
, five times, with all the authority of the badge.

Punk-Ass would be pissin’ his pants, Dad would be trippin’ over his tighty whities and Mom would be hissing at Dad to hurry the fuck up.

No one answered the door.

“Shit. It’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra out here,” Mathis said. “You check around the south side and I’ll meet you around back.”

“All right, Sarg.”

Holy shit!
An utterance with some semblance of respect. Maybe the kid was trainable after all, thought Mathis. Then the G smiled at him—his teeth covered with dip fleas.
Yeah, maybe not.

He watched as F’in G started to work his way around the house, stopping to look into the first window and startling when he saw his own reflection staring back at him.
Yeah, definitely not.
The officers standing out at their vehicles watching this goat-fuck snickered.

Mathis worked his way around the north side of the house. He stopped at the large picture window facing the street. This was the Christmas tree window, for sure. Mathis looked into what these people called the living room, although no actual living ever took place in it. Like all other “living” rooms, it was pristine, vacuum lines still visible in the carpet. It was decorated like the cover of a magazine and well furnished in what Mathis would describe as “Hoity-toity Foo Foo”. Nice, but he preferred the “old bastard chic” of his pad.

Mathis made his way around the corner to the side gate. Before going into the backyard, he listened for the rabid panting of the family Fido. He would hate to have to put a bullet in a beloved pooch. That never goes over well.

Once he was sure Cujo wasn’t lying in wait, he made his way to the next window. This appeared to be the master bedroom. It was clean and chic, decorated in crisp white linens and tan walls. That Ralph Lauren dude would have been proud.

Mathis noted that the bed was still perfectly made. It was four o’clock in the morning. It shoulda looked slept in. Better yet, Mom shoulda been sitting in it, half naked, while Dad was at the door talking to the police. That would have made the trip worth it. But, no, the bed was just like the maid left it that morning. Maybe the parents were out of town and left Mr. Punk-Ass alone for the week.

He turned the corner into the backyard just as F’in G was coming around the other side. He gave Mathis a shrug, looking disappointed he hadn’t discovered the crime of the century.

Mathis moved toward the last window on his side of the house. If there was nothing here, they’d clear. There would be no bustin’ down the door to do an interior check. No need for that kind of hoopla. Just 10-8, NR this thing and everyone could go catch a nap or finish their paper for the week. It was the end of their workweek, after all. The sooner they wrapped this up, the faster they could all go home to their families and Mathis could enjoy his La-Z-Boy and maybe spend some quality time down at Sammy’s with a mic in one hand and a Coors in the other.

The last room looked like an office. The large, mahogany desk with the computer sitting on top gave it away. The computer was in screensaver mode and family photographs faded in and out on the glowing screen. A photo of a nerdy-looking dad with his arm around a how’d-he-score-that MILF was replaced by a montage of a wholesome and sunny teenage girl. Here she was as a cheerleader. See her going to the prom. Now she is graduating from high school. This one is her in front of UCLA as she is dropped off at college. The montage ended and another set came floating across the screen.

Ah, here was the perp now. A cute, little boy, appeared on the screen, fishing pole in hand with his first fish dangling from it. In the next shot he looked about 11, posing in his soccer uniform, arms around a brand new black and white ball. The photo caught him mid-laugh, with a dazzling smile, dimple in his right cheek, and a bright glint in his eyes.

“Good lookin’ kid,” Mathis said to F’in G as he sidled up beside him. “That,
and
being privileged? No wonder he thinks he can get away with this crap.”

The next photo swept across the screen. It was the same kid, just a little older, but damn, what a difference. His hair was longer, disheveled and falling in his eyes. He wore a black sweatshirt with white skull and crossbones splashed all over it. He looked as if someone was forcing him to take the picture, reluctant and petulant. His chin was down and he looked up through his bangs, shooting a withering glare, not at the camera, but at the person behind it. It looked as though, if he could of got away with it, he would have stuck his tongue out or flipped the photographer the bird.