Campanelli: Sentinel (3 page)

              Frank noticed his partner’s scrutiny and the smile disappeared. Williams turned and saw that Tam had bounded around the counter and into the kitchen for something. When Marcus turned back to Frank, he received a hard stare of expectancy.

              “Something amuses you?” Campanelli drilled.

              “Uh, no. It’s just that she’s happy.”

              “So why you starin’ at
me
?” Frank went on, turning his stool so that his entire body now faced his partner.

              “Uh,” Marcus stammered. Though he was much larger than Frank, who stood barely five feet, eight inches, there was something intangibly solid about the older man that just got to him. It was not fear that he felt and it was not simply a matter of respect, though Williams had seen his partner involved in some scuffles over the past year, so he knew how absolutely crazy Campanelli could become when provoked. To make matters worse, it was hard to know when the man was kidding. “Damn it, Frank!” he settled on, crossing his arms exasperatingly.

              Frank uttered a short laugh and smacked his partner on the arm.

              It was not a long wait for the food and once the two had finished, Campanelli had Marcus drive him home. Tam was to stop by Frank’s for dinner later that evening.

              Marcus dropped him off at home and as he ambled up the stairs to his residence, Frank felt the fatigue in every muscle at each step. It was ten thirty in the morning and despite the nearly six hours of sleep that he did get, he was as tired as if he had been awake for twenty four hours.

              Entering his condo, he laid his sport coat over a dining room table and placed a cigarette in his mouth as he removed his tie. Lying that on the kitchen counter, Frank shuffled to the bedroom and, deciding that he was too tired to even smoke, placed the cigarette and lighter onto the nightstand. After quickly removing his shoes, he dropped onto the bed and promptly fell asleep.

***

              Two and a half hours later, the stuffiness of the room awakened him. Uncomfortable, Frank rolled out of bed and went to the window. Opening it, he found the air was close to the same temperature, but there was a soothing breeze beyond it. He changed into a simple t-shirt but kept his slacks.

              Frank puttered around the house for a time, opening windows and cleaning this thing and that. With the sliding patio doors opened, the breeze, which now bordered on a stout wind, cascaded through his living space, cooling it in nature’s indelible efficiency.

              He stood at the patio door, taking in the clean air and becoming utterly refreshed in its comfort. It was at that moment that his mind revisited the previous night. The vision of Sam Whethers’s surprise at being shot came to his mind’s eye. The man had stood completely still for several seconds while Jimmy Antony, the man that had run behind Sam and used him as a shield, dove for cover behind his vehicle. Whethers, bleeding heavily from his upper chest, stared at a point up in the sky with his mouth wide open in anguish. Then, Sam Whethers collapsed onto the tarmac in a crumpled pile of humanity like a marionette with its strings cut.

              It was at that point that Linda, Sam’s wife screamed. That moment hung there in Campanelli’s mind in perfect, natural clarity. It was a portrait of a man dying by his gun, lying there in front of him as a woman howls in horror.

              Since he had shared the file of his implant’s account, everyone knew exactly what he had done. Campanelli wondered if they would perceive a shaking of his hand or a hesitation, even though he recalled neither. He considered watching the visual account of the shooting just to prove it to himself, but he refrained. He knew that he would hear if it were determined to be his fault. Vanek said it was not, Williams said it was not, but Frank wondered.

              After a few moments of inflection, he turned to the kitchen and retrieved his bottle of bourbon and a glass from the cabinet. He stepped out into the windy May day and reclined on his cushioned lounger. Pouring himself some, he sipped the bourbon at first to savor it and then downed the rest and poured another.

             
Time heals all wounds but can never bring someone back from the dead
, his mind composed without Frank’s conscious will. He thought that sentence again and again to burn it into his natural memory, drank from his glass and leaned his head back.

              The sun was peaking over the top of his home, washing the patio with its brilliant yellow glow. His implanted lenses reacted automatically and dimmed his vision to a comfortable level. Though, as he lay there taking in the heat, he decided to shut down the implanted network altogether. Darkness enshrouded him as the sun’s heat warmed his body, making the eastward wind even more comforting.

              In the long moments that followed, Frank’s thoughts eventually drifted to things less painful. He listened to the world going on around him as he blindingly reached out to the glass and put it to his lips. Once it emptied some minutes later, he left it so and drifted to sleep once again.

              An unknown amount of time went by him when he awoke to the droning roar of a rare commercial jet as it headed east. He could tell by the warmth throughout his body that he had absorbed much of the sun’s rays, though it had been tempered by the wind. Frank stood and steadied himself against the lightheadedness the bourbon had given him. Stepping into his home, he made his way to the dining room with a hand upon the kitchen counter. Finding the table, he located his coat and retrieved his blind man’s cane from within its inner pocket.

              He had been meaning to practice some more with the recently purchased item, but he had either not found the time or had been too embarrassed or proud to pull it from his pocket while out in public or anywhere near District One. Frank had found the used “
RadarCane
,” as it was marketed, at an antique shop and thought it would work well at times when his implant’s batteries went low. The nearly forty year old item was rather rare for some reason and, having been well put together, it functioned perfectly.

              Campanelli pressed the round button at the hilt and the cane extended softly to its full length in a pair of seconds. Immediately, the cane emitted a low pulsating hum from the far tip, which indicated that the end was close to the ground. Holding it out in front of him and sweeping it left and right, the
RadarCane
issued high-tones, lower hums and growls to indicate the presence of items in the room. A higher hum told the user that an object was detected on the left and that tone became louder once the user stepped closer to it. Frank stepped to his left and forward, quickly finding the couch. On sweeps to the right, a low hum indicated the presence of an object there. As he went toward it, the growl became louder and, reaching out with his right hand found what he had expected to find, a dining room chair.

              The third tone was most important to Frank. Lifting the cane’s tip from the ground, the low pulsating hum quieted. Pointing the tip toward the wall somewhere out in front of him, the low ‘wows’ started up again, though far less so than when in contact with the floor. Campanelli took several steps toward the wall that he knew was there, sending the
RadarCane
’s pulsating tone well upward in volume. Touching the wall with the tip, the cane sent out a constantly repeating low tone, which was referred to as a collision warning in the manual. In a few minutes of playing about, Frank made his way throughout his condominium without so much as a bump to his hip, something he routinely did walking in and out of rooms with his eyes turned off.

              It was at this time that the door announced a visitor. Frank had not been expecting Tam until five, perhaps six in the evening. Even without his implant activated, he knew that it was not yet five as the first “L” train of the evening had not yet gone by along the tracks outside his home.

              “Who is it?” he called as he retracted the cane and activated his implant.

              “Umm, it’s Tamara,” she called from the other side. Unaware that Frank could not see her in the peephole but assuming that he was kidding, she careful annunciated her name and brought her face close to the tiny lens. “Tamara Billingsley,” she went on happily, “the girl you’ve been dating for a year.”

              “One sec,” Frank answered, annoyed that the “L” train could now be heard approaching. He had truly slept a lot that day and, though he had indeed been refreshed, much of his day was now gone.

              His front door came into view as the implanted network finished booting up. The time was five-oh-eight. Frank quickly opened the door to greet Tam.

              “Wow,” she said as she stepped inside, “looks like I just woke you up.”

              “It is that obvious?”

              “Yeah. Are you okay?”

              “Yeah, sure,” he answered as he took stock of her. Tam had taken the time to get out of her diner’s uniform and change into one of her “Going out” outfits. Consisting of a traditional, but very trendy, knee-length black skirt with a shiny pearl white blouse, she looked great. Tam had also changed her makeup and shoes from her normal professional look to something a bit more eye catching. Shorter than Campanelli by a couple inches, her heels lifted her shapely frame to his level. Frank became very conscious of his t-shirt and wrinkled slacks.

              “I take it you haven’t checked what’s playing yet,” she said as more of a question once they had kissed ‘hello’.

              “Nope,” he admitted and backed to the bedroom door.

              “That’s okay, I did,” she said and followed him, “and you’ll be glad I did because guess what’s playing tomorrow night.”

              He could not answer as his implant had not yet made contact with the internet service.

              “
Key Largo
,” she announced brightly and smiled, wide-eyed.

              “Really?” he said as more of a statement.

              “So, it looks to me like you want to stay in. I say let’s just go to the movies tomorrow.”

              Frank grew even more aware of why he loved this woman so much. Immediately after discovering the time, he realized that the last thing he had energy for was going out to dinner and a movie. He nodded in grateful acquiescence.

              “Why don’t I make us some dinner here?” she asked of him and moved into the kitchen.

              “If you can find something, sure,” he agreed. There must have been a note of melancholy in his voice, for Tam halted her search and went to him.

              “Marcus told me that there was something you left out of this shooting last night,” she prodded as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

              “My partner needs to shut the hell up once in a while,” he grumbled but did not pull away.

              “He didn’t tell me what it was, Frank,” Tam said defensively though sternly. “What happened?”

              “I shot an unarmed man. A family man at that,” he said and did pull away, though gently. Frank walked past her and into the kitchen. He squelched the attempt to search the cabinets for ingredients for dinner and turned toward her. He crossed his arms and leaned hard against the counter.

              Tam stammered a moment in surprise. “How?” she asked cautiously.

              “The guy shootin’ at me used him as a shield,” Campanelli explained in a tone thick with disgust.

              “Oh,” she said, relieved. “Is he going to be okay?”

              “Sure, once they’re done buryin’ him!” he shouted ferociously as he drilled a hot look of anger into Tam’s face. She was not the intended target and she knew it. His fury dissipated quickly as his shoulders drooped.

              “Oh, Frank,” Tam said lowly, her voice thick with emotion. She stepped to him slowly and embraced him. Though she wanted to say more, she waited, uncertain that more words would help. She held him until he patted her on the shoulder many moments later.

              “What do ya say we keep looking here?”

              “Okay,” she whispered and both of them continued on their search for food in silence.

***

              Tamara was better at making something out of nothing than Frank had ever suspected. Soon, they were having a modest feast of pre-formed pasta in a light sauce that resembled Alfredo, two chicken breasts that Campanelli had purchased at least six months prior but had kept frozen and a side dish of green beans that she had found underneath the chicken. With some inventive seasoning, the potentially bland meal was turned gourmet.

              “It’s getting harder and harder to find anything at the store, isn’t it?” Tam said to stimulate conversation. Frank was quieter than usual, but she understood why.

              “Yeah,” he agreed after a moment. He thought back to his childhood in New York City, a time before the recently discovered planet Alethea had been colonized, where anything one could dream of ever wanting was within a walk or a bike ride from home. The grocery shops of his youth were giants. Dozens of aisles stacked high beyond his reach filled the buildings from wall to wall with tempting packages of foodstuffs.