First Avenue (35 page)

“
Rose
wonders why you’re so stuck up you wouldn’t come in,”
Sam
said.

“She still works there?”

“Owns the place now.”

“No kidding. I ought to drop by sometime. It’s funny how you forget about the old places.”

Sam parked beneath the Viaduct, but it offered little protection from the rain that swept sideways. He left the car running, and the windshield wipers struggled to keep up.
Markowitz
handed him a cup, and they both pulled off the plastic lids and laid them on top of the dashboard.

Steam rose from the Styrofoam cups and disappeared into the backseat with the air from the defroster. Behind his glasses
Markowitz
was steady and serious, but the cup trembled slightly in his hand, disturbing the plume of steam rising beyond his control. It seemed a lifetime ago when they had last sat together like this.
Sam
was the green kid back then, expecting to bring diligence and good purpose to this work, expecting to make a difference. He didn’t believe then what old-timers like
Markowitz
with more than a year in the department had to say.

As the water dried from his face, his skin felt as though it were shrinking and pulling back from his eyes in weary lines. He accepted the weariness the same way he accepted the rain in the fall, and then the months of gray.

“Do you remember that time up on the hill when the two kids broke into the old lady’s house?”
Markowitz
asked.

“I remember,”
Sam
said, knowing which story was coming although there were many stories about kids breaking into houses.

“The old lady was upstairs and called when she heard them breaking in,”
Markowitz
continued. “You caught the one kid running down the street and handcuffed him around a telephone pole. So there’s the kid hugging this pole, and we take off after the other one. We can’t catch up with him so we head back to the pole. We hear our kid yelling his head off, and there’s the old lady, still in her nightgown, whomping on him with a broom handle. I can still see him dancing around the pole trying to get away from her, and she’s following him around whaling away with all her might. Never forget it,”
Markowitz
said as his laughter broke up the happy memory.

Sam laughed, too.

“We walked back slow, as I remember,”
Markowitz
continued. “The old lady stops whaling on him when she sees us, but I think it was because she was all tuckered out. That kid had slivers in his face from dancing around that pole. Never forget it.”

Now the car was rocking from their combined laughter.

“God, was he glad to see us. Can you imagine? Glad to see us. He wanted us to get that old woman away from him. She was standing there panting but still mad as hell.

“I asked the old lady if she could identify the kid who got away. She couldn’t. We got the idea at the same time. It was perfect. So we ask if she’ll watch our kid a while longer while we go look some more for the other one. The old gal was getting her wind back, and she says she will ‘watch him good.’ Remember how she pounded the broom on the sidewalk?

“Oh god, that kid didn’t want us to leave. Just as we were walking away, he yells out the name of the other kid. ‘Luther Smith.’ Never forget it.

“But the best part was court. I thought that judge would die laughing. He denied all the defense motions and ruled that the admission was voluntary. Damn, that was great. Even the defense attorney was laughing. Those kids were the only people in the whole courtroom who kept a straight face. Damn, that was great. I’d still be on the street if there was stuff like that every day.”

“That’s the way it is,
Fred
. You’ve just forgotten. You ought to come back for a while.”

“No. Those days are gone. You ought to get out of there, too, while you’re still standing.”

“Me? I’ve thought about it, but I just can’t see myself pushing paper all day. Bad enough on the streets. Too long a line of blue collars in my family, I guess. No, when I leave work, I want it to stay there. Leave it to the next shift. I don’t want stuff to drag on day after day.”

“Like this case with
Olivia
Sanchez
?”
Markowitz
asked.

“Yeah. Like that.”

All the humor was sucked out of the car, and they became silent as a different image filled the vacuum.

“So what do you have this time?”
Markowitz
asked, breaking the silence. “It’s getting so I hate to see you coming.”

“Some new information about our friend,
Pierre
,”
Sam
said. “I think I know how he does his dealing. When he takes off on his little strolls, he walks down the block, goes into the Garden of Eden, out the back door, and then back to the basement of the Donut Shop.”

“What’s the Garden of Eden?”
Markowitz
asked.

“Peep show south of the Donut Shop.”

“So he makes a big loop to get back where he started from?”

“Just about where he started. You can’t get to that basement without going outside. The basement steps are on the south side of the building.”

“But he doesn’t have to go all the way around the block to get there.”

“That’s right. My informant saw kids coming and going, too. Another thing.
Pierre
met a guy yesterday a little after ten in the Re(a)d and Green Book Store across the street in the Market. Different kind of deal, though. This was an older guy, white, about forty-five. Big, over six feet tall, broad shoulders. He was wearing a suit and had brown hair slicked back to cover a bald spot. Oh, and he likes war books.”

“War books?”

“He bought one with a cannon on the cover.”

“We’re getting more interesting people all the time,”
Markowitz
said.

“You know, you might have been right about checking in with Narcotics,”
Sam
said. “Do you know anybody over there? Maybe ask a few questions on the quiet?”

“Sure.” Then a strange, strangled look crossed
Markowitz
’s face. “
Lieutenant
Jamison
. Used to be my sergeant in Homicide. Big guy, slicked-back brown hair.”

“Bald spot?”
Sam
asked.

“I can’t remember, but I know he was some kind of war buff.”
Markowitz
’s voice tightened as though he were tiptoeing across cannonballs. “World War I, I think. His grandfather or somebody was a general.”

The rain seemed to be letting up.
Sam
could see
Elliott
Bay
across
Alaskan Way
. Waves hit the piers hard at the ferry terminal and shot salt spray high into the air. He wondered, briefly, incongruously, how his kayak was faring farther down on the
Jefferson
pier. He had crossed the bay before the bad weather had set in. It had been bad enough, but now he would have to leave it until the next day. Maybe longer than that.

“Maybe you could get me a picture of
Jamison
,”
Sam
said, reluctantly turning back to
Markowitz
.

“You need a couple pictures,”
Markowitz
said. His voice was flat, without inflection. “Other people, about the same age. If you just have one picture, it might prejudice the witness.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll get them to you before your shift ends.”

“Look,
Markowitz
, what the hell are we going to do?”

“Let’s just see what your informant says about the pictures. Okay? Then we’ll think about that.”

Markowitz probably did not intend to sound angry. His voice was distorted by the sound of the wind outside. It was an angry wind that crossed Alaskan Way.

Outside, people seemed to blow past the windows on First Avenue. One man in a somber gray suit chased his hat past the Donut Shop window. Each time he was within reach, the hat took off again.
Maria
laughed even with
Pierre
standing fixed at the window and looking angrily out at the weather that conspired against his doughnut business.

Sam came in at
nine o’clock
. Strangely none of the kids had come. She would report that to him at three.
Sam
sat on the stool and read a newspaper he had brought with him.
Pierre
went to the kitchen and made batch after batch of doughnuts that no one would eat. He seemed trapped as long as the policeman sat on the stool. She wondered where they would stack all the doughnuts.

This time Sam said nothing to Pierre or to her, but waited patiently while she brewed fresh coffee. She saw the scowl appear on
Pierre
’s face when she dumped the nearly full pot of stale coffee into the sink to make room for the new, but she didn’t care what looks he had.
Sam
Wright
was there and
Pierre
could do nothing about it.

When
Sam
left,
Pierre
came to the front and poured himself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot she had made. He said nothing to her about dumping the coffee and stood again at the window. He had left his doughnuts in pans beside the fryer. She didn’t offer to find room for them in the display case. It would be a waste of time.

She wondered why the weather seemed to bother him so much. Business was bad, but it was never very good. What difference would one day make? Maybe his mood had something to do with the kids not coming that morning.

Bill came late again, but
Pierre
seemed to have forgotten his lecture. He didn’t even look at the clock. Without saying anything to her or
Bill
,
Pierre
put on a jacket and walked down
First Avenue
against the rain and wind.

Bill went over to the stacks of doughnuts and stood, dumbly, looking at them. She got a carton of milk from the refrigerator and sat down at a front table without offering him a suggestion. When a young man, a customer, came through the door, she turned her back on the counter and watched the rain splash on the street and sidewalk.

It was almost
noon
when
Pierre
returned.

“We need some cups from the basement,” he told
Bill
before he even took off his coat. “You show the girl where they are. Then have her clean up down there. I said before to keep those boxes on the shelves. You can’t even walk there now. Have her break down the empty ones and stack them in the corner.”

Bill’s face, never expressive as far as she had seen, became more blank than normal. He didn’t acknowledge
Pierre
’s instructions, but like a robot walked to the door and waited for her.

“You go with him,”
Pierre
said.

“Where’s the basement?” she asked.

“It’s around back. He’ll show you.”

She was certain she didn’t want
Bill
to show her anything. She reached to the shelf below the cash register where she stored her jacket and slowly put it on.

“The coat isn’t necessary,”
Pierre
said. “The door is just around the corner.”

“It’s raining again,” she said.

Big distinct drops splashed against the west windows. Soon the drops would become a flood that washed down the sidewalk. By taking her coat there was nothing left behind, and she could walk wherever she wanted. Maybe it would be with
Bill
; maybe it would be farther than that.

The wind swept around First Avenue onto
Pike Street
and pushed her down the block past the neighboring bar and hotel lobby.
Bill
said nothing. She didn’t expect him to say anything. She trailed him as he turned south into the alley. She slowed her pace despite the wind pushing behind. When she came to the alley, she stopped and looked around her. The brick walls on both sides formed a tunnel that was open to the next street. The bricks were black with dirt. She took a few steps into the alley and stopped again. The black walls offered temporary shelter from the wind.