Savage Rage (9 page)

Jack tossed her a casual salute and joined Brett, who was leaning against one of the basketball posts.

“Friendly lady,” Brett commented.

“Ah, she's okay. Just a little rough around the edges. Let's head back. The division may be falling apart as we speak.”

“Yeah, right,” Brett snorted, reminding Jack of Sy. Do all cynical coppers snort disbelief the same way?

They walked to the car and Jack never gave the crackhead with the broken nose a second thought.

0430 hours

Brett slowly manoeuvred the scout car through the old, twisting streets of Forest Hill. Officially, he and Jack were patrolling the wealthy community for suspects stealing high-end vehicles. It was amazing how easy it was to steal an eighty-thousand-dollar car using a tow truck. No one thought twice about a towed car, even in the middle of the night. But really, Brett was trying to stay awake. It was that nowhere time between late night and really early morning and the radio was quiet. 51 coughed up the odd blurb, but from 53? Nada.

Jack was semi-conscious in the passenger seat. Staying awake this time of night when you were driving was hard enough; riding shotgun, it was almost impossible. He tried to keep his eyes focused on the shadows around the old stately homes with their old stately trees, but the patches of heavy darkness kept sucking him down. Then he would sputter awake and realize he had missed a whole street.

Jack sat up straighter, rubbing at his face. “Man, this sucks. At least in 51 there were drug dealers to chase this time of night.”

“I hear that. But all the good little 53 Division drug dealers go home when the bars close.”

Jack checked his watch. “Oh, fuck. If we've got another two hours of this, then I'm going to need some caffeine. How about you?”

Brett hefted his meaty shoulders. “I could go either way, I guess.”

“You sure? I thought you said you didn't sleep all that well today.”

His shoulders lifted and dropped again. “I can't remember the last time I had a decent sleep, regardless of what shift it was. Guess I'm just used to being tired.” Brett flicked a weary smile at Jack and in the unhealthy glow from the car's computer the dark smears under his eyes were deep enough to swallow his cheeks.

“Trouble sleeping?”

Brett nodded. “I'm lucky if I get a couple of hours in a row. Most of the time I doze for a few minutes in between staring at the ceiling.”

“That sucks.” Jack knew that a lot of coppers had trouble sleeping. He'd had his fair share of sleepless nights last year, but thankfully the guilt-ridden dreams were fading. “Any idea what's causing it? Is it just the shift work?”

Brett didn't answer. Jack was thinking he hadn't heard the question when Brett blew out a long sigh. “It's . . . complicated.”

It was Jack's turn to shrug. “Your choice, but it's not like we're doing anything.”

“True.” Brett pulled out onto Eglinton Avenue West and headed for Yonge Street. There was an all-night Tim Hortons on Yonge just north of Eglinton. “Remember when I said I left 14 because I didn't like the person I was turning into?”

Jack nodded, not wanting to break the big man's flow of words; it sounded like Brett wanted — needed — to talk about this.

“I'm sure you saw it down in 51: the guys who hated anyone not carrying a badge, always seemed pissed off and ready to kill someone. You know, the miserable old fucks.” Again that weary smile. Brett eased to a stop at a red light, the scout car alone on the road. In the harsh, electric light Brett's smile looked like the grimace of a skull. “Well, that was me.”

Brett didn't speak again until the light changed. Then, as the car moved forward, so did his words. “I hated work. Hated everyone and everything. I started to have trouble sleeping and that just made it worse; I always felt worn out, edgy. It got to the point my kids began to avoid me and my wife said it was because of my temper. Not that I ever hit them, never that,” he added quickly, obviously needing Jack to know that. “Never that. I'd kill myself first.”

This last was said so softly Jack wasn't sure he had heard it.

“I didn't want to end up like so many coppers you see: divorced, alone, miserable. So I transferred out of 14. Thought if I got away from all the shit and assholes things would get better. But they didn't.” Brett laughed, a bitter, painful sound. “I still can't sleep and I still hate everyone. Only now I have more time to dwell on how much I hate people and the job.”

“You hate the job?”

“With all my soul.”

“Then why stay?”

Again Brett laughed without humour. “Why?” He fixed Jack with an emotionless stare. “Because my wife left me and took the kids. Because I live by myself in a shitty little apartment. Because my kids are afraid of me.”

He pulled to the curb in front of the Tim's.

“Because it's the only thing I have left in my life.”

0202 hours

“Hey, man. Whatcha doing?”

“Hey, Manny. Hang on a sec.” Jack shifted his cell phone to his left hand and turned down the radio, quieting the dispatcher as she gave a 53 car yet another alarm call in a seemingly unending string of alarm calls. “How are things down in 51?”

“Busy as always, dude. How about you?”

Jack groaned theatrically. “It seems everyone up here has a house alarm but none of them know how to use them. We've done about six alarm calls so far and they just keep coming.”

“It's the weather, man. Any sudden change messes up the systems.”

Jack had to admit the change
had
been sudden. And drastic. After the warm start to the week, winter had come back, intent on punishing the city for daring to think spring was within reach. The temperature had plummeted, but at least there hadn't been any snow.

“How's your head?” Although their partnership had been short — getting shot can mess anything up — it had been long enough for Manny to learn Jack suffered from migraines and he knew sudden changes in the weather could start a painful chain reaction in Jack's skull.

“Not bad. The pain comes and goes. I haven't had to pop any drugs yet.” As if to let Jack know it was listening, the headache he'd had since waking up stabbed him through his right eye. Jack flinched at the sudden jolt of pain.
Damn, I might end up downing some Fiorinal tonight.

“Who are you working with?” Jack asked to change the topic. Maybe if he ignored his headache it would go away. Yeah, right.

Sounding all smug and happy, Manny gloated, “I'm with Jenny.”

“Lucky prick.”

Jennifer Alton was another of Jack's favourite people from 51. Jack had never had the pleasure of working with Jenny as she had been on the Community Response Unit, or Foot Patrol in old-time jargon, during his stint in 51. Despite not working together, they had gotten to know each other and had fallen into a very close, very comfortable friendship in a brief period of time. Although Jack had shared his marital problems with Manny, it was Jenny he had confided in, revealing his fear that Karen would divorce him if he didn't transfer out of 51.

It had been strange talking to her about his marriage; he was attracted to her and could easily see himself falling for her had he not been married. What had Sy called her? A modern-day siren, unable to help herself when it came to attracting men. For some it was her smile, others her hair, her legs. For Jack, it was the total package. She was a beautiful, intelligent, fun —

Jack smacked himself lightly in the forehead. One mention of Jenny and his thoughts wandered off down this happy little trail. A siren, all right.

“You with Big Brett tonight?”

Jack groaned again. “Don't I wish. No, tonight I'm stuck with the Earl.”

“The Earl? That the guy who gives people tickets for having their licence plates obscured in the middle of a snowstorm?”

“The one and only. I'm sitting in the back lot right now while he's inside picking up a new ticket book. Would you believe he gave a guy on a bicycle a ticket for not having a bell?”

“Was the guy at least an asshole?” Manny asked hopefully.

“It was yesterday when it was so warm. The guy had his bike out for the first time this year and the Earl gives him a ticket. Just a regular guy out for a ride.”

“Man, that's low. I can see giving that to an asshole but not someone who has a job.”

“Is it any wonder the public hates us? And you should have heard him talking about it. You'd think he had just pinched a guy carrying a gun or something. God, I hate it up here.”

“Why can't you pair up with Brett? I mean, it would be better if you came back here but. . . .”

“The staff sergeant doesn't allow permanent partners. I think it's because he knows there's about three guys on the platoon who no one would want to work with.” Jack grimaced. “And here he comes now. Gotta go.”

“Want to hook up for coffee later if it's quiet?”

“Sure, but you just jinxed us by using the Q word.”

Manny laughed. “Take it easy, dude. Talk to you later.”

Jack hung up just as Richard “the Earl” Chalmers got in the passenger seat. Jack had learned the first time working with Chalmers not to let him drive, or they'd spend the whole shift pulling over cars for some of the dumbest tickets Jack had ever heard of. Chalmers's defence was the chintzier the ticket, the more likely the person was to take it to court and court cards, those scheduled off duty, meant money for the Earl.

“All set,” Chalmers declared, patting his fresh ticket book. “Let's go fight some crime.”

More like prong the public,
Jack thought.

His headache twinged and he jerked at the pain.

“You okay to drive, Jack?” Chalmers looked more than ready to take over the wheel; his numbers were always low when he worked with Jack. Jack knew the Earl saw himself as the number-one producer in the station, with a reputation to uphold.

“Nah, I'm good. Just a bit of a headache. Let's grab some caffeine before we clear.” Jack smiled as he dropped the car into drive. He knew the Earl hated not driving, not being able to pull over every car he wanted to. The Earl checked every car he wanted to pull over on CPIC — the Canadian Police Information Centre — first. He didn't want to deal with someone who was on file for violence, would he? Jack had seen the Earl ignore suspended drivers — usually gold mines for tickets — because the driver also had a caution on him for violence against police. The Earl might have been 53 Division's golden boy when it came to tickets and therefore the staff sergeant's favourite officer, because high numbers on the platoon made the staff sergeant look good to the inspector. But the Earl was also a gutless coward. He'd shown his true colours the first night Jack had worked with him, near the end of January.

A woman had phoned 911 saying her husband was off his schizophrenia medication and was becoming aggressive. She said her husband, a loving and gentle man when on his meds, had a tendency for violence when he was off them and the violence was usually directed at people in positions of authority — namely, cops. She asked for at least four officers, if not more. In a perfect world, or a TV show, the police service would have been operating at full strength and would have had ample officers to send. The dispatcher sent Jack and the Earl.

The paramedics were waiting outside the condo building, looking up and down the street, when Jack and the Earl pulled up and joined them.

Jack looked around, puzzled. “I miss something?”

“There another car coming?” one of the medics asked.

“Nope. What you see is what you get.”

“But the call said —”

“Don't worry.” Jack cut the medic off. “Chalmers here is actually a ninja in disguise.”

The medics didn't look reassured.

The four of them took the elevator up, then paused outside the unit door, cops to one side, medics to the other. No sounds from inside, but the wife must have been waiting by the door because she had it open before Jack finished knocking.

She was an attractive blonde and Jack put her in her early forties, although stress and worry had added a few years. She looked questioningly at the four people at her door, then peered up and down the hallway. “Where's the rest of you?” she asked, concern tightening her voice.

Jack hoped being asked that question twice wasn't an omen. He explained that he and the Earl were the only police available for the call and said they would do their best to talk her husband into going to the hospital.

She paled at the thought. “You don't understand,” she cringed. “Last time it took four police plus the ambulance people and he wasn't that bad. He's a lot worse this time.”

“He's schizophrenic, ma'am?” a medic asked.

“He is,” she confirmed, glancing over her shoulder into the condo. “He stops taking his medication when he feels better. He thinks he doesn't need it anymore.”

“How's he acting right now?” Jack wanted to know.

“He's very agitated, aggressive.”

“Has he hit you?”

“No,” she stated with a firm shake of her head. “But he has in the past when he got like this. Today I told him I thought he should go to the hospital and he started swearing at me, saying I was conspiring against him. He said he'd kill me if I didn't leave him alone.” She started to cry. “Please help him.”

“That's what we're here for,” Jack told her. “Where in the apartment is he?”

“But you don't understand!” she protested in a strained whisper. “He doesn't like the police when he's like this and he'll fight you if he thinks he can win. That's why I wanted more of you.”

And that's when Richard “the Earl” Chalmers, who had taken the oath to serve and protect the people of Toronto, suggested, “If he doesn't like police, maybe we should send the medics in first.”

Needless to say, the medics weren't impressed with the idea of going in to deal with the violent schizophrenic while the armed personnel waited out in the hall. Jack wasn't comfortable with it either. Jack would have pushed the Earl out of the way had he not been edging his way to the back of the group already.

“For fuck's sake,” Jack muttered under his breath as he stepped through the doorway. He didn't know who came in next, the medics or the only other armed person at the call and really didn't give a shit.

“My husband's name is Nathaniel,” the wife said. “Don't call him Nathan; only his friends can call him that.”

Nathaniel was in his office, pacing the floor. He was a good-sized man who obviously worked hard to stay in shape.

Why can't the violent ones be small and weak?

Nathaniel stopped abruptly as soon as he spotted Jack, who stood just outside the office door, his can of pepper spray concealed in his hand. He had little hope the spray would work on Nathaniel as it rarely seemed to have any effect on the mentally ill, but if the situation ended up in a fight — and from the way Nathaniel was flexing his hands and hunching up his shoulders, it was headed that way fast — Jack wanted to limit the possible injuries to everyone involved. Especially himself.

“What do you want?” Nathaniel did not sound pleased to have visitors.

“We heard you weren't feeling up to par.” One of the medics, an older guy with a fringe of grey hair, had come up beside Jack where Chalmers should have been. “We just wanted to see if there's anything we can do for you.”

Nathaniel eyed the medic suspiciously. “You look old. Are you in charge?”

“Well, I suppose I'm the oldest here, so that kind of puts me in charge.”

“All right, I'll talk to you, then.”

Nathaniel told the medic that the neighbours were conspiring against him but he didn't know why. Jack watched in amazement as the medic talked Nathaniel into a chair and then into letting them check his vitals. Ten minutes after Jack and the medic had entered the condo, Nathaniel agreed to go to the hospital.

Jack rode in the ambulance with Nathaniel. “They have eyes everywhere,” Nathaniel confided to him. “No telling what lengths they'll go to.”

That's when Jack learned he was on his own when he worked with the Earl. But hey, the guy wrote a lot of tickets.

The Earl came from an English background, hence the nickname. The Duke would have sounded way too tough for him and his beard just couldn't hide his weak chin and pasty complexion. He was tall, a couple of inches or so over Jack's five-ten, and thin. Not thin like a runner or swimmer but thin like someone who uses a snow blower to clean an inch of fluffy snow off the one-car driveway.

Jack realized not everyone liked to lift weights. He himself had been more of a runner than a weight lifter until he had started working with Sy and really got into the heavy iron. In fact, Jack had gone from a respectable 185 to just shy of 200 pounds since getting out of the hospital last fall. Most of the new weight was muscle, but like Manny he had a load of laundry covering his washboard abs. Unlike Manny's load of towels, Jack liked to think his was a small one of socks.

But in a job where you occasionally had to fight with people to get the cuffs on, wouldn't it make sense to do at least a bit of training? But on the other hand, if you didn't mind sending in the paramedics to do your job. . . .

Jack didn't know how Chalmers had gotten the Earl nickname or whether it was supposed to be derogatory or not. If he had been labelled — and cops loved to slap on nicknames for good or ill — in sarcasm or jest, then it had backfired because Chalmers seemed to like the handle and never reacted negatively when someone called him the Earl.

After a quick stop at the nearest Tim Hortons, Chalmers wanted to sit at Yonge and Eglinton, the unofficial hub of the division and one hell of a busy intersection. For a change, the Earl wasn't pestering Jack for traffic stops. He seemed content to sip his coffee and watch the women go by, although there weren't many people out at this hour and those who were, were bundled up against the cold.

“
5302
, call for you at
3000
Yonge Street. Male calling
911
, says he's hearing voices and wants to kill himself. See attached CPIC. Time,
0215.”

Jack was about to pull up the CPIC hit for the male when Chalmers told him not to bother.

“It's just Willy,” he explained. “He calls in about once a month saying he's going to kill himself.”

“Bit of a frequent flyer, is he?” Jack caught a break with the light south of them and pulled a U-turn to head north up Yonge Street.

Chalmers nodded, then swallowed some coffee. “He's a harmless little guy. I think he gets lonely and says he's going to kill himself just so he can go to the hospital and talk to someone. This won't take us long.”