He stuck his head into the coffee room. The walls were lined with vending machines, and folding tables with singularly uncomfortable attached stools filled the center of the room, Durand was there. He'd solved the stool problem by sitting on the table. He had a cup of coffee steaming next to him and was trying to coax a Twinkle out of its wrapper. "Durand!Let's go!" was all Stepovich said, and then continued down the hall. He heard his partner's protesting cry of, "Hey, just a second…," but he didn't pause. He picked up their shotgun and radio and went outside into a sulking grey morning and down the back steps.
He found their assigned car for the day and did his standard walkaround, looking for unreported scratches and dents that the previous shift might have left on the car. It was okay. The bright blue shield on the door said, LAKOTA POLICE DEPARTMENT, and under it. TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE. He grimaced. Once, he and Ed had painted over the shield on Richart's unit the motto, OVER 4 MILLION BUSTED. It didn't seem so funny anymore.
He unlocked the back door and jerked out the seat,checking under it for any little goodies the last passengers might have left behind. Once he'd found half a gram of coke under the seat, and another time there'd been a zip gun. Stepovich didn't believe in leaving anything to chance. Never assume the night shift had checked under the seats.
He'd finished his inspection and put the back seat in and was behind the wheel before Durand came outside. Durand got in, shaking hot coffee from his fingers. Stepovich glanced at him briefly before turning the key. "Wipe the Twinkie cum off your chin,"he told him in disgust as he slammed the car into gear.
Durand scrubbed guiltily at a smear of white frosting before demanding, "What the hell's eating you?"He slurped coffee from a paper cup.
Stepovich gunned the engine to see if he could make Dumbshit spill coffee on himself. No luck."Nothing. You got to talk all the time? Can't we ever just shut up in here?"
"Sure, boss," said Durand ironically. "You want quiet, you got quiet."
The quiet lasted perhaps forty-five seconds before the first calls sparked out of the radio. The Exxon Basher had struck again late last night and Little Philly precinct got stuck with the follow-up, and there was a cold burglary, which Durand jumped on. Stepovich hated them. There were too damn many of them, and he couldn't feel anything about them anymore. East Lee, this time, in an apartment building that was trying to pretend it wasn't in Little Philly. Someone had just painted the lobby, but the graffiti was already bleeding through the white paint. Second floor,apartment E. The girl who let them in looked like she'd been crying. She couldn't have been more than twenty.
"I was just gone overnight," she said. She was trying to keep her voice from quivering. "And when I got back this morning…"
Stepovich let Durand do it. It was all just routine these days. They were supposed to remember that no matter how many burglaries they saw every day, for each victim this was the one that mattered. He knew she felt violated, outraged, and scared. He knew she was wondering, if they got in here while I was gone,will they come back when I'm here, when I'm asleep and alone? But there'd just been too many of them lately.
Durand took down all the routine stuff. When did she leave, when did she come back, how'd they get in, what was missing, who knew she was gone, had she suspicions about anyone, and all the rest of it. By the time he was finished, it sounded like the ex-boyfriend, and that too was becoming routine. Durand took his name and number and address and description,more to make me girl feel better than to act on it. Chances were they'd never get enough evidence to bust him. Durand went through the spiel-suggesting dowels in the tracks of the sliding windows and a new dead bolt on the door. Stepovich only listened with half an ear. He knew, even if the girl didn't, that it wasn't that bad.Whoever had done it had known what he was after and had simply taken those items. The place hadn't been tossed or trashed. He knew from what she'd said,though, that this was the very first place she'd lived all on her own, and that what had happened had taken some of the shiny off it. He looked around, at the stuffed yarn cat doorstop and the doilies on the end table and the half-finished afghan in the basket by the coffee table. It reminded him of a little girl's playhouse, each thing just so, as if the idea of living there was more important than the reality of it. Her canisters in the kitchenette were labeled, and he'd bet there really was tea in the one that said tea, and that the spices on her spice rack were alphabetical. The towels in the bathroom all matched, and the three potted plants on the windowsill were in color-coordinated pots. Barbie's first apartment,the doll set might say, and he knew with a sudden ache that someday Laurie would want a place like this, with a ceramic spoon-rest on the little range top and copper pots hung in order by size.
The girl looked at him with sudden surprise when he said, "It's a shame that someone can steal your peace of mind from you, not to mention your radio. Listen. Durand's right about putting dowels in your window frames. I know it won't bring back what you've lost, but it might keep it from happening again. Don't you give up. You got a right to feel safe in your own place."
"Okay," she said, and her eyes suddenly misted up and her chin shook just like Laurie's had when the neighbor's dog had torn off Raggedy Ann's leg,but he'd assured her that Jennie could fix her good as new. It must have been his tone more than his words that catapulted her into his arms, and she was crying on his shirt front, and Durand, damn him, was smirking like a puckered asshole. Stepovich patted her awkwardly, remembering briefly how fragile women felt to him, as hollow-boned as birds, how he'd always been afraid that if he really hugged Jennie her ribs would crumple beneath the strength of his love. Then she was pushing away from him, muttering apologies, her long hair sticking to her tear-wet face,and he was saying it was all right, she'd had a tough morning, but things had to get better.
"They couldn't get worse," the girl agreed with a sniff and a smile so carefully fragile that Stepovich had to turn aside from it. Damnit, he had to find time to phone Laurie tonight, and he had to make time to do something with Jeffery this weekend, he had to. Then they were leaving, and Durand called in that they were available again, and almost immediately they got their next call, this one for a vandalized car.
And so the morning went. In between calls, they drove, Durand not talking at all; but that little tension stretched between them because they weren't getting along. The only talk was the stupid business of asking the routine questions at their stops. Nothing hot or interesting this morning, three cold burglaries and two stolen bicycles and one drunk and disorderly and one patron leaving without paying his tab. The closest they got to a heartbeat was a domestic abuse in progress that turned out to be a cat in heat shut in the bathroom. Stepovich had to admit the cat's passionate yowling did sound like a tortured baby. Durand assured the woman who called it in that they'd rather be called out for nothing than not called when they were needed, while Stepovich persuaded the cat's owner that her "goddamn nosy neighbor" had meant well. Then they left.
In the car Stepovich thought about asking for a new partner. They'd give him one. All he'd have to do is go in and say, hey, this isn't working out. Guys did it all the time. But the guys who changed more than once or twice were the ones the brass watched. Man couldn't get along with his partner, there had to be a reason. Better watch him. And the last thing Stepovich needed right now was to be watched. By anyone.