Sunset Beach(72)

34


July 1976

Jimmy Zee and Brice were walking out to the parking lot at Munch’s, their favorite breakfast spot on the south side, when a pale yellow Mustang whipped into the spot beside Brice’s cruiser. The teenage driver opened his door, banging it into the side of Brice’s unit.

Without missing a beat, Brice reached into the car, grabbed the kid by the neck of his T-shirt and hauled him to the pavement. “Hey, asshole, look what you did!” He pointed at the fresh ding in the cruiser’s paint job.

The kid, with long, greasy hair touching his shoulders, squirmed to try to escape. “Fuck off. That was already there.”

Brice tightened his chokehold, nearly lifting the kid, who weighed maybe ninety pounds, off the ground. “You just damaged police property, you little turd.” He glanced over at Zee. “You saw that too, right, Officer?”

Zee dropped his cigarette butt to the asphalt, crushing it with his heel. “Yeah, man.” He glared at the kid. “Don’t ever do that again. You understand?”

The kid’s face was alarmingly red.

“Come on, Brice,” Zee said, putting a hand on Brice’s shoulder. “Let him go. We gotta get back to work.”

In reply, Brice put his hand on the back of the kid’s head and shoved him facedown against the hood of his car. “Hey!” the kid squawked. “Police brutality!”

Brice grabbed a handful of hair and smashed the kid’s face down again, hard.

“Come on,” Zee said, tugging urgently at Brice’s arm. Two women stood just outside the doorway of the restaurant, staring in horror at the unfolding scene. “We gotta roll.”



* * *



They met up again, by mutual agreement, at the end of their shift, in a back booth at Mastry’s.

Zee sipped his beer and studied his oldest friend. “You look like shit,” he said.

It was true. Brice’s usually immaculate uniform was rumpled. He was pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and he was already on his second scotch and water.

“Fuck you very much,” Brice replied, draining his glass and helping himself to one of Zee’s Salems.

“What’s going on?” Zee asked. “You lost your cool with that kid at Munch’s today. You’re smoking again and drinking scotch on a weeknight. I’ve never seen you like this.”

Brice blew a long plume of smoke from his nostrils. “Now you sound like my wife. I’m fine, okay?”

“Come on,” Zee said. “Don’t bullshit me.”

Brice rubbed his hand across his face and stubbed out the cigarette.

“I’m screwed,” he said wearily. “Got myself into some deep shit, and I don’t know how to get out. I’m not sleeping and my gut’s on fire.” He shook his head. “Christ, what a mess.”

“Talk to me,” Zee replied.

“Remember that domestic disturbance call we got to the Dreamland back in December?”

The waitress appeared beside their booth and Zee raised his empty beer mug to signal for a refill. “Yeah. What about it?”

“The wife? Her name is Colleen. We went to high school together. After you got the husband out of there that night, I started talking to her, trying to convince her she should leave the guy. She was really rattled, afraid to go home, so I brought her here and we had a few drinks. We kind of connected, you know?”

Zee rolled his eyes. “I think I know where this is going.”

“I wish I’d known then where it was going, I’d have minded my own business and gone on home.”

Zee gave him a cynical smile. “Not really your style, bro. The husband beat the crap out of her that night. We both know that type. He might have killed her if we hadn’t broken it up.”

“Allen Hicks is a piece of shit. Violent, controlling and a bad drunk.”

“I remember that chick. We ran into her right here, a few months after the thing at the motel. She’s good-looking. So what’s she doing with a loser like that?”

“The usual. Met him in college, he romanced her and she fell hard. After they’d been married a few months, he began drinking more. Slapping her around.”

“Why doesn’t she divorce his ass?”

“According to Colleen, the husband controls all the money. She doesn’t have the money to hire a lawyer, and even if she did, Hicks’s father is a big deal in St. Pete. He’s a doctor. Chief of staff at Bayfront. Hell, he’s the commodore at the yacht club.”

“You’re shitting me. That’s a real thing?”

Brice propped his elbow on the table. “His picture was in the St. Pete Times just this week. Dr. Hicks drinks with every judge in town. She wouldn’t get a dime for a divorce settlement.”

“Okay, tell her to get a restraining order against Hicks. I mean, we could swear we saw him beat her that night. I’d do it.”

“You’re not listening,” Brice said. “No judge is going to grant her a restraining order. And even if one did, Hicks would come after her anyway. He dislocated her shoulder last month. On her birthday.”

Their refills arrived. Brice stared moodily down into the glass, his red-rimmed eyes unfocused.

“You’re not the one who’s screwed,” Zee pointed out. “I mean, it’s okay to want to help her out, but in the end, she’s the one who married the asshole, and she’s the one who decided to stay with him. Not your problem, brother.”