The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(78)

The only thing that could have made my life better would’ve been if my boss would stop being so difficult, and that, too, changed abruptly at the end of May. That morning, I hadn’t heard my alarm and was fifteen minutes late to the briefing, which earned me a sarcastic “Thank you for joining us,” from Vasco and three warrants to serve. The first two warrants were for drug possession and went without a hitch, but when I tried to serve the third, the perp took one look at me and went off through the back of the house. I chased after him, jumped over the wire fence, and ran into the desert for three hundred yards before I caught up to him. I slammed him to the ground and got on top of him. My knee was on his back as I cuffed him, my heart was racing, my gear felt like it had doubled in weight. It was high noon, a hundred and two degrees, and we were in a patch of empty land. How far did he think he could go? “Officer,” he said. “Listen, I wasn’t expecting a cop. I got spooked.”

And all for petty theft. I did a full search, expecting to find pot or meth or even a weapon on this fool, but there was nothing. My uniform was covered in dirt and sand, and there was a big hole in the right leg of my pants. I wanted to book him and go back to the station to change, but there was a service call waiting for me nearby, a disturbance out in Joshua Tree, in that dusty section where old homesteader cabins sat next to trailers surrounded by chicken-wire fences and guarded by mean-looking mutts. When I pulled up to the address, I found an old man sitting on a porch chair, shirtless and with a Mountain Dew in hand. “Afternoon, Officer.” He walked up to the cruiser window and stood so close that I could see the white hairs on his chest. “I’m the one that called. Name’s Jim. Jim Novacek.”

“What’s the matter, Mr. Novacek?”

“Gorecki, huh,” he said, looking at the nametag on my uniform. “You Polish?”

It was a hot day in the valley, even for May, and the air was thick with dust and sand. This kind of weather made people cranky, especially old people with nothing better to do—they called the police over the smallest little thing and then they wanted to chat. “What’s the matter here, Mr. Novacek?”

“Like I told the lady on the phone, this neighborhood’s not what it used to be. All those Mexicans everywhere now.”

In the backseat, the suspect sucked his teeth in agreement.

This happened from time to time, people assuming things about me. Part of it was my last name, but the other part was my light skin. Once, in high school, Victor Alcala, a handsome kid who was popular with girls, started taunting me. Hey, Big Tits, he called across the hallway. What time is the concert tonight? I kept my eye on my locker, shuffled my notebooks, tried to ignore the laughter around me. Yet help came quickly, and from an unlikely source: Stacey Briggs hurled back a string of racist taunts so vicious that they left Victor speechless. He never bothered me again. And I never corrected Stacey, never told her I had more in common with Victor than she ever imagined.

“Mr. Novacek,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice from rising. “You called for a noise disturbance, and I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s coming from this dump over here.” The old man pointed to the house next door. It had a flat roof and boarded-up windows. Garbage in the yard. A clothesline with no pins. An empty doghouse. “The mewling won’t stop.”

“It’s a cat? You should’ve called animal control.”

“But I see Mexican kids coming in and out of that house all day. Drinking and doing drugs and God only knows what. They probably tortured that poor cat in there. That’s why I called the cops.”

I got out of the cruiser and stood with my hands on my belt. Under my uniform, beads of sweat traveled down my spine, landing in that space just below my bulletproof vest. When would this day be over?

Then a soft mewling sound rose.

“You hear that?” the old man said.

“Yeah, I hear it.”

I called it in. With one hand on my sidearm, I walked up to the house. There was no lock on the front door, just a bit of wire that looped through the knob hole and connected it to the doorframe. I unfastened the wire, but the door was heavy and I had to push hard until it gave in with a loud creak. The smell of dust, bird shit, and old newspaper made me want to gag. The house was so dark I felt as though I had fallen into an abyss. I turned on my flashlight and aimed it straight ahead. A small living room appeared, with a low ceiling and a brick fireplace. On the far wall, someone had spray-painted GO HOME in red block letters. There were crushed beer cans all over the floor. Hypodermic needles. Cigarette butts. Playing cards. Except for an old couch with big holes where the seat cushions should’ve been, there was no furniture.

Then there was a movement, a faint rustling I might not have heard if I hadn’t been standing still. I turned my flashlight on the couch and moved closer, my pulse quickening with anticipation. Deep in the hole was a heap of blue blankets, from which arose a tiny little fist. The milky smell of the infant was so strong in my nostrils now that I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it sooner. I set the flashlight on the dirty wood floor and dropped to my knees. The baby’s eyes were wide open and as soon as they landed on me the crying started, this time with the full force of expectation. I slid both of my hands inside the hole and brought out the blue bundle. Cradling the infant in my arms, I parted the blanket and was relieved to see no obvious sign of injury. A soiled diaper, though. The crying intensified. “Shsh,” I whispered, “shsh, little buddy, it’s okay.” I gave him my index finger and immediately he grabbed it. Holding him close in my arms, I walked back out of the house, pushing the front door open wider with my leg. In the yard, the neighbor was waiting, squinting in the sunlight. “I’ll be darned,” he said.