Saturday, March 8th

Saturday,

March 8th

    Shortly after Marie arrived home, Milk showed up. Mikey chose that moment to rush down the stairs into the living room. It was awful. Her happy go lucky son melted into that sickly kid she had held over the toilet the night before. Milk on the other hand, exposed the monster she knew he had trapped inside. “Little bas­tard. Who the hell ever told you you could run through the f-ing house like an f-ing animal?” He actually began to unbuckle his belt.

    “Hey, hey, easy,” she soothed, getting between Milk and Mikey. His breath reeked of sour beer and bad teeth. “I did. I told him to hurry. He needs shoes for school. We were going shopping.”

     “What’s wrong with the shoes he has on?”

     “Milk, easy. They have holes in them.”

     “So?”

     “So? He needs shoes. I’m taking him out for shoes.”

    “He wouldn’t need them if he learned how to walk right.” He bore forward, his eyes becoming large, and he looked like he had something to bitch about. “He’s a f-ing animal.” Milk bounced about, like trying to spring about her. Marie glanced back. Her son cowered on the stairs. His eyes were huge and he had curled into himself.

     “No. He’s fine.”

     “You’re spoiling him, Marie. You’re turning him into a pansy.”

     “Marie.” Mom stepped in. “Milk is his father. He knows what’s best.”

Was it the anger in his eyes or her mother’s stupidity that made her act? Marie was sure if she stood there much longer, he’d hit her, and her mother would probably applaud him. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

   “You know what?” she of­fered, rubbing against him, breast to breast. “You can blister his ass another time. Right now I got this big bottle of Jack Daniels I bought. You still like Jack Dan­iels, right?” He perked up. “We’ll take it back to your place, and we’ll split it. Like we used to.”

   She hated herself for suggesting it, and she hated herself more when she shagged her mother’s bottle of Jack Daniels from cabinet under the sink. No matter, they returned to his place, a pigsty in serious need of mucking out. She offered him whiskey in Dixie cups, and he provided a few lines of blow.

Sunday,

March 9th

    The call came out of Pipe of Peace just before dawn broke. A blue black Pontiac was headed westbound along 145th with three Pipe of Peace squads in pursuit. The driver held up that all night gas station on 127th and McAdams. The timing was perfect. Jack Morgan backed his vehicle into that side road by the old cannery and just be­hind a big cottonwood. His vehicle was in gear and he stood on the brakes. He watched the other vehicles approach on his monitor. He might have hated this beat, but he loved his new vehicle.

    Once he was certain the perpetrator was within his sight, he pulled out across the roadway. He waited. At the last possible moment, when the bastard had no where to turn, Jack flipped on his lights and siren, drenching his quiet environment in waves of colorful noise. He jumped out, his weapon at the ready.

The suspect tried to run the embankment at Jack’s front end at first. He wouldn’t make it. He slammed on his brakes and spun like a top. Jack dove for cover behind the cottonwood just as the blue black Pontiac smacked his vehicle, metal and glass crunching against metal and glass, passenger side to passenger side.

   Jack came out from behind the tree. He had this bastard. All Jack had to do was pull him from his car. And here came the others. Three Pipe of Peace squads pulled up, surrounding the other vehicle. Before the officers exited their vehicles, the suspect took off, running for the woods. Jack took off, too. And tripped over a massive tree root. He landed flat on his face. He picked himself up, grabbed up his cap off the ground and replaced it. When he took off, his cap flew off again. He left it behind.

   That gave this bastard a good lead. He was small and slim and ran like a demon. Jack had a hard time just staying close. He had his weapon in one hand, and drew his flashlight out with the other as he ran. The Pipe of Peace cops kept up with Jack. All five men tore down the old rutted road into the forest preserves. If the others had their flashlights out, no one lit theirs. The moon was full and the sky was beginning to brighten.

   They followed a wide path that cut through the trees and into several clearings. They followed him up hill and down, across a ravine and through a stream. Jack’s ears rang with the sounds of his own panting, the pounding of his heart, his feet on the near frozen ground, and the grunts and groans of the others. Three days of rain had melted the snow. Another deep freeze hardened the mud again. It was a long, bumpy run. Jack’s lungs burned and heat rolled off the top of his head like steam out of an iron. 

     Then luck went their way. The bastard tripped over another root, landing in a stream. All four officers jumped into the water and grabbed the bastard up. It was hard, with that much adrenaline surging throughout his body, for Jack not to take his flashlight and smack this asshole right in the chops. He wanted so badly.... He backed off as one of the other cops took control of the perp. And he bent forward, desperately sucking up air into his dry nose and mouth, and down an incredibly long wind pipe. He felt every inch and every fiber inside his respiratory system.

    “What the fuck is that doing out here?” A panting Pipe of Peace cop flipped his flashlight on and focused it directly in front of them.

Jack glanced up quickly. A coyote lay on the ground before him. The beast stood slowly, shook itself off, and wandered off in the direction of a small hill. Jack watched as the beast nosed about a crevice. As if being swallowed, it began to disappear. First its muzzle, then its head, and as its back legs kicked at the ground, its forelegs, its body and its tail went. Even with the flashlight focused fully on the area, it was difficult to make out the opening.

    “Over here,“ a Pipe of Peace officer called. His light shined on an old Toyota Corolla that had been parked in the middle of a clearing. As far away as Jack was he swore he could see something fuzzy covering it. What was it? Like fringe, little hair like projections flapped in the breeze. Jack holstered his weapon and retreated to his radio, pinned to his shoulder. “This is car one two one. Ah, I found. Make it we found,” he glanced about at his fellow offi­cers, “an old Toyota Corola.”

    “Where?”

    "In the forest preserves. Back beyond the old cannery road.”

The dispatch officer paused for a moment or two, which was enough time for one of Jack‘s deer to step into his line of vision. Jack watched it. The animal nodded, snorted and stepped aside.

    “What color is it?” the dispatch officer asked.

    “Huh?”

    “What color?”

  “Hard to tell.” Jack left the his position and crossed a wide field in the direction of the vehicle. On the way, he kicked something, and it flew forward off his foot. He turned his flashlight downward. It was a high healed boot, and it was battered by the snowdrifts that buried it, and the rain and mud that soaked it. Was it impor­tant? He picked it up.

    He continued forward, scanning the ground with his flashlight. Oddest thing was that pink specks of something had fallen to the ground. He paused to examine a big chunk. It was thin and rubbery, like dried glue or paint. For that matter he could actually make out what looked like brush strokes. Jack moved his beam forward. The number of specks increased as his light came closer to the car. He focused the light on the car itself and the fringe hanging off of it. The fringe was light in color. The base color was much darker. A breeze picked up.  A strip of fringe ripped from the vehicle and fluttered his way. It landed on the ground and scampered by way of the wind across the frozen ground, stopping at his feet. He picked that up. Again, it was that pink plastic like substance.

     Something nibbled at the back of his mind. What was it he was supposed to re­member? Why was this significant? Ah ha. “Dispatch,” he called into his radio, “This is car one two one. I need a secure channel.”

*

     Marie awoke in a dark, smelly place. She couldn’t remember a thing, and damnit all anyway, she was stark naked. She sat up quickly. Her head hurt so bad. And damnit. She promised herself she wouldn’t do this again.

This place was disgusting. It smelled. Something vaguely familiar, but it still smelled. She pulled herself off a bare mattress and made her way to the doorway of the room where she switched on the ceiling light. Her clothes were all over. She found her underwear in one place and her jeans in another. Someone had pitched her bra up onto an old bureau. When she picked it up, she noticed two Matchbox cars.

      She dressed quickly, and then grabbed up the toys and tucked them in the pocket of her jeans. She remembered when Donny gave them to Mikey, although it wasn’t until the day after Donny died that Mikey even noticed them. He hadn’t been parted from them since. According to one letter he wrote to her, he treasured these above anything else he owned. Knowing Mikey, there had to be an unusual reason why he’d let them out of his sight.

*

     Milk found Red outside sitting on top of his picnic table. All the bastard had on was jeans and a sweat shirt with the sleeves torn away.  “Cold out here,” Milk commented as he sat. Red lit a joint and passed it on. ‘No wonder,’ Milk thought as he toked. Bastard was stoned enough he didn’t feel the cold or anything else. He was more focused on the ruins of his garage. ‘Pity,’ Milk thought. They made a lot of good memories out there.

     “You know something,” Red said when he retrieved the joint, “Willie was going to put up curtains. Pink ones. Like the ones inside.”

       “What?”

       "Willie. She likes pink.”

       Willie likes pink. Red wasn’t just stoned. “I need a beer.”

       Red nodded at the house. “Get me one, too. Willie always buys Miller.”

*

       Bill examined the damaged squad and really wanted to tear someone’s hide off. “That’s a fucking brand new vehicle. Twenty thousand for the vehicle alone, and another ten thousand to outfit it,” he told Callaghan. “This bastard need driving lessons? Or maybe someone should explain to him how long it’s going to be be­fore we can afford to replace this.”

       “Take it out of his paycheck, week by week,” Callaghan cracked.

     Bill pushed in under the sergeant’s nose and peered upward. “Sure. We can pro­mote him into your job so he pay it off that much quicker. You can have his beat.” Callaghan backed off. “Smart ass.”

      “Chief.” Bill turned away from Callaghan and the wreck. Reynolds headed his way. “We forced the door open,” Reynolds said, holding out something awfully familiar. “I think we got him.”

    “Good.” Reynolds handed him a boot. It had a high heal, it laced up the front, and where someone had scraped away a bit of the dirt, was pink suede. He took the boot from Reynolds and examined it closely. “Bag this,” he said handing it back. “See if you can pick up prints from inside the car.” He continued into the woods with Reynolds at his side. “How contaminated is the site?”

    “Bad enough. My bet is that car’s been sitting there since before the storm.”

    He nodded, and turned about. “Callaghan.”

    “Chief?”

   “I want these woods searched. Get a hold of Cook County. Inform them we’ll be crossing into their jurisdiction, and get me volunteers.” Bill walked the rest of the way, turning a detail oriented eye to­wards the pot holes, hills, gullies and stream beds along the way. This little patch of forest preserves wasn’t big, but it would take more people to effectively cover the entirety than what his little police force could muster in any given day.

   Bill took a good look inside the vehicle before allowing the others to work. It smelled like White Castle Hamburgers. Individual hamburger boxes were tossed haphazardly onto the floor. A bag sat on the counsel between the bucket seats. Bill borrowed a playtex glove from Reynolds. He put it on, and then delicately opened the bag. He saw more empties, but also a slip of paper. Very carefully, he removed a dated and timed receipt. It read December 31st, at twenty three oh five. “Fingerprints,” Bill whispered, with a smile. “We can only hope.” He dropped the receipt back into the bag.

*

   Most people went to church on Sunday, and maybe by some miracle her mother found God overnight. It would be nice to walk into the house and not find some­one there ready to dump on her for every problem in the old lady’s life. No, that wasn’t to be. When Marie let herself in the back door, her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen.

    “Stay out all night,” Mom commented. “That will look real good when your pa­role officer finds out. Look even better when you attend that custody hearing. How the hell do you expect to get the other two back if you’re out whoring around on the weekends?”

    Quietly Marie made her way to the sink and turned on the tap. She helped herself to Tylenol from the bottle her mother kept near the sink.

    "You deserve a hang over,” her mother commented. “And you have the nerve to tell me who Mikey should be around, and who he shouldn’t?”

    “Mikey,” she whispered. She downed the caplets and the water. Then she pulled the two cars from the pocket of her jeans. “Mikey,” she called.

      “Yeah!” His running was a whole hell of a lot louder than it used to be.

     When he tore into the kitchen, wearing his usual big smile, Marie tried to smile back. She handed him the cars. “You know it isn’t a good idea to leave anything at your Dad’s that you really care about. You know him. He wouldn’t think twice about trashing these.”

     "You know, Marie, I’m not done with you,” Mom continued from behind her.

*

     Bill sent Morgan home immediately. “I want to help,” the man said.

    “Fine,” Bill responded. “Get off my payroll. Then you get your ass home and change your pants.” He pointed to where Morgan had blown his knees out when he tripped over the tree root. The man agreed and returned an hour later, dressed in jeans and wearing in an orange quilted hunters jacket.

   Callaghan was a smart ass, but he knew how to get things done. He brought out the department’s huge German shepherds, Hammer and Kite, and their handlers. The handlers carried plastic bags with some of the clothing that Boca and Ryan had rescued from Stubs’ trash. Every so often the animals were allowed to sniff at a sweater or nightgown, and then were encourage to work.

   Volunteers, Portland police and Cook County cops who normally worked in the forest preserves exclusively, formed a line that stretched a few hundred feet across. They began at 145th Street and walked south, along Wahlberg and past the cannery. They covered areas where the shrubbery grew thick, and where the land was riddled with ravines. The people walked side by side, with a good three feet between them. They found long branches that they used to rustle up the grass or shrubs. That way they could hit on something maybe that they couldn’t see oth­erwise. When someone found something unusual, they called out and an officer came over to investigate. Usually it was nothing more than trash someone had left behind during a picnic the previous summer.

    Bill was impressed by the thoroughness and the variety of the volunteers. Wil­low’s parents and sisters came first. Mrs. Pratt commented several times that she hadn’t thought about the Forest Preserves at all, and if she had, she would have searched it herself earlier. “With the snow as heavy as it was,” Bill assured, “We weren’t able to get our people in here at all. It wouldn’t have done you any good to try.” The Rennault sisters came, as did Beverly Pinkston. So did a number of people who frequented either Pinkies’ or Twin Sisters’. There were people there who said they were friends, relatives or neighbors, or who had attended school or church with her. For that matter, Callaghan said that he called most of the churches in town that morning, asking them to announce during their services that the police required assistance.

    There were several small lakes, and a fairly deep stream leading into the Little Calumet River. The Fire Department had always maintained dive teams for use during emergencies on the Cal Sag Channel and the Little Calumet. Callaghan asked for their help. It was a cold day, but the sun was out and the wind had died down. Still, when the divers came up sooner than Bill had anticipated, Fire Chief Elliot Supolski explained. “It’s damned cold down there. Get in. Find out.”

    “Just make sure they don’t miss anything,” Bill barked before taking off.

As he crossed back to the opposite end of the field where his walkers were, his cell phone rang. “Chief, we have the fingerprints back, and bingo,” Unsinger told him.

    “What the fuck does that mean?”

    “Robert Stubs. Ryan is on his way to pick up a search warrant.”

    “Good.” He hung up.

   Bill shook his head as he surveyed the area. This was going to cost him a freakin’ fortune, especially if it turned out wrong. Something deep down inside, call it instinct, call it a hunch, said that she wasn’t here. He needed to get to Stubs, which is something that had ate at him the day she was reported missing.

“Unsinger says he has viable prints and that Ryan’s on his way out to pick up a search warrant for Stubs’ place. I want Stubs picked up now. And I want you to do it quietly. I want that other pig, Borenstein, too. And make sure you do it without broadcasting it all over Portland so that anyone with a police scanner wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell one of them.”

    Callaghan nodded.

   “Chief!” Bill looked up, finding Morgan standing in front of a picnic table where a woman with a stick stood. It was surrounded by crushed beer cans and White Castle wrappers that had been ravaged by wild life. Morgan wore Playtex gloves and held up a plastic lunch bag. Bill hurried over. It held spent shells from a nine millimeter handgun.

   “Good work,” he called. “Tape this off.” He left it to Reynolds to ease volunteers out of the area. Then he called up the handlers. “Let them loose,” he said referring to the dogs. In very short order, someone found an industrial size box of plastic trash bags. An address label on the front said that the box had been delivered to World Reddee Transport. The dogs also located clumps of blonde hair and torn pieces of plastic caught up in the bushes. Considering the weight and the texture, it was almost certain that the plastic was part of a bag that came from the box.

     As soon as he could, he found himself an empty squad, and locked himself in. He called home on his cell. “Hey, Tina,” he said when the girl answered. “How are you?”

     “Fine.”

     “Did you go to church?” he asked.

     “Yeah. We missed you though.”

     “Well, I rather be in church than out here. Is Sophie around?”

    He heard his wife in the background, admonishing the girl for not passing her the phone any more quickly than she had. “Bill?” his wife demanded.

    “Yeah.”

    “How’s the search going? You find anything?”

    “Yes and no.”

    “Oh.”

    “Listen, I’ll be home for dinner. In and out again.”

    “What time?”

    “Five all right?”

    “Fine. I’ll have a pork roast.”

    “Good.” He closed his eyes and relaxed just a little. “Hey, Sophie?”

    “Yeah, Bill?”

    “I love you.”

    “I love you, too.”

    When Bill returned to the site, Morgan called him over again. Inside a taped off area, he found what looked like two pieces of bone. Specialists photographed them, and then using a pair of tweezers, they were picked up and placed in plastic bags. Very close to that, they found another nine millimeter shell. This one, though, was crumpled. They moved next to a man’s leather glove.

*

    Milk needed beer, and he needed to keep his eye on Red. Bastard just wasn’t right in the head. He’d swear at the ruins of the garage one minute, saying that Willie was a vengeful bitch, that she took the only thing in the world that mattered to him. And then he’d take off in another direction, calling her name, and wanting to know where the hell she was. Red said the house looked like crap and it smelled funny, too. And where was that nice thick blanket? You know. The pink one.

    Milk poured Red into the passenger seat of the Nova and headed Uptown. McAllister’s usually had Busch on sale at thirty cans for seven ninety nine. He’d rush in. All Red had to do was stay put.

     Stay out of trouble. But not Red. When Milk returned to the car, Red was gone.

*

     Ruth Ellen parked on Trent and got out to walk. Stubs was at it again, stopping people on the street, asking them if they saw Willie, and why wasn’t she coming home. “Willie!” he screamed after one woman with blonde hair, “Talk to me! Willie?” When he tried to take the woman by the elbow, Ruth    Ellen stepped in. “I have to talk to Willie,” he told her.

        “Willie isn’t here,” she said, trying to pull him away from the woman.

        “Where is she? Why is she doing this?”

        “Doing what?”

        “Running from me?”

     “Stubs, listen to me,” she ordered. “She’s missing. You know she’s missing.” She needed to talk this man down, to cool him off. She couldn’t. She wasn’t built that way. The man frustrated the hell out of her, and right now she wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake the hell out of him.

    “No,” he insisted, pointing up the street, “I saw her. I need to talk to her.”
    “Calm down.”

*

    Miami was fairly crowded given it was a Sunday afternoon. The light changed to red and Felix took that opportunity to take a good look about him. “I think I see Stubs now,” he remarked into his cell phone.

    “Where?” Callaghan asked.

    “I’m Uptown. God help the poor bastard. Ruth Ellen has him.”

    Callaghan snorted. “Poor bastard.”

    The pair hung up and Felix double parked his unmarked squad in the middle of Miami, right beside Ruth Ellen and Stubs. He stepped from the car. Horns sounded and drivers shouted profanities out of their open windows. “Hey, you can’t park there, and you know it,” Ruth Ellen advised him. As she said it Stubs slipped away from her.

   Felix reached in and flipped on his interior red and blue lights. “Ruth Ellen,” he called, nodding in Stubs’ direction. The horns ended, and the profanity came as drivers rolled their windows up.

   The man started to run. Ruth Ellen took off. “Hey, Stubs!” Felix followed. Stubs glanced back at them, and picked up speed. He ran smack into a lamp post, and crumpled onto the ground. When they caught up, Ruth Ellen shook him. “Hey, Stubs, wake up.”

   "Christ, Ruth Ellen,” Felix hissed, pushing on her shoulder. “Fucking knocked him out.”

    “Don’t touch me,” she barked up at Felix as she tried to shake Stubs. “Stubs. Wake up, now.”

    “Christ, call for an ambulance.”

    “I’ll call for an ambulance and you get your freakin’ car out of the middle of the street! You got that, Boca?” She pushed at him as Stubs groaned beneath her.

     “Handcuff him,” Felix ordered.

     “Why?”

     “Just do it.”

     “He’s crazy. That’s not a crime.”

    Felix knelt down and rolled the man to one side. Pulling one arm behind him, he dug for the other. “Help me.” She wrapped her arms about Stubs’ frame, grunted and lifted him just enough. Felix pulled the other arm out from under him and pinned both behind the man’s back. He used plastic cuffs. As he attached them to the man’s wrists, he made kissy lips at Ruth Ellen. “There ain’t nothing like a strong woman to warm my heart.”

    “Yeah, well, fuck you, Boca.”

    “I’ve been hoping.”

   Milk turned the corner in time to see that beaner and de Boer cuff Red. God help him and Red. Maybe the cops had time to search the Forest Preserve, or maybe Mikey shot his mouth off. Either way, Milk turned tail and ran.

*

   The ambulance arrived and two emergency medical technicians plucked Stubs from the sidewalk and deposited him on a backboard. Ruth Ellen hopped in the passenger side of the ambulance as Felix took off in his squad.

   Once he had it around the corner and out of the way, he called Callaghan back to report on their progress. “Ruth Ellen went with him to the hospital,” Felix ex­plained. “Funniest thing I ever saw. This bastard sees me and he takes off. She calls him, he turns around and looks at her, and runs straight into a light pole. Knocked himself out.”

   “You better hope this bastard is guilty. Ramos hears we’re footing his hospital bill, and I swear he’ll stroke out. Your overtime alone is killing him.” Callaghan had a chuckle in his voice at first. But then harsh words from another source, turned Callaghan’s hard. “Chief wants you.”

   Ramos took over. “What the fuck do you mean you knocked him out?”

   “He ran into a street pole. Knocked himself out.”

   “Where is he now?”

   “Ruth Ellen called an ambulance. She rode with them to the hospital.”

Ramos drew in. “This isn’t Ruth Ellen’s case,” he said slowly. “It’s yours. Get your ass over there now. He’s released, you get him back to the station and you get a confession out of him. You got that, Felix?”

   “Yes, sir.”

   “Then you punch out get the fuck off my payroll.”

*

   Milk ran back to McAllisters. As quickly as he could, he jumped in his car, threw it in gear, and tried to back out of his parking spot. Someone got behind him and beeped. He threw the car into drive and tried to hurry. It wasn’t going to happen. When he tried to pull out on the street, he nearly hit another car. He motioned towards the horn, but stopped himself when he noticed the squad across the street. The damned thing sounded anyway. He pushed his way into traffic, squeezing between a Ford and a Honda. When he glanced back at the squad, the guy turned on his lights. Milk floored it, push­ing his way around the Ford. His radio flashed on at full volume. He changed lanes, and it changed channels again. The squad got in line behind him. He hur­ried. The squad sped up. Milk’s headlights flashed and his horn beeped. He pulled behind an Arrowstar and up as close to its bumper as he could without touching it. The squad tried to pull next to him. Once Milk got an opening, he made a left, cutting across traffic and at just the last possible moment. The squad drove on past him.

   He hurried. His lights flashed, his horn beeped and he drove up one alley and down the next side street. The squad nearly caught up to him on Maple, except that he hit the alley before the bastard could turn. And he stayed with the alley, all the way up, heading north, across 123rd Street, and again into the alley.

   He pulled up behind Angela’s house. He barely had the car out of gear when he yanked the keys from the ignition. The damned thing continued to beep and flash its lights. He ran, letting himself in the back gate. He cut through the yard, just as Mikey had, and just what he screamed at his son for about a thousand times. And he darted through the back door.

    A siren approached from behind him. Did anyone see him come in? God, he hoped not.

*

    Jim Kirby called in the license number on that Nova once he managed to get behind it on Miami. Damned drunks scared the hell out of him. Never knew what to expect next. When the bastard turned off of Miami, he expected to be calling for an ambulance and tow trucks. The oncoming minivan just missed the Nova’s back fender.

    Jim rolled his window down and turned at the next corner. It was almost too easy following that beeping horn. Jim Kirby found it in the alley between Maple and Greaves, and damned, if that Nova still didn’t beep. He parked next to the bugger, leaving his vehicle running and his driver’s side door open. There was an open back gate, and from what Jim could see, another open gate leading to the house on Maple. He hurried through that yard.

*

   Inside Angela huffed and puffed and bitched up a storm. “You have no business playing games like that if you aren’t married. What’s wrong with either one of you? You got a son to raise. He doesn’t need to see this behavior!”

Mikey sat on the floor with those damned cars of his. The kid was oblivious. Marie was curled up on her knees on the sofa, with her head buried under a pillow. The siren came closer, filling in the gaps in the beeps. It was right there. A mo­ment later someone screamed, “Open up!” That person banged on the back door.

     Angela paused before him, staring at the back of the house and ready to say something else. When she opened her mouth though, Milk raised one huge arm and smacked her right across the mouth. The bitch flew backwards into the wall. He didn’t have time to think. The banging grew and the siren wailed and his horn still beeped. He grabbed the pillow away from Marie, and then grabbed her by the hair. He yanked her up and off the sofa. With his other hand, he hauled his son off the floor by his collar. “Where’s Mom’s purse?” he demanded, pushing the boy away from him. Mikey darted into the dining room. He returned quickly with it.

     “Out!” Milk ordered, pointing at the front door. He reached into his coat pocket for what, he had no idea. A gun maybe. He found his cell phone. No matter. He pointed it like a weapon at her head, and dragged her forward by the hair. Mikey had the door open and out they went. “Find Mom’s car keys,” he ordered the boy.

      Angela’s 1995 cream colored Lincoln sat at the curb. She never locked it. Who would steal it? Milk almost chuckled at that. Him. That’s who. Mikey opened the front passenger side door for Milk and the back door for himself. Milk tossed Marie across the front seat into the driver’s seat. “Drive,” he ordered when Mikey passed the keys up. Milk grabbed her hair again. She turned the engine over and it quivered. He clenched her hair tighter. “Hurry up!”

       A cop ran forward through the gangway between the houses.

She had it in gear finally. The cop ran out into the street as she eased out of her spot. “Step on it,” Milk ordered, pulling tighter on her hair.

     "Okay, okay,” she sobbed. “Don’t pull so hard.” She picked up a bit of speed, but then stopped at the stop sign at the corner. “Where am I going?”

        “I don’t know. Just get me the fuck out of here!”

*

     Jim slapped the back bumper as the Lincoln took off. As quickly as he made the street, he turned and ran for his squad still in the alley. “Car one five oh,” he called into the radio pinned to his shoulder. “This bastard switched cars. He’s in a beige Lincoln. Old car. Driving north on Maple at 122nd Place.” He paused long enough to jump into his squad. He had it in gear and was tearing down the alley before fully closing the door. Just on time, too. He saw the tail light as it turned left on Pensacola. “It’s heading south on Pensacola, back to 123rd. I need backup,” he called as he careened around the corner. Be nice to be able to follow the sound of a beeping horn now. One could only hope.

Link to March 9th