She discussed with Dodge the career path she had plotted, as though he could offer valuable advice on how she could achieve her goals in the time frame she'd set. He had little to offer, but she didn't seem to realize that. He was flattered that she often asked for his unlearned opinion.
She was more cultured than he was. She'd read more books, heard more symphonies, listened to more lectures, and toured more museums. Hell, in his whole life, he'd been inside one museum, and he'd gone then only because he'd heard it had an exhibition devoted entirely to paintings of naked women.
Caroline was way above him intellectually. But the way she listened when he talked made him feel smarter, like she thought anything he said was worth hearing.
'I bet you got straight A's in school,' he teased one night.
She blushed, which was as good as an admission.
He laughed. 'I got my degree by the skin of my teeth.'
'But you've got common sense.'
'Street smarts.'
'Don't dismiss the importance of that,' she said earnestly. 'In your line of work, that's vital to keeping you alive.'
He couldn't talk to her about his present duty, but he told her about previous cases he'd worked, some amusing, some tragic. She seemed fascinated by even the most mundane story.
On one of his days off from the tire plant, they ventured out together for the first time. He took her to the movies. She wore her dark glasses until they got into the theater and the houselights went down.
They shared a box of popcorn. Occasionally their hands reached in at the same time and they had swatting contests. Once when she crossed her legs, her foot bumped his calf, but she excused herself and moved it away.
It was a movie about two brothers, one good, one bad, both of whom hated their tyrannical father but loved the same woman. There was a scene where the leads made love--sexy, hungry, forbidden love. Dodge had never been so turned on by a film sequence, and it wasn't because he got flashed by a celebrated pair of tits that were probably insured for a million dollars by Lloyd's of London. It was because he was sitting next to Caroline, whose breasts were small but the objects of fantasies that each night left him sweaty and fretful on his damn sofa.
He wanted her. God, did he. But he didn't touch her. For damn sure not during that movie scene. Even the slightest move in that direction would've shattered the trust she'd placed in him. Anyone who knew him would never believe their relationship was chaste, but to take advantage of her situation would be to abuse her worse than Campton had.
Dodge didn't think about the future when she wouldn't be there to welcome him home after his workday, when he would no longer hear her humming in the kitchen, or catch the scent of her shampoo in the bathroom. He pretended it would go on like this forever. Except for his raging, confused, and chaotic libido, he was wonderfully content.
Up till the day he was upended by a stupid, senseless, unnecessary calamity that made him want to pick up a baseball bat and attack God where he lived.
That day, after his grind at the tire plant, Dodge called Caroline and told her it would be another hour or so before he got home. He went to task force headquarters for a scheduled briefing.
He should have noticed the subdued atmosphere in the building immediately upon entering it. But he was thinking about Caroline and the pot roast dinner she had said was waiting for him. Pot roast was such an evocative dish. It connoted hearth and home. Permanence.
His daydream of pot roast dinners for years to come was swaddled in such a rosy haze that he didn't pick up on the funereal mood among his fellow officers until he realized that they were all avoiding eye contact with him.
He asked the room at large, 'What'd I do?'
No one said anything.
'What's going on?'
Silence.
'Jesus. There's been another robbery? Did somebody else get killed?
One brave soul cut off his tirade. 'It's not that, Dodge. It's, uh, it's...'
'What?
'It's Gonzales.'
It took a moment for Dodge to switch his thoughts from their elusive, clever bank robber to his former partner and best friend. But from there he made an instant connection between the glum mood in the room and Jimmy's name.
His heart came to a sudden, thudding halt. He stopped breathing. He swallowed convulsively, but his mouth had gone dry, he had no spit.
'There was an accident,' one of his cohorts said. 'Gonzales was ... He didn't make it.'
'Sorry, Dodge.'
'Hey, man, I'm sorry.'
'Goes with the territory, but ... shit.'
'Anything I can do, Dodge, just ask. Okay?'
The murmured words of consolation barely registered. He turned his back to the other men and tried to assimilate what they were telling him. He couldn't. He came back around. 'Jimmy's
'Take it easy, Dodge.'
'Where is he?'
'The morgue. His folks are there.'
'I gotta--'
'Dodge, you can't!'
He made a dash for the exit but was grabbed from behind, and he began struggling savagely to shake off restraining hands. 'You can't go to the aid of a cop, Dodge.'
'Think, man!'
'You'll blow your cover.'
'Fuck that!' he yelled. 'And fuck you. Let go of me.'
He continued to scream obscenities, but eventually he exhausted himself, and the reasonableness of what the other officers were saying sank in. He ceased struggling, and they released him. He dropped into the nearest chair and sat there for the longest time, trying to collect himself, wishing he didn't believe the unbelievable. Finally he looked up. 'You said it was an accident. What happened?'
A rock star had flown into Hobby Airport for a concert to take place that night at the Astrodome. Gonzales, wanting the overtime, had volunteered to ride in one of the squad cars providing police escort for the singer's limo. Word had leaked out of his arrival time. From Hobby Airport, the limo was chased by paparazzi and carloads of crazed, dope-fueled, fanatical fans.
Gonzales and another officer were in the car directly behind the limo. One of the cars chasing the motorcade, trying to get between them, clipped the front bumper of the squad car. They were going so fast that the officer behind the wheel lost control. The car spun out and was slung into a telephone pole, hitting it broadside with such force, it was almost cut in half.
Jimmy Gonzales was.
Cut in half.
