smiled.
'When you don't have the one you hate, you work on what you've got. What you're hearing, Crystal, is my very
Low and muted behind the door, a child's voice was sobbing. 'Mommy! Mommy, I'm sorry! Forgive me. Mommy! Please!'
At 1:13 that morning, the doorbell rang.
Macho/Macha
Vancouver, British Columbia, 1982
Sunday, October 31st, 11:05 a.m.
Katherine Spann was standing at the bulletin board looking at the photograph of Joanna Portman's head when one of the# men in the group with her said: 'Well, this sure puts all our balls on the line.'
'And just what does it do for me?' the woman asked.
The male cop who had spoken looked her over from head to toe. 'Depends what part of your body you want to put at risk,' he said, winking in conspiracy with a couple of the men. Spann turned back to the bulletin board, ignoring the taunt.
Beside the plastic sealed photograph and note from the Headhunter, MacDougall had just pinned up the duty roster. Spann scanned the list of assignments and began to hunt for her name. She found it under the list heading:
'Anybody here know a guy named Rick Scarlett?' she asked.
'You're looking at him,' the man said who had just given her the visual once-over.
'Oh, great!' the woman said. 'Just great!'
Scarlett was tall, just under six two, and in his late twenties. His hair was short and light brown with just a hint of redness, the color the same as that of his clipped military moustache. His eyes were a muddy brown. The features of his face were clean and sharp as were the other lines of his body. His muscles were tightly knit, and he moved with fluid motion.
'I'll see you downstairs,' Katherine Spann said, then she turned on her heels and made for the locker room.
Behind her someone whistled.
Locker rooms — even coed locker rooms — are the same the whole world over. There is that universal smell of sweat. There is the certain knowledge that the fungus of athlete's foot is lurking in at least one of the corners. And — if males are present — there is sure to be a jock mentality to the level of conversation. Men in locker rooms always relate that way.
When Katherine Spann came down the stairs at 4949 Heather Street, two men and a woman were talking at the foot of the steps.
'… he was a bum-face all the way,' one of the men was saying.
'A bum-face? What do you mean?'
'You know, one of those guys with big fleshy round orbs for cheeks, skin stretched tight as it goes. Always got a little mouth pursed together like a twitching sphincter. Guy looks at you, ya think he's hangin a moon.'
'Do you always talk about judges this way?' the woman in the group asked.
'Always,' Ed Rabidowski said.
'Mad Dog' Rabidowski at thirty-two was a Charles Bronson type: square shoulders, over-developed muscle tone, latent violence. His face looked like a piece of rough-cut stone. His cheekbones were chiseled high with an Oriental slant, his nose chipped fine and his mouth slashed thin. He had Clark Gable ears, jet black hair, bushy black eyebrows, and a drooping black moustache. His eyes were colored gun-barrel blue.
The Mad Dog's father had been a trapper in the Yukon and by the age of six Rabidowski was able to take the eye out of a squirrel with a.22 at 100 yards. It was Rabidowski who had picked off the Albanian sniper in Ottawa sent from China by way of Hong Kong to assassinate Soviet Premier Kosygin on his Canadian state visit. The incident had kicked off the Mad Dog's rise to fame. Then for the last five years straight he had taken the trophy for both pistol and rifle marksmanship in the RCMP annual competition. When he wore his uniform jacket, both rifle and handgun insignia — each surmounted with a crown to denote a distinguished marksman — were displayed prominently on one sleeve. At the present moment, however, Rabidowski was stripped to the waist.
'Mark my words,' the Mad Dog continued, 'a lawyer with a bum-face always goes to the bench.'
'Come on!' the woman said.
'Excuse me,' Katherine Spann said, interrupting the conversation. 'May I please get through?'
'Oh no, not another broad,' the Mad Dog sighed in disgust. 'This place is crawling with them!'
'Makes you long for the old days, don't it?' Spann said sarcastically.
'Don't it ever,' Rabidowski replied, being completely honest.
Spann let it go. Just as she had with Scarlett. For the truth of the matter was that since her initial day of training in Regina in 1974, this internal attitude had come along with the job. And that was to be expected. 1974 was the first year that the Force had recruited women: for a hundred and one years previously it had been an elite male club. Even today most men did not want to work with a female partner; for in the back of their minds they feared being caught short if there was something physical needed or there was a firefight. A woman just couldn't cut it. Every man knew that.
It was not, of course, as though in day-to-day police work this anti-female attitude was blatant in its manifestation; indeed most of the men bent over backwards to accommodate the women. And that, more than anything else, was the real root of the problem.
But then Rabidowski was different: his thoughts on the subject never went unspoken. 'You're Scarlett's partner, aren't you?' the Mad Dog asked of Spann. 'Do the man a favor, eh. Try not to distract him. He'll have work to do.'
As he finished speaking Rabidowski put a cigarette to his lips and lit a match with the nail of his thumb.
As the phosphorous flared Spann turned to the other woman in the group and said: 'This guy's a 'matcho' man.'
The other woman grinned and asked: 'Is he always such a jerk?'
'Always,' Rick Scarlett answered. He had just come down the stairs to join the bottleneck at the bottom.
'Hi. I'm Monica Macdonald.'
'My name's Katherine Spann.'
'This is Rusty Lewis. We've been paired as partners on one of these flying patrols.'
'So have we,' Spann said. 'Me and the guy who just
came down the steps.'
'My name's Rick Scarlett,' Scarlett said, shaking hands all round. 'How you doing, Mad Dog? Long time no see.'
'As well as a working cop can when he's inundated with broads.'
' 'Inundated,' ' Spann said. 'That must be a pretty big word for someone like you.'
'I see you've met the Mad Dog,' Scarlett grinned.
'Where'd he get the nickname?' Macdonald asked.
Katherine Spann said: 'It must be all the hot air — it makes him foam at the mouth.'
'Broads!' Rabidowski snorted.
'We used to shorten Rabidowski down to Rabid,' Scarlett said. ' 'Mad Dog' came from 'Rabid.' And believe me, he acts it.'
'I'd never have guessed.'
'Don't sell the man short,' Rick Scarlett added. 'He just might be the best marksman this Force has ever had.'
'I doubt that,' Spann said. 'I hear DeClercq was better.'
Rabidowski guffawed. 'You call a bow a marksman's weapon!'
