Pariah

‘Can the gratitude. You’re making me start to doubt my vocation. Anyway, while they were asking me questions, I fired a few back at them. Story is they’re about ready to bring you in from the cold. My guess is they’ll put you on modified duty at first, but if you can put up with being a house mouse for a while, it’ll soon blow over.’

Will it, Doyle wonders, be as straightforward as that? But then maybe Paulson’s right. Maybe that’s my pessimistic streak showing itself again.

He glances at his watch.

‘Listen, I gotta go. More Christmas shopping. We already got a freezer busting at the seams, but who am I to argue, right?’

‘Sure,’ Paulson says, and when Doyle stands up he adds, ‘You mind if I ask you something?’

‘Go ahead,’ says Doyle.

‘Why’d you come here today?’

‘You have to ask? You saved my life.’

Paulson nods, apparently satisfied with the response.

Doyle starts to turn away, then pauses. ‘You mind if I ask you something?’

‘What?’

‘Why are you being so nice to me? Why all the help?’

Paulson looks back at him for a long time, as if debating whether to give him the full or the condensed version.

‘You bought me coffee and donuts.’

Doyle narrows his eyes. ‘Is that all?’

‘Sometimes that’s all it takes.’

Doyle thinks this over, then completes his turn and heads for the door. Paulson’s parting shot floats after him.

‘Merry Christmas, Detective Doyle.’

‘Yeah,’ says Doyle. ‘You too, Sarge. You too.’

He goes back to work on the first day of the year. A fresh start and all that. His New Year’s resolution: to take whatever’s coming and make the best of it.

He barely has a foot through the door of the station house before he starts to think that resolutions are the most ridiculous invention known to man.

The atmosphere reminds him of the night this all began — when they clustered around the body of Joe Parlatti. The stares, the nudges, the winks, the muttered asides. It starts with the desk sergeant, who looks goggle-eyed at him like he’s an alien invader, then spreads from there in a wave. Even a pair of handcuffed skells seem to sense deep in their coke-addled brains that something is amiss with the new arrival.

He takes the steps to the second floor, passing a couple of undercovers who stop in their tracks and follow him with their eyes. Along the hallway, clerical workers glance out through the glass windows of their offices and call to their colleagues to bring their attention to the phenomenon drifting by.

At the entrance to the squadroom he has to pause and draw a deep breath before continuing. Ignore them, he tells himself. Whatever they want to say, whatever bullshit comments they want to make, don’t react. Just let them get it off their chests.

The room is busier than usual. A lot busier. In addition to the regular day-tour detectives, there are the Robbery Apprehension guys, there are cops from Anti-Crime, there is a gaggle of uniforms who all chose this very moment to drop off some paperwork. All come to see the freak show.

The gang’s all here, thinks Doyle. Let’s get this party started.

He aims for his desk and starts walking like he’s heading for the hangman’s noose. Silence descends on the room. No clacking of keyboards, no wisecracks, no coughing, no cursing. Eerily, even the phones stop ringing, as though the whole city has been notified to observe a minute’s silence for this event.

Doyle takes a seat on his familiar chair — the one with the splatter of paint on its arm. He casts his gaze over his familiar scarred desk — the one with the left-hand drawer that doesn’t open. He looks at his stack of Guinness beer mats, the bobble-headed leprechaun.

And then it starts.

One guy at first. Then a few more. Then practically everyone.

They are applauding.

They are clapping loudly and without sarcasm. They are showing their support for one of their own. They are welcoming him home.

Doyle keeps his gaze fixed on his desktop. He is certain there will be one or two cops — Schneider amongst them — who will not be applauding. But right now he doesn’t want to know who’s for him and who’s against him. He just wants to absorb the overriding sense of acceptance.

They approach him then. Shaking his hand, slapping his back and shoulder, issuing pat phrases that could come straight off greeting cards. To Doyle it’s a blur of faces and a bombardment of words that all sound different but which all convey essentially the same positive message.

And then they drift away. Back to their desks, their offices, their work. A file cabinet squeaks open. Someone starts bashing at a keyboard. A phone starts ringing. Normality reigns once more.

Except it isn’t normal. How could it be normal?

All those people dead. The empty desks in the squadroom. The things that Doyle himself did and of which he cannot speak. And, of course, the message from Lucas Bartok. Those whispered words of his, seared into Doyle’s brain:

‘I got a corpse. The body of a guinea named Sonny Rocca. Still with your bullets in him.’

Which tells Doyle that Bartok hasn’t stepped out forever. He’s coming back. Maybe not tomorrow, or next week, or even next month. But he’ll be back.

Doyle knows his life will never be the same again.