Ghouls

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kurt snapped the last leather spacer over his black Hume gunbelt. He immediately realized how much he missed that snug extra weight riding his hip. The newly pressed pants bore creases like the edge of a cutting bezel. He buttoned down the shirt pockets, swept at some apparitional lint, and adjusted his collar for what must have been the fifth time. Yes, it felt good to be back in the “monkey suit,” as Higgins called it.

“Well,” he said to Vicky. “How do I look?”

Vicky’s neck tensed up, as though she were trying hard not to laugh at something unduly amusing. “The truth?”

“Yeah.”

“You look like a new wave Cub Scout master.”

Kurt’s self-image flew away like a released balloon. “You don’t know how good that makes me feel. Thanks a heap.”

“No, don’t misunderstand me,” she hurried to explain, but now her laughter was close to rampant. “It’s not you, it’s the uniform. I’m not sure why, but it just looks…dumb.”

“Kind of you to elaborate. At least our uniforms don’t look as bad as the county’s.”

“Yours look worse,” Melissa said, just strolling into the kitchen. She reached into the refrigerator and removed a cherry-filled Danish. “At least the county police look like police.”

Kurt’s expression solidified into a deep frown.

Melissa continued, nibbling. “Admit it, Kurt. Your uniforms look stupid. Tell Bard to get new uniforms. With the ones you got now, people won’t know if you’re a cop or a gas station attendant. You’ll be pulling folks over for speeding and they’ll be asking you to check under the hood.”

He resisted the impulse to push the Danish in her face and throw what was left at Vicky. “When I want your opinions, I’ll ask for ’em.”

“Well, you did ask,” Vicky said, her amusement still very plain. “And don’t be so sensitive. We’re not cutting you down. It’s not your fault the uniforms look asinine.”

“But since you look the part,” Melissa said, “you might as well check the oil and do the windshield.”

“Save the comedy for Eddie Murphy,” Kurt retorted, gathering up his keys. “You can both sit on stick shifts for all I care. If my uniform’s not good enough for you, then move.”

He went out of the house, shoulders hunched at the riot of female laughter that followed him. Once in the driveway, he appraised his reflection in the Ford’s windshield. Was his uniform really that dumb looking? He scowled at his glass-warped image, and admitted that it probably was.

New wave scoutmaster, he thought, and started up the Ford. That’s what I get for committing myself to public service.

He lead-footed it to work. It was two minutes to six; being late on his first shift back would not overly delight Higgins, who’d covered so many of his hours these past few days. He exceeded the speed limit without hesitation —occupational immunity from traffic laws was at least one advantage to his job. Who was going to give him a ticket in his own town?

The state police cruiser seemed to appear on his tail from nowhere, lights flashing, siren whooping to wake the dead. Kurt pulled over, enraged at his luck. Now he was really going to be late.

A state trooper with a face like carved wood walked up and stood just behind Kurt’s window. “Driver’s license, registration, please.”

Kurt flashed his badge. “Morris, Tylersville PD.”

The trooper seemed incomprehending as a puppet. “Driver’s license, registration, please.”

“Oh, come on, cut me some slack. I’m a town cop.”

“I don’t care if you’re the little Dutch boy on your way to the dike. There’s no excuse for speeding. Just ‘cause you’ve got a badge doesn’t mean you’re entitled to piss all over the state traffic laws.”

The ultimate humiliation. Slouched low, Kurt went through a familiar sequence of events, only this time in reverse. Eventually he applied his full signature to the oblong Uniform Maryland Complaint and Citation, and was then given the underlying pink copy to keep. The trooper snapped his aluminum ticket book shut, bidding with a perfectly blank face, “Have a nice evening.”

Your mother sucks bullpeckers in hell, Kurt came dangerously close to saying.

««—»»

The town cruiser wasn’t in the lot when he finally made it to the station. By them it was a quarter after; Higgins had missed shiftchange for the first time in years.

With his own key, Kurt let himself into the office. Empty, as expected. Higgins’s street gear still hung from the corner of his open locker door.

He’ll be along in a minute. Probably lost track of time at the Jiffy-Stop, eyeballing the boppers behind the counter.

The office silence made him tense. To pass time he flipped through one of Bard’s Hustlers. The pictures glared up at him, a glossy collage of vivid, hot colors, crystal pinks, and glimmers on flesh like shards of glass. He actually shuddered at the total effect, wondering what had happened to the mystery, and even the elegance, of erotic photography. He could remember when men’s magazines weren’t allowed to show even pubic hair— now the layouts had degenerated to visions of outright vaginoscopy. These women would have to turn their bodies inside out to reveal any more of themselves. He put the magazine away, depressed.

Next, he sat up on the desk, disgustedly staring at the ticket. Prudential would love this, an ideal excuse to milk more money out of him. He tried to banish the scene from his mind—his first traffic fine since high school. Bard would laugh the stationhouse down if he ever found out.

Ten more minutes passed. Where the hell was Higgins?

Now Kurt was pacing the office, though not really aware of it yet. He went to pour himself some coffee, but found the bottom of the pot encrusted by a coat of dried black sediment. The smell made his eyes water.

By 7:00 p.m., Higgins had still not surfaced. Kurt glowered out the front window a few times, speculating. Not another departmental wreck, he pleaded to himself. Bard would go into convulsions. Maybe he broke down somewhere. After ten minutes more, Kurt dialed P.G. Police Headquarters. He counted seven rings before a clone-voiced desk sergeant answered, “County police nonemergency.”

“Extension 345, please.”

“Are you a police officer?”

“Morris, Tylersville. ID 8.”

“Hold.”

A full minute must’ve ticked by during the technical oblivion of “hold.” Kurt leaned over and turned on Bard’s base station police monitor, wincing at the sudden upsurge of corroded voices and intermodulative static. When the phone line was reconnected, a young, personable voice answered, “Zone B dispatch.”

“I need you to have 207 landline his station.”

“Hang on.”

Then the same man’s voice crackled out of the radio: “Two-zero-seven.”

Seconds lapsed, with no reply.

Again: “Two-zero-seven.”

No answer.

The dispatcher came back on the phone. “He’s not copying. Must be cooping someplace.”

“No way, not this guy.”

“How late is he?”

“A little over an hour,” Kurt said, but now he was worried. It was one thing to miss shift change, but failing to answer the radio was a serious matter ninety percent of the time. “Is he 10-8?”

Kurt heard a faint plastic plunking, computer keys. Then the dispatcher said, “No.”