Chapter 2: Entropy and Sorrow's Kiss
Alan Burnett listened to an oldies radio station, an AM station that had been around since a year longer than forever - and that had a play-list that seemed comfortably lost in the seventies. Steely Dan was still Reelin' In The Years, and the cop sat in the air conditioned Dodge Police Interceptor, his thumbs drumming away on the steering wheel while he cruised down one suburban street after another, looking for something - anything - out of place. A door standing open, an unfamiliar car in a driveway, a shout, a scream, a barking dog, a woman in a bikini . . .
Almost an hour 'til lunch, he thought, yet he wasn't hungry. No calls this morning, no reports to write, yet . . . it seemed quiet - too quiet - for a summer morning. He turned a corner and headed down another street. Autopilot . . . he felt like he was on autopilot. Or maybe drifting, drifting through life. No, that's not quite right, he told himself with more conviction than he felt. He thought of himself within that moment as a sleepwalker might - he had to force himself to concentrate, his eyelids felt heavy, and he felt lost in a haze. But his eyes burned with fatigue. He couldn't sleep anymore; recent letters from Debbie's lawyer simmered in his mind, remnants of a stale marriage gone bad and the consequences reverberating through recent nights like a favorite old song heard too many times, memories good and bad bouncing around in the dark for so long they were no longer truths . . . they were just echoes of a bad dream.
No, he hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks, and the dreams he had were simply a parody of love and the silent betrayal of an oath.
Down another street, up another alley, each beige brick house looking like the one next to it, endless in their monotonous acquiescence. Endless broken dreams, they seemed to stand as silent monuments to vapid futility and preening vanity. He thought about the lives that inevitably played out behind all those brick walls, and he imagined the lives inside each as mundane and trivial, full of bad marriages well on their way down the slippery slopes of dissolution. This was the beige life, he thought, dull and meaningless, all walled in little brick containers so nobody could see inside and look at the meaninglessness - be reminded of their own meaningless existence. He shook his head, tried to shake himself out of the blue funk he felt wrapped around his soul like a snake, then thought about talking to the department shrink. Maybe. But what was the point.
He listened as another unit checked out for lunch, and he looked down at his watch. He wanted a break in the monotony more than anything. The Doors wailed away on the radio. The Crystal Ship. An old man out watering his plants waved to him, and he waved back. No; the old guy was motioning him to stop. He pulled the squad car over to the curb and rolled down the window. He turned down the radio and leaned out the window.
"Morning! What's up," Officer Alan Burnett said.
"There's a strange van parked in the driveway out back," the old man said. "Been there about ten minutes. Couple of rough looking customers went in the garage."
"Right. Which one; can you point it out to me?"
"The brown over there," he said, pointing at yet another beige brick delusion. "Just to the left of that big pecan tree, other side of the alley."
"OK. We'll check it out," he said to the man as he reached for the radio mounted under the dashboard. He switched the channel to the primary and turned down Jim Morrison as he drove quickly to the corner. He stopped the car and got out, then paused and reached back into the front seat and removed the Remington 870 pump shotgun from the floor mounted rack. He craned his head a bit and looked at the back of the house in question, saw a beat up Ford Econoline van parked behind 511 Byron Court. "Ah, 2114," he said into the radio.
"Twenty-one fourteen, go ahead," the dispatcher replied.
"Signal 53, possible Signal five at five-one-one Byron Court. Going to move in toward the back of the house. Send back-up." He'd decided to report this incident as a suspicious vehicle with a possible burglary-in-progress. Oh well, he thought, might be an exciting day after all.
"2114 at 1143 hours. 2118, respond to 511 Byron Court, Signal 53, possible five in progress."
"2118, Code five."
"2110, en-route."
"Units in route at 1144 hours."
Burnett moved along a weathered cedar fence until he came to a hedge, and he looked through the foliage at the van behind the house. He watched as a young man carried a television set from the house and put it in the van.
"2114, I think this is a five; one male white 20s with black hair exiting house with a television. Vehicle is a primer and brown Ford van, license 2 Mike Paul 333."
"2118, received. I'm about 2 minutes out."
"2118, received at 1147 hours. Ah, 2114, 2118 is about two minutes out."
"2114, received. Have units take the front of the house."
"2114, 10-4. Units responding to 5-1-1 Byron Court, officer on scene requests units cover front of the residence."
"2118, received."
"2110, received."
Burnett watched and listened. The young man with the television disappeared back into the house, and the old man from the street poked his head out into the alley. Burnett popped up and motioned to the old man, waved him away and he watched as he withdrew. Burnett broke cover and moved closer toward the house, then racked a round into the Remington. He heard the gunning engine of first one squad car then another, then units checking out by radio near the front of the house. Then . . . from inside the house . . .
"Fucking cops, man, let's move!"
Burnett heard running in the house, then one man emerged carrying a stuffed pillow-case in one hand and a rifle in the other. Burnett launched from his concealed position and yelled: "Freeze, Police!" just as a second man appeared in the garage. Burnett watched the first man drop the pillow case and raise the rifle; the second man had a pistol in his hand - and it was coming up, too.
