Dead Street

“Yeah, and the clientele pre-existing those new fancy estates isn’t very classy. A couple of youth gangs operate out of there and word has it they’ve been selling drugs.”

“Any arrests?”

“Several, but money bailed them out in a hurry.”

“That’s all?”

“A couple of cars were stolen. One was recovered in Tampa and the other was in a ditch off the road. No damage to the vehicles, but two empty bottles of booze were found on the back seat of one.”

“Prints?”

“None that could be identified at this point.” He shrugged. “Probably juveniles.”

“Well, I’m glad to be here,” I said, rising. “Nice to be with the good guys.”

He got up, we shook hands, exchanged respectful if wary glances, and Captain Kinder was gone.

I took a two-hour tour of the Sunset Lodge compound until I had the area pretty well defined in my head. I saw four faces I recognized from Manhattan precincts but I didn’t call out to them. I passed the S.L. Station House, spotted one old sergeant who’d retired when I got my first promotion and two retirees from the Two-Two and suddenly I was feeling very much at home.

Then I turned at the end of the block and retraced my path to the building that looked so old but was so new. It was a surprise to see no uniforms showing, but everybody going in and out had that identical cop walk and when you looked at their feet, only two were wearing fancy footwear. The others still held on to their old brogans.

Parking was behind the building and I found a place, backed into it like everyone else did, making a quick getaway easy. Habit is a hard thing to break. When I got out of the car I hadn’t gone ten feet when a voice said, “Damn, look who’s here!”

Joe Pender had retired as a sergeant when he had put his full time in on the Job. Sergeant was as high as the husky redhead had wanted to go — his pension was adequate and he had made an outside job with another cop, renovating old buildings and renting them, so he wasn’t hurting for money.

I said, “Good to see you, pal. I didn’t know you’d retired down this way.”

As we shook hands he told me, “The wife’s doing. She’s a real Florida lover. New York got to be too much for her. You moving in?”

“Got a place over on Kenneth Avenue.”

“Fancy, man!” he laughed. “That’s where the brass have their digs. Got an old commissioner at the far end of the street with a pair of inspectors right beside him.”

“They still giving orders?”

“Hell no. This time we have a very democratic club.” He paused and nodded toward the building behind him. “Damn, Jack, let’s get you in and on the rolls.”

“I just got here yesterday.”

He wrapped his fingers around my arm and said, “And now is when you get back on duty.”

“Duty?”

“Sure. The guys would flip out if they tried to hide their cop background and just be plain civilians. We rotate helping Kinder out on security stuff. No rank, no roll calls, plenty of shooting matches on our own firing ranges.”

“Who buys the ammunition?” I asked him.

“We have reloading equipment. All calibers. Even the women get in on this action.”

“They safe to keep around?”

“Buddy, there hasn’t been a divorce since anybody’s been here. This retirement scene is the greatest. Jeannie and I damned near broke up until we moved here. Now we’re kissing and hugging all over the place.”

And Joe Pender was right. Sunset Lodge was a brand new beginning for a bunch of streetwise old police officers who had brushed the grime of New York and New Jersey off their clothes and took to the shorts and sunshine of Florida.

But they couldn’t brush the concept of police action from their station house. The walls still held typed and handwritten memos for member activities and in two locations were official mug shots of current criminals somebody in the big city was forwarding to the clubhouse.

“Like it?” Joe asked me.

“Like I never left home,” I remarked.

“Right. Now let’s get you signed up. Hell, you even get a badge again. Miniature, of course, but you get five percent off your bills over in the big cities. Just show the tin.”

I shook my head and followed him to the reception desk where I became semi-official in this new land of make believe.

I said so long to Joe and went back outside. A half dozen matrons in tennis outfits were squealing like little kids, all anxious to get to the tennis courts for their tee off times or whatever they called it. I had to stare for half a minute before I fully recognized them. The last time I had seen them they were two-hundred-pounders who had to shop in the big and tall ladies’ stores, emphasis on the big. Sunset Lodge had turned them into chorus cutie size again. I sure hoped their husbands appreciated them. Damn.

I got back in my car and pulled out of the parking lot.

When a cop went on the street for the first time, he felt like I do now.

Everybody was looking at him. He was being sized up.

The locals would need several takes. Is he good enough? they would ask themselves.