Middle Of Nowhere

   There had been a time in their marriage when such a situation would have condemned them to impossibly long hours of cold stares and failed communication— sometimes a day or more of it. He credited Liz with the turnaround, not himself. Her struggle with her health had been turned into something positive. He knew in his heart of hearts, had known forever, that music was a gift from God. Knew this unquestionably. It was only since the birth of his children and his wife's medically unexplained recovery from cancer that he saw himself on a slow road to the discovery that all of life was, equally, a God-given gift, and that it might do to credit the source from time to time.

   She said, "I'll keep a plate warm for you," knowing he was going to leave if he made that call.

   "Don't lock your bedroom door," he said.

   With that, Liz blushed and smiled, and for Lou Boldt the whole room grew brighter.

* * *

With his left cheekbone virtually missing, Lieutenant Rudy Schock looked only remotely human. He looked more like some sort of flesh balloon, with what appeared to be a giant blood blister where his ear and neck should have been. Schock's left arm and hand had borne the brunt of his attempts at self-defense. His elbow was no longer capable of a right angle, and his wrist hung limp and useless. His breathing was long and slow.

   Lieutenant Mickey Phillipp had been the first struck—with a single blow to the base of the skull— unconscious, so that he lay in a pool of his own blood, but otherwise didn't look as brutalized as his colleague.

   The sight of the two injured officers turned Boldt's stomach. He knew them both, though not as close friends; however, tonight they felt like brothers. Boldt could feel his own rage building, percolating dangerously near the surface. No matter who had struck the blows, Boldt directly blamed Mac Krishevski and the sickout that had caused such dissension in the ranks. This was no mugging, that much seemed clear.

   An EMT said to Boldt, "A little harder and this one was either dead or never walking again."

   "Blunt object?"

   "You got it."

   "Both lieutenants," Mark Heiman whispered softly from behind Boldt. Heiman was himself a lieutenant— who until a week earlier had been with Narcotics. Such labels were gone now. Rank held little purpose anymore.

   The alley was a block and a half from the Cock & Bull—an Irish bar in the Norwegian neighborhood of Ballard. Seattle demographics. The wet, narrow lane between brick buildings owned a pair of Dumpsters, a teetering stack of discarded wooden pallets, a Dunkin' Donuts bag and a flattened McDonald's fries carton oozing a sickly green mold that had once been potatoes. The alley smelled sour with urine and faintly metallic from the spilled blood. There was a lot of blood everywhere. "Somebody saw this," Boldt suggested hopefully to Heiman, who was lead on the case.

   "Other than the guy who did it?" returned Heiman. "If true, he hasn't come forward."

   "How do you see it?" Boldt asked, wondering how Heiman's report would read.

   "How I see it," the other said, "is one thing. A couple of lieus fifty yards from a major watering hole for the North Precinct? Does the name Krishevski mean anything to you?" He paused. "How I write it up? Robbery. Assault. Deadly force, with intent to kill."

   "A mugging," Boldt stated dejectedly. There was no other way to put it on paper, but he suddenly wished he had reported his own attack so he might have established a pattern: first Sanchez, then him, now these two. Krishevski indeed.

   "Without witnesses or further evidence—" Heiman sounded apologetic. "How would you write it up?" A little defensive.

   "Same way, Mark. I hear you. But we're thinking along the same lines, if I'm reading you right. And maybe it might help you to know that someone took an aluminum Louisville slugger to my shoulder and back two nights ago, and that I passed on reporting it because I didn't want the paperwork."

   Heiman considered this pensively. "Then why don't you look like the back of Phillipp's head?"

   "Rin Tin Tin. A K-9 on the other side of a neighbor's fence. Hated the thing 'til it saved my life."

   Heiman fumed. "These guys are going to get a war if they don't watch out."

   Boldt nodded. "I said the same thing to Shoswitz. Told him to pass it along to Krishevski." Looking down at the paramedics trying to stabilize the fallen lieutenant, he said, "But I'm thinking maybe the message didn't get through."

   "Yeah? Well, it better, or I'll deliver it myself."

   "You'd have company there."

   "Just say the word," Heiman suggested.

   "Steady as she goes: it's what Krishevski wants. If he can't get us to join them, he'll get us suspended for conduct unbecoming, and he wins either way."

   "Is that what this is about? He lights the fuse, and watches as we self-implode?"