Alex wasn't so sure that he was going to go thru with this. He went to the bar and fixed himself a double Jack and coke and stood with his back to the girls, facing the fire, then he began." Andrea, how long has it been since I got off the Force and been with Stealth Security Systems?"
"Em, a little over three years, why?" She answered him.
"And before that, how long was I a cop?""Well, you'd been a rookie about a year when we met and married, so that would make it about eight years." Andrea had been relieved that he had left the job and found a better one in the private sector, less danger and more pay. She always felt that Alex missed being on the job."Yeah, I know." Alex took a long pull from his drink, then set it on the mantle.
"You never pushed the issue when I turned in my badge," He continued. "Even when there were rumors that I was dirty, and had to quit or face jail. You never questioned me. Why?"
"Hey! You knew how I felt about you being a cop. I thought it would be exciting at first, but after we were married, there were a lot of nights I wondered if you were comming home to me alive. I didn't like it, but I wasn't going to tell you how to live your life. You had to find your own path and go with it. I was, and always will be there for you." Andrea lit up a smoke as her husband turned around to face her. "Besides, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I was glad you quit, no matter what the reason. And you could never have been dirty. Never." Andrea paused; then, not sure where he was going with this, "Do you miss it?"
"No!" Alex bent down, and looked directly into her eyes. "No I don't."
"So babe, what's this all about?" She was intriqued; yet, intuition told her that this wasn't going to be good. Alex finished his drink. Sheila and Melissa shared the sofa-recliner with criss-crossed legs and big, anxious eyes. None of them would be prepared for what Alex was about to tell them. Not even Alex.
"My Partner, Rose and I, had to check out a domestic disturbance call, along with a missing child. In this city, that could mean anything, but we were expecting it to be routine. We were wrong. Dead wrong."Alex stopped to fix himself another drink. A triple. To get through this, he would need a lot of courage.
Everybody called his partner "Rose," because he was a big, red-headed Irishmen, who always had rosey-red cheeks.
"Anyway, when Rose and I got to the scene, we could hear this guy's voice booming from the inside, telling his wife to 'Clam up, or else!' We knocked on the door, and she opened it up a crack to see what we wanted. We showed our badges and credentials, and asked if we could come in. She said that this was a bad time, but we told her we really needed to come in to ask a couple of questions and sort all this out.When we entered the apartment, we were met by a huge rottweiler, he must have been at least 150, maybe 160 pounds, and he wouldn't shut-up, he just kept barking and barking. The woman, she's still upset, and starts babbling about something that niether Rose nor I caught. Then, her old man gives her 'The Eye' and she shuts up."
Alex stopped for a minute to poke the fire, and toss another log in, then he continued."Rose, he takes the wife, and sits her down in the kitchen, while I talk with the husband. This guy is a piece of work, a real winner. He's got everything but 'Mom' tattooed on his arm. Hadn't bathed in days, maybe even weeks. Beer cans crushed and scattered all over the place, cigarette butts and burns on the chair. I asked him about the squabble between him and his wife, he says she'd gone off about how he dropped the kid off at his sister's place before she'd gotten home from work. The kid wouldn't stop crying, and he'd gotten sick of it."
Alex was ready for another drink, and handed his glass to Andrea. She only fixed him a double, though; at this point in the evening, it really didn't matter. She made herself a Bombay Sapphire martini, and asked Sheila and Melissa if they were ready for another. Once the drinks were made and served, everybody was ready for Alex to continue- except Alex.
"It was the Building Super who'd phoned in the call, overhearing the fight, and the wife pleading with her husband to tell her where her baby was and what had happened. Between all the yelling and the dog barking, the Super had enough, and called us. The husband wasn't giving us much; the kid was at his sister's with no phone, and she probably wouldn't be home for hours anyway. When I asked why, he told me that she goes out a lot, taking the kid with her. This guy didn't seem too concerned at all about his kid; which struck me as strange, because his wife seemed genuinely worried that something was terribly wrong. Shit, she was scared.
Alex was getting agitated as his story continued to unfold. He started to fix himself another drink, when he remembered his Detroit Lions tumbler filled with the double Jack and coke. He retrieved it from the mantle and lit up a smoke before he went on.
"This guy was really tying my patience. He wasn't even paying attention to the dog, who was still incessantly barking. The whole scene was giving me a bad feeling. I was getting a headache from the dog barking, so I asked him if he could do something about it, so we could finish this up and get the hell out of here. He said, 'Sure Pal.' Then he opened up the fridge and took a thick T-bone, and tossed it to the the big son-of-a-bitch. Jesus! The fucking dog ate better than me. The dog swallowed the hunk of meat, bone and all, not even bothering to chew. After he downed his snack, he started barking again. The guy was obliviuos to the noise.
Alex stopped for a moment, then said, "How on fucking earth, could this sick bastard deal with that constant barking; and yet, not his kid crying?" Andrea saw moisture in her husband's eyes, and was uneasy with where this was going. She remembered how he was for the first few months after he had quit the force, but he had gotten through it when he got in on the Securities deal.
"Well, I was getting nowhere with this asshole, so I went into the kitchen to see how Rose doing with the wife. When I got in there, she was sobbing, and Rose looked up. He was as white as a ghost. He had a statement from her that said that the husband had done something terrible to their child, but she didn't know what, or how it was done. She just wanted to know where her baby was. I told Rose that I had 'zilch from the husband and that we should take them both downtown for further questioning. Rose calls a squad to pick em' up, while we left to find the sister and check on the missing child. As an after-thought, I called Animal Control to get the dog. That Goddamned dog, wouldn't shut up!
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