Dead of Winter

The chief came forward to take to pawn from Louis. “Anyone can learn strategy,” he said. “Courage is what really counts, courage to use original moves that surprise your opponent.”

Louis nodded, as if he understood.

“Like a Marshall swindle, or a Lucena position,” the chief went on. He saw the blank look on Louis’s face and smiled. “Or a gambit. You know what a gambit is, don’t you?”

Louis shook his head.

“The gambit is when you sacrifice one of your pieces to throw an opponent off,” the chief said. “There are many different kinds – the Swiss gambit, the classic bishop sacrifice, the Evans gambit. These moves are what elevate the game to artistry.”

Louis nodded, half expecting the man to ask him to play as part of the interview.

The chief picked up Louis’s application from the desk. Louis found himself staring directly into the man’s face. It was chiseled, with a jutting jawline, broad forehead and strong brows shielding eyes the color of pale sapphires. Louis thought of a photograph in the National Geographic he had seen outside, the one of the mysterious stone statues on Easter Island with their massive powerful heads.

Louis’s eyes dropped to the desk, looking for a nameplate. There was none.

“So why’d you leave your last job?” the chief asked, looking up.

“It was personal. It didn’t work out.”

“I called down there, you know, to your little town in Mississippi.”

Great, Louis thought. “Who did you talk to?”

“A man named Junior Resnick.”

Louis kept his face impassive. What a reference.

The chief gave an odd smile. “The man’s obviously an idiot but he likes you. Says that you’ve got no sense of humor but you’re a smart guy.”

“I’m surprised. We had our differences.”

The chief gazed at Louis, as if taking his physical measure. “Investigator,” he said, tossing the application on the desk. “Impressive title for someone who hasn’t seen his thirtieth birthday yet.”

“That’s all it was, a title.”

“Well, when we give titles here it means something. That’s why we have so few.” He held up the pawn and smiled. “But even a pawn can win a promotion, maybe become a knight or a bishop, right?”

Louis nodded. The chief put the pawn back in its place.

“Tell me,” he said, turning, “did you get the respect you deserved down there or was it as hard as I suspect?”

Well, that was a unique way to ask if being a black cop in the South was a problem. “Respect doesn’t come automatically with the uniform down there,” Louis said.

“It does here,” the chief said. He went to his desk and pulled a pack of Camels from a drawer. He lit one and took a quick drag as he hefted a hip on the desk. Louis noticed how sharply creased his pants were. You could cut bread on them.

“‘Il n’existe que trois être respectables: le prêtre, le guerrier, le poete. Savoir, tuer et creer.’”

Louis stared at him.

“Do you speak French?”

Louis shook his head.

“It’s Baudelaire. ‘There exists only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.’” He smiled. “We’re neither priests nor poets. That leaves soldiers.”

He blew out a stream of smoke. His eyes seemed to turn cooler as he considered Louis. “I can train a man to do almost anything,” he said. “I can train him to shoot, do the damn paperwork. I can even train him to kill. But there’s something I can’t teach him. Do you know what that might be?”

Louis hesitated. “A sense of honor?”

“Is that what you think I want to hear or what you really think?”

“Well, I don’t think you can teach honor.”

The chief look another drag on the cigarette. “The one thing I can’t teach a man is loyalty.”

This was getting weird. What was next, Buddhist proverbs? Haiku?

“But as long as you feel honor is so important, perhaps you can define it for me,” the chief said.

“I’d say that honor is acting with integrity.”

The chief shook his head. “That’s a clean conscience.” He pointed the cigarette at Louis. “Honor is an exalted existence, earned by sacrifice and courage. It’s what makes you brave when you’re scared shitless, and it’s what makes that badge shine when you look in the mirror.”

The chief paused to grind out his cigarette in the butt-filled ashtray. “So, does your badge shine?”

“Sir?” Louis had been looking at a photograph on the wall of men in Army uniforms, looking for the chief in the foursome.

“Does your badge shine?”

Louis wanted to say he didn’t have a badge but he knew that wasn’t what the chief wanted to hear. “Yes, sir.”

The chief drifted behind him. Louis resisted the urge to turn around. He squinted at a framed newspaper article to see if he could read any names. This was nuts. He didn’t know who he was talking to. He was beginning to wonder what he was talking to.

“Can you do a hundred push-ups?” the voice behind him asked.

“Yes,” Louis said, hoping he wouldn’t be asked to prove it.

“Can you pass a drug test?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you qualify as?”

“On the range? Expert.”

“You ever kill anyone?”