Freaky Deaky

Eleven years ago, when Chris was working out of the Twelfth Precinct in a radio car, there were a couple of guys known as the pizza bandits, white guys who specialized in the armed robbery of private homes. One of them would ring the bell standing there with a pizza box; the resident would open the door to say he didn't order a pizza and the second guy would come out of the bushes wearing a ski mask. They'd punch out the man of the house, make the wife, if she wasn't too old, take her clothes off and fool around with her and then haul away the TVs, silverware, jewelry and so on. They were working through a home not far from where Woody Ricks now lived when the maid got a chance to call 911. It was given to Chris and his partner, robbery in progress, and when they arrived Chris went around to cover the rear while his partner called for backup. Two cars came to assist, the second one wailing, its flashers on, and the pizza bandits dropped what they were doing and ran out the back door. Chris saw guns in their hands and came a hair away from firing. But he didn't, he put his.38 on them and said, "Right there. Don't move," thinking of other things he could've said. Freeze. Drop the guns. They stopped dead, both guys. Chris raised his voice a notch.

"Don't move. " One of the guys spoke up fast.

"It's cool," in an urgent tone of voice.

"Nobody's moving."

Chris raised his voice another notch.

"Don't fucking move a muscle!" The first guy screamed back at him,

"I'm not moving, man! Look at me!" As the second guy screamed, "I'm not fucking moving!" That was the way it happened, three guys in a backyard at night holding revolvers, all of them scared to death one of the guns was going to go off.

Two nights later Chris answered a call, disturbance in a working-class neighborhood, a family argument. He and his partner walked into a house and here was a guy in his undershirt drunk out of his mind holding a gun on his wife, a woman in hair curlers and a ratty pink housecoat, crying, her nose running… That time Chris kept his voice down, saying to the guy, "You don't want to shoot your wife. Give me the gun." Didn't want to shoot his wife-the guy was dying to shoot her and he did, shot her twice before Chris grabbed the gun away from him, twisting it out of his hand.

The woman suffered superficial wounds, went into Emergency that Saturday night and was out of the hospital Monday morning. The guy suffered broken fingers and a shoulder injury where his arm was yanked out of its socket and it kept him in therapy a year. When he had to quit his job at Detroit Forge and Axle he sued the city, the police and retired to Deltona, Florida, on the settlement. Chris's precinct commander said, "Why didn't you shoot the son of a bitch?"

That's what Mel Gibson would've done, shot the drunk spot welder dead.

Then you see Mel having to live with it and the next time he has to pull his gun he chokes when he should be squeezing off rounds and because of it he either gets shot or his partner does, the partner dies and so on.

Before leaving the theater Chris switched the Clock auto from his coat pocket back to his waist, the big grip against his belly. It was five thirty. He had a half hour, time to go across the street and have a couple. Get ready for his meeting.

Late Saturday afternoon, hardly anybody in the place, you could see what Galligan's looked like; you could see the booths, the posters and photographs on the walls, the brass rail separating the tables from the bar. Chris got a bourbon mist. A guy with a convention badge and a New York accent told him he was attending the dry cleaners show at Cobo Hall. He said he thought Detroit only had shot-and-a-beer joints, this place could be on Third Avenue, Upper East Side. Chris told the guy Detroit had everything: at least one of each. The guy said yeah, was that right? Chris excused himself; he had to make a phone call.

When he was living with Phyllis and they used to meet here after work she'd say, "Hi, guy," or "Hi, love," or once in a while, "Hi, tiger," and he'd feel like an asshole in that five o'clock press of young execs and secretaries turning to see who the tiger was. Phyllis wasn't trying to be funny, she was serious. It was her idea, after spending all day in the Trust Department of Manufacturers National Bank, of being hip. Phyllis knew who Sigourney Weaver was, but not Doodles.

When she answered the phone and he said hi, Phyllis said, "Hi, guy.

I've been wondering when you'd call."

He could see her in a silky negligee holding the phone in the crook of her neck, hair up, foot on a chair, cotton balls wedged between her toes.

"I want to ask you something," Chris said.

"If you had called yesterday-no, Thursday," Phyllis said, "I might've given in, asked you to come home. I was feeling sort of down, to tell you the truth. Chris? We did have some laughs, didn't we?"

He tried to think.

Living with Phyllis, most of the time it meant watching her get ready: