The Enemy Within

By then, it was far too late for Joe Millunzi. All Calvin had been able to do was summon the detectives and the coroner. Even that took extra time, because the coroner’s office was not normally on the radio circuit. Someone had finally passed them a walkie-talkie, but until then Dispatch had to send a runner over to their office. Calvin had the sinking feeling that Detroit’s medical examiners would be busy today.

He scrambled back into his patrol car still trying to think of a way to increase his chances of stopping the bad guys before they struck again. It was the old story. Walking a beat instead of driving would make him more accessible to the community but it would also cut the ground he could cover by a factor of ten. Using a motorcycle or bicycle instead of an enclosed car would have been a compromise, but just looking at the freezing weather outside made him shiver at the thought. Bike patrols were practical in the Sun Belt not here.

Detroit’s police force had operated with radio dispatch for years, and before that they’d used a call box system for the beat cops. But both those communications systems depended on people phoning the police when they spotted trouble. You just couldn’t protect a large city any other way.

Now the city’s officials were scrambling to patch together a makeshift replacement for the telephone system. Neighborhood watch patrols and citizens with CB radios were already taking to the streets, but they were sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. He’d already heard of an incident where one officious idiot thought a radio in his car gave him arrest powers and tried to stop a liquor store holdup on his own. The man had paid for his overzealousness with his life.

The CB nets were confused too. Most of the people using them lacked the discipline and training needed to manage a communications net efficiently. Multiple callers on a limited number of channels often turned the airwaves into a static laden Towel of Babel. There were even some jokers actually putting out false alarms sending an already strained police force off on wild-goose chases across the city.

But then again, maybe they weren’t just pranksters, Calvin suddenly thought. The street gangs and other criminals infesting Detroit’s poorer neighborhoods knew what was happening around them. Maybe some of the smarter bastards just wanted to make sure they were left to run wild unmolested.

He slowed as a knot of people on the sidewalk ahead drew his attention and his concern. What he saw was unusual, and today anything unusual was bad.

Storefront shops and rundown apartments lined both sides of this two-way street. As he drove closer, he saw that the crowd he’d spotted was clustered around an appliance store. People were moving quickly in and out of the store, and even from this distance he could see a shattered window.

Wonderful.

He picked up the microphone. “Dispatch, this is Unit FiveThree-Two. I’ve got looting at Concord and St. Paul. I need some backup.”

The dispatcher’s voice came back through the radio speaker, relaying his request to the closest patrol cars. “Any units to assist FiveThree-Two at Concord and St. Paul?”

The responses were not reassuring.

“Unit Five-Two-One, I’m stuck here for at least fifteen more minutes.”

“Dispatch, this is Two-Four-Four. Negative on that. I’m tied up with two in custody.”

“Unit Two-Three-Two, I can clear and go. But I’m ten out.”

Shit. Ten minutes was way too long. Calvin thumbed his mike again.

“Roger, Dispatch. I’ll do it myself. Out.”

He shook his head. Trying to break up a crowd alone violated not only standing department policy but common sense. Handling a mob this size ordinarily required half a dozen men. But the times were not ordinary and he’d studied the crowd’s behavior while the dispatcher made her futile calls. He had a glimmering of an approach that might pay off.

He was facing about twenty or thirty people, most of them adults. They seemed more intent on getting into the store and getting out with boxes or items in their arms than in physical violence. He didn’t see any gang members nearby with bloodier ideas on their tiny minds.

Calvin parked the car half a block up from the store and hopped out, taking the riot gun with him. He stood behind the driver’s side door for half a moment, surveying the situation one last time. No one in the crowd paid much attention to the lone cop car and the lone cop.

“Time to restore the peace and earn my pay,” he muttered under his breath. He pumped a round into the riot gun and trotted toward the appliance store. His heart started to pound.

A few people at the edges of the crowd saw him coming and faded away, some pulling friends with them, the others just hightailing it up the street. The rest were still trying to force their way inside. The looting must be just starting, Calvin concluded. Good. Now was the time to stop it.