Night Shift

Third jumper this month.

Sarge said the divers still haven’t found a body—not a single one. How deep does this river go? They set up a barricade, a couple of feet high, trying to deter folks from jumping off, I guess. That didn’t do much.

The call is the same each time: guy ditches his car, walks right up to the railing and steps over. No note, no cry for help, and no body. Eyewitnesses report a woman in a white trench coat walking along the footway, but no one can ID her. A woman in a coat, like that’s going to help.

“Hey, Dot, can I get another cup o’ joe?” I say to the waitress as she passes. She doesn’t answer, never does, but she fills my cup. Cold. The damn coffee in this joint is always cold. I push the mug aside and light a cigarette, sitting back. The nylon upholstery crackles as I shift. This diner has seen better days, but it’s the only place open at this hour. A midnight haven for truck drivers, overnight factory workers, and cops. I’m a regular, but that doesn’t earn me any points.

I wipe the fog off the window, trying to get a look down the street. O’Brien is late. He wasn’t at the scene either, and I can’t wait any longer for him. I’ve got to get back to the precinct to file my report. He’s probably knee-deep in a bottle somewhere. Poor kid.

I leave a buck for Dot and flip up the collar on my coat, bracing for the torrential downpour outside. Between this rain and the late nights working this case, I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun.

The roads are empty. Only perk of my lifestyle: no traffic. I fumble for my lighter as the city flies by around me: burned-out streetlights, drab apartment buildings, and broken souls.

I keep going back to the case. Something doesn’t add up: why would three different people all decide to call it quits by jumping off the same damn bridge in the middle of the night? I can feel my holster pressing up against my chest. Seems to me there are easier ways to…

The precinct is a hollow shell, no surprise. They cleared the desks for the night, leaving only coffee rings and cigarette burns behind. I pass by O’Brien’s: spotless. Looks like he hasn’t been here in days. Could be he took his work home with him? He was deep into this case, too deep maybe.

The lights are mostly off, save for a glow leaking around the edges of an office door at the end of the hallway. I knock twice.

“Yeah,” Sarge says from inside. He’s coughing up a lung as I walk into the smoke-filled office, waving my hand through the haze. “Vale! What the fuck are you still doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you, Sarge.” I drop into the chair in front of him. A tower of papers, littered with coffee rings and pen marks, separates us.

“I can’t shake it,” he says, tapping the file in front of him. “Seems like a lot of work, don’t it? Jumping off a bridge… There are easier ways, you know.”

I huff something that isn’t quite a laugh. “Yup. Did we get any IDs on these guys? Missing report? Somethin’ to go on?”

“Yeah, yeah, give me a sec.” He stands up and rummages through his papers, cursing under his breath. “Here, missing report… Uh, William Raarchik… Thirty-nine… 7071 Greene Ave… He works down at the paper plant, other side of town, night shift. Why don’t you start there?” He passes me the file, and I stub out what’s left of my cigarette in an overflowing ashtray before flipping through the report.

Missing two weeks. Car found abandoned on the bridge, keys still in the ignition. Jumper number one, then.

“Two weeks and nobody put a name to the car?” I look up at Sarge. He seems skinnier than yesterday, gaunt almost, pulled down by the weight of his eyelids or that lampshade mustache. His eyes give me all the answers I need. “Alright, alright.” I get up from the seat, shaking off the stiffness in my bones. “You see O’Brien around?” I ask with one foot out the door.

“O’Brien?” Sarge barks back at me through a frown. “Not a damn clue.”

***

The foreman is short, balding, and wiry, and he talks fast. “Billy? I ain’t seen ’im in two weeks. Kid just falls off the face of the eart’ and now I gotta deal with the coppas? What’s the world comin’ ta?”

“You’re not in any trouble, Mr. Langley. I just need to know if anyone has seen him.” I try to reassure him, but his eyes keep darting back and forth, and he’s getting worked up despite my best efforts.

“Seen ’im? I just told you no one has seen ’im! That’s the problem. I got quotas, mack. Big ones! I need every man on the floor running these damn machines—”

“Who called it in?” I ask, hoping to clear this up as quickly as possible.

“Called? That kid, Billy’s pal—Powers.” He points out the window at a tall man working the controls of a corrugator, pressing buttons and turning dials. Even from the second floor, behind the glass of the foreman’s perch, I can barely hear myself think over the sound of the machines. “But listen here, mack, I don’t want ya botherin’ my boys while they on the job, you hear? He’s on break in twenty.”

The breakroom smells of beer and wet dog. I stare at a flickering neon light as I wait for Powers to come in. He lumbers over, a head taller than me even with his hunched shoulders.

“You’re not in any trouble,” I say to calm that skittish look in his eyes. “I just need to know about William Raarchik. Your boss said you were the one to call it in.”

“Yeah,” he says, seemingly indifferent.

“You close with Mr. Raarchik?”

“No.”

“Just come out with it, kid,” I say as my impatience betrays me.

He clears his throat. “It’s nothin’, like—he just don’t show up for—he’s not at the bar, it’s like he fuckin’ vanished. Poof.” He throws his hands up. “I don’t know him well, you know, just wanted to do the responsible thing is all.”

“I understand.” I try to reassure him. “You fellas drink at the bar often?”

“A couple beers after our shift is all.”

“Raarchik say anything recently? Was he worried about money? Get into a fight with his bookie? C’mon, kid, give me something.”

“Nah… I don’t know… We don’t talk like that, you know. Just shoot the shit. Well…”

“Yeah?”

“He did say he met a chick.”

“Where at?”

“I don’t know… She’s a nurse, I think, or somethin’. He was all hung up, you know. Talkin’ excited like. Seems like he was into her.” He looks around the room as if something that should be there isn’t. “Listen, mister, I gotta get back. Langley is a real hard ass—”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks, kid.” I wave him off, and he jets like I’ve got the plague. It’s not a treatment I’m unfamiliar with; being a cop is a thankless job.

***

I climb up the fire escape to Raarchik’s apartment. No use in waiting for the courts to open to get a warrant when I can just mosey in through the back.

Still raining. Not even the moon bothers to show. Cold metal slides beneath my grip as I try to keep my footing. After a lifetime of smoking and a piss-poor diet, I’m not exactly what you would consider an athlete. O’Brien should be the one doing this monkey-man shit, but who knows how long it will take for the kid to surface. In the meantime, I’m at it solo.

I find the window cracked open, which means it’s my lucky day. That’ll save me from having to break it and explain myself to Sarge. In this neighborhood, it’s best to be in and out.

I haul myself over the sill and shake the rain off my coat; it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. I fumble around for a light switch, but nothing works. Finally, I take out my lighter, and an orange glow pushes the dark back to the walls.

Nothing. It’s empty.

Not much surprises me anymore. This does. Around here, it takes at least a month to get movers down to throw a guy’s stuff out, and that’s if the vultures don’t pick apart the bones first. But this place—it’s deserted. Not even dust stains where the furniture was. As if someone polished the floor before checking out.

I go through the drawers, the medicine cabinet. Not a single item. Not a speck of dust. I’ve worked homicide in this good-for-nothing city for over thirty years and I’ve never seen a place cleaned out so well.

The water works, which is odd given the lights don’t. I give it a second and then cup my hands under the faucet to take a drink. I freeze halfway. There’s something in the sink—a card. I close the faucet and shake the water off my hands before lifting the card up and bringing it to my lighter, still burning on the counter.

“Hospice… Center… For.” The ink is running and I can barely make out what it says. “13th Street and… Plne? No, Pine. 13th and Pine.” The card is sagging under its own weight, and I toss it aside. I got what I came for. Someone made this Raarchik disappear. Couch and all. And I’ve got another lead to follow.

***

It’s a squat building with Victorian architecture: ornate wooden filigree, tall windows with vibrant light spilling out, and clean, trimmed hedges lining a walkway from the main gate. It might as well belong to another century, and here, in this city…

How have I never noticed it before?

The rain’s slowed to a drizzle, so my cigarette stays lit as I get out of my car. The building is alive with light; not a single window is dark, and even from down the street I have to squint.

As I approach, someone comes out of the front door. I crouch behind a Chrysler. I’m not sure why, but I need to get a better look at this person before I do anything else. The iron gate swings open and clangs shut. I peer out from behind the trunk to see a figure in a white trench coat, no umbrella, walking down the street—east towards the city limits.

Here’s my suspect. Looks like this night wasn’t a waste after all.

Her heels knock rhythmically on the sidewalk, frizzy hair done up in a bun bouncing effortlessly behind her. She doesn’t seem to be in any rush, but she takes each turn through the maze of streets without hesitation. She’s headed somewhere. I keep my distance. Parked cars, blackened windows, and burned-out streetlights: the city feels dead—aside from her.

I forget myself, entranced by her movement, and I follow along without thought. Eventually we get to the river at the city’s edge—the river! Before I have time to blink, she turns around in a whirl of leather and stares directly at me; the jig is up. I don’t play stupid. I’m a cop. I walk right up to her.

“Mr. Vale,” she says, and smiles—ivory against her ebony skin. Her eyes are light and vivid. She’s beautiful, and I wasn’t expecting that.

“Miss?” I reply.

“Will you walk with me?” she asks, ignoring my question.

“Walk where?” I swallow. My throat is dry. She’s not wet, I realize. It’s raining, been raining, but she’s dry.

“You know where,” she replies and starts walking north with the river to her right. The ripples on the water play tricks with the sounds, floating on the air like invisible chords struck by the wind.

I pick up my pace to catch up. “Um—excuse me—miss, but you were spotted at the scene of a crime.” I try to regain my composure. “Where were you last night between the hours of eleven and one?”

“Hm.” She pulls on a strand of her hair and tucks it behind her ear. “Well, I was right here, Mr. Vale, walking down this very street—with your partner, Mr. O’Brien.”

An icy bead of sweat skates down my back. I realize I’ve stopped walking and have to kick back into gear to catch up with her.

“You saw my partner?”

“Yes.”

“And—” I start, but can’t seem to finish the sentence.

She laughs low and smiles, looking sideways at me through brilliant eyes. “Don’t look so worried, Mr. Vale. I can assure you your partner is just fine. More than fine, actually. He is free. I helped him. That’s what I do—I help those in need.”

Her heels: clack, clack, clack.

A streetlight buzzes into the thick of night before going out. “What exactly does that mean? You’ll forgive me—miss—but it sounds like you’re speakin’ in riddles.”

“When is the last time you saw the sun, Mr. Vale?”

My breath shortens.

“Get a good night’s rest?”

I can’t remember.

“Drink a warm cup of coffee?”

What—

“If you trust me, I can help you.” The pity in her voice sends my heart into a fury.

“Help me how?” I yell, pulling at her arm to twist her around towards me. “What is it exactly that you’re going to do for me?” I’m drenched—sweat or rain, I can’t tell.

She runs her hands through my hair, pushing the matted strands off my forehead. Her fingers are burning hot.

“That’s enough!” I jump back; my pistol is in my hands before I think to grab it. “Hands up! Now! You’re under arrest.” She doesn’t budge.

“That will do little good, Mr. Vale. The men you seek are gone—Raarchik, O’Brien—they’ve left this place of their own volition. And you can too.” She steps towards me, and I lift the gun to her face.

She looks past me, and I follow her gaze. We’re standing at the foot of the bridge—the bridge.

My hands are shaking, and she takes another step closer, nudging the gun aside.

“Your choice, Mr. Vale.”

I look back to the bridge, my mind a torrent: O’Brien, the city, Raarchik’s apartment without a speck of dust, and this goddamn rain. I turn to her, but she’s gone. Gone. And I’m standing there, gun pointed at the void, the river murmuring to me from below, and I—