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  “Hey, Rabbit,” he said softly, duckwalking closer. “Freeze. Police officer,” about to laugh, when the big rabbit sprang straight up in front of him, turned in the air, and vanished over the wall. Hanson fell backward, catching himself with both hands, his heart pounding. He jumped back up, hurried to the wall and looked down. Somebody’s backyard twelve feet below. A shadow, the black rabbit, compressed the grass as it hopped, like the footsteps of an invisible giant, around the side of the house, then streaked across Lincoln Avenue and was gone. A black rabbit on New Year’s Eve at the Mormon Temple. An omen far too complex to consider now.

  Over the wall, from way down along the freeway in the flatlands of East Oakland, the whisper of celebratory gunfire. A distant crackling that Hanson could hear through his tinnitus. Hundreds of citizens down there welcoming in the New Year with pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Firing them into the night sky. Yellow and orange fire rising from yards and windows far below. Two people in Oakland would be wounded and one killed before dawn by spent bullets streaking back to earth. The first death of the New Year. He looked at his watch. Time to go in. Past time.

  Hanson lived in Oakland, up above Grand Avenue. His flat was a few blocks from the border of Piedmont, a separate incorporated little town with its own police force and fire department. A little island of rich white people surrounded by the dark ocean of Oakland.

  Just past the Safeway he turned off Grand, up Sunny Slope Avenue and left on Jean Street, where he drove past his house and parked a few houses away, on the opposite side of the street. There were no strange cars parked nearby, no one on the sidewalks yet. He got out of the Travelall, slung his bag over his right shoulder, slipped his hand inside, around the rubber Pachmayr grip of the Browning Hi Power and walked across the street to the flat he rented, the main floor of an elegant house built in 1907 after the San Francisco earthquake and fire—a real beauty back then, he imagined, long before the current owner chopped it into three apartments. Dust motes sparkled undisturbed in the entryway. He walked down the silent hall, checking windows and locks, to the kitchen, where he thumbed the safety on the Hi Power and put it in his hip pocket.

  He poured three fingers of green tequila into a heavy, slab-sided jelly jar and tossed it back. It burned down his throat and blossomed in his stomach. Holding the thick glass up to the light, he considered the teardrop-shaped bubbles in the sides, air that had been trapped forty or fifty years ago. He had another, filled the glass again, and walked down the hall to the bedroom, where he took off his shoes and stretched out on the bed, his hands clasped behind his head, watching the ceiling, and fell asleep in his clothes.

  Hanson is sleeping.

  He doesn’t mind so much going to sleep during the day, after working the street all night. The muted sounds of others leaving for day jobs—the open and close of their car doors, the engines when they start them and drive away—are reassuring. He feels safe and rarely dreams during the day, even waking up in the early afternoon sometimes without any sense of dread and no hangover at all. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies. Most people see that in his eyes and reconsider, they hesitate, try to explain themselves. Those that don’t, well, he survived so long when others haven’t that his response to threat is instinctive, faster than thought, a life-force beyond his control. There are nights when he knows he can’t be killed. He worries that he’ll live forever.

  Chapter Five

  Weegee

  It was Valentine’s Day and Hanson didn’t care. It was the beginning of his shift, he’d just turned north onto High Street when Radio gave him the hit and run call. They told Hanson they didn’t have a traffic unit available. He took Foothill Boulevard back to Fruitvale, then north on Fruitvale a few blocks to the location. He was beginning to learn his way around a little. He hated doing traffic, though—a lot of paperwork.

  Half a dozen people had called it in. The front end of a black van with dark-tinted windows and a Harley-Davidson decal on the rear window was embedded in the driver’s door of an abandoned-looking green Oldsmobile. The radiator was still steaming when he got there, and the driver’s side of the windshield was shattered, the safety glass still in one piece, but bulging out and covered with blood and long strands of black hair. Hanson checked the glove box and found a registration for the van in the name of Arlie Hollow Horn Bear. There was also a Baggie with a half-ounce rock of crank, street methamphetamine, but Hanson left it there, till he saw how things would go.

  The sun was still well up, a nice afternoon, and half a dozen black kids were having a fine time riding their bikes around the wreck—down the street, jumping the curb to the sidewalk, then back to the street, pulling wheelies, watching Hanson to see what he was going to do. They were happy for the entertainment, ten or twelve years old, sleek and muscled, showing off.

  “How are you young gentlemen today?” he asked, looking around, making eye contact with each of them.

  “Doin’ good.”

  “Fine as wine.”

  “How you, Officer?”

  “Pretty good, so far. Any of you guys see this happen?” he said, nodding at the steaming van.

  “I saw it.”

  “Me too.”

  “I saw it all.”

  “Did any of you all see where the driver went? I probably need to talk to him.”

  A couple of them laughed. Pulling fancy wheelies now, turning their handlebars left and right as they pedaled along on their rear wheels.

  “Two of ’em. They went down Fruitvale. Both of ’em drunk.”

  “A big white guy an’ a big Indian. Real big.”

  “I bet the Indian was driving.”

  “You got it, Jack.”

  “Exactly right, Officer. Busted his head all to hell.”

  “Weegee followed ’em. Down that way.”

  “Guess I better find Weegee then. I appreciate your help, young men.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “We take care of business.”

  “You might want some backup. Both of ’em real big. Angels too.”

  “I’ll see how it goes,” Hanson said, sticking the registration in his shirt pocket and walking down the street. The bikes all peeled off on either side of him, some ahead, some behind, like an escort.

  Another kid was pumping his bike toward them, uphill, gaining speed. He had a playing card attached by a clothespin to the bike so that one end of the card brushed each spinning wheel spoke, clattering like a tiny motor.

  “Hey, Weegee. Where they go to?” one of the escorts yelled to him.

  “Man, they in the Anchor.” He looked at Hanson, sizing him up. “You better get you a couple more po-lice to go with you.”

  “Thanks, Weegee. I think I’ll just go say hello to them. Ask what happened. See if they’re okay.”

  “You the man. Do what you think.”

  “I think,” Hanson said, turning around to locate his patrol car, “that I’d better take my car with me.” He smiled at Weegee. “So I don’t forget where it is in case I have to put a prisoner in the back. That almost always looks bad for the po-lice.”

  He double-parked in front of the Anchor Tavern, turning on just his amber rear flashers, and got out of the car. The Anchor was a small place, not a lot of room to use a nightstick, and he left that in the car. He stepped in the door and let his eyes adjust to the dim light.

  The Indian had a weird, freaky laugh, a maniacal sort of stutter, a laugh to intimidate people. He looked to weigh about two forty. Fuck, Hanson thought, a drunk, speed-freak Indian. The white guy was maybe six foot six, wiry, and not so drunk. They were both wearing Hell’s Angels colors, Oakland Chapter. The clubhouse was just a few blocks off Fruitvale.

  “Mister Hollow Horn Bear,” Hanson said, walking toward their table. The Indian turned around to look at him, then looked quickly away, as if he hadn’t already responded to the sound of his name. Hanson walked to the table where they had heavy glass mugs, half full of beer. “Gentlemen,” he said to them, picking up
the mugs and putting them on another table. “I apologize for moving your beer, but those are big mugs.”

  The Indian watched Hanson, and the white guy leaned back in his chair, curious what would happen next. He looked out the window and saw all the kids with their bikes looking in.

  “That’s my posse,” Hanson said.

  “Where’s the other cops?”

  “Out doing good works, I hope,” Hanson said, then, without breaking his rhythm, he casually pulled his PAC-set off his belt and asked Radio to send an ambulance by the Anchor Tavern. Radio told him it would be a while, and he put it back on his belt.

  The Indian laughed, stopped abruptly and glared at Hanson. He had two deep gashes on his cheekbone, his nose looked freshly broken, and his hair was matted with blood. Hanson looked mildly back at him, trying to see into his eyes, but they were black stones, giving up nothing.

  “You need to get sewed up,” Hanson said. “Looks like you just about put your head through the windshield.”

  The Indian laughed, glared, laughed again, narrowed his eyes. “Me an’ Pogo was just wrestling. Don’t know nothin’ about a windshield.”

  “I found this in the glove box of that black van,” Hanson said, pulling the registration out of his shirt. “It’s got your name on it. And all those kids said you were driving when it hit that Oldsmobile.”

  “Oldsmobile been abandoned six months.”

  “I don’t think anybody’s gonna complain about damage to that Olds, but I gotta get you to the emergency room and arrest you for DUI.”

  He laughed, stopped, glared. Hanson looked at the white guy. “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah. You the only cop they sent?”

  “Just me, Mister…?”

  “I’m Pogo. You find anything else in the glove box?”

  “You might want to get any valuables out before the tow truck gets here.”

  “I’ll check it. Thanks.”

  Hanson nodded, looked back at the Indian.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d stand up so I can handcuff you. You know I gotta do that. We’ll go to the emergency room, get you fixed up, then go downtown and take care of the DUI charge.”

  “Go on, Bear,” Pogo said. “We’ll bail you out.”

  Hanson nodded thanks to Pogo as the Indian stood up…and up.

  “If you’d put your hands behind your back, por favor,” Hanson said, reaching for his handcuffs, “I’ll put these on, and double lock ’em so they don’t tighten up on you.”

  The Indian looked at Pogo, just as a pair of OPD motorcycle cops pulled up and around Hanson’s patrol car and onto the sidewalk, scattering the kids. The Indian took a step back and Pogo stood up, reaching over and snatching up one of the beer mugs, moving so fast that the beer that had been inside was suspended in the air stop-time, then splashed across the table and onto the floor. “Just you, huh?” he said to Hanson.

  “I didn’t ask for backup.”

  The two traffic cops gunned the engines of their big black and white bikes, turned them off, dropped their kickstands, and dismounted, both standing like sumo wrestlers for a moment before hanging their helmets on the bikes and walking to the door.

  Inside the tavern they took a moment to stare the place down. Their leather gear creaked, and their sunglasses were blue mirrors. “If he’s gonna be an asshole,” Barnes, the taller one, said, looking at the big Indian, “then we’ll treat him like one.” His nightstick hissed out of its holder, and Pogo said, “Come on then, dickwad,” gripping the beer mug.

  “No,” Hanson said, facing the two cops, pushing his open hand down in a gesture to Pogo.

  Arlie Hollow Horn Bear charged Hanson. Hanson hit a table with his chest then hit the floor on his back, sliding feetfirst toward the bar, where customers were colliding as they hopped and fell off their stools. He twisted onto his side, pushed himself to his feet, stiff-armed a customer out of the way, and—as if he was walking underwater—trudged back to where the shorter motorcycle cop, his nightstick raised, backpedaled into the doorframe, the Indian closing on him like a city bus. A second police car, throwing shafts of red and blue lights into the afternoon sky, crabbed to a stop in front of the tavern. Hanson knew then that he’d been set up by the traffic cops, used as bait. They’d thought that if he was by himself, the two bikers, both of them drunk, would resist arrest and they’d have an excuse to come to Hanson’s rescue and kick their asses. But that didn’t matter now as he jumped up onto Arlie Hollow Horn Bear’s broad back, locking his left forearm against the Indian’s throat and pulling it back in a bar-arm choke hold. He hung on, his feet off the floor, cutting off Arlie’s air and the blood to his brain while he spun and bucked and tried to elbow Hanson off his back, screeching the last of his air away and finally going down, hitting the floor like a fallen tree, unconscious, where Hanson handcuffed him in the few seconds before his lungs and brain began to work again. By then the other three cops had Pogo down, putting knees and elbows and short wood to him as still another patrol car screamed to a stop in front of the tavern.

  When it was over the two motorcycle cops and the three day-shift patrolmen were out in front high-fiving each other. Pogo, his head bloody, was in the back of one of the patrol cars. He met Hanson’s eyes, then looked away and laid his head back against the seat. Knowing, Hanson thought, that I’m a liar and a punk, setting him up for a bullshit arrest.

  “Hey,” the tall motorcycle cop—Barnes—said. “You shoulda seen this guy choke that fucking Indian out.”

  “Yeah,” the other one, whose name was Durham, said. “Fuckin’ A. Tonto was about to do a war dance on my head when Hanson there choked that fucker to the ground.”

  Hanson just looked at him, his face hot, afraid he was going to be sick. His hand hurt, but he didn’t want to look at it yet.

  “Hey,” Barnes said, forcing a laugh, “we’re sorry about using you to set those two scumbags up, but it worked. They’ll both be going to the joint behind all the charges we’ll be putting on them. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. What did you say to ’em, anyway.”

  “I said, ‘Would you please stand up so I can handcuff you.’”

  “Right. Good fuckin’ luck,” Durham said.

  “I was handcuffing the Indian when you fucked up my arrest.”

  “Say what? Those two motherfuckers would have stomped your ass if we hadn’t showed up. You still got a lot to learn in this neighborhood.”

  “I didn’t need any backup.”

  “This guy just got out of the Academy,” Durham said to the two beat cops. “He’s thirty-eight. Can you believe that shit? By the time he’s got as many years on as I have, I’ll be retired.”

  “Fuck you,” Hanson said softly. “I didn’t ask for any backup.” He stepped in closer.

  Durham said, “Hold it right there, partner.” Hanson could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath.

  Barnes said, “Let him go, Dwayne. He’s fuckin’ fucked up. Let’s get those prisoners transported.”

  “Fuck that,” Durham said bristling.

  “He’s crazy, Dwayne, c’mon,” Barnes said, wrapping his arm around him.

  Yeah, yeah, hold me back boys, Hanson thought. “You’re traffic enforcement and you made the arrests, so I’ll let you do the reports on this,” Hanson said, brushing past them and walking away, down the street to the far side of the wrecked van, where he finally looked down at his left hand.

  The ring finger was dislocated, pulled out of the first knuckle, pointing backward toward some fifth dimension. Before he could change his mind or lose his nerve, he took hold of the finger, pulled it out, re-socketed it, and thought he was going to faint from the pain. He retched and vomited what was left of the cheese sandwich and lemon yogurt he’d forced himself to eat for lunch.

  “Good thing you got some backup.”

  Weegee was standing by his bicycle.

  “Weegee. How you doin’?”

  “Doin’ okay. How you doin’, Officer Hanson?”
>
  “Fine,” Hanson said, dry mouthed. “Good.”

  Weegee looked at him. “You take it easy,” he said.

  “You too. Thanks for helping me out today.”

  “No problem. You did real good with those Angels, I thought, till the motorcycle po-lice got there.”

  “Well,” Hanson said, “thanks, young man. I’m glad you thought so.”

  “Sure. See you later,” Weegee said, lifting his bike into a wheelie and pedaling it halfway down the block, the playing-card motor clattering, before his front wheel hit the asphalt.

  Hanson watched him ride off, surprised that a little kid’s opinion of him seemed important. He smiled, then reached into the van, took the meth out of the glove box, crushed the rock to powder, and threw it into the breeze.

  Chapter Six

  Post Certificate

  March 21. The spring equinox. Two a.m. and Hanson was in his flat on the border of Oakland and Piedmont, polishing his leather with the sheer nude No Nonsense panty hose he’d bought the day before at Walgreens. He’d cut the panty hose off at knee level and put his hands in them where the feet would go, pulling them on like a pair of long gloves so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints on what he was polishing.

  The steel-toed ankle-high combat boots were not a problem, but there was no way to hold the other gear without leaving prints—pistol belt, keepers, Mace holder, handcuff case, and the smooth-leather clamshell holster.

  Polishing leather and brass again, he thought. He should have stayed in Vietnam. Gone back to CCN. Gone to Project Phoenix, gone to Laos, the Plain of Jars, hooked up with the CIA. Stayed over there until they killed him. But he’d lost his mind—or his nerve—at the last minute and thought that it was somehow a good idea to go home while he was still alive.

  He’d known that coming home had been a big mistake as soon as he stepped off the airliner back in North Carolina in his jump boots, wearing the green beret and the medals on his dress uniform. It had taken a little longer for him to realize that the war had been everything he’d ever wanted, but by then it was over, gone, and he was still alive. It was like losing the woman you loved, the one you’d never forget, your true love—having just walked away from her because you hadn’t realized that you loved her, or even known what love was, and now anyone else would be a disappointment.