He closed and locked the door and “set” the childishly florid, yellow-and-red first-grade cardboard clock on the window, indicating he'd be back at one, confident that no brass or hard-ass detective would come down here for anything within the next month.
A single flight of stone steps, more convenient to take than the elevator, led up to ground level. One doctor had told him to go easy, another to push the envelope and get all the exercise he possibly could. He wondered which was right. He also, more importantly, wondered if Meredyth Sanger had used the stairs. He imagined her storming up them, her legs pumping. Dr. Sanger-he liked the sound of it as it slipped off his mental tongue. He decided to follow in her footsteps, but on opening the stairwell door, he found the steps extremely tight and straight up. With his stiff hip, which over time was only going to get worse, he chose to wait for the dinosaur of an elevator.
He supposed it was a miracle that on the first day of his new assignment, consigned here in the bowels of the precinct, he'd actually seen a woman, and a good-looking woman at that.
When the elevator finally bellowed its way from upstairs, located him in the basement and deposited him on the first floor, Lucas Stonecoat looked out on a sergeant's desk crowded with people, all vying for attention and demanding help of the lone sergeant behind the wrought-iron cage. The bars made Sergeant Kelton look the part of the criminal. Still, Stanley Kelton, a veteran, remained unfazed by the madness around him. So far, Kelton was the only person in the building who didn't wince or pretend business around Lucas, save for Dr. Sanger, and maybe that was why he liked Kelton, and perhaps could get to like the lady shrink. But that, he told himself, was a truly stupid thought-a friendship with a head-banger named Sanger?
The melee left Kelton too occupied to notice the “rookie” slip past him. But at the door Stonecoat ran smack into Dr. Sanger again, this time in the company of Captain Phil Lawrence, the two of them embroiled in some verbal jousting. It appeared the good doctor did not reserve her linguistic lacerations for rookies and small fry alone. She certainly appeared to have her ire up over something she felt important, but Lawrence, a mild-spoken, firm-handed manager, motioned her toward his office for privacy before going any further. Out of the corner of his eye, Lawrence regarded Stonecoat, as did Dr. Sanger, as if he were part of their confrontation. Had she informed the captain of Lucas's behavior downstairs? Had he earlier been “rude” in the least toward her? Had he been too defensive, aloof? He had a problem gauging women, especially white women.
Lucas made a 180-degree about-face, preparing to disappear, when Lawrence-who obviously didn't relish his dealings with Meredyth Sanger-suddenly called out his name. Lucas stepped up to his captain with a “Yes, sir” on his lips.
“Stonecoat, I want you to meet our resident police psychiatrist, Dr. Sanger.”
Lucas put on his best stone face and said, “Very glad to meet you, Doctor.”
“You needn't pretend we don't know one another, Lucas,” she replied, making him bristle.
“Oh, you two know one another? That's very good, as it's my custom, Lucas, to have all new recruits meet with Dr. Sanger on a semi-weekly basis, just to stay in focus, that sort of thing.”
Lucas couldn't reclaim the audible groan that welled up and out of him.
“You don't have a problem with that, do you, Officer Stonecoat?”
“Yes, sir… I mean, no, sir… no problem.”
Lawrence ended the discussion with a perfunctory smile and nod, telling Dr. Sanger, “We can continue our conversation about the Mootry case in my office.” He indicated the closed door nearby.
Meredyth Sanger, looking exasperated, now frowned and found her way into the captain's office. Lawrence half whispered to Lucas, “Wish me luck with this woman. She's driving me nuts; I think it's some sort of conspiracy to get me committed.” He laughed at his own joke and rushed to catch up to Dr. Sanger.
“Man, Lucas,” said someone in his ear, “sorry they put you behind a desk, pal.” It was Thorn Finney, a friend throughout their academy training.
“Not just any desk, Thorn. A real hole in the wall.”
“Bitching luck.”
“I don't know that luck had a damned thing to do with it; might say my past precedes me.”
“That shits, man.”
Thorn's burly training officer partner tugged the other rookie away, saying, “No time for powwows, kid. We gotta get back out on the street.”
“Later, Lucas.”
Lucas followed the other two men through the door and outside the precinct walls. He breathed in deep breaths of air and squinted at the last rays of sun before they disappeared entirely in a sea of gunmetal-gray clouds, an early morning storm out over the big Gulf waters obviously brewing. Squad cars were busily pulling in and out of headquarters; Lucas watched handcuffed offenders swear and kick their way from backseats. Frustrated dregs of humanity, he thought.
He wasn't sure he was any different, handcuffed to the Cold Room. He wasn't sure he could go back inside and suck in dust mites all day long. He wasn't sure he could stand it without going out of his mind, at least not without a drink. Yeah, maybe a drink would help.
On the precinct steps now stood Sergeant Kelton, shouting, “Hey, Stonecoat! Where you going at this hour?”
“I need supplies. Going to requisition a few supplies.”
“Well, that's done on the third floor, Mrs. Babbage's department.”
“Thought I'd go the fast route, Sarge.”
“And what's that?”
“Wal-Mart.”
Kelton frowned. “You won't get reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenditures, you know.”
“I'm well aware, Sergeant.”
“You okay, Stonecoat? I mean with the duty you pulled and all?”
“Never better,” he lied.
Lucas walked away, wondering if he'd be back or not, unsure of his next move. “You know what kinda duty you can expect to get here in Houston, in that cave?” he asked himself as he went for his car. “Nada, zip, nothing… absolutely-”
'Then at least we know what you'll get in return,” Stonecoat's other half argued back, some of the cops in the lot staring at him.
Lucas pushed past two uniformed rookies who gave him warm, unanswered salutations-boys he'd gone through his second academy training with. They took his ill temper in stride, one of them shouting, “How's that temper of yours, Redskin?”
Lucas silently, blindly pushed on for his car. Sergeant Kelton, his complexion a sickly white dotted with weak freckles, looking every bit his fifty-six years, muttered to himself, “I hope the department knows what it's doing, hiring on that one.”
Lucas yanked open his car door, for some reason looking back at the precinct and up at the window where Meredyth Sanger regarded him with piercing, curious eyes. She was speaking to someone in the room with her-Captain Lawrence, no doubt-but stopped suddenly upon seeing Stonecoat staring up at her. Her sudden loss for words seemed almost as if she feared he could read her lips or hear her from this distance. A silent look passed between them. She was special. He didn't know how or why he felt so, but she was somehow special.
She pulled her eyes away and disappeared from the window. He climbed into his car and fought with the faulty ignition. He had to escape this place, at least for now; he must search out better air, wider spaces, freedom, some substitute for, or semblance of, sanity, and some reason to go on.
Painted buses, rusted and gilded cars, limos, taxis, air traffic and Rollerbladed bodies. Houston raced around Lucas, gaudy, huge and powerfully energetic, even in the shimmering heat rising off its asphalt prairie, her network of intersecting streets the arteries by which she lived. But recently her strength had been reduced, drained like a fevered lover or an oil well gone dry. Over the past two weeks of intense, insufferable temperatures, the fiery heat had scorched the social fabric into a deep ochre, a burnt umber that seemed like a visitation from the surrounding deserts of king cactus. Competing for a record year of heat and humidity, Houston basked in 110-and 120-degree days, 101 in the shade before noon-too hot for dogs to catch flies or wag their tails, too hot for bare skin on grass, much less asphalt and tarmac and metal railings, too hot for tires, which were daily exploding; too hot for tennis or handball courts, too damned hot for sex or even love, Lucas thought.