Knox looked at Lane, tired consternation on his face, as though he had seen the sad ending coming all along. He reached out, thumbed open the first file, hesitating to touch it, like a predator approaching its kill. Lane gathered himself, found his voice, and continued.
“Somewhere in these files, among all this evidence, is the answer we're looking for.”
“And you expect me to sit here and read these hundreds or thousands of pages all over again, just because you have a hunch?”
“Do you have a better idea? What I know is that this kidnapping is the best lead we've got, but we don't have any clues to work with. So yes, if this has even a slight chance of pointing us in the right direction, I think we have to do it.”
“Fine, but first you have to go get us some coffee. Real coffee, not that slop that gets served around here. If I'm going to focus, I can't have half my brain wondering if that aftertaste is copper or arsenic.”
Detective Lane gathered his coat under his arm, throwing a quick glance at his partner, who was oblivious to his existence in that moment. He wondered if such focus, such indifference to the presence of another living soul, was the cost of being a great detective. This might be the purpose of his life, but he was not sure he was willing to pay the price for the honor. What he had learned from Detective Knox, above all else, was that life outside the confines of the precinct only served to dilute the work. Lane was not pure in that way, nor did he think he ever could be. His future depended on Knox being wrong.
Detective Knox was lost in the words on the page, reading them in the new light Lane had provided. Meaning and intent often differ, because language is not perfect, and even when trying to bare the depths of the human soul, there are no words that can perfectly encapsulate a complex thought. We do the best we can to form our ideas into digestible pieces, but every mind works differently, and there is no way of knowing if our experiences of joy and pain, or color and sound, are the same as another’s. Language requires assumptions, and those get us in trouble, because they are a weakness of the mind.
These thoughts cascaded over Knox's consciousness, leaving him pondering the complexities of the universe. He was not foolish enough to think he could answer the deepest questions of philosophy, but only when he felt insignificant, like a speck of dust floating towards a light bulb that would vaporize it without an eye catching the act, did he truly understand himself. Being powerless was the ultimate strength, and his tangents of thought clarified his thinking.
Detective Knox was far away from reality as Lane returned, the pungent aroma of bitter coffee seeping through his cocoon and returning him to the moment. As his eyes focused, he could see Lane at his own desk, sipping the steaming liquid. Knox picked up his cup, slowly letting the first drops fall from the rim onto his tongue, savoring each one. He did this because he knew it was a rare treat, and he would soon have to drain the cup as though pumping his tank full of fuel, because time was never set aside for making sure they were taking care of themselves. Compared to the gravity of their work, their own health, mental and physical, was secondary.
“Knox, you were off in your own little world there again. Am I really such bad company?”
“You're ok . . . for another person.”
“We can't all be as charismatic and entertaining as you.”
“I'd settle for as quiet.”
“Now that we've gotten that out of our system, did your trip into the Twilight Zone while I was gone net us any results?”
“It just might have. I was thinking, when Hobbes describes being driven in circles, you would assume he's talking about the kidnappers being evasive, making sure he doesn't know where they're going, right?”
“Sounds right to me.”
“But what if that's not the case. This crazy city was built over the course of so many years that nothing about it makes any sense. There isn't a neat array of streets. There are sections around the old parts that loop in all sorts of insane ways, because that was all the land the government could take at the time.”
“You're thinking that he mistook a winding road for evasive action.”
“Exactly. There's one road that fits the bill almost exactly. A guy like Hobbes probably wouldn't have ever been on it before, since it leads straight into the heart of crud-town. It had to be unfamiliar to him.”
“If that's the case, we know what area he was headed into.”
“And we can narrow it down even further. I spent enough time working that part of town to know that none of the crews down there would be into this sort of thing. All we have to do is find the places that aren't under any of their control, and we'll be in business.”
“That's some awfully good detecting, partner.”
“Yeah. It's amazing how much can be done when you're not around to bug me.”
* * *
The city darkened as Detectives Knox and Lane drove deeper into its underbelly. As the city grew richer and more sophisticated, the old parts were tossed aside, left to rot in the shadows of the new towers erected as monuments to modernity's ego. These charred remnants of what the city used to be were breeding grounds for discontent and evil, with demons filling the vacuum left by the mass exodus. Few dared go further into the dark heart of the city than necessary, a segregation that served all sides well.
Detective Knox had spent much of his life on those streets, chasing down the specters that haunted the nights of the good people of the city. He had caught more than his share, but the supply was endless, and his desire for the job no longer burned. As long as he could take on the hydra of evil one head at a time, as long as he could solve the cases put before him, he was content with himself. Mental strength was required, but his will had not slipped, and he was unbowed by the depravity he had to witness.
“Have you spent much time in this part of town, Lane?”
“No, I can't say I have. Or that I want to.”
“It's a good education. This is where you learn if you have the stomach to admit who we really are.”
“You make it sound so charming.”
“It's a fact of life. Not everything we do is like in a mystery novel. Real life is ugly, messy, the sort of thing you wish you could forget. It infects your eyes, then it burrows into your heart. Eventually, you rot from the inside. That's the best-case scenario.”
“Do I even want to know what's worse?”
“Nope.”
“Good. So what do we know about this place?”
“According to my friend who still works this beat, there are only a handful of places that aren't under any control. Those are our likely sites, so we'll start with the one closest to the main road and branch out from there.”
“Something tells me whoever did this wouldn't want to go any further off the beaten path than they had to.”
“Precisely. You're catching on.”
The pair sat in silence the rest of the way, as the landscape grew filthier with each rotation of the tires. They were in a part of the city where car doors locked reflexively, where anyone walking down the street was viewed as a threat, where peace was a foreign concept. Detective Lane was not oblivious to the suffering that existed in his own city, but there had always remained enough of a separation to allow him to ignore what life was like in a world where death stalks you at every turn. Coming face to face with reality, however, he realized how naïve he had been.
The brakes bit in, bringing the car to a stop in a place it would rather drive straight through. Bouncing on loose springs, Detective Lane's head bobbed back and forth, as though nodding in endless reaffirmation. Knox was in no such state, with one foot already out the door, the stale air pouring in and overtaking the heat. Lane followed, gingerly, wary of letting his focus slip for even a second. Knox looked back at him, the glare in his eyes unmistakable.