Everyone was hammered, Johnny knew. He also knew better than to cut anyone off. He would call the taxis when the time came.
“Is Hart working?” Ridgeway asked. “The little pecker.”
“Let’s find out,” Chisolm said, walking to the pay phone. Everyone watched as he put a quarter in and dialed. A few moments later, he spoke.
“Lieutenant Hart, please.” There was a pause. Chisolm covered the receiver and said, “They’re getting him.”
The bar fell completely silent. Then Chisolm spoke into the phone. “Is this Lieutenant Alan Hart? Yes?” Chisolm glanced at the watching crowd and winked. “Well, then fuck you, you pencil-necked prick.” He hung up the phone.
The silence turned to disbelief, then exploded into laughter. Chisolm returned to the table, grinning drunkenly.
“What if he recognized your voice?” Westboard asked above the laughter.
“What if he has it analyzed?” Chisolm asked him, sitting down. “Who cares?”
Ridgeway stood, his glass held high. “To Thomas Chisolm, biggest stones in the whole department!”
A roar of laughter followed and everyone drank. Johnny watched as all the patrons in the small bar turned toward the table in the corner. Ridgeway sat down.
“To Stef Kopriva,” Katie toasted, “and a speedy recovery.”
“Hear, hear,” called the group and civilian patrons alike. Everyone drank again.
An uncomfortable silence settled in. Thomas Chisolm slowly rose, his beer bottle in hand. He stood solemnly, his face regal and hard. The thin white scar he received in Vietnam had never faded and in the small, dark bar, it seemed to glow.
He raised his bottle. “To our honored dead,” he said. “To Sergeant David Poole.”
“Poole,” repeated several.
“To Karl Winter,” Chisolm bellowed in a hard voice.
The roar rose in unison, amidst clinking glasses.
“To Karl Winter!”
EPILOGUE
Fall 1994
The doctor looked at his watch. Fifty minutes had passed since the officer had sat down and now the session had come to an end.
The officer noticed him looking and said, “Our time is up, huh, doc?”
The doctor nodded.
“So what’s the verdict?” the officer asked him.
Instead of answering, he asked, “Why don’t you tell me?”
“You mean, am I crazy? Whacked out over shooting that banger? Or getting shot myself?” He shook his head. “No. I’m okay with it. And I’ll get through whatever the department is sending my way, too. One way or another.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I don’t do this job for them,” the officer stated simply.
“Why do you do this job then?”
“Aren’t we out of time?”
The doctor waved his comment away. “It’s fine. We have a few minutes yet.”
The officer shrugged, then continued. “I do this job to do the right thing. To be on the right side. To help people.” He paused for a long moment. The doctor was about to ask him another question when he said quietly, “I do this job to make a difference.”
The doctor nodded at the common sentiment among police officers. “Have you?” he asked the officer. “Have you made a difference?”
The officer smiled wryly, staring down at his own hands. “Well, now that’s the real question, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is,” the doctor agreed. “Have you found an answer?”
The officer looked up at him, his face showing nothing other than a calm expression.
“Time will tell,” he said.