“She chose this,” Karen said. “Chose this obsession.”
“To be fair,” Ray said, “wasn’t it the other way around?”
“No,” Karen said. “I’m not talking about what happened to her. I’m talking about her reaction to it. It’s like she’s spent her entire adult life preparing for the past. She’s lived every day in fear he’s coming back. And now she doesn’t know what to do.”
“Well, he’s long gone now,” Ray said after a glance at his wristwatch. “So, she needs to figure it out.”
“She’s broken, Ray,” Karen said. “I don’t think she can.”
Officer Frank Hawkins demonstrated his pinball wizardry on his favorite machine at the back of Kasey’s Quick Stop. This one had a space battle theme, called “Mission: Alpha” in a blood-red font, with pictures of spaceships and tentacled aliens on the backbox. Something about the design reminded him of one of his favorite films, War of the Worlds. The Gene Barry version, not the Cruise remake. Simpler times. When it was comforting to think that something as basic as an earth germ could thwart an overwhelming planetary invasion. These days, long after he should have retired from the force, there were never any easy answers, not in film or real life. Everything was so damn complicated.
At least pinball remained simple—long as you knew how to rock the playfield with as much skill as Wizard Hawkins. Yes, he was in the zone.
“Mission: Alpha” blinked, blooped, buzzed, clicked, clacked; ringing bells and flashing lights were interspersed with ray-gun sound effects and staticky explosions. His score climbed to dizzying heights, the entire machine trembling as he pounded on the flipper buttons to keep the silver ball in play.
Corey and Stanford, fellow officers on break, stood on either side of him, spectating while offering occasional suggestions. Shameel, the night clerk, stood near the counter, filling large plastic cups from the slushy fountain.
“Yo, Hawkins, you want that strawberry slushy or blue raspberry slushy?” Shameel called.
“I’m in wizard mode, Shameel,” Hawkins called back without taking his eyes off the ricocheting ball. “Get me a coffee if you don’t mind. Thanks. I’ll get you back.”
“I’ll have the strawberry,” Stanford said.
Smirking, Corey said, “No shit.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stanford asked defensively.
“You always get strawberry.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” Corey said. “Every. Damn. Time. Doesn’t he, Hawk?”
“Leave me out of this.”
Stanford shrugged. “I know what I like.”
“Change it up for once,” Corey said.
“Nothing wrong with strawberry.”
“Try the damn blue raspberry!”
“You guys mind?” Hawkins said. “Working my magic here—damn!”
One bad ricochet and the ball arced right through the gap between flippers, almost in slow motion and, short of a hip check, he couldn’t do a thing about it. As the ball vanished from play, he rapped the glass with the edge of his fist. “Believe that shit?”
“Don’t abuse the machine,” Shameel said sternly, quickly adding, “Officer.”
“Hot fuzz was born to lose,” Corey said, with a razzing shake of his head. “Get that flow play.”
At least Stanford had something helpful to add. “If the ball comes down loose, don’t hit the bounce pass,” he said. “It’s gonna hit off that broken flipper then whack the bottom of the slingshot and go down the middle.”
“Where was that advice sixty seconds ago?”
“Hey, I’m not the wizard.”
“Right,” Hawkins said. Live by the sword…
A new ball emerged—
—and Hawkins’ radio squawked. “Dispatch to unit 601. We have a 10-50 on Marla Road. Please respond.”
With a sigh, Hawkins reached up and squeezed the transmit button on his radio’s remote speaker mic. “Copy, dispatch,” he said. “I’m on my way.”
Shameel intercepted Hawkins to hand him his coffee.
“Thanks, man.” He took a sip of the coffee, gave a thumbs up, then called back to the others. “Hey, Corey, take over my game. Hot fuzz was born to lose.”
Corey would flame out in two minutes. Guaranteed.
As Hawkins walked out of the convenience store, the plate-glass door closing behind him, Stanford shouted, “Back to the beat, Hawk! Serve and protect.”
Hawkins smiled. “Up yours, Stanford!”
Once in his patrol car, Hawkins requested an exact location for the 10-50 and proceeded down the deserted stretch of Marla Road until he spotted the mile marker and the flashing hazard lights of the transport bus. He slowed the cruiser until the shape of the bus resolved itself against the backdrop of trees and overhanging branches. Briefly, he wondered why the bus driver had driven past the shoulder of the road and down the embankment. Not a breakdown or loss of power then. Possible he fell asleep at the wheel or had a heart attack. Maybe swerved to avoid a deer.
Hawkins steered onto the shoulder of the road and flipped on his light bar, bathing the scene in flickering red and blue lights. Hand on his sidearm, he climbed out of the cruiser looking for bus passengers but saw nobody.
“Sheriff’s Department!” he called into the darkness. “If you need assistance, please let yourself be known!”
He took a step forward and nearly tripped over a bloodied man in uniform lying in the gravel on the shoulder of the road. Hawkins’ attention had been focused on the abandoned bus. Another few feet and he might have run over the body.
Hawkins pressed the transmit button on his mic. “Signal 13. I have an officer down. Officer down. I need assistance. Send backup right away.”
“Copy that, 601,” dispatch responded.
Hawkins considered himself fit, especially for someone in his early sixties, but when he crouched to check the prone man for a pulse, his aging knees raised a painful protest, a silent reminder of his own mortality. Unfortunately, Kuneman—the name stitched on the man’s uniform—was beyond Hawkins’ help.
Without turning his back on the scene, Hawkins reached into his patrol car and grabbed his shotgun with the SureFire WeaponLight. Shotgun elevated, close to firing position, he stalked forward, arcing the light across the length of the bus. “‘Illinois Department of Corrections,’” he read aloud. “Not good.”
Something at the back of the bus caught his eye. A few steps closer and he made out a figure sitting in the glare of the blinking red light, looking up awkwardly.
Hawkins directed the beam of light on the figure. “Show me your hands!”
No movement.
“Now!”
Nothing. Another few steps removed any doubt. The man—civilian in his forties—was dead. Extreme head tilt, mouth agape. Up close, the SureFire light revealed a broken neck, and shattered vertebrae pressing against the taut flesh of the man’s discolored throat.
Next to the man, Hawkins saw the boy—a teenager, the man’s son—who’d placed the emergency call, lying in a pool of his own blood. The kid’s throat had been savaged, so Hawkins dropped to one knee and checked his wrist for a pulse. Nothing.
At the sound of a voice calling from inside the bus, Hawkins’ gaze shifted upward, to the rear door of the bus. He checked, found it unlocked, and swung the door open to peer into the bus’s dark interior. Bracing his left hand against the door frame, he stepped up, keeping the shotgun and light trained forward throughout.
“Show your hands!”
A faint voice replied, “I can’t.”