“Maybe they don’t want me to go out,” he said.
“It’s Mike Chavez and he says it’s important. You know they’ll want you to go out.”
Coughing as he got up, he patted her shoulder and went to the phone.
“What’ve you got, Mike?” he asked. He nodded as he listened. Pulling a chair over with his foot he sat down and signaled his wife to make some coffee. “I’ll be ready,” he said after a moment, as he hung up. His fatigue had disappeared and he forgot his sinuses.
Helen’s back was to him as she worked at the stove putting coffee into the percolator instead of just boiling water for instant. Rudderham started to tell her that he might not have time, that Chavez would be right over, but thought better of it.
The hell with it. He’d make the time. He knew that his working the night shift bothered her anyway, but especially so when he got called right back out again.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing... not much. You know,” he mumbled. The quick, sketchy details Chavez had given over the phone were incredible. He couldn’t tell her. He wouldn’t anyway, for she worried enough as it was, but Chavez had said this was strictly on the hush.
“I’ll get dressed,” he said getting up.
“Should I make a cup for Mike?” she asked.
“I don’t think he’ll be coming in. This is kind of a rush job,” he said.
“I thought you said it wasn’t important.”
He knew that she knew it was important enough to call a man who had gone off duty and that she was starting to get argumentative. She also knew for what sort of jobs he was usually called in special. “Well, you know, it’s no big deal. It’s just that we have to move on it right away.”
“Will you be back early?”
“Christ, Honey, I don’t know. Maybe,” he said going into the bedroom.
When he came out dressed, she had two cups set up for herself and him.
“Is the coffee ready?” he asked.
“Another minute or two,” she said.
Glancing at his watch, he went to the window and looked down the two stories to the street. Mike Chavez wasn’t outside yet, but would be at any minute.
“Why don’t you pour mine now, honey. It’ll be all right. It smells good and strong.”
“Do you want some toast or anything?” she asked.
“No. No thanks,” he said, sitting down as she poured the coffee. He forced himself to be deliberate as he stirred in milk and sugar. He thought that after twenty-two years as a cop in a big city working uniform and plain clothes that he had good control of his feelings. It was not that he had become inured or didn’t have a proper regard for his own skin. It was that he was generally able to hide whatever fear, revulsion, or disgust the acts of his fellow man produced in him. At least from Helen. But now he was agitated and he felt it must show. She must sense his nervousness.
“Can you tell me what it is?” she prodded. This wasn’t like her. She had long since learned that he didn’t discuss his police business with her, except the most routine.
He looked at her sharply. “It’s nothing, Honey. I’ll talk to you about it when I get home.”
“It must be something really big, really important,” she pressed.
“Now why the hell do you say that, for crying out loud?” he said, exasperated.
“Because usually you complain when they get you back out after duty. Even for special things, you usually complain at least a little bit. But you haven’t complained once and I know you’re tired from working a full shift.” She sipped her coffee. “And your hayfever’s acting up and that makes you irritable. Besides, this heat. It’s enough to make anyone complain to have to even move.”
“I think that’s Mike outside,” Rudderham said going to the window. “Yeah, that’s him. I’ve got to go.” He slid on his sport jacket knowing as he did so that he’d remove it when he got in the car and probably wouldn’t put it back on again until he returned home. It was an old habit and he realized that when he wore it he most likely branded himself as a cop as surely as if he wore a uniform.
He went to her and kissed her on the top of her head. “You haven’t finished your coffee,” she said.
“I really don’t have time, honey.” She didn’t look up. “Listen,” he continued, “we’ll go out someplace this weekend, okay? You know, a movie and dinner someplace nice. What do you say?”
“Be careful.”
He patted her shoulder. “See ya,” he said gently, going to the door and down the stairs.
Rudderham pulled his jacket off and dropped it on the back seat of the unmarked car as he slid in. Without a word, Mike Chavez gunned the car away from the curb and down the quiet street of two and three family homes.
They were on Whittier Avenue in the midst of the morning traffic heading toward the river before Chavez spoke. “Sorry to get you back out, Harry, but the Chief says we might need you besides the regular demo guys.”
“Fill me in, will you,” Rudderham said.
“Like I said on the phone, this guy’s got high explosives of some sort with him and he’s sitting up on one of the natural gas storage tanks by the river. He threatens to blow it up by noon.”
“Jesus Christ!” said Rudderham.
“You said it.”
Rudderham mopped his brow with his handkerchief and then blew his nose. “You said high explosives of some sort. What’s he got?”
“We don’t know for sure. Or even if he’s got anything that’s real.” Chavez stomped on the gas and slipped through an intersection as the light turned red. “One of the gas company workmen saw the guy this morning when he went to work. He was sitting on a platform on the tank about fifty feet up or so, I guess. He threw the workman a note to the Governor and then told him to beat it or he’d blow the whole thing up right then and there.” Chavez crushed the cigarette he’d been smoking in the ashtray. “The workman read the note and that was enough for him.”
Rudderham swore again. “How the hell was he able to do it? I mean, how the hell do you get up on a gas storage tank with a bomb without anyone stopping you?”
“He did it overnight, I guess. Those things aren’t even guarded. Climb the fence at night when no one’s there and you’re in business.”
“My God, if one of those tanks went up it’d be a miniature A-bomb. How much gas does one of them hold?” Rudderham asked.
“I have no idea. But that’s not all. There are five other tanks there and high-tension lines too. Can you picture the chain reaction if one tank went up? And all in a residential area, if you can call it that.”
“Christ, how many people are in that area? Are they evacuating them?”
“I don’t think so. That was one of the conditions of the note. At the first sign of abnormal activity, he threatened to blow it up,” Chavez said.
“He’s a psycho.”
“Looks it.”
“What else did he say in the note?” Rudderham demanded.
“I don’t know. You’ll be filled in when we get there. We’re set up about a block from the tank. I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you.”
Harry Rudderham cursed the demolition training he had had in the Army. Officially, he hadn’t done any as a cop, but the department still consulted him occasionally on bomb threats and the like even though the regular demo boys did the dirty stuff. But this was something new and potentially bigger than anything he had ever been involved in. If his estimates were correct — and he admitted to a lot of unknowns — this could be a mini-Hiroshima. Being one block from the source wouldn’t mean a thing.