Hard.
His early weapon of choice was a K-bar.
Short, heavy and lethal and you could swing it real easy, plus, they rarely saw it coming.
They were watching your holstered gun and wallop, he slid the bar out of his sleeve and that’s all she wrote.
His rep was built on it and over the years, he became known as Kebar.
Did he care?
Not so’s you’d notice. He didn’t do friends, so what the fuck did he care.
Sometimes though, he longed to go have a few brews with the guys, shoot the shit, chill. He adored country music, that sheer sentimentality was a large part of his nature and he kept it hidden. His fellow officers, they went to the bar, got a few put away, then played country and western till the early hours.
He loved Loretta Lynn, Ol’ Hank of course, and then Gretchen Peters, Emmylou Harris, Iris DeMent, Lucinda Williams, they were his guilty pleasures. All that heartache, it was like they knew him.
His partners in the prowl car rarely lasted long, he took so many chances, they either got hurt real fast or transferred.
And now, you fucking believe it?
They were giving him some snot-nosed kid.
O’Brien, his commanding officer, a Mick, those guys, they still got the top jobs, had summoned him.
Anyone tell you the Micks were a thing of the past in the force... take a look at the roll call.
You think they were letting that lucrative line of not so equal opportunity slip away?
O’Brien didn’t like Kebar, knew the guy was unhinged, but he sure got results and like O’Brien, he adhered to the old idea:
Justice was dispensed in alleys, not courtrooms.
He said to Kebar,
“Have a seat.”
“I’ll stand, sir.”
Naturally.
O’Brien wondered if the guy ever eased up, said,
“Suit yourself.”
He took a good look at Kebar.
The guy was all muscle, rage and bile.
Perfect cop for the times.
His face was a mess of broken nose, busted veins (he liked his vodka, straight), a scar over his left eye: he looked like a pit bull in uniform.
O’Brien said,
“Got you a new partner.”
Kebar growled,
“Don’t need no partner.”
O’Brien smiled.
This is where it was good to be chief, flex that muscle, asked,
“I ask you what you needed?... Did you hear me do that? Yeah, it’s not what you need, mister, it’s what I tell you you’re getting. We have a reciprocal arrangement with the Irish goverment to take twenty of theirs and twenty of ours go over there.”
Kebar had heard all this crap before... yada yada, he sighed, asked,
“Who am I getting?”
O’Brien was looking forward to this, opened a file, took out his glasses, all to annoy the shit out of Kebar, pretended to read:
“Matt O’Shea, did a year on the beat in Galway.”
He paused, then added,
“Galway, that’s in Ireland.”
Kebar would have spit, reined it in a bit, sneered,
“A Mick, no disrespect, sir, but a greenhorn, gonna have to break his cherry for him?”
O’Brien was delighted, better than he’d hoped, he said,
“Actually, he seems a bright kid.”
Kebar was enraged, rasped,
“In Ireland, they don’t even carry freaking guns, they’re like...”
He couldn’t think of a suitable degrading term, settled for,
“Rent-a-cops.”
O’Brien smiled again, he was having a fine morning, said,
“I’ll expect you to treat him properly, that’s all, dismissed.”
Outside the office, Kebar spat, a passing cop was going to say something, saw who it was and kept on moving.
Kebar went down to the car pool, rage simmering in his belly, leaned against his car, got his flask out, drank deep. A young guy, in a sparkling new uniform, approached, put out his hand, asked,
“Officer Browski?”
Kebar stared at him, the new uniform was blinding, the gun belt neon in its newness, the buttons shining on his tunic.
He belched, grunted,
“Who’s asking?”
The kid still had his hand out, his eyes full of gung ho bullshit, said,
“I’m your new partner, Matt O’Shea, they call me...”
Before he could go any further, Kebar said,
“Shut the fuck up, that’s your first lesson, I want to know something, I’ll ask you, can you follow that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir.
Kebar thought it was going to be even worse than he’d imagined.
He asked,
“Can you drive?”
“Of course I...”
“Then get in the fucking car, get us out of here.”
Kebar looked at his sheet, the assignments they’d pulled, and said,
“Head for Brooklyn, can you find that?”
Shea was going to tell him he now lived there but buttoned it, just nodded, thinking,
“Holy fook, I get a psycho on me first day.”
They were passing an area of deserted lots, mud on the ground, no signs of habitation, and Kebar said,
“Pull up here.”
Shea, nervous, before he could stop himself, went,
“Here?”
“Deaf as well?”
He pulled over.
Kebar got out, said,
“You hear of backup, get out of the fucking car.”
Shea got tangled in his safety belt and harness, all the frigging equipment and it weighed a ton, plus, the uniform, Christ, how hot was it? And it itched.
Kebar said,
“Before the weekend, maybe?”
Shea, finally out, waited and Kebar said,
“Go, I’m behind you.”
And for a wild moment, Shea wondered if the mad bastard was going to shoot him. The other cops had already told him of how Kebar’s partners never lasted.
Before he could think beyond this, he got an almighty push in the back, sent him sprawling in the mud, covering his brand-new blues in crap and dirt.
He rolled round, tempted to go for his piece, Kebar was slugging from a flask, said,
“Now that’s more like it, you don’t look like such a freaking virgin. We go into the hood, they see that shiny new blue, we’re meat.”
And then he turned back to the car.
Shea watched his retreating bulk and hated him with a ferocity of pure intent.
As they drove off, Kebar was chuckling and Shea asked,
“You going to share the joke?”
Kebar looked at him, said,
“First day on the job, you’re already a dirty cop.”
They did a full day, settling domestics, leaning on dope dealers, cop stuff, some of it wildly exhilarating and most boring as hell.
And Shea, he never attempted to change his uniform or even brush the mud off it.
Kebar was impressed, he didn’t let on but thought,
“Kid has cojones.”
Even better, he didn’t whine or complain, whatever nasty task Kebar set him, and he sure had some beauts, the kid just went at them, head down, his mouth set in a grim smile.
End of the shift, Kebar was tempted to say,
“You done good.”
Went with:
“Early start tomorrow, don’t be late.”
The kid looked down at his feet, asked,
“You want to grab a cold one?”
And for a moment, Kebar nearly said yes, then reined it in, said,
“I don’t drink with the help.”
Everyone has their Achilles’ heel, the one area that makes them vulnerable. From Bush to Bono, there is something they don’t want known.
Be it pretzels or lack of height.
Kebar’s was his sister, Lucia.
She had a serious mental handicap and now, in her thirties, she still had the face and mind of a five-year-old.
Their parents had been horrified and regarded her as a curse.
They had tried to beat it out of her, literally.
Now, she was in a very expensive home, where they treated her well, and she seemed, if not happy, at least less terrorized.