Chapter Thirteen

Erik returned before the police arrived, and he joined the other three on the floor, shoving some of the detritus out of the way. Roger, unable to stand the smell, went into the kitchen to try to clean up the mess of mixed liquids and foods, and Rich came to help him.

“My auntie had a mess like this one time,” he told Roger as he squatted with a roll of paper towel. “She had a live-in boyfriend who flipped out on some sort of drug – I think it was bad PCP – and totally wrecked her place. It took us a long time to get her stuff sorted out, but we got her there. If you went to her house today, you’d never know that it had gotten trashed. I mean, that man tore sinks off the walls, battered holes in the drywall, broke windows… it was a mess.”

Roger dumped a handful of sodden paper towel into a garbage bag. “I’m sorry for your aunt.”

“She’s okay. That’s the point of the story. She’s okay. And you will be, too. I swear it’ll be like this never happened, eventually.”

He nodded his head to show that he had heard, but he offered no other response. From behind him, Erik said, “The operative word there is ‘eventually.’ If you don’t feel okay right now, that’s fine, too. You don’t have to be okay right away. In fact, I don’t think anybody would be okay after something like this.” He sniffed and looked out the window. “I’m not okay, and it’s not even my place.”

Roger knew they were trying to help, and he didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but he wanted them to shut up. “Thanks, guys. I… don’t want to talk about it.” Rich and Erik exchanged a look, and Roger didn’t have to work very hard to interpret it. “I’m not in denial or having some sort of psychotic break. I just… I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to fix it.”

“I understand.” Rich offered him the roll, and Roger pulled off more sheets.

He turned back to the task at hand, and after what seemed like forever and an unconscionable amount of paper, the floor was relatively clean. It still needed a mopping to eliminate the stickiness, but there would be time enough for that later. He looked up at the clock.

“Mickey is going to be leaving work soon. I don’t want him to be alone. Could one of you…”

“I’ll pick him up,” Erik said. “No problem.”

“Good thing you said it, ‘cause none of the rest of us have a car,” Kyle teased.

“You have the power to change that. I’ve seen your bank account.”

“No, you haven’t.” Erik only raised an eyebrow and walked away. Kyle called after him, “Because I don’t have one.”

Rich elbowed him. “That’s because we have one. Stop being a weenie.”

“I thought you liked my weenie.”

“I do, but there’s a difference between using your weenie and being a weenie. Do you get that?”

Kyle grinned. “You might have to demonstrate for me later.”

Rich turned to Roger with an exaggerated shake of his head. “Do you see what I have to deal with? You’re so lucky that yours is a reasonable human being.”

“For a dancer,” Kyle quipped.

“Shut it.”

Roger smiled weakly at their performance. “Thank you for trying to cheer me up. You’re legends, both of you.”

“Is it working?”

He looked into Rich’s hopeful face and shrugged. “A little, I guess.”

“A little is better than nothing. I’ll take it.”

They heard heavy footfalls coming up the stairs, and Kyle jumped up to his feet. “That’s the po-po. I’ll bet you anything.” He went to the door and waiting for the knock.

He didn’t have to wait for long. A hard rap on the door was accompanied by a call. “Police!”

Roger stood up, too, while Rich stayed seated. Kyle looked at him. “Don’t make any fast moves. You’re black.”

Rich chuckled. “I remember.”

Kyle opened the door, and two uniformed officers came in. One was Asian and the other was African-American, and both were beefy and intimidating. Roger could feel his knees knocking.

The Asian’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. I guess I can see why you called us.”

“The apartment was like this when I got home with my friends,” Roger told them. “We cleaned up a stinky mess in the kitchen and packed up some clothes so I can stay elsewhere tonight, but otherwise we haven’t really touched anything.”

The other cop walked further into the apartment, taking a slow tour of the rooms and checking out the damage while his partner took statements from all of the musicians. He listened patiently, even when Roger began to stammer because of his anxiety, and took copious notes: who the three were, where they’d been before they came, when they arrived, how long the apartment had been empty that day, who had keys to the place… every question but the important one.

Roger blurted, “Aren’t you even going to ask who did it?”

The cop looked up at him with mild surprise. “Did you see anybody?”

“Well, no.”

“Then you don’t know who did it.”

“I have a very good idea who did it, and I’d like to put it on record.”

The cop shrugged one shoulder. “Okay, fine. Who do you think did this?”

“Officer Dave Campbell of the NYPD.” He announced it firmly, as if he was daring them to contradict him.

“Campbell?” the African-American officer echoed, re-entering the living room from the disrupted bathroom. He looked at his partner, then back at Roger. “He’s in the 18th precinct, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess.” He looked around. “If I can find my safe, I can tell you…. Ah! There it is.”

It was a plastic-coated mini-safe that looked a great deal like a drink cooler. He had purchased it on line and kept his important paperwork inside. The lid and lock both showed signs of attempted entry, but it appeared that in this, at least, his stalker was thwarted. He dialed in the combination and opened the safe, withdrawing his passport, Visa and other important papers and putting them in his pocket. He found a copy of the police report from when he’d struck Erik, and he pulled it out.

“The 19th precinct,” he corrected.

The Asian officer dutifully wrote the information down. “And why do you think a police officer would do something like this?”

“Because he’s been threatening me and stalking me for months.” The cops looked unconvinced, but they didn’t call him a liar, so he supposed that was a win.

The other cop said, “We’ll talk to him.”

His partner gave him a look that Roger couldn’t understand, and then he closed his notebook. “Okay. Sorry this happened to you. If you determine that anything was stolen, come down to the department with a list of what’s gone and we’ll see if we can find it for you.”

Rich, from his seat on the floor, asked, “Aren’t you even going to look for fingerprints or anything?”

“What’s the point?” The Asian officer, who seemed to be the senior member of the pair, gestured at the mess. “Most of this stuff doesn’t make for good prints, and you guys have been tromping through here and contaminating the scene for hours, so there’s nothing we can get that would be of any use.”

“Ah.” Rich sounded like he didn’t really buy it, but he muzzled himself. Kyle sat beside him, an unaccustomed few inches separating them. Roger sighed.

“Well, thank you for coming, officers. I’ll see you out.”

He walked them to the door, and the African-American handed him a card. “This is the number for the theft unit. If you get a list of stolen goods, just call them and they’ll help you out from there.”

He accepted the card. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” He flashed a brief, apologetic smile. “Take care, now. Be safe.”

The two policemen headed back down the stairs, and Roger closed and locked the door. He leaned his forehead against the wood, his eyes closed, his hand still on the doorknob. Anger flared in him, and he kicked the door hard, rattling it on its hinges. He backed away in irritation and disgust.

“Hey, man,” Kyle soothed. “It’s going to be all right. Honestly.”

Roger didn’t agree. He was trying not to cry, but the impotent rage and utter frustration were making that difficult. He wiped angrily at his eyes and blinked the tears away, trying to hide.

“He’s destroying my life. He’s taken my sense of safety, my sense of fairness, and now he’s taken my home. I’ve got… he’s…. Ah!” He kicked the door again, then again for good measure.

Rich sighed. “Rog, stop. It’s not the door’s fault, and you don’t want to break it.”

He sniffed and pushed himself back. With a grimace, he swiped his hand over his face. “Fine. Let’s go back to Erik’s. I can’t deal with this place anymore.”

His friends understood, and Kyle called Erik.

“Hey, Viking,” he greeted as soon as Erik picked up the call. “We’re done here, so why don’t you just let us know when you’re back and we’ll meet you on the street.”

Roger could hear Erik’s voice, tinny and distant through the drummer’s phone. “Then you’d better get your asses downstairs, ‘cause we’re about a block away.”

“See you soon.” Kyle hung up and gave Rich a hand up. He hugged him briefly. “Good job not getting shot.”

“Thanks, babe.”

Roger picked up the stuffed suitcase and took a look around. He couldn’t bear the sight of the place anymore. With a gesture of mixed surrender and dismissal, he turned back toward the door.

“Let’s go.”