Eminence Page 9

  “Don’t you think I want to sleep at night? You don’t think I like to be awake while nearly everybody else is asleep?”

  “Then?”

  “It’s the depression. That’s at the bottom of the whole thing. I don’t know what causes it, but it’s scary. It’s like dying or going to die. It’s like the lights are out all over the world. It’s like the light is going out for me.”

  “But you turn the lights on. You read. Sometimes you even turn on the TV”

  “You don’t understand. God, I can’t blame you. How could you understand? It doesn’t matter that I turn on a light or pick up a book or turn on the TV It’s a feeling. I can’t explain it or even express it very well. I just feel rotten all over. And one feeling leads to another. Pretty soon I’m near panic and there isn’t anything I can do about it . . . and . . . and . . .” She began to sob softly.

  “Want to stop someplace, babe?”

  “No, no; keep going. I don’t want anybody staring at me. Let’s go home.”

  They drove on in that complicated silence.

  Then Tully spoke. “But what can it be that depresses you? Is it me?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

  “Then what? Your job? I know Wayne County social work is no picnic.”

  “I . . . I don’t think so. After all, I’ve been doing this for years. And it’s what I always wanted to do.”

  “Still, it can crowd in on you.”

  “But I’ve been on medical leave for months. If that’s what was depressing me, I should be over it by now.”

  “Except that you’ve got to get back to it someday. That is, unless we can find a different way for you to use your M.S.W.”

  “Oh, Zoo, I—”

  “Hold it, babe,” he interrupted. There was an urgency in his voice that halted not only her sentence but also her thought.

  He apparently was aware of something that had slipped by her. Was something wrong with the car? No, it was running; she could detect no sound of trouble. She tried to more carefully observe what was going on around them, but she could discover nothing untoward.

  Tully eased the car two lanes to the right until he was driving next to the curb. Alice swiveled to look through the back window. An old, rusted-out wreck of a car was parked at the curb behind them. At this time of day it was an obvious illegal park. But why would that so interest a member of the Homicide section? Why was he stopping when she had already asked to go directly home?

  At the corner, Tully made a right turn onto a side street, pulled to the curb, and turned off the engine. “Stupid,” he muttered, then said to her, “This ain’t gonna take long, honey. You just stay in the car. I’ll be back in just a little bit.” He got out of the car and hastened back to the corner they’d just turned. She saw him give his jacket a familiar pat in the area of his shoulder holster, as if reassuring himself the contents were there.

  She adjusted the rearview mirror so she could watch him without turning around. After reaching the corner, he turned in a casual fashion in the direction of the parked car.

  She just couldn’t stay in the car while her man was facing probable danger of some sort. The familiar phenomenon of self-hypnosis overrode her depression, pain, the whole thing. In effect, she totally forgot herself in this tense moment and concentrated all her attention on Tully.

  She hurried to the corner and peered around it in time to see Tully reach the spot where the clunker was parked. For the first time she noticed the young white man slouched next to the open doorway of the liquor store. He was shabbily dressed. He and the car made a matched pair.

  Tully sauntered past the rumpled youth. But when he was one step beyond the young man, Tully whirled. As if by magic, Tully’s gun was in his hand. And the hand with the gun was only inches from the man’s head.

  As he passed the store’s open front door, it had taken Tully only a fraction of a second to confirm what he suspected. There was a robbery going on. Even with heavy traffic buzzing by, he could hear the shouts of the confederate inside. He was ordering the owner to lie on the floor. Please don’t shoot him, Tully prayed. And, he thought, with just a little luck he could get through this whole mess without any shooting.

  Tully was now leaning so close to the lookout that it would be difficult if not impossible for those driving by to see the gun, which was now tightly pressed to the man’s head.

  “Don’t move. I’m a police officer.” Tully spoke at a conversational level but with a good measure of authority packed in. “Don’t move anything. Just pretend you’re a statue and if you pretend good enough you may live to get some supper.”

  Ordinarily, Tully economized on words. But in a situation such as this, he preferred to keep up a steady chatter. He would rather the suspect reflect on what he was saying than try to think of some means of escape or counterattack.

  “This whole thing is gonna be over in just a couple of minutes and you are gonna be one happy dude ‘cause you did just exactly what I told you to do. Just stand perfectly still. Don’t even take that butt out of your mouth. That’s a good fella.”

  As he talked, Tully was able to reach an approximately five-foot-long aluminum pole that was used to raise and lower the awning over the store’s plate-glass window.

  The young man, now perspiring freely, started to move, but stopped abruptly at the ominous sound of the gun’s hammer being cocked.

  “You don’t want to do that, my man. You don’t want to do anything. This is just too nice a day to get wasted. That’s a good boy.”

  The inside man backed out of the doorway, shouting at his victim. “Okay, old man. Kiss that floor for another five minutes or you’re dead meat.” He turned and stepped quickly onto the sidewalk. “Come on, Bobby, let’s—”

  As the thief rushed past them toward the car, Tully threw the aluminum pole between his legs. The youth fell heavily to the sidewalk; his gun skittered out of his hand, slid over the curb, and disappeared under the car. For all the good it would do him, he managed to hold on to the bag containing the loot.

  “Okay, turkey!” Tully shouted, “that’s a good spot. Stay right where you are and don’t move. And Bobby,” now that Tully had been given the lookout’s name, “you get down on the ground and join your buddy.”

  It took Tully several moments to coax the owner off the floor, which he was fervently kissing, and to the doorway. But when the man was finally convinced that the voice he heard was that of a police officer—after all, Tully reassured, why would the thief call him outside when it would’ve been so easy to shoot a prostrate victim—the owner hesitantly made it to the doorway. There he saw two thieves lying immobile on the sidewalk, a black man watching them carefully, holding a gun in one hand and displaying with the other his badge and identification, and a lot of backed-up traffic that had come to a halt on Eight Mile Road.

  At Tully’s instruction, the owner dialed 911, told the operator he had just been robbed and that an officer needed help.

  It was the officer in need of help that did it. Even through rush-hour traffic, it took only minutes for two blue-and-white Detroit police cars to pull to the curb at either end of the clunker. Two uniformed officers exited each car. Once they had handcuffed the suspects, read them the Miranda rights, and had the situation in hand, Tully stole a glance up the street. He saw Alice’s frightened face peering around the corner. He sighed deeply. Of course he couldn’t have expected her to remain in the car all this time. But she was in no condition to absorb all this excitement. He knew what was about to happen.

  He gave the necessary information to the other officers, told them he would be in touch with their commander, and left the two sorry perpetrators in their hands. But before leaving the scene, he asked the store owner for a plain paper bag. The owner felt, in a bewildered way, it was the least he could do.

  Tully escorted Alice back to the car. He decided to cut down to Seven Mile Road. By now, Eight Mile was congealed by gawkers who would embellish the story of the robber
y they had witnessed on the way home. It would provide some unusually stimulating dinnertime conversation.

  “How did you know?” Alice asked.

  “Know? What was going down back there? I don’t know. Vibes. It just didn’t look right. The car’s motor was running. Then there’s the guy standing outside the liquor store. His head is moving back and forth like a toy dog in the rear window of a car. Does the car belong to him? Then why isn’t he in it? If the car isn’t his, it probably belongs to someone who’s gone into the store. If the two of them aren’t together, why did the guy who went inside leave the motor running? With a stranger just standing there, it doesn’t figure. He leaves the car running so a stranger can just get in and drive away? If they are together, why didn’t the guy stay inside the car while his buddy was getting some booze? And why is the guy outside giving every indication that he’s a lookout? It just didn’t look right.”

  “All of that went through your mind? In just a few seconds?”

  Tully smiled. “Well, not in all that detail. That comes up when I try to explain it to you. In this job you get used to noticing little things that somehow don’t fit. After a while you tend to get sort of suspicious by habit.”

  “But there was a chance there was nothing wrong, wasn’t there?”

  “Sure, babe. That’s why I wanted to find out what was going on inside the store before I did anything. Lucky the lookout was standing on the right-hand side of the open door. Gave me a chance to case the inside as I passed by. The guy was just winding up the holdup. He had the bag and was backing away from the counter. I figured if he was going to shoot the owner, he would have already done it. So there was a chance of getting through the thing without anybody getting hurt. The luck held. We made it.”

  Alice was rubbing her hands together. Peripherally, Tully noticed the gesture.

  “You know, Zoo,” Alice said, “that’s the first time I ever saw you in action. On your job, I mean. God, that was scary!”

  “Hey, babe, don’t worry. That was the exception that proves the rule. My job is investigating homicides. I go for years on end without ever drawing this gun. So, okay, there was the shooting Saturday night, then this business just now. Odds are I go right up to retirement with the gun in its holster from now till then.”

  Alice was rubbing her feet against the floor and shaking her hands as if trying to dry them.

  “Tingling, eh?” said Tully.

  “Yeah. Maybe it’ll go away.”

  But Tully knew better.

  “What happens now?” Alice asked. “Do you have to do anything more?”

  “About those dudes? Uh-huh. I’m the arresting officer. The guys who took them in are going to book them at the precinct. They’ll take their prints, process ‘em. But ‘specially ‘cause this is robbery-armed—they’ll take ‘em down to Headquarters, seventh floor. I gotta go downtown and do some paperwork on them . . . after I get home, that is.”

  True enough, there was paperwork to be done. But, given the time of day, he could easily have taken care of it tomorrow morning. This merely gave him the opportunity to get out of the house tonight. He was ashamed to take advantage of this situation, but he was going to do it nonetheless.

  Even though he gave every indication that foiling a robbery and apprehending crooks was a routine matter, it wasn’t. Tully was keyed up, bubbling internally. It was uncharacteristic for him to want to avoid Alice’s almost constant depressed state. But this was one evening when he and Alice would mix about as well as oil and water.

  The nearer they got to home, the more Alice’s symptoms intensified. By the time they pulled into the driveway, she was hyperventilating.

  Tully took the paper bag he’d gotten from the store owner, cupped the open end over his lips and blew into the bag, inflating it almost to the point of explosion. He handed it to Alice. “Here, babe; breathe into this.”

  For an instant she wondered where in the world he’d come up with the bag. But she took it gratefully and began breathing into it. Ever so gradually she became more composed. Her breathing took on a relaxed, normal regularity.

  Tully had to admit that these anxiety attacks were recurring less frequently than when her illness had begun months before. And, while there was still a frightening aspect to them, he and Alice had become better able to manage the manifestations.

  In the beginning they had been scared stiff. Tully was afraid she would die. She was convinced of it. But after a few panicky runs to the hospital emergency room and an informative explanation by a doctor, at least they knew what to do about hyperventilation even if the cause eluded detection.

  As the doctor had explained it, hyperventilation, or overbreathing, is one of the manifestations of an anxiety attack. The panic breathing causes a rapid loss of carbon dioxide from the blood. Among the symptoms are tingling in the arms and legs, faintness, numbness, blurred vision, headaches, and even chest pains. All of these physical manifestations are the result of breathing too quickly or too deeply.

  And the overbreathing is caused by—what?—that catch-all phrase, an anxiety attack. But if these problems are caused by nothing more than anxiety, they can be relieved simply by breathing into a paper bag. This allows the exhaled carbon dioxide to be reinhaled until the proper balance of blood gases is restored.

  A milestone was passed when Tully and Alice found the remedy for this specific manifestation of anxiety.

  Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady describes the utter naturalness of having Eliza Doolittle around as “breathing out and breathing in.” Imagine the terror, then, if breathing—this most natural of all functions—becomes life-threatening. At least now they knew what to do about it.

  They both remained seated in the car until Alice was breathing normally without help.

  “Come on,” Tully said, finally, “let’s get you inside.”

  Once in the house, Tully investigated the contents of the refrigerator. He took a carton from the freezer compartment. “This okay for you, honey? Chicken Oriental?”

  “Sure.” She hesitated. “You’re not going to stay for dinner?”

  “I told you, babe, I got paperwork to do downtown.”

  “I could wait dinner for you to get home.”

  “Better not, honey. I got no idea how long it’s gonna take.”

  “I’ll wait up for you.”

  “No, don’t do that.” The guilt he could not entirely suppress was causing him to lose patience. That, plus he was beginning to feel circumscribed, fenced in. He knew that was a fatal feeling. As much as any other contributing factor, it had caused the death of his marriage. Then he softened slightly. He couldn’t help feeling sorry that he was deserting her this evening. But, he insisted to himself, he needed the break.

  “I mean,” he said, “there’s just no telling how late I’m gonna be. You know how that works. I can’t tell you when—or even if—I’m comin’ home tonight. It goes with the job. You know that.”

  Alice nodded. She knew well enough. Going into their relationship she knew that being a cop and trying to solve real-life murders was his top priority. She had come to know and appreciate the fact that she had become an extremely close second. But second nonetheless.

  However, things were different now. They surely were different for her. And she’d hoped they might be different for him, at least for the duration of her illness.

  In the beginning, when she had been entirely well, she had been able to sublimate her need. His work came first for him, so it came first for her too. It hadn’t been all that difficult. She had an interesting job that she found fulfilling. She had a full life and both she and he were free of any lasting commitment. Most of all, though she didn’t in any way appreciate it until it was gone, she had her health.

  Alice moved close to him. “Zoo, you know we don’t make love much anymore.”

  He looked at her with some surprise. “You’ve been sick. You have noticed that.”

  “I know . . . but . . . you could make love. I’m never
, or hardly ever, too sick for that. Even if I couldn’t . . .”

  Tully interrupted her. “I thought we had an understanding on that, Al. I just can’t think of you as a seminal wastebasket. I don’t intend to use you. I couldn’t just use you. I love you.”

  That brought tears. “I love you too. But what can I do? What can we do?”

  Tully shook his head. “Wait it out, I guess.”

  “But we’ll lose our . . . spontaneity. God, we were good in bed.”

  “Maybe we will be again. Sure we will. Besides, bed isn’t everything.”

  “It comes close. You’re still a young man.”

  “Babe, we have to wait until you’re feeling better.”

  “Zoo, you want me to see a psychotherapist, don’t you?”

  “I never said that.”

  “But you do, don’t you?”

  “There are times . . .” He sighed. “But you don’t see a shrink until you really believe it will help.”

  “You understand why I don’t want to go for psychotherapy, don’t you?”

  Tully could easily understand why he would not want to subject himself to that sort of treatment and he simply projected his attitudes onto Alice. “You don’t want that notation on your record. You don’t want that in your history. Or, from this time on, people will tend to dismiss you as someone who is . . . who has only one oar in the water.” He did not add that, with few exceptions, he did not care for the entire profession. After all, in a way, Alice was a shrink. But Tully did allow for exceptions.

  “That’s part of it,” Alice agreed. “Also, I know the rules for the games they’d play. I know what I’m supposed to see in the Rorschach Test. I know all about transference and I’d gum up the process, even subconsciously. It just wouldn’t work, I’m afraid.”

  Tully held her. “It’s up to you, honey. It’s just that the doc can’t find anything physical causing all this trouble. So, the next place you turn, I guess—”