Lost and Found
Maureen McGowan
A billy club to the hip was not the worst way Jake had ever been woken up.
“Get up, asshole,” a voice boomed, and the weapon slammed down again, higher this time.
Straight to the ribs. Damn. Another bad start to another bad day.
“Easy. He’s asleep.” A velvet-soft voice drifted over him. “Give him a chance to sit.”
Jake opened one eye to witness the speaker – surely an angel – but all he saw was a wall of dark-blue slacks in his face.
Angel, my ass. Two cops. Uniformed. Modern dress.
Even in the dim light, he deduced he’d woken in his own century. At least he wasn’t lying on damp ground. At least New York City, the park, the bench, existed today.
He slowly pulled his face off the wooden slats and blinked his eyes fully open.
The sun had barely turned the sky pink. Six twelve, he guessed, and then glanced at his wristwatch.
Off by a minute. And although the watch wasn’t one of those ones where the date clicked off in a bevelled box in the three’s spot, he knew it was April 17. Question was, what year?
He drew in a deep breath and winced at the pain in his side.
“You hurt?” the female cop asked.
He looked up at her and stared without answering.
She was tall for a chick, probably only three or four inches shy of his six foot two, and her dark hair was pulled back, mostly hidden under her cop hat, exposing pale skin that gleamed in the pink light of dawn.
She might be cute – out of that uniform.
Apparently women’s libbers had changed a few things. No girl cops walking the streets in his day.
Ha. His day didn’t mean shit any more.
He was a man with no time, no life – just a place and one day to endure, over and over again.
“What the fuck is that on your face?” The male cop slammed his club on the bench and pointed to the flower Jake knew was drawn on his left cheek in metallic-blue eyeliner, matching the three teardrops trailing down his right.
So enduring they might as well be tattoos, no amount of cold cream could wipe them off for more than twenty-four hours.
“Fucking fruitcake.” The cop sneered.
“Hey.” The female shot her partner a scolding look.
Cop ignored it. “Get up, pretty boy. We’re taking you in.”
The male cop was ugly. But not in an unhandsome kind of way.
He had that whole square-jawed, clear-skinned, masculine look Jake knew women went for.
No, his ugly came from the angle he held his chin, the way he kept one hand close to his gun, the other on his club, the way he stood with his knees locked, his feet spread six inches wider than was natural, projecting the repulsive look of a power-hungry asshole.
He was why hippies and Black Panthers called police pigs.
The female cop talked in low tones to her partner, and then he grunted and stepped back. She reminded him of someone, but who?
Her blue eyes flashed a hint of kindness as she thrust a card towards Jake. “Here’s a list of shelters. You can’t sleep here.”
Jake dismissed the offered card. “I just did.”
The male cop lurched forwards ready to strike, but she blocked him.
“Let’s go. He’s not hurting anyone. Besides, time to go off shift.”
The male cop’s nostrils flared and his fingers flexed over his gun. “Yeah. Bum’s not worth the paperwork.” The pair turned, and the heels of their heavy black shoes clomped on the concrete path as they left. He should let them go. Couldn’t.
“Hey, John Wayne,” Jake yelled after the cop. “Who you calling a fruitcake? You take orders from a broad.”
The cop spun and charged, club raised.
The female started after her partner, but Jake was quicker. He ducked the club and dived for the cop’s legs, taking him down in a
tackle on to the damp grass at the side of the pavement. The club came down on his back. More bruises, but who gave a shit. They’d be gone in the morning. Always were.
“Freeze,” the female yelled.
Hearing the click of her gun’s safety, he wondered whether the command had been directed at him or her partner. Didn’t matter.
Jake let the male cop flip him on to his face and pin him to the grass. No point in resisting the cuffs, either. At least in jail he’d have a fighting chance of being fed.
At least jail was something to do.
Kara studied the homeless guy they’d picked up in Central Park, now sitting in the metal chair beside the desk she shared with three other street-patrol officers.
Sending Tony home to breakfast and his wife had been a good move – their opposing philosophies on anti-loitering by-law enforcement was a nightly source of conflict.
All bets said she’d saved her partner another excessive force charge.
The man pulled a clean-looking white handkerchief from his jacket pocket. “Mind if I wipe this artwork off my face?”
Without waiting for her answer, he traced the flower petals and swiped down the stem with freakish accuracy, and then moved on to the teardrops, hitting those with precision, too.
Even without a mirror, he knew exactly where to rub.
Finished, he balled up the blue-stained handkerchief and tossed it into a trash can about five feet away.
“Don’t you want that?” she asked.
“Nah, it’ll find me.” He grinned and her heart skipped a beat.
The man was oddly familiar – she must’ve seen him loitering in the park before – but something didn’t add up.
His sandy hair, curling loosely around his sideburned face, looked clean – too clean for a man who made a habit of sleeping on park benches, and the golden stubble on his strong jaw and upper lip looked like he’d had a proper shave in the past twenty-four hours.
His clothes insinuated a thrift-store pedigree, but even there, something was off.
Although his brown-and-beige plaid suit and mustard-coloured shirt were rumpled, they looked clean and, except for the retro style, new.
Plus, he didn’t have the obvious reek and grime of a man who lived on the streets.
In fact, when she’d removed the cuffs, he’d smelled good – hints of fresh, citrus tones, under healthy sweat.
But what was with that hippy stuff he’d just wiped from his face?
Time to stop wondering and start asking. “Name?”
He glanced up, his piercing eyes the colour of an angry ocean. “Jacob Reddick.”
Her breath hitched. “It’s you, isn’t it? I know you.”
“Believe me, honey.” He barked out a sharp laugh. “Not a chance in hell.”
He was right. It wasn’t possible. Like an eyewitness, thinking she recognized a mugshot on her third viewing, Kara was falling prey to mistaken identity syndrome.
After all those years of searching for her mystery man, imagining him everywhere, and recreating his face in her dreams, her memory was muddled.
Faulty synapses crossing a face from her past with this man’s.
Best to get this done and head home for a glass of wine – breakfast of night-shift champions. “Address?”
“Honey, you’ve already been to visit. South side of the lake, near the terrace, Central Park, NY, NY.”
She rolled her eyes and wrote: “no fixed address”. “Date of birth?”
“April 17—” He paused. “What year is this?” His mouth twitched to the side.
“Excuse me?”
“Year.” He leaned back. “How many years past the birth of Christ has mankind survived on this fine morning?”
“Uh, it’s 2009.” Maybe she’d been too quick to rule out the psych hospital option?
He looked to the ceiling for a moment and then tapped her form. “Put down April 17, 1977.” He flashed a gleaming white smile that sparked in his eyes.
Her stomach tightened and she blinked, hoping to negate the familiarity she felt. Loneliness had driven her to conjure up a connection pulsing between them. A trick of the mind. Clearly it was time to start dating, again.
“Mr Reddick, there’s no point in lying.”
“Sweetheart—” he leaned forwards “—last time I checked, I was thirty-two years old. So if this is 2009, it follows I was born on April 17, 1977.” He was grinning again. Clearly amused.
But she wasn’t amused at the effect his sexy smile was having on her insides. Kara gathered up a healthy dose of irritation to drown it.
Nineteen-seventy-seven sounded right. She’d been born a couple of years later and he looked roughly her age – further proving he wasn’t who she’d thought. Where was the joke?
She realized. “Oh, happy birthday.”
He leaned back. “No need to throw me a party, honey. Every day’s my birthday.”
His mocking grin hit her right in the belly.
She pressed back and crossed her arms over her uniformed chest. “Officer.”
“What?”
“It’s officer, not honey.”
He rolled his eyes and then raised his palms towards her. “Look, officer, I’m no chauvinist pig. I think it’s cool they’re letting chicks carry guns these days. Just trying to be friendly.”
Friendly, my ass. “Look. You’re in some serious shit here. You assaulted my partner.”
“Your partner’s a pig.”
Hard to argue with that one. She chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling.
“Listen, Mr Reddick. I get the feeling you’re not really such a bad guy, and I’d love to help you get into a shelter, or send you home to grovel to your wife, or whoever tossed you out on your ass last night, but for some reason you seem hell-bent on making me regret helping you.
Do you want to spend the next couple of months in lock-up? ”
He shrugged.
She leaned on to the desk. “We’re real backed up right now. It’ll be ages before you see the inside of a courtroom.”
He cocked up one eyebrow. “Do what you want. I know exactly where I’ll be tomorrow at dawn and it won’t be in your jail cell. I guaran-damn-tee it.”
“Oh, really. You think I won’t do it, don’t you?” He’d read her like a book. She hated that.
Hand in his pocket, he pressed a sharp edge up and into the fabric of his slacks.
Heart racing, Kara stood, squared her stance and moved one hand to her weapon. “Empty your pockets. Now.” She was off her game not doing this sooner.