15 For 15 Entries ~ June 2010

Cat ~ June 15

Dominic stared into the dancing flame in the middle of the patio table, his half-eaten steak cold and forgotten. A bug sizzled in the zapper. Natalie’s voice nudged him back from wherever he’d drifted off to.

“Were you briefed this time? Of did they just throw you into a scenario with no preparation again?”

How would he have made it this far without his sweet Natalie? When he’d been on the beat, he knew how terrified she was each day he walked out the door, though her smile was a valiant veil. Now, he was among forty other officers up for chief, and the race was tight. Her support was pulling him through as the leadership aptitude tests got harder and harder.

“Yeah,” he said softly, “I walked into the diner down on 5th street, and there was Bradford waiting on me.”

“The District Chief?”

“The same. So he doesn’t shake my hand or anything. Just tells me we have a situation. Terrorist threat. An anonymous tip came in, some bullshit about a biochemical attack. He didn’t give me more than that, just points at the back door where someone had set out my SWAT gear.”

“Well, at least you had more to go on than the last time,” Natalie said with an encouraging half-smile.

She had a point there. Three days ago, Chief Jackson summoned him the minute he’d entered the precinct. Said he’d been needed in interrogation room B. The second he’d opened the door, this rail-thin junkie had flown out of her seat and thrown herself at him, screaming about police brutality and the giant purple rats the cops had left in the room with her to wait with. He’d had to subdue her, using all the strategies he’d learned from the time he was a rookie to that very minute. It’d been a success, but he’d come away with a pair of gashes left by her fingernails raking his face, and severely rattled nerves.

The actress hired by the station to play the junkie had apologized over and over for his injury. He knew she’d had to be convincing, but jesus…

Dominic straightened his back, pushing his dinner plate further away, and relaxed back into the chair. “I had an idea of what was going on, but as I pulled on my vest, I heard shooting out the back. I ran out, and there were a couple of officers, rifles out, aiming at this cat walking across the grass.”

Natalie’s eyebrows raised. “Did you say a cat?”

“Yeah. And I don’t recognize the officers, so I don’t know if they’re cops or actors. But they’re shouting at me while they crouch towards this cat. ‘I’m taking it down, chief! Give the order! Give me the order!’ I didn’t know whether the guns were real, Nat. Sometimes they are, but the ammo isn’t. Other times…”

“Jeez,” she said, shaking her head.

“So I’m about to give them the go-ahead to waste this fucking cat, and all of a sudden this little girl starts screaming, “Mittens! Mittens!’” Dominic’s voice raised a couple octaves to mimic her voice. It sounded pathetic to his ear.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take her sweet face, those tears.” Dominic dug into the corners of his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

Natalie stood and hugged him. He composed himself, and then pulled away. “Oh yeah. Afterwards, the little girl’s mom gave me these.” He handed Natalie a pair of theater tickets. “She’s playing Annie, and I guarantee she’s gonna bring down the house.”