Collecting Cooper Read Free

farmer. Looks like a pretty nice lifestyle.”
    “I don’t know any farmers, Tate, but I’m pretty sure you’d make the worst kind.”
    “Yeah? What kind is that?”
    He doesn’t answer. He’s thinking I’d make the kind of farmer who’d shoot any cattle being mean to the other cattle. I try to imagine myself driving one of those tractors seven days a week and moving cows from one field to another, but no matter how hard I try I can’t get any of those images to stick. Traffic gets thicker the closer we get to town.
    “Look, Tate, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’m starting to see things a little different now.”
    “What kind of different?”
    “This city. Society, I don’t know. What is it you say about Christ-church?”
    “It’s broken,” I answer, and it’s true.
    “Yeah. It’s seems like it’s been breaking down for a while. But things . . . things are, I don’t know. It’s like things just aren’t getting better. You’re out of the loop since leaving the force three years ago, but we’re outnumbered. People are disappearing. Men and women leave for work or home and just never show up.”
    “My guess is they’ve had enough and are escaping,” I suggest.
    “It’s not that.”
    “This is your idea of small talk?”
    “You’d rather tell me about your last four months?”
    We pass a field where two farmers are burning off rubbish, most of it bush that’s been cut back, thick black smoke spiraling straightup into the sky where it hangs like a rain cloud without any breeze to help it on its way. The farmers are standing next to tractors, their hands on their hips as they watch, the air around them hazy with the heat. The smell comes through the air vents and Schroder shuts them down and the car gets warmer. Then we’re heading past a gray brick wall about two meters high with Christchurch written across it, no welcome to in front of the name. In fact, somebody has spray-painted a line through church and written help us. Cars are speeding in each direction, everybody in a hurry to be somewhere. Schroder switches the air-conditioning back on. We reach the first big intersection since leaving jail and sit at a red light opposite a service station where a four-wheel drive has backed into one of the pumps and forced all the staff to stand around in a circle with no idea what to do next. The board out front tells me petrol has gone up by ten percent since I’ve been gone. I figure the temperature is up about forty percent and the crime rate up by fifty. Christchurch is all about statistics; ninety percent of them bad. One entire side of the petrol station has been covered in graffiti.
    The light turns green and nobody moves for about ten seconds because the guy up front is arguing on his cell phone. I keep waiting for the car tires to melt. We both get lost in our own thoughts until Schroder breaks the silence. “Point is, Tate, this city is changing. We catch one bad guy and two more take his place. It’s escalating, Tate, spiraling out of control.”
    “It’s been spiraling for a while, Carl. Way before I ever left the force.”
    “Well, these days it seems worse.”
    “Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?” I ask.
    “About what?”
    “About why you came to pick me up. You want something, Carl, so just spit it out.”
    He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and gazes straight ahead, his eyes locked on the traffic. White light bounces off every smooth surface and it’s becoming harder to see a damn thing. I’m worried by the time I make it home my eyeballs will have liquefied.“In the backseat,” he says. “There’s a file you need to take a look at.”
    “I don’t need to do anything except put on some sunglasses. Got some spares?”
    “No. Just take a look.”
    “Whatever it is you want, Carl, it’s something that I don’t want.”
    “I want to get another killer off the streets. You’re telling me you don’t want that?”
    “That’s a shitty