The Last Cop Out Read Free

he had been on the force nobody had ever referred to him by his first name. Always, it had been Gill, and even The Gill. Now here was another quarter-page editorial bringing up the past, the departmental trial, his suspension from the force because he was too much cop for the politicians to live with and spelling his name correctly and in three places. The writer reviewed his career in brief, commenting much too late that more men like him were needed, not fewer, even if a few official ears were scorched and perhaps innocent if unsavory hides were scratched.
    Gill looked up when he saw Bill Long come over with his tray and pushed his paper aside to make room at the table. There was no doubt about the profession of either of them. The marks were there, inbred and refined to such a point that any aware citizen could recognize them after a minute’s scrutiny, and anyone outside the law could spot them immediately and at a hundred paces. Years of law enforcement, crime prevention-detection and association with the raw nerves and open hostility that fought against the normal society was a mold whose grain was indelible, even to the penetrating depth of a casual glance from eyes that saw more than other eyes could see.
    There was one uneasy dissimilarity though. Bill Long was still there and it showed. Gill was outside the periphery of it all now and there was something in his demeanor like the ebbing of the tide on a low, sandy beach, a sadness, growing deeper with each receding wave. Yet the high-tide mark was still there and you knew that the water would be back again, and sometimes even higher when the storms come.
    “Why didn’t you wait?” the captain asked.
    “I was hungry, buddy.” He pushed the chair out with his foot. “Besides, I’m ready for seconds.”
    Long sat down, took the dishes from his tray and arranged them in their usual order, putting the tray on an empty chair. Gill left, was back in five minutes with another meat pie and a wedge of cake balanced on top of a fresh glass of milk. The captain grinned and cut into his meat loaf. “I would have taken you up on going to 21, but I don’t want to get exposed to any of that rich living.”
    “Balls.”
    “How’s the new job going?”
    “Profitably, pal. Not everybody bought that crap about me.”
    Long spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred it with a clatter. “Forget it, Gill. You lucked right in. So you dumped a pension because you were disgusted with the system and wouldn’t fight it, but a fifty grand a year job beats it all to hell. Besides, it’s the same kind of work.”
    “Not really.”
    “You know how many retired inspectors would like to be head security officer at Compat?”
    “Tell me.”
    “All of ’em.” “And you were just a sergeant. I just hope something like that turns up for me.”
    Gill looked up from his cake and smiled. It wasn’t a smile that had humor in it. It was simply one that had to be understood. “Not you, Bill. You always were the idealist. That’s why you bought that farm eight years ago. You’re all cop and a good one, but it’s something you can turn off and stop being when the time comes.”
    “But not you?”
    “No, not me, Bill. It’s one of those things I hid from the psycho team all these years.”
    The captain made a wry face, went back to his meal again, then paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “You seem to have made the transition to civilian pretty smoothly.”
    “The job has its compensations. Nobody is on my back for one.”
    “I wish I could say the same.”
    “Problems?”
    “Just this big splash with the syndicate. Nobody knows what’s going on. Six on the slab and so far not one farting lead.”
    “Yeah,” Gill said, “but at least the papers have a cheering section going for you.”
    “When some poor slob gets caught in the crossfire the mood will change fast, my friend. And it’s going to happen. Right now we have word that all the shooters are on the street