"Anyway, last week Ellen and I had a bit of a disagreement." Cortez waggles his left hand, and I see in the dim light of our outside torches that the tip of his pointer finger has been shot off. "And she got custody of our Office Depot. Porter tells me about this crazy hideaway in the woods, for policemen only! And I thought to myself: Hey, I know a policeman."
I am trying to formulate a reaction to some part of this story when Capshaw returns dramatically, bursting out of the woods with his gun drawn and aimed at Cortez.
"Put your hands in the air," he barks.
"My hands are already in the air."
"Who the fuck are you?"
"It's okay, Capshaw," I say. "I know him."
"I didn't ask if you know him, I said who is he?"
Capshaw is all keyed up, ready to make an arrest, build a jail and toss this guy in it. He's red faced, stormy eyed, brow furrowed under his crew cut. His T-shirt says Senor Frog's Spring Break Fiesta Cancun 1997.
"Hey, you know what you should do?" says Cortez mildly. "Search the carriage."
Capshaw looks at me and I shrug. He does it, stomps down the porch steps and begins rifling through the carriage while the horse shivers and tosses his head in the darkness. I keep the SIG Sauer pointed at Cortez as he leans against the rail of the porch stair, hands still in the air, unconcerned, humming. "Golden Years." David Bowie.
"Clothing. Personal effects," reports Capshaw, zipping closed a small black toiletries bag and tossing it in the dirt.
"There're Ecstasy pills there, too," says Cortez, to me, confidentially. "He missed the Ecstasy pills."
"Cooking oil," says Capshaw, taking out two big plastic drums. "A box full of magazines."
"Mostly that is pornography."
"Knives," says Capshaw. "More knives."
Cortez looks at me, winks. "He'll find it in a second. Don't worry."
And then I hear it, a thick rustling sound like quarters in a casino cup. Or beans. My God. Beans tumbling over one another in a foil package. My heart catches in my throat, and Cortez grins. Capshaw looks up in amazement, tosses the bag back and forth in his hands, feeling its weight like recovered pirate treasure.
"Coffee beans," he says, gaping up at Cortez, who takes his hands down from the air.
"Many hundred pounds of them. You want to know where I got them? It's a great story."
Most days, as we get closer to the end, I am content to just be, to wait, to enjoy the company of McConnell and the others, to conscientiously perform the share of tasks that fall to me. And I am usually successful in my efforts to keep my mind focused on the immediate present, on whatever event or requirement comes next-to see not too far into the future, nor too far back into the past.
We tend to get up early, McConnell and I, and it's morning now, and we're drinking coffee in the kitchen and looking out the window at the lawn, the sheds, and past that the wooded expanse of the world. The very beginnings of autumn in western Massachusetts, the green trees goldening at their edges. Trish is across the table, telling me about an irritating conversation she had last night with Officer Michelson.
"I'm serious, I was about to fucking strangle the guy," she says. "Because basically what he was saying is, at this point if it didn't hit-if there was some last-minute thing, you know, some crazy scenario, like they can blow it up after all, or deflect it, or the religious people pray it out of the sky-Michelson says maybe that would be worse, at this point. You know how he is, sort of smirking, so you don't know if he's being serious or not, but he goes, at this point, imagine winding it back. With everything that's gotten f'ed up, imagine starting over? And I just said, 'Man, anything is better than death. Anything.' "
"Yeah," I say, "of course," and I'm nodding, trying to pay attention, but the moment Trish said the word deflect, my mind exploded with thoughts of Nico: memories of my vanished sister are suddenly everywhere in my head, like invaders pouring across a border. She is four years old and toppling off her bicycle; she is six and staring in confusion at the crowds during the funerals; she is ten and drunk and I am telling her that I will never let her go. The helicopter swoops down to lift me up from blockhouse at Fort Riley, and Nico presses masses of white washcloths into my mess of an arm, tells me it's going to be okay.
"Hank?"
"Yeah?" I say, blinking.
"You all right?"
In five minutes of talking I tell Trish the whole thing. About Next Time Around, about Jordan and the blonde girl and the computer, about the helicopter. She asks, so I give her what details I remember about the plan itself: the nuclear-standoff blast and the "back reaction"; a sufficient change in velocity with a minimum of ejecta; the secret scientist moldering in the military prison.
"Jesus H. Christ," says Trish.
"I know." My coffee is cold. I get up to refill it.
"If the government is so determined to keep this from happening, why didn't they kill the scientist?"
"Oh, hey," I say. "Great question. I didn't even ask that one."
"Listen, you can't beat yourself up about it," murmurs Trish. "If she was going to go, she was going to go." She had met Nico a couple times over the years-at cop parties, at the station, at my house once or twice.
"Go where?" says Kelli, wandering in in her Sleeping Beauty nightgown.
"Nowhere, honey."
Kelli is holding hands with her brother, and she opens the pantry to get them snack cakes. Police House follows a strict "kids can eat whatever they want" policy.
"You should go and find her."
We hadn't seen Cortez come in. He is standing in the doorway, his expression unusually serious.
"Why?" says McConnell, looking at him. They have yet to make up their minds about each other, these two.
"She's his sister," says Cortez. "Can I have one of those, please?"
Kelli hands him a snack cake, and he unwraps it while he talks.
"She is family. She matters to him. Look at him. Everything is different. The asteroid will strike in one and a half months. What if she's in trouble? What if she needs help?"
Cortez studies me while he bites into the snack cake. McConnell is looking at me, too, her hand on my forearm while I watch the steam rise off my cup.
Yeah, is what I'm thinking. What if?
THANK YOU.
Dr. Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Officer Joseph Wright and everyone at the Concord Police Department in New Hampshire; Andrew Winters My family at Quirk Books: Jason, Nicole, Eric, Doogie, Mary Ellen, Jane, Dave, Brett, and-seriously-everyone else they got over there My family at my house: Diana, Rosalie, Ike, and Milly My agent, Joelle Delbourgo Smart people: business and economics author Eduardo Porter; Mitch Renkow, professor of agriculture and resource economics, North Carolina State University; Christopher Rudolph at the School of International Service at American University; Joe Loughmiller at Indiana American Water; Dr. Zara Cooper; Dr. Nora Osman; Dr. Gerardo Gomez and his colleagues at Wishard Hospital, Indianapolis; Dani Sher, PA-C, and her colleagues at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago; Lieutenant Colonel Eric Stewart of the Green Berets; the folks at Snipercraft, Inc., Sebring, Florida Early readers: Kevin Maher, Laura Gutin, Erik Jackson, and especially Nick Tamarkin, my own personal Detective Culverson Colleagues, students, and friends at Butler University, Indianapolis Colleagues, students, and friends at Grub Street, Boston And a special thank you to everyone who submitted a "What Would You Do?" essay at TheLastPoliceman.com. Keep 'em coming.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO ...
... with just 77 days until the end of the world?
Author Ben H. Winters posed this question to a variety of writers, artists, and notable figures.
Visit QuirkBooks.com/TheLastPoliceman to: * Read their answers * Share your own responses * Watch the book trailer * Read a Q&A with Ben H. Winters * Discover the science behind the science fiction And much more!
Also by Ben H. Winters
BEDBUGS.
A NOVEL.
Turn the page to read an excerpt
"Hey, Al. Come look at this one."
Susan Wendt studied the screen of her MacBook while her husband, Alex, paused the DVR and walked over to the kitchen table. He read the Craigslist ad over her shoulder and delivered a quick verdict: "Bull crap." He cracked his knuckles and scootched behind her to get to the fridge. "It's total bull crap, baby."
"Hmm. Maybe."
"Gotta be. You want?"
He held up a Brooklyn Lager by the neck and waggled it back and forth. Susan shook her head, scanning the Craigslist ad with a slight frown. Alex opened the beer and went to crouch beside her. "It's one of those where the broker lures you in and then goes, 'Oh that place? That place got taken yesterday! How about this one? Rent is joost a leeeeedle beeeet more expensive....'" He slipped into a goofy gloss on the thick Brazilian accent of the most recent broker to take them on a wild-goose chase through half of south Brooklyn. Susan laughed.
"But wait," she said, pointing at the screen again. "It's not a broker. See? 'For rent by owner.'"
Alex raised his eyebrows skeptically, took a swallow of the beer, and wandered back to the TV.
Their apartment search, now two and a half months old, had been her thing more than his all along. He felt that their current place, a one-bedroom-plus-office-nook off Union Square, was perfect. Or, if not perfect, then at least perfectly fine. And the idea of moving, the logistics and the packing and the various expenditures-it all made him want to tear his own head off. Or so he rather vividly expressed it.
"Plus," Alex had argued, "I'm not sure this is the time to jack up our rent."
Susan had been calm but insistent: it was time. It was time for Emma to have a proper bedroom, one that wasn't a converted office nook; time for Susan to have a place to set up her easel and paints; time for Alex to have a real kitchen to cook his elaborate meals. "And rents are a heck of a lot lower than they used to be, especially in Brooklyn. Besides, Alex," she had concluded, making a blatant appeal to his vanity, "you're doing really well right now. Come on. We can just look, right?"
Alex had relented, and "just looking" rapidly escalated into a full-on search. Every evening that summer, after Emma had her bath and went to bed, while Alex settled in for his nightly dose of god-awful reality television, Susan trolled Craigslist and Rentals.com and the Times real estate section, entering rents and square footage and broker's phone numbers on a master spreadsheet dotted with hyperlinks. On the weekends the family tromped from open house to open house, from Fort Greene to Boerum Hill, clutching cups of deli coffee and informational folders from Corcoran, pushing Emma in her bright-pink Maclaren stroller.
They'd found places they loved for way too much, places in their price range that they hated, and, for occasional variety, places they couldn't afford and hated anyway. Last weekend they'd schlepped all the way to Red Hook, riding the F train to Smith and Ninth and then the B61 the rest of the way. The apartment they'd seen there, a converted artists' loft on Van Brunt Street, was Susan's favorite so far. It was footsteps from Fairway, cater-corner from a hipster bakery famous for its salted-caramel tarts, and featured a master bedroom with a thin slice of East River view.
But the apartment was forty-five minutes from the city, and with no utilities included it was just north of their budget.
"We really can't push it on price," Alex said, shaking his head. "Especially with you not working right now."
Susan had smiled tightly, hiding her deep disappointment at his veto. She'd been increasingly and painfully aware, as the apartment search continued, that she had little leverage on the question of cost. It was true-she wasn't working just then, a state of affairs Alex had totally supported, but it didn't give her a lot of leeway on rent. She carefully transcribed the details of the "for rent by owner" Craigslist ad into the spreadsheet on her MacBook. They hadn't even looked in Brooklyn Heights, because-well, what the hell for? No one was renting two-bedrooms in the Heights for under four thousand dollars a month, recession or not. No one except (Susan copied the name carefully from the ad) Andrea Scharfstein, who was offering the top two floors of her Cranberry Street brownstone: "1300 sq. ft., 2BR 2B, d/w, ample closets." All for a startling $3,550.
"Thirty-five-fifty?" Alex snorted, fast-forwarding through a commercial break. "Bull crap, baby. Guaranteed."
When Alex, Susan, and Emma arrived on Cranberry Street a little before their scheduled appointment at 10:30 the next morning, Andrea Scharfstein was waiting for them on the top step of her front stoop, reading the Sunday New York Times and sipping tea from a big yellow mug with the WNYC logo blazoned on the side. As they approached, their pink stroller bouncing over the uneven slate of the sidewalk, Andrea folded the newspaper and stood squinting down at them with her hands on hips: a thin and frail old woman with a big cloud of curly steel-gray hair, wearing a sixties-fabulous peach sundress, a gauzy taupe shawl, and big chunky bracelets on both wrists.
"Look at this! Right on time," she said approvingly, glancing down at her watch. Susan unbuckled Emma and scooped her out so Alex could fold the Maclaren. "I like you people already."
"Hi!" called Emma, climbing the tall steps with an exaggerated, marching stride, clinging to the banister. "I'm Emma."
"Of course you are, dear! And a lovelier specimen of Emma I've never seen. Did you pick your name?"
"No!" Emma giggled. "My mama and dada picked it."
"Good for them. My name is Andrea."
Alex followed Emma, steadying her with a hand at the small of her back, while Susan lingered at the bottom, taking in the facade. The house at 56 Cranberry Street had steep concrete front steps, ascending from a little black wrought-iron gate to the oversized front door, which was painted in a rich and pleasing orangey red. Surrounding the stoop was a front garden, overgrown with azaleas, crab grass, and small flowering trees. The house itself was red brick, with wooden shutters framing neat lines of windows, three per floor. There were window boxes, growing what looked like herbs, in the windows of the first-floor apartment-Andrea's apartment.
I bet it has pressed-tin ceilings, thought Susan, and then-suddenly, fiercely-I really want to live here. She teased herself as she caught up with Emma and Alex at the top of the steps.
Down, girl. You wanna see the inside first?
"You folks move quickly, I'll give you that," said Andrea Scharfstein, shaking their hands briskly. "You called maybe five minutes after I wrote that ad. Or what am I supposed to say? After I 'posted' it. Anyway, ten minutes, at the most." Andrea's hand in Susan's was dry and papery. She spoke quickly, with a voice that was thin and the slightest bit gravelly, like she was on the verge of a cough. Beneath the bushy mass of hair, her face was a map of small lines and spots-from her face and body, which was slight and stooped, Susan would have put Andrea at seventy or older. But there was a sharpness and snap about her movements, a vigor that defied her physical appearance.
"Well, follow me, this way, here we go," Andrea said briskly, turning the handle of the big front door and leaning into it with a thin shoulder. Susan was fleetingly and pleasantly reminded of Willy Wonka leading the wide-eyed contest winners into his chocolate factory for the first time. "Grab that mug for me, Alex. Is it Alex? It is, yes? If I leave a mug out here with even a drop of tea in it, we'll have ants in no time."
Emma trotted fearlessly inside, a step ahead of Andrea, looking around in the dimly lit downstairs landing. "Is this your house?" she asked.
"It is," answered Andrea, patting the girl on the head. "What do you think?"
"It's really good."
Andrea took Emma's hand and helped her up the interior stairs to the second-floor landing. I want to live here, Susan thought again, almost defiantly, and this time she didn't bother to chastise herself. Instead she glanced at Alex, who had paused beneath the one dusty light fixture, a cheap chandelier shedding haphazard illumination on the stairwell. Susan felt like she could read his mind-he was cataloging flaws, looking for reasons to reject this charming and quaint old house. The stone of the stoop is slightly crumbling; the paint on the door is chipped and fading.
Susan didn't care. This was where she wanted to live.
The interior stairway led one flight up and ended at a small carpeted landing with a single door.
"It doesn't say 'number two' on the door," said Andrea. "I hope that doesn't bother you. You'd have to be pretty stupid not to find your own apartment. You just come in, come up the stairs." Susan laughed politely, and Andrea smiled gently at her. "It was one big house, of course, until I lost my husband, Howard. I suppose it's possible I'm still resistant to the change."