LAZARUS KANE & THE BENEVOLENT TERRORISTS

  Dedicated to my husband Stormy— my “keeper of the possible” and my inspiration in all the ways that count.   And to Dr. Patricia Reiff, who has helped keep me alive for more years than I can count or possibly deserve.
  Thanks to both of you, for putting up with me at my best and worst.  No one else in the world could possibly understand what I’ve put you through at times.  Bless you both, and know that you have my love, respect and appreciation.

                                                 ONE
				        -------
  Davis felt things slipping away from him almost at once; from nearly the moment he arrived at his new place of employment that Monday morning, things gradually became more and more surreal.
  Maybe I expected too much???
  Detective Rawlins led the new man past the rows of desks which appeared somehow too clean, past banks of phones which remained utterly silent, past the dispatcher who remained motionless in a chair.  Occasionally Rawlins nodded perfunctorily to other officers they encountered, but he made no introductions and didn’t comment on anything they passed.
  Davis looked around and took the place in slowly; the Gilbert Police Department failed to match up to any image movies or television had implanted in his brain. 
  This is a police station?   It’s too damned clean.  Where’s the grime?  Where’s the crime?  Not even a hooker on a bench somewhere or a crackhead passed out on the floor.  No one screaming?  Even the phones aren’t ringing.  It looks like the dispatcher is asleep at the switch too.
  The “tour” continued on in without a word until just after the two men crested the stairs to the second landing.  They passed by a closed office door; the sign on the door read: Captain Robert Holbrook Connor.
  From under Captain Connor's door wafted a familiar smell-a smell both easily definable and just as clearly out of place.  Davis couldn't help but mention it aloud.
  "Isn't that..?" Davis asked his escort and added an extra sniffing sound.
  "Yah," came the reply.
  Davis wore street-clothes and so did the detective showing him around.  In a small station like Gilbert, you could not find a uniformed officer or even a uniform most of the time.
  Detective William Rawlins continued to aim Davis down the hallway, away from the captain's office.  A laconic man of thinning hair and quiet habits, Rawlins had a sharp intellect but little to say.
  In a tone that required a reasonable reply, Davis demanded, "The captain smokes weed in his office and everyone around here is okay with that???"  In his mind he struggled to make sense of things.  According to everything he understood people just didn’t smoke dope in the middle of the average police station.  He began to wonder if it was some sort of test for the new recruit to measure his abilities or possibly his integrity.
  Rawlins interrupted the other man’s thoughts with a loud snort.
  Davis tried again, "Seriously... what the hell is going on here?"
  "First day?" Rawlins asked in a strange and significant tone.  He already knew the answer, having been tapped earlier that morning to welcome this new arrival, show him around the precinct house and give him the usual rulebooks, fliers, and sensitivity awareness pamphlets.  Rawlins had even assigned the younger man a locker-- though he’d accomplished most of those feats largely by pointing and shrugging.
  Davis registered confusion, "You know it’s my first day!"
  "Quitting tomorrow?" Rawlins asked seriously.
  Davis considered that for a long moment.  Two years of criminology at Arizona State University, the time spent at the police academy, the months of interviewing and applications (as well as psychological and pharmacological testing) all to get here.  Would he flush all that down the drain in an instant if he pried into this matter too closely?
  He thought a second longer and decided that discretion remained the best possible course until he understood the situation better.  Davis told his escort, "There are some questions people just shouldn't ask..." trying to sound as offhanded as possible and giving every indication he stood on the verge of forgetting he'd ever asked a question.
  "Right," said Rawlins.  He gestured with his thumb down the hallway.

  About an two hours later, Davis sat at his brand new desk (new to him) and fidgeted with the release mechanism for the top drawer.  The drawer continued to stick despite his best efforts and he could not see where anything rubbed or hindered it from moving freely.  In an entire building of spotless, eerily-untouched equipment he had the one desk with a sticky drawer. 
  When he got the drawer to open at last he discovered supplies left behind by some previous occupant.  He tried to force it closed again, wondering if it would open again but not much caring.  When Davis looked up from the drawer for a moment he found Captain Robert Holbrook Connor looking down on him like a gnarled oak tree.  In surprise he dropped his keys into the drawer just as it finally slammed closed.
  "Sir?" Davis stammered.
  "My office.  You've seen it over there?" Connor waited.
  "Yes sir!" Davis replied, overloud.  He did not mention that he had also smelled the office.
  "So be a good lad and wait in there for me."
  Davis got up and walked away from his desk.  As he did so, he heard the captain give a number of orders in quick succession.  Davis took his time crossing the room so he could overhear.
  "Everyone out on the floor, please," Captain Connor called to the others as Davis languidly passed through the room.  In a few moments some four officers (nearly half his department) assembled before him.
  "I want a unit over at the Carl's Junior on Gilbert Road," Connor began.  Recalling something he'd nearly forgotten he added, "Send Donleavy.  Tell him he can find the guy in or about the dumpster in the back.  And tell him the man is armed and deceptively fast-- I don't want any slip-ups.
  "Baker and Rodriguez I want you to get over to Judge Wally-- yes I know he's fishing in the Salt River this week.  Find him and get him to sign a search warrant on this address," he handed a slip of paper to a nearby officer.  "If you can't find him in any of his usual spots then call his wife because Elveera always knows right where he is.  Tell him we expect to find guns at this address I’ve just given you-- a lot of them.
  "I wish he'd start carrying a phone, but some folks never accept all this marvelous new technology that's killing us..."
  He didn't expect a laugh at this irony and his crew didn't disappoint him.
  "Carly, you and Bill get over to..." Connor turned and walked towards his office.  He nearly tripped over Davis, who had slowly inched his way towards that door the whole time Connor had spoken.  The captain poked his nose in and checked an address with an unseen person inside his office.  From within came a weary call of confirmation.
  Captain Connor walked back to stand in front of the gathered officers.  "Go check that address out.  Today is Monday.  My information says we're going to find a major chop-shop in operation there tonight about eight."
 Detective Bill Sommers smiled wickedly. "That's right near Tent City, Captain.  Should we call the Sheriff’s Department for backup?" 
  "Sheriff Joe?  Are you nuts?  God bless, and keep that man... far away from any real police work.  If he had his way he'd barricade the entire state and search every car that passes.
  “Call Phoenix P.D.  They're still reasonable."
  "What about jurisdiction?" Carly wanted to know.
  "Tell them it's a statewide taskforce on vehicle theft.  Make something up.  They won't care.  Besides, the guys you're after have a public lot three blocks from this very station where they're reselling the stolen cars.  That makes it our business, no?"
  "Right, Captain." 
  "Well don't just stand there people.  Move it!  We're going to settle out some major criminal activity today-- so much for the quiet of a small town police department."
  Connor turned on his heels and walked towards his office.  He closed the door behind him.
  The scene that greeted him was not unexpected but Connor still chuckled silently to see how flagrantly Davis reacted to the room's other occupant.  Davis stared at Connor in irritated perplexity.
   "I take it you've been introduced," Connor said to Davis.
  "We haven't," said an oddly dressed man sitting behind the desk in Connor's own chair.
  The man in the captain’s chair had a gaunt face, laughing brown eyes and very long hair for any man who made an honest living.  He had long, thin fingers which he splayed over his mouth for a moment.  His clothing defied cursory examination and the fashion of the last few centuries.  He reeked of peppermint, patchouli and marijuana.
  Connor pointed, "Lazarus Kane?  Officer Miles Davis, no relation."
  Kane smiled.
  "He didn't have the look of a jazzman.  I bet he listens to country."
  Davis, who did prefer Dwight Yoakum to even the coolest of jazz riffs, said nothing.  He instead watched intently as the strangely dressed man produced a small pouch from which he poured a pungent green pile onto the blotter of the desk.  Sifting through the pile carefully, Kane removed some odd bits he didn't like or which were seeds or stems, and then produced a small book of green rolling papers.
  "Absinthe, today," he told the captain.
  "I prefer the smell of the peach papers myself."
  "An unrefined palate I see.  That is simply the sweetest flavored paper they make."
  Davis said nothing.  He watched as Kane rolled what anyone would have to admit looked like a perfect cigarette from the pile on the desk.  Kane swept the excess grains onto the floor haphazardly and in a quick motion had the joint lit.  He inhaled deeply upon it.
  "Must you?" Connor asked with a slight weariness.  His mood seemed to echo Davis’ own silent discomfort but with a bit more acceptance and tolerance of the inevitable.
  "Oh I must.  I must.  It's not actually too bad today but you never know when it might flare up.  Call it a preventative."
  Kane shuffled the blotter around on the desk a moment as if perfectly centering it and then asked theatrically, "And what imports the nomination of this man, dear Holly?"
  Connor looked uncomfortable.  He replied, "Shakespeare again?  Tell me you aren't stuck on him again this week.  I preferred the time you got caught up by Tennyson.  It did make for very long phone calls, though..."
  "So I shouldn't telephone you late at night and start off by telling you we are in the summer of our discontent or any other such abridgements?  What a pity.
  “Well, if you insist on Tennyson I can do you 'Lady of Shallot' really quick right now if you like," Kane offered.
  Connor snorted.  "Pass.  Davis, here, is your new Friday-- you may recall you are currently between drivers."
  Davis looked utterly dumbfounded upon hearing this.
  "Oh that..." Kane glossed over his single-handed discovery and removal of one of the most corrupt officers ever to work on any police force (a man who'd worked quietly at his crimes and avoided drawing any notice for many years-- until he wound up with Kane as his near-constant companion for about two weeks) with those simple words.
  Connor looked at Kane significantly.
  Kane took another deep inhale of very fragrant marijuana and replied in a cloud, "Well this fellow has to be better than that-I know all about him.  One of our modern children of divorce, father suffered an accident of some sort?  Entered the academy to right wrongs and do all that sort of heroic nonsense.
  “Frankly I can’t be bothered wading through all that just now.  I'll go wait outside.  I'm sure he has questions; they always do.”
  Kane stood to leave, then had a thought, “What color?" He adjusted his odd garb and paused to wait for the answer.
  Connor asked Davis, "What color is your car?"
  Davis, too stunned to think properly, blurted out, "White."
  Kane nodded.
  "Bye.  Call you later, Holly, if I think of anything else."
  Connor winced again at being called "Holly".
  Kane smiled and walked out with an oddly deliberate and slumping gait that somehow seemed natural for him yet incomplete in some unfathomable way.  The joint of marijuana dangled from his lips.
  "Doesn't he want to know the type of car?" Davis asked.
  A call from outside the office loudly answered, "It's intolerably rude to talk about people behind their back until they are at least as far away from you as will prevent them overhearing.  And I know that white is only the most common car color in the state but I'll find it.  It won't even require a tenth of my mental agility.  
  "Now if you could only find that matchbook at the back of your desk drawer… that would be something!" Kane added enigmatically.
  
  "I suppose you want to know what all that was about," Connor started, once he'd closed the door to his office and taken his own seat behind the desk.  He carefully flicked a few remaining pieces of marijuana into the trashcan.
  Davis glared at his superior.
  “You can speak freely,” Connor told the other man.
  Davis sat and fumed in silence, not knowing quite where to begin.
  “I mean it.  Say what’s on your mind.”
  “Okay.  I thought I signed up to learn detective work.  I know it’s my first day and I don’t know a damned thing about how you do things yet, but I had no idea modern law enforcement duties included serving as a taxi-cab for the local potheads.
  “What is this place anyway?  A police station or a USA movie?  What was that shit he had on?  He looked like Brad Pitt in a vampire movie!  He must be sweating balls in all those layers of clothing.”
  Connor looked the recruit up and down in appraisal.
  Davis looked a few years less than the twenty-six years his personnel file indicated.  Connor knew the younger man hadn’t seen enough to become jaded yet.  Davis’ hair remained a sandy brownish-blond that showed no signs of the impending gray that Connor knew came with the job they had both chosen.  The clear blue eyes confronting the Captain had a sharp openness that betrayed the other man’s emotions in a way that said “newbie”.
  Overall, Davis looked fresh-faced and eager as any newly commissioned officer aching to make a difference in the world.  He badly required some seasoning and a taste of the realities of criminology and Connor wondered how hard Davis would make those lessons on himself or if the man might crack under pressure before he ever wised up.  
  Captain Connor knew all too well that the realities of police work in a modern world insured moral compromise-- down that path lay despair for the unprepared mind.  Giving in to this demand or that of the public, the mayor, the city council, fast-talking spokesmen and lawyers… it all lead to a carious progression of rot that ate away at the best of men.  The kind of moral certainty Davis exuded often proved detrimental, and the sort of passion which underlay it could drive even a good man to extremes.
  Was Davis the right man for this job???  Did Connor have the right to drop him into Lazarus Kane’s insanity?  Would the young officer learn to shed some of his rectitude in favor of expanding his awareness?  Would Kane carve him up into little pieces for sport?
  Who could ever know for sure about anything in life?
  And was the man staring at him right now?  Yes, Davis eyed him most closely; Connor had spent too much time gathering his private thoughts and the other man had noticed.
  Aloud, Connor said blandly, "Kane's a special case."
  "Obviously."
  "He's a very formal man and he doesn't appreciate some realities of this world in which we live.  I'm not going to make any excuses for him.  He is what he is.  I can see your reaction to all this but go ahead and finish up with what’s on your mind, Davis."
  Clearing his throat as if he’d prepared the remarks previously, Davis said in a tone of feigned awe, “This place is unreal.  Unreal.  You send Frankenstein to drag me around the building grunting at people, and then leave me at a desk all by myself for hours.  Doesn’t anyone work in this place when Kane’s out of the building?
  “The phones don’t ring, no lines of people swearing out complaints or making reports.  This place isn’t even possible.  And that stuff a few minutes ago, where I wind up sitting in an opium den with last year’s winner of the World’s Most Ridiculous Getup Award… someone who you want me to personally drive around the city while he runs whatever sort of errands a lunatic has in his daily planner…”
  Davis ran out of steam, recalled that he addressed his superior, and modulated his tone with care to show some respect along with his anger and sarcasm, "I’m sorry, sir.  I just don't like being jerked around because I'm the rookie.”
  "That what you think is going on here?”  Connor shook his head dismissively, “Look, I could tell you a lot of things.  I could try and explain it all to you.  But that would take a lot of time and I'd have to confront a few things I don't really like to dwell on overmuch.  We’ve all had to make compromises to get where we are.
  “Let me put it this way... you're aware of our crime statistics?"
  Davis nodded.  "It's one of the reasons I came here.  You have one of the lowest unsolved crime rates of any similar city in the country."
  Privately he wondered if this community actually had any crime, or needed a vast and largely abandoned police station at all.  He’d seen maybe ten people in the whole place, and none of them seemed to be occupied in solving much of anything.
  Mentally, he corrected himself hastily.  Oh wait, I forgot… every now and then some freak in gothic drag comes in and gives the captain a wish-list and magically the officers appear and go arrest people.
  "You afraid to be in the line of fire in the drug wars in Phoenix?" Connor goaded.
  "No.  I’m interested in seeing how a town with proper enforcement does things," Davis countered.
  "Good answer, Davis.  Well we're not like the big city and we don't have their budget or staff.  We use the methods at hand.  But before Lazarus Kane moved here we had one of the highest unsolved crime rates of any city with similar population.  He's been donating his time and services to us for years now.  We need him."
  Davis tried to splutter a reply to that; clearly the captain engaged in wishful thinking or outright nonsense making such a claim.
  Connor looked the man over again as if deciding something crucial.  "I'm placing Lazarus Kane in your custody.  You're to see to it that no harm comes to him."
  "Like him getting arrested for smoking pot in the middle of a police station???" Davis voiced the thought his mind had screamed at him since early in the day.
  "Yes.  Exactly like that,” Connor snapped sharply.  “This isn't funny.  I'm giving you one of the most important assignments in this little precinct."
  Davis couldn't believe his ears.  "The new guy gets the plum jobs?  Since when?"
  "Since Kane asked for you.  He knows all about you."
  "Then why didn't he know what color car I drive?" Davis retorted.
  "Just give me a break, okay?  I know it's not routine.  Routine doesn't always get the job done; Kane does. Can you trust me for a few days and just follow a simple order?
  “Or do I have to ask you to write your letter of resignation before your paperwork as a new employee even gets filed?"  Connor let the threat hang in mid-air a few seconds and then repeated, "Trust me.  It's important."
  Davis shook his head in negation.  "I trust me.  Everyone else has to earn it.  I don't like threats either-- not much of a way to begin a new relationship."
  "Three days.  I'm asking you for three days," Captain Connor said heavily.  "What's three days to the rest of your life?"
  "Fine, whatever.  I'll do it.  I'll babysit this weirdo for a few days if you insist my job depends on it.  But after that I'm going to want some answers... or I may start talking to a few people in the press, or the D.A.'s office, about how you people really do things around here."
  Connor nodded.  "He's waiting by your car.  He doesn't like our squad cars much so use your own.  We'll cover your gas.  Get out there; take him anywhere he wants to go.  Do what he asks you to do... within reason.  Keep him safe."
  Within reason? What about today counts as reasonable???
  Davis stood and exited without another word.  His manner showed his mood more clearly than any further verbal expression of his confusion and anger could manifest.
  He went out to his own desk and fumbled to get his keys out of the sticking drawer.  In frustration he pulled harder than he should and the whole drawer came out in his hands.  Paperclips and paperwork, scissors and keys, a tape-dispenser and some rubber bands all clashed to the floor with variegated volumes of loudness.  Then a matchbook dropped.
  The matchbook had fallen out of the track which guided the drawer.
  It had stuck in the groove of the drawer at the back of the drawer itself and wedged itself unevenly into the sliding mechanism.  The cover on the matchbook read: Lucky Strike.
  Upon replacing the drawer, Davis found that the rails now slid quite freely with no obstructions.
  How the hell did Kane know about the matchbook?
  Angrily the rookie officer stuffed the matches and the other items back into the drawer and slammed it.  He kept his keys in his hand.  A few moments later he walked to the station's exit feeling nearly homicidal.

  Officer Miles Davis (no relation) stepped out into the blistering June heat.  If there had been a thermometer handy it would have read, "Ouch!" or something in the six-score region of temperature.  He mopped his brow disconsolately with his hand and wiped the sweat on his pants.
  He spotted his car across the lot-- near the back where available spaces remained.  He saw no sign of Kane, though.
  Davis fumbled for his keys and hit the button on his keychain that unlocked the door and disabled his alarm with a loud chirruping sound.  Davis had the driver's-side door halfway open when he realized that the passenger's seat contained an occupant.
  Kane said, "Well don't just stand there!  It's deadly hot in here; I'm going to get a headache or faint or something!  Come in and turn on the air."
  Davis stood hunched, half in and half out of the car, in complete surprise.  How had the other man obtained entry without disturbing the alarm?  How had Kane even picked out his car among all the others which sat on this common municipal lot?
  The lot handled not only the police station but also the traffic from the Motor Vehicles Division across the street and the Department of Economic Security office on the far corner; it contained hundreds of vehicles at any given moment.
  "Did you throw your back out?" Kane called in an irritated tone.
  Then he repeated, "I'm hot, I tell you.  Get in and turn on the air conditioning.  I want to go to Mill Avenue."
  Davis could not understand how, from the well-planned life he had lead, and the reasoned steps he had taken along the way, he ever ended up at this moment.  The oppression of the summer heat convinced finally him to move and he got into the car.  He turned on the motor, the air conditioning and the radio.
  Waylon Jennings began to croon something about loss and despair.
  "Off!"  Kane shouted.
  Davis turned to look at the man.  Making demands before the car even pulled out of the parking lot?
  "I like it on when I drive," he told Kane.
  "OFF!" Kane repeated even louder, shouting as a child would.  Then he pinched the top of his nose with his right thumb and forefinger and began rocking back and forth in his seat, keening.
  "This is ridiculous," Davis said with gritted teeth.
  "Awoo.  Awooooo.  AWOOO!"  Kane continued to keen and rock.
  Davis shut off the radio.
  Kane did not stop rocking but he discontinued his vocal sonata.  He kept his nose pinched off and closed his eyes.
  "Well what's wrong now?" Davis demanded in the silence.
  Kane responded as if suddenly drained of life in a dull and nasal tone, "Mill Avenue.  Park near the Lotions & Potions shop."
  "Why are we..?"
  "Mill Avenue," echoed a pinched-off reply.  Then, "I have to meditate now."
  Kane closed his eyes more firmly and squeezed his nose and did not reply any further.
  Davis had a thought.
  It went like this: Lazarus Kane is a major psycho asshole.
  The young officer had another thought; this one about his new boss.  This second thought involved tired old bureaucrats torturing the "new kid" with insane or pointless assignments.  He imagined everyone at the Gilbert Police Department having a good laugh at his expense sometime in the next few days, and then the camaraderie as they all shared in the humor of the thing.
  Right now, it didn't seem very funny but a good practical joke never does seem all that hilarious to the victim of said joke.  Well, Davis would show them all.  He'd take his medicine.  He might even manage to find the whole thing funny someday.
  They rode in silence for twenty minutes towards Tempe in morning traffic.  Towards the end of the ride, Kane's eyes opened and he made a show of coming out of some supposedly altered or enlightened state of being.
  "Good.  We're nearly there.  I feel much better."
  "Joy," Davis replied dully.
  "No I don't feel that yet.  But hang on a moment and I think I will."  He produced his pouch and papers from inside a pocket of his purple vest.
  Davis nearly swerved into another car; the driver of a yellow Volkswagen gave him a one-fingered salute and screamed something incomprehensible at him.  He told Kane, "Don't even think about it."
  "Wait until the car stops, you mean?  So I won't spill it everywhere with the bumps and jars of the road?  Funny bit of road back there, actually.  Looked perfectly smooth at first sight, but the way it nearly heaved us into that pair of insurance agents from Iowa in the Volkswagen... you never know.
  “Well it's most kind of you to look after me but I am sure I can manage.
  "I'll just use the back of the glove-box door..."
  Kane popped open the compartment.  Davis always kept it locked on account of the spare pistol inside.  It opened all the same.  Apparently Kane had handled that lock along with the doors and the alarm system in the five minutes it had taken Davis to join him outside in the lot.
  "That isn't what I meant," Davis growled.
  "Let's all keep civil tones if we're going to be a team, shall we?" lilted the man in the passenger's seat.
  Kane used the flat surface in front of him like a tray and rolled another expert cigarette quickly-- spilling almost nothing.
  Before Davis could raise further protest the joint burst into flames, courtesy of a silver lighter Davis still hadn't seen clearly yet;  Kane had made it appear and vanish with such fluidity that the lighter seemed an extension of his thin and delicate fingers somehow.  The smell from the joint became swiftly overpowering and Davis opened the windows.
  "You don't like to clambake?" Kane asked with a laugh.  "Very well.  But turn up the air.  I'll faint, I truly will, from the sticky-heat."
  Davis grunted and turned the air conditioning up to maximum.  Downtown Tempe sprawled before them in a wonder of shops, and people out walking, and street musicians, and college students on bicycles.  He located the lotion shop, across from Border's bookstore.  He parked behind the place, in a public lot.
  Kane continued to smoke (with the air running and the windows down) until he had reduced the large tube he'd rolled down to a nub.  He stuck the nub into the ashtray and removed his seatbelt.
  Kane stepped out of the car.
  Davis emptied the ashtray into his hand and locked the doors and got out.  He poured the contents of the ashtray down the first sewer grating he spied as he walked closely behind Kane.
  Kane didn't seem to notice; he shambled along obliviously with his odd deliberate steps.  He came to a restaurant with pink-and-white checkered tablecloths clearly visible through the front window; a sign on the door said: Romaggio’s.  Kane stepped inside.
  Davis caught the door in his hand; Kane hadn't held it for him.
  The fledgling cop stepped inside, sweat rolled down behind his ear and onto his neck; even as little as a minute spent outside in this temperature made you sweat.
  How could Kane stand to go about in velvet and silk with a topcoat and vest on?  Madness!
  He heard Kane say, "Turkish coffee.  And tell Marie it's to be 'lightning' today.  So tell her not to play 'colorless' or she'll get whomped.  And yes I know she loves her Pidgeys and Pidgeots; she will just have to learn to do without them at times.  True genius is never trapped in a rut; foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
  Kane had staked out a table nearest the counter, which afforded a view of the entire restaurant and the street.  It also had an unobstructed view of the area behind the main counter where they prepared the food.
  Davis felt no obligation to join the other man.  He sat across the place at a table near the far wall.  When a small, dark-haired woman with delicate nails and a warm smile asked him his order he meant to glare and send her away but Davis found her disarmingly friendly somehow and managed a smile.
  He thought a moment, "Something cold.  Sweet."
  "I know just the thing," she said.
  She went behind the counter and started chopping something.  It definitely had mangos in it.  Possibly pineapple and white grapes too.  Whatever it contained, Davis found it delicious.
  Sometime during the preparations, a small child with long blond ponytails sticking out of a white hat had appeared.  She sat across from Lazarus Kane at Kane's table and looked up at him impishly with some object in her hand.  Close inspection, and her young hands dropping some of it, revealed she held a pack of cards-- each protected in its own plastic slip.
  From one of the many pockets in his outfit, the man across from her had also produced a pack of cards.  These he handled with dexterous flourishes as he shuffled them.
  Kane’s cards also had plastic protectors on them.
  "You think you've got me," he told his young adversary.
  "Oh I know I've got you, Kane."
  They shuffled and dealt with obviously practiced and familiar motions.
  Kane tried to sound casual as he asked, "You picked rock didn't you?"
  She smiled her impish smile.  She swatted at a few strands of hair which got stuck on her ear as she nodded to him; the hairs slowly fell to the floor.
  "Well in that case, let me bring out my first defender.   Lickitung."
  The impish smile faded for a second.  "Meanie!"
  "You may notice he's resistant to rock.  Better hope you get a 'gust of wind' card pretty quick because at a retreat cost of three energy cards I don't have any plans to move him back to my bench any time soon."
  "You said lightning!" she protested.
  He turned over his benched minions and they all had yellow pictures upon them.  "But count on any deck to have at least a few colorless scattered in it, yes?  Your own leaf deck has a Snorlax, doesn't it?"
  She nodded.
  "Lucky shuffle..." she added suspiciously.
  "Wasn't it?  Bonne chance, mon amie."
  They played quickly and the game soon ended.  Then they switched decks with each other and began the process anew.  Forty-five minutes passed.
  Davis decided to order lunch.
  Two old men came in and took a table right next to Kane's.  After a few minutes the animation of the game next to them had caught their attention and they began watching avidly as if spectating a grand masters' chess tournament.
  Davis resisted any temptation to join the growing circle as the restaurant filled up a bit.
  When the blond girl in the hat, name of Ivy, used a stunning move to beat Kane with his own deck, she cried out happily in her triumph and one or two people applauded briefly but enthusiastically.
  "Well you got me and that's sure," Kane told her.  "Same time next week?"
  "I'm not going anywhere," she told him in defiant but happy tones.
  "Good.  Don't.  I need you," Kane replied.
  Kane turned to Davis, "Pay these fine people, and don't be stingy."
  Then Kane looked over at one of the old men seated at a nearby table and asked if he could borrow the newspaper.  The old man gave him his copy of the Arizona Republic and told Kane he'd finished with it.
  Davis snarled quietly.  Pay this jerk's check???  
  But then the words of his superior rang in his mind: Do what he says within reason.
  Davis couldn't make a case for disobeying yet.  So as Kane walked to the door (reading through the headlines) Davis paid for both their checks.  
  Davis put the receipt in his wallet and made a mental note to claim his expenses and his gasoline from the department when he returned to the station.  Joke or no joke, he'd be damned if he had to pay his own money to make a fool of himself.  He tipped generously-- partly to spite Captain Connor and the department by padding the bill, and partly because he found the proprietress and her daughter inexplicably charming despite his foul mood.
  He walked back to where he'd left his car and found Lazarus Kane reading a newspaper inside it.  Davis got in and turned the air back on along with the vehicle.
  "Call dispatch," Kane said, without looking up from the borrowed Republic.  "Tell them to have someone arrest Carlos Gutierrez at..." he shuffled to a different page and finished, "the Krispy Kreme doughnuts right outside that horrible mall where there's nothing to buy."
  "A mall with nothing to buy?"
  "Holly will know the one I mean, when he gets the message.  Gutierrez murdered his wife this morning."
  Davis sighed.  The car continued to eat up gas at nearly three dollars a gallon in the parking lot as the air conditioner blasted on maximum.  Kane finally looked up from his paper.
  "Is there some problem with your radio, Officer Davis?  I can’t help noticing it in the door compartment next to you."
  "Not that I know of," Davis responded dismally.
  "Then would you please do as I ask?"  Kane stared at him as if the addition of the word "please" made all the difference in the world.
  Davis pondered this latest insanity aloud, as if beseeching some unseen deity for strength, "You want me to have someone arrested at a doughnut shop for murdering his wife… at a mall with nothing to buy?  Is that about it?”
  "That's the gist of it, yes.  It would be helpful if you also passed along the name Carlos Gutierrez-- such a bakery is likely to contain other employees and people who possibly may not have murdered their spouses this fine day.  If you would be so kind?  Now?"
  Davis grimaced.  He could not possibly call this in on the public channel; everyone scanning that frequency would get an earful of nonsense with his name attached to the report.
  He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the Gilbert Police Department directly.  He got the personnel department because he had no other number for the station stored in his phone yet.
  They transferred him to the proper extension and he shortly had Captain Connor on the line.
  "Yes?"  Connor sounded harried, busy.
  Davis relayed the contents of Kane's message with a sardonic tone in his voice that suggested there had to be better ways for even a rookie officer to spend his time in the service of the public interest.
  "Oh, Arizona Mills mall,” Connor declared.  “I know the doughnut shop he means.  Tell him I'll get right on it.  Does he think the guy is dangerous?"
  Davis swallowed a retort.  He wondered if the heat in Arizona had driven everyone around him insane.
  Is a man who murdered his wife dangerous???  What the hell kind of question is that?
  "He wants to know if Gutierrez is dangerous," Davis said dully to Kane.
  Kane looked up from his paper and thought a moment.  "Tell Holly that Mister Gutierrez will go as peacefully as a drowned mouse in handcuffs.  I believe he is actually waiting for someone to arrest him.
  “It should prove a great relief to him when the police finally arrive to perform that function."
  "Did you hear that, Holly?" Davis asked with a petulant tone.
  "Yes.  And it's Captain Connor.  I want that clearly understood."
  "I have some receipts for..."
  "Save them," Connor told him through the phone.  "We'll sort it out weekly.  Next time use your radio.  That's what it's for."
  Connor disconnected.
  Davis looked over at Kane who continued musing through the events outlined in the Arizona Republic.
  Madness.  Sheer madness.  
  The car remained motionless in its parking spot, wasting fuel.
  After a few minutes of this, Davis needed to break the silence.  "Were you and that girl playing Pokemon?" he finally asked.
  "Awoo." 
  Davis fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat.  Not this again!  No radio playing this time.  What was bothering Kane now? 
  "Should I drive somewhere or are we just going to sit here until we run out of gas?"
  "Awoo," said Kane.  "Awoo.  Awoooo."
  "Shit," said Davis.
  He pulled out of the parking space and began driving back to Gilbert.  He did not know how much more he could stand from the lunatic he ferried.  They hadn't really covered "hands-on care for the deranged and insane" at the academy.
  They drove in uncomfortable silence.
  Davis tapped his fingers idly on the steering column, missing the sound of the radio as he navigated the freeway.
  Kane had slumped half-forward with his head on the dashboard and his eyes firmly closed.  Once again he had his nose pinched off by his right hand and every so often he emitted a soft sound like a moan.
  As they crested the municipal parking lot and Davis could see the station, Kane opened his eyes and sat up abruptly.
  "We're back in Gilbert."
  "Yes."
  "I don't want to be in Gilbert," Kane told him.
  Who does?  It's the mouth of hell today for some reason...
  Aloud, Davis explained, "I thought you were asleep.  What's that on the dashboard?"
  "It appears to be a small stuffed frog," Kane responded.
  Davis had meant the sweat-spots on the leather above the glove compartment where Kane’s face had rested.
  "I want to go to the main bus station downtown," Kane said, removing a white lace handkerchief from his overcoat and wiping at the dashboard.  Small red stains appeared on the cloth before he returned it to his pocket.
  "Are you okay?" Davis barely registered the blood before the handkerchief vanished.
  "Is any of us?  The main bus station if you please."
  "Your nose is bleeding," Davis responded, turning the car around and heading back the way they'd come.

  Davis watched as Kane spoke at length to a series of hot dog and popcorn vendors who plied their trade downtown at the main Phoenix bus terminal.  The heat waxed steadily throughout the day; Davis perspired fiercely, adding to his general anger and unhappiness over the current situation.  Despite his earlier protests of fainting, Lazarus Kane withstood the sun for two hours while wearing a white silk shirt, a thick purple velvet vest, a long topcoat and thick black slacks.
  How does he do that?  Worse still, the man didn't even break a sweat!
  That just seemed unfair somehow.
  Davis felt like he could easily pass out on one of the benches along with the homeless people who slept in and around the area.  At one point Kane rolled and smoked another of his marijuana cigarettes.  Davis grew uncomfortable but no one around said a thing or made any move to stop Kane.
  Madness.
  When Kane had finished talking with a bag-lady (and had bullied Davis into buying her two hot dogs and a Dr. Pepper) he announced he wanted to go home.  He walked up to the white car with the frog on the dashboard and gave a slight, nearly inaudible whistle.  The doors obligingly unlocked and the alarm disconnected.
  Davis looked at his car like it had betrayed him.
  "Any sound can be duplicated.  Bells and whistles indeed," Kane said smugly, taking up his seat in the passenger's side of the car.
  Davis shook his head.
  Un-possible.  No way did that just happen!  
  He turned on the air and resisted his temptation to blast the radio until Kane’s head exploded.
  "Home, if you would be so kind," Kane said again in his annoying lilt.  Then he opened the glove-box and rolled another joint.
  "You never stop," Davis noted dismally, disdaining the foul odor.
  Kane waved the joint at him like a toast and replied in a dramatic and ominous tone, "Better than the alternative…”
  Seeing a look of distaste on the young officer’s face, he added jovially, “Here's to never stopping!  For me, and all fine and decent people living in the big wide world, and even for you!  Here’s to the continuation of Officer Miles Edward Davis, of Flint, Michigan and Bakersfield, newly relocated from Tempe and the campus of A.S.U. to the fabulous delights of the fine city of Gilbert.
  "Now... take me home."
  "You say that like I know where you live," Davis replied.

    Davis dropped Lazarus Kane off around five p.m. in front of a large house that faced a man-made lake in an expensive community in Gilbert.  On the water, paddleboats and canoes went by filled with scantily-clad tourists either courting skin cancer or thickly slathered in various degrees of sun-block lotions.
  Kane did not invite his driver in.
  Gilbert's newest police officer suppressed an urge to offer to tuck the other man in for the night and read him a bedtime story.  He drove back to the police station with the radio on loudly.  At times he sang along with whoever he heard on the broadcast; he knew most of the popular country lyrics by heart.
  When he arrived inside the building, he saw Detective Carlotta "Carly" Ramirez sitting at her desk along with a heavyset dark-featured man whose tears had turned parts of his face bright red.  She had a box of tissues in front of him and about half of that box lay in that man's lap or clutched between wet fingers.
  She spoke to the man in perfect Spanish and he responded with great gasps of grief and loss as he told her his story.  She seemed to pity him.
  Her partner Bill Sommers passed Davis with two cups of coffee in his hand.  "Gutierrez," he told the new recruit.  "Making his confession; sad case.  He nearly threw himself on the floor and begged us to arrest him when we got there.
  “Oh and we got doughnuts.  Want one?"
  Davis shook his head.
  Un-possible.