Read Online White Sister by Stephen J. Cannell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen J. Cannell
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Mystery Fiction, Missing Persons, Los Angeles (Calif.), Police - California - Los Angeles, Scully; Shane (Fictitious character), Musical fiction, Sound recording industry, Hip-hop
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doing screwing around with a gangsta rap producer's estranged wife. There's something here."
"Yeah, and a third-year law student could suppress everything you've turned up so far."
"Alexa didn't kill David Slade. And before I'm through, I'll prove it."
"You're not going anywhere. Put your hands out. I'm cuffing you to this floor ring back here."
"You and Sepulveda can play around with these Gs all night for all I care. I'm out!"
I pushed my way out of the backseat, stood, and Rafie rose up with me. We were now facing each other outside the Crown Vic. He was big and fit and obviously trusted his moves. For a moment, I saw something in his eyes that told me this was about to go physical.
"Don't do it, Raf," I said. "You and I have known each other ten years. I need some slack here. I'm asking for some understanding."
His hand moved, then fell to his side. He didn't want this any more than I did.
"I'm filing that one-eighty-one," he finally said.
"You know what? I think that's a good idea. It will cover you and Tommy with the dick squad at PSB."
Then I turned and walked to my car and got in. He watched me go. As I drove off, he shook his head and said something.
I'm not much of a lip reader, but it looked like, "Good luck, man."
Chapter 11.
BY THE TIME I was six, I had life pretty well figured out. I was sure nobody really cared about anything . . . especially me. Shuffled back and forth between group homes and foster families, I spent every other Saturday morning in some County Health facility, sitting for endless psych evaluations administered by bored civil servants. They usually turned up troubling results.
"He seems to have a dissociative personality, Mr. Jones."
Of course, he does. He has nobody to associate with.
"His lack of concentration indicates severe emotional distress, Mrs. Smith."
Of course, he lacks concentration. He's got nothing to care about.
Into the van, off to the group home, back to the dorm. Kick a ball on a dirt field behind the Huntington House for Boys. Watch an endless parade of fake smiles and furrowed brows, all of them telling me I was just another problem that had been laid off on society and would never be solved.
So you internalize. You get tough. You build calluses that will defend you from the darkness that has defined your life. When it starts so early, these dark spells can become who you are but the people who run the meat machine always know where the soft spots are. They know where to poke and prod. To stay alive, you get tougher. Hard skin and a hard mind-set. They become your calluses. But calluses only go an eighth of an inch down. To survive, you know you have to make yourself harder, so you do. You work to protect what's left of your soft center. But over time, these emotional calluses can get so thick they become who you are. When that happens, there is very little left to fight for.
That was me by the time I was ten. I had little I really cared about, nothing that interested me. When I joined the LAPD, it was after a stint in the Marines and it was just an easy next step. The police department, like the Corps, was a way to trick myself into believing that I knew who I was. The man in the green uniform is a Marine. The man in the blue uniform is a police officer. On the door of my black-and-white patrol car it said, "To protect and serve." That was my new identity, my new code. But it wasn't me.
When I looked in the mirror I saw a uniform. A man of authority. But I didn't feel like one. I was good at being a cop, mostly because I didn't care what happened to me. Go ahead, shoot me, you dirt - bag. There's nothing here but hard skin and a heartbeat anyway.
And then came Alexa and Chooch.
They flooded into my life, slowly softening my protective calluses like oil on dried leather. Little things, at first pensive moments where new personal thoughts seeped into me, filled hollow spots in my infected psyche. And these thoughts and feelings started slowly curing me
"Yeah, and a third-year law student could suppress everything you've turned up so far."
"Alexa didn't kill David Slade. And before I'm through, I'll prove it."
"You're not going anywhere. Put your hands out. I'm cuffing you to this floor ring back here."
"You and Sepulveda can play around with these Gs all night for all I care. I'm out!"
I pushed my way out of the backseat, stood, and Rafie rose up with me. We were now facing each other outside the Crown Vic. He was big and fit and obviously trusted his moves. For a moment, I saw something in his eyes that told me this was about to go physical.
"Don't do it, Raf," I said. "You and I have known each other ten years. I need some slack here. I'm asking for some understanding."
His hand moved, then fell to his side. He didn't want this any more than I did.
"I'm filing that one-eighty-one," he finally said.
"You know what? I think that's a good idea. It will cover you and Tommy with the dick squad at PSB."
Then I turned and walked to my car and got in. He watched me go. As I drove off, he shook his head and said something.
I'm not much of a lip reader, but it looked like, "Good luck, man."
Chapter 11.
BY THE TIME I was six, I had life pretty well figured out. I was sure nobody really cared about anything . . . especially me. Shuffled back and forth between group homes and foster families, I spent every other Saturday morning in some County Health facility, sitting for endless psych evaluations administered by bored civil servants. They usually turned up troubling results.
"He seems to have a dissociative personality, Mr. Jones."
Of course, he does. He has nobody to associate with.
"His lack of concentration indicates severe emotional distress, Mrs. Smith."
Of course, he lacks concentration. He's got nothing to care about.
Into the van, off to the group home, back to the dorm. Kick a ball on a dirt field behind the Huntington House for Boys. Watch an endless parade of fake smiles and furrowed brows, all of them telling me I was just another problem that had been laid off on society and would never be solved.
So you internalize. You get tough. You build calluses that will defend you from the darkness that has defined your life. When it starts so early, these dark spells can become who you are but the people who run the meat machine always know where the soft spots are. They know where to poke and prod. To stay alive, you get tougher. Hard skin and a hard mind-set. They become your calluses. But calluses only go an eighth of an inch down. To survive, you know you have to make yourself harder, so you do. You work to protect what's left of your soft center. But over time, these emotional calluses can get so thick they become who you are. When that happens, there is very little left to fight for.
That was me by the time I was ten. I had little I really cared about, nothing that interested me. When I joined the LAPD, it was after a stint in the Marines and it was just an easy next step. The police department, like the Corps, was a way to trick myself into believing that I knew who I was. The man in the green uniform is a Marine. The man in the blue uniform is a police officer. On the door of my black-and-white patrol car it said, "To protect and serve." That was my new identity, my new code. But it wasn't me.
When I looked in the mirror I saw a uniform. A man of authority. But I didn't feel like one. I was good at being a cop, mostly because I didn't care what happened to me. Go ahead, shoot me, you dirt - bag. There's nothing here but hard skin and a heartbeat anyway.
And then came Alexa and Chooch.
They flooded into my life, slowly softening my protective calluses like oil on dried leather. Little things, at first pensive moments where new personal thoughts seeped into me, filled hollow spots in my infected psyche. And these thoughts and feelings started slowly curing me
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