Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Sgt. Thomas Guttfeld and Cpl. William Forsythe could have been a reincarnation of TV's old Odd Couple.

They weren't roommates like the sitcom sports reporter and fashion designer, but for two men who spent eight to twelve hours a day together, they couldn't be more different. Salt and pepper gray pompadour vs. blonde, wispy, thinning close-cropped hair. Five-foot-six inches tall vs. six-foot-four. Rail thin vs. muscled like Thor. Intense vs. lighthearted and ready with a joke. Moderate Democrat vs. dyed in the wool Republican. Neil Diamond vs. Wu-Tang Clan. Coffee vs. tea.

G-Force, as fellow officers dubbed the pair, were both veteran cops. Despite their age difference —Guttfeld, at forty-seven, was twelve years older than his partner— both had been Chicago cops for seventeen years.

Since middle school, Forsythe had wanted a badge. It was cool, he thought. Girls would want him. Guys would want to be him. So when he turned eighteen halfway through his senior year of high school, he applied for early admission to the CPD police academy, AKA the Education and Training Division or ETD. With a clean record and particularly good grades in materials sciences, his application was approved and fast-tracked. Within days of graduation, Forsythe strolled into ETD just south of Skinner Park and met his new dorm mate, Arturo Gonzalez, a small, spry kid with a full tattoo sleeve running the length of his right arm.

Gonzalez wasn't a tough guy, in spite of the look. The tat sleeve was tiny script-style Bible verses from King Solomon's Proverbs.

Like Forsythe, Gonzalez had always wanted to be in law enforcement, but his motivation was the chip on his shoulder over poor treatment his family had received after legally emigrating from Mexico. His folks, while proud of their eldest child, had always discounted his cop cravings as a hunger for societal acceptance and validation. Regardless, Gonzalez thrived, climbing the ranks as quickly as he was promotion eligible.

Three doors down was the only cadet who didn't have to share a room, Guttfeld, a used car salesman and part-time nightclub bouncer the others quickly nicknamed "grandpa," because at 30, he was only a couple years shy of being old enough to have fathered about a third of his fellow cadets, including Forsythe and Gonzalez.

Ultimately, Guttfeld got the last laugh, as his age allowed him, upon graduation, to immediately don a badge, strap on a gun, and hit the streets with a training officer. Forsythe, Gonzalez, and the other youngsters were barred by state law from being sworn in before their twenty-first birthdays. So, for nearly three years, the youngest members of that class found themselves in black chinos and matching polo shirts with silver Chicago Police Department insignia woven onto the breast pocket, in lieu of actual badges– running errands, fetching coffee, making photo copies, and when they were lucky, observing skilled suspect interrogations. Frequently, they helped search for missing children and demented seniors.

Forsythe grinned as he thought about his and his partner's start as cops, even as Guttfeld yelled at him to turn down the music on their cruiser's FM radio, just after a booming bassline and the lyrics, "...Cash rules everything around me – CREAM! Get the money, dolla, dollar bill y'all!"

"I don't get how you listen to that rap stuff! It's just not music. It's beats and talking!"

OK, Boomer. Forsythe knew better than to say that aloud. Guttfeld was still a Gen-Xer, not a Baby Boomer, and he wasn't above throwing a punch that he would later dismiss as a joke.

Technically, they weren't supposed to be listening to anything in squad cars but their scanner and the official radio that connected them to Cook County emergency dispatch.

Still, it annoyed the younger cop that his partner seemed to relish their superficial differences. It wasn't enough that they were tasked with enforcing the law together. The older man seemed to want them to be clones, too.

"You know, Gee, these guys are the most conservative musicians around. You don't believe me? Look at Biggie Smalls! Back in the day, he rapped, 'Fuck the world, don't ask me for shit. Anything you get, you got to work hard for it!' If that's not a Republican principle, I don't know what is."

Guttfeld, who considered himself to be reasonably progressive, in political terms, was not impressed by the notion of a popular musician being an unwitting Republican. Plus, he was not convinced, but he would also be the first to admit that he didn't know the difference between reality rap, conscientious rap, and a bubble gum wrapper.

So without another word, Forsythe reached out and turned down the radio, thinking affectionately of his partner, If he really hated me, he wouldn't have asked. He'd have turned it down himself.

"Thanks, kid. Now, let's see if we can concentrate on the matter at hand."

That matter was not the apparently intoxicated man oblivious to the presence of a police car, who was attempting to pop the lock on the driver's side of a sedan parked less than ten yards in front of the officers. Most likely he had seen something of value in plain view on a seat. Regardless of his motive, they ignored him.

"Well, we were supposed to care for the big dog, and if any puppies got caught up in the mix, that would be OK, too," Forsythe answered.

Typically, the pair stood out for being uniformed cops in a marked patrol car in the blackest neighborhood in Chicago, not for their love of domestic pets.

The streets knew G-force for over-enforcing "broken windows," the criminology theory that little offenses led to big crimes. Litter too much? It'll make people think the property doesn't matter and gradually that the lives adjacent to it don't matter, or so the theory goes.

Broken windows can wreck lives, though. Ticket an 18-year-old college student in the 'hood because he absentmindedly dropped a candy wrapper on the ground, and you have created a delinquent. He's broke. He can't pay the one hundred twenty-five dollar fine on time. He can barely afford books and tuition, even with financial aid. An overworked judge, without even making eye contact, tells him he has three months to pay the fine...plus court costs.

The kid manages to make two payments, knocking about a hundred bucks off the total. But in three months when he shows back up to court, a new judge in the rotation —this one, a younger judge with ambitions to serve on a higher court— decides he needs to make an example of someone. You never know. There could be a law-and-order-friendly reporter in the gallery, or maybe a potential political donor and benefactor.

Now that 18-year-old is led away in handcuffs 'cause he couldn't pay off his fine. Now he misses classes and is put on academic probation or expelled. Now he's angry.

G-Force had good reason to worry about payback. But astonishingly, though, neither man considered the risk of issuing an RFP to the streets to alter the balance of vice power in the city.

And while they were certain the contractors who bid for the job wouldn't snitch to authorities, G-Force could not be certain that their charges wouldn't brag to one another.

"This fight to fill the vacuum is gonna give us a lot of cover."

Guttfeld's logic was solid.

"Additionally," the older man said, in that lecturing, professorial tone that Forsythe hated, "once we clear the slate, we're safe to shut down and concentrate on our work, this work – just police work, for the long haul. Just one to go, kid. Keep your head in the game."

Forsythe should have felt better after his partner's exhortation. Instead, he paused, as he watched a green Jeep Cherokee Sport cross the intersection in front of them.

"Isn't that that reporter for the Midway?"

Guttfeld nodded, and pulled the gear lever into place, careful to remain at least four car-lengths behind.