When I was still a rookie on the force, there was a guy called Frank Speed. I don’t know if that was his real name. Somehow I doubt it. Anyway, Frank was one of the city’s Big Three bank robbers, and we could never, ever catch him in a chase.
Not that he was fast, not at all. Actually he was quite slow. That was his trick, see: he would go painfully slow, inching along at speeds that made you wonder if he was even driving, and then us cops would be stuck behind, waiting, waiting, waiting, and waiting. And then waiting, and also waiting.
Damn that Frank Speed. We’d sometimes be out there for days following Frank while he went one mile an hour. Every so often he’d lean out of his car and shout, “You’ll never catch me, coppers!” and we would all have the opportunity to engage in a lengthy debate on whether anybody really said coppers anymore. Six hours and two blocks later, we would come to the conclusion that it was just Frank Speed who said that.
We had our guys set up roadblocks, sure. Unfortunately we would always set them up a few miles away, according to copper protocol. By the time we chased that dirty Frank Speed to the location, the roadblock would be gone, the guys who had set it up naturally assuming that Frank Speed had slipped past them sometime in October.
He got away every damn time. Even the most diligent cop would fall asleep sooner or later, whereas Frank Speed seemed to be on some drug or something. Something speedy. My guess is energy drinks. Not to mention he was probably the only criminal in history who drove a Smart Car, meaning by the time we ran out of gas he still had three-quarters of a tank. That rat Frank Speed and his crafty green ways.
Why didn’t we just walk up and open the door, you say? Shows what you know. You don’t go playing around with a madman like that Frank Speed. For all his crazy, he’d probably press down on the gas as soon as you grabbed the handle, making you fall down and scrape your knees. That’s what happened to Officer Mendoza the one time he tried it: poor ol’ Nicky grabbed the handle and blam! he’s on the ground crying. When his embarrassment wore off enough for him to get up and put band-aids on his legs, he said, “You know what? I didn’t sign up for this. I quit.” And I don’t blame him, either. I would have quit, too. A cop can only deal with so much danger before he just up and loses it. The door was locked, anyway. That Frank Speed was one clever devil.
The other day me and my partner Bruce were at Mickey’s after our shifts, dulling our latest sorrows in some single-malt courage, and I says to him, “Hey Bruce, you remember that guy Frank Speed?”
Bruce said, “What made you think about Frank Speed?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t read a book in a while. I used to read them all during Frank Speed’s car chases. One time I read all of War and Peace from 3rd to 8th Avenue, remember that?”
He nodded. “He sure made monkeys of us all.”
“He sure did. Whatever happened to that lowlife?”
Shaking his head, Bruce said, “Well, I can’t say for sure, but…” He glanced over his shoulder, leaned in close. “Rumor is he’s been working as a plumber.”
My eyes opened wide. “You mean, Frank’s gone straight?”
“That’s the word. People call him about an emergency toilet leak and there he is eight weeks later, ready to fix it. Aside from some tickets he’s racked up for parking in no-parking zones, usually while he’s driving, he’s clean.”
Wow. As I sat there with my scotch, I couldn’t help but brood about the fickle nature of man. That’s to be expected, since I had brooding duties that week. People say I’m the best brooder on the force, and one time I even won Broodiest Cop of the Year award at the regional police award ceremony. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. The nature of man. Wow, how fickle.
Bruce and I paid for the drinks and headed home to get some sleep. When you work a beat like ours, you always gotta be at the top of your game. For every Frank Speed who ducks out to become a plumber, there are two more to very, very gradually take his place.
