Chapter 10: Truth and Justice

Sunday night in Northwood was quiet in the way that made your skin itch.

Scott Dover cruised slowly past a row of rundown duplexes, his unit rolling without lights, windows cracked to let in the cool air. He was looking for tweakers creeping the neighborhood. Tweakers who were here to steal shit to pay for their meth. That was a constant problem in the semi-respectable neighborhoods of Northwood and, with no calls for service pending, he was able to devote a little attention to the issue. So far, no tweakers to be found.

It was the last shift of his workweek. He’d be off in six more hours. Then it was home a nice long bike ride to get in his cardio. Maggie would get the kids to school and pick them up before crashing out to sleep before her Monday shift. That was their deal. It worked for them.

His MDT pinged with a soft chime. A new call. Tweaker hunt would need to be put aside for now.

MAN DOWN – EMS REQUESTS LEOs – NORTH AVE & HIGHLANDS BLVD

The location popped up on the map. Corner of the light rail stop. Code 2, no lights or sirens. No mention of weapons or anyone fighting. Just another body on the concrete.

Scott tapped EN ROUTE on the screen, then picked up the mic.

“Sixteen-Adam en route from Crest and Arnold.”

His voice was steady, bored. The dispatcher confirmed and then moved on.

He turned left at the liquor store with the flickering ‘L’ and headed toward the call. This wasn’t a rush job. Just the usual cleanup.

He already knew who it was.

Ruggles.

Real name: Steven Gorn. Northwood’s most consistent man-down. Half legend, half biohazard. Smelled like rotgut vodka and a decade of bad decisions. Could recite every verse of Revelation. He lived in some rathole apartment somewhere but rarely stayed there. He didn’t have a pot to piss in but somehow managed to scrounge enough money each day to consistently keep his blood alcohol level above 0.20 and sometimes as high as 0.55. If he got much lower than 0.20, he would start to go into withdrawal—that’s how much he relied on booze to live.

Scott rolled up to the corner and spotted the county ambulance parked along the curb—hazards flashing, rear doors open. No fire engine in sight; they must’ve cleared already. He eased his unit to the opposite curb and killed the lights.

The medics were standing outside, hands in pockets. Ruggles was stretched across the bus bench like a bag of trash. One shoe on, one off. Snoring loud enough to scare pigeons.

Scott stepped out and made his way over. The stench was already hitting him—sour booze and worn-in BO like rancid soup.

“Richards. Ortiz,” he said as he approached.

“Dover,” Richards greeted him, smirking. “It’s your lucky night.”

“Or maybe it’s yours,” Scott returned. “Did you clear him?”

“Vitals good. No injuries. No medical complaint. He’s just full of Jesus and cheap vodka.”

Ortiz nodded. “He’ll wake up when you shake him a little, but wouldn’t try to stand up for us. You want to give it a shot?”

Just then, headlights swung around the corner. A black and white Tahoe rolled up slow—Eleven-Adam. Jim Ratcliffe, known, of course, as Rat. He had been assigned to the call as Scott’s cover officer.

Scott glanced over and held up four fingers. Code Four. No help needed.

Rat gave a lazy wave and drove on.

Scott pulled on a pair of black neoprene gloves and then stepped closer to Ruggles.

“Ruggles,” he said. “Wake up, brother.”

Ruggles did not make a sound. Scott put his gloved hand on his shoulder and gave him a few shakes. “Wake up, Ruggles,” he told him. “The party’s over.”

Ruggles thrashed around a little and made a whining noise that was his signature: “Beebeebeebeebeeeeee!”

“Fuckin’ A,” Scott agreed. He pulled on the man, forcing him to sit up, earning himself another round of the beebeebees. “Come on, Ruggles. Work with me here. You can go sleep at home tonight if you can get up and walk away.”

Ortiz chuckled. “Good tune.”

“Seemed appropriate for the situation,” Scott said. “Let’s see how he does.”

The rule was simple, but absolute: if you were inebriated and in public, you could go to the drunk tank—but only if you could walk under your own power. If you couldn’t stand or move without assistance, you were considered medically unstable, and the medics had to take you to the hospital. Jail didn’t want lawsuits, and EMS didn’t want to babysit drunks. Everyone played by that line in the sand, even if they all hated it.

Scott leaned in. “Steve!” he said, using the real name this time. “On your feet, boss. Show me you’re still in the land of the living.”

Ruggles groaned like someone had pressed play on a dying cassette. His head lolled. One arm jerked upward. His lips parted, and he muttered, “Gotta catch the 4:13 to Bethlehem...”

“That ship sailed two thousand years ago,” Scott told him. “You’re stuck with me.”

With great effort, Ruggles pushed himself upright. For a moment, he sat on the edge of the bench, hunched forward like a broken scarecrow. Then, miraculously, he stood.

He wobbled.

Took one step.

Then collapsed straight back onto the bench, landing like wet laundry and letting out a defeated, wheezing groan—“beebeebeebee...”

Scott turned to the medics. “That’s a fail right there.”

Ortiz was already reaching for the gurney at the rear doors. “Guess he’s ours after all.”

“Sorry,” Scott said, peeling off his gloves. “If he coulda made ten feet, I would’ve taken him.”

“No sweat,” said Richards. “The ER staff needs something to complain about.”

They moved in sync—gurney out, straps ready, the kind of ballet you only got from burned-out professionals. Ruggles didn’t resist. He was already halfway to dreaming of train schedules and lizard conspiracies.

Scott cleared the call and eased away from the curb, the smell of Ruggles still clinging faintly in the cab. He didn’t head back to the residential neighborhood right away. Instead, he pulled into the back lot of a 24-hour grocery store—the one with the flickering loading dock lights and a row of dented dumpsters that smelled like rot and bleach.

He set the car in park, clicked open his MDT, and started typing the summary. Short. Simple. Accurate. Just enough for the record.

Arrived to find subject Steven Gorn, DOB 7/14/1975 on a bus bench in a state of inebriation. Cleared medically by Paramedic Ortiz. Subject has multiple arrests for 647(f). Subject unable to walk independently so EMS Medic 18 transported him to Presbyterian of Heritage Hospital for medical evaluation and treatment. Call closed.

And that was it.

Another Ruggles encounter in the books.

Or in the computer record, if you preferred.

He was just about to pull out of the lot when a dispatch came over the radio.

“Eleven-Adam and Nine-Adam to respond. Unknown trouble, payphone activation at North Avenue and Marquez, male yelling into the receiver, unable to determine nature of the emergency. RP disconnected. EMS en route and will stage.”

Scott blinked.

The infamous payphone at North and Marquez. One of the few still standing. Right next to the old car wash turned chop shop. It had no business still working, but the county kept it alive out of some warped sense of social infrastructure. That phone had seen stabbings, overdoses, weird religious rants, and one guy who claimed to be stuck in a time loop. If the call came from that phone, it was going to be bizarre.

The call hadn’t been dispatched to him. But he was only three blocks away.

Scott picked up the mic. “Sixteen-Adam, show me en route to that unknown trouble. I’m just a few blocks out.”

A beat.

“Copy, Sixteen-Adam. You’re added as cover. Nine-Adam, you’re clear.”

Scott smiled to himself and turned out of the lot, rolling quiet down Marquez.

He staged two blocks out—engine running, lights off, watching the shimmer of distant streetlamps reflect off the payphone’s scratched plastic shell.

A minute later, a familiar unit pulled up behind him.

Boulder.

Competent, no-nonsense Boulder. She gave a quick nod, then keyed up.

“Nine-Adam and Sixteen-Adam are heading in.”

And they did.

They rolled up slow, side by side, windows down. The payphone stood like a relic under a flickering streetlight, its receiver back on the hook. The man next to it looked to be in his thirties—pale, gaunt, stubbled jawline, hoodie half-zipped over a filthy T-shirt. His jeans were stiff with grime but not torn. Sneakers intact. Not homeless, at least not long-term.

He had tweaker energy though.

Eyes wide. Shoulders twitching. Breathing too fast. Not bouncing on the balls of his feet like a classic meth-head, but definitely off.

Scott stepped out first. Boulder followed. They made their approach slowly, flashlights in left hands, gun hands free, one on each side of the subject they were contacting.

“Hey, partner,” Boulder called, easy and calm. “You the one that called?”

The guy didn’t look at them directly. His gaze darted between light sources—streetlamp, police lights, the glowing sign of the liquor store across the street.

“They lie,” he said abruptly. “All of them. They say it so many times it becomes true. That’s how they do it. That’s how they fuckin’ win.”

Boulder exchanged a glance with Scott. He gave a barely perceptible nod—yep, this guy was coocoo for cocoa puffs.

“Who lies?” Boulder asked gently.

“The machine,” he snapped, now looking directly at them but not really seeing. “The handlers. The ones that move the strings. Don’t you get it? It’s a game and they already picked the winners!”

Scott folded his arms and kept his body turned at forty-five degrees to the subject. That kept his gun pointed away from the person he was talking to, preventing an easy reach for it. Second day of academy training taught that—that, and the fact that failure to stand properly while in uniform would buy you fifty pushups if one of the instructors was able to get so much as a finger on your gun.

“Okay, but what kind of help do you need tonight?”

“Help?” the man repeated, as if it were a trick word. “You think help comes from this? From you?” He pointed at the badge on Boulder’s chest. “You’re part of it! You just don’t know!”

“Let’s have the EMS peeps take a shot at it,” Boulder said over her shoulder.

Scott nodded. “This seems more in their ballpark than ours.” He keyed up his mic. “Twelve-Adam, we’re okay. Have EMS come in. Fire can code-four.”

The dispatcher repeated back his words.

“Do you have some ID on you, partner?” Boulder asked.

That lit the fuse.

“ID?” the man snapped, as if she’d asked for his soul. “You mean the mark? You want me to carry around their brand like cattle? You think that plastic rectangle means anything? That’s how they track you. That’s how they mark you for judgment.”

Scott stayed quiet, arms still folded, eyes on the man’s hands. No sudden moves, no twitching—just rapid speech and a lot of neck muscles doing too much work.

Boulder stayed calm. “Nobody’s branding anyone, bud. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“It’s a violation of my human rights,” he declared, stabbing a finger into the air. “To be forced—coerced!—into presenting government documentation upon demand. That’s fascism! That’s Nazi shit!”

He paced a small arc in front of the phone, arms flailing like punctuation marks.

Boulder gave him space. “So ... is that a no?”

He stopped. Blinked. Thought about it. Then, with a dramatic sigh, he reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a grimy wallet. From it, he produced a California ID card and thrust it toward her like a peace offering laced with venom.