Stakeout
Josef Budzyk Part 1
The stakeout was in its fourth day. Josef yawned, smacked his lips, sucked his cheeks, then before he could catch his breath from the first, struggled through a second yawn. The ingrowns were vicious on both sides of his jaw-line. He did his best not to pick at his face. He scratched his beard, flakes of dead skin stark against the seatbelt. No point brushing them off, his jacket stained and crumpled so bad its only salvation would be a washing machine. He lifted his hips, tried to stretch his back but the seatbelt jagged. The sudden trapped sensation drove him wild. He whipped the buckle out, but it swung back and bit into his wrist. A rage spike. He started laying his elbow into the seat’s cushioned back. Then Josef stopped, remembering he couldn’t make a scene like this, took a deep breath and got out of the car.
It was raining. Course it was. The fine drizzle slid under his neck, into his collar. He just stood there and let it in. Refreshing, kind of. Four days shouldn’t be this bad. He’d been on longer stints with Sullivan, but the enthusiasm of youth and purpose sustained them both. Without any of that, four days were interminable. Josef coughed, the cold air caught in his throat, and he longed for a cigarette. Years had passed since he’d quit, and he wasn’t losing his shit that bad, but still, craving is craving. For distraction he rubbed his thumbs along his fingers, like slow motion clicking, heating up the pads of his phalanges until grime built up. He brushed off his hands and wiped his face, pushing the cold droplets into his beard to create a proper soaking.
“Ah christ,” he moaned. Josef, his belly and shoulders catching the drizzle, rotated his sodden bulk to face the window. The warm yellow light three floors up was still on. No one had come out of the door at the base of the building, no one walked the streets, it was just Josef Budzyk. Everyone with sense sat at dinner tables or on couches, eating hot dinners while the rain struggled to compete against screens blaring TV shows and movies. Even if the subject had lifted a rifle to the window, fired, then sped out the backdoor, demanding a chase through alleys; even if he’d bought a woman and screwed her against the window for the fat old pervert on the street to goggle at; shit, if he’d walked down to Josef, handed him the spec sheets and a sample bag and told him where the storage container was - none of it would beat Budzyk’s thickest woollen socks, a crispy burger and the couch.
Guilt pulsed through his brain, passed like a sneeze in public. Young Budzyk would shake his head and go back to his partner. Sullivan and he would look at this old hack, smile a polite acknowledgement, then laugh in the privacy of their unmarked car. They’d call in to the station and ask for a quick collar, something to liven up the late shift, remind them of the action this tubby loser gave up a decade ago. Buddha and Sully, they were a pair of arrogant little fucks. When Josef felt this prick of guilt, he pictured the slow lumbering Budzyk-of-now swelling ten times the size of the Buddha-of-then, the kid’s shit eating grin disappearing as his older self bulged and fell, squashing youthful idiocy under the weight of bitter experience and corpulent knowledge.
The rain turned from drizzle to fat splats. Josef stripped the excess water out of his beard, shook his coat and slid back in to the car. He looked up at the light. A rectangle of warmth, beckoning like the proceeds of crime. Pleasant comfort every night until you’re pinched. That was what kept him in the car. Living a life of constant vigilance would be exhausting, stripped the sanity from so many of his subjects. That’s why he liked to let ‘em know early, little hints that maybe, just maybe, they were being watched. Either immediate panic or a slow dissolution of their resilience. Of their ability to sleep a full night. To enjoy a night in without… there he was, Alan Hing, peering out his window, pulled away from his warmth to look out into the cold, at Josef’s car, at every other car, every other window. Pulled out of his comfort to peer over his shoulder. Josef pressed the button that let his seat slide back. Day five was just around the corner. He yawned, patted the chair and was glad he’d asked them to install the extra thick custom cushioning for long nights like these.
