Chapter 2
"Now listen Fooler, that´s not very nice of you." Levon tried to control the mare that was pulling on the reins and refused to turn the corner. He pressed his heels lightly into her flanks and with a sudden jump she bolted and took off.
This wasn´t at all like the old girl. And it was totally unlike Levon that he wasn´t able to stop her. She galloped around the corner, taking off as if she were part of a stampede. The two, rider and horse, were hit by a sudden gust of cold. Levon´s hat was blown from his head and he pulled on the reins hard. Fooler reared up, causing him to slide off her back. Everything happened very quickly. Before he regained his balance, the mare galloped off, neighing loudly.
For a moment Levon stood there, perplexed.
Then he looked around, taking in his surrounding. He was in a street right in the middle of a city, tall buildings of glass and steel towering up on both sides. An ice cold wind was sweeping down the street and Levon realized that he was only wearing his jeans jacket. Wow, this was cold. His teeth started to chatter immediately.
Where was he and how had he gotten here? He whistled after his horse, a command she normally obeyed. But she was nowhere to be seen.
Levon plotted along the street and the icy cold wind blew right into his face. Snowflakes came out of the blue and they felt like tiny needles painfully piercing his skin.
Where was Fooler? The ground started to get slippery with the newly fallen snow under his leather soles and he started to lose his footing. Regardless of the heavy traffic Levon started running. The cold got worse with every step and he called out his horse´s name.
Gripped by sheer panic he was about to run into the traffic of a crossing street when something held him back violently by his collar.
"Sir!"
Levon was whirled around and looked into a young face, the face of a uniformed police officer. The uniform was blue, as were the eyes of the rookie.
"Sir, what do you think you´re doing?"
"I´m looking for my horse," Levon panted. "It must have passed by here, haven´t you seen her?"
The officer scrutinized him with a disbelieving frown. "Your horse?"
"Yeah, she´s brown and wearing a Western saddle. She might get hurt in this traffic, something must have scared her and she bolted." Levon looked around frantically, his eyes desperately trying to penetrate the by now thickly falling snow.
"Sir, you´re not telling me you lost your horse in the middle of the city in this weather?"
"What city is this anyway?" Levon had still no idea where he was, none of the buildings looked familiar to him.
"Sir, this is Chicago. And I recommend you put on something warmer if you don´t want to freeze to death. Temperatures will soon go down to minus thirty degrees."
Though the icy wind brought tears to Levon´s eyes he could clearly see that the beat officer looked very much like a younger version of his partner Joe LaFiamma. From underneath the blue cap a bang of near black hair had fallen over the young man´s left eye. His cheeks, ears and the tip of his nose were red from the biting cold.
Levon was unable to take in the information. His teeth were chattering. Momentarily he had forgotten that he was looking for Fooler.
"Sir, have you been drinking? Have you taken any drugs?" The officer pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Sir, I´d like you to come with me to the station."
"No way, I need to find my horse."
"Sir, you can´t stay out here like this, you´ll be frozen solid in no time."
Levon tore lose and started to run down the street. There, in the far distance he could hear Fooler neighing…
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He came awake with a jolt. Oh God, what a nightmare. Levon felt his heart race while he was still panting from the imaginary run. He had never felt so strangely out of place.
He jumped up and hurried out to the barn to check on Fooler. Everything was fine, the horse peacefully resting in her box. Far away on the horizon a bolt of lightning split the night sky, but it was too far away. The thunder never reached Levon´s ear.
Slowly he returned to the house and went to bed. But even though he was tired he kept tossing and turning for a long time.
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"Joe won´t be coming in for another two days." Joanne had entered the bullpen and had directly headed to Levon´s desk. "He called me last night and asked if I knew a doctor who was willing to call at the house. I arranged for Dr. Barrett to look in on Joe. The doc said that Joe´s caught the tourist bug."
There was a commotion of general laughter among the colleagues.
"Ah, Texan flu," Joe-Bill smirked not without malicious joy.
"I already wondered how long it would take…" Carol laughed.
"Yeah, was only a question of time…"
The tourist bug, or the Texan flu as they also called it, was a light infection visitors were likely to catch, especially during the hot humid months, a stomach flu with a bit of fever, nausea and diarrhea. Though rather aggravating, it was generally harmless.
Levon nodded, acknowledging the fact that he wouldn´t have to put up with his annoying partner for another two days. To his own surprise he didn´t feel as overjoyed as yesterday.
The nightmare popped up in his head. How weird he had felt thrown into that strange and hostile environment of an unfamiliar city in a strange state. He hadn´t imagined before how Joe must be feeling, never in all the month the young Italian had been exiled to Houston.
Perhaps he should call at his partner´s place and see if Joe needed anything.
It turned out, though, that Levon couldn´t spare the time that day.
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Levon slumped down in his armchair and opened the bottle of beer. What a day! Due to Joe´s sick-leave they were short of detectives in the Major Crimes Unit. There had been several new cases that day and never even the time for a lunchbreak or the usual dinner at Chicken´s.
Well, that was just the way things sometimes went, never mind, he would make himself a sandwich in a few minutes…
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This time he had taken a warm jacket. But the icy cold wind was still tugging at his hat and hurting his ears. One hand was balled up in his pocket to keep warm, the other painfully cold while tightly holding Fooler´s reins. This time she wouldn´t get away. First Levon had thought that the place on the corner was a good location to appeal to the pity of any passer-by. How else would he be able to beg for enough money to buy food or rent a place in a stable for Fooler? But Levon wasn´t even sure where to find one in this strange city, where the streets were like deep canons of glass and steel. And to sleep rough in this kind of weather certainly wasn´t an option.
Levon looked into the paper cup he had put on the ground in front of him. Only a few small coins had been thrown inside. He was wracking his brain for a way to get by when a voice spoke up close to his ear:
"Sir, what do you think you´re doing here?"
Levon looked around and faced the rosy face of a young uniformed police officer with stunningly blue eyes. "Didn´t you see the sign? No loitering, no soliciting! There are strict laws in this city, Sir, and high penalties for any violation." The officer drew notepad and pen from his pocket, but didn´t start to fill in the ticket right away.
First Levon didn´t know what to say. The look in that young man´s eyes was quite hypnotizing. Then he opted for the truth. "Well, how do you think I´d be able to pay for a stable for my horse?"
"So you admit this is your horse, Sir?"
"Sure, whose horse should it be?"
"And that manure would be yours too then?" The officer pointed at the pile of droppings that had started to pile up behind Fooler.
"Ah…yeah, well…"
"Sir, I do understand your situation. But my job is the law enforcement in this city and if everybody did what you´re doing right now, our nice city would soon be a muck-hill." The officer pulled out a walkie-talkie and rapidly spoke into the device. Levon couldn´t understand a single word.
"And then there´s the animal´s welfare to consider as well. I´ve called for a truck to take Jolly Jumper to a shelter. As soon as you can prove you´re not homeless and have an adequate living quarter for the animal, you might claim him back."
"It´s she, Fooler," Levon stated dryly.
The officer´s brow furrowed skeptically. "You´re not adding insult of a representative of the law to the list of offences you´re already facing, are you?"
"Her name is Fooler, that´s all I said," Levon harrumphed slightly annoyed.
"No reason to get unfriendly. Have you been drinking, Sir?"
"No, but I need to eat something, I´m kind of starving." As if on cue Levon could hear his stomach growl.
There came a scratchy voice over the loud speaker of the walkie-talkie. "Truck´s on the way, LaFiamma. Want to take the cowboy in as well?"
The young officer seemed to consider for a moment, then answered loud and clear: "No, no need." Then he put the communication device back into his pocket. With a quick move he pulled out his billfold and retrieved a twenty dollar note. He took the reins from Levon´s ice-cold hand, and with a gesture that almost felt like a caress he folded Levon´s frozen fingers around the money.
"Now you go and get something warm to drink and a good meal. There are shelters for the homeless a bit further down the road. In the city of Chicago no one needs to sleep rough in this kind of weather. And in the morning things will look better." The boyish smile on the young face was so heartwarming that Levon couldn´t say another word.
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Startled out of the strange dream, Levon looked around his living room. Where did all that nonsense come from? All through the months LaFiamma had been his partner, Levon had never dreamt about the man. And now this was the second night in a row he was finding himself in a dream in Chicago in such absurd circumstances.
He got up quickly as if to shake the dream and went to the kitchen. A brief inspection of his fridge confirmed that he hadn´t had any time to shop for groceries. He threw the fridge shut in frustration and went to bed.
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"What kind of food is this?" Levon put down the menu. He couldn´t make sense of any of the dishes. He could hardly spell out the words and everything looked foreign. "Don´t you have any barbeque?"
"Mi dispiache, Signore, I´m sorry, this is an Italian restaurant," the young dark haired waiter with the bright blue eyes said.
"You mean Italians don´t eat meat?"
"Ma certo, of course we eat meat, Signore. Look here." The young man wiped the dark hair that had fallen over his left eye from his face and pointed at a column with the heading CARNE. "All these are dishes with fine meat: Scalopine, Osso Bucco, Porcetta, Bistecca, Saltimbocca…"
Levon felt absolutely foolish, not understanding a single word of what the guy was saying. It all sounded pretty strange. From the kitchen, however, he could hear the sizzle of a frying pan and the smell that emanated from the small room at the back of the restaurant was mouthwatering. "Well, get me whatever is frying on that stove, will yah?"
"Scusa? Oh certo, that would be Saltimbocca alla Romana, an excellent choice. You want any vegetable with the Saltimbocca? Zucchini, broccoli or fagiolini perhaps?"
Levon blushed. He wasn´t one for too many greens, and certainly not for any of those grown on exotic plants. "No, just get me that salti… roma… whatever the name."
"Volentieri, Signore." The young waiter disappeared.
Listening to the sounds from the kitchen Levon looked around the place. It was nice, not sophisticated, but tidy and unpretentious, with freshly ironed red and white checkered table cloths. On the walls were pictures of the seaside with turquoise water and white cliffs basking in the bright sunshine. Levon thought that Mother Minnie would like the place. He would too, if it hadn´t been for the foreign dishes on the menu.
After a while the waiter reappeared, a tea towel neatly folded over his arm, his other hand carrying a dish of deliciously smelling meat. He set it down in front of Levon. "Buon appetito!"
"Sorry?"
"Enjoy your meal, Sir."
"Thank you… what´s your name?" Levon asked on a whim, picking up his fork and knife and starting to cut up the meat.
"Giuseppe, Signore, my name is Giuseppe LaFiamma, but everybody just calls me Joey." He winked and his smile was rather radiant and charming.
Levon lifted the fork to his mouth…
