In the 1930's and 40's, Cannery Row in Monterey California was the sardine capitol of the world. In the 70's and 80's, it transformed itself into a sedate, well-heeled shoppers' paradise. Between those times, during the middle years--that's when Cannery Row and Monterey were at their worst.
 

Just as men go bad, so do communities, and often for the same reasons. Sudden hard times, living beyond their means, an urgent need for money--when communities place their desires ahead of their responsibilities, they seal their fate.

Sometimes one good man can make the difference.

Sometimes not.

George Resendez, a good cop, hunched behind the wheel of his radio patrol car on Ocean View Avenue, where he and his partner waited in the darkness opposite an abandoned cannery. Stretched out before them, like a man-made canyon, twin rows of similarly abandoned canneries lined both sides of the silent treeless street.

George flexed the fingers of his right hand, as much from habit as to relieve the effects of old frostbite injuries. He'd been home from the war--conflict--for a year now and some nights they still felt as if they were holding a cold rifle back in Korea. Mechanically, he transferred the radio-microphone to his right hand and flexed the fingers of his left.

Wayne Almeida watched with semi-interest. "You going to call for back-up or what?"

George hung the bulky radio-microphone onto a hook attached to the dashboard. "We don't know anything is going on."

Almeida snorted. "We know Soares is in there. He must be meeting someone. Any one of those dirtbags from the La Ida could be a buyer."

"Maybe all of them--if it's true he's setting up a pipeline here in Monterey. Doesn't mean we can take him without proof."

"Proof can be arranged."

George looked sharply at his partner, but Almeida's face was guileless, bored. Perhaps George was overly sensitive, but two years in Korea failed to cleanse Jason's crime from his psyche. He wasn't going to be burned by a second partner.

Wayne Almeida would take some watching.

Suddenly angry, he flung open the car door. "I saw movement on the second floor. You start at the north end. I'll take the south. We'll work our way to Soares and listen. We can come back to the car and radio for help if things get sticky."

The cannery was unlocked, which annoyed George but didn't surprise him. The great Monterey debate--whether or not the supply of California sardines was limitless--was over, decided by the sardines which had all but disappeared. The canneries were useless, but insured, and while George didn't think the owners had yet stooped to arson, they didn't do much to keep out vagrants and delinquents who might fortuitously torch a building or two.

He walked carefully in the darkness up a wide iron staircase. The door at the second floor landing swung noiselessly on its hinges; sardine oil permeated every surface in the building. In front of George the shadowy industrial space stretched the length of the cannery.

Large pieces of equipment squatted on the floor as though dropped randomly in place. Variously sized pipes connected most of the machinery, twisting and contorting in odd patterns. Drive belts and electric cables rose to the ceiling twenty feet above, only half discernible in the darkness. And a whisper of noise drifted from the shadows ahead.

George listened carefully and the whispers resolved themselves into voices murmuring at the far end of the building. Soares? He loosened the gun in his holster and slid silently toward the north end of the building.

The voices grew louder, but echoed hollowly, keeping him from understanding the words. A sudden, explosive oath startled him and he scuttled to one side of a wide support column, next to a treacherous pool of light. Street lamps hung just outside the second floor windows, lighting some areas of the cannery floor too brightly for George's safety.

That the lights on The Row were on at all surprised him. The city spent damn little on this part of town since The Sardine Disappearance.

When he'd left for Korea in '51, close to a hundred big purse-seiners hauled in as many sardines as they could fit in their holds, sometimes returning with decks awash with sardines, spilling fish onto the docks. Now, three years later, a few small boats went out to net squid to send to Greece and the Philippines.

With the canneries closed, no one had work. Lots of folks had boats, though, and with increased drug use down in LA, and the Coast Guard scouring the sea from San Diego to Santa Barbara looking for drug runners, Monterey Bay had become the landing site of choice for importing first marijuana, then heroin, and now cocaine. It wasn't too hard to figure out how an out-of-work sardiner might make a few bucks.

Quick decisive action by George and the Monterey PD, making trouble for the drug smugglers before they firmly established themselves, might cause them to look elsewhere. Santa Cruz, perhaps. San Francisco. Anywhere but his town.

He paused under a hulking old stainless-steel vat, still shiny as though waiting for the next batch of sardines. Some scientists said they'd be back, once the passage of time overcame the effects of over-fishing. Others said changes in ocean temperatures and currents or perhaps a tremendous, hurricane-induced underwater landslide reshaped the ocean floor and irrevocably changed the conditions necessary for the huge schools of fish that provided Monterey with an healthy income for half a century.

The voices sounded very close now. He guessed they might only be a few feet away, but the deep echoes in the cavernous building made it difficult to be sure. For the second time in as many minutes, he made sure his heavy revolver rested loose in its holster.

He squeezed forward between the vat and a support column, but immediately ducked back. Two men argued not twenty feet away.

He drew his weapon, lowered himself flat on the floor, and peered around the base of the vat. Unlike the thin sheet metal of the upper section, the base was constructed of forged steel, and provided good protection from a bullet.

The two men stood in the shadow of another monstrous piece of equipment. One had his back toward George, shielding the other from view. George slid back behind the vat. He considered crawling to the other side for a better view, but was afraid he would make a noise and alert them. With patience learned from standing bunker guard in Korea, knowing Chinese and North Koreans hunkered close by, he waited silently. He had no doubt the men would eventually move or change positions, just as the North Koreans often did.

He rose to a kneeling position for a better view and stared at the back of the man’s head, trying to identify him. As if he sensed the scrutiny, the man stopped talking and turned his head slightly. George wasn’t much surprised to recognize Soares' angular profile. Quickly, George covered him with his pistol, but before he could yell FREEZE Soares stepped to one side, revealing the second man. Wayne Almeida.

The shout died in George’s throat, and he stared open-mouthed. Damn it, not again!

George gaped at the pair, mouth hanging open and pistol dangling forgotten in his hand. Soares turned back to Almeida and spoke rapidly. George’s brow furrowed as he tried to decipher Soares' words. It was hopeless--echoes reverberated off the steel machines and garbled their voices.

It didn’t matter. This time he would get the goods. If not on Soares, then Almeida for sure. If he was to be saddled with a second corrupt partner, at least this one would pay the price.

Jason had gotten off on a technicality, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a murderer.

Wayne pointed off to the opposite end of the building, where George himself had entered not long ago. Soares said something, and Wayne shook his head violently. Damned traitor! He just showed Soares where he came in. Why was he doing this? For money?

Drug money?

At least Jason had what he believed to be a good reason. Many in the department even agreed, but beating a confession out of a suspect was unacceptable, no matter how guilty everyone knew he was.

George rose higher and craned forward, leaning his right hand on a knob for support. The knob held his weight for a moment, then broke with a sharp snap, throwing George off balance. His elbow struck a solid casting and his right arm went numb. The gun fell from nerveless fingers and clattered hollowly on the floor.

At the sound, Soares spun around and fired off a quick shot. It clanged off the sloping side of the vat and George ducked back. He heard another shot, then the rapid slap-slap of running footsteps.

He waited a few seconds for the sound of movement, and when none came he poked his head out, gun ready. At first he saw no one, then his eyes made out the outline of a body lying in the shadows. His partner was down.

Forgetting about Soares, George scrambled out from cover and stumbled quickly to his partner. Almeida lay face up, with a finger-sized hole in his uniform just above his wide leather equipment belt. Blood pooled out from under his back, though, indicating a larger exit wound.

He opened his eyes. “Sorry, George. He got the jump on me. I tried to trick him, to tell him you were at the other end of the building. But he heard a noise--knew I was lying.” Wayne coughed up blood. “It was Soares, George. Don’t let him get away with this.”

“You’ll be OK. Sit tight, I’ll get help.” George started to move, but Wayne held onto his arm with a claw-like grip.

“Help? For a magnum load in the gut?”

For a second, George thought Wayne was going to laugh. His lips moved but no sound came out.

“Wayne--” George spotted blood and bits of bone stuck to the column behind the spot where Wayne had been standing. He swallowed hard, not wanting to think of the gore as belonging to his partner. Wayne was right: Soares had already killed him.

Wayne’s eyes hooded. “George? George?” He stiffened and died in a sudden spasm.

George jumped to his feet. The building had only three exits. One opened only to the docks and the ocean and one lay behind him. Soares had run north, toward the last exit. Holding his gun in a white-knuckled grip, George ran north.

He hit the stairs three at a time. Thinking only of catching up to Soares, he flung open the door and ran outside. The alley was silent, empty--nothing in either direction.

A thump and a yell came from the street to his left. George ran on, gun in hand.

At the end of the alley, Ocean View Avenue lay deserted under orange street lights. A few widely spaced derelict vehicles hugged the curb, and a jumble of large cardboard boxes towered in a large pile alongside the building.

A little sanity returned, and with it caution. He slid forward, gun at the ready. Suddenly the boxes beside him flew apart. Someone yelled “George!” and shoved him, knocking him off balance. A long, orange muzzle flash stabbed from behind one of the parked cars, followed by the roar of a large-caliber handgun.

George hit the sidewalk hard and rolled twice, coming to rest in the gutter. A figure moved onto the sidewalk from behind the line of cars.

Soares! George raised his pistol and fired. The impact of the slug drove Soares back a step. Soares stood there, looking down at his chest, his face registering shock and disbelief. His jaw went slack and his arms slowly dropped until they hung limp at his sides. His gun fell to the sidewalk and bounced once. Soares stared at it dumbly and started to sway.

“Bastard,” George screamed. He fired twice more. “Bastard. Bastard.” The bullets spun Soares completely around. He spiraled down to the sidewalk in slow motion and flopped into a sprawling heap. George snarled and aimed at the body, but the killing heat had dissipated. He holstered his revolver without firing again.

Trembling from the adrenaline rush, he stood over Monterey’s would-be drug boss, the man who would taint George's community, and fought the urge to kick the body. A reflected gleam caught George's eye. Hanging half out of Soares’ jacket pocket was Wayne’s pistol. With two fingers, not wanting to touch the still-warm corpse, George retrieved it, relieving Wayne's memory from the ignominy of having had to yield his weapon.

From the patrol car, George called in an Officer-Down, scrambling the station to provide immediate backup and an ambulance.

Pocketing Wayne's pistol, George looked for the man who had pushed him. At first, he thought the man must have fled, but a moment’s search located the body in the tumble of cardboard boxes. It was one of the homeless derelicts who gathered in this part of Monterey in increasingly large numbers.

George checked for a heartbeat, found only the feeblest of pulses beating in the man's wrist. The man’s breath stank of cheap wine, but George braved it to get a closer look at the wound. He opened the greasy corduroy jacket and found part of the man’s chest blown away. He quickly closed the jacket, and applied pressure, hoping to extend the man’s life a few more moments. An ambulance wailed, close enough to be heard, but too far away to help. Even if it were here now, not much could be done. Too much blood lost, and no real way to stop the rest from seeping out...

The wino’s eyelids fluttered and he peered up. “George?”

George looked down at the man who had saved his life at the cost of his own. George ignored his training and lifted the man’s head, a spinal injury no longer a concern. He spoke slowly, gently, as though to a young child. “Thank you for pushing me. How do you know me?”

“George, it’s me. Jason.”

George almost dropped him. He tightened his grip on Jason’s shoulders. “Jason! How--”

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t care anymore.” Jason was talking only with great effort, forming each word precisely. “Just want you to know--I forgive you. I...I don’t hold any grudges about Zeller.”

Out of his head, thought George. He shifted his grip to better maintain pressure on Jason’s wound, then as much to humor the delirious man as anything else, he said, “Why would you hold a grudge against me, Jase?”

Jason blinked and opened his mouth, confused. After a couple of false starts, he said, “Because you shunned me and Trisha. You know, after the Zeller thing. I kinda understood, but Trisha was hurt bad by it.”

“I’m sorry, Jase. I shouldn’t have dropped Trish out of my life. If I had it to do over again, maybe I’d do it different. But Zeller was my collar and you beat him to death.”

“I beat him? I thought you did.”

Jason’s chest heaved and he broke into a series of breathless gasps. “George, you didn’t beat Zeller to death in his cell?”

“No, of course not. You did. You confessed.”

“I never did it, George. I thought you did. I owed your father...always good to me and Trish...only kids...had no money...." Jason took a rasping breath. "I thought I could pay your father back by helping you out of a jam. I never even told Trish the truth.” Jason closed his eyes and shuddered. “God, I’m so stupid. I should have known you wouldn't lie your way out of a jam. The Department may be going to hell, but you've always been straight. No matter what. The last bastion.” Jason's voice rambled off unintelligibly.

Suddenly he stiffened, emptying his lungs in one long breath. His body trembled and his chest convulsed sharply but faintly. A claw-like hand snaked out and tightened on George's arm. "Don't let 'em get to you, George. These goons that think they're cops. You can bring the Department back around." A bit of bloody spittle formed on Jason’s lips. “I'm glad I found out before I died.”

George looked down the street, but there was no sign of the ambulance. “It’ll be OK, Jase. I’ll make it OK. I promise.”

***

The rescue crew loaded the dead bodies into the ambulance, treating Wayne with the special reverence cops have for their own. The driver walked up to George. "Sorry about your partner, man."

“Me, too." George shoved his hands into his pockets to hide the shaking.

The driver nodded his head toward Jason's body. "Who's the bum?"

George opened his mouth to explain, but caught himself in time. What would be gained? The world had accepted Jason's crime, and now he was dead. Why re-open the Zeller case and cause himself grief? Why trash his own career just to find out who beat that two-bit hood Zeller to death? Whoever did it saved the State the price of a trial.

"Dunno, man," George said. "Just some wino got caught in Soares' line of fire, I guess." He walked back to the patrol car in darkness. Two street lights had gone out, the city unlikely to ever replace them.

He still had the shakes, even when he slid back behind the wheel. He should put in for detective, that's what he should do. A few others had more time, but people confided in George. He knew all the skeletons in Department closets. That ought to give him the inside track to detective.

He deserved it, by God. Get himself off the streets before he caught a bullet. By the time the ambulance pulled out, George was smiling to himself, thinking of the house he could afford on a detective's salary.

The ambulance drove by, and George followed it into the darkening heart of Monterey.

Copyright(c) 2003 by Tom Sweeney