Plus One

The next day Cord came to work in a good mood. Even though there were still five minutes before the start of the working day, Force had already brewed two cups of morning tea and put a plate of fresh chocolate breakfast cakes on the table. Cord didn't really like the chocolate ones. He liked the gingerbread cakes better, but the treat was still wonderful.

The friend smiled warmly.

"Good morning."

"Hi!" Cord replied, a smile across the entire width of his face.

The friends shook hands, and Cord sat down in his chair.

"How are you?" Force asked.

"What?"

"I mean, after the detention."

"Oh, yeah, okay. It got boring when you stopped calling me in for interrogations, but on the whole, it was quite a vacation. However, I did a lot of thinking about the last murder."

"And what have you come up with?"

"First, we will have tea, then I will study the new case materials, and then I will tell you."

"Reasonable," Force agreed. "As I can see, you missed your job?"

Cord chuckled.

"Well, yes. As I said, it was boring."

"Have you already been to your office?"

"Not yet. What about it?"

"Well… We have an intern."

"What?"

"Uh-uh…" Force hesitated. "A trainee."

"What do we need an intern for right now?" Cord took a gingerbread cake. "Especially at such a time as now."

"That's exactly why. Which is to say, we now have a most difficult and urgent matter. Let him learn."

"You haven't said who the intern is."

Force, realizing that he could not hold out endlessly with the information, sighed.

"Crane."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. You know, he also studies at the Academy. In his fourth year now, and now he has entered the practice phase. Just as we once did."

"Yeah, but we didn't start in the Central Police Department," grumbled Cord.

"Listen, he asked for this himself. And I agreed with it, well—"

"You could have said something earlier."

"I'm sorry."

"And judging by what you asked about my office, I take it he is in there?"

Force nodded nervously.

"I'll go say hello." Cord returned the chocolate breakfast cake to the plate and got up from the chair.

"But the tea will cool—" Force made a last attempt to detain Cord.

"Never mind. I'll drink it cold."

As soon as Cord walked out the door, Force muttered:

"Damn, why did I agree to this?"

Then he reluctantly got up and hurried to Chief's office.

***

Of all the trainees, Crane was the trainee Cord wanted the least. Not that he had something against the guy. It was just that the guy hated him, and to be frank, Crane had every reason to. Not exactly the same reason he thought he had, but he was not far from the truth, either.

It was a love story with a miserable ending. And Cord became, in fact, the antagonist of the plot.

Okay, I will remember all about that some other time. Now the main thing is to keep myself under control.

***

A black-haired young man with a stupid-looking crewcut, wearing gray trousers with suspenders and a white shirt, was sitting at a table that had appeared out of nowhere to the right of the entrance in Cord's office and was filling out papers. Force must have given him some kind of assignment.

"So it's not a joke," said Cord as he entered the office, instead of a greeting.

"Oh, the prisoner is back." Crane looked up at him. "Well hello."

"Hi." Cord stared at the guy. "I heard you were assigned to us. Is that true?"

"Yeah. For a year. I asked to work with Force, but they sent me to you."

"Because my office was empty." Cord looked around. "By the way, where is the small cabinet with the aquarium?"

"Chief allowed me to take the cabinet since all you had in there was junk, anyway."

"Not junk, but crosswords. And the aquarium?"

"What aquarium?"

A conflict is inevitable.

He walked over to Crane's table and bent over it.

"Glass. With pebbles in it. And a rubber hedgehog."

"Oh, you mean that stuff? I threw it all away."

He's definitely asking to be hit.

Cord grabbed him by the chest of his shirt and pulled him towards him.

"Where. Is. My. Aquarium?"

"Like I said: in the trash, where it belongs."

Well, the little bastard asked for it.

In one smooth movement, Cord pulled Crane out from behind the table and flung against the opposite wall. Guy got to his feet and attacked the investigator. Cord easily deflected the attack and struck a precise blow to the Crane's nose. Blood splattered everywhere. With his left forearm, Cord pinned Crane to the wall and made as if he would strike again with his right—more of a threat than anything.

"I am asking for the last time. Where?"

And at that very moment, the door opened.

"What's going on here?!" rang out a thunderous voice.

The picture was perfect: Cord with his hand raised to strike; a profusely bleeding Crane; Chief looking menacingly at them; Force's massive figure behind him, peering cautiously over his shoulder. Beautiful!

The first day back at work was clearly not working out.

***

"Explain this!" ordered Chief.

Cord looked at Crane. He even felt sorry for the boy: he was already sitting in his chair with his head slightly thrown back, holding ice packs to his nose; both nostrils were plugged with cotton, but the blood still continued to flow. Although it was no longer so strong, on the guy's shirt and even his trousers, several burgundy streams had appeared.

"He took my cabinet—" Cord began.

"The cabinet is not yours, but the Department's! And I told him he could do it!"

"But my aquarium with the hedgehog in it was on top of it, and he had no right to touch that."

"So," Chief softened his tone a little. "Crane, where did you put Cord's aquarium?"

"I put it under his table," the guy muttered.

"Why did you tell me you threw it out?" Cord asked calmly.

"To infuriate you," Crane answered honestly.

Wow. He didn't even lie.

"And you, Cord?" Chief seemed to have replaced anger with mercy. "Why did you start beating him? Didn't you know the guy is a hemophiliac?"

"I didn't know that but really: who tries to get into a fight when they're a hemophiliac?"

"Hmm…" Chief was one of the few who knew the cause of Cord's outburst of rage. "Two rams drowned in the river early in the morning," he muttered a nursery rhyme1. "So. You are both reprimanded with an entry into your personnel files. Crane, I'll call your supervisor. If you cannot work with us, you will go to another department."

Crane was silent. He was filled with tons of anxiety, but he was afraid to appear weak.

"Don't," blurted Cord. "Bring me in, but you don't need to call his supervisor. You know he has a reason to hate me."

Yes, Chief knew about that too. He was moving his mustache, as he did every time he was pondering something serious.

"Okay, he's under your responsibility," he decided, "but one more similar conflict, and you, Crane, will fly out of here," Chief spoke calmly, but in a tone that left no doubt: he was serious. "And now you take the day off. You, Cord, of course, at your own expense. Do you understand everything?"

Both nodded almost simultaneously—Crane with relief that everything had worked out and Cord with the understanding that he had gotten off easy.