Port City Shakedown Sample Chapter | Meet Brandon Blake

Want a taste of PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN? Here’s our first look at Brandon Blake:

CHAPTER 1

It was a little after five on a cold afternoon in May. Drizzle speckled the windshield, the smell of low-tide mudflats coming into the cruiser, mixing with the odor of Griffin’s stale hazelnut coffee.

This was on a side street off of Congress, the harbor side. Griffin was at the wheel, Brandon Blake riding shotgun, a misnomer since he didn’t have any gun at all, just a Kevlar vest and an I.D. that said, “Portland P.D.” In smaller letters, “Intern.”

Griffin had said he’d cover Brandon’s back, which Brandon wondered about, whether that implied Brandon would go in first. Not that it mattered, not yet. It had been three days and they hadn’t done anything dangerous: rousted a couple of old drunks that would keel over in a strong wind, took reports on a bunch of burglaries with the burglars long gone, Griffin spending most of the time in between talking about his kids.

Brandon tried to be polite, Griffin a nice guy and probably a good dad, but going on and on, Brandon finding it hard to relate—not having kids, not having a father— only half-listening like he was now.

Then Griffin pulled over, the cruiser sliding to a stop. Griffin jumped out.

He reached back for his baton, slipped it from its holder on the cage and held it in front of him, one hand on the grip, the other eight inches up.

The ready position.

Blake jumped out, too, stood by the hood and watched. A scruffy guy on a bike coasting by, turning to see what the cops were doing, the older one with his baton out, ready to swing.

“Tied up two-two, bottom of the sixth, two out, man on third,” Griffin was saying. “Three and one, hitter’s count. Infield in. Jeremy’s hitting like four hundred, already ripped a hard foul, vicious line drive just wide of third. So what does he do?”

He paused.

“This is a kid, remember. Little League,”

“I don’t know,” Brandon said.

The motor whuffed softly like a sleeping dog, the guy on the bike still circling.

Griffin punched the air with the nightstick.

“He lays down a bunt, first base line. Pitcher goes for it, first-baseman breaks. Second baseman comes over to cover but he’s late. Jeremy beats it out.”

Griffin beamed, all white teeth and thatchy brown hair—the boy inside the cop. “Run scores. We—“

Something on the radio stopped him. Brandon turned and listened, Griffin already heaving himself into the seat, no smile now. Brandon scrambled back, the passenger door still open as the tires screeched.

“What is it?” Brandon said.

“Fight.”

“Where?”

“Funeral,” Griffin said, swinging across traffic onto Congress, lights and siren forcing cars to the side of the road.

“Whose?” Brandon said.

“Inmate, county jail.”

Griffin hit the klaxon horn, squeezed between a bus and oncoming traffic.

“The inmate’s dead?”

“Somebody in his family.”

“So they fight at the funeral?” Brandon said.

“Hey,” Griffin said, “we all grieve in different ways.”