The house sat in the middle of the block, a rundown brick bungalow with a large open porch. A shiver ran down his calves.
Five, no, six men on the porch. Four in their late teens, but hardened and staring. The other two were older. They stood with
the posture of casual readiness he’d seen in Special Forces boys, men who’d been in Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq One,
who had enough experience with mayhem to think of bullets and blood sprays as simple facts of life, part of the way the world
worked.
Screwing with men like that got you killed, that simple.
His stomach felt greasy, and his fingers tingled. Viewed as a soldier, it was a goddamn nightmare. Enemy territory. Guards
and watchers. Complicit citizens. Numerous combatants, many armed. Few of them, if Washington was right, expecting to see
old age. Street soldiers in a rag-tag army.
He kept the car rolling, trying not to acknowledge the looks. Wanting to slow down, to take mental pictures, but not daring.
Mouth dry, palms wet.
March in and try to hijack one of them?
Suicide.
Jason gave the Caddy a little more gas, locked his eyes forward, did his best to look like a civilian who’d gotten lost. His
fingers tapped the wheel, the pulse loud in his throat. Finished the block, turned right, rolled another couple, turned again,
found himself back on Halsted, back in the real world. Same neighborhood he’d been circling for an hour, but after the gang
block, it seemed tame.
‘Jesus,’ he said to himself, wiping his palms on his jeans. The sun burned through the windshield, sparkles of heat spots
on the dusty dashboard. The sinking in his gut was replaced by an acid burn. Those men had been involved in the murder of
his brother, had tried to kill his nephew. Now they strutted in the sun of a weekday afternoon, and there wasn’t a thing he
could do about it.
He realized his teeth were clenched, his jaw sore. A hundred yards ahead lay a corner market, the glass front covered with
metal screening. He parked the Caddy in front of the door. Two kids who should’ve been in school hit him with murder eyes,
but he glared back, chest forward. Held the gaze as he stalked past, daring them to move.
The market was dirty linoleum and fridges of beer. A sign on the inch-thick Plexiglas protecting the counter read:
LOOSIES
, 50
CENT
, with a drawing of a cigarette. The back cooler had Coke and Pepsi but also orange and grape pop, brands he didn’t recognize.
No Gatorade, so he settled for a Mountain Dew.
Back in the sunlight, the kids stood where he’d left them, one on the payphone, the other beside, a wooden match clinging
to one moist lip. The sun felt good on Jason’s back and neck, so he leaned against the side of the car and stared down the
road, watching cars come and go.
Sweet as the soda was, it couldn’t wash out the bitter. With Michael gone, he was protector and maybe – Jesus – father to
Billy. That last was too scary to contemplate. Better to focus on the first part, on dealing with the people hunting them.
The Worm laughed from his belly. Some protector he was turning out to be so far.
A police car pulled into the weed-cracked parking lot. Jason glanced over, then at the two kids on the phone. Their shoulders
were up, necks rigid with the stiffness that came of trying to act calm. The one on the phone hung up, and they started to
strut away.
‘Hey.’ The cop spoke through the open window, his voice commanding, a practiced tone. ‘Scooby, right?’
The boys froze, then slowly turned. Hesitated, then strolled over to the squad car like they were doing a favor. ‘Yeah.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘S’aight.’ Scooby slid the matchstick from one side of his mouth to the other. His friend kept glancing around, like he was
hoping they weren’t being seen.
‘You know we found Li’l Cisco out back of St. Francis’s?’ The cop cocked his head. ‘Somebody shot him in the face.’
‘Ashes to ashes.’
‘Yeah.’ The cop smiled. ‘You hear anything about who was gunning for him?’
‘Nah, man.’
‘Come on. He was your boy, right? Help me out.’ The cop glanced around, gestured Scooby closer. The kid looked back at his
friend, then put his hands on the car, and leaned in. The other cop, a square-jawed woman with the placid expression of someone
who did this every day, sized Jason up through the windshield.
She reminded him of Cruz, the way she’d interrogated him yesterday. Just as he’d been about to lose it, she’d eased up. Told
him she would work all the angles, talk to the gangs, try to pick up Playboy. It’d surprised him, the idea of this five-five
Latina questioning gangbangers on the street. She had some fire.
And then, as he watched Scooby listen to the cop, saw the way his buddy rocked from foot to foot like he needed to piss, an
idea hit Jason square and center, made him almost drop his drink.
It was more than a long shot. It was pretty well preposterous.
Jesus, what a ballsy play that would be.
And realized he was smiling.
She knows her body will never be long and willowy, knows she will never have shampoo commercial hair. But it doesn’t matter,
because now, a month past her fifteenth birthday, Elena Cruz is a woman of the world; she is dating a high school senior,
and to night her mother is out of town.
She does not write ‘Elena Vaughn’ on scented paper, or draw crabbed hearts with
EC+EV
scrawled in the center, but her dedication is complete. She has tracked Eric Vaughn’s slouch through gray hallways, thrilling
in his surliness, in his unkempt clothes and his crude tattoo.
That he demands they keep their love a secret she chooses to find romantic. It’s not that he’s cold; he is just wounded, in
a way only she can heal. True, he is in a rush that makes her nervous, always trying to put his hands where she isn’t ready
to have them. But that’s proof how badly he needs her.
This is love, and love triumphs. Every story says so.
And she reminds herself of that when she opens her front door to find not only Eric, but his friend Steve. Reminds herself
again when she realizes they are drunk. She even tries to believe it is love that makes dark fire flash in Eric’s eyes.
But it isn’t love that tears her sweater. And it isn’t love that laughs as Steve yanks at her belt.
And as she watches beautiful Eric Vaughn unbuckle his pants while his best friend holds her from behind, she sees that
he knows he has already crossed a line and is determined to make the most of it, more drunk on the moment than the stolen
booze. That she is no longer even a person, but merely something he wants.
And so she stomps on Steve’s foot and twists free. Grabs the cordless phone and dials the police from the bathroom. And waits,
shivering, in her panties
–
the pretty pair she had worn special, that she wanted him to remove for the first time, when she planned to give what he only
wanted to take.
Her mother, with a look of bone-weariness, had once told Elena Cruz that one thing she’d learned was that you should never
have more children than arms.
Now, as she watched Keanna bounce a baby on one leg, use her free hand to undo her middle son’s jacket, and simultaneously
yell at her oldest to leave the dog alone before he got himself bit, it occurred to Cruz that Keanna might have benefited
from that same advice. Of course, looking at the blasted park where the nineteen-year-old sat with three other baby-mamas,
there were probably a whole lot of things that the formidable Dulcinea Cruz could have passed along. Most likely accompanied
by a lecture, several pleas to Jesus, and a paddling with a wooden spoon.
‘I don’t know nothing about no bars burning,’ Keanna said, and then held her baby up to the sky, making cooing noises.
Cruz glanced at Galway, who rolled his eyes. She said, ‘Mind if I sit?’
‘They say it’s a free country.’
Galway chuckled at that, crossed his arms in front of his chest. As Cruz sat on the cement bench, the middle kid, maybe four
years old, looked at her with
huge eyes. She waggled a finger and he smiled, a sudden devious thing like he’d stolen it, and then turned away quickly and
buried his face in his mother’s knee. ‘How you holding up?’
‘The phone got turned off.’ Keanna smiled at the baby. ‘Ain’t you just perfect,’ she said, and the baby made a gurgling sound.
‘Mama lost her job.’
‘Rondell isn’t giving you anything?’
Keanna looked at her balefully. ‘Rondell was daddy to Lawrence.’ She jerked her head toward the fence where the oldest boy
was petting a dog the wrong direction. ‘He ain’t been around since Spider an’ me got together.’
Cruz nodded, said sure, sorry, she’d forgotten. Hard to keep up sometimes. A low-rider rolled down the block, music pouring
out, and one of the mothers hopped up and ran over to it, looking like the seventeen-year-old girl she was.
‘Anyway, what you care? You gonna pay the bills?’
‘Spider went down on a possession charge, right?’ Cruz shrugged. ‘I could talk to the board for him. Make sure he gets a parole
hearing soon.’
‘Ain’t that the Po-Po.’ The girl snorted, shook her head. ‘Lock him up, then offer to set him free.’
Cruz smiled. ‘Like I said before, Keanna. A bar. On Damen.’
‘Lawrence!’ The girl twisted all the way around. ‘Why’n’t you leave that dog alone?’ She turned back to Cruz. ‘I told you,
I don’t know nothing about no bars catching fire.’
Galway interrupted. ‘How about Playboy?’
‘What about him?’
‘He know anything about it?’
‘Ask him.’
‘Where’s he crashing these days?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ Cruz added a little edge to her voice. ‘Disciples number two, and you don’t know where he sleeps?’
‘I ain’t close to it no more. Not since Spider got hisself locked up.’
‘What about the bar?’
The girl sighed. ‘Man, y’all is tiresome, asking the same question over and over like this time the answer’s gonna be different.
I don’t know nothing about no bars burning up.’
‘Think hard.’ Cruz took her sunglasses off, blinking in the scorching light of late afternoon, hit the girl with her earnest
look. ‘This is important. We’ve got the juice. We could help you, help Spider.’
‘I don’t
know
nothing. And besides slinging dope, only thing Spider’s good for is making me a baby-mama.’ The girl looked up at Galway,
back to Cruz. ‘You wanna help?’ She shook her head. ‘Buy groceries.’
Cruz snorted. ‘All right. Thanks for the time.’ She stood up, put her shades back on. Adjusted her handcuffs. Galway started
out of the park, and she fell in beside him.
Behind her, they heard the girl’s voice. ‘Shit’s burning down in Crenwood all the time, anyhow. How
come y’all so interested in this one?’ Keanna raised her voice. ‘Belong to a white guy or something?’
Galway laughed. Cruz flipped her a wave, walked to the unmarked they’d left at the edge of the park. As Galway opened the
passenger door, he said, ‘So I saw my son last night.’
‘The Bitch let you visit off schedule?’ Cruz had heard so much about Galway’s divorce, she sometimes felt like she was the
one who’d been left.
‘Miracles never cease, right? Anyway, I pull up to her house. Schaumburg. Nice house, nice neighborhood. Aidan mopes out,
mumbles hello, starts messing with the radio. His hair is gelled up in different directions, and he’s wearing jeans that have
holes at the pockets and ragged bottoms. Bleach stains. So I ask him, I say, “Aidan, what’s with the jeans? Won’t your mom
buy you new jeans?”’ Galway paused, stared at two men exchanging an elaborate handshake on the opposite corner. They wore
bright sneakers and long white shirts.
Cruz turned up the air conditioning. ‘What did he say?’
Galway spoke without looking at her. ‘He said I didn’t understand
fashion.
That it was the style, jeans being all torn up and shitty looking.’
‘He’s right,’ she said.
‘Yeah, well, I never claimed to be Mr. GQ. But doesn’t that seem weird?’
‘What’s that?’
‘His new dad is a lawyer, six figures. Aidan dresses like he’s about to paint the house, but he’s got a car, an
iPod, mutual funds earning interest toward college.’ Galway gestured out the window. ‘Those guys, they don’t even have a
bank
account. Probably don’t have anything in the fridge. But their shoes are spotless, they got gold chains around their necks,
and I couldn’t get my shirt that white if I tried.’
‘So?’
‘So it’s weird, is all. The ones with nothing are flaunting all they have; the ones with everything are trying to look like
bums.’
Cruz laughed. ‘You should quit this cop gig, get a job teaching philosophy.’
‘I could never let go of the glamorous lifestyle.’ Galway leaned back. ‘Drop me off at the station, would you? I got a stack
of paperwork.’
She smiled and spun north.
Afterwards, she went back to the ’Wood. She didn’t have a goal in mind, just wanted to feel the street. Anything was better
than working her goddamn database. Cruz drove past sagging row-houses and crumbling bungalows, dead grass, signs tagged with
graffiti. Many of the houses had been boarded up, dark V-patterns from old fires marking the exterior walls. The plywood windows
were covered in posters: the new 50 Cent album, ads for
Hustle & Flow
, election flyers for Alderman Owens. Each block, one or two buildings had been knocked down as if in preparation to build
a new house, but few had any progress. Mostly the bare lots were just fenced off and left to rot. Blank holes in the block.
Missing teeth.
Her phone rang, the caller ID showing a number from the Area One police switchboard. ‘Cruz.’
‘This is Peter Bradley. You asked me to –’
‘Yeah, I remember. Did you find anything?’
‘We rolled by Playboy’s last known address. An apartment off Racine.’
‘And?’
‘It’s a real shithole.’