Chapter Twenty–Three
In situ
“Why the
fuck
haven’t you called me?” Hack contained his outrage, but not before he’d made a point. “I’m running out of ideas here and my website is getting hit like four times a second. Everyone’s leaning on me for new shit and you’re jerking off playing cop.”
“It’s been busy here.”
“I’ll tell you about fucking busy, you little shit,” Hack said.
“Calm down.”
“
What?
”
“Calm down,” Ray repeated.
“
Don’t tell me to calm down you….”
The line went dead. “Ungrateful little prick…” Hack said through gritted teeth. He'd actually broken two of teeth in this way. He picked the phone up on the first ring. “Don’t
ever
do that again.”
“Irving, listen. You’re hitting your sources so hard that the cops are going to know it’s me. Someone actually called for
me
here today. It had to be one of your other people. These guys aren’t inept, far from....”
“Oh Jesus
Christ,”
Hack fumed. “Get your head out of your ass. Kid, how long have you been doing this?” Hack selected a new pencil. He’d splintered the other one, though he didn’t remember doing so.
“Two months.”
“And how long have I been doing this?” Hack waited until he heard the kid take a breath to answer and then cut him off. “Fifty fucking years. I know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t
matter
what is real and what isn’t, it’s about what sells copy. You want to make it in this line of work, you’re going to have to get that through your head.”
“I didn’t sign on to learn how to write for a tabloid, Irving, and I sure as hell don’t want these guys on my ass,” Ray said.
“Get it straight, kid. The tabloids
invent
stories. I use the facts and let the public decide.”
“Oh bullshit.”
“Do you want a job or not?”
“Not like this.”
Hack tossed away another broken pencil. "Listen, I’m sorry about being rough on you. You’re a bright kid, and obviously…” he groped for a line. "Obviously…obviously you’re passionate about what you do.”
No response.
“Still there Ray?”
“I’m here.”
“Okay, how about if I start fronting you some of the cash that you've earned in the trenches. How about your first five grand now?” Cash always worked when they started getting overly moral. He’d played this kid hard, maybe it was time to toss him some chips before he folded entirely.
“Ray?”
"I'll think about it."
Chapter Twenty–Four
Inarch
Seth studied a phonebook map of D.C. upon which he’d highlighted an area of roughly twenty blocks worth of real estate. He picked an intersection right in the middle and programmed it into the car’s navigation system. There were no rebukes, only a calm, “Your route is in the displayed direction.” Whatever that meant.
Seth rechecked everything: the things he would need in the next twelve hours, and those he would need over the next few days if things worked according to plan. It took him an hour, and he fought with the
excitement
of getting moving, of setting out to do what he planned to do.
The excitement.
Insanity, he realized, was little more than crossing a line, looking back, and knowing that life could never be the same again. And not caring.
If he succeeded today, it would become something larger than his own life. If not, he’d be dead. It was a win/win.
He changed into the five thousand dollar suit Whit had sent along. He knotted a golden double Windsor, and unsatisfied, did it again, brushed the lint off of the fabric, and looked at himself in the car’s window. He looked like his dad.
He drove toward the city and took time to stop for a Quarter–Pounder, a sandwich he’d loved as a kid but banned from his diet since Jenny’s birth. The smell of the thing made the memories well up inside of him. Jenny wouldn’t have the chance to enjoy one. No more snowmen, no more zoos, there would be no first diving trip for his little girl. No boyfriends. Children. Nothing.
The burger didn’t taste like much, but he ate it anyway. He dumped the trash and pulled out of the lot, careful not to exceed the speed limit despite the car’s urging. 13:22 the clock said. The time to destination counted down from twenty–four minutes. Almost. Almost.
Just twenty minutes later a pleasant female voice intoned, “You have arrived.”
It was almost two, which translated into just a few hours of daylight and then a whole bunch of unknowns. But then, Seth didn’t know how this would play out, only how it would end. He began a systematic search, starting in a box of four blocks and then expanding by one block each time he made a full circuit . Time was increasingly important.
As he pulled around a corner strewn with a half dozen tires, he saw it for the first time. 19 13 7. The same star shape, circled by the same numbers, the ones that adorned the wall in his old home. The ones that were on his family. The symbol was freshly emblazoned upon a greasy, overturned dumpster which now housed two men who sat back to back, staring at the walls rather than out at the weather.
He found the second one above a doorway. A third, on the corner two blocks away, entirely filled the octagon of a stop sign. Green on white. This was where he needed to be. He checked his map.
Seth’s eyes had become accustomed to the lengthening shadows, but when he looked up from marking the neatly folded map he nearly missed the two kids huddled behind a stoop about twenty feet away. Keeping out of the wind, probably. They watched him, and when he stayed put at the corner, they stood. One was in a red, goose–down jacket, the other in what amounted to a threadbare windbreaker. Both wore hats pulled down low, both were black.
Seth bit his lip. Tasted blood. The guy in red looked a lot like the kid that had tried to blow a hole in his chest.
He waited.
When they were within a few feet of his window, he let it down and looked up at their faces. Curious, cautious.
“Ballin’ ride,” one said.
“Gunna play?” the other asked when there was no response.
Seth stared at both saying nothing.
The kids seemed confused and traded a glance. "Ain’t got time for fuckin’ ‘round man, it’s cold as fuck. Com’on.”
“Get in,” Seth said. He looked back down at his map as if he didn’t have much time either. In fact, he didn’t.
“You one lost motherfucker,” one said, but they both stayed.
“Certainly at least one of you has a gun, right?”
Nothing, just stares form the two.
“So get in out of the cold, and let’s do some business. You’ll be right behind me, right?”
“Roll down the back, lemme see in,” the fluffy goose–down kid said.
Seth rolled it down and unlocked the door, "Get in.” He rolled up his own window, dismissing further argument.
They did. Both from one side, sliding across the seat and looking around the interior.
“Fuckin’ cold–ass ride.”
The kid in the down jacket pushed the agenda forward, "Straight up, whatcha want?”
“First thing’s first,” Seth said. He reached into the center console and felt them tense up. He produced a thin stack of perfectly flat bills, divided them evenly as they watched, and then handed them back just like he might have handed Jenny an ice cream cone. “That’s so you know I’m serious. We on the same page?”
He watched them in the mirror, count, recount. Each held five one hundred dollar bills. Recount. “Yeah, we’s with ya man.”
“How much did I give you?” he asked.
“A grand.”
“And how much of that do you have to turn in to whoever you sell for?”
“We ain’t got no shit man,” one said.
“That’s not what I asked. Pay attention.”
Both were quiet.
“I asked, how much of that can you keep for yourselves?”
“All of it.”
“Right. Want more?”
“Yeah,” the threadbare kid said. "For what?”
Seth smiled at him in the mirror. "The only thing that’s worth anything is information.”
“We ain’t snitches.”
“What’s your name?” Seth asked, zeroing in on the goose–down kid.
“Fuck you.”
“You know who I am?” Seth watched in the mirror. The kid hesitated. “I’ll take that as a no, and I’ll call you Daisy. How about you?” he shifted his gaze to the other kid.
“Jonquez.”
“Nice to meet you Jonquez,” Seth said. "You want to do business?”
“Yep.”
“Hey me too, man,” Daisy said.
“Alright,” Seth said. "Then let’s cut through this bullshit. I’m not a cop, and I’m not your babysitter. I’m here because I want you to take me to the top of SMG. Can you tell that I’m serious?” He watched them, knowing that this could all be in vain if even one of his many guesses had been astray.
A loud whump on the hood interrupted the thought. Two teenagers were standing in front of the car, peering in through the front windshield. One of them said something, pointing past Seth and at Daisy. He slapped the hood again. Hard.
“Shit shit,” Jonquez said.
“Stay cool man,” Daisy said. "It’s cool.”
“You know these guys?” Seth asked. He sounded irritated, but felt very little real emotion at all. In a detached sort of way it surprised him. This new data arrived, was sorted, and without so much as a jump in his pulse. He squinted at the two boys outside, then changed his gaze to the rearview and his two passengers.
“Widmore Crew,” Jonquez said, he looked around the car and then slumped in his seat. “We poachin’ a lil.”
“Poaching?” Seth looked in the mirror. Seth caught Daisy reaching into his coat, “Stop it, put it away.”
“Yous ‘bout to get capped,” Daisy said. “We's on they ground. That’s poachin’ dude.”
Another slap to the hood. A dent. The two stood defiantly, throwing up their arms and beckoning the boys out. One reached into his coat.
The big car surged forward. The kid reaching for his gun was struck first, and fell forward, his face landing short of the glass and impacting like a cannonball. His face and jaw didn’t realign as he rolled off into the street. The other, having a moment longer to react, took the front bumper at about knee level. He just folded in two and slid down out of view. Silence.
Seth put the car into reverse, backed up until he could see them both, and then waited. “Who’s at the top?”
“Suki,” Jonquez said. “You wanna talk to Suki.”
“Fine, where is he?”
“I dunno,” Jonquez lifted himself up on the seat so he could see the two on the street out front. One looked dead, his face crooked like he didn’t put it on straight that morning, the other one was writhing around on the ground, his legs folded up backwards like a dog's.
“What could you possibly
not
know Jonquez?” Seth asked. “Take me to him, you get enough cash to move off this fucking corner forever.”
“Two blocks up, I’ll tell ya where to turn,” the kid said. "Let’s go man, let’s go.”
Seth jerked the car into reverse and punched the gas. Sure enough, the two kids were still there–clawing to get out of the road. Seth tore past them and roared down the street.
“So answer the question,” Seth said.
Both seemed eager enough to answer, though unclear as to just what the question was. "What question man?”
“Do I seem serious to you?”
Chapter Twenty–Five
Incredulity
As many times as they’d seen it, they all still stared as they trudged past the Capitol building in the afternoon traffic. Ray was familiar with the downtown streets in and around the Mall. The monuments in their pristine white continued to stand as a reassurance to so many, and Ray was no exception. He’d actually found D.C. to his liking, even without the lure of ‘real’ journalism. The city was fast and important, in many ways the center of the universe for someone who aspired to one day make a mark as a writer. He wasn’t lying about being a lawyer, it wasn’t his bag. He’d spent six months staffing for a metro law firm only to come away with the very same taste in his mouth that he had now. Washington, D.C. political? Who would have thought? So now he’d tossed away another six months of his life with Irving Hack. Lovely. His wife was starting to get antsy, and rightfully so. Even with both of them working, it was getting really close at the end of each month. Now he was faced with telling her that one more of his dream jobs was in the toilet. Either that, or make something happen. So maybe getting roped into driving around the less “official” areas of the city would be good for him if only to take his mind off of life in general. He worried though, that it would be a hands–on lesson.
“Where’d you live before D.C., Ray?” Finn asked as they turned up Widmore Street.
“Miami,” Ray said. "My wife wants to move back.”
“How’s come?”
“Something about the weather.”
Finn snorted, "There are a few days every year when it’s really nice. And it's not usually this cold.”
“I like it, she doesn’t. And the weather isn’t it… our kids are getting close to school age.”
“Ah,” Tonic said as he came up behind a big tour bus. "There are a few days a year when the schools here are really nice.”
“Just don’t let her read the papers or watch TV and you’ll be fine Ray,” Finn said.
“After this deal in Arlington Heights I’m really catching shit to go back.”
Tonic tapped the wheel in time with music that only he could hear. "Thing is we’re all hearing about this deal in the Heights because it’s some politician’s kid. I mean, it’s a shitty thing and it's the same all over. It’s not like it happens everyday, but lots of people are steppin’ in shit that they don’t deserve, Ray.”
Ray said nothing, but these facts weren’t going to win him points at home.
“Seriously, we’ve had lots more street cops out getting into everyone’s face. They’re shaking people down on the off chance that we’ll get a lucky hit on something. That almost never happens. The norm would be to rustle up a couple of informants, if there were any, or throw the physical evidence in line with the other fifty–four hundred cases that need to be done this month. But this is getting shit hot press and thus here, we are right?”
“But you’d want to work this case right?” Ray asked.
“Fuck yeah, but you know how things are. Think about how many things you’re dropping everyday to work this thing, eh?” Tonic flipped his visor down as they turned into the setting sun. “By the way, there’s a vest back there for you somewhere.”
“A what?” It was lying under a pile of worn maps. “Why are we doing this again?” Ray asked as he lifted the dark blue Kevlar vest and flipped it around, praying that there were no holes. Freshly spray–painted in white block letters was the word, NERD.
“Nice.”
Finn smiled, still watching the road, “We’ve got to meet someone.”
Tonic went on, “Finny hasn’t always been this respectable. He started with me in narcotics. We still know some people down here.”
“We think.”
“Yeah. Assuming they’re not dead.”
Finn turned on his seat. “
He
started with me by the way.”
“Whatever, but my point is that it was before you turned all gay.”
“Just because I don’t shop at an Army Surplus store and like to clean my nails once in awhile?”
“No, because you shop at
the Gap
and have someone
else
clean your nails. Besides, fatigues are comfy, they give me room to breathe, God knows I need it.” He pointed at Finn’s slacks, “Those are just a pair of hundred and eighty dollar army pants.”
Finn brushed the crumbs off of his pressed khakis and ignored his partner. "Want something else that you shouldn’t tell your wife, Ray?”
“What?” Ray leaned forward between the seats, clutching the Kevlar to his chest like a child’s doll.
“The guys who did this, they’re probably juveniles,” Finn said. “You’re a lawyer right? You know how it is.”
Ray looked between the two. "Yeah… yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. What usually happens? I mean, I know the books, but not the street.”
“They could get off pretty clean, it all depends. We have to find ‘em first, but listen, the average age of a D.C. gang member ain’t thirty–five, man, more like twelve,” Tonic said. “Just because some people are stupid, doesn’t mean they all are… the guys who survive, the guys who run shit, well it’s all Darwinism. Natural selection. They made it through this far with luck and brains and having big fuckin’ balls, which means that they’ll play the system if they can.” He stopped at a light and turned in his seat, “Why use twelve year old kids to sell ice or weed or whatever?”
Ray considered, "So if they get caught?”
“Yeah, it’s like recycling. They get busted, they come back.” Tonic ignored the green light, watching Ray in the mirror. "And lots of things work that way in the system. If you’re not eighteen, it’s a whole other fuckin’ world.”
Ray found one foot tapping against the other and tucked them up under himself on the seat to make himself stop. “So how far is it?” he asked. He could still see the Capital building.
“Dude, we’re like two blocks away,” Tonic said.
Ray looked around. This wasn’t a bad neighborhood. Not rich by any means, but the homes were well kept, older, but still cared for by their owners. It didn’t look like a gang neighborhood.
“Here?” Ray sat back again, keeping to the middle of the car. Any embarrassment about wearing the vest was long gone. “Do I put this on over or under my shirt.”
“Over your shirt, under your jacket,” Tonic said.
“The neighborhoods change real fast,” Finn said. "You’ll see. Just cross one street sometimes and it’s Mogadishu.”
Tonic began giving the tour. "A block over there is SMG,” he pointed. Over here is just plain ol’ Widmore Street. SMG on this side, Widmore Crew on that side. There are bars in the windows and all up and down this main drag, but a guy can walk there at night. Five blocks up this way,” he gestured forward, "it’s pretty nice. A few blocks that way and you’re getting’ close to the Mall. It’s weird shit, and it changes like a river. Sometimes the river behaves itself and you can live there for twenty years.”
“Then one day there’s a flood,” Finn said. "And then your neighborhood is neck deep in mud. It might shift back, it might not.”
“What’s Arlington Heights then?” Ray asked.
“Bad luck. You ready, Ray?”
“No.” Ray fought the urge to fasten his seatbelt.
Tonic caught his eye in the mirror. “Just watch how fast it changes.” They turned left and in one block all that was left of the rational world seemed to be the occasional right angles he could find at the intersections.
Ray fastened his belt.
For the most part, the streets were clear. There were few cars, and many of those that had been left to fend for themselves were burned out, bone white hulks, picked clean like carrion along the highway. The only windows to be seen in the almost identically built brick apartments were above the fifth floor. That’s about as high as a kid could throw a rock, Ray decided. He was no architect, but these had to be approaching fairly old status even by European standards. There was very little life; the wind was still far too stiff for most people to be outside without a good reason, but here and there he watched a few bundled souls taking advantage of the daylight to move back and forth between their homes and where ever it was that they went. They passed a form slumped against a wall.
“Hasn’t been a place to get food down here for like a year,” Tonic said. He pointed at a woman, hunched as if she were wearing an anvil around her neck. Six or eight plastic bags threatened to scrape the pavement as she hobbled along.
“So if you want anything, it’s about ten blocks up that way.”
They approached an intersection and slowed, but not much. Tonic blew through the stop sign that leaned out into the road at a forty–five degree angle.
Finn said, “Usually there’s someone dealin’ on this corner.”
Tonic nodded, “Usually.” But there was no one to be seen.
“Business is rough with cops rolling up on you all day long.”
“So hold on…” Ray said. “Why do it then? I mean, the heart of all this is money right? Jesus I’d sell my fingers to get out of this place. So why screw it all up by taking credit for something like the Arlington Heights thing? They had to know, right? I just don’t get it,” Ray watched a gutted row house as it slid past.
“Think it through, Ray,” Finn said. “List the possibilities.”
Ray opened his mouth and then closed it, took a few moments, and then decided to go with his first thoughts. He put his hands up on his temples like blinders so that he could think. “They did it to show that they were serious. The real deal. Period. That they could do whatever they wanted. To get some credit, some reputation or whatever.” He didn’t look up, but felt Finn staring at him. “Or, they did it for the rep and then realized, too late, that they’d hit a big shot.”
Tonic was watching in the mirror. "Or?”
“I don’t see an ‘or’,” Ray said.
“What if they didn’t do it?” Tonic asked.
“Who? I don’t… oh,” Ray’s hands came down and head came up. “They put someone else’s graffiti in the hall, another gang’s you mean?”
“Prolly, that’d be a good way to fuck someone over. We’ve seen it lotsa times,” Tonic said.
“So we’re totally looking in the wrong place?” Ray said, incredulous.
“Who knows?” Finn told him. "We’ll see if anyone stepped up and spilled their guts tonight when we get back. Maybe we’ll find Andy. It takes time. Having it run on national news, I dunno. It could speed things up, or slow it way the hell down. Depends on who’s taking the heat.”
“Who’s Andy?”
“Just a dude that used to deal down here. Kinda nice guy, actually, in a fucked up sort of way,” Tonic said. “Scared shitless of Finny.”
“How’s come?” Ray asked.
Finn turned, "
Why
, exactly, is that so hard to believe?”
Something skipped off of the trunk and cracked into the back window. Ray jerked in his seat, assuming a position that he might in a crashing airliner. Tonic accelerated, turned the corner, and only then looked back. “That was a rock right?”
Finn squinted at the little spider web left in its wake. "Looks like it. Wakes a guy up, though.”
“Cherry donut time?” Ray muttered into his crotch.
“We’ll cruise around for a while in our über
unmarked
car,” Tonic said. "And then bail out before it gets dark if we don’t find our dude.”
“What happens when it gets dark?” Ray asked.
“They probably all turn into wolves,” Tonic said. “I’ve never been down here at night.”
Andy the Informant was not on his old corner, nor was he on his next old corner, and this was irritating. There were two possibilities that neither cop wanted to entertain, but that seemed increasingly likely as they drove up and down the naked streets. One: Andy had been rotting sight unseen in an alley for a year or so. Two: Andy wasn’t as stupid as he looked, and was holed up somewhere to keep his nuts from freezing to the pavement. They knew where that somewhere might be, but just knowing wouldn’t get him to come out and play.
Just after two it started to sprinkle tiny pellets of frozen rain that skittered about on the hood and hissed against the windows.
“Is this one of the nice days?” Ray asked.
“Hush child,” Finn said.
Ray smiled despite the anxiety that grew with the darkening skies. The rain quickly forced anyone who had lingered on the streets inside, and the effect was the sudden and absolute sense that this was indeed a ghost town; a section of the city that had been exposed to radiation, poisoned and left to only the creatures hardy enough to survive the primal blight. Ray craned around and peered out the back window – an occasional gap between buildings would reveal the Capitol building, brightly lit but still shrouded in the weather as if it were trying to pull a veil over itself… protection from this canker festering just out of sight. It was hard to believe. There were few lights, and as the sky thickened, some fires came to life deep in the alleyways. Their shadows leaped from the narrow passages, occasionally giving a glimpse at human form, but more often serving only as a beacon to illuminate Ray’s fears.