She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  The receiver was in Faustino’s inside jacket pocket, a small wired earbud trailing out. He pressed the earbud deeper into his ear with his left hand and used his right hand to click the dial on the receiver from one microphone to the next. All were quiet.

  Faustino was cycling back through the dial, when Horton sat down on the bench beside him and unfolded a newspaper. Faustino glanced at the headline. “You know that paper is about two weeks old, right?”

  “It’s all we’ve got in the van. I think I have it memorized now. The closest thing we have to porn is this ad on page three for women’s panty hose at Jewel’s Groceries. This is the worst sting ever.”

  Horton’s eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses. Tattoos covered his right arm—dragons, knights, and swords. Horton (like most of the people in Narcotics) went out of his way not to look like a cop. A necessary survival tactic when working undercover.

  Horton pulled a pack of gum from his pocket, popped a piece in his mouth, and offered one to Faustino, who shook his head. “So what have you learned about this kid?”

  Horton shrugged. “Not much yet. He popped up on our radar about two years ago. We collared a kid with a three-ounce bag of pot just off Brentwood High School property. It took all of three minutes for the boy to give up Bellino as his dealer. Bellino was still in middle school back then, but he’s moved on. He’s a solid student, B average. Couple scuffles in school, typical shit, nothing serious. Got picked up for shoplifting a few years back, and the judge let him off with a warning on account of the grades. It wasn’t exactly grand theft. He stole a box of mac and cheese from a convenience store. Comes from a broken home. No sign of the mother, looks like she split a long time ago. His old man isn’t much of a prize. Moved here from Chicago back in ’86 to run a coal plant, the place got shuttered not long after. Daddy does odd jobs now for work. He was an army ranger back in the war, but like most of those guys, not all of him came back. He held it together pretty well at the beginning but seems to be unraveling without steady work. Sleeps most days and he’s out most nights, stumbles in when the sun’s coming out. Rinse and repeat. The kid is more or less raising himself. All things considered, he’s doing a good job of it.”

  “You mean, aside from the whole drug dealing thing?”

  “Yeah, aside from that. When his pop got laid off, looks like he got into the petty stuff, probably dealing just to put food on the table. Kept it small. If he’d stuck with just pot, we’d probably let it go, but like I said, he gets good grades, and a smart dealer is a dangerous one. It didn’t take him long to use pot to set up a distribution channel, bring in a few employees, and get a small business going. His supplies are coming from one of the bigger players in town, a guy named Henry Crocket. We’ve been after him for a while but haven’t been able to make anything stick. Crocket is good at spotting potential, and it looks like he’s taken Bellino under his wing. A kid like this with a tutor is a problem in the making, so we’re hoping to cap it off earlier and maybe use the kid to take down Crocket. Bellino has gotten slick at the ripe old age of sixteen, though. He’s stepped up into the harder products—heroin, crack, coke, as well as prescription narcotics—and somehow he’s able to keep it under the radar. We don’t know where he stores his product, who exactly he’s got working with him, or just how far his crew branches out. He manages to keep himself clean while pulling the strings. We’ve had lenses on him whenever he goes out in public, and aside from catching a few quick meetings between him and Crocket, we haven’t picked up anything useful yet. Left unchecked, I see this guy growing up and taking over Crocket’s entire racket. We need to stomp him out before that happens.”

  “When I was sixteen, I collected baseball cards and worked at a pizza place,” Faustino said.

  “I said the kid was smart, I didn’t say anything about you. What makes you think he’s wrapped up in your Wall of Weird?”

  Faustino nodded toward the diner down the street and told him about Flack’s body, found in the alley back in ’87.

  “Well, that’s thin.”

  “Like you said, I’m not that smart.”

  Horton nodded up at the apartment building. “They’ve got a small arsenal up there. At least six weapons registered to the father, probably more that aren’t in the system. Bellino had a switchblade on him when he got picked up for shoplifting.”

  The small speaker crackled in Faustino’s ear as someone from the van broke into the channel. “We found Bellino, spotted him in a window. The Gargery apartment on the third floor.”

  “Who’s Gargery?”

  Horton turned the page on his newspaper. “Forty-year-old waitress. She worked at your favorite diner down the street there, until some kind of cancer got hold of her. Aside from doctor visits, she doesn’t get out much. She’s got a nephew taking care of her. Looks like the nephew and Bellino might be working together. We think Bellino figured out his place is being monitored, so he’s running his business out of the Gargery apartment one floor up.”

  “What’s the nephew’s name?”

  “John Edward Thatch. Bellino calls him Jack. Sixteen years old, clean sheet.”

  “No audio on the Gargery apartment?”

  Horton shook his head. “Judge wouldn’t sign off. Won’t even let us watch Thatch outside the building because he’s a minor. It’s killing me, because we know he’s involved. Right before you got here, he bolted from the diner—he works in the kitchen—ran into the apartment building for a few minutes, then back out again. We’re not supposed to, but I had one of my guys tail him, anyway. He ran off into the cemetery, of all places. We had to drop back—too easy to get spotted in there.”

  Faustino thought about this for a second. “So maybe this Thatch kid is working as some kind of go-between for Bellino and Crocket?”

  “That’s the theory. Crocket knows not to get his hands dirty. He’s teaching Bellino the fine art of dealing so he keeps himself insulated, and Thatch is making some side money as a go-between.” Horton lowered his voice. “Remember how I said the aunt has cancer? She doesn’t have insurance, and her nephew has been footing the bills in cash—he’s not making that kind of money washing dishes.”

  The radio crackled again. “Tall and Lanky, coming back out the front.”

  Faustino fought the urge to look at the front of the apartment building and instead kept his eyes on his paperback. He caught the words There's nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't run from anything. He doesn't fear.

  Beside him, Horton peered at the newspaper. More accurately, peered through the newspaper. He hadn’t noticed the small hole in the fold when Horton first pretended to read. Horton spoke softly. “This guy showed up right after Thatch ran off. Doesn’t live in the building, and we haven’t seen him around the neighborhood.”

  “Somebody new on Crocket’s crew?”

  “Maybe.”

  Without averting his gaze, Faustino watched the man push through the apartment building door and out onto the sidewalk. He pulled a pair of mirrored sunglasses from his breast pocket and slipped them on, drew a deep breath, and smiled, before turning left and starting down the sidewalk.

  Before Horton could object, Faustino stood and started after the man, following about ten feet behind on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

  8

  The cobblestone path weaved through the most beautiful garden I had ever seen.

  Stella somehow managed to stay a few steps ahead of me. Her vanilla scent drifted through the air. She hummed a tune I didn’t recognize as she strolled along, something familiar, but like her, the name remained just out of reach. The heels of her shoes clicked along on the stone, and when I caught myself staring at the back of her legs below the hem of her black dress, I had to look away. To watch her was maddening. All rational thought left me with my eyes on her. This girl, this unbelievably beautiful girl. When she turned the corner a few paces ahead of me and disa
ppeared from view, I should have welcomed the reprieve. I didn’t though. Instead, I sped up, that vanilla scent tugging me along.

  On either side of me, two others dressed in white coats rolled around the trunks of a pair of sycamores, keeping the trees between us.

  9

  Tall and Lanky had dirty blond hair, slightly ruffled, probably a month or so from its last cut. He wore brown loafers, dark denim jeans, and a pea-green jacket even though it was warm enough to go without. Although still across the street, Faustino recognized the slight bulge under the left shoulder and knew the man carried a gun. Something in the swing of the arms always gave it away. Faustino figured him to be a little under six feet tall. Probably in his mid-forties, tough to gauge. He only caught glimpses of the man’s face.

  Tall and Lanky was careful—he stopped about every other block to peer into random shop windows and study those walking both ahead and behind—a skilled behavior, willing to take time, patient. When the man turned right on Willock Road and disappeared from sight, Faustino cursed, quickened his pace, and darted across Brownsville amid the slow-moving traffic, narrowly avoiding a kid in a suped-up Mustang lost to his own blaring music.

  Willock Road crossed Brownsville at a steep hill, and it wasn’t until Faustino reached the peak at the corner that he picked up the man again, just in time to see him drop into the driver’s seat of a black Pontiac GTO parked on the west side of the road. The door swung shut with a defiant thud, followed by the guttural roar of the engine.

  No longer worried about being seen, Faustino quickened his pace. He pushed past a man in his thirties walking a Siberian Husky along the sidewalk and managed to catch the license plate of the GTO as the car jutted out into traffic and disappeared over the next hill, leaving nothing but the haze of exhaust behind.

  10

  “Hurry now, Pip. You mustn’t keep a girl waiting!”

  I followed the cobblestone path through the thickening trees, this growing forest hidden away on a property larger than my entire block. At some point, I noticed that we lost the sun and my way was lit by tiny white twinkle lights strung through the heavy branches above, artificial stars set in the night sky.

  The cobblestone path came to an abrupt end at the edge of a flagstone patio, at the center of which was a dark blue pool. The lights from the path continued over the water—long strands twisting together in seemingly random patterns from one edge of the patio to the next, creating a canopy of light. The water shimmered beneath, rippling and shuddering at the touch of a thin breeze. The pool itself didn’t look like a pool at all but appeared to be carved from the stone, more of a natural accident than a man-made wonder.

  A pool house occupied the opposite side, a single lamp burning from somewhere within, the windows glowing with the light.

  A man and a woman in white stood motionless at the pool house. I counted four others in the trees.

  Stella stood at the water’s edge, her back to me, her skin pale in the artificial moonlight. “You smell atrocious, my dear Pip. Wash yourself.”

  “What?”

  She shifted her weight from her left foot to her right and let out a sigh. “Bathe. Clean. Scrub. Do whatever you must to rid yourself of that godawful odor.”

  Stella crouched down, removed her right glove, and slipped her fingers into the water, rolling them through it. “It’s quite warm.”

  “I’m not gonna—”

  “Are you bashful, Pip? Have you never been naked in front of a girl?”

  The truth was, I hadn’t. There was a girl about a year ago at a party out at the old steel mill on Church Road, Missy Wiedeman. I knew her from school, but we hadn’t really talked much. The two of us somehow got paired up in a dark closet during a game of Sixty-Seconds while Dunk was trying to hook up with Carla Bieder, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Dunk stole from his father flowing between the four of us. This particular game was one of Dunk’s favorites because it usually took all of five minutes for everyone to get drunk enough to head on off into the dark. I would describe the experience as intensely awkward. I tried to find her mouth, but instead my lips landed on her nose. We tumbled out of the closet having gotten nowhere, and both opted to drink rather than revisit the dark room for the rest of the night. The spectacular hangover on Sunday morning was a fitting underscore to my own, well, under-score.

  I saw Missy in school the following week. We nodded an awkward hello. She moved to Philly with her family about a month after that.

  Stella tilted her head, a thin smile playing at her lips. “Not even your friend, Gerdy?”

  “How do you know about Gerdy?”

  “It’s okay, Pip. You and I only see each other once per year. She may have your body. I understand you have needs. Boys your age are built of those needs.” A gloved finger twisted through the curls of her long, brown hair. “Your heart belongs to me, though. I think we both know that, don’t we, Pip?”

  “Plenty of girls have seen me naked,” I blurted out, knowing it sounded as false as it was.

  “The fragrant scent of stale diner draws them in, I suppose.” Her gloved finger found her bottom lip, traced the edge. “Please, Pip, wash.”

  I looked past her to the two figures in white standing at the pool house, the others in the trees, those silent eyes, all on us. I tried to move, but my arms and legs simply wouldn’t.

  Stella let out a sigh and crossed the stone to a lounge chair at the pool’s edge. She turned toward the water, her back to me. “My little Pip. So wondrously bashful.”

  She reached behind and tugged at the zipper of her dress, pulling it down to the small of her back. The black material fell away, dropping from her shoulders to her arms, to the stone at her feet. Stella stood there for a moment in only a black bra and matching panties, a statue of perfectly smooth, white skin bathed in moonlight, highlighted by the soft twinkle of the lights strung above. She stepped out of the dress and raised first her left foot, then her right, removing her heels. Stella peeled away her remaining glove, and without looking back at me, dove into the water, breaking the surface with the agility of a knife through butter.

  The pool was shallow on this end, no more than four or five feet. She adjusted for the depth with practiced ease, cutting through to the bottom. She twisted parallel at the floor, the kicks of her slender legs propelling her from one end of the water to the other. She resurfaced on the opposite end of the pool, turned, and smiled back at me, saying nothing.

  I kicked off my shoes and peeled my filthy shirt over my head with absolutely none of the grace Stella had shown. I nearly fell over trying to get my jeans off. She giggled and laughed through all of this, one arm on the stone edge of the pool, holding her above the surface, while her legs fluttered beneath the water. I kept my boxers on, walked past her pile of clothes, and jumped awkwardly into the water. I dropped like a rock, and when my feet touched the bottom, I pushed back off and broke the surface. The pool was only about five feet deep where I stood, just shallow enough so I could keep my head above water. The temperature was warm, warmer than the night air. Water had gotten into my ears and nose, and I shook my head in an attempt to rid myself of it.

  Stella watched me curiously from the other side of the pool, the deep end, smiling but saying nothing.

  I looked out across the water to her. I tried to walk closer, but within another foot, my head was barely above the surface. “I can’t swim.”

  “No?”

  “My aunt enrolled me in summer swim camp once. I think I was around nine or ten, but I never got the hang of it. I went three times and gave up. Not much need for swimming around here. It’s not like we live near the ocean or anything.”

  “But wouldn’t you like to travel to the ocean one day?”

  “I like it here.”

  “You don’t desire to see the world? Visit far-off places? Discover new things?”

  I shrugged. “My friends are here. I have my aunt, my job. Maybe one day. I don’t know.”

  Our words picked up a str
ange echo from the water, reverberating through the distance that separated us, the softest whisper as loud as a shout.

  “Would you follow me to the ocean? If I went?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “A question for a question, Pip? I wonder where you learned such a thing.”

  “I think I would.”

  “What?”

  “Follow you.”

  “And leave your aunt behind? Your friends? That job you seem to love so?”

  I replied, “Not today, but someday.”

  “You can spend a lifetime waiting for ‘someday’ to arrive. Ask your aunt if she ever saw her ‘someday’…” Stella pushed the damp hair from her eyes. “You’ll spend your life in this town, in that little diner. You’ll never climb a mountain or explore a dark cave. You’ll never walk the streets of Paris or even visit New York—the largest metropolis, only a few hours away, yet an impossible journey for a boy like you. You’ll blink your eyes, and when you open them you’ll find yourself sitting on a rocking chair at some retirement home right here in Pennsylvania with a lifetime behind you and your ‘someday’ nothing more than a distant mirage, hazy at best. This town is filled with the likes of you.”

  “If I’m so ordinary, why am I here right now?”

  “Because it’s our day, don’t you think? Do we need another reason?” Stella placed both hands on the edge of the pool behind her, faced the sky, and floated on her back. The water glistened on her exposed flesh, the black material of her underwear shimmering, her knees slightly bent.

  I took a step closer. The waterline now at my chin. “Why do you send me money?”

  “I believe I’ve told you before, I don’t.”

  “I know it’s you.”

  “Why would I do such a thing?”

  I looked around the large yard, the pool, the lights of the house looming behind us through the trees. “I don’t know, maybe some kind of charity thing.”