Tough Lessons

by Chris Freeman

  He would lie to his son. He had done it before and he would do it again, for there was nothing to be gained right now by telling him the truth. He didn’t like doing it but he could see no good reason to tell Yomi he was meeting Brigitte that evening. Life with his son was difficult enough right now without any additional complication.

  Brigitte was going to be mad at him. He was over half an hour late and he had still not reached her apartment. Joseph had never made up the time he lost getting the cab back on the road. He’d have called ahead but the power light on his mobile had blinked its last half an hour ago and then expired, along with the battery. He’d charged it fully the night before, so it looked like here was another thing that was in need of repair. When life’s really got it in for you, thought Joseph, your troubles come in multitudes.

  He had been looking forward to tonight though. It was going to be only a couple of hours in her company but that was something, a relief from the daily grind. He remembered their agreement, their pact to keep it a secret. She had said it would be all right as long as no one else knew and he had readily agreed. Throughout the course of a long and stressful day, he periodically remembered he would soon be seeing her and been surprised by how much he was looking forward to it.

  7

  Brigitte was in the moment, mind entirely concentrated on the act. Joseph watched her now and she hardly noticed when a single, unruly lock of her hair broke loose and tumbled down over her forehead. Oblivious, her eyes narrowed and her mouth opened to form a perfect letter O as she let her breath out in a shallow gasp, took in another, then held it. She stretched her arms out in front of her.

  Brigitte’s grip on the gun was too tight, and it caused her hand to tremble. She forced herself to ease it, adjusted her stance, and bit her bottom lip hard as she aimed her weapon at the mugger.

  “Do it,” urged Joseph, and Brigitte obeyed, squeezing the trigger and then bracing herself for the recoil as the automatic pistol fired and sent a bullet straight into the mugger’s chest. Brigitte rocked back on her heels slightly but rode the recoil and Joseph watched as the mugger came toward them at speed.

  Brigitte calmly placed the gun down on the table in front of her. The paper target, with the scowling face of a criminal etched onto it, was propelled along on a backboard attached to a mechanized pulley that hung down from the roof. It pulled up abruptly just over the table and Joseph reached out and grabbed it. They both peered at the damage Brigitte’s six shots had inflicted. “Not bad,” he said approvingly. “Remind me never to have a disagreement with you.” There were distinct holes in the mugger’s chest, shoulder, stomach, and left cheek and, with one shot, Brigitte had parted his hair. The sixth had gone wide of the mark but she was clearly making progress. She seemed happy and there was something undeniably cathartic about pumping bullets into a paper target that represented the asshole who knocked you to the ground and stole your stuff.

  “Is he dead?” she asked dryly.

  “I’d say he’s robbed his last grandma, wouldn’t you?”

  Brigitte nodded. “Good.” She said it firmly, satisfied by her newfound marksmanship.

  “Careful you don’t turn into Charles Bronson.”

  “I would never have dreamed of owning a gun before,” she admitted. “But having a .38 pushed into your face makes you rethink your stance on life and criminals.”

  Brigitte had her car jacked from an underground car park at her friend’s apartment block and she’d been understandably traumatized by the experience. The police told her the mugger had probably been waiting some time until a vulnerable female victim came along. As soon as she opened the car door, he had come out of nowhere. She freely admitted she had not heard or seen a thing before he was at her side. The guy had pulled a gun, ordering her to cooperate and cautioning her not to scream for help. He had torn the handbag from her arm before climbing into Brigitte’s car and tearing out of the car park in it at speed. The last thing she saw was the thin wooden exit barrier being obliterated by her Mazda as it careered through without stopping.

  “I do know what you mean,” said Joseph. “I’ve been shot at and the last thing in my mind right then was whether the guy had a good start in life or if he should be given a second chance by society. You shoot back and worry about it later, pure and simple, and you can’t aim to wound. It’s not possible. You hit him in the chest and if he happens to still be breathing afterward then that’s fine, but in the heat of the moment it’s you or him.”

  “And it’s not going to be me again,” she promised.

  Joseph had known many victims of crime. Guilt, shame, and feelings of inadequacy were commonplace among them. They tended to constantly question whether they could have done more to prevent their attack taking place, not realizing they were simply the victims of experienced professional villains.

  “I tell you, Joseph, if I ever see that guy again, I won’t be looking to wound him.”

  “You are gonna hate me for saying this, Brigitte, but in many ways you were lucky.”

  She shot him an angry look.

  “Think about it; you weren’t seriously injured, you could have been killed or raped. All he took was your handbag and your car. The credit cards are covered, and so is the Mazda. I’m not saying you’ve got to be happy about it but…”

  “It could have been worse, I know. It’s just…” She didn’t have to explain further. The frustration of being a victim with no recourse to justice, no chance to avenge, well, he knew that feeling more than she would ever know. Right now, she needed the sense of power and safety a gun afforded her. She had pleaded with him to teach her how to shoot. Joseph had plenty of experience with guns from his time in Lagos, so, a little reluctantly at first, he had agreed to take her to the range and show her what he knew. He realized there was a certain irony in teaching Brigitte how to become proficient with a gun the day after he had torn into his son for carrying a knife.

  The sessions on the range had been surprisingly enjoyable. It had been satisfying to pass on his expertise and she was a willing pupil. She looked good, too, having changed into jeans and a T-shirt before they left her apartment. She had even asked him, “How do I look?”

  “Good,” he’d told her. “It suits you,” and it did, but not as much as the tight, latex vest top showing off Brigitte’s ample curves. Stop thinking like that, Joseph, he told himself.

  “Since you taught me how to shoot up the bad guys, I guess I owe you a cup of coffee.”

  “I ought to be going really. I’m supposed to be meeting up with Eddie.”

  “That the old cop you told me about?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “How come you two are such buddies, anyhow?”

  He took a while to answer her, wondering how to explain their friendship, founded as it was on tragedy and shared loss. “His wife died some time back. I guess we have that in common.” As he said this, Brigitte instinctively stretched out her arm, placed her hand on his shoulder, and squeezed it. The gesture had been an entirely natural one for her. It was meant to convey support, but it made Joseph feel immediately uncomfortable in a way he would have struggled to explain. Perhaps it was a form of guilt that his reward for admitting to the loneliness of widowhood was the physical touch of another woman. He knew it wasn’t Brigitte’s fault. She had a kind heart, but something prevented him from enjoying her touch. He deliberately made the rest of his explanation more mundane. “We play chess, drink a little whiskey. Not too much,” he added quickly. “Mostly we just talk but he’s not so good in the kitchen so he has dinner with us from time to time.”

  “It’s nice of you to cook for him like that.”

  “Eddie’s a good neighbor. He takes Yomi for me when I need it. He’s looking after him right now as a matter of fact.”

  “Then I won’t keep you long, just one cup of coffee,” she said before adding, “Does anybody ever cook for you, Joseph?”

  “Not really.”


  “Then maybe I will one day.”

  Joseph hesitated for a moment before answering. “That’d be nice,” he managed to say, but he knew something was making him hold back. There was no doubt Brigitte was an attractive woman. It wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed him noticing. She didn’t seem to mind. Apara had been gone two years now but somehow he still wasn’t quite ready for more than friendship with this attractive teacher and he couldn’t exactly explain why, not even to himself. “You can bring Yomi, too, of course,” she said quickly, turning it back into a nondate, and then she took her hand away.

  “Thanks,” he said, but he did not press her to name the day.

  They were on a nondate already. This was their fourth trip to the shooting gallery. He justified teaching her lethal force because it made her feel better and he knew she would have gone off and bought a weapon anyway, even without his help. If there was one thing scarier than Brigitte with a gun, it was Brigitte with a gun she didn’t know how to use.

  They took their coffee at the diner across the street. Like a lot of places in the South Bronx that wasn’t either a chain or a franchise, it was crumbling and weather-beaten, with not enough cash left over from the day’s takings to put any aside for refurbishment. It was one of those old-fashioned places with walls painted ketchup red, chrome on the edge of every table and countertop, and little, individual jukeboxes for each customer. The place was probably created with young couples in mind, the kind who share fries and a burger and then slot the last of their dimes into the jukebox so it can play a song they are convinced has been written about them. The short-order chef had a tiny white hat made of card that matched his apron and the waitress wore a skirt way too short for her advancing years. She greeted them with a forced cheeriness.

  “Hi there, welcome to Lacey’s Diner. What can I get you guys today?” she asked and then proceeded to go through all of the specials before they had any opportunity to interrupt her. She recited the whole list by rote, like an actress who has been playing the same part on Broadway for way too many performances. She still knew all of her lines, but any enthusiasm she might once have had for the part had long since died.

  “Er…just coffee, please,” he told her when she was finally done.

  The waitress failed to hide her disappointment and sauntered away to fetch the percolator.

  “I keep thinking about Jermaine Letts,” said Brigitte when their coffee was finally poured. “Being led away in handcuffs like that in front of everybody.”

  “Do you think he did it?” asked Joseph, taking a sip and realizing his coffee was almost cold already.

  “Killed Hernando, truthfully?” She seemed to be mulling the idea over. “I don’t know but the police seem to think he did.”

  “You said he had gang links?”

  “Through his family.” She nodded. “And he’s been in trouble before. Last year he stole a computer console, or at least everybody says it was him. I guess he was boasting about it to his friends. The police heard something about it and they took his prints but they couldn’t pin that one on him. No proof. Jermaine’s an older boy whose been kept back a year. He shouldn’t even be at school. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was in a gang.”

  “What makes the police so sure it was Jermaine who stabbed Hernando Lopez?”

  “They’re not saying much,” answered Brigitte in hushed tones, “but it seems Hernando was killed by the knife he took from that boy in class. It turns out that boy was Jermaine. Since they already had his prints on file, I guess it won’t be too hard for the police to get a match.”

  And why did Jermaine have a knife in the first place, thought Joseph. Because he took it off my son. Trying to do a good deed for once and look where it had got him. Joseph told himself he was probably being naive. He didn’t really know Jermaine Letts at all, except by reputation as a school football player. He had only Eddie’s character reference to go on and the fact that Yomi respected the older boy, but his son’s values were a little messed up right now and the old cop could easily have been wrong about the youngster he’d watched grow up. Jermaine would not be the first kid to lose his way and ruin his life before it had even begun.

  Joseph had been thinking about the stabbing of Hernando Lopez a lot lately, more so now that he knew his son’s knife was the murder weapon. He couldn’t help himself and it wasn’t just old-fashioned professional curiosity. He dreaded the day the police called to ask him if he knew anything about his son owning the knife that caused Lopez’s death. Why should Jermaine not answer truthfully when asked where he got the knife from? “There is one aspect to this killing that I can’t quite understand,” he told her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that Hernando Lopez locked himself in his classroom only to bleed to death like that?”

  “Maybe,” she said uncertainly. “I’ve been trying not to think about it, if I’m honest. I guess he was trying to protect himself from his attacker.”

  “Possibly, but there comes a point when you know you’ve got to get out of there. Think about it, he had no mobile phone, he’s in urgent need of medical assistance, he’s bleeding badly…”

  Brigitte pulled a face like she really didn’t want to contemplate the grim fate of poor Hernando any further but she said, “Perhaps he didn’t realize. How close he was to death, I mean. The knife could have struck an artery.”

  “It’s possible, I suppose,” he conceded, though he doubted it very much. He didn’t want to explain to Brigitte that if the knife had severed an artery there would have been a whole lot more blood at the scene. It would have been everywhere and could have even hit the ceiling. “But if it did take a while, do you think his killer really stood outside the door all that time watching Lopez bleed to death through the window? Particularly when the first instinct of most people would have been to get the hell out of there before they were discovered. That would be one cold-blooded SOB and I wouldn’t have thought a fourteen-year-old…”

  “I’m not sure I want to contemplate that right now.”

  “Okay, but what would you do in his shoes? You’ve just been stabbed, you need help, what would you do?”

  “I don’t know.” Her forehead creased into a frown. “I see what you mean about him locking himself in like that. It is a little strange, but I can’t see how else it could have happened. It’s not as if anybody left through the window. They open only a little way to let in air. They are specifically designed to prevent students from jumping through them or throwing anyone else out.”

  “Someone else could have locked the door and left him to die in there. Maybe he wasn’t trying to lock himself in. Perhaps he was trying to get out.”

  “I see where you are going with, but that’s just not possible. There are only three sets of keys to those classrooms. The principal has one, which I assume he leant to Hernando so he could work late on his marking. That’s not uncommon by the way. I’ve borrowed keys when I’ve been marking tests. Ardo, the janitor, has a set, and the master keys are kept in the school safe.”

  “Could anybody have got access to the master set?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “What about borrowing the keys from Decker and cutting a new set?”

  “Not that easy, I’m afraid. You need a certificate to get those kind of keys cut. It’s illegal otherwise.”

  “Illegal but not impossible. When you borrowed keys from Decker in the past. Did you get to keep them overnight? I’m assuming you must. Otherwise, you couldn’t lock up the school.”

  “Yes, overnight, yeah,” she admitted a little defensively, “but could you go easy on the questions please, Joseph? I’m starting to feel like a suspect here.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I guess old habits die hard.”

  “I guess they do. You know, it’s funny, when I first met you it never crossed my mind you might have been a cop but once you told me it
all kind of made sense.”

  “Really, how so?”

  “The analytical mind, always looking at things from different angles, questioning everything. You like to get to the bottom of stuff, find out how people tick. You do it with me sometimes.”

  “Do I?” He was genuinely surprised. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s okay.” She smiled at him. “I mean, I don’t have to tell you anything I don’t want to, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “A girl’s gotta keep some mystery.” She drained her coffee cup, then said, “Just remember, though, Detective Soyinka, that sometimes, as folk are fond of saying round these parts, shit just happens. There’s no explanation, no great profound mystery. It just occurs for no great reason we can see and we have to live with it.”

  “Fair point,” he conceded, but he was far from convinced. Joseph knew too much about human nature to go along with that notion.

  “It’s like the gang thing,” continued Brigitte. “They have their own subculture, their own rules that we don’t always get.”

  “You know much about these gangs I keep hearing about?” he asked.

  “Joseph, I’m a junior high school teacher…”

  “Yeah, stupid question, sorry.” How could she know about such matters, he reasoned?

  “You don’t understand. I’m a junior high school teacher. Of course, I know about the gangs. I could practically write my doctorate on the subject. Hell, I could go and teach a class on gangs at Yale. Maybe I will. Got to be better money. I could be Professor of Homeys with a fellowship in dissing.” He was laughing along with her now. “I see gang culture every time I walk through the front door of the school.”