Tear It Down

by Nick Petrie

  Peter couldn’t tell if Brody was making a joke or stating a fact. “I didn’t see the point in making it easier for you,” he said. “I know you want him, but I saw him first.”

  “I already got him,” said Brody. “And it’s King who wants him. Wants you, too, truth be told.”

  He opened his hand to drop the guitar. As it began to fall, Peter stepped left with his arm extended and hooked a finger behind the rusted metal bracket. Chester’s automatic dropped into his hand, a round already in the chamber. Peter had the muzzle aimed at Brody’s chest before the guitar hit the grass. Brody’s hand was deep inside his jacket.

  “Stop.” Peter’s voice held the crack of command.

  The big man stopped. The kid still kicked and swung like some kind of toy, his weight seemingly irrelevant. The kid’s free hand was frozen in his back pocket, too.

  “Nice and easy, Brody. Two fingers, please.”

  Brody’s hand opened slowly inside his jacket and he brought out his weapon with just his thumb and forefinger on the grip. His other three fingers curled upward like he was taking afternoon tea. Brody’s big mitt made the gun look like a toy. But it wasn’t.

  “Now throw it into the grass.”

  “King owns this boy for what he’s done,” Brody said. “I can’t just give him up.”

  “If I shoot you in the chest, you’ll give him up for sure.”

  Brody nodded, a grudging acknowledgment of that basic fact. But he didn’t throw away the gun.

  “I could always shoot you in the leg,” Peter said pleasantly. “Or let the kid shoot you a few times wherever he feels like it. I’m pretty sure he’s got a crappy little revolver in his pocket.”

  Brody snapped his head over to look at the kid, who pulled out the rusty little snub-nose and pointed it awkwardly across his body at the big man. Not an easy move when you were hanging by one arm.

  “Kid’s better than he looks,” Peter said. He was very aware of the clock ticking. Of Saint James, and the bartenders, and Wanda inside. “Both of you, throw away the damn guns and we’ll figure this out.”

  The kid set his jaw. “I ain’t giving up my gun.”

  He was scared and sweating, a boy caught up in a deadly game, and in no position to bargain. But still hanging tough and thinking furiously. This kid was something else.

  Which kid was he, Peter wondered. The smart, desperate kid who’d stolen Peter’s truck at gunpoint? The guitar player who made such rich and haunting music? The cool cucumber who’d managed that oh-so-casual escape from the club? The boy now hanging, helpless but defiant, from the big leg-breaker’s grip? All of the above? Or someone else entirely?

  “Just put it back in your pocket,” said Peter. “Don’t shoot anybody, either.”

  The kid put the revolver back in his pocket.

  “Brody,” Peter said. “Your turn.”

  The big man flicked his hand and the gun flew away into the darkness. “I’m not putting him down. He’s just gonna run.”

  “No, he won’t,” Peter said. “He’ll come with me.”

  The kid’s shirt was damp with sweat. “Why would I go with you, Saltine?”

  “If you go with Brody, they’ll hurt you. Break all your fingers, wreck your hands, smash your elbows. Set some kind of example. You’ll never play guitar again, and that’s if they don’t just kill you outright.”

  Brody’s face showed nothing.

  But the kid’s eyes were lit with fear and desperation now. He’d carried that thought as a secret in his head, but hearing it spoken aloud made it real. He struggled harder, the tips of his tattered sneakers barely brushing against the blades of the tall grass. Brody didn’t seem to notice or care.

  “On the other hand,” said Peter, “if you come with me, all I want is my truck back. You keep your gun and whatever else you’ve got. Live to fight another day.”

  Wanda came out the back door, her camera bag in one hand and a fresh drink in the other. Her eyelids drooped. “I thought you went to the bathroom.”

  Then she saw Brody holding the kid, and Peter holding the gun. “Aw, hell.”

  “Hey, Wanda.”

  “Brody. I hope you know I’m not a part of this.”

  “King ain’t gonna care,” Brody said. “You know how he is.”

  Peter said, “Wanda, please go get the car.” She was in no condition to drive, but Peter was in no position to complain.

  Wanda tightened her lips. “You are just a goddamn shit magnet, aren’t you, Peter Ash?”

  Then she walked behind him, out of the line of fire, trying hard not to spill her drink as she rounded the corner of the building. Heading, Peter hoped, for the Land Cruiser.

  He wondered if she’d come back for him, or just drive away.

  31

  Where’s King Robbie?” Peter asked.

  Brody considered for a moment before answering. Peter got the impression Brody considered everything.

  “At his place on the river,” said the big man finally. “With an ounce of uncut product and a couple of girls.”

  “And you’re here, doing the heavy lifting. How’d you know the kid would be at this place?”

  “Educated guess. Plus King owns the club.” Brody looked at the young man still dangling by one arm. “King owns a lot of things.”

  The big man was thick, but he also had to be extremely strong to hold the struggling kid up in the air for so long. Even that skinny string bean had to weigh 120 pounds or more, especially wriggling like a freshly caught fish. Brody held the kid with no visible strain.

  Although he probably wouldn’t show the effort, no matter how much it took.

  “How about you,” said Peter. “He own you, too?”

  “I take his money, I do what he says.”

  Peter nodded. It was a good answer. “What if he were dead?”

  “What are you asking?”

  “I’m trying to get this kid out of trouble.”

  “This kid who stole your truck.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Peter said. “But what if King were dead?”

  “He’s not. I do what he says.”

  Peter nodded again. “Where’s Charlene?”

  “Around.”

  “If she were here, I’d be dead already.”

  Now Brody nodded.

  “She’s watching the house?”

  Brody didn’t answer.

  Peter heard an engine start up. He hoped it was the Land Cruiser. “Better give me your phone, too. I don’t want you calling for help.”

  Brody shook his head.

  “You’d give up your gun but not your phone?”

  Brody gave the hint of a shrug. “It’s my phone.”

  “You’d let me shoot you over your phone?”

  “I like the pictures,” Brody said. “Besides, if you were gonna shoot me, you’d have done it already.”

  It was the problem with not shooting someone right off the bat, Peter thought. They stopped believing you’d shoot them at all.

  This was often Lewis’s argument for killing people right away.

  Peter saw a large rectangular outline in Brody’s right-front pocket, and a smaller outline in his left-front pocket. “Looks like you’ve got two phones.” He pointed the gun at the larger rectangle. “I’ll shoot the big one first,” he said. “That’s probably your personal phone. Lose your pictures, and you’ll never walk right again. All with one bullet.”

  Brody just looked at him.

  Peter raised the 1911 and snapped a shot past Brody’s ear.

  Brody didn’t even twitch. His face was empty. He looked again at the kid still dangling by one arm.

  “I’ll toss them into the grass,” he finally said. “Not far enough to break them. But it’ll take me a while to find them.”

  “Just shoot him,” the kid
said. “I’ll give you your damn truck back. I’ve still got it.”

  “Shut up.” Brody gave the kid a shake, a Rottweiler with a kitten. Peter heard the kid’s teeth clack together like castanets. “The grown-ups are talking.”

  The Land Cruiser lurched around the corner, Wanda behind the wheel. She leaned out of her seat to open the back door.

  “Your phones,” said Peter.

  Brody fished them out of his pockets and skimmed them into the night.

  Peter held out his hand. “Now the kid.”

  The big man lowered the boy to the ground, but kept him close with that heavy hand on the boy’s bicep. Peter wasn’t going to make Mad Chester’s mistake. He wasn’t going to get anywhere near Brody’s powerful arms.

  “I can still shoot either one of you,” said Peter. “Or both. Come on, Brody, lengthen the leash. Kid, reach out your hand.”

  Brody extended his arm and the kid put his free arm out. Peter was almost eight feet from the big man when he clamped his fingers around the kid’s thin wrist. Far enough.

  Brody let him go.

  As Peter pulled the kid past him, the gun still on Brody, the boy scooped up the ruined remains of his guitar one-handed. Peter crab-walked to the Land Cruiser, the gun still on Brody, moving the kid ahead of him. The kid didn’t resist. He climbed into the car with Peter’s grip tight on his wrist. “Put the window down,” said Peter. “Then scoot over.”

  The kid put the shattered guitar on the seat, turned the crank with his free hand, then slid over to make room, gathering the guitar up on his lap.

  Peter got in after him, then put his gun through the open window of the open door.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Wanda hit the gas. The acceleration closed the door, but Peter kept the gun on Brody through the open window the whole time.

  The Toyota bounced through the tall grass, then over the curb. Through the back window, Peter saw Brody staring after them.

  As Wanda turned down the road and away, Brody bent down and began to search for his phones and his gun.

  32

  The skinny kid looked at Peter, his eyes wide. “You should’ve killed him. You know he’d have killed you.”

  Peter hated that the logic of gangster Memphis was the same as the logic of the Middle East. “I’d rather not kill anybody if I can help it.”

  “They’re coming after us all now. I hope you know what you’re doing, Saltine.”

  “I’m saving your life, kid. If you behave.”

  The young man’s face was hollow in the darkness of the back seat. “I’m dead no matter what. You’re just drawing out my time.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” Peter said. “Where’s my truck?”

  The kid looked out the window at the passing streets. “Not far. Not a scratch on it, neither.”

  “Good.” Peter still had one big knuckly hand wrapped around the boy’s thin wrist. “Now give me the gun. Slowly, please.”

  The kid frowned. Peter could see the gears turning behind his eyes. “Thought I was keeping the gun.”

  “I lied.” Peter smiled. “I might reconsider if you aren’t a pain in the ass.”

  The kid wasn’t happy about it, but he leaned slowly sideways, the ruined guitar staying on his tilted lap as if of its own volition. When he extracted the little snub-nose from his back pocket, he used his thumb and forefinger, just like Brody had done, and held it out. A fast learner.

  “On the floor, by my feet.” The kid gave the gun a little flip and it dropped into Peter’s footwell.

  Wanda glanced over her shoulder. She wasn’t driving fast, but she wasn’t all over the road, either. Her double vodka rocks sloshed slightly in an aftermarket cup holder that hung from a heat vent. “Where am I going?”

  “This way’s good,” said the kid. “Left on Thomas.”

  “How old are you?” Peter was curious.

  “None of your damn business.”

  “What’s your name?”

  For some reason, this was even more outrageous. “Man, why the fuck you want to know my name?”

  “I can’t keep calling you Kid. You do have a name, right?”

  The kid rolled his eyes in an eloquent statement. “Ellison,” he said. “Ellison Bell.” Then his face went still, as if he’d suddenly walked across a fresh grave. He turned back to the window. “But nobody calls me Ellison no more. You call me Eli.”

  “Okay, Eli. I’m Peter. What’d you do to get yourself in this kind of trouble?”

  Eli shook his head, the sheen of sorrow and desperation worse now than ever. He seemed to be shrinking into himself. He pulled the shattered remnants of his guitar close to his chest. His voice seemed to come from far away.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You did something. What was it?”

  “Robbed a jewelry store up at the mall.”

  “That was you?” Wanda’s voice came sharp from the front seat. “People died.”

  Eli nodded. “I didn’t start it, and I didn’t kill nobody. But I did what I did.” He took in a long breath, then let it out. “When it went bad, I was the only one walked away. But I don’t know why King wants me so bad. We were way outside his turf.”

  “That’s what’s in the garbage bag,” said Peter. “The stuff from the jewelry store.”

  Eli nodded again. He seemed even smaller now. “My friend was going to help us sell it. The news says only two dead, but I’m pretty sure he’s dead, too. I thought I could sell it to King Robbie, but he’s got every crew out looking for me. He’s just gonna take it, then probably kill me.” To Wanda, he said, “This is Thomas up here.”

  She turned left onto a four-lane street. Nameless gas stations and untended apartment buildings and vacant lots with cracked cement steps leading from the sidewalk up to unmown grass.

  “You could give yourself up to the police,” Peter said.

  Eli shook his head. “It’s manslaughter, what I did. Looked it up on my phone. Armed robbery resulting in a death. They try me as an adult, I get ten years in state prison. King Robbie can have me killed there just as easy. Maybe easier, ’cause he’d know where to find me. But he’ll prob’ly just get it done while I’m sitting in the county jail. He’s got people everywhere.”

  Peter didn’t want to think about how this young kid knew so much. How he could foresee his own death with such clarity.

  He released Eli’s arm. “You got any people to take you in?”

  Eli shook his head again. “All my people are dead or gone.” He rubbed his wrist, then massaged the bicep where Brody had held him. There would be broken blood vessels, a dark band of bruises forming under his blue-black skin, although it was too dim in the car to see. The muscle would hurt for days.

  If Eli lived that long.

  They passed a chicken joint, a church, a funeral parlor. Boarded-up businesses. The night air through the open windows was thick with humidity, and the same temperature as skin.

  Wanda said, “You any relation to Isaac Bell?”

  Eli blinked. “That’s my pops. He’s up at Henning, got three life sentences. But he can’t protect me in there, not from King Robbie.”

  Peter pointed at the ruined guitar. “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

  Eli took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Seems like I always knew, like I was born with it in my hands or something. My mom and pops always had music playing when I was little. I practically grew up at that joint, the Lucky Lounge. My pops used to own it.”

  Over her shoulder, Wanda said, “You know who Eli’s father is? Isaac Bell ran the Memphis drug trade before King Robbie. Everything from trap houses to local distribution to moving bulk from New Orleans to Chicago. Total vertical integration. Only reason he got caught is a series of anonymous calls to the police tip line. There was supposed to be a big payout
if a tip led to a conviction, but nobody ever claimed the reward.”

  The kid leaned forward. “Is that what happened?” he asked. “Somebody tipped off the police? And didn’t even claim the reward? You know who that was?”

  “I don’t know anything,” said Wanda. “I just ask myself that old reporter’s question. Who benefits? I know it wasn’t your brother Baldwin. He got killed in the war that came afterward.”

  Peter saw the kid’s gears turning again, watched the revelation arrive like a freight train. “King’s the one who came out on top. Was it King who set up my pops? King who killed my brother?”

  Neither was really a question. Peter could see that Eli already knew the answers.

  Wanda looked uncomfortable and turned back to the road. “I really don’t know, Eli. It was a bad time. But I knew your dad, he was an okay guy. He tried to keep the peace when he could. Things have gotten a lot worse since he went away.”

  “Is that what you’re after?” asked Peter. “You want revenge for your dad and brother?”

  “No,” said Eli. “I tried that life and was no damn good at it. All I ever wanted was to play music. I only ended up in that jewelry store because my boys were gonna fuck up my guitar if I didn’t.” He looked at the broken thing in his arms. “I guess it don’t matter now.”

  The street was getting more industrial, but no more prosperous. Low rows of long metal and cement-block buildings, tall fences with barbed wire. It wasn’t clear how many of these places were still in operation. Peter saw a lot of signs saying FOR SALE OR LEASE. Stuff was made here, once. Cracked slabs of concrete where workers had parked, back when there were jobs. Not many cars now.

  “So what do we do with him?” asked Wanda.

  Peter looked at Eli. “What would it take to get you out of this mess?”

  “Why in hell would I trust you? Far as I know, once I take you to your truck, you’ll shoot me in the head with my own damn gun.”

  “Eli, I let you take that truck to begin with,” said Peter. “I could have just left you with Brody just now, let him beat the location out of you.” He laid Chester’s 1911 on his leg, now pointed away from Eli. “Besides, what other offers do you have? Talk to me. What would it take?”