14
The drug dealer with the thin, long scar running down the left side of his face, from his forehead to his jawline, stood with his back firmly against a chipped blue wall, his eyes opened wide enough to pop, sweat running off his light frame like water off the edge of a cliff. His upper body was trembling, and he had soiled a new pair of off-the-rack dark gray cargo pants. His legs were spread wide apart and held in place by Buttercup’s head, the police dog’s large mouth firmly locked around the dealer’s crotch, teeth separated from skin by only a verbal command.
“Motherfucker, you don’t need to go and fuckin’ do what you lookin’ to do,” the dealer said to her. “Somebody give this bitch something to eat!”
Buttercup had sauntered into the small empty bar on East 117th Street, moving past empty stools and cheap leather booths as if she were a long-running regular. She looked around, her eyes moist from the dual hit of stale beer and old smoke, her paws sticky and set to slip from the wet spots of booze that filled pockets of the dented and rusted fake-tile floor. The dealer spotted her when he came out the back room, a lit cigarette dangling from his thin lips, his arms hauling a case of warm Coronas. “You either piss or shit in here and I will fuckin’ waste your big sorry ass,” he said to Buttercup. “Cut you up and toss you to the rats in the basement. Let them feast on your hide.”
Buttercup held her place, watching as the dealer tossed the Coronas into a back booth, flicked open a red-handled switchblade, and walked toward her. She locked her rear paws and waited for the dealer to stand close enough to jab the sharp point of the blade against the soft part of her right shoulder. The quick flick stung and drew blood, which did a slow roll down her hide and onto a set of grimy black tiles. “I’m telling you to turn and walk the fuck out,” the dealer said, tossing a hard kick Buttercup’s way. The blow, softened a bit by the man’s bare foot, caught her on the flat end of her stomach, a few inches from one of her many battle scars. “I’m not the kind of fucker bitch like you needs to be handing out grief tickets to, hear me? I don’t like dogs and I especially hate big dogs, and you are, hands down, the biggest fucker I ever laid my momma’s eyes on, hand to Jesus.”
The dealer held the knife at eye level and smiled down at Buttercup. He steadied his feet and crouched down a bit, giving him both leverage and position to plunge the blade deep into the dog’s rib cage. Buttercup held her hard stance and timed what would be her first and only move, no growl or sound giving any indication that she was anything more than a large, tired-eye stray who had casually wandered into the wrong bar at the worst time, leaving herself open to the death-rattle intentions of a dealer floating high on his own merchandise.
As the knife flew through the dank air, earmarked for a plunge into her right side, the wounded police dog made her leap, catching the dealer in center square, her strong, rigid jaw locked down on the man’s crotch, her eyes open, her body relaxed. She waited out the dealer’s panic-fueled attempts to dislodge her teeth from his body, the knife long gone from his hand, released in that first surprised rush of pain and now replaced by closed-fist punches that rained down on Buttercup from both sides. Each blow grew weaker in intensity, and she clamped down tighter.
The dealer turned his head when he heard the front door swing wide open and saw Rev. Jim walk in and nod in his direction. “This your dog?” he managed to ask.
Rev. Jim ignored the question and instead stepped behind the bar and reached down into a sink full of ice chips and water and pulled up a cold bottle of Dr. Brown’s root beer. “I used to drink this shit all the time when I was a kid,” he said, more to himself than to either the dealer or the dog. “Could never get enough of it. I tell you true, this is exactly what I needed after the day I just had for myself.”
Rev. Jim used the edge of the wood to snap off the bottle top and took a long swig of the cold drink. He closed his eyes and let a wide smile spread across his face as he leaned his arms on top of the bar. “That more than hit the spot, let me tell you,” he said to the dealer, glancing at the thin man shivering across from him, the dog wedged in between his legs. “Bet you could use one right about now. Am I right on that or not?”
“Fuck you and fuck the drink,” the dealer said, red-zone anger sidestepping the pain and the fear. “Don’t need or want any of that shit from you. What I do want is for you to get your hound away from my balls. Right now that’s the only business you and me got that’s worth even close to two shits.”
“I can’t help you there, Little Jack,” Rev. Jim said. “I wish I could, dealer, really do. But my hands are cuffed on that particular request.”
“Why the fuck not?” Jack said. “One word from you and I bet this dog would roll over and lick her own ass. Don’t fuck with me. Now’s not the time.”
“Buttercup’s not my dog,” Rev. Jim said, lifting the bottle of root beer and bringing it to his lips. “And I can’t control what doesn’t belong to me.”
“The bitch ain’t yours, then how come you know her name?” Jack asked. “Answer me that, fuckhead.”
“We work together, me and the lady,” Rev. Jim said. “Haven’t been together long, truth be told. In fact, this is our first time out as partners.”
“What the fuck kind of Starsky and Hutch bullshit scam you looking to peddle my way?” Jack asked, his body so heavy with sweat it gleamed in the early-afternoon sunlight. “What the fuck kind of a cop has himself a dog as a partner?”
“You don’t even know close to the half of it,” Rev. Jim said. “Get yourself ready for this one. That dog not only outranks me, she earns a bigger take-home pension—tax-free to boot, I would like to add.”
“You shittin’ on me,” Jack said, his suspicion coated with a small dose of grudging respect for the dog whose snout was wedged between his thighs.
“If only,” Rev. Jim said. “Sad truth of it is if old Buttercup there wants to rip your balls off and turn them into a set of doggie chews, there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, other than stand and watch you scream like a man on fire. It’s her call all the way, is what I’m trying to tell you here. I’m nothing to her but a trusty backup.”
“I don’t fuckin’ believe any of this,” Jack howled. “If you can’t get my ass out of this situation, then who the fuck can?”
“Nobody I know,” Rev. Jim said with a shrug. “But I can try to reason with her. She is, after all, a lady and might listen if a reasonable request was put in front of her wet nose.”
“Like what?” Jack asked.
“Well, let’s say—and we’re just talking here now—you gave me a heads-up as to where the G-Men brothers crib out,” Rev. Jim said. “You know, the real place—not that club in Spanish Harlem that they drink and eat in most nights. I hear something solid like that and maybe I can start to do a little whisper work in Buttercup’s ear.”
“I do that and it’s not just my balls I got to do a wonder worry about losing,” Jack said. “Those crazy fuckers get wind of me moving my lips in their direction, they’d turn my ass into a Big Mac with cheese before the morning sun kicks up. Sorry, badge, that’s one question that comes with a no-can-do label attached.”
“It’s your call,” Rev. Jim said with a slight shrug. “I just threw it out there to save you some grief and heavy-duty explaining down at the emergency room. But—and these are the last words about your balls that will ever pass my lips—the dog is here now and she has no intention of letting you leave without your care package locked in her jaw. The G-Men, on the other hand, won’t know you dropped a dime for a while still, and there’s a chance—not a good chance, I’ll give you, but a slight one—that they may never find out. I were you, other than wanting to put a bullet in my forehead I would never turn my back on that little bird in the fist.”
“You don’t know them, man,” Jack said, his voice cracking from the strain. “You did, you wouldn’t be talking the way you are.”
“That may well be so,” Rev. Jim said, stepping out from behind the bar and heading
for the front door, easing past Buttercup and Jack. “But I do know that dog. All the drugs went up her nose, God only knows what she thinks she’s got her teeth wrapped around.”
“Where the fuck you think you going?” Jack asked, practically shouting out the question.
“Thought I’d go and wait outside,” Rev. Jim said. “My lead partner here seems to have it all well in hand. Besides, I’m not the kind of somebody you want around when there’s lots of blood flow going on. You toss in a heavy handful of screaming, and all that goes with it, and I’m like an old lady at her son’s funeral. I know my place, and it’s for sure not here. You need anything, just give a shout-out.”
Rev. Jim opened the door and walked out into the harsh sun and cool breeze of a late New York City morning. He stepped across the empty avenue and stopped in front of the driver’s side of the dark sedan, engine running, front and rear windows all down.
“How much longer?” Boomer asked, sitting behind the wheel, sipping from a takeout cup of cold coffee.
“Any minute now, be my guess,” Rev. Jim said. “Have to hand it to that dog—she held her position and didn’t move for as long as I was in there. I’ve had partners with two legs I couldn’t count on to do the same.”
“Buttercup’s a pro,” Dead-Eye said from the passenger side. “I don’t give a shit how much dope went up her nose, she’s still prime-beef cop.”
“Let’s hope the same is true for us,” Rev. Jim said.
The scream that came out of the shuttered bar was loud enough to shatter glass.
It echoed off the slits of the abandoned buildings where windows once stood and roared with the strength of a winter storm down the wide avenue. Rev. Jim looked at Boomer and Dead-Eye and then did a slow nod. “If Little Jack’s ever in the mood to talk, I figure now’s the time,” Rev. Jim said.
“He’s going to be giving out information he didn’t even know he had,” Dead-Eye said. “Unless he goes into shock and bleeds to death first. That would be the only luck he’s going to catch on this day.”
“Just in time, too,” Rev. Jim said, turning away from the car and walking back toward the bar. “I’m ready for another root beer.”
Boomer and Dead-Eye watched Rev. Jim dodge a passing van and do a short run into the bar, slowly opening and then closing the front door. “He going to be okay, you think?” Dead-Eye asked.
“Okay enough to tell us what we came here looking to know,” Boomer said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Not talking about the dealer,” Dead-Eye said. “I meant Rev. Jim.”
Boomer turned his head away from the street and gazed across the front seat at Dead-Eye, making sure that the concern in his words matched the look on his face. “You have a reason why he wouldn’t be okay?”
“Nothing I would pin down as solid evidence,” Dead-Eye said. “It’s just a stomach feel, is all.”
“Tell me, anyway,” Boomer said. “Since right now a stomach feel is the best we have to work on.”
“I don’t think he’s up for another round,” Dead-Eye said. “He seems slower, and off his game. Now, it could be because we’ve been away for a few years and he’s still in spring-training mode. He’ll kick it soon as the first bullets land across his bow. That the case, then I just wasted nothing more than a few hours of worry time.”
“And if it’s more than that?” Boomer asked.
“Then we have ourselves one serious problem,” Dead-Eye said. “We both know this current team is nowhere near as good as the last one we put together, at least on the paper side of it. Ash is a solid cop, courage with a capital K, but she didn’t log a lot of hours cracking heads and doesn’t sniff out problems before they hit. Quincy is a plus at least until his mind steps up and starts to betray his ass, and then he turns into a liability. And it’s no secret Buttercup is one cool breeze away from a cocaine flashback, and who the fuck knows where that shit leads once it hits the roof?”
“Which leaves you and me,” Boomer said.
“Yes, it does, old friend,” Dead-Eye said with a smile. “Now, we both still have the taste and the stomach for the fight, but we always had that and probably will until we take the dirt nap. Truth is, though, we’re not close to being as good as we were three years ago and, shit, we weren’t all that good even then. We just don’t have any quit in us, and that often can make up for a lot of other negatives.”
“Rev. Jim’s always played it close,” Boomer said. “Even when he was on the job and at full strength, he always stood out as a loner, kept it low-key until the heat got up to a boil and then he went off. He was there for us packed and heavy when we needed him the last time, and if there was anyone back then who had the doubts about him it was me, as you might recall.”
“He’s missing that look,” Dead-Eye said. “I know he likes to go his own way—that’s his style and it suits him, even helps make him the great cop. But that hard-ass look brings with it the hunger for a fight, the need to be found dead rather than get the taste of being on the losing side of the field. And that’s not there now, least not so as I can see.”
“He could have said no, Dead-Eye, without any worries about being judged,” Boomer said, looking back out across the avenue toward the bar. “I didn’t pull a gun on him or kidnap his cat, force him to sign up for the second tour. He came in feetfirst and hands raised high. Nobody pushed him in the pool—he jumped.”
“Rev. Jim’s a sucker for a hopeless cause,” Dead-Eye said. “If you stepped back to give it a look, you’d find that’s true of most cops. It’s not by any accident that Saint Jude’s our patron saint. And at the moment there’s no more hopeless cause out there than our little merry band of brothers.”
“I’ll talk to him, feel it out, see if you’re anywhere close to being on the mark with this one,” Boomer said. “But if you’re right and Rev. Jim is on shaky turf, then we’ll be down one cop just as the kickoff whistle blows. And that’s not good for anybody’s health.”
“I can go that one better,” Dead-Eye said.
“How so?”
“I’m the one with the doubts,” Dead-Eye said. “Only holds then I should be the one who sits across from Rev. Jim and asks the question. I’m the one that needs to hear the right answer.”
Boomer looked at Dead-Eye and nodded. “There’s more to this than what you just put out there,” he said. “Why don’t you share it so we can both lose some sleep over it?”
“I’m not ready for that yet, Boomer,” Dead-Eye said. “Right now all I’ve got is a puzzle missing a few pieces. Until I get the full picture, there’s nothing else to say.”
“It’s your play, then,” Boomer said. “But we don’t have much time for diplomacy, so the sooner you get this done, the better we’ll all feel. Good news or bad, we’re on a need to know right now.”
“Tomorrow morning good enough?” Dead-Eye asked.
“Better than good,” Boomer said.
He popped open the driver’s-side door and stepped out of the sedan. Dead-Eye did the same from his end, and the two walked slowly across the double-lane avenue. “You think Buttercup ate his balls or just ripped them off and spit them out?” Dead-Eye asked.
“From what I hear,” said Boomer, “Buttercup never swallows.”
15
The Boiler Man sat in the back row of the movie theater, hands resting flat on the fat of his legs, eyes scanning the scattered few in attendance. His red velvet seat was sliced and torn, thick shards of tape holding the remains in place. The movie house had seen better decades, reduced now to highlighting second-run features a few weeks shy of a straight-to-video release. The one showing now was a Western filled with unknown faces and a plot he didn’t bother to follow. Instead, he kept his focus on the old woman in the third row, sitting alone, her full attention riveted to the dusty screen above. She was one of seven people in the house, all sitting alone.
The Boiler Man hated movies and had never quite come to a clear decision as to most of the world’s fascination with
them. Even as an orphan boy who was raised for longer than he cared to be in an ivy-shrouded building in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, he dreaded the Tuesday-night screenings that served as the entertainment menu for the week. He didn’t see any of the action onscreen, whether animated or real, as a momentary escape from his horrid existence but, rather, as an extension of his forced imprisonment. He made it through the harsh treatment he and others suffered at the hands of the Christian organization whose uniform he was forced to wear during his years there by the sheer strength of his will and a determination, rare in a boy so young and so vulnerable, that he would not surrender to their desire to chisel him in their mold and coerce him to bend to their beliefs.
Saint Francis the Divine was the official name given to the orphanage situated some three hundred miles north of the Toronto, Ontario, suburbs, and the thirty-two-acre site was his official home practically since the day of his birth. The boys there gave it a name of their own, one that had been passed down through generations of beaten and degraded graduates.
They called it Hell Town.
The Boiler Man allowed his mind to drift as the movie droned on before him, the voices of Italian actors dubbed by American ones, the dialogue making little sense, regardless of the language. He was a bright student and excelled in all his classes. He had a sharp and analytical mind, a great ear for music, and a keen interest in history, especially when it came to military campaigns. As much as the Boiler Man enjoyed his time in the classroom, he truly thrived once out on the athletic field, mastering any sport he turned his attention to—from fencing to swimming to martial arts to ice hockey. He was a sharp enough skater, with a steady shot and a taste for the hard check into corner boards that caught the attention of local area scouts, who were always eager to bring a name out of their schools and into the ranks of the pros.
He further supplemented all the on-and-off-the-field activity with massive doses of reading, carting armloads of books each night into his cramped quarters—a small room, locked only from the outside, situated under the back stairwell of Quigley Hall. He devoured adventure novels, always seeking out the most violent of the lot, and found that in mind and spirit he was linked more with the villains of such works than with the ones who were deemed the heroes. The Boiler Man read through the biographies of controversial world leaders and technical books on weapons and tactics, learning and absorbing valuable lessons in the pages of each one. The combination of the various aspects of his academic and athletic lives helped him to cope with the late-night visits from the Squad.
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