The next day, first thing out of the precinct, she went down Pryor, under the abandoned rusting train trestle, the railroad easement thick in kudzu, past a city equipment yard, rusting iron and steel beams, bars, rebar, and rails visible above the latticed fence. She left after roll call with the purpose of letting Lil D know that she’d found his father, that Big D was sick, and to relay Big D’s claim of not having killed Shannell. The drug trade slowed around this time every day, only one runner needed in the hole. She was fairly sure it would be Lil D, like it was most days.
At the intersection next to Sam’s Chicken Shack, street signs had been down for so long some said it was now the corner of Nothing and Nothing. Sam’s faced East Nothing. The street on the north side of Sam’s was actually named Joyland, and the irony of the street name was not lost on those who frequented the area.
There was a hollowness in Salt’s stomach, a hungry-sick feeling. She couldn’t guess if Lil D would listen to anything she had to say.
On one side of Sam’s there was a concrete foundation of some former building. Beside it was a pole with a small raggedy billboard that depicted a young woman with a prominent rear holding a sweating can of malt liquor. Among the debris in the lot was an upholstered rose-floral pillow.
On the other side of Joyland was a strip mall of vacant shops, a small market for meat, produce, and beer, a closed beeper business, and God’s World Ministries church. Here most legitimate businesses failed. What survived was the drug trade. God’s World had the earth and its continents amateurishly painted on the front window. Clouds obscured parts of North America. Florida was shaped like a penis.
Both sides of Sam’s were covered in graffiti that overlaid peeling posters for rap shows and horror movies. One piece of graffiti in black contained the word NECK, the rest of the lettering indecipherable. A crumbling low concrete wall circumscribed the perimeter of the business. There was no drive-through or sit-down, only the walk-up window under an overhang that dangled sections of aluminum roofing.
Sam’s was not inside The Homes proper but yet was its center. Everyone went to Sam’s. The drug boys ate and took their own orders at Sam’s. Courtships, friendships, and neighborliness happened at Sam’s.
Another afternoon storm was passing as she pulled into the parking lot. Patches of light came and went between the parting clouds. The rain had cleared most people from the dope corner but Lil D was standing alone under the ragged overhang eating from a Styrofoam box. Sam’s chicken sure wasn’t making him fat.
She parked in front of the take-out window and got out. No other customers. Sam’s face and shoulders filled the small window under the ORDER HERE sign.
Lil D gnawed the last bite from a drumstick and flipped the container into a trash can.
“Let me have a minute to decide,” she told Sam. He flung a greasy hand towel over his beefy shoulder and lumbered toward the back.
Lil D was close under the overhang. Keeping her face toward the empty order window, Salt said, “I found Big D and talked to him.” She put her hand on the buckle of her belt at the hollow of her belly.
“I know you ain’t tryin’ to speak to me.” He looked away, his expression making it hard to tell if he cared. There was a little smear of grease on his chin. Salt resisted the urge to take up a napkin to wipe it. He was again dressed in fresh clothes, his small frame engulfed in shiny, baggy blue mid-calf shorts and matching shirt. Being in the hole was paying something.
“Meet me over behind the school in twenty minutes,” she said.
Lil D pushed off the wall and sprinted out into the receding rain. He went in the opposite direction from the school.
She waited a minute, then called Sam. “I’m not hungry. Could I just get a can of soda?” Sam handed it to her unopened, knowing cops were particular that way, didn’t take it personal.
She got in her car and sat watching Lil D’s figure recede in the distance.
Pepper pulled into the lot, his tires making splashes through the craterlike potholes, then parked so they were driver’s side to driver’s side. The rain-streaked windows made Pepper look like he was melting. Quickly as it came, the rain stopped completely and steam began rising from the pavement. As they lowered their windows the washed air offered welcome refreshment. “Be sure to tell Ann that I enjoyed the afternoon.”
Saturday she had taken Wonder to Pepper’s suburban two-story house for a backyard picnic. Pepper’s boys, Theo and Miles, loved her dog and their energy was a match for his. They had thrown the Frisbee till their arms were worn out. Pepper had the grill going. The backyard grass had been recently cut and the sprinkler was on for the boys and dog to run through. Another water hose was attached to a Slip ’N Slide and Wonder chased along as the boys skidded on their bellies. The day had felt light and she was a part of it. Her head and eyes were clear the whole afternoon.
Rhythm from the boom box was under it all. After a few beers, unable to resist Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” she’d grabbed Wonder’s Frisbees and began a routine with Wonder jumping for multiple discs, flying over her arms to make catches. Pepper and Ann were yelling, “What on earth!” and “Oh, no!” laughing, falling out of their chairs. The boys clapped and danced, skinny legged. It had been a good day with the smell of sunlight, damp boys, and her dog.
“You and that dog are quite a pair. I think you need an agent.” Pepper smiled from his window now. “The boys loved it but it makes me think you spend too much time alone with that dog.”
“Oh, here we go again. ‘Salt, you need a man. When you gonna go on a date? I’ve got somebody you need to meet.’”
“Well, excuse me if Ann and I want you to be happy,” Pepper said, actually looking hurt.
“I know you want me to be hooked up.” She was sneaking a glance in the rearview mirror, briefly considering how she looked to a regular guy, when her attention was drawn to a car passing the corner. “There goes Johnny C in a car with a broken vent window.” She was already moving her foot to the gas. Pepper slammed his car in gear and took off, following her out of the parking lot. She’d bet a paycheck that was Half-Dead in the passenger seat. Johnny C, Man’s brother, and gang member Half-Dead would definitely be a score for Salt in her war with Man. She was logging onto the computer, screen set to run tags for stolen, while she drove.
“Run, run,” she said, vibing the boys in the car, anticipating the chase, her body confident. Then she thought about Lil D waiting behind the school. What if he had turned the corner and changed direction. There was no time to choose. She bore down on the boys whose arrest might lead to information about who killed Lil D’s mother.
After going north, then making a few turns, they changed direction and went south on Hill at just under the speed limit. She was following a pace back, holding off, until the computer reported the status of the Buick. Johnny C’s silhouette kept turning toward his rearview mirror.
“Radio, I’m following an older-model tan Buick, busted vent, occupied two times, tag, Adam, Adam, Michael, 236. Confirm status. South on Hill from Park.” She kept her movements casual, the speed low, timing radio transmissions so that Johnny C and Half-Dead wouldn’t notice she was on her radio. Pepper had turned off and was following on a parallel street. The screen on the computer lit up.
The familiar high rush of excitement was in her breath. “Radio, I have confirmation.”
Pepper responded, “Radio, I’m close by for an assist.”
Several more officers jumped at the chance to be part of a pursuit. Salt heard them reporting locations, whether they were or were not precisely there, making sure to report nearby so they could reasonably be part of the chase. Sirens wailed behind their transmissions. She held off on the blue lights until other units were in place, not wanting to spook the boys any more than they already were. “Radio, we’re still southbound, approaching Englewood.”
The Buick slowed. Johnny C signaled for
a turn into the Englewood projects when he noticed Pepper’s cruiser at the intersection. Englewood was an area notorious for harboring car thieves—experts, juveniles as young as twelve and thirteen heisting vehicles. On the hills above, the streets had been cut to dead ends when the projects had been built, perfect drop-off points for stolen cars. Perpetrators chased by police could jump out and have a downhill run through the kudzu and into the apartments below.
“3305, I got the dead ends covered,” reported Big Fuzzy.
“3304, I’m at the bottom,” Blessing called out.
She turned on her blues. Pepper responded with his.
“Come on, give us a real run,” she prayed, not wanting to lose her high. Salt was a short skid mark from the stolen car. Pepper blocked their access to home base and Johnny C shot past, south on Hill, Salt and Pepper on his tail. She grinned and felt lifted on buzzed air. “We are running.”
Hill came to a T at University, where another unit was screaming up at them in the opposite lanes. The Buick made a fishtail right onto University, barely avoiding eastbound cars. They busted the light at Pryor and beat the cops to the only available route, the entrance ramp to the expressway. It was the ramp nearest her beat, one she’d traveled many times and one time too many. Without warning, a blur caught the edge of Salt’s vision. She held her breath, lips tight, but the smell and taste of gunpowder filled her mouth and nose. Instead of slowing, she gunned the Crown Vic past the scene of her shooting. Gritting her teeth, forcing air to her lungs, pumping more adrenaline, tightening her hands on the wheel, and clearing her eyes, she found herself inches from the bumper of the stolen car. Tires squealing, the boys gunned it into the downtown connector filled with commuters.
In an attempt to lose the cops, Johnny barreled across six lanes, leaving in his wake swerving cars, braking, screeching tires, and a few broken bumpers. Salt and Pepper, sirens yowling, were joined by two cars from the adjacent zone.
Traffic parted for the blue lights. These boys, trained to steal close to home, were now headed toward the rest of the city. She backed off in caution but continued to call the chase. “Radio, we’re northbound on 75/85. They’ve caused a minor accident at Pine Street. Notify Zone Five. Injuries unlikely. Suspect is doing about eighty miles per hour in the HOV, passing Tenth.” Now there was no exit available for the pursued. They were blocked in an HOV lane that would carry them to another expressway and out of any territory familiar to them. She gunned it, settling on the perps’ tail. Pepper pulled up on their right side, showing them there was no way out. They swerved, feigning a swipe at Pepper, who was grinning. The speed racers were likely lost. The expressway divided and 75 went off to the left with the HOV lane. Pepper had to drop back at the split and the perps saw their chance. They shot into the right lane and headed for the exit.
She advised radio, “Notify Zone Two, the perps have gotten off at Northside.” The Buick rode up the left-hand side of the exit ramp, eating shrubs, squealing past cars stopped at the light, then turned left. “Radio, they’re southbound on Northside, fifty miles per hour, their undercarriage is damaged, dragging metal, showing sparks.” Salt was right on Johnny C, hugging every turn. A voice-over, the academy instructor’s commands: Threshold braking, shuffle steering, hands at two and ten, as natural now as lifting her feet to run. Then in an instant, an echo voice, I wanted to teach you to drive, her father’s plaintive whisper. She inhaled smoking rubber, blinking to silence his ghost.
The lost boys took a left on Tenth, heading toward the tony midtown restaurant area. Two more patrol cars joined the pursuit, all following her lead.
Barreling east, the caravan picked up speed, busted red lights, whipped around, and scattered traffic. Pedestrians jumped back. Some drivers came to a dead stop, paralyzed by the lights and sirens. Salt was not missing a beat, avoiding the obstacles, cool on the radio, hot on the road, riding the high, and feeling the release.
They were headed straight toward Peachtree Street and its skyscrapers that emptied out to trendy shopping and chic restaurants. Northside is fixin’ to meet Southside, Salt thought. The boys veered around a stopped car at Spring Street, scraping a light pole with the rear-left wheel. Tire going flat, riding on a rim, they took the turn onto Peachtree. They lost steering and headed across four lanes. Tires squealing, brakes screaming, sparks flying, they were on a collision course with the high brick wall of the Cappuccino Café.
It was a moment suspended. Northsiders sat under bright flowered umbrellas that shaded their tables, sipping lattes and frappamochas, looking fine and sleek in dresses and shirts that cost more than a month’s rent for the families of the boys in the stolen car. In short seconds it registered on the coffee drinkers’ faces that the metal noises they heard were emanating from a vehicle that was not going to stop in the street. Their mouths and eyes formed little o’s.
“You’re wrong boys. But you’re my wrong boys. It’s not often we bring the battle here.” Johnny C hit the wall at just the right place to do no real damage, bricks busting and flying; she was laughing. She’d seen these boys scramble unscathed from many stolen cars. They knew how to wreck and roll. Dust filled the shining sunlit afternoon. Patrons scrambled against overturned tables, dodging spilling drinks. Both doors of the stolen car were pinned shut, the car wedged between the wall and a parked car. Salt went left, Pepper right, both cruisers coming to a stop on the sidewalk beside the rear fenders of the car. Simultaneously, they swung from their cars, guns drawn, and scrambled up to the driver’s- and passenger-side windows. Pepper ordered Johnny and Half-Dead to keep their hands where they could be seen.
* * *
• • •
It took the rest of the shift for Salt and Pepper to write the reports, impound the car, and get the boys in the wagon bound for the Gray-Bar Hotel.
Other than the Buick and the brick wall, there were no injuries except coffee stains on the stylish couple who’d jumped quickest mid-sip. A good-looking crowd gathered to watch Johnny and Half-Dead do the perp walk to the wagon. Smiling Pepper announced, “Your tax dollars at work.”
Later that night, the precinct humorists were swearing that Salt and Pepper had asked Johnny C and Half-Dead at gunpoint, “Will that be caf or decaf, boys?” Or that while they cuffed Johnny and Half they told the waiter they would take their lattes to go.
But as she was transferring her gear to the Honda, she wondered if Lil D might have waited for her behind the school, that he just might have cared enough to want to hear about his dad. It gnawed at her that once again she might have let that family down. There seemed no way to do right without collateral damage.
17.
DIRTY RED
It was toward the hottest part of the day, late afternoon sun still baking the streets, when Salt drove down Meldon looking for Dirty Red’s sister’s house. She rolled the lobe of her right ear, still tender from a pavement scuffle the night before, between her thumb and finger, and felt herself overly annoyed by the loss of the little silver stud earring whose mate she still had in her left ear. Hot wind came in through the four open windows of the cruiser.
The houses on Meldon were cousins to her own old house out in the country, built in the same era and style. But here, near The Homes, the houses were vulnerable and falling fast. Some of the roofs were caving in on a third story or attic. Windows were boarded up, decorative trim rotted. They were unevenly spaced on the street because so many had been torn down.
Using Glenda’s backstory on Red, she’d asked around and had been directed to a house on Meldon where people said the sister lived. Next door to the house, weeds overran the lot and grew between piles of bricks. Vines wrapped an old fire-scorched chimney. The instant she got out of the car she was startled by a loud snap, a crack in the air above. Salt grabbed for her holster. With quick relief she saw that a blue plastic tarp covering at least half of the house’s gabled roof had come loose on one side and was flapping loudly in the
wind. The gaudy blue stood out in bright plastic contrast to the gray, weathered siding. A broken concrete walk led to the front steps and up to an ill-fitting hollow-core door that someone had put their foot through, leaving a splintered hole in the bottom panel. The original door would have been solid oak. She stepped to the side and knocked on the cheap wood.
A large, light-skinned, freckle-faced woman partially opened the door. “Is Red here?” asked Salt, not being sure if she or her sister would like her being called “Dirty.”
“Which Red, me or Dirty? I’m Big Red.”
“Well, I was wanting to talk to Dirty Red.” Salt hid her grin with a cough.
“What the poleese want with her?” She didn’t open the door any farther.
“I’m Officer Salt, and first I wanted to make sure she’s all right.”
From behind the large sister, another woman’s voice: “Let her in.”
Opening the door only a little more, Big Red turned to speak to whoever the second voice belonged to. “As if you ain’t brought enough trouble to this house.”
Salt stepped in just barely clearing the door before Big slammed it shut behind her. The house was dark and cool. A small tunnel of light coming from the kicked-in hole in the door shone down the hallway, where a skinny woman was leaning with her shoulder against the wall. The woman’s features were hidden in the dim. But she had the disjointed, jittery posture and stance of a crack user.
“Shannell,” Salt said, even though she knew better. Before she could adjust her eyes to the dark rooms and the bright backlighting, the figure moved and turned into the woman she assumed to be Dirty Red, completely naked. She went through a doorway, sauntering past Salt, and into a large living room, lifted a dusty drapery, peeked out the front window, then turned back and told Salt, still standing in the hall, “You in now. You might as well come all the way in.”
“Good God, girl,” said Big Red. “Put some clothes on. I ain’t gonna hear this. Best I know nothin’.” She plodded out and down the hall, leaving them alone.
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