The Policeman's Daughter

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “You gonna help her?”

  “I’m not promising anything.”

  “I know you ain’t.”

  “If I can just get her quick and get her out.”

  Big bent over the grill. “So it’s like a race. You quick enough you win. But what do Red win? And what if she lose? Do you lose, too?”

  Salt couldn’t tell if her eyesight was acting up again or if it was just the increasing smoke from the grill making her eyes water. She looked through the hazy smoke over at Thomas, who had turned away and was standing there with his back to them, watching the Taurus.

  Big was furiously flipping wings.

  “I’m not going to lie to you. I might be putting your sister between a rock and a hard place, but she might be able to help us catch a killer.”

  “What if the killer catch her?” Big stabbed harder at the wings. Grease sizzled and popped on the coals.

  “Can I have one of those wings?” Salt pointed at the grill. “This is what heaven must smell like.”

  Big speared and lifted a black-and-brown crispy wing off the grill. “Careful, it’s hot.”

  Salt took the end of the wing between her thumb and finger, holding as little of the hot chicken between her nails as she could, blowing on the steamy skin, inhaling its smoky tang. Her teeth were already touching the meat when Big stopped moving the wings and said, “She in the house.”

  The skin of the chicken was crisp, the meat juicy and full of smoky flavor. She took her time stripping the meat and then started chewing on the end knuckle. She bit down hard to the marrow, her teeth crunching the bone. Thomas just kept staring at the Taurus, as if it might leave without him.

  Big pointed her grilling fork at Thomas. “I ain’t givin’ him one of my wings.”

  “Where are your manners?” Salt said, grinning at Big.

  Still sucking on the bone, she walked over to Thomas. “I’m going in the house while you chat with Big. She wants you to come over and have a wing.”

  “I’m not going near that woman, much less eating something she cooked.”

  “Suit yourself, then. Watch the car. I’ll be inside.”

  She took her time walking toward the house, keeping watch for movement around the outside and behind the curtains. Up on the porch, she reached for the doorknob but found the knob and the lock were gone. Now there was just a round hole in addition to the busted lower part. She pushed the door open.

  Dirty Red was sitting on the sofa in the living room waiting, this time wearing clothes, a loose pair of men’s plaid shorts and a pink T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

  “You said I wouldn’t have to do any more.” Red tried to stand, already trying to talk her way out of something.

  “Red, I—” Salt started.

  “Who that man out there drooling over Big’s wings? You bring a date?”

  “Agent Thomas from ATF.”

  “What he got to do with anything?”

  “The statement you gave me was good, but to use it we have to get you to wear a wire, to get Stone on a recording.”

  “No way.” Red flopped back on the worn sofa. “No, no, no.” She slumped and swung her head.

  Salt took a breath then turned her back on Red. “There’s money,” she said, and waited, watching the smoke from the grill blowing in the hot evening air.

  Red coughed twice, then sniffed.

  “I’m sorry.” Salt turned to face her.

  Red wiped her nose on her hand. “How much money?” she asked.

  “Paid informants for the feds can earn a lot, for as long as they can provide information.” The muscles in her face felt like rope and her eyes stung.

  Red stood on her wobbly legs. “What I got to do?”

  “Wear a wire and deliver guns to Stone. And get him to talk about you buying the guns for him.” The grease from Big’s wing had turned to a bad coating in Salt’s mouth.

  Red looked over at the window. The smoke rose into the leaves high above the house. Salt had to lean down at the window to follow the plumes that drifted in the oak that must have been growing since before the Civil War. One limb of the tree had broken off, rotted, and was caught in lower branches. The next storm would bring it crashing down.

  Red sighed. “When?”

  “Now.” Salt turned from the view outside. She could make this work. “We’ve already got the guns and the wire ready. Do you know where to find Stone tonight?”

  “Probably, but I ain’t leavin’ here with you and that agent. Stone likely already knows you been here, with that car out front.”

  “Just walk up to the corner in two hours and we’ll have an agent posing as a john pick you up in a white van. He’ll have the wire and the guns. Where do you put them for Stone to pick up?”

  “We use that old run-down yellow house at Thirkeld and Meldon. There’s some boards loose in the closet wall. I put them there. He goes and gets them when I tell him.”

  “Do you owe him guns now?”

  “Yeah, he give me a hundred dollars two weeks ago to buy two guns and I smoked it.”

  “He gonna hurt you?”

  Red shrugged. “He hurt me sooner or later anyway. Maybe not too bad if I have guns for him to pick up.”

  “‘Not too bad.’ Shit,” Salt mumbled.

  “What’s wrong with you? You ain’t got to do it,” Red said.

  “I’ll be listening on the wire, like I’m there with you.”

  “Yeah, you’ll be listening but when you gonna open the door and come in?”

  “I won’t say ‘trust me.’ You know the deal. I’ve put you exactly where I didn’t want you to be.” She walked quickly to the door, as she talked, afraid that if she were there any longer she’d spoil the agreement, untie the knot. “Two hours, at eleven, on Jonesboro.”

  Red followed to the hall then had to lean against the doorsill to the living room. Salt put her hand out for the knob of the front door, having forgotten it was missing. She turned back to Red and tried to think of something more to say.

  Red said, “Push.”

  Salt pushed the flimsy door and walked out.

  * * *

  • • •

  “What’s that noise?” Thomas asked.

  “Whee.” There it was again, a breathy injured-bird sound coming from the monitor. “Whee.”

  Salt, Thomas, and the tech agent, Marandoza, were in a mud-spattered van marked ABC PEST CONTROL with a logo of a large insect with Plexiglas eyes. The van rolled slowly through the dark, narrow streets along the back side of The Homes. Marandoza had Red on the speaker so they could hear as she met up with Stone and hopefully got in and out without harm to herself, as well as getting Stone to incriminate himself and establishing her legal reliability.

  “It’s her, Red. Sounds like she’s trying to whistle,” said Marandoza.

  Dirty Red was struggling with each note, flat then sharp. The rustling coming over the speaker reflected her disjointed walking, walking and whistling. She kept repeating wrong notes: “Whee,” times eight.

  “She’s not very good at it,” said Thomas. “She sucks.” He laughed. “Get it? She sucks. She’s a whore. She sucks.”

  The vehicle was soundproof. Their voices couldn’t be heard from outside. Salt and Thomas sat across from each other on metal built-in benches, where they jostled and slipped as the van made turns and pumped over potholes. Bending over made the five-shot .38 stuck in the waist of her jeans bite at her skin. The bubble windows, the bug’s blind eyes on the outside of the van, limited her view; the streams of moonlight were distorted, as if viewed through water, or tears. She strained to focus on the usual streets and buildings of The Homes. Things looked even worse through the bug’s eyes. Broken toys looked spit onto the littered yards. Sad cars, jacked on concrete blocks, sat in uneven suspension, hopeless. Nothing could be seen tha
t might recommend a life here. She sat back, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine what Red looked like whistling.

  “Whee.”

  “She’s trying to comfort herself,” Salt said.

  Red was wearing, in addition to the wire, a homing device that allowed the agents in the pest control van to follow at a distance. Salt didn’t know when she’d see Red again since she’d be leaving the surveillance devices with her big sister and didn’t want to be put at risk by having any further contact with any of them. Red had walked off down Meldon, having told them that she would meet Stone in an apartment on Shaw Street and that he often took her to other apartments nearby after the initial meeting place.

  Thomas said they’d play hell trying to pinpoint the exact apartment.

  Salt leaned her head back against the soundproofing wall blanket. She had an image of Red, naked, like she’d been at her sister’s, wearing the red heels Salt had bought for the john detail. “How many apartments can you narrow it down to?” she asked, not for the first time, hoping the answer would change somehow.

  “We can follow her to the building. That’s all,” Marandoza said. “You can probably figure which unit after that. You know who lives in most of the apartments. You also recognize the gang members.”

  So it might all come down to her. Again. And she was stuck in the van. She slid down the bench to be nearer the rear door.

  “We’re not going to have to go in the apartment anyway. We just need her to get him on tape about the guns.” Thomas stood up bent at the waist. “What’s the worst he’ll do? Slap her around some?”

  “I’m not listening to him slap her around,” Salt said. Now Thomas seemed to have more experience than she’d given him credit for. Even though the van was air-conditioned, her face felt like it was near a fire. Her palms began to sweat and she wiped them on her jeans, over and over until her hands stung.

  Red stopped whistling.

  Thomas looked over at Marandoza.

  Then Red started again.

  The agents alternately watched the speaker and Salt as they followed Red on a parallel street. In the midnight hour, along the way, they’d passed a few lone stragglers and an unfamiliar beater, bass booming from its trunk. Nothing or no one that seemed likely to report suspicions to the gang or Stone.

  Eight notes, over and over, until finally Salt didn’t know if she was beginning to recognize the tune or if she was creating the notes of an old hymn. She’d almost get the words to come but then Red would hit a flat note. Then another note would go wrong when she ran out of breath. Her world narrowed to what she could hear from the speaker. She closed her eyes and kept them closed in order to concentrate but the edge of the hard bench in the van began to reach her bones.

  Six notes. Silence. Three knocks.

  “Don’t slow down. Keep moving,” Thomas said to Marandoza. Red was one block away on Shaw, behind two rows of Homes buildings, according to the homing device.

  Locks clicked. The sound of a door separating from the sill.

  They heard something thud. Salt tensed, ready to stand. A whoosh like a silent cough sounded through the speaker. Salt inhaled sharply but the van ceiling was low, and her lungs couldn’t fully expand with her head bent.

  “Bitch.” Stone’s voice a between-the-teeth hiss.

  Salt reached for the handle of the van. Thomas threw one leg out to block her before she got to the latch. She reached around him but couldn’t see to grab it.

  “I got two,” Red said, sounding out of breath.

  Salt spread her legs for balance and stood facing the back door, head tilted to listen to the speaker.

  “You owed me a gun two weeks ago.” Salt could almost see Stone’s mouth as he spoke, lips tight over his gritted teeth.

  Another sound, like material ripping.

  “Where’s the mic on her?” Salt asked, looking at both Thomas and Marandoza. She put her hand to her waist, to the small pistol.

  “He won’t find it,” Marandoza said, eyeing her hand and glancing at Thomas.

  “Where is it?” she repeated.

  “You ugly bitch.” Stone’s voice sounded farther away from Red and the device.

  The sound jumped. “I got you two this time.”

  Stone’s voice again. “Turn around.”

  “Where’s the bug?” Salt reached for the latch. Thomas moved his whole body, which put Salt’s hand at his waist. His previously crisp shirt was limp. Her fingertips hit hard muscle.

  “I need money or hit me up with a rock, Stone,” Red pleaded. “Why you got to see me naked? Why you got to put you hands all over me? You my half-brother,” Red cried with almost a glimmer of dignity.

  “The tracer and bug are in her hair,” Marandoza said. “They’re tiny. He wouldn’t know what they were even if he saw them.”

  “We got what we need,” Thomas said. “She established herself when he said she owed him the guns.”

  A cartoon melody sounded from the speaker. Salt sat up rigid. The same melody again.

  “Oh, God, no,” Salt whispered.

  At once the agents looked at the speaker. “Ring tone.” Marandoza nodded.

  “God, get her out of there,” Salt said. She slumped to the bench. She’d underestimated Thomas’s willingness to sacrifice Red. “He didn’t move her because he has a lookout.” She looked directly at him, yet was blaming herself for having missed something.

  The ring of the phone was cut. Stone’s one syllable, “Yo.”

  Now even Thomas and Marandoza froze. “We didn’t see anyone following us. You didn’t see any lookout,” said Marandoza. But he was whispering also, as if the speaker could hear, or as if whispering could protect Red.

  Stone’s voice, “What you mean?”

  Salt began to pant in anticipation.

  “Shit, man.” Stone’s voice roared into the van.

  This time she didn’t try to go around Thomas, she moved toward him, use of force, street, one hand moving while she stretched out a sheep boot. The agent driving downshifted, grinding a gear. In the same second Thomas was out of her way.

  “Wait, I think I heard the call-end tone. Wait,” said Marandoza.

  Salt already had the door open, the van still in motion, when she heard Stone. “You late again, bitch, I’ll kill you skinny-ho ass.”

  “Nobody saw us. The call wasn’t about us.” Marandoza spoke to equipment.

  She looked back at the monitor, trying to pull confirmation from the air.

  Stone again, closer to the bug. “Those guns where they supposed to be?”

  The agent driving stepped on the brake. Salt used the braking momentum to swing the door shut.

  Sounds of movement over the speaker. “They at the yellow house, like always.” More rustling.

  Thomas looked at Marandoza, rolled his eyes. “You city police got to hold on. Have a little faith.” He reached out, took Salt’s forearm between his thumb and fingers, and gave it a friendly waggle.

  She jerked away and slumped to the bench.

  “Pick it up, ho”—Stone’s voice—“and get the fuck outta my sight.”

  Salt exhaled, then gagged. Stone was letting Red go. More movement and the sound of the door slamming, then one note of a choked whistle came over the speaker. Red was out, walking again. Three notes. Silence, then five notes, then all eight, over and over until finally she hit the note she had been flattening. Salt sat upright. She remembered the words, from a Sunday school hymn: “I Come to the Garden Alone.” Red hit all the notes right.

  32.

  HARD TIMES

  The odor of metal lockers always reminded her of high school, as did the clacking of the doors catching, slamming open, then shut. Salt leaned her weight on her left hand, head bowed. Pepper brushed by and it took her a few seconds to realize he’d said something. “. . . more than you think . . .�
��

  Asshole, Pepper mouthed at Big Fuzzy across the precinct workroom.

  Sarge was signing and compiling paperwork at the long writing table. “Get those reports over here before I retire. I wanna go home tonight, too.”

  Metal ticket book holders clattered on the table. Half-written reports littered the floor. Adding to the locker room odor was something that smelled like a wet cigar. The shift dumped, then stumbled over each other’s gear bags. They left boot prints on the fallen reports and tickets.

  “Who you callin’ ‘asshole,’ asshole?”

  Their karma was fucked tonight, as sometimes happened; they were getting on each other’s nerves. Not shy about letting emotion show. One emotion—anger—was the acceptable one.

  “Goddamn, she’s PMS-ing and I swear you all go on the rag.” Sarge jerked reports and tickets from Pepper and Big Fuzzy.

  “Nice, Sarge,” Salt said to her open locker.

  “Rough around here tonight.” Salt turned to find Wills standing behind her in the locker aisle. “I thought we might console each other.”

  She slammed the locker door. “Yeah, well, it’s a lot rougher out there every night for Red.” She picked up her bag. Wills’s tie was loosened and there were perspiration marks on the sides of his white shirt.

  “I came to tell you that we got the warrants for Stone.”

  “Fuck the warrants. It’s not worth the risk of getting Red killed.” Blessing walked by, cutting his eyes at them. The others lingered, scowling and growling at one another and at Sarge across the room.

  Wills glanced toward the uniforms. “I did—we did what you wanted.”

  “What I wanted. You did what your ATF buddy wanted.”

  “Come on, Salt.” He reached out to help her with her gear bag. “We just have to find Stone.”

  “Before he finds Red?” She swung the bag from his reach.

  “Who are you angry at?” he asked as she walked past him.

  The shift stood staring as he followed her through the precinct door. “If you had done your job in the first place, Red wouldn’t have had to go through what she did. You don’t care about her or Shannell.” She left him on the precinct landing while she continued toward her car.