by Ace Atkins
I sipped my beer. I walked over to the jukebox and picked out a favorite by Wayne King. I returned to the seat and looked at Bukowski. “What if it were you,” I said. “If it were your kid. Would you be mad they didn’t offer assistance?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Does Scali play fair?”
“Who are you?’
“A harbinger of change.”
Bukowski raised his head back, took a deep swallow. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “He doesn’t want us in there. I got enough shit to fight in this town without worrying about the kiddies.”
I laid down money for another drink and left Felix on the bar stool, head tucked deep into the parka, staring straight ahead at the row of booze. It had started to snow, the sidewalks covered in white. For maybe a good thirty seconds, Blackburn almost looked pretty.
9
Henry Cimoli had placed me on a strict upper-body routine while my knee healed up. He liked to remind me my legs weren’t that great anyway. I told him he was crazy and intentionally wore a pair of navy gym shorts to make the point. I left my leg out straight while I cranked out several reps on the bench. The front of my gray workout tee was soaked in sweat. It had been a while since I had attacked the heavy bag.
“Let me know when you’re done warming up,” Henry said.
“What makes you think I’m warming up?”
“I saw Hawk curl what you’ve got on that bar,” he said.
I slid an extra plate onto the bar and performed twelve reps to shut him up. When I racked the weight and sat upright on the bench, Henry stood nearby, unimpressed. “Next time slower,” he said. “And pause when the bar hits your chest. Don’t bounce it. You’ll get hurt that way.”
“I only get hurt when someone uses a tire iron on my legs,” I said.
“That’s your own fault,” Henry said. “You should’ve moved faster.”
“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Henry said.
“Strike that,” I said. “Imagining you on high takes too much effort.”
Henry stood about five-foot-five in lifts he denied he owned. But he was as loyal a friend as they made and tougher than a two-dollar steak. I’d been working out in his gym since I’d been a wise-ass kid who thought he might be a contender. Those dreams, along with my profile, had been shattered by an aging heavyweight of some note. As of late, we’d both been working with a tough Native American named Zebulon Sixkill. Henry offered him boxing lessons and I was helping him get his investigator license. He had great potential.
“You heard from Z?” Henry said.
“I offered a letter of introduction to my people in Southern California.”
“Your people are damn good.”
“Yep,” I said. “And they’ll come through for Z. Whatever it is he needs.”
I walked over to a chin-up bar facing a plate-glass window. As I counted out ten reps and then went on to twelve, I looked out into the harbor. The water was black and choppy, and you couldn’t see maybe a hundred feet beyond the pier. Everything was wrapped in a white haze. It felt good and warm to be inside. The snow fell into the water, dusted the docked sailboats, and covered pilings in gentle mounds. Sleet mixed in with the snow tapped at the window. I got some water. Henry stood next to me drinking coffee from a foam cup.
“What’ve you been doing, besides nothing?”
“I took a case in Blackburn.”
“Blackburn?” Henry said. “Jesus. What are you doing in that shithole?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Who’s your client?”
“A woman named Sheila Yates,” I said. “Her son was sent to kids’ jail for making fun of an administrator.”
“Is that a crime?”
“Apparently it is in Blackburn.”
“Kids got nothing to do these days,” he said. “When I was coming up, you had the streets or you had the gym.”
“Same for me,” I said. “And Hawk.”
“Boys got all kinds of anger and energy,” Henry said. “You got the body but you ain’t got the brains. You got to find a place to focus it. If you don’t, you end up in the can.”
“True.”
“You could’ve ended up in the can,” Henry said. “Right? If it weren’t for boxing and then the Army. Difference between you and Hawk was your uncle. Kept you safe after your old man passed.”
I nodded.
“And I did my best,” Henry said. “Despite how you turned out. I take no credit for that.”
“Hawk had Bobby Nevins,” I said. “Closest thing Hawk ever had to family.”
“I know for a fact Bobby kept on bailing Hawk out of the hoosegow.”
“Do people still say hoosegow?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “I just did.”
I slid my feet under the base of a weight bench and did three sets of sit-ups, fifty reps each. Henry stood sure-footed and gray-headed, lording over all his shiny stainless-steel machines. “A little snow and it gives people an excuse,” Henry said. “Look at this place. It’s nearly empty.”
“The roads are about to freeze.”
“Roads are always freezing,” Henry said. “If it ain’t the snow, it’s the rain. You can’t run your life around the freakin’ weather.”
“Have you no compassion for my poor nerves?”
“How does Susan put up with you?”
“The dog,” I said. “We stay together for the dog.”
“Jesus,” Henry said, walking away.
They were in the van for what seemed like forever. There were no windows and no one told them where they were headed. It was just him and seven other boys. Four of them were black, two Asians, and another scared-shitless white kid. One of the black kids started to talk about the island before they even left Blackburn. He said he’d been to the island three times and it wasn’t so rough. He said it got cold and the staff tried to fuck with your mind. But he said if you kept your head down and kept with the program you’d be cool.
The black kid had a paisley-shaped scar on one cheek and had kind of a far-off look in his eyes like he didn’t believe a word he was saying. Nobody else talked. The two guards were separated from the kids by a wire screen. They listened to some sports talk radio, a show called Paulie & the Gooch, and didn’t say much besides telling the kids to shut the fuck up twice so they could listen.
All of them were in orange. All of them had been cuffed and didn’t have anything to do but look at the floor and try not to think about where they were going as the van raced along. The black kid told him his name was Perry but everyone called him Pooky. He was from the projects in Grove Hill. Pooky said he’d stolen a car just to get the hell out of town. The judge committed him to Fortune Island until he turned eighteen.
“When I get out,” he said, “I’m getting the hell away from this damn place.”
The other white kid was Isaac, a chunky boy not even fourteen, who had stolen a copy of Grand Theft Auto from Target. The boy didn’t talk much, trying to listen and learn a little bit more about the island. No one had told him a thing.
He’d seen his dad for only a second before they removed him from court. His dad was crying. His dad just kept on saying he was sorry but didn’t say he knew what to do. For the first time, his father looked weak to him.
After a long while, the van slowed and the guards got out, slamming the doors. The boys looked at one another. No one spoke. You could hear the wind and sleet against the van doors. Finally the back door opened and there was a bright artificial light. The two men who’d driven them this far telling them to get the hell out.
“Move,” they said. “Come on. Now.”
It was the first time the boy noticed they weren’t cops but had uniforms with a patch that read MCC over an outline of Massachu
setts. They told the boys to line up outside in the dark and cold. He could make out part of a parking lot and a dock in the streetlights. The guards marched them down a long path to a small dock, where an enclosed motorboat was waiting for them. They pushed the kids onboard, telling them to keep their feet inside because no one would be diving in after them.
“Sit down,” said an older man in a ball cap. “Shut up. Don’t start trouble for yourself before you even get here.”
The man looked to be in his forties and had a shaved head and a goatee. He wore a ski jacket and had a tattoo on his neck. The snow, sleet, and darkness made it hard to see past a few feet. The boy stared out the boat’s window at the snow catching and melting on the windows, listening to the steady hum of the motor until it revved hard and they left the dock. The men’s feet were hard and heavy around them. There was laughter and a lot of talk. Someone said something about those little fuckers. The man with the tattoo was at the wheel now, staring into nothing, the front of the boat lifting up and slamming back down.
The boy had never spent much time at sea. You could smell the cold salt air all around you.
He felt like he might puke.
He lifted his eyes, everything off-kilter. Pooky was across from him, shaking his head. “Don’t do it,” he said. “Don’t show you weak or it’s all over.”
The boy just breathed and looked out the window, looking for something. In the distance came the swinging arc of brightness from a lighthouse.
“How bad is it?” the boy said.
“It ain’t good.”
“What do they do to you?”
“Everything.”
10
A few days later, I sat across from Sheila Yates in a conference room at Cone, Oakes. We were very high up, and the view of the docks and the cold, breaking waves in the harbor was impressive. I almost wished I’d worn a tie, perhaps my J. Press blazer with gold buttons. Instead, I had on work clothes. Levi’s, button-down Ball and Buck shirt, Red Wings, and my A-2 bomber jacket. I kept on the A-2 to shield my Smith & Wesson.
“I’m about to go nuts,” Sheila said. “They take him out there. To that island, and there’s no way to see him? This is crazy.”
“We’ll get him out,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Because we will,” I said. “Scali has grown cocky and sloppy. The law is on our side.”
“That doesn’t always mean jack.”
“Depends on who’s cracking the whip.”
Just then a young woman walked into the office carrying a tall cup of Starbucks. She was thin, with a dimpled chin and big, sleepy hazel eyes under a ski hat. She trundled out of an enormous gray coat while she held a batch of papers in her teeth. She sat down at the head of the conference table, still in the ski hat marked with two crossed arrows, and shuffled the papers. I didn’t want to be judgmental, but she looked all of twelve.
“Is Rita coming?” I said.
“Rita is in court today,” she said. “I’m Megan Mullen. I’ll be handling your case.”
“What are you, twelve?” Sheila said.
I stifled a smile. It was a good question.
“No, ma’am, I’m twenty-nine,” she said. “There’s no age discrimination at Harvard Law School. I passed the bar and everything.”
Sheila Yates raised her eyebrows at me. I smiled just a little. I didn’t want Megan Mullen to notice, as she seemed to have small but sharp teeth. She pulled off the ski hat, unveiling a neat bun at the back of her head and two respectable-sized diamond earrings. She pushed up the sleeves on a navy V-neck sweater and settled in to read the papers before her.
I tapped my fingers. “I’m Spenser, by the way.”
“I know who you are,” Megan said.
“Excellent.”
“Rita warned me.”
“Warned you?”
“She said you’re a solid investigator and have done a lot for the firm.”
“And?”
“She said you’d make jokes about me being young.”
“But I’ve refrained.”
Megan looked up from the papers and gave me a wait-and-see glance. I waved an empty palm across the very long desk. We were up so high that a dense fog shifted below us like low-hanging clouds.
“I don’t get this,” she said. “Your son made a joke on Twitter and they arrested him?”
“I know,” Sheila said. “Freakin’ crazy.”
“On what charges?” she said.
“Keep reading,” I said. “It gets freakin’ crazier.”
Megan flipped through the file Sheila Yates and I had put together. This wasn’t a murder case. The file was very thin. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”
“So ridiculous my Dillon was hauled away in shackles and taken out into the harbor,” Sheila said. “For rehabilitation, as if he were some kind of criminal. He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t do drugs. He once stole a pack of Doublemint gum when he was four. I made him take it back and pay for it. He’s a great kid.”
“Some people can’t take a joke,” I said.
Megan pushed the papers away from her as if they were a rotten meal. She made an uggh sound and crossed her arms over her very small chest. I bet if she stood on a box, she might come up to my shoulders. She tilted her head at me, dropping those big, sleepy eyes like a hammer. “Oh, I can take a joke,” she said. “If it’s funny.”
“Two lawyers and a priest walk into a bar,” I said.
Megan held up her hand. “Just tell me what you learned in Blackburn.”
“You know Dillon’s grandfather signed a waiver giving up his right to an attorney?” I said.
“I do,” she said. “And we’ve filed an appeal. I just didn’t know the circumstances behind his arrest.”
“For the record, I don’t think the waiver even matters to them. The juvie judge doesn’t like lawyers in his courtroom. Not to mention the public defender in Blackburn didn’t seem too concerned. He said a lawyer wouldn’t have made a difference. And he’s got bigger problems than kiddie cases.”
“Like what?”
“Mainly draining a bottle of Old Crow.”
“So this isn’t isolated?” Megan said.
“I think it’s the Blackburn way.”
“They can’t do that,” she said. “A judge can’t just make up his own procedure and rules.”
“Aha,” I said. “You did go to Harvard Law.”
Megan dropped her chin at me and stared. I smiled. She waited for a moment and then smiled back. Friends after all. Any protégée of Rita Fiore’s couldn’t be immune to my charms. “Disgusting,” Megan said. “Completely disgusting.”
“How long will the appeal take?” Sheila said.
“We’re working as fast as possible,” she said. “Has no one complained about this judge before?”
“A fellow Blackburn judge,” I said. “He got the local newspaper involved and they were able to prove Joe Scali had off-the-charts incarceration rates. The highest in the Commonwealth, with their annual budget being looted for keeping kids in private prisons.”
“And?” Megan said.
“And nothing ever came of it,” I said. “The complaining judge died and Scali was able to explain things off as him being tough on juvie crime.”
“Surely there have been complaints to the Department of Youth Services and the bar?”
“One would think,” I said.
“Blackburn ain’t normal,” Sheila said. “People around there keep their heads down and mouths shut. They tell me that’s the way it’s always been.”
“I heard you’re not too good at shutting your mouth,” Megan said, standing and offering her thin, small hand. I tried to look modest as I shook it.
“Tell Rita I’ll win you over, too.”
“We’ll see about that
,” Megan said.
“You know, I have socks older than you.”
“Then I suggest you go shopping, Mr. Spenser.”
I grinned and walked out of the law office with Sheila Yates. She clasped her hands together over her mouth, closing her eyes in prayer, the whole ride down to the first floor. “What do you think?” she said. “Is it going to work?”
“I think the kid will do nicely.”
“I want more than Dillon just out on appeal,” she said. “I want Judge Scali to pay.”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
11
The Magic Bean was on Central Avenue in Blackburn, at the heart of what used to be a thriving business district. These days it hosted a lot of boarded-up storefronts, a Salvation Army thrift store, and the coffee shop. The Magic Bean sold hemp jewelry by the cash register, and local art from the brick walls, and two members of the staff had nose rings. One had blue hair. I felt a little less hip in my Levi’s, steel-toed boots, and lack of nose jewelry. I’d put the nose ring on the list. Maybe someday.
I met my new BFF, Beth Golnick, there, along with two of her classmates who’d had run-ins with Scali. It wasn’t even four o’clock and outside it was nearly black. But the shop was warm and pleasant, smelling of hot coffee and exotic teas. A good place to thaw out.
We seemed to be the only ones in the Magic Bean not staring at a screen. The room was packed with nervous and fidgety kids on their phones and devices. Both of Beth’s classmates were boys, Jake Cotner and Ryan Bell. Jake had been a football player. He was broad-shouldered and muscular but not quite six feet. Ryan was tall, very thin, with nearly white blond hair. If he got a crew cut, he’d look a lot like Shell Scott.
“Why’d you go before Scali?” I said. “Overdue library books?”
The kids laughed. Oh, Spenser, friend of youth.
“I got into a fight with my stepmother,” Ryan said. “She’s a total bitch.”
“She called the cops?”
“I told her she had no class and no business living with us,” Ryan said. “I threw a steak at her. She screamed at me for an hour and then called the cops. She told them I was trying to kill her. Jesus Christ. She’s only eight years older than me.”