“Why would I do that?” Nick grinned. “You gonna do Susie?”
“Why would I do that?” Memphis retorted. “You think I should?”
“Naw. She’s a good girl. She just got caught in the middle of something too scary for her. Besides, she keeps me hooked up with the dancers back there. If you do her, I might have to do you.”
Nick laughed and pushed an untouched drink toward Memphis.
Memphis sucked down the whiskey and shook Nick’s hand as he left.
“You’re an interesting man, Memphis Red. I don’t know why I like you, but I do. Give me a call sometimes. Maybe we can do some business together.”
Memphis drifted to other tables and other acquaintances. Nick Genovese knew more about all of this than he revealed. Nick was like that, playing his hand close to the vest and revealing things only when it was to his advantage.
I could help you out if you want. Even God killed his enemies.
Even the darker side of society couldn’t always control everything, but it likes order and predictability. Sometimes that was as good as control. Ben Wallace’s private life was chaotic, but with his death, order had been restored and the uncertainty of the political process was no longer in question.
A line of chorus girls led by Margo Flowers emerged on stage, high kicking in rhythmic sequence. Memphis drifted backstage and opened a bottle with Susie Momon. They talked about Bobby Bazemore and North Carolina and all of the good times they once had in the city. They talked for a long time, and before they knew it, the storm that had raged through their lives over the last few days had passed.
Copyright © 2010 L. A. Wilson, Jr.
Previous Article Next Article
Previous Article Next Article
Fiction
THE GUN ALSO RISES
AN AARON TUCKER MYSTERY
JEFFREY COHEN
“So he pulled the gun out of his pocket.” I stared into her eyes for a sign of uncertainty; there was none.
“Yes,” she said.
“He aimed it straight at Jeremy.”
“That’s right.”
“And he pulled the trigger.”
Again, not so much as a blink. “Yes.”
“And what happened to Jeremy?”
“He got wet and started to cry.” Anne Mignano, assistant principal of the Sydney Primary School in Midland Heights, New Jersey, stood up from her desk and exhaled audibly. Nobody could remember who Sydney was anymore, and only a select few of us ever thought to ask. “Jeremy doesn’t like being wet.”
I’d only met Ms. Mignano once before, at back-to-school night the first week of classes. This was only two weeks later, and already I’d been called back to her office for a report on my son Ethan, a six-year-old first grader back then. It wasn’t a good sign.
We knew Ethan wasn’t like other kids; we just didn’t have a name to put on the difference that year. The following May, he’d be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. This September, he was just a kid who’d broken the rules.
“It was just a water pistol, Ms. Mignano,” I said. “Ethan wasn’t trying to be mean. He was just playing.”
“This is 1999, Mr. Tucker. We have a zero tolerance policy for bringing toy guns to school,” she reminded me. “I’m going to have to suspend Ethan for two days.”
I gave her my best give-me-a-break look, mostly because I really wanted her to give me a break. “Two days!” I protested. “Isn’t that a little severe?”
“I don’t have any leeway here. It’s a district-wide rule. Parents in Midland Heights ...”
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. It isn’t pretty, but you get to see the inside of your skull that way. “Don’t get me started on parents in Midland Heights, New Jersey,” I said. “They think that if a child brings a water gun to school when he’s six, he’s not only destined to become Charles Manson in later life, he’s probably going to watch the Three Stooges, vote Republican, and other unspeakable things, right?”
Ms. Mignano smiled. “Something like that. I’m sorry, Mr. Tucker.”
“Aaron,” I said. “I have a feeling we’re going to get to know each other. Call me Aaron.”
She nodded. “But it will have to be two days. Even if I call you by your first name.”
I sighed. It would be bad enough that I’d have to work in the house with an overactive six year old for the next two days. On top of that, I’d have to inform my wife the attorney that I was unable to deflect this violation of our child’s civil rights. “Can I at least get the water gun back?” I asked. “Maybe he can take target practice on the plants until Friday.”
“Of course,” she said. “But the point is, he must never bring it to school again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I intoned. I wanted to hate Mignano just for being a school system functionary who couldn’t see my son was troubled and didn’t need more discipline, but more understanding. But she exuded enough humanity to make that impossible. Dammit.
She opened a drawer on her desk and reached in for the offending piece of wet plastic. And when she handed it to me, I stood up, shook my head, and put my palms on the edge of her desk.
“This isn’t Ethan’s,” I said.
After convincing Ms. Mignano that my son would never under any circumstances own a yellow water pistol (he hated yellow and owned only blue and red plastic toys, except dinosaurs, because of the alleged accuracy issue), I won a reprieve of three days for Ethan. If the real guilty party was not exposed by then, Ethan would have to do his two-day suspension starting the following Monday. A humiliation from which my son might never recover.
So walking back to the house, where I had two assignments for Tech Week waiting and a proposal for a ghostwriting assignment (the memoir of a businessman who had never done one interesting thing in his entire life) gathering dust on my hard drive, I considered ways to expose the little rat who was turning my kid into a hardened criminal. It was important, I’d decided, to maintain objectivity in the matter.
I’m a freelance reporter. I was once a newspaper reporter, but it turned out I was much better at writing the news than I was at gathering it, and they frown on that in the newspaper business. I also write screenplays that have what baseball players call “warning track power,” meaning that they manage to generate some interest, but don’t get sold so much. Mostly, I work on feature articles about electronics and technology, and I sell my talents (such as they are) to the highest, or to be honest, any, bidder. It’s a living. Sort of.
I’d barely dodged the encroaching debris that is my office when I noticed a red flashing light reflecting off a couple old copies of Daily Variety. I pushed the button on my phone to hear the messages, and was rewarded with a voice I did not recognize.
“I’m looking for Aaron Tucker,” the man’s voice said. “Is this his machine?” I’d never changed the outgoing message from one in which Ethan sang the first lines of the Groucho Marx classic “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” while his baby sister Leah laughed in the background. I just loved hearing that girl laugh. “If it is,” the voice continued, “please call Jim Furda at Infield Magazine about a possible assignment.” He left a phone number.
Infield, I knew, was a baseball magazine for fans—I’d subscribed to it when I was a kid—that never said anything bad about players and never got too heavily into statistics. It was all about how cool it all was to be a Major League player. After you’re finished being eleven, it’s the kind of thing you pretend to be too old to enjoy.
“We’re trying to change that image,” Furda explained when I called back. “We’ve been growing up a little, writing about betting on games and players taking amphetamines, things like that. Anyway, I got your name from Mitch Davis at USA Today.” (Mitch was a college buddy who stuck with newspapers because he’s actually, you know, good at it.) “He says you’re good. And I’ve got a story I need covered in your area.”
In my area? The Major League teams near here were the Yankee
s, the Mets, and the Phillies. I was hoping, in my partisan heart, for a Yankees story. “I’m listening,” I managed to croak out.
“It’s in Edison, right near where you live,” Furda said, reading off a paper. Edison? Edison, New Jersey? Had the Montreal Expos finally moved? “Minor league team called the Kilowatts. Kid pitcher called Ramon Escobar.”
“I thought you guys only covered the Majors,” I said, a little off balance. “What happened?”
“Our readers grew up. They want information on the farm systems too.”
“So what about this Escobar kid? He really good?” A profile of a minor league pitcher? I was a baseball fan, but not a sportswriter. Anybody bigger than me—and that’s roughly ninety percent of the adult population—was going to look impressive to me. I had decided that very morning to lose some of the weight I’d gained since I’d married Abby and started eating actual food. In fact, I’d made the same decision every morning for the past eight years.
“He was,” Furda said.
“Injury problem?”
“Sort of. He’s dead.”
It was a short drive Kilowatt Park, where the Kilowatts (get it? Edison? Electricity?) played. The Infield press pass Furda had faxed me got me through the gates and into the office of Mel Paterson, security chief (and traveling secretary) for the team. Paterson could be described in no other way than “grizzled.” I’ve never seen someone with a better grizzling job than Paterson. Bottom line: The man could grizzle.
“There’s nothing to tell you,” Paterson began, always an encouraging sign for a reporter. “The kid was our closer, so he was on the mound when we won the championship Tuesday night. They all piled up on top of him, like they see the big guys do on TV. And then everybody got up to go spray cheap Champagne on each other, except Ramon didn’t get up.”
I looked out onto the empty field, already looking lonely until next spring, and tried to picture it. “They were all on the pitcher’s mound?” I asked.
Paterson nodded. “I was the first one to realize something was wrong, and I got to him first, tried to give him CPR, but ...” His voice trailed off, and he looked like he might tear up.
“You can’t blame yourself,” I told him. “The kid suffocated under a pile of other players.” Silence. “Didn’t he?”
“They’re doing an autopsy today,” Paterson said, looking away. “We’ll see when the results come back. But I’ll tell you something, Mr. Tucker. I’ve seen players pile up on each other like that before. I’ve seen it on TV every year for forever. And I’ve never seen one get slightly injured, let alone killed. They know how to protect each other.”
“So what do you think happened?” I asked. Hell, the guy knew what didn’t happen; I figured he’d have a really interesting idea.
“I have absolutely no idea,” Paterson said.
That didn’t help much, but it was starting to smell like a good story. I thanked Paterson, made an appointment to talk to Dave Crenshaw, the president of the Kilowatts, early the next morning, and drove the three and a half miles back to Midland Heights. There are days I seriously contemplate riding a bicycle around instead of taking the car.
It was almost time for the Ethan to get home from school, so I picked Leah up at Kimmy the babysitter’s and, as usual, was given a look from my daughter that indicated she would have preferred to stay with the paid caregiver. Toddlers are at best a fickle lot, though, so by the time I’d strapped her into the car seat, Leah was giggling and singing a song to me. She didn’t actually know the words—she didn’t actually know all that many words at all—but she could mimic the sounds, and for her, that was enough. The song, which I’d taught her, was “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (Except Me and My Monkey).”
Leah continued to sing for the three entire minutes it took to get home (now I remembered why I didn’t ride a bicycle—I’d have nowhere to put my daughter), and we sat down in front of the house and waited for Ethan to get off the bus.
He did, about three minutes later, in a full Asperger’s rage, which I recognized at the time as “a snit.” “It’s NOT FAIR!” he shouted before he even made it all the way off the bus. A few other kids gave him looks that indicated he would not be the first one invited to their birthday parties.
I waited until the bus pulled away. “Okay, what’s not fair?”
“Nothing!”
This was going to take a while, so I took Leah’s hand and we all walked into the house. Ethan slammed his backpack, with one book in it, down on the dining room table, sat down on the floor, and did his best to look miserable.
I decided to concentrate on Leah and let him stew, but Ethan was intent on getting a reaction. He’d scripted something in his head, and I wasn’t playing my role. I finally set my daughter up with a Sony device that draws pictures on the TV (she never really got the hang of doing it herself, but loved watching the demonstration video), and sat down at my desk to make phone calls about the Escobar story.
Beginning with the Edison police, who told me nothing except that they had a public information officer who was off until tomorrow, I ran into brick walls with the office of the Atlantic League, the independent organization to which the Kilowatts belonged, the staff at the emergency room at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where Escobar had been taken, and the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office.
I started to understand Ethan’s frustration—I couldn’t get a rise out of anybody either.
He sat down next to my desk, still in his jacket, zipped up to his Adam’s apple. And his face read complete and total revulsion with the idea of life on planet Earth.
After hanging up on the last call of the day (or at least, the last one I could think to make right now), I looked down at my son, the bundle of anxiety he was, and I decided I’d give him what he wanted.
“It’s none of my business, Ethan,” I told him. “But isn’t it kind of warm to be wearing that jacket in the house?”
That was it: Ethan put his script into production. He stood up, tore the zipper all the way down, ripped his jacket off his shoulders, and threw it to the floor. “You make me do everything around here!” he screamed, and stomped up the stairs to his room.
I was happy to have helped.
The question, really, was who had handed the water gun to Ethan. Now, most parents faced with such a conundrum would probably just ask their sons, but they don’t know Asperger’s kids as well as I was about to. Asking Ethan would have been a worthless exercise; he would have denied even having seen the yellow water pistol, and would never give up someone he thought was a friend, even someone who in all likelihood was purposely framing him. One thing I already did know was that my son was a really easy target.
I took out the list of his classmates the Parent Teacher Organization had sent home. I hadn’t known many of the kids for long—it was still September, after all—but I did recognize a few names from Ethan’s kindergarten class. I didn’t know enough to narrow the pack.
So I decided to check with my inside source on all things Sydney Primary School: the president of the PTO, Carole Drabek. I knew Carole first as Danny Drabek’s mom, back when Danny and Ethan had played together on occasion.
“Carole, it’s Aaron Tucker,” I began, since only one of us knew who was calling. “How’s Danny doing?” You never ask about the parents; we’re all irrelevant. You ask about the kids.
“Oh, he’s adjusting so beautifully to first grade!” Carole gushed. Danny was one of those kids you knew would turn down Yale for Brown in eleven years. I made a mental note to transfer some money into Ethan’s tuition fund, which currently stood at a hundred and seventy-eight dollars, earning two-percent interest. “He just loves Ms. Turner! I heard there was some trouble with a water gun at school today.” Carole misses nothing.
“Yeah, that’s what I was calling about,” I told her. “Ethan got caught with a water gun that wasn’t his; he’s facing a two-day suspension unless I find out who owns it, and of course ...”
“Ethan won’t tell you.” Carole was quick on the uptake.
“Right. So I’m wondering if you have any ideas.”
There was silence. Was she appalled at my suggestion that she rat out a first-grader for my own selfish purposes? Nah. She was thinking. Carole knew everyone in Midland Heights, and she appreciated nothing better than being thought of as “in the know.”
“It’s hard, because you know we don’t allow violent toys in the house, and Danny’s friends who have them know to leave them home when they come here.” Carole and her husband Richard were so crunchy-granola that they wouldn’t allow Danny and his younger brother Jake to watch any television that wasn’t on PBS. I thought of that as my two-year-old daughter watched Pinky and the Brain in the next room.
“But you have suspicions.” I led the witness.
“Okay, yeah. I think it’s possible Leopold Brinker might have brought in the water gun.”
“Leopold?” This was a kid whose name I had not heard before. And it was a corker.
“Yeah, Alistair and Connie’s son. He transferred in just before the school year started. I know they’ll let their kids use those big water guns, and I always have to let them know that Danny can’t have any sugary snacks when he’s at their house.” The kid’s been living in town for a month, and she already knows them well enough for “always.” “You want their number?”
Given proper contact information, I was about to call the Brinkers when the daily Mardi Gras near my front door (Leah screaming, Ethan calling down from his room) indicated that my wife had once again returned home from work.
Abigail Stein, Esquire, surveyed the living room: two year old reaching out for a hug while animated mice planned to take over the world on the TV in front of her; six-year-old boy, with tear-stained face, stopped halfway down the stairs, as if surveying all that will one day be his, and a short, under-earning husband, unable to contain his glee at seeing her walk through his door again.
“So,” she said. “Tuesday.”
I filled Abby in on Ethan’s misadventure with a nautical weapon and my latest assignment while she and I were cleaning up from the circus act we call dinner. My wife, besides being beautiful and brilliant (and probably other things that start with “B”), is also one of the best listeners I’ve ever met.
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 01/01/11 Page 19