by Mark Wheaton
Leonhardt found what he was looking for on the counter: a silk lingerie bag with a drawstring. He knew the crime scene guys had given Mrs. Fowler’s apartment the once-over. But as it was a victim’s residence, not an actual site of violence, he wasn’t sure they paid as much attention. She wasn’t considered a suspect, after all. The detective picked up the bag and put it to his nose.
“Shit, man, what’re you doing?” Garza scowled.
Leonhardt held it out to him. “Gun oil. You know these old ladies don’t keep their guns in a holster on the door.”
“The missing weapon?” Garza asked, walking over.
“Couldn’t have set the scene easier if I’d done it myself.”
“Case closed! The little old lady got scared, walked out, started popping off shots, but then got herself popped.”
Leonhardt nodded idly. That might fit. But that’s when he spotted the dish on the floor. He stooped and saw the slick red-brown residue of dog food.
“She have a dog?”
Garza shrugged. “Neighbors didn’t say anything.”
Leonhardt opened the fridge and saw a half-empty can of dog food with a pink plastic lid on top of it. Moving to the cabinets, he searched through until he found a bag of dry food and a stack of cans of the same brand. The label on the bag suggested the food was “specifically designed to meet the nutritional demands of a dog” between “175-200 pounds.”
“Wow, big dog,” Leonhardt remarked.
“Maybe it ran off with the police dog.”
Leonhardt plucked his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. “This is Detective Leonhardt. Animal Control came in to the Neville Houses shooting, maybe get a dog out of apartment 632? Can you double-check and call me back at this number? Thanks.”
Leonhardt hung up and sniffed the air.
“What is it?” Garza asked.
“If it had been locked up in here for any period of time, it probably would’ve relieved itself. I don’t smell anything.”
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t the clue that’s going to break the case, detective,” Garza snarked. “Shall we keep looking around?”
“Yeah,” Leonhardt replied absently
He was trying to imagine how the diminutive Mrs. Fowler managed to go up and down the stairs every time her massive pet needed to use the yard without a single neighbor seeing her.
• • •
“In closing, the reason I admire Benjamin Franklin so much is because he invented so many things and was so smart and knew how to miti…miti…”
“Mitigate?” asked Mrs. Cosmatos.
“Mitigate the differences between so many different people. Thank you.”
As April took her seat, Becca did nothing to hide the rolling of her eyes. She took it for granted that the other students got help from their parents on their homework, but when it was an oral report? Well, it lessened her esteem for Mrs. Cosmatos that she let April by with such an obvious fraud.
“Becca Baldwin.”
Becca picked the handwritten page up from her desk, “A Historical Figure I Admire” written across the top, and headed for the front of the classroom. She looked down at April’s desk and, sure enough, her Ben Franklin report was typed and printed out. Easier to hide one’s accomplices that way, Becca thought, smug in her belief in April’s inability to write even a one-page report. There were two roads in to the Carver Academy. Your name was picked in a lottery for places. Or you knew somebody.
As April’s mom was not only head of the school’s parent-teacher association and tended to air-kiss and wave—and hug and flail and embrace and cry—upon running into any number of the administrators or faculty, Becca figured April for the latter category. Having been there the night her name was pulled out of a bingo cage, Becca knew where she stood.
“The historical figure I most admire is Gordon Parks. He was born in Kansas in 1912. He moved to New York during the Great Depression. He wanted to be a songwriter and sold some songs but none hit big. Then he became a photographer. This made him famous. He took many famous photos during the 1940s. He took pictures of women in dresses for Vogue magazine and news for Life magazine. He made friends with Malcolm X and was godfather to one of his kids. He then wrote a novel called The Learning Tree. It got famous. He then directed a movie out of it. After that, he made a famous movie called Shaft. He directed Shaft here in Harlem. He also wrote poetry. His son, Gordon Parks, Jr., made a movie in Harlem, too, called Superfly. His son died in a plane crash. The reason I admire Gordon Parks so much is because he never stopped doing new things and being good at them.”
Becca smiled wide. Two grades ago, she’d been introduced to Parks when a teacher gave her The Learning Tree. This had led her to read one of Parks’s autobiographies, A Choice of Weapons. She didn’t think she could admire anyone more than she did Gordon Parks. The fact that he’d lived and worked in Harlem throughout his life only made it better.
It was then that Becca noticed no one else was smiling. Mrs. Cosmatos had a concerned expression on her face. The rest of the class had taken their lead from her.
“Becca, we have a fairly sincere honor policy in this classroom that we’ve all agreed to uphold. This includes excessive help from one’s parents or, in your case, guardians.”
“I didn’t have any help from anybody!”
Mrs. Cosmatos fixed a skeptical look on Becca. “Becca? I may need to have a word with your older brother. You haven’t seen these movies you mention.”
“I haven’t,” Becca admitted. “But I’ve read about them. And my old teacher, Mr. Newton, said Shaft was great.”
“But all the rest of it?”
“I read about it in books.”
Someone snickered. Books.
Mrs. Cosmatos gave a smile of incredulity. “It’s just, all of what you’re talking about here is just a little too advanced for someone your age. You really thought you’d get away with it?”
Now everyone in the class sat staring daggers of bemused accusation at Becca. The little girl had no recourse but to fold her arms and stare back.
“Really, Mrs. Cosmatos?” she began. “I mean, what the fuck? How are you gonna go and accuse me of that shit?”
• • •
Ken had only just fallen asleep when the telephone rang.
“Hello?” he mumbled, just catching it on the fifth ring.
“Mr. Baldwin, this is Mrs. Drucker, the principal at Becca’s school. There’s been an issue with Becca today that we thought we should address with her guardian.”
Ken knew who Mrs. Drucker was. He sat up straight, prepared for the worst. It was only then that he noticed Bones curled up on the floor by the foot of the bed. The dog was eyeing him expectantly as if thinking he might soon get fed.
“Um…what’d she do?”
“She used the f-word on a teacher after being accused of having help on her homework assignment from you.”
Ken closed his eyes again, wishing he back asleep. “What was the homework about?”
“Excuse me?”
“What homework? And I’ll tell you if I helped her.”
Mrs. Drucker paused as if unsure how to respond to his candor.
“An essay on a person from history that she admired. She selected Gordon Parks.”
“Mrs. Drucker, is it?” Ken began. “What you need to come around to understanding is just how much smarter Becca is than me or her other brother, Trey. I don’t mean a little smarter, either. I mean, she could come down to my job and tell the foreman what he’s doing wrong. The cursing? That’s all me and Trey. I will have another conversation with her about what to ignore from the ignorance she hears coming out of our mouths in this apartment. But second, I’ve never heard of Gordon Parks. You say that’s a name, I think that’s what they’re renaming the dog track down in Riverhead, feel me?”
The other end of the line went silent. Ken wondered if he’d overdone it. Sure, he’d heard of Gordon Parks. Becca had told him all about the guy when she star
ted working on the paper. But he wasn’t about to give this woman the satisfaction.
Finally, Mrs. Drucker returned to the line as if having first consulted with others in the room about how to respond. “The shooting of the police officers last night, this was your neighborhood?”
Ken had to resist the urge to challenge an educator about how she could form a sentence like that. “Neighborhood, building, and floor. Worse, Becca was here alone when it happened. I work nights and her brother was running an errand.”
More silence. When Mrs. Drucker finally replied, her entire sentence a sigh.
“Well, I guess we can agree that the stress of something that dramatic might have impacted her behavior today.”
“That’s probably my fault,” Ken said. “I wanted to keep her home today, but she insisted. She was so excited to share her paper on Gordon Parks.”
No such exchange had occurred, but Ken figured if he was in for a penny, he might as well be in for a pound. Besides, it was literally the least he could do to help Becca out of a tight spot.
“I’ll let Mrs. Cosmatos know. Thank you for your help and your candor, Mr. Baldwin.”
“No problem at all, Mrs. Drucker.” Ken set the phone back on its charger and looked down at Bones. “Well, I guess if I’m up, I’m up. Want to hit the yard?”
“When’d you get a dog?”
Trey was half a second from replying that he didn’t have no fucking dog, when through his mid-morning haze of drugs and alcohol, he realized what Alvis must be looking at from his tenth-floor window.
“Oh, you got Ken down there with a shepherd?”
“Big dog. Looks like he could bite your dick off.”
“Oh, yeah…it was Mrs. Fowler’s. We don’t know what to do with it, so we’re just taking care of the thing until her next of kin show up to claim it.”
“Holy shit, you stole a dead woman’s dog? That’s cold!”
Everybody in the apartment, six or seven of the fellas and a handful of their girls, chuckled a little. This included Janice Gaines, the new girl in the building who Trey was still trying to get next to even though it’d been three weeks since she started hanging out with his crew.
“No, we didn’t steal it,” Trey scowled. “The thing got out and was nosing around our door. Becca let it in and fed it.”
“Likely story,” Janice snorted.
“All right, you got me,” Trey nodded. “Times is hard. We figured no one would come looking for the mutt, so we were going to fatten it up with all kinds of shit and sell it to one of them Vietnamese restaurants over on Grand Street.”
This broke up the crew, Janice laughing the loudest. Trey beamed. He thought that might push things with Janice over the finish line. He’d find a minute later when they were alone to close the deal. It would be a good day.
There was a knock at the door. Everyone glanced around as if checking to see if company was expected. Alvis got to his feet and moved to the door, glancing through the peephole. He turned back to the crew, a big grin on his face.
“It’s Mr. Lester. Should I let him in?”
More out of curiosity than neighborly friendship, a verdict was reached and the door opened.
“Hey, there, Mr. Lester. What can we do for you?”
“You bitches holding?” Vernon asked, his voice raspy and strained.
“Who are you calling bitch, asshole?” Alvis replied, half-joking.
Vernon grabbed him by his throat and lifted him straight off the ground a good foot and a half. Trey leaped to his feet. He knew Alvis had a gun in his waistband but also one under the couch. He went for the latter.
“Sit down, Trey, before I wring your neck, too,” Vernon croaked. “Now, bitches, who’s got what? I’ve got money, but I clearly don’t have your attention.”
No one knew what to do. This was a school bus driver. Nicest guy in the projects. One of those big guys who laughed like you imagined Santa Claus might. Trey remembered a time that he’d slow his bus so a kid could catch up, only to earn a horn blast from a taxi. Mr. Lester had lowered his window, flipped the guy off, and cursed him like no one had ever heard before. It was the kind of thing that could’ve gotten him suspended, but not a kid told on him. It just made them respect him that much more.
Figuring it was up to him, Trey went to the coffee table, reached under, and pulled up a wooden box that was taped beneath it.
“You looking for something specific?” Trey asked, making himself a calm sea for Mr. Lester to gravitate towards.
“Pills,” Vernon spat. “What you got?”
Trey held the box out to Mr. Lester as the big man lowered Alvis. Alvis shot Trey a dirty look as he straightened his collar. Mr. Lester picked through the box, plucked out three bags with about fifty pills all told, and tossed five $100 bills back into the box, ten times what the pills were worth.
“You want change, motherfucker?” Alvis asked, still smarting.
Mr. Lester fired the back of his hand so hard across Alvis’s face that the young man flew backward before crumpling to the ground, knocked cold. Trey stared at Mr. Lester, figuring the only time he’d seen someone punch like that was in a boxing match.
The older man nodded to Trey, as if the blow to Alvis’s face hadn’t happened at all. “Thanks, Trey.”
Trey nodded, having no desire to earn a punch to the face himself. Mr. Lester exited, disappearing down the stairwell at the end of the hall.
“What the fuck?” one of the other guys, nicknamed Pluto, asked.
“I think we just made a shitload of money. When Alvis wakes up, we should go celebrate.”
Everybody liked this idea. Trey caught Janice’s eye, seeing that she approved of the way he’d handled himself. Not only that, she was doing nothing to hide the fact that her gaze was melting the clothes right off his body.
This would be a good day.
VI
A teenage girl was dead over a bag of chips. Shot through the neck, she was in blue jeans and sandals, a white tank top, a reminder that summer was around the corner. She’d recently polished her nails. Her hair looked as if that’s what she’d spent most of the morning on. Maybe she was on her way to see someone when she decided they were not only good enough for a couple of hours in front of a mirror, but a bag of chips, too.
Well, she’ll never know, thought Leonhardt as he stared down at her dead eyes.
“What do we think, fourteen? Fifteen?” Garza asked.
Leonhardt handed over the girl’s pink Hello Kitty wallet, momentarily wondering if she’d boosted that, too.
“Fourteen!” Garza announced.
“Check your math,” Leonhardt muttered.
Garza eyed the date on the school I.D. again and whistled. “Thirteen. Shit. Jury’s going to murder him.”
Leonhardt looked over at the old Korean man sitting at the back of the tiny convenience store. Two officers were waiting for an interpreter to arrive from the courthouse on 121st to take his statement, but Leonhardt didn’t imagine he’d be saying much then, either.
“Nah, he’s going to walk,” Leonhardt said. “He’s paid up.”
“What do you mean?” Garza asked.
“Look at him. He’s doing exactly what he’s been told to do. Is that a look of guilt? How about worry? Nope, that’s only minor frustration. He’s more pissed about the sales walking past his closed front door than the corpse he’s got on the floor. I’ll bet when we pull the tapes…”
“If there are any tapes in the machines,” Garza interjected.
“Oh, I’ll wager you a ten-spot there are,” Leonhardt retorted. “Bet that’s the first thing he checks every day, down to the second. Probably got a grandson who does it digital, so there aren’t any tapes, but easily transferable digital files. Anyway, we’ll see the girl come in, look around, wait for him to look away, then stash a couple of chip bags in her backpack. He’ll confront her, things will get nasty—does she look like the type to take shit to you? Especially from an old man in a rundown bodega.
”
Leonhardt moved to where he imagined the two players would’ve been standing when this happened.
“Nah, he asked to look in her backpack, she got nasty, he made a grab—not for her, but for his property—and she probably took a swing,” Leonhardt continued. “He’ll sell it on the tape. He felt threatened. And then he waits, skitters backward, and waits to feel threatened a second time. If she was smart, she’d back up and leave. But she took one step towards him. Now, he’s scared for his life. He pulls the .38 out of his back pocket and fires a single shot. He’s lying in a prone position on his back and, if necessary, can claim it was meant to be a warning. His high-priced lawyer will paint a very specific picture of a man fearing for his life, not knowing if this girl had a weapon. The jury will buy it as his weeping family will fill the galleys every day for this, their sole breadwinner. Even if he has no family, they’ll be there.”
Leonhardt caught the shopkeeper’s eye and realized he was listening intently.
“Wait, how’s he going to pay for a high-priced lawyer?” Garza asked.
“He pays money to the Triad for protection. See that symbol behind the cash register?”
Garza glanced over at a small triangle with three dots in it over a letter in Chinese script.
“That’s for the Heaven and Earth Society, the first Triad from a helluva long time ago,” Leonhardt continued. “If you’re Asian and come up in here, you know not to fuck with this guy. If you’re not and you pull something, well, he can act with impunity, knowing some of the best lawyers on the East Coast will back him.”
“For five bucks or whatever they rake in from this?”
“Nah, for the five bucks they rake in from everyone else for proving that their protection is worth the percentage. It’s a smart business model.”
“Jeez,” Garza scoffed, looking at the old man. “Thought protection meant they’d burn you out if you didn’t pay.”
“Gotta keep current with demand. If this is what the people can use, this is what you provide.”
Leonhardt pretended he didn’t see the black-toothed smile emerge on the old man’s face. The next one will bring a gun and you’ll be the one on the slab, Leonhardt thought, hoping the look on his face would reflect this idea.