No Good to Cry

by Andrew Lanh

  “A power play?”

  “Maybe. Probably they want in on the action.”

  “Which is?”

  “Drug activity, mainly. But also extortion, protection. Hookers—pimps.” Hank grinned. “Big Nose recited a laundry list.”

  “So they’re not welcome at Russell Street?”

  “Big Nose thinks JD is playing them—to keep an eye on them. He’s waiting to make a move on them. But they’re ruthless—or at least that’s the reputation they like. JD is cunning, plays the friendly gangster—we’ve seen bits of that, no?—but at heart he’s dangerous. Some of the young soldiers think the brothers are cool. Those Miami Vice black-linen duds, the guns.”

  “And Simon and Frankie?”

  “JD isn’t happy that they’re grooming the boys as runners. Flattery—then control.”

  “Why them?”

  “I guess Frankie screwed up bad—ripped them off. Now they got their hooks into the boys. Threats, mainly. Big Nose is scared shitless of them.”

  “Maybe Simon and Frankie, too.”

  “They use them as drug runners.” A bewildered smile. “Sort of like what JD himself does. Kenny and Joey splashed cash on them, a little weed for their troubles, maybe some liquor, probably not girls but who knows, and the boys got drunk with it.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Right. Diep, the older one, likes to shoot off his gun. Target practice. A real mean streak. Big Nose says he held a gun to Frankie’s head—a sort of joke, but Frankie wasn’t laughing. Khoa is a little simple-minded, laughs a lot at things that aren’t funny. They like to go to bars and pick fights. Flash their guns. Or knives. They brag about ripping off convenience stores. Shoving clerks, hauling off cartons of Marlboros. Mind you, this is Big Nose talking. The boys are afraid to disobey them now. They’re in a bind.”

  “Michael said the guys lay in wait for Simon on his street.”

  “Yeah, Big Nose said that after Frankie ripped off some weed, a dumb act, things got scary. This is after the gun-to-the-head act. A stupid boy.”

  “Christ.”

  “Big Nose says the boys are nervous as hell now.”

  “What’s next?”

  “He doesn’t know. He no longer stops at Russell Street. Too messed up, he said. ‘I seen the blood in their eyes.’ That’s his line. ‘I don’t think they’re fun anymore.’ An epiphany in a sixteen-year-old.” Hank waved his hand in the air. “Sort of gives you hope, right, Rick?”

  “Yeah, civilization has arrived.” I walked to the window, gazed down into the street. “So what’ll happen to Simon and Frankie?”

  Hank gave it some thought. “Big Nose says he’s washed his hands of them. He’s staying away. He told me he has a girlfriend now.” He laughed. “Big Nose seemed surprised that a girl would like him.”

  I was thinking of Frankie and Simon. “None of this sounds good.”

  Hank pointed to his laptop on my coffee table, the screensaver an image of a state trooper leaning into the driver’s window of a stopped speeding car. “And it’s going to get worse.”

  “What?”

  Hank’s eyes brightened. “I know folks of your advanced age view social media as one more communicable disease. You refuse to believe that real life is being tweeted and Facebooked and texted nanosecond by nanosecond. Now Big Nose, who travels with a cell phone, a tablet, an MP3 player, and a knapsack filled with violent video games, probably a pair of Google eyeglasses and an Apple watch, and only seems to lack an active account at LinkedIn, asked me innocently what I thought of Simon and Frankie’s video, uploaded onto YouTube. Well, that took me by surprise.”

  I counted a beat. “Well, at your advanced age…”

  While he was talking, he tapped on the keyboard, brought up the site, typed in a few words, and suddenly there was a line of bold capital letters: SAIGONSEZ—NO GOOD TO CRY.

  Hank translated for me. “Do you get it? Simon Says. Saigon…”

  “I get it.”

  The first image was startling. Shot probably in Simon’s living room with a backdrop of his mother’s knickknacks on a shelf and a curtain slipping off a rod, I marveled at Simon and Frankie’s…well, presence. Both boys gloriously filled the screen. A still shot, black and white, both assuming slovenly gangsta poses as the video began: arms folded over their bony chests, heads tilted back and to the side, eyes narrowed, lips drawn into a belligerent line. That rhythmic nodding that punctuated a hip-hop performance. They were dressed in familiar outlaw-boy attire: oversized jerseys promoting the New England Patriots, tremendously baggy blue jeans that cascaded over brown work shoes, Alaskan Klondike gold-nugget necklaces around their necks. Assorted plastic bands around their wrists. Oddly both boys had braided their shortish hair into sloppy Bob Marley dreadlocks so that both looked like country-bumpkin cartoon characters from the old funny papers.

  “My God,” I said to Hank. “What the hell?”

  “Wait,” Hank cautioned. “You gotta hear this.”

  The still shot of the boys dissolved as the video began with jerky movement, Simon stepping closer to Frankie, then stepping away. Both boys stared into the camera with tough-guy demeanor. The next shot was a close-up, waist-high. Simon stared into the camera and announced in an amazingly sure but high-pitched voice: “We are Saigon”—he pointed to his own chest—“and Frankie”—a nod toward his partner. “And we are”—both boys together—“SaigonSez.” An uncomfortable moment as the boys looked at each other.

  Frankie then picked up the narration, his voice rough at the edges, clipped in some tough-guy inflection that reminded me of James Cagney but was probably stolen from LLCoolJ or Eminem. Mama said knock you out…Trailer park girls go round…

  “This here is our first rap. ‘No Good to Cry.’ Because it ain’t no good to cry. Look around you.” Frankie punched the air with his fist. “You ain’t gonna change nothing in the world. Shit happens. No good to cry.”

  Simon a.k.a Saigon spoke over his words with a sheepish grin that belied the words he spoke: “In the name of the devil.”

  Frankie added, “The situation in Afghanistan.”

  Saigon echoed, “Afghanistan blood bath, you know.” A slight giggle. “ISIS. Ice baby, ice.”

  I glanced at Hank. “Current events? Really?”

  Frankie repeated in a singsong voice: “Seat-u-a-tion. Seat-u-a-SHUN.” Stressed.

  Then Frankie reached out of camera range and obviously pressed an “on” button because a driving, iterated bass line began, too loud, a rhythmic duh duh DUH duh duh DUH Boom. And over again. Repeated a couple times, and then Frankie began rapping in a deep heartfelt voice:

  In the name of the devil

  awright you go to hell

  In the name of the devil

  awright I’ll go to hell.

  He paused as Saigon jumped in, spat out the words:

  Boys with black and hooded heads

  Cool and classy in the street

  Talking trash and keeping time

  Tattooed savage digs the beat.

  Punctuating Simon’s lines Frankie sang out in counterpoint:

  hide a secret

  hide a secret

  A pause, then Frankie repeated the refrain:

  In the name of the devil

  awright you go to hell

  In the name of the devil

  awright I’ll go to hell

  Saigon, more confident now, stared into the camera with fierce, penetrating eyes:

  See a coffin passing by

  It ain’t Satan—never never

  You and me—no good to cry

  Only Satan lives forever.

  Frankie’s new backing:

  practical joke

  practical joke

  In the name of the devil

  awright you go to hell

&nb
sp; In the name of the devil

  awright I’ll go to hell

  Saigon thrust his arms out toward the camera, a boxer’s aggressive fists:

  No tomorrow for a fool

  Laugh today, it’s all a fake

  Forbidden streets ain’t got no map

  Nowhere to run when you awake

  Frankie’s parting shot:

  hats off to you

  hats off to you

  Both boys ended with:

  In the name of the devil

  awright you go to hell

  In the name of the devil

  awright I’ll go to hell

  Hank stopped the video. We stared at each other, eyes glazed.

  “You look stunned,” he said.

  “I am stunned. I can’t believe this.”

  “You know what this sounds like, don’t you?”

  I closed my eyes for a second. Chaotic zigzags of brilliant light in the dark. “Yes, a confession.”

  “Bingo.” Hank pointed at the computer screen. “What in the world are they thinking of?”

  “They’re thinking of rap music fame, of MTV appearances, streaming video, girls hanging off their beltless pants, of becoming Justin Bieber, Dr. Dre hustling them off to the Bahamas for lunch with Jay-Z and Beyoncé.”

  Hank laughed. “You’ve been watching the E! Network.”

  “No matter.” I pressed a key and the screen woke up. “When was it posted?” I scrolled down.

  “That’s the kicker. “The day before Jimmy and Ralph were attacked.”

  “Christ.” I saw something else. “There are 8,756 LIKES, Hank. They’re finding an audience.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly going viral, Rick. That’s a blip on the radar screen of social media.”

  “Well, all it takes is Detective Ardolino to print out the words and hand them to the D.A. It’s…well, a celebration of street thuggery. In the name of the devil no less.”

  Hank chimed in with a run of quotations. “I’ve seen it a dozen times, Rick. Boys with black hoodies. Trash talk. Laugh today because it’s all a fake. Forbidden streets. A secret. A practical joke. Satan lives forever. Man, you can picture them strutting down the sidewalk, hoodies up, menacing, having the time of their lives because…you’re gonna die someday. Only Satan lives forever. So you might as well do your joke, knock your way through life. Hats off to you, boys. Life is short—no good to cry.”

  I held up my hand. “Enough. I get it.” I slumped in the seat. “What are they telling us here, Hank?”

  “They’re telling us that they work for the devil.”

  “Not good.”

  A world-weary smile. “Not good at all. In fact, no good to cry.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Late in the afternoon I wrapped up a fraud investigation for Cigna Insurance, pressed SEND, and stood up, stretching out my limbs. I needed to grade papers for my one-night-a-week Criminology class, but I put it off. Time for a nap. The sameness of my investigations sometimes got to me—white-collar crime exhibited a pathetic redundancy. So much of my work involved picayune plodding, and surprisingly the conclusions were often transparent—folks always thought their way to embezzled riches was pioneering. In truth, it was as if the crook simply pressed “replay” on an LP on a turntable that went round and round.

  My cell phone jangled. I grabbed it.

  I was expecting a return call from Detective Ardolino. Earlier that day, I’d phoned the Hartford policeman but neglected to reach him. I’d left a detailed message on his office machine—“Detective Ardolino’s office, I’m not here. This better be important”—letting him know about the incendiary YouTube video from SaigonSez. Though it cast Simon and his cohort in a bad light, I always agreed with Jimmy who stressed transparency. Sooner or later Ardolino would return the favor. A gruff officer of the law, he possessed an abiding if quirky sense of right and wrong.

  I hung on his line a little too long, hoping he’d pick up, and ended feebly. “I just thought you should know.”

  When I told Hank about it, he’d roared, “I’d love to be there when Ardolino brings up YouTube and stares into the quasi-gangsta faces of those boys. All that teenaged testosterone and in-your-face attitude.”

  I’d thought about that. “I have a feeling Ardolino slams up against that street attitude every day of his working life.”

  In my phone message I summarized the video, even read a few choice passages from our transcript. Hank had transcribed its curious helter-skelter language. Hank insisted the urban vocabulary and syntax of rap videos demanded all right be written alright. Or, worse, awright. That you become ya. I cringed at that. That the apostrophe become invisible. And that first person singular, as in doesn’t, become don’t—

  “Stop,” I’d pleaded. “I get it.”

  So I was expecting a call back from Ardolino, perhaps one laced with sarcasm, a shot of bile, and perhaps a reluctant modicum of thanks.

  “Rick.” Liz, her voice frantic.

  “Oh no.”

  “Exactly. I’m at work, and we just got a buzz out of Hartford. Seconds ago. Another knockdown attack. This time on Whitney off Farmington. Another man attacked. Violent, cruel. An old man slugged in the side of his head.”

  “Dead.”

  “Yes.”

  My heart raced. “My God.”

  She hesitated but went on, “APB for two young men last seen running south on Whitney, one report saying they headed toward Sisson. Black hoodies.”

  A refrain from SaigonSez echoed in my head:

  Boys with black and hooded heads.

  Cool and classy in the street.

  “Christ, Liz.”

  Liz’s voice was scratchy. “There’s no proof it’s Simon and Frankie.”

  I grit my teeth. “Yeah. Tell that to Ardolino.”

  “I’ll keep you posted. I’m reading the wires as they come in. It wasn’t on the media when I got it, though the TV stations are probably there now.”

  “I’m headed there. Call me on my cell.”

  Her voice had an edge. “Rick, maybe you shouldn’t go there.”

  But I was already hanging up and grabbing my jacket. I considered calling Hank, but I knew he was at the Academy, spending the day with some other new recruits he’d become friendly with, the group of four or five young men and women catching a movie and a few beers at a cop bar in Meriden.

  I parked at a small strip mall on Farmington Avenue, a line of struggling businesses with lackluster 1950s façades, faded pastel signs with blinking neon. A failed beauty academy, boarded up. A take-out Chinese restaurant notorious for being blown up by Chinatown extortionists—and, I wondered, possibly a recent visit from the VietBoyz. A Spanish bodega with the plate-glass window plastered with LOTTO and MEGA MILLIONS signs. “We had a $1000 Winner!” “You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play!” “We accept W.I.C. Food Stamps.”

  A fat man in a greasy T-shirt stood in front, rocking on his heels, a cigarette between his lips, and he frowned as I stepped out of the car. He pointed his cigarette down toward the intersection of Whitney and Farmington. I turned to look—a kaleidoscope of flashing police lights, fire engines, spotlights, and TV satellite trucks. A growing rumble of noise. Screeching tires, a two-way radio blast, a police cruiser taking the corner, siren blaring.

  “There,” the man said quietly to me. “It ain’t safe to leave the house nowadays. Que lastima!” I nodded back at him. He rocked on his heels. “Somebody is gonna get you sooner or later. If it ain’t those bastard ISIS killers…” He shrugged as I walked away.

  No good to cry about it.

  As I suspected, the corner of Whitney and Evergreen was cordoned off, a line of yellow tape stretched from a stop sign across the street, wrapped around a light pole, and circled back through a row of cars. A patrolman stood on the perimeter
, arms folded, bored.

  A crowd of stragglers bunched at the tape, peering, demanding, gossiping. I joined them, pushing to the front, though an old woman clutching a shopping bag filled with empty deposit cans and bottles elbowed me. “My spot.” Her fierce voice in my ear made me jump. I ignored her and she elbowed me again. “I was here first.”

  I waited. I spotted Ardolino conferring with another man by the State Police evidence van, Ardolino dressed in a light tan raincoat that flapped open. Hunched over, speaking into the neck of the other man, he kept pointing his finger toward the body, which lay under a blanket on the pavement. Every so often, though engrossed in the conversation, his eyes swept the crowd, quick penetrating glances that missed nothing. Inevitably his eyes caught me, pressed against the yellow tape. He started, straightened up, and whistled to a patrolman.

  He pointed. “Him. The Oriental.”

  But the cop was confused. Alongside me were two cooks from the Chinese take-out, both in grimy white aprons. Both were chattering in an excited Fujian dialect, and I was surprised that I caught a few words—”bad luck” and “dead.” The rest a mishmash. A buddy in college spoke that parochial dialect.

  The patrolman was gazing at the two men, who suddenly looked scared, backing off and trying to maneuver themselves away from the crowd. Headed toward them, the cop looked ready to pursue, his hand on his revolver, but Ardolino, frustrated, yelled out, “You damned fool. Are you blind? The one that looks like he got a golf club stuck up his suburban ass.”

  I bowed.

  The cop wasn’t happy but let me slip under the tape.

  “Your boss is a charmer,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he grinned back at me, “a charm-school dropout.”

  “How did I know you’d be prowling these streets?” Ardolino began.

  “Of course I had to come here. I heard it on…”

  He held up his hand. “I ain’t got time to chat with the likes of you.” He started to walk away but swung back, stepped close to me. “But don’t go away. Somehow I’m gonna end up talking to you about this shit, and I might as well get it over tonight. Stay right there.” He actually pointed to a spot on the pavement, back behind the yellow tape. I took my position, and waited.