Floodgate

by Johnny Shaw

  Rocco stared up at the sky for a moment, then back at the man. “I believe you, but we’re going to need to talk more. If you get cold, there’s a blanket in there.” Rocco shut the back of the truck.

  The two girls walked to Rocco, both holding up money.

  “Hey, mister,” the braver one said again.

  “I’m closed,” Rocco said.

  “Give us ice cream,” the girl demanded. “It’s your job.”

  Rocco started to say something that began with the letter F but stopped himself. He threw open the back of the van, reached past the crying fat man, and grabbed two ice cream sandwiches. He handed them to the girls.

  “I wanted a Bomb Pop,” the girl said, pouting and holding the ice cream sandwich with two fingers like it stank. A foot stomp and downcast eyes, practiced moves that probably worked on her parents, didn’t have the same impact on a former street thug turned covert criminal investigator.

  Rocco took the ice cream sandwich from the girl’s hand, dropped it on the ground, and stepped on it. Really ground it into the asphalt. He smiled at the other girl, reached into his pocket, and gave her twenty dollars.

  “That’s for not being an asshole.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Street Gangs Consolidate: What’s Next? A Trade Union for Loan Sharks? The Arsonists & Kidnappers Guild? Amalgamated Rapists?

  —Op-ed headline by Herbert Farr in the Auction City Intelligencer (1978)

  Andy rode with Frank Whittle in the back of the ice cream truck. The man spilled his story, eyes and mind somewhere else. He told Andy how he’d been approached to bring messages to the prisoners, followed by small gifts. The money was generous. He didn’t question it. The other guards had something on the side. Why shouldn’t he get his? He brought Connor into the scheme.

  When they were told—not asked—to play their part in the fire, escape, and cover-up, they initially refused. Threats to parents, siblings, and random acquaintances eventually changed their minds. They knew they were in over their heads when a van brought six corpses and a bag of teeth to the prison. Every detail of the plan had been drawn out, timed, and coordinated. After they dropped the men off, they never heard from their benefactor again. Aruba, here they come. Or so they thought.

  Andy wrote down the Cedarville address where Whittle and Connor had delivered the convict all-star team, but that trail would be ice-cold. With a ticking clock, they needed tracks, not crumbs. They needed to know where the men were now, not months ago.

  The ice cream truck pulled into the parking lot of Bruce Reiss Memorial High School. The campus had remained abandoned since a rendering plant accident that flooded the area with pig fat and blood. Three years had passed, but it still smelled like pork rinds aged in a vat of tar.

  Andy got out of the back of the truck, a Choco Taco in hand. Whittle stayed in the back, staring into space. Rocco locked the door.

  “Surprised you keep it stocked,” Andy said, an ice cream headache hitting him fast and hard.

  “It’s all in the details,” Rocco said.

  “I didn’t get much more from him.”

  “I heard,” Rocco said. “What do you expect? The guy’s in shock.”

  “You treated him with compassion,” Andy said. “It’s all you can really do.”

  “The man is hurting,” Rocco said. “I understand pain.”

  Kate pulled up in the town car, got out, and joined them.

  “Rocco,” she said, “it didn’t occur to me with everything going on. Where’s Ben? Weren’t you going to grab him on your way to the prison guard’s place?”

  “Couldn’t find him. Didn’t answer my pages,” Rocco said. “Don’t tell Pilar. She’ll kill him.”

  “Let’s hope it’s Ben being Ben and not any more than that,” she said.

  Consolidated was supposed to be meeting to formulate their response to the Costales assassination. When Andy, Kate, and Rocco walked into the school gymnasium, they were treated to a medieval melee. In the center of the basketball court, more than twenty people were beating the bejesus out of each other. A few men remained on their feet, fists ready, looking for their next opponent. Most of the others rolled on the ground, swinging, grasping, kneeing, biting. No weapons. A couple of women participated in the scrap, holding their own. Put a cage around them and you could charge five bucks a head.

  The hardwood court was slick with sweat and blood. Combatants slipped, opponents taking advantage. Loose teeth crunched underfoot. A couple of participants lay unconscious, tired, or beaten, no longer fighting. It didn’t save them from getting an insurance head stomp or a revenge groin kick. Old rivalries and layaway vengeance.

  Pilar and Agnes leaned against the wall next to the entrance, stoically watching the rumpus play out. Agnes held an eight-pound dumbbell in a lazy hand. Pilar had settled for a Louisville Slugger. Two duffel bags sat at Agnes’s feet. Kate walked to the two women. Andy stayed with Rocco by the door, lost in the spectacle of the violence. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Once one bout ended, another took its place. There was an illogical and emotional part of him that wanted to jump into the middle of it all.

  Kate gave the bag a light kick, clacking metal inside.

  “If we hadn’t taken their guns, knives, and assorteds,” Pilar said, “this could have gotten violent. Someone might have gotten hurt.”

  “I know how much you abhor violence,” Kate said.

  “It is good they fight,” Agnes said. “Emotions are difficult for such people. They have a lot of anger and sadness and childlike confusion.”

  “They’ll get tired. Most of them are in shitty shape,” Pilar said. “Once they call winners and losers, all they’ll have left in them is talking.”

  Kate motioned to a stack of folding chairs against the wall. “Good thing you hadn’t set those up yet, or this could’ve gone George ‘The Animal’ Steele.”

  “Would’ve made it faster,” Pilar said. “This is taking forever.”

  Fifteen violent minutes later, the leaders of the ten gangs that made up Consolidated sat in a circle in the middle of the basketball court. Their seconds stood behind them, a little wobbly. The ones who couldn’t sit or stand sprawled in the bleachers, staring at the ceiling or napping. Nobody had survived the fracas unscathed. Bruised faces, black eyes, cut lips, weird swells, bloody knuckles, torn clothes, missing teeth. Every color in the injury rainbow was represented. A chorus of heavy breathing with a few groans, the whole room sounded like a steam engine. Nobody bothered to clean the floor, all their blood pooling together.

  Part of being a cop in Auction City was learning to identify the different criminal organizations—particularly the street gangs—by sight. Jackets emblazoned with names made it easy, but most wore simple additions that identified their affiliation: colorful bandanas, black armbands, tattoos. Hector Costales had consolidated the gangs, but that didn’t mean they had given up their individual identities. Andy performed the roll call in his head. Lords of Death, Voodoo Posse, Cash Money Brothers, Ghetto Ghouls, Ghost Shadows, T-Birds, Crucifiers, Los Locos, Rogues, and, of course, Wretches.

  Pilar stood in the center, a school principal scolding a bunch of middle-school students who’d just pantsed a substitute teacher.

  “Now that the fronting is over, you ready to act like men?” She turned to the female leader of Los Locos. “And women?”

  “He started it,” someone said. A few of them laughed.

  “Nothing funny about what’s going on, estúpido,” Pilar barked. “If you let Consolidated fall apart, you’re pissing on Hector’s grave. Out of respect, you’ll put the bullshit aside and figure this out. You got no other choice. Apart you are weak.”

  “Who you calling weak?” someone said.

  “You. All of you. Consolidated is the bottom of the ladder together. Apart, you’ll disappear.” Pilar put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly.

  Twenty women marched into the gymnasium. All around the same age as Pilar. Mostly black and Hispanic, but
a few white girls, too. They wore evening gowns, miniskirts with black fishnets, tank tops over long shorts and high socks—no consistency in their costumes. A few of the girls had disfigured faces: liar’s scars, acid burns, worse. The others were missing at least one limb. Some wore prosthetics. They all carried weapons. At least the way they held the items in their hands made the ordinary implements look like weapons. Hammers, lug wrenches, gardening shears, a thick tree branch with some leaves still attached, a cast iron skillet, a bowling ball bag.

  The women created a circle around everyone, saying nothing, bored eyes staring at Pilar. Waiting for their next order. Andy was glad to be outside the circle.

  “You know who I am. What I am. What we are.” Pilar held up her prosthetic arm as a reminder. “Tortured by bad men. Then abandoned by the people that found it too hard to look at us. Hector Costales gave me a chance. He gave all of us a chance. On Hector’s orders, you were told to cooperate with me and my people in the event of his death.”

  “Just ’cause you want me to come out and play, don’t mean I got to,” the Rogues’ leader said. A skittish, rodentlike man with crazy eyes. “Hector’s gone. I don’t take orders from a dead man.”

  “You weren’t listening. You take orders from me. Until you—all of you—choose a new leader,” Pilar said. “Someone to carry on what Hector started. I don’t care who, so long as everyone agrees and there’s no bad blood.”

  The leader of the Voodoo Posse—a tall Jamaican with clumpy, graying dreadlocks—stood up. “How you telling us what to do? Hector dead, mahn. No Hector, no Consolidated. Believe it.”

  “You really want that?” Pilar asked everyone. “For the gangs to split back up? Go back to turf wars, stupid grudges, fighting for scraps? Children instead of men? Some of you are that stupid, to be sure. But I ain’t. Hector died for Consolidated. I won’t let his death be the end of it.”

  “Who kill Hector?” the Jamaican said. “Everyone say the pigs.”

  “Could be someone in this gym, yo,” the Ghetto Ghoul rep shouted. “Shit. Could be someone in his own crew.” He pointed at the recently crowned leader of the Wretches.

  The accusation didn’t go over well. The Wretches leader jumped from his seat and ran at the thick black man, tackling him in the midsection as he rose. “Hector was my brother!” he yelled. With a second wind, everyone stood to begin round two.

  “No!” the twenty women shouted in unison, taking one step forward, a boom on the hardwood. The sound shook Andy’s bones, more threat than warning. He wasn’t the only one.

  The men froze. They brushed themselves off and sat back down without a word.

  “That shit don’t get us nowhere, Javier,” Pilar said. “Russel, you, too.”

  Javier spoke first. “Hector was my crime partner from all the way back.”

  “Your neighborhoods are burning,” Pilar said. “While you sit here and circle jerk, your people are getting hurt. Business suffers. You’re losing money. Someone needs to keep the streets from getting out of control. Not the cops—they want the city to burn. If there’s too much violence, looting, the National Guard, the damn army comes in. You’ll lose control of your blocks for good. Buildings burn, you got nothing but empty streets to do business. Nobody wins, that happens. Hector Costales dies for nothing.”

  “We vote,” the Chinese leader of the Lords of Death said. “Nominations and votes. Like politicians but fair. Still United States. We’re still Americans. Democracy.”

  “That’s right,” Pilar said.

  “Fuck this,” the stringy-haired biker from the Crucifiers said, standing and walking out of the circle until he was face-to-face with one of the women. “You going to get out of my way, chica?”

  The one-legged woman stared blankly at the man. She turned slowly to Pilar.

  “I got no problem hitting a bitch,” the biker said. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Agnes walked behind the seemingly disinterested woman and tapped her on the shoulder. Agnes said, “I will take care of this, Monique.” The woman stepped to the side, letting Agnes take her position. Agnes smiled at the Crucifier. “It is important that everyone participates in the democratic process. Voting is a privilege.”

  “I know who you are. I’m supposed to be scared of you, right?”

  Agnes looked down at the dumbbell in her hand. “Would the world be a better place without you in it? If God took you, would your family cry or cheer?”

  He breathed hard, a slight nose whistle. “What?”

  “I will answer the question for you. As a member of Consolidated, maybe yes. You might serve a purpose. Outside Consolidated, I doubt your usefulness.”

  “Make your move, you black dyke.”

  The silence in the big room was deafening for that brief moment. Andy could feel the tension. Someone quietly said to themselves, “Oh, shit.”

  Agnes smiled.

  “I seen her done it,” the Cash Money Brother blurted out. “Messed this other brother up. Twice as big as you, dog. Did it with nothing but a coffee mug and a spoon. Motherfucker’s in a wheelchair. Shits in a bag. Everyone knows you don’t mess with Lady Luthor.”

  Agnes said, “I get the feeling you already defecate in bags. But as recreation, not necessity.”

  The biker threw a punch that never landed. Andy couldn’t tell exactly what knocked the man unconscious. Probably the dumbbell, but he didn’t see the impact. One second later, Agnes walked away and the biker hit the ground, unconscious before he landed.

  “Damn,” someone said.

  Agnes turned to the Crucifier’s second. “You’ve been promoted to interim leader. Do you want to leave as well?”

  The biker looked at his former boss. He took a seat in the prone man’s chair. “Let’s vote on this sumbitch. Ain’t nothing more American than democracy, right?”

  “Gracias, Agnes,” Pilar said. She scanned the crowd. “Choose a leader. I don’t care how. Vote on it. Fight it out again. Leg wrestle. Measure your dicks. Do it. Make it unanimous. I’m going to leave you in the company of these fine young ladies. When you’re done, everyone walks out friends. No bitching or complaining. Get back to making money. The city gets back to its regular screwed-up self.”

  While they were inside the gymnasium, Frank Whittle had attempted to slash his wrists with the serrated edge of a saran wrap box. He only managed to make a mess, blood and melted ice cream covering the back of the truck. The cuts were so shallow he wouldn’t even need stitches.

  Rocco taped up the man’s wrists. Whittle apologized the whole time, repeating “I’m sorry” until it became a mantra. Rocco finished, gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, and told him that everything was going to be okay.

  Rocco walked to the others. “I’m going to take him to the Fortress. Make sure someone keeps an eye on him. Maybe get someone up there to talk to him. I’ll catch up with you.”

  He drove the suicidal man away, playing the ice cream truck music. Maybe to try to cheer Whittle up. It was happy music.

  Andy leaned on the front panel of the town car and listened to the radio. The gangs had been in the gym for fifteen minutes. Waiting for a group of thugs to choose a new leader was apparently an involved process. No roshambo or one-potato-two-potato for these guys.

  Peaceful protests and not-so-peaceful ones had popped up all over the city. The news reader gave updates on which streets were closed because of crowd activity. All bus lines into the Ruins had been canceled. The subway still ran. A curfew had been issued for the entirety of the Ruins—referred to by its “real” name, Hampshire Court. In contrast, they made a point to tell the public that the Auction City Yacht Club Winter Cotillion would go on as scheduled regardless of any unrest.

  The three women huddled around a bank of payphones. Andy turned off the radio and joined them. Kate doled out change.

  “This is all I have left,” she said. “Someone’s going to have to make a run to the Laundromat on Capital and get more quarters.”

  “The gu
y gets mad when you use the change machine and leave. Like you’re stealing,” Pilar said.

  “Well, if he does,” Kate said, “have Agnes knock him unconscious with a dumbbell or a sock full of quarters.”

  “If I had quarters, we would not need change,” Agnes said.

  “It was a fair fight,” Pilar said.

  “It wasn’t a fight,” Kate said with a laugh.

  “What are we doing?” Andy asked, to no one in particular.

  “Trying to track down Ben,” Kate said. “He doesn’t know that he might be a target.”

  “Probably getting his culo waxed,” Pilar said.

  “After that,” Kate said, “I don’t know. Whittle was a dead end, and Beauchamp’s just dead. We know we’re looking for the escaped-convict hit squad, but no clue where they are. We can guess who their potential targets are—the leaders of the Trust and 893, Mac, Floodgate—but where does that get us?”

  “What about the Thorntons?” Andy asked. “They’re involved. We grab one. Give Agnes a pizza cutter and some tweezers and let her ask some questions.”

  “What would I do with the tweezers?” Agnes asked.

  “Thorntons wouldn’t talk,” Pilar said. “Too dumb to understand pain.”

  “Hopewell and the other convicts have to make a move eventually,” Kate said. “We concentrate on slowing the rioting. They’ll stick their heads out at some point.”

  “That’s seriously what you people consider a plan?” Andy said. “There’s a small army of psychopaths hired by the police roaming the streets of Auction, and your plan is to wait?”

  “Didn’t think of it as a plan,” Kate said. “More of a reality.”

  “They’ve been out of prison a couple months,” Andy said. “That means they’ve been staying somewhere. Where? There’s got to be a safe house. We check real estate under Gray, Robinson, his associates. That’s off the top of my head. Haven’t you run a real investigation? If they’re armed, then they got the guns—and a lot of them, from the looks of the Costales crime scene—from someone. Could be supplied by the police themselves, but that could involve them being traced back. What if they got weapons somewhere else? Legally or illegally, there are only so many people that would deal in that kind of firepower. Where would you go to get a battalion’s worth of artillery?”