by Joel Goldman
Rummaging through his dark house, Latrell found a pair of galoshes, pulling them over his shoes, not wanting to leave muddy footprints on Marcellus’s ?oor the cops could trace back to him. He’d thought of everything. He stuck the gun in the waistband of his pants, slipped on the goggles, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and stepped outside into the storm.
Chapter Three
I was alone in my office, lights off, door closed, cradling a cold cup of coffee. It was past midnight, everyone else long gone except for the new security guard who knocked at my door on the half hour, last time reminding me not to take any files from the building without signing them out.
“I’ve been an FBI agent almost as long as you’ve been alive,” I told him.
“I know that, Agent Davis. Regulations say I’m supposed to make sure, that’s all,” he said. “Get that light for you?”
I shook my head. “Call me Jack.”
“Yes sir, Agent Davis.”
A storm blew outside, the rain hitting the window without making a sound against the insulated glass. I leaned back in my chair outside the reach of the pale-blue glow from my computer monitor. I kept to the dark so I couldn’t see myself shake.
The tremors started in my belly, galloped up my neck, and spilled into my arms and head like they were excavating fault lines. I didn’t shake all the time. Tonight, it had been every ten or fifteen minutes, usually only for a few seconds, except for one stretch that lasted two minutes by my watch.
It had started two months ago, right after my future former wife Joy moved out. It was a few twitches at first, not enough to send me to a doctor, slowly getting worse, taking off in the last week. I could go for hours without so much as a hiccup. Other times, like now, I kept the door closed. I’d gotten a few looks, but no questions, from the agents on my squad. That’s the way it had to be until I shut Marcellus Pearson down, which I would do when our surveillance warrant expired in four days. I could wait that long to find out what was happening to me.
I was watching the feed from the surveillance camera I’d installed two and a half weeks earlier in the front room of Marcellus’s house. The camera was in the ceiling fan, giving me a 360-degree view, and with a microphone that could capture a fart.
Marcellus’s crack operation was good enough to make him Entrepreneur of the Year, except he didn’t have anything to show for it besides the usual pimped-out ride, tattoos, and bling. He could have lost his money in the stock market, given it to charity, or funded retirement plans for his enforcers, the Winston brothers. Or, he could be fronting for someone.
I ran the Violent Crime squad in the FBI’s Kansas City regional office and there was no criminal enterprise more violent than drugs. Marcellus had been operating in Kansas City, Kansas, for a long time. No one bothered him. People who did woke up dead. I intended to bother his ass right out of business before I shook myself into an early retirement. We had already mounted a camera on a utility pole down the street, but we needed eyes inside the crack house.
A month ago, I asked Marty Grisnik, head of Robbery and Homicide for the Kansas City, Kansas, police department, for his help serving a fugitive warrant. I’d met him a year ago at one of the interagency events put on to foster cooperation between federal and local law enforcement. We hadn’t worked a case together, but we drank enough that night to make up for it, and had traded a couple of favors since then. I gave him Marcellus’s address, not telling him that the warrant was phony and that I was going to use it so I could get inside the house and install a surveillance camera.
“FBI has its own fugitive warrants team, Jack. Why do you want my help?”
Grisnik had a linebacker’s build and looked uncomfortable in a suit, like he’d rather be on the field roaming for someone to hit. Near my age, he worked harder than I did to keep a muscled edge. We were in his cramped office on the fifth ?oor of the police department headquarters on Seventh Street, Grisnik rocking back in his swivel chair. I stood, keeping a tight grip on the arched back of a chair in case I started to shake.
“The guy we’re after, Darrell Johnson, is hooked up with one of our undercover people. If we don’t get him, we don’t want him tipped off that the FBI is chasing him. Works better if he thinks it’s you guys.”
“But you want to go through the door, not us?”
I took a breath, glancing over his shoulder at the view to the east out his window. The Intercity Viaduct stretched over an area called the West Bottoms for its close proximity to the Missouri River. The Viaduct and the West Bottoms connected the two Kansas Cities, the highway a concrete artery, the Bottoms muscle and ligaments made of old warehouses, new businesses, and reborn bars. From Grisnik’s window I could also see a thin slice of the Missouri coming down from the north, then bending east on its way to St. Louis. The FBI building stood on a bluff on the southwest edge of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, part of a string of office towers running north to the river.
“That’s right. I need your people for backup. And I’d like to borrow one of your uniforms.”
Grisnik pecked away at his computer, sending an e-mail, double-checking my warrant to make certain he got the address right. He smiled, waiting for a response, his silence code for telling me I was full of shit and he was about to prove it.
“The Bureau appreciates your cooperation. If we get him, you get the credit. If we don’t, nobody will know or care.”
I didn’t tell Grisnik about the surveillance camera because I suspected that Marcellus had some KCK cops in his pocket. That would go a long way in explaining how he had stayed in business for so long. If I were right, Marcellus would get word of our raid and clean house so that we wouldn’t have any reason to arrest him. That was fine with me. All I wanted was to get him out of the house long enough to install the camera. I wasn’t ready to lock him up.
Grisnik’s computer binged, signaling that he’d received a reply to his e-mail. I couldn’t see his monitor to read it, though that wasn’t necessary.
“This would play a little better if you worked homeland security into it somewhere along the way,” Grisnik said.
“Do I need to?”
“Wouldn’t smell any sweeter if you did. This address belongs to Marcellus Pearson. Says here Marcellus is a suspected drug dealer. Bet you didn’t know that. And no one named Darrell Johnson shows up on the list of his known associates. You want me to run a quick check on your fugitive?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“We got our own fugitive squad and we got our own drug squad. You ought to be talking to them, not me. Since you aren’t, makes me think you’ve got a reason I’m not going to like.”
“I do.”
“This isn’t my idea of cooperation, Jack. You coming to me for help and not telling me what I need to know, especially if it involves this department.”
“Operational constraints. It’s better for everyone.”
“Better for you, maybe,” Grisnik said. “Puts my ass in a sling if this blows up.”
“It won’t blow up.”
“You can’t keep something like this a secret.”
“I don’t intend for it to be a secret.”
Grisnik nodded, his eyes softening as he understood what I needed. He held the warrant to the halogen lamp on his desk as if he was checking a fifty-dollar bill to see if it was counterfeit. He slid it back toward me with a reluctant grunt.
“You’ll need a name tag for your uniform. You want one that says Jack Davis or you want me to pick on somebody else?”
“Any name will do as long as it isn’t mine.”
Chapter Four
In my world, only liars, drunks, and the guilty shake uncontrollably. If Ben Yates, the Special Agent in charge of the Kansas City office, caught me doing “Shake it up, baby,” I’d be on the shelf before I got to “Twist and Shout.” So I worked late and kept my door closed.
I’d been an agent since I gave the army the tour of duty I’d promised in return for my college education. I�
��d worked in FBI offices all over the country, picked Kansas City for my last stop since it was where Joy and I wanted to live when the Bureau retired me in five years when I turned fifty-five.
It wasn’t just a job. It was who I was—the right guy, doing the right job for the right reasons. I could never give it up, especially after our son Kevin was killed almost twenty years ago when I didn’t do my job. They’d have to take the badge from me. I owed that much to Kevin.
I wasn’t ready to deal with the possible causes of the shaking—brain tumor, Parkinson’s, MS, ALS, or some other equally grim alphabetical practical joke. I played with images of Muhammad Ali shuf?ing like an old man, not ?oating like a butter?y, his face a mask, or of Lou Gehrig telling a packed Yankee Stadium that he was the luckiest man alive. Whatever it was, I didn’t feel lucky. Every time I shook, I offered whatever it was a deal. Just go away, no questions asked. So far, there were no takers.
The late shift was a good place to hide, and I was in no hurry to go home. When Joy moved out, she left me a note saying she had tried to tell me what was wrong with our marriage ever since Kevin died but I never heard her. I called her cell, told her I was ready to listen. “Too late,” she said. “Now you can be with Kate Scranton.” I told her again that there was nothing between Kate and me; she’s a jury consultant, helps me with some cases. That’s it. It was Joy’s turn not to listen.
Our other child, Wendy, inherited the enthusiasm, wit, and determination that I’d found in Joy when I first fell in love with her. After Kevin died, Wendy hid it away, replacing it with fear of the dark, of being left alone, and, most of all, of being taken from us.
She had a stuffed animal, a monkey that she slept with every night after we lost Kevin. I made up a song that made her laugh, a rare occurrence in those days.
I had a little monkey girl.
She climbed a tree just like a squirrel.
And when she got up to the top,
She held her breath until she popped.
And when she got back on the ground,
She wore a smile and not a frown.
She’s always glad, she’s never sad
Because she has a goofy dad!
Wendy loved the song, changed her stuffed animal’s name from Pickles to Monkey Girl, and insisted we create a secret code in case someone kidnapped her. She’d use the code to tell us that she was okay and that I should come find her.
“That’s a great idea,” I told her. “Very smart for a little girl.”
“You know Monkey Girl?”
“Sure. We’re great pals.”
“When the kidnappers put me on the phone so you know that I’m still alive, I’ll tell you to say happy birthday to Monkey Girl. That way you’ll know I’m okay.”
“How do you know that’s what kidnappers do?”
“I heard you talking to your friends from work. One of them said that’s what always happens except the man that took Kevin didn’t do it the right way.”
I wanted to tell her that there was no such thing as a right way to kidnap someone, but she was holding onto that certainty like a lifeline, convinced she would be kidnapped and hoping her abductor would do a better job of it than had Kevin’s. I pulled her onto my lap, hugged her fiercely against my chest.
“Then you better hang onto Monkey Girl. I’d hate for her to miss out on her birthday party.”
Wendy had her own survival scars, growing up in a house where her brother’s ghost and her parents’ wars made certain that she never felt safe and secure. It was a breeding ground for her mother’s alcoholism, a disease Wendy ?irted with through drugs.
She lived in a state of perpetual rebound between bad choices and second chances. I was her spotter, ready to catch her when she fell and pat her on the back when she pulled herself up again, saved by an eternal ?ame inside her that gave her strength and gave me hope.
Her first stab at college lasted six weeks.
“It’s not for me,” she told me over the phone. “All the sorority debs, the jocks. That’s not me. And this college town is dead.”
“It’s not the people or the place,” I told her. “It’s you. You’ve got to deal with that no matter where you are or what you do.”
“I know,” she sighed. “Just not here and now.”
“Stay in school and mom and I will support you. Drop out and you’re on your own.”
“Fair enough. Front me the first few months and I’ll pay you back?”
“Deal.”
And she did, working, taking occasional classes until she discovered she liked the action in the commodities market. She landed a job at the Kansas City Board of Trade working for a broker, studying for her trading license. Along the way to getting her head on straight, she did two stints in rehab and I helped her get two possession busts expunged.
“You’ll always have to be careful,” I told her. “Staying straight and sober is like working without a net.”
“Except I’ve got a net. You,” she said, and kissed my cheek.
Wendy more or less lived alone, the less being Colby Hudson, one of the agents on my squad. I wasn’t surprised when she got involved with him. Kids repeat more of their parents’ mistakes than they avoid, sometimes seeking them out. It was enough to make me shake.
Five seconds and the latest shaking stopped. I timed it. No one noticed. No one said “what the hell was that”? Ben Yates didn’t get out of his warm bed in the middle of the thunderstorm to shove a claim for disability in front of me, telling me where to sign and saying that he was sorry I missed my full pension by a lousy five years.
I checked my computer monitor. The Winston brothers hadn’t noticed, either. DeMarcus Winston was taking inventory, bags of crack spread out on the card table Marcellus used as a desk. A TV so old it had a rabbit-ears antenna sat in one corner, an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer keeping Rondell from helping his brother.
Using the arrow keys on the computer, I zoomed out, adjusting the focus on the camera. I picked up the image from the TV and the trail of smoke rising from the joint Rondell held between his lips.
The storm intensified, playing hell with the transmission, filling the audio with static when an explosion of thunder and lightning rocked the neighborhood, causing the lights to ?icker on and off in the crack house. When the lights came back on, Rondell was staring at himself on the TV screen where Buffy had been a moment before. The electrically charged air had scrambled the signal from the camera, causing the TV to pick it up as a live broadcast.
Rondell stubbed out his joint, stepped closer to the TV, and motioned DeMarcus to join him. I adjusted the camera to give me a wide view of them as they watched themselves on the TV, waving like kids playing a game in a mirror, watching as they waved back at themselves, their faces scrunched, mystified. My face was as twisted as my gut. They’d lost a rerun. I was about to lose a case.
I had enough evidence to nail Marcellus, but I didn’t have what I really wanted—the identity of his supplier and a line on his money. Watching the Winston brothers watch themselves, I realized that Marcellus would be in the wind the instant he discovered the camera. I hated to shut the operation down, but I had no choice. Maybe I could persuade Marcellus to roll over.
I had a SWAT team on standby. I picked up my cell phone to call Troy Clark, the team leader, and send them in when Rondell threw a blanket over the television, his voice now sharp and clear.
“Ain’t no motherfuckin’ vampire killer gonna spy on us.”
“Which one of you the vampire?” Marcellus asked, stepping into the picture.
I wasn’t breathing, but I wasn’t shaking. I punched Troy’s speed dial.
DeMarcus explained, pointing to the television. “We on the box. Rondell covered it up so’s nobody can see what we doin.”
Troy answered on the first ring. “You aren’t going to believe this,” I told him.
Marcellus pulled the blanket off the television, jostling the rabbit-ears antenna enough to restore Buffy just as the
credits rolled.
“Yo, dogs,” Marcellus said, “just count the shit; don’t be smokin’ it, too.”
I started breathing and shaking. Troy interrupted both.
“Believe what, Jack?”
“Nothing,” I managed, the shakes adding a quick stutter to my voice. “Call you later.”
I hung up the phone as the lights in the house went out again. There was no thunder or lightning this time, just Marcellus shouting “what the fuck?” the answer coming in a burst of gunfire. I called Troy back as I ran for my car, the sounds of additional gunfire echoing behind me.
Chapter Five
Latrell found the utility box on the side of Marcellus’s house, ?ipped the switch cutting off the electricity, and vaulted the porch rail, the tired wooden planks sagging under his weight. The gun in one hand, he yanked open the front door. He was invisible in the dark, though he could easily see inside the house, the goggles painting everyone in a green haze. The Winston brothers, shaking the television like it was a vending machine that had eaten their quarters, ignored him; Marcellus shouted “what the fuck?” like it mattered.
Latrell assumed the firing position, just as he did on the range. Marcellus and the Winston brothers were nothing more than targets hanging from a wire. He pulled the trigger again and again and again, the inside of the house glowing with gunfire.
He saw the bodies where they’d fallen, Marcellus on his back in the middle of the room, the Winston brothers piled against one another in the corner next to the television. Latrell knelt on the ?oor, collecting his spent shells, sliding them into his pocket.
He cocked his head at the sound of the whimpering child upstairs suddenly gone silent, imagining Jalise covering his mouth with her hand. Though she had always left Latrell alone and the boy had never even chased a ball into his yard, Marcellus had ruined them. If he let them live, Jalise would end up like his momma, her boy growing up like Latrell. That would be wrong. Things had to be put right.