Citycide

by Gary Hardwick

  “Please tell me y’all ain’t going after no cop,” Jangle began. “Messin’ with a cop ain’t gonna do nothing but cause trouble.”

  “And what about Rakeif?” asked LaMaris. “Man coulda arrested him. Some white man kills a black one and don’t nobody give a shit. Well, I do.”

  “He was beating some fag to death,” said Jangle.

  “What’s yo’ point, nigga?” said LaMaris, taking a step toward Jangle, who again did not flinch.

  “My point is death by cop go with the game,” said Jangle. “Cop just doing his job, too.”

  “He right,” Bob said. “The game is what it is.”

  “So why even be talkin’ about the cop?” asked Jangle.

  Bob and LaMaris shared a quick glance and Jangle got that feeling of danger again. They were up to something and could not be good.

  “Rakeif just didn’t like bitchass niggas,” said LaMaris. “How about you?”

  “I don’t like man-ass women,” said Jangle. “I know that.”

  LaMaris moved toward him and this time, Jangle came to meet her only to find Bob between them.

  “LaMaris, how you gonna call him out like that and then get mad when he come back on you? I swear, you damned females talk like men, then wanna react like women.”

  LaMaris mumbled a curse and then took a step away, not wanting to argue.

  “Rakeif had beef with the gay boy,” said Bob. “He should have handled it better. But don’t worry about us, we got bigger things to do than some cop.”

  Suddenly, Jangle thought about Rashindah. If she crossed iDT somehow, he would have sent one of the three to get her. He was angry but could not challenge either of them, especially not Bob.

  “We gonna organize some of these newer dealers and take a cut,” said Bob. “It won’t interfere with your thing but as time goes on, you may have to join.”

  Jangle could not hide his shock. “What about iDT?” asked Jangle.

  Jangle watched Bob whose face held no animosity or anger. He was making a point and it was respectful.

  “I ain’t worried about iDT,” said Bob. “He still supplying. If he got a problem, he can come and ask me about it.”

  “I’m just sayin’, you know what happens when things go wrong,” said Jangle.

  “Yeah,” said Bob, “he comes to us. Who he gonna send to get me? You?”

  “Not likely,” said LaMaris quickly.

  “Don’t you worry about it,” said Bob. “You just keep doin’ yo’ thing and let us take care of ours.”

  Bob and LaMaris walked away without a further word. Jangle watched them go, knowing that once again his sixth sense for trouble was right on the mark.

  But what troubled him even more was his belief that when Bob said they were not interested in the white cop, he was lying.

  13

  PARTNER DANCE

  While Danny was on leave, the murder of Rashindah Watson had been quietly closed. Just like he thought, the department had put up little resistance. Rakeif Simms was officially the murderer and Danny was credited with his apprehension.

  Danny’s discovery of the new evidence would change that, he thought. Surely, the boss would be swayed by what the evidence suggested.

  “What the hell are you doing, Danny?” asked Erik after Danny had filled him in. “The case is closed. You know what that means.”

  “Simms wasn’t the shooter,” said Danny. “I can feel it.”

  “There you go, nobody can talk sense to you when you get like this.”

  “Then don’t try, help a brother out,” Danny managed a smile.

  The two men sat at their desks in The Sewer. The place was busy as usual, so no one paid attention to their heated conversation. Partners always argued about something.

  “We never found the murder weapon,” said Danny.

  “The boss ain’t gonna like this,” said Erik. “She made a statement to the press and everything.”

  “That don’t mean nothing. What’s important is there’s a shitload of evidence in this case and I found it. My shooting is all cleared up and I’m ready to close this case out for real.”

  “And the dead girl is linked to someone at city hall? That sounds like the end of my career to me,” said Erik.

  “What do you suggest I do with this evidence?” asked Danny.

  He stared directly into Erik’s eyes. Danny knew his partner well. Erik didn’t want to upset the bosses but in the end, he always did what was right.

  “My wife’s gonna shack up with this guy she’s fuckin’,” said Erik.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Danny, calming down a little. “I was hoping you guys would work it out.”

  “I found out who he is,” said Erik “Works for the School Board.”

  “Let’s kill him,” said Danny calmly.

  Erik laughed shaking his head. “If only it was that easy, my friend.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” said Danny.

  “You know the answer,” said Erik, his voice lowering. “I never want to let go until I’m fully satisfied, but I got bigger problems in my life right now. Look, this is Detroit, man, and life is cheap here. I don’t wanna risk my career for some dead ho and her gay boyfriend. Do you?”

  “Yes,” said Danny. “If we don’t, then who the fuck are we?”

  The two sat in silence for a while. Danny understood what he was asking. Erik had gone the extra mile for him many times in the past but Danny was a tough man to partner with and Erik had paid a lot of dues.

  “Vinny wants to have a baby,” said Danny flatly.

  “What the fuck?!” Erik almost yelled and several detectives looked around at them. “When did this happen?” Erik said in a lower voice.

  “Couple of days ago. She didn’t press or nag me, she just said it like it was a done deal. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Man, that’s... Okay, first you can’t knock her up like that while you’re single.”

  “Vinny doesn’t want to get married,” said Danny. “And neither do I. It ain’t our thing.”

  “Listen,” said Erik, suddenly looking very serious. “You don’t want to go engaging God like that without making a real commitment to each other. Take it from me, there’s enough shit that can go wrong. If you start with the promise, you’ll have a better chance.”

  “You can say that when your wife is with some other guy?”

  “Yes, I can,” said Erik. “Look, I haven’t been a perfect husband. I let her down and I know it. Maybe she’s punishing me but that doesn’t change the fact that we had something great once.”

  “Oh, damn,” said Danny. “You still got hope, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” said Erik. “If this other guy’s game is greater than what me and my wife have, then I guess she’s not mine anymore. But I’m betting that she doesn’t want to start all over. If you and Vinny don’t build something stronger than just sleeping together, the baby might tear you apart.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to do it,” said Danny.

  “Yes, you are,” said Erik. “Because you didn’t say no when she said it.”

  Danny considered this. He was shocked by Vinny’s request but he had not been adamantly against it. He got what Erik was saying. This was too important for gray areas. The lack of a “no” mean he wanted to do it.

  “Letting a killer get away isn’t going to bring your wife back to you,” said Danny. He and Erik were both deflecting the matter at hand. The dance was old but it was their way.

  “And pushing a closed case to the boss isn’t going to stop Vinny from wanting a baby.”

  “I’ll sleep better at night,” said Danny.

  “You have a baby and you won’t be sleeping at all,” Erik said laughing. “They always wake up in the middle of the night.” Then he added: “Fine. I’m in on the damned case. Fuck it.”

  An hour later, Danny and Erik stood in the office of their boss. Riddeaux had read Danny’s evidence report. She looked at the sta
ck of paper, which sat next to the digital copy. Her eyes darted back and forth as she read.

  “When did you get this stuff?” asked Riddeaux grimly.

  “Yesterday,” said Danny. “I wanted to get right on it.”

  “You think the killer didn’t ditch the gun he used on her? That another man did the hit?” asked Riddeaux.

  “I don’t know,” said Danny. “That’s the problem. We got holes in this and there’s the fire at her place.”

  “Which you think was to cover up evidence?” asked Riddeaux. She stood up and walked from behind her desk.

  “Again, I don’t know,” said Danny.

  “Okay,” said Riddeaux, “Did you go through this and if so, what did you find?”

  “I looked it over and it’s complicated,” said Danny. “First, we only got her records for the last three months. AMT dumps every quarter. Rashindah made a lot of calls but there are some texts she sent to a certain number that had intimate stuff in them.”

  “Intimate like what?” asked Riddeaux.

  “Sex,” said Danny. “And the guy is in the Mayor’s office.”

  Riddeaux’s eyes noticeably widened. “You can prove this?”

  “Yes,” said Danny. “The code for the number in the texts corresponds to the block given to the executive branch.”

  “So who does it belong to?” Riddeaux was already thinking ahead of questions.

  “Could be anyone. Could be the Mayor,” said Erik. “The city has the phone numbers assigned. They know who was texting with the dead girl.”

  Riddeaux sighed heavily then looked at Erik like she just remembered he was in the room.

  “If we ask for the owner of that code, they have to tell us,” said Danny.

  Riddeaux folded her arms and walked back to her desk. She sat down gently as she contemplated this potentially dangerous knowledge.

  “No,” she said. “There’s not enough here to reopen the case. If some man was screwing that girl, that’s his business. No reason to have city hall on our backs if it turns out to be nothing.”

  “And what if it’s not nothing?” said Danny walking over to her desk. “What if someone there set up the hit or worse pulled the trigger?”

  “Some suit with a .44?” said Riddeaux. “You believe that, Cavanaugh?”

  Danny stared at her in disbelief. Riddeaux was more politician than cop and now he saw it in full measure. It would not occur to her that justice demanded they pursue this until the end, that giving way for compromise, fear or politics meant you had failed in your duty to the public.

  He could not let his temper get the best of him now, Danny thought. He’d had enough trouble in the past over that and the department would never tolerate him losing it again. Danny could feel Erik behind him willing him to maintain his cool.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Riddeaux. “That I’m a bureaucrat. I won’t deny it. But if we reopen this case, it will say that we suspect city hall and that will rain shit down on all of us and we’ll never know what happened. I know the people in the Mayor’s office. Things will vanish, people will stop talking and we will be left holding on to what’s left of our careers. On the other hand, as a cop, I see your point. We have to do what we do, but officially, the case stays closed.”

  Danny and Erik exchanged a quick glance. If he had just heard her right, she was saying that she could not reopen the case, but would not stand in their way of looking further as long as it could not be traced to them. She was covering her ass in case things went wrong but she clearly knew something was rotten.

  “Are we free to go, then?” asked Danny.

  “Yes,” said Riddeaux. “You are dismissed.” She waited a moment and then added, “Be careful.”

  Danny and Erik left the room. As soon as they were back in The Sewer, Erik turned to his partner.

  “Jesus, that’s a complicated woman,” said Erik.

  “She is a piece of work,” said Danny, “but she’s trying to do the right thing. You ready for this?”

  “When do we start?”

  “After work.”

  

  Danny and Erik went down in an elevator in The Coleman A Young Municipal Center headed to see a contact. The building is an impressive place filled with grand memories of Detroit’s longest serving Mayor.

  Neither man had spoken since leaving 1300. Each of them knew exactly what this was and how it would probably turn out if they were not careful.

  The digital age left lots of ways to find out what a person was up to but it was a complex matter. That’s why they were going to see an expert on the subject.

  “Don’t we have enough shit named after that man in Detroit?” said Danny breaking the silence.

  “Coleman Young is a legend,” said Erik.

  “So is Lee Harvey Oswald,” Danny intoned without much feeling.

  “Come on, Coleman never killed anyone.”

  “No. Just this city,” said Danny with seriousness. It was an old argument between the two men.

  “People will hurt you for saying that,” Erik said laughing.

  “You know it’s true. The man was hateful, arrogant and so bitter that he couldn’t let anyone come together.”

  “We’ve had other leaders, you know,” said Erik.

  “And they were all handicapped by their predecessor, Yancy, Crawford and now we have one that may have been involved in a murder.”

  “Could be Young had some help in his fall. I’d say he was pushed by men just as bad.”

  “Can’t argue that we seem to hate each other,” said Danny. “Still… It’s almost like watching someone die slowly. My across the street neighbor bashed her son’s head in and every day I leave for work, I see the dealers creeping the side streets. How can I raise a baby in that?”

  “Just one of the terrible choices parents have to make,” said Erik and he looked far off as if connecting to some memory.

  The elevator stopped and they got off and were greeted by a security team. Two U.S. Marshalls stood at a long metal desk with a body scanner.

  “Hey fellas,” said one of the Marshalls, a stout white woman.

  “Hey Trish, John,” said Erik to the two guards.

  Danny said hello and was reaching for his guns, which were not allowed in this part of the building.

  “Looking good, Mr. Cavanaugh,” said Trish. “Kill anybody lately?”

  “Just one guy,” said Danny.

  “Read a paper, woman,” said the other Marshall named John.

  “You single yet?” asked Trish. “I’m getting tired of waiting.”

  Danny blushed a little. Trish always flirted with him and it made him nervous.

  “When she says tired, she means she’s doing every man from here to Timbuktu,” said John.

  Trish gave her partner a nasty look. “Don’t listen to him, Danny. I’m as pure as the driven snow. I don’t even know what a penis looks like.”

  “That’s ‘cause she turns out the lights,” said John.

  “Vinny and I are good,” said Danny. “We’re having a baby.”

  Danny saw Trish’s face flush as she and John gushed congratulations. Erik coughed to hide his laughter.

  Erik and Danny surrendered their weapons then walked through the scanner. They went down a long corridor whose doors and walls were gray and bland, definitely a fed hangout.

  “Why you want to break the woman’s heart like that?” asked Erik.

  “Just trying not to encourage her. She’s not my type,” said Danny.

  “You ought to try a white women before you get too hitched to Vinny. Wait. Have you ever had one?”

  “No,” said Danny with something that bordered on pride.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Erik. You learn something every day. “Say, how does Vinny feel about moving?”

  “Dead set against it. Me? I’m starting to wonder.”

  “Maybe we should sterilize everybody that lives in Detroit,” Erik laughed again.


  “There are probably some people out there who would agree with that,” said Danny.

  They stopped at a gray door marked b-125. Danny knocked and walked in.

  Inside the small room, they found a small, thin white woman with dyed blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She sat amid a clutter of papers, food boxes and tech books.

  “Hey,” said the woman. She was eating a cupcake. “Come on in and excuse the mess.”

  She couldn’t keep still and seemed filled with nervous energy. Her mannerisms were quick yet deliberate.

  “How’s it going Reebah?” asked Danny. He recognized her motions as those of a former drug user. So many of them stopped using drugs but still retained the druggie manner along with a sugar habit.

  “Making it,” said Reebah and she quickly typed in a command on her terminal so fast it looked like a blur. “Erik?”

  Erik nodded then he and Danny sat down, knocking debris from two chairs.

  “Still no roommate down here?” asked Erik.

  “No one can stand me,” said Reebah. “Actually, I keep running them away.”

  She rolled up her sleeves and showed them her arms in a fluid motion.

  “No need for that,” said Danny. “I know you’re clean these days.”

  “I’m bragging,” said Reebah. “Three years now. I don’t even think about doing shit anymore. How cool is that?”

  Reebah Granger had been one of the state’s most notorious ID thieves. She could take your social security number and have your whole life in an hour.

  She was from Taylor, what was called a “downriver” city meaning it was south of Detroit along the river. Raised in a trailer park, Reebah was the daughter of a couple of drug-addict parents but had been blessed with a keen mind. She’d excelled in math and programming but education couldn’t stop biology and slowly she drifted to crime.

  Her older brother, a crystal meth dealer named Duncan, started her criminal career. Everyone called him Duke. He was currently in Jackson Prison serving a life sentence for killing his drug partner.

  Erik and Danny had busted Reebah by chance chasing down a drug crew who were using fake ID’s to wash drug money.