by James Newman
Mackey apologized then, said he had a call on the other line that he had to take.
“Wherever you are, whatever you’re working on, let’s pray it leads us to her,” he said. “I just want Sophie home safe. All I ask is that you leave a few scraps for me. Something I can put behind bars when this is over.”
Abruptly, the sheriff hung up.
For a brief moment, Nick suspected that Mackey knew exactly where he was, what he was up to.
He tossed his phone on the passenger seat and resumed his wait.
†
Four hours later he spotted his quarry, as the sun began to set.
He heard the car before he saw it. Thumping bass from some hardcore rap song rattled the Kia’s mirrors, thrummed through the vehicle’s chassis.
A brown Monte Carlo rolled past him. A mid-80s model with oversized chrome rims, windows tinted black as a serial killer’s soul. Its vanity plate read KINGPUFF, and a sticker on the bumper urged D.A.R.E. TO KEEP KIDS OFF DRUGS.
Nick couldn’t wait to meet this piece of shit. He reached behind his seat to retrieve the tire iron.
The Monte Carlo backed into Shabazz’s driveway. The music stopped, but for a minute or more the car just sat there, its engine rumbling like the contented purr of a lion after a long day of slaying weaker animals.
Finally, the driver-side door fell open.
The Rottweiler welcomed its master home with a single bark.
Nick climbed out of the Kia, his stiff old bones popping and cracking like small-caliber gunshots in the twilight.
†
“Shabazz!” Nick called to the other man. He held the tire iron behind his back, out of sight.
The Rottweiler started barking furiously. It stood on its hind legs, its front claws invoking a metallic song of protest from the bowing chain-link fence.
Shabazz didn’t hear Nick at first. He was too busy telling his dog to shut the fuck up. Apparently, the beast’s name was Lashonda.
Nick’s bum knee throbbed like a son-of-a-bitch as he crossed the road, but he didn’t let it slow him down. He only hoped that fence would hold.
“Yo, Clarence!” He refused to call the guy Coko Puff.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Shabazz was a short, skinny black man with light skin and long, braided hair pulled into a tight ponytail. He wore baggy blue jeans and a Detroit Pistons basketball jersey. A fat diamond stud glittered in his left ear. He had a bushy uni-brow and a pointy goatee that gave him a slightly devilish appearance. Instantly, Nick knew where the drug-dealer got his stupid nickname: from the cluster of four reddish-brown moles on his left cheek and two more beside his right eye. Most of them were the size of a dime, but a few were as big around as a quarter.
“I need to talk to you,” said Nick.
Shabazz looked him up and down.
With one hand he lifted his jersey to show Nick a gold-plated Beretta stuck between his boxers and his washboard abs.
He said, “You might wanna make an appointment next time.”
“It’s about Sophie Suttles,” said Nick.
“What the fuck I care about that bitch?” Shabazz glanced back toward the Rottweiler, licked his lips and gave Nick a taunting grin. “I mean, uh...Coko Puff don’t know nobody by that name.”
“Wrong answer.”
Nick brought the tire iron from behind his back, swung it at the drug-dealer’s head.
Coko Puff went down like a spilled bowl of cereal.
†
He came to slowly, blinking like a man who just stepped out of a dark room into harsh sunlight.
Shabazz moaned. Rubbed at his scalp. The tips of his fingers came away bloody. He tried to sit up, but then hissed through his teeth. He collapsed back into his recliner.
“Shit, man...what hit me?”
Before him, in a straight-backed chair turned backwards, sat the answer to his question. Bigger than life and twice as ugly.
The dealer reached for his gun. Couldn’t find it.
Nick showed it to him, before stashing the Beretta between his pants and the small of his back. In his other hand he held his trusty tire iron.
“Who the fuck are you? Somebody send you to rip me off?”
“I think you know who I am,” said Nick. “And you can stop pretending that you don’t know why I’m here.”
The house smelled like Old Spice aftershave and marijuana. The carpet was fancy, snow-white and soft as a kitten’s fur, but the walls were painted a gaudy mustard-yellow. Behind Nick, an elaborate stereo system stood silent next to a leather sofa. On the opposite side of the room, atop a small end-table, framed pictures of Shabazz with his arm around a little old lady sat incongruously beneath a poster of Al Pacino wielding an M-16. The way the poster was positioned on the wall, it looked as if Scarface’s wrath was aimed right at poor Grandma.
Nick had taken some time to look around the rest of the house while Shabazz was unconscious. He wasn’t at all surprised by what he found. A table had been shoved into one corner of the kitchen. The surface was cluttered with miniature scales, glass vials, and plastic baggies. The tools of this scumbag’s trade.
“I don’t know why you be steppin’ up on my property, ’causin’ Coko Puff trouble,” the dealer said now. “You must be lookin’ for some other fool.”
“No,” said Nick, “I’ve got the right fool.”
“Coko Puff is a peaceful man, yo. I’m a law-abidin’ citizen. A follower of Islam. Believe that.”
“You peddle poison and carry a nine-millimeter,” said Nick. “You also have a habit of speaking of yourself in the third-person. Makes me wanna hit you again, hard enough so you don’t wake up this time.”
Shabazz rubbed at his head again, winced. “You makin’ a big mistake, dawg. Don’t be surprised if yo’ ugly ass wake up dead one mornin’, after this.”
Nick yawned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get in line, Shabazz. You’re not the only one around here who wants to send me home in a box. Besides...look at me. Do you really think you scare me?”
Shabazz had no reply.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” said Nick, “I understand you’re one of this area’s biggest distributors of illegal substances. I have it on good authority that a man named Eddie Whiteside worked for you, before he wound up on the wrong end of a twelve-gauge.”
“None of those accusations have ever been substantiated,” said Shabazz. “And I don’t know no ‘Eddie.’ ”
Nick pointed with his tire iron toward the kitchen.
“The baggies, the vials, the digital scale...I guess those are for selling encyclopedias door-to-door. Cut the bullshit. I’m not the law. I know what you are. But I don’t care about that right now. All I want is info concerning the whereabouts of Sophie Suttles.”
Shabazz reached into a bowl on an end-table next to his recliner. It was full of those little Valentine’s Day candies that come in pastel colors with various flirty messages printed on them. He plucked one out of the bowl, took his time reading whatever it said before popping it into his mouth.
He sucked loudly at the candy, smirking at Nick all the while.
The big man jumped to his feet and hurled his chair across the room. It crashed into the stereo system, shattering the glass door of the entertainment center that housed it.
He brought his tire iron down on the dealer’s right arm.
Something cracked. Shabazz screamed—a high-pitched, girlish scream. A rainbow of colored hearts rattled across the end-table like teeth in a bar-fight.
Outside, the Rottweiler started barking like crazy again.
“I’m ready to quit playing games whenever you are!” Nick roared.
Tears filled the dealer’s eyes. “I’ll talk! Just don’t hit me again! Goddamn. I think you broke my wrist...”
Nick shrugged.
“I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know. I’ll tell you every-fuckin’-thing.” Shabazz held his injured arm as he glared at Nick and swore through
clenched teeth, “But when all this is over, you better watch yo’ back. Believe that. I’ma feed pieces of you to my girl outside. You won’t be nothin’ but dogshit on the muhfuckin’ ground by the time I’m done with you.”
“Okay,” said Nick.
“Just tell me what you want and get the fuck outta my house...”
“Last March,” said Nick, “Eddie was arrested. He owed you some money after that.”
“Eighty large. He had his bitch to thank. She never woulda lost her kid, if her dumb ass didn’t do what she did in the first place.”
Nick’s heart sank. Shabazz was taunting him—he had to know that Melissa was his daughter. But he let it go for now. The dealer had all but confirmed a theory that had been worming its way through Nick’s brain the last few days. He didn’t want to hear anymore about it from this waste of oxygen. He would ask Melissa for the details, face to face, when he was finished here.
With his good hand Shabazz picked up a piece of candy from the mess beside his chair. His movements were very slow; he was obviously in pain. He read whatever was printed on the little pink heart before slipping it into his mouth. He let out a little moan as he sucked on it, as if the candy helped ease his suffering.
“I gave Eddie one month to get me my dead presidents. After that, Coko Puff had to get nasty. Business is business. Told him I was gonna call up this AIDS-infested nigga I know from the ATL. That mofo, he’ll do anything for a rock. I said, ‘He’ll wait for yo’ bitch to come home from work one night, and when he’s done with her she won’t be good for nothin’. But that ain’t all.’ I said, ‘This nigga, he like a jackrabbit. He don’t ever get tired of fuckin’. And he don’t care who it is, long as he got a hole to stick his dick in.’ I told Eddie, ‘Once he’s finished with yo’ bitch, he’s gonna do the same to you. Believe that.’ ”
“You piece of filth,” said Nick. “I oughta crack open your skull right now.”
Shabazz scratched at the cluster of moles on his cheek, winced again as he stared down at his shattered arm. The candy clicked against his teeth.
“So...he paid you back.” Nick urged him to continue.
“Coko Puff even made a little profit. For my trouble.”
“Where did Eddie get the money?”
“Coko Puff didn’t have nothin’ to do with that deal, you understand? It was strictly between Eddie and his...benefactor. Once the deal was sealed, though, I guess Eddie started feelin’ guilty about the whole thing. Took a likin’ to the kid, decided he wanted to play house with her and her momma. He wasn’t gonna give her up.”
“He died protecting Sophie, didn’t he?”
“Looks that way. That dumb mofo even took out an insurance policy on hisself, so they’d be okay after he was gone. I guess he saw the writing on the wall. A few weeks before it all went down, he drove the kid out to the Snake River Woods, spent a whole day teaching her how to shoot.”
“How do you know about all of that?” asked Nick.
“Eddie was my friend, yo. We go way back. He confided in me.”
“He was lucky to have you.” Nick’s grip tightened on the tire iron as he loomed over Shabazz. “These people who loaned him the money to pay you back, tell me why they wanted Sophie.”
“Not ‘people.’ One dude. He has his representatives, but it’s just one freaky-deak behind it all, from what I heard.”
Daddy, Nick knew without asking.
“As for why he wanted her?” said Shabazz. “I hear this cracker got weird...tastes.”
Nick’s guts roiled as if his insides had been scooped out and replaced with a teeming mass of maggots. “Children. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
“I heard he likes ‘em young, yeah. But that ain’t the only reason he chose this particular kid.”
Nick started pacing back and forth from one side of the room to the other, like an agitated panther, as he listened.
“He collects things,” said Shabazz.
“What...things?” asked Nick.
“He’s into, like, celebrity shit.”
“Movie props? Autographs? What are you talking about?”
“Nah. This ain’t the kinda stuff you be findin’ on eBay. I don’t even know, dawg. Coko Puff just tellin’ you what I heard through the muhfuckin’ grapevine.”
Nick felt closer than ever to understanding everything. “Tell me where I can find him. This...collector.”
Shabazz pinched another piece of candy from the end-table. He glanced down at the message on it, but then switched it out for another piece. The saccharine slogan on this one satisfied him, for whatever reason. He popped it in his mouth, sucked on it loudly.
“Now that, you gonna have to ask the middle man.”
“The middle man?”
“He set it all up. Brokered the deal. Got a finder’s fee and everything damn thing, is what I heard.”
“Who was that?” asked Nick.
Shabazz bit down on the candy.
“I only met him once. He works at a titty bar not far from here. Dude by the name of Russo.”
†
Nick pounded on his daughter’s door. “Melissa! Melissa, are you in there?”
A blue-haired old woman in a flowery bathrobe stuck her head out of an apartment down the hall, gave him a pursed-lips expression of distaste.
“Something I can do for you?” he barked at the old bag.
She blanched, shrank back inside.
“Melissa, open up!” He pounded on the door some more.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
The sound of a chain sliding back, a deadbolt being unlocked.
She opened the door. She wore a rumpled Waffle House uniform. Her hair was wet as if she had just stepped out of the shower. She was smoking a cigarette.
“What’s up, Dad? Is everything al—”
He shoved past her, into her apartment. “Going somewhere?”
“It was supposed to be my night off, but one of the other girls got sick. I offered to cover her shift. Why? What’s going on?”
“We need to talk,” he said.
She closed the door.
“Any reason you haven’t been returning my calls? I keep getting your voicemail.”
“I dropped my stupid phone in the toilet.” She rolled her eyes. “I was gonna come see you in the morning. Dad...what’s wrong?”
“Call me Nick.”
“Umm...okay. I thought we were over that. I don’t understand, have I done somethi—”
“Leon’s dead.”
“Oh, my God. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you all about it. After you tell me what happened last March.”
She looked confused. And more than a little afraid of him.
He said, “March thirtieth, I believe it was. The last time Eddie got himself arrested. You know what I’m talking about. The police searched your house, but it was clean as a whistle. They charged Eddie with misdemeanor possession, when he could have been facing felony intent to distribute.”
“Oh.” She stared down at the glowing orange tip of her cigarette.
He waited.
Finally, she collapsed onto the sofa. A tear trickled down her cheek. “He had two strikes against him already. One more, and they were gonna lock him up for good.”
“What did you do, Melissa?”
She took a long drag, blew the smoke out slowly. “I passed the traffic stop on my way home from work. I saw him sitting there on the curb, in handcuffs. He didn’t see me. I had my windows down as I drove by. I heard Sheriff Mackey tell his deputies to get to our house right away.”
“You panicked,” said Nick. “You hurried home and flushed everything you could find.”
“Once they came knocking with their warrant, they were too late by seconds.” She didn’t say it as if she were boasting. She merely stated a fact.
“Jesus Christ, Melissa.”
She sniffled, wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her Waffle House uniform. “This is all my fault, isn’t
it?”
Nick gritted his teeth, stared up at the ceiling. Technically, she was right. This all began when she inadvertently caused a drug dealer to lose a lot of money. Never a smart move. But her complicity could not kill Nick’s instinct for compassion.
“Come here,” he said.
She stood, crossed the room and fell into his arms. “Was it the person Eddie worked for?” she sobbed. “Is that who took my baby? ’Cause I flushed his drugs?”
“No,” said Nick. “He got his money. Eddie paid him back with interest before Sophie ever came to live with you.”
“Then why—”
“It’s complicated.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I had a little talk with Eddie’s boss, earlier tonight. Lovely fellow, calls himself Coko Puff.”
“So what happens now?”
“Now I have to go.”
“Where?”
He pried her arms from around his midsection. “To get Sophie.”
†
It was still early, not quite fully dark on a Sunday evening. No more than seven or eight vehicles occupied the club’s parking lot.
Perfect. Nick assumed most of the Skin Den’s regulars were still in church.
He parked in the front. Left his tire iron in the car this time.
The night was quiet, save for the sounds of traffic on the nearby interstate and the bassline of some hard rock song thumping inside the club. As he stomped across the cracked pavement to the Skin Den’s main entrance, the big man was gripped by a surreal sensation that wasn’t quite déjà vu. It was something akin to the feeling amputees experience after losing a limb—the “phantom itch” syndrome. He imagined he heard Leon’s footsteps behind him, could almost smell a hint of body odor and the smoke from his late sidekick’s cigarette on the night’s cool breeze.
He swallowed a lump in his throat.
“As God is my witness, I’ll make sure you didn’t die for nothing,” he promised his friend. “I owe you that much.”
He didn’t realize he had said it out loud until a well-dressed man unlocking his Prius a few feet away turned and asked, “Beg your pardon?”