Details at Ten

by Ardella Garland

  When we entered my apartment I directed Doug to the refrigerator for a cold beer while I cleared off the last picture of Max and me from the coffee table. We nestled down on the sofa and Doug stroked the soft hair at the base of my neck with the back of his hand. I closed my eyes and digested the tingly sensation the touch gave me. We sat very close on my oversized couch, the coolness of the central air pampering our tired bodies. We faced the picture window, Lake Michigan front and center, on a night when tiny stars were splattered across the sky.

  Doug’s arm around my shoulders held me loosely yet firmly. We had yet to kiss, but this time together seemed very intimate and it reinforced in my mind what I’ve always been unable to express to most men—that intimacy is very much mental and emotional. How we got in this position, I forget; but it was a satisfying place to be.

  Doug happened to like Frankie Beverly and Maze. The sex-me-up voice of Frankie Beverly was ringing in our ears. Our conversation was now nonexistent; we simply relaxed and listened to the music. I began to think about nothing but feeling as good as I possibly could at that moment. No drive-bys, gangbangers, Butter, or anything else. Yes, I needed me some of this!

  Finally Doug leaned closer and began to kiss me behind my ear. His breath was like the lush sound of an ocean seashell and I smelled the heady aroma of his masculine body. When I turned my face up, his eyes glittered in the semi-dark room. And then I marveled at the exquisite taste of his lips as they pressed against mine, parting to allow our tongues to greet each other for the first time. A kiss is more than a kiss when you lose all sense of time.

  We embraced each other, snuggling close on the couch. I was so relaxed, more than I’d been in days. I dropped my tired head back and melted. Doug’s breathing became smoother and smoother. “You feel good,” he whispered. “Close your eyes and let go.” We seemed weightless together and the music became softer.

  That’s all I remember until I felt a stark vibration against my shoulder. Startled, I raised up and realized that it was Doug’s pager. He was behind me, sleeping. And I’d fallen asleep too. We had both been so dog tired and so comfortable with each other that we simply crashed! Weren’t we a pitiful pair? I reached out and shook Doug hard. “Hey, Casanova, your pager went off.”

  “Huh? Mmmmm,” he said, rubbing his eyes and pressing a button that illuminated the message. It took a couple of seconds for his eyes to focus in order for him to read the pager. “I gotta go, Georgia.”

  “What’s wrong? Is it Butter?”

  “No,” Doug grunted quickly. “This is another case. Go back to sleep.”

  Before I could say another word, Doug leaned over and kissed me. When our lips parted, he whispered, “I’ll call you as soon as I can. Get some rest.”

  I was clearly under his spell. My body tried to obey. I heard the door slam and felt myself drifting back into a state of rest. A few seconds later, my eyes popped wide open.

  S I X T E E N

  Doug had lied his butt off.

  My instincts, my sixth sense kicked in like a jolt of caffeine. That page Doug took was about Butter. He just didn’t want to tell me. He wanted to leave me behind in the dark. And I wasn’t having it.

  Because Doug had only been to my apartment this once, he didn’t know about the rear elevator. My building was old and this particular freight elevator could be rigged to go straight to the garage level without stopping on any floor if you pressed all the pop-out buttons on the panel at once. It was a scary trip, like a carnival ride, but a godsend when you’re late for work or trying to entertain a feisty nephew like Satch—or aiming to tail a Chicago police detective.

  I bolted out of the elevator, ran over to my car, cranked it up, and rolled out of my parking space. I knew what Doug’s car looked like and hoped that he wasn’t too far ahead. I needed to glimpse enough of him at a distance to follow without too much trouble. Luck was with a sister this night. I spotted Doug up ahead going south on Lake Shore Drive.

  Even at this hour, there were a decent number of cars out on Lake Shore Drive as I tailed along after Doug. After a few miles we exited the drive and turned onto a major street that had seen better days. We passed storefronts with their guts hanging out and juke joints with their blues hanging out. We rumbled over railroad tracks and vaulted through viaducts. As late as it was there were still a few people outside on the streets. It was much cooler than it had been during the day, albeit still very warm. The radio station gave weather and time: 83 degrees at 2:30 A.M.

  “Where is he going?!” I caught myself asking out loud. We traveled several more miles. I let a light catch me to hide but stay close. Doug turned down a back alley; I couldn’t follow, too obvious. I went up one block to a one-way street, hung a left, and sped forward. At the stop sign, I peered to my left and saw Doug’s car jetting out of the alley, across the street, and into the next alley. I gunned it and tracked him parallel for two blocks.

  My wheels ironed down puffy paper bags and cracked open two-dollar wine bottles as I sped forward, rocking violently over pothole after pothole. I was trying to stay with Doug, but the wear and tear on my Beamer was taking a toll and I whispered “Sorry my man” and petted my steering wheel.

  At the third block, Doug turned and headed down a narrow one-way street that led to a set of railroad tracks. I got caught by a red light, waited for a car to pass, then eased forward past the side of one garage painted with a beautiful swirl of reds, blues, and oranges forming the words: Rockies Rule.

  The back street led me down the rear of some kind of factory that was pumping an ugly, bruised blue funnel cloud into the air. It smelled like rotten eggs. I almost threw up.

  As I rode farther, it seemed as if the stars had decided to pack up their glitter and go to bed. It was incredibly dark, plus now I’d lost sight of Doug’s car. I jerked my head left, then right. Where’d he go?

  Then I saw his car parked just up ahead of me, partially concealed by a stack of steel drums. The smell was hideous, piercing the window and stitching itself all around the inside of my Beamer. I halted. The car was empty. Where was Doug?

  A thunderous rap on my window stopped my heart as my head whipped around.

  It was Doug, glaring at me, whirling his right hand in a circular motion and ordering me to roll down my window. I rolled slow and thought fast. I was in trouble with this man, so I tried to play it off. “You scared the stew out of me! And who taught you how to drive—Stevie Wonder?!”

  “Don’t you try to flip the script with me, Georgia. What are you doing following me, huh?”

  “I tried to stay home, Doug.”

  He rolled his eyes at me.

  “Okay, I merely thought about it? That’s something isn’t it?”

  He sucked his teeth.

  “That ain’t cute,” I teased, hoping for some leniency.

  Doug growled. “Girl, you’re a fool pulling this. You have no idea what’s going down right now—you’re a journalist, not a cop.” He paused and looked at me hard, then seemed to soften. “Well, you’re here now. And I can’t imagine you’re gonna sit here and wait for me just because I ask you to. . . .”

  I gave him a look that said, Yep you right.

  “C’mon then, Georgia. But I’m not playing with you. You do what I say, when I say, and how I say.”

  “Yes, Doug,” I said very soberly. “I understand.”

  He told me to park behind him. I did. Within two seconds of getting out of my car, sweat was pouring down the back of my neck. It was no secret that my underarms were anything but soft and dry. I had on sandals, sturdy, but still sandals, and they started to feel wet and gooey on my feet. I squinted, looked down, and realized I stood in goo-gobs of black somethin’ or other that had the consistency of taffy and smelled like you know what.

  “Aaaghhh! Doug, what’s this?”

  “Who knows? Some kind of waste.”

  Toxic? Human? “Is this going to make me sick or something?”

  “Too late to think about all that no
w.”

  I still had no idea where the heck we were. All I could tell was that we were behind some kind of a factory. But that was a lot and a half away now as we walked. We were stepping through all kinds of wet, gooey, oily, sloshy, stinky, gross stuff.

  Finally we came upon a pile of garbage the size of Mount Everest. We were in some kind of a waste dump, tucked away on a stretch of back acres in the city. I didn’t know it was here and I certainly didn’t want to see it up close and personal. Could someone be hiding Butter out here? That poor baby.

  I was having problems breathing now from the heat and the smell. My steps got slower and slower. It seemed like he was taking the worst path—he knew I was tired, too. Doug, how are you gonna play a sister? I began to take longer strides to keep up; I’d die out here before I’d let him show me up. We stopped behind a cluster of black metal drums stacked two and two just about a foot away from a steep incline. Had we been on a mountain, it would resemble a cliff.

  “Why are we stopping?” I whispered.

  Doug quieted me before pulling out his gun. He pointed down below us into a flatland crater centered in the dump site. Three cars were parked in a triangle and a fire, burning small and orange, was built off to the side. It gave some presence and a lot of shadow to five men standing around. They had their hands up shoulder high, fists clenched. In the center of them was another person, smaller than all the rest. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but all of a sudden they ran to the center and started beating the mess out of the one in the middle.

  I decided to call him the Whupped One.

  It was rough for the Whupped One. From the distance the Whupped One looked like he was doing cartwheels. They were kicking and windmilling their arms and he was fighting back, getting up, but each time he got knocked down. They beat him until he was walking drunk. I grabbed Doug’s shoulder and said, “Gang ritual. He’s getting jumped in.”

  Doug nodded. “You’re dead on.”

  I’d heard about the practice of beating a new member who joined a gang. I saw a story on one of the networks once where a seventeen-year-old boy had nearly gotten beaten to death by a gang in the Bronx. They interviewed the kid from his hospital bed, and do you know he still said that the gang was his family? He said they loved him. Someone needs to tell these people that love may hurt sometimes but it shouldn’t ever require stitches. I told Doug, “They’ll kill him.”

  Doug just shrugged.

  “You don’t care?”

  “He’s not part of my posse. I care about me and you, period.”

  One of the men took a knife and did something to the Whupped One’s hand and the rest of them circled around him and embraced each other. The Whupped One could barely stand up.

  “Fool,” Doug whispered. “Stupid, ignorant fool.”

  Two of them helped the Whupped One into one of the cars. Two others exchanged a hug and some kind of a shake and one pointed to the fire. The one man left waited until the other cars drove away. Then he began heading up the incline.

  “He’s coming!”

  Doug leaned into my face and blew, “Sssh!”

  I tensed. Doug took aim as the man climbed up higher, over the stone-hard garbage as if it were steps. His head was down. He was dressed all in black, with two yellow bandannas tied around his thighs and one around his head. I looked away. My eyes eager for something to do, searched the sky for a seam of light. I found nothing but darkness.

  Doug steadied his gun just as Bandanna Man stood up on the edge of the incline.

  Hold tight, I thought. Hold tight.

  “Represent,” Bandanna Man said. Doug had pushed me down and back where I could no longer see much of what was going on.

  “The shield is a rock,” Doug answered.

  “Nothing can shatter the rock,” the man responded.

  “I got your page. You know where Butter is?”

  I held my breath and prayed.

  “Naw, man. I keep telling you, I’m not high up like that. But I do have some T for you. Whoever grabbed her is in trouble. They must’ve been trying to grandstand to get into the top circle but they done fucked up.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Whoever snatched her didn’t go through security. Never cleared the move. That’s enough to get your butt stomped, maybe taken out. Who knows? So nobody will own up to having her. Everybody’s edgy, man. They-they think there’s another problem, too.”

  “Shit,” Doug said worriedly. “They’re not onto you, huh? They think there’s a snitch?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not talking about our hookup here. We think someone is tippin’ our hand to them punk Bandits.”

  “One of your boys?” Doug asked.

  “Yeah, stuff ain’t as open as it usta be. We had a meetin’ and the chieftains made it clear to the rank and file that whoever had the kid shouldna grabbed her but whoever got her shouldn’t hurt her. They put the word out. We don’t need that kind of heat. But somethin’ is about to go down that might peep where she at. You heard that chick in the hospital faded?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, the trouble is bought tight now, and y’all five-oh are about to come down strong on everybody. That’s why a move is about to be made. I know for a fact that Little Cap is leaving town tomorrow. We can’t afford to hide him out no more now that he’s staring down a murder rap.”

  Little Cap. Finally someone who could at least lead us to the shooter in the drive-by.

  “Where is he?” Doug asked.

  “Don’t know. Just know he leaving town tomorrow sometime. You know Little Cap knows where Butter is. He had to have one of his tight boys hide her, who else would break security and take a chance like that but him and some super-tight partners of his down for theirs? Little Cap is the one with his nuts on the butcher block. You get Little Cap and I believe he’ll know where the kid’s at.”

  “I need to know where Little Cap’s hiding. I need that info. Get that shit, man!” Doug said, his gruff voice beginning to rise.

  “Look, man, I’m takin’ a chance tellin’ you anything. I ain’t ’bout to ask no extra questions and get smoked! I get smoked and then what, huh? Shit, I’m at the crossroads and you still here tryin’ to bribe another motherfuckah into being your snitch.”

  “Chill, just chill, man!” Doug said, trying to placate the rising anger in his informant. “I’m frustrated. I need what I need. If you find out something, I wanna know right away. Understand?”

  “If I find out when and where, I’ll get to you. For sure. Peace. Hey, don’t forget to do that for me like I asked, huh?”

  “Okay,” Doug said, nodding. Then I saw him crane his neck as the informant walked away.

  “I—”

  “Sssh!” Doug whispered. “Wait.”

  I did until I heard the car screech as it pulled off. “This guy has been feeding you inside information?”

  “All along. The little information he’s provided has helped.”

  “What kind of a hold do you have on him?”

  “Tight. Dude’s been in the gang since he was thirteen years old. When you’re initiated into their gang, you have to have a sponsor. A big brother. Someone who is responsible for you and your actions until you’re grandfathered in after five years of service. His sponsor saved his life on more than one occasion. But now he’s in Joliet serving time on assault and drug charges. I’m making sure his time is sweet. Nobody bothers him on the yard and he’s got a easy gig in the jail library.”

  Doug stood up and held out his hand to me as if he were asking me for a dance. I took his hand and he pulled me up, but I was a little unsteady from lack of sleep and sitting so awkwardly for so long. I stumbled into Doug and he caught me around the waist and squeezed. “Careful, Georgia. Don’t get tripped up now. We’ve got a long way to go together.”

  S E V E N T E E N

  Doug took me straight home and I crashed. It was my off day. My plan was to sleep until 1:00 P.M., get up to shower, eat, and then throw on some s
eventies sounds to relax before going to the rally at seven. I told the station that I wasn’t about to let anyone else cover the candlelight vigil so I had already hooked it up where a crew would meet me in the neighborhood around 7:30 P.M. so I could set up and cover the story for ten.

  It was Zeke’s off day, too, and I asked them to call him in on overtime—work half a day but get paid a plus eight at time and a half. I know Zeke. He’ll whine but he’ll take it. They agreed. I wasn’t going to let go of any piece of this story.

  That was the plan. Who was it who said the best-laid plans tend to get screwed up? Bad paraphrase but that surely was what I was thinking when my phone rang at 9:30 A.M.