by Rob Hart
“I’m sorry, I just need to think. It’s been a week.”
She doesn’t know that I know Brick was working here. I’m sure she’s figured it out for herself. That’s got to be wearing on her. I’m rooting around in my brain for something to say that’ll speed things along, get her to focus, when Reese leans forward and takes Kathy’s other hand, which is resting on her knee.
“Anything you could tell us would be helpful,” she says. Her voice is soft and warm, like the way a mother would reassure a child after a nightmare.
It works. Kathy nods. Smiles, then stops, like she’s risking an indulgence.
She says, “I think I know somebody who can help.”
Back in Reese’s car, the heater roaring, I tell her, “I’ll go meet him. See what I can find out.”
Reese sits with her hands on the wheel, staring out at the sidewalk. After a moment she asks, “You parked at a meter?”
“Nope.”
“Good,” she says, angling the car away from the curb and into traffic. “We’ll go together.”
“We partners now?”
She throws me a glance hot enough to singe my skin. “No, we are not partners now.”
“Cool. Either way.”
She taps the CD player in the dash and the car fills with jazzy Latin music. It’s good. We drive for a bit. Port Richmond drops away and then we’re on the expressway, traffic moving at a steady pace.
“Who is this?” I ask.
“Bronx River Parkway.”
“I like them.”
She nods like it’s a secret of the universe she’s cluing me into. “They’re good.”
“So you used to be a cop?” I ask.
“Used to be.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot in that ‘used to be’.”
“You know the song. Worked twice as hard to get half as much respect. Did my twenty, made it to detective, got burnt, got out.”
“Why did you become a PI?”
“Because I like the work, I just couldn’t handle the bullshit anymore,” she says. “Truth is, part of me wishes I would have stayed. I miss it. I miss the badge. Say what you will about the NYPD. The badge still means something. But I like this job. It’s quiet. I get to focus on things. And usually it’s good things. Finding a missing kid is a good thing.”
“That it is.”
“Tell me about your face.”
“What about it?”
“The bruises. How did you get them?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s a long drive.”
“Honestly, I don’t even know that you’d believe me. But I will say this: I have done some really dumb shit. I’ve gotten into a lot of fights I shouldn’t have. And the older I get the more I want to live a life of non-violence. But as much as I want to say violence isn’t the solution, sometimes it is.”
“We can get into the ethical implications of that later,” she says. “But I want to point out for the record that you can be a little melodramatic. You know that, right?”
She turns to me and smiles. She’s messing with me.
That feels like a step forward.
“Things happen. I keep ending up in situations where things need getting done. The John McClane Paradox of Bullshit.”
She laughs. “When he was in the air vent, in the second one. ‘How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice’. Or, I guess in McClane’s case, five times. Though I don’t count the last two movies. They were garbage.”
“Oh wow,” I tell her. “’I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship’.”
“Okay, okay,” she says. “Don’t get cute. I’m still not sure about you.”
“That’s fine. I figure as long as you haven’t shoved me out of the car while it’s moving, I’m doing okay.”
She laughs. I like the way she laughs. It’s light and high but also a little defiant. Like no matter how tough the world gets, she’s still going to laugh at it.
We pull into a shopping plaza. This part of the island feels like backwoods Jersey. Trees and homes, suburbs, kids riding bikes even though there’s snow on the ground.
The plaza is new construction. Everything smooth and beige. Reese threads the car into a spot outside a pizza place where the guy we’re meeting is supposed to work. She shuts off the car and says, “Wait here.”
“You’re going to make me wait here and you’re not even going to leave the engine running?” I ask. “Are you hoping I’ll freeze to death?”
She smirks. “That would make my life easier.”
“Ha, ha. I’m coming in. Don’t worry. I’ll sit with my hands folded. Seen and not heard.”
She stares at me for a couple of beats, then nods.
We step into the cold. I hitch up my jacket and we make our way inside, where we’re overtaken by humid air, and the smell of cheese and dough. A few stray diners, and one kid standing behind the counter making pizzas. Short, stocky, with a ruddy Irish complexion, a pristine bright-blue Yankees hat worn backwards on his head.
Reese walks to the counter and asks, “Keith?”
The kid looks up. “Kathy?”
Reese nods as I slide up next to her. She holds out her ID. “My name is Turquoise Reese. This is my…”
“Associate,” I say. “Ash McKenna.”
I don’t turn my head to see what kind of look Reese is giving me. I am sure it is withering.
Keith looks around, then at the two of us. “Either of you want a slice?”
Reese shakes her head but I stick a finger in the air, take a few bucks out of my pocket and lay them on the counter. Keith pulls a fresh pie out of the oven, cuts it into eighths, and puts a slice on a paper plate. “Give me two seconds,” he says.
I take my slice and we walk toward a table in the back. The pizza is nuclear hot so I let it cool while the two of us wait, sitting on either side of the hard, plastic booth. Keith finishes the pie he’s making, sticks it in the oven, and calls a young Hispanic kid out of the back to cover for him, then grabs a soda out of the cooler and comes over to us.
Rather than sit with one of us, he pulls a chair from a table in the center of the restaurant and drags it over to the foot of the booth, the metal legs squealing on the tile floor.
Closer now, I can see his clothes are baggy on him—hand-me-downs, or he lost weight. Under his polo shirt is a long-sleeved white t-shirt that hides his forearms. He’s covered in flour and grease, and he carries himself like every movement is a titanic effort. He cracks open the soda, takes a swig, and places it down. He speaks in a calm, quiet voice, but one that’s steeped in a lot of emotion.
“If this were for anyone but Kathy I would say no,” he says.
“We appreciate you taking the time,” Reese says. “I know this isn’t easy. I know this isn’t something you particularly want to do. But a lot of people are going to get hurt and we might be able to stop it. And you might be able to help us do that.”
He makes eye contact with us each in turn. “You have to understand something. The only way to turn your life around is to leave all that shit behind. Anything I help you with, I’ll do it from here, but I won’t go any further than that. I can’t go making calls or talking to anybody for you.”
“More than fair,” Reese says. “Let’s start with…”
“The addresses,” I cut in.
Reese gives me a look like she wishes she could stab me in the throat. I take the mess of streets and addresses Bombay put together and slide it across the table. Glance at Reese and she nods.
“Anything in here look familiar?” I ask.
Keith picks up the paper, skims it. Puts it back down and pokes at it. “There. Hopping Avenue. There’s a shooting gallery on that street. I don’t know the number. It’s the blue house.”
“Anything else?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Four months sober tomorrow. So four months out. A lot can change in four months.”
“We’ve heard talking about a new player,” Reese says. “Go
es by the name Kid Vicious.”
At this, Keith’s eyes go wide. His shoulders bunch up. He stands fast, nearly knocking over the seat. “I have to get back to work.”
Reese and I exchange quick glances. It’s not hard to see what happened. We both nod.
“Thanks for your help,” Reese says.
Keith nearly sprints behind the counter. I pick my pizza, forgotten during the quick exchange, fold it up and cram half of it in my mouth.
“You better finish that, because you are not bringing it in my car,” she says.
I wolf down as much as I can, tossing the crust in the trash as we leave. We get in the car and before she can turn it on, still with wads of half-chewed dough in my mouth, I tell her, “I’m sorry. But he seemed cagey, and I was worried that getting into the name game was going to scare him off. So I thought it was best to lead with the addresses.”
She starts the car and cranes her neck to check behind us, then backs out of the spot. “Your instincts were right.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Statement of fact.”
“So we have an address,” she says. “We could roll by there now. But that might draw some unwanted attention.”
“I’ll go,” I tell her. “See what I can see.”
She laughs. “What are you going to do? Sneak in? Infiltrate the drug den? That’s not how this shit works.”
“No, I’m going to go down and take a look and see what I see. If there’s an opening, I’ll take it. It’s better than nothing. Look, you could call your buddies on the force and send them down there. They raid it and everyone clams up. Or you could go down there and everybody clams up. I could try. I speak their language.”
She pulls to a red light before the expressway. “What language is that?”
I want to say “thug” but I don’t. It sounds silly. But my silence answers the question. The light turns green and she pulls the car onto the expressway. “Okay. But you don’t spend too much time down there and you call me immediately if you find anything out. I have to keep some people informed on this. You could get me in a lot of trouble if you go off and try to play Batman.”
“Understood.”
“Why do I feel like you don’t actually understand?”
“Because you are a smart lady,” I tell her.
After Reese drops me at my car I stop into a bar to use the bathroom, wash my face, look into the mirror, don’t feel shock and revulsion at what I see. The bruises around my eyes are nearly faded, like you’d really have to be looking to notice them. I poke at my ribs. Pain, but not nearly as much.
On the mend.
Ready to rumble.
Because there’s only one smart way to play this. I can’t sit outside that house and hope something happens. I have to get in there.
I pull brown paper towels out of the dispenser, wipe off my face, and step into the cold. A little bolt of electricity travels up from the base of my spine to my shoulders. It’s the feeling I get when I know I’m about to get into a fight.
On my first pass down the block, Hopping is like any other suburban block anyone has ever driven down. Lights out at 9 p.m., lawns mowed promptly at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings.
Closer inspection reveals some cracks around the seams.
The homes are on the larger side, handsome Cape Cod-style, but in disarray. Wooden fences rotting. Sidewalks buckled up by tree roots. Nobody bothering to fight against the entropy, so it sneaks in.
There’s one blue house on the block. I drive down twice, not too slow as to attract attention. Try to get a good look at it. There’s not much to see. Still daytime. Lights out and shades drawn. No cars in the driveway. I park the car a few blocks away and walk, and air stinging the inside of my sinus cavity. By the time I get onto Hopping, big fat snowflakes are drifting from the sky.
The big storm coming in.
The snowflakes makes me anxious, like maybe I don’t have time to waste, so rather than dance around this, rather than sit across the street and hope I see something, I take the direct route. Which means climbing the porch, my boots knocking in the hollow underneath it, and trying the door. Locked. I ring the bell. Give it a few minutes. Nothing. Look around to make sure there’s no one on the street, no one looking out their windows.
Lots of empty driveways, lots of people at work.
I circle around to the rear and try the back door. It yawns open and I’m smacked in the face by the stench of mildew and rotting food. It physically stops me from going in, like there’s an invisible wall between me and the darkness beyond the door. I take a few deep breaths of cold air and step inside.
The kitchen is a wreck. I can’t make out much in the dim light with the curtains drawn, but there’s a huge pile of dishes in the sink and they’ve been there a long time. I think I see something scurry away from my presence, a flash across the chipped countertop. Discarded fast food bags and soda bottles everywhere. The floor feels tacky and makes a ripping sound when I take a step. Flies buzz thick in the air, celebrating the buffet of trash.
I pause for a moment, listen. The house is silent. I step through the kitchen and into a dining room/living room combo. Underneath the grime, the house is gorgeous. Hardwood floors and crown molding. Stained glass window in the dining room. It’s the kind of home some yuppie couple would scoff at, but the HGTV hosts of whatever-the-fuck show would insist had a lot of potential, and you would want to throttle the yuppie couple for not seeing it.
The living room looks empty—no furniture, even, just debris—and I’m about to pass it by until I realize the pile of clothes on the floor is a person, and that smell might not entirely be the kitchen.
I don’t even need to check to know she’s dead. Girl, redhead, maybe my age. Swimming in her sweatshirt, eyes closed like she’s sleeping, skin blue, muscles slack. I press the back of my hand against her forehead. Cold. There’s a pile of shooting works next to her, as well as a tiny glassine bag with a red pizza stamped on it, like the one at Timmy’s.
This might be the heroin with the fentanyl in it. Could be it’s out in the world. I’d like to think Timmy wouldn’t do that to himself, but I’d also like to think a dealer wouldn’t kill a bunch of people to make a name. There’s a lot about this I don’t understand.
At the same time, maybe I do. After years of doing this shit, Timmy probably built up a big enough tolerance that he needed more to get the job done. The prospect of a strong high might have been too much to ignore, even if it meant gambling with his life.
It’s not the same thing, but I certainly remember that feeling from when I was drinking. Those moments when it felt like no matter how much whiskey I got into me, it was never enough to calm the storm raging in my head. That as my tolerance grew I was drinking quantities that were probably unsafe for bears, let alone people.
Humans can build up a tolerance for anything.
And when we do, it only makes us want more.
There’s nothing I can do for her. I say a silent prayer in my head. Not the religious kind of prayer. The kind of prayer when you need to soothe your own soul.
I’ll call the police when I leave. At least this way someone will find her before the vermin get to her. I leave the living room and the stench and climb the stairs, find empty bedrooms with holes in the walls and mattresses on the floor.
The last bedroom at the end of the hall is promising, or terrifying. Can’t tell which yet, because there’s another lump of clothing. I step inside and find a guy on a mattress. He’s got a needle in his arm and he’s passed out, but his chest looks like it’s softly rising and falling. I stick my finger under his nose and feel the faint push of air.
He’s a bigger guy. Thick. Maybe not a longtime user because he’s still got meat on his bone and his arms aren’t all scarred up. He’s shirtless and laced with tattoos.
Another glassine envelope on the mattress next to him. Another red pizza stamp.
The guy is gone from this world. I don’t know how long until
he’ll come out of it and I don’t have the time to wait. I pull a naloxone vial out of my pocket, say, “Wakey wakey asshole.” Not that he can hear me. I think it’s funny. Then I shove the injector into his nostril and push.
I toss the injector into the corner and wait. After a couple of moments his eyelids flip open. He sits up and groans and puts his head in his hands.
“Sorry to do that, but…”
“You motherfucker,” he screams, launching himself to his feet, slamming into my mid-section.
He is so much faster than I would have expected. He drives me into the wall and knocks the wind out of me. Balls up his fist and aims it at my head, but he throws it wide, so it’s easy to duck. It lands hard on the wall behind me and he screams out in anguish, probably with a handful of broken fingers.
As I step aside I trip on the corner of the mattress, which absorbs most of my fall, but then he’s standing over me, one hand cradled in the other, boot up, eyes on fire. He brings the boot down, trying to stomp the life out of me. He’s not doing a great job, but it’s good enough to hurt.
I spin so I’m facing him and kick at his knees, not to hurt him, just to keep him away from me, while I reach around the floor for something, anything, that might help. Find a bundle of cloth. A shirt? Throw it at his face. It distracts him long enough for me to roll away and get to my feet, but then he’s charging at me.
He throws another punch and I sidestep again, this time pushing him face-first into the wall. There’s a wet thunk and a groan. His nose erupts, spilling blood down his bare chest.
“Shit dude,” I tell him, backing up with my hands in the air. “That was not really my intention.”
He looks around the room, still not sure what the hell is going on, and falls into a seated position, legs crossed. He throws an arm behind him to keep himself up and asks, “Fuck is going on?” His voice is a mumble, like he’s trying to keep gravel from spilling out of his mouth.
“The heroin,” I tell him. “Where’d you get it?”
He frowns. “Fuck you.”
“Let’s try again. Where’d you get it?”
“From a guy.”