“What are you talking about, ‘setting me up’?”
“That you don’t work for him, and you’re just testing me.”
“No, I don’t work for him. Who the fuck is him?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t get your stuff back.”
“I’m not setting you up. This is my life you fucked. I want information. You don’t give it to me, I’m going to turn you in right now. You’re not going to get the shit kicked outta you or nothin’ like that, ’cause I changed my mind. I got a good sense about people. Like I said, I don’t figure you for a killer. You’re just going to go to jail, and so is your uncle. And both of you will get charged with murder, with burglary, and then you’ll find yourselves playing with the big boys in some federal prison.”
“My uncle?”
“Yeah, I know your uncle Diamond, and no, he didn’t give you up. I followed you both here. I know he’s trying to protect you. He’d even go to prison for you. You must really mean something to him.”
Head lowers, just like his uncle, and he starts shaking again. I realize I’ve already crossed the line. Too late to call Hurley or Millhoff. That’d fuck me no end, so I have to play this out.
“I…I…I don’t…” He stops, scared, and it’s something more than the predicament he’s in with me.
“What is it? You tell me, Bid. You do nothing, but tell me. I do the rest. I’ll even let you keep this shit in the baggie too.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, it’s that simple.”
“I can’t.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re hiding, but I’m going to dump the contents of this baggie in the toilet right now unless you talk.”
“I’ll pay you back somehow.”
“How the hell are you gonna pay back a life?”
Tears stream.
“I had nothing to do with that,” he says, and, judging by the look he gives me afterward, I know he regrets saying it.
“Fuck it,” I say, standing.
I grab the baggie. I know for a fact this shit here means more to him right now than anything.
“No—wait. Don’t do that.”
See?
“You gonna talk? And I’ll know if you’re fuckin’ playing me. No second chance.”
I set the baggie back on the table and sit down. I can tell he’s aching inside, his body and mind desperately needing to light up.
“Let’s start here first—where’d you sell the gun?”
Hesitating again. Fear. I give him a couple of seconds.
“I’m not going to ask again.”
“You’re going to get me killed!”
“No. No one will know where it came from. They might put it together if you got yourself locked up, cooperated, and then whoever these people you’re dealing with start getting locked up because of it. But you’re not locked up, and what you tell me stays with me only.”
“You’re still a cop, though. I know how this shit goes for someone like me.”
“Listen, though.” I let him believe I’m still a cop. “I like to handle things my way, especially when it concerns my life getting jacked.”
He bows his head.
“Look at me.”
He does.
“Now answer the question. Who’d you sell the gun to?”
“Another police officer, just like you. Officer Jasper.”
Forty-Seven
Officer Willy Jasper.”
That surprised the fuck outta me. But then again, maybe not so much. I don’t know if I believe it. But I start to thinking it’s more than a coincidence, me showing up at the nightclub the few times I did, then the burglary and then Jeffrey being murdered at my home.
But why?
“What about the kid who was killed in my kitchen?” I ask.
“Listen, Officer, please—”
“Detective.” Only because I like hearing that again, and I want the respect.
“Detective. You really are going to get me and my uncle killed. I gave you what you want.”
“That doesn’t explain shit.”
I need a new tactic. He’s fading out.
I stand up.
“Lean forward,” I tell him.
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna take your cuffs off. Now lean forward.”
He does.
I find the key on my key chain and unlock the cuffs. He stretches his arms out, starts massaging his wrists. It does look like I made them too tight.
I sit back down.
“Is your uncle going to return tomorrow?”
“No. He said he’d call me.”
“How long he pay for you to stay here?”
“A week.”
“How’d your uncle get involved with all this?”
“He’s just trying to protect me. Like you said.”
“So he helps you transport stolen property in his cab? That’s helping you out?”
Biddy actually looks surprised.
“I know more than you think I know, except what you said about Jasper. Why did your uncle help you like that?”
“Officer Jasper caught me for an office burglary. I had a couple of laptops. He took them, took a photo of me with his phone, and wrote down all my information. Said that I’m his new informant and that he’d use what he had for a warrant if I didn’t follow along. He, um, insisted that I let him drive me to where I was staying.”
“Your uncle’s house.”
“Yeah. My uncle was there at the time. It was early. I wasn’t lying when I said my uncle got caught up in all this to protect me. At first I did give Officer Jasper information, but then it didn’t take long to figure he was dirty. He started giving me a shopping list of things he wanted to have, like flat-screens, laptops, jewelry, some of the stuff too big to carry. He got my uncle involved because as good a man as my uncle is, he’s had a tough time paying bills.”
“Does your uncle carry a gun?”
“No. Not him. Never. Doesn’t even have a shotgun at the house.”
“He seems like a good man.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
“That depends on you.”
“It’s all my fault, not his.”
“Tell me more about Officer Jasper.”
“After a couple of months I was introduced to Jasper’s other informants.”
“You mean stable of burglars?”
“Yes.”
“You do jobs together?”
“Sometimes. I mean, not always. Officer Jasper has a line on fucking everything. I mean, he wins both ways because we had to buy all our drugs from his people after we sold the goods. Sometimes trade certain things for it.”
“Where do they live? Just give me a street.” Like I don’t already know.
“Riggs Street.”
“You know anyone who goes by the name Ray?”
“Yes.”
“What’s he into?”
“He slings for Jasper on occasion.”
“What does he deal?”
“Crack, powder, K2, weed.”
“Where does he get it from?”
“The boys on Riggs.”
“How long have you had this working relationship with Officer Jasper?”
“I don’t know. Six months maybe?”
I take another swig from my sport bottle.
“You want a bit of this in a glass?” I ask.
“No, thank you. I don’t drink,” he says, knowing that it’s some kind of liquor. Maybe the wince on my face after gave it up. It’s almost funny, but I don’t let him see me smile. I go to the bathroom, grab a drinking glass off the sink, return, set the glass on the table to use as an ashtray, and sit back down.
I light up a cigarette.
“There’s no smoking in this room.”
“Now, that’s funny, considering what you’ve been smoking up.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, sir.”
“And enough with that
‘sir’ shit.”
I need a bump myself. I’m starting to fade out here. I’m not about to reveal that side of me to this guy, though, as much as I’m starting to like him, maybe even feel sorry for him. But my insides are starting to ache—like an empty stomach, but radiating through your whole body. I know he’s feeling the same, or probably worse.
He looks at me, expecting more. I stamp the cigarette out on the bottom of the glass and pick up the handcuffs again.
“I have to take a piss,” I say. “Lean forward.”
“I’m not going to try to escape.”
“I don’t know you,” I say, like it’s a threat.
He leans forward, and I cuff his hands behind his back. I pick up my pack and enter the bathroom but leave the door open. I turn the water faucet on to muffle the noise.
“Don’t turn around, ’cause I can’t piss when someone’s watching.”
I find the medicine vial in a pocket of the pack, take out a couple of capsules, and carefully twist one open, squeeze the contents onto the back of my hand. I flush the toilet and snort. I look back to make sure he’s not spying. I quickly do the same with the other capsule. Finishing, I put the capsules back together and drop them back into the vial, turn off the faucet, check my nostrils in the mirror. Sniff a couple more times.
There we go. That’s what I was looking for.
Forty-Eight
It’s not a coincidence you hit my house, is it? I just don’t understand how the kid who was there with you got murdered in my kitchen.”
The handcuffs are off. He’s rubbing his wrists again, keeps eyeballing the baggie of crack.
“I don’t understand,” he says, looking a little dumber every minute.
“You need a brain boost?”
“What do you mean?”
“You need to take a hit off some of your shit?”
He’s shocked to hear me say it. And he doesn’t know how to answer, like I’m playing him.
“I’m serious,” I tell him.
“I could sure use the help.”
I cuff his hands at the front, give him the stem and the lighter, and slide the baggie over so he can reach it.
“Blow that shit away from my face.”
I roll the chair back so I’m not close to him. His hands are shaking, but he manages to pull out a little less than a dime rock and carefully place it in the part of the stem that has a pipe screen. Lights up, and after a big inhale, he comes back to life. Probably what I look like, but not as cartoonish. I wonder if it’s a better high, though. I sure as hell don’t want to find out. I don’t need that gnawing on my insides.
He blows it out, away from me, quickly takes another big toke, faces me after, and says with a cough, “Thank you.”
“Was it like the first time?” I ask him.
“What do you mean?”
“Smoking it just now. Does it still feel like the first time you tried it? I mean the high. Or are you still chasing it?”
He looks at me with furrowed brows. The fuck? I imagine he’s thinking. Fact is, I really want to know. It’s never like the first time for me. It just keeps me from falling back into darkness.
“I don’t know. I don’t think it ever really is,” he says awkwardly. “Don’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Never will.”
Damn. Still, I know the high won’t last for more than a few minutes, so I don’t waste it.
“Now tell me. Why did you hit my house?”
“I’m already screwed, right?”
“Not necessarily. There’s always a way out. And don’t you think me letting you have that hit means I’m open to letting you find a way out?”
“Yes, I guess so. I mean, I don’t know any cop who’d let me do that in front of him. Not even Officer Jasper. Unless you’re the one playing me.”
“I told you I’m not like him. I got my way of working things, but I’m nothing like that piece of shit.”
I want to tell him that I understand him more than he knows.
Tiny beads of sweat break through the skin on his forehead, even though it’s cool in here. He starts grinding his teeth.
“He drove me to your house, on Twelfth, and pointed it out to me. He said he wanted me to hit it. He’s pointed out places before where he knew there might be some good stuff, so that’s what I figured. If I knew you were a cop, I never would have done it. I’m not crazy.”
“What did he say about my house, specifically?”
“He said there might be a gun in there and to clean out the house, to take everything I could, even personal items.”
“Personal items?”
“I didn’t understand that, either, but I figured he meant jewelry, stuff like that. Your music.”
“Why was the kid there, though?”
“You gotta believe me. My uncle and I had nothing to do with that.”
“Tell me.”
“He was buying powder from Ray, who was skimming from the young ones on Riggs Street.”
“Why didn’t you mention this when I asked if you knew Wrayburn?”
“I wasn’t hiding anything. I just didn’t think to. Like I said, Jasper controlled all that. He caught the college kid selling in his club, told him he had to work it off, and that meant helping me with a bigger haul. So he sent him with us.”
“So Ray was skimming, and what he took he was selling to the kid who got killed in my kitchen?”
“Yes.”
Shit. Did Ray kill Jeffrey?
I don’t want to tell him Wrayburn is dead. That’ll just scare him senseless.
“Was Ray with you at the burglary?”
“No.”
“How’d you learn this about Ray skimming? I know Jasper wouldn’t tell you.”
“The boy who got shot in your house. He told me. He talked too much. Think he even enjoyed being a part of it all, like it was a game.”
“When did he tell you?”
“When we were loading everything into my uncle’s cab, on the way there.”
“From my house?”
“Yes.”
Fuck.
“How’d he get shot?”
“I don’t know how I got caught up in all this—”
“You’re not the victim here, Biddy. Now tell me how he got shot.”
He bows his head. Streams of tears pour out of his eyes. He sniffles, shoulders heaving with every short sob. I can’t let him get lost in those feelings. He’ll shut down.
“Talk to me, Biddy.”
He looks up, clear snot slithering from his nostrils. “After we loaded everything up, some other guy comes out of nowhere. In the alley behind your house. I know him because he’s with Jasper sometimes. Big man. Big-ass white dude. He leaned in the cab and asked if we got a gun. I told him we did. He told the kid to take the gun we stole back in the house, that they don’t want no part of that. I should’ve known that something was wrong, because Jasper does buy guns. Kid walks in the back door. Big guy follows. Minute later I hear two shots, and he walks out slow, hands me the gun so I have to take it with my bare hand. Then he said, ‘This’ll come back to you if you get stupid.’ He walked away after that, like nothing ever happened. I heard the rest later. On the news.”
“But why?” Ready to jump out of my skin with all this.
“I don’t know why,” he tells me. Sobs only once this time. “I don’t.”
“Do you know the big guy’s name?”
“No.”
“Okay. Okay. Fuck. What about my records and CDs and the laptop and flat-screen?”
“Huh?” he comes back, like Why would you ask about that after what I just said?
“Where did that shit go?”
“Officer Jasper took it.”
“You didn’t take anything to the convenience store on Fourteenth, right near Thomas Circle?”
He gives me that look again, wondering how I know all this.
“Not that time. No.”
“Why would Officer Ja
sper want it?”
“I didn’t ask, but I assume he likes records.”
“Does he pay well for the goods?”
“Depends on what it is, but usually he does. You know, regular street value.”
“Where did you meet up with him to sell him my flat-screen, the gun, and the other stuff?”
“My uncle drove to an alley near the club he works at. It was at night, when Officer Jasper was on his way to work.”
“So he put that shit in his cruiser.”
“No. It looked like his personal car.”
“Where does he live?”
“I don’t know. No one knows where he lives.”
I grab the baggie so he won’t try to take any.
“What are you going to do?”
“Relax,” I tell him.
I walk to the nightstand, pick up his wallet and cell, then return.
I open his wallet again.
“These three pieces of paper with numbers.” I show him the first one. “Who is this?”
“That’s the cell for Repo, the one at Riggs Street.”
“One of the boys you get your drugs from?”
“Yes.”
“You said there’s two of them. Is he the younger one or the older?”
“Younger.”
I show him another number.
“That’s Officer Jasper’s cell.”
Thought it looked familiar.
And then I show him the last one.
“That’s just some old guy I met on the street who does lookout for me when I need it in exchange for a hit or two.”
“Does he know Jasper?”
“No. Just an old crackhead is all.”
I power on his cell, go to his settings to find his number. I take my phone and tap his number into my contacts.
“I’m gonna call you Tiny Tim,” I tell him.
“What do you mean?”
“For my phone. That’s your nickname. You know who Tiny Tim is, right?”
“That Christmas story.”
“That’s right,” I say, thankful he doesn’t know the “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” guy.
I tap the number to call his cell. It rings, but I answer. I add my number to his contacts.
“Putting my name in your cell as Fagin.”
“That your real name?”
“Yes.”
I know the only reason Diamond brought him here was to protect him from me, but I think Biddy realizes now that I’m not the threat. Jasper and his boys are. I also realize I can’t sit on this information. I’ll have to give Hurley a call later, fill him in as much as I can without giving up Biddy or Diamond. Yet.
Crime Song Page 15