I watch him comply, and once he’s got his trunk open I tiptoe hunched over alongside a big roto-tiller and sneak around the back edge of a 65-horsepower walk-behind saw. Now I have a view off to the side of him, and he’s just tossed the keys up on the roof of my Toyota.
“Over here,” I say, and he can’t help but jump and snap his head around despite himself. His hand instinctively makes a motion toward the side of his jacket, and I stop him, saying, “Nah, nah, nah. Bad boy. Let’s put an end to all that mystery right now. Empty them pockets nice and slow, and then turn ’em inside out like goat’s ears so I can see.”
He takes out his cell phone, a big flat black one.
“Hold it by the edges, boy. You touch the face of that thing and try to record something it’ll be the last thing you do. That’s right. Now let it drop in the mud and stomp on it, real good so I can hear the glass crunch and the plastic crack.”
He does it and right after he says,
“My pockets don’t turn out. They aren’t sewn like that.”
“How you know?”
“Because I’m smart.”
“All right, smart-ass. Take the coat off and toss it as far away from you as you can. That a boy, nice and easy.”
The wind picks up on his follow-through and I see him trying not to flinch. He’s cold now. I use the moment to duck behind one of the Bobcat front-end loaders, and I’m trying my best not to snicker to myself as I do it because Jerome Anthony Franklin is about to get colder.
“Let’s talk about the piece now, Jerome, the hardware you’re packing.”
“What piece?” he says.
“That .32 Beretta you’re hiding somewhere. If you left it in the glove compartment you’re stupid as shit, but I agree you’re smarter than that. See, I know you went back to Grandma’s house, and it wasn’t just to get your thoughts together. You dug into that box with the yarn spinner and the old pictures in it. Figured you’d bring some protection.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
“Take off that smock, prick. And toss it as far away from you as you can. Your shirt underneath that as well. C’mon, let’s have a contest. See if you can throw that stuff as far as the jacket.”
He does it all, nice and slow, and he has that moment afterwards where his arms are crossed up at his bare chest like a middle-school girl carrying her books. He’s shivering.
“Pants too,” I say. “Go on, get naked all the way down to your drawers. When you’re done I’ll let you put your sneakers back on. Time to see if you got fancy with an ankle holster, like I thought you should have snagged the minute I knew you were working there late at night under the El.”
“I can’t afford an ankle holster.”
“Yeah, but you can buy sweat socks. Off with the sneakers and pants—do it.”
I watch carefully as he slides off his kicks, then unbuttons and rag-rolls down the denim.
“Pull ’em off,” I say. “Sit right there in the mud.”
When he complies I see the spirit go out of him, shoulders sagging, knees pointed, Fruit of the Looms buried in sludge. He pulls his feet through and stuffed into his tube sock there’s a shape.
“Nice,” I say. “Now here’s the deal. A, you can shoot at my voice, waste your bullets, hope to get lucky; or B, you can point the barrel out in front of you playing Navy Seal, stalking in through the maze where you thought you last heard me, trying to pin me into a corner. But I know the lay of the land back here. I’m gonna wear me a shadow, wait for you, and wrench your head around like a steering wheel, you feel me? Option C is much, much better, so think about it real hard for a second. You can always throw the gun, toss it like a grenade into the machinery and the shadows, and I’ll consider not crushing your skull with a shovel. How do you like that?”
“I don’t.”
“Didn’t really need an answer, boy.”
“It was rhetorical.”
“Whatever. Toss the gun.”
After the slightest of pauses, Jerome Anthony Franklin throws the .32 into the dark scatter of machinery, actually around fifteen feet over to my left. It makes a muted sound, hitting off something cementous, and then there’s a splash with a particular sort of resonation, as if it landed in one of those fifty-gallon steel drums filled with rainwater. Shit. Hard for me to get to it now, but no matter. Didn’t need it anyway. Guns were never my thing. Too easy, like cheating. Back out front, Jerome Anthony Franklin is hugging his knees, shaking with the cold, head buried in his forearms.
“Stop your quivering,” I say, “and put your Keds back on.”
“Can I have my jacket?” he says, all muffled.
“No.”
“Then what’s the difference with the sneakers?”
“Forty-five-millimeter offset, and a 5 × 100 bolt pattern, that’s what.”
He looks up sharply, trying to pinpoint me with everything he’s got, but of course he’s off by a bunch.
“Why are you throwing those particular numbers at me?” he says.
I laugh.
“Because the Chevy Malibu and the Toyota Corolla are similar makes and models and the Firestones and Goodyears are all universal. Because you don’t have my plate number. Because you’ve been lucky enough not to have gotten a look at me, and your cell is in the mud, prick. You need sneaks, but trust me, you won’t need a jacket to warm on up. Not for long. You’ll be too hot and busy. See, I want your back tires, Jerome. I want you to fix my two flats.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
The cop was heavy, already stiffening, and Jerome slipped twice trying to drag him away from the fender. Also, Deseronto had made it clear that he didn’t want the kid dicking around in his trunk, said his roadside emergency kit was incomplete anyway, so Jerome had to use his own hardware, jacking up both cars with the same tool, one after the other. By the time he had completed the first half of this dog and pony show his fingers had pruned and his briefs were sooty black like his sneakers. He had a scratch down one leg and he’d taken the skin off two of his knuckles when he’d scraped the back of his hand along the concrete pipe Deseronto’s car was wedged up against, working the wrench to force off a bolt that had burred. He’d just crankshafted the Malibu up with the scissor jack a second time, and on the final turn with the long handle his tender knuckles dragged down through the mud deep enough to hit firmer substance.
“Fuck,” he seethed.
“Now, now,” Deseronto said. “One down, one to go. And the first was the hard one considering the close quarters, so you should pat yourself on the back for a job well done. This is the home stretch now, boy. Easy street. Let’s get a move on.”
Jerome brought over the wrench and started on the first lug nut.
“I still don’t see why you don’t just kill me,” he said.
“Don’t be so sure I won’t.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Too much fun seeing you do my dirty work.” Deseronto moved silently off left to fresh ground behind a pile of corrugated sheeting. Now that the gun was out of the picture, the omniscient voice wasn’t really all that necessary, but Deseronto liked the effect, the way it seemed to unnerve this rather stoic, no-nonsense young man. In fact, Deseronto wanted to break him, cut him down emotionally, total him and leave him speechless. Jerome put the last lug nut in the hubcap he’d pried off and rolled the tire through the mud to the Toyota, leaning it there at the rear. It took him only a second or two to go back and jack down the Malibu, and he moved the lifting apparatus back over to Deseronto’s vehicle, reaching under the fender, searching for the hole.
“Whoever you are, the game is up,” Jerome said, probably in some weak, self-defeating attempt at trying to lure his captor into illuminating his true intentions. “It’s over. I’ve seen your car.”
“Like the thousands of other Toyotas in the area.”
“I saw some of the stuff in the trunk.”
“Shit that can be easily removed.”
Jerome pulled off th
e flat, switched it with the one he’d taken from his own car, and tightened the nuts, smacking the wrench with the flat of his palm until they squeaked as he’d been told. He hefted the ruptured tire back across the mud, and after returning to lower the Toyota on its fresh set of Firestones, he shuffled back to stick the damaged tire onto the rear axle of the Malibu. Finally, after tightening down the last nuts, tapping the hubcap back into place, and executing the final lowering process, the operation was completed. He was soaked and filthy as if he’d just run naked through a coal mine. Deseronto’s voice came from the far right then, out by where there were a couple of Knaack boxes stacked on top of each other.
“Wrench and jack go back in the pouch, boy, and I want you to stick them in your trunk. Next, gather the broken parts of your cell phone and your clothes. They join the wrench and the jack, and then you shut the lid. Chop-chop. Miss a beat and I’ll kill you, I’m not playing. Night’s still young.”
Jerome followed orders. He found the remains of his cell phone and held them up so his tormentor, wherever he was, could see. He fished his pants, shirt, smock, and jacket from the mud and put them in his trunk as well. He closed the lid and gave it an extra push for show.
“Good,” Deseronto said. “Very good. Now, Mr. Dead Cop goes back where he belongs.” Jerome looked over toward Deseronto’s opened trunk.
“You’re kidding.”
“I kid you not.”
“He’s kind of heavy—”
“Work it out. Move.”
Jerome walked to the vehicle mechanically and bent to it. He struggled. Took him three tries, and he eventually had to stand the corpse up face to face and press to him body to body to nudge him up over the lip. When done, Jerome was shaking, blood smeared across his forehead and along his right arm. He pointed to where he thought Deseronto might be hiding.
“You won’t get away with this,” he said. “And you won’t be able to pin it on me. They’ll find you. Hunt you down like a dog.”
Deseronto made a snorting sound, and it came from behind the luggage racks now, where the brick pavers were patterned.
“They ain’t gonna care about the ghost driving the mystery Toyota, Jerome. They’re gonna have their man.”
“But why on earth would I kill this ‘missing’ cop?”
“You wouldn’t. But after a bit of investigating they’ll conclude he was collateral damage, knowing that you had every reason on earth to want to kill all the white bitches.”
Something flew through the air, and Jerome backed off a few steps. It landed, skidded through the mud, and came to rest at his feet.
It was Marissa Madison’s head.
Jerome Anthony Franklin put his hand to his mouth. He fell to his knees.
And he broke down there in the mud.
FORESHADOW
Look at her, Jerome. Stop cheating.”
He shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut, bottom lip poked out like a kid who don’t want to eat his asparagus. I soften my tone.
“She’s a peach, son. Be brave. She loved you, so prove right now you loved her. Go on. Show it wasn’t just skin deep. Have some respect.”
I know I’ve really broken him then, because he falls for the bullshit psychobabble I just took straight out of my drainpipe. I don’t have a good view of her down there facing away at ground level, but I see him clear as day firming up his backbone, letting his eyes flutter open, and taking in the sight of her, absorbing it, cupping his hands around her cold cheeks and mumbling sweet nothings. I know she looks ghost-pale and amphibian-like at this point with her nose ripped clean and her eyes rolled back showing their whites. It’s a nice moment, but I bore pretty easy.
“Put her head in my trunk, Jerome. We’re almost finished with this business together, but I always take a trophy. The rest of her is back in here, and I’m sure you’ll find it all soon enough.”
He don’t even argue. He’s how you would say, “resigned” to it all by this point. He stands, still cupping his precious artifact between his palms, and he walks her over to my trunk nice and slow like it’s some sacred religious ritual.
And now it’s over. One more thing to do. One more piece of business.
“Jerome,” I say, “last scene, pal. Get the keys off the top of my roof, open your passenger door, and sit on the seat sideways. Put your hands between your knees down toward the ground all the way to your ankles, and keep your head lowered and your eyes shut tight. I’m gonna come out from back in here, make my way to my trunk, and get a length of manila rope I’ve got in there. I’m gonna tie your wrists to your ankles and have you lie back on the floor in that little space in front of the seat, right there on the floor mat with your feet and hands sticking up. I’m gonna close the door behind you and drive the fuck out of here, got it? By the time you figure out how to get to the knots and pull yourself up, I’ll be long gone. But you gotta keep your eyes shut, Jerome. It’s a matter of trust now. If I see you get a look at me I’ll have to kill you, and we don’t want that, do we?”
He goes and does what I told him to do. He has to climb on my front hood to get to his keys, but he hurries along as best he can. He even goes a step further like he’s trying for extra credit or something, ’cause when he opens his passenger door and sits on the edge of the cushion, he don’t just put his wrists up against his ankles like I told him. He sticks his hands all the way down into the mud like he’s grabbing the bottom of his feet.
Kiss-ass.
Teacher’s pet.
Cocksucker.
I come out from behind the luggage racks and the Rubbermaids, walking slowly but deliberately, and I ain’t veering left ’cause I ain’t going for any manila rope in my trunk. I know he’s well aware deep down that when it’s all said and done I ain’t banking on some half-baked attempt to frame him for the murder of a cop and thirteen young women. I know he’s certain that these are the last breaths he’s ever gonna take, and I figure he’s wondering where I’m gonna fit his body with the trunk being so full and all.
Well, I got a back seat, brutha.
And my Toyota needed detailing anyway.
I stride out into the open space, and while I’m closing in I see him talking to himself with his eyes still squeezed shut, just in case I suppose, maybe mumbling prayers up to God or something. There’s a runner of snot going from his nose to his cheek and bright white spit at the corners of his mouth.
“I found some rope back there on a roll of tarp,” I say, walking up. “Honest. It ain’t as good as what I got in my trunk, more like the stuff they give you when you get a Christmas tree and they tie it to your roof, but it’ll do. Put your feet and hands closer together for me. It’ll be over before you know it.”
He gathers everything in close, hands still sunk into the mud, and he looks like some African farmer fixing to pull up a stubborn root. His eyes are still pressed shut and he tilts his face upward.
“You don’t respect musicians,” he says.
I stop about ten feet from him. Don’t make sense. If anything, I would have thought he’d have used his last words to tell me I was way over the top, playing the charade that I was gonna keep him alive too long for anyone to believe with the Christmas rope horseshit and all.
“What you mean?”
He smiles, eyes shut.
“You have a rhythm,” he says. “A certain amount of beats that go down when you speak and a similar number of measures you utilize for movement. I’m a musician, and I’ve identified your patterns.”
“Yeah, so what?”
He shrugs, and that string of snot is starting to bug the living shit out of me, swinging there between his nose and his cheek like a loose clothesline.
“So nothing,” he says. “It’s just something I picked up on in the last half-hour or so. Something you couldn’t care less about, but something you should know just the same.”
I step closer. Enough. Time to end this.
“Wanna hear a book on tape?” he says.
Again, I stop
.
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“A gift,” he says. “Left from Marissa. After I stopped at my grandmother’s place it was on my car stereo, playing all the way up here. I didn’t understand it. Couldn’t quite figure the context. Then I couldn’t turn the thing off. It was on a loop, just drawing me in. Listen.”
I take another step forward and I hear something through the open door. It sounds familiar, but faint enough that I can’t pin it down. Then I step in even closer and I realize I’m hearing my own voice, narrating to myself around sixty-six minutes ago about being stuck out on 476 with two flats.
“I lean back into the trunk and force myself not to start throwing shit around. Last time I had the jack out, I think I threw the tire iron back by the dented tin that once had three types of popcorn in it. I should have tucked the little black bitch away in the triangular leather pouch that goes in its place under the false-bottom particle board covering the tire well. But I didn’t, and it was irresponsible . . . I lean back into the trunk and force myself not to start throwing shit around.”
Phantom Effect Page 24