Personal Effects: Dark Art

by J. C. Hutchins

  I looked up from my wrists, past the scratched metal table before me, to the wide mirror on the cinderblock wall. My nicked, weary face gazed back.

  If I got home.

  The cars on New York hadn’t made me road kill, of course. Not even close. I’d been cuffed by New York’s finest, received the long forgotten (but well-deserved) kick-slaps to my sneakers, forcing my legs to spread to shoulder-width; the classic slamming of the torso onto the cruiser hood; the brusque street-side interrogation: Am I going to find any needles, anything that’s going to stick me, when I go through your pockets? I better not … ; the pat down.

  I turned away from my reflection, disgusted with myself. I’d been sweating it out alone in this interview room for more than an hour. I hadn’t been formally processed yet. No mug, no prints, no charges. An unsmiling cop had wordlessly escorted me here, passed me a bandage for my elbow, and locked the door. Cops.

  Why had cops kicked down the door at Grace’s apartment? I’d expected a stuffed-shirt D.A. intern, maybe a NYPD lab liaison—someone like my buddy Eye. But not cops, and certainly not cops in wild-dog mode.

  Had that neighbor seen Lucas and me? Had Dad set me up?

  Before last night, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to even ask.

  I heard a bump against the room’s thick door and then the cheerful jangle of keys. It swung open. A middle-aged sergeant stared at me. He spun the key ring on his index finger. A faded tattoo peeked out from the cuff of his long-sleeved uniform shirt.

  This little key trick didn’t appear to be a power trip, wasn’t a “do not screw with me” message for the incarcerated. It had the resigned nonchalance of a thing one does to keep from nodding off.

  “Taylor. Let’s go.”

  I followed him. This was it. They’d book me, pitch me in the holding cell with the rest of the criminals. But we soon passed the door that lead to a vast, bustling room called “Processing.”

  “I don’t …” I began.

  “Save it,” he muttered. The man’s voice was a sleepy flat-line, a Ben Stein carbon copy. He yawned. “Poor kids check in, they don’t check out. Rich kids come in, they get a ‘get out of jail free’ card. That’s Monopoly. It’s a game.”

  “I know what …”

  “Uh-huh, a game,” the cop said, as we walked further into the bowels of the building. “See, most of us get stuck being the iron or the dog. And most of us are happy with our little green houses on Oriental, right next to the Reading. That’s the railroad.”

  I gave a nervous laugh. “Heh, I know. I’ve played …”

  The sergeant whirled around and shoved me against the wall. I gasped. The man’s jowls were quivering now, furious. He jabbed his index finger into the center of my chest, poking my sternum, poking hard.

  “And a blessed few of us—”

  Poke. I sucked air through my teeth, in pain.

  “—get to live—”

  Poke. Shit!

  “—on the Upper East Side.” The cop’s eyes bored into mine, hating me. His finger was relentless now. “These folks move around the board, do whatever they want, in their silver race cars, wearing their top hats. Free pass. Just visiting. Get … out … of … jail … FREE. Understand?”

  He stepped backward, finger still pointed at me. I nodded, not understanding, not at all. I wasn’t a rich kid—hell, Rachael and I eat hot dogs and mac and cheese one week out of every month to keep the lights on. No, I didn’t understand, but I nodded with manic gusto, anything to stop this craziness.

  The cop’s finger swung to the right, toward the end of the hall.

  “Sign for your bike and belongings down there,” he said.

  The sergeant smiled. It was an unapologetically, infuriatingly fake smile.

  “You won’t be getting everything back.”

  He stepped off, away from me, back toward the interview room. The keys jingled, spinning, on his finger.

  The tires of my Cannondale crunched on the gravel parking lot as I pushed it away from the 67th Precinct’s impound garage. The tiny building was behind the station proper. I navigated the bike around the potholes. I was exhausted.

  I checked my watch, biting my lip when I saw the jagged scratches on its glass bezel. It was just after 8 p.m. Damn it all. I’d neglected to sign out of The Brink, had been gone for hours, hadn’t told Dr. Peterson where I was going, hadn’t filed paperwork, hadn’t planned, not one bit. I was fired, had to be. The day couldn’t get any worse.

  I spotted my father at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Yes it can,” I said softly.

  The wind sliced through the hole in the elbow of my shirt, making me shiver. My father waited for me just beyond the lot’s chain-link gate. His black overcoat fluttered and flapped in the breeze, like bat’s wings. He looked like an undertaker.

  In a normal family, a moment like this—a meeting like this—would begin with the father asking if his son was all right, just once, just to make sure, just before digging in with the fire-and-brimstone paternal fury. I didn′t think my father would do that. William Taylor hadn’t been a normal father for some time now.

  I was right.

  Dad nodded at the pothole directly before him. The murk inside the divot shimmered like a sleepy brown eye. Dad leaned his head forward, gazing at me in the puddle’s reflection. He reminded me of a kid, about to spit into a pond.

  “You see me here, young man,” he said. His voice was ice, Defcon One.

  Not knowing what else to do, I nodded.

  “Tell me. Should I get on my hands and knees and give myself a good dunk here, right here in this filth? Does that seem like a good idea to you”

  I felt my lips trembling. I said nothing.

  Dad’s blue eyes flicked up, met mine. “Well, it should. After today, it should come as second nature, a basic instinct. You see, you seem to be doing everything you can to drag my name, this family’s name, through the mud. You must want to destroy everything I’ve worked for, son. That’s the only explanation I have for the absolute, bloody abortion of a day this has been.”

  I flinched.

  “Martin Grace’s lawyer called my office,” he continued. “She’s gunning for an investigation because of you. Your involvement at Brinkvale. It doesn’t matter if it holds up—she’s going for it, which means there’s a perception of injustice, sloppy management. Perception is an illusion, young man. But perception is everything.”

  He exhaled. I waited, shivering.

  “Why didn’t you listen to me? I said you were in danger. I said I was doing this to protect you. Do you know how many calls I made to dust-broom this? How many favors I owe so the press doesn’t catch a whiff of this … this …”

  He blinked twice, searching for the word that would convince the jury to convict.

  “ … this ruination? Do you know? Six. Six calls to six very powerful men.” He nodded to the police station behind me. “I had half a mind to let them crucify you in there. But no. Perception defines reality. This is a reporter’s wet dream. Me, you, the case, you breaking into that killer’s apartment …”

  His eyes, pained, looked into mine.

  “You could’ve been killed going down that fire escape. And for what? For trying to help a man who doesn’t deserve to breathe. Not after what he’s done.”

  He kicked a shoe-tip’s worth of pebbles into the puddle.

  “The universe itself conspires against me,” he said. “Your friend Peterson isn’t pulling you from Grace’s case. He says you’re the best The Brink has for this sort of thing.”

  I raised my chin, surprised. Something inside me shifted and glimmered. This news was … unexpected.

  “That man just committed career suicide—whatever career he had left,” Dad said, “but that’ll come later. This is about you, Zachary, and the great, grand mess you’re in. The mess that I just pulled you out of. Understand me”

  I suddenly did.

  “I … I owe you,” I said.

  My father nodd
ed. I thought of Malcolm and his damnable currency, and the envelope of Grace’s personal effects—the envelope Lucas still had, wherever he was. And the lockbox.

  So many clues. So many insights. So close. And yet …

  Wait. Dad was right: this was all about me. He hadn’t mentioned my brother, or a nosy hallway neighbor who might have spotted us. Play this out, I thought, like you know how, like you do every day. Just another minute.

  “I just wanted to look around, Dad,” I said. “I just wanted to find something to help—″

  “You’re lucky you didn’t,” he said. “No number of calls could’ve saved you then, young man—and we both know how many calls I’ve made for you over the years. This is a tired rerun, Zachary … and it ends now. If you’re going to lose all control again, you’ll do it on your own, and God help whoever you pull down with you. But this is the last time I’ll ever do anything like this for you. You would’ve been in felony territory …”

  He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. My brain was beginning to stir. The steel inside me was encouraged by this. Lucas hadn’t been caught. Dad’s people hadn’t found the TV safe—and if they had, they knew I didn’t have whatever was inside. This was as scot-free as it got.

  It didn’t have to be over. As my father droned on, I realized that I didn’t want this to be over. Hell, with the things we’d found at Grace’s apartment, this was just beginning. I couldn’t let go. Saving him—saving me, maybe?—was what mattered.

  I clenched my teeth. I was about to cross a line here, and I didn’t care. Let’s see this to the end and try to save the blind man. I told him I’d help him if it killed me. Hi, world. Watch me call my own bluff.

  “No,” I said.

  My father stopped in mid-sentence. “What”

  “No, Dad. I’m not dropping the case.”

  I expected another bout of Defcon-One Dad. I did not expect him to glance first to the left, then to the right—likely looking for cops or peds—and then lunge toward me with such fury that I damned- near regressed and pissed myself.

  His dress shoes splashed through the puddle as he rushed me, his hands out of his overcoat pockets now, reaching for—now grabbing and tearing—my shirt. The Cannondale slammed against the gravel. I screamed, stepping back, my hands digging at his wrists. He’d never done anything like this before; not a slap, not a swat, not a spanking, not ever.

  “Dad!” I cried. “What the f—”

  “Ungrateful,” he hissed, his fingers tight on the fabric now, wrenching me toward him. My emotions were a frantic, swirling hurricane: terror, disbelief, embarrassment, fight or flight.

  “I pulled your ass out of the fire,” he snapped, yanking me back and forth. I was suddenly a stupefied doll in his hands, a flopping Raggedy Andy in his Rottweiler fangs. “There is no ‘no’ this time, Zachary. Walk away from this. The stakes are too high, for me, and especially for you. He’ll ruin me … and he’ll kill you. I told you, he hates doc—”

  “Dad! Dad!”

  “Be quiet and understand. Don’t you understand”

  Anger now. My hands lashed out. They crashed against his chest, shoving him away. Dad’s lungs went hooooo, and he staggered back, his feet splashing through the puddle again. He glared back at me with the kind of eyes I’d seen in The Brink, wild and unhinged. “Jesus Christ, Dad. What’s crawled between your ears”

  He steadied himself, wheezing. “Let. It. Go.”

  Goddamned stubborn bastard. I took a step toward him, two days’ of fury unleashed. I couldn’t stop this train if I’d wanted to, and at that moment, I didn’t want to. In a move that was as inexplicable as it was gratifying, I kicked hard at the gravel, peppering his slacks and shoes. I was a baseball catcher going postal on the ump. I kicked again.

  “No fuckin’ way,” I barked back. “You answer me, goddamn it. The hell’s going on, Dad”

  My father recoiled. I pressed onward, took another step, kicking a third time, nearly dropping my own shoe into the murk. “What is it”

  “He killed her!” he screamed. “He killed her—and goddamnit, I’m going to make it right!”

  My father’s words stopped me where I stood. As if blinking from a trance, Dad suddenly became very aware of where he was. He glanced around again, this time like an animal. I watched him, more curious than furious now. His body sagged, suddenly defeated.

  “Who, Dad” My voice was calmer, but still insistent.

  As I watched his mouth find the words, I thought: If he says the words “Dark Man,” if he says that thing killed Mom, I’ll lose my mind right here.

  “No one you know,” he said.

  “Not Tanya Gold.”

  “No,” Dad muttered. “Sophronia Poole. Last vic. Two years ago. You … you didn’t know her.”

  “But you did,” I said. Shame flared inside me as I heard myself. Damn it, even now, I was doing what I do. Dad was wrong about me trying to destroy him—but he was right about second nature and basic instincts. It’s in me, this need to know.

  Dad nodded, staring at something far away. He was old, so old, right then. He was beaten, real … human. A tumbler quietly clicked inside my mind. I realized that my father would die someday.

  And then his bright blue eyes glimmered. I knew this look. I’d felt it myself minutes ago. Steel. He pointed at me. If a six-shooter were in his hand, we’d be in the Old West, duelin’ time.

  “You are dropping this case, Zachary. It’s just like Grace’s lawyer said. Conflict of interest.”

  I shook my head. “You’re the one with the conflict, Dad. You′re making this personal.”

  “It’s always personal,” he replied. “That is what justice is. Truth and conviction and punishment are always personal.”

  I stepped backward. I wasn’t appalled by this, wasn’t frightened. I was saddened.

  The man who’d lied to Lucas and me for more than twenty years—who′d erased his brother’s existence from our lives, from his life—was schooling me on justice and truth. I resisted the acidic urge to laugh at him, and tell him what I knew.

  Instead, I stepped over to my bicycle and lifted it upright. I didn’t care who Dad was protecting—me or him. I couldn’t care, not anymore, because I couldn’t trust him.

  I kicked my leg over its black frame, clomped my Vans onto its scratched, punished pedals.

  “Goodbye, Dad,” I said, and rode off.

  14

  “You know, for this kind of hands-on treatment,” I said, wincing as my brother smeared the Nelsons Cuts & Scrapes cream on my right shoulder, “I prefer the digits of my lady friend over there.”

  Lucas snickered as his palms rubbed the last of the ointment on my wounds. He glanced from the comfy chair in which I was sitting to the couch. I glanced at Rachael, who was shaking her head. The living room’s chili pepper lights above made her magenta hair pop like a road flare. For the first time in this white squall of a day, I felt anchored.

  “I’ve seen this dude’s wang a thousand times,” Lucas told her. “Not interested.” He turned back to me. “Your girl’s not a traceur, Z. There aren’t enough fingers in the world to count the scrapes and bruises I’ve taken care of. I’m a frickin’ field medic.”

  “Hyperbole,” I said.

  “Hold still.”

  He gingerly spread the Nelsons over the road rash on my right forearm. As he did this, I told my tribe about the day’s events: the failed, second session with Grace; the music from the Casio’s memory card; my arrest and release; Dad’s role in it. As Lucas wrapped a bandage on my cut elbow, I finally explained why Dad was obsessed with burying the blind man.

  I did not tell them about his lies, or how he’d damned his brother to Claytonville.

  “You ever heard of her?” I asked Lucas. “A woman named Sophronia Poole? Two years back. You were still living at home then.”

  Lucas stood up, shaking his head. I pulled myself up and slipped on a fresh T-shirt. I hobbled across the room, gracelessly splashing down beside Ra
chael. I smelled like a medicine cabinet. She patted my thigh. “Smooth, babe,” she said. “And what have we learned today?”

  “Never run from the cops.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Lucas, oblivious, dug into his backpack. “Sophronia. Nope, don’t think so. Maybe a colleague? A girlfriend? Though I don’t know about that. He’s all work-work-work.”

  “Hell if we’d ever know.” I looked over at Rachael. “He’s never told us about his extracurricular activities.”

  “Don’t kiss and tell,” Rachael said. “Good policy.”

  It didn’t happen the way they said it did. It’s all lies.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I pulled in a deep breath and exhaled, looking at them.

  “Okay. No bullshit, no sales pitches. I’m probably fired come tomorrow morning—but if I’m not, I’m committed to this. I’m going to help this guy. If you don’t want a part in it, I don’t blame you, so—″

  Lucas slapped Grace’s lockbox onto the steamer trunk in front of us. He looked at me, a wily smile on his lips.

  “Taylor Family Loyalty, bro,” he said.

  Beside me, Rachael tugged my satchel off the floor, placing it beside the metal box. She pulled out its contents. The folder with the admittance papers and our research from the night before. The crumpled Brinkvale envelope containing Grace’s personal effects. She shook the envelope. Out clattered a cell phone and a wallet.

  “You’re trying to do the right thing. I’m in,” she said. “But this is serious business, Z. I’d be out the door if I liked you less … or if you weren’t such an amazing lay.”

  “Tee Em Eye,” Lucas muttered. “Knock it off.”

  “Okay then,” I said, motioning for the folder. She passed it over. “Can you fire up your laptop? And Lucas, find something to open that box.”

  He blinked. “Uh, can’t you just go old school, get a paper clip and …”

  “I’ve done enough of that today.”

  He shrugged and headed for the kitchen. Rachael powered up her PC as I flipped through the folder, locating the CD-ROM that contained the police reports. Rachael slid the disk into the machine.