Mission Flats

by Mission Flats

  An hour later, I made my way to the hotel downtown, utterly exhausted, where I promptly fell into a deep, black sleep.

  At some point during the night I felt a presence in the room, very faint, like a pinpoint of light that unfolded and unfolded until the presence could not be ignored and I was startled awake. I had no idea what time it was or how long I’d been sleeping. The only thing I knew for sure was that, at precisely the moment my eyes opened, there was a ripping sound which I recognized as the Velcro closure of my holster. I lifted my head off the pillow an inch, no more, before it was pressed back down by the barrel-end of a gun. The steel ring slid around in my hair. To this day I can feel it nuzzling my scalp as if it were snuffling for a familiar scent.

  ‘I trusted you, motherfucker,’ a voice said. Braxton’s voice, coming from the other side of the room, near the window.

  I whispered, ‘Don’t, don’t—’

  ‘I thought we were friends, you and me.’

  ‘Friends. We are friends.’

  ‘This is how you do your friends? You kill Reverend Walker? Motherfucking cop motherfuckers, you killed him. Why?’

  ‘We didn’t. He had a heart attack or something. He just died. We didn’t touch him, we didn’t do anything.’

  ‘You broke into his – There was a little kid there. You see her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She was running. Somebody picked her up. I didn’t see her after that.’

  ‘That was my daughter.’

  The gun sniffed at my scalp again. I pressed down into the mattress to move away from it. The only sound was the whisper of my own breathing. ‘I can try and find her,’ I offered. ‘I’ll try and get her back.’

  He made a scornful sound.

  ‘What’s your daughter’s name?’

  ‘Tamarrah.’

  ‘Okay, where should they bring her?’

  ‘To her grandmother. I’ll write down the address here.’

  ‘Okay, good. I’ll try’

  There was a delay, then Braxton said, ‘Let him up, cousin.’

  The gun lifted, and slowly I sat up on the edge of the bed.

  Braxton was standing by the window, gray and featureless in the phosphorous city light. His wiry silhouette was unmistakable, though, with its little tufted ponytail. His arms were folded and he was holding a gun – my gun, presumably. The other man, Braxton’s muscle, stood in the gloom by the door. About all I could make out was the enormous shadow of his outline, a nylon jacket, and the white band of a skullcap he wore low around his brow.

  I began to get up, and the shadow by the door pointed a howitzer at me. I protested, ‘I’m just getting my pants. Do you mind?’ The man picked my jeans up off the floor, frisked them, and threw them at me. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  Braxton turned to look out the window. The lights of the South End winked below. ‘This is a fine view.’

  ‘Haven’t had time to look at it.’

  ‘You should make time. I want my little girl back tonight. Hear me? Tonight. I don’t want her in no foster homes or shit. You can make that happen.’

  ‘She’s probably back already. The cops aren’t interested in baby-sitting a four-year-old girl.’

  ‘She’s six. And she’s not back yet.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘What about Fasulo and Raul and all that? You check it out?’

  ‘Did I check it out? No, I didn’t check it out.’

  ‘Why not? What you been doing all day?’

  I was stepping into my pants at the time, but I stopped so I could straighten and face him. ‘What have I – Harold, I’ve been looking for you. The whole city’s looking for you. They have an arrest warrant.’

  ‘For what? I didn’t do nothing.’

  ‘For killing Danziger. They have a witness who says you confessed.’

  ‘Who’s saying that?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh, it’s like that? You’re one of them now? You listen to me, dog, I don’t know what’s going on there, but I did not shoot that man and I did not confess to no such thing. Somebody’s feeding you shit. Where’s the evidence?’

  ‘There’s evidence, Harold! The witness!’

  ‘Here we go again with that shit. Who’s the witness? ‘Raul’? Did you see him?’

  ‘I saw him, yeah.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘For real. And there’s other evidence too. The warrant is good, Harold.’

  Braxton shook his head and turned back to the window. ‘So why don’t you go on and arrest me?’

  ‘Okay, you’re under arrest. You too,’ I told the giant at the door. ‘If you could throw down your weapons, I’d appreciate it.’ The giant didn’t smile. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I didn’t think so.’

  ‘You got to get ahead of this, man.’

  ‘Harold, how can I get ahead of it if you won’t give me anything?’

  ‘I already gave you the whole thing. I told you, it’s something about Fasulo.’

  ‘What about Fasulo? What does Fasulo have to do with this?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘You don’t know? All this and you don’t know? Then how the fuck do you know Fasulo is connected at all?’

  ‘Can’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Harold. You’re giving me nothing. Just more of the same bullshit.’

  The lummox at the door emitted a groan as a sort of inarticulate warning, but I knew by now they did not intend to hurt me. I could not help Braxton’s daughter if I was dead. This was an empowering thought, like realizing the pit bull that’s been growling at you is actually on a chain. I sneered back at the guy, ‘Would you just shut up.’

  Braxton gazed out the window, still pondering. ‘Danziger had it all figured out. This whole thing with Fasulo and Raul and Trudell. He figured it out.’

  ‘Jesus, why don’t you just tell me what’s going on—’

  ‘Because I don’t know!’ He snapped his head at me in a curt little nod: So there. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How do you know what Danziger was looking at?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  Now I groaned, frustrated.

  ‘I have sources, that’s all,’ Braxton told me. ‘I need to find things out.’

  ‘So you knew what Bobby Danziger was working on when he got killed.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what you believe.’

  ‘Harold, what were you doing in Maine? A witness saw you there right before Danziger got killed.’

  ‘I can’t talk about that.’

  ‘But you were there? You admit that?’

  ‘You want to read me my rights?’

  ‘Jesus,’ I sighed. ‘I need a glass of water.’

  Braxton instructed, ‘Get it, cuz.’

  ‘Yo, what do I look like, room service? I’m not getting water for no popos. Why should I?’

  I said, ‘Because I’m dry!’

  ‘So be dry, motherfucker.’

  ‘Just—!’ Braxton held up his hand and calmed himself. ‘Just get him the water.’

  The giant lumbered into the bathroom and returned with the water in one hand, a pistol in the other. ‘The air in these hotels,’ I said, ‘it’s very dry.’ The guy grimaced at me and returned to his post at the door.

  ‘You should leave a glass by the bed,’ Braxton suggested.

  ‘Harold, even if I believed you about Fasulo being connected somehow, there isn’t much I can do about it without evidence. These guys aren’t exactly going to take your word for it. They’ve got you down for two cop killings.’

  ‘I never killed no cops.’

  ‘Come on, Harold.’

  ‘I said, I never killed no cops. Ever.’

  ‘You didn’t shoot Artie Trudell?’

  ‘Why would I? I didn’t even know who he was.’

  ‘Because y
ou were trapped in the apartment. The cops showed up and started breaking down the door. You had to shoot your way out.’

  ‘How could I be trapped in there? I’d have to be crazy’

  ‘It was your apartment. You’d have to be crazy, why?’

  ‘Because I knew they were coming.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I knew the motherfuckers was coming.’ He shrugged. There was a little boastfulness in his voice, but more than anything it was just a matter-of-fact assertion. ‘I told you, I hear shit. I make it my business to hear shit.’

  ‘You hear shit from who? From cops?’

  ‘That’s all I got to say.’

  ‘Are you saying someone tipped you off?’

  ‘I’m just saying I hear shit.’

  ‘Harold, who tipped you off?’

  ‘Hey, Chief True-Man, I just told you – I can’t say. I’ll tell you what, though: There was a lot of people that didn’t want to have a trial on that case, believe me, a lot of people.’

  ‘So who killed Trudell then, Harold?’

  ‘How should I know? Some crackhead, someone stupid enough to be in there when the cops came.’

  ‘But that crackhead wasn’t you.’

  ‘Wasn’t me.’

  We stared awhile, each gauging the credibility of the other. There was no reason for me to believe Braxton, and no reason for him to expect he would be believed.

  ‘If I leave here, you going to try and arrest me, Chief True-Man?’

  ‘Yup. There’s a warrant on you.’

  ‘Even though you know that warrant is shit.’

  ‘I don’t know that.’

  ‘But you’ll look for my daughter?’

  ‘I said I would.’

  Braxton sighed again. ‘Alright, tie him up,’ he ordered. ‘Sorry, dog. Just to slow you down a little, till we get out.’

  The giant tucked the .45 inside his coat and stepped toward me with a smirk, and it was that smirk more than anything else that grazed a raw nerve – the brazen disrespect of it – the presumption that I would submit, that I could be overpowered – that people and things and time could be taken away from me, and my own wishes weren’t worth a two-penny fart – all that I’d thought was lost when it seemed I would be accused of Danziger’s murder, and all that I’d lost before then – the pressure, the frustration, the worry – all of it, at this unlikely moment, brimmed over. With the belated resolve of the unassertive, I decided, I am not going to let this happen. I surged from the bed, took two steps, and threw the most glorious roundhouse into the giant’s eye. Under my fist I felt the boiled-egg softness of the eyeball and the delicate bones of the socket. The man lolled back against the door then slid to the floor.

  Pain like electric current jumped from my knuckles up the back of my hand. I yelped and shook my fist.

  Braxton racked a pistol – my own – to get my attention. ‘Motherfucker,’ he drawled. Motherfucker apparently could carry any number of meanings. In this context, spoken with innocent wonderment, it meant something like Jeez, would you look at that. Braxton held the gun on me while he prodded his man with little kicks. ‘Yo, TC, you alright, cuz?’

  ‘I can’t see,’ the guy groaned, both hands pressed to his eye.

  ‘Alright, just hold the gun.’

  ‘I just told you, I can’t see.’

  ‘Use your damn other eye.’ Braxton was exasperated. You can’t get good help anymore.

  The guy got to his feet and took the gun, but it dangled at his side. Braxton handcuffed my arms behind my back, wrapping the chain through the slatted back of a chair.

  ‘You didn’t need to do that,’ he told me.

  ‘I’ve had a long day, Harold.’

  They left me cuffed to the chair, my hand throbbing. Braxton made an ambiguous little gesture before he left. He pointed at me with both index fingers like six-shooters, which I took to mean I’m counting on you but could as easily have meant Watch out or I’ll shoot you, and with that he closed the door behind him.

  43

  I lingered over the evidence in the room, burned the details into memory – a smear of blood on the door, body odor, the ache in my fist – as if to convince myself of what had just happened. This blood, this odor, this pain was real and actual. This was the proof. Yet there was no fear, no thrumming nerves or pounding heart, no emotional evidence. Just this sense of unreality and draining mood. Plane-crash survivors seem to know this emotion. They do not celebrate their survival. They wander out of cornfields looking shocked and hung over and vaguely remorseful.

  But I had given Braxton my word. So, after a period of staring into space, I rolled onto the bed with the chair clinging to me like a jealous child. My keys were in a coat pocket and at length I was able to extract them and uncuff my hands. It was only quarter past midnight, to my great surprise.

  I called Caroline at home to ask about the little girl. Only a day earlier, she’d had no trouble believing I could be Bob Danziger’s killer. Her words were fresh in memory, an audio loop of her voice that I could still hear:

  Ben, what do you want me to say?

  That you believe me.

  I don’t even know you.

  It was hard to fault her for being cautious. She was a prosecutor, and I a suspect. Truly she didn’t know me; she’d had no reason to trust me. In her shoes, I might have done the same thing. All of which may not have mattered anyway. It may have been too late for me to simply erase Caroline Kelly from memory. The heart recalls what the head would rather forget. But now where did we stand?

  So I called, woke her, and sketched in the incident, omitting the detail of the gun against my scalp.

  Caroline was instantly awake. Throughout the tale, she repeated, ‘Braxton what? He what?’

  ‘Look, can we not make a big deal of it? I’m beat. I’ll file a report tomorrow.’

  ‘Not make a big deal? Are you insane?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Ben, are you okay? You sound kind of spacey’

  ‘I’m fine. Something’s going on and I don’t know what it is. You’ll check on the kid?’

  ‘Ben, I’m coming over.’

  ‘No, don’t do that.’

  ‘You’ll let Harold Braxton come but not me?’

  ‘Caroline, please. I’m tired. I just don’t want to play that whole scene. I don’t want to write a report, I don’t want twenty cops in my room. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone. I’ll come, just me.’

  As much as I wanted to see Caroline, I did not want to do it right then. I needed a chance to compose my thoughts, to sort things out first. ‘Caroline – Look, you and I have to talk. I mean, really talk. I just don’t have the energy to do it right now.’

  ‘I just want to see if you’re alright.’

  ‘I know. But – don’t take this the wrong way – you’re hard work.’

  At the other end, the mouthpiece rustled against her chin. ‘That’s not true.’ A pause. ‘I’m just going to come and see if you’re okay, then I’ll leave.’

  ‘Caroline, I just got through saying—’

  ‘I know, Ben, but see, I’m not asking you for permission. I’m telling you, I’m coming. You can think I’m a bitch if you want to.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Is there anything you need?’

  ‘A restraining order.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘Caroline, you know, we’re not gonna . . . you know.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Chief Truman! Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you.’

  ‘That’s what I mean about hard work. Stuff like that.’

  ‘What? I’m sorry. I was just teasing.’

  ‘Well I don’t want to be teased, alright? I’ve had a rough few days here, in case you haven’t noticed.’ I caught the note of whining in my voice. ‘Can you just turn it off for one night?’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  It was like telling the cat to stay off the sofa. ‘Alright, fine
, come. Bring some booze, as long as you’re making the trip.’

  Thirty minutes later, Caroline was at the door with a bottle of Jim Beam.

  She poured a glass, thrust it at me, then retreated to a corner chair, where she made a gesture of surrender, hands up, fingers splayed, as if to say I’m keeping my distance.

  I stood at the window, at the spot where Braxton had looked out. There was an atavistic simplicity to this view of the city. Under a full moon, the South End stretched for long, low blocks of eighteenth-century brownstones, and the steeple of Holy Cross Cathedral was still the highest structure in sight. Somewhere off to the northwest was Mission Flats. And superimposed over all of it was my own face reflected in the glass.

  ‘Are you bleeding?’ Caroline asked. She pointed to a streak of blood on the door.

  ‘That’s not mine. It was some monster Braxton had with him.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I hit him.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Don’t be. I think I broke my hand.’

  The whiskey scraped a little going down but it warmed my stomach. ‘Did you take care of that thing with the little girl?’

  ‘It’s all set. They’re bringing her to her grandmother’s now. She wouldn’t talk to anyone at the station. They didn’t know what to do with her.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad. Thank you for doing that.’

  I peered out the window a moment longer.

  ‘Ben, is something bothering you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. They didn’t touch me.’

  ‘I meant, are you upset about something?’ But she thought better of pursuing me. Leaning forward, she said, ‘Maybe you don’t want to talk about it. I’ll go if you want. I see you’re not hurt.’

  ‘No, stay. I mean, if you want, you can stay’

  Caroline leaned back again, pulled her knees up, and sat curled in the chair. She was wearing jeans and a baseball jacket, and even this simple outfit she invested with stylishness. There was always something about the way this not-quite-beautiful woman wore her clothes that compelled me. I have no doubt that if she were wearing the PROPERTY OF BUFFALO SABRES T-shirt that I had on at the time – a relic as dingy and thin as a moth’s wing – she would have looked elegant in it, too.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.