Shadow Boys

by Harry Hunsicker

  And a woman in a booth in the corner, sipping a cup of coffee.

  She was in her early thirties, a willowy five foot eight.

  Even though we’d known each other for years, the first glimpse of her face always managed to make my heart catch in my throat just a tiny bit.

  Piper Westlake. Currently a sergeant with the Dallas police, assigned to the property unit, otherwise known as the “department they stick you in when they don’t know what else to do with you.”

  The bartender nodded hello and kept polishing beer mugs.

  I ignored the day drinkers and wandered over to where Piper sat. She looked up, a faint smile on her face.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I slid into the opposite side of the booth.

  She tapped a file folder. “I’m inventorying cold-case evidence boxes even as we speak.”

  “Fun.”

  “Beats watching bull humping on TV or whatever the hell they’re showing.”

  Silence settled over the table for a few moments. Then:

  “Did he ask about me?” She glanced up from her files.

  I lied, shook my head.

  Crowd noises from the TV. Something important happened at the rodeo. Maybe a bull started humping one of the cowboys. The uniformed cops at the bar let out whoops of encouragement.

  Piper looked up again. “So. What did he want?”

  Silence.

  He would be Deputy Chief Raul Delgado.

  “You want to get involved?” I asked.

  “I’m making conversation. That’s what people in polite society do.”

  Piper had eyes that were as blue as a spring sky and hair the color of wheat. Her features were attractive but possessed a haunted quality that was hard to define, like a fashion model weary from being on the lam for a murder she didn’t commit.

  “I don’t want to get in the middle,” I said. “You know, of whatever is going on between you and your boyfriend.”

  “He is not my boyfriend.” Piper’s voice raised a click higher than what was needed for a quiet conversation. She pushed the file away.

  Deep inside both of us lay a wellspring of anger. We were the sum of our choices, a lifetime of bad decisions combined with actions beyond our control, events that had been thrust upon us.

  Sam the bartender approached, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Everything okay over here?” he said.

  Neither of us spoke for a moment.

  “It’s fine, Sam.” Piper pulled the file back. Picked up her pen.

  We were like gin and tonic, better together but a dangerous mix in certain circumstances. We could finish each other’s sentences. Cover each other instinctively in a firefight. Know when to talk and when to remain silent.

  “You doing okay, Jon?” Sam smiled. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

  Sam had a gentle, kindhearted way about him that masked an innate ability to handle any situation. He was well into his seventies but had forearms like Popeye’s.

  A month ago I’d watched him toss two bikers out who were harassing an off-duty waitress from the Waffle House down the street. The bikers were forty years younger. He’d broken the nose of one of the men.

  “Everything’s peaches and cream, Sam.” I tried to sound like I meant it. “You can go away now.”

  Piper sighed loudly and dropped her pen.

  “Aw, c’mon, Jon.” He shook his head. “Why you gotta be that way?”

  I didn’t say anything, more than a little ashamed that I’d let nothing turn into something.

  “Spray a little more gas on the fire, why don’t you.” Piper shook her head. “Sam, it’s all good. Really.”

  Sam mumbled under his breath but left.

  After he was gone, Piper said, “Were you born an asshole or did you take lessons?”

  “I’m doing well today, thanks for asking.”

  Piper drank some coffee.

  “Your boyfriend wants to hire me to find a missing kid.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” She kept her voice to a whisper this time.

  Piper had dated the deputy chief for a few months, a period of time punctuated with several breakups, as neither she nor Delgado were well suited to stable relationships. Not to imply that I was.

  “Tremont Washington,” I said. “That name mean anything to you?”

  A police radio from the bar clanged, an alarm of some sort. Two uniformed officers paid their tab, lumbered to their feet, prepared to leave.

  After they were gone, Piper looked at me. “Do you miss being a cop, Jon?”

  I lied again. “No.”

  I missed the sense of belonging that came from wearing a blue uniform. But I’d feathered my own nest and there was no going back.

  Piper pulled out a smartphone, tapped the screen a few times.

  “A patrol unit entered the name Tremont Washington under its daily activity log,” she said. “Note says, ‘possible runaway.’ ”

  A daily activity log was where the police kept a record of calls and actions that didn’t warrant a formal police report. The log meant the responding officers didn’t believe the caller or didn’t care.

  I removed a single sheet of paper from the envelope that Raul Delgado had given me. Tremont’s physical description and address.

  “He lives in West Dallas with his grandmother.” I gave her the street and number.

  She squinted at the screen. “Yeah, that’s the address they used. The projects.”

  I nodded. “So why’s a deputy chief interested in a kid from the hood?”

  “He’s a deputy chief,” she said. “Everything the brass does is a riddle wrapped inside an enigma.”

  I folded the piece of paper Raul Delgado had given me and put it back in the envelope.

  “Lysol Alvarez,” Piper said. “That’s his turf.”

  Lysol was a street thug who had the IQ and work ethic of an investment banker. At one point he controlled a large swath of South and West Dallas.

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Hard to kill somebody that mean,” she said. “I’d start with him.”

  Neither of us spoke for a few moments.

  “I’m not asking for your help,” I said.

  “Then why did you come here?” She slid from the booth. Tossed a few bills on the table.

  I watched her walk away. After a few steps she turned and looked at me.

  “Don’t be late this afternoon.”

  - CHAPTER FIVE -

  THE PIMP

  Tink-Tink Monroe surveys his empire.

  A parking lot behind a two-story apartment building on Audelia Road by LBJ Freeway.

  He stands on the balcony of the upstairs unit he’s currently using as an office, a Swisher Sweet in one hand, a Schlitz Malt Liquor in the other.

  A feeling of contentment washes over him. He is the master of his domain, the captain of his destiny. The King.

  Life is good here in Dallas, so is business, much better than either had been in the Ninth Ward before Katrina blew through New Orleans.

  Beyond the rotting wooden fence that surrounds the parking lot hums the commerce the city is known for, a ball of energy unlike any he’s ever experienced in all his thirty-four years.

  Even the air smells rich, a pleasant aroma that is a combination of the Popeyes Chicken next door and his cigar.

  Tink-Tink Monroe is an entrepreneur, a man determined to escape his humble origins and make something of himself. He is the youngest of five children, his mother a working girl in one of the hot-sheet brothels in Algiers, across the river from the French Quarter. He never knew his father.

  Now, he is the King.

  In the parking lot of the Dallas apartment are six campers, registered under the name of his number-one lady’s grandmother. Each t
railer has a girl who’s earning for him. Ten, twelve hours a day, six days a week.

  Below his feet, on the ground floor, he has a half dozen two-bedroom apartments, a girl to each room. Across Audelia, there is a massage parlor that he controls, too. Another three or four girls there at any given time.

  The Empire of Tink-Tink Monroe.

  His ladies are quality, clean and healthy for the most part. A class operation all the way.

  The word on the street is that he’s the biggest pimp in Dallas, certainly the biggest in Little NOLA, as the area where the Katrina refugees have settled is called.

  One of his guards steps onto the balcony. He says, “Pizza’s here, boss.”

  Tink-Tink tosses his cigar onto the asphalt below. He points to the far end of the parking lot, where a navy-blue Crown Victoria sits nose-out, under a leafless elm tree.

  “You see dat car ovah in da corner?”

  The guard nods.

  Tink-Tink drains his beer. “Find out who’s parking in my parking lot wit’out axing me first.”

  “Yeah, boss.” The guard grabs a baseball bat from the corner and leaves.

  Tink-Tink pitches his empty beer can off the balcony, too, and steps inside the apartment.

  The place doesn’t have much furniture, a black leather couch from Rent-A-Center, a glass coffee table, and a flat-screen TV.

  In the middle of the coffee table sits a pepperoni and sausage pizza from Mr. Gatti’s—his favorite—and a cold Schlitz.

  A girl perches on the armrest of the sofa. She’s seventeen, pretty like a dancer in a Rihanna video, wearing a halter top and a pair of Daisy Duke shorts. One eye is still a little swollen.

  He nods, happy to see everything where it should be. The bitch is learning. He’s in the process of turning her out, but she’s been all kinds of uppity.

  “You got my change, girl?” He sits, opens the box.

  “Right here, Daddy.” She hurriedly hands him a wad of cash.

  Tink-Tink puts the money in his pocket. Then he grabs a slice, sticks it in his mouth.

  From the hallway leading to the front door, a figure emerges. A white guy in a black tracksuit with a ball cap, pulled low. The jacket is zipped up around the lower half of his face.

  “The fuck do you want?” Tink-Tink wipes pizza grease from his chin.

  His guards are just outside. They’re fixing to be in a world of shit because Tink-Tink has told them about a zillion times not to let cats like this in without calling first.

  “What happened to her face?” Whitey points to the girl.

  She crosses her arms, nervous, looks to her pimp for guidance.

  Tink-Tink puts the slice down. Nothing about this is right. With his elbow, he touches the nine-millimeter in his waistband, looking for a measure of comfort.

  Whitey speaks to the girl. “Get out of here. Now.”

  She gulps, eyes wide with fear, but complies, scampering from the room. A few seconds later Tink-Tink hears the front door open.

  Then he hears the girl scream.

  Tink-Tink reaches for his weapon. “You’re making a big mista—”

  The gun appears in Whitey’s hand out of nowhere, a pistol with a silencer on the muzzle.

  “I got money,” Tink-Tink says. “We can work sumpin’ out.”

  The first bullet hits him in the stomach.

  It feels like a two-by-four slammed into his gut. No pain, just a throbbing sensation. The taste of blood fills his mouth.

  “Noo.” He holds up one hand, grabs his nine-millimeter with the other.

  The second round punches a hole in his palm. Light is visible through the wound.

  Time seems to stop as Whitey pulls the trigger for the third time.

  A blip of light, and a bullet that appears to be traveling so slowly Tink-Tink Monroe can track its progress as it moves toward his head.

  He thinks about his mother and the empire he’s created.

  Then, everything is black.

  - CHAPTER SIX -

  After meeting with Piper, I put in my weekly appearance at the Dallas headquarters of Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark, a smartly decorated half-floor in a downtown skyscraper.

  My office was a cramped six-by-ten, but it offered a stunning view of the southern half of the city. Fair Park and the Cotton Bowl lay twenty stories below, pale smudges surrounded by a green tarmac of vegetation. A gauzy layer of gray haze blanketed everything.

  No one paid me any attention. My supervisor/boss, such as Theo Goldberg was, lived a half continent away. Everyone in the Dallas office gave me a wide berth.

  I left the laptop with the managing partner’s assistant, told him to overnight it to DC. Then I got a cup of coffee, sat at my desk, and looked through the mail, most of which was junk or related to my current employment, such as a statement for my 401(k) account.

  After dispensing with the mail, I perused various databases, looking for mention of Tremont Washington.

  Nothing, as I expected. Tremont had no criminal record, no driver’s license or other form of state-issued ID. He was in the Social Security database as receiving disability payments, the checks going to his grandmother’s address—information I already had.

  I closed my computer and stared out the window, enjoying the view.

  The phone on my desk rang, startling me.

  That phone never rang. I was still getting used to having one there. Heck, I was still getting used to having a desk.

  It was the receptionist.

  “Mr., uh, Cantrell?”

  Her voice was timid, like she didn’t know how to handle talking to that strange man in the little office.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Carolyn at the front.” She was whispering now.

  “Hi, Carolyn-at-the-front. What’s up?”

  “There’s a man here to see you.”

  “That’s not good, Carolyn. People don’t come to see me. It’s the other way around.”

  “He says his name is Tommy Joe.” She paused, lowered her voice further. “And he’s really, um, scary.”

  “Call security, Carolyn. And then tell him I’m not here.”

  “Uh, Mr. Cantrell . . . you are the number for security.”

  I slumped in my chair. “Okay, I’ll be right out.”

  The reception area for Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark was wood-paneled like an English gentlemen’s club. Leather chairs, Persian rugs, the occasional painting of a fox being killed.

  Tommy Joe stood by a coffee table. He’d changed clothes. He was now wearing a pair of ratty jeans and a gray T-shirt. His face was drawn and pale. His Super Bowl ring was gone.

  I approached him warily, arms loose.

  He watched me get closer, eyes blank.

  From the corridor behind the reception area, several attorneys had come out, the office grapevine evidently telling them there might be something worth seeing about to go down.

  I stopped about five feet away from Tommy Joe.

  “What do you want?”

  Tommy Joe reached for his back pocket.

  “Don’t move your arms.” I stepped closer. “Or I’ll break them.”

  The distance between us could be cleared in about a half second. If he had a weapon, I planned to grab it with one hand, leverage his elbow with the other. Wait for the cracking sound. Then throw him to the ground.

  That would neutralize the problem and give everybody a good show.

  He stopped, licked his lips. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

  “Turn around,” I said. “Slowly.”

  He did as requested. No telltale bulge in any pocket or under his shirt.

  “Two fingers only,” I said. “Take the paper out.”

  He pulled a folded sheet from his pocket and put it on the coffee table.

 
“You’re gonna want this, too,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m going to rehab.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Everything I touch, it turns to shit.” He rubbed his nose.

  I picked up the paper. It contained an address in North Dallas, what looked like a commercial building.

  “I don’t want this on me, too.” He pointed to the paper.

  “What does that mean?”

  “They’re waiting for me downstairs.” He shuffled to the door and left.

  I slipped the paper in my pocket and turned around.

  A small group of attorneys and support personnel were standing in the hall watching me.

  My sport coat felt tight and the paneled walls of the reception area seemed to be closing in.

  They were staring at me like an exhibit at the zoo, the strange guy who wasn’t a lawyer, the one with the hard eyes and impassive face. I was exotic, outside the bell curve of their experience.

  I didn’t belong here and everyone knew it. I ignored them all and went to my office.

  Dallas police headquarters

  1981

  The police officer with the kind eyes and the ribbons on his chest leads eleven-year-old Raul Delgado from the interview room.

  He takes him down a hallway full of other officers, hard-looking men wearing short-brimmed cowboy hats and guns on their hips. The air in the hall smells like cigarette smoke, coffee, and sweat.

  The men move aside and watch them go by. They don’t speak.

  Raul can’t be sure but he feels like they are angry with him for some reason. He doesn’t understand why.

  The officer with the kind eyes leads him to a tiled room with rows and rows of lockers and a large shower area in the corner. The room appears empty.

  He goes to a locker, opens the door, and pulls out a gray sweat suit.

  “You’re gonna have to roll the sleeves and cuffs up, but these’ll fit you pretty good.”

  Raul nods, understanding that the man is offering him a chance to change out of his pee-soaked pants and blood-spattered shirt.

  “You should take a shower, too,” the man says.

  Raul looks at the dark corner where the faucets sprout from the wall like silver tree limbs. It is an open area, no privacy.