Shadow Boys

by Harry Hunsicker

  “That means I won’t always be around to look out for you.”

  Raul turned away. He stared out the passenger-side window at the buildings of downtown. His eyes welled with tears, and he didn’t understand why.

  “You need to make peace with the Dallas Police Department,” Bobby said. “And whatever else is eating you up inside.”

  Raul wiped his cheek. He hoped Bobby hadn’t noticed the tears.

  They were in the heart of downtown now, amid the towering office buildings.

  With a start, Raul realized where they were headed.

  A smile creased his face.

  “Junie gets outa school early today,” Bobby said. “Thought she might like some pancakes, too.”

  Junie was Bobby’s daughter, his only child. Twelve years old, the apple of her widower father’s eye. She had auburn hair and a spunky temperament. Both Raul and Bobby doted on her, just in different ways.

  Bobby headed toward her school, and for a moment Raul felt the anger go away, as if everything was right in the world once again.

  - CHAPTER TEN -

  I drove the judge around White Rock Lake in the handicap van, the windows down. The activity appeared to please him. When we returned, Clark had another splash of scotch in his living room and regaled me with stories of Dallas in the 1980s, a time rife with cocaine, discos, big-haired women, and rampant overbuilding of commercial real estate.

  Then my beeper beeped.

  Theo Goldberg. My boss. Clark’s partner.

  I pulled my battery from one pocket, the phone from another.

  Clark excused himself so I could speak in private. He wheeled off to find his nurse.

  Theo answered immediately. In the background, I could hear the zing-zing of a video game. I imagined him in a suburban family room, a large area decorated with pictures of his kids, somewhere in Alexandria or McLean.

  “Everything go okay today?” he asked. “The thing this afternoon. We’re good, right?”

  “The item is on its way back to you.”

  A woman’s voice, his wife I presumed, telling the kids it was time to go to bed.

  I looked at my watch. It was nine thirty on the East Coast.

  “I heard the contractor came by the office this afternoon,” Theo said.

  “Yes. Nothing serious, though.”

  A rubbing noise, fabric on the mouthpiece. Then Theo’s muffled voice: “Isaac! Do not stick that in the wall plug!”

  A crashing sound. Theo swore.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “The nanny, she accidentally doubled his dose of Ritalin.” He sighed. “Don’t have children, Jonathan. The little devils eat your soul.”

  I waited.

  “What did he want?”

  “Who?” I said. “Tommy Joe?”

  “Does everyone in Texas have two names?”

  “Only royalty.”

  Another crashing sound.

  “He was on his way to rehab, and not a minute too soon. He gave me a piece of paper with an address on it,” I said. “Told me something about how he didn’t want that bothering him, too.”

  An intake of air on the other end of the line.

  “Bad news?” I asked.

  “The deputy director was on vacation.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “His administrative assistant placed an order while he was gone. A mistake. Drop-shipped to Tommy Joe Culpepper at that address.”

  “What was in the order?” I said.

  “An equipment package.” He paused. “For a new FOB.”

  I rubbed my eyes.

  The Border Patrol, the department Tommy Joe had been doing business with, fell under the purview of the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and had developed a novel strategy to combat illegal border crossings in remote areas. They set up a series of FOBs, forward operating bases.

  These were self-contained defensive units—forts—designed for the military where Border Patrol agents could live and work for extended periods.

  The FOBs themselves were modular buildings, modern-day Quonset huts. They were heavily fortified with bulletproof yet ultralight materials—tactical-grade carbon fibers and blast-resistant ceramics, polymers developed by NASA. The buildings were dropped in by chopper or transported by eighteen-wheeler. They were supplied by private companies, as were many of the agents who staffed them.

  The standard equipment package, also capable of being airlifted or shipped via traditional ground transportation, was enough to outfit a small company of soldiers: twenty or so M-4 carbines, the standard military rifle. A carton of handguns. Ammunition, medical supplies, food, communication equipment, et cetera.

  “I just found out a few minutes ago,” Theo said. “The client, he’s very upset at his admin. But the civil service rules, you know—he can’t fire her.”

  “And no one thought to question why a package like this was being sent somewhere so far from the border?”

  As soon as I spoke the words, I realized how silly they sounded. This was the US government we were talking about. Inefficiencies oozed from every pore of Uncle Sam.

  “It was supposed to ship to Del Rio.” Theo chuckled. “Besides, if the feds started doing their job right, we’d be out of business.”

  “Okay.” I tried to figure out the closest place to get coffee. “I’m rolling.”

  “Just make sure the shipment is secure. We’ll send a pickup team later this week.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “That type of, uh, equipment in the wrong hands.” He clucked his tongue. “Not good.”

  I ended the call and yawned.

  The piece of paper Tommy Joe Culpepper had given me contained an address on the far north side of town—a small office building on Dallas Parkway, a major thoroughfare which split that section of the city in two, near Arapaho Road.

  The location was part of a two-building complex, one-story offices next to each other, separated by a walkway and narrow courtyard. Nineteen-eighties construction, brick with big mirrored windows, landscaping dead from lack of water.

  It was dark when I got there. Commercial buildings dominated the area. They housed low-end businesses—personal-injury attorneys, one-man ad agencies, mortgage companies. Most were dark as well, parking lots empty.

  A “For Sale” sign was in front of the address Tommy Joe had given me. Both buildings appeared to be vacant, like they’d been that way for a long while.

  I parked in front of the correct address and got out, a flashlight in one hand.

  The front door was locked, as was the rear. No signs of forced entry.

  I shone the light in a window.

  The building was empty. I could see the other end. No walls or other interior finish. And no crate marked “Property of US Government.”

  On a hunch, I went to the sister building, thirty feet away.

  This structure had a loading area at the rear, a metal roll-up door wide enough to drive a truck through.

  All the entrances were locked as well, no signs of entry.

  At the rear, by the loading door, I flicked on the light and peered through a dusty window.

  The building still had interior walls, but not many.

  At night, without the sunlight streaming through the empty structure, the crate was hard to see, sitting in a corner of the utility area by the cargo door.

  A big ten-by-twenty box.

  Stenciling on one side marked it: “Border Patrol—Forward Operating Base. Do Not Open Unless Authorized.”

  That’ll keep the bad guys out of it.

  I checked again, made sure the doors were secure.

  Tommy Joe must’ve been planning a move. I remembered the packing boxes at his office this morning. He’d probably recently bought these buildings and was using t
he one next door as the mailing and delivery address. When the crate arrived, he stuck it in the building with the loading door.

  The shipment was secure for the moment. I’d call Theo in the morning and arrange a pickup. For now, I was tired.

  I got back in the Lincoln and, after a moment’s hesitation, headed back to the judge’s house.

  Judge Clark was ready for bed when I arrived. He asked me if everything was okay, the wording such that it was clear he didn’t want details.

  I nodded. We visited for a while and then he wheeled himself to his ground-floor room.

  I went upstairs.

  A king-sized bed and a top-of-the-line air conditioner. The second-floor guest room had all that I could want.

  There was also a sitting area with a TV, common space in the middle of the bedrooms.

  About midnight, I was watching Letterman when Clark’s nurse wandered out of her room.

  She wore a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt that barely covered her ass. I had on a pair of boxers and a Jerry Jeff Walker concert shirt that had seen better days, part of the stash of clothing I kept in the Lincoln along with various toiletries.

  I nodded hello, and she sat next to me, a few inches separating us.

  “He’s a nice guy, isn’t he?” She pointed downstairs.

  I nodded again, turned up the volume a little.

  “He thinks the world of you, you know?”

  I shrugged.

  She yawned and stretched, her leg touching mine.

  “So . . . are you involved with anybody?” she said.

  Kids today. So much more forward than when I’d been in my twenties.

  “Look, it’s not that I don’t think you’re attractive.” I lowered the volume. “But I’m old enough to be your, well, significantly older brother.”

  “I like men of a certain age.” She ran a finger down my thigh.

  “I’m not that old.”

  I stood. Her hand fell away from my leg.

  We were silent for a few moments.

  “There is somebody else, isn’t there?” she said. “Must be something special.”

  She was indeed special, in ways I couldn’t articulate. I wondered where Piper was at that very moment.

  - CHAPTER ELEVEN -

  The next day, I got up and made the judge a pot of coffee. He looked tired and old in the harsh glare of the morning light. This made me melancholy, sad for the people in my life who were slowly going away.

  We visited until the nurse came in to make breakfast. She and I ignored each other for a few minutes until I finished my coffee. Then I went to my townhome and showered and dressed. Since I was going into the field today, I wore Levi’s, a dark T-shirt, and Nikes.

  I called Theo Goldberg and left him a message about the shipment, telling him it was secure for the moment. Then I set out to find Tremont Washington.

  Because of my past employment with the DEA and the Dallas police, I was familiar with the neighborhood where Tremont lived, a hardscrabble section of the city that had fallen out of the poverty tree and hit every branch on the way down.

  West Dallas was originally an unincorporated area known as Cement City, named for its largest employer, the Portland Cement Plant, a cesspool of pollution rendered only slightly less noxious by its proximity to a lead smelter. For much of the twentieth century, the very air in West Dallas was dangerous.

  Singleton Boulevard, the main drag, ran due west from downtown, the street populated with tire stores, fried chicken restaurants, taco stands, and pawnshops.

  According to the information Raul Delgado had given me, Tremont Washington lived with his grandmother in the Iris Apartments on Hampton Road, across from the bucolically named body of water known as Fish Trap Lake. The Iris was HUD public housing, well maintained as those types of properties went but not a good place for a white guy to venture even in broad daylight. The police only responded to calls there in groups of three or more, one of whom was armed with a fully automatic weapon.

  I drove past the Iris Apartments and then down an interior street.

  The wood-framed houses were small, probably much like they’d been when Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow had called the area home a century before.

  It was midmorning, a sunny day. Every block or so, I passed someone sitting in a lawn chair on the corner, watching what little traffic there was, cell phone in hand. Human radar for the man I was going to see.

  At the intersection of Borger and Vilbig sat a brick house larger than most, surrounded by a freshly painted picket fence. A Cadillac Escalade was parked nose-out in the driveway, a young African American man in a wifebeater shirt and calf-length shorts leaning against the hood.

  I parked across the street and got out. I kept my hands visible. Moved slowly but deliberately.

  The young man stared at me but didn’t seem alarmed. I knew others were watching from the houses nearby.

  The man stuck a cigarillo between his lips.

  “Whatchoo want? Crackertown’s across the river.”

  “Lysol around?”

  “Who’s asking?” He crossed his arms.

  “Tell him Jon Cantrell’s here.”

  He cocked his head to one side like he was trying to figure out what planet I’d come from.

  I said, “Tell him I’m not looking to jam anybody up.”

  Lysol Alvarez was the head of a street gang that ran most of West Dallas. He was half black, half Nicaraguan, one hundred percent dangerous.

  The young man gave me his best tough-guy glare before he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and sent a text. A moment later he looked up.

  “Yo. Front door’s open.”

  I nodded thanks and strode toward the house.

  The yard was tiny but immaculate, manicured like a putting green. Palm trees grew on either side of the walk leading to the porch.

  I pushed open the door and stepped into a living room that looked like it had come from the gangsta edition of Architectural Digest.

  Black leather furniture, polished hardwood floors, whitewashed plaster walls. An abstract painting of Tupac over the fireplace, the color scheme green and orange. On the opposite wall was a flat-screen TV tuned to a basketball game. The sound was muted so as not to compete with the opera music playing on the ceiling-mounted speakers.

  Nothing like a culturally sophisticated street thug.

  Lysol wore a maroon seersucker suit and woven sandals. No shirt. The open jacket accentuated the definition of his pecs. He was sitting on the couch, tamping a wad of pot into a bong that looked like a glass skull.

  In the corner stood a beefy man in an Adidas running suit, holding an AK-47.

  I surveyed the room, particularly a spot on the floor in front of the fireplace.

  “Looks like you got all the blood cleaned up.” I sat in a chair by the coffee table.

  Lysol was in his early forties. His head was shaved, the lobe of one ear missing from a botched assassination attempt a few years before.

  “Ancient history.” He lit the bowl with a cigar lighter. “You came here to talk about that?”

  Several years before, we’d had a minor tussle over a CI, a confidential informant. Things hadn’t worked out all that well for the informant and he’d lost a lot of blood on Lysol’s floor.

  Probably all his blood, come to think of it.

  “Lysol hears things.” He exhaled a plume of marijuana smoke. “Like you’re no longer in the business.”

  “This is true.” I stifled a cough. “Joe Citizen. That’s me.”

  “You’re an attorney now?” He arched an eyebrow.

  I shook my head. “I’m associated with a law firm. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “So what brings Joe Citizen I’m-not-an-attorney to West Dallas?”

  I’d never busted him, though I’d had plenty of opp
ortunities. There were always bigger targets or people who served a larger strategic goal. He was aware of this fact.

  Plus, I liked the guy. He’d grown up in a crack house a few blocks away and managed to survive, some might say thrive, in an environment that had destroyed other, lesser men. The eldest of his six children was starting SMU next year.

  “Can’t an old friend just stop by to say hi?”

  “Lysol has no friends, Jon, just people who need things. Some of these people he tolerates.” A long pause. “Others he does not.”

  From the rear of the house came the click of heels, a female walking.

  A few moments later a woman in her twenties entered the room. She was brunet with porcelain skin, about six feet tall, wearing a short black sundress that accentuated her thighs.

  She deposited herself beside Lysol on the sofa, legs curled underneath her.

  “Hey, baby.” She nuzzled his neck. “Sawyer needs to go shopping.”

  “And what does Sawyer need to get?” Lysol pulled a wad of currency from his pocket.

  “Something to make herself pretty for her man.” She took the money.

  The woman was stunningly attractive already, pretty like a Cowboys cheerleader who’d married well.

  “Sawyer should just buy clothes.” Lysol grasped her arm. “No coke. Lysol doesn’t like people around him who do blow.”

  The girl smiled but her eyes looked fearful. Lysol had that effect on people.

  “Sure, baby.” Her voice was tight. “No blow.”

  Lysol let go. The girl scampered away, headed toward the rear of the house. He relit his bong, took another hit, and looked at me.

  “You were getting ready to tell Lysol what you need.”

  I coughed. The secondhand dope smoke and third-person conversations were making my head hurt. Nevertheless, I played along.

  “Does Lysol know a kid named Tremont Washington? He’s from the neighborhood. About twelve or thirteen years old. Might be considered a little slow in the head.”

  Lysol looked at his guard, the man with the AK-47, and nodded once. The guard disappeared from the room, giving us a degree of privacy.

  I waited.

  Lysol took one final hit and put the bong down. “You ever watch MSNBC?”