Shadow Boys

by Harry Hunsicker

“Make all this count for something,” I said. “Tell me what you know about Tremont.”

  No response. His skin color had gotten paler.

  A second EMT grabbed my arm.

  Burnett looked at me and smiled.

  The first EMT fitted the oxygen mask back over his mouth and nose. Burnett said something that I couldn’t hear because of the mask.

  “What?” I strained against the EMT pushing me away.

  “Sir, you need to give us room to work.” The EMT grabbed my wrist.

  This was an amateur move. The man was facing me. He had no leverage. Just an attempt to exert control. One that was destined to fail.

  Instead of pulling back, as was expected, I pushed forward. The move caught the EMT off guard. His balance was wrong.

  I kicked one foot out from under him, and he fell to the metal floor of the Sikorsky. I yanked my wrist free and leaned over Mason Burnett.

  “What did you say?”

  “McKee.” His voice was hard to hear. “Talk to McKee.”

  The name was familiar. Before I could think about it or ask him who that was, Drake and the other EMT were all over me like a cheap suit.

  I let them drag me away as the Sikorsky began its descent to the helipad on top of Parkland Hospital.

  - CHAPTER FORTY -

  Lysol Alvarez is not a butcher or a sadist, despite what some of his enemies might say about him.

  He’s never inflicted pain without a reason or killed anyone whose passing didn’t serve a larger purpose. Each death had been a business decision. Because, at the end of the day, that’s what everything comes down to—business. Dollars and cents.

  For example, he knows how many people he’s killed. Would a butcher keep track?

  Seventeen. Not a large number when you consider his line of work.

  The first had been when he was a teenager, not much older than the boy with cornrows.

  Nineteen ninety-one. A low-level thug in the organization that sold cocaine on the corners of West Dallas at that time. The man had stiffed Lysol’s brother on some money he’d owed, a gambling debt.

  Lysol told his brother he’d get the cash if he wouldn’t ask any questions.

  So he sat on the corner opposite from where the thug did business. He sat and waited.

  The thug approached him about thirty minutes later, wanting to know what the fuck Lysol’s skinny ass was doing on this particular corner.

  Amazing the things you remember, a quarter of a century later.

  It was summertime, the middle of the afternoon. A Tuesday. The sprinkler across the street sprayed water across a half-dead lawn.

  Lysol didn’t answer. The man got angry. Lysol waited until the thug knelt beside him and asked the question again.

  Then he hit the thug in the head with a lead pipe, swinging like he was trying to knock a ball into the outfield, a solid blow that crushed the man’s temple and sprayed blood along the gutter like the sprinkler across the street.

  He’d taken the man’s money and his product, left him lying in the gutter, another unsolved homicide the DPD didn’t work too hard at figuring out.

  From that humble but violent beginning, Lysol had begun his empire, a multilayered business that today generated nearly fifty thousand dollars a month in gross income.

  But one thing Lysol has never done was harm a child.

  Which makes this particular situation awkward.

  He’s counted thirteen of the little fuckers, and each one is armed. He doubts there is a single pubic hair among the lot of them.

  A bunch of pissant kids. Telling Lysol Alvarez, the king of West Dallas, what to do.

  They are now in the backyard of the house where Lysol stopped in the alley. The area behind the home looks like a junkyard. Rusted cars, a rotting storage shed, dirt instead of a lawn. Bits of metal and wood lying about.

  “Where we going?” Lysol says.

  The boys have formed a half circle, angling him toward the back door of the house.

  Cornrows is the leader. He points to Lysol’s subgun, still slung over his shoulder, and says, “Put that on the ground.”

  Lysol shakes his head slowly.

  One of the kids in the semicircle steps forward and whacks him on the knee with the back of a broken machete.

  Lysol manages not to scream. Or fall to the ground.

  He grunts once and hyperventilates for a moment. Then he drops the subgun.

  Machete Boy picks it up. Puts the sling on his shoulder. He’s so short the barrel is only a few inches away from the dirt.

  Cornrows points to the back door.

  Lysol nods, tries to look defeated. In the small of his back, he can feel the SIG resting comfortably, covered by the gray linen coat.

  Cornrows and his crew are deadly, of this he has no doubt, but they’re still nothing more than a group of kids. Any street guy over the age of sixteen would know to check a prisoner, head to toe, before bringing him inside.

  One of the boys opens the back door, motions him in.

  Lysol steps into a kitchen that is completely at odds with the exterior.

  The room is sparkly clean, the air smelling of pine disinfectant, bacon, and warm milk.

  The appliances are new—an oven and burner across from a refrigerator that is still plastered with tags from the manufacturer.

  The linoleum floor is old but freshly mopped, probably original to the wood-framed house, which appears to have been built sometime in the 1930s.

  Cornrows and Machete Boy follow him in. The rest of their crew stays outside.

  “What is this place?” Lysol says.

  “Keep going, Negro.” Cornrows points toward the dining room.

  Lysol takes a last look around the kitchen, a nice, slow perusal. Time to start establishing himself as the boss, even in little ways. The age of the children and the fact that they haven’t found the SIG gives him a wedge of confidence.

  All that changes when he enters the main part of the home, one large room that was designed to serve as a combination dining and living area.

  One side of the room contains a table and chairs, room for six or eight people to eat.

  The other side is dominated by baby beds lined up in rows. Fifteen or twenty at least.

  Most appear to contain sleeping infants. The soft mew of slumbering babies fills the air. One begins crying, the occupant of a crib at the far end.

  Machete Boy strides over to the fussy infant. He rocks the cradle, makes a cooing sound to soothe the child.

  “You running some kinda orphanage here?” Lysol says.

  “Transportation tax, you owe me,” Cornrows says. “Remember?”

  “I think it’s time you answer me, little man.” Lysol makes no move to give the youngster any cash. “This place, all these babies, it ain’t right.”

  Cornrows doesn’t reply.

  “Where’d these kids come from?”

  “The street,” Cornrows says. “Where you think?”

  “And you boys take care of them yourself?”

  “I need your money now, Negro.”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute.” Lysol surveys the room. “Where their parents be?”

  In the far corner, on an end table, he sees a stack of foil rolls, Reynolds Wrap, next to several boxes of plastic sandwich bags. He realizes the boys are moving product. They’ve found a wholesaler willing to do business with them, and they are cutting the package in this very house. In his neighborhood.

  He can’t decide if what he feels is anger or admiration.

  “If whitey finds out about these babies,” Lysol says, “you boys are screwed like a two-legged dog.”

  “The Man don’t know about us,” Cornrows says. “And he ain’t never gonna find out.”

  Lysol shakes his head. “Whitey always finds
out.”

  “Your money.” Cornrows raises the gun. “All of it. Now.”

  Lysol shakes his head, a gentle smile on his face. “That ain’t the way this is gonna go. Let’s you and me figure out something to both our benefits.”

  Cornrows squints real hard, trying to look tough. His arm is shaking.

  “You’ve got some balls on you, little man, I’ll give you that.” Lysol shakes his head. “But you’re a pup still. Let me help you.”

  Cornrows is breathing fast, cheeks bellowing. Tears well in his eyes.

  “You gonna put me down?” Lysol says. “In here, with all these babies?”

  From the hallway leading to the bedrooms comes the sound of footsteps, a woman walking.

  The boy’s attention wavers. He turns toward the noise.

  Lysol slides a hand under his jacket and grabs the SIG.

  A woman’s voice, singing a nursery rhyme.

  “Hush, little baby, don’t you cry—”

  A skinny white chick, on the bitchy side of forty, enters the room, cradling a newborn. She’s pretty but her eyes are sad. A richy-rich lady, based on her clothes and expensive haircut.

  She stops singing when she sees Lysol standing in the middle of the nursery, aiming a gun at Cornrows.

  “Jamal?” She presses the baby to her chest. “What’s going on?”

  “That your name, little man?” Lysol says. “You Jamal?”

  The boy with the cornrows nods. He’s staring at Lysol’s weapon like it’s a snake.

  “Drop your fucking gun, Jamal.” Lysol raises his weapon. “I’d hate to wake all these kiddos.”

  The room is silent.

  Jamal keeps staring, mouth open like he’s trying to figure out how it all went to shit so fast.

  Lysol looks at Machete Boy. “You. Put the blade down and come over here.”

  The woman says, “Do what he tells you, both of you.”

  Machete Boy drops the knife and scampers over to the woman.

  Jamal keeps the gun aimed at Lysol, fingers on the grip, arm shaking even more than before.

  “Listen to the debutante, Jamal.” Lysol cocks the SIG’s hammer. “You’re too young to check out like this.”

  Jamal slumps his shoulders, defeated. He drops the gun on the carpeted floor.

  Lysol scoops it up while keeping the SIG raised.

  Then he turns his attention to the woman.

  “Jamal and me, we were having a little visit about arranging transport to a place of mine a few blocks away.”

  The woman nods. “May I put the child down?”

  “Where?” Lysol says.

  She points to an empty crib. Lysol slides across the room and checks the bedding. No weapons.

  “Go ahead.”

  She deposits the baby, arranges the covers, and then stands by Jamal and Machete Boy. In her hand is an electronic cigarette. She sticks the device in her mouth and exhales a plume of smoke that has no smell.

  “You know who I am?” Lysol says.

  She takes another puff. “Besides a man with a gun?”

  Lysol stares at her, his mind awhirl, trying to figure out what in the hell is going on.

  Jamal and Machete Boy nestle closer to the woman, looking like the children that they are, not the gangstas they want to be.

  “I’ve seen you around, haven’t I?” Lysol says.

  The woman doesn’t respond.

  “Over at the Iris Apartments.” Lysol nods. “You’re one of them do-gooders from North Dallas. Come around thinking you’re gonna make shit better.”

  “If that’s how you see it.” She crosses her arms. “At least I don’t sell poison to my own people.”

  “What is it you’re pushing then?” Lysol doesn’t take offense. “Something that makes you feel better on the inside?”

  The woman remains silent.

  “I got some righteous ganja that’ll do the same thing.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.” Her lips are pressed together.

  “So what do you got going on here?” Lysol points to the stacks of foil. “Your North Dallas check writers know you’re selling product down here?”

  The woman puffs some more on the fake cigarette, a nervous expression on her face.

  Lysol smiles and a moment of satisfaction envelops him, the feeling that always comes when he spots a business opportunity.

  Dallas, Texas

  1998

  Raindrops pinged the hood of the squad car as Raul Delgado parked in Junie’s driveway.

  The storm was about to begin.

  Bobby had asked Raul to help his daughter, and Raul couldn’t say no.

  Lightning jagged across the black sky. Thunder rumbled.

  Junie’s house was in northwest Dallas, near Inwood Road and Royal Lane, a well-to-do neighborhood a few blocks from a private girls’ school.

  Huge, sweeping live oaks in the front yard, flower beds bursting with color.

  The home was one story, long and low, spread out over the half-acre lot like someone squashed a two-story structure to make it fit under the trees.

  Raul called his lieutenant, told him he was going to be out of pocket for a while. Then, he requested a favor. He asked the lieutenant to beep him if a call came across from the northwest dispatch, anything with Junie’s address.

  He got out of the car. From the trunk he grabbed a baton.

  Raul was wearing civilian clothes, a gray jacket, navy slacks, heavy rubber-soled boots. He clipped his badge to the breast pocket of the jacket as he strode up the sidewalk to the front door.

  No answer when he knocked.

  He tried the knob.

  The door swung open.

  A large entryway. Marble flooring, black like the clouds outside. The walls were stark white.

  The entryway led to a family room that was decorated like a cross between a south Texas hunting camp and an English bordello.

  Deer heads and leather chairs, a pool table. Walls painted olive drab.

  The room smelled like stale cigars and air freshener, two competing odors, each worse because of the presence of the other.

  Junie was sitting in a folding chair by a set of sliding glass doors, an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips. She was wearing a pink running suit, the jacket open over a white T-shirt.

  The doors overlooked the patio and swimming pool. Drops of rain cratered the surface of the water.

  “Junie?” Raul kept his back to the wall.

  Every access point to the room was visible.

  She looked up. Her eyes were red, hair disheveled.

  “That’s not my name.” She seemed distracted.

  He felt a bolt of fear that something had happened to Junie’s mind, then recalled that she no longer went by her nickname.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice was scratchy like she’d been crying.

  “Where’s your husband?”

  Bobby had said he was locked in a room, coked-up, and wouldn’t come out.

  She lit the cigarette, then opened one of the patio doors.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “You shouldn’t a come, Raul.”

  “Your father’s worried about you.”

  She smirked.

  “Talk to me, Junie.”

  “What do you want to hear?” She blew a plume of smoke outside.

  “Bobby told me about the baby. I’m sorry.”

  No response.

  “You want me to call an ambulance, get you checked out?”

  She cocked her head. “Now, why would I want that?”

  From the hallway leading to the bedrooms came a sound like furniture being moved.

  Outside, a crack of thunder.
<
br />   “Let’s go for a ride then,” Raul said. “Take a little break from here. What do you say?”

  More furniture moving from the bedroom. Groaning.

  “You really want me to tell you something?”

  Raul nodded. “Yeah. Sure I do.”

  “I keep thinking I’m gonna make something out of nothing. But it never works out that way.” She shook her head. “That’s what I got to tell you.”

  Silence for a moment.

  “You don’t have to live like this,” Raul said.

  “What do you know about the way I live?” She wiped her eyes. “What do you even care?”

  Banging on the bedroom wall.

  Raul evaluated his choices.

  High levels of cocaine made the user paranoid. The paranoia manifested itself in a desire to keep the world away. Based on what he’d seen before, Raul figured this was why the furniture was being moved in the bedroom. Her husband was blocking the door.

  This meant Raul and Junie were safe for the moment, because the husband would stay put. So he stepped away from the wall and approached her. He needed to get her in the squad car.

  “How come you never made a play for me?” Junie said.

  Raul stopped, at a loss for what to do or say. Some of the best police training in the world, halted by a simple question.

  “I always thought you were so good-looking.” She flipped her cigarette outside. “Summers, you used to work in the pastures with your shirt off. Damn, you were fine.”

  “Junie. We need to leave.”

  “Didn’t you think I was attractive?”

  Raul tried to squelch the memories of the old days, when the three of them had spent so much time together.

  But the memories came back, unbidden. They always did.

  He remembered how Junie had looked dressed up for church. How beautiful she’d been. The way the dress clung to her body, demure yet suggestive at the same time. He remembered working on the fence line in the summer and Junie bringing him iced tea.

  He shook his head, tried to clear the images from his mind.

  “Maybe you thought I was damaged goods.” Junie lit another cigarette. “After what happened.”

  One thing he never thought—that Junie was damaged in any way. She was about as perfect as a person could get.

  “Let’s don’t talk about that now, okay?” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just get out of here.”