Shadow Boys

by Harry Hunsicker

  “That’s what Daddy believed,” she said. “After that day, he never looked at me the same.”

  “The past should stay in the past. We don’t need to be talking about Wayne right now.”

  From the other side of the room, by the hallway, came a thumping sound.

  Junie and Raul looked up at the same time.

  A man in his thirties, wearing a sleeveless Dallas Cowboys T-shirt and plaid boxer shorts, stood where the hallway met the family room.

  Junie’s husband.

  The flip side of cocaine abuse. The user became irrational, did the unexpected.

  The man’s face was as pale as buttermilk, except for the dark circles under his eyes.

  “Who the hell is Wayne?” The husband’s voice was ragged, like he’d been screaming.

  Raul took stock of the situation.

  The subject appeared to be unarmed but was under the influence of a narcotic. He needed to be subdued as quickly as possible so that he wouldn’t be a danger to himself or anyone else.

  “I know who you are.” The husband walked toward Raul. “You’re that Mex they’re always talking about.”

  Raul raised the baton. “Sir. I need you to stop and place your hands on your head.”

  “What are you gonna do if I don’t, taco man?”

  Junie started to cry.

  Raul kept his voice soft. “I’ll have to take you down. And it’s not gonna be much fun, on your end at least.”

  The husband rubbed his nose. “When did they start letting wetbacks be cops anyway?”

  Raul didn’t respond. He’d heard much worse on the street. And in the locker room at the substation.

  “I called some real police,” the husband said. “My cousin, he’s a sergeant at the northwest substation.”

  “Last time,” Raul said. “Put your hands on your head and turn around.”

  The husband smiled. He raised his arms, a gesture of surrender, then launched himself toward Raul like there was a rocket in his ass.

  Raul had time to rear back the baton.

  The husband was in midair, fingers aimed for Raul’s eyes.

  Backpedaling, Raul swung for the man’s head with the baton. The wood connected with the husband’s forearm, a meaty thunk followed by a cracking sound. Then the two men were as one, rolling around the floor, limbs entangled.

  The husband had the advantage of the drugs in his system. He didn’t feel or care about the broken arm.

  Raul, however, was trained for such circumstances. He kneed the man in the crotch and then slid away, slamming the baton into the attacker’s unprotected kidneys.

  The husband yelped several times, the injuries burning through the drugs.

  Raul grabbed his bracelets, yanked the damaged arm behind the man’s back, and cuffed him.

  The husband screamed.

  Raul stood, pulled a radio from his belt, called the local substation. He gave the address and his badge number, and told the dispatcher that he needed a domestic abuse team and a supervisor.

  Junie was outside on the patio, peering in, breathing heavily.

  A wall of glass that might as well be an ocean separated them.

  She spoke through the glass, her words muffled.

  “Is he okay?”

  Raul didn’t reply.

  A flash of lightning filled the sky. Thunder bellowed.

  “Why’d you hit him so hard?”

  Raul went outside, trying not to let the anger take hold. “You want me to uncuff him?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I bet he’s in good enough shape to punch you a couple of times.”

  She started to cry again.

  “Is that what you want? Spend your life getting slapped around by a cokehead?”

  She shoved Raul away, tears streaming down her face.

  “You don’t understand.” She put her palm against his chest. “You just don’t understand.”

  “Try me, Junie.” He grasped her wrist gently. Pulled her close. “I bet I understand more than you think.”

  She wept against his chest. After a moment, she looked up and said, “Don’t you get it? He’s all I’ve got.”

  Raul knew at that point that despite their shared history, he understood nothing. About her or himself.

  From the front of the house a group of uniformed police officers entered the family room. They were all young and white. The leader, a man with biceps that strained the material of his shirt and sergeant stripes on his shoulders, stepped onto the patio.

  He took in the scene—Raul holding Junie. A bound man on the floor. He said, “How come my cousin’s in handcuffs?”

  Raul was weary. His limbs felt heavy. He disengaged from Junie. “Because I didn’t feel like shooting him.”

  The sergeant chuckled. “Well, aren’t you a spicy enchilada.”

  Raul didn’t speak.

  “What’s your name?” the sergeant asked.

  Raul told him. “Who are you?”

  “Mason Burnett,” the sergeant said. “And I bet we cross paths again real soon.”

  - CHAPTER FORTY-ONE -

  Parkland Hospital, where they brought Kennedy in 1963, was just a few blocks from Dallas Love Field.

  The Sikorsky carrying Captain Mason Burnett landed on a helipad on the roof of the hospital.

  I waited with Special Agent Drake while the EMTs off-loaded the wounded man.

  When the chopper was empty, I said good-bye to Drake and made my way to the aircraft’s exit.

  “Hey,” Drake called after me. “What about the shipment?”

  I turned. “What about it?”

  “What’s our plan now?”

  “You’re an FBI agent, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “I’m sure you and Homeland Security can figure something out.”

  Honestly, the quality of contractors these days was appalling. Where was the initiative?

  By this time, a team of lawyers from the Dallas office of Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark would have been dispatched to oversee the disposition of the misdelivered shipment. With the Dallas police no doubt aware of the contents of the crate, the shipment was no longer an operational issue but a legal matter. Injunctions would be issued, temporary restraining orders filed. Lawyers in expensive suits firing paper bullets at each other in a crowded courtroom.

  I made my way through the throngs of medical personnel on the roof and found a staircase. Four floors later I was on the street.

  Taxis were everywhere, disgorging a cross section of the typical urban demographic in various states of distress. Construction workers missing fingers, women about to go into labor, a pair of drunk drag queens.

  I hailed a cab that looked reasonably clean and not too infectious, and ten minutes later I was at the Hertz Gold counter at Love Field.

  The law firm’s AmEx card secured me a Chevrolet Suburban, white like a cop’s vehicle. No reason not to blend in.

  Thirty minutes after that, I parked in front of the restored Victorian house off of McKinney.

  The brass plaque that read The Helping Place looked a little tarnished since my last visit. That could have been my imagination, though.

  The front door was locked, lights off. The place appeared empty.

  I strode around the side yard to the rear of the building. No cars were present in either the driveway or the garage.

  Through the wall of glass that formed the rear of the house, I could see Hannah McKee’s desk. Her computer was off.

  I headed to the back door. It was flimsy, glass and wood, a century old if it was a day, secured by an inexpensive dead bolt.

  I reared back one leg and slammed my heel just above the lockset.

  The old wood splintered. The door swung open as an alarm panel beeped a warning tone from somewhere inside.
r />   I entered the office, went to Hannah McKee’s desk, counted to thirty.

  At twenty-five, a siren sounded from the front.

  I watched the desk phone.

  At forty seconds it rang. Showtime.

  I answered gruffly. “Yeah.”

  A woman’s voice. “This is Ace Alarm Company. We’ve received an intruder alert from your location.”

  “I’ll bet you have. This is Dallas po-lice.”

  “Uh . . . I’m going to need the password.”

  I held the phone away from my face and thumped the desk a couple of times while mumbling as if three or four people were in the room. Then I came back on the line.

  “Look, lady. We’ve got a crime scene here. Pretty sure the person who’s got whatever password you’re looking for is bleeding out on the floor right now.”

  Silence. Then: “Oh dear. I’ve never had this happen before. What should I do?”

  “Don’t matter to me.” I tried to give the impression of a weary cop at the end of his shift. “Homicide squad’s on their way.”

  “Okay. That’s, uh, good.” Alarm Lady sounded relieved. “I’ll clear the signal.”

  “That’ll work. ’Preciate it.” I hung up, amazed that the technique had worked.

  A couple of seconds later the alarm stopped, and I turned my attention to Hannah McKee’s work space.

  The surface of the desk contained the usual stuff.

  Office paraphernalia, pens and paper clips, and a coffee cup full of yellow highlighters. A box of vanilla-flavored nicotine cartridges for an electronic cigarette. Stacks of folders about upcoming projects and fund-raisers for the Helping Place, everything labeled and color-coordinated.

  Underneath the perfectly organized folders was an unmarked one, secured by a binder clip.

  I removed the clip, leafed through the papers, most of which were threatening letters from attorneys and past-due notices from various vendors.

  Apparently the Helping Place did not manage its money well. One attorney’s letter threatened criminal charges because “funds have clearly been transferred in a fraudulent manner.”

  I put the letters back in the file, clipped the folder shut, and returned everything to its original position.

  Then I searched drawers.

  Again, the usual stuff.

  In the bottom file compartment, however, underneath a container of facial tissue, I found a stack of books on fertility and conceiving after the age of forty.

  Underneath the books was a plain manila envelope, no markings or labels.

  I opened the flap and slid the contents out onto the desk.

  Two receipts. One from Target, the other for Walmart. Both stores were in the west part of town and listed the same purchases—twenty baby cribs, ten from each store.

  Something made me look up from the desk in time to see a blur of motion in the yard.

  I slid out of the chair, fell to the floor. Reached for the Glock.

  Noise at the back door. Footsteps crunching on wood fragments.

  The desk was between me and the intruder.

  I crawled around the side farthest from the door as the footsteps came toward the desk.

  No chance to escape. The intruder would be where I’d been sitting in a couple seconds.

  I sprang up, pistol aimed in the direction I’d last heard movement.

  Piper stood on the other side of the desk, a gun pointed at my head.

  “Hey, Jon.” She lowered her weapon. “Qué pasa?”

  I let out a breath, eased my gun toward the floor. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Should I ask you the same thing?” She frowned. “I never know how to handle these situations.”

  She was wearing faded jeans and an unzipped hoodie over a Rolling Stones concert T-shirt.

  “You look like shit,” she said.

  “Been a rough day.”

  She looked spectacular—well rested, peaceful, supremely capable. Like I remembered her from when we first met. The underground life agreed with her.

  “I did a little digging,” she said. “Figured out where Tremont worked. And who should I find there but you. What a coinky-dink.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “So?” she said. “What tripped your lights to this place?”

  “You know who Mason Burnett is, right?”

  “A whackjob with a badge.” She nodded. “Burnett’s been itching to give Raul the high, hard one for years.”

  “He knows something about Tremont.” I explained briefly about my morning’s activities. “Said McKee might be able to help.”

  “The thing in North Dallas?” Piper whistled. “That was you?”

  “That was not me. A vendor delivered a shipment for a Border Patrol FOB to the wrong address. The law firm was handling the pickup.”

  “When are you gonna get out of the contractor game, Jon?”

  I shrugged.

  “Nothing but a bunch of politicians and lobbyists in five-thousand-dollar suits,” she said. “Ass-fucking the Constitution.”

  “And what would I do for gainful employment?” I cocked my head. “Be a cop again like you?”

  Silence.

  “How’s that working out, by the way?”

  She didn’t reply because there was no answer.

  We were alike in this manner. We didn’t really fit in anywhere.

  Too rough for the regular world, the nine-to-five demographic. A few scruples too many for the gray market that was the federal contracting arena.

  “So, did you miss me?” Piper asked.

  “It’s been, what, a day?”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  “I was worried about you,” I said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  “I missed you, Jon.” She picked up the receipts from the desk.

  Her next words were soft, hard to understand. “But then I always do.”

  I smiled for an instant but decided not to comment.

  Piper cleared her throat, held up the receipts. “These are all from the same part of town.”

  “West Dallas. Tremont’s hood.”

  “And your old pal, Mr. Alvarez.”

  “Let’s take a drive.” I pointed to the door. “Have a powwow with Lysol.”

  She nodded as a Suburban pulled into the parking lot.

  The SUV squealed to a stop and all four doors opened, disgorging a squad of officers in full combat regalia—black fatigues and flak jackets, helmets, assault rifles.

  From the front came the sound of the door crashing, followed by heavy footsteps on the hardwood floors.

  The officers from the back could see us through the glass wall. They advanced toward the rear door, rifles at the ready.

  Piper held her Glock up, muzzle pointing toward the ceiling, and then made an exaggerated show of placing it on the desk.

  I let mine slip from my fingers to the floor. Then I held my hands up as high as they would go.

  The first person to enter the room came from the front, the butt of an M-4 carbine pressed to his shoulder.

  Deputy Chief Raul Delgado.

  Dallas, Texas

  2010

  Raul Delgado was forty years old, a captain with the criminal intelligence unit of the Dallas police.

  Depending on who you talked to, his rise in the department was described in various ways.

  Meteoric.

  Well deserved.

  The result of political correctness run amuck.

  On this sunny October afternoon, he was at the State Fair of Texas, not far from where he’d gotten into a fistfight with the preppy all those years ago.

  The fair brought tens of thousands of people to one place at one time. Not all of them were law-abiding citizens. Raul’s idea had b
een to place intelligence officers at the event, wearing plain clothes. If needed, they would supplement the unis. Otherwise, their job was to observe and report potential problems.

  The unofficial motto of the intelligence unit: nothing beats eyes and ears on the ground.

  Other officers of his rank spent their time behind a desk.

  Not Raul Delgado.

  He liked the street, or in this case the esplanade, the sights and smells of a living city, the pulse of the inhabitants.

  Officers on patrol nodded hello to him as he passed down the midway.

  They were respectful, and for the first time in a long while Raul Delgado felt a sense of peace and contentment. This was not a bad life he’d made for himself. What would Carlos think if he could see him now?

  How far he had come from the scared little boy with blood on his shirt and urine-soaked pants.

  A decorated veteran of the Dallas Police Department. A civic leader whose public speaking skills had been compared to those of a young Barack Obama. He was a natural born orator, the larger the crowd the better. He had addressed congressional subcommittees, the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and too many local groups to remember.

  Something about an audience brought out the best in him, the ability to breathe passion into his subject, his words and delivery nuanced, his demeanor humble yet forceful. He was good-looking, too, which didn’t hurt. Fit, with a full head of wavy hair.

  The politicos he continued to meet with no longer talked about his chances running for the city council or the mayor’s job. Now they spoke about higher office.

  In the shadow of the Ferris wheel that dominated the midway, Raul bought a corny dog as a horde of schoolchildren rushed by him, eager to get to the rides.

  The children were a cross section of the area. Black and brown. White. More than a few Asians and subcontinent Indians.

  The demographics in Texas were changing, the politicos said. The time was coming when a Mexican American would occupy the governor’s mansion in Austin. As an aside, they mentioned his personal narrative, the great tragedy that he overcame, how that could be a plus in his run for office. Raul took more meetings, listening to their ideas. He was intrigued, of course. Their words were seductive; they were designed to be.