The Good Boy

by Schwegel, Theresa

  Pete should answer the call; he can’t hide from Ann Marie much longer. And he can’t answer Rima.

  “… Am I missing something?”

  He dumps the rest of his sandwich, cradles the phone, says, “Ann Marie.”

  “Who’s Ann Marie?” Ri asks.

  “Finally,” Ann Marie says, “the elusive Mr. Murphy.”

  He stops mid-turn onto Lake Street when a kid ignores the DON’T WALK and skips around traffic to the Westhaven Park Apartments. “I thought I was supposed to call you.”

  “Still on defense, I see. Listen. I have some news.” Said like it’s bad.

  “I’m driving. Should I pull over, or find the next set of train tracks and park?”

  “It’s not a sentence. It’s news. Listen. I just came from the mayor’s office. The superintendent was there. I can assure you they are taking Mr. White’s case very seriously. But the upshot is that the city is in a terrible fiscal situation, and they are not willing to risk another big judgment after a costly trial.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They’re going to settle.”

  “They think I’m guilty.”

  “They don’t care. After the Abbate trial, they can’t afford the risk.”

  “What the hell does that case have to do with mine? He was off-duty and overserved and caught on camera beating the shit out of some bartender. I knew I was on camera. I was stopping a car that fit the description of a suspect—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. Or what he did. The point is the precedent. In Abbate’s case the jury cited a police code of silence. The city tried to pay the plaintiff nearly a million dollars to erase that verdict so that the jury’s finding couldn’t be used as a precedent. They certainly can’t try that twice. They won’t go to trial.”

  “There’s no code of silence here. I didn’t ask for anybody to keep quiet and besides, I don’t have any pals in the department. Obviously.”

  “They are worried about your personal history. With White.”

  “I told you I knew he was a shitbag. A gangbanger, a drug dealer, a criminal—but I didn’t know he was in the fucking car.”

  “They are also worried about Mr. Cardinale. He has won his clients tens of thousands of dollars in judgments for cases of wrongful arrest. He is very good at what he does.”

  “Aren’t you very good at what you do?”

  “I am, Mr. Murphy. But this case isn’t going to be about me. It is going to be about how you are perceived. And if we go to trial—”

  “What do you mean if?”

  “Settling is in no way an admission of guilt.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Listen,” Ann Marie says. “I truly wish there were such thing as a jury of your peers. But I’m afraid there’s always going to be at least one in twelve who’s heard enough or had enough with the Chicago PD to find in favor of Mr. White.”

  Pete pulls the squad over in front of the gate at Hermitage Manor Co-op, still under the El tracks and partially protected from the rain. Rima quit the food and balanced the boxes on the center console and she sits quietly, twirling her hat ties like hair, looking out at the rain. It’s coming down hard now.

  Pete looks out his window, wonders if Joel and Butch are out there, caught up in it. Or if they’ve got shelter. If someone has given them shelter.

  “Mr. Murphy,” Ann Marie says, “might we meet, and talk about the best way to proceed?”

  “What’s to talk about? You’re the one who’s supposed to stand up for me and you’re telling me I’m all alone here, and I should throw up my hands and say okay, okay—my fault. You haven’t even talked to me about the actual incident yet and you’re telling me I can’t win because I’m the police—”

  “There’s nothing to win, Mr. Murphy. You will spend time, and money, and no matter how the jury rules, there’s nothing to win. Wouldn’t it be better, just to end it?”

  A train passes above them, spilling rainwater over the track and onto the squad.

  “I can think of a lot of things that would be better than being represented by someone who’s taking a cue from the mayor.”

  “We should—”

  “Sure we should.” Pete hangs up and tosses the phone on the dashboard, where it rattles and slides from his side over to Rima’s when he turns into the Co-op’s parking lot.

  He switches the wipers on high and crawls along the bank of walk-up apartments, looking for Carter’s address. When he finds it, he pulls back under the El tracks and parks facing Carter’s porch, where concrete steps lead up to a rickety screen, a beat-up wood door. The apartment lights are on, blinds pulled over a high and tiny black-framed window, like a prison cell’s.

  The co-op’s buildings are in decent shape—pristine, actually—compared to the Henry Horners, the high-rise public housing that used to stand here. That was six, maybe seven years ago, when gangs were free to roam, when predators and prey lived side by side.

  The city tore down the homes, forcing gangs west and south; they called it gentrification. The police called it throwing open the zoo doors. Lots more places to look for the animals now, they said.

  Pete is about to get out of the squad when Rima says, “It’s all connected.”

  “What’s all connected?”

  “You. The case. Joel and Butch.”

  “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “You know exactly what I’m saying and I don’t even have to say it. It’s why we’re here: Carter is a Hustler. You think the Hustlers are out to get you, and you think one of them took Joel.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Yes you do. Because if you thought Joel ran away—he’d be in so much trouble—you wouldn’t be keeping this quiet. You’d have every cop from here to Rockford looking for him.”

  “Sarah is working with the police.”

  “Oh, yeah, a lot of good that’s going to do. She might as well have them sit on their hands and try to find their fingers.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m out here. Official investigations waste time.”

  “Bullshit. You’re out here because you think this is personal.”

  “Of course it’s personal. He’s my son.”

  “I’m talking about the guys who took him. The Hustlers. They’re making it personal.”

  “I never said anybody took Joel.”

  “You said White is after you.”

  “I said White is suing me. He’s after my money.”

  “What if he’s using Joel? Intimidating you. Threatening you?”

  “He wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  “Elgin Poole was.”

  “Elgin Poole is in jail.”

  “I’m just saying: they don’t think like we do. They have a different set of rules. Actually, you’re the one who said that.”

  “Why are you attacking me?”

  “I just want you to tell me what we’re doing here.”

  “Jesus, Ri. I already told you: Carter was bit by my dog. My dog was with my son. I don’t care if Carter’s a Hustler or a fucking hooty-owl; I’m going to talk to him because he knows something.”

  “It’s some coincidence, Hustlers showing up to the same party your kids did.”

  Pete thinks of Joel, when he asked about coincidence. Is this whole thing coincidence? Or was it a crime? “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t think there’s a connection?”

  “Jenkins—or Carter, maybe—one of them met Zack Fowler in juvy. That’s the connection.”

  “Zack Fowler, friend of your daughter’s, who is covering for someone—maybe Carter—who could know that Zack Fowler knows McKenna, and who could have maybe missed his target.”

  Pete can’t hear it; he can’t let it make sense. He’s following a trail, from A to B to Carter, and this doesn’t track, McKenna’s being involved—not at all. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

  Rima flips back her hat ties. “I’m just trying to keep
up.”

  Lightning forks across the mad sky in front of them, a glimpse of clarity. Pete can’t believe it, his boy and Butch out there somewhere and him, here, this. “You’re crazy.”

  “I can be, if it makes you feel better.”

  “You know what’d make me feel better? If everyone would quit fucking patronizing me.”

  “Saying it out loud makes it possible, though, doesn’t it? Saying that somebody took Joel?” She’s looking at him, her eyes like cameras set to flash, to capture his response. “You think it’s possible. Don’t you?”

  “Of course it’s possible. Anything’s possible! Joel could be dead. Dead. Do you want to know what it feels like to say that out loud? Make that possible? Fuck!” He throws open the squad door, gets out from underneath the El and into the downpour, and lifts his face to meet the rain.

  “Pete!” Rima says, out of the car, too, right behind him.

  He looks down at her: she’s taken off her hat, and the hard rain glances off her bare head.

  She says, “Let’s get back in the car and talk about it. If you’d tell me what you think—”

  “I don’t think anything! Where would that get me?” He wipes his face, tears with the rain. “Did I ever think, in a million years, that everyone would turn their back, that my wife would hate me, that my kid would go missing—all because I did my job? I was assigned the judge’s door. I did my job. Still, I’m getting fucked, not because I ever knew White, but because everybody thinks they know me. I don’t think a fucking thing.”

  “Please, Petey. Can we get back in the car? I can help you. We can figure this out.”

  “You get back in the fucking car. I’m going to talk to Carter. That’s why I’m here. Why the fuck are you here?”

  Rima’s tears run in black streaks. “I don’t know.” She doesn’t follow.

  Pete climbs the steps and raps on the screen’s metal frame. Carter’s got to be in there. He’s probably waiting, a made-up story if he has to tell it.

  He will tell it.

  Pete opens the screen and pounds on the door. “Police,” he announces. “DeWilliam Carter: open the door.”

  Nothing.

  Pete takes the baton from his belt and taps on the high window, resisting the urge to smash it. “DeWilliam Carter,” he says again. “Police.”

  Still nothing. The lights are on. He’s there. He knows about the shooting. He knows about Joel.

  “Police!” Pete yells, beating at the door with his baton, his fists.

  And then: “Pete—” Rima is out of the car again, her hand held up, his phone. “It’s Sarah. Joel’s friend Molly is there, at your house. She talked to Joel this morning. She wants to talk to you.”

  Pete belts the baton and crosses the lot and he hopes this means the end. To this, at least.

  22

  Joel and Butchie wait for the storm to pass in the de-converted house. The rain let up a good hour ago, but it doesn’t seem done, the way the sky stays dark, so they’re sitting tight: Joel reading White Fang by the window’s fading light, and Butchie—still wrapped in his tail in the corner—no longer shaking, but all shook out.

  When Joel can barely make out words on the page, he decides dark is what the sky should be and closes the book. It was getting hard to read anyway, since this new character Beauty Smith is as mean to the wolf-dog as anybody has ever been. Joel leaves off at the part where a bulldog comes to camp. He doesn’t have a very good feeling about it.

  As Joel puts his clothes back on—still damp, but not so bad once they take his body heat—Butchie watches him, nervous.

  “Storm’s over, Black-and-tan,” Joel says and opens up the Jewel bag full of food, to coax him from the corner.

  They share what Joel was able to salvage—all except the cheese, which doesn’t smell right. Joel gives Butchie the soppy bread heels and the potato peels and he eats some of the potatoes, too, even though they taste more like what they grew in than what they grew into. Butchie turns his nose up at the fruit, so Joel eats the smashed bananas and chews the rest of the juice out of the orange rinds.

  After, they sit for a while longer, and Joel wishes they could sit for longer still; though the house has no heat or light, it feels safe. “Safe as a guy on second base,” he tells Butchie: another of Coach Ryan’s sayings that only seems encouraging.

  And so they go.

  Outside, there’s no wind but the air has gone cold; even after putting on both his sweatshirt and his jacket, Joel knows they’re going to have to keep moving to keep warm. “I don’t have luxurious fur like you,” he says to Butchie, who stops as soon as they clear the fence to do business right there on the sidewalk.

  Joel drops the leash to get to a bag but then he says, “Aw, Butch,” because what else do you say when you realize you can’t pick up what’s come out? Without hazmat equipment, anyway.

  Butchie looks up at him, as upset as his stomach must be.

  Joel kneels to pet the poor dog’s head. “I told you not to drink that river water. You think you’ll be okay, boy? Can you keep going?”

  Butchie shakes his tail and tittups off, leash dragging.

  Joel leaves the mess and skips after him.

  Back on Oakley, they duck behind a mailbox while they wait for a break in traffic to cross Chicago Avenue. It’s easier to move at night: for one thing, headlights announce cars long before they arrive, and for another, nighttime drivers seem to follow lights—taillights and traffic lights and sometimes their onboard navigation lights—which darken the periphery.

  A few blocks down, Joel feels like they’ve entered a whole different city, homes giving way to distribution warehouses and industrial lots. Idling semi trucks and far-off trains fill the sound space, waiting to load or unload, to come or go.

  Just past Grand Avenue, Butchie skids to a stop again, his back end dropping. Joel tries to pull him off onto a grass patch but the dog doesn’t budge—he’s got to go here, now. On the sidewalk.

  “Okay, puppy, it’s okay.” Joel lets up on the leash as the dog strains, his expression a mix of embarrassment and misery.

  Joel turns away, to check for cars and also to give Butchie some privacy. And also because he feels kind of sick, too.

  When Butchie’s done he trots off again, this time leaving a long, liquid splat. Joel doesn’t even attempt to pick it up; he feels bad, but he’s pretty sure he’d feel worse if he tried. His own guts churn just thinking about it.

  The wind comes by and cuts through all three of Joel’s layers, sending a shiver straight to his bones. Luckily, there’s a train bridge a half block ahead; they can stop there, find a dry spot, sit down for a minute. A few minutes, maybe.

  Unluckily, someone’s already camped there. Joel hears the man’s wet cough first, and when they reach the underpass, he sees the stacked palettes, the packed-full shopping cart, the stolen city cans. Then he smells urine. Not a place to stop, even if they’re invited.

  They use the street instead of the sidewalk and when they pass Joel doesn’t see the man and the man doesn’t say anything and that’s just as well. Joel holds his breath so he doesn’t have to smell anything that might be worse than urine but still, he feels sick. He isn’t sure why he’s sweating since he feels so cold.

  Past the bridge he stops where a series of exhaust vents blow hot air through a chain-link fence out to the street. It’s an electric company’s distribution building, and it feels like a human-size hand dryer. Butchie tugs, wanting to move on, but this time Joel’s the one who won’t budge. He lets go of the leash and shuts his eyes, lets the warmth run over him. Evens his breath. Feels his stomach roil.

  Butchie yelps, pacing; he looks worried.

  “I’ll be okay,” Joel tells him, though he isn’t sure about that at all. He’s suddenly afraid Butchie’s loose guts didn’t come from the river water.

  The dog’s back-and-forth is no help. It seems like he’s moving fast and then slow, faster and then backward.

  “Sitz,” Joel comm
ands, but Butchie doesn’t listen; he’s on guard, his work-brain pricked by something suspect.

  “What is it, boy?” Joel asks, panic gripping him, too, but standing up to see what it might be sets off a chain reaction that starts in his rotten stomach, doubles him over, and forces him to vomit all over the sidewalk.

  He drops the backpack off one shoulder as he throws up again, acidic chunks of what had been banana and potato coming up with a vengeance.

  He spins and topples, heaving; he can hear Butchie whining, but he can’t focus through tears and his runny nose and the uncontrollable surge of his guts. He goes on like this for what could be a minute, or forever.

  Eventually, he stops, his insides completely undone. He guesses he’s finished because he feels relieved. He’s at once trembling and clear eyed. In the sky, the city lights mute the stars.

  Butchie stalks around him, keeping distance as though he can’t figure out how to separate Joel from his own fight.

  “Oh, puppy,” Joel says. “The bad guy was in the bananas. Come on, now. Come here.” Butchie obeys, though he steers real clear of the bananas.

  “How’d you know that was going to happen, huh?”

  Butchie gets down, tucks his nose under Joel’s arm.

  “I’m sorry, pal. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Joel lies there, the pull to keep moving softer now though the world around them shifts back into real time: an airplane from O’Hare heads up, up and over the lake; nighttime traffic to the Loop stops and goes on the expressways.

  And here they are, and nobody else. It’s amazing: in the middle of everything, this vacant stretch, these blanked-out blocks.

  And then, on the other side of the electric company’s fence, Joel notices a flashing red light mounted on the building’s back side. And next to the peeping light, a bug-eyed mirror: a camera with a thousand eyes on the property.

  A thousand eyes that just watched him throw up.

  He gets onto his feet, collects his backpack, and ropes Butchie, because they’ll only be safe if they keep moving.

  They cross under the El tracks at Lake Street just as a train tears past, and Joel is the one rattled this time. They’re in the middle of the street when his bearings go and so Butchie takes over, pulling him off the street as his head whirls one way, his stomach the other. He’s still sweating and he can feel his heart beating in his head. He can’t keep moving; he needs to be horizontal.