The Good Boy

by Schwegel, Theresa

  The attorney says, “I need five minutes.”

  Miss Garza reappears and says something so far under her breath that the microphone picks up only a clip: “like I need a pain in my—”

  “What did you say?”

  She puts the mic back. “I said ask. I will ask her as soon as she returns to her chambers, Mr. Borstein.”

  He straightens the knot of his tie. “Thank you.”

  She leans into the mic. “Anything for you, counselor.” The way she smiles after that makes Mr. Borstein mutter and shake his head.

  Miss Garza comes down from the stand to walk the gallery perimeter, checking under and along each row of benches. Joel gets nervous and opens his book, pretending to read while he mentally rehearses asking for his own five minutes.

  When Miss Garza gets around to him, she smiles when she asks, “You okay here?”

  And Joel says, “Yes,” even though it isn’t what he meant to say at all.

  Then she passes by Mr. Borstein and says, “I’ll see about that five minutes,” and disappears through the chamber door.

  Mr. Borstein thumbs through a folder full of papers and then goes back through them again, like he missed the most important page. Based on the way his hair sticks up funny, Joel is sure he also missed a look in the mirror this morning. For being early, it sure seems like he’s running late.

  Joel imagines he’s stressed; defending a suspect must be a difficult job. He’s got to cross fact over circumstance, match what happened with what was witnessed, loop what was said over what was heard—and then pull it all together and hope the whole story hangs straight. And what if the suspect is guilty? Then Mr. Borstein has to do all of that and lie, too. As he throws the end of his tie over his shoulder, Joel wonders if he’s cinched his client’s story into a tight-knotted lie, and if he’ll be able to keep it from coming undone.

  Eight endless minutes later, the judge’s door opens again. Joel sits up straight and presses his hair down some more and hopes Judge Crawford will recognize him.

  Except it’s only Miss Garza. “Okay, counselor. You got your five minutes.”

  Mr. Borstein packs his briefcase and Miss Garza waits, her foot kicked up like a doorstop as she twists her long curls into a claw clip.

  Joel starts to get up and then sits back down again. What should he do? He thought the judge would come. He can’t let Miss Garza disappear again without saying something. He can’t wait here forever. Miss Garza—that’s a good way to start.

  He gets up. He sits back down. What if Miss Garza doesn’t like being called Miss Garza? She doesn’t seem to like Mr. Borstein. But Joel’s got to say something. Anything. He’s got to get word to the judge.

  The third time Joel gets up, he blurts out: “MVM4944” which is anything, all right.

  “Excuse me?” Miss Garza puts up a hand for Mr. Borstein to hang on a second.

  Joel comes out from the bench and stops just shy of the bar, the line between the public and the court proper. “That’s, ah, that’s a license plate. But what I mean to say is, I need five minutes also. It’s, she, well, I, you see—I was involved in a crime. And Judge Crawford said if I ever needed a fair trial, she would grant it to me.”

  Miss Garza glances at Mr. Borstein, whose lips are squished together like he’s silently pleading his case to ignore Joel and get on with it.

  “If I can’t come with you,” Joel says, “will you please tell her I’m here? My name is Joel Murphy. This is very important. My best friend is in trouble.”

  “Who’s your best friend?”

  “He’s, he’s my dog. He was stolen and the man’s name is Agapito and his license plate is MVM4944, like I said—”

  “I see,” she says, nodding her head, a polite yes like she’s humoring him, while Mr. Borstein’s head goes from no to oh, oh yes.

  “You’re that kid,” Borstein says.

  “Which kid?” Miss Garza wants to know.

  “I’m Joel Murphy. I said.”

  “He ran away—”

  “Where are you from, Joel?” Miss Garza asks.

  “I live at 1967 West Balmoral. But it’s temporary.”

  Mr. Borstein says, “That’s all the way up in Andersonville—”

  “Bowmanville, actually.”

  “Is that in Chicago?” Miss Garza has no idea.

  “It’s a long way from here.” Mr. Borstein loosens his tie and attempts a smile.

  Miss Garza approaches the other side of the bar. “Are your parents looking for you?”

  “Everybody’s looking for him, it’s all over this morning’s news—”

  “Judge Crawford knows my dad.”

  “You have to know that story, that’s been news for—”

  “Objection, counselor,” Miss Garza interrupts. “Irrelevant.” She turns to Joel. “You walked here all the way from Bowmanville by yourself to see Judge Crawford because your dog is in trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Joel Murphy.” She extends her hand, welcoming him around the bar. “I think you need that five minutes more than the counselor does.”

  “Wait just a minute—” Mr. Borstein says.

  “You wait,” she says, “five more of them.” She takes Joel in through the judge’s door.

  * * *

  Joel thought the door would lead directly into the judge’s chambers, but they walk a long hall flanked by closed doors before Miss Garza pauses in front of a bank of elevators, pushes the Down button.

  When the car arrives, Miss Garza takes a wide stance in front of Joel while another bailiff escorts a chain of three inmates onto the floor. Then they take the car down just one floor, to six, and continue down another long hallway with another bunch of closed doors until she chooses one, knocks lightly, and pushes it open.

  Inside, Judge Crawford is on the phone, her back turned and one finger raised, a signal to shush. Miss Garza directs Joel to a chair in front of the judge’s desk and takes position behind him.

  The judge looks out the picture window north—over the same streets Joel and Butchie traveled to get here. Though he can’t see her face and her hair is cut short, Joel recognizes her immediately, just by the way she is: just like he remembers, her body language speaking far more than she does.

  As she listens to the caller, she tilts her head, the nape of her neck showing beneath her collar. She is so pretty—even the back of her.

  “I’ll see to that,” she says, and as she turns and puts down the phone she is not smiling when she expects—“Mr. Bor—” but she stops there, seeing Joel.

  “What is this?”

  “This is Joel Murphy,” Miss Garza says.

  The judge’s face is a mixture of warmth and worry as she comes around her desk and kneels in front of Joel and says, “Oh my god, Joel? What in the world are you doing here?”

  And Joel sits up in the chair and begins, “What happened was, Butchie and I … we came to find you. We had to.…”

  31

  Sarah spends the morning cleaning Joel’s room—keeping herself busy—so Pete gets online to take out a loan against his life insurance policy. He lies to Sarah about it; he tells her he’s hacking into McKenna’s social media to see if he can pull names—something Detective Colton has probably already done, and something Pete will certainly tell McHugh to do, for evidence against Carter—but both tasks are necessary, so the sentiment is the same.

  He spends a good chunk of an hour setting up an automatic transfer from his insurance company to his savings account, and the other chunk figuring out how to get the money from that bank to the joint account he shares with Sarah. It shouldn’t be so complicated, but he doesn’t want her to know about the loan. He just wants there to be some financial security in place if she needs it—if he goes to jail. Because he should.

  He doesn’t think much about the money until he scrolls through to clear the browser history and comes across Disneyland’s Web address. He clicks. On the main page, a young girl smiles at him over her dad’s sh
oulder as he carries her into the park. Into the happiest place Pete won’t be taking his kids anytime soon, as he’d have to find his son before he could take him anywhere, and he just funneled money he never thought he’d spend into an account for their fucking lunch money.

  And all this time he’s been waiting for a call, too—not from Bo Colton, but about Elgin Poole.

  When the transfers are in place, Pete decides to get some air.

  On his way out, he finds the girls in the living room, purpose fueling both hope and frustration as Sarah tinkers with the wording on a Missing flyer McKenna designed on her laptop.

  Pete thinks about asking if they want anything, mochachinos or bagels or whatever, but he doesn’t want to interrupt. And really, he doesn’t want to say goodbye.

  Outside, it’s a beautiful day, so fuck it, he drives the squad over to the Super Spray. He’ll give it a power wash—not because he’s planning any kind of cover-up, but simply because he still feels pride for the job.

  He has six minutes’ worth of quarters left on the timer for the foam brush and a spot-free rinse when his phone rings. He has no idea who to expect; he figured Elgin’s story made its way up Indiana’s East Chicago PD ranks and forked into lightning that just struck this city, its department, and the newsrooms all at once, so it could be anybody.

  Another guy is vacuuming floor mats on the pavement behind him so Pete steps out of the wash bay and stands and looks at the lot’s fake palm trees while he answers the call. And then Kitty tells him the news, which seems just about as surreal.

  “It’s Joel…”

  The timer is still running and he hasn’t washed the soap off the squad’s back end when he drives out of the carwash. He cuts over to Western Avenue and drives south, blows a bunch of lights and makes it to 26th and California in a half hour. He thinks about calling Sarah during the drive. He probably should. He doesn’t. He turns off his phone.

  He parks in the tow zone in front of the courthouse entrance, locks his gun in the glove box and climbs the steps, breath catching, heart racing, just like it did when he went to see his boy for the first time—and this time, too, he worries whether he’ll have all his fingers and toes.

  His badge gets him through the priority security line, no problem, and when he rounds the corner and finds Kitty waiting by the drinking fountain he realizes she’s part of the reason he’s anxious, too. He hasn’t seen her in months—not since he met her out late one night, her neighborhood, and at a back table at a quiet place called the Charleston she told him that she had been thinking, lately, that she wished the rumors were true. When she was through with her whiskey, served neat, he walked her home. Said goodbye.

  Now she looks different, but the same, but better. Her smile is courteous at best, but it is still disarming.

  “Kitty, you look—” Pete says, and puts his hand out, both awkward beginnings.

  “I look fine,” she says, taking his hand and pulling him to her, the half hug perfunctory. “You look like shit. But I guess you’ve got an excuse.” She turns and he follows her to the snack bar where she gets at the end of a decent line.

  “What are you—” Pete starts; he doesn’t get the detour. “Where is Joel?”

  “He’s in my chambers. I thought I should tell you what’s going on before we go up.”

  “You didn’t want to tell me before, on the phone—”

  “No I didn’t. Now I do.”

  “And you also need a snack? Right now?”

  “Don’t judge,” she says. The slick-suited guy waiting in front of them hears her and chuckles; he must know her. Everyone does.

  She looks at Pete and asks, “What did you tell Joel about Elgin Poole?”

  “What did I—Elgin Poole?” Pete has been waiting to hear the name all morning, but not from Kitty. “I didn’t. What would I tell him?”

  “Do you remember when Poole showed up at your house?”

  “Yes of course. But that was a long time ago—”

  “I know: it feels like ancient history. But kids, their memories? Things like that—big, bad things—they stick. And I’ll tell you, for Joel, Elgin Poole stuck.”

  Pete follows Kitty as the line moves up and she peeks over the suit’s shoulder to get a look at the selection. Pete can’t believe it: Joel and him, the same bad guy.

  “Joel ran away because of Elgin?”

  “Joel didn’t run away. He ran here. Seriously, what he lacks in logic, he makes up for in memory. Can you believe, he remembers that dinner we had at your house last fall? Apparently I said I’d get him a fair trial—as if I thought he’d ever need one. He came to me to plead his case. He wants me to clear Butch—”

  “Where is Butch?”

  “Let me get to that.” The line moves up again, and Kitty gets a couple of bucks out while the man in front of them rolls open the cooler door for an energy drink. Kitty turns the bills around and straightens them out, Washingtons up. “I have to tell you, your son has an incredible memory. But he also has one hell of an imagination. He thinks Poole is the leader of an army he calls the Redbones, and that the Redbones are after you—all of you.”

  “That’s from LaFonda Redding’s car. Mizz Redbone. Elgin was driving it that day last year. Some other Hustlers drive it now. A beater car. Collateral for Elgin’s debt.”

  “I’m not sure Joel understands collateral, but he definitely understands revenge. He read the newspaper this morning.”

  “What, the lawsuit?”

  “For him, Ja’Kobe White’s serves as confirmation.”

  “How does he connect Ja’Kobe to this?”

  “It is a form of attack, no? Joel says Ja’Kobe is a Redbone, too, which is pretty perceptive, now that I know what the hell he’s talking about. Same with McKenna’s friend Zack, which is where this starts.” The line moves once more and Kitty takes a Snickers off the rack. “Joel wanted to warn McKenna about Zack. So he took Butch there—a party?—and at some point, backup backfired.”

  “Butch bit DeWilliam Carter.”

  “You know this?”

  “I was looking for Joel. I found Carter.”

  “Well, Joel heard Carter and his friends talking on the way out. They said some things I’m not sure Joel will ever be able to forget.”

  “Youthnize.”

  “You do know this.”

  “I was looking for my son.”

  “Yeah, well he found me.”

  The man in front of them snaps the cap off his energy drink and Kitty puts the Snickers on the counter. When she reaches out to get her change from the cashier, Pete recognizes the single-pearl necklace that dangles in her open white collar. Kitty told him the pearl was all that was left of a strand some German ancestor tried to sneak over in her coiffed hair. She was found out; there were pearls everywhere. Except the one. The one right there.

  “You want something?” Kitty asks, and Pete knows she caught him looking since she doesn’t wait for an answer, just drops the Snickers in her pocket and heads across the lobby.

  At the elevator bank, Kitty sticks her foot out to stop a closing door. When it reopens, a car full of people stare at them. “We’ll wait for the next one,” she says, pressing the Up button.

  When the door closes again, Kitty says, “So, the part you don’t know is that Joel got Butch down here, all the while thinking he was on the run from Elgin Poole and his Redbones, and then he ran into Agapito Garcia. Completely different army.”

  The last elevator in the bank arrives. When Pete gets onboard, Kitty stops a young woman from joining them and waits for the doors to close and then she says, “Garcia is not someone Joel could have imagined. He’s a high-ranked Satan Disciple who happens to be amistoso with a well-known MLD named Hector Osorio, a guy who did time last year for organized animal abuse. A dogfight up in Humboldt. Since then, he’s secured himself a top spot on Kane County’s shitlist. Runs a tire shop out there, but he’s still a dogger.”

  Pete’s heart sinks when the car starts to rise. “H
ow does Joel know any of that?”

  “He doesn’t. He remembered Garcia’s address and license plate. I put people on him.”

  “Kitty, no—”

  “I know,” she says, “you don’t want me to complicate things. But Butch is Joel’s best friend. This isn’t for you. It’s for him.”

  When the doors open on six, Kitty gets out and starts across the semibusy corridor a step ahead, like she doesn’t want anybody to put them together. Or maybe she no longer wants anything to do with him. He can’t blame her. They hurt each other, didn’t they?

  He follows her to the restricted entrance where a guard waits—and by his smile, he doesn’t mind waiting on Kitty.

  As she clears Pete for access, he notices the faint wrinkles around her own smile, deepened ever so slightly. He’ll bet she still enjoys a cigarette after work. He wishes they could still be friends; wishes it were only the rumors that stopped them.

  “What?” She catches him watching again.

  “Do you want to do me a favor?”

  For a moment, she looks like she’ll say yes. But. “No. What I want is for your son to get his dog back.” Then she turns and Pete lets her lead the way to her chambers.

  Pete feels a rush as they approach her door—Joel, in there—but he has to stop her before they go in. “Wait.” He takes her hand. “You need to know something.”

  Both her hands turn to fists. “No, Pete. I can’t recuse myself from you.”

  “This is—it’s for Joel, too. Listen. What I did, when I thought he was gone? I’m probably going to serve jail time for it. But I can’t change it, and I’m not going to run from it, and I wouldn’t have done a single thing differently and that’s because I only wanted to bring Joel and Butch home. That’s still all I want. I want to get them both home, before I go. I just want to keep my family together. You know that. You’ve always known that.”