The Informant

by Marc Olden

  Neil’s stomach tightened as he frowned at Katey and Kirk Holmes. “No. She didn’t come past us.”

  Enrique casually brushed cigar ashes from his long-sleeved, open-neck black silk shirt. He was oblivious of what he’d just said; his mind was floating pleasantly in a sweet, distant land. “No sweat, man. Come on inside, have fun. She come back. Lydia don’ got nothin’ to drink, ’cause tonight it is for the children, understand? But you have fun anyway, you relax. In a little while, I do something for them, I do a show for the children, and you see how good I am.” He grinned, giggled, and shrugged his shoulders.

  Neil, hands crushing the red-wrapped package containing a twenty-dollar pair of children’s jeans for Olga, felt hot breath on his ear as Katey whispered to him, “Red’s on her case, ’cause we wouldn’t do that deal.”

  Neil nodded. “I’m hip. Each time he called, she told me no sweat, she could handle the bastard. Know what I think? I think he talked to Lonnie or Julius and they told him ’bout Lydia checking him out. Red’s probably blaming her ’cause he didn’t get a chance to rip us. Got a gut feeling she’s gonna be hurtin’ unless we find her.”

  Neil turned to Enrique Ruiz. “She take a coat with her?” It was the middle of December, and had been snowing all day.

  Enrique inhaled on his long black cigar. “Coat, coat. Don’ remember, don’ remember, but I think … I think, nahhhh, she don’ take no coat. Maybe she and Red talk a deal, but you know, she don’ wan’ talk here, not in front of the children. I don’ re-remember …”

  Neil thought: Right now, you can’t remember how many thumbs you got. He looked into the small, crowded apartment at the squealing, energetic Cuban children, at their parents, who sat or stood around drinking coffee and smiling down at their kids. The Cubans were handsome people, conservatively well-dressed, without the street flash of blacks or other Latins. They were intelligent, proud. Hell, they were snobs who believed that Cubans were the best people in the world, superior to whites, blacks, and especially Puerto Ricans, whom Cubans considered Indians, an insulting word.

  Lydia had some of that snobbery in her, the feeling that no one in the world was as good as a Cuban. Which is why she’d probably underestimated Bad Red. By doing that, she had set herself up to get hurt.

  And who had set her up in the first place by sending her down to Miami to check on Bad Red? The bureau and Neil, Neil and the bureau, one and the same.

  Neil whispered to Kirk Holmes, “Downstairs. Phone in, tell them to start looking for Red and Lydia. Tell them what’s going down, and to grab Red in a hurry. Suspicion, possession, weapons charges, anything. Then come back here and wait! There’s always the chance she might show. If she does, you stay with her until we get back.”

  Kirk, nicknamed Sweet Holmes, nodded, clenched a fist shoulder-high, and turned without saying a word, running to the staircase and down the stairs three at a time. No sense talking about what had to be done. The snitch had to be found fast, before some bad-ass brothers put the hurt on her for messing up their chance to do a rip on whitey.

  Neil, his heart beating faster, turned his back to Enrique, his voice almost inaudible as he spoke to Katey. “Roof. Enrique’s wrecked, but he says he doesn’t remember a coat, and we walked up four flights and didn’t see anybody.”

  Katey understood, unbuttoning his overcoat but keeping his suit jacket buttoned and covering the .38 he wore in a belt holster. Something to get excited about, something going down, something to do, and Katey was always ready for that.

  They raced upstairs, with Neil leading the way and worried sick that he wouldn’t reach Lydia in time.

  In darkness and falling snow, the three of them stood on the deserted snow-covered rooftop and watched the mongrel dog, its hind leg twisted and crippled, limp in circles and whimper at the door, sniffing at its base, pleading, though Bad Red, Sonny Sally, and Lydia couldn’t know this. The dog, most of its ribs showing, part of its tail chewed off in a fight, a hind leg broken by a garbage-can top in the hands of a crazed old woman, belonged to a twelve-year-old boy living in the building.

  A week ago the boy had found the dog in the street and taken it home, but his parents hated the ugly, crippled animal and had ordered the boy to leave it out on the street where he’d found it. Instead, the boy had kept the dog up on the roof, sneaking up there to feed it and give it water, fixing a cardboard box of rags and newspapers for the dog to sleep in. Tonight the dog, trapped in cold and snow, wanted the boy to come to it, to take it to a warm place.

  Bad Red snorted. “Dog’s hurtin’.” He turned to look at a shivering Lydia. “Ain’t gon’ be the onliest one. You cost me some bread, mama. Wan’ talk ‘bout that?”

  Lydia, in her low-cut blue dress and high-heeled black suede boots, clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering, and hugged herself tightly, feeling snowflakes land gently on her face, chest, and the tops of her breasts. She was angry that Bad Red and Sonny Sally had taken her away from Olga’s party, her daughter’s birthday party. Who the hell were these two spades to come into her life on a special night like this? Being angry was a help to her, because she could feel the fear starting to edge into her mind, and getting angry helped keep the fear from taking over. Somewhere inside of her, she knew Bad Red wanted to hurt her, but she refused to face the harsh truth just yet. Get angry.

  “I … I, th-th-thought you wanted to talk business. If we’re not talkin’ a deal, I want to get back downstairs. T-to-day is my daughter’s birthday.” She started to walk past Bad Red, her eyes on the door and the whimpering mongrel, her toes starting to go numb, and she wondered if the snow would stain her new black suede boots.

  Bad Red slapped her hard, his entire arm and body behind the blow. Pain exploded on the left side of her face, and a red rocket split her brain into fragments, and she went back on her heels, then sat down in the snow. Fear owned her now, ruled her. She pushed the palms of both hands down into five inches of snow and tried to get up. But her right hand slipped, and she went down again, sitting up slowly, the right side of her head and body covered by snow.

  Bad Red snorted, gloved hands folded in front of his crotch. “She-it, bitch, you look like old folks, sitting there all covered up wif snow.” He took a step toward her. “You and me’s gonna git down. Now, we had us a deal, you, me, and that white boy, that Eye-talian. Then you go talkin’ wif people, and next thing I know, ain’t got no mo’ deal. You cost me some heavy cakes, mama, and I wanna know why you go ’round askin’ ’bout me like that. Go all the way down to Miami jes’ to talk on me. Why you go puttin’ my bizness in the street, huh?”

  He kicked her in the left side, and Lydia screamed. Now she was facedown in the snow, its cool softness all around her. More pain. Bad Red grabbed her hair, yanking her head back.

  “P-please, please don’t …”

  Red twisted the hair. “Lookee. Gon’ show you somethin’.” He pointed to Sonny Sally, a tall, light-skinned young black with a pointed chin, Fu Manchu mustache and goatee, a wide tan newsboy cap pulled low over the left side of his long face and a long green U. S. Army overcoat with sergeant stripes on the sleeve. Red sneered. “Go do it, bro’.”

  Sonny Sally pulled his black leather gloves on tighter and walked toward the whimpering, crippled mongrel, thinking that he sure would like to get off this roof before ice clung to his balls. Red had promised to use him on the rip with Lydia’s white dude, but that hadn’t gone down, which had cost Sonny Sally, a junkie, some money. Tonight he was getting a C—one hundred dollars—from Red for backing him up while Red did a number on Lydia Constanza. Thing is, thought Sonny Sally, his thin shoulders hunched up around his ears, to do what we have to go and haul ass out of here before somebody comes looking for her.

  He squatted and gently picked up the dog, who looked at him with pathetic gratitude, wagging his stump of a tail and trying to lick Sonny Sally’s face. Sonny leaned back out of reach. “Heyyy, my man. Cool it. I ain’t yo’ mama. Don’t be lickin’ me in this kinda weat
her.” Calmly and without a word, Sonny Sally walked to the edge of the roof, his booted feet kicking long gouges into the fresh, untouched snow. At the edge, he turned to look at Bad Red and Lydia, who was on her hands and knees struggling to get to her feet; then Sonny Sally turned front again and threw the dog off the roof. There was a brief, tiny yelp, then silence.

  Bad Red leaned forward, his face just inches from Lydia, who was now on her knees, her face covered with both hands. Red said, “Eight flo’s down, and I bet you that dog didn’t even bounce. Now, say, me and my man here, we drop you down there wif that dere dog, I mean, who’s gonna know, right? My man here, him and some of his junkie friends, they always be hangin’ out on rooftops shootin’ up, gettin’ well, and they like to throw dogs and cats off, and they be laughin’ ’bout it. Somethin’ like that happen to you, and people be sayin’ you got high and jes’ slipped. Sonny Sally, he got his works wif him, so we can give you a shot fo’ you go flyin’, and then nobody gon’ waste time wonderin’ why some dumb bitch like you get high, then fall off—”

  “Freeze, cocksucker! Hands away from your body! Want them arms stretched sideways, right out where I can see ’em. You fuckin’ breathe wrong, and I’ll clean your clock for you, for real!”

  Neil, shaking with cold and excitement, stood in the open doorway leading to the roof, seeing Lydia on her knees in the snow, and the rage that erupted inside of him made him careless. Too quickly, too carelessly, he stepped out onto the snow-covered roof, failing to notice that Sonny Sally, who seconds ago had moved to the left of the door to keep the cold wind from himself as best he could, was now behind him.

  Lydia, hands to ears to shut out the gunfire she was sure would soon follow, shrieked, “Neil, behind you!”

  Neil spun around too fast, and his shoes couldn’t get a grip in the snow, and he slipped, going down fast, jerking the trigger on his .38, the gun going off at the beige-colored sky as his legs whipped into Sonny Sally, knocking the black sideways and down on top of Neil. His one and only bullet gone. Behind Neil, a more cautious and less involved Katey stepped onto the roof, looking quickly behind him and around, then extended his right arm as far as it could go, his .38 Police Special aimed at Bad Red’s head. Red froze in the act of unbuttoning his red leather coat to get at his piece, a .32 tucked in the front of his waistband.

  Katey, breathing faster and feeling the growing excitement in every inch of his brain and body, sneered, knowing that right at this moment he owned Bad Red. “You’re thinkin’ about it, ain’t you, Red? But it ain’t gonna go no further, is it?” A statement of fact, not a question.

  Red moved both arms away from his body, away from the gun that was still under a half-buttoned overcoat and two red sweaters. His voice was extremely controlled, filled with caution as well as with a new and full awareness of his position. “Be cool, my man. Be real cool. I ain’t doin’ nothin’ but standin’ here. You can see me doin’ that, right?”

  Katey was behind Red, police special pressed hard against the side of the stocky black’s neck. “Yeah, Red, I can see you ain’t doin’ nothin’ but standing here. Keep on keeping on, brother man, and we are gonna get along fine, just fine. Now what I want you to do is get down on your knees, hands on top of your head.”

  Suspicion wormed its way into Red’s mind. “Y’all the heat, right?”

  Katey’s grin was full of pleasant mischief. “Tsk, tsk, Red. Since when does the heat do to you what I’m going to do to you?” Katey hadn’t forgotten that business with Charisse in that discotheque, the night when Bad Red had made him look like a fool. Oh, no, Edward Merle Kates, old Wile E. Coyote himself, hadn’t forgotten.

  Pulling Red’s .32 from inside his coat, Katey stepped back, as Red, now kneeling, turned to look at him. Red’s eyes were almost all whites now. Fear, thought Katey, feeling glad about that. Time for my man Red to start wetting his expensive red leather pants.

  Katey looked over at Neil and Sonny Sally, both of whom were rolling over and over in the snow. Katey had to smile, had to. Neil, with too much on his mind, had been uncool, coming through that door like a candy-ass rookie; Neil had been lucky not to get his balls shot off. Well, let’s see how he does for himself.

  Sonny Sally held Neil’s wrist. Sonny Sally wanted Neil’s piece.

  On his back, snow in his eyes, Neil fought back, grunting, drooling, pushing, trying to bring his knees up. Sonny Sally’s flat tan newsboy cap had come off and was now in Neil’s face, almost causing him to panic, but he willed himself not to. Sonny Sally was thin, but agile, always in motion, breathing hard, his face only inches away from Neil’s, who wanted to scream: Take the fucking gun. Go on, take it. But neither man was calm or level-headed now, and then, Sonny Sally, with panic giving him new strength, tore the piece from Neil’s right hand and with a triumphant grunt pressed the gun against Neil’s chest. In the darkness, with Sonny on top of Neil, Katey couldn’t see all that was going on, but he frowned, watching the action, wondering if he’d have to blow away that spook in the green army coat if Neil couldn’t cut it.

  The fight was all huffing and puffing anyway, with both men rolling around in the snow like two kids in the park. All of the action had taken place in seconds.

  Sonny Sally pressed the gun against Neil’s chest and pulled the trigger twice.

  Nothing.

  The gun clicked twice, and Sonny Sally, confused, angry, still in a kill-crazy frame of mind because he didn’t know who these paddy dudes were, or why this goddamn piece hadn’t fired when he pulled the trigger, pulled the trigger again, pressing his body down hard on top of Neil’s. When the gun didn’t fire the third time, Sonny Sally relaxed for two seconds, and Neil felt the pressure on top of him ease a bit, just a bit.

  That’s when Neil, with no finesse whatsoever, but with all the strength left in him, kicked and shoved, and Sonny Sally rolled off him, still dazed by the failure of Neil’s piece to fire three times. Three. Well, all Sonny Sally could do after that was go to his own, Jack. Whip out that target pistol inside his army coat. Not much of a piece, but something, man. It was something, about the best a junkie could afford.

  Neil scrambled to his feet, then kicked Sonny Sally in the face, sending him flying backward in the snow. Moving closer, a charged-up Neil, the adrenaline flowing too strong to stop, kicked Sonny Sally in the face again, then in the shoulder, and when Sonny Sally rolled over, his back to Neil, he kicked him twice more, this time in the kidneys. Staggering backward, Neil stood wobbly-legged and breathing heavily, painfully, feeling a fiery knife dig deeper into his chest with every breath. He was in rotten shape, but Jesus, how often did you have to kick ass out on the street these days? You used your piece more than your fists.

  There was blood on the snow near Sonny Sally’s head, dark stains sprinkled on clean, soft white. Sonny Sally moaned, coughed, and tried to sit up, making no resistance when Neil patted him down and found the long-barreled target pistol in his belt.

  Katey snorted, shaking his head, impressed at the way Neil had gotten the job done. He wondered if that’s what they taught the feds, all that field-goal kicking and decided no, doing a number with your feet is something that just comes naturally. He watched Neil bend over in the snow and pick up his .38.

  Katey frowned. The piece was next to the spade, as though he’d been holding it. If so, why hadn’t he used it? Neil was wiping snow from it as though it was his. But it had been near the spade, who should have used it to blow up Neil.

  Katey said, “How come that thing didn’t go off?”

  Neil ignored him, taking two uncertain steps toward Lydia, who ran to him, her face wet with tears and melted snow, her waist-length black hair white with snowflakes. Still breathing loudly with exhaustion, Neil slowly took off his pea jacket and put it around a shivering Lydia, his arm lingering on her shoulder. When he looked over at Katey and saw him staring at him, he let his arm drop from her.

  Neil said to Lydia, “You all right?” She was shaking, her lips pressed tightly
together. Neil pulled the coat tighter around her.

  She whimpered once, a sound reminding Neil of a puppy; then she said, “Y-yes. I’m f-f-fine. Okay. Okay.” Her eyes were wide, and they stayed on him even when he turned from her and walked toward Bad Red and Katey.

  Neil, feeling the cold now, was calming down, his breathing coming under control. “Cool. It’s cool, it’s cool, it’s cool.”

  Katey, who knew that Neil was still up, said nothing.

  Bad Red, on his knees in the snow, said “Y’all the heat. I can tell.”

  “Tell who?” said Katey quietly, the tone of his voice making Bad Red frown.

  Red said, “Y’all gon’ bust me, is all. Right? But I ain’t done nothin’. Nobody dead, nobody robbed. We jes’ up here talkin’, that’s it. Ax her.”

  Lydia said, “They … they threw a dog off the r-r-roof.”

  “What?” Neil wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

  “Threw a d-dog off the roof.”

  “What the hell for?” asked Katey, shifting his gun to his left hand and looking at the back of Bad Red’s head.

  “For me. To scare me.”

  Katey nodded. It made sense now.

  Ol’ Bad Red. Kneeling there in the snow and figuring on a bust, and eventually walking, because he was right, there wasn’t any charge. More important—and Bad Red didn’t know this—there couldn’t be any bust. Not if Neil and Katey wanted to keep working on Mas Betencourt; not if Lydia wanted to keep from being made as a snitch. Ol’ Bad Red was going to walk off this roof, and that would be that. Except that Katey had his own thoughts on the matter.

  Neil, in a black turtleneck and black pants, needed to get warm in a hurry, and he looked at Katey, his face saying: What the hell do we do about this situation?

  Katey knew what to do.

  He shoved Bad Red forward, facedown into the snow, a knee pressing hard between the black’s shoulderblades, a hand keeping the face from moving. Time to even up for making Katey look like an asshole in that discotheque. Charisse, my ass.