A Visible Darkness (17 page)

32

I
followed her to her house and was sitting on the same steps in her backyard, watching the light from the pool dance in the tree leaves and holding a warm cup of coffee. The night was windless and still.

I closed my eyes for the fourth time in ten minutes and chastised myself for letting my head drift back to Philadelphia. Time after time I had questioned why I’d followed my father’s path into this kind of work, knowing that something would happen to make it all feel like a bad mistake. When Richards came back out onto the patio, I realized my fingers had gone to the scar on my neck, and I dropped my hand.

“Your turn,” she said, sitting down beside me, wrapping a long robe around her knees.

Her feet were bare and the smell of fresh soap and the assumption that she was naked under the robe started my blood moving, and I shifted my weight uncomfortably.

“Stay to your right down the hall, first door,” she said, and her eyes looked dark and oddly expressionless in the aqua light.

I passed her my half-full cup and got up saying, “I hope you left some hot water.”

She had left most of the house dark. A light over the stove in the open kitchen illuminated some hanging pots and reflected off the ceramic-tiled countertop. There was a small light glowing red on the instant coffee maker. I thought of my own crude pot in the shack, and I was jealous.

Down the hall the bathroom light left a patch on the wooden floor. I tried to steal a look into the far bedroom door but it was too dark.

The bathroom was standard except for the modern, glassed-in shower that Richards and her husband must have installed in the old house. She’d left a fresh towel and a dark blue T-shirt, size XL, folded up on a wicker clothes basket. On top of the shirt was a can of shaving gel and a man’s razor. I hurried through the shower and scraped off my stubble while I stood in the spray.

When I came back outside she was still sitting, her chin on her knees, staring into the pool water. But when she heard my steps she got up and met me halfway across the patio and stepped into my arms. Her hair was wet and cold against my cheek and I could feel her shivering against me.

She kept her head down against my chest and I lost track of time and when she finally moved it was not toward the hammock, but instead she laced her fingers into mine and led me back into the house.

Eddie was crouched in the bushes, obscured by the oak tree where the man in the blue pickup had been, watching the Brown Man do his business.

The rhythm was here. The same runners. The same hangers on. The girl with the tears and the ratty-ass mouth was hanging at the end of the block. But this time Eddie was scared. He had seen three police cars on his way here. One, parked in an alley that Eddie often used, had surprised him as he swung the corner. He had jolted to a stop only twenty feet away. But they still had not seen him, or cared if they did, he thought. Still, he had ditched his cart after that, putting it behind a dumpster, and then moved mostly through yards and along fence lines.

Now it was late. The Brown Man would not stay out much longer and Eddie would be stuck without his bundle. The cramps were getting worse. He couldn’t keep his eyes from watering or the inside of his mouth from going dry. He reached deep into his pocket and felt the hundred-dollar bill there and when the traffic stopped, he stepped out to cross the street.

The Brown Man saw him coming, raised his head when Eddie was halfway across the street and started shaking it back and forth. Eddie came on.

The dealer hissed at him when Eddie stepped into his swale. His runners had not recognized the junk man at first without his cart, but when they did, they stayed away, having been told not to mess with him.

“Get the fuck outta here, man.”

The Brown Man spit out the words and the runners turned their heads at the sound of both the agitation and the strange hint of fear in the dealer’s voice.

“You nothin’ but trouble, junk man. Take your raggedy ass someplace else to get your shit.”

Eddie stopped, confused. He cut his eyes to either side, saw no one who looked like they might be the police and then stared back at the Brown Man. The dealer could not hold his eyes.

Eddie reached into his pocket and held out the hundred-dollar bill, but the action just seemed to agitate the Brown Man more.

“Goddammit, nigger. Put that shit away. I ain’t need your money no more. Find some other chump to do your bidness with. I’m serious now,” he said, and the runners watched as the dealer slid off his stool and stood up.

Eddie saw the man’s hand go to his waistband and watched the gun come out. The Brown Man held it close to his stomach so only he could see it. Eddie had seen lots of guns and had never been scared of them. The hundred-dollar bill was still in his outstretched hand. He had come for what he needed. And Eddie always got what he needed.

“A bundle,” he said, stepping forward and looking into the Brown Man’s face.

“You fuckin’ crazy?” the dealer yelled, this time the fear in his voice scaring his own runners. “You some kinda retard?”

The gun was pointed at Eddie this time, but then the big man’s other hand snapped out and swallowed the weapon and pulled the dealer into his chest.

The two men were locked into a tight, hissing dance, and the runners started to jump to the aid of their boss but froze when they heard the gun’s muffled explosion. When a second shot sounded, the dealer squealed and fell away, holding his curled hand to his hip.

Eddie looked down at him and then at the gun in his own hand and then turned and tossed the piece clattering across the concrete.

The runners did not move. Not a single light came on along the street. Eddie looked up into the faces of the Brown Man’s boys until they backed down and then he turned and limped away, a bloodstain growing at his side.

The feel of her leg moving off mine started me awake. She sat up, and the shift of weight on the mattress was something I had not felt in years. When I opened my eyes I could see the outline of her hip and the curve of her shoulder in the light of a still-lit candle.

Then I caught the muffled electronic ring of a phone.

“It’s not mine,” she said, turning from the nightstand.

“Then let it go,” I said, and reached out to touch her back with my fingertips. The ringing stopped.

“See?”

She was quiet, and raised a single finger.

The ringing began again.

“Shit,” I said, getting up and walking naked through another man’s house and finding my phone on the porch, wrapped in a bundle of my dirty clothes.

“What?” I snapped into the mouthpiece.

“Your motherfuckin’ boy busted my damn hand,” came the shouted answer.

“Who the hell is this?”

“I knew they was gonna be trouble. Soon as those dogs from the other side come askin’ bout hundred-dollar bills I knew I shoulda kept my mouth shut.”

“Is this Carlyle?” I asked, putting it together.

“Don’t you call me that,” he snapped. “Your got-damn junk man done come over here lookin’ for trouble and I shot his ass up.”

“He’s there? You killed him?” I said, trying now to keep my voice controlled.

“I didn’t kill the motherfucker. He come round tryin’ to buy more shit and I tried to chase his ass off and the simple motherfucker done grabbed at my piece and it went off into his own damn belly.”

“Is he still there?” I repeated.

“Hell no, he ain’t here. He ran his ass down the road.”

“You hurt?”

“Damn right. Dude’s got hands like a damn vise, man. He crushed every fuckin’ bone in my hand.”

“Alright. Call nine-one-one. Call an ambulance and I’ll be right there.”

“I ain’t callin’ nobody. You get that fool’s ass or I waste him my own self, know what I’m sayin’?”

“Right,” I said and hung up. I was standing on Richards’s back porch, naked in the moonlight with a cell phone and a shiver that had just started down my back.

33

R
ichards called in the shooting to dispatch while we both dressed.

“No report, not even an anonymous call on gunshots fired,” she said, pulling a T-shirt over her head and then grabbing her radio and a holstered 9mm from the nightstand drawer. While she locked the house I went out, started my truck and then opened the passenger door when she came out through the gate.

When we got to the dope hole, two patrol cars were spinning their lights, a shift sergeant was on the scene, and the Brown Man was gone. The sergeant was pacing the sidewalk, and the Brown Man’s stool was lying tipped over in the grass. I could see another uniformed cop standing on the porch of a nearby house, speaking through a barely cracked front door.

“Good morning, Detective,” the sergeant said as Richards approached.

“Sergeant Carannante,” she answered. “Anything?”

“Nothing but your call, Detective. Unusually quiet for a Saturday night, but the trade usually ends at midnight or so.”

The sergeant was a thick, Italian-looking man with an insouciant demeanor that said he’d seen it all before. He took me in with his eyes and did not bring them back to Richards until he was introduced.

“Uh, Max Freeman,” Richards said. “He’s been working with us on a case.”

Carannante shook my hand.

“OK. Nice to know who’s on the field,” he said and turned back to her.

“Street was empty when the first unit got here. We swept the area best we could and then came back to see if we could pick up something with the flashlights. No blood spots, no shell casings, nothing. I got unit nineteen doing a canvass of residents who of course haven’t seen or heard anything. And I sent another car to our man Carlyle’s to see what’s what.”

He was a veteran cop. Giving the facts, not passing judgment on the call or the possibility that violence had occurred. Richards was herself looking unsure.

A hiss came from Carannante’s radio and he spoke back, then walked back toward the patrol car. I stepped over to the toppled stool, then took a few steps further and looked across the street. I was standing on the spot where Eddie Baines had stood the first time I had met his eyes.

“Walker!” the sergeant yelled past us, signaling the cop on the porch and then moving with a purpose toward his own car.

“Dispatch says twenty-seven Bravo has spotted a big guy pushing a cart over by the river where, what, this guy Baines left his mother for dead?” It was half report, half question and directed at Richards.

“Going home to lick his wounds?” she questioned right back.

“Let’s roll over there. If it’s him they’re going to need help throwing a perimeter,” Carannante said. The cop named Walker jumped into the other squad car. “The initial report was that he could be armed. Right?” said the sergeant, again asking Richards.

She nodded and watched both cars spin U-turns and head north, their blue and red lights still throwing color on the building fronts, their sirens silent.

“Let’s go, Max,” Richards said.

I was looking down the street, watching the corner of a fence that led to an alley about a block down. I raised my hand and heard her footsteps behind me.

“What is it?”

“Wait a second,” I said, not turning.

The block stayed quiet. Windows stayed dark. I watched the alley entrance.

“We need to go, Max. If they corner Baines we need to be there.”

“Yeah, I know, just give me a minute.”

She didn’t sigh in resignation, or huff in exasperation. There was an element of trust going on.

We were standing in the swale, just behind my truck. I crouched down and sat on my heels and Richards followed. In less than a minute there was movement at the fence. I could pick up the light- colored material of clothing, then watched someone moving our way. There was a stumble, and a girl’s quiet curse.

When we stood up she yipped in surprise, her hand to her mouth, and then started to spin away on her blocky shoes. Richards snapped, “Hold it.” The girl was experienced enough to freeze.

We flanked her and she was looking defiantly at me when Richards flashed her badge.

“We’re police officers,” she said. “Where not going to hurt you.”

“No shit,” the girl said.

She was the young woman I had seen before, the one who the Brown Man had slapped across the face, the one who had spat at the feet of the junk man. She was wearing the same summer skirt but had changed her shirt.

“Have you been around all night?” I asked.

“No, I been at church all night with my girlfriends workin’ the brownie sale,” she said, folding her arms over her skinny chest, challenging me with her eyes.

“You didn’t see your friend the Brown Man tonight?” I tried again.

“Carlyle? That fool ain’t no friend of mine,” she spat. “Juss a punk think he all high and mighty cause he got the franchise on the block.”

She had raised her voice but then looked past us both, nervous at her own words thrown out in the dark. I reached out and grabbed her upper arm and spun her around to face me and her eyes went big.

“Ditch the attitude,” I said. “You were here when Carlyle shot the junk man. What happened?”

She looked down at my hand and winced and I tightened the grip.

“She’s the cop, I’m not,” I said. “I don’t need to worry about how I get my answers. What the fuck happened?”

The girl tried to catch Richards’s eyes for some kind of protection, but she had turned away.

“Wasn’t no shootin’. Not like a real one anyways,” she finally said. “The junk man got in Carlyle’s face an’ when Carlyle got his gun out to scare him this nigger goes an’ grabs it and they was both standin’ there when it goes off. Then Carlyle goes down on the ground whinin’ and cryin’ ’bout how his damn hand was busted.”

“And the junk man has the gun?” Richards said, now moving in to team up on the girl.

“No,” the girl said. “He throwed it in the street an’ one of Carlyle’s boys went an’ snatched it up.”

“Where did the junk man go?”

She hesitated, looking down the street.

“He was draggin’ hisself that way,” she said, nodding south.

“He was wounded?” Richards asked.

“Mighta been,” she said, gaining back some bravado in her voice. I squeezed the arm tighter.

“Where did he go?” I shouted.

“I didn’t follow him,” she said defensively. “He probably go where he always go.” Tears were now coming to her eyes. “He probably go down the blockhouse where he always go.”

Richards looked up at me and I eased off my grip on the girl’s arm.

“Are you sure?” Richards asked the girl quietly. “Are you positive? Did he push his cart down there?”

“He didn’t have no cart with him this time. He was draggin’ his leg an’ he saw me lookin’ and axed me would I help him and he had a hundred-dollar bill so I helped him down at the blockhouse an’ ran out of that place,” she said, unable to remember her own lies.

“This is the old concrete utility room down off Thirteenth?” Richards asked.

“Yeah, where all them girls always be gettin’ hurt,” she said, her voice now quiet and young and sorry.

I opened the tailgate of my truck and guided her to sit. Richards was trying to raise someone on her radio.

“I already tol’ that other cop where he gone,” the girl said.

“What other cop?” I said. “The sergeant?”

“No, not the one with the uniform,” she said. “The big ol’ cracker cop been sneakin’ around watchin’ everybody.”

Richards and I looked at each other.

“When?” Richards said. This time she grabbed the girl by the arm. “When did you tell this cop?”

“Just before you all jumped out and scared me. He come up after all the police cars got here,” the girl said, turning her head to look back toward the corner where she’d been hiding.

I handed Richards my truck keys.

“You’ve got to hold on to her. She’s a witness,” I said and started walking south.

“Max, goddammit, wait for backup, Max,” Richards yelled.

“And make sure you get that hundred-dollar bill for evidence, too,” I said before jogging into the darkness.