The Good Boy (2 page)

“You good with Dontay?” Pete asks when Ralla returns with the ball, waving it in front of Butch, a tease to play.

“How come he won’t do nothing?” Ralla asks, ignoring Pete’s question.

The dog’s hocks shake—instinct urging him to get up on his feet—but not because he wants to fetch. Dontay and company have flipped his work switch.

And now Pete’s, too.

“Butch wants to know your answer,” he says. “About Dontay.”

Ralla steps back and looks Pete in the eye and it is not rehearsed when he says, “We good.” But the way he stands there, arm held close to his side, wounds guarded, makes Pete realize the response is as learned as Butch’s sit, stay, and heel.

Pete reaches out and takes Ralla’s hand—still clutching the ball, wet and slimy—and turns his arm open, to the cigarette burns. “Is Dontay the one who gave you these?”

Ralla pulls his hand away. “I thought you wasn’t looking for trouble.” He looks out across the field as the boys approach a dark green midnineties Impala that’s either parked or broken down in the alley. He tosses the ball to Butch and it rolls past his feet, the dog’s attention still fixed on Dontay’s gang. He says, “I don’t want to play no more, either,” and starts back toward the Abbotts.

“Ralla,” Pete says, wallet from his pocket. Maybe he’ll only make himself feel better, but five bucks and some fetch is all the kid wanted, not twenty questions and a forced confession. “Before you go. What about your game?”

Ralla stops, turns, considers the wallet. “You said you didn’t have no money.”

“I said I didn’t have five dollars.” He takes out a ten. “I have this.”

“Yo, Rall!” one of the boys calls from outside the Impala, its doors open now, the driver climbing inside. The boy who called out raises his hand, a salute of sorts—which is, when Ralla repeats the gesture, the worst sort: a flash of three fingers, thumb curled over his index finger—a gangbanger’s goodbye.

Of course. The New Breeds run the Abbotts. And that one getting into the backseat of the Impala—presumably Dontay—must be balls over brains, throwing up signs in front of a uniform. Pete wasn’t looking for trouble but there it is, right there, and any cop worth his star would go over and show him and his boys how difficult it is to represent while handcuffed.

Except doing so would only put a ding on Dontay’s rap sheet, and a dent in both their afternoon plans. It’s clear Dontay isn’t afraid to mark his territory; that makes Pete the one who would spend a long time after that worrying about Ralla’s other arm.

Pete feels the familiar weight of Job-impotence as he watches the Impala, blue smoke curling from its tailpipe as it idles at the curb, a taunt. If he wants to do anything for Ralla at all, he can’t
do
anything at all. Without any hope, and without real help, cash is the only thing of value he can offer.

So he tucks the money in his shirt pocket and says, “What’s the game.”

“Okay. The game is, that if you give me your last name, and I could hold your hand, then I bet that I can spell your first name. And when I do, I win, and you give me ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars now? What happened to five?”

“You got ten dollars. You said.”

“What if you don’t guess right, though? What do I get?”

Ralla sticks his hands in his pockets like he’s got something to give. Turns out all he can find is a cross-toothed smile as says, “Don’t worry. I’ma guess right.”

Pete’s pretty sure his first name was Officer when he introduced himself, so he’s kind of interested to know how Ralla plans to pull off the trick. Butch’s growl is low in his throat when the Impala pulls out of the alley and Pete tries not to feel like a complete mark as he says, “Last name’s Murphy.”

“Murphy,” Ralla says, as if it’s a clue. “Okay, Officer Murphy: lemme hold your hand.”

He takes Pete’s hand between his flat, grimy palms, then asks, “Ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Okay, lemme see…” He closes his eyes, lashes fluttering. “Murphy … Murphy…”

Pete closes his eyes, too, and as they stand there, he hears the dispatcher on his radio, a whisper about the BFMs that reminds him about the savagery of this world—the gangbangers and backstabbers, the people who play the game and the people who get pawned.

He bends his fingers around the edges of Ralla’s slight hand and tries to tune out the noise. He thinks of Joel; he can’t remember the last time he held his son’s hand. Or McKenna’s, either—and she’s at the coming-of-age now where she probably wouldn’t want to anymore.

Or maybe she wouldn’t want to because she’s old enough to realize Pete’s missed more than a ball game, or dinner again. Could be that she knows more than she lets on about Pete’s job change, or about why they moved.

Or maybe she senses that Butch isn’t the one with his tail between his legs.

“Your first name…” Ralla says, “is spelled …
y-o-r
 …
f-i-r-s-t n-a-m-e
!” Ralla lets go of Pete’s hand and he says, “Your first name! Get it?”

“I got it.” And also the fact that Ralla missed the
u.

Pete thinks about renegotiating the deal, about telling the kid he can’t spell and so he can’t have the cash; he could offer to buy lunch instead, take him across the way to Captain Hook’s.

But what’s a plate of fried shrimp going to do? Pete needs to see his own kids. Try to make
that
world right.

“I got another one,” Ralla says. “You want to play again?”

“No thanks,” Pete says, handing him the ten. “We’ve got to go.”

“Aw, you mad ’cause I fooled you? That there was legit!”

“I’m not mad. I can’t afford to play anymore.”

“But wait—” he says, pinching the bill by its corners, showing it off, “this time you could win.”

“Yeah,” Pete says, same as
no,
“I don’t see that happening.”

“But you could! This time,
you
get to guess. Don’t you want your money back?”

Pete’s sure it’s a variation on the scam and it does make him mad, a kid this age working on him like some street-worn bum, but the thing is, he
is
a kid, and even if the game isn’t fair, it looks like Ralla’s been on the losing end for a while now.

Pete faces him, square. “What do I guess?”

Ralla crunches the bill in his hand and rolls up his other shirtsleeve. Then he tucks his elbows to his ribs and turns his palms up and he shows Pete the burns, both arms. He doesn’t smile. “Where I got these.”

Pete hears himself say, “Jesus Christ,” which was not his answer so he says, “That’s not a guess. I mean, I don’t—” and then he is fumbling with his wallet, opening it and pinching all the cash that’s in there between his fingers, and he looks back out across the field, and he wishes he would’ve intervened, talked to that motherfucker Dontay who just took off, because it was him, wasn’t it? “Are you—” Is he telling him it was Dontay? Is he asking for help?

“The answer is easy!” Ralla says. “You know it. Come on, Mr. Murphy. Guess where I got these.”

“No.” Pete takes out a bill and he doesn’t look at it and he hands it to Ralla and he says, “I don’t want to know.” Then he puts his wallet away and says,
“Bringen,”
to Butch, who picks up the tennis ball and falls in line with Pete as he turns to leave.

When Pete gets a good ten yards out, as angry at himself as he is at this world—this fucking world—he hears Ralla call after him, “My arms! Hey, Mr. Murphy! The answer is my arms!”

Pete feels Butch looking up at him, but he keeps walking. Because sometimes he just has to walk away.

*   *   *

Pete rolls down the windows while he waits for the light to change at Ogden. He could save a few minutes backtracking to the lake, taking the Drive north, but this time of day, it’ll only take a half hour to get home going straight up Western. He’ll always opt for the direct route, no matter how many extra stoplights.

Besides, there’s no sense in driving the empty lakefront when it looks like it’ll rain, a cloud cover now pushing the sky toward the same dull gray as the water. He doesn’t mind the rain, but he hates the gray. It feels like waiting.

If it does rain, he’ll bring Butch into the house; they’ll have the place to themselves today—kids at school, Sarah at her temp job. Temp: an actual word. Pete said it wasn’t, told Joel it was an abbreviation, but of course Joel looked it up, informed him that while it can be an abbreviation for
temporary
or
temperature,
it’s also a word—both a noun
and
a verb, in fact. Pete conceded, but later told Sarah that even if it’s a word, it’s no way to live. When she sighed her objection, he cited her refusal to make a single plan beyond the foreseeable future. She said,
once again
she said, that what she refused to do was to make unrealistic promises.

Anyway, when they get home the place will be empty and if it rains, maybe Pete can really take the day off—no fixing shit around the house—he’ll read the sports pages, catch a nap. Also he should get online and check the latest airfares to Anaheim. He’s been watching the rates for months—ever since Sarah booked a solo trip there to bury her brother Ricky and, while deflecting death questions, told Joel about Disneyland. Joel has since worked
Tomorrowland
into his vocabulary.

The thing about Disneyland Sarah didn’t tell Joel is that it doesn’t seem to have an off-season. Pete thought prices might come down after spring break, and then certainly once summer was over but so far, they’ve held steady—as has Joel’s interest in an attraction called Innoventions, where a robot-host leads a tour through the Dream House of the Future. It figures.

Still, given the temp of things, Pete’s been reluctant to let go of the dough. There isn’t a side job in the world that’ll make up for missing his promotion, or selling their old place. Still, even though it’s a fucking cliché, he’d like to take his kids to see the happiest place on earth while they’re still kids. Even if he has to drag McKenna by her terrible bone-straightened hair.

He’s about to turn right at Western and go straight home to complete Mission: Mickey Mouse—that’s the plan—until he sees the maroon caravan pull out of the White Castle on the corner and roll right through a late yellow light.

The BFMs. Typical fucking bangers: they’ll stop for sliders on the way to kill someone, but not for the traffic signal.

Pete turns the squad’s cherry lights a few times and burps the siren, edging around the left-only lane to muscle through the intersection.

As he rolls up on the van, tight, Butch stands up in the back and barks in sharp clips like he knows the vehicle. What he actually recognizes is the change in his master’s temperament; sometimes he acts as though it was as obvious to him as a tug on his leash.

“Platz,”
Pete commands, because everything’s going to happen fast now, and they’ve both got to beat back instinct and rely on the language and training they share.

Pete turns the lights around again and signals the driver to pull over as he runs the plates through ICLEAR and when he takes another look, he wonders if the van is more red than maroon; then, when he gets Dispatch on the line, he counts three heads in there, not four, but by that time he’s in the middle of telling the dispatcher, “I’ve got a possible stop on that Dodge Caravan, Roosevelt Road just west of Campbell,” and then—right then as he’s saying it—he realizes the van is not a Dodge Caravan but a Ford Windstar. But he’s already pulled up behind the van, parked curbside—its turn signal and both brake lights operational, tags up-to-date—and Dispatch is radioing for backup.

Then the plates come back clean, the vehicle registered to a man named Jeffrey Edwards, no record, and what all that adds up to is zero reason to stop the car.

Pete’s about to tell the dispatcher to forget it, and to get out and say sorry to Mr. Edwards, to send him on his way, but then he sees the guy in the backseat toss a burger box out the window into traffic. The first passing car swerves to miss it; the next one doesn’t swerve, and doesn’t miss.

The nerve: Pete can’t believe it. Doesn’t he have to do something, now?

But what? He doesn’t even carry a ticket book anymore; is he really going to get out and cite the guy for littering?
I’m sorry, but you are in violation of city ordinance 10-8-480, casting refuse in a public way
. Does he have any self-respect left?

No. It’s not
him.
It’s the other guy. A guy like this—and like Dontay—who have no respect. They’re the people trashing this city. And tormenting the good people—and the young people—who live in it.

Butch whines from the back.

“I know, boy,” Pete says, finding him in the rearview. “If only there were an asshole quota.”

Pete gets out, pops the trunk and straps up: his belt, his gun, then his vest, and all the while he feels that old rookie rush wash over him; he’s been at this game ten years plus and the car stops still call it up. Maybe because they’re the most dangerous part of a cop’s job; maybe because the only knowable thing on the way up to a driver’s window is the risk. Or maybe because when he was a rookie he stopped a guy for a broken taillight but the guy was high on meth and had just beaten the hell out of his girlfriend. Pete didn’t know it, but he was in for shit, head-on. He took home a black eye that night.

He shuts the trunk, rounds the squad, sizes up the area. They’ve stopped alongside a cracked-up sidewalk that borders a fenced-in grass lot where somebody parked a fleet of old semi trailers and storage containers. Traffic chases back and forth in four lanes but there’s also a bike lane, a driver’s-side cushion.

The minivan’s side windows are tinted, but through the back Pete can see the three occupants inside, the asshole sitting directly behind the driver. There is no side passenger door on the driver’s side and the window is sealed, which makes Pete both more and less safe since the asshole can’t get to him, but could exit the other side and try disappearing in the storage lot.

Pete approaches straight up the bike lane, caution giving way to a show of confidence, and taps on the driver’s window.