“Okay. I’ll just say, ‘A man who goes by the street name Mutt, who declined to give his real name.’ ”
“You ain’t saying nothin’, dude. Not about me. Not about the shelter. You get the shelter closed down, a lot of people are gonna be out in the fucking cold. Not just us. Families and little kids and domestically abused women and shit. This area has a large at-risk population.”
“I’m not trying to shut anything down,” I said. “I’m just saying what happened.”
“Just ’cause some bitch gets killed, ain’t no reason to fuck everything up for everybody.”
“Lindy Hines wasn’t ‘some bitch,’ ” I said.
“Whatever. I don’t know her from shit. Maybe she pissed Teak off. Maybe she disrespected him.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You wasn’t there,” Mutt said.
“As a matter of fact, I was.”
“You saw the bitch killed?”
“Watch your mouth,” I said.
Mutt’s eyes narrowed and he took a step toward me.
“Who you think you’re talking to, reporter man.”
He lunged and grabbed my arm, started to twist. I wrenched loose and he grabbed for my notebook and I hung on and we both pulled. As I staggered toward him, the big kid sprang from his place by the bench and Clair reached out, clotheslined him with his left arm. He went down and Mutt tripped over him, and a page ripped from the notebook as he sprawled on his back, knocking a beer can over.
Foam gushed, everybody shouting.
The big kid tried to get up and Clair booted him hard in the ribs and he grunted and rolled the other way. I landed on Mutt, tore the paper from his hands. He reached behind him for something and I punched him hard in the neck, and he gasped and I slid off of him and got to my feet.
The chubby guy had a piece of two-by-four, and he took a shuffle step and swung and I turned and caught a glancing blow on the shoulder. The follow-through turned him toward Clair and I saw his eyes widen as Clair stepped in, planted a boot on the guy’s instep, and yanked the two-by-four out of his hands. He gave the chubby guy a forearm in the face and he fell backwards onto the couch, blood gushing from his nose.
Mutt was on his knees, a box knife in his right hand.
“Knife,” I barked, and Clair swung the two-by-four, smashed Mutt’s wrist. He bellowed and Clair turned to the big kid, shoved him back onto the floor, and hammered him in the knee.
The guy howled and Clair hit him again.
I picked my notebook up and we backed toward the door. Mutt was on his haunches, holding his broken hand, teeth clenched. The chubby guy was pinching his nose, trying to staunch the flow of blood like they told you to do in Boy Scouts. Dolph and Arthur were wide-eyed, frozen in place against the wall. The big kid was on the floor holding his leg. All eyes were on us, but nobody moved.
I nodded toward Clair and said, “I told you. He’s not much of a photographer.”
We sat in the truck for a minute, collecting our thoughts and making sure they knew we may have left but we hadn’t run.
Dolph stuck his head around the corner, then ducked back.
“Way to deescalate,” Clair said.
“You’re the one broke his wrist in fifteen places.”
“Could have done the other one,” Clair said. “I was going easy.”
He turned toward me.
“You sure you’re okay? Seems like there’s more going on here than just a story.”
“She was a nice lady,” I said.
“Yeah?” Clair said.
He waited. Clair was very good at waiting. Lying motionless in the jungle all night was good training for staring me down.
“She wanted to chat,” I said. “I was in a hurry. Could have changed the timing. Could have been in the parking lot when Teak was looking to pick somebody out.”
“This a guilt trip.”
“I prefer to think of it as penance.”
“Not your fault,” Clair said. “Rationally, you know that. Emotionally, you’re carrying the whole thing. Seeing it happen and all.”
I didn’t answer.
“I understand,” he said. “I’ve carried a lot of stuff for a long time. Still do. But sometimes life puts you in places and you just have to deal with it, at the moment and later. Nobody said this was gonna be easy.”
I considered it.
“Word of advice. Keep poking these folks, but be ready when they poke back.”
I nodded.
“ ’Cause that there,” Clair said, “was just a bunch of drunk amateurs.”
We came out by the library, took a left. Street kids were sitting on the bench at the bus stop out front, a few more across the street. Mutts in the making. One was looking at his phone, tapping, texting.
There was a crosswalk in front of the library, a flashing light and a sign that said state law—stop for pedestrians. A couple of the kids stepped off the curb on our side and I slowed. More started sauntering across from the library side, and I stopped. They looked at us, and Clair said, “You might want to be ready to—”
They whirled at the truck, smashed the windshield in front of my face, the window by my head. Rocks and a brick. Clair’s side, too. Two leapt into the bed and started bashing the rear window, and I threw the truck into reverse and floored it.
They fell against the cab, the kids at the front chasing after us. Cars were coming behind us and I steered for the breakdown lane, peering through shattered glass, caught a tire and bounced onto the sidewalk, over a wall of paving blocks and into a patch of shrubs.
Clair was out of the truck first. He reached into the bed and pulled one of the kids out and flung him over the side, into the bushes. The other kid was halfway out when I got him by the shoulders and heaved him to the sidewalk. He was skinny, all sinew and bones under his hoodie, and he hit hard and rolled. I heard footsteps, turned.
The rest of the bunch was bearing down, fists raised, rocks and bricks ready. I stepped behind the driver’s door, reached to the back of the seat for a lug wrench. They slammed the door against me, and I slipped to one knee.
“Kill the motherfucker,” one of them said, and they yanked the door back.
Three kids, arms poised.
Three shots—boom, boom, boom.
They froze and looked across the truck. I sprang to my feet with the wrench, but they’d turned and were sprinting away across a parking lot, the kid I’d thrown limping at the rear. I saw Clair slide his gun back under his jacket.
“Somebody made a phone call,” he said.
“This is Iggy,” I said. “Please leave a message.”
17
k
We were leaning against the front of the truck when the first patrol SUV rolled up, siren and lights. A young guy came out of the driver’s side, slid his gun out, and held it at his side. A woman came out on the passenger side, her gun drawn, too.
Hernandez. From Home Department.
The guy—short and stocky like he’d played DIII football—had his gun leveled now, and said, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
We did, and he came close and said, “Do you have a weapon?”
“No,” I said. Clair said, “A handgun. Shoulder holster. Left side.”
He ordered Clair to turn around, put his hands on the hood. Clair did. He told me to do the same and I did. He searched us while Hernandez covered us from the side. He took Clair’s gun out and she stepped in and took it. He extracted our wallets and handed them to her.
“Okay,” he said. “You can turn around.”
We did. Cars were slowing so people could get a look at us, the truck with the smashed windows on the sidewalk.
“Okay, we got a report of an altercation and shots fired,” the cop said.
“I know this guy,” Hernandez sa
id. “He’s a reporter. He was at the murder scene.”
“The hatchet thing?” her partner said.
“Yeah. I have his card.”
She reached into her breast pocket and took it out and held it up.
“Jack McMorrow. New York Times.”
“Okay, Mr. McMorrow,” the other cop said. “Why don’t you tell us what the hell is—”
There was a siren whoop and we turned to see an unmarked car squeezing past the line of cars, blue grille lights flashing. It pulled up beside the SUV and stopped. Detective Tingley got out, strode up to us, and looked the truck over. Hernandez showed him Clair’s gun. Tingley shook his head, looked at us, and said, “Here we go again.”
We told the story to the three of them. It was the first cop’s incident, so he took notes. Halfway through, he asked to borrow Hernandez’s notebook because his was full. When we finished, he scribbled for a full minute to catch up.
“Nobody got shot?” Tingley said.
“No,” Clair said.
“But one kid may be injured.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you think they were set on you by somebody at the squatter house up on Center.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Because you’d just come from an altercation there,” Tingley said.
“Right,” I said.
“Where some street folks were mad because you were asking about the shelter and Harriet.”
“Yup,” I said.
“Any of them hurt?”
I looked at Clair.
“Just one,” he said.
“Who’s that?”
“He goes by Mutt.”
“We all know Mutt. What happened to him?”
“He had a knife and I had to disarm him,” Clair said.
“And he was injured in the process?”
“Yeah. His right hand.”
“What’d you do? Use jiu-jitsu?”
“A two-by-four,” Clair said.
“Clair had just taken it off of one of them when Mutt pulled the knife,” I said.
Tingley looked at me.
“Jesus,” he said.
We all stood there on the sidewalk, the cars still slowing to have a look at us and my truck. The sun had fallen behind the hilltop houses to the west and it was cold on the pavement in the waning light.
“This is just like they were telling me, McMorrow,” Tingley said. “No good comes of having you around a case.”
“Good for whom?” I said.
“For whom?”
Why did that word irritate everybody?
“For me, who just wants to close this case. Open and shut. Guy goes off his meds, kills somebody in broad daylight in front of fifty people, and doesn’t even run. Teak was caught literally red-handed. Sad all around, but shit happens,” Tingley said.
“The story isn’t who did it, it’s why,” I said.
“Why? ’Cause his brain is all scrambled, for whatever reason. Now we got shots fired in the downtown, kids smashing windows, you and your partner here wreaking havoc with the local shitheads.”
“It was more like they were trying to wreak havoc with us,” I said.
“He did it, we locked him up, he won’t do it again. End of story.”
“Not for me,” I said.
“And you decide for the rest of us? Go plowing your way through our case, stirring people up?”
“I just want to get to the bottom of it.”
“This is the bottom of it, Mr. McMorrow,” Tingley said. “You stuck in Riverport with your truck stove up, lucky nobody got shot, all to satisfy your curiosity. You’re a smart guy. Ever think of doing something constructive?”
He turned to the patrol cops and said, “They’ll see if they can find your rock throwers. We’ll see if Mutt files a complaint, but knowing him, I doubt it. In the meantime, let’s give Mr. Varney his gun back.”
Hernandez did—first the gun, then the clip.
“We gotta get this truck off the sidewalk, Mr. McMorrow,” Tingley said. “It’s a hindrance to public travel. If you’re smart, you’ll take what you got, go write your story, and move on. You’re lucky it was me showed up here, not Detective Bates. She’d’a locked both your asses up.”
I called Triple A and they sent a wrecker. A big shambling kid in overalls got out, looked the truck over, and said, “Piss somebody off or what?”
He hooked the truck up and winched it onto the ramp. There was a good glass place out on Hammond Street, he said, and I said that was fine. He gave us one last curious look and drove off, strobe lights illuminating my smashed Tacoma like it was something captured on the battlefield and dragged around the city by the victors.
“Well, then,” Clair said.
“The shelter,” I said. “I’ll call a taxi.”
“Surprised you didn’t ask that cop for a ride.”
“He was a little grumpy.”
“Isn’t slowing you down,” Clair said.
“Full speed ahead,” I said.
The shelter was busy, clients lined up on the sidewalk, filing in the side door. An old woman with wild white hair like an exotic chicken was pushing a shopping cart. A few young guys were gathered in a clump, smoking and shuffling their sneakers in the cold. There were women with children, some being carried, some led by the hand. One little girl was carrying a stuffed bear by the leg, its head dragging on the concrete, which seemed fitting.
I looked for the guys from the basement but didn’t see them.
We stood at the end of the line and waited to reach the door. When we did, I could see Harriet standing behind a table. She was handing out bundles of bedding, plastic bags of what looked like toiletries. I could smell food cooking. Spaghetti sauce.
Harriet was talking to an old man in a frayed plaid jacket and yellow baseball cap.
“How much have you had to drink, Red?” she said.
“Nothing since three o’clock, Miss H.,” the old man said.
“Well, okay, dear,” Harriet said. “But you be good now.”
The man took his bundle and went left. Families were going to the right. We stepped up and Harriet looked up at us with a big smile, said, “Oh, but you’re—”
“Right,” I said. “This is my colleague, Clair. Just here to talk, if you don’t mind. See the operation.”
“We’re kind of busy,” Harriet said.
“Then how ’bout we come around and help.”
Before she could say no we circled the desk and stood beside her. There were other volunteers in the open room behind us, where paper was being unrolled on long tables. I could hear pots clanging, something hissing in a pan. A young couple came to the table. The guy had dreadlocks stuffed under a knit cap. The girl did, too, and she was carrying a baby wrapped in a stained pink blanket.
The girl smiled. The guy looked at me and I nodded. Harriet said, “Have you stayed with us before?”
They shook their heads. She handed them two bundles and asked me to reach under the counter, look for one marked infant. I did and found it, handed it to Harriet. She gave it a quick inspection, then gave it to the mom, along with a sheet of paper on a clipboard with a small yellow pencil tucked in. Then she touched the baby on the forehead, like she was a priest giving a blessing. I smiled as the little family headed for the stairs leading to the family rooms, then turned to Harriet.
“Call off your dogs, Miss H.,” I said.
She looked startled.
“What?”
“Your clients. A bunch of them tried to convince me to drop the story because it would reflect badly on this place.”
Harriet put a hand to her mouth.
“They did what? Oh my God. I hope you’re okay.”
“We’re fine. A guy named Mutt, not so lucky.”
; “Oh, Mutt, he can get carried away. He doesn’t mean—”
A guy with a Walmart bag full of something stepped up. Harriet turned over her shoulder and waved and a woman in a frayed straw cowboy hat came hurrying from the kitchen.
“Let’s talk,” she said, and the woman in the cowboy hat took her place.
Harriet walked behind the lines to the office, and we followed. She sat at the same desk and I closed the door. There were chairs but there was stuff piled on them. We stood.
“I’m very sorry,” Harriet said. “They’re just very protective of this place. Of Teak. And me, I guess.”
“Like a family here?” I said, slipping my notebook out.
“Yes. Loaves and Fishes isn’t like some shelters. We’re all in it together.”
“Why’s that?”
Harriet looked at the notebook, said, “Is this for your story?”
“Maybe,” I said.
She got up and circled around and moved bags off of two chairs and dragged the chairs in front of the desk. We sat and she went back behind the desk and did the same. My card was still on the desk in front of her from last time and she picked it up and glanced at it.
“Jack,” she said. “And—”
“Clair,” he said.
“Right. You have to understand that I’m not like most people who run a place like this.”
“No?”
“You see, the people who come here for help know I was one of them once. I know what it’s like to have no place to go. And it’s cold and you’re hungry. And you know that you’re not like other people, the ones who have houses and beds and full refrigerators.”
I wrote it down, then looked up. Harriet—red-faced, a little disheveled, hands scuffed by work—hesitated.
“I grew up in places like this, Jack and Clair,” she said. “My father was an alcoholic, a drinker, they called it back then. Not a bad man, but it was his Achilles’ heel. He was a smart guy, a talker, too. My mom used to say he could talk himself into jobs and he could drink himself out of them. The railroad. Paper mills. In Portland one time he even got hired to drive a city bus.”
There was a knock on the door. It opened, and the woman with the cowboy hat said, “The portable crib?”
“Closet under the stairs,” Harriet said.
RandomActNEWpub Page 12
