City of Ports

by Jeff Deck

  “Hey girl,” I said, “don’t fuck with me.” I slammed my knee down into his belly and shoved the gun up against his forehead. A dangerous move—if he believed at all that I would hesitate to shoot, this would be his opportunity to smack the gun away and physically overpower me.

  But no. In that moment, Skip Bradley was fully convinced that I would kill him. And in truth, I myself no longer knew that I wouldn’t.

  I heard a loud report and flinched. Then I realized what I had taken for the sound of a gunshot was actually my colleague letting out a terrified fart. Any second now he would piss all over me.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “Above my head. Ask him.”

  I got off Bradley in a hurry, abruptly filled with shame and disgust at myself. What a sordid scene this made, and Bradley’s bachelor standard of cleanliness was only the smallest part of it. I’d just scared a man half to death, merely to confirm something I already suspected. A man who’d baldly lied to a grieving woman, but still.

  “You’re gonna burn for this,” he said wildly, pointing an accusing finger at me. “I’m gonna tell Chief everything.”

  “Not if I tell him first,” I said. “Be seeing you, Skip.” And I left his apartment. He didn’t follow me.

  Back in the clear and quiet night, I realized that the implant wasn’t just a piece of the mystery. It was the key to it. And I knew where my next stop needed to be. Now I only had to decide whether continuing to chase the truth was worth risking my job.

  You were gone. Even if I uncovered exactly what happened, it wouldn’t bring you back from the dead. You were gone, and I needed this job.

  I loved my job. I was going to make detective someday soon.

  Right. I got in my car, cruised down the nearly empty Route 33. By the time I got back to Portsmouth, I’d decided that the whole police department could go fuck itself with a fishing rod. I parked in front of the Portsmouth police station. Akerman would be there. He didn’t know I was coming.

  I was going to find out what happened, and I didn’t care what the cost would be.

  1

  All that was then. This is now.

  I walk out the ornate doors of Jacobi Investment Associates, Mr. Baldini’s farewell echoing in my ears. I’ve just closed out another riveting day working security. It’s a little after four in the afternoon, and I can’t wait to get home and take off my monkey suit.

  What was the highlight of today, you ask? Catching a kid before he could tag the building with graffiti? That’s a contender, I suppose. But what brings me the most joy is figuring out which of the rich banker fucks are cheating on their wives.

  Fuck #1, his tell is wearing the “backup suit” he keeps in his office. How do I know it’s a backup? It’s less pressed than his usual suits.

  Fuck #2, he keeps a different phone at work. Smart guy. Most people wouldn’t notice the difference between the phone he’s carrying in the morning and the one he’s using on his lunch break. I do.

  And Fuck #3? No new clothes or phone. Just a spring in his step and a nervous quality in his eyes. Subtle. I’m not dead certain on this one, but my hunches rarely let me down.

  I need to wash off the workday with sunshine. I walk up the curve of Bow Street, passing flocks of pre-summer tourists drawn to the city’s fine waterfront dining. The Piscataqua glitters where I can see it, but most of the view from the street is blocked by the restaurants, shops, and expensive condos. Pay to view.

  At the top of the hill sits an old church with a raised cemetery. From the sidewalk I can see the vaults built into the underside of the cemetery. I wonder, if I pulled out one of the entombed dead and somehow resurrected him, what he would say, looking at the city now. Would there be anything he recognized after hundreds of years besides the river itself?

  You know he’d start by asking who let this brown woman carry a weapon and wear pants.

  Yeah, some changes were definitely for the better. I pass the remains of the Memorial Bridge. Until the crews are done replacing the old rotting structure with a 21st-century version, locals need to take either a boat or nearby I-95 to get to Maine. Badger’s Island looks tantalizingly close. But the swift tide of the Piscataqua would yank even the strongest swimmer away and under.

  Cheerful thoughts today.

  A crowd is gathered in front of the new, ugly brick edifice known as Seafare Estates. Great for those who can afford a $700K condo, but for the rest of us it just means a blocked view of the water from State Street now as well. An elegantly coiffed woman is speaking at a podium in front of the “Estates;” as I get closer, I recognize Councilor Grace Stone in mid-blather. She’s the assistant mayor, but that’s only because she received a few votes less than Mayor Gantry in the last city council election. Stone holds the most de facto power on the council. A banner below her proclaims Portsmouth’s recently revamped slogan: “A Little Bit Enormous.”

  “We are so, so fortunate to welcome Seafare Estates into our community, thanks to the fine efforts of Vauxhall Architects and the vision of Blue Coastal Realty,” Councilor Stone says. “It is projects like these that attract job creators to our local economy. And now, as the Estates open, with fully half of their units presold, I would like to congratulate Portsmouth’s newest residents for deciding to call this place home. I think they’ll all agree that for a small city, we’re ‘a little bit enormous,’ isn’t that right?”

  Tepid applause issues from the crowd, which consists mostly of wealthy people curious about their new neighbors. At the crowd’s edge slouches a bored-looking reporter for the Portsmouth Porthole, a woman whose name I don’t remember. (I’m just glad it’s not Eric Kuhn, the one who pitilessly chronicled my downfall last year.) Several of my former colleagues from the Portsmouth PD ring the crowd to keep order.

  I shake my head. I don’t plan on sticking around to watch the big fish in our little pond nibble on each others’ tails. Plus I’d rather not give my old co-workers an opportunity to mock former Officer Allard for how far she’s fallen. I’m still wearing my JIA security uniform, after all.

  “Save our city!”

  An electronic squeal and a rush of static accompany this announcement. I spot a small band of protesters approaching the unveiling from my side of the crowd. They wear t-shirts over their long sleeves that say “3P”—as I recall, it stands for Power to the People of Portsmouth. Members often referred to as 3Peters. At their head marches an athletic young woman with a bullhorn; her voice drowns out the councilor’s.

  “Affordable housing now!”

  The rest of the protesters echo her with a chant: “Save our city! Affordable housing now!”

  I find myself automatically moving toward them. I don’t know why, exactly. It’s not like I’m a cop anymore. The only thing I guard these days is that investor building stuffed with rich bastards. But I’ve got a bad itch about this situation, and I don’t ignore my instincts.

  One of the cops has gotten there ahead of me, a roughneck named Lewis. He blocks the woman and her cohorts from getting any closer. Meanwhile, Councilor Stone has chosen, maybe unwisely, to engage the 3Peters.

  “The city of Portsmouth is committed to ensuring that all strata of our society have a place to live,” she says into the mic.

  “Well, this ‘stratum’ right here can’t afford shit!” the lead protester says, leaning on the last word, which echoes through the well-to-do crowd. They wrinkle their noses. “Regular people are getting priced out of town, but all you care about is building more condos for the rich! The rest of us can’t even see the waterfront anymore!”

  Officer Vin Lewis snatches the bullhorn out of the woman’s hand. “That’s enough!” he says. “You don’t have a permit to demonstrate, kids, so beat it.”

  “Beautiful Prescott Park has a lovely view of the water and is right next to us,” says Stone in exasperation, continuing the argument even though the protester can no longer answer her.

  It’s true about the park, but right now I�
�m focused on the woman making a hard grab for her bullhorn. Officer Lewis whisks it out of reach and then says to another cop nearby, “She just tried to assault me! You saw that, right?”

  The other cop grunts, noncommittal. I don’t recognize him. Could be my replacement.

  I recognize the spark of violence, about to be lit by anger. I know it well. I interpose myself between the protester and Lewis.

  “Hey, buddy,” I say to the latter. “How’s the beat? Station coffee still taste like medical waste?”

  Lewis’s eyes open wide at the sight of me. “Allard! You’d better get the fuck out of my way.”

  “Why don’t you give me the bullhorn, Lewis?” I say. “I’ll give it back to this nice lady at a safe distance.”

  “Fuck you, I’ll have you too for interfering with an arrest!”

  The other cop, the newish guy, breaks in. He doesn’t know me or my history. He only knows that Lewis is behaving like a bully to a rent-a-cop in full view of a sizable crowd with the media close by. Not to mention the cops’ own boss, a city councilor, staring down at them.

  “Come on, Lewis, step off,” he says. “This don’t look good.”

  Lewis turns and snaps at his colleague. I take the opportunity to lock eyes with the lead protester. I struggle not to get lost in those emerald-green depths. She’s in her mid-twenties, with short dark-blonde hair framing her face and milk-white skin. She looks muscular enough to take Lewis in a fair fight, which this wouldn’t be. She’s angry, but not beyond reason.

  “You’ve made your point,” I say to her. “Do you really need to get beaten up by a uniform too?”

  “People should know the truth about our boys in blue,” she growls. But she does step back.

  With that, the tension drains out of the situation. I sense the other protesters reassessing what they’re willing to do—and what they’ve already done. This’ll be in the Porthole for sure tomorrow. That’s a win for them.

  “Get them out of here,” says Councilor Stone, which would have, I imagine, touched off the explosion if the spark had remained. But now the lead protester turns her back on the cops and walks away before they can manhandle her, and the rest of the 3Peters follow suit.

  Lewis tosses the bullhorn in the street. It cracks on impact. I scoop up the bullhorn and stride after the protesters.

  I catch up with the young woman and hand her the bullhorn. “Think you forgot something,” I say.

  She scowls at me, but she accepts it. “Didn’t think you’d be on their side.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side,” I say. Then I pause. “You know me, huh.”

  Her green gaze confirms it. Yep, I’m a local celebrity for all the wrong reasons.

  “If you’re looking for an autograph, I hope you brought your own pen,” I say.

  A smile struggles to bust through her scowl, but it loses. “Anyway, thanks—I guess.”

  “I get it,” I say. “I don’t like the direction this city’s taken lately either. Just don’t . . .” Ah, fuck it. “There’s a few cracked eggs in the Portsmouth PD. Lewis isn’t the only one. Just be more careful.”

  “Noted,” she says. Something unsettles me about this woman. She’s looking right into me, breaching borders I thought couldn’t be breached. I don’t think I’ve ever been under a gaze this intense. “You take care too, Allard. Day might come when you have to pick a side.”

  Ominous. But now she joins in conversation with a couple of 3Peters nearby. Allard dismissed.

  Go on home. You’re too old to chase after pretty little idiots.

  I obey the inner voice. I go home to my little walk-up above Piscataqua Savings Bank on Pleasant Street, I lock the rattly door, and I think about you.

  I guess it’s no surprise, then, when I dream about you. Again.

  I’m skidding to the bottom of the excavation, in the dark. I find you broken and bashed-in, lying in the debris. But this time you wipe the dirt off yourself and you stand up.

  You’re still dead, no question about it. Your head looks like a melon someone dropped while unloading their groceries. And your eyes are—flat. Nothing there. But you, or something else, can still make your corpse move.

  And, apparently, speak.

  As your bruised lips open, I flinch. It’s what I’ve fantasized about all this time—just a few last words, anything to help me understand what happened to you. Yet suddenly I dread what you’re going to say. And how you’re going to sound.

  The first word out of your mouth is “Divya.”

  I hold back a scream at that rusty, broken sound. My hand goes to my service weapon, but I don’t draw. The slightest outburst from me could break the dream. And I need something to take back with me to the waking world.

  “Come with me,” you say. Each word is a barbed broach scraping through the flesh of your throat. It’s obvious what it costs you. I nod quickly, eager for you to not have to say anything else.

  You shuffle a few paces along the floor of the excavation. What I expect next is the awful spectacle of you dragging your corpse up the slope. Clambering over rocks, maybe leaving a fingernail or two behind. But you stop. Your neck creaks as your ruined face looks at me once again.

  A flame bursts out of the dark. I don’t know where it came from—it’s not supposed to be there, not in an abandoned excavation—but it’s getting bigger. It forms a ring. Like that old Johnny Cash song. Except there’s something in the middle of this ring of fire: a distortion, an illusion. A stone floor with the perception of distance. Like the fire ring is a window and I’m looking onto another place.

  I take a step back, forgetting that none of this can hurt me.

  You grab my arm. The cold touch of your fingers, even through the sleeve of my uniform, is enough to make my jaws flap open. The biggest, most wretched scream of my life comes tumbling out.

  Funny thing is, it sounds a lot like a phone.

  My eyes snap open and I grab for the jangling, vibrating little monster in my lap and I say in a hoarse bark, “Hannah?”

  “Uh,” says the voice on the phone. It’s a man.

  “Hello?” I snap. “Who the fu—”

  I catch myself. Swearing is a trigger. The more I do it, the angrier I get. I don’t want to be angry. “Who ... the heck is this?”

  Heck you. Heck off. Still a little too close to the real deal.

  “This is an anonymous caller,” says the man. He sounds young. Awkward. His choice of words backs up the impression. “Detective, are you looking at the news online right now?”

  I sit up straighter on the couch. Now sleep’s cleared off, for the most part, and I can fire the old neurons like normal. “First off,” I say. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard an anonymous caller refer to themselves as an ‘anonymous caller.’ Usually you just, you know, don’t say your friggin’ name and get right to the point. You’re new at this?”

  “Um,” says the voice. Doesn’t elaborate. Oh well.

  “Second,” I say, “I’m not a detective. I never made it that far. So you can just call me Allard. How does that sound?”

  By now I’m tensed and fully upright, with the TV’s yapping on mute and my laptop open on the coffee table. I direct my browser to portsmouthporthole.com, the New Hampshire Seacoast’s source for exaggerations, slander, and the wisdom of the status quo. The big headline on the news site says: BODY FOUND ON PEIRCE ISLAND. The byline belongs to my least favorite journalist, Eric Kuhn.

  Whoa. The corpse count in Portsmouth has been noticeably higher in the last year or so, but. Hmm. Usually the heroin addicts tuck themselves away in private places. Why would someone risk shooting up where the Navy patrols could trip over them, right across the water from the shipyard? Out in the cold wind from the river? No, this wasn’t an OD.

  “Allard,” says the voice. Projecting confidence, but I hear the tremor underneath. “Are you seeing it?”

  “Is this your handiwork, Anonymous Caller?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “That’s w
hat we need you for. To figure out. He was—our friend.”

  I believe him. If this kid’s a murderer, then I’m the Yoken’s blue whale. But several questions must follow. “One, why don’t you think the police can handle this? Two, why do you think I can? Three, who’s ‘we’? There’s more than one of you?”

  There’s an odd noise in the background, then. A thumping or a scuffling.

  “Crap,” says Anonymous Caller. “Got to go. Check his wrist, Allard. You’ll see the connection to Hannah. Hurry before their fixers clean up the scene. Might already be too late. Hurry, Allard. Please.”

  “What did—” I say, but the call’s gone.

  2

  Your name. In the middle of his strange spiel.

  It’s a trick. If the self-proclaimed A.C. knows even the slightest thing about me, then he knows about you. The media saw to that. Also, I, in my fogged-up state, did kick off the call with your name. A.C. claimed a connection to you just to ensure I was paying attention.

  I have no intention of chasing ghosts. Or re-opening doors in myself, doors that I’ve closed and latched and padlocked after long months with my therapist.

  Yet I find myself, like a good dog, fetching my shoes. Putting them on, putting on my fine leather jacket, grabbing a penlight for good measure. And opening the heavy wooden door of my apartment, the glass rattling in the frame, and pounding down the stairs to join the Portsmouth night.

  If there’s a chance, however slim, to finally find out what happened to you . . .

  The old adrenaline kicks in. A grey-headed couple coming down Pleasant Street gives me a wide berth. Right now my face must be wearing the look you used to call “Dog on the Hunt.” Which I’ve finally decided is not, in fact, a compliment.

  I consider backtracking to the community lot to grab my car. No, it’d be faster to jog over to Prescott Park from here and walk over the bridge. I’m only a little less in shape than I was when I wore the uniform.

  Tonight plenty of people meander around the heart of the city, Market Square, as tourist season nudges in. Still not warm at night, but summer’s around the corner. I head around the corner and then run down State Street. I ignore the looks from the knots of frat kids, and a little bachelorette party group in their feathers and matching t-shirts. If they’re tourists, they’ll be gone soon enough.