Spacecraft

by Benjamin Broke

“I told them all this on the phone.”

  “Well, I’ll be happy to go check it out and make sure everything’s okay.” I said. “There’s probably an explanation.” By the look on her face I’d say she thought I was patronizing her and she wasn’t too pleased about it. I tried to look more serious and gave her a nod. I walked over to her neighbor’s front porch and knocked in a not-too-authoritative way. It took Junior Pierson a long time to come to the door. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and I could see through the window that he was coming from the garage. He was a middle-aged man with thin, dyed black hair that he wore slicked back. He was tall, about six three, and usually wore rimless glasses although he didn’t have them on then. He opened the door and seemed out of breath. I got the distinct impression that he’d been in the garage masturbating and I’d interrupted him. “Sorry to bother you.” I said. “I’m here because Mrs. Mc Affie says she heard something. She thought it was gunshots.”

  “Oh.” He said, twisting his mouth up in a way that didn’t seem right for a man of his age. “I think I heard it too. There were some kids down by the pier over there. I assumed they were setting off cherry bombs or some such. The fourth of July wasn’t so long ago.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured. I’m just trying to put her fears to rest.” I said. “So can I tell her everything is fine?”

  “You may tell her that everything is fine and that if I see those kids around here again I’ll have a word with them personally.”

  I thanked him and went back to Mrs. Mc Affie’s house to tell her what he’d said. She insisted that the noise had come from inside Junior Pierson’s house, but said that as long as he was alright that was what mattered. “He’s fine ma’am.” I said. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?” She didn’t seem to like the question, so she didn’t answer, she just sighed and shut her door.

  The noise call had made me late for my gate duty and when I got to the side-gate Franco was annoyed. “Oh you’re an agent now, I guess you don’t have to show up for your shift on time.” He said. He’d been giving me this routine for a month, ever since I was promoted from guard to agent. Everyone knew that the only reason I’d been promoted was because of my connection to John Marchin’s granddaughter, but Franco was the only one who wasn’t afraid to say it to my face. I guess he had a pretty good beef, he’d been there for three years and I’d only been there eight months when I got promoted, but I never asked for it, and with the yearly pay increases Franco was making a lot more money than I was. Seniority also meant that he could choose his own hours while I was still working the 7:00 PM to 3:00 AM shift like always. The main difference between guard and agent was that after I’d been an agent for six months I would get full health coverage.

  “I was on a call.” I said.

  “Yeah.” Franco said as he picked up his lunch box and a police textbook. “Have a fun night.” He got into the golf cart I’d parked behind the gatehouse and drove away. When my shift was over I’d have to leave on foot.

  Watching the side-gate was one of the most boring duties that you could pull. Usually I brought something to read when I knew I’d be at the side-gate, but that night I’d forgotten, so the only diversion I had was the small AM/FM radio that John had left there so he could listen to his Cleveland Browns lose every Sunday during the football season.

  The reception out there was pretty bad, and all I could get was the evangelists, politics, or country. I listened to one of the right-wing guys talking about how things were going great in Iraq but the liberal media spin machine was focusing on the negative and trying to make us lose the war. He threw around the word treason a lot and it was entertaining. I must have listened to him for an hour and a half before I heard the car coming up Raims Street.

  I stood and leaned partway out of the small hut with my elbows on the counter and looked at the car coming toward me. It was a black Mercedes that didn’t seem to be slowing down as it approached the gate. I considered the possibility that the person driving was drunk and about to smash into the gatehouse, but the car veered away as it approached the gate. I knew what the person was doing because I had done the same thing the night before. I saw a familiar face behind the wheel as the car skidded around the gate-arm. The driver saw me too, our eyes met for a brief moment before the car was gone.

  It was my friend David Telano driving the car –Meredith Divos’ son. I knew I had to call it in, but for a moment I considered pretending it hadn’t happened. We’d gotten into some trouble together as kids, and the no-snitching code made me want to try to cover for him, but I knew it would be stupid. David was no criminal mastermind, and stealing a Mercedes was out of his league, so he would surely get caught. I didn’t want any part of it. I picked up my walkie-talkie. “I just had a two eighty six over here at the side-gate. Repeat two eighty six at the side-gate.”

  It took a moment for John to respond. “Did you get a make and license number?”

  “Black Mercedes, I didn’t get the license.”

  “I’ll pull it up on the surveillance and send Niti to check on all the black Mercedes’ on the car list.”

  “Copy that.” I said. “Will you let me know what you find out?”

  “Sure.” He said. Not more than five minutes later I heard John’s voice on the walkie-talkie again. “Niti what’s your twenty?”

  “Milbourne and Lakeshore.” She said. “The Norman’s place is the first on my list. They have a black Mercedes.”

  “Junior Pierson on your list?”

  “Yes he is.”

  “Better get over there first, I just got a noise complaint. It might be related.” He said.

  “OK.” She answered. I wondered if it could be related to Mrs. Mc Affie’s gunshots from earlier, but I didn’t say anything. I cursed David in my head and wondered whether or not I should tell the police that I recognized him. I figured it wasn’t important because I could’ve just as easily not seen the driver. The whole thing gave me a bad feeling. I didn’t think that David could’ve planned to crash the gate while I was working. It was just a bad coincidence that he chose to steal a car on my shift. I had once told him that the side gate was a joke and that you could just drive around it, but how was I supposed to know that he would use that information to pull a stupid stunt?

  I expected the police to come question me, but they never came. I sat there for almost two hours before I heard anything. Finally my walkie-talkie spoke. “Ben, you’d better lock up the side gate and get down here to Junior Pierson’s place. The police will want to talk to you.” John said.

  “It was his car?”

  “Yeah. He’s on his way to the hospital -he got shot. It’s a bad scene over here, real bad. You’d better get down here.”

  “I’m on my way.” I said.

  As I walked towards Lakeshore Boulevard I found myself in a crowd of people who were going the same way. I asked Mr. Paul where he was headed. “Tolly called me on the phone and said they took Junior away in an ambulance. She said there were police all over the place and she even saw the coroner’s van. I thought I’d go see what happened, see if maybe I could help.” I nodded and picked up my pace.

  The police had Lakeshore Boulevard blocked off with their cars, and there was a line of yellow police tape holding back a growing crowd of people on the sidewalk. I pushed my way through and saw Mrs. Mc Affie on the other side of the tape, talking to a man and woman who weren’t in uniform. I ducked under the tape, which drew the attention of a policeman nearby who told me to stop. I was about to explain who I was when the woman who’d been interviewing Mrs. Mc Affie approached us. “He’s okay Mike,” she said, “we wanna talk to him.” The cop nodded slightly and went back to looking tough. “You’re the one who was here earlier on a noise complaint?” She asked.

  “Yeah.” I said. “I’m Ben Perkins.” I stuck my hand out but she was busy flipping open her notebook and getting a pen out of her pocket.

  “I’m detective Reyes,” she said, not looking at me or m
y hand. I put it down. “How long have you been a security guard here?”

  “I’m an agent.” I said. “I got promoted a while back.”

  She sighed. “How long have you worked here Mr. Perkins?”

  “Nine months and some.” I said.

  “The neighbor, Alice Mc Affie, called you here earlier tonight, what was that call about?”

  I told her all about it and I told her about the black Mercedes crashing my gate, but didn’t mention who the driver was. I said I didn’t get a good look at him, but that I was almost positive it was a man, and I told her about the security camera.

  “We’ll want to have a look at that tape.” She said. “When you were here earlier, did you see Mrs. Pierson? Was she in the house?”

  “No, I didn’t see her.” I said. “Why? Isn’t she here now?”

  “She’s here.” Detective Reyes said. “Don’t go far, we’ll want to be reviewing that tape.” She turned and walked back towards the man who was still questioning Mrs. Mc Affie. John was talking to some of the residents who were watching from across the street. As soon as he saw me he came over.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him. “Did Junior really get shot?”

  “Twice.” John said. “Once in the abdomen and once in the shoulder, but the paramedics said he has a good chance of pulling through. They couldn’t