Tough Lessons

by Chris Freeman

  The little Armenian strode past Joseph and banged the big red off switch with the palm of his hand. The machine juddered once in protest, as if breathing its last, then it quietly expired, instantly bringing an ear-ringing silence to the room.

  “Goddamn that fucking piece of shitty American engineering,” proclaimed Ardo. “You know where it was made? Iowa. Who the fuck you know ever been to Iowa?” And with that profound pronouncement behind him he demanded, “You want coffee or what?”

  The old metal kettle was filled with water, placed on a tiny stove, and slowly coaxed to the boil. Joseph looked around Ardo’s private corner of the stockroom and noticed there were a couple of power points but it was clear Ardo had an old-fashioned attitude toward kettles. This one had no flex and there was even a whistle on the top to let you know when the water had finished boiling. The old Armenian must have viewed electric white goods in the same suspicious manner that Joseph saw the iPod, as a clever but complicated modern device he had no discernible need for.

  Ardo laughed. “You really think I was in there?” He nodded at the broken compactor as he handed Joseph his coffee.

  “Of course not.” He accepted the mug gratefully, wrapping his hands round its heat, because for no matter how near he sat to the propane heater he couldn’t seem to remove the chill from his bones. The room was too big and poorly insulated to be entirely warmed by the hulking old boiler in wintertime, but Ardo must have grown used to its drafts for he did not seem at all uncomfortable down here. There were few home comforts in his room, save for a cork noticeboard that contained postcards from friends and relatives in Europe and a couple of faded pictures of his grown-up children and grandchildren.

  “Nice of you to come see me, Joseph.”

  “It’s always good to see you, Ardo. I enjoy your company and our little games.”

  Ardo laughed. “Want me to go get the board?” It seemed that was all the excuse he needed to play hooky from his work for a while.

  Joseph shook his head. “I’ll be honest with you. Today I’m here for a different reason.”

  “Not chess? No? What is it, my friend?” said the janitor earnestly. “You need help from Ardo? Anything, you just name it.”

  Joseph found he was touched by Ardo’s instant willingness to lend him a hand. “No, nothing like that. I’m afraid it’s about the Hernando Lopez killing,” he admitted and went on to explain his theory about the keys and his increasing suspicion that the teacher had been locked in his classroom and left there to die.

  Ardo seemed a little taken aback by this. “The police, they ask me, come on, Ardo, they say, who else had a key? Who you lend it to? And I tell them, nobody. Ardo gives his key to nobody. But that doesn’t stop them with their questions. One of them even asked me if I gave my keys to the young boy, Jermaine, and then he asked me what I got the boy to do to earn those keys. Can you imagine? I told him to shut his filthy mouth. I ask him what kind of dirty, disgusting mind think up a question like that, and him a police officer? I told him he should be ashamed to think like that. He just laughed at me, Joseph. He laughed.”

  Ardo went on to give Joseph a lengthy explanation about the sanctity of his keys, the fact that he would never let them out of his sight let alone dream of giving or lending them to anyone else. Ardo explained that he was trusted by the school and the state of New York with those keys. They were his responsibility and he took that responsibility very seriously. Ardo went on at such length that Joseph began to regret asking him such an emotive question. Then he suddenly noticed something.

  “Ardo, you always wear those keys on your belt, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, where are they now?”

  “Now.” Ardo blinked quickly and looked a little embarrassed. “You mean right now?”

  “Yes, I mean right now.”

  “Well, I don’t wear them every second of the day, Joseph, got to take them off some time, like when I go to the crapper maybe.”

  “That where you just been?”

  “What?” he said incredulously. “I can’t believe you ask me that. You want to know if I just been for a shit. No, I clean windows. Every week I got to clean windows, always with the windows. There are so many so I am always cleaning them, two, sometimes three times a week. See, the way I do it is I clean some, not all of them but some each time. That way I get round them all and Decker can’t find an excuse to fire my ass. The damned man don’t like me, Joseph. I don’t think he likes anybody who weren’t born here.”

  “And you don’t wear your keys when you clean the windows?”

  “You want me to break my neck on the goddammed ladder? No, I don’t wear my keys when I clean the windows, Joseph. I am up ladder. If keys get caught in ladder they make me fall and I perkush…” and he made a sound like something falling onto the hard ground from a great height, bringing the flat of his palm down swiftly against his knee to illustrate this grim fate.

  “I understand,” said Joseph and he nodded vigorously to calm his friend down. “So, where are the keys right now, Ardo?”

  10

  Joseph was headed for Merve Williams’ hardware store, one hand resting on the steering wheel of the cab, coaxing it through the traffic, the other absentmindedly toying with the heavy clump of keys in his lap. The ones Ardo never let out of his sight. The ones Ardo had just given him.

  Ardo had agreed to lend him the keys for two reasons. “I only do this because it is you, Joseph,” he assured his friend. “Only you I trust this much, like a brother, to borrow my keys and bring them safe back to me after lunch, like you promise, okay.” He was nervous, as well he might be. The other reason for his generous agreement to permit Joseph the set of keys had remained unspoken between them. It was the obvious embarrassment in Ardo’s eyes when he showed Joseph the nail in the noticeboard that was pinned to the wall in the corner of his unlocked room. This he had admitted was where he left his keys when he was up the ladder, covering the school windows in soapsuds. Joseph was fairly certain that when Ardo had sworn to the police, on his family’s honor and his children’s lives, that he never leant his keys to anyone else, he had unwittingly neglected to mention the two maybe three times a week he hung them on a nail in an unlocked boiler room while he was washing windows. It was Ardo’s combination of embarrassment and fear that had prompted Joseph to request the loan of his keys for just an hour or two. Reluctantly, the Armenian had complied.

  Now that he had proven one important thing—that other people could get hold of the supposedly well-guarded keys while Ardo was up a ladder—Joseph was about to try and prove another: that he could get a copy of those same keys made in the time it took Ardo to wipe down another set of windows.

  Merve Williams’s hardware store was an exception for a small business in that corner of the South Bronx. It was thriving. Merve might not be a millionaire but his hard-earned reputation, keen eye for a bargain, and attention to detail had ensured him a loyal enough clientele to keep the ever-present spectre of Walmart from his door. While other businesses closed down around him, robbed of a level playing field by the Starbucks and K-Mart buy-’em-cheap, pile-’em-high and discount-’em-low approach, he had quietly thrived. He’d even taken on the lease of the retail lot next door when it inevitably fell vacant. In short, he had a thrifty, seemingly recession-proof business because in his own simple words, “People always gonna need nails.”

  Merve was a big, powerful man and he probably needed to be round here. There was always someone in the South Bronx only too ready to hit you for the takings or jack a few power drills out from under you when your back was turned. Power tools were high up on the popularity lists of petty criminals, along with portable, electrical goods. They were easy to transport, desirable to own, but expensive if you had to pay the full retail price. It was a simple question of supply and demand and their desirability made them easier to fence. Merve had obviously borne that in mind when he set up his business. There were CCTV cam
eras everywhere, both outside of the store and in, with warning signs about a patrolling security service provided by a firm with a tough-sounding name.

  Merve was standing behind the counter in that grim, unsmiling, masculine way they always did in those hardware stores, none of that saccharin-sweet have-a-nice-day attitude here. Merve’s customers just wanted to get to the point, buy their power tools and lumber, and get out of there.

  “Merve, how you doing?”

  “Getting by,” answered Merve grimly, as if life was one long struggle he was just about on top of.

  “How are the girls?”

  “Good.” He said it quickly, almost defensively. “They’re always a worry though, girls. My boy don’t give me no trouble, but the girls? I got gray hair and bit-down nails from them. You’ve got a boy of course, so you wouldn’t understand, but it’s hard for girls round here. They got to be as tough as the boys these days.”

  “Sure do,” agreed Joseph. He was wondering why Merve was giving him this little insight into the difficulties faced by young women in their area. Had Macy been up to something she wouldn’t want written about in her yearbook? “Like you say, I got a boy and he’s a good kid but he’s trouble enough. I don’t think I’d like to be sitting at home worrying about a girl.”

  “I’ve learned worrying don’t solve nothing and it don’t change a thing. You’ve just got to let ’em work things out for themselves. It’s like Macy, she was friends with that Letts girl, the one from the parent’s evening,” and he gave Joseph a look that said all it needed to about the way he viewed young Miss Letts. Joseph remembered the tough-looking young girl with the hip rolling and the attitude. “That worried me, I can tell you. She’s trash. Whole family is no good, never has been, but Macy didn’t want to listen to her old pop about a thing like that. Nothing I could say was going to stop them hanging round together. Might as well try and tell the rain to quit pouring, the good it would do. You know what happened? In the end they fell out over a boy or something. You know how girls can be. Can’t say I was heartbroken when it happened though.”

  Joseph recalled Macy Williams when she had put in an appearance down by the football field, flying by in her pickup, waving like she owned the place and everyone in it. She looked tough enough to survive, all right. He wondered how a quietly spoken, serious-minded working man felt about his daughter’s flamboyant appearance at the football practice. He doubted Merve Williams would approve.

  “Your youngest is in Yomi’s class, isn’t she?”

  “Laura? Yes, she is. Says your boy’s got all the smarts.”

  Joseph laughed. “Must get that from his mother.” He was trying to sound modest but was secretly proud of his son’s academic prowess. “Does Laura like school?”

  “She did,” he said. “She’s a little upset about that teacher right now.”

  “Who wouldn’t be,” agreed Joseph.

  “Yeah,” said Merve. “Seems like he was a popular guy. I guess he must have had a way with the young ones, if you know what I mean. Anyway, Joseph, what can I do for you?”

  “You still got that key-cutting booth?”

  “Right out back. Kyle will see to you.” He turned round and hollered across the shop floor, “Kyle!” A young guy with a face full of freckles and an unruly mop of ginger hair came running like Merve’s word was the law. “Mr. Soyinka here needs some keys cutting,”

  “Sure,” said Kyle and he led the way past racks piled high with timber and shelves filled with every tool a handyman could wish for as he ushered Joseph to the back of the store. There, in a dark little recess, was the key cutting machine. “So, what you got?” asked Kyle.

  Joseph held up the bunch of keys and the tacky, green Statue of Liberty key ring Ardo used and he handed them over to Kyle. The young man weighed them in his hand, as if that might make a difference to the price, then asked, “We doing one of each?”

  “I guess,” said Joseph. “How much is that gonna be?”

  “Let’s see,” and he started counting the keys, mumbling the numbers out loud. When he’d finished he looked up as if he had suddenly remembered something. “You got the card on you, right?”

  “Excuse me?” Joseph asked it absentmindedly as if he had not heard the boy.

  “The ID card that goes with the master set. I can’t cut any new keys without seeing the card first.”

  “Oh, dang,” and Joseph put his hand to his head like that was all he needed right now. “I don’t believe it. I am such a dumb bunny. I forgot all about the card and left it behind.” He gave Kyle an imploring look. “Say, there’s no way you could just go ahead and cut them anyway and we’ll say I’ll bring the card in next time?”

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry, sir.” Kyle looked shocked at the very notion. “That right there’d be illegal.”

  “I see,” said Joseph. “No, you’re right. It’s my fault. I’ll just come back another time. Thanks for your help.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” said Kyle earnestly. “Have a nice day.”

  As Joseph drove the cab back to Antoinette Irving High School, he had to admit he was back to square one. He had proved it was possible to get access to the school keys when it was meant to be impossible but it was still far from clear how anybody could get a new set cut before returning them. Of course not every hardware store in New York was as straight as Merve’s and not every key cutter as earnest and diligent as Kyle. There was no time to try anywhere else just now though. The keys had to go back to Ardo before he passed out from the stress of having them removed from his care. As he drove back to the school, Joseph glanced at his watch. Damn, he was running late. He now regretted being so cavalier in agreeing to accompany Eddie that afternoon on their foolish patrol of the neighborhood. The stolen goods being cached in the lockups on their project were really not too high on his list of priorities right now. But Eddie was a good friend and, though he had a soft center, his hard exterior could be instantly activated if he felt slighted or someone had failed to take him sufficiently seriously. It meant Joseph would have to move fast if Eddie wasn’t going to be mightily pissed at his tardiness.

  The knock on the front door of Eddie’s apartment went unanswered, which meant the stubborn old guy had gone on ahead without him. Sure, Joseph was a little late but Eddie could have hung on for him before charging on down there like some lone vigilante. The lockups weren’t going anywhere, after all. Joseph sighed. He couldn’t leave his friend to pursue a one-man war against the local gangs without any help, so he headed straight back down the staircase.

  To get to the lockups, Joseph was forced to cross the children’s play area, overlooked on all four sides by the towering apartment blocks of the Highbridge Project. It was set in a crumbling concrete base surrounded by a two-foot-high fence made of metal hoops that might as well have not been there for all the purpose it served. It certainly wouldn’t keep out anyone who shouldn’t be there.

  These days you rarely saw young kids playing here anymore. Instead, the whole space had been taken over by older teenagers. There were gang tags sprayed on the nearest wall, some of which looked suspiciously familiar. The crew that targeted Eddie’s front door had obviously been busy, judging by the number of Crips’ Killers tags decorating the nearby buildings. As he walked, his shoe crunched shards of glass from broken bottles into the concrete and he began to watch where he was treading in case there were syringes hidden under the litter that remained uncollected round these parts. Refuse crews were reluctant to work such a bad area and when they did they were none too thorough, fearing a stoning from the rooftops and balconies above them from bored kids with a sitting target down below. Joseph wondered if the playground had once been a nice spot, used by children, or if it had always been like it was today, a shit hole populated by gangs and junkies.

  He reached the corner of the Highbridge Project given over to the lockups and rounded the bend. That was when he saw Eddie and this time there was no cheery wave or jov
ial banter from the prone figure, nor did the old man attempt to raise himself from the ground. Eddie was lying flat on the cold, hard concrete. He was completely immobile, with his head lolled to one side, facing away from Joseph.

  “Eddie,” he called as he ran toward the lifeless figure and squatted down next to him. “Eddie, it’s me, Joseph.”

  The eyes were closed, the face pale and gray except for the scrapes and bruises that were already forming there. Joseph felt Eddie’s neck for a pulse and was rewarded by the weakest of beats. It was then he noticed the matted blood on the side of Eddie’s head that had been hidden from view when it was pressed against the ground. The old man could have banged his head as he fell but more likely this was the result of a heavy blow to the skull. Someone had sideswiped the old guy and left him there. Eddie looked in a bad way. Joseph thrust a hand into his jacket, pulled the cell phone from his pocket, and frantically dialled 911.

  11

  Joseph had ridden in the back of the ambulance with Eddie all the way to the hospital. Now the old man was unconscious in a bed on one of the wards while his friend paced and fretted in a waiting room downstairs. Joseph was not feeling good about himself. He had been there hours and been afforded plenty of time to contemplate his role in all of this. He knew he had let his friend down, his guilt compounded by the fact that he was only too aware of the kind of man Eddie was. He could have laid even money that the old cop would have cursed Joseph for his lack of punctuality, taken it as a sign of disinterest on his friend’s part and felt slighted, then gone down to investigate the lockups all by himself.