Tough Lessons

by Chris Freeman

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No.” He was shaking his head again. “We were close together, struggling. It was desperate and somehow the knife…”

  “Ended up sticking out of his chest?”

  “Yes.”

  Macy Williams was lying on the floor now, her face obscured by her long blonde hair, her sobbing deep and breathless but regular as a heartbeat.

  “Then he fell against the wall,” continued Joseph, “leaving blood there and more on the wooden floor, before he staggered into his classroom. He went to the far window, probably thought he could call for help, but no one heard him and that’s how he left that big smear of blood against the glass.” The one Joseph had seen as he emerged from his cab the next morning. “And what did you do, Merve? When you saw this guy dying in front of you?”

  “I panicked.”

  “You panicked.”

  “Yes, I remembered I still had the keys in my pocket so I found the one that matched the number on his door and…”

  “You locked him in there.”

  “Yes,” Merve cried, covering his face. “It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I panicked. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out. I had to do it. Don’t you see? Had to.”

  “Then what?”

  “I ran.”

  “But you still had the keys?”

  “I threw them in the bushes outside.”

  Turning to Macy, Joseph demanded, “Didn’t you ever wonder where the keys were?”

  Shrugging, Macy wiped a clot of snot from her nose with the cuff of her jacket. “Figured one of my brothers hid them. I gave them hell over that. Then I just figured they’d show up some time.”

  “Meanwhile, Lopez was bleeding to death. He realized nobody could hear him from the window so he turned back to the door to find you’d locked him in. He needed help and he needed it fast. He was probably banking on reaching the principal’s office to phone for an ambulance. Instead, he got as far as taking the keys he borrowed and putting them in the lock but he’d lost a lot of blood by then. He must have passed out then and died right there on the floor of his own classroom.

  Hearing all of this while his daughter sobbed in front of him seemed to exhaust Merve. He kept repeating, “I’m sorry, so sorry” over and over again between the tears.

  “Sorry ain’t gonna bring poor Lopez back?” said Joseph. “Tell me, Merve, how long was it before you realized you’d killed the wrong man?”

  “Macy came back the night they arrested Geller, told me she loved him, said she was going to run off with him when the cops realized they’d got the wrong man and there was nothing I could do about it. It was just what I was trying to stop by going down there and it turned out she’s going anyway.”

  “Careful, Macy,” said Joseph and she stopped sobbing long enough to look up into his eyes. “He might not be such a great catch when the school board fires him for sleeping with his pupils.”

  “Fuck you,” she screamed and he could easily see how she could be a member of Rihanna Letts’s gang.

  “I think I’ve heard enough,” announced Joseph and he got up to leave.

  “Where you going?” asked Merve.

  “Home.”

  “You can’t tell anyone, Joseph,” pleaded Merve. “For my wife, my family, you can’t tell anyone, you hear?”

  “He won’t have to, Daddy.”

  Both men turned to see Macy staggering to her feet, and moving toward the phone on the desk.

  “You can’t control me anymore. Family? Hah!” Meanwhile, Joseph saw her pressing down on three digits.

  “Hello, Officer,” she spoke into the mouthpiece, her voice shaky. “I need to report a crime…”

  Joseph left the building, pushing the door out against a harsh wind. It was going to be a long, cold winter in the Bronx. Outside, Assistant Chief McCavity was supervising Merve’s transfer into the squad car.

  Merve’s hands were cuffed behind his back and there was no sign of Macy. It looked like she wasn’t going to be following Daddy down to the precinct any time soon. Merve looked all in. By now, he was probably even relieved to have been arrested. After all, he knew he had killed an innocent man and he would have to live with that for the rest of his life.

  As Joseph was walking away, McCavity called after him and followed him over to his cab. “What if he had just calmly shot you and run?” she asked. “You think of that?”

  “Yeah. But Merve is a family man,” he said. “He’s nothing without his wife and kids. It’s all he ever talks about. He ain’t the running kind.”

  “I still can’t believe this was just about a schoolgirl having a fling with her teacher,” she said.

  “Money and fucking,” said Joseph softly to himself.

  “What?” asked McCavity.

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m getting a little pissed at you, Mr. Solinka. You wanna know why?”

  “You don’t have to be a detective to work it out,” he answered dryly.

  “It’s probably not what you think,” she said calmly. “My guess is you reckon I see you as an irritant, someone who gets in my way and makes me look bad when I don’t come up with the right answer, when you have such an uncanny knack of just stumbling across the solution all on your lonesome.”

  That was exactly what he thought. “Not at all,” he said.

  “No, my beef with you is that you’re not on our side. Instead, you’re off doing your own thing, instead of sharing your great insights with us early on and letting us get on with the investigating.” Joseph opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand. “Let me finish. I heard an interesting thing about you. I asked one of my guys to find out a little more about the man who goes around solving crimes in his neighborhood, and you know what he came back with?”

  Joseph shook his head.

  “It seems you’ve applied to join us,” she laughed. “Twice, apparently, turned down each time because of your inability to provide a reference.”

  Joseph was becoming angry now. It looked as if McCavity was telling him this only so that she could mock his background and ridicule his ambitions. He hoped it made her feel better to belittle him like this, here in the street. McCavity continued. “Well, I’ve seen enough to know that you are far from corrupt or you’d have taken that drug dealer’s money when he offered it instead of helping to bring him down like you did. I also know you’ve got a mind like a whip, ’cos you figured out who killed Hernando Lopez before any of my officers and, despite what you might think of them, they are some smart guys I’ve got working for me, believe me. I like to have clever people in my team, Joseph.” It was the first time she had used his Christian name. “How’d you like to work for me?”

  “Me?” he asked dumbly. “But my references…” It was all he could think to offer by way of an answer.

  “Mmm, yes, well, what better reference than the testimony of an assistant chief in the NYPD. I think that ought to cut through some of the HR-generated red-tape bullshit, don’t you? Then I guess we’ll really see what you’re made of. I can tell you’re a little shocked, so I’m going to give you time to think about it. You’ve got one day.” And she handed him a business card. “Call me when you’ve made up your mind.”

  She pressed the card into his outstretched palm. “But don’t leave it too late. I’m quite a busy police officer, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  She started to walk away.

  “But…” he said. “I don’t…”

  “Understand?” she asked. “I’m not an idiot, Joseph. I have good detectives working for me for a reason. They solve cases and that does me not a little good in the process. In return, I make sure they’re looked after. I like my boys to do well. Besides, there’s another reason. I’m an advocate of the Lyndon Johnson school of thinking.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’d rather have you in my tent pissing out than outside my tent pissing in,” she told him firmly. “Tha
t’s why your application to join the NYPD just jumped to the top of the pile. Have a nice day now.”

  And she left him staring down at the business card in his hand like he was clutching a winning ticket in the lottery.

  20

  The Crips’ Killers went pretty meekly in the end. Of course it helped that they were caught red-handed right in the middle of unloading another batch of plasma TVs from the back of their pickup. Rihanna Letts cursed and threatened the uniformed officers of the 41st Precinct. She also spat at them, kicked out, and tried to throw punches, but they had all been selected for their size and were able to literally lift the screaming girl off her feet and march her and her fellow gang members right into the waiting squad cars. It was about as open and shut a case as any Joseph had seen and he had witnessed this one from a balcony in the project, which neatly overlooked the spot previously classed as the turf of the Crips’ Killers.

  McCavity had been as good as her word when he called her that morning. He’d agreed to come and work for her but asked for one small favor.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said, “you ain’t even joined yet and you’re asking for favors.”

  “I know,” he said, “and it’s not even really your area but I was hoping you might speak to someone.” Then he had told her all about Eddie Filan, the ex-cop who’d been brutally beaten by a gang, and she’d agreed to make a call.

  “I guess I owe you for the Merve Williams thing,” she conceded.

  A film crew from an evening news channel had somehow gained word of the impending raid in advance and trailed the arresting officers as they moved in for the kill. There was some juicy footage for that night’s bulletins, run above the caption Juvenile Girl Gangs of the South Bronx—The Shocking Unseen Truth. Joseph watched the film clips of Rihanna Letts being lifted off her feet like a toddler having a tantrum. Her face was distorted on the TV, pixelated to prevent her identity becoming known by the viewing public; after all, as yet, she had never been convicted of any crime. Cloaking her identity was a strange precaution because only someone who had no idea who Rihanna Letts was would find the footage anonymous. Anyone who knew the girl at all would instantly recognize the shrill, screaming mouth, its expletives bleeped out for the viewing public, leaving few words that could be aired safely. They would then identify the burly framed female as the eldest Letts girl.

  “Your momma must be awful proud,” said Joseph to himself as the footage was concluded.

  Rihanna Letts was looking at jail time, pure and simple, and, after what her crew had done to Eddie, Joseph felt little sympathy.

  A few days later, Joseph’s cell phone trilled insistently at him from his inside pocket. “Damn it,” he said, as he tried to open his apartment door without dropping the groceries from the three brown paper bags his arms were wrapped around. He twisted the key in the lock and turned so he could knock the door open with his rear and then he hastily dropped the groceries on the Formica countertop and delved inside his jacket to retrieve the phone.

  “Yeah,” he said breathlessly, for it had been a long, hard climb up the stairs with the groceries in his arms.

  “Joseph, it’s me,” she said, before adding, “Brigitte,” as if he might have forgotten the sound of her voice in the time since they had last spoken.

  “Brigitte,” he answered brightly. “Hi, how are you doing?” Why did it suddenly seem so uncomfortable to talk with this woman he had always felt so natural with?

  “I was just calling because I assumed you’d be worried about Ardo.”

  “Ardo?” he asked unsurely. “Why? What’s happened to him?”

  “Well,” she said a little impatiently. “I thought you would want to know if the school was going to take any action against him.”

  “Action against…” he began, not comprehending. “Sorry, I’m not sure I understand. What has Ardo done that would require any action to be taken against him?”

  “Technically, he allowed a set of very important keys away from his person.” It took him a moment to realize she was talking about the time Geller got hold of Ardo’s keys and not the day when the janitor let Joseph borrow them. “That led to an abuse. In this case, it resulted in the death of a teacher.” She made poor Ardo sound like an accomplice. “But Principal Decker felt that it could just as easily have allowed the wrong kind of person into the school building while the children were still there.” And since when did you ever agree with anything Principal Decker said, wondered Joseph, hardly recognizing the woman he was speaking to now. Clearly Ardo was being accused of assisting paedophiles as well as murderers, poor guy.

  “However,” she continued, “in the end it was agreed there was a safety issue, because Ardo was expected to wear his keys on his belt at all times and he couldn’t very well do that while he was washing the school windows from a ladder, in case he fell.”

  What she meant was Decker had ordered Ardo to wear his keys on his belt at all times but that was a dumb and unsafe thing to do, so Ardo had ignored him and lost his keys as a result. Decker might have wanted to use the incident to get rid of Ardo but, like every sensible, spineless public servant in the state, he would have taken legal advice first. Any lawyer worth a cent would have advised Decker that Ardo would have a strong case against Antoinette Irving High and its principal if he was fired for taking his keys off his belt before climbing a ladder.

  “The school are getting the locks changed and having new keys cut. They are going to ensure there is somewhere secure for Ardo to leave his keys when he washes the windows in future.”

  “So he’s off the hook?” asked Joseph a little impatiently.

  “I guess you could say so. That wasn’t the only reason I called, by the way.” She cleared her throat. “I wanted to thank you for teaching me to shoot. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I feel a lot safer walking the streets now thanks to you.”

  “That’s okay. I was going to call you, too, really I was. I wanted to say sorry I shot away the other night without coming in for coffee. I hope you don’t think I was rude.”

  “It’s no biggy,” she said, somewhat self-consciously. There was a pause, then a momentary lull in conversation where each of them was waiting for the other to say something. Finally she filled the void of silence. “I’ve really got to go, Joseph,” she said a little coldly. “I’ve got a date tonight.”

  “Oh,” he said, not knowing why he should be so surprised.

  “I mean, it’s a kind of date,” she began. “No, well, I mean it is a date, actually.” She seemed mightily unsure about it, though, thought Joseph. “Just this guy I met through a friend. She’s a teacher at Antoinette Irving as well and he’s, well, like I say, her friend. He seems like a nice guy.”

  And why are you telling me all this? thought Joseph, as if he didn’t know. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of something, knowing that Brigitte would be spending the evening with another man, though it sounded more like a blind date than a full-blown romance.

  “Anyway, it’s not as if you and I…” she continued.

  “No, exactly.”

  “Well, then,” she concluded.

  “I probably shouldn’t keep you then,” he said. “And I promised I would bring Eddie his groceries.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything left to add and Joseph was about to say good-bye to Brigitte De Moyne when she suddenly said, “I was thinking…”

  “What?”

  “You never did tell me who you wanted to be when you were a little boy.”

  “Does it matter now?”

  “I’m curious, that’s all.” Her tone was light again, almost playful. “I’d just like to know who the ace detective wanted to be before he grew up.”

  “Well, I’d have thought it was obvious.”

  “No,” she said. “Not really.”

  “Where I lived in Lagos we used to get all the British and American TV and films.”

  “And?”

  “I was a young
boy in a big city, dreaming of adventures in far-off places.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Obviously I wanted to be James Bond.”

  Brigitte laughed. “Oh my, that’s hilarious.” And she tried unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles.

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Well, for starters, James Bond is English or Scottish or something and, well…”

  “What?”

  She said solemnly, with mock seriousness, “I hate to be the one to break your heart here, Joseph, but you don’t look Scottish.”

  “Really.” He said it like he was devastated. “Damn.”

  She was laughing freely now and it seemed to take all of the harshness and resentment out of her voice, cutting through the tension between them. “I think I know why you wanted to be James Bond,” she said.

  “You do, do you?”

  “Yeah,” she pronounced confidently. “Because he always gets the girl at the end.”

  “Maybe that’s it.”

  When Brigitte rang off, Joseph was left with the undeniable conclusion that it was possible to be friends with a woman but it was a whole lot harder to stay friends with her if she wanted more. The sad fact was Joseph had no free time in his life and no space in his heart for anything else right now. There were too many people depending on him.

  It would take more than the small matter of a fractured patella to keep Eddie Filan out of the Mucky Duck for ever. The Black Swan was an Irish American bar that served the right brand of whiskey with the absolute minimum of intrusive conversation from the barman. There was no piped music, no overhead TV broadcasting highlights of last night’s ball game, and no pseudo-Irish paraphernalia decorating the place. As Eddie put it, “They don’t got no bicycles, no Davy lamps, or any little green leprechauns hanging from the ceiling and that’s just fine with me.” The bar was a short drive out of the project in Joseph’s cab, which would have been a lot easier than Eddie’s insisted method of travel: hobbling there on a pair of crutches in a protracted stop-start journey that was punctuated with colourful curse words along the way.