Undercard

by David Albertyn

  Tyron closes his eyes. Tries to sleep.

  4

  3:26 a.m.

  Keenan pulls into his driveway in a new development on the northern outskirts of the city. His head and shoulder blades throb, and he has to blink his eyes regularly or they start to burn with exhaustion. Inside he plods up the stairs. Naomi is stretched out on their bed in her short white nightie, half covered by the sheets. He looks at her forlornly, remembering when he would have leapt onto the bed with her at such a sight.

  He hadn’t been able to get a hold of Tyron by phone, and decided against leaving a voicemail or sending a text. Telling someone their parents were assassinated isn’t something to leave a record of. He’d waited indecisively in his car outside his parents’ home, and woke up over an hour later, not remembering when he had fallen asleep. Feeling impotent to protect his father and unsure if he even needed protection, Keenan decided to go home, to rest a short while and think things through.

  Naomi stirs as he gets undressed in the dark. “You’re home,” she says, half asleep.

  He turns on the lamp. “I’m home.”

  She blinks her eyes open, then sits up straight. “What happened to you?”

  “Why?”

  “You look so pale.”

  “You won’t believe it.”

  He kneels on the bed in a T-shirt and boxers. “After the fight, Antoine killed two people. It’ll be all over the news in a few hours.”

  Her eyes widen in alarm, and he tells her everything from start to finish. The clock ticks past 4 a.m. before he is done.

  5

  4:09 a.m.

  After Keenan has completed his story, Naomi takes him in her arms and holds him. He clings to her, the way a shipwrecked man clings to an outcrop of rock. She doesn’t feel much like a rock, more of a crumbling sandbank, still half drunk from all those shots at the club, but she tries her best to be what he needs from her. In truth, she thinks the alcohol might be helping with the shock of it all. It is difficult to believe.

  “Are you going to tell Ty about his parents?” she asks.

  “I tried calling him but he didn’t pick up.”

  She looks away from Keenan, wondering if it is because of their kiss that Tyron didn’t answer. She won’t tell Keenan about it because there’s nothing to tell. Just two drunk ex-lovers kissing goodbye. Still, she feels a slight stab of guilt. They are still married, for now at least. But she won’t tell him, especially not now with the world collapsing around him.

  “What will you do?” she asks.

  He lies back on the bed. “I don’t know. I feel I have to get to the truth. Whatever it is.” He rubs his eyes with his palms and looks at her. “What do you think I should do?”

  Keenan wants her advice? Things really have got to him. “I think,” she says slowly, “that if this third man isn’t your father, Antoine would know it. Maybe your dad wasn’t involved. Maybe you just do nothing and we’ll all be okay.”

  “My dad was involved with Bashinsky. Somehow they were linked. He might not have been one of his trigger men, but I know he was involved in other things. There are too many connections, too many scraps of things I overheard as a kid.” He slaps the mattress. “If he wasn’t such an asshole, I could just ask him. But he’ll never talk to me about any of this. Especially now.” He adds with an unhappy laugh, “He’ll probably never talk to me again, period.”

  She studies him, just a foot away on the bed, as he looks down, his mind playing out possible scenarios. Even now, pale and distraught, he is handsome. Lush red hair, an oval face with dark eyebrows like his mother’s, a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, a soft mouth, and a long, lean, broad-shouldered body. He looks like an underwear model, just as he did when they were younger.

  But for all his looks, he never turned her on the way Tyron did. The great appeal of Keenan’s features was the status they brought her among other women. She’d only realized that in the last year. He was wanted by so many women, and the woman he wanted was her. That must make her special. That must make her more desirable than all these pretty, regular-sized women.

  And then he became a pariah, and she didn’t feel that pretty or special on his arm anymore. Nor was he the confident, charming ladies’ man who had been there for her when she was getting over Ty, and won her over with his persistence. Instead he was sullen, bitter, and guilt-ridden. She would find him in the middle of the night, in the glow of his computer, staring fixedly at photos of Reggie Harrison.

  Naomi wanted to tell him that it was going to be okay. He had done a terrible thing, but nothing could be done about it now. She wanted to tell him that she forgave him.

  But she never did any of those things. She couldn’t bring herself to lie.

  She stayed with him through his acquittal because he needed her, and she had made a vow to be there for him through thick and thin. But the whole “till death do us part” thing, that didn’t work for her. She was an athlete: she knew mistakes were part of the game, and correcting mistakes was how you moved forward. He was acquitted. That was it, he was not going to prison. She had done her duty by him.

  And now he’s in another fucking crisis. But not again. She will be there for him, as she always will be, but not as his wife. Not again.

  “I have to figure this out for myself as much as for my father,” Keenan says. His tone has a firmer edge to it. “For Tyron too. And for the police. If there is corruption in the department, I should root it out. It won’t make amends, but at least it’ll . . .” He chokes on his words. He swallows and looks at her. “I’ll know I tried.”

  She reaches out to touch his face, her heart aching for him. But her mind is made up. Even as he closes his eyes and nuzzles his cheek against her hand, she doesn’t change it.

  “The only people who still support you are the police,” she says, another sad thought coming to her. “If you go looking into corruption in their ranks . . .”

  “Then absolutely everyone will hate me,” he says, finishing the thought for her. He takes her hand from his face and kisses the back of it. “The good thing about being unpopular is you lose your fear of it.”

  “Do you still have people in the department who can help you?”

  “Some . . . a few . . . one, maybe. Fitz. He’ll make inquiries for me, I think.”

  “Does he owe you a favour?”

  “I think I owe him a favour, but I’ll be persistent.”

  “You sure you want to do this? Why don’t we just go get your parents and get out of town? We can fly down to L.A. for a few days. I can get your dad out of the house. He listens to me more than he does you.”

  “Jesus, does he. Even tonight he had to remind me that you’re too good for me. It’s embarrassing, this crush he’s got on you.”

  “Well, now it works to our advantage. Maybe I can get the truth out of him.”

  “I doubt it,” he says. “But I don’t want you going near him. It’s bad enough my mother is with him.”

  “Why? You think Antoine will hurt me?”

  “He might. If you’re in the way . . . for sure he might.”

  “Antoine wouldn’t hurt me. I’m probably the best person to protect your father.”

  “Antoine’s not the guy you remember. He really has lost his mind. He could do anything. We can’t take that chance.”

  “I saw him. After he won his fight, I saw him.” Seeing his perplexed look, she explains how she had been in the crowd and hugged Antoine on the edge of the walkway. “He said he was glad I saw his fight and he was glad he got to see me. It makes sense now, the finality in his words. But the point is, he still cares about me.”

  “I’m sure he does still care about you, but I don’t think it’ll matter. The guy’s a psycho.”

  “He left you alive, Key. Keep that in mind.”

  Keenan has no response to this.


  “I think what you said before is right: he wouldn’t tell you he has another target if that target was your father. Either way, let me look after your parents. I’ll get them to a hotel. Maybe to the airport. And I’ll get as much as I can out of your dad. That’ll leave you free to find the real third man.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You’re not. I want to do it. I want to help. This is the best way I can. Antoine won’t move on your dad if I’m with him. I’m sure of it.”

  “I don’t know. If something happens to you, babe . . . It might not be Antoine coming either. He has dangerous people working for him. They won’t have nostalgia holding them back.”

  “Key, we’re a team,” she says. “We’re family. Your parents are my family. We’re all in this together. I can handle myself.”

  He squeezes her arm. “You’re sure?”

  She nods. “You’re sure you want to go after this cop?”

  “No. I’m not sure about anything these days. But I’m not afraid for myself anymore. The only thing that scares me is something happening to you or my parents. But for me . . . there’s a strange power that comes from being hated. I never knew that until tonight.”

  It seems as if he will tell her something deeply personal, but he simply looks at her with sadness and gratitude.

  “So this is for sure, then,” he says. “This is how you want to do it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” he says. He leans forward and kisses her. “Thanks, babe.” He straightens his back and widens his shoulders as though the weight he was carrying just slid off. He nods to himself and stares ahead, strategizing. “I want you to take my spare gun. Just in case.”

  “All right.” She can shoot; she’s been to the gun range with him enough times.

  “You’ll go to my parents’ place, move them, and find out what you can from my dad. I’ll get in touch with Fitz and see what he can do.”

  “Can you trust him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anyone I can trust right now other than you. But it’s worth the risk. And there’s one more thing.”

  “Yeah?” she prompts when he doesn’t continue.

  He stands and begins to pace the room. He stops and looks at her, his eyes fierce. “Are you leaving me?”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to leave me?”

  “You want to do this now?”

  “That’s an encouraging response. Yeah, I want to do this now.”

  “Keenan, there’s so much going on. Don’t you want to wait till all this is over? When we have time to —”

  “No, I don’t —”

  “Time to think about it, talk about it, get to a —”

  “No. No, I don’t want —”

  “Now is not the time to make a big decision like —”

  “Now is the fucking time, Naomi! Dammit, I’m done waiting. It’s been almost a year that I’ve had this hanging over me. Whatever’s coming over the next day or two, I want this settled. I don’t want this uncertainty at the back of my mind. And if something does happen to me, I’d rather have this resolved before I . . . I just want to know, babe. I just want to know.”

  Naomi gets off the bed and walks to him. She takes his hands in hers.

  “I’ll always love you, Key, but . . .”

  He laughs sardonically and hangs his head. “This is a good start.”

  “But as a couple, I don’t feel the same way I used to. I’m sorry. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to get those feelings back. But I just don’t have them anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  She opens her mouth to speak.

  “Wait,” he says. “I know.” He drops her hands. “If I could take that day back I would.”

  She feels tears coming to her eyes. “So would I.”

  He walks back to the bed and slumps down on it, leaving her standing, watching him. She squeezes back her tears and wipes away the one that slips through.

  “I never asked you this, Key . . . in all this time I never asked you because I knew everyone was asking you this question, and I didn’t want you to have to defend yourself to me. But how did you do it? How did it happen?”

  He spends a long time staring at the floor, thinking, and the only sound in this early hour of the morning is their breathing, steady and deep, but heavy with emotion and fatigue.

  “They tell you that the Strip is the lifeblood of the city,” he says. “The tourists, the businessmen are the lifeblood of the city. And our prime objective is to ensure that that blood keeps pumping. Unobstructed. The people who don’t belong there should stay where they can’t disrupt the flow of money. We are told, implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, to make sure they know where they belong.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Do I have to say it? You know who I mean.”

  “Yes. Say it. Who’s they?”

  “They. Them. Black people, brown people, poor people. Make sure they know who’s boss. Make sure they know who’s in charge. Make sure they’re afraid of challenging the order of things. And definitely make sure they know where they don’t belong. So no matter how rough things are in those communities, tourists can come here from anywhere in the world and stay on the Strip, or off the Strip, and feel completely secure. We don’t make the city safe. We compartmentalize it.”

  “And if someone doesn’t comply you shoot them?”

  “It’s not like that. No one says ‘Shoot them.’ But you are taught that if someone is a threat to you or someone else, then yes, you do shoot them. And you have this mandate to intimidate. It becomes normal after a while. There are always eyes on you. Other cops, I mean. You’ve always got to look hard. You can’t let any of these people step on you. You put all those things together: someone doesn’t listen, they piss you off, they don’t comply — they’re already a threat to the lifeblood of the city, now maybe they’re a threat to you or your partner. And that’s it. You take someone’s life.”

  He gets off the bed and walks to the window. He slides the curtain open and lets in the predawn light. “I don’t blame you for wanting out,” he says, with his back turned to her. “I don’t feel the same about myself either.”

  She closes her eyes and her tears seep through. She cries for him, for her, for their broken marriage, for Antoine and what he’s become, and for her evaporated dream that the four of them could be together again. It has all gone so wrong. She opens her eyes and Keenan is beside her, holding her, kissing her, wiping away her tears. She melds into his embrace, savouring the familiarity of his touch and his scent, knowing it might be the last time she experiences either.

  6

  5:06 a.m.

  Captain Shaw takes 1st Platoon with him outside the wire from its southern perimeter, while 2nd and 3rd Platoons hold position and lay suppressing fire on the enemy. Tyron and his men weave their way through the dust and smoke.

  Tyron likes the smell of it. He has never smoked, not once in his life. Not one cigarette, not one joint. But the scent of smoke, of burning . . . Maybe he was born for Iraq, for this is indeed a torched nation, a country ablaze. Fires lick their garbage. Bombs scorch their markets. The burning, acrid scent that is everywhere in this place, that most American soldiers loathe, choked by it, wishing for leave just so they can take a clean breath, has become Captain Shaw’s guilty pleasure. He inhales it. Feels the sooty blackness drift into his lungs. Because it smells good to him. And because it is condensed destruction and death. It is what Iraq has become. It is what he has become.

  He studies his men as they creep toward the dirt field where the enemy is planting explosively formed penetrators. He watches the platoon commander, Lieutenant Lake, who keeps looking up whenever an explosion flashes overhead. This fight could last till morning. It could last through tomorrow. Tyron sneers. For the
Iraqis, this fight could last another generation or more. But tonight it is only his men he has to worry about. The fight will be long and he does not want them worn out by fear.

  He knows they are brave and they will not hesitate when the moment comes, but he can still see the tension in them. Their shock at the scope of this battle. It is dawning on them that this is not an ambush on a convoy; the enemy is here to kill every last one of them.

  “Hold,” he says, and his order goes down the line.

  Crouching on the edge of the field, taking cover behind what’s left of a blown-out building, Tyron traces his planned line of attack with his finger in the sand. “I want smoke rounds that entire way,” he says to Lake. “One squad there, cover fire. One squad here, smoke. One squad with me, closing with the enemy.”

  “You’re on point, sir?”

  He hopes Lake can see his big-toothed grin. “Aye aye, lieutenant.”

  * * *

  Crawling through a murky, rank ditch, smoke billowing all around him, Tyron hears the ripping report of AKs up ahead, answered by the precision firing of his Marines. Adrenaline spikes through him as he reaches for a grenade. Fortune favours the brave, motherfucker, he recites in his head. He snakes closer. The wind blows, the smoke swirls, and he sees the firing gunmen lined up along the ditch ahead of him. They see him too, turn their fire on him. He presses himself down, hears their bullets crack and whistle above him. Feels the spray of dirt from those that hit before him. The wind dies and the smoke thickens once more. He pops the pin, holds a beat, rises to his knees, and smoothly chucks the egg-shaped explosive. Face back down into the dirt. Cries of alarm up ahead mixed with gunshots. And then a boom.

  The sky rips apart. Shock waves funnel down the ditch. A blast of smoke, sewage, and shrapnel scattering before it. The wave rakes over him. And a split second after, there is a ferocious crash from the west.

  He springs up, wipes his face, and scans his surroundings. His grenade triggered the EFPs, which exploded all at once. The discs of metal they sent hurtling crashed into the upper wall of the combat outpost, leaving gaping holes and rubble behind. None of his men would’ve been hit; he told Lake to radio in that the east side of the COP must be cleared. As for the insurgent gunmen, there are only pulpy pieces of them left, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the gunk that fills the ditch.