by Jake Hinkson
I lay there a long time knowing my little baby would never be a little boy and would never grow up to be a man. And I knew Ezra wasn’t coming back. Poor Ezra. Only the Lord Himself knows how empty Ezra must have felt. I cried for him, and for me, and for the baby.
After a while, the door opened, and a little light come in from the moon. I didn’t want it to be Ezra. I didn’t want him near me.
Then Margie touched my arm. Her fingertips were cold at first but then became warm and being touched that softly by another human being was like being touched by Jesus Himself.
“Come here, child,” she whispered.
I rolled over to her, and she held me in the dark; her hands and arms and breath like the Spirit of God made real, just to hold me.
C OLD CITY
Graham said he needed to talk. I had to go outside for a cigarette break anyway, so we walked downstairs. Wet snow flurries pelted the sidewalks, and all the smokers wedged into a space just beside the front door to keep out of the wind. Graham motioned me away from the smoker’s nook, though. What he had to say was private. He didn’t want to say it around a bunch of cops.
We dashed across the street to a greasy spoon where most of us ate before or after our shifts. We took a booth in the back and ordered a couple of coffees. I lit up a cigarette and said, “Let’s have it.”
“I’m in trouble, Larry. I’m in a damn mess.”
Graham scratched his smooth forehead. Even when I was a rookie I looked about fifty. That’s a good quality for a cop to have. Graham was thirty years old, but he looked all of twenty-one.
“Tell me,” I said.
He nodded and took a sip of his coffee. He sucked in his upper lip a little and put down the cup. “It’s money. I’m in debt way over my head. It’s going to break me if I don’t do something soon. Real soon.”
“How much?”
“Thirty grand.”
“Jesus.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I take it we’re not talking about student loans here.”
He took a deep breath. “No. Dirt Bramson.”
“Damn, kid.” I sat there smoking for a moment. He stared down at his hands. Finally, I said, “Three things you can do on a deal like this. One, you go talk to him and try to get an extension.”
“I tried, but—”
“Just shut up,” I snapped. “Just sit there and listen to me. You can go talk to him and try to get an extension, but Dirt’s a grade A asshole. Plus, he hates cops. He’d probably love to send someone around to break your knees. Or he might just let it leak to the guys upstairs that you’re into him for thirty g’s. So option one is out. Option two, you can try to raise the money some other way.”
“How do I get my hands on that kind of cash?”
I looked him straight in the eye and shrugged. “Depends on what you want to do.”
“Okay,” he said. “What’s option three?”
I mashed out my butt and leaned forward. “You get rid of him.”
Graham ran his hand over his face. I’d never stared at him before—not really. I’d never noticed that he was kind of delicate looking. Odd for a cop. He was a good kid, good at his job, though. He had a deep, authoritative voice, and he didn’t take any shit from smart-mouthed dickheads, but if you just saw him walking around on the street you’d swear he was a high school math teacher.
“Yeah,” he said.
I stirred some sugar into my coffee and took a sip. I added more sugar.
“What would you do, Larry?”
I sighed. “Tough to know what to do.”
He let out a curt chuckle and shook his head in disgust. “I can’t believe I got myself into this. This wasn’t how the old man raised me.”
Graham had a daddy complex. His old man had been some kind of preacher, and the kid always beat himself up because he wasn’t John the Baptist.
He ran his hands over his face. “It shouldn’t be tough to know what to do.”
What can you say to that? If God wanted us to have moral clarity he shouldn’t have created us blind and stupid.
I pushed away my coffee and stood up. “You’ll figure something out, kid. Do what you got to do. What’s more important, you or Dirt?”
I left him sitting there and ran back over to the station. We didn’t talk the rest of the day, but that night I followed him home. He lived in a little brownstone not far away, and I tailed him in the snow. He went inside about seven.
I parked my car down the street and sat. I smoked up the last of my pack. I had some coffee from my old green thermos.
I’d had the thermos ten years. Mom got it for me for Christmas the year before she died.
“You need warm coffee on a chilly stakeout,” she’d said.
When she said it, she probably didn’t have this particular stakeout in mind.
The kid came out of his house at about ten and climbed in his car. I trailed him at a close distance. The snow provided good cover, and I could afford to stick closer than I usually would.
We rode across town and the kid parked a few blocks away from Dirt’s joint. It was the back room of a cigarette store. The store was owned by Dirt’s old man, a fat redneck from way down south who had a thick Mississippi accent and always acted as if he had no idea what his son did for a living. He closed up shop about six every day and left the back door open.
I followed the kid with snow-heavy winds slapping us the whole way. I expected Graham to turn into the alley that led behind the store, but instead he walked to the front door. The place had once had a heavy gate, but some drunk had run her car into it a few months before and the old man hadn’t replaced it yet. Graham looked around, and not seeing anyone, he crouched down and picked the lock on the front door. It took him a while, but he got it open and went inside.
I crept up to the window and saw him go behind the counter. The old man had a piece back there. Graham found it, checked it and came back around. I hustled back to my hiding place and watched him come out. He braced himself against the wind and headed down the alley.
Why not just sneak in through the store? I wondered. Maybe he wanted to scope out the place first and make sure Dirt was alone.
I stomped my feet to get some feeling back into my toes, and I waited. I looked down the street.
Wet clumps of snow splattered on the sidewalk, while overhead, dirty gray clouds floated across the moon like ice drifts. Down the street I heard the damp crunch of tires.
Headlights split the darkness and glittered off the snow in front of me. I sunk deeper into my little nook as the car got closer, sloshing through the streams of ice and water. I lost my breath when I realized it was a patrol car.
Two man team. I could barely make them out. Gutierrez and Parker.
Shit.
Gutierrez was driving. He slowed to a halt in front of the cigarette store.
The sky spit snow, and the car idled in front of the store. I waited for the gun shot.
Gutierrez and Parker were talking. They seemed intent on whatever it was they were discussing. Then Parker leaned over and kissed Gutierrez. At first, Gutierrez didn’t move, but then he put his hand on Parker’s shoulder and pulled him closer.
They were still making out when the gun shot exploded from the cigar shop.
The boys looked toward the store, and Parker said something. Gutierrez threw the car into drive and they pulled away but not too fast, not too harried. The car crawled to the end of the street, its taillights bleeding over the ice and slush, and at the stop sign, it turned and disappeared.
Less than a minute later, Graham ran out of the alley. He slipped and fell in some snow, picked himself up and bolted down the street.
I didn’t waste time. He was barely gone before I ran across the street and down the alley. I drew my gun as I got to the back door of the cigarette store. The door was cracked, and I nudged it opened and pushed through the curtain. Dirt lay on the floor in a widening pool of blood, a single shot in the head.
&n
bsp; If I knew Graham like I thought I did, he wouldn’t have checked Dirt for the book. Sure enough, it was there, tucked in his back pocket.
I pulled it out, shoved it in my coat and got the hell out of there.
***
Two days later he came to my desk and sat down. I was eating a Pop Tart and having some coffee.
Graham looked thin and ashen, but his blue eyes were lit up like a neon sign.
“You hear about Dirt Bramson?” he asked.
“Yeah. Not a big blow to humanity.”
“Culliton and Varner are working the case.”
“Good men,” I said. I dipped some Pop Tart in my coffee and ate it. That made the Pop Tart even better, if such a thing were possible. “Still, they have bigger fish to fry than Dirt. Everybody in town wanted to kill that hillbilly.”
The kid nodded. “I hear Dirt’s book is missing.”
I sipped some coffee and looked at him.
He asked, “You hear the same thing?”
“Unsubstantiated rumor.”
“Yeah? It struck me as being the kind of thing someone would do for a reason.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like if they were in the book. They’d kill Dirt and then take the book.” He looked around and then leaned in. “Or they might forget the book and then someone else, say someone else who was also in there, he might come along and take it.”
“Well, kid,” I said, “I guess that’s possible. Either way, I’m sure whoever took it disposed of it promptly. Like I said, everyone in town wanted to kill that asshole.”
Graham shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “It doesn’t make murder right.”
“Nope,” I said standing up. “But we have other crimes to investigate. You gotta make a hierarchy of what you’re going to care about. The murder of Dirt Bramson is pretty low down everybody’s list.”
“And that’s all there is?” he said.
“What else could there be?”
He closed his eyes. “God?”
I threw my coffee cup in the trash. “Just another unsubstantiated rumor.”
M ICROECONOMICS
That meth head got a garbage bag. All the shit she could have drug in here, she drug in a goddamn garbage bag.
A white man comes up to the counter. “Miss, do you see that woman over in the corner?”
I look up at the clock. Not even ten minutes til we close. Davon supposed to be here exactly at eleven. I know him, he ain’t gonna show up a minute early.
The white man got a pink face and a white mustache. He leans over the register and stares over his glasses like his face gonna scare me. He say each word real slow like I got a learning disability. “Excuse me. Miss. Do you see that woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, do you happen to see that she’s rummaging through a trash sack?”
I look over at the meth head. She sitting at a table by the door that goes out to the playground. She got the big black bag at her feet and she digging through it. She mumbling something to herself. Sound like, “Do you mind?”
I just kind of sigh and look at the clock again. It ain’t hardly moved at all.
The white man goes, “There a manager on duty?”
“Me.”
“Well, then, I think you should probably go do something about that. I’m sure the McDonald’s corporation would be interested to know that you stood here while some woman dug through an industrial-sized garbage bag in the dining room of their restaurant.”
I look for Jaylen. He over by the bathroom with the mop bucket. He looking at the meth head, too, but he ain’t gonna do nothing. He just standing there, skinny as that mop handle, tugging at the belt on his pants. He so skinny he had to poke new holes in the belt with a screwdriver. He just looking at the meth head, tugging his belt like a damn kid. He ain’t going to do nothing. That man worthless.
I come around the counter.
The white man goes, “Well, finally.” He got on khaki cargo shorts and a blue polo shirt. Got his fists on his hips like he Superman.
I walk over to the meth head. There ain’t nobody left in the place except me, Jaylen, the white man, and her. I say, “Hey, you can’t do that in here. You gots to go.”
She got hair like rust—orange and dry and dead. Her face white like a piece of chalk but she got bloody sores all around her mouth. She say, “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, I do. You gots to go.”
“Do you mind? Do you mind? Do you mind?”
“Lady, you needs to go. We gots to close. You can’t have no trash bag in here.”
“Do you mind? Do you mind? Do you mind?” She goes back to digging in her sack of trash. “Do you mind?”
I ain’t got but a few minutes to get her out the door before Davon comes rolling up. I reach down and pull at her garbage sack. It heavy and wet and smells like shit. The meth head yanks back on it and she look up at me with eyes so wild ass blue it’s like they shove me away. Even with all the drugs this woman ever done, her eyes still blue as tinted contacts.
“Do you mind? Do you mind?”
I pull at the sack and she pulls back and I say real loud, “You best let go of this sack!”
She lets go.
I drag the sack to the front door, leaking disgusting garbage all the way across the floor. I open the front door and push it out onto the curb of the parking lot.
I go back over to the meth head. “Get up. We closed. You gots to go.”
She mumbling to herself, “Do you mind? Do you mind? Do you mind?” She stands up. “Do you mind? Do you mind?”
I take her to the front door. She walks through the garbage water. I open the front door. She goes out there and picks up her garbage sack. “Do you mind?”
I close the door.
Jaylen goes, “She crazy out of her mind.”
I point my thumb at the garbage water. “Since you ain’t help me get her out the door and since you leaning on that mop, how about you mop that shit up?”
Any minute now Davon gonna come rolling up. I gots to go make sure the door to the manager’s office is open so it makes it look like I just unlocked it when the robber breaks in. I ain’t got to worry none about the safe, though. It busted last night and can’t close proper. They supposed to have sent someone out here today to fix it, but ain’t nobody showed up. So all I gots to do is make sure that the manager’s office open so Davon can pop in and out.
Then I see the white man. He still there, hands on his hips, looking at me.
He unclips the cell phone on his belt. He goes, “Ma’am, may I have your name?”
“Tameka,” I say. I look at the clock. Ten fifty-eight.
He open up his phone. He making a note. He gonna rat me out to McDonald’s. He can’t spell my name, though. He tap in the T but then he looks at me and goes, “How do you spell that?”
I stare at him. I ain’t a violent person. I been around enough bad shit that I could be. But I ain’t. Just ain’t me. But I want to kill this man. I do. I really would like to kill him.
Ten fifty-nine.
“T-A-M-E-K-A. My last name Jones. J-O-N-E-S.”
“I know how to spell Jones,” he say while he tapping his phone. “That’s my last name.”
“Sir, we closed now. You gots to go.”
“Fine. I just want you to know that I will be reporting this to—”
He stops. He looking over my shoulder. I turn around and sees Davon coming through the door with a Walmart bag on his head. He got it taped together at the bottom to keep it on and got two holes poked through for his eyes. He got the gun in his hand.
The white man don’t say nothing, he just turns around and runs out the other door.
Davon yells “Hey” at him but the white man gone.
Now Davon points the gun between me and Jaylen. “Get yo ass over there” he say and Jaylen drops his mop and hurries over to the counter by me. Fastest I ever seen him move. “Get that office open,” Davon say. “Quick now.”<
br />
He say that “Quick now” for me, because that white man that run out of here probably already on the phone to the police. They probably already on the way.
I run over to the office and pull out the keys from my pocket and there’s a terrible sound like a explosion like two three four explosions and I jump up and drop the keys. Davon pull the trigger by accident? But I turn around and Davon on the floor and blood coming out of him.
The white man standing in the door, gun in his hand. Jaylen standing by the counter with Davon’s blood on his face.
The white man, “Are y’all okay?”
Jaylen, feeling hisself, looking for holes. “Yeah. Yeah.” He look at me. “Tameka, you okay?”
Davon ain’t breathing. The plastic is stuck to his face, and I can see it ain’t moving.
“Tameka, you okay?”
The white man on his phone, tapping 911. “Yes. There’s been a shooting. At McDonald’s over on Eugene Road. A robbery. I shot a man with a gun. Black male, maybe twenty-five years old. Hard to tell because he’s got a mask on. He broke in here and tried to rob the place. He had a gun. My name is—”
I walk over to Davon.
White man goes, “Miss? What are you doing, miss?”
“Tameka, what you doing?”
“Miss?”
I pull the gun out of Davon’s hand.
No more. No more of this.
G OOD COVER
For an hour, I’ve been crouched beside this half-opened window with my eye sweating against my rifle scope. I try not to think about the time, try not to think about this long hour I’ve been waiting for someone to walk out the front door of the office building across the street.
It’s best not to wait. It’s best to clear your mind. Your mind doesn’t need to exist for this kind of deal, anyway. All you need is one eye and a trigger finger.
I’ve been shooting people since I was a kid. I shot my first human being on a snowy Monday night in downtown Cleveland. Some businessman hailing a cab. I leaned out a window facing an alley and blew his skull to pieces with one shot to the forehead. I left Cleveland that night. A year later, I shot a pregnant woman sitting on a park bench fanning herself on a warm Sunday morning in Dallas. Two for one. I went on a bit of a spree after that.
