To Bring My Shadow

by Matt Phillips

  “Nope. He’s not registered to vote neither.”

  “How in the hell does he do jury service then?”

  Slade laughed, pointed at a handwritten flier nailed to a telephone pole. “The fuck is this?”

  It was an old flier, the text almost faded from the sun. But I could still make out the letters. It said: Meeting in Opposition of Bond Measure 10! Come fight with Us! The same thing was printed in Spanish, just below the English. The date gave a Saturday a few months prior, and the location was a church a few blocks closer to the freeway—farther west.

  “New Life Church,” I said. “That’s the church off Imperial there, near the freeway entrance.”

  “I know that one.” Slade ripped the sign from the pole, folded it up and stashed it in a pocket. “Make a nice excursion in the morning. Get us some praying done. Aren’t you due for confession, Frank?” Slade said it like a joke, but he wasn’t being funny.

  I decided not to play into his anti-religious sentiment. I was Catholic, I thought, the fucking hell with it. If Slade wanted to go through his life so certain he was worm food, that was his pleasure—it wasn’t mine. I preferred to believe in a higher power. It gave me something to look forward to—and it kept me sane after seeing my wife put in the ground. I wasn’t up for any non-spiritual awakenings. “Look, Skinny…Forget about our body for a second. I’m wondering, you see anything here that says Jacoby?”

  Slade shook his head, sighed, thought for a minute. “I see Castaneda, okay. We can knock on some doors about him. I see drugs, sure. Doesn’t take a psychic to get that. Jacoby, I see him here for the land. But, shit, it’s not like…I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I can see a land grab. Maybe that makes sense, but some people from the hood making a rich white dude take the dirt nap? That’s a long shot for me.”

  “Always some kind of big money looking down at people, man. But here? Shit—I’m not sure it reads to me.”

  Slade said, “I’m with you,” and spat onto the sidewalk.

  I looked around at the fenced in homes, their wrought-iron bars a telltale sign of the neighborhood dynamic. I smelled incense and heard the endless chime of Mariachi still ringing on another block. A few dogs howled nearby and, farther north, I watched an airliner angle downward on its landing path. “Murder don’t always make sense, Slade. You and me both know that.”

  “There it is,” Slade said, nodding. “Another one of those stupid laws.”

  Chapter 17

  Slade dropped me on the corner of University and 37th, a few short blocks from my empty house. We promised each other we’d get some sleep. But I knew I wouldn’t sleep, not yet. I loosened my tie and pulled it over my head, scrunched it up and shoved it into a pants pocket. I never fancied myself a tie man, but you never know when, as a detective, you might need to look halfway decent. Last thing you want to do is notify next of kin about a murder with your fucking tennis shoes squeaking across linoleum. You learn that as a rookie. And you never fucking forget it.

  I headed west a few blocks, feeling the good sea air coming inland, like a mist you can’t see. My eyes felt funny and the lights from the streetlamps seemed to halo in my vision—I tried to remember the last time I got my eyes checked. I crossed an empty intersection without waiting for the light, noticed two blue tarpaulins spread out, lashed to a chain-link fence. Two pairs of bare feet stuck out like mummified limbs. The homeless in the city, since I was a kid, had gotten a whole lot worse. Problem was, nobody knew what to do about it. I sure didn’t, but I made a mental note to bring some old blankets the next time I was down here. No matter where you wandered, sleeping outside got to be cold.

  I kept walking down the quiet streets lined with cars and expired parking meters, the scattered trees looming above me like phantom limbs. And as I walked, I thought about my daughter. How she talked to me. How I talked to her. And I thought about that little girl buried out in the desert, her parents buried too, a whole family hushed up in shallow graves. Of course, that led me to my wife. But I knew, I forced myself to know, that Miranda took her own life. That was on her. And it might be on me. But my daughter and my son had nothing to do with it. They got dragged along, all the way into our shit, like that dead little girl. And that fueled the rage inside me. It ran hot as motor oil, thick and rapid in my veins, up through my neck––straight into my fat head.

  On the next corner, with my anger closing down my vision even farther, I spotted the blinking green sign for Gia’s, a cocktail lounge my wife used to enjoy. I hadn’t been inside since the last time I went with Miranda. Fourth of July. We both drank margaritas, made small talk chewing roasted peanuts. I remembered an odd encounter that night: A slick dresser with a hooked nose came up to us, reached across me and took Miranda’s hand. He said, “How do you do, Miss Miranda? Nice to see you.”

  My wife said, “Hey, Johnny. I’m good. This here is Frank, my husband.”

  And the way she responded to him, naming our relationship like a trail of bread crumbs to follow, made me uncomfortable. I’d never seen this man—Johnny with an accent on the “eee”—and he was too made up for the neighborhood. I clocked his loafers and slacks as high-end department store stuff, and his untucked blue button-down flowed like silk, though I suspected a much more expensive fabric. Whatever the hell that could be.

  I reached out and shook his hand—no calluses. “How do you do, my man? I’m Detective Frank Pinson.” I shifted a bit in the booth, knew the butt of my service weapon caught his eye. We stared at each other for a moment and I smiled.

  Miranda said, “Johnny works over at the church center.”

  “Which church is that?”

  “Bethel Church,” Johnny said. He stepped backwards, glanced at my pistol before taking a long sip of Miranda’s figure. “I run the youth congregation down there. We’re off Sycamore Street.”

  “I know the church,” I said. “Baptists.” It rattled from between my lips like spittle. I couldn’t help it—as a mal-practicing Catholic, I was a devout cynic, and a man forever caught in the erratic shadows of hatred. “You do some preaching, huh?” I finished my third margarita. Miranda’s hand went to my thigh, squeezed.

  “Oh, now and then,” Johnny said. “I’m a preacher in training.” He winked at Miranda.

  Miranda said, “I bet you do just fine.”

  “We all got our work to do,” I said.

  He finished, “In the eyes of the Lord.”

  “How do you know my wife, preacher-man?” My smile felt hard as driftwood. I couldn’t shake it, though I did feel Miranda squeeze my thigh again.

  His eyes still fixated on Miranda, he said, “It was, what was it then? How we met?”

  “Bake sale,” Miranda said. “For the new organ you all got.”

  “Right. That’s right.”

  I laughed, noticed the silence that followed.

  “Well, Miranda. Nice to see you. And it’s good meeting you, Frank.”

  “Detective Frank Pinson—I work homicide.”

  “I see,” Johnny said and slipped away into the lounge’s dark atmosphere.

  Miranda yanked her hand from my leg. “Mr. Detective? What a fucking asshole you are, Frank.”

  “How well you know that guy?”

  Miranda didn’t answer. She sucked the rest of her drink through a neon green straw until it made a slurping sound. She rattled her glass of ice, slammed it down on the table.

  I shifted in the booth, looked at her with eyes cut from years of criminal interrogation. “How well you know that guy? You going to tell me that?”

  “You think, because you have a gun, you can treat people like shit?”

  I sighed, shook my head in disgust. “That man’s done time. I know from his walk.”

  “Oh, Frank,” she said. “Fuck you and your thin blue line.”

  I watched her slim body ripple beneath her dress as she slid from the booth, walked past the old men slumped on their barstools, and exited the damp
and dark lounge. Miranda only walked away from me one other time after that. I never followed. I never followed anything or anybody unless it had to do with murder.

  And standing on a street corner in the dead city sounds of one in the morning, I thought hard about that—never following anybody or anything unless it had to do with murder. It was a sad thought for a sad lonely man. And I was standing in the middle of a sad lonely street. A few tow yards. An auto mechanic. Two tire shops. And this lone cocktail lounge—still open—called Gia’s, a place my dead wife used to love. Again, my daughter’s voice ran through my head, those thoughts she revealed about me being lonely.

  And lost.

  And maybe headed for the graveyard.

  Thoughts like that didn’t make me feel good. I don’t care whether you wear a badge or an orange jumpsuit. If you don’t have anybody, you don’t have a fucking thing.

  Ah, but maybe I was wrong. I had a dead man in an oil drum. I had a family of three, all of them put down for the dirtiest of naps. And I had Slade, too. Those were my people: All the dead, and the one man who believed, like me, that even the dead deserve a voice. I touched my piece, patted the spot where it lay snug against my hip. My badge was still clipped to my belt. I didn’t consider removing it. I liked it there. I looked both ways down the empty street, crossed in the dark silence, and entered Gia’s cocktail lounge.

  Somewhere, behind me in the night, I forgot to bring my shadow.

  Part Two

  Chapter 18

  In the morning, Slade was already in the office by the time I called him for a ride. I decided to walk the two miles to the station. When I got there, I had my tie over my shoulder, my sleeves rolled up, and sweat running off my skin like a Big & Tall swimsuit model.

  Jackson stopped me in the hall, looked me up and down, and smirked. “You’re in a bit late for a man working two homicides, Frank. You look like you’ve been in a sweat lodge.” He smacked his lips—the captain liked his cherry-flavored Bubble Yum.

  “Two bodies?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Just got the call that your amigo, Chato the sweetie pie gangster, is dead as a fucking non-nude strip club.” Jackson smiled, blew a pink bubble. The bubble popped and he said, “But I got to ride your ass about something else first. Get the fuck in here.”

  I followed Jackson into his office. He motioned for me to sit down and I did. Behind his desk, on a shelf above some file cabinets, Jackson displayed ten softball trophies, all of them league championships. In my own silent way, I judged him for playing soft toss. But at least the man stayed active. “How’d Chato get done?”

  Jackson lifted a hand, rotated it, and flipped me off. “Fuck you, Detective Pinson. Fuck. You.”

  “What the fuck did I do, Captain?”

  Jackson shook his head, rotated his computer screen so I could see it, and tapped the space bar on his keyboard.

  A video began to play:

  At first, I saw only darkness punctuated by rapid flashes of neon—somebody moving forward through a dark space. Next, I saw a yellow light and, kind of blurry, a booth in a…lounge. It was Gia’s—the camera moved closer. I saw my own large, round frame standing over the booth. My coat was on and my back was turned, but I recognized myself without question. In the booth, there were two women and, between them, a small guy with wet-looking hair and maybe, I couldn’t be sure, a hooked nose.

  I said, “Captain, I don’t even—”

  “Shut the fuck up and watch, Frank. You don’t want to miss this.”

  My chair creaked beneath me as I shifted positions. A headache throbbed in my temple. The dregs of a hangover from a night I didn’t remember. What I remembered was waking up on my bathroom floor, and staring down into the black hole where my toilet used to be. I also remembered the moist, rotting scent of liquor vomit.

  On the computer screen, I saw myself reach toward my hip, pull my service weapon. The two women scattered, disappeared off screen. The man with wet-looking hair—I knew by then it was Johnny—started laughing, laughed so hard he put both hands on his belly and shook. And I saw myself, my back still turned, swing down and strike Johnny in the face with my pistol. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a tooth or two sprayed from his mouth.

  The camera shook, lost focus for a moment.

  I looked at Jackson across the desk, my heart beating up into my throat. He had his eyes closed, two fat fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

  The video cleared, came into bright focus. I saw myself leaning over Johnny, screaming into his ear. His head was planted on the booth’s table. His legs kicked beneath it, as if he was a child struggling to surface from deep water. My gun was still in my right hand and I lifted it, brought it down onto Johnny’s head. The table shook. My big frame straightened, stood over the unconscious body before me. I looked once in each direction. I holstered my piece, turned around, and walked straight into the camera.

  The screen went blank.

  I said, “You can’t hardly tell it’s me, Captain.”

  “Can’t hardly?”

  “It’s blurry.”

  “Frank, I don’t give two shits if it’s subtitled in fucking Cantonese. I know it’s you. You know it’s you. And whoever the fuck sent this video—to my fucking department email address, by the way—knows, sure as shit on shoe leather, it’s you. It’s fucking you. What I want to know: The fuck did this guy do to deserve a pistol-whipping from—”

  “I don’t remember none of that, Captain Jackson.” I knew my eyebrows were arched high above my nose. This didn’t look good. It didn’t look right. Oh, and it was none of those two things.

  “That’s one thing I believe, Frank. Did you look in the fucking mirror this morning? You look like some kind of fucking…I don’t know. You look like a red-faced fuckup who drank too much liquor and puked his guts down a black hole.”

  I didn’t dare tell him he was right.

  “Detective, this is a media clusterfuck waiting to happen. It’s a crucifixion. What the—”

  “Who sent the video? I’ll go have a talk with him.”

  “Oh, right.” Jackson laughed the laugh of a man long past his prime. Without humor. “You’ll talk to him. You going to talk with your muscles again?”

  “No, Captain. No, I just—”

  “What you’re going to do, Frank—Mr. Hardboiled Tough Guy—is exactly what I tell you. You’re going to leave all this to me, you’re not going to say another fucking thing. And, I swear by the devil as my fucking witness, you’re going to solve these two murders. I want that red to go black before next week. That’s all the fuck you’re going to do. And if I catch—”

  “That’s only three days,” I said.

  “Does this look like the face of someone who gives a shit?”

  It did not, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I said, “You don’t understand. That’s the guy who—”

  “Please, shut the fuck up.”

  I shifted in my seat again and pointed at the computer screen. “That’s not admissible if—”

  “Frank. Frank. Frank.” The captain rotated his computer screen, punched a key. “I’m going to tell you one more time: Be fucking quiet. Like a mouse. You know what a mouse is, Frank?”

  “Yes, sir. I know what a rat is.”

  “A mouse. Not a rat, Frank. A fucking mouse.”

  “A mouse,” I said as somebody knocked on the office door.

  Jackson said, “Come in.”

  The door opened and Slade’s pretty boy face appeared. “Frank, there you are. Been calling you for an hour. We caught another one, partner. Where the hell have you been this morning?”

  “Detective Ryerson,” Jackson said. “I was just about to send your partner over. Fill him in on the details, would you? I’ll see you both down at the scene.” Jackson glared at me as I stood and followed Slade out into the hall.

  We exited the building, jogged down the marble steps, and rounded the corner for the
parking garage. I rolled down and buttoned my sleeves, left my tie slightly loose. The veins in my neck, like the previous night, surged with anger and blood.

  Slade said, “What was that all about?”

  “Forget it,” I said.

  Slade lifted his eyebrows at me, rolled his lips to one side of his face. “Can you forget it?”

  I tried to remember something from the previous night—anything. All I saw was the blurred video image of myself, my moving arm, the big pistol coming down onto Johnny’s wet-looking head. I grunted and said, “I already forgot it. I can’t remember a fucking thing.”

  “I come out to the street—I’m hearing this homie scream bloody murder, right?—and there’s a silver Benz parked with the low-beams on, two guys standing over homeboy and they’re shooting his ass. Like, really plugging homeboy with lead, right? Crazy ass shit, man—I’m telling you.”

  Beside me, Slade was writing all the details on his meticulous notepad. I looked this middle-aged Mexican guy up and down, noticed the low-slung Dickies and short-sleeved flannel shirt, buttoned to his throat. “You been inside, homie?”

  “Man, the fuck kind of question is that? I’m out here talking to the cops and they’re giving me shit. Why, because I’m fucking Mexican?”

  Slade sighed and said, “The uniform, homie. We just need to make sure we’re getting the best information. You know how it works.”

  The man guffawed, spat at our feet. “Why I know how it works? Because I’m fucking Mexican? That why, you punk ass cops?”

  “Look,” I said, “you’re right—that’s my bad. I got a lot on my mind, as you can imagine.” I looked over my shoulder at Chato’s body lying face up in the street, covered by a white sheet. Splotches of near-black blood soaked through the sheet. His gator skin boots poked out like a child’s two front teeth. A crowd of neighborhood onlookers, cordoned behind yellow crime scene tape, stared at the body. A few women made the sign of the cross in futile repetition.