by L H Thomson
She held up a hand. “Please, no. No charity Davy, that’s okay.” That’s the other thing about being raised in Fishtown: pride messes with you constantly. But she was happy for the offer, anyhow. For the first time that night, she smiled for a split second, her eyes ringed with fatigue, her cheeks stained with glistening tears.
And then her brow furrowed as she came back to the present, and her face was filled with sadness once more. “I thought he’d done it, you know? I thought he’d gotten past all the old pain, all the pain that kept holding him back.”
For a few more moments, at least, her mind was on the man she’d loved and lost.
We said our goodbyes and left our numbers. As we walked back to his car, Davy asked the question first. “So how come you didn’t mention he had junk in his pocket?”
I looked sideways at him. “Isn’t that evidence? That would make it your area, right? So how come you didn’t mention it?”
“Same reason as you, I guess. Don’t know if it’s important yet or not. No point making her life even shittier than it already is.”
“You volunteered me to go check out his coverage pretty quick.”
“You mind?”
“No. Just....”
“Just what? She needed help, you’re helping her. Don’t let it offend your jailbird sensibilities, okay?”
“In other words, you didn’t feel like driving fifty minutes out of town.”
We reached his squad car and climbed in. “Hey, I work for a living,” he said.
I called into the office the next morning and told them I’d be out working on something for a few days and unavailable. The Philadelphia Mutual Insurance Co. pays my bills as an investigator but I’m strictly freelance, and my time is my own -- even if that means I don’t get the benefit package the other guys get.
Not that I was complaining. My boss, Ramon Garcia de Soria, arranged the job for me when I got out of the joint, and I’d been trying to do right by him ever since. But Karen’s case was personal, and that meant making myself scarce for a few days.
Chester County was fifty-six minutes southwest on Route 1, which to the average Philly guy could have meant the moon. We tend to hang out in two places: Philly and Atlantic City – more the former than the latter, depending on cash flow. But I’d been to Kennett Junction a few times with different teams as a kid, and it hadn’t changed much. There were no strip malls and busy boulevards, condo developments or construction sites.
The town was home to two semi-pro clubs: The Pennsylvania Blades of the Eastern Hockey League, and the second-year local sensations, the Chester County Cougars Elite Boys’ Soccer Club.
I say local sensation only because the club had made it to the league finals in the regional elites in its first season, suddenly making it the hottest ticket in town, a standing-room only crowd of 1,500 cheering them on to an eventual extra-time defeat.
The coach, a dour Russian named Pavel Crck -- it’s pronounced “Kerchik” -- had introduced the budding college and pro players to a wide-open Dutch-style passing system. Even on the nights they lost, the Cougars were entertaining and stylish, the locals said.
If it sounds like I appreciate the game, it’s true. My father is from Derry, in Ireland, and he loves soccer the way kids in Pennsylvania love baseball and football.
In fact, he still calls it “footie”, like in the old country. Whenever he could get a decent game on the tube in the days before cable was common, he would tape it so we could all watch together later. My brothers and I were raised on three-day old broadcasts of “Match of the Day.”
Philly has its own club in the American pro league. Smaller semi-pro and amateur clubs like the Cougars help provide them with young talent to assess. I didn’t keep much track of the game at that level, but with the increasing money in American soccer, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was cutthroat. Clubs that sold a good young player could usually expect some major financial payback, and that meant ruthless business even for semi-pros.
The club was laid out simply, a pair of pitches, one with bleachers for fans, a gravel parking lot, two small buildings. I parked my father’s rusting gold Firebird in the small, busy lot, the engine wheezing and sputtering when it quit. The players were out doing wind-sprints on the practice pitch, as a tall white-haired man yelled at them in a thick accent, a silver whistle hanging from a string around his neck. “Last finished does ten laps! Everyone else does three!” he declared.
As each brought in their last sprint in turn, he would click the button on an old-fashioned analog stopwatch in his right hand. I’m not sure what value he was getting from the whole exercise; the stopwatch was old enough that it couldn’t possibly have been recording all of their times. Maybe the symbolism and sound alone were enough to motivate them a little more.
At the end, a heavyset goalkeeper was last. “Give me ten, Mr. Johnson,” the coach said, not happily. “Everyone else, three laps and then the showers.”
While the kids jogged to cool down slowly, I walked over to the coach, the parking lot gravel crunching underfoot, followed by the narrow grass belt surrounding the nearest field. “You’ve got some real talent this year.”
It seemed like a nice thing to say. I’m not much of an investigator, but I know you always start with sugar.
He nodded quietly but didn’t immediately reply, perhaps concerned about talking to a potentially problematic parent or agent.
“Are you Mr. Crck?”
“And what can I do for you sir? “
“It’s sort of a sensitive issue…”
“Come,” he gestured towards the second building. “Let’s talk in my office.”
We went up a short flight of steps inside then took the first door to the right in a long corridor. Inside, he had a back-wall shelf dominated by trophies and small photos, as well as several stories under glass from his pro playing days. He took off his jacket and hung it on the back of the door, then gestured to the chair across from his rickety old desk.
“What can I do for you, Mr....”
“Quinn. It’s Liam Quinn, Mr. Crck. Thank you.”
“When you say sensitive issue on today of all days, I take it this is about Junior Flores.”
I nodded. “I’m following up with the insurance investigation. You heard already?”
He had. “I was quite shocked. He seemed like a pleasant man.”
“Seemed?”
“I did not really know him, to be frank,” the coach said. “He came in at nights, did his job. He was usually somewhere in one of the open rooms when he wasn’t busy working, reading a book.”
“But you hired him?”
“Yes. But it wasn’t for any personal reason.” Crck leaned back slightly in his chair. “He was just the first one to apply; he heard about it from someone local before we’d even advertised and showed up here at six in the evening, promptly. I liked his work ethic.”
“You weren’t worried he had a police record?”
Crck smiled and stared at me with penetrating precision. “I lived behind the Iron Curtain for much of my life, Mr. Quinn. I am accustomed to people running afoul of authorities even if they are good people. And it was not as if he tried to hide this fact. Besides, in reality we are a very small business. There’s not much here to steal.”
“Did anyone else here know him well enough to determine why he might have been downtown in an alley, in the early morning?”
At that, Crck sighed a little then leaned forward on his desk, looking earnest. “Mr. Quinn, I don’t know how well you knew him, but Junior did not hide the track marks on his arms and that he had been an addict. I am not suggesting....”
Of course, that’s exactly what he was doing. And I wasn’t certain he was wrong. I held up both hands. “I’m aware of his past, Mr. Crck. But I’m trying to determine where his widow might stand with respect to the club’s insurance, and whether he was covered at the time of his death.”
He frowned. “I don’t think she is going to like
the answer.”
“He wasn’t insured? He’d been paying...”
“No, no. He was covered. It is just that our policy is governed by the rule of involvement. The death had to occur here at work, or in the performance of his work responsibilities.”
“So she’s going to be screwed out of a settlement?”
He tilted his head to signal how unfair he found the statement. “It is not up to me, Mr. Quinn. It is up to our carrier. And we have already been informed just this morning that it does not believe Mr. Flores’ behavior prior to his death had anything to do with his job.” He leaned back in his chair and rested his chin on his hand thoughtfully. “He was not on the property at the time and the police officer who informed us has indicated to the club that he had narcotics on him.”
Karen didn’t need to hear the bad news right away, and I stared through his office window momentarily at the near-empty field beyond. The other players had all gone in save the unlucky goaltender, who was still doing laps, and a young player who was about twenty yards from goal, practicing chipping the ball in under the crossbar.
I nodded towards the window. “Who’s the kid? I think he’s hit twenty in a row now, or something.”
Crck didn’t even need to look. “Patrick Amapikwe. He’s from Chad.”
“Africa?” The kid was practicing footwork now, dribbling around a series of cones with dizzying pace. “Geez, he’s good with a ball.”
He lined up five balls then methodically chipped each into a different area of the net. Then he pulled the balls out of the net one after another and tossed them back to where he’d started, before lining them up for more practice. He was short and lithe, perfectly balanced over the ball. The drill was repeated, only one ball missing, a carom off the crossbar with his last shot.
Crck laughed. “He’s fifteen and he’s the best dribbler at that age that I have ever coached. And I coached a top team before leaving the Soviet Union, with a full youth program.”
As if on cue, the kid stopped, flipped the ball backwards over his own head with his right foot, then pivoted in one motion on his left and volleyed it into the net behind him. He was slight of build -- maybe too small to play pro -- but the talent was undeniable. His steps were tiny, precise, and the ball seemed almost stuck to his shoe.
“He just started playing for you?”
“End of last season, after coming to the U.S. He played in our last three games, scored five goals. Keep in mind, these are boys ready for the college game already, ready almost to play pro themselves. Several have NCAA scholarships next year, maybe even a development deal with the league.”
The new season didn’t start for another week. “He’s going to dominate over a whole year, then?”
He smiled and nodded. “If he is here so long.”
“Pro clubs?”
“Four, at least, are interested already. We’d started negotiating on his behalf, but he has an agent now, too ... David B. Davidson.”
There was a disdain in his tone that smelled of money.
“What’s the issue there?”
“There’s a development fee we would receive under FIFA regulations when he signs his first adult contract, because Patrick is underage. But if we had also negotiated the contract terms, we would have received the agent fee.”
“So he cost you a lot of money?”
“The club,”Crck said. “He cost the club a lot of money.”
Davidson was a small-scale Philly legend, like my friend Walter Beck. The agent was known for stylish Italian suits, offset by a series of colorful bowties and often topped off with a pair of ‘80s Ray-Ban sunglasses.
As Walter was to defending scumbags from criminal charges, Davidson was to getting spoiled athletes big money. He specialized in athletic malcontents, players so brilliant that clubs lined up to sign them no matter how much trouble they got into during the offseason. They appeared in the news pages under local crime, while Davidson was strictly in the society column.
“Heavy hitter.”
“You are correct,” said the coach, wearily. “And he is always around, no matter how much I tell him it is a distraction....” He gestured towards the parking lot. “That’s his Lexus SUV out there.”
I hadn’t seen anyone else in the lot. “He leaves it here?”
“It’s on loan to the boy and his mother,” he said. “He doesn’t have any plans to go to college, so he can accept whatever payments he likes from Mr. Davidson.”
“Keeping him on the hook?”
“Yes. I know they’ve been talking to the clubs about moving right away, even though Patrick said he would commit to the whole season.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
“Still... you want the kid to succeed, right?”
“Ya, Ya, of course. Any of the big clubs will have fine development programs. It’s just....”
“What?”
He looked slightly exasperated. “I do not like his friends, Mr. Quinn. I do not like his agent, or the people he is spending time with. I realize football is about the money now but...”
I understood. When I was a fighter and the weight of expectation was crushing my teenage hopes and dreams, I could’ve used someone like Crck, someone who actually cared about my well-being and wasn’t working ten-hour days, like my folks.
“You think they’re bad influences on him?”
“Something seems... I do not know. I know that he needs to take that next step, to up his game and make a career. But something seems off about his entire entourage, all these people trying to get a piece of him. It’s almost as if he has too many people looking after his interests.”
I understood. But I was thinking about Junior, and how no one had looked after his.
As we were walking out, the kid was finishing up his drills on the nearest pitch, juggling the ball with both feet for several minutes, his weight perfectly centered, cleated feet raised in rhythmic precision. Then he ran around a series of cones, all the while juggling the ball. Then he repeated the drill with the ball on the ground, between his feet, a rapid-fire dribble.
His center of gravity was great; he could turn on a dime and keep control. After a few more minutes of absurd talent, he wrapped up, packing up the cones one on top of each other.
His mother was waiting beside the field with a warm-up jacket.
“You want to meet him?” Crck asked. Before I could answer, he waved for them to come over.
The woman arrived first while her son moved to the sideline, sitting down in the grass to take his studs off.
She was middle-aged, attractive but quite heavy, dressed in a black skirt under what looked like a real fur -- as much as I knew about them -- with a colorful head scarf and gold jewelry.
“Liam, this is Charity Amapikwe, Patrick’s mother.”
I extended a hand and she shook it gently. “I’m looking into the death of Junior Flores,” I said without volunteering any more information, hoping she might finish the thought.
But if she even knew the name, Charity did not show it. “ Je m’excuse… I’m sorry...” she looked at Crck puzzled. “Should I ...?”
“No, no,” said the coach. “He was night staff. The janitor.”
“And he died?” Her accent was heavy, African French.
“Last night, in a homicide downtown,” I said.
She raised her hand to her mouth reflexively. “This is terrible. What happened?”
“He was hit over the head.”
“C’est terrible. But I am not sure how we can help.”
Patrick had changed out of his cleats and jogged over to join us, and we shook hands. Crck said, “Perhaps Patrick knew Junior?”
He looked puzzled for a split-second then said, “The custodian? The guy who came at the end of the day? Kind of large, with many tattoos?” Like his mother, his accent was lilting, colored by French.
We nodded, and he continued. “I talked to him a few times. He would be cleaning the hallway when David was using a spare office for bus
iness. He was a nice guy, eh?”
“You two were tight?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Non… I mean, no. But he was kind of funny. He pretended he was dribbling around me with his mop.”
“We let Patrick’s people use the spare offices,” Crck explained.
I hadn’t noticed him at first, but a second man had walked up quietly behind us. He was dressed in street clothes and older, maybe middle aged, with a goatee and short hair. He said nothing, just observing. I made a mental note to ask Crck about him later, whether he was African as well.
Patrick was finishing up. “So I saw him maybe a couple of times a week.” He looked genuinely forlorn, and his mother gave the young man a small hug.
I wasn’t sure where else to take my questions, and the kid looked distraught. “I’ll be around every so often for a few days if you folks don’t mind,” I said. “Coach.” We shook hands.
“Call me if you require anything else,” he said.
I headed back to the parking lot, which had almost emptied. I was about to climb into the Firebird when a newer-model BMW convertible pulled up fast enough to kick up a shower of gravel. A man with short blonde hair and Ray-Ban Wayfarer shades was busy on his phone, oblivious to the fact that his car’s tires had just sprayed every other vehicle in the lot with small rocks.
It occurred to me that he needed to learn some manners. I figured I’d just met David B. Davidson. I thought about walking over, telling him to at least shut off his engine instead of idling yet more pollution into the Pennsylvania sky; but he just kept on talking, and after a few seconds, common sense got the better of me.
I got in the Firebird – probably worth less than the rear bumper assembly on that Beemer – and backed out of the space, before pointing it out of the lot and towards the city. He could wait until I was in a more hospitable mood. In the meantime, I was going to break my own rules and go knock back a couple of stiff drinks in Junior’s memory.
Something seemed so wrong about him going down young, like his life was a rigged fight, a foregone conclusion that no one bothered to share with those of us who gave a damn about him. There was no other way to describe his life than “tragic.”
