Bosstown

by Adam Abramowitz

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but check the mailbox on the corner of Tremont and Harrison, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “You want to talk lucky?” Wells looks at me for too long, the Audi drifting over the yellow dividing line. Wells might be a transplanted Bostonian, but he’s got the driving habits down. Next thing you know, he’ll be skinny-dipping in Walden Pond, smoking clove cigarettes in Harvard Yard, and complaining about Cape traffic. “That gun you clipped came off the commissioner’s nephew. If it happens to turn up unfired, you slip out of that noose, because there’s no missing-gun report yet. No missing gun, no felony assault. You following me here, Zesty?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Nepotism rules. You see the gold Buick in Britta’s driveway?”

  “Duly noted. And the lab will match paint chips from the front fender to your bike. We get that. The girl, Britta, and maybe your buddy Gus Molten set you up. That why you were at her place, looking for payback?”

  “I don’t plan that far in advance.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Her.”

  “Bullshit. Why’d you wreck the place if you weren’t looking for something?”

  “That wasn’t me. It was like that when I got there.”

  “So who did?”

  “You’re turning me into a broken record,” I say. “You’re the detective, live up to the billing already. Find Britta or find Gus, and maybe you’ll find the rest of the money and a lead to Sullivan.” And do it before Darryl gets to them, I think, for the time being keeping Darryl’s name out of it, not wanting to give Wells another lane toward Zero. The two of them obviously cross-pollinated at some point, and God only knows how deep my brother might actually be in this fucking mess.

  “How much was the score from the truck?” it finally occurs to me to ask.

  “Shade over two million,” Wells says after a slight pause.

  “Is that how much those trucks regularly carry?” That’s double the figure Darryl said he was trying to recoup.

  “No. Matter of fact, it’s about twice the usual for that particular run, and most of it was destined for automated cash machines, which is why you were able to carry so much in such a relatively small package and why we were able to trace it so fast. The money’s serialized and compressed so the machines can spit it out. When you got hit, the bills pretty much exploded. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I’m a Pisces? Where’re we going?”

  “Right here.” Wells turns the corner and slides nose first between two cruisers parked half up the curb in a V formation, his car forming the shaft of an arrow pointing toward a dark basketball court. His headlights flash on a crowd of mostly black and brown faces, a hundred disembodied fingers laced through chain-link fence, a lineup of noses poking through trying to get a better view of what’s inside. The small park is nestled into a corner lot at the tail end of a decrepit apartment building, electric and telephone lines running overhead, a dozen sneakers twisting in the soft breeze. There’s a fast-food restaurant called Fritters across the street in what looks like a failed Burger King; some of the old franchise signage is still up, crowns and kings, the promise of having things your way. On the roof a ten-foot carnival bucket glows red and white, a pile of neon drumsticks poking over the rim, casting a greasy light that smudges the court.

  “Nothing like a midnight block party.” Wells leans me forward, unlocks the cuffs, and replaces them around his belt. He unbuttons his suit jacket, cranes his neck to look up at the neon chicken bucket. “What the hell is Fritters?”

  “It’s what you’re doing with my time. Why am I here?”

  “You’ll see. Stay close enough so I can see you. Don’t talk. You ever see a dead body before?”

  Crime scene tape is going up around the chain-link, a couple uniforms elbowing the crowd off the wire, gift wrapping an unwanted municipal present. I think about what Sam said about a tree planted for every murder victim, that image holding more permanence than the dozens of bright RIP murals that color-dot the city and fade over time; when the roots eventually pushed themselves up through the court, they would simultaneously serve as a civic punishment and reminder, the ghost of victims forever whistling through branches, blocking all jumpers, everybody forced to take it hard to the hole.

  There’s another officer walking along the street, pausing at parked cars, jotting down plate numbers. Despite the late hour, the crowd’s three deep, mostly young men and teenagers, a handful of baby mamas pushing strollers, a couple of men towing shopping carts loaded with bottles.

  “This way.” We have a direct line to the court entrance, where Brill is speaking into a cell phone, only Wells has me follow him to the opposite side where he penetrates the last row of gawkers. “Who got it?” he drawls to no one in particular.

  “One minute he takin’ it to the hole,” a shirtless teenager responds out the side of his mouth. “Next, he be leakin’ from ’em.”

  “He a player?”

  The teenager turns around, sucks his teeth as he catches sight of Wells. “I dunno. He din’t have no jump shot if that’s what you mean, De-tective.”

  “He was a good guy, though, right? Who’d want to cap him?” Wells knows he’s pushing it, throws up half a smile with the question.

  “Nah. I dunno.” The kid starts to look uncomfortable, people edging their eyes at him. “I just got here.… Who got shot up?”

  “Who’s on first,” Wells says.

  “Wha?”

  “Wha’s on second.” Brushing past, Wells slides his card into the kid’s back pocket, a skilled sleight of hand that must have taken some practice. I let him work his way through the crowd alone—“’Scuse me, ’scuse me, who got shot up?”—fishing his play on the long side of the cage, drawing only stares and vaguely hostile mumbles. I break off to join Brill, who is huddling now with a tall black uniformed officer and a slim teenager slouching in a ribbed wifebeater, basketball shorts down to his ankles, a flat-rimmed Cincinnati Reds baseball cap tilted over long cornrows.

  “Zesty. Nice haircut.” Brill pockets his phone, turns to the kid. “What’s happening, Q?”

  “Same old. Who the chalk?” The kid chin-points toward the court, where a sheet covers a body sprawled across the foul lane. Retro Air Jordans stick out one end, crossed at the ankles, heels up like somebody put a move on him from which he couldn’t untangle himself.

  “You tell me.”

  “Naw. I ain’t never seen him before.” The kid pauses to scratch an itch between his rows, adjust his cap. “Least before this week.”

  “New to the hood?”

  The kid shrugs. “New to me.”

  “I thought you knew everybody, Q.”

  “Yeah, well, on the block maybe.”

  “Block by block?” Brill says.

  “You know how it is. Who dat?” The kid angles his baseball cap my way.

  “Undercover,” Brill says, straight-faced.

  “You shittin’ me?”

  “Deep.”

  “Don’t touch anything.” Wells joins us, limboing under the strung tape. “Walk in my footsteps. What’d you have for supper tonight?”

  “Supper?” I have to think about it for a second. “Jameson, Guinness, and noodles.”

  “Swell. If you’re gonna puke, do it away from the body.”

  Brill ducks between the tape, turns back to the uniformed officer. “Listen, Rasheed, nice call on the hammer. Let it be known your contribution doesn’t go unnoticed.”

  “You’ll tell the loot?”

  “I’ll make sure a birdie whispers in his ear.” He winks poorly.

  Rasheed looks disappointed.

  “What?”

  “He’s not gonna show?”

  “For this? Rasheed, c’mon, now. Who runs this street?”

  “Ray Ray’s crew, far’s I know.”

  “They in the middle of something?”

  “Fireworks near every night. It’s hot out here, but you know
I’m wearing my Kevlar.”

  “Colors?”

  Officer Rasheed makes a face, turns to Q.

  “Purple?” Q says, which dials up a smile to Brill’s face.

  “What, all the tough-guy colors were taken?”

  “They like the Colorado Rockies.”

  “So do I. For hiking.”

  Q indicates his cap.

  “Yeah, I got it. Purple, huh? Who’s got pink?”

  “Ax your undercover,” Q says, smirking gold fronts. “He the one wearing lipstick.”

  “Who, him?” Brill squints at me, gulps back a smile. “Don’t be casting aspersions, Q. He’s tougher than he looks. Legend has it, this morning he ate a Buick for breakfast.”

  “What, and it was wearing lipstick?”

  “Tell him, Zesty,” Brill says as I wipe my mouth.

  “Zesty?” The kid with gold fronts rolls his eyes. “Now I know you playin’ me.”

  “What time the lights go out here?” Brill points to one of two rusted light stanchions positioned at each end of the court.

  “Midnight most nights. Same time Fritters closes.”

  “Fritters, huh? It looks like a Burger King someone topped with a bucket of chicken.”

  “See, that’s why you a detective,” Q says.

  “You telling me a Burger King failed in this neighborhood?”

  “I know! Everything going upscale.”

  Wells and Brill share a look, somehow managing to keep the amusement in their eyes off their mouths. “You eat there?”

  “Hells no. Chicken costs cheddar. Anyhow, I’m a vegetarian.”

  “No shit? So how you know they close midnight?”

  Q huffs audibly through his nose, points toward the restaurant, a sign on the window reading: OPEN TILL 12 AM.

  “Gotcha. Court lights on during the shooting?”

  “You think they running full in the dark?” Q takes a deep breath. “Why’s I gotta do all the work for you?”

  “’Cause I’m getting old. Hey, Rasheed. You want to see if you can get somebody turn these things back on?”

  “Like who?”

  “I dunno. Ask Q, he’s got all the answers.”

  There’s a half dozen plainclothes around the body, four barroom bouncers I recognize as members of the antigang crime unit, J. J. Foley’s regulars, hard drinkers, brawlers, street cleaners. The other two men, round, bald, and glum, are in sports jackets that look all the worse in comparison to Wells’s natty suit and polished shoes. I assume they’re homicide, though I don’t garner an introduction. Neither Brill nor Wells makes a move toward the body, maybe adhering to some sort of etiquette.

  “Let’s make this quick,” one of the bald guys says, yawning. “You really think you got something here?”

  “All guns, Matty.” Wells shrugs. “What do we know?”

  “What I got…” The bald detective flips open his pad. “Is shirts and skins running full court, couple guys warming the benches. Kid strolls…” The detective squints at his handwriting, brings the pad closer to his face. “Excuse me, rolls by north/south on one of those small circus bikes, whaddaya call them…?”

  “BMX,” I say.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Resident bike expert,” Wells says.

  “All-access pass, huh? Enjoy the show. BMX.” The bald detective jots in his pad. “Anyhoo, black tee like with a tattoo design on the shoulders? Jean shorts, black White Sox cap over black do-rag, empties a clip, rides off hi-ho, Silver. We got shell casings outside the court, but soon as our shooter’s off, it’s a game of kick the can, casings everywhere they shouldn’t be.”

  “Who wears White Sox?” Brill directs his question to one of the gang unit cops juggling a cell phone and cigarette.

  “Humboldt,” he says through smoke.

  “They at war with the Rockies?”

  “Interleague play?” He closes his phone. “I fucking hate interleague play. No, not as far as I know. This is too far from their turf. Maybe some little banger trying to make bones, didn’t want to shit too close to home?”

  “You don’t recognize the vic?” Wells says.

  “Nah. Neither one.”

  “Neither one? There’s another?”

  “Yeah.” The cop points to three orange cones triangulating a dark smear near the top of the three-point line. “You just missed the bus to City. He ain’t making it though.…”

  “Was he wearing colors?”

  “BoSox. Black. Not to be confused with BoSox red.”

  “Now this is getting confusing. Who wears BoSox black?”

  “Darryl Jenkins’s crew. This isn’t exactly their turf either, per se, but they got a long reach and they’re ambitious, more so lately. Jenkins runs his crews twenty-four-seven and he’s hiring.”

  “You on top of them?”

  “On top? Shit, we’re just rolling with the tide, waiting to see who gets beached. Lot of product on the street, though, I’ll tell you that. Every snitch I got says all of a sudden it’s like junkie Dow Jones, prices falling through the floor and everyone’s buying.”

  “So who here’s the intended, you think?”

  “Hard to tell. Matty there’s the man with the pad.”

  “And the pad says who the fuck knows. Rasheed was the responding; second vic was talking, but couldn’t tell him shit beyond what I just gave you. All he got was boom boom on a bicycle roll-by.”

  “Better for the environment,” Brill says. “Smaller carbon footprint.”

  “I don’t know how you work with him.”

  “Finely honed selective hearing. Shells?”

  “Nine mill. We picked six, but there’s probably more. You want to take a look already?”

  “Yeah. Hey, Zesty, snap out of it.” Wells dons a pair of latex gloves, and as if on cue, the court is flooded with light, Q hooking up Officer Rasheed with his neighborhood connects. The crowd that had been undeterred by the yellow crime scene tape comes off the chain-link as if it was electrified. The light has something of the same effect on the gathered police, though to their credit, they stand their ground even as they obviously feel exposed. The gang crime unit perp-walk themselves toward the perimeter of the court; the uniforms go all OCD, touch-tapping the Glocks secured at their hips. Only the homicide guys are unfazed by the mortuary brightness, though the light does them no favors exposing their wax-figured fatigue.

  Wells flips his tie over his shoulder, squats beside the body. He lifts the corner of the sheet, and Brill comes up behind him to take a look before curling his index finger at me. The victim is light-skinned, lying stomach down, one arm awkwardly jammed beneath him, his cheek tucked into the crook of the other arm. Except for the blood pooled around him, he looks like he’s just been hacked going to the hoop and decided not to get up. A small diamond dots the one ear I can see.

  “Yes or no?” Wells looks at me over his shoulder, his eyes in electric polygraph mode again.

  “No,” I say. “Why would I?”

  “History.” Wells turns toward the bald homicide. “I can dance with him?”

  “Sooner the better. The crowd don’t like the lights with all the unis hovering, but they’ll get over it. We know what we got here, gang crime already took their snaps, they don’t know him, but he’s got jailhouse tats on his left wrist, so he’s on the books somewhere. Also, there’s a wad of cash, and that arm there—looks like he’s grabbing his balls on his way to the afterlife? There’s your hammer. Pull it if you want. What is it you’re looking for again?”

  “Python.” Wells squats on his toes now, getting leverage, and rolls the body over before ducking down even farther to see what’s under.

  “Python? Shit, I haven’t seen one of those cannons in ages.”

  “Count your blessings,” Brill says. “Whatta we got, pod-nah?”

  “What we got is…” Wells reaches under the man’s torso, tosses a tight band of bloodied bills, which lands at my feet with a wet slap. He reaches again, this time lifting out a l
arge handgun by the trigger-guard, holding it up for inspection as the body rolls loosely back into napping position. “Bingo, we’re in business. Let’s bag this shit and get a move on.”

  “Mazel tov.” Baldy closes his pad with finality. “And not a moment too soon.” He raises his eyebrows, indicating a battalion of reporters rolling out of news vans, adjusting ties and hemlines, smoothing down hair you could take a chisel to. “Remember to smile for the cameras.”

  “Fuck that noise. Your catch,” Brill says, not looking too upset about it. “Let’s go, Zesty. I’ll drive you home. Anybody tell you, you look like you got run over by a Zamboni?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Like his suit, Brill’s car isn’t as fancy as his partner’s, but his taste in music more than makes up for it. Plus, he splurged for killer speakers. Etta James sings “I’d Rather Go Blind” and means it as we cross back into the South End, Brill steering with the heel of his hand, choosing to drift neighborhood streets, well-maintained stoops, block after block of handsome repointed brick buildings with flowering window boxes tucked in for the night.

  You can’t do much better than Etta James, but she sounds all the sweeter not coming from inside my own head, my postcrash internal ear not as finely tuned as Brill’s stereo. Brill keeps glancing at me—I can see his dark reflection in my window—whatever thoughts creasing his brow not quite making it to his lips. We pull to a stop in front of a granite stoop, dark purple bougainvillea curling over the railing. Brill shifts the car into park, leaves the engine running. Etta starts singing “Tell Mama,” offering herself up again to someone who doesn’t deserve her.

  “I don’t live here,” I say.

  Brill nods like he’s reached some sort of conclusion, turns the music down just a touch. “You know, Etta put together ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ visiting Ellington Jordan doing a bid in San Quentin for armed robbery? Talk about your diverse talents. He’d already written the lyrics but titled it ‘I’d Rather Be A Blind Man.’ Now, of course that didn’t fit Etta so much, so she reworked the song from his outline, put the finishing touches on it herself.”