The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

by Edited By Scott Turow

  “You high now?”

  “What was that?”

  “You under the influence of drugs or alcohol at this time?”

  “No. Oh Jesus, no.”

  Fat Tommy wished to Christ he was.

  ~ * ~

  4.

  At many points during the long, arduous interrogation, the men drew in so close on the hulking gangster that the tips of all four men’s shoes seemed to be touching. He couldn’t make the cops believe him. They wouldn’t give him any more lemonade, even though the girl cop made it ‘specially for him. They wouldn’t give him any more doughnuts — they said they were all out. Cops out of doughnuts! Now, they wouldn’t even give him water — and he was dry as shit. That Chilean coke had sucked all of the good spit out of his mouth. If only he could get a glass of water, or maybe some lemonade.

  “I’m drying out inside,” Fat Tommy pleaded.

  Bea’s admonitions echoed in his head and gradually, and without realizing it, Fat Tommy allowed a luxuriant smile to creep across the corners of his mouth. Still smiling, he opened his eyes into a narrow slit and gazed down at his handsome shirt sleeves, admiring the shiny contours, like little snow-covered mountains really, that the polyester fabric traced along his massive arms as they lay across his knees.

  Christ, he loved this shirt!

  “Somethin’ I said funny, Fatboy? Somethin’ funny?” Braddock yelled, momentarily breaking through his reverie.

  He blinked and looked down again at his arms and knees. They were such good arms; good, kind arms; and great knees — great great knees. After a while, he decided, with a hot white tear leaking out of a crack in his right eye, finally, that he loved his knees as much as he loved his dick or his ass — better, probably, now that he had found the Lord again. His regard for his ass and dick now seemed so misguided, so . . . heathen. And these knees were so much more representative of him, innocent, God-fearing, above reproach.

  They had taken him all over — all over L.A., the Valley, even to Oak Town once on a church picnic. There was plenty of water there, beer and red pop and lemonade and swine barbeque, too. He was thin then, and pretty. Just a baby boy — so innocent, such a good young brother. The picnic was on the Oakland Bay, and they’d all rode the bus up there, singing gospel songs all the way. There must have been a hundred buses, the whole California Youth Baptist Convention, someone said. And it was his knees that helped him get through it, basketball, softball, the three-legged race with pretty Althea Jackson. They were nine years old! Those were some of the best times in his life. And he was such a good guy, a regular brother, everyone said so, and now this lunatic murder, and this fucked-up Pemberton, that devil, poking his bloody self like a shitty nightmare in the midst of all his plans.

  Fat Tommy ached at beholding all these tender scenes — Bea, the picnic, the tears — all the images like flashing detritus in a river streaming across his upturned hands. It was just too much. He closed his eyes, but the river of images burst inside them, flooding the darkness in his head even more vividly than before: his first day at Teddy Roosevelt Junior High; the time he and Bea won third place at the La Caja Boys and Girls Club Teen Dance-Off; and his best pal . . . not that goddamn Pemberton . . . but Trey-Boy, Trey-Boy Middleton (rest his soul). That was his best friend. It was cool Trey-Boy who befriended him even after he got fat and everyone started treating him like a jerk, and it was Trey-Boy who’d taken pity on him and helped him pimp up his style.

  It was Trey-Boy. Not a murderer. A hip brother. True-blue. Trey-Boy showed him how to affect a gangster’s scowl, and helped him adopt a slow, hulking walk that could frighten just about anyone he encountered on the street. He’d showed him how to smoke a cigarette, load a gat, roll a blunt, and cop pussy, weed, and blow. He had even showed him how to shoot up once.

  And Trey-Boy never got mad, even when that faggot Stick Jenkins bumped him on purpose and made him spill a good portion of the spoon of heroin Trey-Boy had carefully prepared. Trey-Boy had pimp-slapped the faggot — he called him “my sissy” and Stick had just smiled like a bitch and turned red as a yella niggah could get — and everyone laughed.

  He remembered how Trey-Boy had cooked up what was left of the little amber drops of Boy they could scrape from the toilet seat and floor and showed him how to tie off and find the vein and shoot the junk even if he only got a little whacked — it was whacked enough to know he wouldn’t do that anymore. It wasn’t fun at all. He couldn’t stop puking. It felt like now — in this hot room with no water, under this white light. But he wasn’t no goddamn junkie. None of that puking and noddin’ and drooling shit was for him. He was strictly weed and blow, strictly weed and blow. He wasn’t no goddamn junkie. Let them try to pin that on him. They’d come up zero. Just like this murder. He wasn’t there; he didn’t do it. He didn’t see nobody; he didn’t know nobody.

  Trey-Boy had given him his favorite street moniker — Fat Tommy. When Trey-Boy said it, it didn’t feel like a put-down. It was a term of war and affection. Fat Tommy was a lumpy 370 pounds but he didn’t feel fat when Trey-Boy called him Fat Tommy— he felt big, as in big man, big trouble, big fun — there’s a difference, really, when you think about it. A street handle like Fat Tommy made him feel like one of the hoods in The Sopranos — his favorite story. He’d made a small fortune with that name — not like he made with Cut Pemberton, when the margins and risks got scary and huge, and the fuckin’ Columbians got involved, and people feared him and only knew him by the name Pemberton hung on him, Moises — Moises Rockafella, the King of Rock Cocaine. He didn’t make big cake like that with Trey-Boy — but at least he didn’t have to worry about a murder beef, and the living was decent.

  ~ * ~

  5.

  At one point, Vargas cut on the lights in the interrogation room so brightly that when Fat Tommy looked up he beheld, not a pea-green interrogation room with a trio of sad sack cops trying to sweat him for a cop murder he didn’t commit — the whole room seemed to him as a single white spotlight, a moon’s eyeball inspecting him on a disc of light. He was so damn dry and tired. He could not see Vargas, but could hear his footfalls pacing back and forth somewhere behind him. He closed his eyes a moment and tried to catch a wink.

  “Steady, sweetheart. Just a few more questions and you’re home free,” Vargas said.

  Tommy waited for the next question with the same despairing apprehension with which he had endured all the last. Why these other questions? Why this Moises shit? He wasn’t goddamn Moises anymore. That shit was dead; done. Why didn’t these pigs believe him? Tommy felt so sorry for himself. None of it was his fault. It was the Columbians and that goddamn Pemberton. He was the bad guy. If they want their devil, there he is. But don’t expect Fat Tommy to commit suicide and snitch. That shit was dead.

  “I need some lemonade!” he screamed.

  Braddock began to mock him. Fat Tommy burrowed himself deeper into his thoughts. The cops kept hammering away at his story. He shut his eyes. He was only pretending to listen, nodding yes, yes, goddamn it, yes, or gazing up at them with a mournful, wounded look in his eyes.

  Vargas turned off the tape. Dockery and Braddock pushed their chairs back from the cone of white light that made Fat Tommy look like a Vegas lounge fly sobbing under a microscope. The scraping of their chairs was like an utterance of disgust, and they meant it to be that. It sent shivers up their own backs, and sent a chilling thunderbolt of fear down the back of Fat Tommy O’Rourke. Vargas cut a rebuking glance at Dockery and Braddock.

  “It’s late,” Vargas said, looking around for a clock. They had started this session just before two p.m.

  Braddock pulled out his watch bob and flicked it open. To view the dial, he swept his hand through the cone of light that seemed to enclose Fat Tommy in a brilliant Tinker Bell glow and the watch flashed like a little arc of buttery neon framed in white.

  “Almost six a.m. Sixteen goddamn hours and not a peep from this shithead,” Braddock said. He smacked the back of Fat Tommy’s c
hair.

  Dockery felt around in his pant leg for his pack of butts and stood up. ‘Just a little longer, sport, and you’ll be home free, bearin’ off in yer cell,” Dockery said.

  “Yeah, bearin’ off in yer cell...” Braddock repeated.

  “I need a piss break,” Fat Tommy said as politely as he could, then added with a smile, “and a big glass of lemonade.”

  “Good idea, asshole. Think I’ll go drain the lizard,” Dockery said and looked at Vargas. Vargas nodded and Braddock and Dockery went out.

  Fat Tommy sobbed on. He was still crying when Braddock and Dockery came back in laughing. They both held huge cups of lemonade and they were eating fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Braddock tossed a half-eaten doughnut in the trash.

  “I’m starvin’, officer. I’m sleepy. I don’t know about no murder,” Fat Tommy tried again. He shut his eyes right.

  “Pale-ass pussy,” Braddock muttered. “Yer gonna fry for this. Why don’t ya quit yer lying?”

  “You said I could have water. I need some water,” Fat Tommy asked again.

  “You know the game, Fatboy,” Detective Dockery broke in, from somewhere behind him. “Yer startin’ to piss me off.”

  “You can have water, Moises, after you tell us how it went down. Understand?” Vargas said. “That’s our deal.” Vargas turned on the tape.

  Fat Tommy didn’t understand. The sharp questions droned on like wasps attacking just above his head. He was sleepy. He wanted water. He closed his eyes and took a breath and asked again for the thousandth time, “Please, officer, can I have some water or some lemonade?”

  “It’s detective,” Dockery said.

  “Listen here, detective,” Tommy assented, his big voice gravelly and frail, “I don’t deserve this beef. I don’t know nothin’. I didn’t see nothin’. Got a wife an’ family to protect. Was goddamn Cut who fount Simpson. Didn’t even know he was a cop. Ya gotta believe me. I wouldn’t be mixed up in none of this if.. .”

  The room went dead quiet.

  Fat Tommy eased his eyes open and peered sharply down along the tear-dappled lids. He strained to see or hear the shuffling shoes of the cops pacing in front or behind him. He could see nothing and could only hear what seemed to be his own heart galloping away down in the pit of his stomach, thu-thump, thu-thump.

  “Cut? You never mentioned any Cut,” Dockery said after a while.

  Fat Tommy could feel the life draining from his chest. He slowly opened his eyes. He began to hyperventilate and for the first time he could feel the Jheri curl gel deluxe begin to drip against his collar.

  “Tell us about this Cut,” Vargas said. “He got a last name?”

  Fat Tommy felt his mouth moving. He couldn’t make it stop. “Cut. . . um...Cut Pemberton ... I think,” his voice said.

  “And . . . ?”

  He tried to think of innocent words. He tried to stall and think of what Bea would want him to say. “I didn’t know him that good,” he said finally.

  “Go on,” Vargas said. “What’s he look like?”

  Tommy tried to think of other faces, but all he could see before him was that goddamn Cut. “Gots a cut ‘cross his ear, go straight ‘cross his lip, like he was wearing a veil on one side of his face.

  “Yes ...”

  “Said he got it in a fight with a cracker when he was in the marines. But I heard he got it in prison.”

  He held his breath and tried to stop his voice from speaking again. He couldn’t believe what it was saying, betraying him, snitching on him.

  “OK. . .go on.”

  His mouth burst open again.

  “He can talk Spanish,” Fat Tommy’s voice said, gasping.

  “Go on,” Dockery said. “Cut…”

  Tommy’s whole body seemed to slump. Special Agent Braddock smacked his chair hard and Tommy sat bolt upright. “Well, Cut was the onliest one that did it,” he said.

  “Go on,” Braddock prodded. “Cut was?”

  “What?”

  “He said: Cut was ...?” Vargas said.

  “Um...Cut was...one of them red, freckly niggahs from Georgia ...”

  “Yes.”

  No one spoke for a moment, then Fat Tommy’s voice said, “Spotted like a African cat. I didn’t even know him good ...”

  “Um-hum.”

  “Wore plaits standing all over his head.”

  “Plaits? Really?”

  Fat Tommy grinned, he couldn’t help himself. “My Bea used to call him BuckBeet, ‘cause he looked like a red pickaninny. That used to piss him off, ‘cause of Buckwheat, you know?”

  “Yes ... Cut. . .”

  “Yeah, Cut. First I knew of him . . . two years ago . . . when I was staying on Glen Oaks off Paxton . . . him and Karesha — my wife’s sister — and my Uncle Bunny banged on my duplex at ‘bout two in the morning looking for some crack.”

  “You mean Bunny Hobart — the second-story man?” Dockery broke in again.

  The detectives had two tape recorders going now, but Dockery never trusted electronic equipment and was transcribing everything Fat Tommy said on a yellow legal pad.

  “Yeah, that be him,” Fat Tommy said with a deep sigh. He slumped back in the hard metal chair, trembling as he recalled the scene. “Uncle Bunny knew Cut from the joint. Cut had just got out and was chillin’ with Karesha . . . Cut was already dressin’ like a Crip, all blue, talking shit. I could tell he was trouble. He used to strong-arm young Gs and take their stuff.”

  “And Bunny told him you were the big-time coke man,” Braddock said. It was not a question.

  Such a wave of woe swept over Fat Tommy as he contemplated all of this that, softly, he began to weep. His whole bright life was passing before his sad eyes: there were pinwheels of light; a whole series of birthdays; his stint as a fabulous dancer; his wife, Bea, again, his kids — Little Tommy and infant Kobe — cuties! cuties! He didn’t deserve this. And too, there was his old job as assistant manager at the Swing Shop — twelve years ago now — all those great records: Tupac, NWA, Biggie, KRS-One, Salt ‘N’ Pepa, shit, even Marvin Gaye. He knew them like the lines in these hands that now stared up at him, glazed and dotted with sweat.

  “I was getting out of the business. I was getting out,” Fat Tommy explained. “It was Cut that fucked up all my plans. He wanted to impress the big-time talent... I was only staying in ‘til he could get on his feets.”

  “What big-time talent?”

  “Columbians? La Caja Crips?” Vargas pressed him.

  “It was them goddamn Columbians that tolt Cut about Simpson,” Tommy confessed. “Cut came up with the idea of setting the guy up. He told us he was a snitch — not no cop! I tried to talk him out of it; I tried to reason with him ...”

  “A regular Dr. Phil,” Braddock said.

  “Yes, sir,” Fat Tommy said quietly.

  Tommy closed his eyes. He felt himself crashing. He flopped his big grease-spangled head down into his hands. From the top of his Jheri curl to the soles of his size 17 Air Jordans, everything about him was huge, extroverted, and showy. Now, he sat hulking and exhausted in the metal chair, hot sweat and gel streaming down his face and neck, trying in vain to make himself smaller, hoping that the willful diminishment of his great size would in turn minimize in the minds of the cops the appalling grandeur of his recent crimes. He sat there in his bright white tent of a shirt with his Martin Luther King Jr. tie strung round his bulging neck like a garrote.

  “Catch your breath, son,” Vargas said. He turned off the tape.

  “Get our boy King Moises some lemonade, will ya, Detective Dockery?”

  Dockery went out and Tommy’s mind went blank, then black, then pale gray. Now when he squinted into the interrogation room light it didn’t even seem like light anymore but a kind of shiny darkness. He felt as though he was falling through the brightness like a brother pitched off a hundred-story building. All the bright scenes of his life seemed to be fading, all of them diminishing like faces in the fog. Even the fabulous good shi
t that was coming, close on the horizon, that seemed to be diminishing, too. Vargas switched the lights back to a single hot light again. To Fat Tommy the trembling ocean of darkness beyond the spotlight seemed like fathomless midnight. And from the utter depths of its darkness Fat Tommy O’Rourke — a.k.a., Moises Rockafella, the King of Rock Cocaine — could hear a plaintive, high-pitched wail, a shrill, sad voice, strangely resembling his own. He prayed to Christ it was someone else.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  WENDY HORNSBY

  Dust Up

  from Murder in Vegas

  10:00 a.m., April 20

  Red Rock Canyon, Nevada

  Pansy reynard lay on her belly inside a camouflaged bird blind, high-power Zeiss binoculars to her eyes, a digital sound amplifier hooked over her right ear, charting every movement and sound made by her observation target, an Aplomado falcon hatchling. As Pansy watched, the hatchling stretched his wings to their full thirty-inch span and gave them a few tentative flaps as if gathering courage to make his first foray out of the nest. He would need some courage to venture out, she thought. The ragged, abandoned nest his mother had appropriated for her use sat on a narrow rock ledge 450 vertical feet above the desert floor.