Canary

by Duane Swierczynski

  “Okay, Honors Girl.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Let’s talk about you wearing a wire.”

  MORPHINE

  DECEMBER 8 (later)

  Surprise snowstorm this afternoon, Mom. Three inches falling per hour. Nobody saw it coming. You’d love this storm, especially because it’s a Sunday and nobody’s out. Dad and Marty are watching the Eagles-Lions game upstairs, which is apparently wild because Dad is yelling a lot. I steal a glance every time I go to the kitchen to make myself another cup of tea. The grounds crew has to keep brushing the snow off the yard lines so that the players can see what they’re doing. Some commentator says that Detroit has the advantage because their uniforms are white, but another says you can’t underestimate the Birds on their home turf. I’m not a big football fan, as you know, but this game looks like it’d be fun to watch. (Even though the more beer Dad drinks, the louder he gets; even Marty seems annoyed.) Much as I’d like to blow off the afternoon, I have a lot of work to do. There is much to figure out.

  The baggie of pills Partyman gave me is full of bright colors and perfect shapes. D. would probably love it. I still don’t understand the allure of taking what is essentially medicine. Girls in high school had plenty of pills, and I was offered my fair share. They’d look at me like I was crazy when I turned them down. Everyone was using them—I wasn’t being fair to myself if I didn’t take them, blah, blah. Want to know what kept me away?

  You, Mom.

  I know back when you were still Laura Gutierrez you were an addict. If you hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be alive right now. Your addiction brought you to Dad’s clinic in San Diego, and that miserable experience somehow brought you two together, and boom, out of all that came me. (And later, of course, Marty.) So I should be thankful to drugs, right? Yay drugs, makin’ the world go round.

  But I think that your addiction is what eventually killed you. I thought about this the first time I saw you have a seizure. Growing up, I would hear nonstop about the terrors of overdosing, and it was exactly how I imagined it—eyes rolling back in their sockets, body contorted in unnatural ways, veins bulging to the point where I could easily imagine them exploding. Suddenly, you just weren’t there. You were replaced by some alien being that possessed your body.

  I know you didn’t O.D. It was brain cancer. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if you were paying for some earlier sin in your life.

  Our drug talks at the dinner table—starting when I was twelve and Marty was five (and pretty much clueless at first)—were weird. Beneath the scary stories, Dad would seem a bit wistful about the allegedly bad old days. What I did was wrong and you should never try drugs alone, Sarie, blah, blah, blah … but they were also kind of fun, I’m not gonna lie to you.

  Your stories, however, were right out of Edgar freakin’ Allan Poe. All darkness and being out of control and terrified every moment. You would get so excited you’d lapse into Spanish (which Marty and I would tease you about, sometimes mercilessly: Ay! Dios Mío!). Dad would listen to your stories with his jaw clenched tight, clearly pissed to be hearing them again. Bad memories all around, I get it. Yet you guys would trot out these stories on a regular basis, especially when Marty got older. I always thought it was clever, the two-pronged approach. And it worked. I’ve never popped so much as an Adderall.

  Looking at these pills now, though … I have to wonder. Maybe they’d help me focus. I am, after all, leading a double life. Maybe they’d help me to keep everything straight in my head.

  Nope. Can’t do it. Still scared straight.

  Mom, you should be proud. I guess children really do grow up to rebel against their parents.

  NFU-CS HQ

  The conversation isn’t as hard as Wildey thought.

  It’s infinitely harder.

  The furious look in Kaz’s eyes makes Wildey think he’s guilty of high treason or something. Why does he not have the girl in handcuffs right now? Does Wildey think she was kidding?

  “No, Loot, I did not,” Wildey says. “But hear me out. We gain little by taking her into custody right now. She’s only a stepping-stone to her boyfriend, and for all we know the boyfriend could lawyer up and drag this thing into the New Year. If then.”

  Kaz watches him carefully. “Go on.”

  “But if we send her in with a wire, we hopscotch past all that and land right on Chuckie himself. We get him on a wire, he’s done.”

  “This all depends on your girl,” Kaz says. “Feels real shaky to me.”

  “Give her the time she needs to work. This is going to pay off big.”

  “It had better. Okay, I’ll detail Sepanic and Streicher as your surveillance. When is this going to happen?”

  “She’s going to text me the moment she knows.”

  DECEMBER 9

  I take my psychology exam, the most straightforward of my four finals this week—just regurgitating definitions, multiple choice, simple short essays. Which is good, because I have to drive downtown for an afternoon date with Partyman.

  Yes, Mom, for research purposes. Nothing more. I swear. I think he’s in his early thirties, which might be robbing the cradle for Tammy, but it’s a bit too old for me.

  Originally I asked Partyman to meet me for coffee. Partyman said screw that, let’s have a drink, give that clearly fake ID of yours a run for its money. So I agreed to meet him for a drink. His suggestion is a bar at the top of the Bellevue Hotel. He’s already there, perched in a little banquette next to a window. Partyman is wearing a suit with no tie and looks considerably more calm than he did Saturday night.

  —Find it okay?

  —Nice place.

  —I love the view from up here. If you squint you can almost make out the city as it was a hundred years ago. Anyway, I’m surprised you called. Do you need a prom date?

  He teases me along these lines for a while, we order drinks (Chardonnay for me, Stoli martini, two olives, for him), and, yes, I am carded, but the ID holds up, though Partyman goads the waiter to check again. No, really, check the date. We clink glasses.

  —I’m going to come clean.

  Partyman sips his Stoli and lifts his eyebrows as if to ask, Yes?

  —I’m not really into the whole pill thing …

  —But if someone offers you free drugs, hey, why not take them and pass them around to your friends, maybe make a few bucks? It’s okay, I get it.

  —No, it’s not that. I was just … curious.

  —What I’m curious about is why a beautiful young woman like you wanted to meet with scruffy old me.

  —Yeah, you never did show me your ID.

  —No, I didn’t, did I?

  He shows me his perfect white teeth again.

  —Okay, the suspense is killing me. Why are we meeting?

  So then I give him the line I’ve been working on all night when I should have been studying for my psychology final. I tell him that I have an inkling of what he does for a living (geez, what gave it away, all of the drugs on the desk in front of me, he says), and no judgments, man, to each his own. And I’m eager to learn more.

  —You are.

  —Yeah.

  —Why?

  Because I’m working on a research paper on the drug trade in Philadelphia and want something that no other honors student will have. What’s that, he asks. I tell him, field reporting.

  I have a sip of wine while Partyman processes this. It’s cold and seems to go to my head immediately. I have no idea if he’s going to buy the paper thing. Then again, why else would I be curious? On paper I’m the perfect honors student. And in a sense, I am telling the truth. I am doing research. Just not for a paper in the traditional sense.

  —I wouldn’t use your name, of course. You’d be completely anonymous.

  After a long swallow that drains his Stoli completely, he signals for the waiter.

  —What if, and no judgments here if this is the case … but what if you’re a police snitch, and here I go, telling you all about what I do for
a living?

  In my gut I know that here’s where I really have to sell it. He has to believe me—otherwise, it’ll be one drink and he’ll pat me on the head (or my ass) and send me on my way, little schoolgirl that I am.

  —You think I’m a snitch?

  —It’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Maybe you are into pills and you got yourself busted and the only way out is to find the police a dealer. Happens all the time. Especially in this crazy town. Is that what happened to you?

  —I’m not into pills. And I’ve never been arrested.

  —I’m going to have another Stoli. They go down so, so easy. How about you?

  And, yep, there it is: I’ve lost him. Even though there’s no possible way he can know for sure that I’m a CI. Maybe he can just see it in my face. Maybe I’m that bad at this.

  —Look, this whole thing came out wrong. I’m sorry I wasted your time. I’d better go.

  I stand up to leave. He puts a hand on my arm.

  —Hey, don’t rush off. Let’s have another round. I’m not ready to head back out into the cold, are you?

  We have another round. I finish the rest of my wine (which is half the glass) in one gulp by the time the next arrives but already feel my brain all swimmy. Tomorrow’s my twentieth-century history final, a huge multi-part essay series on the cold war and the red scare, and I’m not even remotely ready. I tell myself I’ll be polite and have another wine to not piss off the kindly bearded drug dealer.

  —I will say this, the police culture here is so incredibly fucked.

  —You’re not from here?

  —Let’s just say I visit a lot of cities. And Philly’s something special, let me tell you. You know the one vital element to any thriving drug operation? A complicit police department.

  —You’re saying the cops are in on it.

  —Don’t they have to be? There’s really no other way it works. If they’re not outright bent, they report to someone who is. And if they’re not, then they’re enforcing policy that is created at the highest levels and has nothing to do with crime prevention.

  —That’s a pretty cynical worldview there, Partyman.

  —I’d say it’s pretty dead-on. But fine, even if you don’t believe that, take a closer look at the cops in this city. You know how many the police commissioner has fired since he took the job five years ago?

  —No idea.

  —One hundred and thirty-four. Let that number sink in for a minute. Now, consider that nearly half of them have found their way back onto the force, thanks to police union arbitration. Not that I’m complaining, really. The crooked ones are desperate and easy to control. That’s a boon to people in my profession.

  —So, Mr. Partyman, do you have a bunch of cops in your pocket?

  He smiles.

  —Why? Do you want to bum one?

  I return the smile and take a sip of my wine, even though I don’t like it very much.

  —Okay, so how do you explain all of the drug busts I’ve been reading about since I started this research paper? The police aren’t sitting back and doing nothing.

  —You mean those small-time busts, the five o’clock news photo op with bales of pot on a foldout table? You’re reading the wrong stories. You might want to look at stories about a series of home invasions within the past month.

  —Home invasions? Why?

  —And pay special attention to the back chatter in the comments section. That’s where people vent.

  —Mind if I write this down?

  —Why? I’m not telling you anything you won’t be able to find on your own.

  —Oh. Okay.

  —You also might want to pay attention to all the missing people lately. People just don’t vanish off the street for no reason. They’re most likely confidential informants, which underscores the futility of narcotics investigations at the city level.

  —How so?

  —Considering the rate at which snitches disappear in Philadelphia, it stuns me that anybody would ever agree to be one.

  After the college girl departs, the guy she calls Partyman orders another Stoli and requests a luncheon menu. He is not as old as he led “Joan” to believe, but he’s lived long enough to know that people don’t drop into your life for no reason. He hopes he’s surmised the correct reason and told her what she needed to hear. Then he orders the sautéed Pennsylvania lake trout, with almonds, green beans, brown butter, and capers. He hums “Stir It Up” while he waits. God, he loves his job.

  Online conversation from private chat room in Big Bust V: The West Coast Connection (CultureWerks Games, 2013). 12/9/13 10:31 p.m.

  ciscoPIKE: so anything going on this week? could use a break from finals

  chUKeeMORPHine: I’m sure something can be arranged brudda

  ciscoPIKE: at the new place?

  chUKeeMORPHine: okay yeah why don’t you drop by Tues nite

  ciscoPIKE: sounds good man. cool if I bring somebody?

  chUKeeMORPHine: sure, as long as she has tits

  ciscoPIKE: ha-ha yeah she does

  ciscoPIKE: awesome

  chUKeeMORPHine: hang on

  chUKeeMORPHine: whats her name

  ciscoPIKE: why do you need to know that

  chUKeeMORPHine: You know I like to keep track of my guest list

  ciscoPIKE: oh okay

  chUKeeMORPHine: Also, for my Christmas card list

  ciscoPIKE: ha-ha

  chUKeeMORPHine: So …?

  ciscoPIKE: Her name’s Sarie Holland classmate of mine real sweet girl

  chUKeeMORPHine: Another honor student eh? Well then I look forward to meeting her. Does she have an attractive mother?

  ciscoPIKE: ha-ha

  chUKeeMORPHine: peace brudda

  ciscoPIKE: peace

  Online conversation from private chat room in Big Bust V: The West Coast Connection (CultureWerks Games, 2013). 12/9/13 10:37 p.m.

  chUKeeMORPHine: Yo keef

  KeithBurns06: Hey

  chUKeeMORPHine: we might have a little problem

  KeithBurns06: what’s that man?

  chUKeeMORPHine: remember that rumor about some chick getting busted a few blocks away from us right before Thanksgiving

  KeithBurns06: yeah?

  chUKeeMORPHine: got a feeling she might be coming for a visit Tuesday night. We’ll need the gear and some more guys

  KeithBurns06: on it

  chUKeeMORPHine: hit your usual sources too and see what the good word on the street is, see if she’s somebody we need to worry about. Her name is

  chUKeeMORPHine: Sarie Holland

  KeithBurns06: absolutely

  chUKeeMORPHine: either way once that bitch is stripped we’ll know if she flipped

  Text exchange between CI #137 and Andrew Pike. 12/9/13 10:49 p.m.

  PIKE: Hey you up?

  CI #137: Yep

  PIKE: We’re all set. Tues night at 9

  CI #137: Great

  PIKE: you’re gonna see, there’s nothing to worry about, we’ll be able to fix this

  CI #137: ok

  CI #137: gotta go study now

  PIKE: kk

  PIKE: thinking about you

  CI #137: me too

  New clips cut and pasted into CI #137’s handwritten “crime book” journal:

  Man concocted kidnap story to cover a bad drug deal, cops say (12/9/13)

  Police investigate Newbold home invasion (12/9/13)

  D.A.’s office tosses 12 cases tied to disgraced cop (12/7/13)

  2 suspects sought in NE Phila. home invasion (12/5/13)

  Ex-officer convicted of tipping relative to drug probe (12/4/13)

  Reports: 2 dead, 3 wounded in overnight shootings (12/2/13)

  Closing arguments to get under way in Philadelphia police officer corruption trial (12/2/13)

  Victim in N. Philly home invasion tells of terror, beating (12/2/13)

  THE WATERFRONT

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 9

  As far as body dump sites go, the Lobs
ter Trap is a pretty clever setup.