Good thing, too, because Hootie doesn’t wait for Chigorin to open the conversation. The moment they’re seated, he utters the magic words: ‘What’s in it for me?’
‘Pardon?’
‘I know what you want me to give you. What I don’t know is what I get in return.’
The Russian smiles. ‘You go to Catholic school when you were a kid?’ he asks.
‘What’s it to you?’ In fact, Hootie was educated in Catholic schools from kindergarten until the day he dropped out.
‘I’m just thinkin’, the way you talk, it’s not street. So I was guessin’ the nuns got their hands on you at some point in your life.’
Not only the nuns, but his mother, too. Corlie Hootier, now Corlie Couch, did not tolerate Ebonics in her home. On the other hand, her husband’s Jamaican English was just fine, though it bore no resemblance to the grammar taught by the nuns at St. Catherine’s.
‘OK, forget it.’ Chigorin’s waves off his remark. ‘I didn’t mean anything special. I was just curious.’
Hootie finds himself disliking everything about the cop on the other side of the table: the overhanging forehead, like the brow of helmet, and the squinty little eyes, blue, naturally. The cop’s short nose is pitted, his thin lips the color of gristle trimmed from a steak. His head is almost square, a block of stone with a bandage plastered to the back.
‘You beat me down pretty good,’ Hootie says. ‘Now you gotta show some bling. What’s in it for me?’
Chigorin nods in agreement. ‘I know what you want, Hootie. You want to go home tonight. Well, I can arrange that, no problem. In fact, to be completely honest, I lied about calling your probation officer, so this whole business is just between the two of us.’
‘That’s great, but how do I know you’re not lyin’ now?’
The Russian raises a defensive hand. ‘First, let me say that you have it exactly right. Cops do lie at the drop of a hat. We’re supposed to. But you have a pair of hole cards, Hootie, and they’re both wild. The most important is that any statement you give me tonight is so much toilet paper if you don’t testify before the grand jury.’
‘And the other one?’
‘Like you said when I first came in, what crime have you committed? Carrying false ID? Hootie, we’re talkin’ about a murder. Now I know you don’t think too much of cops in general, but this you can take to the bank. When it comes to cold-blooded executions, we care.’
The time has come and Hootie knows it. He looks to the mirror, then to the door, finally to Chigorin, whose expression hasn’t changed.
‘Alright, this is how it went down.’
Once started, Hootie relates a simple narrative. He begins his story in his mother’s house, with his banishment. From there, with no money and no place to go, he walked directly to the subway and jumped the turnstile. Maybe five minutes later, Bubba Yablonsky, a complete stranger, took a seat next to him on the bench. They struck up a casual conversation, two dudes on the move in the wee hours of the morning, no big deal.
Enter the rat.
‘I don’t know what set him off. I made a little joke – when I noticed the rat, I said, “Dinner” – and the guy started blasting away.’
‘And then what, you became friends? Shooting the rat was a bonding experience?’
‘I was on the street with nowhere to go. You ever been on the street, Detective?’
‘Can’t say as I have.’
‘Well, Bubba offered me a bed and I took it. Like you said, any port in a storm.’
‘OK, I can see that. Only Bubba doesn’t strike me as an altruistic kinda guy. So, what did he want from you?’
Hootie shakes his head. He’s not going there. ‘I’m puttin’ the gun in Bubba’s hand. I don’t know what he did with it before he came into the subway. As for afterwards, all I can say is Bubba’s a nice guy, a real saint. He sheltered me out of the goodness of his heart.’
Chigorin makes a little circling gesture with his forefinger. He’s thinking now that the kid’s too smart for his own good, that he needs to be put in his place. But there’s still the million dollar question to be asked. ‘So, what happened to the gun? Where is it now?’
‘Bubba tossed it into the East River that same night.’
The Russian’s heart sinks. He was hoping the gun was still in the apartment. Recovering the murder weapon would seal the deal for Bubba Yablonsky.
‘Where in the East River?’
‘Between Fourteenth and Twenty-Third streets. We were walkin’ along, just bullshitting, when he takes out the gun and says, “From the half-court line.” Then he threw it about fifty feet into the water.’
Hootie’s lying about where Bubba disposed of the gun. He’s off by almost a half-mile and the Russian observes a very slight hesitation.
‘Don’t play with me, Hootie. Because if that gun turns up, I’ll kick your ass from here to the Bronx.’
‘The gun’s in the water,’ Hootie insists.
‘You sure?’
‘C’mon, man.’
Chigorin leans across the table. No more sweet talk. ‘My name is Detective Chigorin, not man or bro or any other bullshit, and I’d strongly advise you not to disrespect me.’ The Russian pauses, but Hootie seems neither afraid nor defiant. He seems preoccupied. ‘Now you’re gonna write out a statement and sign it. After that, you’re going home to the address you gave your probation officer. And you’re not gonna change your residence without calling me first. In fact, you’re gonna call me every day no matter where you are. If ya don’t, if you make me have to look for you, I’m gonna put a serious hurtin’ on your ass. I’m not jokin’ here.’
For the first time, the Russian’s words produce a reaction. Hootie looks down at the table and he closes his eyes for a moment.
‘Give me a break … Detective. I didn’t leave because I wanted to. My mother kicked me out.’
‘Well, you’re just gonna have to call her and make nice. I don’t want you on the street and Bubba’s apartment is off-limits until I get a search warrant. Make no mistake, Hootie. This is a murder investigation. If you get in the way, you’ll think you fell under the wheels of a city bus.’
Now that he’s repeated the basic message for the third time, Chigorin eases up. He furnishes Hootie with pen, paper and his personal cellphone, then leaves the room to call his boss, Lieutenant Hamilton. He knows the job will never agree to fund a scuba team. Almeda doesn’t rate that kind of attention. Plus, the East River is actually a tidal basin with the tides commonly running better than six knots. By now, the weapon could be a mile away, or buried under a foot of silt. But the Russian tries anyway. Without the weapon to confirm Hootie’s statement, the case against Bubba is very thin.
Generally affable, Lieutenant Hamilton listens without interruption as Chigorin explains the situation, beginning with the unexpected call from his snitch. Then he echoes the Russian’s doubts.
‘If the weapon’s really in the river, forget about a recovery operation. And as for Yablonsky, he’s not goin’ anywhere, so there’s no reason to make an arrest tonight. Try to find that homeless guy instead. What’d you say he was?’
‘Hunchbacked.’
‘Yeah, find him, see if he can pick Yablonsky out of a line-up.’
Chigorin stifles a laugh, imagining a line-up that includes six normal-sized human beings and Bubba Yablonsky. Talk about a fix. But the other alternative, convincing six Bubba-sized volunteers to appear in a line-up, is clearly impossible.
‘I think I’m gonna pass,’ he tells his boss. ‘I’ll do the paperwork on Yablonsky and get the kid’s statement. From there, it’s up to Campo. I’m not feelin’ all that good. I gotta get some sleep.’
‘No problem. If Campo has any questions, he’ll give you a call. And by the way, you did great work here. I didn’t think we had a chance in hell of clearing the Almeda shooting and now we got ourselves a genuine celebrity. Congratulations.’
Hootie stares down at Chigorin’s cellphone. He’s piss
ed off even thinking about Archie Couch. But the cop’s not bluffing. Hootie’s either going back to his mother’s apartment or back to Rikers Island.
The choice is pretty simple, but Hootie doesn’t pick up Chigorin’s phone, not right away. Instead his thoughts drift to the vision Bubba described – Bubba and Amelia both. How many times did Eli Scannon warn him against being seduced by the white man’s fantasies? And what exactly does he owe Amelia? On the one hand, his every instinct is to ride to her rescue. But there’s this little voice now, whispering into his ear, gentle as a breeze. From the drug dealer’s murder to the sale of the Cookinarts, each link in the chain was forged before Hootie joined the team. So why is he now responsible for the consequences? Why should he risk his freedom for Amelia Cincone?
Hootie picks up the phone without answering the question. He dials his home number and his mother picks up on the second ring.
‘Hootie, I’ve been so worried,’ she tells him. ‘Why haven’t you called me?’
SIXTEEN
The night ends for Hootie in a series of embarrassments. First thing, the cop babysits him all the way to the front door of his building. There’s another lecture, too, complete with threats, about staying in touch. And what can Hootie do except agree? Agree when he’s imagining what it’d be like to drive his fist into the cop’s lipless mouth.
As he gets out of the car, Hootie wonders if he’s supposed to say thank you. Thank you for not throwing me in jail. Thank you for making me a snitch. Thank you for putting me on a collision course with the wrath of Corlie Couch.
Only it’s not wrath that Hootie faces when he walks into his mother’s home at one o’clock in the morning. No, Corlie’s round face and large green eyes display equal measures of grief and disappointment. Her son has failed her again. Her boy child, her little man.
Hootie’s not a parent and he has only a vague notion of how parents relate to their children. Nevertheless, just for a moment he quite literally feels her pain. Call it empathy, but her dashed hopes for her boy reach in to grip his heart. All that promise washed into the storm drains along with the rest of the trash. Headed for the ultimate sewage treatment plant, the one called prison.
A memory flashes through Hootie’s mind, a young boy flying into his mother’s arms. After Hootie’s father died, Corlie supported her family by working seventy-hour weeks. Though he was too young to realize it, when she finally did come home, usually hauling bags of groceries, she must have been teetering on the brink of exhaustion. But she didn’t refuse him the comfort of her arms. Never, not once. Always, she laid the grocery bags on the floor, dropped to her knees and spread her arms wide.
‘Come to me, boy child.’
So what can Hootie say now? What can he do except repeat the same lie he told her over the phone? The cops are hassling him simply because he’s a black man living on the street. If she refuses him a place to stay, he’s certain to be violated, since the terms of his probation require him to have a fixed address. Plus, without that fixed address, gainful employment is out of the question.
For once, Corlie Couch doesn’t have much to say. Maybe she’s resigned, maybe she’s already mourning his loss. Or maybe she’s consoling herself. Her daughter’s an attorney. One out of two ain’t bad.
Either way, she disappears into the bedroom ten minutes after Hootie’s arrival, leaving him to sit all by his lonesome in her crowded living room. Back in the day, Corlie’s furnishings were purchased, one piece at a time, from crappo furniture stores on Third Avenue, stores that specialized in low-end merchandise and high-interest credit. No more. Corlie’s pearl-gray sofa sweeps across two walls. Along with her glass coffee table, the ceramic lamps on the end tables and the carpet beneath his feet, the sofa was purchased from Thomasville, and not at a clearance sale, either.
Respectability. Sometimes Hootie believes that respectability is all his mother’s ever wanted. Corlie’s parents were migrants from rural Mississippi, educated at Jim Crow schools and raised on farms where they were put to work almost as soon as they could walk. Their skills were particularly unsuited to New York with its eroded manufacturing base, and though both worked, every month began with a struggle to pay the bills. Which ones had to be paid, which could be put off. Hootie knows all this because his mother’s economic struggles were a preoccupation in the Hootier household. Rip his pants in the school yard? Stains on his new winter coat? Sometimes the lecture went on for days.
That all changed on the day his mother married Archie Couch. Corlie’s respectable now, her life tidy and ordered. With a single exception, of course.
Hootie’s mind is swirling, with thoughts and emotions. His mother’s home is one big reproach. And then there’s Amelia. And Bubba in a cell. And that fucking cop. Hootie doesn’t doubt, not for a minute, that Chigorin will make good on his threats if he doesn’t cooperate.
It’s two o’clock when Hootie lays his head on the pillow. He’s thinking that sleep is a real long-shot, but he drops off within seconds. When he awakens, it’s nine thirty and the apartment’s empty, his mother and stepfather having gone off to work. He jerks upright, coming out of bed as though in response to a fire. Sixteen hours. That’s how long Amelia’s been gone.
Now Hootie’s faced with another decision, courtesy of Bubba Yablonsky who stuck those keys in his pocket. And he’s not unmindful of the fact that his first decision, to throw in with Bubba, didn’t exactly work out. No, that particular fact occupies the exact center of his consciousness, solid as a tumor.
Hootie trots off to the bathroom. He uses the toilet, showers and shaves, finally dresses. Now what? A bowl of cereal? He looks out through the front windows at a bright blue sky – after weeks of brown summer haze, the intensity is almost surreal. Hootie’s thinking that what he really ought to do is take a long walk in Riverside Park, maybe up to the George Washington Bridge where he knows a player who sells top-of-the-line powder. He can hang there, too, maybe come home after his mother and Archie go to bed, start again tomorrow morning. He’s got a phone number as well, a number given to him in Otis Bantum by a professional burglar named Reef who specializes in commercial burglaries. That’s because commercial break-ins aren’t considered violent crimes and New York’s three-strikes law, with its draconian sentences, doesn’t apply.
Hootie’s sitting on the edge of the bed, lost in thought, when the phone rings. He crosses to the living room and checks the caller ID screen. His mother’s cellphone number. Hootie’s not really tempted to answer, but he continues to stare down for a moment. Then he turns abruptly and leaves the apartment, pausing only to lock the door on his way out.
The streets are teeming, as always in the summer. Moms in lawn chairs, kids tearing down the sidewalk on tricycles, bicycles and skateboards. One of Hootie’s neighbors, Buford Parks, sits in a wheelchair, attended by a home health aide. Buford lost both legs in Vietnam and he’s been sitting in front of the building ever since.
‘Yo, Hootie, that you, boy? Come close. I can’t see for shit no more.’
‘Yeah, it’s me, Buford. What’s up with you?’
‘Same old same old.’
‘I hear that. Where’s Beatrice?’
‘Beatrice gone six months now, Hootie. Stroke took her.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, man.’
‘It’s OK, Hootie. She’s with the Lord now.’
Hootie taps Buford’s shoulder, then passes on down the street, dodging the kids, to Broadway. He stands on the corner for a moment, then raises his arm to hail a gypsy cab. When a gray Lincoln pulls over, he gives the driver Bubba’s address on the Lower East Side, then negotiates a price: $23.
Hootie’s too preoccupied to enjoy the views across the East River on the trip downtown. He’s just remembered that according to Bubba, Sherman Cole lives out in Queens, in a neighborhood called Bayside. Hootie has no idea where Bayside is. Somewhere beyond Flushing, the last stop on the 7 line, would be his guess, but that covers a lot of territory. Hootie’s been to Hollis i
n Queens, to the home of his Auntie Grace. He remembers children riding bicycles on quiet streets, a trellis of red roses in the back yard, chickens lined up on a barbecue grill. All very nice, he has to admit, but so alien it might be another planet.
The driver pulls to a halt behind a bus at 10th Street and Hootie gets out. He heads for Bubba’s Crown Vic, half hoping it won’t start. That would narrow his options by a good deal. But when he twists the key in the ignition, the engine leaps into life.
Hootie shuts the car down and heads up to the apartment. It’s becoming painfully obvious to Hootie that Bubba expected him to snitch, that he knew Hootie would cave when he dropped the keys into Hootie’s pocket. Does that mean Bubba trusted Hootie to go to Amelia’s rescue? Or that Hootie was her only hope?
Hootie pauses with his back against the door. His mind turns to Amelia for just a moment, to her present, assuming she still has a present. But he doesn’t allow himself to become overwhelmed. He heads off to Bubba’s room in search of a gun. Again, he’s half hoping that Bubba was lying, or that the weapon Bubba spoke of is locked in a safe. He opens the drawers in the bureau and rummages through the underwear and socks and stacked shirts. Beneath a neatly folded turtleneck sweater, he discovers a roll of fifty-dollar bills which he pockets without thinking twice. He tries the nightstands next, but one drawer is empty, while the other contains only a book: Starting an Online Business.
Bubba’s closet comes next and it’s here, on a shelf, that Hootie finds a snub-nosed .38 revolver in a nylon ankle holster. He takes the weapon down and lays it on the bed. In New York, the minimum mandatory sentence for illegal possession of a handgun is three and a half years, which is why Hootie’s never carried one. So this is a big moment for a nineteen-year-old kid, a can’t-take-it-back moment, and Hootie’s well aware of it.
Again, he asks himself what he owes Amelia. He’s thinking that Eli Scannon would laugh in his face if asked the same question.
Cracker Bling Page 12
