Faces of the Gone

by Brad Parks

  Because I knew how this stuff worked. The foot soldiers would be given lighter sentences in exchange for their testimony against the Big Boss. Yes, Your Honor, I murdered four people and torched all those buildings, but La Cabra made me do it. Van Man would do twenty or thirty years but would end up enjoying his old age as a free man. Meanwhile, his victims got no reprieve on being dead.

  But there was one way to possibly change that equation: if I could get to the foot soldier first and put his name in the paper, there would be pressure for the NDB to do something about it. The families of the victims would be clamoring for justice, and this crime had become high profile enough that they might be able to get someone with pull—a congressman, maybe—to listen.

  So I just had to find a way to infiltrate a Colombian drug lord’s local organization, implicate it in a major international drug-smuggling ring, and find compelling evidence it had committed a series of heinous crimes. I could have that wrapped up by, what, dinnertime?

  Or not.

  Knowing L. Pete wasn’t going to be any assistance mapping out La Cabra’s network, I had to leverage the information he had given me to try to get more from somewhere else. And, really, I could only think of one guy I knew who might even have more information. I picked up the phone and dialed Irving Wallace, hoping his part of the government—whatever part that was—had an agenda different enough from the NDB that he wouldn’t mind being helpful.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Hi, Irving, Carter Ross from the Eagle-Examiner.”

  Pause. “Are you in your office?”

  “Yeah.”

  Click.

  Ten seconds later, my phone rang.

  “Carter Ross.”

  “Hi, it’s Irving.”

  “You want to explain to me why that was necessary?” I asked.

  “Because someone could have been impersonating you.”

  “Besides Buster Hays, no one knows we’ve ever spoken,” I said. “And I’m sure Buster isn’t sharing.”

  “Good thing, too,” he said. “I understand your sources get their houses blown up.”

  Obviously, someone had been watching the news.

  “Cheap shot,” I said. “Now that you’ve hurt my feelings, you have to help me. What can you tell me about José de Jesús Encarcerón?”

  “I don’t know. That he’s not very nice, I guess,” Wallace said. “I’m just a lab guy, remember? I know what his drugs look like after they’ve been passed through a spectrometer.”

  “Aw, come on. I’m sure you hear little tidbits from . . . whoever it is you work for.”

  “Say the magic words.”

  Magic words? What magic words? Oh.

  “Off the record,” I said.

  “Very good,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, I want to know what kind of muscle he has on the street here.”

  “Where, in Newark?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He doesn’t,” Wallace said.

  “What do you mean? Of course he does.”

  “In the Northeast, guys like Encarcerón just supply the product. They’ve never been able to get down to the street level. I’m not sure they even want to. They’ve always left it to the local thugs.”

  “Someone told me—off the record, of course—that Encarcerón’s people here are responsible for Ludlow Street,” I said.

  “Really?” Wallace said, sounding surprised. “Is it someone who knows what they’re talking about?”

  “They ought to.”

  “Huh,” he said. “Sounds to me like someone is trying to snow you.”

  I made Irving Wallace promise to call me if he heard anything—a lot of good that would probably do—and was just about to settle in for some serious head scratching when the three o’clock editor’s meeting let out and Hurricane Tina washed ashore on my desk.

  “Goddammit, Carter. Where the hell have you been?” she said with quiet intensity.

  “I had an errand to run,” I said. “We were out of nondairy creamer in the break room.”

  “You prick,” she bristled. “If I have to surgically attach an electronic monitoring bracelet to your balls, I will.”

  “Watch out,” I said. “That might lower my sperm count.”

  “Yeah? You should see what dying does to your sperm count.”

  “Ah,” I said. “So that’s why you haven’t gotten into necrophilia.”

  She had clearly been outzinged. So rather than hit me with another comeback, she put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. A lock of hair fell across her face and I felt the urge to tuck it behind her ear for her. But Tina was determined to stay indignant, so she blew it out of the way and continued scowling at me.

  “So do you want to fill me in on what’s been going on around here?” I asked.

  “No. I want to wring your neck. But I’ll tell you anyway: Whitlow, Hays, and Hernandez have been putting together a story on today’s series of fires and explosions that we will link to the Eagle-Examiner’s front-page report about the Ludlow Street murders.”

  I nodded.

  “Their story will not carry a byline,” she said. “That’s our new policy. Until this Unabomber-wannabe is caught, all Ludlow Street stories are unbylined.”

  “What, no one else wanted the joy that is filing a total home destruction insurance claim?”

  “In other news,” she continued. “We’ve received and declined about twenty interview requests for star investigative reporter Carter Ross.”

  “Aw, damn,” I said. “How am I supposed to get my fifteen minutes of fame?”

  “Well, given how you did with your first five on the News at Noon, I’d say we’re doing you a favor.”

  Now I was outzinged. I thought about sharing what I had learned from my new buddies at the NDB but decided it could wait.

  “I’m still pissed at you,” Tina said. “But if you behave yourself for the rest of the day, I’ll make you my world-famous veal scaloppine when we get home tonight.”

  “Consider me on my best behavior,” I said, raising three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Yeah, I almost believe that. I’m telling the security guards in the parking lot that if they see you unaccompanied, they should shoot to maim.”

  “Good thing they’re old and blind,” I said.

  “You better hope so,” she said.

  She stormed off, taking her Category 5 wrath with her. I was just starting to scan my e-mail box—spaces in Human Resources’ Ramadan Awareness seminar were going fast—but before I could learn what I needed to be aware of (besides hungry Muslims) Tommy approached my desk.

  “Is it safe?” he asked.

  “You mean if you continue standing here will someone try to firebomb you and your Gucci shoes? I make no guarantees.”

  “No, I was talking about Tina,” Tommy said. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the bomb.”

  “She’ll get over it. How was Booker T?”

  “I would say your friend in the van saved the City of Newark a lot of money in demolition.”

  “You ask about Red and Queen Mary?”

  “Yeah. No one had seen them this morning. But as of a half hour ago the fire department hadn’t recovered any bodies, so maybe there are none to recover.”

  The cynical side of me wondered how hard they were actually looking. Anyone trapped in that building would be a person who long ago ceased to be of much consequence to society.

  “What about Brenda Bass?” I asked.

  “I made the usual round of calls to the hospitals and got the usual crap about confidentiality laws. But on a hunch I called the burn unit at University Hospital and one of the nurses slipped.”

  “Slipped?”

  “Yeah, she was like, ‘How did you know she was here?’ And I was like, ‘I didn’t, honey, you just told me.’ ”

  “Wow. The intern with the veteran move. Nice job,” I said. “Anyway, how’s your story coming?”

  “Eh,
you know what a joy it is working with Buster. If he calls me ‘little girl’ one more time he’s going to have to remove my queer Cuban foot from his ass.”

  “I love it when you get all butch.”

  “I really sounded tough just now, huh?” he said, then giggled.

  “I was definitely scared for a second. Look at me, I’m trembling,” I said, holding out my hand, which was rock steady.

  “Yeah, anyway, screw you,” Tommy said. “I only came over here to tell you about this guy who called for you. The clerk transferred the calls to me, because the guy said it was about Ludlow Street. But he only wanted to talk to you.”

  Tommy handed me a number on a torn piece of Chinese menu.

  “The guy have a name?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t say. He sounded like some gangbanger. That’s why I didn’t want to give him your cell number. He sounded pretty scary.”

  “I’m not afraid of him. I’ve got a queer Cuban ass-kicker who will protect me.”

  “Don’t you forget it,” Tommy said as he walked away.

  I looked at the menu/message slip for a moment. I generally have a pretty good memory for phone numbers, but this one wasn’t jostling any brain cells (though it was making me hungry for mu shu pork).

  I briefly debated whether to call the number. I was, at least according to some, a known enemy of La Cabra. There was no telling who might be trying to lure me into certain doom. Why wouldn’t the guy give his name? Why insist on only talking to me? It had the classic markings of a trap.

  But I gave in pretty quickly. Ultimately, the journalistic flesh is weak: an anonymous source calling with information is just far too great a temptation to resist. I mean, maybe this was my Deep Throat, the guy who would meet me in the parking garage and tell me everything. Besides, what would one little phone call hurt?

  So I dialed.

  “Yo,” said a voice I couldn’t place.

  “Hi, this is Carter Ross, from the Eagle-Examiner,” I said.

  “Yo, Bird Man! Thanks for putting in your article that we didn’t have nothing to do with Dee-Dub.”

  It wasn’t Deep Throat. It was Bernie Kosar from the Brick City Browns.

  “I promised you I would,” I said. “I mean, you made me an honorary member. It seems to be the least I could do for you guys.”

  Especially with sources who, on occasion, shoot people.

  “Yeah, it was cool. My mom even clipped it out and saved it. It’s the first time we been mentioned in the paper for something positive, you know?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to feature you in the ‘Good Neighbors’ section just yet, but I’m glad it’s something,” I said. “Anyway, what’s up?”

  “I got someone here you want to talk to. Can you come out to Brown Town right away?”

  “Brown Town?”

  “Yeah, you know, the place where we, you know . . .”

  “Smoked that fine marijuana?”

  “Yeah,” Bernie said, laughing. He cupped the phone, but I could hear him say to his buddies: “Bird Man wants to know if this is where we ‘smoked that fine marijuana,’ ” he said, imitating my voice with exaggerated diction, then got back on the phone.

  “You got a funny way of talking, Bird Man. It’s like listening to the announcer in one of them antidrug videos. Where do white people learn to talk like that, anyway?”

  “We take special classes,” I replied. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Okay, hurry up. This guy ain’t going to hang around all day.”

  When I arrived at Brown Town, I realized Bernie Kosar was being quite literal when he talked about the source hanging around: in the darkened living room, next to the fish tank, there was a chubby young black man dangling from his heels.

  He had been tied to an exposed pipe in the ceiling and was suspended upside down, bat-style. He had a sock in his mouth that had been secured by duct tape wrapped around his head. He was wearing boxers—and only boxers. He did not seem pleased about any of this.

  In addition to Bernie, the guy in the Kevin Mack jersey was also standing sentry.

  “We caught this nigga trying to steal a Drew Barrymore movie,” Bernie said, giving the guy an evil look as we walked past.

  He and Kevin Mack guided me down the hallway into the kitchen, out of earshot of the prisoner.

  “We don’t really give a damn about the Drew Barrymore thing,” Bernie told me. “That bitch’s movies are all the same anyway.

  “But he was carrying this backpack,” Bernie continued, holding up a nylon bag with a key chain full of soda can tabs attached. “And we found this in it.”

  Bernie flipped me an envelope. I looked inside to find four glossy eight-by-ten photographs that made me flinch. Each picture was an extreme close-up of a lifeless, shattered, bloody face. It was, to my utter astonishment, the Ludlow Four. Overcoming my revulsion, I pulled the pictures toward me for closer inspection.

  I held up one of the pictures and blurted, “That’s Wanda Bass. I saw her in the funeral home after they patched her up. That’s definitely her.”

  “Yeah, and that’s Dee-Dub,” Bernie said, pointing to another photo. Then he held up a single sheet of paper that bore The Stuff’s stamp at the top. “This came with it,” he said.

  It was written like a corporate memo: “TO: All Employees, FROM: The Director, RE: Reminder about cutting.” I read it quickly, then went back over it more slowly. It answered some of the questions that had confounded me. Why kill the dealers? They had diluted the brand. Why kill all four at once and leave them together in a way that would garner so much attention? Because being noticed was the point. Who did the killing? The Director.

  Whoever that was.

  “Where the hell did he get this?” I asked.

  “He won’t talk to us,” Bernie said. “But we figured he’d have to talk to you, you being a reporter and all.”

  If only that were true.

  “Well, it’s not like I have subpoena power,” I said. “Why didn’t you just call the cops?”

  “We ain’t exactly the cop-calling type, Bird Man,” Bernie said matter-of-factly.

  “No, I guess you’re not,” I said, frowning until an idea came to me. “Okay, but we can still act like cops. You guys be the bad cops. You know, the tough guys, threatening him and stuff. I’ll be the good cop, protecting him from you. We’ll work him that way. Okay?”

  I didn’t think playing bad cop would be too much of a stretch for either of them.

  “Cool,” Bernie said, clearly enjoying the idea. Of course he did. It was just like a scene from one of his bootleg movies.

  “Just follow my lead,” I said.

  We went back into the living room, where Bat Boy eyed us. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-two or twenty-three. And the baby fat made him look even younger.

  “I’m telling you, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, as if we were in the middle of a conversation. “I don’t think we should hurt him.”

  I turned my back on Bat Boy and winked, then faced him again. Bernie was a little slow to react, but Kevin Mack caught on perfectly.

  “Forget it. I’m cutting his dick off,” he said angrily, pulling out a thick-bladed hunting knife. From under the sock, a muffled scream escaped Bat Boy’s throat. I turned away again so Bat Boy couldn’t see how hard I was working to suppress a laugh.

  “Look, let’s at least give him a chance to talk,” I pleaded. “Then you can cut his dick off.”

  “A’right,” Kevin said, walking over to Bat Boy. “I’m going to take this thing off his face now. But if he screams, I’m cutting his dick off. You hear that, sucker?”

  Bat Boy nodded, and Kevin Mack roughly ripped off the duct tape. The guy didn’t have a lot of hair, but it still couldn’t have felt good.

  “Owww,” he whined.

  “Keep it down,” Kevin Mack said, putting the point of the knife on the fly opening of the guy’s boxers. Yes, bad cop was definitely well within Kev
in Mack’s theatrical repertoire.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Bat Boy said in a high, panicked voice.

  “Take it easy,” I told Kevin Mack. Bat Boy was legitimately scared witless and I had this brief moment of ethical pause. Should I be interviewing a source who was being forced to talk against his will? For that matter, was it a good idea to willingly participate in what was essentially a forceful kidnapping? What would Editor & Publisher have to say about such journalistic tactics?

  And then I thought, oh right, screw Editor & Publisher. No one was trying to kill them.

  “Remember what happened the last time you did that?” I said. “Remember all the blood? I am not helping you clean that up again.”

  I turned to Bat Boy. “Nothing bleeds quite like a penis wound,” I said, in a scholarly manner. “I’m not sure how familiar you are with anatomy, but the dorsal gonadal artery and the medial erectile vein converge at the base of the penis. If you sever both, you get a real gusher on your hands. You should have seen the last guy. He was hanging upside down just like you and he ended up with a face full of penis blood.”

  Bat Boy looked like he was buying it. I turned to Kevin Mack.

  “Hey, what did you end up doing with that last guy’s Johnson anyway?”

  “Fed it to the fish, remember?” Kevin Mack said with perfect timing.

  “I swear,” I said to Bat Boy. “I think this bloodthirsty bastard enjoys this.”

  “Well, the fish sure did,” Kevin Mack said. “They kept pecking at it, knocking it around, having fun with it. The big fish would gnaw on it for a while, then the little fish would dart out and take a chunk. That little blue one over there in the corner, he was a penis-eatin’ fool. I swear, he’s been begging for another one ever since.”

  Even though it was hard to tell through his chocolate-brown skin, I thought I detected Bat Boy blanching.

  “Look, I’m sure this guy is going to be more reasonable than the last one,” I said. “Maybe if you could give me a little time alone with him, we can get this resolved, okay?”

  “A’right,” Kevin said, heading back into the kitchen with Bernie, leaving me alone with Bat Boy.