Tales of River City

by Frank Zafiro

“I’m divorced, too,” I told him. “Jared’s mom and I get along, but it’s still hard for him.”

  “Then you understand,” he said, and continued. “Even the couple of times she did take Sean, he ended up spending most of the visit at his grandmother’s house because Jean would drop him off there to go party. The little bit of time that he was at Jean’s house, he saw things I didn’t want him being around.”

  “Like what?”

  “A whole lot of drinking. He mentioned some things that sounded like drugs to me. Funny cigarettes, he called them. One time, he saw white powder. That was when I stopped letting her have him for visits.” He shook his head. “Not that she really cares. She hasn’t asked about him in almost a year.”

  “Sounds like you made the right decision.”

  He nodded his head, but his eyes were sad. “Logically, yes. But emotionally…well, it’s rough on Sean.”

  I didn’t answer. I remembered how when Jared was younger, he sometimes cried during his visits with me because he missed his Mom. Tiffany said he did the same thing when he was with her.

  His voice thickened. “It’d be easier if she’d just died in a car wreck or something. At least then I wouldn’t have to try to explain to my boy why his mother won’t come to see him.”

  “That must be tough.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sean’s Dad said. “I shouldn’t be dumping all of this on you. I just thought—”

  “I’m Aaron,” I said, holding out my hand.

  He looked at it for a moment, surprised. Then he reached out and shook it. “Stan,” he told me, and his grip was sure.

  While I drove Jared back to his mother’s house, I split my time between consoling him on the loss and thinking about Stan and his situation. He’d given me Jean’s address and made a simple request. Would I go over there and see if it was safe for Sean to visit? I guess he figured that I had cop’s eyes and would see things he wouldn’t.

  Meanwhile, Jared hung his head and muttered his replies to me. By the time we got to his mother’s, he hadn’t perked up any.

  Tiffany was waiting for us on the porch, reading a paperback. She put the book aside and came down the walk to greet us. I noticed she was still dressed in her work attire, but had freshened up her makeup and brushed out her hair.

  “How’d it go, slugger?” she asked.

  “We lost,” Jared mumbled and stalked past her into the house.

  Tiffany looked at me questioningly.

  I shrugged. “He missed a grounder. The other team rallied on that play.”

  “So?”

  I suppressed a smile. Tiffany’s understanding of sports was limited.

  “So,” I explained, “he thinks it’s his fault they lost the game.”

  “Ah, I see.” She nodded sagely. Then she asked, “Do you want to stay and eat with us? I made lemon chicken with stuffing.”

  She was asking me two questions in one, I knew. The first question was the one on the surface and it was straightforward. Did I want dinner? The answer to that one was easy. Tiffany was a great cook.

  The other question was unspoken, but it was the reason she had freshened her makeup and brushed out her hair. Did I want to stay around until after Sean went to bed and then go to bed with her?

  Normally, the answer to that question would be an easy one, too. Neither one of us was interested in getting married again, so we had an unspoken arrangement where we took care of each other’s needs on a fairly regular basis. We kept our other sexual doings separate from Jared and from each other.

  But I hesitated. I’d promised Stan I would visit his ex-wife and give him an opinion on whether it was a safe environment for Sean or not. I wanted to get that uncomfortable task out of the way before the boys had their practice tomorrow afternoon.

  Tiffany cocked her head and gave me a look. “If you’ve got other plans…”

  What she meant was if I were seeing someone else. I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I just have to take care of something tonight is all.”

  “But you can stay for dinner?”

  “You bet.”

  The meal was delicious. We ate quietly, Jared still moping about his loss and Tiffany probably wondering whether I had a date or not. I watched her from across the table. She was a beautiful woman and a good mother. The reason we were divorced was probably me. Either way, we’d grown apart and discovered that some people should be married and some should just be friends, or lovers. We fell into the second category.

  After ten years of marriage and a kid together, our lives were so inter-twined that it seemed to me that we’d always be married in some way, even if it wasn’t legally. We were connected by time and experience, by Jared, by her stake in my retirement and by the arrangement that we seemed to have come to since the divorce.

  When dinner was over, Jared went to his room to mope some more. Tiffany wanted to go to him, but I told her to let him be.

  “He’s got practice tomorrow,” I said. “Let him use that as a chance to redeem himself.”

  “Redeem himself for what?” she asked. “It’s a little league game. He’s nine years old. It’s not like he did anything—”

  “You’re right,” I interrupted. “But in his mind, it’s a big deal. He’ll make up for it in practice tomorrow and everything will be fine. Trust me.”

  She looked at me with her green eyes and finally nodded. “Okay. It’s a guy thing, so we’ll do it your way.”

  “Thanks.”

  Without a word, she stepped in close and kissed me. The first kiss was a light one that pressed against my lips and pulled away with a slight nibble on my bottom lip. The next one was hungry, though, and I lost myself in it. Our hands roamed over familiar territory. I smelled the clean, feminine odor of her hair, her perfume, her body.

  After a while, I pulled away gently. “I really have to go.”

  Her face pinched. “Is it a girlfriend?”

  “No,” I said. “But even if it was, we agreed never to say.”

  She pouted. “I was looking forward to you tonight.”

  “I’ll come back,” I said. “I’ll just be gone an hour or two.”

  She gave me an appraising look. “Aaron, don’t you dare come from another woman’s bed.”

  I’d done it before, but she didn’t know that. I smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead. “Never.”

  I didn’t have my badge or any of my gear, but I kept a .38 revolver that I used to carry as a back-up gun under the seat of my truck. Jean was probably just a lush and a lightweight doper, but I didn’t want to take any chances on who she hung around with. I slid the gun into my waistband, started up my truck and drove.

  The address Stan gave me was in the worst part of River City. Fifty or sixty years ago, it had been a nice residential area, but now the large houses were sub-divided into apartments and the area was full of renters. What wasn’t turned into a triplex or quadplex was now subsidized government housing. One thing I’ve learned is that if you hand people something for free, they don’t attach any value to it.

  I parked around the corner from the address and walked past a large house that served as a hospice to get to it. Jean’s house was a squat, single-family residence that wasn’t big enough to sub-divide. Several panels of siding had been replaced and primed but not painted. There were no vehicles on the street in front of the place. In the back yard, I could hear a couple of big dogs barking.

  I walked up the cracked concrete walkway and the rickety wooden steps. Out of habit, I stood to the side of the door when I knocked.

  After a moment, a voice came from the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

  “Jean?”

  There was jingle of chain and the door opened. A mousy woman with washed out features and flat eyes peered at me through the door crack.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a friend of Stan’s,” I told her. “I need to talk to you about Sean.”

  Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s the problem with
him?”

  “He’s fine,” I said. “Can I come in and talk to you?”

  She hesitated, then stepped aside and swung the door open to reveal cutoff jeans and a faded gray T-shirt. “Okay, but only for a few minutes. Mick will be back soon.”

  I wondered who Mick was, but didn’t ask. Instead, I entered her little hovel. It wasn’t as bad as some I’d been inside while on patrol, but it wasn’t pretty, either. The odor of stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer hung in the air, mixed with the smell of some kind of unidentified cooked meat from the kitchen.

  “I’m making dinner,” she explained. “Beef stew.”

  I nodded.

  She gestured to the couch, which looked relatively clean, and we both sat down. I perched on the edge of the seat. She folded her hands in her lap and chewed at the inside of her lip.

  “What’s going on with Sean?” she asked after a moment.

  “He’s fine,” I told her again. “It’s just that he hasn’t seen you in a long time. Stan is worried about you, too.”

  She snorted. “That son of a bitch. He’s keeping my son from me.”

  I didn’t want to argue with her. “Well, that’s why I’m here.”

  She looked me up and down, taking in my work clothes and two days growth of beard. “Don’t tell me you’re some kind of lawyer,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “I’m just doing a favor for Stan. He wants you to see Sean, but—”

  “Bullshit. If he wanted me to see Sean, he’d bring him to visit me.”

  “He’s not sure if this is such a good environment for Sean,” I said.

  She shot me a dirty look. “What are you, some kind of low-rent social worker or something? Did you come here to tell me how to live my life?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  I thought about it for a second, then leaned forward and looked her in the eye. “Jean, Sean misses you. He misses you a lot.”

  “He doesn’t even know who I am. That prick Stan has brainwashed him.” She reached across me for a pack a cigarettes, tapped one free and lit up. I watched her and she watched me back, her eyes flitting up and down the length of me. “Y’know, it doesn’t matter. Truth is, he’s better off without me.”

  “I doubt that. “

  “You do, huh?” She blew a long stream of cigarette smoke in my direction and daintily spit a small piece of tobacco onto the carpet. “Do ya really?”

  I nodded.

  She looked away and picked absently at a scab on her knee. “Yeah, well, the thing of it is, mister, maybe I’m better off without him.” Her eyes flicked up to mine, then back to the scab. She took another deep drag on her cigarette. “Fucking kids, you know? They just get in the way.”

  My mouth fell open in disbelief. She ignored me, tapped some cigarette ash onto the carpet and rubbed it in with her foot.

  “Are you kid—”

  I was interrupted by the rumble of a loud engine outside.

  “Oh, shit!” she said, standing up. “That’s Mick!”

  I didn’t react, but a small spike of adrenaline zipped through my gut.

  “He’ll think we’re fooling around,” Jean said, her voice frantic.

  “Just tell him—”

  “It won’t matter.” She pointed toward the kitchen. “Quick, wait in there.”

  “I’ll go out the back.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve got pit bulls,” she said and there was no need of further explanation.

  My stomach knotted. “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I’ll think of something. Hurry!”

  I stood and walked into the kitchen. There was a small table in the corner that was out of the line of sight from the living room. I pulled out a chair and sat down, glad for the comfortable weight of the .38 in the small of my back.

  A few seconds later, the front door swung open.

  “Hey, baby,” Jean said, her voice laced with fear.

  “Shut up,” said a male, who I guessed to be Mick. “And get Randy a beer.”

  “Sure, hon,” Jean said and scuttled into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and removed a beer, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. Her lip quivered.

  “Sit down,” Mick said in the living room, “and I’ll get the stuff.”

  A much larger dose of adrenaline shot through me. I didn’t like what this sounded like it was shaping up to be. I slid my gun free and held it behind my knee.

  Jean hurried back out into the living room with the can of beer.

  “Here ya go,” she said.

  “Thanks,” grunted Randy.

  There came the sound of a beer can opening and a loud sip. Then, a second later, a rustle of clothing and the sound of movement.

  “Stop it!” Jean whispered harshly. “He’s in the next room.”

  “So?” Randy whispered back.

  “Stop,” she repeated and I heard her footsteps as she moved away.

  “Teasing bitch,” Randy grunted at her.

  Jean didn’t reply.

  There was a long minute of silence, filled only by Randy’s greedy slurping of the beer. Eventually, there was the sound of a can being crinkled and he asked her for another one.

  Jean walked into the kitchen and reached for the refrigerator with a shaking hand.

  I heard Mick’s footsteps re-enter the living room. There came a thud as he dropped something onto the coffee table, then the sound of a zipper opening.

  “Beautiful, huh?” Mick asked him.

  “Fucking gorgeous,” Randy said.

  Jean stood, frozen at the fridge. I watched her, hoping she wouldn’t crack. My best chance of getting out of this would be if they finished their deal and one of them left, making the odds a little more even.

  “You got the cash?” Mick asked.

  There was a pause, and I knew right then that there was going to be trouble.

  “Tell me you’ve got my money.” Mick’s voice was friendly on the surface, but danger lurked underneath.

  “I do.” Randy’s voice was wavering, though.

  “Let’s see it.”

  There was some rustling, another thud and another zipper. After that, there was another pause and lighter rustling sounds.

  “What the fuck?” Mick said after about thirty seconds. “This is only half.”

  “Mick—”

  “Where’s the rest of my money?”

  “You’ll get it,” Randy whined. “We’ll step on this and start selling it and get you your money inside of a week.”

  “I ain’t no fucking bank,” Mick said. “I’m not making any loans here. You want the shit, you fucking pay for it up front.”

  “Jesus, Mick, take it easy. This is the way business is done. Half now, half in a week, after we step on it some and—”

  “This is how business is done?” Mick interrupted him. “You motherfucker. Wait here.”

  Mick’s footsteps stomped away quickly. In the sudden quiet of the living room, I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun hammer being cocked. A moment later, from the back of the house, I heard the even more unmistakable sound of a shotgun round being racked into the chamber.

  I gritted my teeth and wished to hell I had my duty weapon. It held three times as many rounds and had twice the stopping power. I knelt next to the chair and waited.

  Jean was still a statue by the fridge, a fixed stare on her face as she looked out into the living room. I didn’t want to make any noise, so I waved my free hand to get her attention. She didn’t react.

  Mick’s footfalls were loud and deliberate.

  “Cocksucker!” he roared and fired a blast from the shotgun.

  Three rapid cracks answered and Mick roared again, this time in pain and surprise.

  There was another shot and Mick was silent.

  I opened my mouth to tell Jean to get down, but before I could say a word, Randy’s voice bellowe
d, “You still think you’re too good for me, you fucking whore?”

  That broke Jean’s trance. “No,” she said in a ragged whisper and stepped further into the kitchen away from him.

  I made my move, standing up and lunging toward her. Even as I clutched at her arm with my free hand, Randy’s gun barked twice. Jean pitched backward onto the linoleum and lay there, gurgling.

  “What the fuck?” Randy said and fired another shot. I felt the concussive force of the round as it skipped across the floor next to my shoe.

  I leveled my pistol at him and fired two rounds into his chest. He jerked with the impact and his gun hand lowered, but he didn’t go down. A puzzled expression crossed his face. I watched him over my gun sight. A second later, his puzzlement turned to a snarl and his hand rose.

  I fired twice more. The first shot thudded into his collarbone and the second blasted into his cheek. He toppled over the arm of the couch and was still.

  The acrid smell of gunpowder hung in the air, mixing with the coppery tang of blood. My heart was racing and sweat ran into my eyes.

  Fuck! Oh fuck, ohfuckohfuckohfuck!

  I swallowed and looked around the living room and kitchen of the small house. Three dead bodies. A bag of dope and a bag of money. And me standing right in the middle of it all.

  I was fucked. The police would be coming soon and even if they bought my story and Stan backed it up, it would still look like I was involved in dealing drugs. My career was over.

  I thought of Jared and Tiffany.

  I looked at Jean’s still body, blood still coursing out of her mouth and pooling on the dirty linoleum.

  I made my decision in an instant. It was either that or be fucked for life.

  I ran to the closet and fished out one of the men’s coats hanging in there. I shrugged myself into it. It had to look like a drug rip, I decided. Nothing else would do.

  I pulled a baggie of tightly packed, off-white powder from one of the nylon bags. My hands were shaking, but I was able to tear open the package on my second try. I flung some of the powder onto the coffee table in an arc. I dumped the rest on top of Randy’s left hand. Then I stuffed the empty baggie in my coat pocket, grabbed the bag of dope and the bag of money and made for the front door.

  I walked out onto the porch with my heart in my throat. I strained my ears for sirens, but there weren’t any yet. I didn’t bother looking for prying eyes from the neighbors. A guy who looks around to see who’s watching him is one of the most suspicious things there is. I hoped for luck and trusted that in this neighborhood, although gunshots weren’t commonplace, they didn’t register as a big surprise, either.