Floodgate

by Johnny Shaw

  “That’s my Champ all right. She likes a beefy man ass.”

  Champ flipped through the yellowing pages of one of three photo albums she owned. In an effort to slow the erosion of her memory, she kept a daily ritual of combing through the pictures and naming the people, places, and events that the images evoked. Even on her worst days, she maintained the routine, left to flip through images of strangers and strange places that she knew but didn’t recognize.

  Andy walked into the room and set the Frank’s bag on the small table.

  “Who is Kate Girard?” Andy asked. “You have to tell me.”

  “Be a dear and make me some tea,” she said. “And put some whiskey in it.”

  Without lifting her eyes from the pages of the album, Champ reached into the Frank’s bag, pulled out a hot dog, and stuffed half the thing in her mouth. Andy resisted the urge to lecture her on choking hazards. A part of him had always wanted to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

  Andy went into the small kitchenette and put the kettle on to boil. “Kate Girard,” he repeated.

  With a finger tapping a photo, Champ mumbled through falling crumbs and meat bits. “Rory Connell. From the neighborhood. Funny ginger bastard. We’re fifteen, sixteen here. Running some scheme or another. The two of us got beaten to hell after we conned one of Fat Jimmy’s boys out of some coin. Worth it. We got the story. Crazy son of a bitch, but you could trust him, always had your back. Even if he was the one that usually started the trouble. Died young. Too young.”

  “I really need to know. I’m sure you have your reasons,” Andy said, “but I’m in the middle of something and I need answers.”

  Champ flipped through a few pages silently.

  Andy made Champ’s tea and brought it to her. She took a sip and made a face.

  “I can’t taste the booze,” she said.

  “That’s because I didn’t put any in there.”

  Champ muttered to herself, but Andy couldn’t pick out the words. Just when Andy thought he had gotten Champ on a good day, she squinted at him and asked, “Working any big cases?”

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” Andy said. “I’m pretty sure you know that.”

  “You finally come to your senses?”

  “It was almost two years ago.”

  “Well, I just wanted to drop by and say hello. Got to be heading home.” Champ stood but didn’t move, eyeing her surroundings suspiciously.

  “You are home, Champ,” Andy said. “You live here now.”

  With frustration in her voice, she snapped, “I know.”

  “You had a visitor yesterday. A lady. Wore all red. Kate Girard.”

  “Katie.” Champ shook her head, sitting back down. “It really was her. She was here.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does,” Andy said.

  “Tough shit for you, boy.” Champ shrugged.

  “Did she leave you some way of contacting her? A phone number? I need to talk to her.”

  Champ looked around the small table next to her. “I don’t remember.”

  Andy reached in his pocket for a pen and something to write on. They both watched a flurry of paper scraps fall to the table. “You’re not the only one with a bad memory.”

  But Champ wasn’t listening. She had picked up the old gas bill, staring at the symbol drawn on it. The one graffitied on the front of the Holt Avenue building. The old woman’s hands shook.

  “Do you know what that symbol means?” Andy asked. He reached for the scrap of paper, but Champ knocked his hand away.

  “Floodgate,” Champ said.

  “Like from back in the twenties?” Andy asked. “That Floodgate?”

  “Was Katie here to talk to you or me?”

  “Why would she be here for me? I don’t know her,” Andy said. “What’s going on? Try to focus, Champ.”

  “You need to stop asking questions.”

  “If that symbol is from sixty years ago, why would it be painted on a building today?”

  “You need to stop. You need to stop.” Champ had grown visibly agitated, her hands shaking.

  “This is important.”

  Champ threw her mug of tea across the room. “Every day, every goddamn day, I lose a little more. A name of someone I knew. A memory of a happy day. A kiss that meant everything. I see a picture but can only stare. I know the person, but I don’t. Might as well be looking at an underwear model in the Sears catalog. I go to sleep every night afraid that I’m going to wake up and it’ll all be gone. I won’t remember anything. Not remember you.”

  Andy couldn’t think of anything to say, so he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Then there are memories that most people would be happy to say good-bye to. The pain and anger and even terror felt in the worst times. But I hold on to those just as tight, because, damn it, they’re mine. I would rather keep them than my damn secrets. I would happily let go of all the secrets. Heavy weights I’ve carried for other people. Please don’t ask me anymore.”

  “Okay,” Andy said, eyes cast down, ashamed of himself.

  “I love you. You know that, don’t you, stupid?” Champ said.

  Andy nodded. “You, too, Champ.”

  They spent the rest of the hour in silence. Champ drinking her tea and flipping through her albums. She went back inside herself, to wherever she lived most of the day. To the murky shadows of her long past days.

  CHAPTER 8

  During the Civil War, residents on the south side of the Thief River fought for the Confederacy, while those north fought for the Republic. River barges were considered neutral, converted to taverns, gambling halls, and brothels. There is no recorded account of violence on the river. A phenomenon that defines Auction City, a place that finds peace in its vice.

  —From the PhD thesis “General Horton Harper and His Role in the First Battle of Black Hand Hill: A Contradiction of Power and Strategy within the Paradigm of the Leadership Dynamic both Military and Social,” by Stanton Pierce (1979)

  Every kid in Auction City knew the stories of Floodgate. Andy could still remember his Big Little Books chronicling their adventures. At eight years old, he read them until the spines cracked and loose pages spilled out. Floodgate stood as part of the great American folklore tradition. Like Jesse James, Davy Crockett, and Al Capone. Part truth, part legend, and filled with American individualism and heroic derring-do.

  The more academic books on the subject were not only dry but thin in terms of information. Most of Andy’s knowledge of Floodgate came from those children’s books. The overwritten prose and pen-and-ink illustrations replaced primary source material. According to Floodgate: Criminal Justice, by Brace Godfrey, the Church brought together the police and the leaders of the warring criminal organizations for a parlay in an effort to end the Gang War of 1929. A truce was formed. The terms of which historians debated to this day. They didn’t argue that it ended the fighting, but nobody but those involved ever knew the conditions of that agreement.

  The generals could all agree that the war was over, but until the soldiers have been informed, the fighting continued. A citywide riot tended to chip at the concept of trust. People were shooting first and shooting second. Questions weren’t being asked.

  Volunteers from each faction were tasked with maintaining peace. Braving the fires and the fighting to stop the ground war. What formed was a vigilante force made up of members of the ACPD, the Chinese Tongs, the Wretches, the Italians, and the Church itself. One of Andy’s favorite illustrations from that kid’s book was a picture of a collared priest firing a tommy gun.

  The volunteers temporarily set aside their allegiances. Divided into units that consisted of one member from each group. Armed with axes, guns, and knives in a show of solidarity and force, they spoke sense to those fighting. And if sense didn’t work, their weapons did.

  The group initially had no name. After the riots were dubbed the Flood, the group took the name Floodgate.

&nb
sp; At least, that’s what the Big Little Books said. According to the last chapter of the last book in the series, once the violence had ended and the city was rebuilt, the group disbanded. The members filtered back to their respective organizations. The police took back the role of keeping the peace. And their piece of the action.

  But that didn’t explain the graffiti he’d seen the day before. Had someone started using the name for its own purpose? And what did Gray and Kate Girard have to do with it?

  He would have to dig those children’s books out of the bowels of his storage space. Maybe hit the stacks at the library. A fascinating foray into civic history, but it would have to wait. He had a lead in front of him. One that brought him to Little Nagasaki.

  The Japanese kid’s satin jacket advertised a restaurant on the back. An angry-looking fish held chopsticks in its fin. Puffy letters read IKEJIME at the top and FRESH KILL down below. It was a long shot, but Andy was low on clues.

  Only ten blocks square, Little Nagasaki’s density exuded the illusion of enormity. The labyrinthine alleys and narrow streets followed no logical grid, quickly absorbing a pedestrian within its high brick walls. No map fully captured every path. And with the rumors of tunnels and an extended system of catwalks and roof bridges, there was the sense that the layout changed. That the neighborhood was in constant motion.

  Entering Little Nagasaki was like crossing a border into a different world. A threatening world, if you were the neighboring Chinatown. The entirety of Naga—as it was called by locals—was once part of Chinatown. But little by little, whole blocks had been absorbed. Every year, Little Nagasaki got a little bigger and Chinatown smaller. No love lost between the peoples of each community. A thousand-year history of spilled blood and claimed land will do that.

  The short time Andy had worked Naga as a cop had been an adventure. The exotic smells, language, and people, full of distrust and secrecy. Where Chinatown embraced its role as a tourist destination, giving up any authenticity for General Tso’s chicken, finger traps, and plastic Buddhas, Naga made no such diplomatic effort. Whenever the city put up a street sign in English, it disappeared that same evening.

  Naga’s low crime rate was misleading. There were few reported muggings and little street violence, but that was because there were never witnesses and often no victims. The residents of Naga didn’t report crimes, and neither did the tourists, for the worst reasons possible. People didn’t get hurt in Naga. Like the street signs, they got disappeared. No body, no crime. Habeas corpus, Johnny Law.

  A drab, gray community, understated storefronts were the norm. Local businesses rarely did anything to draw undue attention or give the impression that outsiders were welcome. Not Ikejime. The restaurant’s exterior was bright and flashy, neon Japanese kana and giant plaster koi above the ornate front door. Somebody sure liked turquoise and pearl.

  That kind of gaudy excess told Andy that it was owned by 893, Auction City’s yakuza affiliate. In direct contrast to the reticent citizenry of Naga, 893 members were ostentatious. You could spot an 893 gangster by his Day-Glo clothes, expensive sports car, and the blue-green of his tattoo sleeves. It would be unwise to underestimate their clownlike garishness, though. 893 were a dangerous outfit. Deadly quick to retaliate and steeped in a distorted definition of honor, they radiated menace.

  Andy stood out like a giraffe in a herd of shorter-necked animals, zebras maybe. Even the old lady wheeling groceries past him gave him the hairy eyeball. He backed against the brick wall, on the off chance that the passing octogenarian pulled a straight razor.

  Asking questions in Naga was the equivalent of putting on pants made of meat and poking a tiger in the eye. Andy’s stomach didn’t care. He’d watched Rebane eat and had grabbed some dogs for Champ, but Andy hadn’t eaten anything himself since breakfast. And that had been half a blueberry muffin that he’d picked the mold off. He didn’t need a badge to grab a late lunch at a public restaurant. He hoped he could afford it.

  The inside was as gaudy as the exterior. Rather than traditional Nippon, it blindly stabbed at futuristic, giving up halfway through the effort. All white and black, severe corners and lines, clear plastic tables, and multicolored neon tubes like pick-up sticks on the wall. It looked like a 1970s movie set designer’s vision of what a disco of the future looked like. He expected Michael York and Jenny Agutter to walk in any moment, or whoever their Japanese equivalents were.

  Identical twin hostesses eyed Andy. Small Japanese women in slacks and suit jackets with nothing underneath. The two women turned toward a big guy in sunglasses and a lime-green suit. Leaning casually on the bar, he cracked his knuckles and nodded. The hostesses’ neutral faces transformed to broad grins. Both women talked rapid-fire Japanese as if Andy were a long-lost friend. He didn’t know what they were saying, but they seemed happy to see him. One of the women removed his coat as the other put a hand on his back and walked him to an empty table. Her foot brushed against his leg. They pulled out his chair, removed the extra place setting, and left him to make his meal selection, which was going to be a challenge as the menu was in Japanese. Andy wasn’t even sure if he had it right side up.

  He smiled at the twins, impressed by the most thorough and pleasurable weapons pat-down he’d ever received. Andy had to commend the security when even the hostesses were savvy enough to check for an ankle holster but made it feel like a game of footsy.

  Only a few tables were occupied. Japanese patrons who spoke softly to one another, glancing at Andy when they thought he wasn’t looking.

  In the back corner, a Japanese man sat at a table that sat twelve. In his midsixties and dressed in a conservative suit, he took sips of cold sake, eyes on the front door. Behind him, four young men stood at attention. They appeared to be having a contest to see who could wear the most obnoxious suit. The guy with the pink cummerbund and matching fedora was the odds-on favorite.

  When Andy accidentally made eye contact with the old man, he felt caught. The old man didn’t avert his gaze, threateningly bored. Andy turned to his suddenly fascinating, yet still unreadable, menu. The sound of traffic on the street told him the front door had opened. He looked there instead.

  “Now I’m completely lost,” Andy said quietly to himself.

  A priest walked into the Japanese restaurant. Andy couldn’t imagine a stranger presence than his own in that foreign and pseudo-futuristic environment. It sounded like the start of a dirty joke, but there was no punch line. He would have known it was a joke if the priest had a parrot on his shoulder, but that would have been ridiculous.

  Andy recognized the holy man right away. For years, Cardinal Macklin had been a magnetic religious and political figure. Some people liked the half that blessed orphans and built missions. Others because he drank and smoked and told bawdy stories of the old country that made you laugh until you pissed yourself. An improbable mix of piety and debauchery that tallied up to unequivocal charm.

  The Cardinal walked past the two bowing hostesses, gave Andy a glance, and headed to the back table. He wasn’t frisked. The bouncer in the green suit looked down. The rest of the patrons kept their eyes on their plates. When the Cardinal reached the back table, the Japanese man rose and bowed. They sat down together. Sake was poured. Nobody spoke. They waited for the rest of their party.

  Their dinner companions turned out to be Kate Girard and an older man in a suit and hat.

  “It keeps getting better,” Andy said.

  Kate Girard gave Andy a double take. But Andy’s eyes were on the man with her. He was cleaned up, but Andy recognized the pickpocket who’d taken his watch on Exposition.

  “What the hell?” he said, standing quickly. The bouncer in lime took a step toward his table. Kate Girard held up a hand. The bouncer stopped. She turned to Andy and shook her head. Stern enough for him to sit back down.

  With his eyes on Andy, the old man whispered to Kate Girard and walked to the back table after a last, quick glance over his shoulder. He shook hands with the waiti
ng men. Kate Girard sauntered to Andy’s table.

  “That guy stole my watch,” Andy said, “then returned it. With a weird warning. In a weird place. At a weird time. Is that John Dole? What the hell is going on?”

  “Move slow and keep it easy,” Kate Girard said. “I am not joking. Even the other diners are assassins.”

  Andy glanced around. She may have been lying about the patrons, but he knew she was right about the danger. He took a deep breath. “The kid you hired to tail me was pathetic.”

  “Send a boy to do a slightly older boy’s job. Ben is worthless. Been sending him out hoping he’d find a calling,” Kate Girard said. “What are you expecting to find here?”

  “I think I found it. Following leads. The Cardinal and 893 are an interesting pairing. Now you.”

  “This is not what it seems. Nothing is. You would be better off pretending you didn’t see anything.”

  “Convince me that I’m not on the verge of uncovering something big,” Andy said. “I’ll buy you an appetizer of your choice. As long as it’s less than three bucks. You can have the dim but not the sum.”

  “You’ve angered some powerful people,” Kate Girard said. “Dangerous people.”

  “Means I’m onto something.”

  “Means you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “What do you care?” Andy asked.

  She glanced toward the table in back. The old man talked to the Cardinal and the Japanese man, but they were both staring at Andy.

  “Things are delicate right now. Negotiations in progress,” she said. “If I have to, I’ll sideline you before they do.”

  “You’ll sideline me?” Andy said. “Do you work for Gray?”

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “Floodgate?”

  Kate Girard stood. “If you like ramen, I recommend the shoyu.”

  “I don’t pay more than a quarter for ramen,” Andy said.

  She leaned in, her lips grazing his ear. “For your sake and Champ’s, walk away. I’m sorry about what happens next.”