Superbia 3

by Bernard Schaffer

  Reynaldo grabbed Avante Moses's picture and held it up to the screen, comparing the two photographs. There was no question. One of them was a drug dealer and one of them was a geeky suburban kid who probably wore sandals and jeans and worked at the mall. "Right?" he said to himself.

  He clicked on Paul Moses's criminal history and frowned. An arrest for underage drinking. One for simple possession. "That's just for weed. Every kid smokes weed out here."

  He looked back at Avante Moses's rap sheet and saw that the Possession with Intent arrest was from two years ago, but that the charges had been nolle prossed. Philly was famous for slapping heavy charges on people that they couldn't substantiate in court. Half of the rap sheets Reynaldo saw out of the city were later withdrawn.

  On the other hand, Paul Moses's possession charge not only stuck, but he'd done two weeks in jail for it and spent a year on county probation. Heavy duty sentence for a Simple Possession charge for a kid with no priors, Reynaldo thought. Most white kids in that area bargained a first time Simple Possession charge into a non-traffic citation or community service. Nobody went to jail off that. "Unless it was plead down from something else," he said to himself. He crumpled up the paperwork for Avante Moses and threw it in the trash.

  "Hot damn, papi," he said aloud. "Now you're thinking like a detective."

  Bluebell Street was in the kind of neighborhood Reynaldo saw himself living in once he reached full salary. Their current police contract started them in the low-forties and offered incremental bumps in pay every six months. In four years, officers reached the top of the pay scale and clocked a smooth seventy-five g's. By the time Reynaldo maxed out, they'd be into a new contract and probably be making more money. Brian Boxer might be a dull bore, but he knew how to negotiate a new contract. It was the reason the PBA put up with him all those years.

  That was plenty of cash to get him into a house on a place like Bluebell Street, Reynaldo thought. Big, single house with a two-car garage and a nice lawn. He'd put a pool table in the den along with a fully stocked bar. Outside, a deck with patio furniture and fire pit, and most importantly, a bamboo hot tub he kept running all year round. He pictured Marissa from the ambulance corps stretched out in that Jacuzzi wearing a small black bikini. No. Wearing nothing at all.

  A tricked out red Audi was sitting in Moses's driveway. It's windows tinted limo-black and bright chrome wheels severely out of place with the minivans and SUV's in the neighborhood. Reynaldo picked up his car radio and said, "Seventeen-ten to County."

  "Go ahead," the radio crackled in response.

  "Prepare to copy a phone number." He read Moses's cellphone number into the microphone and said, "Ask him to step outside. I have a question about his vehicle." Reynaldo waited a minute before driving up to the front of the house, directly behind the Audi. He stood by his car with his arms folded, watching the front of the house.

  Someone peeked out through the blinds in an upstairs bedroom, holding the phone to his ear. Reynaldo waved at him and told him to come downstairs. Less than a minute later, the front door opened and a much scragglier, scummier-than-his-driver's-license-picture Paul Moses came out onto the porch. So you're not just a dealer, my friend. You're a junkie too, Reynaldo thought.

  "Can I help you?" Moses said.

  "Is this your car, sir?"

  "Yeah."

  "Were you at the mall earlier today? They asked us to check because someone said it might have been involved in an accident."

  "The mall? I wasn't anywhere near the mall."

  "Do you have any damage to the front bumper?"

  "No. Didn't you already look at it?"

  Reynaldo headed up the driveway, "I wanted to ask first because it wouldn't be right for me to go on your property and just start looking around."

  "That's cool, man, I appreciate it," Moses said. "But I didn't get in any accident and I was nowhere's near the mall."

  Reynaldo looked at the car and nodded, "No damage. Looks like it was bad information."

  "How'd you get my phone number anyway?"

  "The officer investigating the crash gave it to me. Did his PD have it on file, maybe?"

  "I have no idea. You cops got all that Patriot Act shit now, so probably."

  "I know, right?" Reynaldo said. "Okay, so thank you for your time."

  "Take it easy. Hey, can I ask you a question?"

  "Sure."

  "If somebody borrows something from you, like a lawn mower, and says they're going to sell it and give you the money, but then they don't, is that a crime?"

  "That depends. What did they do with it? Keep it?"

  "Yeah. Or they sold it and kept the money."

  "Of course. That is a theft. Did someone do that to you?"

  "Kind of."

  "Do you want to file a report?"

  "Nope. I was just asking."

  "Ok, then," Reynaldo said.

  "See you around."

  Reynaldo held up his hand to wave as he descended toward his car, "I'll catch you later."

  Aprille Macariah's phone buzzed on the nightstand beside her bed and she did not move. She forced herself. It was something she did whenever Dez finally got around to texting or calling. Her way of paying him back, even if it only meant a few extra minutes before he got a response from her. She closed her eyes again and breathed, content in the fact that he'd responded, settled by the knowledge his text was waiting on her phone whenever she felt like reading it.

  Except it wasn't Dez.

  When she picked up the phone, it was Jim Iolaus' name and number printed across her screen, saying: Reminder: All personnel are invited to meet at Manor Farms Hospital to pay last respects to Chief. Small get together afterwards. Please come.

  She tossed the phone aside and laid back down, staring up at the ceiling. Her expectations of him coming to see her before work dissipated like balloons floating from a child's hands. Sometimes, Dez used his key to sneak inside her house and curl up next to her in bed in the darkness, a few precious, stolen hours spent together in the early dawn when nothing could disturb them but the sound of the trash trucks as they rumbled along their routes. Sometimes she could coax him into going out for breakfast, or taking a quick shower together. Sometimes she used the promise of those showers to lure him over in the first place.

  She picked up the phone again and scrolled through her text messages to Dez. The last four had received not one single response. She said "Fuck it" and sent another: Hey. Can u talk?

  Five minutes passed, then: Are u all right? Haven't heard from u.

  She typed other, more personal things, and deleted them before sending, trying to make herself feel better just by writing them down and seeing them spelled out on the screen. The Golden Rule was to never send any texts that could not be explained if they were intercepted by Dez's wife. Sometimes, it was a tempting rule to break.

  Strange thoughts ran through her mind. She picked up her phone and Googled, "FBI Agent raid" and "FBI Agent hurt" with negative recent new results.

  She got up and dressed, pulling a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt over the new lace bra and panties she'd bought the night before and worn to bed in her hopes of showing them to Dez. She pulled her long blonde hair back under a red Phillies hat and as an afterthought, grabbed her gun and badge and hooked them on to her belt.

  Half an hour later she was driving slowly down a quiet suburban street just outside the city limits. Single homes with two cars in the driveway. Well maintained lawns. The kind of place people left expensive children's bicycles and battery-powered cars out without worrying they'd be stolen.

  She parked at the end of the block and leaned her seat back, adjusting her mirrors to see if anyone was driving or walking up to her from behind. She turned slightly to look down the street to her right at the split level house with the white stucco front as the front door opened. A little boy came through the door first, dressed in a black Eagles jacket. He was tall and thin like his father. Behind him, a short, stocky woman pulle
d the front door shut with the same hand she was carrying the boy's schoolbag in while her other arm hoisted a little girl. "Come on, we're going to be late," the woman said, shooing the boy down the walkway toward the white SUV in the driveway. Dez's car was already gone.

  Aprille watched the woman open the backdoor to let the boy climb in, she watched the woman duck out of sight and buckle in the smaller girl. She came back around the SUV toward the driver's seat, walking with purpose, walking like someone in full command of her world. You don't know shit, sweetie, Aprille thought. You don't know jack shit.

  It was hard not to make eye contact with the woman as she drove past, but Aprille picked up her phone and pretended to be talking into it. She let the white SUV turn and get two blocks ahead of her before she shifted the car out of park and slowly pulled onto the street. She checked her speedometer as the SUV raced ahead, twenty miles over the speed limit. Aprille's hands tightened around the steering wheel until they were shaking and she screamed, "Slow down with those fucking kids in the car, you asshole!"

  She picked up her phone and speed dialed Dez, grimacing as the phone rang and rang uselessly. The SUV slowed down as it entered the school zone, following a long trail of other cars heading for the drop-off point next to the Elementary School's main entrance. Two employees wearing bright orange traffic safety vests opened the rear doors to let one child after the other out of the car, popping the doors with expert precision and sending the parents on their way. Aprille watched the woman pull up, brake for ten seconds as the traffic monitor opened the back door to let her son out, and then drive away. Not even a kiss goodbye, Aprille thought. What a piece of shit.

  It was 0835. She tapped her steering wheel fitfully and looked at her phone again, making sure she had a good signal. Making sure she hadn't missed any calls or texts. There was plenty of time to get to the hospital, to meet up with the guys and play the part of I-Give-A-Shit. So far as Acting Chief, Iolaus had given her free reign to work with Dez on the taskforce, but she didn't want to take any chances and it was important to keep up appearances.

  The cramps were setting in.

  She squeezed the steering wheel and gritted her teeth, taking fast, shallow breaths until they abated. Cold sweat dotted her forehead and she wiped her cheek on the sleeve of her shirt, mentally calculating the time and distance it would take her to get to the hospital to join the guys. There's time for a quick detour, she decided. Plenty of time. There always was.

  She turned the car around and punched it, flying through a late yellow traffic signal as cars locked up their brakes and honked angrily at her. She drove along with the stop-and-go traffic of the suburban highways, cursing at every red light and slow elderly person squinting over their steering wheel. When she finally made it to Route 1 onramp it was like being sprung from prison. She took off, weaving in and out of traffic lanes until the speedometer flat lined at 100.

  Just in case, she grabbed her badge wallet out of her purse and put in in the center console, within easy reach.

  She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the list of numbers marked Taskforce, and called the FBI secretary assigned to them. "Hey, it's Aprille. Do you know if anybody's working in Hunting Park today? I'm taking a CI down there to scope out some new targets and don't want to step on anyone's toes."

  "I'll check," the woman said. Her fingers rapidly tapped on a computer keyboard and she said, "Nope. Not that I can see."

  "Does that include DEA and Philly?"

  "Nobody ever checks in with me, dear. They could be God knows where and I wouldn't have the foggiest."

  "Slackers," Aprille said, forcing a smile. "You're the best! Have a great day."

  She hung up the phone and headed into the heart of North Philly popularly known as the "Badlands." Long blocks of rowhomes that were capped at either end with vacant, crumbling structures that probably housed as many crackheads as it did rodents. Abandoned warehouses and vacant lots covered in graffiti and the trash of three decades worth of nobody giving a shit.

  Aprille tucked her gun between her seat and the center console and pulled onto one of the quiet streets under a long string of sneakers dangling from an overhead electric wire. It wasn't long till she was spotted.

  A dark-skinned boy emerged from one of the houses and checked up and down the street for other cars. He was sixteen at most and his skin was ashy grey under his soiled basketball jersey and low-slung shorts. He came up to her window and said, "What up?"

  "I need a bundle."

  The kid rolled his eyes, "Get the fuck outta here, officer. Nobody sells that shit on this block. We clean."

  She held up seventy dollars and said, "I'll snort a bag right here if you want."

  His eyes focused sharply on her, taking his time to look at her pretty, pale face and the sweep of her breasts between the buttons of her shirt. "You ain't a cop?"

  "Nope."

  He pulled up his jersey and showed her the small stack of filled wax baggies sticking out of his front pocket, "You show me them titties an' I'll sell to you. Otherwise, you a cop."

  "Get the fuck out of here," she scowled. But when she grabbed the transmission to yank the car into drive, the kid stepped back and hollered, "Five-oh, y'all! This white bitch right here is five-oh! Whoop, whoop!"

  Aprille sighed and said, "Fine. Come here." She quickly undid the buttons of her blouse and unsnapped the front hook of her bra, turning toward his young, hungry eyes and pulling the claps of her shirt open to show him both of her breasts.

  He muttered something lascivious and reached forward to pinch one of her thick, pink nipples, but Aprille snapped her shirt shut and said, "Now give me the goddamn bundle."

  Fifteen minutes later she pulled into a CVS parking lot on North Broad Street and parked her car between a white work van and a dumpster. She quickly slid one of the wax baggies out of the rubber band and opened it carefully so not even the tiniest speck of powder spilled. She squeezed her thumb and forefinger together to form a wide, flat surface and tapped the beige contents onto her skin in a thin line. The powder itself had several small chunks, but screw it. She wasn't going to break out a mirror and razor blade in broad daylight.

  Aprille stuck her nostril to her hand and inhaled sharply, sucking the length into her nose in one snort. She leaned back and gasped, squeezing her nose together until she could feel it running down the back of her throat. The smack dissolved into her bloodstream and washed throughout her body like warm water. She closed her eyes and laid her head back against the headrest, feeling it in from the top of her head to the bottom of her heels and numbing everything that was in between.

  At 1830 hours she walked into the Taskforce meeting room at the Federal building on Arch Street in Center City and said, "Sorry I'm late" to the group of men sitting at the table. Special Agent Dez Dolos looked up at her gravely and said, "Why are you here?"

  "For the meeting," she said with a confused smile.

  "I mean, why aren't you at the hospital?"

  "For that thing this morning? I got tied up on something. Those guys didn't need me to toast Fat Fuck's departure, believe me."

  "Not for that," Dez said. He got up out of his chair and excused himself to the rest of the men, taking Aprille by the arm to lead her back out of the office. "Frank texted me this afternoon because he couldn't reach you. Your Acting Chief was in a bad car crash. He might not make it."

  Aprille's eyes blinked rapidly as she tried to assimilate the words coming out of Dez's mouth. "What?" she finally said.

  "Jim Iolaus is in the hospital. Frank said he tried to call you a dozen times."

  "I wasn't picking up for him. I thought he was just going to bust my balls for not hanging out with the guys."

  "Well he called me."

  "So why didn't you call me? You could have told me this hours ago!"

  "Because I thought you were already there!"

  Aprille looked back at the guys in the meeting room, all of them watching her through the glass wall. "It d
oesn't matter now. Let's go back in before they start to talk."

  She turned toward the door and Dez grabbed her arm, "What are you talking about? You're not staying."

  "What the hell do you mean? I'm part of this Taskforce."

  "You belong with your department right now."

  "I belong with you!" she shouted. "I'm a part of this Taskforce and I'm not leaving!" She looked down at his left hand and her face wrinkled in disgust at the sight of the gold band around his finger. "You're wearing your wedding ring again?"

  He reflexively moved it out of her sight and said, "She made a big deal about it, plus, some of the guys around here were starting to ask questions about us."

  Aprille felt hot tears sting the surface of her eyes as she forced herself to look away from him, focusing on the fire extinguisher and water cooler down the hall.

  Dez lowered his voice, trying to be gentle when he said, "I think it's best if you take a short break from the team until things settle down. The guys will understand."

  "No. Fuck that."

  "It wasn't a request, Ape."

  "You're kicking me off the team?" she whispered. She could hear the quiver in her voice, hated that it was there, but couldn't stop it. "Please, Dez, I'm sorry. I know things have been a little rough with us lately, but don't do that. We can get through this."

  "This isn't about us. Not everything is, okay? It's about the team, who I'm responsible for. I didn't say I was kicking you off. I said take a little time to get your head right."

  "How long?"

  "I have no idea."

  "A few days?"

  "No. I don't want you to rush it."

  Aprille glanced back to make sure no one was listening, "Will you come over tonight? I really just need to see you and talk with you."