Noble Warrior

by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

  “You’ve come to convince me?”

  Stanzer stepped through the doorway.

  “Actually,” he replied, “just the opposite.”

  McCutcheon left Stanzer back at the town house and walked Gemma to school. Cruising to class hand-in-hand had always been their special time together. The colonel had already stolen enough of their hours this month. He could wait.

  As Gemma blabbed away about motorized scooters, cats, and pancakes, M.D. tried to still his mind and stay in the present moment. He knew the right answer about what to do would come to him. If he trusted himself.

  Easier said than done.

  “And of course a squirrel is going to choose a peanut over a taco. Really, how obvious is that?”

  McCutcheon grinned. “You’re not too old to still give your brother a kiss good-bye, are you?”

  “You can have ten of them,” Gemma answered as they arrived at the front gate of Crested Ridge Elementary. She began counting; between each number his sister smacked her lips against M.D.’s cheek. “One, peck, two, peck, three, peck, four, peck, five, peck, six, peck, seven, peck, eight, peck, nine, peck, ten, peck.”

  Gemma’s smile shined like a second sun in the morning air. And so did McCutcheon’s, although his was accompanied by a brief sadness as he realized it was the first ear-to-ear beam he’d felt on his face in far too many days.

  “Okay, go fill up your brain. See ya at three.”

  “WAIT!” Gemma exclaimed. “I forgot to tell you, I got my first wiggly.” Gemma opened her mouth and proudly showed off her first loose tooth. “G’head. Feel.”

  McCutcheon gently examined Gemma’s mouth.

  “Wow,” M.D. said. “Before you know it the Tooth Fairy will be here.”

  “And I want a hundred bucks.”

  “What?” M.D. said. “Setting your sights a little high, aren’t you?”

  “First tooth, doesn’t get more special.”

  “Well, that’s between you and the Tooth Fairy,” McCutcheon replied.

  “You watch, Doc,” Gemma said as she got ready to head inside. “I betchya she comes through for me. I can just feel it in my bones.”

  Her purple backpack bouncing up and down, Gemma skipped through the school’s front door. McCutcheon wanted to join her. Wanted to rewind the clock on his life, return to being in first grade and enter into a clean, safe classroom himself, the future a blank slate and a place where having a loose tooth didn’t come as the result of someone having loosened it for you with their foot or their fist.

  M.D. idled home, in no rush to talk with Stanzer. Though he tried to remain calm, he found himself hunting in vain for an answer about what he should do.

  Action always felt easier to him than waiting.

  When McCutcheon approached his front door, he found Stanzer sitting on the wooden bench in front of his town house eating leftover lasagna from a plastic container.

  “Your mom’s a great cook.”

  “I make my own meals.”

  “Still tension between you two, huh?”

  “Just feel free to raid our fridge any time you like.”

  “I guess that’s a yes.” Stanzer rose from his seat and licked his fork clean. “You realize she’s happy I’m eating this, don’t you? Good cooks appreciate good eaters. Whether she admits it or not, she wants me to gobble these goodies.”

  “Always in people’s heads, aren’t you?”

  “Come on, let’s walk.”

  Stanzer set the empty Tupperware on the arm of the bench and led M.D. down the driveway. They turned right and walked down the middle of the street. People in Bellevue often walked down the middle of the street because traffic in town was minimal and drivers always slowed to wave hello to folks taking a stroll, even if they didn’t know you.

  In Detroit, pedestrians who walked in the middle of the street got honked at, given the bird, or run over.

  One America, two different worlds.

  “You’re set up nice here, son. Maybe you should just go back to high school or junior college or something. We could even get you credits at Harvard if you want.”

  “I bet you could,” McCutcheon said.

  Stanzer chuckled at the long reach of the feds. It stretched further than most U.S. citizens imagined. Background information, financial history, any and every digital transaction stood within their grasp to view, tweak, or entirely fabricate. Say the word and M.D. could be given a PhD in molecular astrophysics before Stanzer had eaten his morning muffin.

  “Maybe this is why there are age limits for what we do,” the colonel continued. “This whole thing, well…You’re still a kid.”

  M.D. scowled.

  “No offense. And no shame either,” the colonel said. “Look around, this place is nice. And that little princess of yours is in hog heaven. Girl’s getting big.”

  “Maybe she could move out here?” M.D. said. “You know, with the others.”

  Stanzer stopped. Others? Of course McCutcheon had figured it out, the colonel realized. M.D. was too sharp. The Daniels weren’t the only family Wit Sec had ever moved to Bellevue. Sure, different locations on the national map existed, plenty of them, but when things worked well for government programs they often repeated them, and M.D. had been trained to spot small, telling details that, to a keen agent, lay all over town. The holes in people’s stories. The avoidance of direct eye contact when talking about their past. The cryptic way some folks in Bellevue didn’t really speak about their relatives in other cities when holiday time rolled around, or the fact that some families never hosted out of town guests for the weekend. To the untrained eye, Bellevue represented a change-of-pace type city where people found it nice to move and set up shop. To the skilled eye, however, Bellevue existed as a dumping ground for people who needed to vanish.

  “She?” Stanzer asked. “She who?”

  “You know who,” McCutcheon replied. “If her life’s in danger, then just put her in Wit Sec like you did me and let her join all the other nomads who call this town home.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure it is,” M.D. replied, becoming more animated. “In fact, it’d be great. She’d already know some people, which would make the adjustment pretty smooth, and I could…well, I could even go out and get her. Like be the one to go to Detroit, explain what happened, and bring her out.”

  “She’ll hate you for it.”

  “You don’t know her like I do. You don’t know what we have.”

  “You mean had.”

  Anger flashed in M.D.’s eyes. He refused to believe his relationship with Kaitlyn only existed in the past tense.

  “You’re living in a fantasy world, son,” Stanzer said. “And you need to slay this dragon before it slays you.”

  “It’s not a fantasy.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  “I love her, sir. And she loves me, too.”

  “How long’s it been since you’ve even had a conversation with this girl?” Stanzer asked. “Since you looked her in the eye? Held her hand?”

  “I made a mistake,” M.D. said. “And I believe once I explain it all to her, she’ll take me back.”

  “I’m not going to argue logic with someone who is being entirely irrational.”

  “That’s the beauty of love, sir,” M.D. said. “The fact that on one hand it makes no sense at all and yet on the other it makes all the sense in the world.”

  Stanzer grunted. “Very poetic.”

  “Not just poetic, true.”

  “It’s like talking to a fucking wall right now.”

  “Please.” M.D. looked at Stanzer with soft eyes. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Can you just do this for me? Can you put Kaitlyn in Wit Sec?”

  Stanzer rubbed his chin and considered his response. As the colonel deliberated his next words, visions of how wonderful life could be floated through McCutcheon’s head. Sunsets on the hill. Friday nights sharing ice cream. Gemma getting a big sister of sorts.

 
Kaitlyn moving to Bellevue would be an unequivocal home run.

  “You are so fucking delusional I don’t even know where to begin. Why you don’t get this?” Stanzer threw up his hands. “You think some girl you haven’t seen in ten months is gonna just want to up and leave her life to move to corn-loving Nebraska in order to play a game of puppy love with the kid who turned her into a target for murder? What about her family? Her friends? Her entire goddamn life? Kids like her don’t go into Wit Sec.”

  “But kids like me do?” McCutcheon said.

  “Her father went to college with the fucking lieutenant governor. Families like that, shit works different.”

  “So what are you trying to say?”

  “I’m trying to say that you gotta let this girl go. Take yourself off the hook for whatever might happen to her. Maybe take a year or two off from our unit, too.”

  “You’re cutting me loose?”

  “I have no more assignments for you. Go clear your head. Get your spirit right and then see if what we’re doing is still what you really want to do in life. You’ve been spared so far, but at some point every last one of us who does this kind of work gets bloody with stains that don’t wash off.”

  “I know what you’re doing,” M.D. said. “This reverse psychology shit you are pulling. You’re telling me not to go because you know that it’s going make me want to go even more.”

  Stanzer shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

  “’Cause you know I gotta do this,” McCutcheon said. “Because if something happens to Kaitlyn that’s more blood on my hands. Like I already don’t have enough.”

  “That is not what I am saying at all.”

  “Tell your boy, Puwolsky, I’m in.”

  “He’s not my boy.”

  “Tell him I’m in.”

  Stanzer reached out and grabbed M.D. by the arm. “McCutcheon, listen to me.”

  M.D. scowled at the colonel, his eyes clearly sending the message, Take your hands off of me.

  Stanzer released his grip.

  “Listen, son,” the colonel said in a softer voice. “This thing they are asking you to do, I can’t find out squat about it. All I know is, this shit’s the belly of the beast.”

  “You don’t think I can handle it?”

  “What I think is that once you go into that penitentiary, the same person is not going to come back out.”

  “Can the cops protect her?” M.D. asked.

  “In Detroit? Versus the Priests?” Stanzer shrugged. “Right now they’re on her round the clock. But next week? Two weeks? A month from now?”

  “Exactly,” M.D. said, a disgusted look on his face.

  “That’s why I am saying you gotta let this girl go. Take yourself off the hook. You’re not responsible for the fuckedupness of the entire city of Detroit; and this relationship you think you still have with her, it’s gone. Over. Dead.”

  McCutcheon threw his hoodie over his head. “Downtown Detroit bus station at oh-nine-hundred the day after tomorrow. Have your boy meet me there,” McCutcheon said.

  Stanzer knew he couldn’t control M.D. No one could. But still, he tried.

  “Son, wait…”

  “I have waited. Now I’m clear. And I need a hundred bucks.”

  M.D. extended his hand, palm side up. Stanzer scrunched his face.

  “What?”

  “One hundred dollars,” M.D. said. “Do you have any cash?”

  The colonel tilted his head sideways, not understanding the request, but McCutcheon’s arm remained outstretched. M.D. was entirely serious.

  After a moment of strained silence, the colonel reached into his back pocket, fished out his wallet, and counted off some bills.

  “I imagine twenties will do?” Stanzer said sarcastically.

  “Actually,” M.D. replied. “I’d prefer a single note.”

  Stanzer nodded his head. “Of course you would.”

  The colonel squinted his eyes, fiddled around inside his wallet, and passed McCutcheon a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Do I get to know what it’s for?”

  “The Tooth Fairy.”

  Stanzer folded over his wallet and put it back inside his rear pocket. “Prices have skyrocketed, I see.”

  “It’s not the tooth I’m paying for,” McCutcheon answered. “It’s the heartbreak.”

  M.D. turned.

  “Oh-nine-hundred,” he repeated and then he walked away.

  Next stop: prison.

  Fat plops of rain pelted the sidewalk and bounced upward off the cement from under a gray and dreary sky. McCutcheon didn’t bring a bag to the bus station because he knew he wouldn’t need one. Prisoners enter jail like a baby enters the world: naked, traumatized, and completely dependent on another entity. Newborns get the warm and tender breast of a mother. Inmates get the cold and bitter tit of the Department of Corrections.

  “Did he try to stop you?” Puwolsky asked.

  “No.”

  “Did he tell you you’d have any support?”

  “No.”

  “Did he go over any aspects of how to execute this mission, any strategies, plans or directives?”

  “No.”

  Puwolsky rubbed his chin. “And you don’t find this odd?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Stanzer either shows one-hundred-percent support or none at all,” M.D. said. “He’s an all-in or not-in type of guy. This is my thing.”

  Dickey Larson sniffed. “A man of principles, huh? I eat fuckers like that for breakfast.”

  “Kid, meet Larson, my partner in the narcotics division,” Puwolsky said. “Larson, be nice and try not to foam on our friend. He’s on our side, remember.”

  Dickey Larson stood six foot three inches, two hundred thirty pounds, and sported trapezius muscles the size of meteorites. With his hulking upper body so exceptionally disproportional to the size of his calves and a wild, revved-up look in his eye, it took McCutcheon all of two seconds to get a bead on Puwolsky’s partner. The distended stomach, the immense lats, the red-speckled acne traveling around the side of his neck and most assuredly down his back, all were telltale signs.

  ’Roid monster. No doubt.

  “So this little twig is the fucking legend I’ve heard so much about?” Larson scoffed. “Gotta say, I’m sort of disappointed.”

  Larson circled M.D., sizing him up. He sniffed, unimpressed.

  “With all the shit I’ve heard about you I expected you to be about seven feet tall with a thirty-inch dick.”

  “You were misinformed,” McCutcheon said. “My penis is only half that size.”

  Larson took a moment to do the math and then his glower turned into a laugh.

  “Aw, lemme have a go at the smart-ass, boss,” Larson said to Puwolsky. “Before we drop him in. A beast like me deserves a crack at the champ, don’t ya think?”

  Larson flexed his sixteen-inch biceps like a bodybuilder showing off a championship pose and then got right up into M.D.’s face. The two locked eyes. McCutcheon had no idea who this pit bull was, but steroid users were notorious for erratic, crazed behavior. Whacked-out body chemistry plus overinflated egos, mixed with too much time staring into mirrors, wasn’t psychologically healthy for anybody, and this guy Larson proved no exception to the rule. But M.D. had dealt with this kind of nonsense before. Many times. People had been challenging McCutcheon for years to fights for no other reason than they wanted to measure up against a guy with a huge rep. Most of the time, the challengers were idiots with big mouths who turned out to be all bark and no bite.

  Yet occasionally M.D. would have to, like a lame horse, put a guy down. His rules about when to do so were simple: Talk all you want, but touch and you pay.

  “Get yer head out of your ass, Larson, we’re doing business here.” Puwolsky clicked his key chain and beeped open the door to a white Cadillac Seville. The car sported a high-end enamel paint job and special edition silver rims. “Get on in. I got no time for
this shit.”

  Larson reached for the door handle.

  “Not you,” Puwolsky said. “Just him.”

  “I thought I was goin’?”

  “Negatory.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Puwolsky said. “Nothing personal, Larson, but sometimes you act like a brain-dead meathead and I don’t want you to mess any of this up. There’s too much riding on it.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “You have other talents. Important ones, too,” Puwolsky said. “But going for long, uneventful car rides is not one of them.” Puwolsky nudged his head as if to say, Trust me, I got this. “And that’s what I need this to be,” Puwolsky added. “An uneventful car ride.”

  It took a moment but Larson let go of the door handle, stepped back, and did as he was told.

  McCutcheon climbed into the Caddy and glanced around. A black-and-cream interior. A polished wood steering wheel. An all-digital panel and stitched leather seats.

  “My wife’s,” Puwolsky explained. “She owns a waxing salon. You wouldn’t believe how much women pay for their fucking eyebrows.”

  “I bet I wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  McCutcheon buckled his seat belt and waited for the car to drive away. Stanzer had lobbied, made his case, made a great many arguments to try to change McCutcheon’s mind about taking this assignment, but when all was said and done, M.D. remained unmoved.

  “I’m going in,” he had told Stanzer.

  Stanzer both disagreed and disapproved, but finally relented. “I guess no man can save another from himself.”

  “I’m the one who has to live with the decision. I’m the one who has to live in this skin.”

  “Live being the key word,” Stanzer replied. “But I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.” The colonel extended his arm for a shake. “Good luck, son. You know how to find me if ever you need me. My door is always open.”

  Those were the last words Stanzer spoke to McCutcheon before he had walked away.

  A little melodramatic, M.D. thought. Then again, good-byes were always awkward.

  “You really think I’m lying about this car, don’t you?” Puwolsky said.

  “Ready when you are,” McCutcheon answered.