by Lee Lamothe
At the Swamp his second shooting was cleared reluctantly and they sent him marching orders. He found himself in the alleys, feasted upon by insect life, festooned with bleeding bites and blemishes.
Forgotten, someone joked, but not gone.
* * *
Somehow he’d made a painting of the slashing looping greens. A forest, maybe, or a view of a jungle from a long distance away. There was a suggestion of things hidden, verdant things ready to pounce or reveal themselves. Ray Tate carefully detached the page from the spiral book and put it to dry on the kitchen counter.
His first telephone call was to an inspector at the Swamp. Ray Tate didn’t really trust anyone above duty sergeant. Duty sergeant was the ultimate, he believed, a mentor to the troops, a guy who never heard a joke he hadn’t already heard before. A duty sergeant was the master of his domain, a leader of his tribe. Only good dutys could create good cops. Get above duty sergeant and people feared your career arc instead of respecting your words and deeds. But the inspector he called was a good, young guy whose old man had died early on the job and he’d been raised by a legion of blue uncles who never left him abandoned or confused, who crammed his summer evenings with ball games and winter dawns with hockey practise.
The inspector listened to the list of names from the Chemical Squad roster. Most of the city guys were slobs, he said, duffed-out guys with habits. He warned Ray Tate to beware of the skipper up there. “Gordo’s very … sharp,” he said. “Fifteen to the dozen.”
“This Statie they got me with. Brown? The dyke? What about her?”
“Not a lot of back story,” the inspector said. “She went straight from the State Police training college to the Spout. You know the Spout? Up in Indian country, where they put you when they want you to volunteer to quit, cheap. ‘Up to the Spout, where they pour you out.’ She’s up there, oh, six, seven months with a detachment full of farm boys who never saw a black chick, never mind a dyke. There’s something happens and her partner shows up at the local hospital with his face all beat in. He says some Indians jumped him but it gets around that she went after him with her stick. He quits and she hangs in for a month or so but the farm boys and their wives complain. She’s down to the Capitol, shuffling paperwork. Then the Feds start up Gordo’s task force and next thing, she’s seconded down here, driving him nuts.”
Ray Tate thought a moment. “I’m partnering with her. They want me to put her down. Could be that she’s out to get me? Get out from under her own stuff?”
The inspector hummed. “The word down here, Ray, is that the mayor wants you out. You and all the other city guys working chemicals. You want to be careful, in word and deed. You know? There’s a lot of opportunity to fuck up, a lot of loose cash floating around you can stub your toe on.”
“Thanks.”
“Ah, Ray? Is it interesting that they’re partnering you up with a black without breaking your trigger finger first?”
Ray Tate called a half dozen sergeants and duty sergeants. The Chemical Squad, they all agreed, was a shooting gallery where cracked city guys were always in season and you could take your limit. There were warnings about Gordo the skipper and commiseration about being partnered with a psycho Statie dyke.
He called a sniper on the Statie tactical shooters he’d done some training with and listened to a lot of funny stories about Indian country.
* * *
Djuna Brown took a photocopy of the skipper’s memo home with her. She filed it in a folder stuffed with other sheets of paper. A dated and signed trail of slights, of conflicting orders, of her mileage and hours worked down to the minute. There were the scrawled notes she’d found on her desk, many of them calling her a dyke, a rug muncher, and an all around generic bitch. There were racist cartoons. There were flyers advertising gay revues in the Rainbow Valley. There was a computer-enhanced picture of her face printed over a girl going down on a grossly fat black woman, her tongue a foot long. There were digital pictures she’d taken of used condoms left on her office chair, glued to her desk drawer. There were licence numbers of cars she’d found suspiciously parked near her apartment.
Another folder, much slimmer, contained commendations, atta boy memos, and newspaper clippings: high profile arrests up in Indian country, saving a Native baby from a burning trailer, running a self-defence class for at-risk children, a sex-ed class for teenage girls.
Her duplex was within walking distance of the satellite. She kept her head down as her slippers trudged the same hills Ray Tate had gone up and down a few hours earlier, past the same cemetery. She didn’t stop for a cup of leisurely coffee, she didn’t look at the streets as though she were meeting old friends. She bought some yogurt at a convenience store, allowed herself to buy a pack of Marlies.
In her living room she ate the yogurt without interest and waited until six o’clock to pour a gin and tonic. By seven o’clock she was smoking continuously and weaving a little through the duplex, straightening up, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror.
The Gay-Glo association after-hours hotline was picked up on the first ring. “Dee-joon,” the woman, a perpetually bitter former patroller, sang, “you gonna join up with the folks who love you? Make your voice heard?”
“Soon, I think, Haze. I’m okay,” she said softly, making her voice wistful. “So far.”
The Glo wanted Djuna Brown with a vengeance. She hit all the right notes: female, dyke, black, some Chinese, and a Statie. It was widely known that she’d been harassed, both physically and sexually, and had fought back. There were no Staties in the Glo, they were barracked across the rural portions of the state.
“So, what can I do for you, sister?”
“You know this city guy, Ray Tate?”
“The gunner? Sure, he shot a black guy back, oh, before you came down here. He got away with it. So then he shot another one about a year ago. Got away with that one, too. They’re protecting him, keeping him out of sight until they can bring him back.” Hazel was tapping into her computer. The Gay-Glo had its own little intelligence network. It collected slights and troop movements, helped its members avoid traps, to step around the machinations of the homophobic thugs at the Swamp. “What’s up with Ray Tate? You hear something on him?”
“They put me with him today. Any chance he’s a rat? Or should I just be worried that he’ll put one in my queer black ass?”
“Whew. That guy, anything’s possible. You want to write everything down, like you write the other stuff. Tape what you can. It would be nice to be the ones that put the hat on him, drag him before the governor’s review board. But be careful, okay?” She paused, revealing the tap of typing. “Look, I’m going to put this stuff into a file, okay? If something happens to you, we want it documented that they put you with a racist killer, in an at-risk situation.”
“Sure.”
“Perfect. You, ah, seeing anybody? We’re having a meeting tomorrow night, why don’t we have dinner first? Go out after, have a drink. Strategize. Girl talk.”
“Let me see how tomorrow goes, Haze. I might just take you up on it.” Djuna Brown hung up and shuddered. Before she could take her hand off the receiver the phone rang.
A man’s voice asked if she was Trooper Brown.
She said she was and reached to flick on the tape recorder.
“Did you ever, like, want to be a cop?”
She didn’t ask who it was. “I am a cop.”
“You’re a problem. You’re a target. If you want out, just get them to cut you a deal, take the package and move to San Francisco or something. Open a rainbow bookstore. Quit fucking around.”
She didn’t recognize the voice. There was no attempt to deepen it or disguise it. She played light. “I don’t run.”
“Do you drink?”
“Who is this? What do you want?”
“Well,” the voice said, “I’m Ray Tate. I’m the guy hired to spike you into the ground.”
Chapter 5
Phil Harvey wouldn’t go into Ag
atha Burns’s apartment building. He called her on the cell and told her to come out the back entrance, to bring the stuff down herself, not to use the muscleman in the stairwell or to let him know she was going out. He said he’d keep an eye on the packages as she made as many trips as it took. He told her not to use the phone, not to call out, not to answer it. From here on, he said, her training began.
He waited in his black Camaro, bubbling the engine while he watched traffic move through the winding streets of the South Project. He was parked where he could see the rear entrance but couldn’t be seen by the moneyman on the ground floor patio or be captured by the security cameras in the lobby.
He looked at his hands clutching the steering wheel. Grey, glistening waves of burns disappeared under the sleeves of his beige cotton jacket. He wouldn’t wear nylon: nylon, when it burned, stuck to you like napalm. You couldn’t get it off. If you pulled it off, your flesh came with it, like pulling off a glove inside out. Sometimes the fingernails came off. Phil Harvey had four fingernails left and he kept them immaculate, although nobody noticed.
His face hadn’t suffered as much as his hands, but it was pretty bad on the right side. Tissue had been eaten away. His left ear was a gnarled nub. He wore his grey-streaked, black hair very long, below his shoulders, to hide the angry nub, tying it back in a ponytail when he had to work, loosening it into a curtain he could hide behind when he was in public. Hair burned too but didn’t smell half as bad as the pig roast cloud of fire that rose when your flesh melted in a flash fire. When he’d been a young speeder he never thought he’d be a middle-aged man with an Ozzy Osbourne hairdo. He knew the bikers out in the badlands called him Pork Chop behind his back.
It was about dues. Paying ’em, playing ’em, he believed.
When Agatha Burns appeared at the rear door of the apartment building, dragging a cardboard box, Harv punched in Captain Cook’s number and started laying track. “Hey, so I’m here. Where’s she at?”
“She’ll be there. Probably having a bubble bath. Relax, Harv.”
“I been here a half hour.” He watched her look around, kick at the box, then go back inside, dressed for a party in platform heels, pale, long legs that vanished into a minimal black miniskirt, and a tight, short, red, shiny jacket. A red scarf was looped around her neck a couple of times. “She’s not answering the phone.”
“Just wait. She’s hungry for it. Probably doing herself up, getting ready for her first day of school, impress the teacher.”
Harv clicked off. Over the next twenty minutes Agatha Burns made four trips with cardboard boxes. It took her a long time. After each trip she wobbled on the heels then leaned, exhausted, against the side of the building, looking around. Her muscles had clearly deteriorated from chemical excess and she spent bursts of energy at a rapid rate. At a distance her hair looked grey.
A boneless black guy with a baseball hat sideways over a do-rag, a knee-length basketball tank top, and a heavy gold chain approached her.
“Oh, fuck.” Harv reached under the seat and dragged out a heavy silver revolver.
Agatha Burns shook her head at the black guy and he touched her shoulder. He jittered. Harv wrapped the magnum in a sweater with four inches of wicked ribbed barrel poking out. He shut off the turbo and climbed out. When he was ten feet away he heard the man whispering, “Where yo tote where yo tote?” and trying to look behind her, to see what was in the cartons, to see if she had a purse.
Harv glanced around and held the revolver in his hand with the barrel sticking out, straight down his leg. “Yo. Hey, Yo.”
The black man whirled. “Who the fuck you be fucking yo-ing, Yo?”
Harv felt like laughing. He said, “I be fucking yo-ing you, Yo. Yo?” He’d have to tell Connie about this, later, leaving out the Agatha Burns part. He started laughing and pointed the gun at the black guy. “Don’t yo my ho’.”
The man saw the size of the gun. “Fuuuuuck.” He began backing away, his palms out. “S’cool, s’cool.” He spoke rapid-fire in a childish voice: “I’m a player I’m a player I’m a player.”
Harv realized the dude was a dummy and hung his arm straight down and wiggled the gun. “Hold on there, player. You want to make ten bucks? Load that shit in the black Camaro over there.” He aimed a device at the car and the trunk lid raised. “Neatness counts, right?”
The black guy looked at the boxes, then at the Camaro, then at the silver barrel. “Yeah, yeah I can do that. Twenty bucks, though.”
“Twenty, sure,” Harv said, still smiling, “if I can shoot you one time, after.”
“Naw. Naw, ten’s cool.” He hoisted the boxes two at a time and fitted them into the trunk. He put some boxes into the back seat. Harv gave him a ten and slammed the trunk shut.
“What happened to you there, mister?” the man said with childish curiosity. “Under your hair. Can I ask?”
“I was going down on your momma and she came in my face. You should fuck off right about now, okay?”
The black man backed away.
Harv held up his hand and Agatha Burns stayed by the rear door. He dialed Cornelius Cook and told him, “Fuck it, she didn’t show and I’m outta here.”
Cornelius Cook said, “Whatever.” Harv heard him stifle a laugh.
He waved Agatha Burns over. He opened the passenger door for her, told her to belt up, and rounded the car. He put the gun, wrapped in the sweater, under the seat. The black guy was standing across the parking lot, watching, shuffling. He had his riff-and-rap persona back. Harv waved and the guy grabbed his baggy crotch and yelled, “Yo this, you bacon faced motherfucker.”
Cruising out of the projects, Harv kept his eyes in the mirrors. “Fucking place. Our people must be the only whites in the whole fucking colony.”
“Connie wants it like that. Connie likes it here. He’s got —” She ran on and Harv didn’t listen. A blue Pontiac was behind him and he watched it until it turned off. Then there was a black van but as it got closer he saw it was two Yos bouncing in their seats. It wheeled off into another housing project. When the mirror was clear he headed for the Interstate. He slipped off and on at random, running neighbourhoods, counting cars behind him.
Agatha Burns was still going a mile a minute about Connie and his wants, his needs, his plans. She spoke to the windshield and didn’t look at Harv’s face. “— so he comes by and says, hey I want you to go to school with Harv. I didn’t wanna but he said I hadda. That okay? With you? Harv? That I hadda? I said, no, Harv is the man, he’s the wizard, but Connie just said if I don’t it’s my ass, you know? I don’t like that but you know how Connie is. So I gotta, right? If I don’t —”
“It’s your ass.”
“Right. Right, Harv. You got it. So I got, like, no choice.” She listened to the silence and didn’t like it. Silence was a no man’s land where anything could be said by anybody and all kinds of evil things could come out of that. “You know you can trust me, if there’s any really secret stuff you teach me. I keep my mouth shut, it’s just between you and me. I told him I’d rather work on the farm hoeing weed or something, bailing or something, but Connie just said, no you go with Harv, keep him away from the Chinamen. He said —”
“What Chinamen?”
“What?” She skidded to a stop. “Chinamen?”
“You said, keep me away from the Chinamen.”
“Chinamen? No, no I didn’t. I don’t even know no Chinamen.”
“Ag, you said, fuck, Chinamen.”
“When?”
“Just fucking now. You said, to keep Harv away from the Chinamen.”
“No. Wasn’t me. You musta heard that on the radio.”
“Ag,” he said, swerving into the hot lane and passing the off-ramps at the city limits, heading for the rising open country north of the city, rounding the lake, “you fucking said it. The radio’s off.”
“I didn’t turn it off. I didn’t even know it was on. You got any CDs?”
Harv shook his head, dazed. He’d lov
e, he thought, to tell Connie about this piece of classic babble. This and the Yo with his yos. But this part of the coming evening wasn’t happening. This part of the evening was a Harv moment.
In one of the soliloquies she asked eagerly if they were going to the super lab. Was she going to see that legendary place?
Harv felt very sad.
* * *
She was quiet the rest of the way to the farm. She squirmed a little in her seat, the miniskirt hiking up, adjusting her scarf. Harv thought Cornelius Cook had probably got a little out of hand. He had the weak man’s urge to thrust when he could, the weak man’s lack of control. And she didn’t know it but she’d been lucky. The Captain was a biter and he had a position he liked where the face was available.
He reflected on the crazy Captain: money up the ass, private schools, a Mercedes when he was still in high school, big motherfucking cottage up in the Lakes. At first, Harv thought it was just street bullshit but he had a pal troll the Internet and there was the Cook couple. At gallery openings in the state capital, in Chicago, even in New York City at the ballet. Donating to causes. Announcing huge mergers in the business pages. The Captain was in several of the photos looking fat and prosperous, often in company with a slim wife with a brittle smile. What the fuck was he doing in this fucking life?
A fat, kinky item was old Connie, but not without a certain diabolical flair. When Harv first met him, the Captain was just a hugely fat fuck among the fat fucks sitting in the dim stage lights of Jiggles, a mob-run club at Stateline where Harv picked up a hundred bucks a night doing the door. One night the bartender pointed Cook out to Harv, saying the fat guy had been in every night but never hit on the peelers, just sat watching. The fat fuck carried a roll of hundreds and never wanted change for his drinks. Harv, who still had bandages on his face from the lab explosion and was on his ass, keeping the door, waited for the Captain outside, near a sleek Mercedes painted a deep shade of grey he’d never seen before that sparkled under the lights, parked furthest from the side entry to the club. The bartender did his thing and after Cookie came out, weaving and collapsing, Harv was amazed. He’d never kicked anything like it. His motorcycle boot seemed to just disappear into the globe of flesh under the bright arc lights. Harv’s foot seemed to go into the fat fuck’s torso and hit nothing of substance. Like kicking a big pillow. Harv didn’t kick him in the head: he’d seen a guy take a light boot, a kiss to the temple, on the ranges in the state pen and the guy had died. Between Harv’s boot and the stuff the bartender had dropped on him, the Captain wasn’t doing much anyway. Groaning a little. He vomited once, probably more from the fission of the drugs mixed into his cognac than anything Harv was doing.
