Dark Horse

by Rory Flynn

  Deaf Kid glances from one end of Albrecht Street to the other. Like Harkness, he’s trying to reconcile what he’s seeing with what he remembers. Every flood washes away the before and leaves a destroyed after. Most of the streets are drained now, deep water replaced by shallow, fishy muck. Tattered plastic grocery bags flutter from sagging telephone wires. Cars are piled in low corners like so many smashed toys.

  The deserted neighborhood looks like a ruined stage set. They pass a couple of men in overalls hauling wet furniture out of an apartment building. A woman sits on the curb, shouting into her cell phone. Furtive men in hoodies skulk into alleys. Harkness’s right hand awakens slightly, ready to reach back for the reassuring power of his gun. The Lower South End feels like it’s given in to disorder, and every cop knows where that leads.

  The concerted recovery effort that the commissioner promised has been stuck in bureaucratic netherworld, triggering new protests on the Common, angry speeches by city councilmen, and an exodus of all but the most tenacious residents.

  Harkness asks Deaf Kid to show him where he used to pick up the money. The boy pauses and his eyes lower. He’d told Harkness that he’d been a go-between for his now-dead uncle and the neighborhood dealers, that he’d spent his days making drops and picking up cash, his nights tethered to the radiator. Using an underage nephew as a street dog was smart business, but dangerous and cruel. His uncle’s big plans and threats died with him.

  Deaf Kid tugs on his arm and they cut down an alley clogged with waterlogged trash that gives out a sour, thick rot. Flies swarm on the matted fur of a dead dog. Deaf Kid reaches up to open the metal door of an electrical box bolted to the back of an apartment building. He points inside. Harkness puts on a glove and pulls out a bulging baggie of sodden packets with their familiar logo—a ­ruined, puffed-up brick of Dark Horse. He drops the drugs in a yellow evidence bag, writes the location and time on it, and slips it in his backpack. He pulls out a laminated poster showing a row of coroner’s photos of overdoses, their eyes black-barred for anonymity. First-timers to career junkies, black and white, young and old—Dark Horse killed them all. Beneath the dead, the poster’s message is printed in large red letters above the Narco-Intel tip-line and text-message numbers:

  DARK HORSE—CHEAP, COOL, DEADLY

  $10,000 REWARD FOR INFO ABOUT DEALERS

  Harkness staple-guns the poster to the electrical pole and they move on down the alley, continuing their old-style neighborhood sweep.

  Deaf Kid’s uncle used him on the street because he thought no one would ever suspect that a scabby-looking kid in clothes pulled from the Salvation Army donation bin could be carrying thousands of dollars in cash and drugs. Deaf Kid claims he doesn’t know the real names of any of the dealers, though he’s pretty sure he’d recognize them.

  They walk the alley, pausing when Deaf Kid feels along the wall for a loose brick or digs in the debris for a metal lock box. As they move farther down, Harkness can spot the hiding place even before Deaf Kid reaches his hand toward it. Nothing hidden wants to stay that way.

  Sometimes the hiding place is empty. Other times it yields a thick wad of cash or rain-soaked bundles of Dark Horse. Harkness staple-guns the posters on every corner. It’s a long shot, but the simplest tactics can work better than all the data-scouring back at Narco-Intel. Patrick may be convinced that Dark Horse has run its course, but Harkness knows that when the Lower South End fills back up, it will take hold again—here and across the city.

  “What?”

  Deaf Kid is yanking on his sleeve like an insistent trout on the end of a fly line. He points to the corner, where three guys are pulling equipment out of a storefront. The sign above it says RAW POWER RECORDING STUDIOS AND PRACTICE SPACES. Deaf Kid tells Harkness that the guy with the long gray hair once handed him a wad of cash to pay for a half-brick of Dark Horse.

  As they walk closer, Harkness signs for Deaf Kid to stay where he is, but he just shakes his head. Normal protocol would require calling in backup and waiting, but only Patrick and Esther know where he is today and Harkness wants to keep it that way. Besides, he recognizes the gray-haired guy.

  Harkness crosses the sidewalk to the studio. “How’s it going, Jack.”

  The musicians stop to stare at the unlikely duo.

  Jack squints. “Eddy?” His long hair is clotted in sloppy pewter-colored dreadlocks, more like dirtlocks. His fingers end in burnished crescents of grease.

  “That’s right.”

  “Thought you were a cop now.”

  “I am.”

  “How come they gave you a partner straight outta middle school?” The two other guys laugh and then go back to sorting through a heap of trashed equipment.

  Deaf Kid stares at his middle finger as it unfurls slowly.

  Jack gives him a disapproving glance. “Shorty’s got attitude,” he mutters, then launches into a tirade about what social media’s doing to kids. Jack’s shrill voice triggers memories of self-righteous diatribes onstage back when he was the rail-thin, fierce lead singer of the Jackals, a hardcore band that never quite made it out of Boston.

  “What the fuck’re you doing down here, Eddy?”

  “Working.”

  “Wish the cops’d been working here a couple of weeks ago when a bunch of assholes busted into the studio and took everything that the flood didn’t ruin already.” Jack gives Harkness a hard stare as if he alone is responsible.

  Harkness says nothing. No excuses. No apologies. Jack isn’t a friend, just someone he knows from years in bars and clubs. The past has a way of showing up without warning in Boston—college friends, seething ex-girlfriends, martinet bosses, guys from bands. They’re relentlessly around, intercepting you long after you’ve graduated, grown up, and moved on.

  They stare at the gear sprawled out on the sidewalk. The open-jawed cases reveal vintage guitars with peeling paint and warped necks. The amplifiers are trash-encrusted, like coastal rocks at low tide.

  “Looks bad,” Harkness says, finally.

  “Dude. That’s a ’62 Strat. Or, correction, was one.” Jack points, suddenly focused. “Over there, that’s a ’64 Gretsch two-tone Anniversary with a Bigsby. And a Rickenbacker twelve-string in custom flame orange, made everything sound like the Byrds.” He gestures to the amps and other gear. “Bought this batch of Marshalls from Aerosmith after their first world tour. Recorded the Real Kids’ comeback album with that sixteen-track board. Used to be vintage. Now it’s just trash.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Noooooo.” Jack closes his eyes. “You know, after Katrina, musicians down in New Orleans sold their busted-up guitars to Planet Hollywood and the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But I don’t think anyone gives a shit about a bunch of ruint guitars from Boston.”

  Harkness asks Deaf Kid if he’s sure Jack was the dealer. The boy nods up and down like a bobble-head on Adderall. Harkness holds a Dark Horse poster out to Jack. “Mind if I put one of these up on the wall here?”

  Jack squints as he reads the poster. “Ten thousand bucks, really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh, what if the person who turns in the dealer, like, knows the actual guy?”

  Harkness gives Jack a truth-inducing stare.

  “Like, would that person still get the ten grand?”

  “No, but his friend would probably get five to twenty years for dealing heroin, Jack, depending on the amount.”

  “Amount of what?”

  Harkness wonders if Jack hit his head in the flood too. But harder. “Of drugs, Jack. It depends on how much heroin that person sold.”

  “Well, I mean, a bag’s a bag, Eddy. Not like you can buy supersize bags of heroin like at Sam’s Club or something.” Jack gives a snorty laugh.

  “But if you add up all those little bags, and it comes in at more than thirty-six grams, then the penalty’s a minimum five years in Walpole. A cranky judge might give you twenty.”

  “Penalty for what?”

  “Uh . . . for de
aling heroin.”

  The other guys disappear into the dank storefront when Jack’s ramblings start skittering into felonious territory.

  “Well, let me ask you this, Eddy. Is it dealing if you buy something and just have it around, like, when people are doing something, like recording or practicing or just chilling? I mean, it’s not like money’s actually changing hands. Hypothetically, of course.”

  Deaf Kid asks Harkness whether all his friends are this stupid. Harkness points down the alley. Deaf Kid wanders slowly away, shoulders shaking as he struggles to contain his laughter.

  “Look, it’s still dealing, Jack. If someone buys a big batch of drugs, that person would be a drug dealer, and ultimately, the other people who use those smaller amounts? Those would be drug users.”

  Even this basic description of the drug economy seems to confuse Jack. “But . . . but okay. So, like, if someone just took the drugs that someone else left lying around, like, that’s not really drug dealing, right?”

  “Depends,” Harkness says.

  “So if someone told you about a situation like that, maybe they would still get the ten grand?”

  Harkness just stares at Jack, relentless as a June bug bashing into a screen door over and over at night.

  “Is that ten grand like a check or cash?”

  “Look, Jack. Sounds like you, or someone you know, bought some Dark Horse and had it around the studio for people who wanted some, right?”

  “What? Didn’t say that.” Jack holds up his hands. He’s starting to understand that every word that passes through his crooked teeth might be taking him that much closer to jail.

  “If it’s enough to share with a band, it’s probably over the felony limit. And if I remember correctly, you’re only a couple of blocks from an elementary school. So that makes it worse.”

  “Why?”

  Harkness skips the details, reaches into his jacket pocket, and holds up his shiny steel handcuffs. “What you’ve said so far is enough for me to take you into Narco-Intel for questioning.”

  Technically, not true. But the threat of being dragged into a police station gets Jack’s attention. His eyes narrow and he backs away slightly. “Why the fuck would you do that, Eddy? Thought we were friends, dude.”

  “We just live in the same city,” Harkness says. “One that isn’t that big.”

  “All I can say is that you’ve gone to the dark side, man. The fucking dark side.”

  “Really?” Harkness says.

  “Yeah, really.”

  Harkness gives him a moment to stew. “Here’s the deal, Jack. I’m a narcotics detective now. That means I’m a guy who stops people from killing themselves—or other people—with drugs. Is that the dark side? I don’t think so. No, I’m not a guy who goes to gigs anymore. Or who wants to hear about your latest band.”

  Jack looks shocked. “We’re really good, Eddy. Called Jack’s Joke Shop. Like the Upper Crust without the costumes and wigs. But way better.”

  “Jack, I don’t care. A couple dozen people have overdosed on Dark Horse, a drug you seem to know something about. If you can name a dealer, I won’t haul you in today.”

  The offer hovers in the air. But not for long.

  “Tall, skinny black dealer guy named Levon.” Jack looks around to make sure Deaf Kid’s gone. “Worked out of the Hotel Blackstone down near the square.”

  “Excellent,” Harkness says. “But that guy’s dead.”

  “Shit, I knew him pretty well. I think he played bass in a cover band. Another musician goes down hard.” Jack steeples his fingers in front of his heart and sends out a perfunctory prayer.

  “Give me something else, Jack.”

  “Okay, okay.” Jack works his mouth and scrunches his eyes in a credible imitation of someone thinking hard.

  Harkness jingles the handcuffs for inspiration.

  “There’s another guy at McCloskey’s, you know, that dive bar in Albrecht Square?”

  “Oh yeah.” Harkness remembers long bleary nights at McCloskey’s with his previous girlfriend, the notorious Thalia Havoc, the crowded bar awash in cheap whiskey specials and imploding relationships.

  “Flashy guy, always wears a nice suit,” Jack says. “Used to be just another fake playa hanging on the corner. Now he’s gone big league, looks like. If he’s not dealing himself, he knows who is. He’s the neighborhood know-it-all.”

  “This guy got a name?”

  “Calls himself JJ—short for Jimmy Jazz.”

  “Like the Clash song?” Harkness says.

  “Yeah, like that,” Jack says. “And Eddy?”

  Harkness shoves the handcuffs back in his pocket. “What?”

  “Don’t tell JJ that I ratted him out, okay?”

  “Course not,” Harkness says. “What’re friends for?”

  11

  FIELD TRIP OVER, Harkness and Deaf Kid walk past soggy couches and stuffed black garbage bags piled on every corner, waiting for a trash pickup that doesn’t seem to be coming soon. Harkness sees a couple of orange-vested workers tumbling out of a row-house entryway, tangled up like fighting cats. They hit the sidewalk and one man dusts himself off, then kicks his coworker in the knee, knocking him to the ground with a groan. Then he pulls a pipe wrench from a leather tool belt and moves forward, sending the downed man scuttling.

  “Hey.” Harkness runs toward them, signaling Deaf Kid to stay where he is. When he gets between the two men, the man on the ground stands and runs away.

  “Get over here, lazy bastard,” the guy with the wrench shouts at his coworker’s sweat-stained green T-shirt, growing smaller. Then he returns his wrench to his tool belt. He shakes a Marlboro deftly from its box and lights it, smokes like he’s starving.

  He turns toward Harkness then takes a quick step back. “Shit, Eddy. What the fuck’re you doing down here?” His voice sounds all buzzy and mashed, like he’s humming through a mouthful of soft serve.

  The close-cropped black hair and freeform teeth, the one gleaming obsidian eye and the other opalescent—it’s Frankie Getler. “Looking around, Frankie.”

  Boston has moved on from being a city full of angry chowderheads. But not Frankie Getler.

  Harkness hands the car keys to Deaf Kid and points him toward the Chevy, signs for him to wait in the car for a minute. Deaf Kid nods and wanders off, taking his time. He’s in no hurry to get back to school.

  Getler bends toward Harkness to put his good eye closer. “Is that kid deaf?”

  “Yeah.” Harkness gets a whiff of Getler’s signature scent—cigarettes, stale towels, and a winy outgassing of last night’s drinking.

  “Shame. I’m one eye away from blind myself. Was working for Boston Electric stringing trunk lines along Columbus Avenue back in ’85, I think it was, when all of a sudden—”

  “I remember.”

  “Told you that one already, did I?”

  “Yeah. Couple of times.” Getler’s opaque eye was blasted by an arcing transformer in an epic struggle at the top of an electric pole during Hurricane Gloria. He likes to recast the tale as an Ahab-like battle against electricity.

  Getler shakes his head. “You let my apprentice get away, Eddy. Only lasted a couple of days. Can’t find anyone who wants to do real work anymore, you know, with the big wires. Everyone just wants to peck away on their fucking phones all day like a bunch of chickens.”

  Harkness looks at Getler’s truck, the ghost lettering from a Chinatown bakery barely visible under a sloppy coat of white paint. “Not working for Boston Electric anymore?”

  “They fired my ass,” Getler says, his buzzing voice like the sound of a pissed-off, alcoholic bee. “Said I was too dangerous. Couldn’t afford the insurance on me.” He gives a crooked grin. “Wonder why not?”

  Harkness wonders whether Frankie Getler is shooting for the Shane MacGowan look or if whiskey, bad dentistry, and not giving a fuck are doing it for him. Despite Frankie’s weird hum and lack of a moral compass, Harkness always liked him. Back when he
ran the go-to crew for gray-area surveillance, Getler was always more than glad to shut off electricity to a suspected meth lab or do other jobs where cash worked just as well as a court order.

  On the street, almost every man can be bought. With Frankie Getler, you knew exactly how much it cost.

  “Working a sweet private-sector gig now,” he says. “Manchester Group. Heard of ’em?”

  “No.”

  “Big real estate guys outta New York. Tons of money.” He raises his chin at Albrecht Street. “They own pretty much the whole neighborhood. Been buying buildings right and left.”

  Harkness points to the row house. “You fixing this place up?”

  “Hell no.” Getler shakes his head, opens the back of his truck, and reveals a jumble of rusted fuse boxes and ripped-out breaker switches. “We been tearing out the old shit,” Getler says. “Easiest gig in the world, but can I get a fucking crew that sticks around?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “No, I can’t. Maybe I should go on Craigslist or Amber’s List or whatever.”

  Harkness writes the listing in his head. Scary-as-fuck electrician seeks crew to work to the bone and beat when necessary. No minorities or union members need apply. Must enjoy epic tales of electricity gone wrong, cigarettes and coffee by day, whiskey and beer all night.

  “Started out with a dozen crews in May,” Getler says. “After the hurricane, I got more to do than ever and I’m down to five trucks and maybe ten guys. You hear of anyone who wants to work like a dog and get paid like a king, send ’em my way, okay, Eddy?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Because this whole neighborhood is about to go sky-high,” he says. “Mark my words.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Getler gives a sly smile. “You’ll see, Eddy. Can’t keep primo real estate like this down for long. The market speaks.”

  “And as I remember, so do you.” Harkness reaches into his jeans pocket and takes out his badge, then pulls out the crisply folded hundred-dollar bill he keeps behind it, just in case. He hands it to Getler, who beams out a broad smile.