Jury of Peers

by Troy L Brodsky

  He jammed the pencil down into the desk and brought out his cell phone. Another drink as he swiped to the right speed dial and punched the number.

  This one was another brown kid with a Punjab accent and some sense of the covert. Brown kids were easier to get into position. Mostly his contacts – agents, he liked to think–worked for what they thought was exceptionally good money. They were young, most had debts, and they were willing to take risks that Hack could easily deny. They would get their checks for working on the inside and feeding information, and Hack would get his stories. He had seventy–two of these types at his disposal right now, a large staff to run out of his pocket to be sure, but that's the way he liked it. Diverse and deniable.

  He picked up the tenderized pencil and waited as the phone rang. As was often the case, it rang to a bogus voicemail account at which point Hack punched end and put the phone down beside his tenderized pencil.

  Four minutes later, it rang back.

  "Let's hear it. You said you had something."

  “I do."

  “Convince me,” he said. All the kid had provided thus far was a little inside information on an altercation between two police dogs and the beginning salvos of what would ultimately amount to little more than a perceived smear editorial against a couple of cops who had bent the rules. Such shit almost never made it to print status because, quite frankly, people were programmed by Hollywood to actually admire cops who made up their own game plan. Too many fucking Lethal Weapon movies. It wasn’t much, and would have to be spun to the point where everyone would just get dizzy. It would end up in the online column, but, again, it was shit. Eight weeks of nothing. It was almost as if the fucking police were running their department on the level. Of course, his inside guy was new, and new guys were never trusted. This kid was a bit of idealist despite his ability to stay under the radar, and that was also irritating.

  “Do you remember Whitaker Meek?”

  He turned the pencil under his molars. “Yeah, political guy. Got culled from the herd under Carter or Reagan.” He paused, “Jesus, tell me he was bangin’ some whore or something.”

  “More than that.” The voice was clipped; the kid was quiet all of the time, but now he sounded almost sullen.

  The pencil came out, poised to jot notes, "Go.”

  “His kid’s in the hospital.”

  “Big deal…”

  “His kid’s whole family got wiped out in Arlington Heights. His son, Seth, is a person of interest in the case.”

  “Holy shit,” Hack whispered. He leaned back in his chair, pondering his hairy toes. “Does anyone know? Made the connection?”

  “Probably, but it’s just internal right now."

  Hack closed his eyes and smiled. “And it hasn’t come out yet, at all?”

  “Not yet. I’m sure someone has it figured, but they’re keeping it real quiet. Arlington Heights is pretty uppity.”

  "You think you'll get to look at anything?" Hack asked quickly.

  "I'll be here all night. They called me in right away to look at his home computers, financial stuff I guess. Got some really cool encryption…."

  Hack cut him off, “I want you to call me every hour with an update no matter what time it is, understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Hack killed the telephone without another word and kicked himself into another gleeful arc. By the time he reached its zenith, he was angry once again.

  Chapter Six

  Insolvent

  The car got dumped between two corrugated steel sheds just over the river. They changed clothes, stuffed the bloody stuff into a gym bag, and washed their hands in the slush from half of bottle of soda that they'd found in a trash can just outside the Metro. From there it was a half hour on the green line and a dozen blocks of walking. They had to go around SMG territory.

  Saul said nothing. The sense of relief he’d banked on hadn’t come. He was no closer now to a real place inside the Widmore Crew than he had been before, and the truth was, this might be the end. There wasn’t anywhere to run. He’d seen people try before and it just didn’t work. Run and someone you loved died. So he said nothing, letting Bolo go on and on about the sound of the gun crushing the guy’s nose and how the woman screamed and how it took balls to do all of it in a neighborhood like that… that it was what people like that deserved.

  He went on and on and Saul didn’t care. Fuck rich people, fuck poor people. It just didn’t matter; all he wanted was to go home. But why go there?

  “You didn’t do shit,” Bolo said as they turned up their street. “Just fucked up my piece is all.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sorry ain’t shit. You ain’t shit.”

  They paused at the corner and Saul turned to walk up the alley to his building.

  “Where you goin’?” Bolo grabbed him by the hair.

  “Fuck man, fuck!” Saul gasped.

  “Ain’t time for you to go home, it’s time to go talk to Vesper. Tell ‘em how you oughta just stay on your corner with your little rocks rolled in trash. Small time bitch.”

  “Let go,” Saul twisted around, feeling his coarse hair rip from his scalp. He pushed at Bolo and was rewarded with a shove that put him on his ass. “Don’t touch me you little bitch, com’on.”

  Bolo strode across the street, assuming that Saul would follow.

  He did.

  It always felt grey here, like the wind had blown all of the color out into the suburbs. Grey like the little girl without any blood inside of her, lifeless, spiritless grey.

  The whole neighborhood felt that way. It was barren. Rows of five story black bricked buildings, sterile trees, broken glass, and trash. Bags of trash, heaps of trash, and migrant trash that just shuffled around from corner to corner like vapid leaves. People lived here, and they shuffled too. But there wasn’t any life.

  During the day it was worse. In the daytime you could see the grey in the people. Their hope had taken flight over the river and come to rest in plain sight… but just out of reach. Saul hated it. Everyone hated it, but what could you do? His mom worked all day long and most of the night and all she got was an apartment where she beat rats with pans and tried to get her kids to sleep with cotton in their ears. Go without the cotton and the roaches would crawl inside–and that hurt like a motherfucker, the constant scratching and pressure until you thought you’d go insane. Saul once sucked one out of his brother’s ear with a soda straw.

  And that brother was dead. His other one was gone, maybe in California, but he didn’t know. His little sister was too young to understand that she wasn’t born to the right momma. They were all too far back in line to expect any sort of help. The only help you could depend on here was the kind you made for yourself . It was only a cliché if you were rich.

  He followed Bolo up a narrow set of steps, hands thrust deep into his pockets, and Saul wondered if he were about to die. He realized there on the stairs in the grey wind that he didn’t really care. Bolo knocked on the steel door, and it opened a few moments later.

  “You fucked up boy,” Vesper said from the couch as they entered the room with a swirl of cold wind.

  Saul looked up from his shoes, knowing that this was coming but still unsure what it would mean. The day had left him numb, and the brain that he could usually count on to sort and tally everything into some sort of order, had failed him miserably. It felt saturated, taken well beyond the boundaries he’d set out for himself that morning.

  Bolo nodded, “I told you he wasn’t nothin’.”

  “No, you motherfucker,” Vesper said. It was an easygoing, soft voice, always delivered just above a whisper. Saul had known Vesper for a couple of years, known of him since he could remember. He hadn’t always been the alpha dog, but he’d always acted like he was despite the quiet, intercessory voice that had led to his name.

  “What?” Bolo asked, perplexed.

  Vesper pointed the remote at the television.

  * * *

  Saul had r
eally only talked to Vesper twice before. Once to deliver news that his brother had been killed, and once not too long ago to drop off a day’s worth of profit.

  The first meeting had been frightening, the second even more so.

  Vesper had been on the telephone the first time and just waved Saul over to his desk. The news hadn’t come out easily, but Saul said what he’d been told to say.

  “Your brother got shot today,” he’d said.

  Vesper hung up in mid–conversation, just flipped his cell shut, pop. “Is he dead?”

  “Yeah. He’s dead.” Again Saul searched for the correct empathy card. No one said sorry too much around here. It was like saying that you were sorry because it was cloudy. And he didn’t really know if he should be sorry. Vesper and his brother didn’t get on like friends, they were brothers.

  He nodded, let his head fall back on the chair, and said to the ceiling, "Sure he’s dead?”

  “Yeah,” Saul said. “I saw him.” And that was it. Saul left.

  After Saul had naively delivered the news, being sacrificed by those who knew better, Vesper had actually given him more and more to do. At fourteen he wasn’t the youngest in the crew by far, but he was still a shorty. He didn’t have a driver’s license, and probably wouldn’t go out of his way to get one because he had the Metro. Anything he carried had to be disposable: rocks of crack folded in candy wrappers so he could just ditch them if the cops rolled up, clothes he could swap out, and a story that was vague but plausible–no details. Everyone knew that he had product, and everyone knew he was selling, but it was hard to prove it if you did things right. He knew how to do it. It wasn't hard.

  The second time they'd met, Saul had been stopped twice on the way up the stairs, checked and rechecked by Vesper’s guys, and finally been led inside. Unlike the little room attached to the hallway, this was a big room dedicated to its owner. Lofted and plush, not shag carpet and disco ball plush, but plush in a way that a kid who had slept on the street could feel without even looking. It smelled clean. There were a couple of girls, both high, both happy to be pressed together in a big, soft looking chair; and a half dozen guys clustered around a game console in front of the huge television. Vesper sat behind a desk, on the phone as usual.

  He smiled and waved Saul over.

  Again, he just ended the call in mid–sentence.

  “Saul,” he said.

  Saul was quiet. He tensed up his gut so that he wouldn’t squeak.

  Vesper smirked., "You got it?”

  “Yeah,” Saul said and then stooped down to take off his shoes.

  It had taken about three hours to cut down into the foam, carve it out, and create a cavity in both shoes, and while they wouldn’t fool everyone, they did fool most, even lots of cops. Vesper leaned over his desk and peered into the shoes. “You do that?”

  “Yeah,” Saul said. “Better than comin’ up here with nothin’.”

  A laugh. “How much you got there?”

  “About two grand.”

  “Exactly how much?” Vesper leaned back.

  “Twenty twenty.”

  “You ever seen that much scratch?”

  Saul shook his head.

  “You gonna miss havin’ it in your kicks?”

  “Yeah, made me taller.”

  A moment passed and Vesper’s eyes brightened. It was the first time Saul had ever heard him laugh, really laugh. Everyone looked, even the girls.

  “You know why I sent you around collecting?”

  He nodded, “Yeah.”

  “How’s come then little man?”

  “You wanted to see if I’d bring it all, twenty twenty.”

  Vesper squared the stack of bills away and told Saul to count it out. “Why’d you bring it all? I know your momma ain't gettin’ no extra down at the laundry.”

  Saul finished counting out loud and looked up. He was scared; his gut ached from keeping it pent up, and thus his voice was tight, “I knew you’d check with everybody, and I know what I want.”

  “Bold shit,” Vesper said and slid the stack over. “Whatcha want Saul?”

  “I don’t wanna sleep on no more floors.”

  A nod, "You ain’t gonna. Not you, not your momma. You know what I like about you Saul? You’re smart, and you don’t talk the street.” He broke the stack of bills roughly in half. “You know what I don’t like about you?”

  Saul shook his head wondering if he’d played this right, or if it was all over before it began.

  “You’re smart and you don’t talk the street. You ain’t gonna stop at sleepin’ in no bed. Your gonna want more. And even if ya don’t think so now, you’ll be wantin’ more once you get a taste. That’s what I don’t like. You gonna fuck with me Saul?”

  “I just don’t wanna sleep on no more floors, that’s it.”

  “Aight,” Vesper said and pushed half of the stack back across the table. “Like I said, you won’t. That’s for you and your momma, get it back in those kicks and you’ll be taller for real.”

  “Thanks,” Saul said, afraid to touch the money.

  “It ain’t ‘bout thanks little man, you know it. It’s business. Your dome ain’t gonna take you the whole way, smart or not," he tapped Saul's head. "You gotta get wet sometime. You know that too.”

  Saul nodded and took the money. And that was the deal. He was moving up, he’d done it right, but like anything in life, it wasn’t free. Soon he'd have to go out with the dog they called Bolo and make a hit. Death was just part of life.

  His mom took the money, didn’t ask where it came from… and no one slept on the floor anymore.

  * * *

  Now, the television in this same room showed the front of a big brick house, and despite all of the cops clustered around, the white Escalade was still visible, parked just so on the brick driveway. “You do that?”

  “Fuck,” Bolo said. "It ain’t no big deal, just a hit for your boy here like I said.”

  “You better get your eyes checked motherfucker,” Vesper said. “And then tell me why FOX is runnin’ your jump for the little man here. Tell me that.”

  For the first time that day Bolo didn’t seem to have any words. He recovered with, “The little fuck picked the house.”

  “That true?” Vesper looked over at Saul.

  “Kinda, yeah,” Saul said. “I picked it.”

  “Why?”

  “No reason, just picked.”

  “You pick the neighborhood too?” Vesper asked. He set the remote down, and didn’t look at either of them.

  “Just the house,” Saul said, it wasn't time for the whole truth, he could sense it.

  “Fuckin’ shit, bullshit,” Bolo said.

  “You tellin’ me that my shorty here drove all the way out to Arlington Heights and picked a little girl and her momma to off?”

  Bolo was quiet, thinking.

  So was Saul.

  “You gotta taste for killin’ B, I know it, and I use it. But from what I’m seein’ here, you got other tastes too. You hung your ass out, which means that you hung my ass out. Time to calm down a little.”

  “It’ll blow out man,” Bolo said. “Won’t be a day.”

  “Yeah, it’ll go away, but not for a long time. The bitch ain’t dead, the daddy ain’t dead and his daddy is some kinda face.” He pointed again at the TV where the aerial scene of the house was replaced by a muted anchor woman. WTTG was the only television station in D.C. with its own helicopter, and it was now orbiting Arlington Heights. FOX was willing to foot the gas bill.

  “Gonna be awhile.”

  “I tagged it up,” Bolo said suddenly.

  Vesper looked up, “Yeah?”

  “Fuckin’ SMG Crew. Not us. I tagged it all good."

  “Well you did somethin’ right then, but the cops’ll get through that sooner, not later. They’ll start shakin’ peeps down hardcore if we keep seein’ this shit on TV.” Vesper smiled, then let it fade. It was exactly what he'd known that Bolo would do, it was exactly what he
'd hoped–lewd, indescribable violence pinned directly on SMG crew.

  “I’ll get on the down low,” Bolo said. "Keep real quiet.”

  Vesper chuckled, but clearly it wasn’t funny. “Sure will,” he said. “And you’re gonna stand Saul’s corner with him, do just what he says.”

  It was a real blow to Bolo, as if someone had kicked him in the nuts. “Fuck too,” he said. Faintly. He was the Crew's dog; he was the hitter. He was seventeen, and taking orders from a fourteen year old nothing would be torture.

  “You didn’t just say shit, I’m gonna choose to believe that. You’re gonna stand Saul’s corner as he deals, and you’re gonna keep his back. We straight? If you ain’t down with that, I got some other work for ya. You down?”

  “Yeah, I’m down,” he said. He was looking away.

  “You do exactly what Saul here says, and nothin’ else. Just shut the fuck up and watch his back, somethin’ happens to him, it’s your ass.”

  The house reappeared on the screen from above in telephoto. It was bathed in rotating police lights. FOX followed with pictures of the family in happier times. Saul looked away.

  “How many did you do?” Vesper asked.

  “Two,” Bolo said too quickly. “Saul fucked up my piece, we had to dip without cappin’ the dude.”

  “Wasn’t talkin’ to you.”

  Saul wet his lips. “I didn’t shoot no one,” he said. “I fucked up his gun, dunno how.”

  “How’d you know it wasn’t right?” Vesper asked.

  “A guy came around the corner. That guy.” Saul pointed at the television. “I didn’t know he was comin’, just turned and tried to shoot, didn’t shoot.”

  “Kinda piece?”

  Saul shook his head, "Some kinda nine I guess.”

  Bolo’s jaw moved to speak, but Vesper cut him off with a wave. “Not talkin’ to you.”

  “Auto?”

  “Yeah, like a Glock.”

  Vesper looked down, opened his desk. “Like this?” he said. He put an angular black pistol on the desk and slid it over toward Saul.

  “Pretty much, not that big.”