Duffy to the Rescue (The Duffy Dombrowski Mysteries)

by Tom Schreck

  As you might guess, the kid was pretty fucked up. She hated “the senator” as she referred to her mom, loved to get high and had gotten enough into crack that she knew her way around the ghetto to get it. Like other women addicted to crack she also knew that when she was out of money there was ways of getting it for free.

  “Free” meaning she didn’t have to exchange money for it.

  Selling her body to crack users cost her quite a bit.

  The phone buzzed and it was Trina.

  “The reporter from the UT is on the phone again. You want me to tell him we can’t even acknowledge if she’s a client here or do you want to do it?” She said

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said and pushed the button to get his call.

  “Duffy, this is Rob Prill, what’s new?” The voice said. I knew him a little bit.

  “What’s up Jack,” I said.

  “Any fights coming up?” he said. “I still think its pretty wild that a pro fighter has a day job as a social worker.”

  “There’s some noise about an undercard at the casino but nothing definite,” I said. I didn’t comment on the remark about being both a social worker and a fighter. I’ve been a mediocre pro for over ten years and anyone who knows anything about the fight game knows that you can’t live on mediocre pro purses.

  “Hey, uh, Duff, word is that you’re Christy’s counselor. Off the record, no one will know anything, what can you tell me about her?”

  “I can’t acknowledge whether anyone has ever been a client here unless I have a signed release,” I said it like I did the twenty times it came up every day at work.

  “C’mon Duff,”

  “C’mon nothin’ Jack.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, I swear,” he said. “I always give you some ink when you fight.”

  “Yeah, I seem to remember you describing me as Crawford’s favorite tomato can when I got knocked out by that fat guy at the Fair.”

  “Aw c’mon Duff, don’t be like that.”

  I said good-by and I hung up.

  The rest of the day was as uneventful and boring as human services can be. It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to do—I had five sessions and an evaluation scheduled. All of them were no-shows, which meant I had the whole day to catch up on my paperwork that was behind back to when Reagan was president. A good responsible counselor would’ve dove head on in to the paperwork but, then again, a good counselor wouldn’t have gotten this far behind in the first place.

  I didn’t feel like diving in today.

  I thought a lot about Christy. I had seen her all of four times and she was quiet and mostly pissed off every time. The truth of the matter was that I didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about her. She was addicted to crack, she took the bus to the clinic, she usually came with a girlfriend, who waited for her outside smoking cigarettes, and she was filled with resentment.

  The radio was on in my cubicle on the local ESPN affiliate, mostly as background noise. Every commercial was about the up coming election and it reminded again why I didn’t vote. The most annoying ad of all was from Christy’s mom.

  “A candidate who puts family values first and who knows what it means to be both a supportive mother and an attentive senator. Sheila W. Montgomery—the right choice at the right time,” the way overdramatic and deep voiced said four times every hour.

  I killed time on the internet until four o’clock game and then I headed to the gym. The casino fight wasn’t definite but it was supposed to be in about three weeks so I wanted to stay reasonably sharp. Most people get their boxing knowledge by watching Rocky movies, which is kind of like legal advice from watching Boston Public. When you’re a professional opponent, that is a guy who gets paid for fighting better fighters who are looking for a win, you don’t get much notice about fights. If you stay in shape and are willing to take a fight on just a couple days warning you can make a decent buck. You get your ass kicked a lot, but you can make some cash.

  The boxing gym at the “Y” was more crowded than usual which meant there were about a dozen guys around. The upstate Golden Gloves was coming up and that brought guys to the gym and a pro card in Connecticut in three weeks meant some work for some guys and the combination of the two events brought in fighters, wannabes and hangers on. Men like to see themselves as fighters and whenever you go to a boxing gym you can figure half or three quarter of the guys in the gym never get in the ring with another human being. They pose, they may even get their hands wrapped and hit the bags, but when it comes time to spar, they finish up their workouts, complain about nagging shoulder problems or decide they have an appointment. The real fighters know this and accept it, but it clearly sets an unspoken hierarchy in the gym.

  Jamal was working the speed bag. He and I went way back to when we used to spar as teenagers. He had been in the Nation of Islam but left that behind and worked as a hall monitor and assistant football coach at McDonough High, our alma mater. The bell ending the round sounded and I went over to Jamal.

  “You know, as a role model to young high school students shouldn’t you practice something more nurturing?” I said.

  “Ha—half of them mother fuckers want nurture my fuckin’ head off,” Jamal said. He was breathing hard and had beads of sweat all over his face. He started to undo his wraps.

  “You done?” I said.

  “Yeah, got to go to the school gym to supervise weight training.”

  “How they going to be this year?”

  “Undisciplined and whiny.”

  “Probably not what Bill parcels would deem as optimal football attitude,”

  “No.” Jamal rolled his eyes and pulled off his hooded sweatshirt. His black Under Armor shirt was darkened with sweat.

  “Hey J. I got a missing crackhead on my caseload. Any guesses where I would look?” I said.

  “Fuckin’ Duffy. You think all the crackheads check in with the black community? You think there’s a newsletter or some shit that they write to?” He made a face.

  “There isn’t?” I said with my eyes wide.

  “Best guess is South Swan but you know that shit. A missing crackhead, huh? Don’t they go missing all the time?”

  “Yeah but—”

  Jamal interrupted.

  “You’re after the senator’s kid.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Sure as shit, you’re the senator’s kid counselor. Senator made all that noise about her going to a regular clinic and what not.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “If she at South Swan she best be careful. She get her ass turned out.”

  “Any place in particular on Swan?” I said without acknowledging who I was looking for.

  “There’s a row of crackhouses next to that shut down Trading Port. They call the red brick one the ‘Taj Mahal,” he said.

  “Nice,” I said.

  Jamal took off and I got to my workout. I did some heavy bag work, some shadow boxing and skipped the rope, but just as I had worried, when it came time to spar no one was available. Smitty, my trainer, worked me four hard rounds on the mitts and told me that a heavy weight from the city was coming in on the weekend if I wanted some ring time.

  I split after that, somewhat refreshed from the workout, but unfulfilled. I love to fight, not out of any macho bullshit, but because its exciting. Part of it has to be fear, some of it is the fun of letting loose on some aggression and part of it is the rush of anaerobic exercise. Hitting bags and throwing punches into mirrors is okay, but its relationship to real fighting is kind of like the comparison of looking at a dirty magazine versus having sex with a really hot woman. One was imagination while the other was real.

  I had to go home to check on Al, my roommate. Al happens to be a Basset Hound but I never refer to him as “my dog.”

  “My dog” would imply that I am in a position of authority in our relationship, which wasn’t even close to being true. Al was his own man… er… dog and I knew that. Whenever I came through my front d
oor I braced my self for his usual enthusiastic greeting by going into a slight crouch and pointing my knees inward. I got into the habit of making this Aikido type move upon entering my home after years of having Al demonstrate his affection by sailing into my nuts like a wayward heat-seeking missile with long ears. I assumed the position but there was no launch.

  Instead, Al was on the couch eating the foam inside one of the sofa cushions. He had eaten a hole in the couch months ago and I didn’t really see the sense of replacing it or even repairing it because Al would just see those actions as challenges.

  “Al!” I yelled.

  He momentarily looked up from the foam rubber, tilted his head as if to say “Please don’t interrupt my meal,” and went back to what he was doing.

  Al’s chewing of my furniture caused a problem other than just the obvious issue it made with the Feng Shui of my interior design. Foam rubber had a tendency to clog the digestive tract of the Basset Hound and that meant, not only an uncomfortable canine, it also meant an expensive trip to the vet to have Al’s innards hosed out.

  Fortunately, I had a holistic home remedy.

  “C’mon Al, let’s go to AJ’s,” I said.

  The head went up, the tail went into overdrive and he bounded off the couch and flew into my unprotected nuts. Despite the fact that it felt like my left testicle was forced all the way up my diaphragm to my Adam’s apple I was able to leash Al and get him in the car.

  AJ’s was a mere ten minutes from where I lived and a million miles away from sanity. It was in the industrial part of Crawford next to the cookie factory and it was owned by AJ, the third, and frequented by the same regulars every night. The Fearsome Foursome, Kelley the cop and me, were about the only living customers. The Foursome was comprised of TC, Rocco, Jerry Number One and Jerry Number Two and their nightly conversations could be described as eclectically diverse, if you were being gracious. “Imbecilic bullshit” might be a less gracious but more apt description.

  “You can’t put a hooker on a train. That’s what got Spitzer in trouble,” Rocco was saying as Al and I made our entrance.

  “Hookers aren’t allowed on the rails?’ TC said and sipped his B & B.

  “I’d like one with a nice Kibbutz,” Jerry Number One said.

  “Kibbutz, that’s where the Jews go, idiot,” Rocco said.

  “They don’t go to the Catskills any more?” TC said.

  “I think you mean ‘caboose,” Jerry Number Two said.

  “Spitzer was Jew,” Rocco said.

  “He never was photographed wearing one of them Yamahas on his head,” Jerry Number One said.

  “Yamaha is a bike,” Jerry Number two said.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to call them that,” TC said.

  “Who?” Jerry Number One said.

  Rocco, the oldest of the group, was getting annoyed.

  “I’m talking about Spitzer, the hooker and the wire transfer,” Rocco said.

  “I never got a ‘wire transfer.’ Is that like a fancy hand job?” TC said.

  I sat to the left of the Foursome in my usual spot and AJ slid a cold Schlitz in front of me without asking. The Foursome took a break from the gubernatorial discussion right after Rocco offered that Spitzer probably needs to pay hookers because his ears were so big. Jerry had something about the fact that Spitzer looked like a Bonneville with both front doors open and no on knew what say to that. It was then that they finally said hello.

  “AJ, can you throw on a cheeseburger for Al?” I said. I had lifted Al on to the stool next to me and he was watching the Yankees lose to the Angels.

  “What did he eat this time, another shoe?” Jerry Number One said.

  “Nah, couch cushion,” I said.

  “Foam rubber will be no match for an AJ lube burger,” Jerry Number Two.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” I said.

  A commercial for a state congressman was fading out and was replaced by one for Senator Montgomery,

  “A candidate who puts family values first and who knows what it means to be both a supportive mother and an attentive senator. Sheila W. Montgomery—the right choice at the right time,”

  It was nauseating enough but this one was a longer version and it cut to the Senator walking with Christy, who was dressed in khaki pants and golf shirt get up from the Gap. It looked nothing like the black denim, piercing and Converse All-Star ensemble I saw her in when she came in for her sessions.

  When Christy became pregnant we knew the right choice because a child isn’t a choice but a living breathing being.

  Then she hugged Christy and, as much as Montgomery tried, the contrived nature of the whole thing came right through.

  “That’s the missing drug addict kid, isn’t it,” TC said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  AJ had slid the cheeseburger in front of Al who was halfway through it in two bites.

  “Duffy, be sure he makes it outside this time,” AJ said.

  I nodded and Al finished the burger in another bite and a half.

  “That kid is probably wandering the streets right now doing whatever it takes to get high,” Rocco said.

  “I bet the senator has people after her,” Jerry Number Two said.

  “Nah, that bitch only cares about her reelection,” Rocco said.

  “That’s what I mean—she’ll want her people to get the kid before something even more embarrassing happens to her. An arrested, or worse—a dead kid, doesn’t make for a smooth campaign,” Jerry Number Two said.

  I froze. I put the beer down, lifted Al off the stool and headed for the door.

  “It worked already? That’s gotta be a new record,” Rocco said.

  Al and I were off to Swan Street

  Spending your life on hunches inspired by any member of the Fearsome Foursome probably wasn’t the most rational of practices but something Jerry Number Two said clicked. Al curled up in a ball in the passenger seat and began a steady drool on the crushed orange velour of the ‘76 El Dorado. I made the left off of Clinton on to South Swan in five minutes and slowed the boat to a cruise.

  South Swan looked like the ghetto drug street in any mid-size, northeast city. Boarded up buildings, litter, desperate crack hookers on each corner and circles of men suspicious of white guys in slow moving cars. I made a slow pass up the six blocks that constituted the drug area. Swan Street went further but when someone mentioned it by name, it was this six-block swath that they were talking about. I made a right on Livingston and took another pass.

  One of the rules of the ghetto is that if you cruise slowly through an area twice, it means you’re either a cop or your looking for a business transaction. A great big thirty- year old Cadillac didn’t exactly make me look like a member of the force, so on this lap a different energy was on the street. At the first corner an overweight black woman with an afro the size of a big Frisbee and bust size into the fifties raised her eyebrows and stuck her tongue in and out as I went by. On the next corner, a skinny and ashen black girl with nappy hair and scuffed up jeans and rotten teeth offered me a blow job for twenty dollars with the temerity one might use if one was selling apples. At the next block, four guys on the corner stopped their conversation looked up at me and waited for me to make a proposition and when I didn’t, they went to back to whatever it was they were in to.

  When I got midway up the forth block something caught my eye. It was a young stocky white girl with a couple of bandanas around each wrist, camo pants and high black Chuck Taylors. It took a second to register, but then it came to me.

  It was Christy’s friend.

  I pulled over and parked half on the sidewalk, figuring the cops had more than parking tickets to worry about on Swan Street. I grabbed Al by the leash, opened the door and yelled to her. She looked at me, gave herself a second to think and then she took off between two buildings.

  I sprinted after her with Al affixed to my right wrist. Contrary to popular belief, a motivated Basset Hound can out run most hu
mans and Al was keeping up because he sensed something was up. She whipped a right around the corner, hopped a fence and ran toward the back of seedy red brick building. I had to hoist Al over the fence and I lost ground on her but I clearly saw her run into the building.

  I went in the same door that she had with Al close behind. The building was abandoned but from the litter of empty forty once beer bottles, crack vials and the odd hypodermic, it was obvious that the piece of real estate was getting use. I went through what was once a kitchen, into a what was once a parlor and when I did, I heard the scatter of rats and I made note of the fact that there were times that it was handy to have an eight-five pound, four-legged, mammal at one’s side.

  The smell of the place hit me and I realized it was a mixture of smoke, urine and beer mixed with something else that I didn’t want to think about. The sun hadn’t set yet but the lighting was dim without any overhead illumination. I came around the corner from the parlor into a living room and that’s when the sound of a human voice startled me.