Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  He cleared the final flight and turned to the right. He’d pulled out his keys when a loud crash came from six floors below. He froze, someone had just busted in the security door. He heard a shout, ‘It’s all the way up,’ then pounding footsteps.

  Without pause, and moving silently, he raced back to the building’s only staircase and flew up the last flight. He pressed on the wood door to the roof. Someone had tried to put a lock on, but at least here Marky hadn’t screwed up. The lock was broken and Chase pushed through. He ran across the roof and looked down at the street. A single dark sedan parked in front, but then a cruiser with lights and sirens appeared at the end of the block, followed by a second. They honed in on the building, the flashing lights sending swirls of red and blue around the dingy brick buildings. He wanted to scream; there was no getting away from it, everything was coming undone. Medical school, life as a top Manhattan plastic surgeon, a beautiful wife and children … it was gone.

  He started to shake, there was no one he could go to; he was entirely alone. He looked back at the door and heard movement from the floor below. He needed to get out, but a part of him still wanted to see. Maybe things weren’t so bad. Maybe one of the kids had called 911 on a cell phone, or maybe a neighbor had heard something. He had to see, but every minute he stayed here was a horrible risk.

  He padded back to the roof door and pressed his face against the wood. He opened it a crack and could see the top of the stairwell. A tall man with a scarred face appeared with a young guy in baggy jeans and a hoodie – Jerod. ‘This one,’ Jerod said and Chase heard the man pound on the door to Marky’s.

  ‘Police, open up, now!’

  Chase heard the rattle of a doorknob. He swore under his breath when he heard the creak of hinges. Marky, the fucking moron. He didn’t even lock his door!

  ‘Jerod, stay back,’ the man said.

  Chase felt his breath pass slow through his nostrils, his face pressed to the crack in the door. He saw Jerod’s back – the crazy kid must have been here before. He’d led the cops. Chase had to get out of there, but he also had to know. Marky was the only one left who could identify him. If he was dead, maybe he could salvage things … still go to medical school. Then more footsteps on the stairs, fresh sirens screaming up the avenue. Over the clamor he heard the man’s voice from inside Marky’s apartment. ‘Jerod, get in here. I need help now.’

  Jerod had known where Marky would bring the family. He’d never been inside, but Carly had pointed it out one day. ‘That’s Marky’s place, sometimes we go there to pick up shit and drop off money.’ She’d even tried to talk Marky into bringing Jerod into the family; but he’d said no, and Jerod didn’t need to ask why. He knew he didn’t fit, Marky knew that, and only Carly … who’d seen past his sickness and weird behavior had thought he was just fine.

  Detective Hobbs had told him to stand outside, and he heard other cops on the way up. As he stood there, struggling to catch his breath from the run up six flights, he felt gooseflesh on his arms and waves of nausea. He tried to think of something that could make him feel better, and Carly’s face, her wavy brown hair, her soft eyes formed before him. ‘Lots of people hear voices.’ It calmed him a little, and then the detective’s urgent voice from inside; he needed help. Jerod entered.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said, as he walked past the linoleum-covered entry and into the living room. ‘No,’ his feet like lead on the floor, his mind screaming, just like Bobby and Ashley. He recognized them all. He looked to Detective Hobbs, who was bent over one of the girls. He was counting and then breathing into her mouth.

  ‘Do you know CPR?’ Hobbs asked, while he placed his face against the girl – Kat’s – chest and listened.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jerod said, looking around at Marky’s living room arranged in a semicircle of mattresses.

  ‘Pick one and get started.’

  Jerod couldn’t figure why, but he went to Marky, who less than twenty-four hours ago had tried to kill him. He was slumped against the wall, eyes partly open. ‘Marky, wake up!’ Jerod tried to remember the CPR instructions from the times he’d taken the course. The last time by volunteers who did the needle-exchange program at the drop-in center. ‘Marky!’ He rubbed his knuckles over the center of the blond man’s chest; he did it hard knowing that it was supposed to hurt and get him to wake up. Nothing happened; he reached up to Marky’s neck; it was still warm and he felt a faint pulse.

  He thought about the other kids, maybe they deserved help more than Marky, but someone had to answer for this. And if Marky wasn’t the one responsible, he was the only one who’d know who was. He grabbed Marky by the arms, awkwardly pulled him forward off the mattress and onto the hard wood floor. He turned him flat on his back. He breathed in deep, put his mouth over Marky’s, and put in two long breaths. He felt the pulse again, just barely there. Counted the same way Detective Hobbs was and gave another two. The footsteps on the stairs were close, and then cops were coming through. He didn’t look up as other officers attended to the kids. He tried not to cry as he listened to their counting, and the comments in the crowded space with its funky Christmas lights and pillows like the ones Ashley used to sew. ‘This one’s got no pulse.’ ‘Mine neither.’ ‘One and two and three and four and …’ ‘What’s taking the paramedics?’

  A woman officer who was working on a brown-haired boy next to Jerod looked at him between breaths. ‘You shouldn’t be doing that without a face mask,’ she said.

  Jerod’s finger was on Marky’s pulse, and the parts of CPR he’d forgotten came back fast by watching Hobbs and the others. His cheek was turned against Marky’s lips, he could almost feel a breath, but didn’t want to take the chance by stopping. ‘I don’t have one,’ he said, ‘it’s OK. I don’t need it.’

  ‘Here,’ she pulled a plastic mask from out of her belt, ‘use this.’

  He took the clear plastic circle, looked at how she was using hers, and placed it around Marky’s lips. ‘Thanks.’ Tears streamed as he counted breaths, felt for a pulse, and listened for breath. He wasn’t crying for Marky, and he wondered why he hadn’t told Dr. Conyors or Detective Hobbs that he’d tried to give CPR to both Bobby and Ashley. Only they’d been dead too long, or he hadn’t done it right. Maybe if he’d had Narcan like they’d handed out at the drop-in center. It killed him that he’d waited those minutes to call the crisis center, and that he should have just called 911. When he’d finally had the sense to look for a phone, and had found the two on Bobby, the first number that came to him was the crisis center and Dr. Conyors.

  ‘What did you do to her?’ Jerod whispered to the unconscious man, feeling Marky’s pulse, and this time certain there was breath leaving his mouth. ‘Where’s Carly? What did you do to her?’ He had the impulse to hit Marky, to get him to wake up, to force him to tell. Instead, he put his lips against the plastic and gave another two breaths, not sure if that was right, when Marky might have started breathing on his own. Someone had found the overhead light as paramedics with stretchers, oxygen tanks, and orange kit boxes piled in.

  ‘It’s OK, kid,’ a medic in a navy uniform said, as he snapped a mask onto Marky’s face. ‘We got it from here. You wait outside and give us some room to work.’

  ‘It’s an overdose,’ Jerod said, ‘you got Narcan?’

  The medic looked at him. ‘You undercover or something?’

  ‘No,’ Jerod said, shaking his head and trying to stand. He felt his pulse racing and sweat dripped under his shirt and down his pants. He looked around, each of the kids now either had a cop and medic or pair of medics attending to them. The lady officer who’d given him the face mask was standing on top of a mattress, her back pressed against the wall. The brown-haired boy she’d been working on, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, had an oxygen mask strapped to his face and a paramedic had just ripped open his shirt and put on paddles. ‘Clear.’

  The kid’s chest surged up and then back. Jerod looked at the little LED screen on the medic’s defibrillator. No he
artbeat; the kid was flatlining. The paddles were rapidly recharged, the voltage increased. ‘Clear.’

  ‘Give me an amp of epi,’ the medic called, as his partner grabbed a syringe and handed it over.

  Jerod turned to the lady officer; he could tell she was trying not to cry. He squeezed past a stretcher and went over to her. ‘His name’s Brad,’ he said. ‘He was new.’

  They watched as the paddles were applied for a third time.

  ‘He’s too young,’ the cop said, her eyes intent on the monitor.

  ‘I’ve got a pulse,’ the medic said, ‘let’s get him out of here.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ the lady cop, who couldn’t have been much older than he, asked.

  ‘Jerod,’ he said. He could tell she was trying to push past the horror of the scene. It was hard not to compare this with what happened before – Bobby and Ashley should have had paramedics. He should have done something different. He should have been able to save them. He sank to the floor and sobbed.

  ‘It’s OK, Jerod,’ she said, sitting next to him. ‘I’m Officer Stanton … Kate.’ Her gaze fixed on the boy and his tenuous heartbeat. She glanced across at Jerod. ‘You use, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why do people do this to themselves?’

  He watched as Marky was hoisted onto a stretcher, a mask hooked to oxygen over his mouth and nose. ‘It numbs everything,’ he said, ‘nothing hurts … but it doesn’t last. I’m never doing it again,’ he said, realizing that this was the truth. ‘I’d rather be dead than go though this again.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You knew these kids?’

  Jerod looked up as Detective Hobbs pushed through a pair of empty stretchers and came toward them. His shoulders sagged and he was shaking his head. He tried to speak, and his voice choked.

  ‘Damn,’ Hobbs finally managed, batting something from his eye. He turned and surveyed the scene, as one by one the kids were strapped onto stretchers and carried down the six flights. ‘I’m going back to the hospital, Jerod. You want to come with me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jerod said, pushing back against the wall. His whole body ached, as though he’d been beaten.

  The lady officer also stood and looked at Hobbs. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘Somebody just tried to exterminate their work force. If not for Jerod these kids would all be dead. As it is, we have no clue how many will make it.’

  As Hobbs spoke, Jerod watched them carry out Marky, the blond man’s eyes blinked. ‘You need to have somebody watch him,’ Jerod said, ‘that’s Marky. If anyone knows what happened; it’s him. You can’t let him get away.’

  ‘I’ll go with him,’ Officer Stanton said, getting to her feet. ‘My partner’s over there,’ she said, indicating an older heavyset cop who’d made it up after the medics. She looked at Hobbs. ‘I think he’ll be happy doing some babysitting at the hospital.’ She turned to Jerod. ‘You just saved a bunch of lives,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘I hope you get off the dope, because I don’t know you, but I think you’re somebody pretty great.’

  Her words hit him hard. How to respond? She’d called him a hero, sort of, not a fuck-up, not a junkie, not the crazy piece of shit his parents couldn’t deal with. ‘Thanks, Officer Stanton.’

  ‘Kate,’ she said, and headed toward her partner.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Hobbs said. ‘They’re transporting them all to University Hospital. It’ll be easier having them in one place.’

  ‘Will he try again?’ Jerod asked, struggling to keep up with Hobbs as they squeezed past a stretcher and started down.

  ‘If he knows he didn’t succeed; he might.’

  ‘You think he’s watching?’

  ‘If it were me,’ Hobbs said, ‘and you always have to think like that if you want to be a cop, I’d want to know what was happening.’

  ‘Makes sense. Course I’m not exactly cop material, but maybe … Fuck!’

  ‘What?’ Hobbs asked, stopping.

  ‘Rooftops. Bobby told me that the reason they had the apartment on the top floor was that if they ever needed to bolt, they could go over the roof. That’s why Marky’s apartment is up here. If he’s anywhere, that’s where he’s …’ Before he could finish the sentence, Hobbs reversed direction and raced up the steps.

  Jerod watched him as the last of the stretchers started down. The girl they carried – Yvette – had ghost-white skin and dyed black hair. She’d hung out with them a few times; she’d always been nice. How could someone do this? He suddenly didn’t care that his body felt like he’d been beaten or that waves of knife-sharp cramps kept rolling through his gut, he had to help, to somehow make this better, and pushing through the pain, he ran after Hobbs.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  For the second time that day Hobbs struggled to force a rooftop door. Jerod was right. The perp – Barrett’s date – had been watching, checking if he’d succeeded in killing off Marky and his family of dealers. And now he’d barricaded the door.

  He rammed his shoulder into the solid oak, the lock had been smashed but something on the other side was holding it shut and with the bulb out overhead and only filtered light from below he couldn’t see a damn thing. He hurled himself at the door for a third and fourth time. His shoulder ached. He stepped back and kicked at it with his steel-toed shoe – the sound of wood cracking. He didn’t stop. He kicked hard and again. On his eighth or ninth try something snapped and the door banged open.

  He drew his revolver and stepped into the night. It was lighter outside, the moon and the background glow of the city. Sirens wailed as he surveyed the roofscape. The building was wedged between others like it to his right and left. He saw ladders that ran over the side, but couldn’t see anyone. So either this Chase made his escape, or he was hiding. He turned slowly taking in the scene; pulled out his phone and called the sergeant at the 9th for more backup, even though he knew it was getting more futile by the second.

  Jerod came up behind him. He shivered and Hobbs knew the kid was trying to appear normal even though he was clearly jonesing. ‘You should get back to the hospital,’ he told him.

  ‘I want to help,’ he said, his teeth chattering despite the warm air.

  ‘OK, go tell Barrett – Dr. Conyors – what happened, she might have some ideas. If this was the guy who just drugged her; she could have remembered something else. You need to get out of here.’

  A pair of uniformed officers came through the doorway. ‘It’s a fifty-fifty shot,’ Hobbs said. ‘You take that way, I’ll go this way.’ He looked back at Jerod – he really was trying to hold it together – and began to understand what Barrett saw in him. ‘Kid, go back to her. Stay with her.’

  ‘You think he’ll go after her again?’

  Hobbs started to jog to the ladder on the east side of the building. ‘Don’t know, but she’s the only one we’ve got who can tell us who he is … and Jerod, you did real good back there. Real good.’ He looked over the edge, and then toward the distance. How much of a lead did this guy have? He pushed back a dangerous sense of futility, and grabbed the ladder, knowing that if there were fingerprints he’d just destroyed them. He lowered his legs over the side, and looked down at the roof next door – a small drop, three or four feet. He let go of the ladder and landed on the tar-paper surface. He ran to the rooftop door, locked from the inside. He unclipped a Maglite from his belt and ran its beam over the surface of the roof from the ladder to the door. They’d been so close … He looked for disturbances on the black-gray roof. Playing the light around the threshold, he saw no sign of scuffing, the hinges looked undisturbed. It meant little. The thing could have been wide open; this Chase went through it and then just locked it from inside. Or … each second that passed gave away the advantage.

  Hobbs ran to the ladder on the east side. He grabbed hold and felt a small give; one of the bolts was loose – could be an old problem, or a new one. He ran his flashlight over the roof of the adjoinin
g building. No footprints, but the door to the roof had a crack of light showing through. He climbed over and down, and was hit by the sweet smell of marijuana. He headed toward its source and found a man and woman in lawn chairs facing uptown, glasses of wine in hand, a joint being passed. As he approached, Hobbs caught a bit of their conversation. ‘Spending three thousand dollars on rent is for chumps. You got to buy something, Monique, ’cause you’re just throwing that …’

  ‘Police,’ Hobbs said.

  ‘Oh shit!’ The man dropped the smoldering joint.

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ Hobbs said. ‘Did anyone come through here in the last couple minutes?’

  The woman, a tall freckled blonde with a riotous mass of curls, turned back to look at Hobbs. ‘There was,’ she said, ‘but more like ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Damn! Did you see him?’

  ‘Just a little.’ Her gaze fixed on his scarred face. ‘But I don’t think he saw us. I thought maybe he was one of the neighbors; I didn’t recognize him.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Like a movie star … dark hair kind of falling over one eye, and a face like out of a magazine – perfect profile. I heard him go down into our building. I just assumed he lived there, that maybe he’d just moved in. Should we be worried?’

  ‘No,’ Hobbs said, heading toward the rooftop entry. ‘But I’d ditch the joint; there’ll be cops swarming all over this place.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He stopped at the door, ten minutes was a long time. He looked around; the man was sucking down the last of the joint, clearly not wanting to waste any. This was the easternmost building on the block. Hobbs jogged to the edge that faced the avenue, and sure enough there was an entryway both there and on the north side. Chase could easily have exited without being noticed by the squad cars and ambulances parked in front. From there he could hop a cab to wherever … or he could be holed up in an apartment right here … or the stoned lady could be wrong altogether. But it was unlikely Chase would hang around.