I take in a few controlled breaths of air and let them out slow. He’s probably back over in Homeless Town, USA.
Right?
I close the door behind me and call him while I check the street for any cars that look like they don’t belong here. Of course, I get the fucking voicemail.
“Kid.” My voice sounds jacked up. Stuck in the back of my throat kinda shit. “Call me.”
Maybe someone’s listening, maybe not. Better safe than sorry, though. And fuck them.
I wait for a good hour, during which I call Tricky Ricky, who has nothing for me. I check drawers and files to see if maybe Stix left me a clue. Nothin’. I pretend-read emails and listen to messages, hoping maybe he just got lost, or held up, or fucking had to pee. I don’t know.
By the time sixty minutes has painstakingly passed, I call him again.
Voicemail kicks in again, and I’m already out the door.
“I’m gonna assume you can’t answer for whatever reason. Or maybe you’re pissed off that I wasn’t answering earlier. I’m sorry about that. But, kid, answer the goddamn phone.”
He’ll call me back when he’s in cell tower range. Meanwhile, I should probably check Homeless Town anyway. Just to be sure.
X X X
I slow the car to a snail’s pace the closer I get to the neighborhood where I last connected with the kid.
Call it instinct, if you want. I call it self-preservation.
I park about three blocks away and hike it the rest. I find the same abandoned building he was in before and climb the stairs to the top. It’s empty. I sit at a window that looks like it was shot out by something and check out the area below.
There’s no sign of Stix or anybody else for that matter. So, I check the time, even though I know for a fucking fact that it’s easily mid-afternoon. I take a seat on an old coffee table left here over the years, and I wait. Every nerve in my body tells me he isn’t gonna show, but I’m a thorough motherfucker, and I don’t wanna take the chance of leaving if Stix might show up.
Another hour of my day goes by, and there’s no sign of the kid. However, as I’m about to call it a day, an older woman with a guide dog steps out from between a couple buildings. I’m sure, to anyone else driving by, if anyone was to drive by, that is, she doesn’t seem off. To me, she seems highly out of fucking place, considering this is a homeless area, and the homeless, in general, don’t get guide dogs.
I watch her for a while out of sheer curiosity. I doubt I’m wrong, but you never know. It’s been known to happen.
Once.
Okay, three times.
She feeds some strays that come out of hiding, probably whenever they see humans, but not her dog. She straightens her pants like she can’t stand to be in this dirty ass outfit she’s wearing. Her head turns to her left then to her right before she talks to her wrist.
Bam.
Her stride is slightly faster than someone who might be blind when she heads back to where she came from. About a minute later, a car comes screeching out, and from behind the steering wheel, I see her remove the wig.
Him.
He removes the wig.
“The fuck?”
As I fly down the stairs, I wanna kick myself for not staking this place out from the Chevelle.
By the time I get to the car, start her up, and head in the general direction of my mystery man, it’s too late. He’s gone.
“Dammit.” I bang the steering wheel and try to think.
The trip over here wasn’t the biggest waste of my time, at least. While I don’t know much more than I did when I arrived, my gut tells me someone has the kid, and they were expecting me to come look for him.
As my heart rate begins to pick up, I reach for my lucky cig. When I pull it out, I tap it on the dash a few times. I stick it in between my lips and pull out the lighter I keep in the ash tray. I go to light it, but then I stop. Because motherfucker.
Mother.
Fucker.
How did I let this shit happen? Why am I still dependent on a fucking cigarette for some piece of mind?
I push the lighter back into its hole and toss the cig onto the backseat, unlit. I pull my phone from my pocket and call Green.
“Hola.”
“Hey, it’s Stiles.”
“Really, I didn’t know that.” Sarcastic little… “Smartass. Look, the kid’s gone.” No reason to put off the inevitable.
“What do you mean? Gone.”
“I mean fucking gone, Green.” Jesus.
“Again? Stiles—”
“I know, I know. And I don’t have a good feeling about this shit. We need to make something happen. Fast. Have you touched base with,” I shudder to even say the fucking name, “Anonymous?”
“I did. And I think something’s getting ready to go down.”
“What’s the deal?”
“I was told to meet his contact at some place called Dusk ’til Dawn tonight. And that I’d get my instructions then.”
“You don’t know who the contact is? Was it Walker?”
“No idea. He said I’d know. I have a sneaking suspicion this is some kind of test for me.”
“Okay.” I breathe out.
D to D isn’t exactly what I’d call a family place, if you know what I mean. More like a keep secrets from your family kind of place. A cheaters club, if you will.
“Guess we’re having ourselves a date night.”
Yay.
X X X
As the sun sets, I destroy the bug Green and I discovered on Frodo and do another sweep of the apartment, including any and all electronics, to make sure nothing else has been compromised.
It’s clean.
Later, I finalize some details with her via phone. She needs to get herself set up in a hotel while she figures shit out with the apartment, and I needed to take the shower I missed this morning when my day went to shit.
Shittier than normal, that is.
We have a couple hours or so before we need to be at D to D. There’s not much else I can do for Stix right now but cross my fucking fingers that he’s still alive.
“If whomever I’m meeting sees you─” Green warns me not to be conspicuous tonight.
Like I’m gonna be conspicuous. Ha.
“I know, I know.”
“And don’t─”
“Kick the guy’s ass before we get a confession. I know, Green. I’ve been doing this a whole hell of a lot longer than you, if you remember correctly.”
“I just want to make sure we actually get this guy, Stiles. If─”
“Hold on.”
A knock at the door catches me off guard. When I check the curtain to see who’s paying me a visit in the middle of this fuckery, I’m taken aback.
That shit doesn’t happen, often.
“I gotta go, Green.”
“Okay, let me know when you’re ready.”
“Will do.” I end the call.
Relax.
And open the door.
“The fuck, Dad?”
“About time you answered the door.”
He’s not drunk, but he’s been drinking. I’m speechless, for lack of a better word.
At first, he doesn’t move or speak other than the growl he just shot at me. He just stands in my doorway.
He’s kinda fucking pitiful-looking, which is weird.
I’ve seen him drunk and sober over the years. He’s got two looks. Happy, which has not been apparent in the past ten years or so, and angry. Never this. Never anything, really.
Has he been crying?
I don’t say a word. I mean what the hell am I gonna say? Hey, Dad, looking dismal. All I can do is stand here and wait, confused as hell.
Dad’s expression changes after a few minutes of this shit from that pitiful thing I mentioned to thoughtful, then to determined.
He takes a huge gulp of air and blows it out, then pushes passed me.
“She left me.”
The words cause a blip in my thought pro
cess for a heartbeat or two, then I catch up and close the door, following him into the apartment.
“No shit?”
He throws a bag down onto the couch, and sits next to it. I prefer to stand.
“Good for her.”
Frodo waltzes in from the kitchen. Dad sees the old feline and scowls down at him.
“When did you get a cat?”
The old feline hisses and arches his back at my father. Essentially confirming every thought I’ve ever had toward him.
Dad gives me a glassy-eyed look, silently asking, what the fuck did I do? To which I shrug.
“What can I say? He’s very intuitive when it comes to reading people.”
One of the reasons I’ve kept him around for so long.
“He’s a cat. He has no brain.”
“Which is more than I can say for most humans.”
Dad huffs and slumps backward onto the sofa, like a ruined tree branch might fall into a river. Heavy and nothing but dead weight.
He opens the bag up that he’s carried in with him and pulls out a Miller High Life. He opens it and stares at it. Then sets it down without taking a single sip. It reminds me of how I interact with the cigarette on occasion.
Where is that thing, anyway?
Dad doesn’t look like he’s planning on going anywhere. This makes me twitchy like a motherfucker.
Places to go, murders to solve.
I shut my eyes. I can’t think about that shit right now.
“What are you doing here, Dad?”
He frowns at the carpet. “Nowhere else to go, I suppose.”
I rub my face in frustration. “What about Nick’s? They like you there.”
He waves a hand at me. “He’s got kids. A life.”
Meaning I don’t.
You see where this shit is going, right?
And they wonder why I never make it home for get togethers.
“You can’t fucking stay here.”
He can’t. Period.
“Coulda gone to Mikey’s if he was still around. Mikey would have me.” It’s a low mumble but I hear it. I always fucking hear it.
“Seriously? You wanna go there?”
“What?” He shoots out a defensive scowl toward me.
“You can’t go one fucking day without reminding someone, anyone who’ll listen, that he’s gone. And why.”
“Better than trying to forget him altogether, eh, Jackie?”
“Don’t fucking call me that. He’s the only one who got to call me that.”
“Him and Nick.”
“Yeah, Dad, him and Nick.”
“Maybe if you knew how to control that temper of yours, he’d still be around to call you Jackie.”
“Fuck you.”
“Excuse me?” His head spins around in a circle as he tries to break bad with me. I can’t really bring myself to give a shit that Ma would probably kill me if she knew I was talking to him like this but ya know what?
This shit’s overdue.
“I said fuck you. Dad.” Were the jazz hands necessary? Maybe not, but fuck if sometimes he doesn’t bring out the drama queen in me.
“Because maybe if you hadn’t fucking intimidated the kid into doing every fucking thing you wanted him to do, he wouldn’t have followed me out that night in the first place.”
“And directly into oncoming traffic.”
Like I haven’t read myself the riot act over that a million times already.
“It was a goddamn accident.” I try repeating the words Green told me last night. The same ones Nick drills into me. They sound hollow. Empty.
’Cause it really doesn’t fucking matter if it was an accident or not.
Dad tries to let it go.
“At least, he died doing something he loved.”
“Bullshit.” I’m not so inclined to blow it off, though.
Dad shoots daggers at me. “W─what’d you just say to me?”
“Painting. Drawing. If he’d been doing shit like that, then he would’ve died doing something he loved, Dad. But the force?”
I throw him a sarcastic laugh.
“He hated it there.”
“He didn’t hate it.” The words slur out of his mouth. “He chose the life, son.”
“No, Dad. He loved you. He’d a done anything to impress you. But he hated the fucking force. And he didn’t fucking belong there.”
He points at me. “You watch your mouth.”
“Why don’t you watch your own fucking mouth, Dad. Have you even heard yourself one damn time in the entirety of any of our lives?”
He doesn’t say anything at that accusation.
“Or maybe you were too busy reliving your own glory days through us to give a damn about what any of us wanted.”
He glares up at me.
“Nick and me, we belonged there. We thrived there. Catching perps? Taking down the bad guys? It’s natural to us. But Mike?” I shake my head and have to fight the urge to let emotions spill out of me. “He was more than that.”
Words have never really been Dad’s and my thing. We usually just throw a few nasty glances at each other, make a few salty comments to go along with the looks, and call it a day. We have an understanding, him and me.
He doesn’t try to tell me what the fuck to do any more, and I don’t remind him what a shitty dad he’s been.
But now, as he sits on my living room couch, I see something I don’t believe I’ve ever seen lingering behind his eyes.
Regret.
“There’s too much damn death in the world.” He breathes heavy. “Too much everything.”
“No fucking shit.”
For the first time since I was very, very fucking young, I don't see the man I’ve encapsulated as the head villain in my family.
I see an old, decrepit, sad example of a human being.
“Doesn’t matter, I guess.” He wipes his face with a callus-ridden palm. “Graham Black’s legalizing marijuana this year. City’s going to hell in a handbasket soon enough. Nothing’ll matter anymore.”
I knew this, of course.
Well, I knew Black was promising to legalize it.
Whether he actually pulls that shit off is another story.
“Proving it, too.” Dad throws in there with a random flailing of both arms now. “With all the arrests and street thug killings this year. Who wouldn’t want to just push it through at this point? Get it over with.”
He’s got a─
Wait.
“What?”
Dad looks up at me like I’m an idiot who can’t understand a word he’s saying. Hell, I just wanna hear it one more time for reiteration’s sake.
“I said who wouldn’t want to push it through at this point.”
Something clicks inside my head when I hear it for the second time.
Clear as day.
“Who indeed.”
I’ve been assuming the cops were the ones doing the killing all this time. It never crossed my fucking mind that the politicians might be in on it.
Jesus.
I grab my jacket and pat it down. Just in fucking case.
“I’ve gotta go, Dad.”
“But─”
“Don’t. Touch. Anything.” It’s the last thing I say to him before I shut the door behind me and drive as fast as I fucking can over to see Thomas and his thugs for some fucking answers.
This time, he’s gonna give me the right ones.
AN ARCHANGEL ON MY SHOULDER
(THOMAS FLINT, REDUX)
“THOMAS.”
All I see is the back of his head as I approach him in the street. He’s looking down at something. After he hears my voice, his head raises up. He takes a drag from his cigarette and blows it out, letting the smoke billow out in front of him.
The guy standing across from him leans to one side. When he sees me, he nods once to Thomas.
“Dice, get my gun.” He speaks easy. Scary fucking easy. That shit sends chills down my spine.
Not
that he needs to know that.
Dice throws me a shit-eating grin as he strolls away to go retrieve Thomas’s weapon. I clear my throat and push forward with my purpose for being here despite the small pangs of fear growing inside my gut.
I swallow down the basic instinct to run. Instead, I say what I came to say.
“Listen, while we wait for your gun, I need to ask a question.”
“You’ve asked all the questions I want to answer, Stiles. If I were you, I’d leave. Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Not gonna lie. It’s taking all I have to make my feet stay right the fuck where they are.
He shakes his head.
“Your funeral.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Since I’m about to eat a bullet anyway, why don’t you humor me. Explain why you’re in bed with the R.P.D. and killing minors.”
Thomas freezes. So does everyone else who’s within earshot. They back away from him as he turns around to face me.
Fucking finally.
I’m more pissed than I am scared. He just confirmed my suspicions.
“That got your attention, huh?”
“What makes you think I’m killing kids, Jack?”
“Oh, are you offended?” I turn a cold stare toward him. “My bad.”
“You should explain yourself.”
“That’s cool. You want me to spell it out for you. Okay. Three cases over the past nine months have been tied to drug deals gone bad. All three kids were found with the drugs on them but no money. All three were mysteriously associated with your gang. And all of them”—I take a step closer—“every last fucking one, was either shot and killed or later killed by the good old boys in blue.”
His face pales a lighter shade of white than usual. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the guy show even the slightest bit of emotion. At least, not since we were kids.
“Maybe you have some kinda deal with some of them. Or all of them. I don’t fucking know. Maybe you’re a snitch. Not my fucking business, and quite frankly, I don’t really give a shit. But now, another one—someone I’m personally responsible for, I might add—is missing. I’m not taking it too goddamn lightly, Tom. So tell me where the fuck I can find him, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
He thinks over what I’ve said for a few seconds as Dice returns with the requested gun. My heart is beating so hard I’m surprised no one sees it. Or hears it.
Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption Page 26
