Shadow Boys

by Harry Hunsicker

  Raul tensed, thinking the man had regained consciousness. He jerked his head around.

  Wayne hadn’t moved. He was in the same position as when Raul left to call Bobby. The flow of blood seemed to have stopped, however.

  Raul stared at the limp figure lying facedown in the mud.

  The realization that Wayne was dead hit him like a brick to the gut.

  Raul Delgado had killed a man. Another human being was no longer living because of his actions. Because of his swollen hands.

  He remembered the horror and sense of doom he felt in the back of the squad car nearly six years ago when his brother was murdered. The feeling came over him again, but this time in a strange way, almost comforting, an old friend come to visit.

  He looked at Junie. “I had to stop him. He was hurting you.”

  She gulped, caught her breath. Quit crying for a moment. A barely perceptible nod.

  Raul sat beside her. He put an arm around her shoulder, hugged her close.

  He tried not to think about her body under the torn school uniform and his bloodstained shirt.

  The curve of her thighs. The firmness of her breasts.

  He tried again to summon an image of his brother, but Carlos’s memory had left him. So he sat there, holding on to Junie, staring at the body of Wayne.

  He sat and waited and eventually Bobby arrived.

  - CHAPTER SEVENTEEN -

  My hair ruffled as a strong wind blew across the fortieth-floor balcony of Raul Delgado’s condo. The air felt cool and smog-free.

  The building was perched on the north side of downtown in an area of upscale restaurants and shops. His outdoor terrace overlooked Klyde Warren Park, a popular green space constructed over the freeway that served as the northern boundary of the central business district.

  I watched the sun set. Fort Worth’s skyline was faintly visible in the distance, shrouded in a summer haze. The stench of jail permeated my clothes—sweat, cheap bleach cleaner, grease.

  The balcony was chrome and glass. Hard angles, smooth surfaces.

  Piper and Raul were in the living room having a discussion. Every so often their voices would get louder.

  I chuckled to myself and stayed outside, admiring the scenery.

  A few minutes later, I heard the swish of the sliding glass door, and Raul Delgado appeared by my side.

  “These are yours.” He handed me my key ring. “The Lincoln’s in the visitor section downstairs.”

  He’d sent a pair of uniformed officers to retrieve my vehicle. Deputy Chief Raul Delgado was full service.

  “Let’s go inside.” He pointed to the door.

  “The view’s nice from here. So’s the breeze.”

  “Not trying to sound paranoid, but a parabolic mic from the place across the street could pick up every word we say.” He turned and entered the apartment.

  I sighed, took one last look at the city, and did the same.

  Artwork decorated the interior, abstract paintings and hard-to-decipher collages made from old photographs. Iron statuary and a neon-pink rendition of Che Guevara over the fireplace. Everything appeared very expensive.

  The furniture was black leather, low-slung, only a foot off the floor.

  Raul was sprawled on a sofa by the fireplace.

  I sat on the opposite couch, my knees rising higher than my waist, back at an awkward angle.

  The furniture was like a stripper. Looked great but totally impractical.

  “I bought Piper some new clothes for tonight,” Raul said. “That was a mistake.”

  I tried not to laugh. Piper’s idea of dressy was her least-ragged jeans and a retro concert T-shirt—her favorite being from the Sex Pistols’ 1979 tour, a few years before she’d been born.

  “When you were on the force,” he said, “did you ever hear them talk about me?”

  “Talk about you, like what?”

  “Like why is a guy who’s so damaged working for the people who did the damage?”

  The two cops who’d been in the squad car when Raul Delgado’s brother had been killed went to prison. One died there, the man who’d pulled the trigger. The second was released after a number of years and disappeared from public view. He’d died several years ago.

  “Death is never pretty. I can’t imagine what it’s like seeing your brother . . . that way.”

  “You don’t understand.” Anger flashed in his eyes. “I’m not damaged in the least. I’m stronger for my experiences.”

  If I’d watched my brother’s head get blown off, I’m pretty sure I’d be massively screwed up. I decided not to point that out.

  There had been rumblings about him during my time with the Dallas police, of course, but I hadn’t paid much attention. Too many problems of my own.

  “People blamed me and my family for what happened,” he said. “They thought we brought it on ourselves somehow.”

  “People are stupid. You should know that. You’re a cop. That’s the first lesson they teach at the academy.”

  “Last month, someone spray-painted the word ‘pinko’ on my personal vehicle. It was parked at Jack Evans at the time.”

  Jack Evans was Dallas police headquarters, just south of downtown. The brass had access to a secure lot, which meant that whoever vandalized his car was most likely a fellow cop.

  “Didn’t I read somewhere that you’re on the board of the local ACLU chapter?” I said. “That doesn’t exactly endear you to the rank-and-file redneck at the Dallas Police Department.”

  “The rank and file needs to change,” he said. “A shift in the culture at the DPD.”

  “Good luck with that.” I chuckled. “What’s all this got to do with Tremont Washington?”

  His eyes clouded for a moment, a memory that wouldn’t stay forgotten or an emotion that couldn’t be repressed. He took several deep breaths and retrieved a slim leather briefcase from the floor. He opened the case and withdrew a stack of manila folders.

  “Somebody’s killing bad guys.” He tossed the files on the coffee table. “Take a look.”

  I picked up the documents, remembering a few vague mentions about this from a source a couple of weeks ago.

  The first file was an open murder investigation into the death of a serial arsonist. The man had been killed by a nine-millimeter hollow-point to the head, fired by a Glock. He’d been in his garage in North Dallas at the time.

  I skimmed the rest, seven more files, each an unsolved murder. The only thing they had in common was the killer or killers used the same weapon, a nine-millimeter, and the fact that in each case the victim was a lowlife of the highest order.

  Murderers and rapists, an arsonist. A pimp from just the day before.

  There were no witnesses. No leads either except for a few seconds of grainy footage from a video monitoring system at one of the crime scenes.

  The image on the video, reproduced in the file as a series of still photographs, showed a man in what appeared to be a black or dark tracksuit. The man’s age and ethnicity couldn’t be determined because of the ball cap he wore low on his face.

  “Not exactly pillars of society, were they?” I closed the last folder.

  “They didn’t deserve to die, not in that manner anyway.”

  “People like these, they tend to accumulate a lot of enemies,” I said. “My guess is you dig enough you’ll find the shooter in each case was somebody close to the victim.”

  “Who will be in charge of the digging?”

  I didn’t reply. That was a good point. The homicide squad would expend minimal effort to solve the murders of people like this.

  “The pimp last night,” Delgado said. “Tink-Tink Monroe. They took out most of his crew. Five dead bodies.”

  I nodded but didn’t point out that each of them had a long record of violence, at least in Dallas County, acc
ording to the paperwork he’d just given me.

  He pointed to the files. “Only a matter of time before a civilian gets hurt.”

  I struggled out of the uncomfortable seating, walked to the window overlooking the concrete and glass canyons that formed the central part of the city. “I go back to the same question,” I said. “What’s any of this got to do with your missing kid?”

  “What if Tremont Washington overheard something,” Raul said. “Somebody he believed was a police officer, talking about hurting someone.”

  “And then he disappeared,” I said. This seemed possible, but then, so did almost anything.

  Raul lumbered to his feet, joined me at the window. He pointed to the American Airlines Center off to our right, home to the Dallas Stars and the Mavericks. The sports arena served as the anchor for a large conglomeration of buildings—hotels, high-rise apartments, restaurants, expensive boutiques.

  “You know what used to be there?”

  I shook my head.

  “The old Dallas Power and Light electrical plant.” He paused. “That’s where they took me and my brother. But only one of us came home.”

  The arena complex was majestic, a modern-day coliseum flanked by temples to wealth and prosperity. The edifices gleamed in the sun, solid and strong, representative of all that was good about Dallas and America. The land of opportunity.

  “I try to help people like Tremont,” he said. “The ones that don’t appear on the radar.” I turned around, surveyed the artwork and expensive condo.

  In the inevitable lawsuit that followed the death of his brother, Raul Delgado had been awarded a sizable sum by the city. The money had been placed in a trust, out of reach of his parents. When he’d come of age he’d invested wisely. Real estate, blue-chip stocks. Google and Apple before they reached the stratosphere.

  “There’s more to life than just living on the fortieth floor.” He tracked my eyes. “Don’t you think?”

  From the hallway, heels clicked on marble, and a moment later Piper appeared.

  She wore a red dress that clung to her body, accentuating every curve. The hemline came to mid-thigh, the cleavage plunging. She’d fixed her hair and makeup. She was as beautiful as I’d ever seen her.

  Then I noticed her eyes.

  They were full of anger.

  In her hand, she held a stack of photographs.

  “You threw away my pictures,” she said. “You threw away my kids.”

  - CHAPTER EIGHTEEN -

  I watched Piper walk into the living room of Raul Delgado’s apartment. She cradled the photos in one hand. The sun highlighted her eyes and the lushness of the red dress she wore.

  Only the three of us, standing in awkward silence.

  “What are you talking about?” Raul said.

  “My pictures,” Piper said. “You threw them away.”

  “You left them here, remember?” He paused. “When you left me.”

  “They’re my children.”

  “They’re pictures of orphans scattered halfway across the world.”

  She didn’t speak. Her lips were tight.

  Raul looked at me, a confused expression on his face, clearly trying to figure out what the big deal was. “They were taped to one side of the TV in the master closet.” He shrugged. “It didn’t seem like she was coming back.”

  “You have a TV in the master closet?” I said.

  “And I didn’t throw them away either,” Delgado said. “I just took them down.”

  “And put them by the trash can.”

  “By the trash. Not in.”

  “I was going to come get them.” Piper’s voice was low and cold.

  “Oh yes. The next chapter in our little saga,” he said. “The breakup, followed by getting back together.”

  Silence. Then:

  “So, what, you use those pictures to mark your territory?” Raul said. “I mean, have you ever met any of them?”

  Piper looked at me for an instant.

  That had been the plan a couple of years ago. When it became apparent we weren’t to die in some West Texas ditch or go to the federal penitentiary, we decided to visit some of the children.

  But the best-made plans have a way of derailing themselves, and this was no exception.

  I often wondered if we did it to ourselves somehow, if Piper had been afraid to meet the children she euphemistically called her own, and if I’d abetted her.

  Did we place ourselves into positions where it appeared we had no choices? Do the fates just happen or are they the sum total of all our mistakes and lies?

  Instead of locating the children, we’d drifted across the western section of the United States, living in motels and one-room apartments, trying to find a purpose to our lives.

  Then the money ran out, as did our patience for each other, and we’d returned to the arid plains of North Texas.

  “I’m sorry,” Raul said. “I, uh, shouldn’t have taken them down.”

  Piper strode to the granite bar that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living space. By the phone, she found a manila envelope.

  “We need to leave.” Raul looked at his watch. “We’re going to be late.”

  With great care Piper slipped the photos into the envelope. After closing the flap, she looked around the apartment.

  Nobody spoke.

  Piper walked across the room. She handed me the envelope.

  “Keep this safe for me, will ya?” she said. “I’ll pick it up later.”

  Raul squinted at us like he was trying to decode a message, the meaning of which should be obvious but was muddled at present.

  I tucked the envelope under my arm. “Shall we ride down together?”

  Raul nodded, a blank look on his face.

  The three of us left his apartment, boarded the elevator.

  On the trip to the lobby, Raul stared at the door. Piper stood in the corner, her arms crossed, expression frosty.

  Raul looked my way. “Do you know a man on the force named Mason Burnett? He’s a captain.”

  “Heard the name before.” I shrugged. “That’s about it.”

  “He and I go way back. If he finds out you’re working for me, he’s likely as not to come after you. Just for sport if nothing else.”

  The floors flew by.

  Raul said, “What I mean is, you can quit if you want to.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Your arrest today. I can’t guarantee your safety.”

  I said, “I’m still in.”

  One of the last times I’d seen Tremont Washington’s father bubbled up to the top of my consciousness.

  A dice game in the back of a barbecue joint in Waco.

  The guy who owned the game was a bohunk mobster who the Texas Rangers suspected was running a child prostitution ring at a nearby truck stop.

  Guns drawn, badges out, and zero probable cause, Washington and I barged into a room full of rednecks. And one barely clothed eleven-year-old girl in the corner. Washington, the only black guy there, had proceeded to break three of the bohunk’s ribs with his pistol barrel, while I called for backup and put my coat over the shoulders of the girl. I’d like to think that my presence had kept the situation from escalating, but it was the ferocity of Washington’s actions that caused everyone to fall silent and back away.

  He was a hell of a man, Washington, and I’d be damned if I just let his kid disappear into the ether.

  I didn’t mention any of this or the fact that neither Theo Goldberg nor I were very fond of quitting.

  A few more floors went by.

  Piper said, “I got your back, Jon.”

  Before either Raul or I could reply, the elevator door opened and she darted out.

  - CHAPTER NINETEEN -

  THE SOUTH DALLAS ACTIVIST

 
The rush-hour traffic has started to wane when Demarcus Harris exits the interstate and heads west, past a strip center that houses a Burger King, a cell phone store, and a yogurt shop.

  DeSoto, at the southern edge of the county, is a bedroom community, predominately home to well-to-do African Americans. Downtown Dallas lies fifteen miles to the north.

  Demarcus, the young man in the red beret who’d been at the press conference the day before and asked about Tremont Washington, lives in DeSoto.

  Demarcus Harris isn’t wearing his beret today. He has on a skinny gray suit and a dark-green bowtie, his Louis Farrakhan look. He’s been at Dallas City Hall, a council meeting, dressed up for the occasion.

  His clothing choices are conscious decisions. The Dallas police with their soldiers and weapons are a military organization. Therefore, he’d worn military-style clothing for their press conference.

  City hall is a civilian organization. So Demarcus wore civilian clothes there.

  A person’s appearance is important, something his father, a petroleum engineer currently working in Saudi Arabia on a six-month contract, drilled into his head.

  Get your ass out of those saggy jeans, he’d say. Nobody’s gonna take you seriously with your boxers showing.

  His dad is establishment all the way, plaid shirts and no-iron Dockers, but Demarcus understands he does have a point.

  Demarcus lives alone in his father’s three-bedroom tract home built in the 1980s. The residence is on a street lined with other similar houses, solidly middle class, blandly suburban. All are one story. Brick on the front, wood siding everywhere else. Each home has a curbside mailbox made from matching brick.

  Demarcus hates the street and the house.

  So vanilla. Whitebread.

  But the rent is free, and with his father out of the country for long periods, Demarcus can pursue his long-term goal as a web journalist without having to hear about how he needs to get a real job.

  He has a busy afternoon planned. He wants to start his article about Tremont Washington, the child missing from the West Dallas housing project. Prior to the city council meeting, he’d done a little street work, reconnaissance of a certain North Dallas charity that is allegedly tied to Tremont Washington.