Fathers

by Matt Rogers

  ‘That helped.’

  ‘Hang tight,’ she said. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

  When she lowered the phone from her ear, her smile vanished. It had been nearly an hour since Slater had set off for Roxbury, and he’d told her he’d text when he picked up the machine and was on the way home so she could start with prep for dinner. She was the furthest thing from overbearing, so she didn’t really care that he hadn’t followed through, but something about his absence gave her a different feeling than usual.

  She tapped his contact name and waited twenty long seconds as it rang.

  She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer.

  Her stomach had knotted before King had called.

  Call it premonition.

  9

  Slater walked right up to the boy, stopped a few feet away, and looked down at him condescendingly as he said, ‘Right, you fucked up. Take me upstairs.’

  The kid had his sweaty palm wrapped around the burner phone but was too confused to use it. ‘Huh?’

  Slater rolled his eyes, like the boy was stupid for not understanding a situation that didn’t make any sense. ‘I’m the guy who’s here to meet your crew. I was testing you. You didn’t do great, but who gives a shit, right? Doesn’t make a difference one way or the other.’

  This was the part where the boy looked up to scrutinise Slater’s face before saying, ‘You’re not the guy.’

  Except he didn’t do that, because he hadn’t been shown pictures of whoever was showing up. He was on the street corner as a lookout, not escorting the VIPs, and he felt the need to make that known. ‘That ain’t my business, man. Go on up yourself. Imma stay right here like I been told.’

  Slater overdramatised his gestures as he looked over one shoulder, then the other, before turning back to the boy. ‘Stay here and do what?’

  ‘Be lookout.’

  ‘What are you looking out for?’

  ‘Why you busting my balls, man?’

  ‘Maybe I see a bit of myself in you, kid,’ Slater said, like an overbearing uncle. ‘Now, come on. I can’t remember all the details. Just take me upstairs.’

  ‘I ain’t got a piece on me or anything. I’m not much of a bodyguard.’

  ‘Who said anything about being a bodyguard?’

  ‘Then whatchu want me for?’

  ‘To tag along and stop asking so many goddamn questions. How about that?’

  The boy shrugged, a tad fatalistic. Like he was thinking, Whatever. I’m blaming this all on you if I get grilled for abandoning my post.

  He really shouldn’t have. But authority is subtle, and Slater knew how to exude a presence.

  The boy said, ‘Just don’t say anything to them about me, aight?’

  ‘Alright.’

  The boy spun on his heel and led Slater toward the apartment block on the left, the larger one. It looked like it contained at least double the shoeboxes of its neighbour. The metal scaffolding of a network of fire escapes draped the outside of the ochre brick building like janky medieval armour. In front of the ground floor entrance, a skeleton-thin white man had lit his next cigarette before he’d even finished his last. The butt of the old one hung from his lips as he touched a lighter to the fresh one pincered between his fingers, then he swapped their positions with one hand. The dexterity of the gesture meant he’d practiced it hundreds, maybe thousands, of times.

  The boy walked straight past the guy without so much as a glance, into the cold and sterile lobby.

  Slater had been taking in every detail, but now he knew the guy was just a guy, not another lookout.

  He ignored the evil side-eye from the chainsmoker and brushed past to keep up with the kid.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he said. The words echoed off the harsh surfaces.

  ‘Why you care so much about me?’ the boy asked as he reached a hand out to push the stairwell door open.

  Because that’s what this is all about, Slater thought.

  He said, ‘I don’t. Figured we might as well talk.’

  ‘I ain’t wanna talk to you.’

  Slater knew he wouldn’t get enough information without the boy’s subservience. So he switched his tone up, adding all those terrible inflections he knew how to use, and said, ‘What?’

  He didn’t even raise his voice, but it stopped the kid in his tracks.

  The boy turned around in the stairwell, too still, like he was making a concerted effort not to tremble. ‘Sorry, man. I just—’

  ‘What was that about not mentioning anything to your boys?’

  ‘Fuck,’ the kid said. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Whatchu want? You want my name? It’s Tyrell. There you go.’

  ‘Should have told me the first time.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Naw. How I know you ain’t just pretending to be this guy?’

  Slater shut him up with a death stare, which was fortunate because he didn’t have an answer.

  He said, ‘Why aren’t we taking the damn elevator?’

  Tyrell said, ‘It never works properly.’

  ‘What type of shithole you live in here, kid?’ Slater knew exactly what type of shithole this was, because he’d grown up in them, but he figured whoever was supposed to show up would be an asshole.

  Tyrell furrowed his brow. ‘What, you think I chose to live here?’

  Slater said nothing, but had to hide his respect.

  He figured it wasn’t worth pushing his luck so he cut conversation there, letting Tyrell take him up through the belly of the beast in silence. Tyrell started huffing and puffing at the fourth floor, which seemed at odds with his rail-thin frame. Surely his heart couldn’t be pounding in his chest all that fast?

  Slater asked, ‘What kind of food do you eat?’

  ‘Man, don’t start,’ Tyrell said between inhales. ‘You a condescending motherfucker, huh?’

  Slater allowed the hint of a smile to touch his lips.

  Another three floors and Tyrell had worked up a sweat, but he dutifully led Slater down a poorly lit corridor that stank of various bodily fluids. He pulled up in front of an unmarked door that was actually in decent condition when contrasted with the surrounding walls. He knocked on the wood four times, double-timing the middle knocks, in some sort of authentication code, maybe so he wouldn’t get shot in the face when he opened the door.

  He pushed down on the handle, let it swing in, and called into the tiny apartment, ‘This is the guy.’

  He didn’t go in. He stepped back out and made room for Slater to go past, which only confirmed Slater’s suspicions that Tyrell’s crew weren’t to be messed with. The kid clearly wanted to make it known who was coming in but didn’t want to be there to face the inevitable question of why he wasn’t down at his post being lookout.

  Sure enough, when Slater squeezed past, Tyrell hustled back down the corridor, heading right back where he’d come from. He probably knew he’d be beaten for his dissidence later, but maybe the same would have happened if he hadn’t shown Slater the way. Caught between a rock and a hard place before he was even a teenager.

  Slater stepped into the apartment.

  The tiny entrance hallway branched off to a bathroom and, a few feet later, opened into a box of a living room. In the living room a fingerprint-stained window pane faced the opposite apartment block, a view drenched in misery and monotony.

  The room was populated by four men, and even though they were emaciated, the apartment was too small for them. All four were carbon copies of one another. All tall — each over six foot — and long-limbed and so skinny they had to be consumers of the product they dealt.

  Twitchy.

  Jumpy.

  Skin-and-bones.

  Wires scrambled.

  Junkies.

  The guy who had to be the crew leader stared at Slater for only a moment before he said, ‘You’re not the fucking guy.’

  10

  King broke the speed limit the whole way
to Mass General.

  No one pulled them over.

  No lights, no sirens. He was still waiting to see how his subconscious would react to the distinctive explosion of sight and sound. There was nothing like red and blue flashes in the rear view mirror. How would his heart pulse in an ordinary traffic stop? Would it remind him of the far more imposing authorities he’d fled?

  Violetta’s small hand pulled him from his thoughts. She’d reached over and gripped his knee. When he glanced across, there were tears in her eyes, but he didn’t focus on them for long. It’d be just his luck to crash on the way to the hospital.

  She said, ‘I just wanted to check…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay with the name?’

  ‘I told you I was.’

  ‘After some protest.’

  King shrugged. ‘It’s a tad egotistical for me, right? But if it’s what you want, I’m happy…’

  ‘It’s what I want. I’ve never been more sure of anything.’

  He rolled his eyes, but made sure to smile so she knew he wasn’t serious. ‘Oh, well, if you insist…’

  ‘Deep down you love it.’

  He chuckled. Thought he’d try it out for himself. He couldn’t remember whether he’d ever said it, or just heard her say it. ‘“Jason King Jr.”’

  Her grip on his knee tightened. ‘We’ll make sure he lives up to the name.’

  ‘He’d better. My knees aren’t what they used to be.’

  Now it was her turn to roll her eyes.

  He asked, ‘You think we should give him a gun as soon as they cut the umbilical cord?’

  ‘Jason…’

  ‘Put a Glock in his tiny little hand?’

  She slapped him playfully on the shoulder, then another contraction rolled over her and she retreated into her pain cave. She simply went inward, breathed through it, and dealt with it.

  He accelerated a little, motivated by her strength.

  11

  Slater knew he never should have approached Tyrell.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this…

  Maybe there’d been a romantic notion in his head of how it would play out. Above all else he’d just wanted the boy to have something resembling a normal life. He’d figured the “crew” would be typical dealers, consummate professionals who followed routines that Slater could effortlessly exploit. But these men were junkies, and you can never predict what a junkie is going to do.

  Slater wasn’t exactly afraid.

  Just resigned to the fact that there was no chance of it going smoothly.

  He had his concealed-carry weapon in his hand so fast the junkies must have assumed it teleported there. He aimed the subcompact Glock 43X at the head of the crew leader almost lazily, because he knew no matter how twitchy these guys were they wouldn’t be faster than him. Sure enough, the dreadlocked leader followed suit by drawing a janky old revolver and aiming it at Slater’s head, but he seemed to recognise that gunning down this stranger would come with the consequence of mutually assured destruction.

  He didn’t shoot.

  He couldn’t.

  He was trapped in a standoff and he didn’t trust himself, because his bony hand was shaking with the flood of adrenaline and this man across from him might as well have been a statue erected in the entranceway.

  To their own credit, the other three men didn’t follow suit. They probably recognised that if they pulled their pieces, it’d be four guns against one, and this stranger would get desperate. It was clear, from the look of him, he was the wrong man to make desperate. So they stayed put, let their boss handle it. Hung there like they were suspended in time, every muscle in their bodies frozen, but ready to react all the same.

  ‘W-What is this?’ the crew leader managed to ask. He barely got the words out, his throat so seized by the release of cortisol.

  Slater didn’t get complacent. He knew nerves could go one way or the other. They could become fear or excitement. And, again, this was a junkie. He lived for the high. He relished the extremes of experience. If he got ecstatic and trigger-happy, it was over for both of them.

  Slater said, ‘I thought you lot were small-timers. I wanted to talk to you about Tyrell.’

  ‘Tyrell?’ the leader said, suddenly scornful. ‘Man, who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Yeah. You right. Do we look like “small-timers”?’

  ‘No,’ Slater admitted. ‘You look like junkies waiting on the score of your lives. You look jumpy.’

  ‘You got a big mouth for a nobody. What were you expecting coming here?’

  ‘That you’d be reasonable men. That you’d listen to me.’

  ‘Get out, boy.’

  Slater ignored the fact he was at least ten years older than the junkie leader, because it was an easy mistake to make. He looked ten years younger. That’s what a crack habit does to you. Thankfully, in all Slater’s years of consuming substances, he’d never turned to that vice.

  Slater said, ‘Why do you have a young boy working for you?’

  ‘You’re a clown if you think you’re getting answers outta me.’

  Slater shrugged. ‘I’m not leaving until I know you won’t hurt him.’

  Sure enough, the guy was a moron. The path he could take to live to see another day was right there, so damn obvious. All he had to do was step on it. ‘Of course,’ he could say. ‘Ain’t the boy’s fault.’

  But instead he did what junkies do and made the idiotic decision to antagonise.

  He sneered, exposing rotting brown teeth, and said, ‘I’ll tell you what imma do to that boy. Imma make him squeal for bringing you up here. He thought what his daddy did was bad … oh, no, no, no … I’m gonna make him sing.’

  Slater said, ‘Don’t worry. I already took care of him for you.’

  There was the tiniest second of hesitation, the junkie’s brain scrambling, connecting dots. Hadn’t Tyrell accompanied Slater to the door? How had Slater killed him before entering the room without making a sound? Oh, he must be bluffing…

  It didn’t take him long to complete the thought loop, but in that time Slater jerked to the right, a simple athletic push off the left leg that skidded him across the carpet, and when his right shoulder slammed into the plaster wall he used it to stabilise himself and put a 9mm round square through the junkie’s forehead. Sure enough, the guy reflexively fired as he went down, but he shot the space that Slater had occupied a second earlier.

  Slater almost sighed as he turned to the rest of the men in the room. ‘You boys want to just walk away?’

  No.

  Two of them glanced sideways at each other, which was promising, but the third went for his gun. That set off a chain reaction of instilled confidence, and the other two followed suit.

  Slater actually muttered, ‘Goddamnit,’ before he sent three headshots blasting across the confined space.

  The bodies hit the cigarette-burned carpet like hundred-and-seventy pound dominoes.

  Slater’s ears whined with tinnitus, but he still heard the muffled creak of the door swinging open.

  He spun on his heel, but as soon as he saw who it was he tucked the gun away.

  Tyrell stared past Slater, one hand still clenched around the doorknob, eyes widening as he realised the gunshots he’d heard hadn’t been his crew emptying their weapons into the guy he’d brought up.

  He glanced from body to body, then his gaze came up to meet Slater’s and he said, ‘Aw, man…’

  12

  As Mass General loomed on the horizon, King felt the familiar thud in his gut, the reminder they were still wanted by the shadow side of a government that wouldn’t hesitate to crush them like bugs.

  He got this feeling anytime he went somewhere public and exposed, surrounded by all sorts of witnesses who could identify him. Paranoia, he knew.

  He’d do well to shirk it.

  He found the Yawkey Centre Garage on Fruit Street and took a glance at the prices on
the big board. It was fifty-four dollars per twenty-four hours. He shook his head in disgust. He was worth millions and it still made him cringe. Despite his prior material wealth, he hated unnecessary costs. In fact, he hated anything that wasn’t necessary, not just gross parking costs.

  He begrudgingly took a ticket and the automatic boom barrier went up. Violetta didn’t make a peep as he found an empty parking space and got out to round the hood and help her down. He was so absorbed in the fact he was about to become a father that he didn’t notice anyone approaching until a hand gripped his shoulder tight.

  He spun, fist cocked, ready to thunder an uppercut into a ribcage.

  Alexis stared back at him, her hair frazzled from running all the way across the garage to intercept them.

  He transitioned the sweeping motion of the cocked punch into a looping arm that pulled her into a big hug, so smooth she didn’t even notice his initial reaction. She squeezed him tight.

  He said, ‘Here we go.’

  She nodded as she stepped out of the embrace, then went to Violetta, helped her out of the big Dodge. They stared each other in the eyes without saying a word. The look transferred all the emotions they couldn’t put into words.

  Then King realised Alexis wasn’t talking for a reason.

  She was atypically quiet.

  He asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve called Will nearly a dozen times,’ Alexis said. ‘Nothing.’

  Violetta’s face was pale, but she could still speak. ‘That’s okay. He’s probably … got it on silent.’

  Alexis shook her head. ‘I’ve rarely ever called him twice. The second time, he always picks up. Because then he knows it’s important. A dozen times…’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ King said. He said it with confidence, but there was no way to know for sure. Right now it was important to keep Violetta focused on the task at hand. Whatever the problem was, Slater could handle himself. ‘Let’s get her inside.’

  Alexis nodded, recognising what King was going for. She weaved her arm under Violetta’s armpit and took some of her weight to help her walk slowly through the garage toward the bridge connecting to the main building.