Fathers

by Matt Rogers

  Slater killed the engine and got out, motioning for Tyrell to follow. They rounded each side of the big SUV and met in front of the hood so they could survey the marsh.

  Slater gritted his teeth. ‘You got anything else that could help me find this place?’

  Tyrell stood silent, chewing his lip.

  Slater asked, ‘Anything at all?’

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  After a while Tyrell said, ‘Just that Dad thought Uncle Dwayne was dumb as shit. Apparently Dwayne’s logic was that if he had his safe house out here, in a rich area, no one would have the balls to call the cops if they saw him snooping around. I think he thinks the cops out here are slackin’, but in somewhere like Roxbury they know exactly what they huntin’ for. Dad always said that’s the stupidest logic he ever heard.’

  ‘Well, if the safe house is still untouched, then your uncle might be right.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tyrell admitted. ‘Dad ain’t never been smart.’

  That made him withdraw again. Slater spent maybe a minute overlooking the humid swamp and when he turned to check on Tyrell he found the boy sitting down in the damp dirt, resting the back of his head against the Porsche’s front grille. The kid’s eyes were closed.

  Slater sat down beside him, so they both faced the row of gnarly weeds.

  Tyrell said, ‘It ain’t really hit me yet. I think it just did.’

  Slater stayed quiet.

  Tyrell said, ‘What I did to my…’

  He broke down in tears.

  Slater looped an arm around the boy, pulled him close and held him. Squeezed him tight, almost too tight, but Tyrell’s sobs eased up the tighter Slater held him.

  Slater said, ‘Would you have felt safe if you went back there to live with him?’

  Tyrell shook his head between gulping breaths. ’N-Nah man. He woulda k-killed me.’

  Slater said, ‘Then you don’t think about that scumbag.’

  ‘He was my dad.’

  ‘What’d he do for you?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Did he raise you right? Did he teach you how to be a man? Did he do anything for you?’

  Tyrell slowly shook his head.

  Slater said, ‘Then he wasn’t your dad. Just like mine wasn’t.’

  He didn’t really want to open up about that, but he knew it would take Tyrell’s mind off what he’d done, and it did. The boy asked, ‘You said your dad killed himself?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Slater said. ‘But he waited until my mom disappeared to do it. You think he gave me a moment’s thought? Like, “What might happen if I leave my son with nothing?” He didn’t think about that. He just took the easy way out and left me to fend for myself my whole life.’

  Still nestled in Slater’s armpit, Tyrell said, ‘You doin’ alright, though.’

  Slater smiled at that. ‘Just like you’ll do alright.’ He got up and pulled Tyrell to his feet. ‘Now let’s go find this safe house so we can leave this behind us.’

  59

  King’s heart jumped into his throat, but he ended up finding her in an adjoining office, leafing through a pile of documents on a desk.

  She held an envelope up to the grey light leaking through the window as she squinted to read it.

  ‘“Dwayne Griggs,”’ she said. ‘Haven’t heard of him. You said Myles and his friends were in charge of this place?’

  When he didn’t respond, she looked up from the envelope. ‘What?’

  He stood frozen in the doorway. ‘Show me that.’

  She came over and handed it to him. He confirmed what it said, double-checked it had been addressed to the safe house, then said, ‘Myles is in deep with heroin-dealing murdering gangsters. I thought he spilled the beans on Tyrell to an underling, but it turns out he’s conspiring with the top dog.’

  It didn’t seem to compute. Rebecca just shook her head.

  King noted her behaviour. ‘You don’t think he’s capable of it?’

  She shrugged, and when she spoke it was an unfiltered train of thought. ‘He wouldn’t … he’s a cop.’

  King grimaced. There was one thing he could do. ‘Where do you live?’

  Rebecca froze.

  There was a good reason she clammed up. She barely knew King, didn’t have a clue as to his true intentions.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘He won’t be there.’

  ‘It’s not about that.’

  Her lip quivered. ‘Are you going to burn our place down? To draw him out of hiding?’

  King said, ‘What? No.’

  ‘Then what—?’

  ‘Rebecca,’ King said. ‘Where do you live? I don’t have time for this.’

  The lip quivering turned into full-blown body shakes.

  King sighed, barely quashing his frustration. ‘Will this make you feel better? I don’t need the specific address. Just the suburb.’

  ‘Again, why…?’

  ‘Rebecca.’

  She jolted. When he put even the slightest touch of menace into his tone it wilted everyone, not just civilians. Her stubborn façade cracked like a vase. ‘Mattapan.’

  ‘They’ve got a station house? A precinct?’

  She nodded slowly, realisation dawning. ‘You’re going to tell them about him?’

  He nodded. He couldn’t have told her beforehand, because she would have clammed up to protect him for no good reason. Just like she was about to. He knew how the brain worked. Knew all its fatal flaws, its hidden intricacies. Any moment now…

  Then, as he predicted, there it was.

  ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘He’s just confused. Hurt. Trust me when I tell you he’s not usually like this. Please. You have to give him a chance. I made a mistake calling you.’

  He ignored her and tapped “Mattapan Boston PD” into the Google search bar on his phone. The first result told him all — District B-3, and an address and contact number underneath. He copy-pasted the number with two taps of his thumb, and she managed to see what he was doing from the angle of the screen.

  She lunged for the phone. Put some serious effort into it, too. She almost came off her feet in an attempt to rip it out of his hands, save her precious boyfriend who’d tried to kill her.

  He caught her wrist in an iron grip and threw her arm aside. She stumbled past him, stopped her trajectory by bouncing off the wall. She let out a sob.

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘You came to me, Rebecca. He drugged my partner right after she gave birth.’

  ‘You’ll ruin his life!’

  Now she was screaming.

  She charged at him again. He put one hand on her shoulder and guided her down into the desk chair. She didn’t get up. She’d felt the power in him, how quick he’d be to use it on anyone who targeted his family.

  She tried to pull her own phone out. As soon as it was in her hand he snatched it off her, then left the office and sealed the door behind him with a flick of the twist lock.

  She beat on the other side of the wood, wailing at the top of her lungs.

  He barely registered it.

  Dialled the number, waited for the front desk to pick up, then asked them to transfer him to the highest ranking officer they could find. Preferably the captain, but he’d settle for a lieutenant.

  ‘What’s this about?’ the officer on the front desk asked him, dropping his own polite tone when he sensed the urgency in King’s.

  King said, ‘One of your officers. Myles Vaughan.’

  A pause on the other end of the line. ‘Wait one.’

  King waited.

  A shade over a minute later, a firmer male voice came on the line. ‘This is Lieutenant Aaron Roche. Which outlet am I speaking to?’

  It made King hesitate. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Media outlet. Which are you? Or are you an online journalist? Whatever the case, I suggest you give it a rest. We haven’t provided a comment. What makes you think anything’s changed?’

  ‘I don�
��t know what you’re talking about,’ King said. ‘I’m a distant relative. I don’t know anything about journalists. I was told Myles is stationed at the District B-3 precinct. Was I misinformed?’

  King could ham up the emotion when he needed to, and it made the lieutenant instantly guilty. The guy switched to an official, apologetic tone, like he was at the front door of a widow’s home, having to explain that her husband wasn’t coming back. ‘I’m deeply sorry, sir. We’ve been on the defensive with the Myles business for some time now, but it was a bad judgment call of me to assume anything about who was calling. Are you close to him?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ King said. Now he was conspiratorial, on the lieutenant’s side, which would hopefully mean the cop disclosed information he probably shouldn’t. ‘But he’s still family. Why? What’s happened?’

  Roche sighed. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this…’

  The tail ends of Rebecca’s muffled shouts wormed their way under the locked door.

  King stepped further away from the room.

  ‘We took his badge,’ Roche said. ‘Almost two years ago. He was taking bribes. Making a joke of this whole department, everything we stand for. And he didn’t go quietly. He made all sorts of threats he shouldn’t have made. We had to shut the front gates to anyone looking for a scoop. It was the last thing we wanted published. We’re good people here. We didn’t want someone ruining our reputation like that. So I apologise for the hostility, sir. I don’t think I got your name…’

  ‘It’s Aaron, too,’ King said. ‘So at least I know you’re to be trusted.’

  Roche chuckled. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Myles,’ King said. ‘You should know he doesn’t represent our family, either. If that’s really the way it went with him…’

  Now Roche was all the way on board. Sometimes King felt bad about how effortless it was to manipulate good honest people.

  ‘Look,’ King said, ‘from the way you tell it, I’m not going to try contacting Myles. Sounds like I should let sleeping dogs lie. But can you tell me what sort of bribes he was taking? Man to man? If I know exactly who he is, what type of person he is, I can move on.’

  Straight away Roche said, ‘No, sorry. I can’t talk about that.’

  ‘Ballpark?’ King asked. ‘Come on, man. I thought he was good people. Maybe I should try to find him, sort out what’s what…’

  He twisted his vocal chords so a gagged sob went through the receiver.

  ‘You don’t want to find him,’ Roche said suddenly. ‘It was a big-shot heroin dealer he was supposed to be pursuing. Guy named Griggs. It was Myles’ investigation. It was supposed to be his big break. But he was looking everywhere Griggs wasn’t, and we finally worked out he was doing it deliberately.’

  King said, ‘Huh. I’ll be damned.’

  ‘One more thing. Just in case you get that urge to reach out to him.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We estimate Griggs and his crew were responsible for upwards of a dozen murders after Myles could have bagged him. We found out Myles destroyed evidence, too. Your distant relative has blood on his hands. That’s why we don’t want journalists sniffing around, and that’s why we don’t want his name spoken. You understand?’

  King didn’t bother keeping up the act, because he had everything he needed.

  He just hung up on Lieutenant Aaron Roche without another word, no doubt leaving the cop cradling the dead receiver, mightily confused.

  He walked back to the closed door and flipped the lock.

  It opened, and Rebecca’s matted hair swung wildly as she tried to barrel straight past him to freedom. He stepped in the way and she bounced off him like she weighed nothing. She righted herself and opened her mouth to scream.

  King said, ‘Myles isn’t a cop.’

  Her lips froze half-open, shock draining her cheeks of colour, her mouth a twisted black hole.

  60

  Didn’t take them long to find it.

  With no prior knowledge, you’d never stumble across it, but if you knew the safe house was in South River Marsh it was a home run. Armed with Tyrell’s inside information, Slater took the Porsche down a couple more cul-de-sacs whose only features were long winding driveways coiling up through the cypress trees that framed the streets. At each dead end he surveyed the swamp, listening to the bugs and insects buzz and chirp while he scanned for a building.

  On the third try he saw it.

  It was nothing more than a weatherboard shack, rotted by the humidity and tucked into a bracket of overgrown nutgrass that obscured everything but the battered roof. The faint path that cut through the marsh and led to the shack was nowhere near wide enough for a vehicle, which Slater assumed was the point. If you weren’t deliberately looking for it you’d never register it.

  Slater pointed it out through the Porsche’s tinted windshield.

  Tyrell said, ‘Shit, man. You got it.’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now we find what treasure he’s buried inside.’

  ‘What if he’s there?’

  ‘All the better.’

  ‘I’m scared, man.’

  Slater reached across the centre console and took his hand, squeezed it tight. ‘I’m gonna teach you something, kid. Before this is all over.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s all in your head.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘Watch what I do,’ Slater said. ‘Watch what happens now. We’re gonna make them scared.’

  ‘They’re killers, man.’

  ‘Which will make it all the better when they’re shitting their pants. Because they know how to give other people that feeling. They don’t know how to deal with it themselves.’

  Tyrell stared, wide-eyed.

  Slater said, ‘Come on.’

  They got out and took the muddy path, their shoes squelching with each step. Flies buzzed around their heads. Somewhere deeper in the swamp, Slater swore he heard a low growl. Tyrell stayed close, hunched like he was cold, despite the air being so thick you could taste it. They parted the tall barrier of dirty-green nutgrass and Slater trained his gun on the small shack, just in case.

  It was deserted.

  Utterly alone in the marsh, the brown boards coated in rot and moss. The swamp was steadily eating the dwelling alive. There was a thick rusting padlock on the only door, but no one would suspect there was anything of value inside, even if they walked right up to it.

  Tyrell muttered, ‘Still scared, man.’

  In the ambient buzz of the swamp, his voice was amplified.

  Slater said, ‘You should be.’

  He approached the shack, lined up the butt of his Glock with the fat padlock, and brought it down on the rustiest part. Hard gunmetal hit weak brown flakes and the lock split clean in two. It takes a tremendous amount of power to do that, and Slater felt his bones rattle all the way up his arm. His elbow went numb for a few seconds, but feeling quickly returned.

  He realised Tyrell had cowered away.

  ‘It’s all good,’ Slater said.

  Tyrell shook his head. ‘That was loud. Like a gunshot. How strong are you? Fuckin’ hell.’

  The door swung creakily open, exposing a dark hot central space. There were no adjoining rooms. The safe house was a single room, with boarded up windows and floorboards that had already begun to sink into the unstable ground below the shack. Slater saw mud seeping through the boards, drenching the planks. The air tasted like salt and rot.

  He stepped inside.

  There was a desk against the far wall, a sturdy oak thing. It was framed by locked filing cabinets, but in the lowlight Slater found himself drawn to the heavy desk drawers. Something told him they were important, that they housed the goods he was looking for. He walked right up to the desk. Each footstep made mud seep through the weak floorboards. He ran his fingers along the top of the desk, along the handles of the drawers.

  Tyrell
said, ‘You ain’t got a key, do you?’

  ‘Don’t need one.’

  ‘You gonna break in?’

  Slater nodded.

  Tyrell said, ‘Don’t you need to protect what you lookin’ for? Make sure it don’t get damaged?’

  That made Slater smile, a touch wryly. ‘You haven’t figured out what I’m really doing here.’

  That seemed to stump Tyrell. He chewed his lip, silhouetted in the doorway. ‘How you gonna break in? You ain’t got a hammer.’

  Slater visualised the gravest of threats. He pictured Alexis with a knife to her throat, Tyrell with a gun to his head. It supercharged him like molten fire.

  He put down the Glock, picked up the whole desk like he was executing a clean & press in the gym, and hurled it sideways into the wall.

  61

  When Rebecca pulled it together long enough to speak, all she managed was, ‘What?’

  King said, ‘They took his badge two years ago.’

  She shook her head, hopelessly confused.

  ‘If he’s been leaving for work, then he’s been pretending to go to the station house. He’s been coming here, probably. Or going wherever Dwayne sends him.’

  ‘Who’s Dwayne?’

  ‘Heroin dealer. Gangster. Big shot. Like I told you before.’

  Her gaze was blank. She didn’t have enough surprise left to be shocked.

  King said, ‘Remember that kid you were confused about?’

  She nodded.

  ‘That’s not Will’s son. His name’s Tyrell. He’s just some kid. Will does what I do. He saved Tyrell from a bad situation.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Dwayne is Tyrell’s uncle.’

  She blinked hard, connecting the dots. ‘So Myles realised who it was when I told him the story.’

  ‘And came to Dwayne.’

  ‘Where’s Dwayne now?’

  ‘Going after them.’

  She blinked again. The confusion had made her something not quite human. She was reacting indifferently to news that would ordinarily have shattered her whole world. ‘Where’s Myles?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘If he’s not a cop—’ she physically shuddered at the possibility that it might be true, ‘—then were those guys who tried to arrest us in the same boat? Were they just pretending?’