“His play,” Bates grunted back.
Antoine returned his gaze to Romeo. “Whachoo mean, let me go?”
“I don’t care about weed, Antoine. I care about crack. I care about heroin.”
“What the fuck I care whachoo care about?”
“Because you’re going to make sure I get lots of it. Make my boss happy.”
Antoine’s eyes narrowed. “I ain’t no snitch.”
“No, but you’re a businessman. You play your cards right and you get rid of some competition.”
Antoine sniffed condescendingly and regarded him. “How I know you and yo’ other cops don’t roust me when I’m working?”
Romeo shrugged. “You don’t. But it beats knowing we will.”
Antoine stared hard at him for a long moment. Then he said, “Yeah, fine. I give the word when I know, a’right?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow,” Romeo said. “I’ll pull up and make it look like I’m hassling you. You can tell me details while I’m patting you down.”
“Fuck,” Antoine muttered, then nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
Romeo nodded back. “That’s it, then.”
Antoine looked up and down and shook his head. “Look at you,” he said, “All dressed up yo’ Gestapo shit. Fuckin’ shame when a brutha throws in against his own kind.”
Romeo didn’t bite.
Antoine turned and sauntered away, swinging his legs and bobbing his upper body to show as much contempt as he could.
Romeo looked over at Bates. The training officer gave him a cool look.
“Why didn’t you arrest him?”
“Let me ask you something,” Romeo said. “If I cuffed him and searched him and found no dope at all, what would happen to the case?”
Bates shrugged. “He’d go to jail.”
“But not prison.”
“Not a chance. But we know he’s holding.”
Romeo turned and walked away, re-tracing Antoine’s steps down the block. He checked a public garbage can and looked under two parked cars, but found nothing.
Bates watched on, and when he glanced at the veteran over his shoulder, he saw Antoine watching from the corner.
Romeo spotted a pile of bricks against the wall. He nudged them with the toe of his boot, pushing them aside. Underneath were five tightly rolled baggies of marijuana.
He reached down and picked them up off the ground and held them up for Bates to see. Antoine turned and ducked around the corner.
Back at the patrol car, Romeo handed the dope to Bates.
“He dumped it, huh?”
Romeo nodded.
“How’d you know?”
“You told me.”
Bates gave him a confused look.
Romeo shrugged. “I just listened to what you told me about him. And I knew he’d dump the stuff once he saw us.”
Bates gave him a strange look. “You just knew,” he repeated flatly.
“Yeah. That’s why I didn’t arrest him.”
“But you rolled him, anyway?”
Romeo smiled. “I think it was the part about the videotape that did it.”
Bates shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he muttered and got into the car.
Romeo joined him, closing the door and glancing across at the veteran. “What’s the matter?”
Bates chuckled. “Nothing,” he said. “Let’s go put this shit on the property book, Rook.”
Romeo McClaren smiled and put the car in gear, feeling a little more like an old bull.
Take a Hand
“Dad? I need help.”
The voice on the other end of the telephone line was tremulous, on the edge of frantic. He sounded like a little boy who somehow got in over his head but was still playing at being big, which was usually the case.
“Andy? What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Are you all right?”
He laughed. He might have been trying for sarcasm, but all that came out was a nervous, forced sound. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m at the hospital.”
A stab of fear hit me in the gut. “Are you hurt?”
“Not bad. Just beat up. Trevor’s worse.”
“Who’s Trevor?”
“My best friend.”
I pressed my lips together and suppressed a sigh. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know.”
That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone. “Which hospital?”
“Sacred Heart,” he replied.
“I’ll come get you.”
He was waiting outside the ER when I pulled up. I reached across and unlocked the passenger door of my truck and he slid in. The blond tips of his black hair hung past his collar and covered his eyes.
He slammed the door and cast a sideways glance at me. “Thanks,” he muttered, pushing his hair out of his face.
“Sure,” I answered. He looked thinner than the most recent picture I had of him. His mother’s features dominated his face, especially in his large, blue eyes and thin, elfish nose. A large, purple bruise spread across his left cheek and a small bandage covered a cut on his chin.
My eyes narrowed. He had my chin. I’d never noticed before.
I drove and said nothing.
After a few blocks, he cleared his throat. “I–I didn’t know who else to call.”
“It’s all right,” I told him. “You did the right thing.”
He scowled and looked away.
I turned into a diner and parked. “Let’s get some coffee.”
Inside, I waited until the waitress had filled both cups and walked away before asking, “What’s going on?”
Andy stared down at his coffee and shifted in his seat.
“What kind of trouble are you in?” I asked him, my stomach uneasy.
He sipped his coffee and looked away. I stared at the bruise on his cheek.
“Andy, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
His jaw clenched.
“You called me-”
His eyes snapped to mine. “Yeah, well maybe that was a mistake.”
I shrugged. “That’s for you to decide. Do you want my help or not?”
He regarded me for a long moment over the top of the table. I saw anger and hurt in his eyes over all the missed birthdays and Christmases, but mostly I saw fear. Finally, he sighed and looked back at his coffee.
“We screwed up,” he mumbled.
“How?”
He glanced up. “Is it true you retired?”
“Yeah, late last year. Why?”
“Because this shit that happened ain’t all exactly legal.”
“What happened?”
He took another drink of coffee. When he put it down, he drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Trevor and I got jumped by some guys.”
“What guys?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why’d they jump you?”
“Because we had some stuff they wanted, I guess.”
“Stuff?”
He looked right and left and then leaned forward. “Yeah-stuff.”
I cocked my head at him. “Green stuff or white stuff?”
He licked his dry, cracked lips. “White.”
“Heroin or coke?”
He motioned at me with his palms to quiet down and looked around again. “People can hear you.”
“So? Unless you have it on you right now, no one can do anything.”
Andy leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice. “I wish I did have it on me right now. That’s the problem.”
I sat back and looked at my son, forcing myself to use my cop eyes. I’d tried hard to shed them when I retired, but the truth is that you can never lose them and you can never turn them off. Sometimes, like right now, it helped answer questions. Most times, though, it was a curse.
I turned those eyes on him. He was thin. Too thin. And twitchy. His hair looked dried out, like weeds in late August. On his neck, I saw a couple of red sores.
“It was Meth, wasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s gone.”
“You’re going to have to explain things a little better.”
He licked his lips again. “Look, I promised a guy I could score him some good shit. He fronted me the cash. Trevor and I went to our connection and bought up as much as we could with the front money. On our way back to Trevor’s apartment, we got jumped. They took all our stuff. So now we’re out the money and the merchandise.”