Crooked Numbers (12 page)

“Dougie ever mention why he had this?” I asked.

Mrs. Lee gave it a quick look and said, “No.”

“Can I take it?” I said, well aware of the fact that I was crossing the line between curiosity and interfering with an investigation. “I’d like to show it to a friend.”

She nodded. Then she put her hand to her face and rubbed her eyes.

“This is a bit too much, Mr. Donne,” she said. “Would you mind?”

“Not at all.” I closed the drawer and clipped the walkie-talkie to my belt. “Let’s go outside and get something to drink.” I took her by her elbow.

“Yes,” she said. “Some tea would be nice.”

Before leaving the room, Mrs. Lee went over to her son’s bed, picked up his pillow, and fluffed it up. She brought it up to her face and breathed it in. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see the look on her face. I didn’t have to. She stayed that way for almost a minute. Finally, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get that tea.”

She placed the pillow down gently and ran her hand over it. “Yes,” she said.

We left Dougie’s room, closed the door soundlessly, and made our way back to the main area. It was even more crowded than before. I found Allison sitting on the edge of a couch, listening to one of the guests explain how rain and snow and traffic had made for such a terrible trip up from Virginia. Allison stood and excused herself from the conversation when she noticed Mrs. Lee and me.

“How are you?” Allison asked Mrs. Lee.

Dougie’s mother considered the question. “I don’t know.” She turned to me. “Thank you, Mr. Donne. I needed to go in there.”

“Sure.” I looked at Allison. “Maybe we should go.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Lee said. “But you haven’t eaten anything yet.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said. “And you have so many visitors you need to be with.”

She looked around the room and shook her head. “None more important.” She took one of my hands and one of Allison’s. “You both have done so much. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” we both said.

“And stay as long as you wish. My own mother used to say, ‘If you ain’t hungry now, stay until you are.’”

“That sounds very nice, Mrs. Lee,” I said.

“Yes. Mother was very Southern.” She hugged us both.

*

On the front steps, Allison and I closed up our jackets and breathed in the fresh air. I hadn’t realized how hot and stuffy it had been inside the crowded apartment until we stepped outside.

“What’s with the walkie-talkie?” Allison asked, noticing my belt.

“It was Dougie’s,” I said. “Mrs. Lee gave it to me. I’m going to show it to a friend.” She put her hand in mine as we walked down the stairs. “Thanks for coming with me today. It made it easier.”

“You’d have done all right by yourself, Mr. Donne. But you’re welcome.” She took in the neighborhood. “Your school’s around here, right?”

I pointed west. “A few blocks that way. Most of our kids live within walking distance. Keeps our school’s attendance rate up, at least.”

“But not very diversified.”

I laughed. “Kind of the opposite of the club last night.” We walked about a block before I said, “I need another favor, Allison.”

“Ask. The worst I could do is say no.”

“I need you to call Murcer tomorrow and ask if he found anything interesting on Dougie’s laptop.”

“I didn’t know he looked into the computer.”

“He didn’t.”

She smiled. “So this is your way of getting him to investigate a little harder.” She slapped me on the shoulder. “And using me to do the dirty work.”

“If I call him…”

“It looks like you’re butting in or, worse, telling him how to do his job.”

“You’re good at this,” I said. “You should look into a career in journalism.”

“The pay sucks,” she said. “And job security? Please.”

“So, you’ll call Murcer?”

“I’ll call Murcer.” She looked at her watch. “How far are we from the subway?”

“A few blocks,” I said. “You have to head right home?”

“I have to write up last night.” We both considered that and she laughed. “The club, Raymond. Not the part where I got shot down by you.”

“Oh, good,” I said. We continued walking to the train. “So, I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“To see if I called Murcer?”

“And to see how you’re doing. Maybe make plans to get together again?”

“Try me in the afternoon,” she said. “I’ll call Murcer in the morning. As for getting together again, I never know what my schedule for the week’s going to be. The life of a reporter and all that. We did have our chance last night, though.”

“Okay, I get your point.” We stopped at the entrance to the subway, and I realized I had no idea where Allison lived. I saved that for another time. “You okay on your own from here?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think I can make it home.”

We put our arms around each other and hugged. The hug turned into a kiss. We stopped when a guy behind us cleared his throat. After he passed, Allison looked at me. “That was nice.” She gave me one more kiss on the cheek and headed down to the train.

“Tomorrow,” I repeated, watching as she disappeared underground.

There was an unfamiliar feeling in my gut. It took me a while to recognize it. It was that feeling you get at the beginning of something you think might turn out really good. A new job, a trip someplace you’ve never been. I didn’t recognize it at first, because it was mixed with that other feeling in my stomach.

The one caused by loss.

*

“This is sweet,” Edgar said, examining the walkie-talkie I had taken from Dougie’s desk. We were sitting at The LineUp a few hours after I’d said good-bye to Allison, sharing a couple of after-dinner beers. “My uncle’s got one. Goes for a hundred and a half easily. Why’d your boy have this?”

“I don’t know,” I said, surprised at the price. “But one’s no good without a second one, right? There must be a match out there?”

“Oh, yeah. You just gotta find it.”

“And how would I go about that, Edgar?”

Edgar leaned back and closed his eyes, relishing the idea of me asking for his assistance. I looked up at the TV, which was tuned to the Weather Channel, longing again for some baseball. Edgar kept his eyes closed as he said, “Could run a search, see which stores sell this particular model in the metropolitan area, and track down the purchaser that way. Of course, that wouldn’t help if your boy wasn’t the purchaser or if it was a cash transaction.”

“Or…?”

“Or you could hang out around your boy’s known—”

“His name was Dougie, Edgar.”

“—Dougie’s known hangouts, tune to all the channels, and see who picks up.”

“Sounds time-consuming,” I said, thinking of all the places Dougie might have hung around.

“It can be. Or maybe you get lucky.” He moved his eyebrows up and down. “You know … lucky.”

“Something on your mind, Edgar?”

He leaned into me and lowered his voice. “Mikey told me you had a date last night. Here.”

“Yes, Edgar. I did. That’s what grown-ups do sometimes.”

“How’d it go?”

“Fine,” I said. “Thanks for asking.” I couldn’t help myself from adding, “You seeing anyone special?”

That shut him up, but it also made him pout. I might have pushed a sore spot this time.

“Thanks for your help, Edgar. Maybe I will check out Dougie’s hangouts.”

“Should probably start with his school first,” he said, recovering quickly. He slid his laptop over. “Where’d you say he went?”

“Upper West Academy. Manhattan.”

Edgar ran his fingers over his keyboard. “Here it is,” he said. “Hmmm.”

“What?”

“It’s right off Central Park West. In the seventies.”

“So?”

“That’s a real popular spot for bird-watching. The Ramble, inside the park.”

“I really don’t think Dougie was into bird-watching, Edgar.”

“I think there’s even a birding walkie channel in the park. I can check with my uncle. He’s up there all the time. That’s why he’s got one of these.”

“Bird channel?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Uncle Bob spots a red-headed woodpecker, and the rest of the crew come running before the bird flies off.”

I looked at Edgar. “Your whole family nerds?”

“We have varied interests, Raymond. No need to judge.” He shifted his body. “You find yourself up that way, take the walkie-talkie with you. Hit the park, go through the channels. Maybe you’ll luck out, and someone’ll pick up who knew Dougie.”

“What’re the odds of that happening?”

He shrugged. “Better than if you don’t.”

“Good point. Thanks, Edgar. I wouldn’t have come up with this line of … this idea without your help.”

“Your friendly neighborhood nerd.” He tipped an imaginary hat to me.

MONDAY MORNING. THERE WAS
a thin layer of snow on the steps leading up to the school. I stepped carefully and headed to the main office. It was surprisingly quiet this morning. No parents waiting to see me. No teachers milling about, killing time. I took some papers out of my mailbox, gave a quick wave to Mary, who was on the phone, and stepped back into the hallway. I was almost to the staircase when someone called out my name. Ron Thomas, Principal. He was speed walking toward me, holding a rolled-up newspaper.

“You see the paper this morning, Mr. Donne?” he asked, practically choking the one he had in his hand.

“Not yet, Ron.” It occurred to me I always called him by his first name, and he always referred to me as Mr. Donne. I could live with that.

He unrolled the paper and held it so I could see the front page. The headline read,
NOT SO SAFETY
,
OFFICER
!
Underneath was a blurry picture of a man standing over someone lying on the ground. The man standing seemed to have his fist in the face of the other person.

“Okay,” I said. “So…?”

“So read closely, Mr. Donne.” He ran his finger along the text below the picture and handed me the paper.

“‘School Safety Officer Angel Rosario’—
shit
—‘standing over victim of alleged assault.
’
What the hell happened, Ron?”

“Seems your kid’s dad tried to get Angel’s iPod back from this guy,” he said, pointing at the blur on the ground, “and ended up assaulting him. As luck would have it, one of the guy’s friends recorded the whole thing from his cell phone.” Ron opened the paper to the story on page three. “And … the article mentions the school that his son attends.
Our
school. Is that what Rosario was here about the other day? What the hell did you say to him?”

“I didn’t tell him to assault anyone, if that’s what you mean. I told him to get the cops involved, maybe his boss.” I looked at the article. “When did this happen?”

“Friday afternoon,” Ron said. “It took the kid with the video a while to realize he had something worth some money. It hit some Internet sites yesterday, and the papers picked up on it today.”

Shit.
“Did you call the home?”

“And say what?” Ron said. “‘Way to go, Slugger’?”

“Check out how Angel’s doing,” I said, and realized Ron didn’t know which Angel I was talking about. “The son, Ron.
Our student.
”

Ron thought about that. “No, I didn’t. Maybe you could do that, huh? You guys seemed to be all chummy the other day.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks,” he said. He looked at the paper in my hand and scowled. “You can keep that.”

I went up to my office to call the Rosario home. I found the dad’s cell number on my clipboard.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Rosario,” I said. “Raymond Donne, from the school.”

“Oh, hey,” he said. “I guess you heard.”

“Just. My boss showed me the paper.”

“Guess we got something in common now, huh?” He paused. “I saw you in the paper on Saturday. Sorry about that kid.”

“Yeah,” I said. “How’re you and Angel doing?”

He thought about that before answering. “Not too good, y’know? Had to disconnect the landline, all the papers and TV calling. What the fuck? Nothing else happening in the world, they gotta make this front-page news? Woulda been a nothing story except for that knucklehead taking the video.”

“I hear you,” I said. “Sometimes the story doesn’t matter, just as long as they got it on video. What about Angel?”

“What about him?”

“Is he coming to school today?”

More silence. “I don’t know, Mr. Donne. I don’t want him catching shit for what his old man did.”

“What exactly
did
you do?,” I asked. “What happened?”

I could hear him as he let out a deep breath. This was not the first time he had retold the story. “I clocked out early on Friday,” he began. “To go meet up with Angel at the bus stop. I thought maybe I could talk to these guys who are hassling him, y’know? Man-to-man. Tell ’em I’ve been there, grew up on these streets, and did my share of hustling. But this is my boy, and I’m in a uniform, so how about cutting him some slack?”

“I’m guessing that didn’t work?”

“Guys were there. Angel wasn’t five steps off the bus before they started in on him. I’d been standing there for a few minutes before the bus came, watching the bunch of ’em hanging around, but kept quiet. Didn’t know if they were the same guys or what.” Another deep breath. “They were. Soon as they started in on Angel, I stepped in and told them who I was.”

“And?”

“They didn’t give a shit. Looked at my uniform and called me a rent-a-cop. Nothing I ain’t heard before. I work in a high school, y’know? I figured I’d get Angel outta there and take your advice. Talk to my sergeant, maybe call the cops.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t get the chance,” he said. “The chief knucklehead—the guy Angel told me later took his iPod—stepped in front of me. Grabbed Angel by his book bag and…”

I waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, I said, “And what?”

“This motherfucker,” he began, “this piece of shit … grabbed Angel, looked me dead in the eyes, and said, ‘Why don’t you go home and get your momma, boy?’” He was fighting back tears now. “Before I could react, Angel kicked the guy. Right below the knee.” I sensed a little bit of pride in that last part. “Fucker took Angel by the shoulder and threw him down. Next thing I know, I got him by the neck, and I drop him. That’s when the cops showed up. Every fucking time my boy’s getting hassled, nothing. But the one time I mix it up with some punk-ass, and there they are.”