Shadow Boys (11 page)

- CHAPTER NINETEEN -

T
HE
S
OUTH
D
ALLAS
A
CTIVIST

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.

He doesn’t have all the answers yet, but that’s never stopped him from publishing an article, especially when he finds a juicy connection between the charity and one or more high-ranking Dallas police officials.

One slight problem is that he can’t quite figure out exactly what the connection is or how juicy it might be.

But, like the old saying goes, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. What matters is the difference the story can make.

It’s midafternoon. The street is pretty busy. Moms pushing kids in strollers, yard crews mowing lawns. A couple of repair trucks down the block.

Demarcus parks the Chrysler PT that his father lets him use in front of his house.

Across the street is an old Crown Victoria that appears out of place.

Demarcus slings his backpack on his shoulder and gets a bag of groceries from the rear of the car. He wonders who belongs to the vehicle. This is minivan territory, not old cop cars.

He walks up the sidewalk to his front door.

The man in the black tracksuit flexes his fingers. The latex gloves are getting hot.

He’s in the family room of Demarcus Harris’s house, a cavernous area with brown carpeting and an old-style big-screen TV, a huge, five-foot box.

The kitchen is off to one side. It is clean but unused, smelling faintly of cooked onions.

He’s already inspected the rest of the home.

Sheets cover the furniture in two of the three bedrooms.

The third is clearly where Demarcus Harris spends most of his time.

Dirty shag carpeting, a picture of Malcolm X over an unmade waterbed. A flat-screen TV and several computer monitors. Stacks of books and files.

He’s scanned the files. Notes on upcoming stories for Demarcus’s website. Conspiracies are a favorite theme. Is the CIA poisoning the water in Dallas schools? Does the governor of Texas secretly belong to the KKK?

Nothing on Tremont Washington, which is good.

Even better, he’s learned that the People’s Blog is a one-man operation.

So he’s returned everything to where it belongs, walked back to the family room, and is sitting in a La-Z-Boy recliner in front of the oversized TV.

A few minutes later, right on time, he hears the front door open and then shut.

Footsteps. Whistling.

The sounds of a man who thinks he’s alone.

Demarcus Harris strolls into the family room, a stack of mail in one hand, a bag of groceries in the other. He looks younger than he had at city hall, barely out of high school even though he is in his early twenties. His gray suit is ridiculous-looking, too tight, pants not long enough to cover his white socks.

Several seconds pass before the young man realizes someone else is present.

“What the—” He drops the mail, sets the groceries down.

“Hello, Demarcus.” The man in the black tracksuit remains sitting with his legs crossed.

“Who the—how—” Demarcus’s mouth goes slack. “I know you. You were at the press conference.”

“Nice place you have here. Your father, I bet he works really hard to provide this home for you.”

Demarcus blinks several times.

“You’ve had an easy life, haven’t you?” Black Tracksuit says.

Demarcus clenches his fists, angry.

“Everything’s been handed to you on a silver platter.” Black Tracksuit sighs.

“Silver platter, my ass.” Demarcus cocks his head. “You ever actually known any black people?”

Black Tracksuit stands.

Demarcus takes a step back. “Get out of my house, you fascist cracker.”

“Or what?” The man opens the messenger bag he’s brought with him. “You’ll call the police?”

Demarcus holds up his hands, ready for a fight, breathing heavily.

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you,” Black Tracksuit says. “I just want to ask you some questions.”

Demarcus’s eyes narrow. He nods slightly, clearly wanting to believe.

From the bag, the man pulls a metal object about the size of a large cigar. The item is an ASP baton, a retractable steel impact device, sort of like the switchblade of billy clubs. In its unopened state, it appears fairly innocuous.

“What’s that?” Demarcus points to the baton.

“This?” The man holds up the ASP. “This is just a tool. I’m not gonna hurt you. I already told you that.”

Demarcus nods, the politeness of his middle-class upbringing evident.

“So tell me what you know about Tremont Washington,” Black Tracksuit says.

Demarcus doesn’t respond. He keeps staring at the baton, mind clearly churning.

“I’m trying to find Tremont, too,” the man says. “I want to help him.”

The stupidity of the average civilian was amazing. A guy breaks into your house, starts asking questions, and you stick around? The man in the black tracksuit sighs. Rule one when somebody is in your crib who shouldn’t be: get the hell out.

“I was, uh, working on a story about substandard housing at the Iris Apartments,” Demarcus says. “I talked to his grandmother.”

“Tremont’s grandmother. Alice, that’s her name. Right?”

Demarcus nods, eyes narrowing.

“And what did his grandmother, Alice, say?”

Silence for a few moments.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Demarcus licks his lips. “You should leave now.”

“We’re almost done,” the man says. “Then you can go back to blogging or tweeting or whatever you kids do.”

Demarcus’s eyes are slits. The expression on his face indicates he understands he should have run in the first instant he realized his home had been invaded.

“What did the grandmother say?” Black Tracksuit asks. “Did she have any idea where her grandson is?”

“H-how do you know about this? Any of it?”

“Demarcus.” The man extends the baton with a flick of his wrist. “You don’t get to ask questions.”

“She didn’t know anything.” Demarcus takes a step back. “Neither do I.”

Black Tracksuit darts across the room, already swinging the metal baton at the younger man’s knee. The steel slams into the flesh with a satisfying squish.

Demarcus screams and tumbles backward, arms flailing. His head hits the corner of an end table as he falls to the floor.

“You really thought I wasn’t going to hurt you, didn’t you?” Black Tracksuit kneels beside him.

Demarcus doesn’t respond.

A thin stream of blood trickles from underneath his head, staining the carpet.

Black Tracksuit sighs and shakes his head. He feels for a pulse.

A faint heartbeat.

Fading, fading, fading—

Gone.

“Shit, Demarcus.” He stands. “Why’d you have to go and die on me?”

He moves to the entryway windows, peers outside.

Two women, each with a stroller, stand in front of the house, chatting.

He intended to bring Demarcus with him to the Crown Vic under his own power, transport him to the dump site. Now he’s going to have to go out the back, loop around, and get the Crown Vic. Then come back down the alley to retrieve the body.

This makes him angry. He has meetings scheduled for later this evening, business that needs his attention.

His vision goes red and a moment later he realizes he has been kicking Demarcus Harris’s corpse.

He regains control and leaves by the back door.

- CHAPTER TWENTY -

Early the next morning someone broke into my neighbor’s townhome.

The neighbor was away on business, and the alarm was so loud it sounded like the end of time.

I lived in a new complex in the Oak Lawn section of town, across the street from a nightclub that catered to the gay demographic, and a Starbucks.

Quite a few homeless people spent their time in the alleys, so I figured one of them was probably a little too loaded on Boone’s Farm and was looking for a place to crash for a while.

I stumbled outside at the same time as the neighbor on the other side did, a woman in her thirties who I was pretty sure worked as a call girl.

The alarm stopped, replaced by screaming. Furniture thrown against the walls. More screaming. The sounds one would expect from a homeless guy suffering a psychotic breakdown, a not-uncommon occurrence in this part of town.

“What the hell is going on?” The call girl rubbed her eyes.

“Beats me.” I yawned. “Sounds like one of the local bums drank too much crazy.”

“Well, would you shut it up?” She cocked her head.

“I missed the part where this got to be my problem.”

“All afternoon I got appointments,” she said. “I need some sack time.”

The screaming grew louder, like a hyena stuck in a blender.

“This part of town is whacked.” She shook her head. “It’s either homos or winos. I swear I’m gonna move.”

A police car squealed to a stop in front of our neighbor’s and a uniformed Dallas officer got out. He strode up the steps and knocked on the door where the screaming was coming from.

No answer, just more yelling and furniture slamming.

“A bum got stabbed in the alley last week.” The call girl looked at the cop. “Took you dipwads an hour to respond. This, you show up for?”

The cop looked back and forth between the two of us. “Either of you got a key?”

The call girl sighed loudly and went back inside.

“Call the management company,” I said.

A black Suburban rolled up behind the squad car. Two men got out, one white, the other black. Each individual had close-cropped hair and was built like a weight lifter, barrel chest, broad shoulders, exaggerated gait from thighs that were as thick as tree trunks.

They wore matching black tracksuits with yellow stripping down the sleeves. They stood by their vehicle, amused looks on their faces, chatting with each other like they hadn’t a care in the world.

One of them held a walkie-talkie in his hand.

The uniformed cop looked at them. Then he shook his head.

“What’s with the Arnie Schwarzeneggers?” I said.

“You used to be on the force, didn’t you?” the cop said.

I nodded. “A lifetime ago.”

“The chief’s new anti-crime initiative. Put SWAT guys on the street corners.”

“They look like juicers,” I said.

“They are. Probably sweat steroids.” He headed toward his car.

“Where are you going?”

“I got real police work to do.” He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t piss ’em off.”

He left without speaking to either of the new arrivals.

The officers in the tracksuits strode over. They stopped in front of my neighbor’s door.

The black guy looked at me, hands on his hips, a belligerent expression on his face.

“Who are you?” he said.

“The neighbor.” I smiled. “Joe Citizen.”

The white guy reared back his leg and kicked in the door.

The black guy said, “Go back to your place, Joe. We got this covered.”

By the time I left an hour later, the SWAT officers were gone and no more screaming was coming from my neighbor’s place.

I called Piper to ask if she’d had any luck finding out who had been arrested at the Iris Apartments a week before. The call went straight to voice mail. I thought about driving by her house but I didn’t want to know if she was there or not.

So I did what any self-respecting ex-cop would do. I went to IHOP for breakfast. Then I drove to the Uptown section of Dallas, just north of the central business district.

Raul Delgado’s high-rise was on the fringes of the neighborhood. That was not my destination.

There were a lot of other skyscrapers in the area, intermixed with turn-of-the-century homes that had been converted into commercial uses—law offices, art galleries, small companies that had “investments” somewhere in their title.

The organization that employed Tremont Washington was located near McKinney Avenue, just past the trolley stop, according to the card Tremont’s grandmother had given me.

The Helping Place occupied an old Victorian home that was painted the color of fresh lemons, a soft yellow that perfectly accented the immaculate lawn as well as the velvety blur of red and blue flowers in the beds that surrounded the house.

I parked on the street, behind a BMW with a leasing company license plate frame. I got out, left my sport coat in the back. I was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt.

A wide porch ran around the entire structure. Expensive patio furnishings formed a sitting area to one side of the front door.

On the outdoor sofa sat a young man in his midteens. He wore thick glasses, which did nothing to hide the too-broad distance between his eyes, or the unnatural slope of his forehead, both the result of Down syndrome.

He was playing with a Game Boy, lips pressed together in concentration.

I climbed the steps to the porch. The elderly wood creaked.

He looked up, smiled. “Hello, sir.” He stood. Placed the Game Boy carefully on the sofa.

“Hi.” I smiled. “How are you doing?”

“My name is Toby.”

“Nice to meet you, Toby. My name is Jon.”

“I am ready to go to work, Jon.”

“Sorry, Toby. That’s not why I’m here today.”

He nodded, a stoic look on his face.

“I’m sure you’re going to make someone a fine employee.” I reached for the front door.

He picked up a wad of clothing from the sofa and approached me with it.

“I don’t need my jacket, Jon.”

I stopped, hand on the knob.

“It’s not cold.” He held up the garment to me. “Would you please take it back inside?”

I took a step closer, eyeing the clothing in his hand. It appeared to be a warm-up jacket made from similar material as the outfits worn by the two SWAT officers at my apartment this morning.

“Sure, Toby.” I took the garment. “I’ll take it inside.”

He smiled and sat down.

I stepped into the office.

The foyer of the old home had been remodeled into a reception area. A hardwood floor refinished and polished to a high gloss. Stark white walls decorated with pictures of young adults who appeared to have mental faculties similar to Toby. They were all smiling and appeared to be in work environments.

In one corner of the reception area sat a glass and chrome desk with a Mac computer on one side and a phone on the other. Offices were to the left and right, the old parlor and dining room. More high-end, modern furniture, stark decor.

The entire place appeared to be empty.

I took this as an opportunity to examine the item Toby had given me.

A thin yellow pinstripe ran along each sleeve. In the collar was a tag that read “Property Dallas Police Department.”

For the heck of it, I slipped the warm-up jacket on.

Not quite like having the badge, but not a bad feeling.

Noise from the rear of the house, a voice on the phone.

I sauntered down the hallway.

The rear of the refurbished home was one big office, the back wall glass, overlooking a yard with a fountain and several pieces of expensive art.

A large, ornately carved pine table dominated one side of the room, serving as a desk. Behind the table sat a woman in her early forties. She wore a cream-colored blouse and navy blazer that matched her skirt.

She was on the phone when I entered, staring at the fountain outside, a pen in her mouth. She looked up, motioned for me to sit in the leather chair in front of her desk.

I did as requested. Crossed my legs. Waited.

She stared at me as she talked on the phone. The conversation concerned an upcoming event, a fund-raiser of some sort. Her face was blank. Not the typical sheepish smile as if to say,
Sorry to keep you waiting; I’ll be off in a second.

After about half a minute, she ended the call.

Her expression changed. A glint of fear came into her eyes as she crossed her arms.

I thought about introducing myself and telling her why I was here, but I didn’t.

Silence. Sometimes the best interview technique.

After a moment, she sighed, a nervous little gulp of her throat, and said, “Have you found Tremont yet?”