Shadow Boys (4 page)

Carlos is invincible. He is incapable of being hurt. If only he will show up, he’ll put all this to rest.

The cop closes the file. He lights another Pall Mall and blows a plume of smoke across the table.

“How many times you been arrested, Rah-ool?”

The cop’s accent is thick, like his mouth is full of marbles.

He is the kind of man Raul’s mother has warned him to avoid, a redneck who doesn’t like Mexicans or Negroes. To Raul, he represents a slice of Texas that is exotic and vaguely dangerous, like prison rodeos and chicken-fried steak.

Raul shakes his head, unable to form words. He wants to talk, to tell the man that he’s never been arrested. That was his brother, Carlos, and then only a couple of times.

The man taps his Pall Mall into an ashtray. “You Delgado boys cut a wide swath across Mex-Town, I’ll give you that.”

Raul wishes he could speak. He needs to tell the officer it was all just for fun. Just for something to do.

“A couple of real Pancho-fucking-Villas,” the cop says. “You and your brother.”

Words finally come.

“No. You don’t understand—” Raul is shaking his head, eyes welling with tears.

“Don’t sass me, Rah-ool.” The cop stabs out his cigarette. “Don’t ever do that, you hear me?”

Raul swallows the lump in his throat. Quits shaking his head.

“A couple of armed robberies on Maple Avenue, liquor stores,” the cop says. “We’re gonna need you to tell us about those, all right?”

Raul doesn’t speak. His mind races, breath comes in gasps.

He and Carlos have never robbed a liquor store. They grabbed money from the cash register at 7-Eleven, stole coins from the car wash. Never anything with a gun. Never.

The cop arches an eyebrow. “Cat got your tongue, Rah-ool?”

Raul shakes his head. Then he remembers what the man said about sassing him. So he stops. If only Carlos would arrive. He could explain everything. He is good with words. And with people.

Raul swallows several times, works up the nerve to speak again.

“Where is my brother?” His voice is ragged. “He can help you.”

The cop stares at him, face blank. He pulls a Pall Mall from the pack. Sticks the cigarette in his mouth but doesn’t light it.

There is only one way into the room, a door by the cop. From the other side of the door, over the ringing in his ears, Raul hears raised voices, people arguing. Then, footsteps followed by silence.

The cop looks at the door for a moment. He drops his cigarette on the table and grabs a briefcase off the floor like he is in a hurry. He opens the case and pulls out a plastic bag containing a revolver.

The weapon has a short barrel and is battered, the wooden grips chipped, the metal dotted with bits of rust that remind Raul of the cop’s scarred face.

“This here’s your gun, right?” The cop drops the sack on the table. It makes a loud thud.

“No-no-no.” Raul shakes his head, no longer worried about sassing. “We never touch guns.”

The cop takes a drink of coffee but doesn’t speak.

“Where is my brother?” Raul is crying now. “He will tell you. We never use guns.”

“Damn, boy.” The cop scratches his chin. “They puttin’ stupid sauce on your tamale or what?”

“Please. Just ask Carlos.” Raul wipes his cheek. Smeared blood stains his hand.

The cop opens the sack, drops the gun on the table.

“Don’t worry,” the cop says. “It’s unloaded.”

Raul stares at the weapon.

“This is a Smith and Wesson.” The cop points to the revolver. “The one you and your brother used when y’all robbed them liquor stores.”

Raul feels his stomach churn. The room looks like it’s growing smaller.

“Maybe you could pick it up,” the cop says. “That might jog your memory.”

Raul doesn’t move.

“G’on.” The cop points to the weapon again. “Put it in your hand.”

For some reason—maybe it’s the officer’s tone or the smallness of the room or the fact that his brother is nowhere to be seen—Raul is more fearful now than when he was in the back of the police car.

He shakes his head. Tears stream down his cheeks.

“I need you to pick up the fucking gun, Rah-ool.” The cop stands. “You don’t want to make me mad.”

Raul crosses his arms, hugs himself, head shaking.

The cop walks around the table, fists clenched.

Raul is trying to make himself small, when the door is flung open and a man in a blue uniform steps into the room.

“What in the hell is going on in here?” He looks at the cop with the pockmarked face.

The cop doesn’t say anything.

“Is that a gun on the table?” The man in the uniform points to the battered revolver. “You brought a firearm into an interview room?”

“I’m in the middle of questioning a suspect.” Pockmark points to the door. “Why don’t you give us a little privacy until we’re done?”

“The hell you say. A
suspect
?”

No one speaks. The feeling in the room is tense, but Raul is relieved to see the man in the uniform.

He is in his forties, with lots of ribbons and badges on his shirt. His hair is cut short like an army man. His Texas accent isn’t as thick as Pockmark’s.

More important, his eyes are not like those of the man with the scarred face. They are angry now, but they also appear to have a hint of kindness, of concern.

The man with the pockmarked face has eyes like a dead fish. Empty but scary, all at the same time.

“You’re done now.” The uniformed officer points to the door. “Get out.”

Pockmark, with his dead eyes, stares at the officer for a moment. Then he says, “My boys ain’t gonna take the fall for this.”

“One of your
boys
shot an unarmed juvenile.” The uniformed officer shakes his head. “There’s gonna be hell to pay for that, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

- CHAPTER FOUR -

I parked the Navigator in a gravel lot, underneath a billboard advertising discount lap-band surgery.

Cop bars. What an interesting concept.

Angry people with guns and badges, drinking.

One of the main watering holes for the Dallas PD was an ugly concrete building a few blocks down from the county jail. It was on a street that used to be named Industrial Boulevard but was now called Riverfront Drive in an effort to spur redevelopment of ugly concrete buildings.

Sam Browne’s sat between a strip joint that featured dollar drink specials and a place called Jimmy’s Bail Bonds and Title Loans.

The rebuilding push wasn’t working so well on this section of Riverfront/Industrial.

Sixty minutes after Deputy Chief Raul Delgado disappeared down the Grassy Knoll, I pushed open the door to Sam Browne’s and stepped into a narrow room that stunk of cigarettes and pine disinfectant.

Smoking is illegal in restaurants and taverns in Dallas, but hey, what are you gonna do, call the police?

I carried Tommy Joe’s laptop in one hand. It wouldn’t do to get it stolen
from my SUV. Theo Goldberg would probably have an aneurism.

The bar was at the back, presided over by a cop whose real name nobody remembered since he’d opened a bar called Sam Browne’s. Now everyone called him Sam.

The place had a couple of pool tables with some booths along one wall, tables in the middle, and a jukebox by the front. The decor was a combination of sports memorabilia and pictures of John Wayne being a Real American. The big-screen TV by the door was tuned to a rodeo, bull riding.

I let my eyes adjust to the darkness after the noon sun outside.

Maybe ten customers. A group of exceptionally fit men with long hair and beards—the narcs. Three or four uniformed cops at the bar, working on shots and beers, their faces flushed and veiny.

And a woman in a booth in the corner, sipping a cup of coffee.

She was in her early thirties, a willowy five foot eight.

Even though we’d known each other for years, the first glimpse of her face always managed to make my heart catch in my throat just a tiny bit.

Piper Westlake. Currently a sergeant with the Dallas police, assigned to the property unit, otherwise known as the “department they stick you in when they don’t know what else to do with you.”

The bartender nodded hello and kept polishing beer mugs.

I ignored the day drinkers and wandered over to where Piper sat. She looked up, a faint smile on her face.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I slid into the opposite side of the booth.

She tapped a file folder. “I’m inventorying cold-case evidence boxes even as we speak.”

“Fun.”

“Beats watching bull humping on TV or whatever the hell they’re showing.”

Silence settled over the table for a few moments. Then:

“Did he ask about me?” She glanced up from her files.

I lied, shook my head.

Crowd noises from the TV. Something important happened at the rodeo. Maybe a bull started humping one of the cowboys. The uniformed cops at the bar let out whoops of encouragement.

Piper looked up again. “So. What did he want?”

Silence.

He
would be Deputy Chief Raul Delgado.

“You want to get involved?” I asked.

“I’m making conversation. That’s what people in polite society do.”

Piper had eyes that were as blue as a spring sky and hair the color of wheat. Her features were attractive but possessed a haunted quality that was hard to define, like a fashion model weary from being on the lam for a murder she didn’t commit.

“I don’t want to get in the middle,” I said. “You know, of whatever is going on between you and your boyfriend.”

“He is
not
my boyfriend.” Piper’s voice raised a click higher than what was needed for a quiet conversation. She pushed the file away.

Deep inside both of us lay a wellspring of anger. We were the sum of our choices, a lifetime of bad decisions combined with actions beyond our control, events that had been thrust upon us.

Sam the bartender approached, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Everything okay over here?” he said.

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

“It’s fine, Sam.” Piper pulled the file back. Picked up her pen.

We were like gin and tonic, better together but a dangerous mix in certain circumstances. We could finish each other’s sentences. Cover each other instinctively in a firefight. Know when to talk and when to remain silent.

“You doing okay, Jon?” Sam smiled. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

Sam had a gentle, kindhearted way about him that masked an innate ability to handle any situation. He was well into his seventies but had forearms like Popeye’s.

A month ago I’d watched him toss two bikers out who were harassing an off-duty waitress from the Waffle House down the street. The bikers were forty years younger. He’d broken the nose of one of the men.

“Everything’s peaches and cream, Sam.” I tried to sound like I meant it. “You can go away now.”

Piper sighed loudly and dropped her pen.

“Aw, c’mon, Jon.” He shook his head. “Why you gotta be that way?”

I didn’t say anything, more than a little ashamed that I’d let nothing turn into something.

“Spray a little more gas on the fire, why don’t you.” Piper shook her head. “Sam, it’s all good. Really.”

Sam mumbled under his breath but left.

After he was gone, Piper said, “Were you born an asshole or did you take lessons?”

“I’m doing well today, thanks for asking.”

Piper drank some coffee.

“Your boyfriend wants to hire me to find a missing kid.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”
She kept her voice to a whisper this time.

Piper had dated the deputy chief for a few months, a period of time punctuated with several breakups, as neither she nor Delgado were well suited to stable relationships. Not to imply that I was.

“Tremont Washington,” I said. “That name mean anything to you?”

A police radio from the bar clanged, an alarm of some sort. Two uniformed officers paid their tab, lumbered to their feet, prepared to leave.

After they were gone, Piper looked at me. “Do you miss being a cop, Jon?”

I lied again. “No.”

I missed the sense of belonging that came from wearing a blue uniform. But I’d feathered my own nest and there was no going back.

Piper pulled out a smartphone, tapped the screen a few times.

“A patrol unit entered the name Tremont Washington under its daily activity log,” she said. “Note says, ‘possible runaway.’ ”

A daily activity log was where the police kept a record of calls and actions that didn’t warrant a formal police report. The log meant the responding officers didn’t believe the caller or didn’t care.

I removed a single sheet of paper from the envelope that Raul Delgado had given me. Tremont’s physical description and address.

“He lives in West Dallas with his grandmother.” I gave her the street and number.

She squinted at the screen. “Yeah, that’s the address they used. The projects.”

I nodded. “So why’s a deputy chief interested in a kid from the hood?”

“He’s a deputy chief,” she said. “Everything the brass does is a riddle wrapped inside an enigma.”

I folded the piece of paper Raul Delgado had given me and put it back in the envelope.

“Lysol Alvarez,” Piper said. “That’s his turf.”

Lysol was a street thug who had the IQ and work ethic of an investment banker. At one point he controlled a large swath of South and West Dallas.

“He’s still alive?”

“Hard to kill somebody that mean,” she said. “I’d start with him.”

Neither of us spoke for a few moments.

“I’m not asking for your help,” I said.

“Then why did you come here?” She slid from the booth. Tossed a few bills on the table.

I watched her walk away. After a few steps she turned and looked at me.

“Don’t be late this afternoon.”

- CHAPTER FIVE -

T
HE
P
IMP

Tink-Tink Monroe surveys his empire.

A parking lot behind a two-story apartment building on Audelia Road by LBJ Freeway.

He stands on the balcony of the upstairs unit he’s currently using as an office, a Swisher Sweet in one hand, a Schlitz Malt Liquor in the other.

A feeling of contentment washes over him. He is the master of his domain, the captain of his destiny. The King.

Life is good here in Dallas, so is business, much better than either had been in the Ninth Ward before Katrina blew through New Orleans.

Beyond the rotting wooden fence that surrounds the parking lot hums the commerce the city is known for, a ball of energy unlike any he’s ever experienced in all his thirty-four years.

Even the air smells rich, a pleasant aroma that is a combination of the Popeyes Chicken next door and his cigar.

Tink-Tink Monroe is an entrepreneur, a man determined to escape his humble origins and make something of himself. He is the youngest of five children, his mother a working girl in one of the hot-sheet brothels in Algiers, across the river from the French Quarter. He never knew his father.

Now, he is the King.

In the parking lot of the Dallas apartment are six campers, registered under the name of his number-one lady’s grandmother. Each trailer has a girl who’s earning for him. Ten, twelve hours a day, six days a week.

Below his feet, on the ground floor, he has a half dozen two-bedroom apartments, a girl to each room. Across Audelia, there is a massage parlor that he controls, too. Another three or four girls there at any given time.

The Empire of Tink-Tink Monroe.

His ladies are quality, clean and healthy for the most part. A class operation all the way.

The word on the street is that he’s the biggest pimp in Dallas, certainly the biggest in Little NOLA, as the area where the Katrina refugees have settled is called.

One of his guards steps onto the balcony. He says, “Pizza’s here, boss.”

Tink-Tink tosses his cigar onto the asphalt below. He points to the far end of the parking lot, where a navy-blue Crown Victoria sits nose-out, under a leafless elm tree.

“You see dat car ovah in da corner?”

The guard nods.

Tink-Tink drains his beer. “Find out who’s parking in my parking lot wit’out axing me first.”

“Yeah, boss.” The guard grabs a baseball bat from the corner and leaves.

Tink-Tink pitches his empty beer can off the balcony, too, and steps inside the apartment.

The place doesn’t have much furniture, a black leather couch from Rent-A-Center, a glass coffee table, and a flat-screen TV.

In the middle of the coffee table sits a pepperoni and sausage pizza from Mr. Gatti’s—his favorite—and a cold Schlitz.

A girl perches on the armrest of the sofa. She’s seventeen, pretty like a dancer in a Rihanna video, wearing a halter top and a pair of Daisy Duke shorts. One eye is still a little swollen.

He nods, happy to see everything where it should be. The bitch is learning. He’s in the process of turning her out, but she’s been all kinds of uppity.

“You got my change, girl?” He sits, opens the box.

“Right here, Daddy.” She hurriedly hands him a wad of cash.

Tink-Tink puts the money in his pocket. Then he grabs a slice, sticks it in his mouth.

From the hallway leading to the front door, a figure emerges. A white guy in a black tracksuit with a ball cap, pulled low. The jacket is zipped up around the lower half of his face.

“The fuck do you want?” Tink-Tink wipes pizza grease from his chin.

His guards are just outside. They’re fixing to be in a world of shit because Tink-Tink has told them about a zillion times not to let cats like this in without calling first.

“What happened to her face?” Whitey points to the girl.

She crosses her arms, nervous, looks to her pimp for guidance.

Tink-Tink puts the slice down. Nothing about this is right. With his elbow, he touches the nine-millimeter in his waistband, looking for a measure of comfort.

Whitey speaks to the girl. “Get out of here. Now.”

She gulps, eyes wide with fear, but complies, scampering from the room. A few seconds later Tink-Tink hears the front door open.

Then he hears the girl scream.

Tink-Tink reaches for his weapon. “You’re making a big mista—”

The gun appears in Whitey’s hand out of nowhere, a pistol with a silencer on the muzzle.

“I got money,” Tink-Tink says. “We can work sumpin’ out.”

The first bullet hits him in the stomach.

It feels like a two-by-four slammed into his gut. No pain, just a throbbing sensation. The taste of blood fills his mouth.

“Noo.”
He holds up one hand, grabs his nine-millimeter with the other.

The second round punches a hole in his palm. Light is visible through the wound.

Time seems to stop as Whitey pulls the trigger for the third time.

A blip of light, and a bullet that appears to be traveling so slowly Tink-Tink Monroe can track its progress as it moves toward his head.

He thinks about his mother and the empire he’s created.

Then, everything is black.