Sway (11 page)

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the moment, I'm locked in the bathroom at my house. I need you to come get me. Right. Now.”

When I pulled up at the curb in front of her house ten minutes later, Joey came trotting out the front door and hurried down the concrete steps to the sidewalk. Joey's house was part of the historic downtown area, one of the large brick homes that had been divided into apartments for student rentals. I had seen the inside of the first-floor apartment only a half dozen times in all the years I had known Joey.

I climbed out of the car and leaned one arm along the roof of it so I could get a clear view of the glass storm door, where a man stood watching us. Clad only in a white undershirt and faded jeans, he wore his dark hair combed back off his high forehead. The white T-shirt strained against his beer belly and accented his budding man tits.

Joey's eyes were red-rimmed as if she had been crying, and a storm clouded her face. She hugged her sweater tightly around herself, and from the size of her bag I knew she wasn't planning to come home for a few nights.

The man and I watched each other for a minute, him eyeing me with suspicion and anger, me studying his face carefully so I wouldn't forget it.

“Who's that?” I asked.

“Roy Fucking Finnegan,” Joey spat. “Mom's latest creepy, dumb-ass boyfriend.”

“You okay?” I asked as she yanked open the passenger door.

“Get me out of here,” was all she said.

“That his car?” I gestured to the yellow Chrysler at the curb. Joey only nodded, her lips pressed together in a crimped line. I took a moment to capture a picture of the license plate before we drove away.

After we stopped at the corner grocery store for a couple of forty-ounce bottles of Mickey's Big Mouth, we drove in silence to the riverfront park. In the summer, the park was a favorite spot for young mothers strolling with their babies or couples taking a romantic walk along the water. On this fall afternoon, the temperature steadily dropping with the approaching sunset, we had the park to ourselves as we sat on the hood of my car and sipped our beers. Etta James's “My Dearest Darling” poured out of the car windows and drifted on the wind to blend with the rush of water at the fall line of the river.

“I wish my life was like a Taylor Swift song,” Joey said.

“Not me,” I said. “It's got to suck to be that talented and good-looking.”

“I don't mean I want to be like Taylor Swift. I mean that in her songs, the worst thing that ever happens is she breaks up with a boy or gets dumped. If that was the worst thing that ever happened to me, life would be a piece of cake.”

I wasn't going to ask Joey what had happened with the guy, Roy Fucking Finnegan. She would tell me what happened if she wanted to, not because I asked.

We were both reclined on the windshield, watching the sky, Joey's head resting on my shoulder.

When she spoke again, her voice was dull and impossible to read. “A few weeks ago, he started coming by when my mom wasn't home. The first time I didn't think anything of it, but the second time I started to catch on. Before today it was just kind of creepy. Today it was … creepier.”

“Did you tell your mom? About the other times?” I asked.

“You think she cares? She doesn't listen to me. Roy has a job and only hits her when he's drunk. That makes him Mr. Wonderful, as far as she's concerned.”

“He put his hands on you?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral.

She shook her head by rocking it against my shoulder. “He stood blocking the kitchen doorway, making it so I had to squeeze past him to get by, you know. He got all close to me with his disgusting beer belly. I pushed him away, told him to keep his hands off of me. That's when I ran and hid in the bathroom.” She stopped and took a deep breath, practically gulping air. “I'm not going back there. I'm not going to sleep with one eye open until he dumps her or kills her.”

“I'll take care of it,” I said as I put an arm around her shoulder and stroked her hair idly. “You stay at my place for the next couple of days, and I'll take care of it.”

The sun began its final descent behind the trees, and the air turned suddenly cold. Joey's hot tears soaked the collar of my shirt, and her body quivered with restrained sobs.

“I'm going to take care of it,” I said again.

 

FIFTEEN

“I'm cold,” Darnell said from the backseat, possibly for the seven hundredth time. “How much longer do we have to wait?”

“Till the man comes out, dumb-ass,” Carter said without turning to look at Darnell. “Damn, stop talking so much.”

Darnell sat back with a sigh, his fingers drumming on the vinyl seat. Right when the drumming noise became such a horrible irritant that I was getting ready to say something, the side entrance of the Cat's Eye Pub opened and out stumbled Roy Fucking Finnegan.

“That's him,” I said. We all reached up at the same time to roll our balaclavas down over our faces, the stillness of the night around us almost surreal as we watched him walk to the yellow Chrysler. Roy's breath gusted out as a cloud of steam and he swayed slightly on his feet as he dug in his pocket for his keys.

“Let's do this,” Carter said as he opened the car door and slid out of his seat.

It was hard to tell what Roy Fucking Finnegan was thinking as he looked up from the lock of his car door and watched three figures dressed all in black and wearing black balaclavas approach him silently. The cloud of steam around his head dissipated as he held his breath in shock and fear, his eyes widening stupidly as he tried to process what he was seeing.

“Wha—?” Roy started to speak, but Carter lashed out with his improvised weapon, a sock filled with gravel, and took Roy down with a single blow to his shoulder. I glanced surreptitiously around the dark and near-empty parking lot as Carter and Darnell lifted Roy by the upper arms and dragged him quickly out of sight behind the pub.

In the alley, Carter and Darnell held Roy upright against a Dumpster as he moaned quietly, his head rocking from side to side. Darnell had Roy's left arm twisted up behind his back, but he wasn't putting any pressure on yet. Carter gripped Roy by the back of his collar, held him still.

“Hey, Roy,” I said, dropping my tone to a low growl to disguise my voice. “We need to talk.”

“Who—? Wha—?” He was still dazed from the blow to his neck as I dug in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. I flipped through the credit card holder to see if there was anything of interest and checked the cash pocket—seven bucks in ones. “Take it,” he said, his speech slightly slurred, maybe from the alcohol, maybe from getting hit. “Just take the wallet.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “Look, Roy, I know you aren't exceptionally bright, so I'm going to say this slowly, because I don't like to repeat myself.” There was a sickly sweet smell coming from the Dumpster. Instead of watching Roy, both Darnell and Carter were watching me through the eyeholes of their balaclavas, silently waiting.

“You've been stepping out with a woman named Cheryl McCabe,” I said to Roy. Pause for effect. “But not anymore. I want you to stay away from her. You don't call her, you don't see her, you don't stop by her work for a drink after your shift. Are you listening to me, Roy?” He was still rocking his head, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain in his head.

“What's she to you, man?” he asked.

I slapped him across the face with his open billfold and he jerked in surprise. “Not relevant, Roy. I want you to stay away from Cheryl McCabe. Do you understand me? Yes or no?”

“Man, screw you. If you're not her boyfriend or something, what's it to you?”

I nodded at Carter and he gripped Roy by a handful of hair on the top of his head. Roy cried out in pain and surprise as Carter twisted his fist and pulled the hair harder. Carter cracked Roy's head back against the Dumpster, ringing it like a gong.

I waited while Roy got himself together and until he stopped whining about the pain in his head, then said, “Look, Roy, if we're out here talking much longer, these guys are going to be into me for overtime, and you've already cost me too much time and money. So, here's how this is going to go: These guys aren't going to put you in the hospital tonight. They're just going to give you a little taste of what can happen if you don't take my advice.”

“She never told me … She never said she was involved with anybody,” Roy sputtered, his voice rising with fear. “It's her fault, man, if she was stepping out on you. I didn't know nothin'.”

“We haven't even touched you yet and you're throwing her under the bus?” I asked. “That's a sign of poor character, Roy. Now, listen, I don't want to have to do anything else to you, but if I so much as see you look at Cheryl cross-eyed, I'm going to burn down that piece-of-shit house of yours. The house is crap, but that's a nice fifty-two-inch flat screen you've got. It would be a shame to lose that.”

Finally he was quiet as he thought about what I'd said. I let it sink in for a minute, let him come to the realization that I had been in his house. If you're going to make somebody really angry, it's best to know everything there is to know about them first.

I leaned in to speak closer to his face, to compound his discomfort. “Tonight you're going to need that OxyContin you keep in the medicine cabinet, so I left you just a couple of pills, but those things are habit forming, Roy. I took the rest of them—for your own good, you understand?”

His breath was coming in ragged gasps now and he let out a small, nasal whimper.

As I waited for him to answer, I shot a glance at Carter.

“Man, who are you?” Roy asked.

“Stay away from Cheryl and her daughter,” I said in almost a whisper, “or next time, I have you put to bed with a shovel.”

I stepped back and gave Carter and Darnell a small nod. “Just give him enough to put him out of commission for a bit so that you can get to the car,” I said. “And don't touch his face. Keep it to his body.”

I didn't stay to watch, just turned and pulled off my balaclava before I stepped out of the alley. My leg bounced with nervous energy as I waited for Carter and Darnell in the car, the engine running.

A man and a woman came out of the pub, arm in arm, but it was cold enough that they didn't linger. They sat in their car for a minute as the engine warmed and I felt a pang of anxiety that Carter and Darnell might choose that moment to walk out of the alleyway.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered to myself, urging the guy to put his car into drive and leave. From my vantage point, I could see Carter at the edge of the building, pulling off his balaclava as he watched and waited for the car to leave. “Good man,” I said, again to myself. I should have known Carter was smart enough to think about making sure the coast was clear.

Most people tended to mind their own business, but unless you're actively breaking the law, chances are you would call the cops if you saw two huge guys in ski masks walking out of an alley late at night.

We maintained silence between us until we were far enough away from the pub that we knew no one was coming after us. Carter and I dropped Darnell at home first. I handed Darnell a roll of bills over the back of the seat and he hesitated for a minute before getting out of the car. “Man, that was some crazy shit,” he said, but he was smiling. “What did that dude do to you, man?”

“There's nothing personal in it for me,” I said. “It's just business.”

“You keep your mouth shut,” Carter said to Darnell.

“Psht, Negro, please,” Darnell said with a swat at the back of Carter's head. “You think I'm stupid or something?”

“I know you're stupid,” Carter shot back. “That's why I'm tellin' you.”

“Kiss my ass, Goldie,” Darnell said, and a gust of cold air signaled his departure.

“Man, that dumb-ass talks too much,” Carter said as we pulled away from the curb. “Sorry 'bout that. I won't bring him along again.”

“Darnell's all right,” I said absentmindedly. “He knew enough when to keep his mouth shut.”

“That Cheryl McCabe—that's Joey's mom, huh?” Carter asked. “She okay?” His voice was tight as he rubbed his hands together in his lap, as if trying to clean them.

“She will be. As long as you convinced Roy to stay away from her.”

“Oh, we did that. I don't think she'll be having any problems with him anymore.”

“Thanks, Carter,” I said, and meant it. Violence cost Carter more than it did other people. Even though nobody would fuck with him now, he had already served a lifetime of fear living with his old man.

“No problem, Sway,” he said with a nod. “It's no problem.”

 

SIXTEEN

I didn't usually go to school sporting events other than girls' lacrosse. The Friday game would be the first football game I had attended since sophomore year. I stood with my arms rested on the fence that surrounded the playing field, waiting for Ken and watching the cheerleaders do their opening spiel to get the crowd riled up. The cheerleaders all wore too much makeup and it gave me the creeps to see all the older guys at the game—teachers and dads—watch the cheerleaders' perfectly toned midriffs with undisguised interest. Cheerleading leads down a dark path toward a future of working at Hooters, girls being conditioned to believe it was okay for their only social value to come from their looks.

As the team came trotting onto the field, the hum of the crowd rose to a roar and the school fight song pounded through the PA system. Ken caught the salute I gave him and jogged over to stand at the other side of the fence, his helmet resting under his arm. “What's up, Alderman?”

“How did your coffee date go?”

“Good,” he said.

“Did she ask you about what superpower you would want?”