Tequila Mockingbird (2 page)

And like the possum he’d scared the shit out of the last time, the boy froze to a dead stillness when he heard Frank approach, the faint lights from the street beyond catching his eyes and turning them a demonic gold when he cocked his head to spy on Frank over the lip of the battered green bin. If anything, the boy’s hiss certainly was more possum-ish and less grumbling homeless guy looking for aluminum cans to cash in.

Frank cleared his throat and called out to the boy, “Hey—”

That single word spurred the boy into action, and he grabbed at the Dumpster’s edge to hoist himself up. Either he was too short or the rhino covering the interior of the bin was too slick because the boy couldn’t get traction, and he slid back down the side, landing in the—hopefully—mostly paper trash around him.

“Fuck!”

As swear words went, it was an elegant growl—fluid and heartfelt with a tinge of bitterness to flavor its edges.

It also sounded way too world-weary to come from such a young boy.

Because as Frank drew even closer to the Dumpster, he caught sight of the golden hummingbird of a boy trapped inside of the steel bin and instantly took back a few of the years he’d given him.

But then he poured all of those years—and more—back into his assessment of the boy’s dark, liquid eyes.

As kids went, this one was scrawny—dirty-chicken scrawny with a side of bone—barely enough meat on his frame to do more than move his lanky limbs. A mop of tangled, dirty-blond hair covered most of the boy’s face, but what Frank could see straddled the line between delicate and masculine. Sitting on the verge of puberty, the kid should have been fuller in the face, even a bit chunky around the middle as his body stored up fuel for that impressive height jump from child to man.

When that jump came for this kid, his body wasn’t going to have anything to feed his growth. There was barely enough energy stored in his flesh to leave his skin supple, and Frank winced at the crackle of dry skin on the boy’s downy cheeks, a telltale sign the kid wasn’t eating.

As if the jut of his breastbone and rib cage through the thin fabric of his filthy T-shirt wasn’t enough of a clue.

There was a lot of dead in the kid’s gaze. Dead and suspicion, with more than a few ladles of fear. All of that was wrapped up tight with ribbons of challenging aggression. Frank would have been more cautious if it weren’t for the bruises blackening the right side of the kid’s face or his swollen lip turned deep purple where something had cut it.

Even in the wane of the streetlamp light, anyone with sense in his mind and eyes in his head could see the boy’d taken more than a few knocks from life on his chin. And from the chunk of enamel missing in one of his front teeth, he’d taken more than one blow to the mouth too.

“Do you need some help there, kid?” Frank called out loud enough for the boy to hear him over the rustle of paper and debris. The kid ignored him and continued to flounder, grabbing at the lip for another attempt.

Another struggle to get out of the bin and the boy hit bottom again, a flailing bundle of arms, legs, and curses strong enough to fuel Moses’s drive out of Egypt.

“Here, give me your hand,” Frank said, reaching into the bin. “You’re too short. You’re never going to get out of there without some help.”

“Fuck off, old man. I’m fine.” The kid growled and shoved as much of his ratted-together hair out of his face as he could manage.

“Okay, so you’re fine.” Leaning over the edge of the Dumpster opening, Frank looked down into the bin. Despite being a day after pickup, the Dumpster was fairly clean. “Tell you what. I’m going to toss in this wooden box for you to sit on while you think about how to get the fuck out of there and walk away. If you want to shut the lid when you’re out, that would be appreciated. I don’t like thinking someone’s cat might get into one of these things and get turned into a smashed meat pancake because it was open.”

He grabbed one of the discarded shelving boxes the clothing store left stacked up near the Dumpster and tossed it in. The kid jumped back, lifting his feet out of the trash. Glaring up at Frank, he pinned himself against the far wall, coiled up tight, as if waiting for an attack that only Frank knew would never come.

“Now, I’m going to head off to bed. There’s some leftover pizza I’m going to leave out on the table. Grab something to eat and go home, kid.” Large drops of water began to strike the Dumpster’s open lid, rumbling a deep percussion through the thick black plastic.

“Yeah, like I’m going to fucking eat something you leave out—”

“It’s up to you, kid.” Frank shrugged, scratching at his thick graying beard. “Just see if you can close the lid. If not, I’ll do it in the morning.”

He walked away. He had to. The boy’s eyes were burning into him, stealing past the lazy haze of his apathy toward children and his resolute stance on people getting a few handouts, but lifelines were something a person had to braid themselves. Walking away from the kid should have been easy. Even if he couldn’t shake off the wince of pain when the boy pressed his back into the Dumpster or the whimper when he’d landed on his back amid the piles of discarded plastic bags and tissues.

Frank put one foot in front of the other and entered the RV, closing the door behind him with a firm snick. After digging out the chartreuse and orange bong he’d gotten from a friend’s little girl, he sat down to pack in a bowl before he allowed himself to sleep.

Not that he thought he’d be
able
to sleep with the image of the boy’s haunting face floating behind his eyes.

He was drawing out his first gurgle of smoke when he heard the Dumpster cover slam shut, the lid hitting the bin’s rim with a singsong chime. He’d regret leaving the pizza, especially since he really didn’t think the kid would chance eating it. There’d been talk around the neighborhood of more than one street kid getting roofied and fucked after being given food by strangers.

Bad enough people poisoned cats and dogs. Did they have to go after the kids too? Frank thought as he finished up his hit. The rain struck, drowning out even the pull of his inhale through the bong’s skunky water, and Frank sighed, wondering if he was going to be hit with a raging case of the munchies just because all he had was peanut butter and possibly—now—soggy pepperoni pizza.

When Frank woke up in the early afternoon, the rain was still intent on sliding the city into the bay, and he smacked his lips, tasting a serious need for a toothbrush and possibly a cigarette. Just not in that order. Grabbing his smokes from the RV’s slender kitchen counter, he headed outside to shiver under the awning. Having forgotten about the boy, he stared at the empty box of pizza sitting on the café table outside of his door.

Two quarters on the lid were the only evidence left of the kid’s existence—that and a note scrawled on the inside of the box. The pen the kid used seemed like it was on its last legs or perhaps had higher aspirations on being a tattoo machine for all the ink it leaked. Still, the uneven scrawl was easy enough to read, even if it was a bit misspelled.

“Money’s all I got, but next time I’m around, I’ll give you a blow job, ’cause I took the rest of it and it was a lot. Thanks—Forest.”

“Well shit and Jesus Christ, kid.” Frank frowned as he read the note. “What the fuck has the world done to you?”

I
T
BECAME
a game of cat and mouse—although Frank wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be the cat
or
the mouse, but it definitely was a game of some kind because not long after the Great Pizza Incident, he found himself lurking in the parking lot hoping the Dumpster kid would show his face again.

Frank left food out and got notes in return—sometimes accompanied by small trinkets, like a beaded bracelet or a Golden Gate keychain. He wore the bracelet, and the tiny metal icon now hung from the RV’s rearview mirror. After a month and a half of chasing the blond kid’s trail, Frank came out of the Amp’s back door with a bag of In-N-Out he’d meant to leave for the boy when he found himself staring at a very filthy Forest sitting at the same café table they’d exchanged food and notes on.

If anything, the kid looked even worse than the first time Frank’d seen him, and the overly hungry look on Forest’s face made his stomach clench in sympathy. There were frozen burritos he could microwave. The Double-Doubles in the bag were going to the kid, even if Frank had to shove them down Forest’s throat.

“Here,” Frank said, tossing the bag to the boy. “Have some dinner.”

“I don’t take handouts,” Forest growled as he dug into the bag and pulled out one of the thick cheeseburgers. “I told you I’d do you for the food.”

“I’m not into little boys.” Frank groaned when he eased into one of the chairs.

“But you keep giving me food,” the kid pointed out through a mouthful of meat and fries. “You gotta want
something
.”

“Maybe I just don’t want you out on the street.”

“Yeah right, because everyone’s just lining up to take other people’s kids. Whatcha want? Blow or hand?” Forest yanked at the air with his fist. “I’m better with my hand. I can’t throat it right, but I’m working on it.”

The kid’s words hit Frank hard, and he blinked, unsure about what to do with the lump in his throat. “Tell you what, kid. How’d you like a job? I need some help in the studio.”

Drowning in tears,

Soaked too long in my salt.

This is what I am.

This is what I should be.

Something that never ends.

But I want to be more than me

—
Blue Notebook 3/8

“M
ORGAN
! T
EAM
One ready?”

Captain Leonard’s query rattled through Connor’s earpiece. The rough gravel in the man’s voice came from a cigar habit he’d had instead of any defect in the equipment. Leonard’s aggression boiled out through his voice, shotgunning his orders to the TAC team through a mic. A cancerous spot on his lung took him off the street, but he’d recovered more than enough to kick their asses. Leonard was also the first one to pull a rookie up and walk him gently through training.

Connor’d been that rookie once, and while parts of his ass were still smarting from some of his fuck-ups, he had to admit Leonard knew what he was doing—especially when they were going in blind to a dilapidated RV doubling as a meth room.

“Team One ready,” he replied into his headset, tapping Roberts on the shoulder.

The early-morning hours brought in the fog, its mi
sty air drawn toward the cooling city’s hills. With the damp came a steep of smells unique to Chinatown. Somewhere close by, a small back-alley factory made
li hing mui
, and the wind carried the preserved plum’s scent of anise and sugar through the area’s tight weave of buildings. The light crackle of nightlife continued off behind them, hidden by the brick buildings surrounding the nearly empty parking lot they were about to descend upon.

Its sole occupant, a swaybacked RV from the seventies, sat at the back of the lot, its tires flat and wispy grass growing up through the cracks in the asphalt around it. A couple of swap-meet tents provided a kind of lanai area, and someone’d set up a few mismatched plastic chairs around an upended wire spool, its flat surface marred with cigarette burns and candle wax. The RV’s original door’d been torn out at some point, with a larger one framed in. Instead of the standard flimsy aluminum ladderlike steps leading up, a sturdy set of wooden stairs led up to the RV’s front door.

The wind picked up again, and Connor held his team in the shadows, waiting for Leonard to give him clearance so they could crack open the RV and find who they’d come for.

“On your call, then,” Leonard growled. “Bring ’em all back out, Morgan.”

“Like they’re my babies, sir.” Connor grinned even though Leonard couldn’t see him. “Moffatt, Evers, you’re on point. Davis, Clark, cover six. Roberts, time to break it down.”

They went in slowly, circling the RV until they got to the front. Keeping to a tight pattern, Con motioned Roberts to slam through the RV’s door. He’d had the barest of thirty minutes to pull the raid together, pulling up the manufacturer’s schematics for the ancient motor home from someone’s Facebook page. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was the best they could do—especially since the informant told them the meth was moving out that night.

If the CI was to be believed, it would drop enough ice into SF’s streets to kill off a brontosaurus, and they had to move
fast
.

Leonard opted for a launch raid, hoping to catch the RV’s owner, Franklin Marshall, unaware. Based on the lack of lights coming from the RV’s dirt-clouded windows, either Marshall was asleep at three in the morning, or he’d covered the windows with tinfoil to block anyone from looking in.

Either was a possibility, as was the man having an arsenal inside despite his lean arrest record. Con’s team planned for the worst-case scenario and hoped for the best. It was far better than trusting humanity’s kindness and burying one of their own.