The Innocence Game (18 page)

Luke stared at his name, tattooed in thin lines of ink across the inside of his wrist. Stupid thing he’d done messing around with his buddies back home. When they were all gonna head out to California together. He felt the thick pad of cash in his pocket and smiled to himself. The bar’s safe was in the basement. The pig kept the combination in his wallet. Easy pickings. Luke hadn’t counted it all. Just took whatever was there. Maybe five hundred. Enough, at least, for a ticket back to Maryland. He took the phone out of his pocket and pulled up his mom’s number again. Then he hit send. The number rang once. Luke disconnected and stared at the screen.

“You gonna call her, or not?”

Luke nearly pissed himself. The man who’d spoken shifted into the light and chuckled. He was old, with narrow yellow eyes and long, curved features. His hair was shiny and slicked back from his forehead in smooth strokes.

“What’s her name?” the man said.

“Who?”

“The girl you’re thinking of calling.”

“It wasn’t a girl.”

“Home, then.”

Luke slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Where you from?”

“Baltimore.”

The man nodded like Baltimore was just what he expected. “I came back here for a smoke.” He looked expectantly at Luke, who pulled out a pack of cigarettes. They both lit up. Luke streamed blue smoke into the night and leaned against the wall. The alley was long and twisting, but he couldn’t stay too long. Not with Timbers’s weekly float in his back pocket.

“You’re a bar-back at Timbers?” the man said.

“And you’re a customer?”

“I come in sometimes for the special. PBR longnecks for a buck and a half.”

“Tuesday and Thursday nights. Can’t beat it.”

“I’m not a fag, Luke.”

“I don’t care, mister. And how did you know my name?”

“I heard your boss. Seems like he might be looking for you.” The man tossed his cigarette away. He wore a pair of faded jeans and boots with rundown heels.

“I’m done with that place,” Luke said.

“Not treating you right, huh?”

“I just need to get out of Chicago.”

“Headed home?”

“Maybe.”

“You need money for the fare?”

“I got plenty.”

“You mean what you took from the bar.”

Luke came off the wall. “Fuck you, mister.”

The man’s nostrils flared. Like a feral cat scenting prey. Luke felt a chill.

“I gotta get going,” he said.

The man took out a roll of bills. “Two hundred for a suck.”

Luke was tempted. It was all of ten minutes’ work. And he could always use money. Still, not the best idea. Not with the pig looking for him.

“Another time, mister.”

The man counted out another hundred and put it with the rest on the ground between them. He used a rock to hold the money down.

“That’s a lot of cash to leave lying around, mister.”

“Three hundred. Till I’m dry.”

Luke caught the yellow gleam again in the man’s eyes and took it to be lust. “Fine, let’s go.” He scooped up the cash, and they walked together into the deepest part of the alley. The man leaned up against a wall. Luke reached for his crotch.

“Let’s see what you got.”

The man undid his belt. Luke dropped to his knees. He never saw the rock the man carried in his left hand. Never felt the blow that cracked his skull sideways off the wall. The man with the yellow eyes dragged him another twenty yards, to a van with blacked-out windows, parked in a lot reserved for customers of Cathy’s Cupcakes.

He lifted the boy into the back of the van. A phone dropped out of the boy’s pants pocket and began to vibrate. The man picked it up. The screen registered an incoming call from home. The man shook his head and turned it off. Then he went to work on his latest catch.

The sun shone through my bedroom window. I rolled over and tried to ignore the banging inside my head. That’s when I realized it wasn’t in my head at all. I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Then I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Whoever was at the front door wasn’t going away. I went back into the bedroom and threw on a pair of jeans. In the top drawer of my dresser were copies of the bite-mark photos from Jake Havens’s two cases. I considered them in the morning light. More banging at the front door. I stuffed the photos back under my clothes, took a final look in the bedroom mirror, and hustled downstairs.

There were two of them. The same two who had pulled me over a week earlier. I knew by now they liked to do things that way. Let you know who was the hunter and who was the hunted. The black detective showed me his star. The white guy did the talking.

“Mr. Joyce?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m Detective Marty Coursey.”

“I think we met a few days ago,” I said.

“This is my partner, Nate Johnson. Can we come in?”

I stepped aside and they were in.

“You live alone, Mr. Joyce?” Johnson had picked up the narrative. Coursey wandered into my living room and began touching things.

“Yes,” I said. “What’s this about?”

“We wake you up?” Johnson said.

“Matter of fact you did. Why?”

“No reason. Just past noon is all.”

“I like to sleep in. Could you ask your partner to come in where I can see him?”

“Is he bothering you, Mr. Joyce?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Marty?”

Coursey walked back into the hallway and slid the sunglasses up on his forehead. His eyes were colorless, and I could smell cigarettes on his clothes.

“Maybe we can all sit down?” Johnson said.

We settled in the living room, the two detectives on the couch, me in the recliner.

“We’re from Violent Crimes,” Johnson said.

I sat up in my chair.

“We’re going to need a statement from you,” Johnson said. “We’d also like permission to search your home and vehicle.”

“No one’s searching anything,” I said. “And I’m not giving any sort of statement until I know what’s going on.”

“Where were you last night?” Coursey’s teeth were yellow and pointed.

I shook my head.

“I figured as much.” Coursey stood, gun creaking on his belt as he moved. “Get up, son.”

“Why?”

Coursey had his cuffs out. “Get up.”

“Hang on, Marty.” Johnson put a hand on his partner’s arm.

“Just tell me what this is about?” My indignation had dissolved into uncertainty. My demands into pleas, which was exactly what they wanted. Get me scared. Get me talking.

“It’s about a sexual assault,” Johnson said. “Your classmate, Sarah Gold. Someone broke into her apartment last night and raped her.”

“Sarah?” The word dropped from my mouth like a dry pebble.

“Beat the fuck out of her, too.” Coursey was close enough now that he could smell the panic.

“If you could give us an accounting of your whereabouts for last night,” Johnson said, “we might be able to clear some things up.”

“An accounting of my whereabouts?”

“Yes, Mr. Joyce. Where were you last night?”

“I want a lawyer.”

Coursey turned to Johnson with a look that said
I told you so
, then turned back to me. “Stand up and put your hands behind your back.”

I did. They cuffed me, threw me in the back of an unmarked car, and took me downtown.

They handcuffed me to a chair in an empty booking area and left me there for the better part of the afternoon. When Coursey finally came in, he didn’t say a word. Just took me to a cell. There was a white kid named Randall lying in the upper bunk. I sat in the lower. Randall told me he was looking at twenty-five to life for running dope. I didn’t respond. Randall swung down off his bunk and stood over me, heavy arms resting on the iron bed frame. I felt my heart pump and my blood heat.

“Get away from me.” My voice sounded surprisingly even.

“You gonna bite, little pup?” Randall squatted, studying me like I was some sort of strange food they’d put in his dish. “Look at me, little pup.”

I did. His eyes were black sinkholes. Skin, prison pale and scarred with ink. He flexed a biceps. “You like?”

I clenched and unclenched my fists. “Fuck you.”

“I might just do that.” His laugh was heavy, full of smoke and menace. “You don’t think that’s funny?”

“I think you better kill me, or I’ll gut you like a fish.”

The laughter stopped, and Randall pulled out the business end of a shank. “Now that you mention it.”

I went at him with both hands, hunting for the eyes. Randall wasn’t stupid. Or old. He used my momentum to take me to the floor. Then he was on top of me, a knee in my back. I thought about Jake Havens pinning Sarah’s ex to the floor in Nevin’s. Seemed like a long time ago.

“What you think now, little pup?”

The shank tickled my cheek, and I could feel his breath in my ear. He’d take my life. And so easily. That was the part that really pissed me off.

I reached back and clawed again at his face. Randall grabbed a hunk of hair and pulled my head back. I waited for the slash across the throat and the blood. Preferred it to anything else my cellmate might have planned. Instead, the pressure eased. Randall climbed back into his berth. I pulled myself off the floor and crawled back into mine. Minutes passed. I closed my eyes and listened to my own strangled breathing until it settled. It was my cellmate who spoke first.

“You’re in for rape.”

My eyes flicked open.

“Them cops offered me a deal to snitch.”

“Why?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing. What’s your name?”

“Ian. Ian Joyce.”

“Well, Ian Joyce, the machine got you now. So maybe it don’t matter.”

“Why did you let me go?”

“That’s my business.” There was a pause. Then the steel shank dropped from the upper bunk onto mine. Its handle was wrapped in gray tape. “Next time someone gets up in you like I did, stick him. First time. First thing. Maybe you’ll be all right.”

“I’m not gonna be in here too long.”

Randall rolled over and yawned. “Keep the shank. And learn how to use it.”

Five minutes later, my cellmate was snoring. The adrenaline rush had left me jittery, and I had no idea what time it was. I only knew there was no way I was going to fall asleep. Right up until I did exactly that.

Somewhere a steel door slid open and slammed shut. I opened my eyes and studied the springs on the bottom of Randall’s bunk. The shank he’d given me was under my pillow. I felt for it. The footsteps got closer, then stopped. A female officer stood just outside my cell. She had a set of cuffs and a belly chain in her hands.

“Ian Joyce?”

I came up off my bunk. I’d never been so happy to hear my name. “I’m Joyce.”

“Back up, please.”

I moved back from the bars and wondered how long I’d been out. The officer came in and cuffed me. Randall kept his face turned to the wall. The officer took me to an interrogation room with a tinted mirror running the length of one wall. I sat in a chair and swore to myself, no matter what, I wouldn’t go back to the cell. Then the door opened. Coursey came in alone. He was wearing a different suit than the last time I saw him and carrying a soft briefcase with a Chicago police crest on it.

“How you doing, college boy?”

“I’d like a lawyer.”

Coursey pulled out a set of keys. “How about I undo those bracelets?” He stepped close and undid my handcuffs, then the belly chain. “Better?”

“Thanks.”

“You know where you are?” Coursey wrapped and unwrapped the chain around the meat of his fist as he spoke.

“I’m in a police station.”

“You’re in the fun house, son.” Coursey gestured to the glass behind him. “Two-way mirror, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Ain’t no one back there.” He clattered the chain down on the table and unzipped the briefcase. From inside it, he pulled out a clear plastic bag.

“I like this. Put it over the fucker’s head and watch him turn blue.” Coursey held the bag up in front of me. “How long you think it would take before you signed whatever I wanted you to sign? I can tell you…not long.”

The plastic bag disappeared, replaced by a black folder. “Know what this is?”

I shook my head.

“Believe it or not, it’s worse than a fucking bag over your head. This here is evidence. More than enough to punch your ticket to Stateville. I figure you for dead inside a month. And it won’t be pretty.”

“If you don’t have the balls to do it yourself, Detective, just say so.”

Coursey was no different than my cellmate. If he wanted to have his fun, he’d have to work for it.

“Where were you last night?”

The question caught me off guard. Maybe that was the point, because I found myself answering.

“I went out for a beer.”

“Where?”

“Pete Miller’s Steakhouse. It’s in Evanston.”

Coursey took out a pad of paper and wrote something down. “Who were you with?”

“I was by myself.”

The detective looked up, then returned to his questions. “How about after Miller’s?”

“I went home.”

“What time?”

“Eleven. Eleven-thirty.”

Coursey put the pad aside and looked at me. Then he read me my rights. “You understand all that?”

He should have done that before he started to question me, but I got the sense it didn’t really matter. In the end, it would happen whatever way Coursey said it happened.

“Am I under arrest?” I said.

“Shut up.” Another pause. “You were home by eleven-thirty?”

“Yes.”

He was back to taking notes. “Can anyone confirm that?”

“I told you. My house was empty except for me.”

Coursey pulled a picture out of the unmarked folder and put it down in front of me. “This was taken from a traffic camera on Sarah Gold’s block. You see that?”

I knew what Coursey was pointing to. It was my car, idling under a streetlight.

“We had the plates blown up,” Coursey said. “Your car, Joyce. The time stamp is twelve forty-seven a.m.” Coursey held up a thick finger. “First lie. Breaks the cherry. You want to keep going?”

“Since when is it illegal to sit in your car on the street?”