Authors: Duane Swierczynski
Canary (17 page)
But at least now Marty knows where his sister is
supposed
to be. Tammy Pleece lives over in Rydal, roughly three miles away. If the sQuare pinged anywhere else in the city, Marty would know instantly. The odometer would tell the story, too, although Sarie could also lie about that and say that she and Tammy just hit a coffee shop somewhere in Abington or wherever.
Now Marty sits down at the kitchen table and pretends to thumb through today’s
Daily News
while waiting Sarie out. He had to replace her keys on the side of the fridge before she left, but he wasn’t too worried. She still had to blow-dry her hair and get dressed and do all of that girl stuff. So Marty squeezes the keys tight so they won’t make a sound and looks at stories about people getting shot all over the city. Two in a playground in a neighborhood called Fairhill (which Marty had never heard of). Another, outside a bar on Lancaster Avenue near Powelton Village (which Marty knew, thanks to a true crime book called
The Unicorn’s Secret,
which he’d read this past summer). And there were still no leads in an alleged drug house massacre in Rhawnhurst, which was disturbingly close. Out in the living room a male voice makes a wisecrack Marty can’t quite hear, followed by the rapid-fire cracks of a pistol and then another wisecrack. Sarie finishes making her tea and walks out of the kitchen without a word. Marty hangs the keys on the side of the fridge and goes up to his room to finish his math homework and wait. It is going to be a long night.
Tonight: drug research, attempt one.
Before I regale you with my tale of hard-hitting, on-the-streets research … well, you know me, Mom. I am what people will politely refer to as an introvert. Large crowds are fine just as long as I can lose myself in them and no one tries to talk to me. So the idea of injecting myself into a large crowd to find out where one might score drugs … yeah.
I did have a lead, though. During one of my sporadic interweb frenzy-searches I found a story about this so-called junkie Bonnie and Clyde who went on a heroin-and-coke-fueled rampage through Camden and Philly. I remembered everyone at school talking about it last March, giggling and passing around their phones to watch some YouTube clip where a police car was smacking into a long series of parked cars. I didn’t pay much attention at the time, so today I looked it up online. And damn …“Clyde” was a twenty-four-year-old day laborer from the suburbs, “Bonnie” was his twenty-three-year-old fiancée. In the before pictures they look like a happy couple—all smiles, heads leaning against each other, delirious with life. He’s lean and muscular, with close-cropped hair and the handsome looks to pull it off. She’s fresh-faced and busty, with perfect white teeth we all wish we had. That was the before.
After three days of bingeing on heroin, they decide to drive to Camden to cop some more. They’re pulled over on suspicion of buying narcotics, because, duh, why else would they be in Cam-den? Later they told police that they were intending to quit—they had a baby at home, after all—but wanted to go “out with a bang.” Professor Chaykin is always telling us to avoid clichés like “all hell broke loose,” but … all hell broke loose. Bonnie and Clyde decide it’s a good idea to steal the Camden cop’s car. Which they do, taking it over the Ben Franklin Bridge before they’re pulled over again, by the Philly PD, at which point you’d think the story would be over. As YouTube can attest, you’d be wrong. With Clyde in cuffs, Bonnie decides it would be a good idea to steal the Philly PD’s car—maybe she’s trying to steal a cop car from every department in the Delaware Valley?—and hauls off into Fishtown, where she smacks into a bunch of parked cars before screeching to a halt. The cops manage to put some cuffs on her, and the next day, hundreds of thousands of people are busy cracking jokes and passing around the YouTube clip of her final moments of freedom.
No, Mom, don’t worry, I’m not going to Camden to try to set up a street dealer. Nor am I going to embark on a two-state crime spree in two stolen police cars. Reading their background stories, however, revealed that they were big on the Northern Liberties drug scene, copping in hipster lounges and brewpubs. Especially places with live music. Exactly the kind of place I could get into, thanks to the fake ID from Tammy.
The trick tonight is going to be dressing up so that I look casual enough for a hangout with Tammy, then dolling it up in the car on the way. Dad won’t pay too much attention to what I’m wearing—he rarely does, and I never give him reason to. Marty’s been acting weird, though, interested in my comings and goings more than usual.
Wish me luck, Mom. If there are any patron saints of canaries, let them know the deal.
HOLLAND: Hey, kiddo, it’s getting late. You on your way home?
HOLLAND: Come on, Sarie, you know the rule let me hear from you.
HOLLAND: I’m calling …
SARIE: I’m here, Dad! Home soon.
WILDEY: Honors girl, give me an update
WILDEY: Five minutes are almost up …
CI #137: hang on
CI #137: can’t text now
CI #137: working on something for you
WILDEY: What?
WILDEY: Update me when u can
WILDEY: It’s getting late
WILDEY: I’m not going away. You know that, right?
Oh god.
Mom, that was so fucking stupid.
Don’t even ask.
[-] crycrybribri 6 points 2 hours ago
Obvious narc girl last night. Cops keep getting younger and younger huh
[–] 2 boxer man 1 hour ago
shit I think I talked to her too she kept asking where to find pancakes and syrup! stupid bitch
ferrill215 1 point 1 hour ago
someone should have made her breakfast
ridonkdonk 1 point 1 hour ago
KILL ALL SNITCHES
cerealkilla 31 points 10 hours ago
anybody got a pic of this girl? She at least hot?
Drew “D.” Pike is twenty years old, a junior honors student at a small Catholic college taking in at least sixty grand a year as a small but successful narcotics dealer, and his mother still puts him at the little kids’ table.
The “kids” in the extended, invented family that Mom gathered around herself in the wake of the divorce run from ages seven to twenty-two—Drew being the second oldest of the lot. Didn’t matter. The party always divides itself into two distinct camps: those who could drink openly and those who had to hide it. Mom and her friends call it the “non-Family,” after some lame-ass clique they formed back in high school.
The Charade is fascinating to behold. To hear Mom tell it, Drew had such a great time over Thanksgiving weekend that he wanted to come back home for a few days. The kid just craved more of her home cooking, she said. So why don’t we gather at my place and have an impromptu party? Bring the kids! Sure, it’s a Thursday, but so what?
Home cooking his ass. If Mom is so concerned about making a “home-cooked meal,” why is she ordering six pizzas from the worst restaurant in all of Luzerne County and cracking open the first of many (many, many) bottles of cheap red?
No, the real reason for this impromptu party was simple. Last week Drew didn’t have any drugs. This week, he does. And Mom’s friends need their fix.
You should have seen the looks on their faces last week, when the non-Family was gathered for Thanksgiving. First was the utter surprise.
Oh. … Really?
Quickly followed by faux-concern:
Is everything all right at school, Drew? If you need to talk to someone …
And finally, the blatant fishing for details on a possible re-up:
Are you going to be home again before Christmas?
If Drew hadn’t been so fucking terrified about what might happen to him, he would have enjoyed their weird little moments of desperation.
Now, though, the non-Family is in the mood to party. And to spend money to get them through until the holidays (
When you’ll be home again, right, honey?
). Drew sells through his package in more or less an hour, after which he sneaks out back with Courtney, the twenty-two-year-old kids’ table exile, bottle of wine tucked under his arm.
Out back Drew takes a long pull of the warm cheap stuff then passes it to Courtney, who does the same before coughing and asking for an Oxy. Drew thinks about asking her to pay for it—Christ, she’s been freeloading all summer and fall—but decides this is ultimately a dick move.
Two kittens come bounding out from behind a shrub. The bigger one is completely white, with a gray swipe across the top of her head, as if she’d head-butted some wet paint. The small one is gray-blue and his hind legs work harder than his front, creating the effect of an eighteen-wheeler fishtailing on an icy road. Courtney points and laughs at the cats. Drew’s phone buzzes.
I’m imagining D. on some desperate and shabby street corner of Wilkes-Barre, PA, hawking his pills to a rotating cast of blue-collar circus freaks. Earlier today I did a little Googling on his hometown, and, yeah, apparently shit’s real bad up there. Lots of gun violence, home invasions, corruption out the ass. Makes Philly seem idyllic. So imagine my surprise when I call D. and hear not the chaotic urban drama of some poor coal-mining town gone to hell but some girl giggling.
—Awww, look how cute! Look at that one, D.! He looks like he’s broken!
—Hello?
I hold my breath for a few seconds.
—Hello?
—Hey.
—Who is this?
Who me? Shit, I’m nobody, man. Just some dumb tall bitch with a car who stole two grand for you. A million withering answers to that question come to mind. Instead I give him the silence.
—Sarie?
—Yeah, hey. What’s up.
—Not much. I mean, all is good on this front. I took care of everything. I’ll have your stuff by Saturday morning, latest.
Takes me a minute to realize that “stuff” means “the two grand.” He’s already sold through everything? Damn, W-B must be harder up than I thought.
What’s up? he asks, like he wants to hurry me off the phone. The picture becomes crystal clear. D.’s worked off his obligation to me, so we’re all good. In his eyes, at least. Conveniently forgetting that I have to serve up a piping-hot drug dealer to Wildey in about twenty-four hours. Granted, a self-imposed deadline, but if I hadn’t set my own clock Wildey would have remained firmly lodged up my ass. At the very least, the deadline bought me two days of leave-me-the-fuck-alone.
—Nothing. Good-bye.
—Wait, wait. I can tell something’s wrong. So what is it?
I hesitate, then realize I’m only screwing myself over if I hang up on him.
—I tried finding a drug dealer last night.
—You what? Please tell me you weren’t driving around street corners in North Philly all night. That isn’t what that cop wants.
—No. I went to some dumb hipster bar and—
—And did what? Asked complete strangers if they knew any drug dealers?
Part of me wants to hang up again, let D. go back to his upstate girlfriend and get stoned or whatever. But again, I’d be fucking myself over. Before I let D. sail out of my life, I need his help.
—So how do I do it?
—Do what?
—Find a dealer. One who’s not you.
He sighs.
—Wildey’s not letting up on you, is he?
—No. And he’s not going to, either. He saw you that night. He knows you exist. So his next step is going to be throwing my ass in jail, and … well, know what? Don’t worry about it. Have a good time with your mom. If you leave the stuff at your place I’ll come pick it up over the weekend and—
—Hang on.
—Why?
—Here’s what you do …
And D. tells me what to do, how to act, what to say … basically, how not to come off as a big fucking narc.
Tonight I’ll have my chance to see if it works or if D. is full of shit.