Fostering Death (21 page)

What happened to the idea of pairing an experienced cop up with a newbie? They’d probably just started their shift, and things were pretty quiet on a Friday morning in the late winter. They were bored. Did they recognize me? I had no doubt my picture hung somewhere in the briefing room at the police station.

“What’s your name?” the taller cop asked.

For a fleeting minute, I thought about lying. They really had nothing on me, no reason to take me in.

But if they frisked me, they’d find my wallet. I didn’t have a driver’s license, but I did have my picture ID from Quality Steel Fabrications. I needed it to cash any of my check.

And I had my old prison ID. When I was first released, it was the only ID I had.

“Well?”

I licked my lips. “Jesse Damon.”

No flash of recognition. I was relieved, but a little surprised. Maybe I was just paranoid about how much surveillance I was under. That would be nice.

He pulled something out. One of those pocket cops Mr. Ramirez had shown me. I watched as he punched my name in.

I could just imagine what he would come up with. I made sure my hands were in full sight, by my sides.

His eyes widened at what popped up on the screen. He backed up a step, his hand going to his holster. “Put your hands on your head,” he ordered.

I sighed and followed his directions.

“What you got, Stan?” his partner asked.

“Look at this.” He handed it over and reached for his handcuffs. “Turn around, Damon.”

I did so. Then he ran his hands over my pockets, between my legs and under my jacket. He reached into my pocket and felt my wallet and keychain, but didn’t remove them. He pulled one of my hands down and cuffed it, followed by the other. Then he pushed me over toward the brick wall next to big front window of the liquor store. I was still facing away from him.

“You know your parole could be violated for going into a liquor store?” he said.

“I didn’t go in.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

That could be checked easily enough. “Go in and ask the clerk.” I could see her standing at her cash register, staring at us.

He looked a little less certain and turned to his partner. “Go ask the lady in there whether this guy’s been inside.”

“You sure you want me to leave you alone with him?” his partner asked, slamming his right fist into the palm of his right hand.

“He’s cuffed. I can handle him.”

That might not have been true if I had decided to do anything, but I wasn’t going to.

The partner went in and out of the corner if my eye I could see them talking to the clerk. She was shaking her head.

He came out again. “She says no. She says thanks for stopping him. She says he was sizing up the place, and she thinks he was going to rob it.”

“He don’t have a weapon.”

“Don’t need nothing but your hand in your pocket. Or
say
you got a weapon.”

I felt a rough hand on my arm. “Turn around and face us.” He gave me a shove.

Turning, I faced them but kept my gaze on the sidewalk between them.

“I suppose you wouldn’t tell us if you were planning to rob the liquor store.”

I considered how much I could say without pissing them off enough to cause myself real trouble. “If I was gonna rob a store, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it just after they opened. I’d wait until they had a register full of cash.”

They looked at each other.

“Later on there’d be more people around. Be harder to get away with it,” the tall cop said.

The other one scratched his head. “Looks like now’s not a good time, either. And all anybody’d get would be the change the cashier starts out with in her drawer. And maybe some booze.”

He changed tactics. “What was going on with the girlfriend?”

“Not really my girlfriend,” I said. “We saw each other a few times, but I think she’s not interested in me anymore.”

“I wonder why. She find out about your record?”

“She knew about it all along,” I said.

“Working is usually a condition of probation. How come you’re not at work?”

“I work nights. Just got off and went to the bank with my check.”

“Stalking the former girlfriend, were you?”

“No, sir. She just got off of work, too. She stopped by to do some shopping.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of me.

The shorter cop’s hand strayed to his service revolver. The flap was unsnapped. He rested his hand on the weapon. “What should we do with him?”

The other one shrugged. “He got no warrants. The girlfriend didn’t sound like she was going to press charges. He hasn’t got a weapon. He
didn’t
actually go into the liquor store, and there’s no way we can prove he was planning to rob it.”

“So we just
let him go
?”

They stood menacingly. The taller cop turned back to the pocket cop, frantically tapping on it. “Nothing but the record,” he finally said. “But he
does
come up ‘armed and dangerous.’”

A woman dressed in a fashionable coat and boots walked by, a small boy in a snowsuit struggling to keep up with her long stride.

“Mommy!” the child said, stopping to stare at me. “What did that man do? Did he
kill
somebody?”

“He’s a bad man, honey,” the woman told him. “The nice police officers will make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”

“Are the policemen going to take him to jail?”

“Yes.”

Chapter 15

F
ORTUNATELY
F
OR
M
E
, she was wrong.

The minute the cuffs came off and the cops told me I could go, I headed straight for home. The wind picked up trash and blew it in eddies around the stairs down to my apartment. A cold rain began to pelt down. I hitched up the collar of my jacket. At least this might melt the chunks of dirty ice that littered the streets and sidewalks.

I tried not to think about Kelly. Without much success.

Someone was huddled on the front steps of the old pizza parlor, now the Tabernacle of the Inaccurate Conception. It was one of the cult members, dressed in the saffron robes they wore, his sandaled feet drawn up against the stained concrete stairs. He didn’t have a jacket or a hat and was leaning forward, burying his face in his crossed arms on his lap. Not surprisingly, he was shivering.

I glanced at him. None of my business if he wanted to freeze his ass off sitting on the steps.

As I came closer, I realized it was Isaac.

What made someone young like that, with his whole life ahead of him, throw himself away on a bunch of religious lunatics?

Walking up to him, I said, “You’re gonna freeze if you sit there much longer. You okay?”

He looked up at me, his face white and drawn behind his straggling beard. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“What’re you waiting for?”

His teeth were chattering. “I overslept and was late for the morning service. I can’t go in until Father Peter says it’s okay. Then he’ll tell me what my penance will be.”

“I would think sitting there freezing your buns off would be penance enough.”

He lowered his eyes. “I brought it on myself. I have a long way to go before I can be declared worthy.”

He must really buy into that stuff. But he’d have to. Otherwise why would he be hanging out with these freaks?

“How come you overslept?” I asked.

“I was up late sitting with the goddess. I guess I was just so tired I didn’t wake up.”

“How long before Father Peter shows up?”

“I’m not sure. He said he’d be back before noon.”

“It’s only about nine now. That’s a long wait.”

“He might be a little earlier.”

“Can’t you wait inside?”

The kid shook his head. “I’m a novitiate. When I missed the service, I broke my contract with the Brethren. So I can’t enter the holy sanctum until we come to a resolution on my sins.”

I sighed. I was probably making a mistake, but I owed Isaac. “You wanna come wait in my place?”

He looked at me, his eyes wide behind the wire rim glasses. “Father Peter said we’re not supposed to talk to you. He said spending time with criminals can corrupt us.”

I laughed. Like I could corrupt him any worse than Father Peter and his cult were already corrupting him. “True, that. But you already been talking to me. You even been down in my apartment. You tell Father Peter about that?”

“No. I was afraid he’d be mad.”

“Did you get corrupted that time?”

He considered. “That was different. You needed help. We’re supposed to help those in need. Even if it puts us at personal risk.”

“Did you feel ‘at personal risk’ then?”

“Well, not really. But you were hurt. And now you’re not.”

“So what do you think might happen?”

“Well, you
are
a convicted murderer, even if you say you didn’t kill anyone yourself.”

“Tell you what. I promise I won’t murder anybody today, you or anybody else. And I know what it feels like to be really cold. So come on in and get warmed up.”

“The goddess will provide my comfort,” he said, gazing at the wet concrete between his sandaled feet. His feet were turning blue.

His goddess was a calico cat who was busy taking care of two kittens. Hard to see what comfort she could provide for anybody.

“Ever think maybe the comfort the goddess is trying to provide is me asking you in to warm up?” I asked. “After all, she came and stayed with me herself for a while.”

His head jerked up. “I never thought of that.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways. Probably goddesses do, too.”

He sat with his mouth open, thinking that through. Rain plastered his hair to his skull and dripped from his beard. Uncertainly, he rose to his feet. “Okay. But why would the goddess want me to come warm up in your apartment?”

“Maybe so you don’t freeze to death,” I said.

“Or maybe I have something to learn from you,” he mused.

I rolled my eyes. “Or maybe you’re supposed to teach me something.”

“I doubt that. I’m still pretty new. I don’t know much to teach.” But he followed me down the stairs and into the apartment.

The heat had just come on, and the room was still chilly. But it was dry and a lot warmer than outside.

This time, it was me who put the kettle on to boil and took the two mugs from the drainer.

“How did you choose the name Isaac?” I asked him. “That’s a pretty exalted name to choose, Isaac.” And dangerous—Isaac was intended as a sacrifice.

“Oh, I didn’t choose it,” he assured me. “Father Peter assigns the names. He said it honors Abraham, who was a good father, and since I’m still really only a kid, I needed a good father. A spiritual one.”

I spooned the instant coffee crystals into the mugs. “Other than that you shouldn’t talk to me, what does Father Peter say about me?”

“Just that we should be careful around you. He said you’ve done hard time in prison and know how to take care of yourself, so we shouldn’t bother you. He said the goddess had decided to put you in the basement apartment for a reason. At first he said it was so she could retreat to your apartment to give birth and the police would be taking you away soon. But you’re still here, so there has to be another reason. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I wished I had some whiskey to add to the coffee when it was cold like this. It would do Isaac some good. But any alcohol would be a violation of my parole. It would certainly be stupid to take a chance on having something like a bottle of whiskey around my place.

Isaac looked down at the tabletop. “He says you deal drugs and will try to drag us all into the evils of heroin and cocaine if we’re not careful. It might be a trial.”

Shaking my head, I felt a pang of guilt about my unspoken wish for whiskey. “Big difference between being convicted of murder and dealing drugs,” I said. “I don’t use. Never did.”

“But you’ve been to prison. You know lots of people who could supply almost anything.”

He sounded like Aaron, who had been hanging around a fair amount. I wondered if Aaron had been talking to him. Maybe Aaron was even considering joining the Tabernacle. If it helped him kick his meth/oxy habits, I guess it would be a good thing. Somehow I couldn’t see it, though.

“Other than that I was locked up for a while, you got any reason to think that?” I asked. “Somebody else tell you I could hook you up?”

“Father Peter says you attract the wrong element, that drug dealers hang around here because of you. He’s afraid some of us will succumb to the evils of addiction. I think he’s especially worried about Xavier.”