Snitch (The Bea Catcher Chronicles) (17 page)

I’m
so
not fooling the girls.

I don’t want to see Credos, go back in the guy’s locker room, but I know I have to, the way my knee is bleeding, and I limp over to the gym. I’ve never been good with blood. Never. It makes my tummy twitch like panicked worms in a tin can.

The basketball chicks are shooting baskets again as I limp to the guy’s locker room, push open the door, and close my eyes. Thankfully, there aren’t naked butts staring at me. (Okay, I peeked.) I hear the showers running and what I think is Johnny crying. I
really
don’t want to see Johnny’s long john, so I hobble to an office that’s surrounded by glass reinforced with crosshatched wire.

Coach Credos stands with his back to me, and pulls his chair to the corner of the room. I hide behind a locker and watch him. He steps up on it and lifts one of the ceiling panels—pulls
out a bottle of vodka, takes a long, deep swallow, puts it back, and then lowers the panel back in place. He steps off the chair and drags it back to his desk, sits, then runs his hands over his shiny bald orb.

Oh my god. The ceiling tile, that’s it!
What I thought was dimpled pumice stone was actually a ceiling tile. Pale gray, banded in metal strips. It’s where he hides his shit—there’s probably more . . . another hidden stash up there.
He’s the OG—has to be! I have to get to Sergeant Daniels and let him know.
I do an about-face, ready to limp away.

“What’s your problem, Boy?” he yells from his office. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Oh, um . . . I just got here now, and it’s nothing much. I fell on the track, and my knee. It’s bleeding a little.”

He gruffly waves me in. “Sit down.”

I do, and he checks out the oozing wound. “That’s not a little.” He takes out a first aid kit from the closet, rolls my sock down, and wipes the blood off with a piece of gauze. It catches on the grown-out stubble on my leg. The coach looks up at me—he for sure knows I shave. “I haven’t had time to look over your paperwork, Boy . . .”

Good. Because I never turned it in.

“Tell me, how d’you find out about us?”

I sit a little straighter. “Junior told me.”

“What?” His boozy breath spittles a little in my face. “Junior?”

“Yeah. Do you know how he’s doing?”

“So, you heard what happened.”

I nod.

“Touch and go, they say. How did you know him?”

“You mean how
do
I know him?” I challenge.

“Of course, of course that’s what I meant.”

“Through a friend,” I lie. “I sure hope they catch whoever shot him.” I stare directly in his eyes. “Lock him up for life.”

Credos looks down, tends to my knee. He dabs the wound with what feels like battery acid. It burns like hell and I’m wondering if there’ll be any kneecap left when I leave. But I’ll probably never have to worry about shaving that part of my leg. No way. Every hair follicle depilated, now growing and blossoming on the track—a little patch of me. He then wraps it with gauze and tape, a tad tighter than I think is necessary.

I jump up and my leg almost gives out from under me, but I force it to take my weight. “Thanks, Coach,” I say.

“No problem. You know, you should probably take it easy the next week—give it time to heal.”

“Oh, okay, right.”

“So, we’ll see you in a week or so—no worries about coming here to practice.” He sits at his desk, clearly dismissing me, clearly wanting me out his nonexistent hair.

The rain has started up again. I totter over to my car and see Reyna and Roxanne leaning up against it in the parking lot. “What you want, Boy? What’s your story?” Reyna circles around me, checking me out, up and down, and blows a wolf whistle. “Ain’t he sweet, Roxanne?”

Roxanne pinches my butt and makes a guttural purring noise.

I feel naked, exposed, degraded.

Reyna whispers, hisses in my ear. “You get into Archie’s pants, bitch, I’ll chop off your pretty little tits.”

Gulp.

“Yeah, I know. You got the LBGT goin’ on . . . but I don’t give a fuck. He’s mine. You got that?” She lifts her arm, and I instinctively cover my face, remembering Junior’s words:
They go for your face . . .
and run to the other side of my car, listening to her cackle, jump in my Volvo, and peel out of the parking lot.

A black-and-white immediately pulls out behind me, and lights flash in my rearview mirror.
Oh, hell, this can’t be happening.

And wouldn’t you know it? Friggin’ Detective Cole, hitching up his pants, all full of himself, like he caught the big one of the day, walks up to my window. “License and registration.”

“What did I do?”

“I said, license and registration.”

I reach for my backpack on the seat next to me . . . it’s not there. Look in the backseat.
Damn. I left it at the track.
I swallow calmly, say, “I think I left my wallet back at the school.”

“You’re driving without a license?”

“I said, I think it’s back . . .”
No, wait. I don’t want him to see my license. He’ll know who I really am.
“Sorry, I don’t have it.”

He pulls out a pad from his back pocket. “I’m going to have to write you up.”

I bite my tongue, wanting to scream,
You’re not a fucking patrol officer.

“Excuse me?”

Oh, shit. I guess I did scream it.

“Out of your car, now.”

He frisks me . . . kind of pauses when he feels up my flattened breasts.

Third time I’ve been outed today. Damn.

I’m in the backseat. My handcuffed wrists (yet again) sit on my lap. “Driving without a license,” he says. “Argumentative with a police officer,” he tells someone (probably the sergeant) on his police walkie-talkie thing, which looks like a plastic toy, attached to his belt.

Weird
, I think to myself (this time for sure to myself).
I’ve always been argumentative with the Sarge, and he’s never arrested me. . . .

“You’re the punk that Sergeant Daniels brought in the other day, aren’t you?”

I try to ignore his grating voice and stare out the passenger side window. I’m tempted to jump out of the car while on the freeway, but decide against it—only because it would give Detective Cole major pleasure to see me as roadkill splattered on the pavement.

“There’s something up with you . . . something sketchy.”

Sketchy. Hmmm . . . that gives me an idea.
I wrestle my hands onto the waist of my shorts, squeeze the safety pin open—he didn’t find that with the frisk; I think my bound breasts kind of distracted him a little—pull it out of the elastic, and grasp it in my right hand. I have absolutely no idea if this will work—have never tried it with a pin.

“What’d you say your name was?” I ask.

He adjusts his rearview mirror—peers at me with surprised eyes and doesn’t answer.

I wriggle around in the seat belt, trying to get a better look at his eyes in the mirror. And then I notice bags of greasy fast-food wrappers on the floor at my feet.

“Stop squirming!” he orders.

“Oh, sorry. I’m just a little stressed—I’m sure you understand. You know, I’ve tried meditation, breathing exercises . . . it doesn’t work for me. What do you do? I mean, your job, there must be a lot of anxiety and stress that goes along with it, right?”

“Keep quiet!” he barks.

“I’m just curious. How do you stay chill?”

“Mind your own business.” He sneers at me in the mirror, and I get full-on eye contact . . . and suddenly images of food . . . ice-cream cones, cookies, potato chips, a gross amount of junk fill me up as I etch out a circle—a doughnut—in the pleather of the backseat.

“Isn’t it great to have a couple Big Macs to keep you
company now and then . . . a nice, gooey glazed doughnut to hang with? Ahhh . . .”

He screeches into the station parking lot.

Sergeant Daniels is waiting—hurries up to the car. I guess it
was
the Sarge Cole was talking to.

“I got ’im.” My door flings open, and Daniels yanks my arm. “Thanks, Cole. Thanks for picking him up.”

As I’m pulled out of the car, I look back at the detective. He sucks in his pooched belly and lifts his double chin.

“It’s Coach Credos. He’s the kingpin. I know it.”

I’ve moved from one vehicle to another, and now sit in the sergeant’s parked car—in the front seat this time. It’s kind of perfect that Cole dragged me here since I needed to give Daniels the latest info. The rain starts coming down hard now, pinging like bullets on the roof.

The Sarge unlocks the handcuffs. “I told you to leave it alone. Not to mess with that group. What the hell were you doing?”

“Working out?”

“And what happened to your knee?” He touches it.

I almost shoot through the roof. “Crap, that hurts. Why’d you touch it?”

“I told you this was dangerous, Bea. Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“I have something to tell you.” I scoot around, look him squarely in his eyes. “I lied to you. Big time. You were right. Junior’s innocent. He wanted to stay in jail because he knew exactly what would happen to him—he knew he’d be hurt. And it’s all my fault.”

“How did you know about the Kodiak Kidz?”

“The logo, the bear claw. I drew it out of him when I was in the cell and then googled it. It wasn’t hard to find.”

The windows start to fog. He switches on the ignition, cracks a window, and exhales. “I’m not happy about this. Not at all.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I thought if Junior stayed in jail, maybe he’d be safe, like he said. I had no idea you’d have to release him so soon.”

“Do you get it? How much danger you’re walking into? Most of those kids came from gangs . . . some violent gangs.”

“I know, but that Coach Credos, he’s the worst—a mean bastard.” I shiver. “And I think he’s the OG.”

“Bea . . .”

“No, listen. I figured it out. I think he set Junior up to keep him quiet. Junior told me that he and the Jamal kid saw him with his stash. I did, too. This afternoon.”

“What stash? We checked out Credos. We’ve been talking with him, and he’s been cooperative,
very
cooperative, an inspiration for the community. The City Council voted him citizen of the year last year.”

“Well, he’s fooling everybody. He’s hiding stuff in his office.
I saw it—with my own eyes. He always smells of booze—has vodka hidden above a ceiling tile in his office. He’s living a lie, Sarge. You’ve got to trust me on this.”

“Why? Tell me why I should trust you? You already lied to me once.”

“I said I was sorry. Okay?”

“Oh, damn. Quick—duck!”

“What?”

He pushes me down on the floor in front of the seat—throws his jacket over me as I hear a knock on the window, and Detective Cole’s voice.

“Hey, Sarge. What’d you do with that punk?”

“Letting him sit with it a while in a cell—stew, think it over.”

And that’s exactly what I’m doing, sitting with it, stewing, on the floor of his car.

“Good idea. There’s something about him . . . doesn’t sit right with me,” Cole adds.

“Yeah, well, I think he learned his lesson this time.”

“Man, it’s raining hard. Why you out here, anyway?”

I hear rustling of a paper bag. “I thought I’d grab a bite.”

“In the parking lot?” Cole asks.

“Why not?”

“Okay, whatever. I’m going to get a bucket of KFC; you want any?”

Of course he is.

“Nah. I’m cool.”

I hear Cole walking away, whistling. Daniels pulls the jacket off me.

“How many years will I get if I kill him?” I ask, still on the floor.

“Bea. He’s a good cop, works hard.”

“Yeah, I know. You got the good cop, bad cop thing going on.”

His phone
pings
with a text. He reads and then bites into his sandwich. Chews like his jaws have rusty hinges.

“You look weird.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean, your face. It looks stuck or something. Who texted you?”

“My ex. She’s talking about moving out of town—with my son. She’s engaged.”

“Oh, man, I’m sorry.” I sit back up on the seat. “Where to?”

“Chicago. She got a job in a law firm.”

“Well, shoot, that isn’t very far—just five hours or so.”