The Administrator (3 page)

Johnny began to sob softly. “Shush,” she whispered and rocked him gently in her arms.

An eternity later, the noise upstairs quieted. A crash followed by two, short gunshot retorts and a strangled scream sounded down the street. Through the earthen walls of the basement, the sounds were muffled but discernible.

Johnny stirred and squirmed out of her grip. His pudgy, dimpled hand patted hers. “Mama, I think they’re gone. I wish Halloween was like when you were a kid.”

“Yeah. Me too, Honey. Me too.” She listened to the fading sounds of rampaging gangs as they moved on to the homeless section of town. Their stop in this neighborhood was just a warm up. Her shoulders trembled, and fear filled her throat with bile. She felt like throwing up, but she swallowed hard and summoned a thin smile to reassure her son. “You can eat your snack now, but try to be quiet. Okay?”

“Can you turn on the light, Mama?”

“Not yet, Son. Not yet.” She wondered if they had left anything unbroken upstairs and prayed that they had left no bodies for her to find in the morning. She put one thin arm around her son’s shoulders and rested her other hand on the butt of the shotgun. They sat silently in the darkness while he ate his orange.

Legal Tender

“Sure I sold my grandmother’s body today. So what? It’s legal tender.”

Scrawny lips leered at me from this little rat’s face. He reminded me of one—a rat—like the big sewer vermin that the exterminators can’t get rid of.

Greasy, black hair hung in limp strands over his inky eyes as they blazed defiance at us. He shook his emaciated fist at us and growled. “I needed my Happydaze. Didn’t get enough but for one hit. It’s the government’s fault anyway. If they would’ve made Happydaze legal, it wouldn’t cost so much.” He shoved his dirt incrusted hands into his pockets and glared at me.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It’s always someone else’s fault. Isn’t it, kid?”

The rat jerked his hands out of his pockets and shook his fist again. “It is your fault, cop! You made the law that says I can’t have it. You made the law that says selling dead people for their organs is okay. You take the blame for my pore ol’ granny havin’ to be cut up ‘stead of bein’ buried proper like.”

I grabbed his flailing fist and twisted. “Cuff him,” I told Shelly.

Shelly twisted his other arm behind his back and slammed the electrons on his wrists. “Shut up, Punk,” she shouted. “I gotta’ read you your rights.”

She ran the speech through the two way so the little rat couldn’t claim later that he didn’t get fair treatment. The receiver at the station picked it up and recorded it. “Did you hear that, Punk?” she asked.

He spat through brown stained teeth onto the street just missing her shoes by inches, then smirked at her. “Nice set of jugs you got there, cop.”

This was her first juvie arrest. I needed to see how she handled it. She thought I was just her partner, not her evaluator. I had to keep up the charade so I pretended to get mad—well, maybe it wasn’t all pretend. I grabbed his track ridden arm in a vise hold.

“Stop, Gordy,” she said.

I let go of the street rat.

Shelly reached calmly for the pressure button on her belt and pressed gently.

The rat’s arms stiffened as the current ran from the electrons on his wrist up to his armpits. He screamed and fell to his knees.

She stared down at him with cool eyes. “I said, did you get that?” she asked calmly.

“Yeah ... yeah ... I got it. My rights,” he moaned. Saliva ran in a rivulet down his grimy chin.

Shelly stood over him and slowly unbuttoned the top two buttons of her uniform, unpinned the gold badge from her left shoulder and set it squarely onto the third button where it nestled in soft cleavage. She leaned down to the boy kneeling on the street giving him a good look at her chest, pushed the button on her belt again and whispered, “Louder.”

“I got it, you bitch!” he screamed.

She released the button, and the rat sighed in relief as the current faded. She replaced her badge on her shoulder, buttoned her shirt and hoisted the kid to his feet. He glared at her with hatred as she loaded him into the police car.

The girl’s got spunk, I thought.

“Good job, Shelly,” I said as we crammed ourselves into the front seat of the tiny vehicle. Since the shortage of fuel became so acute, police cars and darn near every other car were manufactured to conserve as much energy and space as possible. With my long legs, I can wipe my nose on my knees while I’m driving, but nobody said being a cop was easy.

At the station, we herded our rat into the questioning room. We had to wait an hour for two other officers and a Juvie Counselor to arrive before we could question him. Prisoner’s rights laws are pretty strict.

The rat stared sullenly at us over the can of soda the law says we have offer all suspects to cover us because of the ‘cruel and unusual treatment’ clause. He glared at Shelly then at me. “Why you guys comin’ down on me anyway? Hell, she was sixty-five years old. She wasn’t worth much—skin transplants and experiments—everything else she pretty much already used up. Eyes, liver, heart—nobody wants that old stuff. He stood up and strutted toward the door.

I grabbed his arm and Shelly reached for the electron button on her belt. I pushed his wiry body back into the chair. The aroma of unwashed skin assaulted my nose.

“Hey! Cut it out, man. That hurts. I just wanted to walk around a little. You don’t got no call to go shovin’ me around like that. Okay, okay, I’ll sit. Damn, it’s hot in here. Do ya’ have to have all them lights shinin’ right in my eyes?”

I stared into his cold eyes. “How did your grandmother die? Did you kill her?”
 

“What? No, I didn’t kill her. Just gave her the pills she asked me for. That’s all.”

“How many pills?”

“I don’t know—ten, fifteen, maybe—I don’t know.”
 

“Where did you get the pills?”

He looked at the Juvie Counselor. “Hey, man, you got a cigarette? No? You got any Happydaze? No, I guess not.” He slumped back into the chair. “Can I go now? Look, I’m only sixteen. You can’t treat me like this. The law says I’m a juvenile. You can’t pin grown-up crimes on me, no matter what I do.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Ain’t got no parents. My father ran away when I was just a baby. Mama’s dead. Look, I wanna see a lawyer. I know my rights. You ain’t gonna railroad me. I got rights.”

“The Juvenile Counselor here is your lawyer. Now, what happened to your mother?”

“You cops are all alike. Always picking on us poor folk. We’re just trying to get along, that’s all. You come in with your big badges and big guns and think we all gonna run and hide like rats run from the light. Well, it ain’t so with me, man. I ain’t afraid of you or anybody else.”

The Juvie Counselor placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Just answer the question, Son.”

“I ain’t your son, you jerk. Get your paws off of me.” He pushed the man’s hand off like he was brushing a fly. “I done told you all of it. What more you want? Mama’s dead. She’s dead.

“How did she die?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man. I just woke up one morning, and there she was. All stiff and white on the floor. All the blood drained right outa’ her skull. Made a hell of a mess. Granny scrubbed that floor for a week and never did get it all out. It didn’t matter though. They kicked us out when Mama died. We didn’t have no more money to pay the rent. Been livin’ on the street since then.”

“Where is she buried?”

Ratface glared at me, then shrugged his shoulders. “Couldn’t afford to bury her. Sold her. She didn’t bring much either. Not much left they could use.”

“Did you call the police?”

“I think Granny did. Two cops just like you two dumbos.” He nodded his greasy hair at Shelly and me and frowned. “Came and asked some questions. Then they left, and we never heard nothin’ else.”

Shelly moved to stand beside his chair. I strolled over to lean against the door. It was her show now. The counselor started to intervene, caught my glare and stepped back. “Who did it, kid? Who killed your mother? Did you do it?” she asked.

“How the hell do I know who did it? I ain’t no psychic.” He pushed against the back of the chair pulling as far away from Shelly as he could. He glanced at me, then at the other three people in the room. He stared at the peeling paint on the concrete floor beneath the chair. Sweat ran down his temples leaving smudges on his unwashed face. He mumbled, “Why would I do that to my own Mama?”

“Happydaze, maybe?”

“You friggin’ liar! It wasn’t me!” He lunged for her, slamming his knee on the aluminum table leg. The table upended, crashing against the wall with a dull thud. Shelly dodged just as the other two cops flanked him and grabbed his arms.

The mush-mouth Juvie Counselor crammed his pudgy frame into a corner with his arms across his head. He peeked around an elbow while the officers got the rat settled back into the interrogation chair, then in a trembling voice he said, “Wa ... watch it there, you guys. Don’t hurt the kid. He has rights, you know.” Still in his safe corner he squeaked, “You all right, Kid?”

“Hell, no. I ain’t all right. Get me out of here. That’s your job ain’t it? To protect us poor kids? Make them take these cuffs off. They’re hurting my wrists.”

The Juvie Counselor looked at me. I hadn’t moved from my position by the door. Shelly and the other two cops were doing just fine. They didn’t need me.

“Maybe they should take the cuffs off,” said the lardo from the corner.

I looked at his pellet eyes in his doughboy’s face. Sweat was beading on his forehead. “Why?” I asked.

“Be ... because they’re hurting him.”

“You gonna stay in the room if they do? The kid might decide he doesn’t like you either. You want to take that chance?”

Pudge-face sweated some more, finally he looked down at the floor and shook his head.

“I thought so. Just a kid, right?”

Pudge studied the floor some more.

I looked over at the rat. “Law says we have to notify your family that you’re here. Who do you want us to call?”

“Nobody. Ain’t got no family. Did have a brother, but he’s dead too. Gang got him while he was diggin’ in the dumpster. Got a good price for his body though. He was in real good shape before the gang got hold of him.” He pinned me with malevolent eyes. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. Law says you can sell the bodies. That way the government don’t have to pay for no poor folk’s funerals. Law says.”

I stared back at him with my best ‘you are scum’ look.

He flinched, ducked his head, then looked up at Shelly’s chest. “Hell! It don’t matter anyway. The judge will just send me to Boy’s Detention for a few months. He can’t do any more. I’m just a kid. I don’t know what I’m doin’. It’s the law. Couple of months, and I’ll be back home. Shit, I can have all the Happydaze I want while I’m in detention. And a bed too. And three squares.” His insolent eyes traveled down Shelly’s body, then back up to her round face. “Hey, cop,” he laughed. “Why are you lookin’ at me that way? Your face is all red. You look like you just ate a bug, like you’re gonna puke.”

Shelly glanced at me. Her face was flushed with anger, or disgust, or maybe both. Then she looked back at the rat. “Get him out of here,” she barked at the two witness cops.

“Ha. Ha. It’s ‘cause you know I’m right. Judge won’t give me more than a few months.”

The two witness cops each grabbed an arm and herded him to the door. As they passed the doughboy still cowering in the corner, the rat grinned. “Bet you’d bring a good price. All that blubber. Enough skin transplants for a whale.”

The counselor paled even more than his normal sheet white and darn near swallowed his own tongue.
 

Ratface laughed, and shouted at the cops holding his arms, “Hey, don’t push! You don’t have to be so hard on me. Okay, okay I’m goin’. Take these damn cuffs off me. After all, I’m just a poor orphan kid.”

I looked at Shelly. “You handled that pretty well.”

“Thanks.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Sure. I’ll buy.”

“Suits me.”

The coffee shop’s stained, checkered table cloth smelled faintly of vinegar and bleach. I was so used to it, I didn’t even notice, but Shelly wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”

“Table cloth. You’ll get used to it.” I sipped my pseudo coffee, coughed and added more sugar. It didn’t help the burnt paper taste of it.

Shelly laughed and asked, “Why do you drink that imitation crap? And how do you afford real tobacco on a cop’s salary?”

I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Hot, satisfying smoke rushed down my throat. I held my breath as long as I could and exhaled slowly. Lazy smoke curled up over the table. “Because I’m hooked on caffeine, but who can afford the real stuff? And once a month, I treat myself to a pack of real cigarettes, whether I deserve it or not. What about you, Shelly? Don’t you have any vices?”

“No. I’m perfect.” She laughed again.

I liked her laugh. It was husky and strong, not like most women’s giggles. “Obviously, you do have one fault. You’re not real smart or you wouldn’t have joined the force.” I grinned my best boy to girl “just kidding” grin. “Why did you join the force, Shelly?”