The Good Boy (41 page)

“Ow!” he cries, going fetal, but Step follows him to the floor, grabs the waistband of Carter’s low-slung pants and pulls them down to his thigh. There’s a bandage; Step rips that right off to the sound of Carter going
no no no no
—which makes sense, when he exposes what’s underneath: the wound is a dog bite all right, deep slashes where Butch’s canines went clean through. The problem is, the repair was not so clean: blood is thick and tacky against the skin that has swollen pink over the stitching, and an abscess seeps pus where the suture didn’t hold. Butch’s incisors left punctures that were left unstitched and are still trying to scab, and bruising has flowered from the wound to the inside of his thigh, dark purple.

“You ought to have that looked at,” Step says, a thumb pressed on the bruise as he inspects the bite. “Your boys use the last of the Crown Royal as antiseptic?”

“Oh my god,” Carter wails, writhing on the dirty carpet.

He looks up at Pete, a nod. “What would you recommend, Murphy? Should we let the wound breathe for a few minutes?”

“A few minutes, yeah,” Pete says.

Step gets up and goes to the door. “Maybe you explain to him about infections.” He pulls the screen shut after him.

“Carter,” Pete says, standing over him. “Where is Elgin Poole?”

“How the fuck do I know where’s Elgin Poole?”

“That’s his car outside.”

“So? I got nothing to say.”

“But you know we know, right?” Pete tries to sound conversational, in case Step or one of the other guys is outside, an ear to the door. “We know you were with him on Friday night. At Zack Fowler’s. And what we want to know is if you’re the one who shot Aaron Northcutt. Did Elgin give you the gun? Did he tell you to shoot somebody? Because what we think is, maybe Fowler was telling the truth—when he said it was an accident?—but we think maybe
you
fired, and you missed your mark.”

“I don’t know what you talking about.” Carter reaches for the used bandage and tries to secure it over the bite, but the adhesive won’t stay.

Pete takes the bandage from him, the absorbent pad soaked through, heavy with pus. “You have another one of these?”

“Oh yeah,” Carter says. “I know
this
though. You gonna be all nice now. You the good cop and that other motherfucker is the bad cop, is that the game?”

“No,” Pete says, “this is no game. Because I’m the good cop and you’re the bad guy, and that other motherfucker is going to stay out of the way while I do whatever it takes to make you tell me what happened to my son.”

“How you going to make me?”

“I’m just going to ask, first,” Pete says, down on his knees in front of Carter, the soiled bandage in his hands. “Where is my son?”

“Who your son?”

“The boy with the dog. I
know
you know my dog.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Carter says, a smile on one side of his mouth. “Hey, I know:
fuck
your dog. And your son.”

“Where is my son?” Pete asks, instant and obvious rage tempered by the very logical thought that he could very simply kill this man. He could use the bandage: hold it against Carter’s mouth and nose, let him try to breathe through his own blood, his own filth. He would watch his eyes go from fight to fear to flicker. And then he would be gone. Gone.

“I know you—you the cop who’s aggin’ on Ja’Kobe White.”

“Is my son alive?” Pete asks, and he thinks he sounds very reasonable though he is pushing Carter down on the floor, climbing on top of him, pinning his shoulders.

“My son,” he says, and Carter starts to yell, so Pete brings the bandage to his mouth, but then Step is there again, and so is Finch, and they wrestle Pete away.

“My son,” Pete pleads as both cops struggle to hold him back.

“Answer him, Carter,” Step hooks his arm around Pete’s torso, body weight set against him; Finch steps back to cover Carter.

Carter says, “I told him: I plead five.”

“Fuck you!” Pete breaks from Step’s grip and barrels into Finch. “Tell me where he is!” Finch pushes him back into the corner, a forearm against his neck, the young cop quick and capable.

“He a crazy motherfucker—” Carter says.

“Give it up, man,” Finch says, his breath hot in Pete’s face. Pete quits resisting, nose running, the muscles in his arms hot-wired, like they’ve been plugged in.

“Yeah, yeah,” Step says to Carter, pulling him up on his feet. “Who’s the good cop now, eh?”

Pete puts his hands up, “Okay, okay,” and Finch lets him go.

“Lucky for you, kid,” Step says as he helps Carter with his pants, “I can’t interview a dead guy.” He starts to escort Carter out, stops, says, “I thought you were going to
talk
to him, Pony.”

Pete tosses the bandage on the coffee table and absently wipes his hands on his coat. He has nothing to say.

“You’re doing a fine job upholding your reputation,” Step says, and then he goes.

“Sorry,” Finch says, a little respect before he follows.

Pete wipes his nose on his sleeve. Realizes his pants are stained with Carter’s blood. And just now, notices the television is on. Some action movie; a car chase. His badge is lying on the floor in front of the TV.

Outside, he hears Carter arguing with Step—
This a setup, you trying to sweat me, you got the wrong guy
.

And Carter is right, because the guy they need is Elgin Poole.

Pete pins his badge to its lanyard and plans to go out there and say so. Except as soon as Carter sees him, he becomes the next target: “You crazy motherfucker, I’m going to sue your ass! Just like Ja’Kobe, I’ma get his law-yer!” Nobody’s put him in a squad yet; Step’s probably leaving him out there to give him the chance to slip up, prove himself guilty.

“I’m gonna get everything you got left!” he yells, a pack of neighbors his built-in audience as they mingle and whisper from a safe distance, helplessly watching one of their own, hunted and caught.

“I ain’t no fool like that crackhead Elgin Poole—”

A sound like an eagle screaming drowns out Carter from across the lot. Pete looks out past the gathering of uniforms where a couple bangers are hanging around the tail of his squad. Which is moving side to side. Elexus has been listening, and she heard that barb on her brother.

“Hey!” Pete says, passing by Step and company on his way to the squad. He says, “Get the hell away from there!” and he waves his arms, a show for the cops, since the boys are close enough to know that’s not a mad dog in the backseat.

As Pete nears, he realizes Elexus is screaming actual words—“Some respect!”—while she’s trying to take the vehicle off its tires: “How dare you talk about Elgin! He made you, Lil Cee, and you ruined him. You was always wanting to take over—”

The two boys move off and take up position on the other side of Mizz Redbone. Pete thinks he recognizes one of them—the tall, slender one with the nice afro, the pretty-boy face—but there’s no time to investigate. Not now, with his name in lights.

He stops short of the cars’ back bumpers so he can still see both boys’ hands. They don’t appear to be up to anything, but around here, that’s the point of an appearance. “I said get out of here.”

“That’s not what you said.” The shorter boy has gold teeth. A fang grille.

“You want to ride in there with her?” Pete asks, a thumb toward Elexus. “Step back. Move away from that car.”

“Whatev,” the pretty boy says. “This our company car.”

“Company,” Pete says, “right. You running a business now?
Solid
hats, T-shirts? You going to franchise?”

“We going.” He starts in the other direction.

The smartass says, “See you round the way, Lex,” and backs off, still facing Pete, watching him, a show of hood bravado.

“Better hope you don’t see me.” Pete rounds the squad for the driver’s seat, gets in and closes the back window, Elexus bitching only to him now. He pulls through the parking spot to turn around under the tracks, and as he passes by the squads he can’t bring himself to look; he can’t see straight as it is.

He turns out of the Co-op’s lot and heads west on Maypole; since Step will transport Carter to Area Three, Pete can park here on one of the side streets and go unnoticed while he waits—it’ll probably be an hour or so before it’s safe to go back and let himself into Mizz Redbone.

Elexus sticks her hand through the divider and smacks Pete on the shoulder. She’s been going on about something, but he doesn’t know what.

“You were saying?” Pete asks as he backs into a parallel spot and cuts the engine.

“I said I want my reward.”

“There is no reward.”

“You promised I’d get a reward if I was good.”

“I don’t think what happened back there was good.”

“I thought you said we were going to find my brother.”

“I did.”

“Well?”

“Well, we didn’t.”

“You ain’t been listening to me!” She sits back against the cage, splays her legs and folds her arms. “It’s getting goddamn uncomfortable back here. I’m gonna need a milkshake or something.”

“A milkshake? I can get you a milkshake. Your brother, no. Can’t get him. And I’m fucking sorry.”

“Didn’t you hear what Dezz said? Elgin’s gone ass-out.”

“Dezz? As in Desmond Jenkins?”

“No, motherfucker, Desmond Tutu.”

“That was Desmond?” The tall boy. Pretty, like his aunt. Walked away when told.

Elexus looks at him in the rearview. “For a five-o, you ain’t too observant.”

“What did Desmond say, exactly?”

“What I just said! Elgin came up this way looking to get his car back. Cee turned him out—that thankless little fuck, think he some kind of loan shark. I wish you’da let me back you up—nobody would’ve stopped me—”

“What do you mean, get his car back? Mizz Redbone is there. We parked right next to it.”

“Lil Cee’s got the car now, is what Dezz said. Elgin had to give it up since Cee and them—his supposed-to-be brothers—quit on him. Said they was tired of bailing him out.”

“How long has Carter had the car? A day? A week?”

“You think I know? I feel like a week’s passed since you put me back here. I think it’s time we go see Elgin, and then you let me the fuck out of here.”

“You know where he is.”

“I told you: he’s ass-out. On the street. Off the grid. Set up under some train tracks, Dezz said.”

“El or Metra?”

“Don’t know, but can’t be too far, since he left out of here.”

Pete starts the car. “There’s a lot of track around here.”

Elexus says, “I hope there’s a Mack-Donald’s, too.”

*   *   *

Two vanilla milkshakes and three hours later, they’ve been by every inch of track from the river to West Town, snaking back and forth between the Metra lines along Hubbard and Kinzie. No Elgin.

Pete turns on the squad’s headlights, realizes it’s late. He thought someone would’ve called by now—Sarah at least—but it’s been so quiet even Elexus has lost interest in bitching at him; she snores softly in the back.

Pete wonders where to pin hope. If Elgin has really gone homeless, why wouldn’t he be talking ransom instead of respect? Why would he go off the grid instead of getting on Pete’s radar? And why did the Hustlers turn him out?

The only good reason Pete can come up with is the one he can’t let himself believe, and that is that no money and nobody can fix killing. Elgin could be hiding because Joel and Butch are already gone.

Pete’s waiting on a train at May Street and he’s thinking about driving straight into it when Elexus wakes up.

“Hey,” she says, and startles him, if only because she sounds like a normal person. She doesn’t look normal—her wig off-kilter, her eye makeup turned to smudged circles—but the drugs must’ve run their course, because as she leans against the window and looks out, Pete sees sadness come clean through. He knows it; he feels it, too.

The train passes, trailing off toward the last bit of daylight.

Elexus says, “None of this would have happened if Ervin was still around. With Ervin, there was an order to things.”

“Like following a map.” Pete finishes his shake, puts the car in Drive and rolls over the tracks. No map.

*   *   *

“There he is,” Elexus says, “there’s Elge!”

Pete slows the squad to a stop next to an improvised camp on the sidewalk under the bridge on Oakley Avenue. He shines his beam spotlight over palette stacks and city garbage cans and milk crates and collected junk, but he doesn’t see anybody.

“Up there,” Elexus says, her hand through the divider so she can point one long fingernail out to the street ahead of the bridge: in the shadow between streetlights, there’s a guy pushing a blanket-covered shopping cart toward them. His hair high on one side.

Pete kills the headlights and when he does, Elgin spins the cart and starts in the other direction, making a break for it.

Pete gets his gun from his duty belt on the passenger seat.

“You gonna let me out of here now what the hell?” Elexus asks in one question, because of the gun.

Pete doesn’t answer. He gets out.

“Elgin Poole,” he calls out between long, controlled strides, his gun arm stiff, barrel toward the pavement.

Elgin pushes the cart a little faster. He doesn’t look back.

“One of us is going to catch up with you,” Pete says. “Keep running, it’ll be the one in the metal jacket.”

Elgin slows at the threat, but keeps on pushing; the way he leans into the cart must mean the load is heavy, or else he’s gone weak.

“I know you know who I am,” Pete says, gaining ground. “I’m looking for my son.”

Elgin turns his head to cough, wet and strained. By the streetlight, he looks so worn thin that he hardly resembles his booking photo. His half-fro is all frizz, the high side dried out at the ends and held up by natural grease instead of product.

“I just brought DeWilliam Carter within an inch of his life and he gave me your name,” Pete lies. “You think I’m going to let you walk away from me? Tell me where to find my son.”

Elgin stops, turns the cart on its back wheel, and faces Pete from about ten paces. His eyes have no shine, and his once-famous smile has gone rotten from the pipe. “Yeah, I know you, Officer Murphy, K to the nine. You the one who
finds
the brother he wants for the crime, you and your big bad dog. So okay, I did it. There’s my confessional. Arrest me.”