Capital Punishment (3 page)

"Derek hasn't found a job yet," she interrupted.

"Yeah, you said that in your voicemail," I answered. "Listen. Do you get how crappy it is for you to cancel my weekend with the kids and then ask me to pay for Derek to take them to an amusement park?"

She didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then, "It's always about you, isn't it, Mike?"

"Me?" I snapped back. "How is this about me?"

My voice was getting too loud for the small, nearly empty bar.

"How is this about me?" I repeated, more quietly. "You didn't even want to hear about my day."

"Exactly, Mike," she shot back. "I call about the kids and you want to talk about yourself."

"You called about money," I reminded her.

"For the kids!" she shouted. "You know what, Mike? Never mind. Just never mind. Go to hell."

And she hung up.

I closed my eyes and held the phone against my forehead.

She could still really piss me off.

But I didn't get to dwell on it for long.

"You gonna eat those?"

It was sweatshirt guy. He was already reaching across me for the basket of pretzels at my end of the bar. He pressed his stained sweatshirt against my hitherto clean suit coat as he tried to reach the snacks.

"Uh, do you mind?" I said, trying to lean away from him but unable to fully evade his considerable gut.

He stopped reaching, but didn't really move. He did take his eyes off the pretzels long enough to turn his face right into mine and grunt, "What's your problem?"

His breath was foul with pretzels and beer and God knows what else. I grimaced and half turned away.

"Don't you have your own pretzels down there or something?" I asked. There was a basket at the far end of the bar. I could see that much.

"It's empty," Sweatshirt said. "I'm hungry."

I nodded, trying not to get sick from the smell of his breath and the feel of his flab. "I can see that. Can you back up a little?"

He stared at me for a moment through beady eyes, then flopped back on the stool next to me.

"You gonna eat those?" he repeated, pointing at the pretzel basket.

If I'd been hungry before, I sure wasn't anymore.

I slid the basket to him. "All yours, pal."

He shoved a fat handful of pretzels into his mouth before replying, with pretzel shards flying from his lips, "I'm not you're pal."

"I can see that too," I mumbled.

Just then the bartender set my beer down on the counter. "Here ya go, sir."

I handed her a five and told her to keep the change. Beer before noon. I was going to enjoy this guilty pleasure.

"What kinda beer is that?" Sweatshirt guy asked.

And of course, he didn't just ask. He grabbed the beer to look at it, spilling the head onto the bar top. And of course, more half chewed pretzels rocketed from his mouth. I didn't know if any actually went into the beer, but I could imagine it. And that was enough.

I grabbed onto MY beer and tried to push his hairy hand off the glass. But he held on.

"Do you mind?" I said.

"I asked you a question." A few more pretzel crumbs spilled onto his chin but then, mercifully, he swallowed. "What kind of beer is that?"

I just looked at him. He probably would have seen the disgust in my face except that he leaned over my glass and gave a wet snort of a sniff. "Smells good."

I let go of the glass, which sent it tumbling toward him, more foam spilling out.

"You can have it, pal," I said. "I think I'll just get going."

He looked amazed. "Why don't you want it?"

"Because you've got your fat hands all over it!" I shouted. "And because you practically just sneezed in it!"

He looked at his hands, then the beer, then his stomach, then the pretzels. He shoved a few more pretzels in his mouth, and chased it with a loud slurp of what had been my beer. He chewed and swallowed just enough to let his mouth say, "Go to hell."

Then he took another swig and pushed in a few more pretzels.

I bit my tongue and stood up off the barstool.

God's way of keeping me from drinking before noon, I told myself as I walked to the door

He works in mysterious ways, I reminded myself as I walked though the doorway.

"And he hates me," I said when I stepped into the parking lot.

My car had been broken into.

The driver's window was shattered. The back door was ajar.

My briefcase!

I ran over, crunching the gravel under my dress shoes, and confirmed it. The thief had stolen my briefcase. With the Ellison file. And my planner. And my netbook.

None of which I cared about.

But the Yankees tickets were in my briefcase too.

I kicked the back door shut and said a bunch of words I shouldn't have. Just like I shouldn't have left my briefcase where it could be seen.

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. As the call connected I leaned against the car and looked across the street. There were three Crips standing on the corner, all flagged out, and laughing at me.

"911. What are you reporting?" came the dispatcher's voice as the call was connected.

"Somebody broke into my car," I said, but my attention was divided between reporting the crime and watching the criminals across the street who had probably done it. They stopped laughing and turned to watch me. They were all young, late teens probably, maybe early twenties. Two were tall and one was short and all of them were sizing me up.

"Do you have a suspect description?"

"How's that?" I asked.

"Did you see the person who did it?"

"Uh no. I was in the bar..." I realized how that sounded even as I said it.

"Okay." The most judgmental 'okay' I'd ever heard. "What location?"

I looked over at the wall again. "The Ice Cave Tavern."

"Not the bar location," she said. "The vehicle location."

"Uh, the parking lot?" I tried. I wasn't finding her very helpful.

"Hold on a moment, sir. I'll look it up." Then, after a moment, "Is it at 2455 64th Street?"

"Uh sure," I replied. It wasn't that I didn't know, although really I didn't. It was that the Crips, after watching me reporting the crime, were starting across the street toward me.

"Okay, we can have an officer out there in about an hour."

"An hour?" My heart was racing as I watched the young thugs heading toward me. "I'm the victim of a crime!"

"A property crime, sir," the dispatcher replied. "I only have one officer in that sector and he has a lot of calls to respond to. It's a high crime area."

"Probably because you only have one officer assigned to it!" I shouted. They had crossed the street and were stepping up on the curb.

"Don't lose your temper, sir," she said. "I understand you're upset, but—"

"I have to go now. Please send an officer as soon as you can."

I hung up on her "Sir?" and tried to figure out what to do as the three gang members crunched onto the gravel. I suddenly realized just how empty a high crime area can feel even in the middle of the day, especially when you were about to become another crime victim.

"What up?" the biggest one said to me. "You lost, man."

It wasn't a question. My heart was pounding in my throat and my hand shook as I slid my phone into my pants pocket. Then I remembered my morning and pulled back my suit coat to expose my gun holster.

Big Guy tipped his head back at the sight of it, and took a wide step back toward the sidewalk. "C'mon, cuz," he said to the other two. "Dude's strapped."

They looked at him, then me, then shrugged and fell in behind their leader. Slowly they walked down the sidewalk, past the entrance to the bar, with Big Guy looking over his shoulder a couple times. The last time he gave me a huge smile, with his tongue sticking out. He raised his hands over his head, twisted into some gang sign I didn't recognize, and yelled, "Sixty Four Crips, mother fucker!"

Then they disappeared around the corner. I didn't know if they'd come back, but if they did, I knew they'd be 'strapped' too.

An hour? I figured I might have to take my chances in the bar with sweatshirt guy.

Then my phone rang. "Hello?" I figured it was 911 calling back since I hung up on them.

"Okay, one hundred." It was Janie.

"What?" I said, stunned at the sound of her voice.

"One hundred bucks, Mike. That's all. We'll figure out the rest."

I ran my hand through my graying hair. "This isn't a great time for this, Janie. I—"

"Oh, sorry Mr. Big Shot. You don't have time to talk about your kids?"

"You're not calling about the kids!" She'd actually managed to get me to forget about the murderous thugs going to fetch guns. "You're calling about money. You don't give a damn about the kids!"

I knew that wasn't true, but I was angry. She did care about the kids. But that asshole Derek didn't.

"How dare you?" she shrieked.

"Look, I'm sorry." And I was. "I didn't mean it. It's just that right now is a really bad time. Can we talk about it later?"

"No. Let's talk about it now. You're a real asshole, you know that, Mike?"

I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at it. I knew I was going to say something I would regret. So I pressed the "end call" button and leaned against the car again to wait for the cops to arrive.

It didn't take an hour. It took an hour and fifteen minutes. Not that it mattered.

"Just so you know," the cop said as soon as he walked up, "we're not gonna find who did this."

"Wow, that's the spirit," I replied in disbelief.

"We might get your stuff back," he went on. He was older than me, with some stripes on his sleeve and a mustache on his lip. But whatever passion there might have been in his eyes twenty years earlier was long gone. "If they dumped it in a nearby trashcan. That's usually what they do if it's stuff they can't pawn or trade for drugs."

"It was my briefcase," I said.

"Oh yeah, we'll get that back," the cop nodded. "That'll be in the nearest dumpster. What was in it?"

"My netbook," I started.

"That's gone," he announced, disturbingly undisturbed. "What else?"

"My planner."

"Electronic or paper?"

"Electronic."

"Yeah, that's gone too. Anything else?"

I thought for a minute, still stunned by the officer's apathy. "Three tickets to Saturday's Yankees game."