Narc (10 page)

“So what’s it like, growing up on a military base?” Sheryl asked me.

“Pretty much the same, everywhere you go.”

Morgan said, “I thought you lived in another country? That’s what you told me, right?”

Yeah, that’s what I told her. I’d totally forgotten about that stupid lie. Now I was backpedaling. Again.

“I don’t remember much about it. I mean, I was too little,” I stammered. “It was kind of a long time ago.”

Rain needled down the windshield. Soon we were plowing through a downpour.

“Where now?” asked Sheryl.

“Stay on ninety-five north,” I said.

Skyscrapers gleamed along the horizon. I watched the above-ground train, the Metromover, snake over the Miami River.

Sheryl swerved into the exit lane. “Turn off here, right?”

“Not yet,” I said.

A car let out a long, lingering honk.

“What the hell, Sheryl?” said Morgan.

“Watch your mouth, young lady.” Sheryl flipped off the driver behind them, inciting another round of honks.

We rolled past South Miami Avenue, the tail end of Little Havana, otherwise known as Calle Ocho: boxy apartments with Xed-out windows, as if masking tape could hold against a hurricane.

“Aaron,” said Sheryl. “Keep me honest. Are we going the right way?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, slipping a finger inside my sock.

She hit the gas and we rattled over the potholes. At the end of the block, cars streamed around Burger King. A poster of a cartoon dog said
Perro Perdido
in bold-faced Spanish.

“This is a long way to commute,” she said.

“A long way,” Morgan agreed.

We inched through a traffic jam at the Brickell Bridge, which had split open to let a tugboat pass beneath it. Rain sprayed off the statue at the base—some dead guy pointing a bow and arrow.

“Look at all this construction,” said Sheryl, as if she’d never driven here before. Maybe she hadn’t.

By the time we reached my shitty neighborhood, Sheryl had locked the doors and windows. Biscayne Boulevard didn’t look any safer in the daylight.

“Check out that crappy building. The paint is flaking like a sunburn,” said Morgan, pointing at my apartment.

“It’s not that crappy,” I said.

As we braked at the intersection, a bum with a Tommy Hilfiger umbrella stumbled into traffic. Two trucks and an SUV swerved around him, blaring their horns, but he just punched his fists at them. I felt bad for the guy. Everybody ignored him, like he was invisible or something. I knew exactly what that was like.

“Turn,” I told Sheryl.

“Now?” she said, blinking.

“Make a left.”

The bum stalked toward my window and thrust a bouquet of palm fronds at me. Their tips had been braided into weird shapes: grasshoppers and rosebuds. I shook my head. He lurched to the other side of the car.

“No, no.” Sheryl hit the wipers. The bum yelped and wobbled backward, clutching his thumb. He burned his gaze into mine, a look of pure rage.

“Shit,” I said.

In one quick motion, he grabbed the wiper blade and tugged.

Sheryl slammed her fist on the horn. “Get away from my car.”

The wiper snapped like a turkey bone. The bum just stood there, gawking at it. Then he chucked it into the street.

The light still hadn’t turned, but Sheryl pumped the gas and we squealed around the corner.

“There’s a cop behind us,” said Morgan.

“I see him,” said Sheryl.

We passed a string of pawnshops, Big Daddy’s Bail Bonds, and an abandoned car wash. When we bumped across the train tracks, I looked for a house that might qualify as “family friendly.” I only saw wooden shacks, doomed for the bulldozer.

“Are we coming up on your place?” asked Sheryl.

I pinned my gaze to the window. “Yeah. Almost.”

The houses were choked by fences and barbed wire. That wasn’t going to help. Despite the smell of desperation—sofas rotting on the front porch, laundry flapping in the rain—satellite dishes were bolted to every roof.

I spotted a house with a chain link gate, swung open. No cars out front.

“There,” I said.

Sheryl pulled up to the sidewalk and parked. “Honey, can you pass Aaron an umbrella from the backseat?”

Morgan handed me an umbrella with a duck’s head on the handle. I got out and fumbled with the lever. When I finally popped it open, I was already soaked. Morgan got out, too. There was a diaper in the road, smothered in something that resembled hay. I kicked it to the side.

“That’s so freaking gross,” Morgan said, scooting next to me. “I’m going to throw up.”

“The neighbor’s dog messes with our garbage,” I said as we walked toward the door. Was she going to follow me the entire way?

“Whose baby?” she asked.

“What?” I caught the glow of a television blinking in the window. Either they left the TV on or somebody was home. “Oh, the diaper? I don’t know where it came from. Next door, probably.”

We looked at each other.

Morgan said, “Aren’t you going inside?”

“My mom’s probably freaking out. It’s going to be ugly,” I told her.

“Okay,” she said. At that moment, I thought she was onto me, but she turned and marched back to the car, leaving me in the drizzle. I watched her hop into the front seat. The car still didn’t leave. I waved. Sheryl cracked the window and wiggled her fingers at me.

I ducked around the side of the house, praying nobody saw me standing on the doorstep like one of those freaky Bible salesmen, the dudes in the dark suits who used to pedal through my neighborhood, two by two, on bikes.

The yard was a wreck. A deflated kiddy pool was crumpled in the weeds, along with a plastic slide. Next door, a dog yapped behind a plywood fence, setting off yips and howls across the block.

Something pressed into the back of my leg. I spun around. A small boy stood in the rain, clutching a toy gun. He pointed it at me.

“What have you got there?” I said, reaching for it.

The kid took aim, making shoot ’em up noises with his mouth. I tried to scoot past him, but he wouldn’t move. I smacked his hand and the gun soared into the grass. As the kid bounded after it, I took off running.

I cut through the neighbor’s yard, ducking under a clothesline. A pregnant woman was pacing in the driveway. She was talking rapid-fire into a cell phone, holding a dinky umbrella over her head. How stupid was this? I was running like a god damned fugitive in an episode of
Cops
.

I kept sprinting. As I ran, I got a glimpse of other
people’s Sunday afternoons: the smell of laundry detergent, smoky meat roasting on the grill, portable radios pumping out salsa and reggaeton.

When I got to the Shell station on the corner, the rain had stopped. I crossed the street and followed the gleaming train tracks near the apartment. The rails glinted silver in the sunlight. I hunched down and pressed my ear against warm steel, listening for wheels that had already come and gone.

9 :
Sweet

The next day, after driving through what felt like miles of swampland, I found the abandoned missile site near Krome Detention Center, on the edge of civilization. A concrete guard shack jutted above the sawgrass. I parked behind it, got out, and crunched through mounds of paintball shells the color of melted crayons.

The cop was waiting near the trenches. Guess that’s where they used to launch rockets. Who knew?

“Let’s head inside,” he said.

I didn’t want to go in there, but I followed him down a hallway that reeked of piss. The empty room was studded with exhaust vents. Sunlight squeezed through the holes like windows on a ship.

I opened my mouth and the words tumbled out.

I told him about Skully. “She’s basically living by herself at this point. Her parents don’t even live in the same house, so it’s the perfect place to party. Besides, she’s desperate for friends, so all kinds of people just hang out there.”

“Did you witness any drug transactions in the house?” the cop asked.

I stared at the razor cuts on his head. “Not really.”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

I thought about Morgan, all the cards and pictures on her bulletin board. I couldn’t do this to her. I just couldn’t. So I said, “There was some stuff in the kitchen.”

“Stuff? Could you be a little more specific?”

He was losing patience with me. I took another breath. “There was a scale.”

“A scale?”

“You know. Like for measuring.”

“What else?”

“Well, obviously there was weed there.”

“Enough to justify a search warrant?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

The cop got up in my space. He was spitting all over me. “What exactly did you see?”

“It was a party, okay? People were smoking. That’s all I saw.”

He wasn’t buying it. “That’s all?”

In the distance, I heard the pow-pow-pow of paintball ammo. I wanted to bust out of there and join the players in the fields, fighting wars where nobody wins or loses. At the end of the day, everyone just gives up and goes home.

The cop leaned closer. “Listen to me and listen good. You need to get close to these kids, reel them in and earn their trust. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any idea who’s the shot caller?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“So you’re at this party and you talk to nobody … not a single person … ” He trailed off. “What were you doing? Hiding in the bathroom?”

It stung, that little comment. I fell right into his trap. “This girl, Morgan. She was selling.”

“Okay. What exactly did you see?”

He waited for me to continue. When I kept quiet, he said, “I don’t need to remind you how much your cooperation means. We must help each other.”

I help you. You help me.

The cop scratched his chin. “You’re protecting her, aren’t you?”

True. I was trying to protect everyone: The girls. My family. My own sorry ass.

A slow smile crept across his face. “Okay. Let’s cut the bullshit. Protecting her isn’t going to do you any good.”

I was in so deep, there was no way out. I knew it sounded crazy, but I wondered if there was a way to locate the shot caller without getting the girls in trouble.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Her family is loaded. I don’t get why she’s doing this.”

“I’ve seen it before,” the cop said, folding his hands behind his neck. “She’s attracted to the lifestyle. It’s exciting for these spoiled rich kids to go slumming in neighborhoods like Wynwood. Makes them feel tough when they dirty up. This is a classic case. Broken home, too much free time, disposable income.”

“Morgan is a sweet girl,” I said, a little too quickly.

“Aren’t they all?” he said and I wanted to push my fist through his teeth.

He didn’t know them. He didn’t know that Morgan was a cutter, that she carried a jagged piece of metal in her sock. I left out the parts that I kept close to myself: Skully leaning over the seawall, the winged tattoo on her back. Morgan gliding against traffic on her bike, speeding in the wrong direction. Kissing her on the dock, the battered remains of an old hermit’s house, ripped apart by a hurricane with no name.

“Look. Don’t be getting
too
chummy with these kids.”

“What’s going to happen to them?” I asked.

He rubbed his forehead. “We need to find out who is supplying. If the girls lead us to the head honcho, they’re all going down together. Who knows? In a few weeks, we might be closing in on a bust. That is, if you do your job right. Is that clear?”

Right. What could be right about this? Basically, I was screwed. I kept telling myself that I was doing the right thing, whatever that meant, but I didn’t feel right about this. Not at all.

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

10 :
True Gentleman

On Monday, I drifted through the lunchroom, a social minefield divided by haircuts and sneaker brands. Above the cash register, a sign said
DO NOT THROW FOOD
. In the upper right corner, a fry dangled like a fishing lure.

Across the street, a few people had wandered over to the gas station. They popped into the convenience store and came out with Cokes and microwaved burritos. Some of them sat Indian-style, smack in the middle of the parking spaces.

I waited for the light to change at the intersection. The sun beat down, radiating heat off the sidewalk. When I reached the gas station, I waved to Skully. Unfortunately, she was there with Brent.

“What’s shaking?” she asked, clomping in her stupid Frankenstein boots.