The Evil That Men Do (12 page)

With a little convincing, lots of tears, and a weeklong packing adventure, they got Mom into their house on Upper Mountain. At first everything seemed okay. Mom was adjusting nicely. She’d help with dinner or set the table, knit, or sit and watch TV. She was quiet, almost sad, but she got by. Susan would sit and talk with her when Franklin was at the restaurant. They’d try and reminisce about the old times, but things seemed to be slipping from Mom’s mind.

That was okay. Susan was happy to have her there. Occasionally, Mom would get up and forget why and Susan would have to help her. It was frustrating, but nothing she couldn’t deal with. Mom would get more frustrated with it, swearing at herself, twisting her hands together in annoyance.

About two months after they’d moved her in, Franklin came home early. He was going to have dinner with them and then go back to the restaurant. He came over and kissed Susan hello first and then walked over and said hello to Mom. He had barely got into the room when Susan heard him swear. She asked what was the matter.

“Your mother just shit herself on the couch,” he said, backing up into the kitchen.

“Oh, Mom,” Susan said, hurrying into the room.

It was true. Her mother’s pants were stained, the odor permeated the room, and the couch was stained with feces.

“Mom, come on. Let’s get you cleaned up,” Susan said. Her face flushed, and she was embarrassed for her mother.

Her mother, however, didn’t budge from the chair, her own face red. “It’s that bastard’s fault!” she yelled, pointing at Franklin. “He is a curse to this family! I can’t live with him.”

It took half an hour to get her mother cleaned up and out of the room. The entire time, Mom swore at Franklin, cursed a blue streak. “He’s an asshole,” she said. “He’s been stealing from me! He’s been stealing from all of us! Motherfucker.”

Susan cried that day. She and Franklin decided they couldn’t handle Mom on their own anymore.

Now, as she stepped through the front doors, Susan was sure her mother, the one who survived being a single mother and working two jobs, who stood tall and beamed at Susan’s graduation, was still inside her mind somewhere.

The receptionist smiled at Susan as she buzzed the door open.

Mom was awake, wide-eyed, smiling.

“Hi, Mom,” Susan said.

“Hi.”

“Mom, I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

Susan sat next to the bed and took her mother’s hand. The room smelled of Lysol and the sweet flowers that someone had placed next to the bed. Her mother’s hair was still wet, which meant the staff must have just bathed her.

If only they’d kept their mother’s money in a bank account to save for her will. Instead, they used it to pay for the nursing home.

“Mom,” she said. “I miss you.”

Her mother smiled at the sound of Susan’s voice, returned the squeeze of Susan’s hand.

“Franklin’s in a lot of trouble, Mom. I don’t know what to do.”

Her mother squeezed her hand tighter at the mention of Franklin’s name. Susan was sure of it. Mom was in there somewhere.

“Come on, Mom. Why can’t you help me anymore?”

Susan squeezed harder and waited for her mother to respond. Mom slowly turned her head and looked at her. Gazed deep into her eyes. As Susan met the glare, she was certain there was recognition in the gray orbs.

“My daddy works on the docks,” Mom said.

“No. Mom, come on. I need you right now. I need you to come back to me. I need someone to talk to.”

“He walks me to school in the morning when he comes home.”

“Mom, your dad’s been dead a long time.”

Mom squeezed her eyes shut and started shaking her head. “No. No. No.”

Susan stood up, letting go of her mother’s hand. Putting her hands on her mother’s shoulders, she gently shook her. If only there was an inheritance. If only there was money left. And her mother could just die. Tonight. And Susan would have the money.

“Mom. Franklin is gone. I can’t get the money. We’re in trouble. I need you to tell me it’s going to be okay. Even if it isn’t. I need you to be my mother. Tell me Franklin will come back.”

Mom’s eyes shot open. “That fucker is a liar!”

Susan stepped back. She was still shocked that her mother used such language. Her mom never swore before she got sick.

This wasn’t her mother anymore. Her mother was gone. This disease had taken her mother. And left this
bitch
— this unresponsive
bitch
— in its place.

Susan imagined her hands pressed harder on her mother’s shoulders.

It would have been so easy.

She remembered the woman who was no longer her mother losing complete bowel control on their couch. She saw her cursing at Franklin, letting loose all sorts of bile and hatred to a man who’d done nothing to her. She saw the frustrated woman, unable to remember why she had gotten up from her seat. The woman who couldn’t even bathe herself. Who needed to be tended to like a child.

This is no longer my mother.

Susan pictured her hands wrapped around the woman’s neck, starting to squeeze. The woman’s eyes would bulge and her mouth would shoot open, trying to gasp for air.

“I can’t take it anymore!” Susan yelled. “I want my mother back!”

The woman’s head would shake back and forth, her eyes looking like they’d pop out of her head.

“How could you do this to us?” Susan screamed.

Donne and Iapicca pulled into the parking lot off Berdan Avenue. It took them only twenty minutes to get to Wayne from Rutherford, the mall traffic at a relative lull for eight in the evening. They had the Yankees on the radio, and John Sterling was telling them how good Jason Giambi would be by the time the season really got under way, even though it was well past the All-Star break.

“I can get the FBI involved. It’s kidnapping, Jackson,” Iapicca said as they approached the front door of the nursing home. “It can only help.”

“They said no police, no authorities.” Donne nodded at the receptionist, who buzzed them in.

“Your sister just went in,” she said.

They walked through the door only to see nurses running toward his mother’s room.
We are too late
, he thought.
She’s already dead
. And her secrets had gone with her.

Donne jogged toward the room, listening to an old woman scream that she hadn’t gotten her ice cream yet. Through the door, he saw several nurses in a crowd watching his sister yell.

Susan hunkered over his mother, a high-pitched howl escaping from her lips. Donne stepped through the crowd and grabbed Susan by the shoulders. He had to pull once, twice just to pry her away.

“Let go of me!” Susan struggled against his grip.

She shook herself free and ran toward the door. Iapicca caught her and held her.

Donne’s mother was coughing up phlegm, and tears flowed from her eyes. Her shoulders shook, and between coughs she kept saying his grandfather’s name, Joe Tenant. One of the nurses stroked her hair and whispered that it would be okay.

Donne turned toward Susan, trying to push the memory of his sister’s pain-filled yell out of his head.

“Sue, what happened?”

Susan sank to her knees. Her hair was ragged and sweat poured from her brow. Her entire body shook as if she were cold. She stuck a weak hand out and pointed toward the bed.

“That,” she said, “is not my mother. She can’t help me.”

HACKETT DROVE IN CIRCLES. IT WAS TOO EARLY TO
settle into a hotel room for the night. And he wasn’t going to stay with Franklin now. Carter needed to think for a while, sit in his own filth and worry. And he didn’t want to call work. Not when it was about New York.

Could they know he was the culprit? No, that wasn’t possible. He’d been careful, gloves, false names, unmarked vehicles. Paid in cash for the materials. Even the research in the library was done with a false library card. No one could know it was him.

He drove along MacCarter Highway. Newark was quiet, nothing going on at the PAC Arts Center, and the Bears minor league team must have been on the road. A wino stood on the corner, panhandling. Hackett ran the red light.

As much as it pained him to admit it, the FBI was good. They would figure it out eventually. The plan was to be in the Bahamas by then. It was too soon. They shouldn’t know about him.

Not knowing was driving Hackett nuts. Finally, he reached for his cell phone and dialed a number he wished he’d forgotten.

“Detective Marshall,” his old boss said.

“Jason, this is Bryan Hackett.”

Hackett always liked Jason Marshall, even though he was a black guy with an Irish name.
Shouldn’t pretend to be Irish if you aren’t
, Hackett thought.

“Hackett, how you doin’?”

“I’m all right. I was on vacation. My wife just happened to check our messages.”

“Sorry to disrupt. What have you been up to these days?”

Hackett hated the small talk and wanted to know what Jason Marshall’s real intentions were. He also knew, though, that forcing the issue would arouse suspicions, so he played along.

“I’ve been working at Ploch’s Farm, helping sort shipments, test fertilizer, that sort of thing. A few months ago, I did some technical advising in the city.”

“Technical advising?”

“Yeah, one of those
Law & Order
kind of shows was filming, needed a bomb expert.”

“Sounds like you’ve been keeping yourself pretty busy.”

You don’t know the half of it. Or do you?

“I try.”

“Well,” Marshall continued, “I hate to interrupt your vacation, but we need your help.”

“We?”

“The FBI called me in. You heard about the explosion on the Upper East Side?”

“I’m on vacation, sir. Not hibernating.”

Marshall chuckled. “Good. Are you within driving distance?”

“I’m in Point Pleasant.”

As he drove along the Passaic River, he noticed the rotten metal bridges and Harrison out across the way. Despite the attempt at gentrification, it still felt like Newark and the surrounding area were falling apart. He wished he really was staying in Point Pleasant.

His call waiting beeped and Hackett pulled the phone from his ear to see who it was. Delshawn Butler. What the hell did he want now? Hackett would call him back.

“Well, do you think you can cut it short and get up here tonight?” Marshall asked.

“Why?” Hackett’s stomach tightened.

“I know we let you go. You were a hothead, Hackett, and we couldn’t have that. But I always trusted your instinct. Some of the materials that were used, the clues we have… We think it was a cop. Someone on the inside who knew how to make us look the wrong way.”

Hackett had to keep from laughing out loud.

“We want you to come in and help. See what’s going on without arousing suspicion. The FBI doesn’t want the regulars working it, because it could be one of them.”

“You want me to help investigate the case?”

“Yes.”

This was too good to be true.

“I’ll be there tonight.”

Marshall took a deep breath. “Good. We’ll be here.”

Hackett listened to the address he already knew and hung up. A drive from Point Pleasant to New York would take nearly two hours, so he had time to go back to the house and tell Franklin Carter the good news.

Delshawn didn’t think that much when he hit the road to find Carlos. He thought it would have been easy to find the kid. A phone book, maybe drive around the area where he dropped off the gun. He’d met Carlos before, or at least was pretty sure he had. How hard could it be to find him?

Harder than expected.

There had been a ton of Ramierezes in the phone book. And calling each one and asking if Carlos was there wouldn’t have worked, because when he had called the first five, three of them had Carloses in the house. The other two hadn’t spoken a fucking word of English.

Delshawn drove up and down street after fucking street with no luck.

Sometimes this job sucked. But it was a safer way to make money than dealing, which was what Shemiah thought he did. He knew people who’d make close to twenty grand a month dealing, but there was too much competition. Too many gun battles. Hell, he even heard about some guy down Central Jersey trying to take out all the competition in one shot.

Nah, killing people was easier. Bang, one shot, ten grand at least. And if you did it right, no one came after you.

Times like this, when you made a mistake, that’s when it was a pain in the ass. But fuck it. Every job had its drawbacks.

His cell phone buzzed. It was Bryan Hackett finally calling him back. “We got a problem,” Delshawn said without a greeting.

“I’m having a good day. It better not be too bad.”

“The cops have my gun.”

“What gun?”

“The one I used the other day.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. We can’t talk about this now.”

“I just need to know what you want me to do.”

“Well, as far as I can tell, you have something to take care of. You know who found it?”

“Yeah.”

“So take care of it. Permanently.”

The line disconnected. Delshawn didn’t even think about not being able to talk on the phone. He didn’t think about the possibility of other people listening. He’d never had this problem before. Then again, this was only his third assignment. Once he left the Bloods, he’d had to find something to do. Freelance had seemed like a great idea. It was just a matter of drumming up publicity.

Fucking up like this was not a good way to do it. Hackett was right. He was going to have to take care of the situation.

Otherwise, he’d have to get a real job.

EIGHTEEN HOURS

“I’m so sorry,” Susan said to Donne. “I just — I just couldn’t take it anymore. If you knew — if you knew what I was thinking.”

The nurses and aides had been kind enough to give them some space. Even Iapicca stood back, talking to a few of the nurses, assuring them that he could take care of it. That the Wayne cops didn’t need to be contacted. He was calm and he was smiling, and it seemed like whatever he was saying was working.