Last Man Standing

12

Kevin Westbrook’s mother, Web learned, was probably dead, though no one could tell him for sure. She had disappeared years before. A meth and crack addict, she had most likely ended her life with the prick of a dirty needle or snort of impure powder. The identity of Kevin’s father was unknown. Apparently these were not unusual gaps in personal history in the world where Kevin Westbrook dwelled. Web drove down to a section of Anacostia even the cops avoided, to a crummy, falling-down duplex amid others just like it where Kevin reportedly lived with a hodgepodge of second cousins, great-aunts, distant, kind of, sort of uncles or step brother-in-laws. Web wasn’t really clear on the boy’s living situation and, apparently, neither was anyone else. It was the new and improved American nuclear family. The area looked like a reactor had been hemorrhaging nearby for a few decades. Apparently, no flowers or trees could grow here; the grass in the small yards was a sickly yellow; even the dogs and cats in the street looked ready to keel over. Every person, place and thing looked totally used up.

Inside, the duplex was a dump. From outdoors the stench of rotting garbage was overpowering, and indoors there were offensive odors heightened even more by the close quarters. This lethal combination hit Web so hard when he walked through the doorway, he thought he might end up kissing the floor. Lord, he’d take tear gas over this homemade toxin any day.

The people who sat across from him didn’t look unduly worried that Kevin was not among them. Maybe the child routinely disappeared after a shootout of staggering proportions. A sulky young man sat on the couch. “We already talked to the cops,” he said, more spitting the words at Web than saying them.

“Just following up,” said Web, who didn’t want to think about what Bates would do to him if he found out Web was nosing around on his own. Well, he owed it to Riner and the other guys, to hell with official Bureau policy. Still, the butterflies were numerous and reproducing freely in his belly.

“Shut your mouth, Jerome,” said the grandma-type who sat next to Jerome. She had silver hair, big glasses, an enormous bosom and a no-bullshit attitude. She had not given Web her name and he had not pushed it; it was in the FBI file no doubt, but he had tracked it down from other sources. She was as large as a small car and looked like she could take Jerome, no problem. Hell, it looked like she could take Web, no problem. She had asked to see Web’s badge and credentials twice before unchaining the door. “I don’t like letting people I don’t know into my house,” she explained. “Police or otherwise. This area ain’t been safe for as long as I can remember. And that’s from both sides of the table.” She said this with raised eyebrows and a knowing look that penetrated right to Web’s federal law enforcement soul.

I really don’t want to be here, Web wanted to tell her, particularly since I’m holding my breath so I won’t puke. When Web sat down he could see between the wide cracks in the floorboards all the way down to the hard clay the house was built on. This place must be toasty warm in the winter, he thought. It was about sixty-five outside right now and it felt like thirty inside. There was no comforting sound of a furnace going and no smells of good food simmering in Grandma’s nice kitchen. In one corner of the room was a pile of diet Pepsi cans. Somebody was watching her weight. Yet next to that was a mound of McDonald’s trash. Probably Jerome’s, thought Web. He looked like a Big Mac and fries kind of guy. “I can understand that,” said Web. “Have you lived here long?”

Jerome simply snorted while Granny looked down at her clasped hands. She said, “Three months. Other place we were in, we’d been there a long time. Had it fixed up nice.”

“But then they decided we made too much money to be living in such a nice place, and they kicked us out,” added Jerome angrily. “Just kicked us out.”

“Nobody said life was fair, Jerome,” she told him. She looked around the filthy place and drew in a heavy breath that seemed to drain all of Web’s hope away. “We gonna fix this place up too. It’ll be fine.” She didn’t sound too sure, Web noted.

“Have the police made any progress on Kevin’s disappearance?”

“Why don’t you go ask them?” asked Grandma. “Because they ain’t telling us nothing ’bout poor Kevin.”

“They lost his ass,” said Jerome as he slid farther down into the mound of sagging, heavily stained cushions that passed for a couch. Web couldn’t even tell if there was a frame left. The ceiling was split open in three different spots that Web could see and it sagged down so far you almost didn’t need stairs to get to the second floor, you could just reach and pull yourself up. The walls had black mold growing over them, and there was probably lead paint in there as well. And no doubt asbestos clung around the pipes. There was rodent excrement everywhere, and Web would have bet a thousand bucks that termites had eaten most of the wood in the place, which was probably why it had that little lean to the left he had observed as he had come up the front sidewalk. The building inspectors must have just written off this whole area, or else they were drinking coffee somewhere and laughing their butts off.

“Do you have a picture of Kevin?”

“Course we do, gave one to the police,” said Grandma.

“Got another?”

“Hey, we ain’t got to keep giving you stuff,” snarled Jerome.

Web leaned forward and let the grip of his pistol show very prominently. “Yes, Jerome, you do. And if you don’t lose the attitude, I’ll just haul your ass downtown and we can go over your record for any outstanding warrants that’ll put your little butt away for a while, unless you want to try and bullshit me and claim you’ve never been arrested, slick.”

Jerome looked away and muttered, “Shit.”

“Shut up, Jerome,” said Grandma. “You just shut your damn mouth.”

There you go, Granny, Web thought.

She pulled out a little wallet and lifted out a photo. She handed it across to Web, and when she did, her fingers started to tremble a little and her voice caught in her throat, but then she straightened everything out. “That’s my last picture of Kevin. Please don’t lose it.”

“I’ll take good care of it. You’ll get it back.”

Web glanced down at the photo. It was Kevin. At least the Kevin Web had saved in the alley. So the kid Cortez and Romano had babysat was somebody else who had lied and said he was Kevin Westbrook. That took some planning, but it also would have to have been on the fly. And yet for what purpose?

“You said you gave the police a photo of Kevin?”

Grandma nodded. “He’s a good boy. He goes to school, you know, most every day he does. A special school because he’s a real special little boy,” she added proudly.

Down here, Web knew, going to school was an accomplishment to tout, perhaps second only to surviving the night.

“I’m sure he is a good boy.” He looked over at wild-eyed, felony-in-waiting Jerome. You were a good boy too once, weren’t you, Jerome? “Were they uniformed police?”

Jerome stood. “What, you think that we’re stupid? They was FBI, man, just like you.”

“Sit down, Jerome,” said Web.

“Sit down, Jerome,” said Grandma, and Jerome sat.

Web thought rapidly. So if the Bureau had a photo of Kevin, then they had to know that they’d had the wrong boy, however briefly, in custody. Or did they? Romano had been clueless about there being two boys. He had just described him as a black kid. What if that was the entire official report? If the fake Kevin Westbrook had disappeared before Bates and the others got on the scene, then all they’d know was a black kid around ten years old named Kevin Westbrook who lived at such-and-such address near the alley was missing. They’d come here and talk to the family, get a picture, like they had done, and go about their investigation. It’s not like they’d for sure go ask Romano and Cortez for a positive ID, especially if they had no reason to suspect a switch. And Ken McCarthy had said the snipers hadn’t gotten a look at the real Kevin when Charlie Team had passed him on the way in. Perhaps only Web knew about the deception.

Web looked around, and for the sake of the grandmother, or whatever her relation to Kevin was, he tried hard not to show his disgust. “Did Kevin actually live here?” Bates had said Kevin’s home life was miserable and that he probably avoided it when he could, which would explain why he’d been out alone in the middle of the night instead of here in bed. The physical surroundings truly were awful, but probably no worse than many of the other homes down here. Poverty and crime were everywhere and the marks they left were in no way pretty. Yet Granny seemed solid as a rock. A good person, and it seemed like she genuinely cared for Kevin. Why would he avoid her?

Granny and Jerome exchanged a glance. “Most of the time,” said Granny.

“Where would he live other times?”

Neither of them said a word. He watched as Granny looked at her very substantial lap and Jerome closed his eyes and swayed his head, apparently to some bitchin’ music in his head.

“I understand Kevin has a brother. Does Kevin live with him sometimes?”

Jerome’s eyes popped open and Granny stopped looking at her lap. In fact, from the expressions on their faces it was as though Web were pointing a gun at them and had just told the pair to kiss their respective butts good-bye.

“Don’t know him, never seen him,” said Grandma quickly as she sat there rocking back and forth like something suddenly was hurting her. She didn’t look like she could take anybody right now. She looked like an old woman scared out of her wits.

When Web looked over at Jerome he jumped up and was gone before Web could even rise. Web heard the front door open and then slam shut and then came the sound of feet running away.

Web looked back at Granny.

“Jerome don’t know him neither,” said Grandma.