Men from Boys

After Midnight Michael Connelly

He hated the job but loved the drive home at night. The streets were always empty and a lot of the time shiny from rain. Steam would rise like intrigue off the asphalt. Just like in the movies, the old black and whites his father liked to watch on the tube. It seemed as though the city did not even begin to cool off until this time, until after midnight. Cruising along the beach with the windows down he would always encounter stragglers. Girls older than he but still just girls, making their way home or to last call at the last bar on the circuit. Some would flag him down, ask for a ride. Sometimes he would stop and oblige, the thrill of being with a stranger smelling of beer and suntan oil in the dark overcoming the potential of danger — and embarrassment. They were always surprised at how young he was. How young he looked. Some of them even laughed, thought he was thirteen years old and out joyriding in a stolen car.

At the end of the beach cruise he would turn inland and head over the drawbridge and toward home. Toward a shower and bed, maybe a talk with the old man if he was still awake and sober.

It was coming over the drawbridge and heading home one night when he encountered the running man. The boy had worked a double shift that day and was tired. It was a night for no riders. He had cruised the beach quickly and was heading west on Sunrise Boulevard. Close to home. He had just cleared the bridge but caught the traffic light by the closed gas station. He stopped at the deserted intersection and waited for the green. He knew no one would know the difference if he ran it but he waited for the green anyway. His father had taught him that the rules were in place whether anybody else was there to watch or not.

And that was when he saw him. A man running. A big man with a big beard and long hair. He cut across the dark parking lot behind the gas station. He came right out of the darkness and headed for the bridge. He was no jogger. He wasn’t running for sport or fitness. The boy could tell that. The man was fully clothed — open lumberjack shirt over a T-shirt, jeans, work boots. No, he wasn’t just running. He was running to something or away from something.

The boy studied the darkness from which the man had come. His eyes peered into the parking lot behind the gas station. Nothing moved there. Nothing was recognisable. Farther down the street he could see the dim glow of the Kwik Mart, but nothing else.

The traffic light turned green. Ready to dismiss what he had seen — maybe the guy was just trying to make last call at one of the beach bars — the boy turned to take a final glance at the running man. He immediately noticed that the man no longer wore the outer shirt. He had removed it while running. And at the moment the boy glanced back he also saw the running man slow his pace just long enough to shove the red lumberjack shirt into the hedge that lined the sidewalk before the bridge. He then kept going.

The light was still green. But the boy sat there in his beat-up Volkswagen and thought about what he had just seen. He had a decision to make. Pop the clutch, press the gas pedal and move on toward home. Or turn the car around and check it out. Why had the running man stuffed his shirt into that hedge?

The boy was on the edge of manhood. Not in physical size or development — he had always been small and was stopped regularly by police who thought him to be too young to be driving. But inside, in thinking about his life and his options and in the way he studied the girls that walked the beach road at night. Inside, where it counted. His father kept the chorus going, all the time chiding him for his mistakes. It’s time to be a man.

The light turned yellow. As if he was out of time and desperate, the boy hit the gas and dragged the bug into a squealing U-turn. He drove back toward the bridge. The running man was gone now, having gone up and over the bridge, dropping down past the span toward the beach. The boy stopped at the curb near the hedge. He left the car running and got out. He went to the hedge and saw the spot where the branches had been freshly disturbed. He reached in for the shirt, the interior branches scratching at his arm.

As he pulled his arm back he felt something hard and heavy buried in the shirt. Slowly he unwrapped it and looked down at its contents. A blue steel revolver as shiny as the wet streets was in his hand. He felt a little thrill go through him, coming all the way up from his testicles.

A gun. The boy had never held one before, had never even seen one this close. His father had a rule, no guns. He picked it up with his hand and hefted its weight. It felt warm to him. He put his nose to the barrel and sniffed. A sharp, bitter odor invaded his nostrils. Was that gunpowder? Was the gun warm because it had been fired?

He quickly wrapped the gun in the shirt again and took it back to the car. He stuffed the shirt and gun into the glove box and closed it. He then pulled away from the curb and drove back over the bridge. It only took him a minute to catch up to the running man. He watched as the man stopped before he got to the beach and turned right into the street behind the big white hotel. The boy drove by, turned right on the beach road and then took the next right. He came to the same street the running man was on but a block further down. The boy dropped the clutch and slowed. He saw the running man was now walking. He finally came to a stop and then calmly stepped through the front door of a bar called The Pirate. It was a place the boy knew about from the outside. A rough place. Motorcycles always parked out front in a line. He knew that the men that came out of that bar had a habit of coming out mean.

The boy picked up speed and kept his car moving. He made his way back to Sunrise and once again headed west to the bridge and home.

But as he crested the bridge his eyes were greeted by all of the lights. Blue and red and yellow. Police lights, seemingly everywhere. A spotlight from a helicopter cutting through the parking lot behind the gas station. The traffic signal was red again. He slowed to a stop and looked back at the spot in the hedge. He could still make out the place where the manicured wall of leaves had been disturbed. He knew he had another choice to make.

A car pulled up next to him. A police car. Just as the boy turned to look the bright beam of a flashlight hit him full in the face. He could see nothing. A voice sounded from behind the light. ‘Hey, kid, are you old enough to drive?’

‘I’m sixteen,’ he responded. ‘I have a license.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home from work.’

‘Pull into the gas station when the light changes.’

‘Okay.’

He turned away but was still blind. He tried to focus on the traffic signal. When he finally could see it, it was green. He pulled forward and then turned left into the closed station. The patrol car followed him.

There were two of them. They got out simultaneously. One of them put his flashlight on the boy’s face again.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ he heard one say.

He knew they were talking about his size. Barely five-four and a skinny frame. Barely a hundred pounds. He felt his face burning red in the bright beam of their scrutiny. ‘I have a license,’ he said again.

‘Then let’s see it,’ said the one behind the beam.

The boy unsnapped a pocket and brought out his thin wallet. He took out the license and held it out. He noticed that his hand was shaking. The one with the light took the license and thankfully lowered his beam to look at it. He turned it over and studied the edge as if to check for counterfeiting. Other cops who had stopped him had done the same thing.

‘Where are you coming from?’ asked the other cop.

‘Work. I’m a dishwasher at Bahia Mar. The banquet center.’

‘Working late.’

‘Yes. We had two banquets.’

‘Busy night. You own this car?’

‘Yes.’

He suddenly realised the registration was in the glove compartment. Along with the gun. ‘What is everybody looking for?’ he asked.

‘Not what, who,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for a scumbag. An armed robber.’

The boy thought about the gun in his glove box again. A tremor of fear went through his chest. He had touched the gun. He’d held it. Fingerprints. He knew about fingerprints from movies and TV. He and his father watched Kojak together every Sunday night.

‘Does anybody know what he looks like?’ the boy asked.

‘Why, you seen somebody?’

The beam suddenly came back up to his face, blinding him again.

‘Did you, kid? What did you see?’

The boy almost said not what, who. But he didn’t think that would be received so well. The two policemen had tensed. They were keyed up about something. He thought about the gun again — remembered that it had been warm to his touch — and realised he could be in trouble. He chided himself for taking the gun. How stupid!

‘Hey, kid, you still there?’

‘Yes. I was just thinking. I saw a man running. Down near the beach.’

‘Running? What did he look like?’

‘I noticed because he was fully dressed but he was, you know, running.’

‘Give us a description.’

‘He was big. He—’

‘You mean compared to you?’

‘No, compared to anybody. He was tall. He had a beard and his hair was long.’

‘White, black, brown?’

‘White.’

‘Okay, what else? What about the clothes?’

The clothes. He wasn’t sure how to answer. Describe the man before or after he’d taken off the red shirt? He decided if there had been a robbery, the victim would have seen the red shirt.

‘He had on blue jeans and a white T-shirt. And he had on a red lumberjack shirt — you know, like with a pattern.’

‘If he had that on how do you know about the T-shirt?’

‘The red shirt was open. Unbuttoned. I could see the T-shirt.’

The one without the flashlight peeled away and started talking into a radio mike attached to the shoulder of his uniform. He could hear him putting out the description and he wondered why they didn’t already have it.

‘That’s a pretty good description, kid,’ said the one with the flashlight. ‘What were you doing that you saw this guy so well?’

The boy shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I saw him running. I thought it was strange because he was fully dressed. I saw where he went, too. He went into a bar. The Pirate.’

‘Mendez, you hear this?’

‘Let’s go,’ his partner answered.

‘Okay, kid, let’s get in the car.’

The boy was put in the back seat and then they took off for the bridge. The cop in the passenger seat announced their destination on the radio and asked for back-up. A minute later they were in front of The Pirate. Half a minute later the back-up car was there. And a third car was not long behind. By radio it was directed to the back of the bar.

The driver of the first car, the one called Mendez, turned round to look at the boy. ‘You are going to stay here. We’re going in. We’re going to look for the guy. What we’ll do is bring anybody we want to talk to outside. You watch through the window. If you see the guy, you give the nod. Okay?’

‘I nod if I see him?’

‘Right. Now sit tight.’

The cops got out and made their way around the line of motorcycles. They met the two uniformed men from the back-up car. The boy watched them talk for a few moments and then one opened the bar’s door and they went in. The boy saw that the last cop to go in was holding his baton down at the side of his leg.

He waited for what seemed like an hour but was only a few minutes. When the bar’s door opened next, it wasn’t a cop who came out. It was a customer. A man with a white T-shirt and a black leather vest. He quickly moved to one of the motorcycles and carefully pushed it out into the street between the two patrol cars. He saddled it, kick-started the engine and took off. He never saw the boy watching and the boy wondered if he had snuck out of the bar or had been allowed to leave.

As he considered this the door to the bar opened again and the two officers from the back-up car escorted two men out. Both had beards and long hair, but neither was the running man the boy had seen. Then the other two cops came out with two more men. The boy now recognised the running man. They had him.

The cops instructed the four bearded men to face the front wall of the bar and put their hands against it. The men complied slowly, with the worn acquiescence of men who faced this sort of intrusion on a daily basis.

Mendez stood back while the other officers checked the men leaning against the wall for weapons. He turned and looked at the boy in the patrol car. The boy nodded and Mendez nodded back. He then surreptitiously pointed a finger at the first man in line and the boy shook his head. They repeated this until Mendez pointed at the third man in line and the boy nodded.

But just as he nodded, the third man turned his face from the wall and looked directly at the boy. Whether he understood or not that an identification was being made didn’t matter. The boy was frozen to the bone. The man said something — just a couple of words — but the boy could not hear it because the windows of the car were up. Their eyes locked and held until Mendez barked a command at the man and he turned back to the wall. Mendez then came up behind the man and pulled his arms off the wall and cuffed them behind the man’s back. The man did not struggle as he did this. Again there was a casual acquiescence, as if what was being done to him had been done before. As if it was expected.

The officers told the other three men they could return to the bar. Mendez then pushed the running man toward the two officers from the back-up car and they walked him to their car. As they were pushing him into the back seat the man began to struggle for the first time. Not to get away but just to keep his head up. He looked over at the boy again and said the words again, this time exaggerating the movements of his mouth because he probably understood that the boy could not hear. He then relented and let them push his head down and then into the back of the car. The car took off quickly and the boy watched its blue light go on as it sped away.

Mendez stood on the street and spoke at length over his radio mike before he and his partner returned to the car in which the boy sat. Mendez got behind the wheel but turned to look back at the boy before turning the ignition. ‘We got him, kid. Good job.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything but we don’t need him to say anything. With your ID we’ve got him. The detectives are heading over here to search the joint for the gun. They find that and its bye-bye dirtbag. You did good.’

‘What about the robbery? The victim. You need him to say he did it.’

‘Actually, there are two victims. But we’re not very likely to get that from either one.’

‘They’re afraid?’

‘No, both got shot. During the robbery. One’s dead and, last we heard, the other wasn’t going to make it either.’

The boy felt the air go out of his lungs. Not because of what Mendez said, though that certainly put a different inflection on things. But because he had suddenly realised what the running man had said before being put into the patrol car.

‘He said, “You’re dead.” When he saw me. He said, “You’re dead,” didn’t he?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s bullshit. He was trying to intimidate you but he was too late. He’s going to be in lock-up until you’re an old man. He can’t get to you.’

‘What about his friends? Is he in a motorcycle gang or something?’

‘Not hardly. He doesn’t even have a bike. Why do you think he was running when you saw him?’

Mendez turned round and started the car.

‘Let’s go downtown now and see the detectives.’

He put it in drive and the car lurched forward. He reached over and punched his partner on the shoulder. ‘We got it, McHugh. We got the arrest.’

McHugh didn’t answer.

‘What about my car?’ the boy asked.

‘What about it?’ Mendez replied. ‘It’s in a safe place. Someone will take you back to it when you’re finished with the detectives.’

‘I need to call my dad.’

‘We can do that at the station. First thing.’

Fifteen minutes later the boy was sitting at a desk in the detective bureau. Mendez handed him the phone and told him to dial nine first to get an outside line. Mendez said the boy could tell his father to come to the station if he wanted.

The boy dialed his home number but after ten rings the old man didn’t pick up. He hung up. He thought it was strange that there was no answer. His father had not said anything about going out. If he had gone out for cigarettes or beer it seemed as though he would have done so earlier. The boy dialed the number a second time but once again got no answer. He hung up the phone.

‘Pop’s not there, huh?’ Mendez said.

‘No answer.’

‘Okay, well, the lead detective on this case wants to talk to you so we’re going to move you into one of the interview rooms and then he’ll be in to see you as soon as he’s free. We’ve got to get our paperwork done and then get back out on the street.’

He followed Mendez and McHugh to a small room with a table and two chairs. There was also a mirrored window that the boy figured led to a viewing room. He’d seen it on Kojak before.

They left him there and an hour drifted slowly by while the boy thought about what the running man had said before they shoved him into the patrol car. Then the door opened and a man wearing a suit stepped in. He had fiery red hair and a grim smile. He said his name was Sonntag and offered his hand. The boy said his own name as they shook and the detective, for just a moment, stopped shaking then started again. He then pulled out the chair and sat across from the boy.

‘Where do you live, kid?’

He gave his address and watched the detective’s face turn grimmer.

‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘I need to some questions first. Who lives there with you? Your mom and dad?’

‘Just my dad.’

‘Where’s your mom?’

‘I don’t know. She’s been gone a long time. What does this have to do with anything? I saw a guy running. What does it matter where my mother is?’

‘It doesn’t. I’m just asking questions. Tell me about the man you saw running.’

The boy repeated the story he had told the first two cops. He added no new details, believing the less said with Sonntag the better. The detective asked no questions until the story was finished.

‘And you are sure the man they took into custody was the man you saw running?’

‘I don’t know. I guess so.’

‘You guess so?’

‘Well, so far, I haven’t gotten to look at him, except from the car.’

‘We’ll take care of that in a minute. Now you said you saw this running man coming from the direction of the drawbridge, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see him on the bridge?’

The boy didn’t know what to do. The one lie he had told had cascaded. Now he had to keep lying to stay clear. He wished he could talk to his father.

‘You either saw him on the bridge or you didn’t,’ Sonntag said.

‘I didn’t. Can I use the phone again? I want to call my father.’

Sonntag stared at him a moment before speaking. ‘Not yet. Let’s get the story down first. So you didn’t see him on the bridge but you’re pretty sure he was coming from that direction.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re having trouble locating the weapon. Is it possible that he threw it into the river when he was coming over the bridge?’

‘Yeah, I guess so. It’s possible.’

‘Did you see him do that?’

‘No, I told you, I didn’t see him on the bridge.’

The boy knew that Sonntag was trying to trick him, or get him to agree to seeing something he didn’t see. The boy sat frozen. He knew that now was the time to tell. Tell about the gun and try to explain it. But he couldn’t.

‘I want to talk to my father.’

Sonntag nodded like he understood and would arrange for the request right away. But that’s not what he said when he opened his mouth. ‘Your father’s name is Edison Chambers, correct?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ the boy answered, his voice rising with suspicion. ‘Is he here?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. I feel awful about this, kid, but I have to tell you. It looks like your father was one of the people this dirt bag shot.’

The boy’s mouth shot open. He felt the room and the bright lights crashing in on him. He heard Sonntag still talking.

‘Edison Chambers. We got the ID from his wallet. He was in the store, getting a six-pack from one of the coolers in the back. He bent down to get it from the bottom and we guess the shooter didn’t see him in there. He came in and went to the register. The woman there, he probably shot her first. That was when your father stood up. The shooter saw him then...’

Sonntag didn’t have to finish. The boy leaned forward and put his face into his hands. In the blackness he heard the detective ask him if he had any other family living in the area.

‘My aunt and uncle,’ he said.

‘We need to call them when we’re finished here.’

‘I want to go to my house.’

‘We’ll release you to your aunt and uncle and the three of you can decide.’

The boy didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say or to think. He suddenly flashed on the gun in the glove box. He wanted to get back to his car.

‘We’re setting up a line-up,’ Sonntag said.

The boy straightened up. Tear trails marked both sides of his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re putting the suspect in a line-up of men and we’ll see if you can pick him out. Don’t worry, he won’t see you. You’ll be behind a mirror.’

But he already did see me, the boy thought but didn’t say. He just nodded his head. A plan was formulating. He concentrated on it instead of thinking about his father.

‘You ready, then?’ Sonntag asked.

‘I guess so.’

‘Okay, then. Let’s do it and then we’ll get your aunt and uncle on the phone. Let’s go do this thing for your dad.’

The boy stood up and followed Sonntag through the door. He was taken to a dark room where a window looked into a well-lighted room. The far wall was white and spotless, except for the hash marks that marked feet and inches so an observer could gauge height. After a few minutes six men were led into the well-lit room in a line and they stood facing the boy against the wall.

‘They can’t see me?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Sonntag. ‘It’s one-way glass.’

The boy looked at the men in the line-up. Only two had beards. And one was the running man. He could tell. He was looking at the man who had killed his father. Thoughts blasted though him with sounds like waves crashing on the beach. He felt weak in the knees but strong in the heart. He felt a tear slide down his soft, whiskerless cheek. He wiped it away and heard the waves replaced by his father’s voice. Time to be a man.

‘Well,’ Sonntag said, bending down close to the boy’s ear to whisper. ‘Which one?’

The boy didn’t answer. He was working a plan out in his head.

‘Pick him out, son,’ said the detective.

The boy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘You don’t have him. He’s not there.’

The boy could literally feel the detective tense.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean the guy I saw isn’t there.’

‘Kid, come on. We’re talking about your father.’

‘I know. I want to get the right man and he’s not there.’

Sonntag bent closer to him again to whisper, ‘Don’t be afraid. He can’t hurt you. Just pick him out.’

‘I’m not afraid. He just isn’t there.’

‘But one of those men over there is the one you picked out at the bar.’

‘It was dark and I was sitting in a patrol car. I saw the beard and thought...’

‘Thought what?’

‘I thought it was him but it’s not. You have the wrong guy.’

Sonntag exhaled loudly, angrily. His voice returned to normal volume. ‘Let me tell you something, besides you we’ve got nothing. No weapon, no witness, no camera in the store. The guy you say you picked by mistake does have one thing, though. Gunshot residue on his hands. We know he fired a gun in the last few hours. But if we don’t get an ID or recover that weapon and connect him to it, then guess what, he walks out of here like nothing ever happened. They’ll have his beer waiting on the bar for him at The Pirate. So do me a favor and look again and pick him out.’

The boy shook his head. ‘I can’t. He’s not there.’

‘Well, kid, then I hope you can face your father’s ghost. Let’s go.’

Sonntag roughly clapped the boy on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.

Twenty minutes later the boy sat on a bench in the front lobby. His uncle was on the way. Sonntag had told him he had twenty-four hours to change his mind about the identification. That was how long they could hold the running man. After that they had to charge him or let him go. That was fine with the boy. Twenty-four hours was plenty of time to do what he needed to do.

His uncle wasn’t happy to see him. He had been told by Sonntag about the failure to make an identification of the running man. ‘He was your father but he was my brother,’ the uncle said. ‘If he was the guy you should’ve said it was the guy.’

‘I would’ve, but they don’t have him. They just wanted to arrest somebody, doesn’t matter who.’

‘That detective told me on the phone that they had the right guy. That it was you who messed it up.’

‘He’s wrong. Can you take me to my car?’

‘You are supposed to come home with me. The police said you—’

‘I am coming to your place but I can’t leave my car in the middle of a gas station all night. I also need to go by the house to get some clothes. So drop me off at my car and I’ll come by later.’

‘Don’t make it late.’

‘It already is late.’

They said very little the rest of the way. They drove by the Kwik Mart where the shooting had taken place. There were still police cars and a white van in the parking lot. There was yellow tape all around.

‘Is that where...?’ the uncle asked.

‘Yeah.’

The boy looked away. In a few minutes they pulled into the closed gas station and the lights of his uncle’s car washed across the boy’s Volkswagen.

‘Still there,’ the uncle said.

‘Yeah. Thanks for the ride.’

‘We’ll see you in a little while?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look, Bobby, I’m sorry. About your dad. My brother. You know. He wasn’t the nicest guy to you, I know. But something like this... It shouldn’t have happened, you know?’

‘Yes, I know.’

He said goodbye and closed the door. After his uncle pulled away the boy looked around. The streets were dark and empty. The police were gone. He looked up toward the bridge and the hedge that ran alongside the sidewalk. No police, only darkness.

He thought about the plan and decided it was a good plan, a plan that would work. He went to his car and opened the passenger door. He punched the button on the glove box and the lid dropped open to reveal the red plaid shirt containing the gun was still in place. He pulled it out and held the bundle close to his chest. With his other hand the boy reached into the glove box for the Swiss Army knife he kept in there, mostly for emergencies, or if he needed to turn the fuel feed screw on the car’s carburetor.

The boy closed the car door and headed on foot toward the bridge. He chose to stay off the sidewalk, walking instead in the dark shadows along the hedge line.

Three days later the boy found the story on the second page of the metro section. It wasn’t a long story but he didn’t care about its placement or importance in the newspaper. He cared about its contents.

The boy stopped reading. The rest he knew. He folded the paper closed and put it aside. He went back to packing his clothing and other belongings into boxes. He didn’t know if he would be able to fit everything into the bug but he was going to try. He was then going to get in the car and start driving. Not to his aunt’s and uncle’s home. He was just going to drive.

As he put some photos into a box he thought about what Sonntag had said about his father’s ghost. The boy smiled. He knew the only spirit he needed to worry about now was the ghost of Edward Togue.