Mission Flats

20

The next morning, John Kelly and I were back together. I needled him for skipping out on the tedious chore of sorting Danziger’s files, but I did not ask him where he’d been.

The address Caroline provided, the last known residence of Detective Julio Vega, was a bungalow in Dorchester, a misplaced beach house dropped on a tiny lot in a run-down block. The front yard was sand with pimples of crabgrass sprouting here and there.

‘You speak to him, Ben Truman. I’ll have a look around back.’ Kelly held the nightstick behind his back and strolled around the side of the house.

I knocked on the door, then stepped down off the stoop to wait. Stiff shafts of crabgrass scratched my ankles. I knocked again, louder.

A man finally opened the door and stood there, behind the screen door. Heavyset Hispanic guy in a T-shirt and sweatpants. Bloated stomach. Pale skin, the color of concrete. This could not be the same guy I’d seen in the photo, the handsome Latino with the mustache. The guy looked me up and down but said nothing.

‘I’m looking for Julio Vega.’

‘What are you? A reporter?’

‘No, I’m a cop.’

‘You’re a cop? You don’t look like a cop.’

I raised my badge holder. The man opened the screen door, took it, and retreated back inside to examine it.

‘Are you Julio Vega?’

‘Lot of Julio Vegas, man.’

He was scrutinizing the badge, holding it close to his nose, his body swaying a little. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Ver- sales, Maine?’

It took everything I had to resist congratulating him on the correct pronunciation. Instead, I asked him again whether he was Julio Vega.

‘Who sent you here?’

‘Nobody sent me. I found your name in Robert Danziger’s files.’

He glanced around the yard, then opened the door and tossed the badge back to me. ‘I got nothing to say, Chief.’

‘Would it help if I came back with a subpoena?’ That sounded cool, I thought. A little stagy, maybe, but cool. ‘There’s a grand jury being empaneled. They might like to hear from y-’

He snorted and disappeared into the house. The door closed with a click.

I looked around the scrofulous little yard feeling foolish and self-conscious. It didn’t matter that there was no one there to see it — embarrassment is a reflex, evolved, encoded. It no longer requires an audience.

I knocked again.

This time the man opened the door with a clear drink in his hand. He scowled and rattled the ice cubes. ‘Now what are you gonna do, Joe Friday, break down the door?’ It was dawning on me — belatedly — the man was drunk.

‘Don’t close the door on me again.’

‘You got that subpoena?’

‘I’ll get it if I have to.’

‘Good. Bring it to me. I’ll wipe my ass with it.’

He closed the door again, leaving me to wonder where exactly this interview had gone off the rails.

Kelly came around the corner, spinning the nightstick. ‘So?’

‘I don’t think he wants to talk to us.’

‘No? Did he say that?’

‘Well, those weren’t his exact words.’

Kelly stepped onto the little concrete stoop and knocked on the door with the truncheon. When the door reopened, Kelly looked down at Vega and said politely, ‘We need to ask you a few questions, Detective Vega. It won’t take a minute.’

Vega thought it over, shrugged, and said, ‘Come on,’ then he shuffled back into the house.

Kelly gave me a look. What was so hard about that?

We followed Vega to a dim room cluttered with trash and yellowed newspapers. There were a few pictures around, all of which seemed to have been sitting undisturbed for years — grinning nieces, old Kodachrome grandparents. Vega gestured toward an ancient armchair, the seat cushion cupped out, the upholstery worn slick and dark. A stained antimacassar hung over the chair back. I was careful not to let my head touch it when I sat. Vega dropped into the chair next to mine, facing the TV. Without the screen door between us, I got my first good look at him. The man was a ruin. He was barefoot, and his toenails had sprouted into angular points. The enamel had a scaly, mineral appearance like yellow mica. I felt myself gawking at those toe-nails, then at a spongy-looking pink scar on Vega’s left wrist, then at his tangled, overgrown hair. The former detective topped off his glass from a fifth of Cossack vodka. There was a heavy glass ashtray on Vega’s armrest. He picked up a cigarette from the ashtray’s edge, saw it was out, relit it.

‘Chief,’ he said, ‘let me give you a word. You’re a cop, I’m a cop. There’s a way you treat people. With respect. You don’t treat a cop like he’s some shitbird you find in the street. That ragtime about subpoenas and grand juries, you save that for the bad guys. You talk to a cop, that’s your brother you’re talking to. You give respect. I earned that. Go ask your friend here.’ He gestured toward Kelly with the cigarette.

I said, ‘You’re right.’

‘Fourteen years, I earned that. I don’t care what you heard.’

‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’

‘You’re a cop, I’m a cop. That’s the only reason you’re sitting here. Respect.’

He shook the ice in his glass, sipped again. Vodka in his right hand, cigarette in his left. He breathed through his nostrils as he drank, working quietly, concentrating. ‘There’s a way you treat people. You ask the old man here.’

Kelly ignored him. He was ambling around the room in his longlegged way, looking over the accumulated mess. He held the nightstick behind his back as if it were a rolled-up guidebook to the items on exhibit.

Vega and I watched the TV. Football highlights, a running back skittering away from tacklers.

‘You like football, Detective Vega?’

‘I like Barry Sanders, man. Look at him.’

We watched.

‘He’s too fast, Barry’s just too fast.’

‘Detective, I need to ask you about Bob Danziger.’ This brought a glance before Vega returned his attention to the TV and held it there. ‘What I need to know is, why did Danziger have a file on you in his office? A Probation file.’

‘There’s lots of files on me.’

‘Lots of files, but Danziger only had one, your Probation file. I figure maybe it’s nothing, he was just watching your case for personal reasons, because you know him. Is that it?’

‘Don’t ask it like that. Good detective doesn’t ask yes-or-no questions like that. You keep it open, keep it open. Let ’em talk. Look for inconsis’cies.’ He was still staring at the TV, or pretending to. He was drunk and yet not drunk — or just drunk enough. ‘If you’re talking, you’re not listening, you’re not learning shit. You get him talking, that’s the way. Isn’t that right?’

‘That’s right,’ Kelly seconded. ‘Ask again, Ben. Do it the right way’

‘Okay Tell me about Raul.’

‘I don’t know from Raul.’

‘Tell me what you do know.’

‘There is no Raul, that’s all I know, period.’

His attention stayed on the TV, highlights from the previous Sunday’s football games. ‘Look at that. You can’t hit him, he’s too fast. I always bet the Lions. Give the points, whatever, I just go with Sanders. Fuckin’ Lions never cover, but I can’t bet against my man Barry, you know?’

‘Julio, why was Danziger looking at the Trudell case?’

‘How would I know why Danziger was doing anything? You read my file, right? Everything I had to say about it is right there in the file.’

Sanders, in silver pants and powder-blue shirt, danced and spun away from tacklers.

‘You know why I like football, Chief? I like the field, all those lines. A line every yard, a hundred lines, all nice and straight. It’s a grid. Everything happens right out there on that grid. Everybody tries to trick each other, fake each other, beat the shit out of each other, whatever, but it’s all out on that grid for everybody to see. Look at Barry, man. He fakes and does all his wiggly shit and everything gets all crazy. But then it’s over and they set the whole thing up again, all square and neat. That’s why it’s exciting when he messes everything up. Because it’s only those in-between times, then everything’s all put together again, everything’s okay again. It’s, like, the tension, you know what I mean, Chief?’ He sipped again. ‘That’s why people love football.’

‘Julio, why did Danziger get killed?’

‘He went after a Mission Posse kid, Gerald McNeese. G-Mac took it personal. G-Mac broke the code: He capped a DA. So he’s got to pay. That’s the rules.’

‘That’s all there is to it? You believe that?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Because Danziger was asking you about Raul.’

Vega hesitated.

‘Julio, Danziger was your friend. Artie Trudell too. You owe them something.’

‘You leave that alone, junior. Don’t tell me what I owe. I know what I owe and what I don’t owe. I know what some people owe me too.’

‘What did Danziger ask you about Raul?’

‘You’ve got it all wrong, Chief. This whole thing with Danziger’s got nothing to do with Raul. Artie didn’t get killed because of Raul. It’s all bullshit. It’s always been bullshit.’

‘All bullshit,’ I repeated, frustrated, confused. I leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘But Raul wasn’t bullshit, was he?’

‘The judge said there was no Raul. I made him up. That’s how it went in the books. I did my time for it, it’s over. That’s all I got to say.’

‘Look, Julio, I’m asking you — as a cop — where did you and Artie get the tip about drug dealing at the red door? If it wasn’t Raul who tipped you, then who was it? The information had to come from somewhere.’

Vega stubbed out his cigarette and lit another.

‘There was a Raul wasn’t there? The judge got it wrong.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘No, I don’t. Help me understand.’

‘A lot of cops have been using Raul a long time now.’

‘So he is real?’

‘I didn’t say that. It doesn’t matter, the whole thing doesn’t matter.’

Vega looked down into his glass. Was he picturing Artie Trudell, dead but still standing, still holding that pipe? How many times did he see it, that endless loop? How many times had he watched Artie Trudell die?

‘Artie put himself in front of that door,’ he said with a crypto-cooperative look. ‘I did too. We were stupid. The whole thing was unnecessary.’

If there was a sign there, I missed it.

‘Julio, was Danziger-’

‘Ben,’ Kelly interrupted, ‘that’s enough, it’s time to go. Detective Vega, thank you for your time.’

Vega kept his eyes on the football highlights, on the grid where everything was refereed and constantly reordered.

In the car, Kelly consoled me. ‘That was fine, Ben Truman. He gave you a little; he’s not ready to give you more. Don’t worry, we’ll come back. Sometimes it takes time.’

‘He’s still lying.’

‘Yes, he is. But I’m sure he has his reasons.’

Vega’s lying that day was quickly forgotten. In fact, the whole mess was forgotten — Vega, Trudell, ‘Raul,’ the red door, all of it. When Kelly called Caroline to check in, we were informed by SIU that Ray Ratleff was dead, his head blown apart just as Danziger’s had been. There was no longer a case against Gerald McNeese; the only witness against him was dead. And it was going to be tough to blame ‘Raul’ for this one.