No Good Deed

Take a Hand

“Dad? I need help.”

The voice on the other end of the telephone line was tremulous, on the edge of frantic. He sounded like a little boy who somehow got in over his head but was still playing at being big, which was usually the case.

“Andy? What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Are you all right?”

He laughed. He might have been trying for sarcasm, but all that came out was a nervous, forced sound. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m at the hospital.”

A stab of fear hit me in the gut. “Are you hurt?”

“Not bad. Just beat up. Trevor’s worse.”

“Who’s Trevor?”

“My best friend.”

I pressed my lips together and suppressed a sigh. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know.”

That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone. “Which hospital?”

“Sacred Heart,” he replied.

“I’ll come get you.”

He was waiting outside the ER when I pulled up. I reached across and unlocked the passenger door of my truck and he slid in. The blond tips of his black hair hung past his collar and covered his eyes.

He slammed the door and cast a sideways glance at me. “Thanks,” he muttered, pushing his hair out of his face.

“Sure,” I answered. He looked thinner than the most recent picture I had of him. His mother’s features dominated his face, especially in his large, blue eyes and thin, elfish nose. A large, purple bruise spread across his left cheek and a small bandage covered a cut on his chin.

My eyes narrowed. He had my chin. I’d never noticed before.

I drove and said nothing.

After a few blocks, he cleared his throat. “I–I didn’t know who else to call.”

“It’s all right,” I told him. “You did the right thing.”

He scowled and looked away.

I turned into a diner and parked. “Let’s get some coffee.”

Inside, I waited until the waitress had filled both cups and walked away before asking, “What’s going on?”

Andy stared down at his coffee and shifted in his seat.

“What kind of trouble are you in?” I asked him, my stomach uneasy.

He sipped his coffee and looked away. I stared at the bruise on his cheek.

“Andy, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

His jaw clenched.

“You called me-”

His eyes snapped to mine. “Yeah, well maybe that was a mistake.”

I shrugged. “That’s for you to decide. Do you want my help or not?”

He regarded me for a long moment over the top of the table. I saw anger and hurt in his eyes over all the missed birthdays and Christmases, but mostly I saw fear. Finally, he sighed and looked back at his coffee.

“We screwed up,” he mumbled.

“How?”

He glanced up. “Is it true you retired?”

“Yeah, late last year. Why?”

“Because this shit that happened ain’t all exactly legal.”

“What happened?”

He took another drink of coffee. When he put it down, he drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Trevor and I got jumped by some guys.”

“What guys?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why’d they jump you?”

“Because we had some stuff they wanted, I guess.”

“Stuff?”

He looked right and left and then leaned forward. “Yeah-stuff.”

I cocked my head at him. “Green stuff or white stuff?”

He licked his dry, cracked lips. “White.”

“Heroin or coke?”

He motioned at me with his palms to quiet down and looked around again. “People can hear you.”

“So? Unless you have it on you right now, no one can do anything.”

Andy leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice. “I wish I did have it on me right now. That’s the problem.”

I sat back and looked at my son, forcing myself to use my cop eyes. I’d tried hard to shed them when I retired, but the truth is that you can never lose them and you can never turn them off. Sometimes, like right now, it helped answer questions. Most times, though, it was a curse.

I turned those eyes on him. He was thin. Too thin. And twitchy. His hair looked dried out, like weeds in late August. On his neck, I saw a couple of red sores.

“It was Meth, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s gone.”

“You’re going to have to explain things a little better.”

He licked his lips again. “Look, I promised a guy I could score him some good shit. He fronted me the cash. Trevor and I went to our connection and bought up as much as we could with the front money. On our way back to Trevor’s apartment, we got jumped. They took all our stuff. So now we’re out the money and the merchandise.”

“And your guy is going to want one or the other.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“How soon?”

He shrugged. “Maybe a day before he gets too antsy to put off.”

“Who is this guy?”

“Nobody.”

“Andy-”

“It don’t matter,” he said. “What matters is I’ve got to figure a way out of this mess and I need you to help me.”

“How?”

“I need to find out who took my stuff and get it back.”

“Andy, you’re asking me to go steal back dope that someone stole from you. Think about that. I was a cop for twenty-one years-”

“Yeah, I know!” he snapped. “Mom and me know all about how you were a cop for however many fucking years, all right? That’s how come you didn’t come see me, ain’t it?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t come around your Mom because of what she was into. And you-”

“Funny,” he said, “because it sure felt like you weren’t coming to see me.”

The waitress arrived and refilled our cups. Andy glared at me across the table. When she walked away, he leaned forward again. “I don’t even know why I called you. I guess I figured-”

“You figured I could help,” I finished for him.

He nodded slightly and then shrugged. “It was stupid.”

“No,” I said. “It was the right thing to do. I’ll help.”

“You will?” His eyebrows rose and the corners of his mouth relaxed.

I nodded.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Thanks.”

“On one condition.”

His eyes narrowed warily. “Condition?”

“You go into rehab. Get clean.”

He snorted and looked away.

“I’m serious, Andy. You have a drug problem, and if you want my help-that’s the price.”

He shook his head. “The only drug problem I have is that someone stole my drugs and the guy who fronted me the money is going to kill me over it. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

“What’s your mother say about all this?”

He met my gaze, disbelief in his eyes. “Man, you really are out of touch aren’t you? Who do you think put me in contact with this guy in the first place?”

We sat in silence while I ground my teeth and mulled over what he’d said. I’d known that Maureen fell into a partying crowd after our divorce, but I didn’t figure it went past some recreational use. If it’d become anything more serious, I’d have heard about it from the other guys on patrol. Still, if she was careful and never got caught-

“Who’s the guy, Andy?”

My son sucked on his teeth, ending with a clacking sound. It was a terrible habit that methamphetamine users all seemed to develop.

“Why do you want to know? Why can’t we just stick on whoever jumped us and stole my stuff?”

“Options,” I told him. “We need as many options as we can get.”

He sighed, cursing under his breath. “It was Paco.”

“Who’s he?”

“Mom’s boyfriend.”

My eyes widened. “Her boyfriend’s a drug dealer?”

“Duh.”

I sat in silence and steamed for a while, clenching my jaw. Maureen told the judge that I had a violent temper and that having the boy live with me would be an unsafe environment.

Violent temper, my ass! If I was such a danger, how did I manage to stay on the job for so long? But Judge Petalski bought every conniving word of it and only allowed me one weekend a month of visitation. One lousy weekend. For the other twenty-eight days a month, Maureen spewed all kinds of poison about me to Andy. After a few months of her propaganda, Andy started vetoing the visitations. He was twelve. By the time he was fourteen, I didn’t know my son anymore.

What a bitch. All high and mighty with the judge and using the system and our son to her advantage-she goes and turns the boy into a drug addict and shacks up with a dealer? I wanted to smash her face in.

“Dad?”

I looked at Andy. For a moment, he was twelve again, a scared little boy who needed me. “What?”

“What’re we gonna do?”

The theatre manager hesitated a little bit when he saw Andy’s beat-up face, but I flashed my badge. I snapped the wallet shut before he could read the word ‘retired’ emblazoned across it, but he didn’t look that closely anyway. He remembered me from patrol.

“Just don’t let them see you,” he said, issuing the same warning he always used to. “Those animals will vandalize my theatre and scare off my customers.”

“We’ll be careful,” I assured him.

“Like ninjas?” he said with a hint of a grin.

In spite of everything, I grinned at the familiar banter. “Exactly.”

Up on the roof, I pulled out my binoculars and scoped out The Block. Dopers, hookers and dealers were scattered all along First Avenue, each keeping a healthy distance from the other. I strained to make out a familiar face, but found none. That surprised me. On patrol, it seemed like I always dealt with the same old people over and over again. I wondered briefly if the faces had changed quickly, though, and maybe my perception was based on how often I had to deal with them. Even so, I marveled at how much had changed since I left. And how much was the same.

I lowered the binoculars, handing them to Andy. “Take these. Find the guy you bought from.”

Andy scanned The Block with the binocs. “He’s not there.”

“What’s this guy’s name?”

“I only know his initial. It’s D.”

“White, black, brown?”

“Black.”

“Banger?”

Andy lowered the glasses. “Probably.”

“Which gang?”

“Crips. He wore blue.”

I started to reply, but closed my mouth. Of course D was a Crip. River City was a Crip town, ever since the mid ’90s. The Bloods never managed to get a toe hold up here in Eastern Washington. So the Crips maintained an uneasy truce with all the Crip sub-sets and warred mostly with the Hispanics and the Russians.

We stood on the roof as the afternoon heated up. The sun reflected off the white brick that rimmed the edge of the roof. I stood and sweated and waited while Andy searched the street through the binoculars.

“Back when I worked patrol,” I told Andy, “I used to come up onto the theatre roof several times a week.”

He grunted.

“I’d watch the drug dealers and hookers do their deals and then radio down descriptions to the other patrolman. They’d swoop in and hook them up.”

He grunted again.

“Without me sweating my balls off up here, we’d have never caught half the dealers we did…” I trailed off, and Andy didn’t reply.

I was quiet for a moment, remembering the few times I’d taken him fishing as a kid. We drove up to Fan Lake, eating fried chicken along the way and then fished the day away. We sat for hours, not speaking a word. It was a comfortable silence, unlike this one.

“The funny thing was,” I told him, “none of the dealers ever believed me when I testified in court about seeing everything from up here.”

Andy glanced over, then back through the binoculars. “Why’s that?”

“I guess since they never spotted me up there, it easier for them to believe I was lying rather than up on the roof.”

Andy didn’t reply right away. An uncomfortable ten minutes passed in silence.

“Black guys selling meth?” I finally asked. “Isn’t that a little out of character?”

“What do you mean?” Andy asked.

“Meth is more of a biker drug, that’s all. The black gangs tended more toward selling crack.”

“Meth is the new crack, I guess,” Andy muttered.

I didn’t reply. We fell silent again.

“There he is,” Andy said, almost two hours later. “That’s him.”

He handed me the binoculars and directed me to the corner. I spotted a black male I didn’t recognize, dressed in baggy, casual clothes and leaning against the wall. A blue bandana hung from his pocket.

“That’s D?”

“Yeah.”

I scanned the rest of The Block for his boys. The first was easy to spot, because he stood right on the corner-a wiry guy in a blue t-shirt. He’d be the salesman, I figured. Sure enough, within minutes a car pulled up for a short exchange and then drove off.

“Where’s his muscle?” I muttered.

“It’s just him and the skinny guy,” Andy said.

“No women or wannabes in sight,” I said. “No one to hold his guns or extra dope.”

“He holds it. No one messes with D.”

“Still, he wouldn’t want to be holding a gun or dope if the police contact him.”

“The police don’t touch him.”

I lowered my binoculars and looked over at Andy. I didn’t like the inference. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “The police don’t touch him,” he repeated. “That’s all I know.”

I chewed on that while watching an hour’s worth of business transactions. I couldn’t believe D was being protected by cops. Not in River City. Not if he was able to move the kind of weight Andy described.

Could he be a confidential informant?

No way. All CI contracts have a clause that forbids the CI to break any laws while working with the police. Cops have been known to look the other way for some minor violations, but not for major drug trafficking.

We watched for an hour, and then I nudged Andy. “Let’s go.”

He gave me a confused look. “Why? I thought-”

“Just come on.”

He shook his head and followed me.

When we passed through the lobby, I gave the manager a wave. He gave me two thumbs up.

“I thought you were going to help,” Andy said to me once we were outside.

“I am.” I unlocked the truck and slid behind the wheel. Andy remained on the sidewalk, staring at me. His hair hung over a sullen face. I rolled down the window. “If we’re going to do this, you’re just going to have to trust me.”

His gaze didn’t soften.

“Get in,” I told him and started the engine.

Reluctantly, he walked to passenger side and got inside.

I drove to Madison. As soon as I turned the corner, I pulled the old truck to the side of the street and parked.

“Lean back in the seat,” I instructed Andy. “And don’t move around.”

We sat in silence from over a block away and watched Wiry sell while D watched. After another twenty minutes, the pair decided to close up shop. A cab arrived at the corner and both men got inside.

I started the truck and followed them from a distance. The cab turned onto the Birch Street Bridge and headed into the West Central neighborhood. When the cab pulled to the side to let the two passengers out at a small blue house, I continued past. After two blocks, I flipped a U-turn and parked on the side of the street. I turned off the engine.

“What are we doing?” Andy asked.

“Watching.”

“For what?”

“Make sure they’re staying put.”

We sat in the car for twenty minutes before I started the engine again.

“Now what?”

I drove to Cannon Park, right in the heart of West Central. “Get out,” I told him.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Andy shook his head. “No way. Whatever you’re going to do, I’m helping.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I am. I-”

“Andy!” My voice rang out in the truck cab. He jumped in his seat.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “You scared the fuck out of me.”

I looked across the bench seat at him. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for letting his mother get away with all the lies she told. Sorry that I didn’t try harder to break through all the bullshit and be his father. Sorry for the Christmases and the birthdays and every other goddamned thing.

“Andy, you’re a junkie,” was what I said, and the coldness in my voice made me cringe.

“No, I’m not-”

“You’re no good to me. Not for what I have to do.”

His eyes brimmed with tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He brushed them away in two brisk motions. “I’m not a junkie,” he said.

“Wait here.” I pointed through the windshield. “At that bench. I’ll be back soon.”

He glared at me. “I am not a junkie,” he said.

“I know,” I whispered back. “You’re my son.”

He sucked at his teeth and his mouth made a clacking noise. Then he opened the door and got out.

It wasn’t a party house. Parked a half block away with my windows open, I’d have heard the thumping of bass if a party were going on. No one else came or went while I watched and planned.

I finally decided that the longer I waited, the greater the chance people would show up. I got out of the truck and popped the seat back forward. The oversized flannel shirt was nestled into the corner. I picked it up and unwrapped the sawed-off shotgun. With the barrel cut down to eight inches and very little handgrip, it didn’t look like much, but it was deadly at close range.

I slipped on the flannel, checked to make sure both barrels were loaded and tucked the shotgun into my waistband. I used my elbow to pin the weapon to my body while I strode to the little blue house.

At the door, I listened carefully and only heard the muffled thump of heavy bass. No voices. My hands and feet tingled as the zing of adrenaline flooded my body. For a moment, I thought about what I was about to do. There were a hundred good reasons not to do it. Most of those faded, though, now that I was retired from the job. I had so much less to lose now. All that kept coming to mind was Andy’s scared, bruised face and the sucking, clacking sound he made with his teeth.

I slipped the shotgun out of my waistband and gripped it tightly in my right hand. With my left, I check the doorknob. It was locked. By force of habit, I counted to three, reared back and drove my foot into the door just below the knob.

The flimsy door flew open with a loud crack.

D and his wiry pal sat on the couch, game controllers clutched in their hands. The huge TV screen in front of them displayed video game soldiers.

“What the fu-” Wiry said, his eyes widening. He sat closest to me, perched on the edge of the couch. I took two long strides and cracked him across the jaw with the butt end of the shotgun. He grunted and collapsed forward onto the floor.

D stared at me, surprise registering in his eyes, but no fear. He lounged against the back of the couch in an exaggerated pose of relaxation.

“Who else is here?” I demanded.

D continued to stare at me. Wiry moaned and stirred.

I touched the shotgun barrels to the back of Wiry’s head. “Who else?”

“No one, man,” D answered. “Just us.”

I nudged Wiry with the shotgun. “Get up.”

Wiry groaned, but rose to a knee and then fell sideways onto the couch. He looked up at me with unfocused eyes and rubbed his swelling jaw.

D appraised me. “You all by yo’self, pig? Where’s yo backup?”

I glared at him. “I’m not a cop.”

“You look like five-oh to me,” he said. “And I done paid you motherfuckers already.”

Wiry shifted in his seat, coiling himself to spring. I pressed the barrel of the shotgun against his forehead. “Relax,” I growled.

He sighed and sank into the cushion.

I turned my attention back to D. “You sold a package of crank to a white kid last night. He paid you five large.”

D gave me a dismissive shrug. “If you say so.”

I stepped forward and smacked Wiry in the back of the head with my open hand. He yelped. My eyes never left D.

“I do say so,” I told him, “because that’s exactly what happened. But then you pulled a Compton Shuffle.”

“Say what?”

“You sent your boys to jump that white kid and his pal and you stole back the merchandise you’d just sold him. So now you’ve got the five thousand and the dope.”

“You a crazy motherfucker, man.”

I gave him a manic grin. “Not crazy. Just nothing to lose.”

A flash of fear touched his eyes and they widened. The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” I said. “Wiry here is going to get the money and bring it out into the living room. If he comes back empty-handed or with anything except the money in his hand, you get the first barrel and he gets the second.”

D stared at me, his eyes searching mine for an answer to whatever question he needed answered. I guess he saw some truth there, because he shrugged and said, “Aw’ight, if dat’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is.”

He gave Wiry an upward nod. Wiry rose from the couch, still rubbing his jaw, and walked toward a short hallway.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” I told him.

Wiry kept walking.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked D.

“Jus’ bidness,” he answered, his eyes flat.

We waited in the living room, the low bass from the stereo thumping. D still held the videogame controller in his hands.

A few moments later, Wiry emerged from the hallway, both his hands held up at shoulder level. His left was empty. His right held a wad of cash.

“Put it on the table,” I ordered him.

He set it on the table next to an ashtray and an open bottle of malt liquor.

“Count it.”

“It’s all there.”

“Good. Now count it.”

Wiry counted out the hundreds first, reaching forty-five hundred. Then he counted out the last five hundred in twenties. It was all there.

“I told you it was all there.”

“Sit back,” I ordered.

Wiry did as he was told. I reached down and picked up the money, stuffing it into the breast pockets of my flannel. D watched on, his eyes cool and appraising.

When I finished buttoning up the pocket, I motioned to Wiry with the shotgun. “Now go get the dope you ripped.”

“What the fuck?” D demanded.

“You heard me,” I told Wiry. “Get the crank.”

“Dat’s bullshit,” D snapped, his voice a growl. “You got yo’ money back. We even.”

I shook my head. “No. You left them with no dope and no money and that’s how I’m going to leave you. That’s even.”

“Aw, man, dat’s fucked up.”

“That’s the way it is.” I motioned at Wiry with the shotgun. “Go get it.”

Wiry hesitated until D gave him a reluctant nod. Rubbing his jaw, he disappeared down the hallway.

“This isn’t personal,” I told him. “Just business.”

“It’s fucked up.”

I shrugged. “I’m just doing what Paco ordered.”

D’s eyes narrowed. “Dat boy was Paco’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. I din’t know dat. Give him back his money, yo? Den we be cool.”

“I’ve got my orders,” I said. “It’s the money and the product.”

“Dat shit’s unreasonable.”

“That’s what Paco said to do.”

D cursed under his breath.

“Of course,” I said, “his woman didn’t help matters much.”

D cocked his head and regarded me. “How’s dat?”

I shrugged. “She pushed him, is all. Said there was no way Paco could let some stupid niggers get the better of him.”

The change in D’s face was palpable. His eyes widened at the epithet and then narrowed to slits. “Bitch said dat?”

I nodded. “If it was up to her, this would’ve been a hit instead of just a recovery. She said the only way to deal with niggers who didn’t know their place was to put ‘em down, just like a rabid dog.”

D clenched his jaw. “Who you callin’ dog?”

“Her words, not mine. This is just a one time deal for me and I fly back-well, you don’t need to know that part, do you?”

“Don’t care,” D grunted. “My bidness is wit dat motherfucker Paco and his bitch.”

Wiry returned to the living room holding a manila envelope. He extended it toward me.

I shook my head. “On the table.”

Wiry dropped it on the coffee table.

“Sit.”

He obeyed.

I lifted the package and looked inside at the baggie full of yellowish-white powder.

“You tell Paco,” D said, his nostrils flaring, “he wants a war, he got himself a motherfuckin’ war.”

I tucked the package under my free arm. “He said if you niggers don’t play nice, he’d listen to his woman and cap the whole lot of you.”

D’s eyes flashed. He dropped the game controller and jabbed his finger toward me. “You tell him. He a dead motherfucker now. His bitch, too.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said, backing toward the door. “But he said you don’t have the balls.”

“We see about dat shit,” D said.

I backed through the doorway and pulled the door shut behind me. Then I ran like hell.

“Jesus, you got it?”

I drove north, watching for cars that might be tailing us. So far, none.

“How’d you do it?”

“I just did it.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Andy muttered. “I can’t believe it.”

At Franklin Park, I pulled into a parking lot and turned off the car. The motor cooled, ticking.

“Here,” I said, handing Andy the money.

He took it, his eyes brimming with tears. “Thanks, Dad. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You remember our deal?”

“Yeah. I gotta get clean.”

“Exactly. And I want you to leave town to do it.”

“Leave town?”

“You’ve got to get away from what you know if you’re going to get clean.”

“But I don’t have any money.”

“I just gave you five grand.”

He blanched. “No, that’s Paco’s money. I can’t-”

“Don’t worry about Paco,” I told him. “Just take the money and go. Today.”

“You don’t understand. He’ll come after me. He’ll-”

“No, he won’t. He’ll leave you alone, because I’m going to see that he gets his dope. Okay?”

Andy’s face filled with surprise. “You took D’s dope, too?”

“I took the dope for Paco, and I took the money for you to get the hell out of River City.”

“What about D? He’ll come after-”

“He thinks the bikers did it,” I lied. “They’ll leave you alone, and they’ll leave Paco alone.”

Andy swallowed. “Jesus.”

“I want you to go someplace warm,” I said. “Stay away from everyone who uses. Get in a program. And send me a postcard.”

He nodded. “Okay. I will.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll come down and join you, wherever it is.”

“Cool.”

We sat for a moment in the truck, silent in our thoughts. I hoped half-heartedly that he’d hug me, but he didn’t.

Finally, I said, “Come on. I’ll take you to the bus station.”

At the bus station, I paid for Andy’s ticket to Phoenix. When I handed it to him, he reached out and clasped my hand in his. We said nothing, but held that handshake for what seemed like forever, until they called for his bus to board.

“Be safe,” I told him.

“I will,” he assured me, then turned and trudged up the bus steps.

I watched while he threaded his way down the aisle past other passengers to find a seat near the rear of the bus. He gave me a nervous wave.

I waved back. “Good luck,” I whispered.

Luck. He’d need some. Odds were good he’d just find someone selling crank at the first stop the bus made and inside of a month, the money would be gone and he’d be worse off.

But at least he had a chance.

Half an hour later, I strolled across the Post Street Bridge on the pedestrian lane. Halfway across, I stopped and looked over the side. The tumbling, white waters of the Looking Glass River flowed a hundred feet below. I thought of how many times I’d driven over this bridge and thrown pot pipes or other minor confiscated items over the side. I thought of the people who jumped over the edge from time to time. I thought about my son, and how he could easily become a part of all of that, a part of things being thrown away and people going over the edge.

I stared down into the roiling waters. My thoughts turned to Maureen and her drug dealer partner. I tried to feel bad for what I’d done and for what was coming to both of them. I knew what it was. I’d seen the rage in D’s eyes when I uttered that magic word. Paco and Maureen were finished.

It was no use trying to feel bad. I couldn’t work up any sympathy for a drug dealer, and the only emotion I had for Maureen was hatred. She’d taken my son away and turned him into a meth fiend. She deserved what she was going to get.

I pulled the manila envelope from under my arm and dropped it over the side. The yellow paper fluttered slightly on the way down, winking in the fading light of the day. Then it splashed into the river, was pulled below and was gone forever.

The pacifists in this world ask fate to take a hand in matters. What goes around, comes around, they’d say. Karma, they’d say, and I think some of that’s true.

But sometimes you have to be the one to bring it around. Sometimes, you have to take a hand.