Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“I think the kid will do nicely.”

“I want more than Dillon just out on appeal,” she said. “I want Judge Scali to pay.”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

11

The Magic Bean was on Central Avenue in Blackburn, at the heart of what used to be a thriving business district. These days it hosted a lot of boarded-up storefronts, a Salvation Army thrift store, and the coffee shop. The Magic Bean sold hemp jewelry by the cash register, and local art from the brick walls, and two members of the staff had nose rings. One had blue hair. I felt a little less hip in my Levi’s, steel-toed boots, and lack of nose jewelry. I’d put the nose ring on the list. Maybe someday.

I met my new BFF, Beth Golnick, there, along with two of her classmates who’d had run-ins with Scali. It wasn’t even four o’clock and outside it was nearly black. But the shop was warm and pleasant, smelling of hot coffee and exotic teas. A good place to thaw out.

We seemed to be the only ones in the Magic Bean not staring at a screen. The room was packed with nervous and fidgety kids on their phones and devices. Both of Beth’s classmates were boys, Jake Cotner and Ryan Bell. Jake had been a football player. He was broad-shouldered and muscular but not quite six feet. Ryan was tall, very thin, with nearly white blond hair. If he got a crew cut, he’d look a lot like Shell Scott.

“Why’d you go before Scali?” I said. “Overdue library books?”

The kids laughed. Oh, Spenser, friend of youth.

“I got into a fight with my stepmother,” Ryan said. “She’s a total bitch.”

“She called the cops?”

“I told her she had no class and no business living with us,” Ryan said. “I threw a steak at her. She screamed at me for an hour and then called the cops. She told them I was trying to kill her. Jesus Christ. She’s only eight years older than me.”

“How long did you get?”

“Six months.”

I leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stared at Jake. Unlike me, Jake had worn his letterman’s jacket. I didn’t think I could pull it off without looking like a complete wacko.

“I was screwing around with some friends at one of the old warehouses,” Jake said. “We were just breaking bottles and windows and shit. A cop caught us and Scali sent me away for nine months. I missed my senior year.”

“Are you in school now?” I said.

“Nah.” He shook his head and looked away. “What’s the point?”

Beth sat nearby in an oversized leather chair, feet off the ground, knees tucked up to her chin. Her hair bad been pulled up into a bun on top of her head with the black streak falling in a curlicue over one eye. She played with the strand, studying its color and then tucking it behind an ear.

“Did either of you have an attorney?” I said.

The boys looked at each other and then me, shaking their heads.

“Was an attorney offered?”

They shook their heads again.

“What did your parents say?”

“My dad told me it was good for me,” Ryan said. “He said it would toughen me up. Said my stepmother was afraid to sleep at night. She’s up all night because she’s on pills and addicted to watching reality shows. He met the crazy woman on some kind of dating website. Ick. ”

“I live with my mom,” Jake said. “She tried to get me an attorney, but someone told her the judge would be harder on me if she did. You know, like he thought we were fighting the system? She was told for me to take what was given and say thank you. I didn’t think it would be nine fucking months for breaking some windows.”

“Judge Roy Bean.”

“Who’s that?” Beth said.

“A real a-hole,” I said. “From the old days.”

“When you were a kid?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly.”

The kids were impressed. I told them I’d like to talk to their parents, find out what the Blackburn court had told them about a kid’s right to an attorney.

“What’s it matter?” Ryan said. “It’s all a mess now. Nobody is going to go against Scali. This is just what people do here. People say you got to have a tough judge for a tough town. When he came to school and spoke to us, he said he was the reason we didn’t have gangs around here.”

“You do have gangs,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” Jake said. “But not like the old days. People believe he’s keeping them safe.”

“From kids breaking windows and throwing steaks at their stepmoms.”

The boys and Beth didn’t know what to say. They stayed silent. The speakers overhead played a pop song that I barely recalled from thirty years ago and hoped to never hear again. I guessed now it was hip. This was the very reason I never threw away ties. “So what’s it like at the MCC?” I said.

“On the island?” Jake said. “It freakin’ sucked.”

“Sucked big-time,” Ryan said.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“You got to live in bunks,” Ryan said. “Five bunks. Ten boys to a room. They wake you up at five a.m. with an air horn. You know, like people bring to football games?”

“And then?”

“And then nothing,” Jake said. “You get crummy food. You can go outside for an hour in the morning and at night. There’s one TV that has shitty reception.”

“They don’t have you weaving baskets or making license plates?”

“You’re supposed to do schoolwork,” Ryan said. “But that’s a joke. You go to this big room where you fill out workbooks. No one can talk and then you turn them in when you’re done. You never get them back. You never get a grade or anything. I started sketching in them to see if anyone would notice. I drew horses and dolphins and things like that. No one said a thing.”

“So you both left the island reformed and upright members of society.”

Beth snorted out a little coffee and then wiped her nose. Ryan got up from the sofa and went to join her in the big chair. He sat on her knee, her arm around his waist. She leaned her head onto his back the way a sister might. He smiled.

Jake excused himself and walked to the bathroom. I hadn’t taken any notes. I’d write down a few things when I got back to my car. But I wanted this to be loose and informal. I wanted to talk to their parents. I still didn’t know where I was headed or how it might help my client. Megan Mullen had appealed Dillon’s case based on no counsel. We were playing the waiting game with legal channels while I continued to snoop. Maybe the snooping would help Dillon, or maybe it would just expose more ugliness.

“Are you really a private eye?” Ryan said.

“Yeah.”

“You like it?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“I have a big neon sign outside my office with a magnifying glass,” I said. “And a sexy secretary who sits on my desk while I think.”

“No,” Beth said, looking doubtful. “Really?”

“I don’t like being told what to do,” I said. “I like being my own boss.”

“I’d like that, too,” Ryan said. “I just don’t know what I want to do.”

“He can draw,” Beth said, rubbing circles on his back. “He can draw really good. You see the artwork on the wall? He made those.”

I looked up and spotted his signature. For a teenager, they were very good. Charcoal etchings of bowls of fruit, trees, and vacant playgrounds. One of the sketches, I noted, as I stood up and walked closer, was of Beth. Her eyes were obscured, but it was the same nose and mouth, the same long strand of black. It was a nude. Beth’s face flushed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Ryan’s not like that. I told him I didn’t mind.”

“Oh.”

“She’s not my type,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re gay,” I said.