Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“Have you met Luke Waters?” he said.

I shook my head.

“He’s a class guy,” he said. “You know? Grew up in Blackburn and loves this town. He coaches the ninth-grade football team. Lives his life for these kids. This guy went from being respected to kids snickering behind his back because of that Yates kid. Last time he held an assembly he couldn’t even get kids to sit still and listen. It broke his heart.”

“Wow.”

“What did Dillon’s mom tell you? That these were just some smart-aleck remarks?”

“Pretty much.”

“The kid wrote some highly disturbing things on that tweeter thing,” he said. “You know what I’m talking about? All the kids mess with that crap.”

“My fans run my account.”

“Well, I saw what he wrote. He kept on running down Vice President Waters. He wrote about crazy sexual shit and mutilations. We took it as a genuine threat.”

Lorenzo widened his eyes as if the vagueness was enough. I nodded a few times in mock understanding. “For instance?”

“I don’t have to discuss all this with you,” he said. “Go talk with the chief. I’m a Blackburn police officer, and I did my duty to charge the kid. It was up to the judge to decide what to do.”

“Nine months is a bit excessive,” I said. “For something written online.”

“Kid’s sentencing isn’t my department,” he said. “You think I’m tough? You hadn’t met Judge Scali. He’s the true ballbuster in this town.”

“I can’t wait.”

“He doesn’t care what you think, or the parents think, or any of the bleeding hearts,” he said. “The judge was elected on Zero Tolerance and he means it. Since he’s taken the bench, he’s cut juvenile crime in half. He doesn’t let shit slide like you people in Boston. He knows if he doesn’t reach kids now, they’re gonna be sticking a gun in someone’s face tomorrow. It’s tough love, but it works. I seen it happen.”

“Even if there’s no crime committed?”

Lorenzo shook his head. “You got sold a bill of goods, Boston,” he said. “You got a couple parents around here who won’t get with the program and they say life is unfair. I don’t feel sorry for them in the least.”

“Can I see the report?”

“No,” he said.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ve got a release from his mother.”

“Good luck, then,” he said. “Why’d you want to see me?”

“I wanted to meet the man who started all this.”

The fat man stood, showing he was much shorter than expected, which was perhaps the source of his irritability. He put his hands on his hips as if to show our conversation was over. He adjusted his BPD cap and tried in vain to suck in his gut. “Don’t expect a lot of cooperation in Blackburn,” he said. “All your liberal crap doesn’t fly here. It’s a tough town to grow up in, and tough love is the only way we keep things safe. Understand now?”

I saluted him. He scowled back.

“How about you tell me this. Just what exactly did Dillon Yates write that got the vice principal so upset?”

“No way.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can look it up. I just thought you’d stand behind your charge.”

“Goddamn right I do,” Lorenzo said, and reached up with his hand to rub both chins. “What the hell. I’ll tell you.”

I waited.

Lorenzo ran a finger under his nose and sniffed. He took a couple breaths. I tried to ease my quickening heart.

“He said Luke Waters got his dick stuck in a VCR.”

I stifled a laugh. Lorenzo didn’t like it.

“You think that’s fucking funny?” he said.

“I do,” I said. “Man versus technology is always comedy gold.”

He glowered. It made me want to laugh even more.

On the way out, I winked at him and walked out into the hall, nearly knocking down a gawky girl fiddling with a locker. She looked embarrassed and smiled at me, pulling back a blackened streak from her otherwise white-blond hair.

I peered back into the open door, just in time to see Lorenzo tossing my business card in the trash.

3

The criminal courthouse was on Blackburn’s highest hill, across from the city cemetery and a public housing complex. The building was old and stately, as it should be, with a lot of brass, marble, and dark oak inside. Cavernous, with the air quality of a museum or a summerhouse shut up for the winter. On the first floor, an art nouveau bronze statue of blind Lady Justice stood proud but tarnished, with courtrooms on both sides of an open staircase leading to the clerk’s office. I bypassed a curving staircase for an elevator. I’d recently had surgery on my right knee.

A life’s work of busting heads and kicking butts could be hard on the joints.

Upstairs, I found a frizzy-haired blondish woman not so hard at work at a computer. The building wasn’t well heated or insulated. The frizzy-haired woman wore a blue overcoat and fingerless gloves at her desk. When I leaned in, I saw she was checking her Facebook account.

I gave her a high-wattage, dynamite smile and slid across a faxed release from Sheila Yates. She glanced up at me, somehow immune to my charms, and then down at the paper. I considered arching an eyebrow but I didn’t want her falling out of her chair.

“What’s that?” she said.

“A parental release.”

“For what?”

“For all police and court files related to one Dillon Yates.”

“Is he a minor?”

“Indeed he is.”

“Well, all juvenile records are sealed,” she said, with little remorse. Clicking away.

“Not to parents,” I said.

“Are you the parent?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Law enforcement?”

“Not for a long while,” I said. “I don’t like to wake up early.”

“Sorry,” she said, with even less remorse. “I really can’t help you.”

I reached into my wallet and showed her that I’d been licensed by the Commonwealth as a private investigator. She glanced down at the license, unimpressed. I wondered what she’d have thought of my Napoleon Solo all-access badge. As she looked back at me, I arched the eyebrow. Oh, what the hell.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “The parent may view the file. But may not take the file with them or make copies.”

“The parent has signed the release,” I said. “The release is now on your desk.”

“You can’t just go and transfer parental rights.”

“I am not seeking to be the kid’s parent,” I said. “I am seeking access to the files to help with his court case.”

She looked at her screen, not switching over to a database, keeping it on her personal Facebook page. “Has the case been adjudicated?”

“Yep.”

“Then how are you going to help?”

“Ever heard of an appeal?” I said.

She didn’t answer, returning to her Facebook page, clicking away. I glanced down and saw her smile at a photo of a couple kittens in a basket of flowers.

“Always cute seeing tax dollars at work,” I said and left.

I ungracefully took the marble steps down to the lobby, past Lady Justice, my work boots echoing through the giant courthouse with each methodical step. The courthouse seemed empty, oddly quiet, and with all the personality of a mausoleum. I would have to return with some legal saberrattling from Cone, Oakes. Sometimes a threatening letter was better than a .357.

Back out into the spitting snow, I found a Blackburn PD patrol car had parked behind my Ford Explorer. A cop was examining my license tag and writing down the numbers. This town was just getting better and better.

The cemetery stretched out far and wide behind where we both stood. Last week’s snow sat piled up high and dirty on the curbs.