Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“Commander Quirk says you got a wellness check?”

“Sure.”

“And you don’t want to call ahead to the facility?”

“I believe phone lines are down.”

“Oh, yeah,” Long said, chewing gum, smiling. “I heard that, too.”

“You know the island?”

“Of course,” he said. “It’s part of our patrol. A little past Thompson Island. Not much to it. Used to be a trash dump before the city leased it to the jail.”

“You know anything about it?”

“I’ve seen some kids picking up garbage on the beach,” Long said. “We had a kid last year went missing. They said he was trying to escape. You know, like it was fucking Alcatraz.”

“Alcatraz may have been more fun.”

“No shit?” Long said.

“None at all.”

“Most of the kids aren’t even from Boston,” he said. “It’s part of some program to extract them from problem areas and get them back to fucking nature.”

“That’s what they say.”

“What’s the boy’s name?”

I told him. He nodded, chewing his gum, and asked if I’d untie the two lines attached to the dock. I saluted him and untied the boat, coiling the ropes as I’d learned from my uncle Patrick, who’d settled in Mattapoisett to build boats. He revved the engine in reverse, chugging slow out into the channel, and then once we were all clear, throttled us forward and out into the harbor.

Sergeant Long had lied. It was colder than a bastard. I had on a pair of thermal underwear, jeans, a flannel shirt, and a peacoat with a watch cap. But I still kept in the wheelhouse, turning back to see Boston fading from view. The pilot boat skipped over the small waves and over hard chunks of ice. As he kicked the engine into high gear, hitting about thirty knots, he’d turn to stare at me when I wasn’t watching.

“You’re the guy.”

“What guy?”

“When Quirk said your name, it didn’t click,” he said. “But now. You’re the guy from the papers.”

“Boston’s Most Handsome Professional?”

“No,” he said, kind of yelling over the whine of the motors. “The guy in the shootout with those shitbags who worked for Jackie DeMarco.”

“Just a simple misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding, my ass,” Sergeant Long said, destroying his chewing gum. “What? Were they trying to whack you?”

“They got a little agitated.”

Long nodded. He steered with one hand. He had his ball cap down in his eyes so the wind didn’t kick it up and out to sea. “DeMarco mixed up in this kids’ prison?”

I nodded.

He stared straight ahead, the shapes of a couple harbor islands coming into view, shrouded by a thick fog. “When I was a kid, I used to see his old man hand out candy in the North End,” he said. “He had a big coin laundry there.”

“Lovely man.”

“Yeah,” Sergeant Long said. “Lovely if you’re his pal. If you’re not, you’re toast.”

“And the kid?”

“Ha,” he said. “What do you think?”

“He’s a real charmer,” I said. “He’ll go far in this town.”

“Jesus Christ.”

It didn’t take long to pass the other Harbor Islands: Thompson, Spectacle, Long, Gallops, and Lovells. I didn’t know each one; Sergeant Long pointed them out along the way. I’d spent some time out this way fishing with Henry Cimoli after he moved to Revere and bought a boat. But we’d fished more for beers than we had actually searched for haddock. Fortune was situated a little outside Green Island and Outer Brewster. By the time we got there, I felt a little like Jim Hawkins.

Long slowed the boat when we spotted the docks. There was a narrow slice of a rocky beach and an industrial-looking building situated up a little hill. He pointed it out as we slid into the dock. The wind would’ve taken less hardy men out to sea. But even without breakfast, I stood firmly rooted on deck and hopped out onto the dock. I tied the lines. The motor settled into a putter, the exhaust chugging into the cold air.

Once the boat was tied up, we walked together up a narrow pebble path to signs pointing out the direction to the MCC office. Since the building took up a third of the island, the signs were a bit superfluous.

“Downed phone lines?” Long said.

“Yep.”

“You know, cell phones work out here,” he said, checking his phone. Grinning.

“You don’t say.”

Long shrugged in a noncommittal cop way and followed the path around the large building surrounded by chain link topped with razor wire. I couldn’t imagine a homier environment for troubled teens except for maybe a classic British workhouse. There were three large brick buildings and a smaller one serving as the entrance. A sign read OFFICIAL MCC PERSONNEL ONLY. NO VISITORS.

Sergeant Long opened the front door wide and held it for me. Three men and a fat lady were lounging in office chairs and watching the morning news. There was an empty box of donuts on a table. They all wore blue uniforms with patches on their shoulders. No one stood up or said anything. They all just kind of looked at one another. A wiry guy with a thin face and a purplish mouse under one eye stood up. “Yeah.”

Sergeant Long nodded and gave his name, rank, and why we were there.

“Yeah?” the guy said.

“Boy,” I said. “This guy is sharp.”

“Who the hell are you,” he said. “You a cop, too?”

“No,” I said. “And neither are you. You couldn’t even play one on TV. We’re here for a wellness check.”

The fat lady stood up. She was about to sing. “All visitation requests, even from law enforcement, have to go through our main office in Newton.”

“What if I told you I was a close and personal pal of Bobby Talos’s,” I said. “I’m into yachting.”

“No one said anything,” the fat lady said.

Long looked slightly amused. He gave the boy’s name and said we wanted to see him.

“You got a warrant?” the man with the shiner said.

“No,” Long said. “And don’t need one. This property is leased from the city. That means I got every right. Go get the fucking kid.”

“Hey,” the fat lady said. She still had powder from the donut on her face.

“Now,” Sergeant Long said.

“He’s out in the yard,” she said. “Go get him yourself.”

I nodded at Long and we both brushed past the woman and the wiry guard with the military cut. The door had an electronic lock and by the time we reached it, the lock was buzzing. Long pushed it open hard and we were outside in a common rec area. The wiry guard followed us.

Out by an empty basketball court, I saw a kid sitting on a bench. He didn’t look up as we approached. The empty recreation yard had other benches, ringed by a dirty snowbank pushed up off walkways leading from bunkhouses to a cafeteria and the offices. The wind seemed even stronger in that open place than it had in the harbor. It didn’t whistle, it roared.

The kid was muscly and compact, with a shaved head. As I got closer, it appeared the boy had just gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. He had a lot of bruises on his face, neck, and arms. He had on a thin uniform that resembled hospital scrubs and was shaking. Someone had cuffed him to the bench.

I dropped down to a knee and said, “I’m a friend of Dillon Yates’s.”

The kid nodded. He was as pale as a bleached sheet, shaking, with dark circles under his eyes, his lips a bright shade of blue. He hugged his arms around his body, shivering without control.

“Give me the key,” I said to the guard.

The wiry guard stood next to me now, looking down at the kid. He had a smile on his face.

“He tried to escape,” the man said. “He hid out and tried to kill me yesterday with my own weapon. You know how it goes. These kids. You can’t give ’em an inch.”