Todd Robinson - The Hard Bounce

I felt a flush of victory as the new kid stepped over them and started pissing in the urinal where my head used to be. “Little trick, Boo. The bigger they are, the bigger their nutsacks.” He finished and zipped up his fly. “Why do you let them do that to you?” he asked as he stepped back over them. He held the door open. Did he want me to follow him? Nobody ever wanted to talk to me, much less hang out.

I had no answer, so I shrugged.

“Are you really retarded?”

I shook my head.

“Then how come you don’t talk?” He was leaving. I followed him out. “You’re not deaf, ’cause you answer my questions. Kinda.” He looked at my face thoughtfully. “Unless you’re reading my lips. Is that it?” He held his hand over his mouth to test the theory. “You a lip reader?”

I shook my head again.

“My name’s Junior.” He stuck his hand out, then pulled it back. “Never mind. You got pee all over. Your name really Boo Radley?”

I shook my head once more.

“That all you can do? Shrug and nod?”

I shrugged. “W… whu…”

Junior’s eyes bugged out. “What? Say it.”

“What’s the Junior for? What’s before Junior?” My voice, unused for so long, sounded more like Froggy from the Little Rascals than the falsettos of the other boys my age.

“Wow! You can talk!” He laughed and clapped his hands. “It’s short. Short for Junior Mints. One time, we went to the movies and I ate so many that I threw up.” He smiled at the memory. Then the smile caught on something and faded away. “My brothers, they used to call me Junior Mints after that.” A deep ache shadowed his face at the mention of his brothers. He’s never mentioned them since.

The rest is my life. Boo Radley and Junior Mints. My first words in two years were to Junior. Maybe I never would have talked if I hadn’t met him. I don’t know. I didn’t want to talk to him as he lay on the hospital bed. I wanted, needed the next words passed between us to be his. I didn’t know what to say, anyway. Instead, I just held my brother’s hand.

And remembered the last word Paul said.

“Gahp,” he’d shrieked. The word mangled in his broken mouth.

An accusation.

Cop.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Underdog said. “The guy is a hard-ass, but he’s a cop, for chrissakes. He couldn’t.”

“ You couldn’t,” I said.

I’d called in Underdog and Twitch. We sat in the office, and I told them the full story.

“So where is he?” Twitch asked. “We roll on the fucker, and I unload into him.” Blood was the only retribution he knew. I knew there were worse things.

“It does, Dog. It does make sense. When Junior and me were at Donnelly’s house, he said it himself. He said his own stock goes up if Donnelly gets elected mayor. He said that little bitch wasn’t going to get in his way.”

“But to kill her? That’s nuts. How much could his stock go up? Enough for that?” Underdog was still thinking like an honorable officer of the law. He was making the assumption that all cops followed his code.

“It’s Murder 101, Dog. Who benefits?”

“Barnes would,” Dog said. “So would Derek. He’d lose all cred as a snuff maker if anyone found out his victim was alive. So would Cade. What would Donnelly do to him if he found out about that movie? So would-”

“Paul said ‘cop.’ He didn’t say anything else.”

“You don’t know what he was saying,” Underdog said, matching my tone. “The kid was hurt. He was dying. He was in shock.” Dog counted the reasons one by one off his fingers. “Maybe he was calling for one. He might have been calling for help.”

“Pshhh,” said Twitch. “I say we just torture the fuck until he admits it. Hacksaws and Drano work better than sodium pentothal any day.” I could see the bloody fantasies running through Twitch’s mind. His lips twisted into a tight smile at the daydream.

“Not yet, Twitch.”

“Not yet , not now , not fucking ever !” Underdog yelled, bewildered at our words.

“That’s why I need you, Dog. That’s why I’m not doing it Twitch’s way.” Not immediately, at least. “The setup is sound. It’s a mousetrap, Dog. He doesn’t go for the cheese? I walk away. But if he does…”

Dog plopped into the yellow chair and held his hands over his face. “Why, Boo? Because of what the kid said?”

“He said cop.”

“You think he might have said that! What you’re working with, this… this suspicion-” Underdog ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s not enough.”

“It is for me.” Twitch pulled a chrome nine-millimeter out of his pants.

“What the-What the fuck is that, Boo?” Underdog’s pitch rose near hysteria. He pointed at the gun in Twitch’s hand. “You! Do you have a license for that?”

Twitch cackled; his eye twitch-twitched. “For this?” He held up the gun. “You need licenses for these now?”

“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this.” Underdog stood and paced the room frenetically, fingers pulling nervously at the ends of his hair.

“Dog,” I said in as calming a voice as I could, “I’ve been shot once, and shot at a second time. Junior is in a fucking coma right now. Two kids whose ages don’t add up to mine, one is in her cold, fucking grave and the other might be well on his fucking way. And I don’t have anything else.”

Dog looked at me.

“Help me, Dog. If I’m wrong, I’m fucking wrong. That’s it. But I need you if I’m right.”

Underdog sighed and put his face in his hands again. “Make the call.”

The call went as planned. I rang up Donnelly’s office. Barnes fielded the call. I expected him to.

“What do you want, Malone?” He sounded tired.

“I need to talk to Mr. Donnelly.” I worked to keep my voice level. I wanted to reach through the phone and close my fingers around Barnes’s throat.

“About what? Anything you need to talk about can be talked about with Ms. Reese.”

“This I need to talk to him about. Personally.”

“Listen to me, asshole, in case you hadn’t noticed or aren’t listening-”

“I found a witness.”

A pause.

“A witness to what?” He tried to make it sound snide.

“I got someone who was at the squat. They saw someone else there.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you that. He wants to talk to Mr. Donnelly personally.”

“No, I mean who did he see? Where did he see this person?”

Barnes was asking all the right questions. Not giving anything away. “He didn’t give me the full story. Meet me at The Cellar tonight at eight if Mr. Donnelly has any interest in this information.”

“I swear to God, if you’re screwing around-”

“I’m not. This sounds like the real deal.”

“I’ll be there at eight.” Click.

Let the games begin.

Like any recon worth his salt, Barnes showed up early. He was wearing his coat again. He came over to me at the bar, looking mighty pissed. And nervous.

“What the hell is going on? Where is this guy?”

“He’s waiting by a phone. Did you talk to Mr. Donnelly?”

“Yeah. He’s at a phone, too. He wants to know what’s going on.” Barnes got bumped drunkenly from behind. “Hey, watch it, asshole.”

“S’cuse me, man.”

Barnes gave him a hard look.

“You remember the loft on Atlantic Avenue? Where you first brought me to meet with Donnelly?”

“Yeah.”

“Call him. Tell him to meet us there in half an hour.”

“What is this? A shakedown? This guy wants money?”

Bingo. The slip. “Why do you think that?”

“Nobody gives up info for free. If this douchebag is sniffing around for some kind of reward, he better think twice.”