David Levien - Where the dead lay

Behr returned home, entered, and left the lights off. He dreaded the nights, black and endless, when the work was done and all that was left was time to think. He was fine while there was work. That was when he was at his best. But it never lasted long enough-or he didn’t. He needed to shut it down and rest so he could function properly the next day, but that’s when things went slippery in his head. He had gotten a chance to forget how bad it could be this last year and change, spending most of his evening time with Susan. Maybe he’d let himself believe that things had changed for good. Now he sat for a while with the phone in his hand, considering whether or not to call her. He looked around his place at the evidence of her presence-her organic cereal on the kitchen table, her hairbrush thrown on the couch, a stack of CDs on the coffee table on top of the tabloid magazines she loved. She was probably going through hell, and doing it alone right about now.

He went to dial, but even that simple act felt traitorous. He couldn’t do it-any of it. Not to himself, to his past with his son Tim, to his ex-wife Linda, even though there was nothing between them now but dead memories. He stood and dropped the phone onto the cushion from which he’d just risen. He walked down the hall, flicking on a single light as he went. He stopped when he reached the linen closet, which he used as storage since he didn’t have much linen, and opened it. There was his one extra set of sheets and a blanket and pillow inside. There was also several years’ worth of phone books, hunting boots and insulated bib overalls, camping gear, road salt, coffee cans full of change, and extra lightbulbs among other household detritus. He pushed some of it aside and found a cardboard box, which he pulled to the front of the shelf. He opened the flap. It had been a long time since he’d done this-a lifetime it seemed. He peered down into the box and saw them. Tim’s old things. A policeman figurine, Thomas the Tank Engine, Matchbox cars, a squishy vinyl football, some lifelike rubber dinosaurs. Behr felt a grim smile burning on his lips. They were Tim’s favorites. Nothing would replace either his boy or that time, Behr knew. Nothing. He handled the items for a few moments, feeling for the past, numb and distant between his fingers. Then he closed the flaps. He walked back down the hall with the box in his hands and continued right out the door. He went around back to where the building’s trash area was and lifted the lid on the small Dumpster. He heard the toys rattle around as he threw the box in. He slammed the lid down with a hollow metallic clang and marched back inside, his heart empty. When he reentered his place, the phone was ringing, but he didn’t answer it. He just let it ring.

Behr was on his way out first thing in the morning when he saw them. Two men, sitting in a silver Crown Vic that had his car boxed in. He stopped in his tracks when he made out who was behind the wheel. It was Police Captain Pomeroy, his former boss. Last time they had spoken it had not been a pleasant conversation. Now the pair saw him and got out of their car. The second man was a few years older than Pomeroy and was beefier by thirty-five pounds. He was florid faced already, with the heat of the day still a long way off.

“Behr. Looking quite the winner today,” Pomeroy said. “Didn’t have you for a churcher.”

Behr was dressed in his blue blazer and tie again. “Memorial service, Captain,” he answered, looking at his old boss. Time didn’t seem to change the man. His nose bone was still sharp as a hawk’s beak and his black eyes as pitiless.

“The department could use a favor,” Pomeroy said.

“Really?” Behr asked, mainly to check the rough thrill that ran through him at the words. He’d heard of ex-cops doing outside work for the force, at times when it was something so mundane it wasn’t worth the department’s time, and others when it was a situation so sensitive the cops couldn’t afford to be around it. Either way, Behr had never been on the ask list. “Near Northside stuff?” he guessed, thinking of the amount of drugs and drug violence that existed there.

“Not exactly-,” the other man said, speaking for the first time.

“Jerry…,” Pomeroy interrupted, silencing him.

“Who’s this?” Behr wondered of “Jerry.”

“City attorney,” Pomeroy answered, and didn’t add any last name.

“So is this official?” Behr asked.

“Officially unofficial,” Pomeroy said.

“What does that mean?”

“He’s having this conversation on behalf of the department,” Pomeroy said.

More confidentiality, Behr realized. He wondered if lawyers were the new must-have accessory around town.

“What’s it about?” Behr asked.

“I want you to reconsider the Caro job,” Pomeroy said.

“You want me to help with that?” Behr asked.

Both Pomeroy and “Jerry” nodded.

Potempa must have reached out, Behr realized. “But you ran me…,” he blurted, confused and remembering how it had ended for him with the police years ago. Pomeroy had sighted in on him and pushed and pushed until he was done and all Behr had left was a quarter pension and his old tin. It was personal. The sickening feeling of failure, of being discarded, revisited the pit of his stomach.

“That’s right. And now I need someone who knows what he’s doing,” Pomeroy said. “Who can go places where the official asky-asky nicey-nicey won’t work. Who doesn’t matter.”

“I guess we’re being honest this morning,” Behr said. The city attorney made a sound, a half snuffle, half cough that connoted both amusement and disgust.

“You weren’t incompetent, I just didn’t like you.” An early morning silence stretched out for a moment between Pomeroy’s words. “But I know what you were able to do on that thing a while back.”

Behr said nothing.

“I’m hoping for a similar result here. This is a situation you’d be paid an hourly. Off the books. Not by us. Beyond that, it’d be considered a contribution to the department. A serious contribution. It’ll be noticed and remembered if it’s done right. It can change the future of the doer. You want to hear it?”

Behr looked at Pomeroy, then to Jerry. Their faces were scowling and serious. He heard what they were saying, what he was being offered. He knew it was a real chance. “There’s something I’d want up front in return,” Behr said.

“Really?” Pomeroy asked. “What’s that?”

“Flow through on your investigation into the Santos murder.”

“The judo guy?” Pomeroy said.

“Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but yeah,” Behr answered, wondering why he felt it so imperative to be specific.

Pomeroy shrugged. “That’s doable.”

Behr nodded. “Caro wanted me to locate some of their boys, but they wouldn’t even give me a hint. I can’t do it unless I know the whole story.”

“Of course.” Pomeroy handed him a folder. “It’s not only about their boys.”

The other man practically lunged into the conversation. “There’s someone out there-some group or crew making jerk-offs out of the department taking down shake houses-”

“Thanks, Jerry,” Pomeroy cut him off. Then he turned to Behr and spoke more quietly. “What do you know about pea-shake houses?”

“Same as everybody. Lottery-style betting parlors. Drawings done several times a day with numbers written on balls. There’s an editorial every six months calling them the scourge of the city or else suggesting they be legalized and taxed.” That wasn’t all he knew. He also knew that the occasional bust of a shake house was the old standby photo op for the police. Department scandal? “Police Raid Pea-Shake House” would be on the front page of the paper. Teen gang violence? “Shake House Taken Down” would be the lead story on the evening news. It was like a joke that everyone was in on. But this was a whole different approach.