Brad Parks - The Good Cop

“Okay, go.”

Since my most recent conversation with Raul Ibanez, this question had been coalescing in my mind and was now fully formed: “The word from Captain Boswell is that Fusco killed himself with his service weapon. I got a source in the medical examiner’s office that confirmed it for me, matched the serial numbers and everything. But Fusco told me the day before he was killed that his service weapon had been taken from him when he was placed on leave. So how is it possible that gun was used?”

“Well, it’s possible Fusco was lying to you. His captain knew if she was placing him on leave, she’d have to take his gun. It’s policy. But maybe if he bitched about it enough, she let it slide. Some cops feel naked without their weapon, even off duty. Or…”

Pritch actually chuckled, but it was the kind that didn’t have a lot of mirth behind it. “Or what?” I asked.

“Well, officially, all our guns are under lock and key, tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Unofficially?”

“Unofficially, we’ve had a problem for years with guns that were supposed to have been under lock and key showing up on the street again. I know guys who have brought in the same gun two, three times only to have it get back out.”

“How is that happening?”

“We’re just sloppy. Eventually, a confiscated gun gets destroyed. But the department doesn’t do it right away. In the short term, the gun just gets locked up. Each precinct has a locker and there are only certain people who are supposed to have access to it, but that doesn’t mean a lot. They’ll hide an extra key near the locker because everyone keeps losing the main one, and before long anyone with a uniform is helping themselves.”

“What about people without uniforms?” I asked. “Like, maybe, people in an overly aggressive prayer group?”

“A what?”

“Never mind. I guess I’m just asking if you thought it was possible for a civilian to have gotten his hands on Fusco’s gun.”

“Possible? Sure. Do this job long enough and you’ll swear anything is possible,” Pritch said. “But maybe if you put something in your paper about it, it’ll embarrass the brass enough that they’ll actually do something about it for a change.”

“That sounds like a magnificent idea,” I said, then asked the following question facetiously: “You want to go on the record with that, Detective Pritchard?”

He snorted. “Yeah, about as much as I want to be hanging out with you the next time that Mercedes comes around.”

* * *

The tow truck and Tommy arrived within a few seconds of each other, so I ended the call with Pritch and watched as my Chevy Malibu, the car that had served me for more miles than its busted odometer knew how to count, was winched onto a flatbed and taken away, all forlorn and dented. If this was truly its end-and I can’t imagine it’s very hard to total a car that doubles in value every time you fill the gas tank-it had served me well.

I said good-bye to Baldy Jones, who acknowledged me by slightly lifting his head from the form he was filling out and then immediately putting his head back down. I suspected we wouldn’t be swapping cute text messages later.

“You know, if you wanted to pimp your ride, I could have found someone to do a better job than that,” Tommy said as I lowered myself into his car, an import that was a bit on the small side for a strapping American male such as myself.

“Yeah, but you’d probably send me to a guy who would outfit the seats with pink slipcovers.”

Tommy said something in Spanish, which is his go-to move when he wants to deliver a withering putdown that I simply cannot match.

“I accept your compliment,” I said.

He snorted.

We drove for a moment in silence, giving me a chance to appreciate how nice it was riding in a car that wasn’t being assailed by bullets.

“Your little car chase went out on BNN, you know,” Tommy said.

BNN was the Breaking News Network, a company that paid people to listen to police scanners and then report the good stuff to nosy journalists like me. In the old days, BNN subscribers got broadcasts sent out on a pager; now it was an Internet site.

“Too bad they don’t use names on BNN,” I replied. “It would have been good for my street cred.”

“Yeah, yeah. But just … be careful, okay? You’re a newspaper reporter, remember? We write about this sort of stuff happening to other people . I’m worried about you.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, even though I really wasn’t.

“You’re only ‘fine’ because those hombres can’t shoot straight. I mean, what the hell is going on?”

“I just talked to a cop source who said it’s just a group of guys pretending to be the Black Mafia Family street gang.”

“Whoever that is. What did you do to piss them off?

“I’m not sure, actually. I guess I should at least try to find out before they come back, huh?”

“Sounds like a good idea. Because, you know, if they start shooting at us between here and the office, I’m going to kick you out of the car and let them have you. I just got this thing paid off, and I don’t want it getting all full of bullet holes.”

I wished I had a ready repertoire of Spanish insults with which to counter him. Instead, I pulled up Tee Jamison’s name on my phone’s contact list and hit the Send button.

Tee answered the phone the way he always does, with a short, “Yeah.”

“What is up, my brother?” I said, intentionally overenunciating each word.

“You know, you sound like them politicians who only come into the ’hood when it’s time to hustle votes. They teach you white people to talk like that?”

“It just comes naturally,” I assured him, then spent a few minutes telling him about my new propensity for having to duck bullets, thanks to my sudden association with guys masquerading as Black Mafia Family.

“So you beefin’ with BMF?” he said when I was done. “You mean them guys who were hooked up with Young Jeezy?”

“And that is…?”

“A rapper. For you people, that’d be like, I don’t know, Neil Diamond or something.”

“Well, sweet, Caroline.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I just need to figure out what these guys are into and why they’re after me.”

“Oh, well, I don’t really know those niggas. They sound like they a bunch of younguns, frontin’ like that. I don’t know the new generation that well. But you know who would?”

“Who?”

“Uncle Bernie.”

It was a good thing I wasn’t drinking a Coke Zero. I would have snorted it out my nose. “Come on, he’s so old I think he resold warrantied merchandise to Moses.”

“I’m telling you, that dude has got feelers everywhere . I mean, he’s getting boots from me, luggage from someone’s mom. He’s probably getting something from those guys, too. People in the ’hood know Uncle Bernie will give you quick cash for the right stuff. And who don’t like quick cash?”

Uncle Bernie did mention something about knowing everyone from the bubbas to the machers. (Whoever they were.) Maybe he’d know a few bangers, too. It was worth a try.

“Good thought, thanks,” I said.

“No problem,” he said. “And, hey, if you see Lil J, get his autograph, will you?”

“Yeah, right after you get me Neil Diamond.”

I ended the call, then told Tommy, “You mind making a little detour? It’ll take us maybe twenty minutes, and you might be able to get some new Pradas out of it.”

“I’d love to, but I have to be at a stupid ribbon-cutting at four o’clock. I wouldn’t want to miss the North Ward councilman congratulating himself for something he actually had nothing to do with.”