Brad Parks - The Good Cop

But this was … well, the word “abhorrent” came quickly to mind. I don’t want to get into a debate about the Second Amendment or what it means. And hey, if you need a gun to shoot yourself some dinner-or raise a well-ordered militia to stave off attacks from the French, or whatever-I have no problem with you. What I have a problem with is a gun being owned by a seventeen-year-old kid with no impulse control and this weird idea that in order to be a “man” he needs to possess a gun and settle disputes with it.

“So these corner boys,” I said, pivoting back toward Ruthie. “Will they go on the record?”

“Well, we sort of have a problem there. It’s not that they’re off the record. I just … I don’t know their real names, and they wouldn’t tell me.”

“Yeah, we have a problem.”

And that was not the only one. Even if they gave us their full Christian names, along with their dates of birth, their Social Security numbers, and their blood types, Brodie wasn’t going to let us run a story like this-with such a damning accusation-on the simple say-so of some corner drug dealers.

We needed something to substantiate it, something indisputable.

We needed to see it with our own eyes.

“Ruthie, you think your corner boys would let us watch them make a buy?”

He thought about it for a second. “Maybe,” he said. “We can at least go over there and ask.”

“All right. Let’s go. Uncle Bernie, it’s been a pleasure, as always,” I said, making my way toward the door. I was starting to feel a bit dirty hanging out there anyway.

But before I could get away, Bernie grabbed my shoulder with a grip that was surprisingly strong coming from such a wrinkled old hand.

“Listen, young fella. These cops, they’re not good men, you hear me?” he said. “You’d be better off leaving them alone, you ask me.”

“No offense, Uncle Bernie,” I replied, “but that’s why I’m not asking you.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, releasing me. “You got to do your little crusade, that’s fine. Just remember: most of the knights who went on those crusades to the Holy Land? They never made it back.”

Word of Black Mafia Family’s second failure reached Red Dot Enterprises quickly enough, causing discontent among the associates. Perhaps they shouldn’t have contracted out that job. If they had handled it themselves-with the certainty of men who were trained in the use of guns-Carter Ross would be as dead as Mike Fusco by now.

There was a movement within the ranks to end the effort against Ross. It was not out of any sudden sense of mercy. It was just practical: now that Fusco was out of the way-and his “confession” had been happily consumed by everyone from the Newark police high command to the greater New York media-it was entirely possible life would return to normal. Killing a newspaper reporter, even one who was getting as dangerously close as Ross, was too much of a risk.

It was time to go back underground, argued some of the associates. Things had gone too far as it was. This was supposed to be about making a little money on the side, selling guns to thugs who were going to find a way to get guns anyway. That’s how they had always rationalized it. If anything, many of them thought, it was a perverse kind of community policing, inasmuch as it gave them a working relationship with the criminal element-and allowed them to keep tabs on it.

The Kipps matter had been unfortunate, right from the start. Kipps had seen something he shouldn’t have. Had it been some other cop, maybe they could have convinced him to shut up about it. But, no, it had to be Kipps-the one guy they could never convince to look the other way, the guy who couldn’t just drop it, the guy who believed being sworn to uphold the law was more than just a way to make a decent paycheck.

Killing Kipps was the only way to ensure the mess was contained. And then once Fusco started nosing around, he had to be killed, too.

But Ross? Maybe they didn’t need to get rid of him. Or at least that’s what some of the associates were trying to argue when they got the worst possible news from the Black Mafia Family’s botched job: the idiots had somehow dropped their gun.

And Ross had not only found it but identified it by its red dot-and started asking questions. That quickly ended any and all debate within Red Dot Enterprises on the what-to-do-about-the-reporter question.

He needed to be dealt with. And quickly.

The parking spot Ruthie happened to choose was around the corner from Gene and Bernie’s place, in plain sight of the Fourth Precinct. As we got into his car, I glanced at the building, curious as ever as to what exactly was going on inside all that brick and mortar. Staged suicides down in the locker rooms. Gun-selling cops in the squad rooms. A captain upstairs who seemed to be completely oblivious. It was a treasury of dysfunction.

“Okay, so here’s how it works with these guys,” Ruthie said, getting us underway. “There are usually five or six of them out there, but you don’t always see all of … you need to get that?”

My phone had rung. I hauled it out of my pocket and saw it was Mickey the mechanic, probably calling to tell me my car had become the first in history to have a negative blue book value, because it was going to cost more to tow it to the scrap yard than it was actually worth.

“Yeah, hang on,” I said, then hit that little green button and announced, “Carter Ross.”

“Mr. Ross, it’s Mickey,” he said, with a medium-thick accent. Mickey is of Middle Eastern descent. I wasn’t sure why he called himself Mickey, though I guessed it had something to do with people like me mispronouncing his given name so badly he had given up and gone with Mickey.

“Hey, Mickey. How’s my hunk-a-junk doing?”

“Well, it’s bad. Very bad. I talk to your insurance for you. I give them the estimate, doing it the way the insurance tell me to do it. They say it’s totaled. They say they give you twenty-nine hundred for it.”

“Yeah, I sort of expected that,” I said, sighing.

“But I think I can still fix it for you,” he said, pronouncing “fix” like “feex.” Given the age and indeterminate mileage of my car, Mickey was always feexing things for me.

“What’s it going to set me back?” I asked.

“It depends. You want me to cut the corners?”

Mickey was also always asking me if he could cut the corners. It was his way of asking if he could use parts that weren’t a hundred percent new and methods that didn’t necessarily conform to factory standards.

“That’s fine.”

“Okay, I cut the corners. And you pay cash?”

This was another one of Mickey’s standard questions. “Sure.”

“Okay, you need new tire, new bumper. I have my body guy work on the dents, maybe touch up the paint a little. I give you new mirror. I do it for eight hundred.”

I thought about it and quickly decided getting the Malibu back on its feet, as it were, made more fiscal sense than making the massive outlay of cash to buy a new used Malibu. Sure, the way Mickey was proposing making the repairs, my car wasn’t going to be winning any beauty pageants. But it’s not like it was exactly in the running for a tiara before.

“That sounds fine,” I said, and was about ready to hang up when Mickey spoke again.

“Oh, but Mr. Ross? Your LoJack. It’s not so good. It’s busted up. And I can’t fix it. You need special tools and I’m not authorized dealer.”

“Mickey, I don’t have LoJack.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, sir, you do.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t,” I said. The guy I had bought the car from tried to sell me on a LoJack system. But I hadn’t gone for it because that was the whole point of buying a used Malibu: not even the most desperate car thief would steal it.