Brad Parks - Faces of the Gone

“Eh, you know what a joy it is working with Buster. If he calls me ‘little girl’ one more time he’s going to have to remove my queer Cuban foot from his ass.”

“I love it when you get all butch.”

“I really sounded tough just now, huh?” he said, then giggled.

“I was definitely scared for a second. Look at me, I’m trembling,” I said, holding out my hand, which was rock steady.

“Yeah, anyway, screw you,” Tommy said. “I only came over here to tell you about this guy who called for you. The clerk transferred the calls to me, because the guy said it was about Ludlow Street. But he only wanted to talk to you.”

Tommy handed me a number on a torn piece of Chinese menu.

“The guy have a name?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t say. He sounded like some gangbanger. That’s why I didn’t want to give him your cell number. He sounded pretty scary.”

“I’m not afraid of him. I’ve got a queer Cuban ass-kicker who will protect me.”

“Don’t you forget it,” Tommy said as he walked away.

I looked at the menu/message slip for a moment. I generally have a pretty good memory for phone numbers, but this one wasn’t jostling any brain cells (though it was making me hungry for mu shu pork).

I briefly debated whether to call the number. I was, at least according to some, a known enemy of La Cabra. There was no telling who might be trying to lure me into certain doom. Why wouldn’t the guy give his name? Why insist on only talking to me? It had the classic markings of a trap.

But I gave in pretty quickly. Ultimately, the journalistic flesh is weak: an anonymous source calling with information is just far too great a temptation to resist. I mean, maybe this was my Deep Throat, the guy who would meet me in the parking garage and tell me everything. Besides, what would one little phone call hurt?

So I dialed.

“Yo,” said a voice I couldn’t place.

“Hi, this is Carter Ross, from the Eagle-Examiner,” I said.

“Yo, Bird Man! Thanks for putting in your article that we didn’t have nothing to do with Dee-Dub.”

It wasn’t Deep Throat. It was Bernie Kosar from the Brick City Browns.

“I promised you I would,” I said. “I mean, you made me an honorary member. It seems to be the least I could do for you guys.”

Especially with sources who, on occasion, shoot people.

“Yeah, it was cool. My mom even clipped it out and saved it. It’s the first time we been mentioned in the paper for something positive, you know?”

“Well, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to feature you in the ‘Good Neighbors’ section just yet, but I’m glad it’s something,” I said. “Anyway, what’s up?”

“I got someone here you want to talk to. Can you come out to Brown Town right away?”

“Brown Town?”

“Yeah, you know, the place where we, you know. .”

“Smoked that fine marijuana?”

“Yeah,” Bernie said, laughing. He cupped the phone, but I could hear him say to his buddies: “Bird Man wants to know if this is where we ‘smoked that fine marijuana,’ ” he said, imitating my voice with exaggerated diction, then got back on the phone.

“You got a funny way of talking, Bird Man. It’s like listening to the announcer in one of them antidrug videos. Where do white people learn to talk like that, anyway?”

“We take special classes,” I replied. “I’ll be right over.”

“Okay, hurry up. This guy ain’t going to hang around all day.”

When I arrived at Brown Town, I realized Bernie Kosar was being quite literal when he talked about the source hanging around: in the darkened living room, next to the fish tank, there was a chubby young black man dangling from his heels.

He had been tied to an exposed pipe in the ceiling and was suspended upside down, bat-style. He had a sock in his mouth that had been secured by duct tape wrapped around his head. He was wearing boxers-and only boxers. He did not seem pleased about any of this.

In addition to Bernie, the guy in the Kevin Mack jersey was also standing sentry.

“We caught this nigga trying to steal a Drew Barrymore movie,” Bernie said, giving the guy an evil look as we walked past.

He and Kevin Mack guided me down the hallway into the kitchen, out of earshot of the prisoner.

“We don’t really give a damn about the Drew Barrymore thing,” Bernie told me. “That bitch’s movies are all the same anyway.

“But he was carrying this backpack,” Bernie continued, holding up a nylon bag with a key chain full of soda can tabs attached. “And we found this in it.”

Bernie flipped me an envelope. I looked inside to find four glossy eight-by-ten photographs that made me flinch. Each picture was an extreme close-up of a lifeless, shattered, bloody face. It was, to my utter astonishment, the Ludlow Four. Overcoming my revulsion, I pulled the pictures toward me for closer inspection.

I held up one of the pictures and blurted, “That’s Wanda Bass. I saw her in the funeral home after they patched her up. That’s definitely her.”

“Yeah, and that’s Dee-Dub,” Bernie said, pointing to another photo. Then he held up a single sheet of paper that bore The Stuff’s stamp at the top. “This came with it,” he said.

It was written like a corporate memo: “TO: All Employees, FROM: The Director, RE: Reminder about cutting.” I read it quickly, then went back over it more slowly. It answered some of the questions that had confounded me. Why kill the dealers? They had diluted the brand. Why kill all four at once and leave them together in a way that would garner so much attention? Because being noticed was the point. Who did the killing? The Director.

Whoever that was.

“Where the hell did he get this?” I asked.

“He won’t talk to us,” Bernie said. “But we figured he’d have to talk to you, you being a reporter and all.”

If only that were true.

“Well, it’s not like I have subpoena power,” I said. “Why didn’t you just call the cops?”

“We ain’t exactly the cop-calling type, Bird Man,” Bernie said matter-of-factly.

“No, I guess you’re not,” I said, frowning until an idea came to me. “Okay, but we can still act like cops. You guys be the bad cops. You know, the tough guys, threatening him and stuff. I’ll be the good cop, protecting him from you. We’ll work him that way. Okay?”

I didn’t think playing bad cop would be too much of a stretch for either of them.

“Cool,” Bernie said, clearly enjoying the idea. Of course he did. It was just like a scene from one of his bootleg movies.

“Just follow my lead,” I said.

We went back into the living room, where Bat Boy eyed us. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-two or twenty-three. And the baby fat made him look even younger.

“I’m telling you, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, as if we were in the middle of a conversation. “I don’t think we should hurt him.”

I turned my back on Bat Boy and winked, then faced him again. Bernie was a little slow to react, but Kevin Mack caught on perfectly.

“Forget it. I’m cutting his dick off,” he said angrily, pulling out a thick-bladed hunting knife. From under the sock, a muffled scream escaped Bat Boy’s throat. I turned away again so Bat Boy couldn’t see how hard I was working to suppress a laugh.

“Look, let’s at least give him a chance to talk,” I pleaded. “ Then you can cut his dick off.”

“A’right,” Kevin said, walking over to Bat Boy. “I’m going to take this thing off his face now. But if he screams, I’m cutting his dick off. You hear that, sucker?”

Bat Boy nodded, and Kevin Mack roughly ripped off the duct tape. The guy didn’t have a lot of hair, but it still couldn’t have felt good.