P. Parrish - South Of Hell

Shockey picked up the leather badge holder and opened it. Sure enough, the depression carved for his shield was empty.

“I’ve had this fifteen years,” Shockey said. “Bought it with my first paycheck. It cost me nine dollars and eighty-six cents.”

Louis leaned on the bar and stared absently at the rows of liquor bottles, tempted to order himself a drink and swim the afternoon away in a bottle with Shockey.

“Funny thing,” Shockey said. “I didn’t come here intending to be a cop.”

Louis looked at him. “Here meaning Ann Arbor?” he asked. “Where you from, then?”

“Grew up in Howell,” Shockey said. “Not far from the substation where we were the other day. My old man was on disability, and we never had much, but I made all-state my senior year and managed to snag myself a football scholarship to Eastern.”

“What position?”

“Running back.”

“Did you graduate?” Louis asked.

“Nah,” Shockey said. “I blew out a knee my sophomore year and had to drop out. I’d always felt like I was some kind of hometown hero, getting the scholarship and all, and I was too embarrassed to go home, so I just stayed in Ypsi for a few months, working odd jobs. Then one day, I saw the Ann Arbor PD was hiring.”

Louis was quiet. It had been the same for him. He’d seen a similar ad, the summer after his senior year. He’d scored well on the LSAT and had a place waiting for him at the UM Law School. But an itch had set in that year, the need to get out from under Phillip Lawrence’s financial support, the need to see other places and meet interesting people. The need to make his own money, his own way in the world, and start living his life.

By his twenty-first birthday in November, he was in uniform, patrolling the same streets he used to walk to class on.

“You want another?” Shockey asked.

Louis shook his head as Shockey ordered two more shots for himself.

“Man,” Shockey said. “What am I going to do? This is all I know. And Jean… what about her? Who’s going to help her now?”

“I’m going to stay around for a while,” Louis said. “You can still help me. Off the record, you know.”

Shockey glanced at him and turned away. He finished one shot but suddenly seemed in no hurry to pick up the other one.

“Fuck, maybe I should just let that go, too,” he said. “Maybe she isn’t even dead. Maybe she just took off on me, too.”

“You don’t believe that,” Louis said. “And you’re making excuses.”

Shockey toyed with the empty glass, turning it slowly between his thumb and finger.

“I lied to you,” Shockey said softly. “And I lied to her.”

Louis sighed and rubbed his brow, his gaze drifting again to the Remy Martin bottle behind the bar. There was only one thing worse than listening to a drunk cry in his beer: having to do it sober.

Shockey finally downed the second shot and slammed the glass down on the bar. “I’m nothing!” he said. “Fucking nothing.”

“Calm down.”

“Fuck you, peeper, and fuck Brandt, too. Fuck all of ’em, the god damn sonofabitches.”

The bartender looked over. “Keep him quiet, would you?”

“Jake, come on,” Louis said. “Let me take you home.”

“Fuck you.”

Louis leaned down to Shockey’s ear. “The bartender’s going to call the cops,” he said. “Don’t make things worse by getting your ass arrested. Come on.”

Shockey pushed off the stool so hard it tipped. Louis caught it, and as he straightened it, he noticed the brown wallet still lying on the bar in a puddle of gin.

Louis picked it up, stuck it into his pocket, and followed Shockey out into the hotel lobby and to the front doors. Shockey stumbled as he pushed through them, digging again in his pockets to find his car keys.

Louis caught up with him outside. “I’ll drive you if you can remember your damn address.”

Shockey ignored him as he pulled his entire pocket inside out, dumping everything — keys, coins, bills, and slips of paper to the asphalt.

“Damn it,” Shockey muttered.

“I told you, I’ll drive you,” Louis said, snatching up the keys. “You argue with me, and I’ll deck you.”

“Fuck you, peeper.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” Shockey said. “I need my money.”

Shockey knelt to gather his bills and loose change off the ground. Louis thought about helping him but changed his mind and stepped out from under the portico and into the sun. For the first time since he’d arrived in Michigan, there was a spring warmth in the air. It felt good.

“Oh, shit,” Shockey said, pushing clumsily to his feet. “I forgot about this.”

“What?”

Shockey held out a small piece of paper. “This is a message for you. One of the sergeants gave it to me this morning.”

Louis took the paper and unfolded it. It was a note, written on a piece of Ann Arbor PD stationery. The handwriting was bold and dark:

Lily wants to meet you.

Tomorrow, 1:00 p.m.

Halo Hat Shop,

122 West Cross Street, Ypsi.

Don’t disappoint her, please.

Eric

Shockey looked up at him with unfocused eyes. “Something important?”

“Yeah, very important,” Louis said, sticking the note into his pocket. “C’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

Louis sat at the window of the sub shop, staring out at the Halo Hats store across the street. He had been sitting here for a half-hour now, nursing a cold coffee and working up the guts to go over there.

He looked at his watch. Two minutes to one.

He tossed a couple of bucks on the counter, got up, and went outside. He paused, tugging on the collar of his khaki jacket. It was in bad need of a dry cleaning, and a button was missing on one pocket. He wished he had packed his blue blazer. But how the hell could he have known when he left Florida that he was going to be meeting his daughter?

Daughter…

He ran his sweating palms down his thighs. At least his jeans were clean. And his loafers were shined. He had paid ten bucks last night at the hotel to send them out.

He stared at the shop across the street.

I can’t do this.

He let out a long breath, trying to slow his heart, then walked across the street.

Halo Hats was wedged between a Domino’s Pizza and a coin laundry. Louis peered through the front window, but it was so filled with hats he couldn’t see anything inside.

A woman emerged suddenly from the door — a thin, imperious black woman in a red suit. She gave him a quick glance, then strutted off down West Cross Street, a pink and white halo hats box bouncing against her thigh.

Taking in a final deep breath, Louis pulled open the door and went in.

A bell announced his arrival. But there was no one in the shop to greet him. At least as far as he could see. All he could see were hats. An explosion of color — blues, purples, yellows, greens, reds — hats of all shapes and sizes mounted on wire displays like flowers turned to the sun. And there was a smell to the place, overwhelmingly sweet, like the magnolia gardens he had smelled in the South.

He heard a hiss and turned.

A black woman was standing there holding out a can of Glade. She stared at him like he was an insect, the air freshener suddenly brandished like a can of Raid.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’m Louis Kincaid,” he said. “I’m here to see Lily.”

She was a large woman, her ample body covered by a caftan printed with sunflowers, her broad face crossed with lines that put her age somewhere near sixty-five. But it was her eyes that held Louis — piercing and filled with judgment. The same eyes he had felt on him that day Eric Channing had pulled him over in Ann Arbor.