Arbor Hill Read online

  Dreads once more turned to Oakland Raider. “How much it cost to park here again?” he said. “I forget.”

  “Two hundred, last I checked,” Oakland Raider said. “Or was it three hundred?”

  “Five hundred, bro,” Dreads said. “That’s what it is. Five hundred. They ain’t got in on ‘em, we follow them to the nearest ATM.” He worked up a smile. It was a nervous smile, but a smile all the same. I had to give the kid credit. He had balls. They both had balls.

  “What do you say, Keep?” Blood said out the corner of his mouth. “Shall we pay these nice young men what they have coming?”

  “Hey, Blood,” I said. “They’re Millennials, aren’t they? They deserve what they have coming. Even if they don’t deserve it.”

  “Your name is, Blood?” Dreads said, losing his grin.

  “That’s right,” Blood said. “You hear of me?”

  Dreads swallowed something that looked like a rock passing up and down his throat.

  “Yeah, man,” Dreads said. “I hear of you. Who don’t?”

  “Good to know,” Blood said. “My reputation precedes me.”

  “He don’t look so tough,” Oakland Raider said.

  “Not from where you standin’,” Blood said. Then, shifting his focus to me. “How about we take care of these young men and their parking fee on three, Keep.”

  “Can’t wait,” I said, slowly placing my left hand on the door opener.

  “Three!” Blood barked.

  I pulled the opener, then shoved the door open by thrusting my shoulder into it, as if it were a blocking dummy on the football practice field. Oakland Raider was caught entirely by surprise. He stumbled back, dropped onto his ass. Pulling my .45 from the shoulder holster, I pressed the barrel against his forehead.

  He made the stupid decision to pull his semi-automatic on me. But I slapped it out of his hand.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he said, now suddenly unarmed, his once deep, intimidating voice an octave higher than God intended.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I made out how Blood was doing. Using only one hand, he managed to pretzel Dreads arm behind his back while thrusting the kid’s chest, stomach, and face against the 4-Runner’s hood.

  “Tell me he didn’t scratch my paint job, Blood,” I said.

  Blood took hold of Dread’s weapon, tossed it to the sidewalk.

  “Let me check, Keep,” he said. Using his opposite hand, he grabbed a fist-full of dreads, yanked back painfully on his head.

  “Not scratched,” Blood said. “But he did drool on the paint.”

  “That means a car wash and a waxing, Blood,” I said.

  “Sorry, pal,” Blood said, digging into Dreads’ jeans pocket, coming back out with a wad of cash that would make El Chapo jealous. My brother from another mother peeled off a couple hundred, tossed it onto the passenger side seat. He peeled off another hundred, shoved that back in the kid’s pocket. Blood then stored the remainder of the wad in his own leather coat pocket.

  “Hey, Blood, man,” Dreads barked, “that’s mine.”

  “It going to charity now,” Blood said. “The mission down the bottom of the hill. They can put the money to good use. You earned that shit by getting innocent kids hooked on smack and crystal meth. Time you gave back a little, you dig?”

  “Fuck you,” Dreads said.

  Blood pushed on the pretzeled arm. The kid screamed. For a brief moment, I thought the arm might pop out of its socket.

  “Okay, okay, I dig. Just stop,” Dreads pleaded.

  “That more like it,” Blood said, releasing some of the pressure. “Now, tell you boys what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna give you ten seconds to get the hell out of sight. Do not stop for your guns. Do not stop to look back. Do not waste your time flippin’ us off from a safe distance. And most of all, do not gather up your friends and attempt some half-assed revenge because we will kill all of you. Understand? We bein’ nice right now, but you come back at us, we won’t be nice. We’ll kill you. I repeat, we kill all of you.”

  That’s when I got a whiff of something decidedly unpleasant.

  “Blood,” I said. “I think this one crapped himself.”

  “He can wipe himself with his baseball cap.”

  Oakland Raider started to cry.

  “Get up,” I said.

  He got back on his feet while, at the same time, Blood released Dreads. The two turned and, without another word, sprinted in the opposite direction past Missy’s apartment house and around the corner. Correction, one of them sprinted, while the other sort of waddled away, like a big overgrown two-year-old with a load in his drawers.

  Reholstering my weapon, I turned to Blood.

  “Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?” I asked.

  He was on the sidewalk, retrieving the kid’s gun. He made his way to the sewer grate, dropped the gun into it. I followed suit, retrieved Oakland Raider’s gun, and deep-sixed it into the same sewer grate.

  “We need to check on Missy,” Blood pointed out. “See if she couldn’t resist my Tinder advances.”

  “How could she?” I said, getting back behind the wheel. “If I weren’t a man, I’d be all over you.”

  Blood opened the 4-Runner passenger side door, scooped up the loose cash he tossed onto the seat, sat himself down. He closed the door, then checked his phone.

  “She wanna meet,” he said, giving me a look.

  “Where?”

  He typed something in.

  We waited.

  When I made out the chime, I knew she’d responded.

  “She wanna meet here,” Blood said. “At her apartment. Fifteen minutes.”

  “Lucky you, Blood,” I said. “Now, where’s my car wash money?”

  “What car wash money?”

  “The money you took off that dreadlocked kid so I can get my ride washed.”

  The cash was pinched between his index finger and thumb. He held it up like he wanted me to snatch it out of his fingers, just like Cain snatching the grasshopper from his master’s palm. Instead, he shoved the cash back into his coat pocket with the rest.

  “Petty cash,” he said. “Price of doing business in Arbor Hill.”

  “I can’t win,” I said, exhaling deeply.

  “That not true,” Blood said. “I just win more, is all.”

  7

  Five minutes later, the minivan driver emerged from Missy’s apartment. Like the first guy, she took a generous amount of cash from him before kissing him passionately while offering a parting wave as he descended the stoop steps and got back into his suburban glory ride. As he drove out of Dodge, she once again looked around, then entered back inside the building.

  “She’s looking for you, Blood,” I said.

  He opened the door.

  “You wanna wait for me here, Keep?” he said. “Or you got some errands to run?”

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re not thinking of . . .”

  I allowed the thought to trail off.

  He smiled a rare smile, then got out. Digging into his black jeans pocket, he came back out with a condom.

  “The things one must do in the name of fightin’ crime,” he said. “’Sides . . . Missy kinda cute.”

  “She might also be running a scam that could land her in prison for a long time.”

  “Details,” he said.

  “Professionals don’t touch the merchandise,” I reminded him.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” he said with a wink.

  “Can’t wait,” I said.

  He shut the door, walked away looking like he owned not only Arbor Hill, but all of Albany.

  I spent the next fifteen minutes keeping my eye out. One eye concentrated on the return of those two young hooligans we’d handled earlier, and the other on Missy’s apartment building. I wondered what Blood was talking to her about. Was she melting under Blood’s charm? Or was she as cool as she appeared to be with all her customers? If you wanna call them that.

&nbs
p; Then Blood emerged from the building. Unlike the last pair of John’s she entertained, Missy did not escort him to the building’s front door, nor did she collect any money from him, or offer him a parting kiss and a hug. Thank God this wasn’t a real date, or I’d have been worried for him.

  He made his way to the 4-Runner, his face not giving away any emotion one way or the other. He opened the door, sat down inside, his hands resting on his knees.

  “So,” I said. “How’d it go?”

  “You right,” he said. “Missy don’t have sex with a condom. She playing with the devil.”

  “Or trying her damnedest to get knocked up,” I said. Then, sensing some anger and disappointment oozing from Blood’s pores. “You’re upset,” I went on. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Holy cow, alert the local news and wake the neighbors, Blood has finally gotten stood up.”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said under his breath.

  “Denied with a capital D by a pretty young white girl, of all people.”

  He turned to me, eyes digging holes in my chest.

  “She got something wrong with her,” he groused. “She only in it for the money. She don’t know what making love is.”

  I turned the engine over, threw the tranny in drive, flicked on the directional.

  “Oh, Blood, I could not agree more,” I concurred, pulling out onto Clinton Avenue, driving past Missy’s apartment, pulling up to the traffic light. I was trying my hardest to swallow my need to . . . how do the kids say it nowadays . . . LOL. “She’s running a dangerous game up inside that apartment.” The light turned green. I hooked a left onto Lark Street, drove in the direction of my office on Sherman Street. “At least you didn’t have to give her any money.”

  He grunted, his eyes peeled on the road ahead.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Tell me you didn’t give her any money.” It was a question for which I feared the answer.

  He turned to me. I could feel his gaze as if fire were shooting out of his eyes.

  “It wasn’t our money to begin with,” he said.

  “Oh, jeeze,” I said, this time hiding the laughter. “The earth is shifting on its axis. Not only did Blood get cock blocked, but he got taken by the bank. How much?”

  “All of it.”

  I shook my head to clear my ears because it sounded like he said, All of it.

  “You didn’t just say, all of it,” I said. “Or maybe it’s the fault of my trick ear.”

  “Yeah!” he said, voice thunderous. “I said, all of it. You ain’t got no trick ear.”

  I was laughing so hard and fighting it even harder that my eyes were watering. I didn’t watch out, I was liable to lose control, drive the 4-Runner right up onto the curb.

  “There must have been a thousand bucks there,” I said. “Maybe more.”

  “Yeah, well, at least I didn’t offer up my solid gold Amex.”

  “Yeah, but somehow, she got to you, and she did so without you getting past second base. Or so I’m guessing.”

  Blood exhaled. “We were sitting on the couch in her small apartment. She was snuggling up close to me, drinking a glass of white wine. We got into a little kissing, and she was whispering sweet nothings in my ear about going all the way without a condom. Going all the way without latex. You know, the way God intended.”

  “And then?”

  “Then, I heard the word.”

  “What word?” I asked, coming up on the turn for Sherman Street.

  “You know,” he said, “the M word. Mama.”

  I took the turn, drove into the Sherman Street hood, pulled up to my century-plus old, four-story, white-painted brick building which once housed a garment factory back when the workers were chained to their tables. That was before the unions came in and put a stop to slave labor. The blood of the scabs who stole the jobs of the striking union workers still soaks the cobblestones of Arbor Hill. Or so some historians would tell you. I don’t belong to a union. There is no union for private eyes and gumshoes. Ours is a lonely existence.

  “Her kid,” I said. “I warned you.”

  “You know how I get with kids, Keep,” he said. “I provide for half the kids on Sherman Street. Without me, they be headed to a life of drugs, guns, and death before they see thirty. A bad death. Those kids don’t even know who their fathers is. Wouldn’t know him if he passed by them in the street. That little boy with Missy, Teddy, he’s a cutie. Pudgy face, big blue eyes like his mama.” He peered out the window like he was seeing the future of yet another kid in Arbor Hill growing up without a father. “I just couldn’t help it,” he added.

  There was nothing to laugh about now.

  “That’s the problem, Blood,” I said. “I think a lot of men like you can’t help themselves when it comes to Missy, Teddy, and those big blue eyes of theirs.”

  8

  I left Blood to look into McNamee on his own while I entered my Sherman Street building and made my way upstairs to my office. I took off my jacket, hung it up on the old hat rack by the door, and sat down behind my desk. Opening the bottom drawer, I pulled out a bottle of Irish whiskey and a drinking glass. I poured myself a nice double shot. It was five o’clock, and I deserved it. Well, it was four thirty but close enough.

  I drank the shot down in one nice swift motion, felt the calming smoothness of the liquor entering into my system. A few years ago, my doctors took notice of some plaque buildup in my arteries that was said to be the result of genetics and middle-age. I was told to cut down on the drinking and to quit smoking. I’d already quit the cigs some years ago, but I couldn’t imagine living a life without drink. That’s not to say I drink to get drunk. Far from it. But I love a couple of beers every day and an occasional whiskey. And like they say, the city bus could suddenly run me down tomorrow when I’m crossing the street on my way to retrieving my morning coffee. So, yes, I’ve cut down, but no way I was quitting the booze, or the pizza, or the steaks altogether. Keeper, the man who lives dangerously.

  I poured another shot, allowed this one to sit, while I thought about Missy and Jason McNamee with two ees. I supposed it was time to give him a call, report everything I knew to be true thus far about Missy—that she was running a prostitution ring out of her apartment and playing the dual role of prostitute and pimp. That she was using her little boy, Teddy, as a kind of enticement for her Johns to lay out far more than they should for a simple unprotected romp in the hay, sort of the same way you’ll see a bum on the street begging for money while setting in his lap will be the cutest, saddest puppy dog you ever did see. You don’t give a rat’s ass about the bum, but you sure as shit don’t want to see the dog suffer, so you dig in your pocket and give up the dough.

  But my built-in shit detector told me not to call him right away. First, I wanted to see what Blood could dig up on him, and second, I was curious about Missy. How was it she had such power over men that they flocked to her and were so willing to give up so much money or, as in McNamee’s case, credit, to make her happy? Seemingly stable men. Any woman who has the power to break through Blood’s exterior has got to be a pro. That said, it’s something I wanted to experience on my own.

  Retrieving my smartphone, I went to apps and typed Tinder into the search list. I saw that you could download it for free. It had taken Val ages to get me to purchase a smartphone which, in my mind anyway, makes people dumb. No one reads anymore. They just stare at Facebook on their phones. Anyway, I’ve always had trouble getting used to new inventions. Val says I’m still living in the 1950s. Or maybe I was just born at the wrong time. What’s wrong with yearning for the simple life?

  Now, instead of browsing the classifieds at the back of the newspaper for a blind date, I can log into an app like Tinder and check out which women are available in real-time, within a half-mile of my location. In fact, the first thing Tinder asks me when I first open it is if it can access my device’s location. I guess that makes sense since a potential date will want to know precisely where I am. But as a pr
ivate gumshoe, it kind of made me nervous knowing that a computer system can pinpoint my exact location.

  The next thing it required of me was to set up my profile. I added a picture I had on hand in my gallery—a nice shot from the waist up taken of me on the beach in Cape Cod last summer. I’m wearing aviator sunglasses and a T-shirt that says Muscle Beach. I’ve even got the muscles to go with the T-shirt.

  I then added my birthday and my name. When my picture appeared, along with my name and age, I felt a bit violated. Here I was putting myself out there, warts and all. It made me feel like I was living in a fishbowl. A digital fishbowl.

  “Oh well,” I whispered to myself while sipping some of the whiskey, “I can always dump the app when the job is finished.”

  Once again, the app asked me if I would allow it to record my location. Since the app wouldn’t work properly without it, I clicked “Allow” and bang zoom, my first potential date appeared. According to the rules of the app, I was to either swipe the picture to the left if I wasn’t interested or to the right if she tickled my old-fashioned fancy. She was a cute blonde with ample breasts, but she wasn’t Missy so I swiped left.

  Next lady came up. African American, a bit on the heavy side but a nice smile. Swipe left.

  Next. A red head, holding up a full pint of beer like she was saying, Cheers. A drinker. One of the things I liked about Val was that she didn’t drink much. It was something that kept me in check. Me and my bad, plaque collecting habits. Swipe left.

  And there she blows. Or, so to speak.

  Missy. Looking lovely, and young, and blue-eyed, and very much available. Maybe it was the effects of the whiskey, but I had to admit there was something about her. Something alluring and sensual. That sensuality was evident in her thick, if not luscious lips, her smooth, creamy skin, the way her eyes didn’t look at you, but instead drew you in like mermaids singing to lonely sailors, luring them to a tragic death by crashing their boats against the rocks.

  I swiped the picture to the right.

  Tinder suggested I write a note to her right away. My pulse picked up, my throat constricted. I felt like a high schooler working up the courage to call a girl and ask her to the prom. My God, what if she said no?