Born Bad (28 page)

He was right. The woman was beaten half to death, but she wouldn't make a complaint. There wasn't anything we could do.

"Reminds me of home," Peters said on the way down the stairs. "Your people ever brawl like that?"

"My dad was killed in the war," I told him.

"There's some who'd count you lucky," he said, lighting one of his stubby cigars.

I only got three blocks before he told me to pull over to the curb. There was an after-hours joint on the corner.

"I need a drink," he said.

"Maybe we should wait till we're out of this neighborhood…?"

"Ah, don't be such a fucking sissy–the monkeys make any noise, I'll throw them a banana."

"Sarge, you know what the Watch Command said about staying out of the clubs. Come on, we'll…"

"Keep the motor running, sonny," he said and stepped out the door.

I sat there waiting. I smoked a cigarette almost to the end when I heard the shot. I hit the front door. Sarge was on the ground, facedown, blood all over the back of his uniform. I went right over his body into three of them. One had a machete–I shot him in the chest. Something ripped at my left arm. They kept coming. I backed up until I was right against Sarge's body, firing at the far wall where they hid behind tables. Somebody shot back. I ran out of bullets. I was pulling my nightstick when I felt Sarge moving next to me. He forced himself onto his elbows, tugged his pistol free. I snatched it from him, kept blasting away while Sarge barked 10-13's into his walkie-talkie.

By the time the precinct cops came charging in the door, I had one bullet left in Sarge's pistol.

Sarge was sitting there, next to the bed, white bandages wrapped all around his head. He had a "little fracture" of the skull, he told me, and he needed some stitches across his chest. He held up two lumps of metal.

"They took these out, my boy. Out of you. One from the arm, one from the thigh. You wasn't wearing your vest like a good little soldier, you'd be in the meat locker right this very minute."

I didn't say anything–there was a plastic thing in my mouth.

They moved me to a big, private room with a window and I got better. One day, Dave came in. The room was full of people. He leaned over the bed and kissed me on the mouth. One of the cops made a snickering nose. Dave turned red.

"You got something to say, you better say it outside. Say it to me, you think you're tough enough."

It was Sarge, shoving his fat finger in the chest of the cop who had made the noise. I didn't even know he was there.

I made Detective Third from that. I didn't feel much like a detective–I got to wear nicer clothes, that was really about all. But Mom was real proud at the ceremony where I got my gold shield. Dave was too.

When the body count got up to five, the mayor appointed a task force. But they kept dying. Gay males, all of them.

That's when the Commissioner called me in. I went undercover, working in the bars, but it didn't help. People recognized me–it isn't every day one of us gets his picture in the paper for a shootout with criminals. Nobody even tried to pick me up.

There were no letters to the newspapers, no phone calls. We set up a hot line for tips and we got a lot of leads…but they didn't amount to anything.

Mom still lives at the same place. With rent control and all, it wouldn't pay to move. Besides, she knows all the neighbors–she feels safe there. I go over every Thursday night, never fail. Sometimes Dave comes with me.

I was there when the phone rang. When Mom said, "It's for you, Jason," I knew who it was.

Maybe I knew all along.

"What's up?" he asked, like it was me who called him.

"You know," I told him.

"I'm tired," Bobby said. "I'm real tired."

"You want to come in?"

"No. I don't want to come in. I want it to be over."

"Just tell me where you are."

"You gonna play it straight, Jason? Just you and me?"

"Just you and me, Bobby," I promised him.

"At the Pier, then. Tomorrow midnight."

"Where it started."

"That's not where it started," he said. Then the phone went dead.

A few minutes before midnight, I stepped onto the Pier. It was empty now, deserted. The killer had scared everyone off….Nobody was cruising–they stayed inside the clubs. Safety in numbers.

One of the pilings was spray-painted with a swastika in white, the number g big above it. Nine bodies so far. Whoever the killer was, the skinheads loved him.

I walked toward the back building, sitting all by itself way out to the edge of the Pier. It was so quiet I could hear the water lapping beneath my feet. The boards creaked, some of the space between them big enough to fall through.

Step on a crack…

"Just stand there a minute, Jason."

Bobby's voice. I kept my hands at my sides, waiting.

"Just wanted to see if you really came alone," he said, stepping out of the shadows.

"Like I promised."

"You got the place surrounded?"

"No."

He lit a cigarette, handed me the pack. I lit one too.

"Big hero. I read about you in the papers while I was upstate. Think you could take me now?"

"No, Bobby. Not then, not now."

"I bought you a present, Jason. Look in the box."

I took off the cover. A couple of watches, a signet ring, an ID bracelet, a wedding band, some pieces of paper. I held it close and read it…a driver's license. A Social Security card. Something that looked like a little, gnarled piece of sausage.

"What is this stuff'

"Trophies. One from each of the queers I took out. The little thing you're holding up, that's a finger–the miserable fag didn't have a thing on him when I wasted him."

"Jesus, Bobby."

"They oughta make you chief behind this, right?"

"I don't know."

He drew on his cigarette. The tip glowed. His face was all lines and angles, a skull painted in fleshtones. "Why'd you do it, Jason?"

"Do what?"

"Turn queer. Why'd you turn out like theme'

"Bobby, it wasn't a choice….It's just the way it happened."

He stood still as a rock. I could feel him watching, but I couldn't see his eyes.

"You ever fuck boys, Jason?"

"What!"

"Boys. Little boys. You ever do that?"

Vomit boiled up into my mouth at the thought–it was the ugliest thing I'd ever heard a person say. "Are you crazy, Bobby? Where'd that come from?"

"That's what you do, right? That's what happens."

"Bobby…"

"You always were, Bobby."

"Yeah. Well, now I'm done. Almost done, anyway."

He walked around in a little circle, hands at his side. And then I saw the gun. A silver automatic. He held it up, so I could see it in the candlelight.

"I was always jealous of you, Jason," he said.

"Me? Why?"

"I wished I had your mother."

"Bobby…"

"Shut up. We're all done now. Here's the deal. Let's find out. You and me. You got a gun with you, right?"

"Yes."

"Take it out. Slow."

I unholstered my revolver, pointed it at the ground the way he had his.

"I'm gonna count to three, Jason. Just like in the movies. When I get to three, I'm coming up blasting. I kill you, I'm picking up my shoebox and walking out of here. You got a ring, Jason? Something I can take with me. Maybe I'll take your badge. Your pretty cop badge."

"Bobby…"

"I'm not playing, Jason. You know I never play. You get me first, it's all yours. You don't…well, another dead queer ain't gonna change things much."

"There's another–"

"One!"

"Bobby, don't be a–"

"Two!"

I tightened my hand on the gun.

"Three!"

My first shot took him low in the stomach. He went down to one knee, brought the pistol up and I fired again, twice. He hit the floor, the gun rolling out of his hand.

I dropped down next to him, my hand feeling for a pulse in his neck.

"You're a real man, Jace," he said. And then he died.

I waited for the sirens, holding Bobby's cold hand.

"Good thing you were wearing your vest," my lover said to me.

I didn't say anything to him, just held his hand. Thinking about Bobby. About our last fight. About what he said. About how I picked his gun off the floor. That deadly silver automatic…with the safety locked on.

"I'm…afraid," the little girl whispered. "He has magic. He said if I told, Mommy would die. He would make her die."

"He has no magic," the Jamaican woman told her, a diamond core to the rich black coal of her voice. "He lies, child. All evil creatures lie. And a lie can harm you only if you believe it."

It came out slowly—like pus gently squeezed from a wound. A new man in Mommy's life. Not like the father she'd never met, a rogue who planted his seed one night and moved on without looking back. This new man was warm. Sensitive. Caring.

Mommy met the man in church. In a holy place.

He came into their lives, moved into their house. He took them wonderful places: the zoo, the park for picnics, into the country for a pony ride. She loved him. She was his little princess.

It started when Mommy was out working. Mommy worked nights. She was a waitress.

It started as a game. First she liked it. Warm and gentle and sweet. But then the secrets came. Ugly, dark secrets.

The pressure got too strong for her little–girl heart. She started wetting the bed, her grades fell way off in school. Then the night terrors came.

She told a friend at school. Her friend told her mother. And the evil came to the surface.

The man was in jail, awaiting trial. Her mother had thrown him out, called the police.

And every night, mother and daughter huddled together, afraid of his magic.

It went on a long time but I never moved. I'm good at it. I learned in all the right places. Reform school. Prison. In Africa, where a quiet man in a rich suit I met in a Houston hotel room sent me.

The Jamaican woman was talking urgently to the little girl now, one hand on the child's shoulders, the red–lacquered nails like talons, guarding.

The child's face turned. "It's all stones," she said.

And it was. A rock garden, set into a long slab of polished butcher's block. On a miniature scale, the boulders no bigger than my fist, the pebbles as tiny as grains of sand.

"Magic stones, child. Each has great power. But the power comes from
choice,
you understand? Let your soul guide you. Close your eyes, now. Take a stone from the garden. It will always protect you, I know this."

The little girl hesitated. I felt the waves of encouragement even outside the room. Finally, she closed her eyes and reached out a tiny hand, feeling her way, guided by trust. Her hand closed on a small stone…it looked like rose quartz.

"Look at it," the Jamaican woman told her. "Hold it in your hand. Feel how warm it is? That is the power. All you will need. And you can keep it with you, child. When you testify in court, hold it in your hand. It
is
magic, true magic."

The little girl's smile was fragile, holding the stone.