‘Same kinda shit couples always argue ’bout.’
‘Like what?’
‘Usual shit. Boring shit.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
Above their heads, the ceiling creaked.
The detectives might have thought nothing of it, had Trent’s eyes not darted heavenwards, involuntary and nervous.
Patrese felt a sudden churning in his gut.
‘Who’s up there?’
‘No one,’ Shaniqua said quickly. Too quickly. ‘Just us.’
One of the uniforms moved as if to investigate. Patrese raised a hand to stay him, and then slipped out of the room himself.
Up the stairs, quiet as he drew his gun; a Ruger Blackhawk, single action revolver, .357 Magnum caliber, four and five-eighths-inch barrel, black checkered grip.
Surprise was on his side. Use it.
He found her, alone, in the attic bedroom.
She was flat on her back; half on the floor, half on a mattress which looked as though it could break new grounds in biological warfare. She was wearing a bra and cut-off denim shorts. The rest of her clothes lay in a pile on top of her right hand, which was hidden from view. Track marks marched like centipedes down the inside of her arms. No wonder Shaniqua and Trent hadn’t wanted the cops to find her.
And she was white.
Homewood wasn’t a place for white folks.
A few of the more enterprising suburban kids might cruise the avenues in late afternoon and buy a few ounces on a street corner before skedaddling back home and selling it on to their friends at a tidy profit – half the amount for twice the price was the usual – but they stayed in their cars the whole time they were in Homewood, if they had any sense. They didn’t walk the streets, and they damn sure didn’t go into the crack dens.
So this one must have been desperate. And Patrese knew what all cops knew; desperate people are often the most dangerous.
‘Hands where I can see ’em,’ he said.
Her body jerked slightly, and instinctively he jumped, his finger tightening on the trigger to within a fraction of the pressure needed for discharge.
Close, he thought, close.
His heart hammered against the inside of his chest.
He was scared. Fear was good; scared cops tended to be live cops.
She opened her eyes and regarded him fuzzily.
Perhaps too fuzzily, he thought.
Was she shamming?
Cops had been killed in these situations before. Places like this, you were on your guard, always. It wasn’t just the guys with tattoos and biceps who knew how to shoot.
‘Lemme see your hands,’ he said again.
She stayed perfectly still, looking at him with an incurious blankness.
This wasn’t the way people tended to react, not when faced with an armed and armored cop. Sure, there were those who were too scared to move, but they tended to be wide-eyed and gabbling.
Not this one.
Patrese felt a drop of sweat slide lazily down his spine.
Why won’t she co-operate?
Two possibilities, he thought.
One, she was so bombed that she didn’t know who she was, who he was, where they were or what he was saying.
Two, she wanted him to think all the above, but she was in fact perfectly lucid, and trying to lull him into a false sense of security.
The pile of clothes next to her moved slightly.
She was rummaging around in it.
‘Hands. Now!’ he shouted, taking a quick step towards her.
A flash of black as she pulled something from the pile, bringing her arm up and across her chest.
Patrese fired, twice, very fast.
She was already prostrate, so she didn’t fall. The only part of her that moved was her arm, flopping back down by her side as her hand spilled what she’d been holding.
A shirt. Black, and cotton, and nothing but a shirt.
Everyone seemed to be shouting: uniforms barking into their radios, paramedics demanding access, Shaniqua bawling out Trent, Trent yelling back at her.
To Patrese, it was all static, white noise. He felt numb, disconnected.
Should have taken the fortnight’s leave, Patrese thought. Should have taken it.
Whether he’d followed procedure, or whether he could have done something different, he didn’t know. There’d be an inquiry, of course; there always was when a police officer shot someone in the line of duty.
But that was for later. Getting down to the station was their immediate priority, both for questioning Shaniqua and for tipping Patrese the hell out of Homewood.
Beradino took charge, quick and efficient as usual. He told the uniforms to stay in the rowhouse with Trent until backup arrived to deal with the girl in the attic. Then he and Patrese took Shaniqua down the stairs and out through the front door.
‘Don’t tell ’em shit, Mama,’ Trent shouted as they left the bedroom.
She looked back at him with an infinite mix of love and pain.
The crowd outside was even bigger than before, and more volatile to boot. They’d heard Patrese’s shots, though they didn’t yet know who’d fired or what he’d hit. When they saw Shaniqua being led away, they began to jeer.
‘I ain’t talkin’ to no white man, you hear?’ Shaniqua yelled. ‘I was born in Trinidad, you know? Black folks don’t kiss honky ass in Trinidad, that’s for damn sure.’ She turned to one of the uniforms on crowd control. ‘And I ain’t talkin’ to no Uncle Tom neither.’
‘Then you ain’t talkin’ to no one, girl,’ someone shouted from the crowd, to a smattering of laughter.
Trent was standing at the window, one of the uniforms next to him. For a moment, he looked not like a gangbanger-in-waiting, but like what he was; a frightened and confused teenager.
‘I’ll be back, my darlin’,’ Shaniqua shouted. ‘I love you for both. Just do good.’
Homewood flashed more depressing vistas past the cruiser’s windows as Beradino drove them back to headquarters: telephone pole memorials to homicide victims, abandoned buildings plastered with official destruction notices. The Bureau of Building Inspection spent a third of its annual citywide demolition budget in Homewood alone. It could have spent it all here, several times over.
Patrese, forcing his thoughts back to the present, tried to imagine a child growing up here and wanting to play.
He couldn’t.
He turned to face Shaniqua through the grille.
‘Is there somewhere Trent can go?’
‘JK’ll look after him.’
Patrese nodded. JK was John Knight, a pastor who ran an institution in Homewood for young gang members and anyone else who needed him. The institution was called The 50/50, gang slang for someone who was neutral, not a gang member. Knight had also taken a Master of Divinity degree, served as a missionary