Backward-Facing Man (8 page)

The fat man kept talking, dragging his brother down, blaming him for everything bad that happened, but by then, Coleman Porter had stopped listening. He'd gotten everything he needed for a scoop—a little local color from the neighbors, footage of the victim being carried on a stretcher, and this special bonus—one brother ratting out the other. This story would run locally, no question, but it might also get picked up. It would be worth a grand, easy, maybe two. It could even lead, which would bring him more work, possibly even reinstatement by the bureau chief who'd sworn never to put a press pass in the hands of Coleman Porter again. A moment later, the ambulance backed out of the plant, its lights flashing on the walls, its siren drowning out Arthur Puckman's words.

 

From the phone in his truck, Coleman called Billy Patrick. “You hear about the Puckman factory?”

“What about it?”

“One of the workers went down. They're taking him away in an ambulance.”

“So what?” Patrick was on his way home, eating a pretzel with his free hand.

“He sucked in fumes.”

“That's too bad, Porter.”

“Yeah, very bad. The guy could be dead.”

“What are you calling me for?” Patrick said, swallowing.

“I got a crooner,” Coleman Porter told the cop.

“What are you talking about?” Patrick asked, taking another bite.

“I got a guy on video,” Porter said, smiling, “saying it was his brother's fault.”

“What do you want, a medal?”

Porter had expected a more favorable response than this. “I got the factory owner admitting safety violations,” Porter said. “This is a fucking homicide, man.”

“Is that your theory?” Patrick was sneering.

“You want to ignore it, fine. I'll take it to the media and tell them Philly cops aren't interested in protecting minority workers.”

Billy Patrick had just worked a double shift, and he was only a couple miles from home. The notion of Coleman Porter telling the public anything was almost absurd. Now and then, the freelance photographer came up with something good, but most of the time, he was full of shit. He'd give you something that sounded interesting on the surface, but it almost always turned out to be bogus. You had to vet everything or risk making a fool out of yourself. “I've been on the street for twelve hours, and I'm heading home—”

“I'm giving you a fucking tip, man. That's what you pretend to pay me for, isn't it? If you're too tired to do your job, then go fuck yourself.” Coleman Porter clicked off.

Patrick finished his pretzel. He was skeptical, but he decided to call it in anyway. Porter had a point. If you're gonna keep a snitch on the payroll, you might as well use him. “Ask the captain if he's heard anything about the Puckman factory,” he said to the desk clerk. Ninety seconds later, his cell phone rang again.

“A kid named Ramon Gutierrez is at Northeastern Hospital, most likely brain dead. Whaddya got?”

“One of the factory owners is in a talking mood.”

“Bring him in. Fernandez is here. He'll take the guy's statement.”

 

Porter grabbed his bag from the backseat of his truck and took the stairs to his girlfriend's apartment two at a time. Inside, he turned on the computer, opened a Rolling Rock, and began arranging footage so that it opened with a pan of the factory exterior and finished with Arthur Puckman shaking his head. Three hours later, Porter compressed the file and sent it to all three local stations. At six, he finished the six-pack and turned on the TV. On two of the stations, he caught the anchors alluding to his story in that mock-serious tone. One of them opened with his shot of the Puckman Security sign hanging over the outside of the factory. As the police and fire trucks pulled up, a graphic with the words “Fumes in Fishtown” flashed across the screen. The newscaster, a light-skinned black woman with perfect teeth, commented that the security guard business was supposed to keep people safe, and then the video moved to the shot of Gutierrez being carried to the ambulance. Coleman flipped to the other stations. Either he missed it, or nobody else ran it. He'd find out soon enough. It was a $1,200 payday, with the possibility of syndication. “Bring me another beer, bitch,” he called. His girlfriend, a leggy Puerto Rican girl, swatted his head from behind. “Get it your damn self.”

 

At the precinct, Arthur Puckman was surrounded by telephones ringing, bright lights, harsh voices, radio static, buzzers bouncing off the cinder-block walls, and smells from a coffeemaker that had been on all day. The lighting alone was enough to make somebody feel guilty. Out of nervousness, he kept touching the cross hanging from his neck. He tucked his hands between his thighs and touched the vinyl chair.

“I kn-knew this would happen,” he told the desk clerk, pushing his lips out until they looked like a pink volcano. The woman lifted her soda. Fernandez is gonna be thrilled to take this guy's statement, she thought.

“I jes need to get some information from you, and then you can 'splain it all to Detective Fernandez.” Down the corridor, a door opened. Artie heard a man yelling. He felt his scrotum tighten.

“Where's my b-b-brother?” Arthur Puckman asked.

“Your last name?”

“G-G-G-Gutierrez?” Artie said. He hadn't stuttered so bad since his father's stroke.

The woman arched her eyebrows. “You don't look like a Gutierrez,” she said, mocking him. Some babble; others clam up. It didn't matter to her. She lined up a form in her printer. “You want a soda?”

“H-h-how is he?” Artie asked.

“I'm sure they're doing everythin' they can,” she said. She looked Artie up and down, his fleshy jowls, swollen mitts clutching a wool beanie. “Right now, I gotta finish this form.” She looked at the clock on the wall. It had been her plan to have a couple of beers with her sister after work. Now, it looked as if she'd have to work late to type this guy's statement. “Your name and address?”

“Arthur Puckman, 916 South Tenth Street. I live with my mom. Since my d-d-dad left.”

“Bet she's glad to have you around,” the desk clerk said. The fat man listened for a trace of sarcasm. She seemed simple, asking her questions, lining up the forms, and tapping her keyboard. Simple women were usually kind to him, especially once they heard him stutter. She pointed to a small refrigerator behind her desk. “Help yourself.”

Artie pictured Gutierrez lying on the cement, head tilted back, gasping for air. He felt his body clench, and he imagined himself being arrested, confined, thrown into a pen with hardened criminals. More than almost anything in the world, he didn't want to go to jail.

A buzzer sounded on her phone. “Detective Fernandez'll be right with you,” the desk clerk said, pulling the paper out of the printer and sliding it into a folder.

To Artie, Fernandez seemed too young to be a detective. He wore his uniform tight, which gave him a pumped-up look, and he had a buzz cut that showed the veins in his temples when he swallowed. He was tall with an olive complexion and a bland expression. There was a revolver in a black leather holster under his arm, just like the guys on TV.

“Puckman,” Fernandez announced, taking the folder. “Arthur Puckman.” Artie set the soda under his chair and began a cycle of motions—inhaling deeply, shifting his weight forward, shuffling his shoes under the chair, and then leaning back. Thinking Artie was having trouble getting up on account of his weight, Fernandez reached out and took hold of the fat man's arm. Artie pulled away, kicking his soda over and splashing the detective's shoes.

“Goddamnit,” Fernandez said, lifting his foot from the puddle. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?” He pulled Artie like he was a farm animal, only the harder he pulled, the more Artie resisted, staring at him wide-eyed, his face quivering, his three chins and his bulbous cheeks and his fleshy arms shaking. The clerk leaned over her desk and handed Fernandez some paper towels and then turned away to avoid laughing. She wished others could see Fernandez tugging and swearing over a little splash on his hardtops. “Let's see if we can get you down the hall and into a room without takin' the fucking doors off,” the detective said.

Artie wore dungaree jeans up high on his belly and a red-and-green button-down sweater. Short, bow-legged, with practically no butt, Artie wore orthopedic shoes that boosted his left instep and heel to balance his height. “Can I have another soda?” he called to the clerk as he waddled down the hallway. Fernandez unlocked a door with a key from a chain clipped to his belt and pushed the fat man into a small room. Three of the walls were bare; the detective pointed toward a chair opposite the fourth, which was covered by a mirror. Turning sideways, Artie shimmied along a table, then collapsed sideways into the chair.

Fernandez sat down and looked at the printed sheet in the file. Artie removed his glasses. Fluorescent light bounced off the top of his head, and the lazy eye made his face seem a couple centimeters off center. He gave off a strange odor. Right away, Artie started talking. Normally, you let a witness run, but the prospect of listening to a stutterer for hours discouraged Fernandez.

“Excuse me, Mr., uh…” he said, looking again at the paper in the folder, “Puck Man.” He pronounced Artie's last name in two equally weighted syllables.

“It's Puckman,” Artie said.

“Puck Man,” Fernandez said again, stressing the first syllable. He smiled. Imagine, he thought, an imbecile teaching me how to talk.

Artie continued, oblivious. “The inspectors t-t-t-told us”—a sudden rush of air escaped—“to stop cleaning metal in the dip tanks….” Artie sputtered and struggled, his voice thick and mangled, his words several seconds behind his thoughts. “But Chuck said…” He gulped for air, unable to catch his breath. His jaw dropped, forcing his bottom lip to twist and quiver.

The detective rolled his eyes. He'd been working since early this morning, and he was tired. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, sitting forward. “Let's start at the beginning.” Fernandez was an imposing young man, with an ability to take charge of a situation when necessary. “How long have you worked for this, uh”—he looked at the paper—“security business?”

“My dad started it after the war,” Artie said, wiping spittle from around the corners of his mouth. In a painstaking way, one syllable at a time, Artie recounted the company's history, year by year since its inception, how the market for security guards had developed, how the business was a tough one, how Charlie Puckman, who'd practically invented the industry, had persevered in difficult times. After a while, he seemed to be enjoying himself, as though he was sitting with a new friend at a ball game or in a bar telling his life story. “The secret to staying in this b-b-business is keeping your costs down,” he said at one point, conspiratorially.

“Which means what?” Fernandez interjected.

Artie seemed surprised by the question. “It means paying p-p-people as little and as late as you can get away with,” he said proudly, as if his priority now was teaching the detective.

“How about you tell me exactly what happened today?” Fernandez said, tapping his pen against the paper.

“I don't know,” Artie said, stuttering again. “I was in the office—”

“What was Gutierrez doing?” Fernandez said slowly.

“We have q-q-quality problems. Paint, mostly. That's why we w-w-worked Saturdays.”

“What was he doing when he was overcome by fumes?”

“He was cleaning the tank. When you dip metal, you get r-r-residue. Dirt and grease and other impurities. Over time, the chemicals get weak. You gotta drain them and then c-c-clean the tank to get the s-s-sediment out.”

“What kind of sediment?”

“I just told you—dirt and grease.”

“What kind of chemicals?”

“1,1,1 trichloroethylene.”

“What's that?”

“That's what it is.”

“That's what what is?”

“The v-v-vapor degreaser.”

“C'mon, man. I'm not a fucking scientist,” Fernandez said. “How do the chemicals work?”

“If you take a penny in a p-p-pair of tongs and dip it in for a second, it'll come out in m-m-mint condition. It—”

“Okay, so it vaporizes dirt. What does it do to people?” Fernandez said.

“It's toxic,” Artie said smugly. “Touch it, and it'll eat the s-s-skin off your fingers. Inhale it, and it'll r-r-ruin your lungs. Get it in your blood, and it'll affect your b-b-brain.”

“So how you supposed to handle it?”

Arthur Puckman wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I kept t-t-telling Chuck if you're gonna use this stuff, you gotta p-p-protect the workers. The tank has to be covered; you gotta f-f-flush the parts; you can't agitate it; you gotta g-g-give people respirators, aprons, rubber gloves, e-e-eye protection.”

Fernandez stopped and looked toward the one-way mirror. It was exactly what Porter had told Patrick. Fernandez tapped his pen against the tabletop. He cocked his head to one side. Artie continued. “I was in the office when it h-h-happened. When I looked out, Gutierrez w-w-was laying on the floor.”

Fernandez wanted to be methodical, to sort things out in a logical order. He reminded himself that crooners have their own agendas. “What about the regulations?” he asked, touching the pen to his lower lip.

“We've been getting notices f-f-from the DEP, the EPA, and OSHA since '96. There are federal regulations for halogenated solvents.” The fat man knew his shit. “But my brother ignored them. I kept t-t-telling him, but he said…nothing b-b-bad would happen.” Arthur Puckman rubbed his hands together.

“Maybe he doesn't know about chemicals.”

“He went to MIT!” It was sounding too pat. There was something very calculated about this performance. Arthur Puckman was starting to really irritate Fernandez.