Canary (11 page)
Authors: Duane Swierczynski
I reach out, give his hand a small squeeze.
—I get the whole parent thing, I really do. Sometimes I think my dad and I just talk around each other, you know? Or we keep circling around the same thing over and over again—how much it sucks that my mom is gone.
—I didn’t know about your mom. I’m sorry.
There I go, being an even BIGGER dick. I give his hand another squeeze, tell him it’s okay, really. After a long, awkward moment of silence—no offense, Mom, but it’s hard to follow talk of the deceased with anything but—D. turns back to more pressing matters.
—Do the cops actually think you’re dealing?
—No, I don’t think so. The one cop saw you. He keeps trying to get me to give you up. Next time you go on a run, by the way, leave your red pants at home. That’s all he talks about.
—So what did you tell them?
—I swear, nothing.
—No, I know that. But I’m just wondering what kind of story you told them. Why you were down there, all that.
—I told Wildey I went for a drive.
—Wilder?
—The cop. Will-dee. That’s his name.
We sit in silence. It’s now dark. Somewhere out there, most people are having a perfectly reasonable Sunday evening dinner, not a care in the world. After a while D. asks:
—So what are you supposed to do?
—Find a drug dealer for him by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. You don’t happen to, ha-ha, know any drug dealers, do you?
Then D. looks at me funny.
Transcript of text messages between Officer Benjamin F. Wildey and CI #137, 12-1, 11:12–11:15
WILDEY: Tomorrow’s the day
CI #137: Where have you been?
WILDEY: Busy. Cop stuff. So you ready? Or you just want to tell me now, make it easier?
CI #137: Not over the phone
WILDEY: You got something for me?
CI #137: Let’s meet tomorrow
WILDEY: Outstanding
CI #137: Where?
Wildey sets the meet for an old-school diner on Aramingo Avenue, near Ontario. Place has been around forever, nothing has been modernized. Tiny flecks of the hash browns you scoop up with your fork today were probably part of a potato originally served to your grandpop back in the day. Wildey likes the diner for its sense of history. Plus, it’s cheap. Five bucks buys you an outsized meal.
He originally proposed 9:00 a.m., but Honors Girl groused about the idea of missing her 8:30 philosophy class. Shit, Wildey thinks. She’s not going to have to worry about class if he slaps the cuffs on her.
Because that’s the next step. Not that he wants to arrest this schoolgirl, but if she keeps stonewalling, then Wildey really has no choice. They’ll put her in a room, she’ll lawyer up, and the lawyer will realize he can make this go away if the girl cooperates. But none of that drama has to play out if she gives up the boyfriend’s name. That’s what Wildey wants to stress to her this morning.
Kaz is betting ($20) that Honors Girl won’t do it. “Uh-uh, too stubborn.” Kaz is of the opinion that Wildey should slap the cuffs on her right away and bring her in. Scare her straight. But Wildey told her he had another approach in mind. Another way to scare her. Kaz told him, “Whatever, go with God.” The last word sounding like
got.
So Wildey is waiting in a booth a good ten minutes early, his body filling the bench seat. Wildey is all neck and shoulders, which comes in handy when dealing some dopehead smoking wet on the street. With Honors Girl, however, Wildey finds himself wishing he didn’t look like a monster. She needs to see him as her salvation, her lifeline.
Honors Girl arrives earlier than expected and is church-quiet as she slides into the booth, reluctant to make eye contact. She’s taller, skinnier, and prettier than Wildey remembers.
“Go ahead, order something,” Wildey says. “The omelets are pretty good here. Scrapple, too.”
“No, thanks,” she says in a quiet voice. “I’m not hungry.”
“Come on. I don’t want to sit here, chowing down, with you just staring at me. Makes me seem rude. Can’t we break bread together?”
“Officer, I … listen, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what—”
Wildey sees the hysterics building and doesn’t want it to go there. Not yet. So he waves a hand and shakes his head.
“Take it easy. Take a deep breath, honey. We’re just talking about breakfast here.”
This seems to do the trick. When she makes eye contact again, she takes a deep breath before continuing.
“Officer …”
“Come on, call me Ben. And let’s order.”
Some of the old heads at the counter turn around in their stools to look at them. Yep, just your average linebacker-sized narcotics detective and his tall white-girl snitch.
“Okay …
Ben.
” She says it like the name doesn’t quite want to come out of her mouth. But then the waitress appears, ruining the vibe. Wildey eases back into the vinyl seat, exhaling through his nose.
The waitress looks like she’s been serving one eternal shift since around 1978. Wildey orders two boxes of Lucky Charms, a carton of 2 percent milk. Honors Girl orders oatmeal and a small fruit bowl. “No coffee?” she asks them. Wildey assures her, no, no coffee. The waitress clearly disapproves. Who comes to a diner without ordering coffee? It’s just not done. She wearily writes down the order like she’s translating Latin and shuffles away. Honors Girl glances at Wildey for a fraction of a second before turning her attention to the surface of the table. Pastel boomerangs. Flying all over.
“So how was your Thanksgiving?”
Honors Girl looks up, blinks. “What?”
“I had my great-auntie over. How about you? Dinner with the whole family, aunts, cousins, and all that?”
“No. Just three of us.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
Honors Girl shrugs.
“So who’s the three—you, your dad, and …?”
“My younger brother. Marty.”
“You two close?”
Honors Girl shrugs again, keeps her eyes on the table. Christ. You’d think Wildey was asking her to spill the deepest, darkest secrets of her entire family. He realizes this isn’t working. She’s shutting down. He needs her to relax, to see him as one of the good guys.
“I don’t have much family left either. Auntie M. is pretty much it, to be honest with you. Did I tell you I come from a long line of cops?”
Their order arrives. Wildey drowns his cereal in milk, filling the bowl almost to the edge. “Yeah, my great-grandpops was one of the first black cops in the city. Worked during the Prohibition days, cleaning up the town. You ever been to Chinatown, down in Center City? That used to be the big vice district, the Tenderloin, and that’s where my grandpops worked. And my grandpops was also a cop, mostly in North Philly. Killed in the line of duty before I was born. Wish I could have met him.”
“What about your dad?”
“Huh?”
“Was he a cop, too?”
Wildey crunches his cereal as he considers the question. “No. Musician.” Partly true, but best to leave it at that.
“What did he play?”
“Not enough gigs. And before you ask, no, I don’t play anything. Unless you count a gun as a musical instrument.”
Wildey means it as a joke, but it has the opposite effect on Honors Girl. Her face goes all permafrost.
“Officer Wildey, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure. Go ahead.” He scoops up a towering spoonful of Lucky Charms.
“How often do confidential informants get killed?”
Wildey almost spits pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers all over the tabletop. “Huh?” he mumbles through a mouthful of half-chewed cereal.
Honors Girl goes digging in her shoulder bag and pulls out a newspaper clipping, then slides it across the table. Wildey doesn’t even have to look at the headline, though. A double murder from today’s
Daily News
reports:
2 DEAD, 3 WOUNDED IN OVERNIGHT SHOOTINGS
. One is nothing. Usual
fuck-me-no-fuck-you
stuff, played out on a front stoop at the tail end of a holiday weekend. But the other, the shotgun murder of a thirty-year-old black man near Second and Somerset, is something else. It went down just a few blocks away from Wildey’s house. And word around the NFU-CS was that the vic was somebody’s snitch. The reporter hinted in this direction as much as he could without flat-out saying it.
“Why do you think this guy was a CI?”
“The reporter says so.”
“No,” Wildey says. “I read that same story, and it says ‘allegedly.’ Which I can tell you is a bunch of nonsense.”
Another lie to join the one about his father, but he doesn’t need to freak her out. He certainly doesn’t need to tell her about Megan Stefanich. In fact, he needs to do the exact opposite. Which is why he decides to cut breakfast short and get to the point already. He’s got a secret weapon in mind.
“Come on. I want to show you something.”
So earlier today Wildey takes me to the Tracks, an abandoned railway in the heart of the Badlands. I don’t tell him I already know about the Badlands. Everyone in Philly does, more or less. Since Dad doesn’t drive, we’d sometimes take the El downtown during the holidays, especially when you wanted us kids out of your hair. The view from the El starts out not-so-great and gets worse from there, until you come up in the middle of I-95 and you can see the reassuring safety of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the downtown skyscrapers. I’d look through the windows at the abandoned factories and houses and ask my dad what had happened here. Was there a fire? Yeah, he replied. You could say that. But I never stepped off the El for a closer look. Never drove through it, either. Dad didn’t even have to warn me.
Wildey points.
—They call this area the Tracks.
—Why? Because of junkie track marks?
—No. Because it’s an old set of train tracks.
People buy their drugs on the corners, then take it to the tracks—a mile-long stretch of commercial railway that almost nobody uses anymore. Wildey tells me nobody wants to admit this, but the PD has pretty much given up on this area. He says that people can do whatever the fuck they want out here.
—Seriously?
—I worked this neighborhood for five years.
—Why didn’t you do anything about it?
Wildey takes a long pause before replying.
—It’s not that simple.
—Why not? You see people doing drugs, can’t you just arrest them?
—Am I supposed to arrest everybody on a street corner who looks like they’re high? Look around.
I look around. The city streets look like a film set for a zombie movie, and a bunch of sleepy extras are stumbling around waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Everybody looks high.
—Not even eight in the morning and you got people with their first fix under their belts and already looking for more. Tell me who I should arrest. That guy? That girl over there, who looks about your age? Now let me show you something else.
We take a sharp right off Kensington, out of the shadow of the El, onto a street bordering a park. If Kensington Avenue is a necklace, then this park is the diamond hanging from it.
—See this park? What do you see?
—Grass. Statues. Walkways.
—What don’t you see?
—I don’t know.
—I’ll tell you what you don’t see. You don’t see needles everywhere. You don’t see junkies lounging on benches. You don’t see guys selling works or Subs. Know why you don’t see any of that stuff? Because a group of us spent a full year taking back this park. Yeah, just this one little piece of land, and it took everything we had—constant arrests, foot patrols, coordinating with neighbors who were tired of hiding behind their doors and barred-up windows. And for now, it’s sticking. Come back here around three, when schools let out, and you’ll actually see kids playing here, and their parents won’t be worrying about whether they’re going to step on a needle or get touched by some junkie. This is our DMZ. But this is just one patch of ground in the Badlands. And the Badlands, Honors Girl … the Badlands is big.
We continue driving around the borders of the park—McPherson Square, according to a sign. You squint, and it’s sort of nice. But then we pull back under the El and a gloom descends. This is not a street you want to walk in the daylight, let alone after dark.
—Why are you showing me this?
—Because your boyfriend is on a train, and he’s headed down these tracks. So are all of his customers. I’ve seen it again, and again, and again. You think because you live in a nice neighborhood and you have parents who say they love you, none of this can happen to you. Think again. These streets are full of people just like you, and just like your boyfriend. They get off the El, walk down those steps, and the next thing they know, two years have gone by and they’re just trapped.
—I can assure you, Officer Wildey, I’m never coming down here.
—Yeah?
And screeeeeeech, Wildey pulls the car to a halt, right under the shadow of the El.
—Come on.
—What?
—Follow me.
—Is it safe?
Wildey just laughs.
—Come on.
He leads me up Gurney Street, toward a cyclone fence that has been ripped from its frame. Before I can say
uh-uh, no fucking way,
he’s ducking under the fence and waving me forward, and then he disappears into weeds as tall as basketball players. I look at the ground and see the syringes, the fast-food wrappers, the broken bottles. I wonder about my bag, still in Wildey’s car. Did he even lock the doors?
—Come on, Honors Girl. Otherwise you’re gonna be late for class.
Every step I’m crunching on something. I’m angry. Wildey doesn’t have to do this. If he’d just let me talk …
But then I realize, no. Better for him to take the lead. He wants to wind me up? Let him.
