pretty good pulse for the school and the student body, don’t ya?”
“Yup.”
“Did you ever see anything going on with Kris Sinderling that might help me find her?”
“Nope.”
And then we stood in silence for another fifteen minutes until my taxi arrived. So much for making peace.
17
The cabbie that picked me up jawed continuously on his HAM radio, pausing only long enough to ask my destination before resuming his chatter.
I stared out the window and tried to ignore his boisterous comments and loud chuckles. I was surprised when he threw out a few curses. I’d always thought that the FCC had strict rules about that.
I took stock of what I’d learned up at Fillmore High School. It wasn’t much, as far as I could tell. Most of Kris’s teachers were aware of her, but didn’t have any specific insight. Some had seemed harried, some bored. Only Marie Byrnes exuded any true warmth.
And then there was LeMond. He was tough to comprehend. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something off. I tried to reach inside for that sense I used to have, years ago. It was a talent all cops have. All good cops, anyway. And I used to have it in spades. But I discovered that even if it was partially an innate ability, it was also a perishable skill.
I wanted badly to sniff LeMond ou t . What was his deal? I just didn’t know.
The cabbie took Ray Street down from the South Hill. I watched the houses flit by and I shifted in the seat as he went through the S curves near the bottom. I knew he was planning to take the freeway back downtown. It was the quickest way and that was his job, after all, but I didn’t feel like being there just now. Something about the sterile flow of cars at seventy miles per hour made my head hurt.
“Pull in here,” I said, motioning toward the 7- Eleven at 5 th and Thor.
The cabbie shot me a prickly look. “You said Browne’s Addition.”
“I know. I need to make a phone call, though.”
The cabbie slowed and pulled into the parking lot. “You can’t make it at home?” he muttered, not necessarily to me.
I ignored him.
He put the car into park and rattled off the fare. I’d been prepared to give him a decent tip, since I’d cut the trip short. But his attitude sucked, so when he gave me a look that asked if I wanted change, I nodded my head and took every cent.
“Asshole,” he muttered as I slid out of the back seat.
I closed the back door and he pulled away, his tires chirping.
I headed towards a bank of three public phones that stood outside the glass front doors of the 7- Eleven .
The neighborhood used to be one of the worst in town, one that I wouldn’t want to walk around at night without a gun and a lot of luck. The East Central community was heavily black, which in River City terms meant maybe forty percent. When I was in high school, one of my friends called it Little Harlem. Another guy I knew used terms that were a lot worse.
W hen I was a cop, I found a lot of action in East Central, but no more than in the East Sprague corridor or downtown or the lower South Hill. There were plenty of idiots and jerks to deal with that year in East Central and some of them were black, but I never got the impression that any of them were jerks because they were black, any more than the white jerks were doomed to be jerks and idiots due to their color.
But human nature is divisive and unless there is a bigger threat from without, men and women will begin to divide from within. So some blacks hate whites for things that their great-grandfathers endured and some whites hate blacks for the same reason.
I should know. The scars on the front and back of my left shoulder, on my left arm and my left knee all came courtesy of a black gangbanger named Isaiah Morris. He’d hated me, though if it was because I was white or because I was a cop or both, I couldn’t say. One warm night in August eleven years ago, he’d ambushed me along with one of his flunkies right as I
“Yup.”
“Did you ever see anything going on with Kris Sinderling that might help me find her?”
“Nope.”
And then we stood in silence for another fifteen minutes until my taxi arrived. So much for making peace.
17
The cabbie that picked me up jawed continuously on his HAM radio, pausing only long enough to ask my destination before resuming his chatter.
I stared out the window and tried to ignore his boisterous comments and loud chuckles. I was surprised when he threw out a few curses. I’d always thought that the FCC had strict rules about that.
I took stock of what I’d learned up at Fillmore High School. It wasn’t much, as far as I could tell. Most of Kris’s teachers were aware of her, but didn’t have any specific insight. Some had seemed harried, some bored. Only Marie Byrnes exuded any true warmth.
And then there was LeMond. He was tough to comprehend. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something off. I tried to reach inside for that sense I used to have, years ago. It was a talent all cops have. All good cops, anyway. And I used to have it in spades. But I discovered that even if it was partially an innate ability, it was also a perishable skill.
I wanted badly to sniff LeMond ou t . What was his deal? I just didn’t know.
The cabbie took Ray Street down from the South Hill. I watched the houses flit by and I shifted in the seat as he went through the S curves near the bottom. I knew he was planning to take the freeway back downtown. It was the quickest way and that was his job, after all, but I didn’t feel like being there just now. Something about the sterile flow of cars at seventy miles per hour made my head hurt.
“Pull in here,” I said, motioning toward the 7- Eleven at 5 th and Thor.
The cabbie shot me a prickly look. “You said Browne’s Addition.”
“I know. I need to make a phone call, though.”
The cabbie slowed and pulled into the parking lot. “You can’t make it at home?” he muttered, not necessarily to me.
I ignored him.
He put the car into park and rattled off the fare. I’d been prepared to give him a decent tip, since I’d cut the trip short. But his attitude sucked, so when he gave me a look that asked if I wanted change, I nodded my head and took every cent.
“Asshole,” he muttered as I slid out of the back seat.
I closed the back door and he pulled away, his tires chirping.
I headed towards a bank of three public phones that stood outside the glass front doors of the 7- Eleven .
The neighborhood used to be one of the worst in town, one that I wouldn’t want to walk around at night without a gun and a lot of luck. The East Central community was heavily black, which in River City terms meant maybe forty percent. When I was in high school, one of my friends called it Little Harlem. Another guy I knew used terms that were a lot worse.
W hen I was a cop, I found a lot of action in East Central, but no more than in the East Sprague corridor or downtown or the lower South Hill. There were plenty of idiots and jerks to deal with that year in East Central and some of them were black, but I never got the impression that any of them were jerks because they were black, any more than the white jerks were doomed to be jerks and idiots due to their color.
But human nature is divisive and unless there is a bigger threat from without, men and women will begin to divide from within. So some blacks hate whites for things that their great-grandfathers endured and some whites hate blacks for the same reason.
I should know. The scars on the front and back of my left shoulder, on my left arm and my left knee all came courtesy of a black gangbanger named Isaiah Morris. He’d hated me, though if it was because I was white or because I was a cop or both, I couldn’t say. One warm night in August eleven years ago, he’d ambushed me along with one of his flunkies right as I
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