Clockers (84 page)

“Mazilli, what happened?” Rocco didn’t trust Colon, who had once asked him how to clean a coffeepot.

“Erroll Barnes be dead.”

“And the actor’s a kid?”

“Yeah, some eleven-year-old, twelve-year-old,” Mazilli said. “They should give him a merit badge for it.”

Rocco sat on the cot trying to put his thoughts together. Erroll, Rodney, some kid, what kid?

“They catch him?”

“He’s at Juvie. Gave himself up to Andre Gates.”

“Body on the scene?”

“Yeah, the day tour’s going out there now.”

“Who’s doing the kid?”

“Steinmetz. He’s all pissed off because
his
kid’s got a basketball game down in Old Bridge in like two hours.”

“He leave yet?” Rocco stood up, unzipped his pants and tucked his shirt into his underwear.

“He’s on the phone in there, talking to his wife.”

Rocco walked into the squad room, caught Steinmetz’s eye and signaled a time-out. The mopey-looking detective put the receiver to his chest.

“Billy,” Rocco said, winking, “I’m gonna do you like a mongosize favor here.”

A half hour later Rocco walked into the amber gloom of the old Juvie annex behind the Western District station house and found four kids cooling their heels, two in the cage and two with their mothers sitting on wooden benches across from the detectives’ desks. Rocco figured the one lying sideways with his head in his mother’s lap had to be the twelve-year-old shooter. The boy’s eyes were moist and red, and he was shivering. His mother stroked his temples and was weeping herself. Taking a closer look, Rocco was surprised to recognize both of them: the mother was the chunky woman who had almost kicked Strike’s ass, and the kid was her son, the sweet-faced boy who always sat quietly on the chain at the Roosevelt benches. Rocco winced and looked away for a moment, thinking about what a low-down scumbag Erroll Barnes was. Even in his dying he had to go and destroy one more life.

A tall black cop in dungarees and a sweatshirt rose from one of the desks. “You from the prosecutor’s office?”

Rocco extended a hand. “Yeah, Rocco Klein. You Andre Gates?”

“Yeah.” Ignoring the offered hand, Andre opened a small brown bag to show Rocco the weapon, a .25 automatic. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Andre took Rocco by the elbow and led him down a hallway. “Yeah listen, I just want to tell you that that boy in there, Tyrone? I know him since he was a baby. I know his grandmother, his mother Iris there, they
all
decent people and like, whatever happened it must’ve been some serious mistake, because that boy never been in trouble
ever.
I mean, he’s in something like the eighty-fifth percentile on this national education test that they give? And you know, whatever happens from now on in, that kid’s life is ruined, but what
I’m
sayin’ is, is that I would appreciate it if you help him on his
statement,
you understand what I’m saying?”

“Hey.” Rocco held up his hand. “The kid’s never been in trouble, he was scared to death, and Erroll Barnes was a low-rent, lowlife scumbag who’s off the streets forever. Right?”

Andre smiled tightly and nodded, saying, “Yeah, that’s good, that’s good,” and then finally offering Rocco his hand.

Rocco slowly approached Iris and Tyrone. The boy was too much in shock to react to his presence, but the mother patted the wetness from her face and spoke through chattering teeth.

“He goin’ to jail?”

Andre came up next to Rocco, and Rocco saw him give her a reassuring look, eyes half shut, hands out, as if everything was all right.

“Does he have to go to jail?” she said, ignoring Andre.

“Look.” Rocco squatted down on his haunches in front of her and put a hand on Tyrone’s shoulder. “Look, I have to find out what happened. Would you permit me to speak with him? I know whatever went down, he must’ve had a good reason for what he did. I just got to find out what that reason was. So can I talk to him now?”

“If he tells you what happened, can I take him home then?” Her voice was childlike, high with hopelessness.

Rocco looked at the shivering boy, figured a year in the Youth House, no more than that, maybe less if he was lucky.

“Well, he
did
kill somebody, OK? But what happens to him depends on the circumstances, see what I’m saying? I mean, I have to find out what happened. Was it cold-blooded murder? Was it because Erroll Barnes wouldn’t buy
drugs
from him? Was it because Erroll Barnes robbed him of some money they were supposed to split on a holdup? Was it because Erroll Barnes was dating
you
and he didn’t want him as a stepfather?”

Iris shook her head in outraged horror at all of Rocco’s scenarios. Rocco adjusted his squat to take the burn out of his knee.

“Or did he kill him because Erroll Barnes threatened him with that thirty-eight he was carrying? Did he kill him because he was afraid that Erroll Barnes was in some way going to hurt
you,
his mother? I mean, was he so out-of-his-mind frightened by Erroll Barnes that he didn’t even realize that he shot him? I don’t know. Let me talk to him, then I can answer
your
question, OK?”

Iris nodded, her eyes desperate for some kind of comfort.

“Now listen, you’ll be with him all the time. You have to be—it’s the law, OK? You don’t like any of the questions I’m asking, you just sing out, I’ll retreat, OK?”

Wiping her cheeks, Iris nodded again and then gently helped the boy to his feet.

An hour after he had run away, Strike tried sneaking up on his own car again, hoping Erroll was too Virus-sick to be waiting for him still, hoping Tyrone was running blind to the goddamn North Pole by now. But as he rounded the corner and turned onto the old lady’s block, Strike pulled up short again, this time seeing green and yellow cruisers, county Dodges and Plymouths—a death crowd. Two detectives squatted right by his car, dusting and photographing, the heavy aluminum cases open on the pavement. When Strike noticed that the window overhead was empty for the first time in memory, he figured the old lady must have fallen out somehow and landed right on his damn Accord. But then he saw the bloody sheet, saw that the hand sticking out belonged to a man, figured that Erroll had killed somebody, which was maybe a good thing here, because now Erroll would have to lie low.

Strike crouched behind a parked car and watched the detectives work, listening to the uniforms make jokes, wondering whether they were going to impound the Accord for fingerprints or something. One of the detectives abruptly turned his head in Strike’s direction, and Strike deepened in his squat, knees to his chin, bitterly amazed at everything happening to him.

“Tyrone, you know what you did, don’t you?” Rocco looked at him intently and the kid nodded slowly, his head back in his mother’s lap, the three of them in a barren cubicle now.

“You know that it was wrong?”

The kid nodded again.

Rocco heard Andre pacing outside, eavesdropping on this pretape interview. Rocco was annoyed, insulted that Andre didn’t trust him to do the right thing.

“OK. Now, you know what you did was wrong but you couldn’t help it. You were scared, right?”

Another mute nod, the kid’s eyes becoming a little wider.

“Look, Tyrone, I don’t live around here but I can imagine how tough it is out there in your neck of the woods. You’re a good kid, all you want to do is get an education, make something of yourself…” Rocco found himself thinking of Victor, feeling weird about the echoes, for a moment losing track of what he was saying. “A good kid, hard-working, all you want to do is be with your family, do well in school, but you got all these people around you coming down on you, making you crazy. All you want to do is protect your family, and you’re under so much pressure and they’re coming down so hard on you for being the way you are that you go out and you get yourself a gun—but not to hurt anybody, just for protection.”

Again Rocco got a flash of Victor. “I mean, not to protect
yourself.
I know you’re a tough kid, you don’t need a gun to protect yourself, but your mother—you got to protect her too. Your brother, your whole family. It’s like the Wild West out there.”

Iris nodded yes yes, but Tyrone looked at him as if he was crazy, not understanding that Rocco was handing him a script.

“OK, Tyrone, let me ask you. Did you know that man’s name, that man you shot?”

The kid stared at him without signifying, the silence framed by Andre’s heavy pacing.

“That was Erroll Barnes. That was the baddest guy in Dempsy. That man was a stone killer, did you know that?”

Tyrone stared at Rocco from his mother’s lap.

“Well, you know that
now,
right?”

Rocco winked at Iris, hoping she understood and would help him coach her boy when the tape started to run. “And I know you know Rodney Little and how bad
he
is, right?”

Tyrone seemed to be listening, but Rocco had no idea whether he knew Rodney Little from Little Stevie Wonder.

“Erroll Barnes was Rodney’s gunman, and since you know how bad Rodney is, you gotta know that Erroll was even badder than him, right? Right? OK, so there you were, just walking down the street, minding your own business, you got a gun that you’re not supposed to have, but you’re not bothering anybody either. All of a sudden there’s Erroll Barnes coming up right in your face, coming right at you, and he’s got this horrible look in his eyes and you see him going for that thirty-eight in his waist and you
know
he’s gonna hurt you, maybe even
kill
you, and who would protect your mother if you were in the hospital? Or in the grave? And you had never fired that gun before, right?”

Rocco paused, waiting to see if the kid would answer or in any way respond. Not yet.

“You never fired that gun before,” Rocco repeated, “but Erroll had you so scared that you started seeing stars.”

Tyrone sat up, nodding, coming to life.

“You were so scared that you didn’t even know where you were, but that
face,
it’s coming at you, coming at you, you don’t even know why, you don’t even know what you
did,
just coming at you, coming at you, and the next thing you know …
Boom!
”

Iris and Tyrone jumped.

“And you don’t even know how the damn thing got into your hand.”

The kid started to cry fresh tears, turning to his mother, nodding slowly, his face twisted with grief. “Mommy, that’s what happened,” he said, his voice climbing to a miserable squawk.

Iris held him, sobbing herself, whispering, “Praise Jesus.”

Rocco slowly sat back, thinking.
Goddamn,
I’m good.

“That’s what happened, OK? And when I ask you about it with the tape recorder going, that’s what you’re going to tell me, right?” Iris and Tyrone nodded.

“And you’re going to tell me that because it’s the
truth,
right?”

Iris hugged her son, both of them still avidly nodding.

“OK, now there’s one last thing we should go over, and on this, Tyrone, I want you to answer me direct. Where did you get the gun?”

The boy stared at the floor and shuddered involuntarily, a residual sob escaping from him like a hiccup. “I found it.”

Rocco kept staring at him. “Where did you find it?”

“In the bushes.”

Just outside the cubicle, Andre hissed with irritation.

“What bushes?”

“By the front of my house.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday.”

Rocco sat in silence for a second, debating whether to crack this open, then deciding to let it slide.

“And you didn’t turn it in to the police because you wanted to protect your mother, right?”

The kid stared at Rocco’s knees, gave a barely audible “Uh-huh,” the lie obviously bothering him, bothering Rocco too.

“And you probably didn’t even know how to take the magazine out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you didn’t even know it was loaded, right?”

Tyrone nodded once.

“I mean, it’s not like you ever fired it before.”

Looking dejected, the kid shook his head.

Rocco watched him in silence for a moment, then decided that he just couldn’t let the gun-in-the-bush story stand after all.

He turned to Iris. “OK, look, if what he’s saying about finding the gun in the bushes is true, that’s beautiful, it really is. But if he’s saying that to protect someone, someone he stole it from, someone who gave it to him or who sold it to him?”

Iris looked at him strangely.

“What I’m saying is, if that gun belongs to someone else and it comes back from the lab and they find out it had been used in some other crime? That other crime, whatever it was—murder, robbery—that’s gonna have to be charged to Tyrone too. I mean, I
know
he didn’t ever use that gun before, but that’s the law. So please, he has to be honest with me about where he got it. For his own sake.”

Iris pushed Tyrone away so she could look into his face. The kid curled his chin into his chest to avoid his mother’s eyes.

“Give it,” Iris said flatly.

Tyrone spoke to his chest: “I borrowed it by accident from Strike.”

“Motherfucker!”

All three turned toward the hallway, then listened to Andre’s retreating stomp.

“No kidding.” Rocco tried to keep calm. “Strike from the benches? Yeah, I think I know him.”

“I was trying to give it back to him,” the kid murmured, “but he won’t talk to me no more. I tried
lots
of times.”

Toward the end of the afternoon, Strike finally got behind the wheel of his car again. He’d noticed some black powder on the front fender—fingerprint dust—and the police had most likely photographed the car as well, taken down the license plate, probably asked the old lady who owned it. More grief, and once again he hadn’t even done anything to deserve it.

Unable to resist the benches, he drove past and saw the whole crew. Futon spotted him going by and pointed excitedly at the car, everybody turning and staring. Strike slammed on the brakes, threw it in reverse and rocked to a stop right out front, too strung out to be careful anymore.