Superbia 3 (10 page)

"Freddie.  Freddie Phelps.  He manages Burgorff's."

"That dumpy old clothing store?" Reynaldo said. 

Frank rotated his finger sideways and said, "Keep talking.  Ignore Officer Francisco's constant attempts to interrupt you."

"
Right," Moses said.  "So, my buddy was working there last year and right away, he picks up on this Phelps guy as some sort of oddball.  Mid-forties, not married, kind of quiet but kind of creepy, right?  At first, he thinks the guy's a faggot."  Moses shot a concerned look at Reynaldo and stopped speaking.

"What?" Reynaldo said.

"Just making sure.  You ain't look black either."

Frank
barked with laughter and Reynaldo said, "Oh, very funny.  Both of you go to hell."

"So my buddy's job is to clean up the bathrooms and the dressing rooms.  Every day he's pulling used maxi pads out of the toilets when they get clogged and
putting back all the clothes people try on and toss on the ground.  I don't know if you ever been to Burgorff's but it's straight up ghetto, for real.  And on top of all that, he starts to think this Phelps guy is following him around.  Every time he's back in the dressing rooms he sees this dude lurking nearby, like he wants to take him in the back and sick his duck or some shit."

Frank tapped the notepad in front of Reynaldo and said, "Keep writing. 
That was 'sick' and 'duck.'  I want notes on all this."

"Anyway, all of the dressing rooms are the same size, but the
one on the end is covered in stickers and shit like, Spongebob, My Little Pony, Pokemon,  that stuff, so of course, that's the one all the little kids like to go in, right?

"
'This was my idea,'
Phelps told my friend. 
'It helps us compete with the bigger stores.  I got the idea at a children's dentist's office.'

"
Inside the dressing room, there's stuffed animals mounted in each corner.  They're stacked on top of each other from the floor to the top of the dressing room dividers on all four corners.  Dozens of these things, but cheap shit, like the kind you get out of a vending machine with a claw. 

"
So one day my buddy's in the back vacuuming and he hears this woman yelling at her daughter,
'Be careful!  You broke that!'
and he goes to investigate.

"
He knocks on the dressing room door,
'Excuse me, is everything okay in there?'

"
'Yes, but I think my daughter broke one of your stuffed animals.'

"
'Oh, that's no big deal.  We can just replace it.'

"
'I think it's an expensive one.  Do they make Tickle Me Elmo's this small?'

"
The lady opens the door and she's holding this tiny, cheap-ass Elmo doll with some kind of electronic device hanging out of it.  Neither one of them can figure out what it is, but then this Fred Phelps guy comes running through the store shouting,
'Don't touch that!  Don't touch it!'

"
He snatched the doll out of this lady's hand and starts screaming at her,
'What the hell are you doing?  Why were you messing with them? They aren't there for you people to destroy, they're there so everyone can enjoy them!'

"
'I'm sorry,' the lady says,
'It was an accident.  We'll pay you for it.'

"
And now the little kid's crying, and my buddy's all embarrassed, and Phelps tells her,
'Get out of my store right now.  You are banned.'

"
I know, right?  He banned that bitch from muh fukkin' Burgorff's.  That's like being told your kind isn't welcome at the Swap Meet. 

"
So the lady leaves, and Phelps tells my buddy,
'In my office.  Now.'

"
Like I said, Phelps is this skinny, kind of Queer dude, but he's filled up with some kind of geek-rage at this point, and my buddy is scared.  He's thinking he did something wrong.  He follows Phelps back into the manager's office and stands with his back against the wall as the guy slams his office door shut and locks it.

"
Phelps takes this deep breath and says,
'I'm sorry you had to see that.  I wish you hadn't, but since the cat's out of the bag, I'm going to have to bring you in on my little secret.  I'm working with the FBI to take down an organized retail theft ring.'
"  

Frank let out an involuntary laugh.  "No he didn't."

Moses held up his hand, "I swear to God, that's what I was told."

"Actually, it's not that much of a stretch," Frank said.  "I've worked with the FBI before.  This seems like
something they might do."

"So Phelps says,
'We're trying to obtain evidence of a group of people who travel up and down the East Coast stealing children's clothing.  I've been asked to try and film them in the act so that the FBI can prosecute.  You are officially sworn to secrecy, because to reveal a federal investigation is an immediate lifetime sentence.  Do you understand?'

"
'Okay,'
my buddy says. 
'Do you need me to help?  Is there anything I should be on the lookout for?'

"
Phelps put his hand on his shoulder and says,
'You've done enough.  I'll take it from here.'
And that's what happened," Moses said.

"That's how what happened?" Frank said.  "Where's the part about the file names?"

"Oh, right.  So my buddy is curious about the camera and he says,
'Do you have to plug this thing into a computer?'

"
And Phelps gets all offended.  "Do you think the FBI would use anything less than the top of the line stuff?  This sends a signal directly to my iPad.'

"
'Sweet,'
my buddy says. 

"
'It's uploading now,'
Phelps says, and he shows him the iPad screen with a green bar or some shit where the file was downloading. 
'All right, let's go back to work.  Remember, don’t say anything.'

"
And just as they go to leave, one of the cashiers knocks on the door and says there's a problem with the schedule.  She's this real loud chick and she starts chewing him out, saying,
'Mr. Phelps, you forgot to give me off next Tuesday and I told you I have to take my son to the doctor.  You always do this shit to me, Mr. Phelps!  I show up every fucking day on time unlike all the other people in this shit hole, and all you do is fuck me over!'

"
Phelps stands there trying to get her to calm down, and while he's distracted, my buddy looks down at the iPad.  The File finished downloading and the rest of the files popped up.  All that sick baby rape shit.  I guess Phelps realized what was going on, because he all of a sudden turned around real quick and grabbed it off the desk and told everybody to get out." 

Reynaldo was scribbling words across the notepad, trying to keep up with Moses' story, and Frank leaned back against the wall, trying to collect his thoughts.  When Reynaldo finally laid down his pencil and shook out his hand, Franks said, "I've got one question.  How come your buddy never told anybody about any of this?"

Moses shrugged, "He told me."

"Yeah, but I meant somebody who could do something about it."

Moses looked back at him in confusion, "Because he couldn't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Didn't you hear me, yo?  The FBI would put him in jail for revealing a federal investigation."

"That was the single stupidest person I have ever met on this job," Reynaldo said. 

"They get stupider."

"So what is the plan?"

Frank kicked his foot up on
his desk and massaged his knee, wincing at the sharp pain that shot across his leg the moment he touched the jagged bones under his skin
.  It must be getting ready to rain,
he thought. 
That's the only time it really hurts.
  He looked at the clock, "Well, it's almost three now, and I've got to get on the phone and let everybody know about this meeting tomorrow.  How about we head over first thing in the morning and see if Mr. Phelps still works there?"

Reynaldo shook his head, "I don't think that's a good idea.  We'll spook him."

Frank nodded gravely and said, "You're right.  That would.  And here, I thought our main goal was to alert the target well in advance of even getting started with the investigation, just to give him a fair shot at fighting back."

Reynaldo's eyes flicked down at the ground, "Sorry,
boss.  I didn't mean it like that."

"I'm not your boss, and I'm just busting your maracas,
Rey-Rey.  I've got a plan, so don't worry."

"Are you thinking about sending me in undercover?"

Frank shrugged, "I don't see why not.  Send you in first, just so he doesn't get a look at me yet."

Reynaldo swallowed dryly
and said, "Okay.  No problem.  I can do that."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing.  It's just, I've never been good at lying."

"It's not lying.  It's a covert operation for a good cause.  You'll get used to it.  In this line of work, if you do the covert stuff enough, it starts becoming second
nature."

Reynaldo let out a long, slow breath and said, "I guess everybody's got to start somewhere. 
I'm not scheduled to work tomorrow.  Will anyone get mad if I come in on overtime?"

Frank glanced over his shoulders at the empty de
sk behind him, "I don't see anybody of higher rank or seniority than me, so I guess I'm the one approving it."

Reynaldo smiled at Frank, "
I think that's what tomorrow's meeting is about.  You're going to run the department until Iolaus is back."

"Nope. 
I don't want it.  I don't mind doing the administrative stuff just to make sure the place doesn't burn to the ground and everybody gets paid, but I'm not being the Acting-Acting Chief."

"But we need
someone in charge, don't we?" Reynaldo said.

"Why?  You only think that because you've been conditioned to think it.  Everybody here's a professional.  We can manage ourselves.
We don't need somebody in a white shirt watching over us to make sure we don't shoot anybody in the holding cells.  Trust me.  Things will run a lot smoother than you think."

"
That all sounds very Communist to me."

Frank nodded and said,
"You can call me the Karl Marx of policing."

By the time he finished going through the list of telephone numbers to call the guys in the department and let them know about the mandatory meeting, he'd said, "Beats the hell out of me," at least fifty times. 
With every groan and complaint, his knee ached worse. 
It's not rain coming,
Frank thought. 
It's an enormous black cloud gathering over the station for the torrential shitstorm Frederick and Jones are about to unleash. 

Poor Reynaldo,
he thought. 
The kid still has hope that the people in charge were going to do something positive for the police department.
He thought about it for a moment and decided that maybe he could do with a little more positive thinking.  Perhaps the supervisors were going to surprise him and do the right thing for once. 

The picture of Vic Ajax
stared down at him from the wall with increased disapproval and Frank imagined Vic saying,
"Why the fuck would they start doing the right thing now, rookie?"

Chuck D's voice suddenly boomed "1989!" as Frank's phone rumbled with the opening verse of Public Enemy's Fight the Power, and Frank unclipped it from his waist and said, "Hello?"

"It's your dad."

"I
have caller ID.  What's up?"

"What are you
doing?"

"
Getting ready to go home.  It's been a long day."

"Oh.  Are you going to the store by any chance?"

"I hadn't planned on it," Frank said.  "Why?"

"I just thought you might be."

"Did you need something from the store, Dad?"

"Are you going there?"

"Now I am."

"Forget it.  I'll talk to you later."

"Dad!  What do you need from the store?  I'm already heading that way now."

"Grab me a case of Busch Light.  I'll give you the money when you get here."

A half hour later Frank was still muttering to himself as he pulled up the dusty stone driveway to his father's house.  There was a small gas grill outside the door with a heavy chain securing it to the hitch.  One folding chair sat next to the grill, surrounded by large industrial trash bags stuffed to the point of bursting. Frank knocked as he opened the door and held up the case of beer, "It's one thing to send me on a beer run, but it's another to make me buy this piss water.  I was embarrassed to be seen in public with it."

"Hello?" his dad shouted
from the living room, raising his voice over the booming television. 

Frank set the beer on the counter and sniffed the air, curling his nose instantly.  He lifted the trash can and leaned down, smelling only lemon-scented plastic.  "What the hell smells like feet in here, Dad?"

Frank O'Ryan Senior appeared at the kitchen doorway and said, "What are you talking about? I don't smell anything."

"Is it your fridge?" Frank said.  He went to open the refrigerator door and felt it stick. 

Senior smacked his hand against the door to keep it shut and said, "You'll mess up the tape."

Frank looked at the
pieces of scotch tape holding the refrigerator and freezer door's shut and then at his father and said, "Do I even want to ask why you have tape on the fridge?"

"
I read online that you can turn up the thermometer ten degrees if you seal the doors tight and don't open them as much.  The goddamn electric company is trying to put people in the poor house."

"
Are you sure about that?" Frank said slowly.  He looked around the rest of the kitchen, still sniffing the air, and spied a large cup of vinegar sitting on the counter.  "That's what it is. Were you cooking?"

"Did you bring the beer?" Senior said, pushing past his son to get to the case.  "Do you want one?"

"No.  What's up with the vinegar?"

"It absorbs food odors."

"What the hell is a food odor?  You mean from the trash can?"

"No.  The smell of food.  Fried food, cooked food, all of them."

"That doesn't make any sense, Dad."

"
Well, I
like
how it smells, ok?" Senior said.  He cracked the beer can open and took a long, deep drink.  "Vinegar's an amazing product.  Did you know you can rinse your hair with it and get rid of dandruff?"

"
Please tell me you're not bathing in it too."

"And if you wash your clothes with it, it gets them cleaner." 

"Are you or are you not the same person who said organic fruit is for pussies and global warming is a bullshit story cooked up by Al Gore to scare people?  Now you're suddenly a hippie?  Where is all this shit coming from?  Dad, did you read this stuff on the Internet?  What did I tell you about taking any of that too seriously?"

Senior pulled three more beers out of the case and handed Frank one, "
Here, and shut up.  Come on and sit down for a minute."

Fox News was on full blast in the living room, a group of people sitting around a table taking turns yelling about an attempt to ban sugary soft
drinks in major cities led by a Democratic senator from Ohio.  They flashed the Senator's photo and Senior scowled and yelled out, "Asshole!  Moron!"

Frank sipped the barley-flavored water in his can and
winced at the taste.  "What are you yelling about?"

"That
dickhead from Ohio."

"Why, because he wants to keep people healthy and not let
some big corporations give everybody diabetes?"

Senior scowled,
"Because he's an
asshole
."

"Ok."  Frank sat back on the couch, watching as they moved on to a new subject, which was instantly followed by calls of, "What a crock of shit" from his father.  "Dad?" Frank said.  "Is this what you do all day
now?  You sit around and yell at your TV?"

Senior sighed and picked up his remote control.  He clicked onto the History Channel and said, "How about this, then?  Is
it okay with you if I watch this?"

Frank shrugged, focusing on the historian on TV as he discussed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  "You know what's funny
about this?"

Senior finished his second can of beer and set it on the table, moving to open the third in the same motion.  "About the death of our
Lord and Savior?  No.  Not really."

"In all the paintings of Jesus, all the statues in all the churches, he's this tall, thin white guy.  It's total bullshit."

Senior held up his hand and said, "Just stop.  I'm not in the mood for your nonsense."

"I'm serious. 
Think about it.  How does a Jewish guy get born in the middle of a Middle Eastern desert and he's whiter than I am?  If Jesus was real, he looked a lot more like Akhbar than Andy, that's for sure.  There's nothing about what he looked like in the Bible and it wasn't until Constantine turned the Roman Empire into Christians that we got this whole, beneficent shepherd image, really.  Same thing with the Virgin Mary.  It's all a crock."

Senior
slammed the remote control onto the ground so hard the back snapped and batteries scattered across the floor.  "That is enough!  I will not hear any more of your blasphemy in this house!"

"Blasphemy?" Frank said,
laughing nervously.  "Are you serious?  Calm down."

Senior bent down to scoop up the pieces of his remote control,
"There is something really wrong with you, do you know that?  Ever since you were a little kid.  Always with the questions and the disobedience.  I should have beaten you more, but your mother, God rest her, wouldn't have it.  Now I worry about your immortal soul."

"Why, because I don't believe in Santa Claus?"

Senior looked up at him, the veins of his eyes like aerial photos of a twisting river, his voice trembling as he said, "If you don't stop, you have to leave.  I'm serious."

"Okay,
Dad.  Relax," Frank said.  "Jesus, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack if you don't relax."

Senior
slumped back in his chair, "Who the hell cares."

"There you go," Frank said.  "That's the spirit.
"

Senior clicked back onto Fox News.  Now, the focus had turned to crime in the nation, showing images of black men from Florida who'd killed an infant during an armed robbery.  "Did you hear about these satanic fuckers?"

Frank squinted at the TV, "They're Satanists?"  

"No," Senior said, his voice suddenly falling to a harsh whisper.  "But what they did, it can only be described as evil.  Like the
devil
was inside them."

"It was probably a little more complicated than that, Dad."

Senior groaned, "Oh, for Christ's sake.  Don't give me that shit about the school systems and opportunity.  If we rounded all these fucking animals up and put them to death we wouldn't have any of this bullshit.  I dealt with these goddamn jiggaboos for thirty years and it was always the same.  They don't work, they don't respect nothing, and now they're out running around killing babies!"  Senior patted the arm of his sitting chair and Frank leaned forward to see the molded-plastic grip of a handgun tucked into the cushion, "I got something for them if they show up here.  Goddamn, do I."

Frank looked at his father with mounting concern, "
Dad, the black people aren't coming to your house.  You don't need a gun in your chair.  You're gonna sit down on it one day and shoot your nuts off."

"Good.  Who cares."

Frank set down his empty beer, "So what else is going on?  Anything good?"

"It's Mildred's fifty-second birthday today. 
It would be nice of you to call her."

Frank snorted
derisively, "Yeah, right."

Senior
shot him a look, "Call her.  She's your mother."