Nocturnal

Pookie’s Pimpin’ Gear

We need your help, Alex,” Pookie said. “Can you think of anyone who would want to get back at you for anything?”

Pookie waited for an answer. He and Bryan sat in chairs, while Alex Panos and his mother, Susan, sat on the couch across from them. A coffee table with a vase of fresh flowers separated the pairs. A pack of cigarettes and a box of Kleenex lay on the table in front of Susan, but she had yet to light up and seemed to favor the already well-used wad of tissue clutched in her hand.

Alex wore jeans, black combat boots and a brand-new crimson-and-gold Boston College Eagles jacket. He glared at the cops in his living room, his lip all but curled into a snarl. Susan Panos watched her son, her hands nervously working the wad of tissue now so ravaged and wet with tears that little shreds of it broke off to drift down lightly to the brown carpet below.

“Alex, honey,” she said, “can you answer the man?”

Alex looked at his mother with the same expression of bored disdain he’d affixed on the cops.

She dabbed her eyes. “Please?”

Alex leaned back into the couch, his mouth making a little psh sound. He crossed his arms over his chest.

The kid was a real prize, the kind that Pookie wished he could just shake some sense into. Alex was big enough that most people stayed out of his way, giving him an overly inflated sense of badassery. He was also young enough to think he was bulletproof.

They sat in Susan’s two-bedroom apartment on Union Street, just east of Hyde. It was a nice, sixth-floor place in a somewhat upscale ten-story building. Susan either had one very good job or two decent ones. Mr. Panos, if there had ever been one, wasn’t around. He’d probably been a big guy — Susan was a skinny five-four, while sixteen-year-old Alex was just under six feet and thickly muscled. He was bigger than Bryan. Give the kid another three or four months and he’d be bigger than Pookie.

Pookie and Bryan had first gone to Jay Parlar’s place. Jay wasn’t there. His father didn’t know where he was. His father didn’t want to talk to the cops. Quite the wonderful family scene, really. Issac Moses was next on the list, but for now, Pookie and Bryan had to deal with an uncooperative, arrogant Alex Panos. Alex didn’t seem all that put out by his gang-mate’s death.

“Try to understand,” Pookie said. “This was a particularly brutal murder. You don’t usually see this kind of thing unless there’s motivation. Personal motivation. Have you guys had run-ins with other gangs? Latin Cobras? Anyone like that?”

“I got nothin’ to say,” Alex said. “I’m a minor and I haven’t done anything, so I can tell you both to go and fuck yourselves. What do you think of that?”

Bryan leaned forward. “What do I think? I think your buddy is dead.”

Alex shrugged, looked away. “So Oscar wasn’t tough enough. Not my problem.”

Pookie saw anger in the boy’s eyes. Oscar’s death clearly was Alex’s problem. Alex probably thought he was going to find the killers himself.

“You don’t get it,” Bryan said. “Oscar’s arm was ripped off his body. They cut his belly open, pulled out his intestines.”

Susan covered her mouth with the tissue. “Oh my God.”

“Then they stuffed his guts back in,” Bryan said. “They broke his jaw, knocked out his teeth. They tore out his right eye.”

Susan cried into her disintegrating Kleenex and started rocking back and forth. Alex tried — and failed — to look indifferent.

“There’s more,” Bryan said.

Pookie cleared his throat. “Uh, Bryan, maybe we should—”

“They pissed on him,” Bryan said. “You hear me, Alex? They pissed all over your supposed friend. This wasn’t a random act. Someone hated him. Tell us who hated him, maybe we can find his killer.”

Alex stood, stared down with angry eyes. “Are you guys arresting me?”

Pookie shook his head.

“Well, if you’re not arresting me, I’m leaving.”

“You should stay here,” Pookie said. “Whoever killed Oscar could be after all of you. You could be in danger.”

Alex let out that psh sound again. “I can take care of myself.”

Susan reached over and pulled lightly on the crimson sleeve of Alex’s jacket. “Honey, maybe you should listen to—”

“Fuck off, Mom.” Alex snapped his arm away. “You like these pigs so much? Why don’t you just blow ’em already? I’m gone.”

Alex walked to the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Susan kept crying, kept rocking. Her shaking hand reached for the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table.

Pookie automatically found the lighter in his pocket, pulled it out and offered her the flame. He didn’t smoke, but he’d made a lighter part of his standard pimpin’ gear long ago — dress nice, talk nice, buy drinks and the ladies loved you. Amazing how a little act of kindness like lighting a cigarette could break the ice, show a woman that you were interested. If you didn’t mind kissing an ashtray, lighters got you laid.

She took a drag, then set the tissue on the table. Pookie and Bryan waited, quietly. Susan composed herself quickly; quickly enough that Pookie could tell crying over Alex was a regular occurrence.

“I’m sorry about him,” she said. “He’s … hard to control.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pookie said. “Teenage boys can be difficult. I know I was.”

She sniffed, smiled, ran her fingers through her hair. Pookie knew that gesture as well, and it saddened him — her son was in serious trouble, his friend had been murdered and Susan Panos was still concerned about her looks. Were this some random night, were Pookie out for a beer instead of investigating a murder, he would have instantly put his chances of taking Susan Panos home at about 75 percent.

“I knew Oscar,” she said. “He’s been Alex’s friend since they were in grade school. He was a good kid, until …”

Her words trailed off. It had to be hard to know that a nice kid had traveled down the wrong path because he hung out with the wrong people, and that your son was among the wrong people in question.

“Missus Panos,” Pookie said, “we know Alex is in a gang. A small one, but still a gang. Do you know anyone who would want to hurt your son and his friends?”

She sniffed, shook her head.

Bryan coughed, a wet, rattling thing. He grabbed two tissues from the table and wiped his mouth.

“How about payback?” he said. “How about any of the kids that BoyCo victimized?” Bryan’s words and tone were harsh and unforgiving. He clearly blamed Susan for letting Alex grow up to be such a flaming prick. Bryan would feel like that: he grew up with a perfect family. Bryan had lost his mom as a kid, but until she died she’d loved him. His father still worshipped the ground he walked on. People from perfect families have a hard time understanding the concept that sometimes, no matter what parents do, some kids just go bad.

Back in the day, Pookie had been heading down the same road as Alex. Pookie’s parents were great — loving, attentive, supportive — but Pookie just grew too big too fast. He’d been a bully. He’d enjoyed the power, enjoyed making other kids afraid of him, right up until he screwed with the wrong guy and got his ass kicked. Shamus Jones. Who the hell names their kid Shamus? Apparently it was akin to naming your boy Sue, because once Pookie started in with Shamus it turned out Shamus not only knew how to fight, he knew how to fight dirty. It was the first time Pookie had been beaten with a lead pipe. It also turned out to be the last — broken ribs, a concussion and a night in the hospital proved to be fantastic learning aids.

“Anyone?” Bryan said. “Any of those kids your son beat up, any of them stand out?”

Susan took a drag on her cigarette, blew it out of the corner of her mouth away from Pookie and Bryan — that strange “courtesy” smokers seem to think helps. She picked up the wad of Kleenex. She shrugged. “Alex is just a boy. Boys get into fights.”

Pookie pulled two fresh tissues out of the box on the table and offered them to Susan. She seemed to see the disintegrating wad in her hand for the first time. She put that in her pocket, then smiled as she took the fresh tissues.

“Missus Panos,” Pookie said, “any information you can give us could help. Nothing is too trivial.”

“It’s Susie, not Missus Panos. I haven’t seen Alex’s father in five years. Look, this isn’t the first time cops have talked to me about my son, okay? He’s a wild kid. Uncontrollable. Sometimes he’s gone for days.”

Pookie nodded. “And when he is, where does he go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit,” Bryan said. “How can you not know?”

“Bryan” — Pookie held up a hand to cut him off — “not now.” He turned back to Susie. “Ma’am, where does your son go?”

“I told you, I don’t know. He’s got girlfriends. I’ve never met them, but I know he stays at their places. And no, I don’t even know their names. I can’t control that boy. He’s too big, too … mean. Sometimes he comes home when he needs money or food or clothes. The rest of the time … look, I have to work two jobs, okay? Sometimes I pick up extra shifts. I’m gone twenty hours at a time. I gotta do it, we need the money. If Alex doesn’t want to come home, I can’t make him.”

The hurt in her eyes told the story. If he doesn’t want to come home really meant if he doesn’t love me.

Bryan stood. “Fuck this. I’ll wait outside.” He left the apartment, slamming the door almost as loudly as Alex had.

Susie stared at the door. “Your partner is an asshole,” she said.

“Sometimes, yeah.” Pookie reached into his sport-coat pocket, pulled out his card and offered it to her. “Your son could be in real danger. If you see anything, hear anything, anything at all, let me know.”

She stared at him, her eyes a window to the soul of a heartbroken single mother. She took the card. “Yeah. Okay. I can text you at this number?”

Pookie pulled out his cell phone and held it up. “All calls and texts go right here. I never leave home without it.”

She sniffed, nodded, then put the card in her pocket. “Thank you, Inspector Chang.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Pookie left the apartment.

Bryan was already downstairs, waiting in the Buick. “We have to get to Eight Fifty,” he said as Pookie slid in. “Captain Sharrow called.”

“Right now? We still have to talk to Issac Moses’s parents.”

“Yeah, right now,” Bryan said. “Chief Zou wants to see us.”