The Jerk
Previously: Paco and Mark lay out Dash Reilly’s options; Jeannie tries to do something about her anger.
Need to catch up on The Spring? Check out the chapter index here:
12:28 AM - Friday, November 7, 2014
15th Avenue, Richmond District, San Francisco
A burgundy Chevy Tahoe with darkened windows slowed as it moved down the street, pausing momentarily in front of the Reilly home. A dark figure in a Carhartt jacket quickly pulled the back passenger door and got in, the car immediately rolling forward. The car stank of stale cigarette smoke and an accumulation of years of Old Spice.
The man at the other end of the seat sparked a new cigarette, the Zippo flame revealing a droopy face with deep pock marks on the cheeks that sucked in the smoke, his coloring gray with flares of ruddy capillary webbing.
“Alright Reilly. You got me out of my fine bed at this hour. What’s it about, then?” The voice rasped.
“It’s — it’s my son. He’s in trouble. Big trouble — he assaulted a federal officer this morning.”
“Is he daft or just stupid?”
“Neither. He was drunk. It’s a long story.”
“Shorten it then. Would hate to run out of gas.”
“The short story is —” Reilly stopped, licking his lips, “the story is he was drunk and charged the officer who fell back and hit his head. They’ll give him a federal felony charge if he doesn’t talk.”
“Talk? He is stupid then.”
“No — no he isn’t. You know. You’ve seen him play basketball, he makes good grades, he has a chance at a good college. They want him to talk against Hartman.”
Silence. The driver in the front seat, a young fathead with an overly-large Giants hat glanced at the dark back seat, seeing nothing. He turned left on Geary and hit the gas to make the next three green lights.
“What would your son possibly know about Hartman?”
“The booze. They let the kids drink there at home — they buy alcohol for them. The drugs —”
The man next to him coughed slightly, a light hack that turned into a guttural choke. Once that was done, the rasp was lower.
“What’s he seen, then?”
“A lot. He’s friends with the kid — the nasty one. They’re at Xavier together. He’s seen it all, and he’s even helped exchange a few times. He thinks it’s the kid, at least, somehow running it all. There’s more to it than that, but what they’re really after is the Hartman stuff. They want him as a witness.”
“Who did he speak to?”
“They had two federal agents and someone from the DEA. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was this bad. But — McGuirk, he’s my eldest. He’s meant to go to college — I didn’t go to college. He — he didn’t know…it all just, happened…”
Silence.
“An innocent eegit, eh?” The old man hacked another cough. “That’s grand.” He huffed. “Seventeen-year old boys — they’re never so innocent.” He paused for a long moment, sucking in the end of the cigarette. “So, the DEA knows all, then?”
Reilly nodded in the darkness, his words landing. Apparently, Paddy “The Jerk” McGuirk knew all about the eldest Reilly son. The driver made a left-turn past George Washington High School up on the hill, and then another left on Fulton, the dark trees of the park rushing past the windows on the right side.
“What — what do I do?”
“It’s already done.”
“I — I didn’t — “
“If it weren’t already a mess, it wouldn’t have gotten this far.” The voice cracked out. “The DEA has been sniffing around…and, well, Hartman should have known better.” The old man paused, looking out the window, street lights making his gray face periodically yellow. “You did the right thing for your boy — no one could fault you for it. And you called me. You aren’t asking any favors because there’s nothing we can do for you. You did alright, Reilly. Just grand.”
“And I — what — he’ll need a lawyer.”
“We’ll take care of that if you like. Get you a discount.” Reilly’s face contorted. “Or you can find your own. We know how you don’t care to be…connected.” McGuirk crushed the nub of his cigarette into the console ash tray.
“Will he be pissed, then, about Hartman? What —”
“Hartman’s already bajanxed.” The rasp cut him off. “He’s been sloppy, and the man isn’t happy about it. None of this is very surprising.” Another long pause as McGuirk shook out a new cigarette from the pack in his hand, followed by the tell-tale metallic squeak of his Zippo coming to life. He took a long first suck on the new smoke, as the driver turned left again on 15th Avenue. “You know, Reilly — you may have actually solved us a few problems with this —”
“What? What do you mean?” The car slowed as it neared the house again.
“Let it play. Go along with the law and do right for your son. Let the law clean up our mess — tidier that way, you reckon? Hartman’s a terrible man and we’d all be well-rid of him one way or t’other. I’ll tell the man you gave us a warning.”
“I understand. Thank you.” Reilly said quietly. The car stopped and he turned to offer McGuirk his hand in thanks.
“Get the fuck out.”
Reilly was on the street, barely realizing the Tahoe had sped off already. The clear night air hit his lungs, clearing out the rancid cigarette smoke. He knew he should be relieved, but nothing about McGuirk was reassuring. At least it was done.
At least now Con Sullivan wouldn’t be surprised.
It was raining hard. The trail stretched out and up the hill. It looked like the Ecology Trail, but it was too wet and foggy to tell, it could be anywhere. The ground crunched at a good pace, but it didn’t feel like she was walking but she knew she was tired. She looked at the gravel below her boots, but then her feet were bare in the wet dirt. The dirt went to mud, and it suddenly got colder. The redwood trees made the ground dark and sopping wet. There was mud between her toes and she squished it, trying to grip the dirt, but now it buried her feet.
Someone called her name somewhere in the fog.
A little girl was there in a gray sweatshirt, hugging one of the redwoods. Dark, spiral curls and golden-hazel eyes.
“You’re so pretty.”
“Your feet are dirty.”
“I’ll wash them.” The little girl pointed up the hill. “Are you lost?” The girl shook her head. “Will you show me?” She shook her head again and pointed.
Pulling her feet out of the mud took an effort, and she fell over into the dirt trying to free them. She sank into the mud, which turned into black water. It was so quiet. There was light at the top — some pale blue light that seemed to get closer although she wasn’t moving much.
All at once she was at the surface, gasping. It was all bright blue with golden sunlight on the water. She gasped and spun around — she was in the lake, Lake Tahoe, but it was all silent, like the whole thing was trapped under a dome with no birds or boats or people. She was so far out — in the middle, with no one around. She started to swim and swam and swam — the sunlight streaked through the water and she could see the bottom even though she knew it was the deepest part of the lake. She kept swimming.
Her hands touched something hard and she stopped. She was in a swimming pool, at the white tile wall at the end of the lane. The whole pool was busy with people swimming in all of the lanes. She had to swim fast just to get to the ladder at the side. Starting up the white steps, she looked down to see her dirty feet that still weren’t clean — they mud was going to dirty the whole pool and it was all her fault. The ladder kept going up and up and up.
Someone said her name and she looked around, making her fall back into the pool again. Under the water, the light streaked through the water again, streaked through her body. It was fascinating — bands of light moving over her. The little girl was in the water right in front of her — curly hair sticking out. She shook her head again, her golden eyes a warning. She pointed over her shoulder so she spun around but no one was there. She spun around to the surface and they were all lined up along the side of the pool: Seb, Dash, Ryan, Tripp, PJ, Charlie, Brandon, Paco, Mark, Chris. The wore the swim caps you’d wear for water polo, but no one played. They stared at her, like she should know something, like they were waiting for her to tell them…
She turned around again and it was all bright light from the windows above, and then the whole place was empty. Then the pool was empty.
There was a little door at the bottom of the pool that she went to and pulled open, revealing a ladder that went down into darkness. She took the steps and kept going lower and lower to land at a lower level — like the basement of a building, but she’d been here before. It wasn’t a basement, but an attic — the attic at Holy Heart. The whole place was a maze full of books and boxes and old computers and supplies and all of it piled high in every place.
“You have to find it.” She spun around to see the little girl again, sitting at a high table, swinging her legs below her. A tiny tendril of a blackberry vine sprouted up and started to snake its way up the table leg, and then it wrapped around the little girl’s leg. It sprouted more arms and began spreading.
“How did you get here?”
“I walked into a pit of vipers.” She didn’t speak when she spoke.
“Oh. That’s no good.”
“No. You have to find it.”
“What?” The little girl shook her head again.
She began looking in boxes, opening drawers, flipping through books. Some of them were her law books — all marked up with her notes and underlining. Her mother’s cookbooks were there. Her father’s files. The blackberry vine was sharp and itchy and taking over everything — some things she had to pull away, tearing the pages from the thorns.
Something was vibrating — buzzing. Something nearby. Something that wouldn’t stop.
“YOU HAVE TO FIND IT.”
She pulled apart the piles, digging through things, trying to stave off the blackberry, to try to find the buzzing thing. Was it a bee? Where was it trapped? Every box, every drawer, every book, every page — nothing was buzzing, but it was getting louder, vibrating her feet. She looked at her feet which still had mud on them even after all of that swimming. The vines were starting up her legs.
“YOUR FEET ARE DIRTY.”
“I know that!”
“YOU HAVE TO FIND IT.” The buzzing wouldn’t stop. It was in the walls, the floors — the books and boxes and crap everywhere was shaking with it. Shaking the vines, even though they never stopped spreading. Everything vibrated, moving slowly and then toppling over, everything falling all at once into a new ocean of paper, churning everything in a mix of paper and thorny vines. It covered her and she went down again, unable to find a pocket in all of the pages, unable to move or maneuver or swim anywhere. She couldn’t breathe — she was drowning in all of it. She couldn’t breathe…
Jeannie bolted upright in an almighty gasp, not recognizing where she was. She breathed heavily trying to get her bearings. Fergus was stretched out next to her, and on the other side of Fergus her Dad lay on his back sleeping peacefully. The TV was on at very soft volume, with some old movie playing on TCM. Jeannie blinked at the screen trying to pull her mind together. She’d come in to chat with her Dad before bed, and he’d just started watching Singin’ in the Rain, so she thought she’d watch with him for a while, and then the last thing she remembered was Gene Kelly spinning an umbrella in the rain. She was on top of the bed, with a throw blanket covering her, probably courtesy of Langhi. Fergus raised his head at her in alarm, and she reached out to rub his head, which seemed to bring her back to earth a little.
Her eyes felt heavy and sticky, and she reached up to rub her forehead above her brows.
The buzzing started again, making her jump slightly. She pushed out a long breath and reached for her phone, face down next to her on the bed. There were three missed calls.
“Mark? What time is it?” Her voice sounded strange even to her.
“About 4:45. I’m sorry.” Jeannie pulled the throw blanket around her shoulders and eased off of the bed and out into the hallway.
“No worries — I was having the weirdest dream. What time did you go home?”
“About 11. Look — I won’t get into the details, but it’s a go. I’m not sure about a press conference but it could happen this afternoon. We’ll have to play it by ear. Get to the office and keep working the evidence. We’ll loop you in when we can.”
“Okay. I need to follow up that thing we found in the trench coat, but that shouldn’t take long.”
“Good. Let me know what they say.”
“Good luck.”
“You too.”