Bad Men

“You hear what that raghead motherfucker said?”

“I heard. Forget it.”

The Arab continued talking, even after he’d finished his coffee with a slurp. Tell stood, and Shepherd followed, blocking his partner’s access to the Arab. Tell bobbed on the balls of his feet for a second or two, then turned and walked out.

“Show’s over,” said Shepherd to the barista.

“I guess.” He sounded a little disappointed.

Tell was already waiting in the van across the street, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel. Shepherd got in beside him.

“We going? You know, we got a schedule to keep.”

“No, we ain’t going yet.”

“Fine.”

They waited. Ten minutes later, the Arab emerged. He was still talking on his phone. He climbed into a black SUV, did a U-turn, and headed north.

“I hate SUVs,” said Tell. “They’re a top-heavy cab on a pickup’s chassis, they drive like shit, they’re dangerous, and they’re ecologically unsound.”

Shepherd just sighed.

Tell started the van and began following the SUV. They stayed with the Arab until he turned into an alleyway at the side of a trendy Middle Eastern restaurant. Tell parked, then opened the driver’s door and headed toward the alleyway. Shepherd followed.

“Hey, you prick.”

The Arab turned to see Tell bearing down on him. He tried to hit the alarm button on his car keys, but Tell wrenched them from his hands before he got the chance. He hurled the keys to the ground, tore the Arab’s cell phone from his left hand, and threw it after the keys. Finally, he dragged the Arab around the back of the building, so that they were hidden from the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

“You remember me?” he said. He pushed the Arab against the wall. “I’m Mr. Go-Fuck-Myself. The fuck do you get off talking to me like that? I was polite to you, you fuck. I asked you nice, and what do you do? You disrespect me, you SUV-driving motherfucker.”

He slapped the Arab hard across the face. The Arab’s face contorted with fear. He was fat, with chubby fingers overloaded with gold rings. He was no match for Tell.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you ain’t sorry,” said Tell. “You’re scared, and that ain’t the same thing. I didn’t come down here after you, you wouldn’t have given me a second thought, and next time you was in Starbucks you’d have shouted your damn head off all over again, disturbing people and giving them a pain in the ass.”

He punched the Arab in the nose and felt it break beneath his fist. The Arab curled up, cupping his damaged nose in his hands.

“So don’t tell me you’re sorry. Look at you. My people came over here in chains. I bet you flew your ass over here business class.”

He hit the Arab hard across the head with the palm of his hand.

“Don’t ever let me see you talking on that phone again, motherfucker. You get one warning, and this is it.”

He began to walk away. Behind him, the Arab leaned against the wall, examined the blood on his fingers, then bent down to retrieve his possessions: his car keys first, then his cell phone. The cell phone made a scraping noise against the concrete as he gathered it up.

Tell stopped. He looked back at the Arab.

“You dumb fuck,” he said.

He walked back, drawing his gun from beneath his jacket. The Arab’s eyes widened. Tell kicked him hard in the belly and he fell to the ground. While Shepherd watched, he placed the gun against the Arab’s head and pulled the trigger. The Arab spasmed, and then his fingers slowly released their grip on the phone.

“I warned you,” said Tell. “I did warn you.”

He put the gun back in his belt and rejoined Shepherd. Shepherd cast a last glance back at the dead Arab, then fell into step beside Tell. He looked at his partner in puzzlement.

“I thought your people were from Albany,” he said.

Leonie and Powell sat in silence outside the courthouse, watching as Moloch was led in by the two investigators from the DA’s office. Leonie wore her hair in an Afro and looked, to Powell, a little like one of those kick-ass niggers from the seventies, Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown. Not that Powell would ever have called Leonie a nigger to her face, or even a dyke, although as far as Powell was concerned, she was both. He didn’t doubt for one moment that Leonie would kill him if he uttered either of those words in her presence, and if, by some miracle, he did manage to avoid being killed (and the only way that he could see that happening was if he managed to kill her first), then Dexter would come after him and finish the job. Dexter and Leonie were like brother and sister. Braun seemed to get on okay with her too. Powell wasn’t going to screw around with Dexter and Braun, didn’t matter how many fu

Powell leaned back in his seat and ran his fingers through his long hair, losing them in the curls at the back. Powell was the type of guy who would say “nice mullet” and mean it. His hairstyle was trailer trash crossed with eighties glam metal, and he loved it. His face was u

“It’s hot,” said Powell.

Leonie said nothing.

He looked over at her, but her eyes were fixed on the courthouse. He knew Leonie hated his guts, but that was kind of why he was with her. He was with Leonie and Tell was with Shepherd because he and Tell were the new guys and they had to be watched closely. It was good practice, nothing more, and Powell didn’t resent it. Powell would rather have been with Shepherd, but Tell was such a prickly motherfucker that there was no way of knowing what he might have said to Leonie if he was stuck with her for a day. Shit, they’d be cleaning what was left of him off the inside of the van for the next month. Compared to Tell, Powell was a regular diplomat.

So Powell kept his mouth closed and waited, amusing himself by imagining Leonie in a variety of poses with white girls, Chinese, Latinos, and Powell himself slap bang in the middle. Man, he thought, if she only knew what I was thinking…

Sharon Macy spent the morning doing laundry, collecting her dry cleaning, and generally catching up on all of the stuff she had let pile up while she was working. She then drove out to Gold’s Gym over at the Maine Mall and did her regular cardiovascular workout, spending so long on the StairMaster that her legs felt like marshmallow when she stepped off, and the machine itself was drenched with her sweat. Afterward, she headed over to the Big Sky Bread Company and was tempted to undo all her good work with a Danish, but instead settled for the soup-and-sandwich deal.

She ate in one of the booths while looking over the southern edition of the Forecaster, the free newspaper that dealt with local news in South Portland, Scarborough, and Cape Elizabeth. A cop in the Cape Elizabeth PD was seeking donations of ma