Locust Lane(42)
And then there was Procopio. He’d had enough of that prick for one lifetime. He couldn’t believe they’d made that knuckle-dragging brownshirt a detective. Although perhaps it shouldn’t have been that surprising. Bullies with badges seemed to be all the rage these days.
The incident with him had been Gabi’s first actual arrest. There’d been a few near misses with the authorities before that, the closest being when she was picked up in Framingham in the company of a couple of veteran junkies. One of them had tossed a bindle of heroin on Gabi’s lap as they were being pulled over. Luckily, this transaction was viewed by a tall, broad-chested police sergeant named Marquez. He’d met Patrick in the station’s lobby an hour later, where Gabi sat shivering on a bench, clutching a small collapsed bottle of supermarket water. He explained that she was not under arrest, although he made it clear that he could have charged her, as he had her two running mates, who had record sheets the length of Russian novels. But he could see that she was a good kid who came from a good family. Truth be told, he was arresting too many people like her these days. She belonged in rehab, not jail. Muttering his strangulated thanks, Patrick had collected his child and carted her off to detox.
Procopio had proved a very different story. By chance, Patrick had been present for the actual arrest. It took place just outside of Whole Foods, which his daughter had just exited with a forty-three-dollar cut of tenderloin in her purse. Evidently her dealer was a steak enthusiast and willing to barter. Patrick was returning—alone, thank God—from a client lunch. He was on foot; it was a beautiful summer day, hot but free of humidity. He saw a lit cruiser first, then a small crowd gathered by the front of the store. He would have kept on walking if he hadn’t spotted his old Cornell football jersey, hanging loosely from Gabi’s painfully thin shoulders. She stood beside the latest junkie boyfriend, a cadaverous figure who looked like he’d received his neck tattoos in an earthquake. Both wore plastic cuffs. They were faced by a uniformed Procopio and the store manager, a bearded, aproned man who looked more worried about the forty dollars’ worth of meat slow-cooking on a nearby bench than the human drama unfolding before him.
Gabi briefly met her father’s eye as he arrived. Her pupils were pinpoints, her lids thick. Patrick identified himself. At first, Procopio wouldn’t acknowledge him. But Patrick insisted, finally forcing the officer to reveal that she was under arrest for shoplifting.
“Can’t we just settle this here?” Patrick asked.
“You’ll need to come to the station.”
“But I’m standing right here.”
Procopio went back to ignoring him. Patrick looked at Gabi. He felt no anger. These days it was only pity and damage control. And a crippling desire to break the voodoo thrall of the poison coursing through her veins; to bundle her into his car and drive her to five years ago. She sensed his gaze and met his eye, as if finally understanding now what was happening.
“Dad,” she said.
He nodded. He’d take care of it.
“Come on, this isn’t necessary,” he said to the cop. “Just write her a summons. I’ll make sure she shows. We’ll pay whatever needs to be paid.”
Procopio didn’t answer. Nor did he move to take her away.
“Can I do something about this?” the manager asked.
For a moment, Patrick thought he’d found an ally, but the man was referring to the steak. Procopio nodded. The manager snatched it up and disappeared into the building, trailing an archipelago of pinkish droplets. At this point the tattooed boy chose to make his sole contribution to the proceedings, a contemptuous guffaw that came to an end the moment the cop looked at him.
This was absurd. Passersby were watching. His friends and neighbors. Were they going to stand here all day? They might as well break out the communal stocks. Patrick wondered what would happen if he simply took his daughter gently by the arm and led her away. That plastic band could be easily clipped off at home. But of course that was not possible. The other man had the gun and the badge and the whole massive apparatus of the law behind him. Plus, he was an asshole.
The reason for the delay became clear when a second officer arrived. A woman, a state trooper. Procopio said a few words to her and she took control of the tattooed zombie and led him to her car. Procopio put his hand on Gabi’s emaciated triceps and conducted her off toward his vehicle. Patrick continued to appeal as he followed them to his cruiser. As they reached it, he may have veered a little too close to the officer, causing Procopio to turn angrily on him.
“Sir, you need to stand back,” he said, loud enough for anyone within a hundred feet to hear.
Patrick held his eye for a moment. He hadn’t been addressed in that tone since he wore the jersey currently hanging so loosely from his daughter’s shoulders. He’d never really had a problem with cops—why would he?—but at that moment he hated the man standing in front of him more than anyone in his life. Later, his wife would suggest that what he really hated was his own powerlessness. Perhaps. But he also hated this fucking cop.
Patrick took a step back as Procopio placed his daughter in the back of the cruiser; he watched them drive off. At the station, he learned he’d have to wait until five to bail her out, during which time she was locked in a small, windowless cell. It was there, he came to believe, that something finally broke in her, an invisible fracture that slowly deepened as she went from detox to rehab and then right back to the streets; a fracture that would soon leave her dead in the men’s room of a McDonald’s in some godforsaken precinct of Boston where no one Patrick knew ever went.