The World in Reverse Read online

  “Where is he?”

  “Your old stomping ground. 400 Walker Avenue. About two blocks south of the college.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  Nicola flipped a U-turn in the road and turned on his flashers. Siren erupted as he pushed past the traffic. This was his first possible concrete lead and it had his stomach all knotted up. A crack head with Intel? It was hard to believe, but he had seen some strange things in his time on the force.

  Ten minutes later he was in front of an impoverished old, broken down two-story home that used to be something back in the day. He knew because Brooks had owned the property and used it as a half-way house for guys who were trying to get a new start on life after serving time. Now, however, since Brooks’ death, the place had fallen prey to the elements and the environment.

  His old unit, Narc, had an impressive line of habitual abusers lined up on the sidewalk, arms behind them, handcuffed and Mirandized. Everyone knew him when he pulled up. Both the perps and the cops looked his way. Evidently, it had not been that long since he had been out here cleaning up the streets, because the drug dealers who were standing by the cops started shaking their heads and curse, like definite trouble was coming their way.

  “Agosto!” the lead guy on the Narc unit screamed out. “Come over here.”

  Nicola laughed and closed his door. “Another day at the office, huh?”

  “Shit. You know how we do it,” Sgt. Cruzan said, taking off his black Rayban shades. “I was told to hold a gift for you.”

  “I was told to be grateful,” Nicola answered, shaking Cruzan’s hand.

  “The little shit is separated from the others. Started crying like a little bitch when I slap the cuffs on him.”

  Nicola looked around. “Where is he?”

  “In the unmarked across the street. The motherfucker should be grateful. The rest of us are sweating our balls off out here. We put him in the car with the air running so he wouldn’t pass out before you got here.”

  “You know him?” Nicola asked.

  “Yeah. He’s low level Gangster’s Cross. He was getting high on meth when we raided the shit hole.”

  Nicola chuckled. “He’s on that white-boy drug, huh?”

  “Looks like it.” Cruzan waved at the cop standing beside the unmarked down and screamed over. “Hey, let Agosto have the snitch.” Cruzan looked back over at Nicola. “His name is DeMario Washington. He’s got a sheet two miles long.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Nicola said, wiping sweat off his brow.

  Cruzan cracked open a water bottle. “So, how did the news conference go today? Are you a superstar now?”

  “Shit, I hope not. It’s pretty hard to do my job when everybody knows my face.”

  “Maybe they are prepping you for a nice cushiony desk job. No more working the field,” Cruzan said with a raised brow.

  “Don’t say that shit, man. I’d die on the desk,” Nicola said with a frown. The thought had never crossed his mind before.

  The officer leaning on the hood of the car across the street nodded at Cruzan and went to the back of the car to pull out Nicola’s prize.

  DeMario wasn’t much to look at. Barely six feet tall and skinny, he had long black dreads, jean shorts sagging under his dirty white boxers and a half-torn, filthy wife beater on that showed his less than muscular physique.

  Nicola walked over to the perp and grabbed his handcuffs. “Walk with me,” he said, nodding thank you to the uniformed officer.

  “Eh, man, you ain’t gotta snatch me like I’m some kind of bitch,” DeMario said, pulling away.

  “One more yank from you, and it’ll be resisting.” Nicola turned him around and looked down into the young man’s dilated eyes. “You want to resist me?” he asked with a growl in his voice, brow furrowed and chest stuck out, showing the broadness of his concrete chest.

  Suddenly, the boisterous perp didn’t like the conflict. He immediately changed his tune. “I don’t want no trouble, man. Hey, I called for you.” The stench of unwashed arm pits wafted up. “I’m trying to help you out,” he said, revealing a tarnished, gold upper grill.

  Nicola stepped back as his smell permeated the corner. “Help me out by not talking or raising your stank ass arms until we get to our destination then.”

  “Oh, I see you one of them funny cops,” the man said, rolling his eyes.

  “I’ll be here all week,” Nicola said, giving him a shove. “To my truck. Let’s go.” Raising his arm, he thanked Cruzan. “Appreciate it,” he screamed across the street. His baritone voice boomed over the officers loading the wagon with offenders.

  “Any time,” Cruzan yelled back.

  ***

  The rank smell of the perp handcuffed in the backseat was getting to Nicola, even though he had smelled a hundred dead bodies. Letting the windows down a quarter of the way to filter good air in, he also turned up the AC and drove quietly to his off-site interrogation center. Every once in a while, he would check his rearview mirror to see what the guy was doing behind him, but he doubted much.

  “Aye, man, these handcuffs are hurting my hands,” the guy complained.

  “If they are hurting your hands, then I wouldn’t be good at my job. They are hurting your wrists,” Nicola corrected.

  “Whatever. You know what I mean,” DeMario said, rolling his eyes. “Where are you taking me anyway?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “I know my rights, and I ain’t new to this shit. You’re supposed to take me downtown to 201,” the man said, looking out the window.

  “Well, if you know so much, then why are you asking me questions?”

  The perp got quiet for a minute and then sat his head back anxiously looking at the roof of the truck. “This your ride?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why don’t you have to drive an unmarked like the rest of the pigs?”

  Nicola didn’t answer his question, but did ask one of his own. “So, why did you ask for me?”

  The perp cracked a smile. “Cuz I know shit.” His lip turned up as he cut his devious, red eyes.

  “You know shit, huh. Let me get you to the location, and you can pour your little heart out,” Nicola said, following protocol. There was no way he was going to mess up good intel by letting him talk before he could get him in a confession hole.

  Evidently, Nicola must have hit a nerve with the perp because he looked back out of the window and pursed his chapped lips together. “How far are we away, because I gotta piss?”

  “Hold it.”

  “So you don’t care if I piss in your truck?”

  “You piss in it; you clean it.”

  There was a long pause as if the man was thinking hard about something. He watched the streets as they passed by them and took a deep breath.

  “Aye. You’re Nicola Agosto. The Agosto, right? The motherfucker who popped Caesar?” he asked.

  “The one and only. Don’t’ worry, pal. I’ve popped a few more since then.” Nicola checked his mirrors and moved carefully into the right lane.

  “Yeah, I know your ass,” the man taunted.

  “What do you know OG, triple OG?” Nicola asked, unmoved by the man. He couldn’t wait to hear this.

  “I know you live at 4673 Peabody with Ivy Winters,” he said with a grin on his face.

  “That information is public and can be found on the internet,” Nicola said with a huff. “Good try though. Clever actually.” He smiled into the rearview mirror at the man.

  There was a brief moment of silence where all that could be heard was the sound of cars passing and wind blowing through the windows. Nicola settled back into the drive and thought no more of the man’s taunts.

  But the perp wasn’t satisfied just yet.

  “Maybe I should rephrase my statement,” he said, when he’d finally built up the courage.

  “You live at 4673 Peabody with Ivy Winters and four bad ass kids. Then there is one on the way, right? I know that the dead cop, Brooks, has a
baby with Ivy’s best friend. I know that you spend most nights on a fucking case and that yo’ bitch don’t like sleeping alone. And I know that if you don’t stop barking up the wrong tree the same thing that happened to the Naples brats is gone happen to yours. Bound. Gagged and fucked. That’s gone be all you, dude. And yo’ wife is gon’ find out what number three feels like. Who knows? It might just be better than what you’re doing? That tripped me out though. Your wife has only been with two men? You really believe that shit? Man, that bitch probably don’ been with a whole set of niggas. Lined up taping that ass like a ho at frat house, you hear me.” He laughed, this time sure that he had gotten Nicola’s attention.

  Nicola’s foot let up off the gas as he heard the words. “What did you just say?” he asked as a car blared its horn behind him. Incensed, he rolled the window down and waved the car past him as he turned on his blue siren quickly to let the woman know that she was two seconds from getting shot today.

  As the car drove slowly by, Nicola pulled over to the side of Union in front of the Kroger’s grocery store and turned around in his seat. His eyes were clouded with death and destruction.

  “Yeah, I bet I got your attention then,” the perp said with a clever grin. However, his nervousness was apparent. Still, he pushed Nicola further. “Not so bad now, are you?”

  “Who are you working for?” Nicola growled.

  “That’s the last of your worries,” the perp said, sucking his teeth. “Just tell me this, how did a greasy head pig like you end up with a black woman that fine? Man, I know you ain’t hitting it right. I don’t’ care what they say.”

  “Who is they?” Before Nicola could ask the question, his hand was on the handle of the car door, opening it as he barreled out.

  As if without thought at all in a mechanical motion, he snatched open the back door and pulled the perp out by his skinny, sweaty neck. Slamming him against the side of the truck, he pulled out his side arm and pointed it at him.

  “What the fuck did you say about my wife and kids?” Nicola asked, pushing the gun into the perps right eye socket. “I’m waiting, bitch. You got something else smart to say or you wanna start talking?”

  “You gone do me right here?” The perp smiled, toothy and cocky, feeling safe now that he was in full view of the public. “Fuck you, nigga. You ain’t gone do shit. You ain’t shit without that badge, and you ain’t got do a motherfucking thing but lock me up, so fuck you.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to do shit, huh,” Nicola asked, cocking his gun. Onlookers slowed down to watch as Nicola shoved the gun into the man’s mouth and broke out his two front teeth. “I will blow your fucking worthless ass head off right here. So help me God, I swear that if you don’t start talking, I’m going to lose my job right after you lose your life.” His hands were shaking with anger. “Now, I know that your stank, nasty, broke punk ass didn’t just find that information out. You’re working for someone. Who is it?” He pulled the gun out of his mouth, just long enough for him to answer.

  The perp swallowed a gurgling breath and spit out thick blood and broken, jagged teeth. “It doesn’t really matter what you do to me. You should be worried about your kids. Trust that. They are going to end up in garbage cans too. You can add them to the Baby Boys Case list. Take the count from 4 to 8.” He laughed even in writhing, excruciating pain.

  The pictures of the children that Nicola had pulled out of the darkest, dingiest places in Memphis flashed through Nicola’s head, and before he knew it, he was beating the man with the butt of the gun.

  “Who do you work for, huh?” Nicola screamed. He hit him again. “Who the fuck do you work for?”

  The perp fell hard after the heart stopping blows to his face and skull, but Nicola picked him back up and slammed his head against the side of the truck. Blood splattered as he cracked the tinted window glass.

  The fragile man buckled under the pressure of Nicola’s blows.

  “Get your punk ass up!” Nicola screamed snatching and tearing his dirty t-shirt. “Get. The. Fuck. Up!!!” His voice echoed across the street as he pointed the gun at the man’s head.

  The entire front grill of the perp’s mouth was gone and thick red blood spewed out.

  Nicola ignored the man’s state.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time, and if I don’t get an answer out of you, I’m going to start breaking shit right here, right fucking now! Who are you working for, who sent you to me with this shit?”

  Again, the man said nothing.

  Nicola snatched him up again and hammered a quick, dead on punch to the gut that made the man double over again, this time out of breath and panting.

  By now, Nicola was in a rabid trance. Putting his wide forearm on the man’s throat and pushing into his Adam’s apple, he penned him against the truck.

  “Talk,” Nicola growled.

  Barely able to speak, the man held his secret. “I ain’t saying shit to you,” the man said with a crooked, pained grin. “You already did what I wanted.” He gave a blood, stomach-curdling smile. “You fucked up.”

  Just as he said the words, two police cars pulled up beside Nicola’s truck and jumped out. “Put your hands up in the air!” all four police officers screamed.

  “I’m a cop,” Nicola said, refusing to let the man go. With one hand pushing the perps neck into the broken glass, he used the other to lift his badge. “Step off. I am interrogating this prisoner.” He turned back to the perp. “Who sent you?” Nicola asked again, choking him out with the deadly grip he had on his neck. “Who sent you?!!”

  “Help me!” the man screamed to the other police officers. “Please help me. This cop is crazy. He called me a nigga and beat the fuck out of me because I told him that I had to piss, man. Help me!”

  “Shut your lying ass mouth!” Nicola screamed. “Unless you’re going to tell me who sent you…”

  “Sir, let go of the prisoner and put your hands in the air!” the white, female uniform cop screamed, weapon pointed. She stepped closer, both hands grasping the handle of her department issued Glock.

  “He’s in my custody,” Nicola said, watching him start to black out.

  “Not anymore, sir. Let him go now!” she ordered. “My lieutenant is on the way. You can square it with him when he arrives, but right now, I need you to step away from the prisoner.

  “Or what?” Nicola seethed at the woman. “You are a fucking beat cop.”

  The woman stepped closer. “And you’re being recorded, sir,” she said, moving her gaze across the street. “We’ve received several 911 calls. You have to release him to me.”

  Nicola turned to look at the audience that he had acquired in the short time since he had pulled over. Onlookers stood on the sidewalk recording with their phones, others stood with their hands over their mouths as cars slowed to watch the spectacle. It was then that he realized that he had let his emotions get the best of him.

  “We’re nowhere near done,” Nicola promised the man with a snarl. “If it’s the last thing you do, you’re going to answer me.”

  Releasing the man from the chokehold, Nicola let the perp slide down the truck and hit the pavement, nearly unconscious and gasping for air. Immediately, the uniform officers rushed over to help.

  “We need a bus!” the female officer screamed out as she bent down and checked his pulse. “Hold on, sir. Help is coming.”

  “Help?” Nicola asked appalled. “Fuck him. He just threatened my family.” He walked back to his door and flung it open.

  “Sir, where are you going?” the female police officer asked Nicola.

  “I’m going to check on my family,” Nicola said, getting inside of the truck. “I don’t need your fucking permission.”

  “Sir, you cannot leave the scene,” the male officer said in his most authoritative tone.

  “Is there a crime here?” Nicola asked, hearing the perp convulsing on the ground.

  The female cop was shocked that he even asked. “Sir…” she paused in disbel
ief at the scene. “Look at him.” Her brow furrowed. Was he serious?

  “Detective Agosto, you cannot leave,” the male officer said, turning around to see another unmarked squad car pull up. “Step out of your vehicle.”

  It was Detective Johnson.

  Nicola stepped out slowly, fighting his urge to flee.

  Johnson jumped out of the car and ran up. “What the fuck, Agosto?” he said, hand on his gun. He stopped and looked at the guy on the ground. “Shit, he needs a bus.”

  “Already called one, sir,” the female officer answered.

  “Can you handle this?” Nicola asked Johnson, grabbing his cell phone. He dialed Ivy.

  “Where are you going?” Johnson asked Agosto. He grabbed Nicola’s phone and hung it up. “No calls. Nothing. Nada, you hear me. Fuck, Agosto!”

  Nicola wasn’t hearing Johnson. “I gotta get home. This guy just threatened my family, and he knows very personal shit about my wife and my kids. They aren’t safe.” Biting down on his lip, he kicked the tire of his truck and ran a frustrated hand through is hair.

  Johnson gave in and passed him the phone. “You can’t fucking leave, Agosto.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said dialing Ivy. Her phone went straight to voicemail. His voice quivered in sheer worry. “Baby, it’s me. When you get this call me back. But look there has been an emergency. Go and get the kids and head to your parent’s house. Leave work. Trust me on this okay. Do what I ask and call me as soon as you get this message. Love you. Bye.” He hung up in a huff.

  “Dude, you can’t go,” Johnson said sincerely. He put his hand on Nicola’s chest to stop him. Nicola quickly pushed his hand off his chest.

  Trying to reason with Agosto, he stepped back with open hands, palms out. “Trust me. You don’t want to leave the scene of this shit.” He looked over at the perp on the ground. “Is the bus on the way?” he asked the female cop tending to the guy.

  “It should be pulling up,” she answered, checking the perps pulse. “Stay with me, sir.”

  Johnson sucked his teeth. Normally, he would have accused her of being overly dramatic, but this time, it was warranted.. He turned back to Nicola and shook his head. Lowering his voice, he pleaded, “Man, look you gotta come up with a story,” he whispered to Agosto, making sure no one heard him. His eyes were urgent, his voice tense with emotion. “You got a drop gun on you or something? I’ve got one in the car…”