Nothing had changed at the Rampa

Nothing had changed at the Rampart Station in the four days since I had last visited. Somehow, an interior decorator had not arrived to liven up the hostile and battered milieu, and the watch sergeant with the bulbous veined nose barely grunted as I said in passing that I was there to see Farley Nuckolls.

Farley was in his cubicle, dressed more casually than I had remembered seeing him in some time, in a pullover sport shirt and khakis, and no tie or jacket. His Panama hat, his tribute to stoicism and unbending will, sat to his right on the printer. A coffee cup sat on his blotter, two thirds finished, in the middle of an expansive ring created by all the past cups of coffee consumed there. Farley had a tendency to take compulsion to previously untrammeled reaches.

“So,” he said as I leaned against the wall of his cubicle, “how’s the moose?”

“You’re going to need to explain that.”

“When I was in Korea,” he said, pronouncing it Koe-Rear, “lots of the commissioned pukes would find them some local belly-warmer to hold off the cold winter nights. Didn’t matter if the officer was married, it wasn’t really cheating, since it was the only alternative they had besides spanking the monkey under the sheets. So the local women who they took up with were called their moose.”

He pointed his pencil at me.

“That’s what you are, Gallegher. You’re Lucho Braga’s moose.”

I sat in the seat across from him, trying to remember my Steps.

“You don’t know me well enough to call me that,” I said. “Besides, I come bearing gifts.”

He snorted, and wiped his nose with a monogrammed handkerchief he grabbed from his back pocket.

“That’ll be the day. What’s it this time? Anthrax?”

“Jimmy Binh killed that girl, Farley. You know he did.”

“Big deal,” he said, replacing the handkerchief. “Knowing and proving is two different things. Bring me some real evidence.”

“I’m not here about Binh. I can give you the kid that killed Hotshot.”

Up until that moment, I don’t think he had even focused on me clearly. He dropped the papers he was reading, and pulled his reading glasses from his nose.

“Okay,” he said.

“Kid’s name is Dust Trufant. He’s a member of the Haitian gang that’s aligned with Phang Loc, just as we thought.”

“Have you passed this little tidbit along to Braga?”

“Yeah, through one of his flunkies, last night.”

He nodded, and put the glasses back on, and reached for one of the reports on his desk.

“So there you are,” he said. “Moose on the loose.”

I cleared my throat. This was more difficult than I had expected.

“It’s like this,” I said, “This Dust Trufant kid has disappeared. The guy who told me about him doesn’t know where he is. It’s a sure bet Braga hasn’t got a clue. I thought, maybe, the police could get to him first.”

He put the paper back down.

“And then what?”

“Then maybe we can work together, put him away.”

“Uh huh,” he said, reaching for his coffee. He took a sip, and made a sour face. “Achh, cold. Walk with me, Gallegher, while I get some fresh coffee and try to talk some sense into you.”

I followed him down the hall to the watch room lounge. He carefully rinsed the cup out in the sink while he talked, as if any remnants of the old coffee might contaminate the fresh.

“So you’re gonna get on the stand, identify this kid?” he asked.

“I figured that’s how it would go.”

“You wanna hear all the reasons why that’s a stupid idea?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “First, you testify against this kid, and maybe he gets sent to Angola for killing Hotshot. Maybe he doesn’t. What is he, sixteen, seventeen?”

“My guy says seventeen.”

“So maybe he gets off as a youthful offender, and that means a trip to the Youth Camp, and he gets out sometime in the next two years on good behavior. But let’s be confident. Let’s get optimistic and hope for the best, justice-wise. Let’s say he gets bound over and the judge has a hard-on for youthful gang-bangers, and he sends the kid to Angola for a fifteen or twenty year dip. You know what happens next?”

I shook my head.

“Man, it’s a good thing I never busted your ass for any of those guys you killed. You wouldn’t last a long weekend up there. This kid, Trufant, walks into Angola, and in no time he’s not Trufant anymore, he’s a blue light special. If the Aryan Brotherhood doesn’t shank him for killing a white man, even a greaseball like Hotshot, he’s going to become Anybody’s Boytoy. He’ll be sweating HIV viruses in six months. You’ll be able to throw curve balls up his ass. Might be more humane to just let Braga take him out.”

“Gee, Farley,” I said, “Is there a downside to this?”

“I was getting to that. While Monsieur Trufant is up at Building K getting reamed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you know what’s going to happen to you?” Again he didn’t wait. “Nothing, my friend, because you are going to be resting comfortably over in St. Louis Cemetery. These Haitian punks do not take kindly to whitey fingering their boys. You’ll be walking down Toulouse one night, some car pulls alongside, and zip-a-dee-doo-da, you’re toast. I just don’t think you’ve thought this thing all the way through.”

He left the lounge to return to his cubicle, presuming, I suppose, that I would follow. So I did.

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

He settled into his chair, sipped at the coffee, and emitted a satisfied sigh.

“You’re a smart guy, got that Ph.D. and all that. Tell you what you want to do. You go back to your apartment, and you go through all those books you got stacked against that wall, and you find some plans for a time machine. Then you build that bad boy, and you go back in time about five days, and you cancel that dinner you had with Hotshot Spano.”

I tried not to sound snide, since that would have made two of us.

“Or?”

“Or, what? I’m fresh out of options. You already sold the kid out to Braga. What are you doing here? Trying to play both sides of the street? Looking for a little expiation? Hoping to balance the books on your soul? Go talk to Father Dag, man. That’s his business. I got work to do.”

I started to leave, but stopped at the edge of his makeshift office.

“I thought this was your work, catching killers.”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes never leaving his papers. “Look what a good job I did putting you away. Don’t let the door bang your ass on the way out.”