Three

rough child, as many of the urchins of the city are, he avoided the gangs that infested the city streets. He would get in fights at his private school across town, but back in the neighborhood Roger was a perfect little angel.

  One of the reasons why he was an angel at home was that was when he would have to face his father. Usually, his mother would handle all of the meetings with the principals and counselors.

  “Your dad doesn't need to know about this,” his mother would say. “He's got enough going on without having to worry about what trouble you are getting in to. Oh, Roger, can't you just be a good boy?”

  Once father was home, he certainly could. Despite being a rambunctious dervish in the week days, he quickly learned that being a good boy meant fishing trips with his father. They would go away from the city by themselves for a few days. Due to the city's impact on the local ecology, they often would not catch anything. But with fishing, it's rarely the catch that counts. Once home, mother would always have some fresh meal prepared. Roger use to think that it took her all weekend to whip together such feasts.

  On these trips, his father would talk. Roger learned that frequently silence equated into being a good boy. So, daddy would talk and Roger would listen with great attentiveness. Roger's father would bestow many lessons and stories, some he was not allowed to tell his mother. Secrets between father and son. Roger felt like they were precious. However, one thing stood out in Roger's mind.

  “You see this, boy?” His father said. He put down his fishing pole in the boat and pointed to his hand. Roger looked at his father's worn hands. Roger looked over all of the scabs and half healed cuts on his father's hands. “The ring, Roger.”

  Roger saw what he meant. A shining silver band around his father's index finger. It didn't match at all with the man's hands. While his father's hands were rapt and cracked on the surface, the silver ring was pristine as the day it was forged, Roger imagined. Roger reached out and felt the band. He looked up at his father.

  “This is my ring. It was my father's ring. Someday, it'll be your ring, Roger.”

  Roger always remembered that. The words were just words. A promise. Promises can be broken, weather someone means to or not. But more so than the simple syllables, Roger remembered his father's eyes. Deeper than the lake underneath them. Roger thought he could see a ripple waver through his dad's pupils.

  Roger's father never talked about work much. So it surprised Roger when he found his father's body one morning out in the country. They had been fishing the previous day and were supposed to go home that morning. Though tears blurred Roger's vision, he approached his father's still body and noticed two things. A green post it note stuck to his father's chest. And that his father's silver ring was missing.

  Just business the note said.

  That was five years ago. Five years that Roger spent stewing and studying. His mother had emotionally shut down after the murder. She moved them out to the countryside. Said it made her think of his father. Although it pained Roger to do it, he ran away from home after five years of witnessing his mother's decay.

  A young boy on the streets may cause alarm, but Roger blended in. He had inherited his father's dark hair and rapidly spreading facial hair. For an eighteen year old, one could mistake him for a firm twenty five. He landed a job in a meat packing factory and found a room in a local boarding house. Roger kept his first name, but for official purposes, he adopted his father's first name as his last. Roger Alexander.

  It did not take long for Roger Alexander to hit the town.

  “Tell me what you know about the Videl operation,” Roger said. Smoke was rising all around him. The dim lights of the lounge he was in added a lovely body to the clouds of smoke.

  “Sorry, bud, I don't talk to cops.”

  Roger looked at this man's fingers for the third time then into his eyes. “Well, you aren't talking to a cop, big guy. You are a person talking to a person, that's all.”

  “If I tell you something about the Videl operation, you know what is going to happen to me?” The man asked. He clutched the sides of his vest and pulled it tighter around his large body. Gold chains around his neck jingled in the motion.

  “If you don't tell me about the Videls then I know what is going to happen to you. The same thing that happened to your goons out on Westwood. How is Malcolm's jaw by the way? I'm surprised he got the message to you through the wire they put in.”

  “Listen, man, what do you want to know? There's a lot of information to the Videls. Just sitting down and telling me to tell you about it doesn't exactly provide a whole lot of clarity, you know?

  “Tell me about Alexander Dumas.” Roger could see the large man in front of him squirm at the name.

  “Alexander Dumas. I haven't heard that name in a long time.”

  “That's because he's dead, right?”

  “Oh so, you know? Well, shit, what do you need me for?”

  “A multitude of reasons,” Roger said, learning forward. He could smell the dirty aroma of tobacco fuming from the man's mouth. “Namely to find the person responsible.”

  “Woah there, buddy,” The man said. Roger could see translucent pearls of sweat erupt from his exposed chest. Slowly rusting the multiple chains the man had around his neck. “I do not like where this is going. Nope. Not at all. You have a good day.”

  He got up. Roger could hear the chains jingling on his ascent. Roger slammed his hand down on the table in front of him. The large man stopped as he stood. Empty glasses with tears of melted ice fell to the ground and shattered. Luckily, the steady growl of the noisy lounge kept the violent noise to just Roger and the fat man. Roger made a slow, steady motion for him to sit back down. The fat man rolled his eyes and obliged.

  “Now you just listen to reason here. You go to the Videls, tell them something's up, they are going to kill me. That's a given. But, what does that make you?” The man folded his arms and shook his head as he sat back. Smirking as if he was calling a poker bluff. “A liability. At worst a snitch. Now, I know I'm asking questions about the Videls, but I have a pretty firm idea what they do with snitches.” The fat man laughed. Though Roger had kept his composure in this interrogation, for once he felt the power of the conversation slip through his fingers. He pressed on, with a shaking voice. “You tell them about me, they will kill me and more than likely kill you. You don't tell me anything, they catch me. Before they drop me in Lake Placid, I mention your name and you come join me for a nice long swim.”

  “It seems to me,” Roger said as he felt his shaking hands calm. He had witness the fat mans dismissive eyes widen into fruition. It did not seem to be fear. The man was not shaking or breathing heavily, despite his weight. “That your best course of action is to tell me what you know. Not to help me, but to protect yourself.”

  “Well,” the fat man said. “You've put me in quite a predicament. Fine. Tell ya what. I'll give you something. You can try to break down the rest of this nonsense yourself. I give you something, you get a fair chance at whatever you want, and we're good. Okay? Is that agreeable with you?” Roger nodded. “The Videls travel by a special car. You would expect to find them in a long white limousine or something along those lines. Truth is, they travel in a worn brown sedan for their meetings. Look for tinted windows.” The fat man gave Roger a specific tag number for the vehicle, but suggested that they may have changed it, as they frequently do. Roger patted the man's large knuckles. He felt the man's gold ring. It had a ruby embedded in it's mouth, like a crown of prehistoric blood. Roger felt his skin shiver as he walked away.

  “By the way, Roger,” the fat man called out behind him. Before letting him continue, Roger interrupted.

  “How do you know who I am?” He asked in a hushed voice. He had to get close to the fat face to get the message through the wire.

  “Roger, come on. I was at your Christening. It's Uncle Ramon. Not by blood, but you know. Listen, kid. I want to tell you something I told your dad. Get a good pair of socks.”

 
“Socks?”

  “Yeah, socks. I told your dad this and now I'm telling you. Get a good pair of socks. A good pair of dress socks can carry you places you could never imagine. Your dad didn't listen, but your father was a stern man as you know. I miss him. We would meet for lunch frequently right here in this lounge. That's why I asked you to come here. The Videls can be a vile bunch. After you do whatever you do, just go get a nice pair of socks. Just do that for me, alright? Tell them Ramon sent you.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I will.”

  “Good,” Ramon said. He stood up and straightened his ruffled blazer. “Who knows, Rog, I might see you there. I'm gonna get a pair myself. My socks are feeling pretty thin. Probably about to get holey.”

  Roger circulated in the city streets like a blood cell for hours. Infected with sickle cell, he was a walking time bomb. Tension was building in him until eventually he would erupt into the city, taking at least one other blood cell with him. Roger walked for miles through the mass circulatory system of Oldtown, down the thin vein like streets and up the massively populated arteries of downtown. He passed through the city in a circle. Over and over again, searching for what he wanted. Roger saw the same cluttered streets and rancid sights with each pass he made, but was unfazed. More than once, he passed a store.

  Watson's