The Photograph Chapter Nine 9.0: Sometimes You're the Windshield...  

9.0:

“… and sometimes you’re the bug, you know?”

No Starbucks this time.

Dunkin Donuts coffee from their To Go shop at the top of the steps at the MARTA station in Peachtree Center. We sat at a table in the food concourse. The lunch rush had thinned as the hands of the lobby clock crept toward 2:00 PM. A steady stream of commuters, business travelers and tourists flowed out of the MARTA station located 120 feet below us and through the food concourse located between the two Peachtree Center towers. Some trailed suitcases on wheels, like kids with their Red Rider wagons in tow, heading for the Hyatt and the Marriott Marquis.

Frank offered a sympathetic shrug after imparting his unique philosophical wit. His eyes darted about, almost nervously and he worked on a piece of gum that he probably started first thing this morning and a thin swizzle straw, shifting the straw from one side of his mouth to the other, while not missing a chew on the old gum.

“Quillen talk to you yet?”

He nodded and shifted the plastic straw to the other side of his mouth.

“I did what you said,” Frank replied resting his elbows on the table. “I told Quillen you were on your own Friday, off duty, just like you said.”

“Thanks,” I said and sipped on the coffee.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “Let me say that right off the bat before we get any deeper into this. I don’t like lying, especially to Bob Quillan.”

I felt like I haven’t slept in days, feeling like a cheap straw being sucked dry from the inside out. The coffee surged through me, a sudden jolt of adrenalin. I closed my eyes and savored the rush.

I was one of those who actually preferred Dunkin Donuts’ coffee to Starbucks. I’ll drink it if someone shoves a cup in my face, but I won’t pay five bucks for a cup.

“F*cking ridiculous,” Frank continued my thought, his never-ending rant against the corporate pillaging of the common man at the hands of a gussied up coffee stand. “Five bucks for a cup of coffee. Give me a Styrofoam cup of Dunkins anytime.”

“Liquid cocaine,” he added with a satisfied smile, and held up the large cup, displaying the logo. “You know what I like best about Dunkin Donuts coffee? They’ll hype you up on the sugar as well, shoveling it in by the spoonful on a large cup to go.”

He held the cup up to the light as if sampling a vintage wine.

“Oh yeah, and at Dunkin Donuts, a f*cking large cup of coffee is a f*cking large cup of coffee … the biggest thing they got... none of this venti or grande bullsh*t either.”

Taking shots at Starbucks was always our way of glossing over the real issues at hand, stalling for a little time until we were ready to talk about the difficult stuff.

“I don’t like lying to him either. He catches sh*t like that in time. Always does. Only thing that kept my mouth shut is that one of us needs a shield if for no other reason than to keep an ear to the road and an eye on the oncoming train. Any hints?”

I nodded.

“Rayford Jackson. Ray Jay on the streets. Another small-time punk a rung or two higher up the food chain ladder than Darius. He was a suspect in a shooting I’d been working when Mary was killed. Bought the farm shortly after all that Y2K stuff. Close associate of Darius Murphy’s. Auto repair bill for $2200 to replace a crushed right front quarter panel on Ray Jay’s 1976 Buick Electra Deuce and a Quarter six days after Mary is run down. Left town for a long vacation right afterwards. No one can find this guy. It’s like he walks off the face of the Earth. Two years later he suddenly reappears on the ATL radar. A week later he dies. He’d crashed at Murphy’s place when he came back to town. Drive-by shooting in Darius’s front yard. A half a dozen case files were closed when Ray Jay took the dirt nap, mine included. His was the only name I had in connection to Mary’s case though. He might have been the driver of the car that hit her. He was never brought in for questioning and we never found the 225. I imagine it had been reduced to a block of scrap metal shortly after Ray Jay blew town.”

“Ray Jay,” Frank rolled the name over his tongue, as if savoring a jelly donut. “Hadn’t heard that name in some time.”

“Darius seemed to imply that there might have been someone else in the car besides Ray Jay.”

“No idea who that other person might be.”

I shook my head no.

“None.”

“As tenuous as that thread might be, it’s still a thread,” Frank said with a flick of the swizzle stick. “It’s a place to start, a first step. Any idea where to start with it?”

“I’ve got a couple,” I replied and left it at that, Darius Murphy’s cryptic warning still echoing about my head.

Trust no one.