The desire to know led us to the apartment of Sidney, the not so friendly neighbourhood shooter. We'd got the address from the guy's wallet the night before. I was definitely in the wrong job if these guys could afford the apartment me and Jack found ourselves in. Judging by the arsenal under the mattress we'd come to the right place.
The guns were immaculate. Cleaned and primed to perfection. I've never owned a gun that cost more than a hundred bucks so who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Once I'd packed them in the duffel bag I found under the bed I went to see what Jackie Boy had come up with anything. A digital camera and bad taste in music apparently was the sum of his haul.
Once home we laid our findings out on the table just as Jerry walked through the front door, shaking his head at the mess he saw the house was in. I knew he was right. Ma would be disappointed in us if she knew the state of the place. I can see her face even now. She had that way about her, she never got angry she just got this look and that look was worse than any beating any one of us took before we became Mercers'.
I had planning to do that night and wasn't about to waste time with cleaning. Without missing a beat I shouted to Sofi to get the place cleaned up. I didn't really expect her to hurl a dish cloth at me. Angel must have taught her to throw though, as she missed.
The camera Jack found proved the most useful find of the night as it revealed numerous photos of Ma with her lawyer, Bradford. If they had all been taken on the same day I would have left it at that, but there was over thirty photos taken over a period of two weeks. At that point I knew this lawyer must have known more about Ma than he had let on to at the will reading.
Angel turned up just in time for the family road trip. Sofi wasn't happy, something about a meal and quality time. I stopped listening the minute she opened her mouth.
If I'd have known then what I know now I might have picked up on the tension between Angel and Jeremiah but, as always, unless its written on a billboard in ten foot high letters I suck at picking up on moods.
Bradford's house was exactly what you'd expect for a rich upstanding member of the community. Shame he didn't invest in a quality alarm system, it would have stopped us breaking the window in the study door, okay maybe not stopped but we might have thought twice. Maybe he thought his cotton ball on legs was enough protection, ha, only if you can be licked to death.
Jack was the one to call up the lawyer's diary on the computer, and notice E.M. entered a lot of times, stretching back almost a year. As my lawyer's have said in the past, the evidence was purely circumstantial. It was like doing dot-to-dot without the dots being numbered, to get the full picture we were going to have to talk to the guy.
As my mind came up with this the peaceful night was shattered by the screech of a car horn and the howl of a Latino banshee. The crazy girl had followed us and was hell bent on exposing what we were up to. I know Angel loves her from the bottom of his heart, and I hate to hurt my brothers, but damn I was willing to silence that girl permanently that night.
To make matters worse, as we left the house to silence Sofi, pulling into the driveway was none other than the owner of the house. Not that I'm predictable or anything but I acted without thinking, pulling the man from his car and trying to slap some information out of him.
The information we got was not what I had expected. Sure Ma had dated whilst we were all growing up but no one stuck around long once they realised she had four boys with records as long as their arms. So to be told that she had been dating Bradford for almost a year, well, it was a shock to the system; but to find out that she'd been spending the night at his place just plain gave me the creeps. I never pictured Ma in that sort of position. Okay, I need to leave that train of thought right there.
I apologised, realising that this man must have been grieving just like we were. The drive home that night was long and silent.
Our house has never been one to stand on ceremony. Ma was always up before us boys so she was always showered and dressed long before we rolled out of our beds. That left us the run of the bathroom, which meant basically an open door policy, well after Jeremiah locked himself in one day.
It must have been a few nights after he arrived, I remember walking up the stairs, after getting back from hockey, and just seeing him dashing out of my room. Of course the first thing I did was yell at him, so he changed direction from his room to the bathroom, knowing there was a lock on the door. Before I could take more than two steps the bolt slid home and Ma was pounding up the stairs to see what all the yelling was about.
Three hours it took that day to talk Jerry into opening the door, poor kid had only been putting a thank you note on my bed for the Red Wings jersey I had left for him that morning. Ma explained about Jeremiah's past as she took the lock from the bathroom door. He had been taken from his mother's house because, although she fed him and made sure he was warm and dry, she never interacted with the kid, just used to serve the food then get on with her life. Abuse through stimulation deprivation, or something along those lines. Until he went to his first day at school the kid had never spoken to anyone, and the noise that greeted him seriously freaked him out.
The school sent him for all sorts of tests to see if he was slow. It took them almost three months to figure out why he was the way he was and another two months before the mother admitted that she couldn't cope and signed away her parental rights. If I had known that I never would have yelled at him then. It took almost three weeks for Jerry to forgive me. It took me a lot longer to forgive myself.
Where was I? Oh yeah, open door policy. Jack had got to the shower first that morning unfortunately for him I needed to take care of some business. Armed with a newspaper for entertainment, I wasn't expecting a full out family gathering, but that's exactly what I got. I also got more up close and personal with Angel's anatomy than I ever wanted to be. How the hell should I know if he's caught something from Sofi? Don't get me wrong I've slept with a fair few women but I've never rode bareback in my life. Angel breathed a sigh of relief when Jack diagnosed his problem as a plain old rug burn. One day that boys luck is just going to walk out on him.
It was then that Angel dropped the bomb about how Jerry's life wasn't as rosy as he had painted it to be. Apparently Jerry had got involved with the wrong sort of people and the city had shut down the loans for his project, leaving Jerry with a mountain of debt. I can't believe Angel told me that and then walked out. I swear he picked that precise moment to tell me because he knew I couldn't just get up and run after him.
Seen as Angel didn't share where he was going with us, me and Jack headed down to city hall to try and find out the reason behind the city shutting the warehouse project down. I tried the civil approach but Councilman Douglas refused to talk, saying this is not the proper way to appeal. Luckily for me I bought along some persuasion. Jack had groaned about doing the "gas thing" again, what can I say but I'm a pyro at heart, and I only ever do it when Jacks there as I need his nasty little smoking habit to light the gas.
Douglas talked and gave us the name Sweet, Victor Sweet. With that I did my normal thing and thanked him for his time and left. Just as we got outside Angel phoned and said he needed to talk, by the sound of his voice it was important. He told me where he was and we grabbed the car. Once I've finished writing this I really need to get a new one, driving around in Ma's makes me feel like a little kid again.