Closer Than Your Shadow

Some Men Are Evil

December 9th 8:54 a.m.
Gotham
6th street

"Carlos! I told you to watch out and you bring someone back? Goddamn boy! Do you ever listen?"

"I'm sorry Ms. May. I didn't have a choice!" He pointed an accusing finger back at me.

Ms May, I'm guessing, was sitting in a black chair with a beer in her cup holder. She waved her hands around her face as she tried to stand up. Carlos ran to help her.

"I'm not talking to any cops today. Thank you but no. Go see if Gilbert will tell you where Dante ran off too because I don't know."

"I'm not here for Dante. I'm here about the van." She turned her head, and her thin eyebrows furrowed at me.

"I don't know about any van."

"The one you're looking for. You don't remember?" I tilted my head toward the kid and crossed my arms.

"Goddammit Carlos, what didn't you tell him?" She yelled at the boy and he led her back to her chair.

"What's the van? Are you trying to follow them?"

"Now why the fuck would I want to follow the kidnappers? I'm trying to make sure the people that are here today are here tomorrow, so I have the boy watch."

Carlos went inside the tent and left us to talk.

"Kidnappers? You've seen it?"

"No. But stuff gets around here quick. We know not to get in random people's cars. At least some of us do. But shit doesn't matter, they'd just make you go limp if you say no."

"What do you mean, go limp imp?"

"Do you have any money for this information pretty boy? I know who your daddy is. And I know that no one else around here would tell you shit, so I'll need compensation."

I pulled out a couple bills.

She licked her thumb and counted them out.

She laughed and took a sip of her beer as she pushed it into her shirt. "I'll be damned. Well, what do you want to know?"

"What did you mean when you said they go limp?"

"I heard that when the people they take give them a little too much trouble they give them something. It makes people fall over, stop fighting. Then down the road, they go to pick up the next few stragglers they can find. Maybe 10 or 12 people a week."

So the kid with Genisis didn't just get shot, but dosed with something that knocked him out.

"For how long?" The worry sunk in, and I realized this wasn't going to be what I wanted to hear, but once I did, I couldn't turn back.

"Almost a month. Nobody has ever seen their faces. I hear two guys, a girl and a guy, lots of other things. It changes every time I ask someone new."

Smelled like the Maroni's.

"Trafficking?" I implied and she scrunched her nose up and let out a small laugh.

"I know who it is."

"Who?"

"My son." She brought her beer back up to her lips and gulped it down. "News like that don't stay quiet in the family for long."

"What do you mean your family? Who's your son?"

"My name used to be May Rayford."

"You're Arthur Rayford's mother?"

"Was. I don't claim that name anymore not after what my boy did to it. Brought us down into the mud when I kicked him out. Burned our house down. Nearly killed my ass and the cat."