“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” Burke frowns. Maybe he’s right, especially after my earlier diatribe, so—
“I do—but I have to follow up on a lead Booker gave me today.” And that’s sort of true, right? Booker did hand me the case files, did give me the watch…
I know I’m stretching it, but I don’t like lying to Burke.
“Is it about your brother’s case?”
It’s about a cold case, so yes, in a way…
“Mmmhmm.”
Don’t judge me because you know you’d do the same thing.
Burke gets on his phone as he climbs into his car—probably calling Eve. I head back to the downtown precinct.
I park on the street, a little Aerosmith in my veins, telling me to Dream On, and I will, thank you. Across the street from Eve’s building is the Adult Detention Center, and it’s there that I ask about Jamal and Ari.
Jamal has been sprung, but Ari is a repeat offender and his bail is higher this time around. I wait for him in a small interrogation room with windows and he joins me, safely in chains, a young, rail thin twenty-something Somali man, wearing a wispy beard, his eyes reddened. I can recognize drug use when I see it. Ari is trembling, probably coming down hard from some high.
“Can we get him a glass of water, and—” I pull out a dollar bill. “A Snickers bar?” I ask this of the female security officer and she leaves us to retrieve it.
“Ari,” I say. “How’re you doing?”
“Do I know you?” He has an accent, his verbs pinched, tending toward the British slant.
“Nope. But I can help you. See, I’m looking for a guy named Hassan Abdilhali, and my guess is that you know him.”
Ari looks away, his mouth tight.
“Did you know your buddy Jamal is already out?” I lean in. “Why is that, do you think?”
Ari lifts a shoulder.
The security officer returns with the water and candy and I put it in front of me. “Thanks.”
She leaves again. We’re being monitored, through the glass, and via a camera. That’s fine. I don’t have anything to hide. But I do have things to share. “Hassan Abdilhali is going to leave you here to rot while he builds his empire. Someday, he’ll rule all the Somali gangs, and you’ll be long forgotten, in jail for crimes he made you do.”
Ari glances at me, then the water. His eyes linger a long time on the chocolate.
“It doesn’t have to be that way. You tell me how to find Abdilhali, and I can make it easier on you in here.” This is the part where I’m bluffing. I can’t really do that, but I do have some pull with the county prosecutor. Don’t ask me how, because it’s a distant memory, but I’ll do what it takes to get my information.
To get my life back.
I push the water toward him. “You help me, I help you.”
Ari is staring at the water. Spittle has formed at the sides of his mouth, so I know he wants it. Bad.
He reaches for the cup but I move it back, out of his grip. “Ari?”
He looks at me. “He’ll kill me.”
“Not if he can’t find you.” I give him the water and he takes it, gulping it down.
Droplets glisten on his beard. A tiny spark has entered Ari’s eyes.
I touch the candy bar. “I know you feel like no one cares about you. I know you’re afraid. You come to this country hoping to find freedom, and instead you find more oppression—from inside your community, and out. But hatred only brings you more pain. Traps you in a cycle where you’ll never break free.” I push the candy toward him. “You gotta learn to trust people. To let them help you.”