Cops. They’ll squeeze you until you got nothing left.

Two of them come to my door one night. It’s summer and I’ve left the front door open, just the floppy screen of the storm door keeping the bugs and human trash out. I’m having a beer and reading the newspaper. The ball game is on AM radio. Work is the shits and any moment I can get to myself, I’m going to take it.

“Can we come in, Mr. Roberts?” The cops stand on the slumping porch in suits, the screen door’s wire mesh hiding their faces like panty hose pulled over a thug’s kisser- two of them, one tall, the other squat.

“What do you want?”

I know they’re cops by the way they handle themselves on the porch. The squat one acts as if the front door of my home is the last place he wants to be. He keeps angling his head and glancing around. The tall one, he stares right into my kitchen, watches me flip the newspaper.

“What do you want?” I repeat.

“Just a few words with you, if we could, Mr. Roberts.”

A couple of months ago, I had two guys come to my door. They wanted a few words with me too, something about buying a newspaper subscription. I told them I already had all the useless news I could handle, thank you very much. Get lost. This made the hoods angry and they tried to kick the door in. It was early spring and I had the main door closed and locked. They slammed up against the rotted frame, gave me just enough time to grab a baseball bat and the phone. Something must have spooked them, because they gave up and took off. I was going to call the cops but then I thought, why bother? What are they going to do about it?

“You guys cops?” I ask them.

The squat one turns and looks through the netting, impatient. “Police. Open up.”

His tone ends the game. No more monkey business. I fold the newspaper back neatly, take another sip of my beer and step out onto the porch. The night air is thick, damp with humidity and the threat of a storm.

“What can I do for you, gents?”

The two men stand in front of me with their loose ties and cheap jibe. They flash their tin. City cops. Detectives. Milroy and Gardner.

“What can I do for you?” I want to know and then I want them gone.

“Can we step inside, please Mr. Roberts?” The tall one is Milroy. He gestures with his hand towards the kitchen, as if he’s the host, suggesting we slip into the other room for a nightcap.

“No, we can’t. I want to know what you want?”

Squat and thick Gardner slips his ID back into his suit pocket. “You don’t want your neighbours hearing all the details, do you, Mr. Roberts?”

Nice try, I think. My neighbours know better than to sit out on their porches after dark in this end of town. They’d end up with broken limbs and their best silver in a pillowcase. Besides, my neighbours have no interest in me, a white investment broker in his thirties living on an racially unbalanced street of blacks and Asians. My neighbours knew I didn’t belong and they knew I didn’t work in a factory or clean up other people’s messes like they did. I was nobody to them.

“Folks ‘round here do a good job of minding their own business,” I tell the cops, crossing my arms.

“Let’s just step inside, shall we, Mr. Roberts?” Milroy wipes his brow with a scrunched hankie for effect. “It’s hot out here. We can all sit down inside and cool off.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“Step into the house.” Gardner lets his short fuse pop. “Step inside and sit the fuck down.” He swings open the door and glares at me. Do it, his eyes say. Do it, or God help me, I’ll gladly slip on the brass knuckles and let some blood.

This man’s not all there, I determine. Do as he says. I step into my own house and sit down at the table in the kitchen. The two cops follow me in.

The radio sputters with the score. The Jays are losing, bottom of the seventh. They’ve lost eight in a row during the heat wave, making the city an ugly place to be. Nobody likes a loser. Gardner takes the liberty of snapping the radio off.

“What’s the score?” Milroy asks sitting in one of the vinyl kitchen chairs. It groans with his weight.

“They’re losing, that’s all I know.”

“Figures.” He pulls out a notebook from inside his suit.

I ask him, “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

Behind me, Gardner moves about in the small kitchen, picking up snippets of paper- a phone bill, ticket stubs to the Revue. He snorts and opens the refrigerator.

“You’re good friends with a Mr. Max Levine, aren’t you?” asks Milroy.

“Who? Max Levine?” I play dumb even though I know exactly who they’re talking about. Max deals me some pot now and then, for special occasions. My stomach begins to churn. This will lead to no good.

“I wouldn’t say he’s a good friend,” I continue coolly. “What’s this about?”

I’ve seen enough cop flicks to know my two guests are playing good cop-bad cop. And it isn’t difficult to figure out who is who. Gardner opens a jar of kosher pickles and fumbles to get at them. He catches two.

Be careful here, Hal. Watch for the game being played.

“But you know him, right Mr. Roberts?” Milroy studies his notebook, flipping pages.

“I know him, yeah.”

“And would it be true to say you purchased marijuana from him a couple weeks ago.... June...” He flips the page to find his notes. “June 16th, 4:37 in the afternoon?”

Cold fear. What do these vultures want? “I’m not saying anything without a lawyer.”

Gardner chuckles and wipes vinegar on the counter. “You don’t need a lawyer, Mr. Roberts. Just answer the question.”

“No. How’s that for an answer? No, I didn’t purchase pot from Max.” I glare at Milroy. This answer is true. I did meet up with Max on the 16th, sometime late in the afternoon. But I never bought any pot from him. He gave it to me.

“There was a transaction then?” hustles Milroy. “He handed you a small amount of marijuana?”

“Where’s this going?” I could feel myself losing patience. I wanted to go back to feeling sorry for myself, reading about people’s desperate lives that made the news and listening to the Jays drop another pennant. “It’s just a little pot, man,” I say. “No harm done.”

Gardner chuckles some more and opens the cupboards, fishing for more snacks. “No harm done, he says...” He keeps on chuckling.

“Do you know anything about Mr. Levine’s background, Mr. Roberts?” Milroy looks at me intently. He’s fishing too.

I put on my best poker face and profess to think. I know Max Levine. He’s the little brother of my best friend Nigel. Nigel Levine. The guy was my best man when Frannie and I tied the knot. That was a few years ago. Frannie’s gone now, hooked up with some condo contractor in Windsor. Nigel, well, he’s gone too. He died working construction. A crane collapsed and he was waiting at the bottom. Poor bastard. He didn’t stand a chance.

“I understand you were friends with his brother, a...” Milroy checks his notes once more. “A Mr. Nigel Levine?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

I would run into Max coming and going from Nigel’s apartment. We’d say hi. Nothing much going on there. When Nigel died, Max and I grew a bit closer. Nigel’s death knocked Max for a loop. His big brother had always been the leader and seeing his hero in a casket left Max floating, waiting to be led. It took some time for him to get his footing.

I tried to take over for Nigel, be an ear for Max when he needed it. We’d get together every few weeks, drink a pint and keep Nigel’s spirit alive. Max was becoming his own man, I could see that. He got his own car, his own apartment. He dated and woke up in strange beds. He told me about his adventures. He was moving on.

“I can get my hands on some pot if you want some,” he told me one night at The Bend. We were shooting pool, drinking heavy martinis and celebrating my new job with the brokerage.

“That’s tempting, man.” I said, sinking the eight ball in a corner pocket. “That’s tempting, but Frannie hates the stuff. I wouldn’t be able to smoke it.”

He nodded as he racked. “Sure. I’m just lettin’ you know.”

But then things got tight at the brokerage and Frannie broke down and left. Max made the offer again and I took him up on it.

“Let me give you some money,” I said pulling out some bills. But Max would have none of it. “We’re friends, man,” he said. “Just take it.”

I took it. I smoked some but it did nothing for me except to build a stinging headache and the murmuring fear that life was passing me by. Donna, this girl I see now and then, she likes the stuff. So, I get it for her. It makes her want to screw.

Milroy closes his notebook. He’s refreshed his memory. “Mr. Roberts, we need your help.”

Over the past year, the name Max got spoken less and less from my lips. We didn’t meet anymore for drinks or to prop Nigel up from the grave. Max didn’t tell me anything about his life, who he was dating, where he was working. I would call him when I ran out of pot and Donna wanted more.

“You still hanging around with that screamer?” he’d ask me. I’d call him up and he’d drop by the house, meet me on the porch.

“She’s the only one who’ll have me,” I’d reply and he’d grin, flip me a baggie.

“On the house, friend.” A few more empty words and he’d dash. His car roared like thunder on the street.

“We need your help, Mr. Roberts.” Milroy sticks his gaze in front of mine.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re gonna set your buddy Max up, that’s what we mean.” Gardner grows bored with the linoleum kitchen and sits himself backwards in a chair. He raps his knuckles on the plastic backing.

I huff. “Like hell I am.”

Gardner looks ready to detonate.

“Do you know anything about Mr. Levine, Mr. Roberts?” Milroy asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Like your pal is a warm pissed dealer,” barks Gardner, “hooking little kids and wasted mothers on the poison he deals!” The squat cop’s voice is gravel.

“I want a lawyer.”

“Mr. Roberts....” Milroy cuts in. “Mr. Roberts, Max Levine is in over his head. He’s gone from dealing pot to dealing coke in a big way. Too big. He needs to be taken down. He’s killing people.”

I don’t believe them. “I don’t see how this affects me,” I contend.

Gardner stands up. “You’re gonna. You’re gonna hand him to us nice and clean.”

There is malice in his tone. This is beyond a simple police questioning. Milroy is into playing by the books, but Gardner is a loose cannon and I’m not so sure Milroy is up to plugging the barrel.

Stay cool, I reason. Real cool. “I can’t help you, boys. You’ll have to leave now.”

Gardner puts his hands to his waist, pulling back the tails of his suit and revealing a holstered pistol. He lets it sit out to be seen. “You’re gonna help us.”

“Easy, Bill.” Milroy reaches into his suit pocket once more and brings out a deck of fresh cigarettes. “You mind if I smoke, Mr. Roberts?”

I shake my head. Milroy may be my only way out of this one. I try to appease him. “None of this stuff is true,” I say.

Milroy pats himself down for a lighter. “I’m afraid it is.”

And he just might be right, I think to myself. How much do I really know about Max? He never says anything about where he works, just that he has properties he manages, he says. What does that mean? I think about his car, the Mustang roar and how it just appeared one day. I think about the rich bills he flashes at the bar.

“Sounds as if your friend isn’t telling you very much,” suggests Milroy. He lights and blows acrid smoke. “Maybe he thinks you’d disapprove.” He watches me compute my information.

“Even if it is true, this has nothing to do with me. I don’t even know him that well.”

“You lent him your car.” Gardner takes aim right between the eyes.

“What?”

“Your car, Mr. Roberts. You lent him your car.” Milroy drags on his smoke, waiting for my next move.

The car. I did lend Max my car. I’d forgotten. Two months ago he’d come by, said his wheels were in the shop being painted. Could he borrow my car for a few hours? He had errands to run. Errands. I groaned.

“He asked me. It was just for a few hours.”

Gardner begins to pace around the kitchen, hungry. He pokes his head down the hall to the bedroom. “Anybody else here?”

“No.”

“What about that blimp you get the pot for?”

I scowl at him and he smiles back, pleased to have hurt. “Maxie boy used your name as a reference. Did you know about that?”

I’m confused. “For?”

“Mr. Levine applied for a job, sales rep for a food company.” Milroy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He drags one more time on his smoke, easy. “Looks as if he was trying to go straight. Used your name as a reference.”

“That was his poor judgment, not mine.”

“Would you have recommended him for the job?” Milroy wants this answer.

“Sure. Why not? He’s a smart guy.”

“Well, he didn’t get it,” snorts Gardner. “So much for Mr. Smart Guy.” He’s enjoying his cruel wit. “Probably using you as a reference was his mistake.”

I turn to face the bad cop. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Bill...” Milroy looks at his partner, a look that says, too much, buddy. Gardner gives Milroy an icy stare, then returns to me, raising his eyebrows with a bemused expression. “You ain’t exactly the golden boy down at the brokerage, now are you?”

The knife slides deeper into my gut. “What does that mean?”

“You have debts, Mr. Roberts.” Milroy follows the trail. “You’re doing a good job of covering stuff up but things slip through the cracks. Some poor investments were made, money was lost, was it not?”

“A shit load, brother.” Gardner snickers. “You’re barely keeping your head above water.” He picks up one of the china figurines on the shelves in the living room, tips it upside down and inspects the manufacturer. The figurines are Frannie’s. Were Frannie’s. She collected them, used to dust them each Sunday after we’d made a fry up brunch and scramble back to bed to eat it with the TV on. She left all the china behind when she took off. I don’t know if she forgot it or just left it as part of another life.

That was another life.

“You can’t prove anything.” I’m determined to end this. “You can’t prove anything and I can’t help you. I don’t know Max that well...”

“... so you won’t mind setting him up then, if you don’t know him that well. What’s it to you?” Gardner picks up another figurine, squeezing it tightly in his hand. He’s cornered me and he knows it. “Think of the positive contribution you’ll be making to your community.”

“Mr. Roberts....” Milroy leans in.

“Why me? Why do you want me to help you set him up? Surely you have undercover guys who can do this, set up a buy or whatever you guys do? If you know he’s dealing this stuff, go out and bust him.”

Milroy nods his head as if he understands me. “That’s a very good question, Mr. Roberts. Let me see if I can answer that for you.” He stubs his half smoked cigarette into the open deck on the table and puts the remaining portion back in the package. “Trying to quit,” he explains. “Mr. Levine is a crafty man, Mr. Roberts. He’s very cautious and does his business in a manner that makes it difficult for us to arrest him and have the charges stick. But with you... with you he gets sloppy. He hands you the marijuana.”

“But I don’t pay for it,”

“You do now.” Gardner sits back down in one of the chairs. “You call him up, tell him you want to buy more and you want to pay him. He may ignore that but who gives a rat’s ass. He gives you the dope, we take him down, get a warrant to search his premises on suspicion of drug trafficking. He’s a goner.”

“And me?” I ask Milroy this.

“You pretend you know nothing about it. We run you quietly through the courts for appearance, drop the charges. No one knows the difference.”

“Except me.”

“What, you’re growing a moral tree, you freakin’ letch?” Gardner jumps up again and goes to the screen door, looks out. “You should’ve grown it when you were bilking all those people out of their money.”

He has it wrong. Gardner has it all wrong. I made some bad decisions, sure. But, we were desperate. Frannie’s mom was dying slow and she needed care. Expensive care. It was agony for Frannie not to have the money to help her. I was going to get the money. The investments were sure things and I was going to get the money. It just went wrong. Very wrong.

“You can help us, Mr. Roberts,” says Milroy.

“And if I don’t?” I look up at the two cops in my kitchen to see how far they will push. Are they as desperate as a man in love with his wife? A man who watches his wife fade away while her mother dies in a septic hospital ward? “And if I don’t?”

“It gets ugly for a lot of people,” says Gardner with a butcher’s grin.

“What does that mean?”

Milroy sighs. “You have a wife, Mr. Roberts? I believe she lives in Windsor now, is that correct?”

“Ouch,” smirks Gardner. “That’s gotta hurt.”

I ignore him. “What about Frannie?”

Milroy looks at his partner. I hate this part, he’s saying but Gardner misses the message entirely. “Things aren’t going so well, Mr. Roberts. I don’t know what she tells you, but there’s some trouble.”

Frannie calls once a month and begs for my forgiveness. I cry and ask her to come home but she says things have changed. “It’s tainted. It’s all over. I can’t live like that anymore.” And then she hangs up. What she means is she can’t live in debt, in a three room house on a street where dogs hit by cars lie in the gutter for days. She can’t live without hope. I threw all our hope away.

“She tells me very little,” I whisper.

Milroy and Gardner exchange glances, making a mental note. “She’s involved with a...” Milroy reaches for his notebook once more.

“Walter.” I fill in the blanks. Deep breath.

“Right.” Milroy drops his hands to his knees and I notice they tremble. “A Mr. Walter Dumanski. He’s running a painting business with her help. She does the books etc.”

“She sure knows how to pick ‘em, eh sport?” Gardner jabs once more.

“Fuck you.”

He’s all over me. Gardner’s fist sets my head humming like a tuning fork.

“Hey! Bill!” Milroy jumps to his feet. “Bill, settle down. Let’s do this the right way.”

As much as my head throbs, I have to laugh. Let’s do this the right way? Two cops come into my home, tell me to turn in my best friend’s brother, call me a criminal and then insult my wife. Let’s do this the right way? What’s the wrong way, I wonder? I’m laughing.

“You think this is funny, pal?” Gardner moves in to grab me from behind.

“Bill! Sit down. Just sit down!” Milroy moves in front of Gardner and towers over his partner. “Let’s stay cool, here.” Gardner’s eyes are blazing but Milroy gets through. The squat cop goes and stands by the living room, leaning up against the wall and jingling his keys in a pocket.

“Are you okay, Mr. Roberts.” Milroy sits down again in the chair across from me.

I ignore his question. I ignore them both and rotate my bruised skull around the base of my neck. What went wrong, I wonder. What went wrong?

“Mr. Roberts. Your wife and her friend are running a bit of a scam, preying on the elderly, overcharging, stealing small valuables from homes they are contracted to paint. Now, your wife may not know about all those things but she does do the books.”

Frannie was great with numbers. She could figure out how much debt we were in.

“It could get very complicated for her. There would be accomplice charges. Maybe jail time.”

“Unless I help you catch Max,” I mutter.

Gardner has cooled. “You’re a bright one, Roberts.”

“It would make things less complicated for everyone involved.” Milroy brushes his tie, removing dinner crumbs. “What do you say?”

I hate both the men in my kitchen at this moment. It takes everything I have to not smash the beer bottle on the table and cut their throats. They don’t play fair.

Watch for their game, Hal.

This is no game.

What is fair?

I tell them, “I want to think about it.”

“Jesus....” Gardner smacks his hands together.

Milroy stands up. “I don’t know what there is to think about, Mr. Roberts. Seems fairly simple to me.” He’s pressing now. “But, if you want some time to see the situation....”

“I can see the fucking situation. That I can do. Unfortunately, it’s you two who can’t see the situation.” I put my hands over my face and halt the tears. “You don’t know a damn thing.” I want to punch the reverse button on my life.

“Ahh, let him cry his heart out,” says Gardner to his partner. “Let him think things over real good.” He strolls across my kitchen floor to the screen door, but stops and returns to put his face inches from mine. Beads of sweat trickle. “You say a goddam thing of any of this to your dope pushing friend, that aching head of yours will be the least of your troubles. Same goes for the wife too or anyone as a matter of fact. You talk and we’ll know. Then you’ll pay.” He smiles for the last time, his hot dog breath seeping through caffeine teeth. “Now, you do some good thinking, Mr. Bob. Use that big brain of yours.” He gets out of my face and goes out the door.

“Good evening, Mr. Roberts.” Milroy lets the screen door close softly. I hear them squeak down the steps to the street.

It’s like they were never there.

I reach for the phone on the counter, pull it towards me. It feels warm and I wonder if there is a bug, some sort of listening device in my phone. I push it away.

Frannie. I need you Frannie.

But she cannot hear me.

No one can hear me. No one knows.

Except the cops.