The Loyal Ones

“So, kid. Tell us what happened,” Officer Rogers said to the heavy-set boy sitting across from him.

Shawn didn’t say a word. Instead, the 12-year-old looked out in the distance—his lips in a straight line, his eyes slanted upward like those of a feline.

After a few moments of silence, Officer Holder, who circled the room as Shawn’s gaze briefly followed him, followed up. “Are you going to help us out?” he asked. “We’d like to hear your side of things, but we can only do that if you speak up and say what happened.”

Shawn’s eyes darted in a different direction, again off in the distance.

Officer Rogers sighed, planted his hands onto the edge of table before him, and pulled himself to his feet.

He stared down at Shawn a few more seconds.

“We’ll give you some time to think about it,” he said before he turned to leave the room, his partner following close behind.

The two walked across the hallway and opened the door to a similar room. Seated at that table was an athletic-built kid. Even at 13 years old, it was clear Chris could outrun, outplay, and out-muscle the best of them—even the two officers standing in front of him.

“Alright, so are you ready to talk now?” Officer Rogers asked.

“Fuck you!!” Chris belted with a voice edging on manhood. He grimaced, his eyes locking on Officer Rogers before panning over to Officer Holder.

“‘Fuck me’? Hey, we’re just trying to get to the bottom of this—“

“How about you get to the bottom of your pig partner’s nuts! I ain’t telling you shit!!”

“Look, you little asshole,” Officer Holder nearly jumped to the table and in Chris’ face. “We can either do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. My partner here is trying to make it easy, but if you wanna do it hard, we can do that, too. Your choice.”

Chris grinned sinisterly. “You do it however the fuck you want to. I’m still not telling you shit.”

Mike sat slouched in the third room, which was basically a closet. He seemed unbothered by everything going on. His casual, relaxed expression seemed no different than someone sitting at home on his couch, watching TV and eating a bag of chips.

Instead, here he was, on the wrong side of a police interrogation.

“What time is it?” the 13-year-old boy nonchalantly asked.

“Why, you got somewhere to be?” asked Officer Holder.

“Kinda,” said the boy.

“Oh yeah? Like where?”

The boy didn’t respond.

“You like video games?” Officer Rogers followed up.

With a slight grin, Mike’s eyes rolled up towards the officer and calmly back down and into the distance.

“I think my partner asked you a question,” Officer Holder chimed in.

Still with a grin, Mike looked up at Officer Holder and then at Officer Rogers again. “Yes,” he said calmly.

“Okay, now was that so hard—”

“Yes,” Mike answered before Officer Holder could get out the full question.

The two officers peered at each other, annoyed, but they continued on.

“What are some of your favorites?” asked Officer Rogers.

“Okay, so how about I just save you both the trouble,” Mike calmly interrupted. “You’re going to try to use some kind of reverse-psychology, ‘fake-friendship’ type of thing to try and, let me guess—” Mike’s index and middle fingers mimicked air quotes— “‘reach me,’ in hopes that I’ll be so touched and so connected with you that I just finally break down and tell you everything you wanna know…” He looked at them both. “Am I right?”

Officer Holder looked at Officer Rogers who continued to look down at Mike, contemplating the words.

“Well, guess what?” said Mike. “It ain’t gonna happen. We don’t snitch.”

The two officers were running out of rooms. The precinct wasn’t very big, but there were four in this group, and they knew all needed to be split up and interviewed individually. So, the officers work with their limited resources and improvise.

The first two conversations were in actual interrogation rooms. A space the department sometimes used to store cleaning supplies was used for the third conversation, with Mike. And this last one would be in their superior’s office. They had just shied away from using their break room.

They entered the office where Little Stevie sat on the couch across from their boss’s large desk. As they walked in, Little Stevie’s big, brown eyes looked up in wonder and a bit of sadness. They were moist and wide, appearing terrified.

“Hey,” started Officer Rogers as he came close and kneeled to the boy’s level. “It’s ‘Little Stevie,” right?”

“That’s what they call me, sir, but it’s Steven. Steven Davis.”

“And how old are you, Steven?” asked Officer Holder from the opposite side, his hands on his hips and towering over the small boy.

“Eight,” he answered softly.

“Eight years old! Wow. How in the world did you get mixed up with those characters?” Officer Holder inquired.

“I don’t know, sir. They just…kind of live in my neighborhood.”

Officer Rogers knew it was already touchy interviewing the other kids without their parents or guardian around, and here this one was even younger, so it was even riskier. But he reasoned it was just harmless questioning—no allegations, yet. And he and Officer Holder were admittedly desperate. They needed information, preferably without others getting involved and interfering with the process. So, he and his partner continued.

“Ah, I see,” said Officer Holder. “Yeah… Sometimes, that happens. You get mixed up with the wrong people, just being around…”

“Yeah…” Little Stevie looked down at his lap, peering at his fidgeting little hands.

A few beats of silence hung in the air before Officer Holder continued.

“Well, tell you what!” He yelled out with enthusiasm.

Little Stevie looked up.

“If you just tell us what happened, since we know you probably didn’t have much to do with it, we’ll let you go today!”

Little Stevie got excited for a moment, only for it to quickly visibly fade.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t tell you what happened,” he replied.

“Oh yeah? And why is that?” asked Officer Holder.

“Because…”

“‘Because’…what?” Officer Rogers interrupted, a bit impatiently.

“Because…I’ll get in trouble. We aren’t supposed to talk to the police.”

“Unh huh, I see,” said Officer Holder. “I understand. You have a sort of…code…you have to follow. Right?”

“Yes, sir,” Little Stevie politely answered.

“Yes, I know that code well. But…I’m not sure your friends know it well because… They’ve actually already been talking!” Officer Holder’s eyes quickly darted up to Officer Rogers’ and then back down at Little Stevie.

Little Stevie’s eyes widened even larger than before.

“Unh huh,” Officer Holder continued. "They’re already looking out for themselves, so, I’m not telling you what to do, but just saying, maybe you might wanna do the same. Look out for yourself. Forget about them knuckleheads.”

Little Stevie’s head slowly fell again.

“I’m sorry, I can’t, sir,” he whispered.

“You…can’t. I see, I see. Look, kid. We can see you’re a good kid. Don’t let them mess that up for you. You really don’t want to be on the wrong side of the law, I can tell you that.”

Little Stevie’s eyes began to well.

Noting the chord he’d successfully struck, Officer Holder pulled the rolling chair from behind his boss’s desk over to the sofa and sat before he eagerly continued.

“See, if you don’t help us… well, we have no choice but to put you behind bars. And you really don’t wanna be back there. There’s all kinds of bad guys we have just sitting around, waiting, with nothing but time on their hands. And it won’t take a pretty imagination to think of what all they’ll want to do to you—“

Little Stevie’s tears had accumulated too much and couldn’t stay any longer. They began trickling down his small, warm cheeks.

“And what about your little sister?” jumped in Offer Rogers, encouraged by the impact of his partner’s train of thought and raising from his knee onto the sofa beside Little Stevie. “And your mother? How do you think they’re gonna like having to come visit their big brother and son in jail? And hearing about the bad things you and your friends did?”

“Okay, okay!” Little Stevie blurted, tears now streaming down his hot face. “Yes, they did it!!”

The officers looked at each other with a light smirk.

Officer Rogers tried to calm the boy, patting his back. “Now it’s okay, kid, take it easy. It’s gonna be alright. Just tell us, who did what?”

“Shawn, Mike, and Chris—they knew the shipment was coming in. They had been scouting the place for weeks and decided they were gonna hit it Saturday night.”

“Okay, and what happened?” asked Officer Holder.

“Mike was supposed to be the lookout and driving the get-away car. Shawn and Chris were kinda, like, the muscle. They were the ones who were actually gonna rob ‘em.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know!” He cried, his eyes peering in the distance. “Somebody just started shooting!!”

“It’s okay, kid, it’s okay. You’re doing good,” reassured Officer Rogers. “Do you know who did the shooting?”

Little Stevie paused for a moment as he contemplated.

“You gotta tell us who shot that man, Steven,” Officer Rogers continued. “Do you know that he died?”

The boy’s big, weepy eyes looked up at both officers again. “He did?”

“Yes,” said Officer Rogers. “So, you gotta help us get his family some answers. Who pulled the trigger?”

Little Stevie dropped his head, pausing a few more moments before he answered. “I think it was Chris.”

The officers shared another glance, trying their hardest to suppress another smirk.

“And what about you?” asked Officer Rogers. “Were you involved at all with any of it?”

Tears immediately gushed from Little Stevie again. “No! No!!” he howled. “I didn’t wanna have anything to do with it. But they made me!! I told them not to. I told them something would go wrong and they would be found out!! But they wouldn’t listen!”

“Okay, okay, kid, it’s okay,” said Officer Rogers. “We understand.”

“They’re always doing stuff like that and dragging me into it. And I’m so little, I can’t really say no or fight back!”

“Yeah, I understand. It’s tough being the little guy,” Officer Rogers gently squeezed Little Stevie’s shoulder.

Little Stevie nodded, his mouth in a pout.

Officer Holder followed up again. “So. Whose idea was this? Who’s the ring leader?”

Little Stevie looked up at both officers.

“Do I have to say?”he asked softly.

“Well, you don’t have to, but… again, we wouldn’t want to mistaken you for the leader and you have to explain that to your mom and sister…”

Little Stevie sighed.

The officers’ eyes widened, signaling their wait for his answer.

“Chris,” the boy finally answered. “It’s always Chris.”

“Yeah,” said Officer Holder, “I had a feeling he might be the one most up to no good!”

“He’s always trying to get us into something,” said Little Stevie. “Always doing something crazy!”

“Anything else you’d like to tell us, kid?” asked Officer Rogers.

Little Stevie thought for a moment and then slowly shook his head.

He then had a thought. “Am I in trouble?” he asked hesitantly.

“No, no, you did good kid,” answered Officer Rogers. “You did real good. And we see you clearly weren’t the problem one here, so just like we promised and since you were honest with us, we’re going to go ahead and let you go. We just might have to have you come back in to answer some more questions later.”

“Okay,” Little Stevie softly replied.

“Yeah,” added Officer Holder, “If you continue to help us, we promise you won’t get in trouble.”

The officers escorted the boy to the front of the precinct to a third officer, a woman officer who had checked the boys in earlier and manned the front desk.

After officers Rogers and Holder informed her of the situation, she looked in his direction with kind sympathy. She, too, could tell he was a good apple who might have just fallen in with the wrong bunch. She imagined the kid being her own son.

As Little Stevie used his arm to wipe off the snot and tears from his face, the lady officer opened the main door of the precinct to let him walk through, still smiling sympathetically.

“Go straight home, okay, kid?” the officer said, and Little Stevie nodded.

With his shoulders hunched, he slowly and reluctantly walked out and down the sidewalk. He stopped for a moment halfway down and timidly looked back. The lady officer still stood at the door, gave another smile of reassurance, and waved. With a half-returned smile, Little Stevie gently waved back before he turned and kept walking.

He sauntered down the street, his head dropped and staring at the sidewalk.

After a few blocks, he turned the corner that led to his house. His shoulders and chin raised a bit.

A few more blocks later, Little Stevie’s chin was to the sky, and his shoulders were relaxed. His tears had dried. His lips had turned upward, one corner higher than the other. He turned to look behind him, as if he were watching out for something.

When he was sure no one was around, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone, dialing a number.

“Haha yeah, I’m out,” he said to the person on the other side of the line. “‘How’? I just made things happen, are you questioning me?!? Just know I’m out! Yeah, got a little sidetracked, but about to get right back to business.”

He paused as he spat on the sidewalk. “Oh, the others?” he said. “I’m not worried about them. I told them bitches exactly how to do the run, and they fucked it all up. And as usual, I had to be the one to clean it up. Whatever happens to them now is on them. It don’t got nothing to do with me.”