big!” said the boy.
“That can make it easier,” said Nestor. “A lot of the really big guys let themselves get fat, because that makes them even bigger. And they don’t know what training is. They just wanna look big.”
“Training?”
“They don’t keep fit,” said Nestor. “They don’t run. Most of the time they don’t even lift. This big guy was like that. All you have to do is keep hold of a guy like him and let him wear himself out. The guy’s not in shape, and he’s jerking that big tub of his this way and that, trying to get loose, and he’s running out of breath, and he’s sucking air, and pretty soon he’s done for. All you have to do is hang on, and the guy does all the work for you.”
“But how do you hang on? That guy was really big.”
“Different cops use different holds, but me, I find a plain old figure four plus a full nelson is all you need in most cases,” said Nestor as nonchalantly as he could. Then he explained the figure four and the full nelson to Philippe.
By now Philippe had dropped his Neg gangbanger pose completely. He was just a fifteen-year-old boy fascinated by real-life tales of derring-do. Ghislaine said why didn’t they sit down. This Philippe did quite willingly… he who had made it clear, through his manner and tone of voice, that coming here to the living room where There’s somebody I want you to meet—some adult, no doubt—was about the last thing he wanted to do. Nestor gestured toward the easy chair, where he had been sitting, and Philippe sat down there, and Nestor took a seat on the couch. He didn’t even try to sit back in it. He sat on the front edge of the seat cushion and leaned toward Philippe.
They began chatting away, mostly about things in police work Philippe had always wondered about, and Nestor started asking Philippe about himself and his interests and remarked upon how tall Philippe was… and wondered if he ever played any sports. Philippe allowed as how he had thought about trying out for the basketball team at his high school but decided against it for this and that reason, and Nestor asked, “What high school do you go to?”
“De Forest,” said Philippe. He said it tonelessly.
“No kidding,” said Nestor. “De Forest?”
Ghislaine spoke up. “As a matter of fact, Philippe was in that class where that incident occurred, when the teacher assaulted a student, and there were demonstrations, and they arrested the teacher. Philippe was right there when it happened.”
Nestor looked at Philippe. Philippe appeared frozen. His face was a blank wall. Obviously his interest in expanding upon the subject didn’t exist.
“Oh, I remember that,” said Nestor. “Every cop remembers that. The teacher—what’s his name?—Estevez?—is charged with felony assault,” said Nestor. “That’s a lot more serious than simple misdemeanor assault. He could go away for a long time.”
Philippe… still a block of ice.
“As I remember, our department responded when the call came in, and so did Miami-Dade, Hialeah, and Doral. It must have been quite a scene, all these cops from all over… sirens, stagger lights, bullhorns—that must have been crazy. I guess they all take it very seriously, this business of teachers assaulting students. Anyway, the School Police ended up handling the whole thing. It’s completely out of our hands, but I remember wondering about it. How did it start, Philippe? You were there. What set the whole thing off?”
Philippe just stared at Nestor—stared absolutely blankly—and when he finally responded, he sounded like a zombie: “Mr. Estevez called François, his name is, up to the front of the class and François said something in Creole, and everybody started laughing, and Mr. Estevez got mad and choked François like this”—he pantomimed a headlock—“and threw him down on the floor.”
“And you saw all this?” said Nestor.
Philippe’s mouth fell open slightly and now he looked frightened. He had no idea what to say. You could practically see the calculations, the odds, the chances, the lies, churning inside his head. He couldn’t make himself say a word. He finally nodded his head up and down slowly and slightly, apparently to say yes without saying yes.
Nestor said, “The reason I’m asking is—do you know some students in your class ::::::time to go for broke:::::: named Patrice Légère, Louis Tremille—Fat Louis, they call him—Honoré Buteau, and Hervé Condorcet?”
Now Philippe’s expression went beyond frozen to sheer fear. This cop’s visit, supposedly in connection with