Lamentation

by Joe Clifford

  “That’s all right, Adam. I’m not hungry.”

  “Come on,” he urged. “We can catch up on what we were talking about yesterday.”

  “Chris didn’t give me any hard drive,” I said, point-blank.

  Adam laughed uneasily.

  “Hard drive?” repeated Pat.

  “Turns out Chris did take something from Adam,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Adam?”

  Adam was too slick to get thrown off his game with any curveball tossed by me. Instead, he dropped his head, humbly feigning a mea culpa. “Sorry, Pat. I should’ve told you the other day. I didn’t want to say anything and get the guy in more trouble. But, yes, Chris came to be in possession of a hard drive of mine. Has a lot of private information on there.”

  “Wait a second,” said Pat, slow on the uptake. “I thought you said Chris couldn’t get in the trailer?”

  Adam repeated the same story he’d told me, in the same contrite tone, with the same genial appeal to help him retrieve his missing property. Except, today, it rang phonier than that politico smile of his. And I wasn’t buying a minute of it.

  “—client finances, spreadsheets,” Adam droned on, “numbers and figures that Chris, in his drug-addled state, might’ve misconstrued. As I was telling Jay, I had hoped we could resolve this discreetly.” He made sure to catch my eye. “But I guess that’s not possible anymore. Doesn’t matter. As long as I get my property back.”

  “Do you know where this hard drive is now?” Pat asked me.

  “Last I heard, Pete Naginis had it. We could ask him. Except he’s dead.”

  Another halfhearted chuckle from Adam as Pat looked on confused, and Turley weighed the gravitas of the comment. Bowman looked like all he wanted was five minutes alone with me in a locked room.

  “Either way,” I said. “I don’t have it. So don’t send your motorcycle gang thugs into my apartment in the middle of the night to look for it again, okay?”

  “Motorcycle gang?” Adam sneered. “You sound as delusional as your brother, Jay. You should catch some sleep.” He cast a sidelong glance at Bowman. “Erik, was there a box you forgot to check on your application? Are you in a motorcycle gang?”

  “Not that I know of. I have a Fat Boy. Some of my friends do too. Sometimes we take them out for rides together.” Bowman faked being perplexed. “Is that what you think, Jay? That everyone who rides a motorcycle is in a gang? You might want to stop watching so much TV.”

  Pat laughed, but not because he got the joke. He didn’t know what else to do. Turley kept shifting his gaze between us. My temple veins throbbed, the way they did whenever my blood boiled.

  “You really look stressed,” said Adam. “If you don’t want to eat, how about you let me buy you a drink? Follow us down to that bar you and Charlie Finn like so much, the Dubliner. We’ll get us a basket of chicken wings, have a beer.”

  “No thanks.”

  Adam and I remained fixed on one another. I was so pissed for getting jacked around that I hadn’t noticed Bowman straying over to my truck, where he reached through the open driver’s side window.

  “This is your brother’s, right?” Bowman asked, lifting up the battered backpack.

  “Don’t touch that!” I shouted. “It’s not yours.”

  “I’m sure with the rash of break-ins and thefts,” Adam said, “the police have already examined its contents.” He addressed Pat. “Right?”

  Sheepishly, Pat nudged Turley to retrieve the bag.

  “What the hell are you doing, Pat?” I asked. “There’s nothing in there but a bunch of my brother’s junk. Old cassette tapes he can’t even play, a toothbrush he doesn’t use.”

  “Don’t worry, Jay,” said Pat. “It’ll be down the station with your brother.”

  Turley relieved Bowman of the backpack, passing it to Pat.

  “Look at the size of the thing,” I said. “Does it really look like a hard drive could fit in there? You can feel it. Does it feel like a computer is inside?”

  “Actually,” said Adam, as Bowman rejoined him like a faithful guard dog, “I’m wondering if Chris might’ve made a copy of the drive.”

  I remembered the beat-up junkies at the computer shop. Or maybe Chris was right, and Pete had given him up before they killed him. Either way, Adam knew exactly what he was looking for.

  “It would be a CD,” Adam continued. “White sleeve. We could avoid wasting any more time if we took a look now.”

  “Don’t you need a search warrant to do that?” I said.

  “Not when a suspect is in custody,” Adam responded politely. “Then again, I’m not a lawyer. Of course, the backpack was in your truck, Jay. I’m not sure if there’s a legal loophole there. You could give us permission to look, save me the hassle of having to go all the way down to the precinct. What do you say? Be a pal?”

  Pat and Turley turned to me, awaiting my answer.

  “Do whatever the hell you want,” I said. “But hurry up so I can go.”

  Pat crouched and unzipped the backpack, poking around, casting aside a rubber-banded Tupperware container and toothbrush that looked like it had been used to clean grout; pulling out an old pair of stained underwear, which he held at arm’s length with forefinger and thumb, before quickly dropping them back in the bag.

  “Check the front pouch,” said Adam.

  Pat gazed over at me. I shrugged, disgusted.

  Opening the pouch, Pat rooted through tangled earbuds and AV cords, scraps of paper and cards, then pulled out the shiny disc in a white sleeve.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Pat.

  “I believe that’s mine,” said Adam, triumphantly, glancing at me as he reached out to pluck the CD from Pat’s hand. He stopped. “If it’s okay with you, Jay. I mean, it was in your truck.”

  “Take whatever you want,” I said. “Am I free to go?”

  “Of course,” Pat said, creaking to his feet and passing me the backpack full of worthless junk as a consolation prize.

  I’d only taken a few steps when Adam called out.

  “Thanks for all your help, Jay.”

  I phoned Jenny. She was at the hospital with Brody. I wanted to clue her in on what had happened, but she said she couldn’t really talk. It sounded as if there were a bunch of people around. I apologized and thanked her. She hung up. I couldn’t expect much more. This wasn’t the time.

  Whatever had happened between us, I should’ve been flying high. Only I didn’t have a moment to enjoy it. Too much stood in the way. The scene in the kitchen, Chris and the fight, my brother’s revelation on Lamentation, and that last look he gave me. The showdown with Adam and Bowman. And, of course, the biggest deal of all, the disc.

  I needed to find Charlie. I knew where he would be.

  Anchored in his usual spot, he sat along the counter at the Dubliner, nursing a beer, basket of bones picked clean and spread before him like a secret burial ground.

  I pulled up a stool.

  He peered over, nodded.

  “Sorry about earlier,” I said.

  “Don’t sweat it. I probably got carried away. I hate working for the phone company. It’s killing my soul. Got swept up in a mystery because it made my life feel important for a minute.”

  Rita looked down my way, and I held up two fingers.

  “You weren’t entirely wrong,” I said. “I found Chris.”

  “Where?”

  “Rather, he found me. Jenny’s.”

  “Shit. How is he?”

  “He broke Brody’s arm.”

  Charlie pulled back.

  “Brody pushed his buttons, and then it was like my brother was back in high school on the wrestling team. Bruce Lee shit.” I shook my head, holding back a grin. “It was nuts. I mean, he fucked him up, Charlie. I never would’ve thought he still had it in him. Brody’s in the ER.”

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  Rita set down our beers.

  Charlie hefted his. “I know you try to cut Brody sla
ck, but he’s a class-A dick, bro, and Jenny is only with him because you won’t let her be with you.”

  “We had sex.”

  “Who?”

  “Jenny and me.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon. After Aiden went down for a nap. Before Brody got home. It just sorta happened.”

  “You old dog,” Charlie said, beaming. He furrowed his large forehead. “How was it?”

  “Amazing. It felt … like home. When Chris showed up, he told Jenny I was still in love with her. Then he called Brody a piece of shit. Which is when Brody went after him.”

  “And Chris fucked him up.”

  “And Chris fucked him up.”

  Charlie took a swig. “So where is Muhammad Ali now?”

  “Down at the station. I was worried about him and wanted him somewhere safe, so as we were leaving Jenny’s place, I whispered for her to call Turley and Pat and tell them where we’d be.” I let go a deep sigh.

  “And now you’re feeling like shit,” said Charlie. “I could tell something was wrong by that hangdog expression when you strolled in.” He elbowed me. “You did the right thing. If Chris had nothing to do with Pete Naginis’ death, it’s best to clear up this shit right now. He’s left running around Ashton, who knows what could happen. Cops find him in the dark, he reaches for a comb in his waist-band—”

  “A comb?”

  “You know what I mean. When temperatures rise, people get burned. I mean, they get shot and shit. Happens all the time.” Charlie flung an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. I know you only did it because you love him.”

  The TV was showing the Bruins pre-game. They’d dug themselves a hole too deep to crawl out of. It was a lost season.

  “What did you mean when you said I wasn’t entirely wrong?” Charlie asked, fisting nuts.

  “When I drove with Chris up the mountain—that’s where I told Jenny to have the cops meet us; I knew he’d be too paranoid to go back to my place—he gave me something.”

  I pulled the disc from the back of my pants.

  “Anything on there linking Adam and Michael to some top-secret government conspiracy?” Charlie mocked.

  “Chris says there’s pictures.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Of kids. And an old man, doing bad things to them.”

  “Kiddie porn?”

  “Chris says it’s Gerry Lombardi.”

  Charlie did a double take. “Mr. Lombardi?”

  “That’s what Chris said. He was convinced. Said that’s why he broke into his house and the job site. He was trying to find more computers. Get more evidence. Chris says that’s the real reason they’re after him, and that Adam and Michael know all about it. Since their big plans would be derailed if this went public, they’re trying to kill him. Of course, my brother also thinks the fluoride in the drinking water is trying to kill him.”

  “You didn’t turn the disc over to Pat and Turley when they picked him up?”

  “Nope. But Adam and Bowman drove out to the lake looking for it. Adam kept trying to get me to go off with him. But when they were taking Chris into custody, I switched the discs, in case my brother was right.”

  “If you didn’t already believe he was, you wouldn’t have switched the discs.”

  Charlie had a point. It had happened so fast I didn’t have time to think; I acted on instinct. I grabbed my CD collection and made the exchange.

  “What’s going to happen when Adam—”

  “Pops in Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Live in New York City? I don’t know.”

  Charlie pulled out his wallet. “You take a look at that disc yet?”

  “You know I don’t have a computer.”

  “But I do.” He slapped a pair of tens on the bar, draining the rest of his pint.

  “Where’s Fisher?” I asked.

  “At his mother’s.”

  “Tell him to meet us at your place. I’d like to get his take before I move on this.”

  “What’s your plan if it is Mr. Lombardi?”

  Good question.

  I didn’t have a clue.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Waiting for Fisher to show, Charlie booted up his old computer in the back of the house, and I emptied the old brown rucksack onto the living room floor. My brother’s world unfurled before me. I stared at a mess of clutter and crazy person junk, like when Ally Sheedy dumps her bag-lady purse in The Breakfast Club, a movie my brother and I watched so many times when we were kids, we could quote it, line for line, until the part where everybody starts crying a lot and it stops being funny.

  His driver’s license was in there, expired, of course, picture taken back when he was still handsome, his shaggy brown hair carefully parted at the side. Drug paraphernalia, neatly rubber-banded together in a small, rectangular Tupperware container, which Pat had been kind enough to overlook. Through the plastic lid, I could see a charred spoon, needle, torn cigarette filter, aluminum foil, lighter. There were scraps of paper with numbers scratched in ballpoint, and business cards for free food items if ten holes were punched. None of these cards had anywhere near ten holes punched. Pair of socks. Plus the smeared undies.

  I heard the front door push open. “Yo, where’s the party?”

  “Back here,” Charlie shouted.

  I got to my feet and joined Fisher in the tiny office. Charlie clearly didn’t need an office. I remembered when he put it together after his mom died. It was the only room he redecorated. It had been her sewing den. Back then, Charlie had a hundred business ideas he wanted to put in motion. All-terrain vehicle rentals. Mini-golf/bar. Now, a small computer sat on a Furio wood desk next to an empty wire basket. Dust covered the keys. A blue screen fizzled.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said. “Desktop’s a piece of shit.”

  “What’s the deal?” asked Fisher.

  “I need a new computer. This one takes forever to load.”

  “I mean the disc,” Fisher said, looking at me. “Your brother thinks Mr. Lombardi’s diddling kiddies? That is seriously fucked up.”

  “Here we go,” said Charlie, clicking on a tiny desktop folder, which opened into several larger desktop folders, each labeled by long, alphanumeric sequences. Charlie selected the first one.

  We waited. Nothing.

  “Is it blank?”

  “Hold on,” said Charlie. “Just takes a min—”

  “Whoa!” said Fisher.

  I could’ve gone my whole life without having those images stuck in my head, and now that they were, I’d never be able to get them out. What kind of a sick fuck does that to a child?

  The pictures were amateurish and grainy, but it was clear as day what was happening, the unholy tangle of flesh. You couldn’t see faces too well, most photos were cropped above the neck. But that didn’t diminish the horror. They were all young boys—chubby, skinny, somewhere in between—put in positions little boys should never be put in, doing things little boys should never be doing. No two boys ever appeared together. You could tell the man in the photos was old by the withering, wrinkled skin, the age spots, and sagging body parts. His face was carefully edited out. The photos must’ve been taken with a timer. Unless there was someone else in the room, which added a whole new dimension I didn’t dare fathom. The background in each was gray, dark, completely nondescript, and, therefore, unidentifiable, your average basement. No furniture, not even a bed, just cold concrete with the occasional wood beam, a cheap carpet laid on the floor, like one you’d throw down for a dog.

  “Try another folder,” I said.

  There were seven folders in all, each with about half a dozen pictures, different kid, same location, same elderly man with bad posture making a guest appearance. The age would be about right. Without seeing a face, though, the perp’s identity was impossible to nail down.

  As much as none of us wanted to, we clicked on every image, thoroughly examining them, moving from victim to victim, and feeling horrified all over again
. All I could think of was Aiden, who was only a few years younger than these boys, and all the fathers who had no idea what was being done to their sons. As a parent, you strive to protect your kid, keep him from harm’s way. It’s instinctual, primal. If Chris was right and this was Lombardi, he’d used his charity as a cover to earn the trust of desperate parents, only to pick off their children when they were most vulnerable—which made him the worst kind of monster.

  “There’s nothing we can use here,” Fisher said.

  Sadly, I feared he was right.

  Until we clicked on the last folder. A partial view of a face. Slightly out of focus, but maybe …

  “Is it him?” Charlie asked.

  We all leaned in and stared hard.

  “That’s Gerry Lombardi,” Fisher said.

  “I don’t know,” said Charlie.

  “Try the next one,” I said.

  Another partial view of the man’s face. Perhaps a bit more … We clicked through the rest. Nothing. Except the shame of frightened little boys.

  “Go back,” Fisher said. “That one there.” He pointed at the screen. “That’s Gerry Lombardi.”

  “It sure does look like him,” Charlie said.

  I stared at the old man in the picture. I had Charlie zoom in, blow up, but the more we tried to manipulate the photos, the blurrier they became, until they morphed into shapeless, unrecognizable blobs. There could be no definitive answer. My best tool was my gut.

  “Jay? What do you think?”

  “I think it’s him.” I pointed at the face. “The bushy gray eyebrows. The ratty buck teeth. Even in profile …” I moved my finger down the image. “Look there. The way he’s humped over like that.” Mr. Lombardi’s posture was unique and beyond abysmal, like a sloth with scoliosis. I felt the rage surge. I thought of that day at the Little People’s Playground. Lombardi didn’t have any grandkids with him. Didn’t strike me as odd at the time. He’d simply been strolling the grounds, trolling for new victims. All that bullshit about beauty and the joy of laughing little boys? Made me sick. Right out in the open. His MO was easy to deduce. I recalled his sympathetic pitch for me to enroll Aiden in UpStart, like he was only there to help. Taking advantage of parents, stealing childhoods. Chris had been right. Who would do a damn thing about it?