Nightbird

by Edward Dee

  He squinted into the sun as he approached the rear of the crowd. Bits of raw cotton stuck to bushes and gathered against fences and curbs. He wished he’d left his blazer in the car. All the men looked cool in short-sleeved shirts and linen pants; the women looked like money and aerobics. Everybody, including the priest, sported dark sunglasses.

  Danny stood at the back of the crowd, rolling a piece of raw cotton between his fingers. He was too far back to enjoy the shade of the canopy, too far back to make out the words of the priest. The priest faced the rows of folding chairs, incanting the rhythms of Scripture. Evan Stone sat in the first row, his arm around Lynnette. Lynnette Stone looked dazed.

  Six hours and 117 miles after he arrived, Danny stood in a sparsely treed cemetery somewhere on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, trying to figure out what he’d learned, if anything. He felt far removed from Gillian in this strange place. The girl he knew was a city girl; she loved New York City.

  For the first time in his life he felt the sun burning his scalp and wondered how many years he had left on his hairline. He touched it gingerly, wishing his fingertips could spout ice water. Then he tried not to think of ice water, his throat drier than a wine hangover. The priest droned on, and Danny could feel the heat from each individual blade of grass radiating up through the soles of his shoes. The worst was that Lainie Mossberg was right: he was ready to sell his soul for a pair of sunglasses.

  He knew the priest’s remarks had ended when the crowd started to murmur, then move. The women formed a line behind Lynnette, each holding a single white rose. One by one they placed them on the blond wood coffin. In the crowd movement, Danny lost sight of Evan Stone.

  He peeled off to the right and saw Stone alone, walking toward the fence overlooking the freeway. He had his back turned as Danny approached. He turned, looking startled, then took a panicky step back into the fence. Danny extended his hand.

  “I’m Danny Eumont, from New York. I’m sorry….”

  Stone’s overhand right caught Danny in the left temple. He went down hard, stunned more by the act than the blow. He rolled over on his bad right shoulder, and it almost brought tears to his eyes.

  “You have the balls to come here, now?” Stone growled. “At a time like this? What kind of scum are you?”

  He started kicking Danny, stomping him on his back and shoulders. Danny rolled toward the fence and got to his knees.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know anything was wrong with her. I should have noticed, I know. But I hadn’t seen her in months.”

  From his knees he tried to look up at Stone, but the sun was right in his eyes. The freeway roared in his ears, little black specks floated across his field of vision.

  “Who the hell are you?” Stone said.

  “I told you, Danny Eumont.”

  Men in white shirts and dark glasses sprinted toward them, asking Evan if he were okay. Danny felt like an asshole from New York in a woolen blazer with brass buttons hot enough to brand cattle.

  “Oh, Danny, I’m sorry, so sorry,” Evan Stone said, dropping to his own knees and putting his arms around Danny. “I thought you were someone else.”

  Danny knew his mouth was open as if words were coming out, but none did. Maybe he’d missed something in the glare of the sun. He wanted to scream something at the righteous bastards surrounding them, in their Ray-Bans and linen, but he was too tired and sore to care. He felt like a pelican, a weak flier caught up in a storm he couldn’t handle. All that came to mind was: “Somebody, please… turn down the goddamn lights!”

  22

  The water of Crotona Pool glistened blue green in the morning sun. It lapped at the white-tiled edges rhythmically, peacefully. Victor knew that peace wouldn’t last. Soon the wild children of the Bronx would occupy every inch of water. Many would climb over the fence rather than pay, then they’d go running and screaming, kicking and punching like savages. They didn’t swim but leaped in recklessly, then bobbed up and down, often fully dressed in pants and shirts, some with sneakers on. The boys would grab the girls by the hair or breasts or brutally lock an arm around their necks and yank them to the edge of the pool. Or a band of them would mob a girl, hold her high in the air, hand to crotch, and throw her toward the water without regard for her safety, without conscience.

  He hated these people; they were ignorant, and they’d always be ignorant. Victor knew he didn’t belong among them. They had no self-respect. No class. Poverty would be all they would ever know. Welfare their only hope.

  He longed for the better life he would soon be living. He remembered his swims as a boy in the Sea of Cortés. For hours he’d swim alongside sea turtles and dolphins. The clear blue water showcased the Technicolor spectacle of the sea, the colors of fish brighter and more iridescent than one could imagine. All he wanted was this life again, but this time a life that reflected his accomplishments. He was once the greatest aerialist in the world. He wanted the admiration he deserved. So many people had more than he, and they were never the greatest anything.

  Victor had not been greedy. A quarter of a million dollars was not a lot of money for a man as rich as Winters. He would not miss it any more than the crumbs that blew off his table. Men like Winters had access to incredible wealth, more than these savages around the pool could ever imagine. Most people could not comprehend the true wealth of some people. People who owned five or six mansions around the world. Victor had been in their company. As a young man he’d been introduced to people who had more money than they’d ever need. He’d seen the way they carried themselves, and he wanted that life. It wasn’t right that so few had so much. All Victor wanted was enough. Enough to live a simple, elegant life as a man of respect. He deserved it, and no one was going to stop him from getting it.

  He’d come to Crotona Pool to work out and stretch his sore muscles in the warm water. He needed the sense of peace that water should impart. The warmth of it, to be enveloped by it. To cut out all distraction, because he needed to think of a plan. A foolproof escape plan. One that was flexible, one that allowed for a variety of contingencies. He wondered how Alain Charnier had eluded the police in The French Connection. He’d disappeared on Ward’s Island somehow. The movie never explained his escape. Victor knew he could figure it out.

  He did a flip turn at the end of the pool and headed back. The sheen of his tanned muscular body glinted as he stroked high in the water. He could hear rap music from the boom boxes. Victor missed the music of Mexico, with its soft trumpets and guitars. Music should be about love, not hate. He could hear it in his head, as he felt the good burn in his shoulders. It was his fiftieth lap.

  A commotion by the pool gate drew everyone’s attention. A gang of young savages pushed their way through the turnstiles. Victor went underwater to get a last minute of serenity. Swimming underwater was the only peace one could find in this city. That was the last thing he’d told Pinto as he’d dropped his weighted body into the Hudson. Be grateful for the peace, my Russian friend.

  When he raised his head his eyes stung from the massive dose of chlorine. He pulled himself up at the end of the pool. Groups of adults and teenagers had staked out portions of space, like refugees, around the fence. His towel was gone. A group of young girls giggled and pointed at him, some making that wet smacking noise they made with their lips that was supposed to be seductive. The air was heavy with marijuana smoke. He walked dripping into the locker room, doing all he could to control his rage. He prayed one of their boyfriends would be in the locker room and would bump him or mouth off. He’d show them what violence truly was. He consoled himself with the thought that he’d completed his last swim among the ignorant rabble of this city.

  23

  I shoulda knocked that dwarf cop on his ass,” Joe Gregory said as they entered Buster Scorza’s pink neon world of the Pussycat Palace. “You see the look on that kid’s face? Like we’re here on some shakedown scam.”

  They’d parked the Buick in a bus stop on Eighth Avenue dir
ectly in front of the three-story sex emporium. Two young uniformed cops from Mid-Town South had pulled up behind them. Using their radio car’s bullhorn, they’d ordered the detectives to move the Buick, drive on. Gregory got out and flashed his gold shield and Irish smile. “We’re working a case!” he’d yelled, being friendly. He didn’t have to tell them anything.

  “Bullshit,” one cop yelled back.

  “They teach them that in the academy,” Ryan said. “Cops our age are evil incarnate.”

  “And that’s exactly why they’re getting in trouble out there. When we came on the job, we had cops fifty and sixty years old working in uniform, around the clock. Guys with military service and ‘boo coo’ experience. Taught you how to analyze a situation with common sense. Treat people with respect.”

  The Pussycat Palace was the McDonald’s of porn, all chrome and happy plastic. A mere dollar got the customer in the door, and he got four tokens in the bargain. Gregory flashed his badge, and they strolled past the token seller at the entrance.

  The long dark hallway leading to the back was lined with small booths. Above each door was a red light. The red light glowed while money was being fed into the machine, and security came knocking when the light went out. One token worth twenty-five cents bought a minute of filmed sex, the perversion of your choice. Each booth advertised access to 360 flicks on four simultaneous screens. It sounded as if you’d stumbled into a medieval torture chamber. A cacophony of moans, groans, grunts, whimpers, and screams, all coming from behind fifty locked doors.

  “We’ve been announced,” Gregory said. “Buster himself is coming to greet us.” Ryan figured the token seller at the front desk had buzzed the back room.

  Buster Scorza came out from behind a mirrored door in a mirrored wall, protected by a raised desk and manned by an immense black man who hawked tokens and ousted ball breakers. Gregory reached for his ID, but it wasn’t necessary. The Mob guy knew.

  “Gentlemen,” Buster Scorza said.

  It had been several years since Ryan and Gregory were last in the Pussycat Palace. A homicide then. A Marielito who’d sliced up his partner in their live sex act. He had a tattoo of a dagger inside his lower lip; she had a daughter in the Bronx named Jennifer. On cue, Ryan and Gregory could recite all the details for every murder they’d handled for three decades.

  “Can we talk in private?” Ryan said, raising his voice above the pulsing disco beat.

  “Out here is good for me,” Scorza said.

  He wore shapeless black pants and orthopedic shoes laced tongue to toe. His white short-sleeved shirt hung outside his pants, the material so thin you could see the straps of his T-shirt. Pleats ran down the front of the shirt, in the casual chic favored by Panamanian dictators.

  “You sure about that?” Ryan said. “All these booths, everybody listening to your business.”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Buster said. “They all got their hands full.”

  The Taj Mahal of commercial porn had invested heavily in high-tech gadgetry. But the smell of ammonia was still eye-wateringly strong.

  “How about Trey Winters?” Ryan said. “He have his hands full?”

  The question caught Scorza by surprise. He’d expected any one of the numerous illegal areas to which he was vulnerable. He decided it might be less noisy to talk in the office. Two steps up, behind the raised counter. Through the looking glass.

  “My business with Trey Winters is just that, business,” Scorza said, tossing his keys on the desk. The office had been well soundproofed. The carpet was a gaudy red, but the pile was plush. A lime green fake leather sofa served as Buster’s casting couch.

  “We’re not going to play games with you, Buster,” Gregory said. “You and Trey Winters don’t add up. Something stinks, besides this office. And we’re going to come up with it. Now’s the time to get on board. First guy on board gets the best deal.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “This offer leaves with us,” Ryan said. “If Winters spills his guts first, his story is the one we go with. You want your freedom riding on an actor?”

  Ryan could understand why Scorza didn’t want them in his office. The wall held a bank of TV screens that focused on his little kingdom of lust from every crack and cranny.

  “This is bizarre,” Scorza said. “What in hell are you talking about?”

  “What kind of business do you have with Winters?” Ryan asked.

  “Show business,” he said, shrugging.

  The bulk of the Pussycat’s cameras were focused on hallways. Men milled about, peeking into booths, reading descriptions of movies, generally avoiding eye contact with each other.

  “So what’s your role—producer, director, lead actor?” Gregory said.

  “Mr. Winters had some questions regarding the stagehands union. I told him I no longer had any affiliation with the local. That’s it.”

  “Did you laugh when you said that?” Gregory said. “Because it is funny.”

  “It might be funny to you, but I severed all my union ties five years ago.”

  “Obeying the court’s order,” Ryan said. “Like the solid citizen you are.”

  “The word of the supreme court of this state is good enough for me,” Scorza said.

  Four cameras covered the basement, where the live nude peep show ran all day and night. On a bare round stage surrounded by booths, an ever-changing parade of beaten women with ghetto faces rubbed themselves against small windows of the tiny cubicles inhabited by a circle of jerks.

  “Winters has been in this business a long time,” Ryan said. “He knew you were thrown out of the union.”

  “I might argue with the ‘thrown out’ part,” Scorza said. “But, you’re right. I’ve known Trey Winters for many years, and he did know I left the union. He was asking for advice on what he can expect from the new leaders. Concerning his new show.”

  “Why didn’t he just go to the new union people himself?” Gregory said.

  “You’ll have to ask him that question.”

  “How did you meet Trey Winters?” Ryan said.

  “Through Paul Klass,” Scorza said. “The director. Paul and I had many dealings when I was still with the union. Charming man, fascinating. His death was a blow to the theater.”

  On the second floor, the seminaked girls in the one-on-one booths lured men into their lairs for a friendly strip and talk. Each side of the glass-separated booths was equipped with phones.

  “Nothing is ever easy,” Ryan said. “You’re forcing us to do this the hard way.”

  “Do what the hard way?” Scorza said.

  Ryan pointed to a camera labeled number three. It was the second-floor one-on-one booths.

  “Clear that up for me,” he said. “What the hell is going on there?”

  “That’s one of our touching booths,” Scorza said. “Perfectly legal. I have copies of the court decision if you’d like to read it.”

  “I hope it doesn’t say it’s legal for her to have her hand down his pants.”

  Scorza looked at the screen. Then he opened the mirrored door to his office.

  “Lonny,” he said to the huge man at the raised counter, “go upstairs and tell Gypsy she’s fired. Have payroll close her out and tell her I want her ass out of here permanently.”

  “She with a customer?” Lonny inquired.

  “Give the customer his money back and escort him to the street. Tell him he’s barred.”

  Over the loudspeaker came a warning that the lesbian special live show would begin in ten minutes, and don’t forget Miss Rhonda Rockies in all her abundance would be on the main stage at noon, three, and six P.M. Seating limited.

  “Sorry, Officers,” Scorza said, closing the door. “That’s why we have these cameras here.”

  “Now, see,” Gregory said, “there’s my suspicious mind at work. I would have thought Gypsy would know she’s on camera. My thinking was that these cameras were here to make sure nobody holds money out on y
ou.”

  “Lawyers cost money,” Scorza said. “If she brings Public Morals down on us, I’m out real money. Besides, I don’t want that shit going on in this place.”

  “What makes you think we won’t lock her up now?” Ryan said.

  “Be my guest,” Scorza said. “I’ll even testify as a witness for you.”

  “What a great citizen,” Gregory said.

  “I can certainly promise you, or a judge, she’ll never set foot in here again.”

  “You are an actor,” Gregory said. “You missed your calling. I was almost convinced by that performance. Weren’t you, pally?”

  “Almost,” Ryan said. “But you have other problems, Buster. Last week a customer had his pocket picked in here. And believe it or not, he reported it.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” Scorza said. “Imagine that, a pickpocket here in our city.”

  “We’re going to help Mid-Town South on this case,” Ryan said. “Canvass some of your customers. Maybe locate a potential witness.”

  “I told you the truth about Trey Winters. You have no cause to harass me.”

  “Still acting,” Gregory said. “The man inhabits his role.”

  “No one is harassing you,” Ryan said. “All we want is the truth about your business with Trey Winters. And while we’re waiting for you to remember the truth, we’ll try to solve this pickpocket case.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You’re not giving us any choice, Buster.”

  “You’re going to do whatever you want anyway,” Scorza said. “No matter what I say.”

  As Ryan came down the stairs from Scorza’s office, big Lonny, fresh from his fake firing assignment, waddled down the hallway of locked booths. Ryan walked to the end of the line and banged on the metal door to the first booth. He yelled, “Police!” loudly enough to alert all three floors. Gregory took the left side, did his own yelling. They walked down the line, banging on doors and yelling. Lonny came hustling to the rescue.

  “Here comes your protection,” Ryan said, turning back to Scorza.