Brighton

by Michael Harvey

  Mother of pearl. Smooth and hard and pale. Kevin took his grandmother’s pendant in his hands as the world dropped away. He turned the pendant over, feeling its curve and shape. The last time he’d held it, it had been decorated in blood.

  “Everything changed when she died,” Bobby said.

  “I divide my life into before and after. Even now.”

  “Then don’t make it all for nothing. You really wanna help, buy me a day with your girlfriend. Then tell ’em what you know. I did Curtis Jordan. You tried to stop me.”

  Another gust of wind kicked up the hill, calling an end to their meeting. Bobby ran silently to the top of the steps and vanished without looking back. Kevin sat in the grass, rubbing the pendant under his thumb, recalling the drift of smoke from her cigarettes and the soft whistle of the kettle in the morning as it came to a boil, wondering what it might have been like if she’d lived and knowing he’d never, ever fucking heal. That was the price he paid for the time he’d had with his grandmother, the bullet wound in his hip and limp he’d carry with him until the end of his days. Gladly. He took his time walking back down the steps, scraping his heels against the chipped stone as he went. He’d just gotten behind the wheel when two squad cars pulled into the lot, flashers rolling. One cop got out with his service revolver drawn. A second approached and asked Kevin to step out of the car.

  35

  SEAMUS SLATTERY gazed at the ceiling like a one-eyed jack while a morgue attendant ran baseball stitches across his chest. The air was alive with the muddy scent of viscera, mingled with the acidic smell of bile and piss. The afterbirth of an autopsy. Ten feet away, Frank DeMateo took a bite of a D’Angelo’s steak-and-cheese sub. Half of it went in his mouth, the rest dripped onto white paper wrappings laid out on the table. “Fuckin’ delicious. Want a bite?”

  Lisa shook her head. “There’s this thing called cholesterol, Frank. Have you heard of it?”

  “You sound like my wife.” DeMateo opened a can of Diet Dr Pepper and took a sip. “So?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Slattery when we talked last night?”

  “I wasn’t sure it was part of all this.”

  “And now you’re sure?”

  “You saw the wound path.” When Lisa didn’t respond, the Suffolk County D.A. put down his sandwich and wiped his fingers with a napkin. “You want me to get the M.E. back in here?”

  She shook her head. He raised his arms like he’d done all he could.

  “So it’s Scales?” she said.

  DeMateo started counting off reasons on his fingers. “He knew Patterson. He keeps newspaper clippings on Rosie Tallent under his fucking bed. We’re pretty sure he put a couple of nails through this mick’s hand the day before he was found dead. He runs a book that generates a shitload of cash. And someone with a shitload of cash is moving dope through Brighton. A shitload of it. And, oh yeah, he popped Curtis Jordan.”

  “Maybe he’s killing them for fun.”

  “I’m sure he’s having a hell of a time. Doesn’t matter a damn bit to me. Let’s take a walk.”

  DeMateo dropped the leavings of his lunch in the trash and led the way across the hall to a long, low room with a stone floor and cinder-block walls. Another attendant, this one a woman, was waiting.

  “Where is he?” DeMateo said.

  The room was dominated by two refrigerated boxes, each featuring three rows of silver doors with black handles. The attendant walked down to one of the drawers and slid it open. DeMateo and Lisa took a look at the corpse lying loose on a tray with two holes in his chest.

  “What’s this?” Lisa said.

  “John Doe. Found him in a room at the Royal Hotel. No wallet, rings, watch, money.”

  “What name did he register under?”

  “That’s not clear. The manager at the Royal says he came in alone, paid cash, and took the room for the morning. Blah, blah, fucking blah. It’s the Royal. You know the drill.”

  “So you’re thinking he’s a john?”

  “Course he’s a john.”

  Lisa touched one of the bullet holes with a gloved finger. “Wounds are less than an inch apart. Pretty good shooting for a hooker.”

  “So maybe it was her pimp.”

  “Pretty good shooting for a pimp.”

  DeMateo nodded at the attendant, who rolled the drawer shut. “Boston homicide says they’ll have an ID within twenty-four hours. Come on.”

  They walked back across the hall to the autopsy room. The attendant there was finished with Slattery’s chest and had moved on to sewing up the skull, lips, and one formerly working eye. He whistled softly to himself as he stitched.

  “Let me guess,” Lisa said. “You want me to handle the John Doe?”

  “I need someone who can carry the ball.”

  “While you stay on Patterson?”

  “Patterson’s going to the task force. Tomorrow they’ll pull warrants for Scales’s apartment. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an arrest by the end of the day.”

  “What about Kevin?”

  “All due respect, the relationship’s finished. It was finished once you planted the wire.”

  “All due respect, my personal life’s none of your goddamn business.”

  DeMateo held up his hands. “Fine. If he pulled the trigger on Jordan . . .”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Then he should be good.”

  “You won’t use him to pressure Scales?”

  “Didn’t say that. Listen, I’m not in a position to be cutting deals. For you or anyone else.” Her boss rolled his wrist and checked his watch. “I’ve got an appointment. Take another day. Then everything gets turned over to the task force.”

  “And I’m out?”

  “This isn’t the right case for you, Lisa. Never was. Besides, you’ve got the John Doe to keep you busy. And after him, plenty more.”

  She couldn’t help but notice the grin stuck in his voice and stared at a sharp point between his shoulder blades as he walked away. The attendant finished up his needlework on Slattery and followed DeMateo out. Then it was just Lisa, face pressed to the glass, watching as her dreams were slowly strangled. She was about to leave when the attendant poked his head back in. “You’ve got someone here to see you.”

  Lisa didn’t respond. The attendant took a tentative step into the room.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got someone here to see you.”

  “I heard you the first time. No one knows I’m here.”

  “She says she called your office and they told her where you were.”

  “What’s her name?”

  The attendant told her. Lisa felt her head snap up.

  “And she’s here now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right. Put her next door. I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

  “Steven, ma’am. Steven Sutcliffe.”

  Lisa pulled out a legal pad and scribbled a few, furious lines. “Steven, do me a favor. Get me everything your office has on these cases. Physical records, electronic. Every scrap of information you guys have generated. Plus whatever you have on Slattery.”

  “That might be a lot of paper. Do you want it sent to your office?”

  “Actually, I’d like to take a look at all of it right here. Today. Can we do that?”

  “I’ll set up a room. How about Mr. DeMateo?”

  “It’ll just be me, thanks.”

  The attendant left. Lisa gathered up her files and gave it five long minutes. Then she walked down the hall and into a small consulting room.

  “We’ve never met, but I feel like I know you.”

  “Me, too.” Bridget Pearce smiled and offered her hand.

  36

  DENNIS “LOLLIPOPS” Lombardo drove big cars—what his boss liked to call “breathers.” For this job it was a Delta 88 finished in two tones of brown. Wide seats, plenty of leg room, and a deep, quiet trunk. He took a sip of his coffee and turned up t
he radio. Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” popped and swelled until it filled the car. Lollipops liked to listen to old stuff, ’40s and ’50s swing and jazz. Scratchy as hell, but so was he. Besides, who was there to tell him otherwise? A squad car pulled up to the intersection, pausing at a red light before blowing through it and taking off down the block. Fuckers. Lollipops turned over the engine, feeling the Rocket V8 rumble through the steel frame and up into the soles of his shoes. He cruised the block and parked in a new spot with a different view of the same apartment. He’d been sitting in front of Bobby Scales’s building since five A.M. It was now almost four in the afternoon. They’d told him Scales was a creature of habit. In bed early, up early. Real routine guy. But no one had been in or out of the place all day. Which was why Lollipops was pretty sure Scales had already skipped. Which meant he was gonna be someone else’s problem. Lollipops didn’t give a damn. He’d get paid. Not as much as if he were bringing back a body, but he’d get paid. It was the phone call that sucked. People skills his wife called it. She told him he needed to develop some. As usual, she was right.

  Lollipops took another sip of coffee and thought about the last time he’d been to Boston. The job was an old man who lived alone in an apartment in the South End. Lollipops waited in an alley at night, across the street in the blowing snow and cold. The front porch was a sheet of ice so he knew the old man would take his time getting across. Lollipops crept from the alley as he pulled out his keys, hit the first step as he turned the lock, and pushed in as the door opened. He tied the old man to a kitchen chair. Lollipops never listened to any of the stupid talk—you got the wrong guy, this is all a mistake, I can make it worth your while—but this guy didn’t do any of that. He just sat there, hands pegged behind his back, mouthing small, chopped-up words without ever making a sound. Lollipops found a Bible in a drawer and read aloud from John’s prologue.

  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . .”

  When he’d finished, he untied the man’s hands and let him write a letter to his daughter. He wanted to go quick and begged for a bullet in the head. Lollipops knew he couldn’t do that. Walls like paper, too much noise. He asked the old-timer a couple of questions about the daughter. The old man was explaining how if she stood just right and put a hand on her hip she could have been her mother when Lollipops came up from behind and strangled him with a dog leash. Not great, but under the circumstances, not bad either. The Duke had been replaced by Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.” Lollipops closed his eyes and tapped his fingers against the wide, wooden steering wheel, losing himself in the shimmy and sway of the music. He dreamed of lying in bed with his wife and daughter when she was young. Lollipops would drape his arm across his little girl, allowing his fingers to brush his wife’s cheek and hair as she slept. He’d settle his feet against the warmth of their dog at the foot of the bed, feeling the pup’s ribs rise and fall, allowing himself to melt into the interconnectedness of life all around him. The snap of his cell phone jarred him awake. That was the thing about Providence. Either way, the call was gonna get made. Lollipops waited for the fourth ring before picking up.

  “I think he’s skipped.”

  He held the phone away from his ear while a string of invectives poured out like raw sewage from the other end of the line. People skills, my ass. Sometimes people just needed to get shot in the head, no one more than the jag-offs he worked for. Across the street, a skin-and-bones black kid wearing a Yankees hat scraped out of an alley and stared up at the windows of Scales’s apartment. Lollipops felt a tiny pump of adrenaline. He pulled the slender twenty-two from under the front seat and laid it against his thigh. The asshole at the other end of the line finally paused for a breath.

  “I might have something. Lemme call you back.”

  Lollipops flipped his phone shut. The kid crossed the street, pausing at the entrance to Scales’s building. Lollipops cracked the door and put a foot on the pavement, gun in his right hand, hand stuffed in his pocket. The kid moved away from the entrance, drifting down the block like a ripple of wood smoke before slipping around a corner. Lollipops buttoned his coat and walked over to the building. The door was ajar. He shouldered his way in and was halfway up the stairs when he heard the squeak of canvas and leather. The kid with the Yankees hat stood just inside the door. He was eating Underwood deviled ham from a can with his fingers.

  “I like to put it between a couple pieces of bread.” Lollipops eased down a step as he spoke. The kid dropped the tin can and pulled out a heavy black gun. Lollipops could see the sun on the right side of the kid’s face and a fever circling in the yellow of his eyes. The kid didn’t understand the weight of taking a human life. But he’d killed before, and he liked it.

  “You know how to use that thing?” Lollipops said.

  “You about to find out, nigga.” The kid held the gun stiff in his hand. Lollipops watched the skinny finger on the trigger.

  “Maybe you’re looking for the guy who lives here? If so, we can help each other.”

  The kid grinned like that was the funniest thing he’d heard in a while. At that moment, Lollipops knew the kid was gonna shoot him, right in the chest. Just for the fuck of it. Then God sent a breeze. Lollipops felt it in his face and tasted it on his tongue. At the same time, the sun dropped behind some clouds, and the old wooden door cracked on its hinges. It was this last turn of the wheel that caused the kid to flinch, dipping his gaze for an eternal second to see who might be behind him. Lollipops pulled the twenty-two and shot the kid in one motion, kicking the door closed with his foot and catching the kid before he hit the ground. His eyes were like mirrored glass, smart-ass smile still stuck on his face.

  “Fuck.” Lollipops dragged the kid under the stairs and laid him down gently. Then he went back outside for the roll of plastic he kept in the trunk.

  37

  TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS had come and gone since Bridget first watched Peggy Quinlan suck a dick. These days Peggy taught CCD on Sundays, railing at any teenager dumb enough to listen about the virtues of abstinence and the perils that befall those who indulge. But there she was in the fall of ’74, tucked underneath a canopy of trees in the heart of Indian Rock, taking Eddie Evans right down to the root. Bridget was all of eleven when she lay on the tar paper roof of 8 Champney and watched, then wrote about Peggy. Now, she sat in the same spot and stared at the page of printed words, a collection of lumpy letters that looked more like finger painting, all of it smudged and a little off center. Bridget smiled at the memory of Eddie’s cum shot, a leonine spurt of white that caught both her and Peggy by surprise. Bridget recalled nearly rolling off the edge of the roof and hearing a titter of laughter below as Peggy fell backward into a pillow of dead leaves and put her hand over her mouth, amazed at what it had wrought. Bridget flipped forward in her notebook. There were more pages devoted to Peggy. Not all with Eddie. In fact, he barely lasted six months before being replaced by a backup cornerback on the high school football team. Then, a baseball pitcher. A drummer. And, finally, the accounting major turned actuary who went to Bentley. Peggy had paid for Bridget’s silence—twenty bucks a week, right up until the day she married the actuary. Folks in Brighton wondered why fourteen-year-old Bridget Pearce stood up in Peggy’s wedding. But Bridget wanted to wear a fancy dress and get her picture taken in the worst way. And Peggy thought that was a fine idea.

  Bridget closed the notebook and returned it to its place in the strongbox her grandmother had once kept on a shelf in a china cabinet. She thought about her conversation with Kevin’s girlfriend. The inviting smile, the way she touched the back of Bridget’s hand, the lilt of her voice that bubbled and ran like a string of perfectly struck notes on a piano. Even in the fucking morgue. Bridget was quite sure her brother never stood a chance.

  There was a stirring below. Bridget dropped flat, the tar paper again cool and sticky at the same time on her face. A branch broke with a snap that sounded like a gunshot. She raised
her head until the bottom of her chin was level with the parapet wall. Bobby Scales poked his head out from behind an outcropping of granite. A warm shiver coursed through her, curling her spine and loosening her loins. Bridget pulled out a fresh notebook and watched. A half hour later, Bobby left. Bridget scribbled away for another five minutes and reread what she’d written before flipping the notebook shut. Then she found a spot against the building, in the shade of what was left of the chimney, and slipped a hand down her jeans, feeling the stickiness there. It took all of ten minutes. When she was done, she picked up the notebook and put it back with the others—an even dozen, spanning more than a quarter century. She stared at her tomes lined up in a neat row, then sealed up the strongbox behind some loose bricks. It was stupid to leave them all up here, but old habits die hard. And sometimes not at all. She climbed down off the roof and circled the block.

  The air was heavy with the smell of earth. Huge trees, knuckled trunks of wood topped by nodding heads of green, looked down on her as she’d so often looked down on them. And she could feel their judgment. Anxious to get out from under, Bridget climbed up on a shelf of rippled limestone and got her bearings. She had a pretty good idea why Bobby had been sniffing around Indian Rock but wanted to see for herself. Up ahead was a clearing, dominated by a large boulder. It sharpened to a narrow point, with a fissure that ran up its face and formed a cleft at the very top. This was the spot where she’d seen him. Bridget was sure of it. She climbed down and began to thread her way forward. All around her, wet light licked at the new leaves. Bridget quickened her pace. She never saw the root, erupting out of the ground like a web of gnarled, gray fingers, grabbing at her ankle and dragging her down into the mire.

  “Fuck.” Bridget rolled onto her back and sat up. He was squatting on the very top of the rock, balanced like some ancient totem, legs pulled up under his chin, arms wrapped around his knees. Bridget felt herself blush and scrambled to her feet. “You scared the hell out of me.”