Sorrow's Anthem

by Michael Koryta

  “Go to hell,” Mike Gajovich told me.

  For a long time we all sat there and said nothing, just traded stares. Outside, a printer was grinding away and women were laughing.

  “I suppose this is the end of our meeting,” Amy said at last.

  “I suppose so,” Joe answered when Gajovich didn’t.

  They got to their feet, but I stayed where I was, meeting the prosecutor’s glare. Joe had his hand on the doorknob when Gajovich finally spoke again.

  “I heard there was a stack of charges pushed under the rug for you in that Weston fiasco, Perry.”

  “People say the craziest things,” I said.

  “A situation like that can get messy.”

  “He threatens without threatening,” I said. “Damn, but you are savvy, Mr. Gajovich. A politician’s politician, I’d say.”

  “If I were you, I’d go back to your office and leave this one alone. That’s all I’ll say. Gradduk was a loser, Perry. So I’m not surprised to hear he was your friend. But losers don’t have power, and losers don’t attract sympathy from people who do have power. They attract trouble and then they’re stomped out. You remember that.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Amy went back to work and Joe and I went back to the office. I spent most of the ride burning over Gajovich’s words, but even while they’d angered me, they’d helped me. I knew now I was going to have to return Scott Draper’s call, after all. My knowledge of Ed’s life effectively ended seven years before he died. I needed to talk to someone who’d been close to him, and Draper was the best option I had.

  “Lincoln,” Draper said when I identified myself, “thanks for calling me back, man. I wanted to apologize. That thing in the street, it was bullshit. The cops told me what happened, told me you didn’t push him. From my angle, it looked like something it wasn’t. Still, I should have better sense than to pull shit like that. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Look, you got a few minutes? Time to run down here and grab a beer?”

  “A beer in the morning?”

  “Doesn’t have to be right now. Whenever you have a chance.”

  “I’ll come down around noon.”

  I’d just hung up the phone when the door swung open and Detective Cal Richards stepped into the room.

  He was a tall, lean black man with a face that was all hard angles and edges, like a wood carving. He wore black slacks with a blue shirt and matching tie, and a badge was clipped onto his belt. None of that stood out as much as the scowl on his face, though.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, easing into one of our client chairs. We have two standard client chairs and a set of wooden stadium seats from the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and he gave those a curious glance as he sat.

  “How are you, Detective?” I said, offering my hand. He didn’t take it.

  “How are you, Detective?” he mimicked. “I’m a little pissed off, Perry. Pissed off that somehow you got kicked loose last night before I had a chance to talk with you, but for that I can blame an incompetent sergeant who thinks he’s got authority just because he’s old. But lest you think all the blame’s headed in that direction, I’m also pissed off at you. I just got off the phone with a source who informed me you intend to run a parallel investigation into the Sentalar death without bothering to contact me.”

  I pulled my hand back. “That’s not true.”

  “You’re not investigating?”

  I hesitated, and his gaze turned even more unfriendly. “I stump you with that one, Perry? I can speak slower.”

  Beside me, Joe was grinning. I gave him a glare and then looked back at Richards.

  “I am not investigating in any sort of official capacity, Detective. Ed Gradduk was a friend of mine. A close friend, a long time ago. I saw him on the night that he died, and he talked with me briefly. You already know that from the police reports, I’m sure.”

  He nodded. “And now you want to fool around with this, compromise my investigation?”

  “I have no intention of compromising anyone’s investigation, and if I am investigating, I promise it won’t be ‘fooling around,’ Richards,” I said, a touch of hostility creeping into my own voice. “I’m pretty good at what I do. I was going to contact you this afternoon, so don’t get all bent out of shape over my failing to notify you of my interest. It’s a waste of our mutual time.”

  He loosened his tie and leaned back in his chair. “You interfere with this and I’ll take you down hard, Perry. You know that, because you know my rep.”

  “And you know mine.”

  A slight smile played on his face. “Oh, yes. Yes, I do know your rep, friend.” He jerked his head at Joe. “And your partner’s, of course. Thirty years of distinction. You, Perry? Not so many.”

  “Should be enough,” I said.

  “It is enough,” he said, “provided you don’t get clever with me on this.”

  “Anything I know, you’ll know, too.”

  He chewed on that for a while before speaking again. “Your buddy’s been dead less than twenty-four hours and already you’re on the move and concerning people. Makes me wonder what you know.”

  “Not a damn thing,” I said. “And your source for this information couldn’t be more obvious, because the only person we’ve talked to today is Mike Gajovich.”

  Richards smiled then, and something about the look made me think that if I had to pick just one man in the city that I would never cross, he would have to be close to the top of the list. Something in that smile spoke of a total self-confidence and dangerous intuitiveness that few men possessed, and I knew at that moment that never in Cal Richards’s life had he acted simply because it was what another man told him to do.

  “Listen,” he said, “Mike Gajovich has hardly given me the time of day before this morning. Then suddenly we’re best friends and he wants to keep me apprised of something that could jeopardize my investigation. You want to know how I responded to that? By losing whatever respect I ever had for the man. Because as soon as he tells me this, I know he’s made the call only to save his own ass. Why? I don’t know. But don’t think I’m buying it.”

  Joe looked at me and grinned as if to say, Isn’t this guy a scream?

  Richards said, “Here’s what I’m going to tell you: Stay away from the Anita Sentalar murder investigation. I don’t like free-lancers stepping inside. However . . . if you want to dig up every last damn thing you can about Ed Gradduk’s recent past, go for it. I know you two are capable investigators. It’s very simple: You don’t interfere with my work, and I won’t waste my time on you. Sound fair?”

  “Sounds fair,” I said after pausing long enough to make his eyes narrow. “But can I ask you if there’s anything to suggest the victim even knew Ed Gradduk?”

  Richards took a deep breath, his broad chest filling with air. “I’ll get back to you on that one.”

  “Come on.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, Perry. That’s the very thing I’ve been busting my ass on all day, and while I have a start, I’m not to the point where I want to throw around theories. When I nail their relationship down, I’ll let you know.”

  “But they did have a relationship? Not total strangers?”

  “Not total strangers,” Richards said. “But I’m not taking more questions. Just stay the hell away from my murder investigation. You want to look at Gradduk, fine. Not Sentalar. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  He shifted his eyes to Joe. “You were a hell of a cop, Pritchard. Everyone knows that. I’m trusting you to keep your cowboy partner’s heart in the right place.”

  “I’m usually too concerned with keeping his head out of his ass, but I’ll try to worry about the heart, too,” Joe said.

  Richards turned back to me. “Now we’re going to have an official talk. This is my murder investigation, and that incompetent asshole Padgett took it upon himself to conduct an interview with you and then put you back on the streets last night wi
thout ever bothering to check in with me. I’ve already put the fear of God into him, but I still need to hear what went down.”

  And so I told it again, a story I was already growing weary of telling. Richards asked more questions than anyone else had, so it took longer to tell, but in the end I couldn’t provide him with anything more.

  “Were you with Padgett and Rabold when they went to arrest Ed Gradduk?” Joe asked Richards when I was done.

  He shook his head. “No. They got the tip from the liquor store owner, it seems. Not too surprising, considering those guys have worked that neighborhood for years. They got hungry for a headline, went in alone, and botched the arrest. Gradduk got away, and then your partner saw how well it turned out.”

  I willed away an image that came with sounds of squealing brakes and crunching bone.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I saw.”

  Richards got to his feet, and this time he offered his hand to me. “I owe you a shake. But take me seriously with this, and don’t get in my way on this investigation.” He released my hand. “I forgot how damn young you are. Have you even hit thirty yet?”

  “Not yet, but I’m about to take a swing.”

  He pursed his lips and whistled noiselessly. “You must have been the youngest detective in department history.”

  “No. But I was close.”

  “Ever miss it?”

  “Just pissing off the brass,” I said, and he almost smiled before he left.

  It was harder for me to walk into the Hideaway this time. It had given me a moment’s pause the night before, standing at the threshold of a building filled with memories. But that night I’d had a mission, and at its end was a chance to see an old friend. This time I would walk out of here alone.

  Only a handful of people were at the bar when I stepped inside—two guys and three women, all of them smoking cigarettes and drinking Budweiser. When I opened the door, I sent sunlight spilling into the dark room, and everyone turned and squinted at me, expecting a familiar face. Those were the faces you saw most in the Hideaway, and that antiquated the place maybe even more than the ancient building itself. The kid from my last visit was behind the bar again, and Scott Draper was standing beside him, talking softly over the counter with an older guy who wore jeans and a silk shirt. I moved toward them, but before I got to the bar, someone spoke from behind me.

  “The hell you think you’re doing in here, prick.”

  I turned to see an old man with an ugly scowl set on his fleshy face sitting at one of the little tables across from the bar. He was maybe sixty, with thick gray hair and red-rimmed eyes, and he was staring at me like he wanted to break his beer bottle over my head.

  “Good to see you, too, Bill,” I said.

  “Kiss my ass.”

  Bill Foulks had been in the neighborhood for every one of his sixty-some years on the earth, and as far as I knew, he’d never left for more than a week. He’d worked at one of the meat shops in the West Side Market when I was a kid, and he’d been one of Norm Gradduk’s closest friends.

  “Somebody invite you here, asshole?” he said. “You haven’t had the balls to hang around here since you busted Eddie, but now that he’s dead you think it’s okay? Think something changed? Well, nothing has. Get the hell out.”

  I was opening my mouth to suggest Bill get his fat ass off the stool to make it easier for me to throw him through the window when Scott Draper stepped over.

  “Give it a rest, Bill,” he said.

  Foulks looked at him with wide eyes. “You shittin’ me, Scott? This prick’s the guy—”

  “I know damn well who he is,” Draper said, his voice low and cold, “and I don’t need to hear your opinion on him, either. Lincoln’s here because I asked him to be.”

  Foulks gaped at him in disgust. “You telling me you want the son of a bitch down here?”

  Draper wouldn’t look at me. “He’s here on business,” he told Foulks, and then he motioned for me to follow him back into the dining room. Foulks glared at me and showed me his fat middle finger as I left.

  I followed Draper into the dining room, which was empty. On the wall all along this row of booths were pictures of the neighborhood through the years. I was in one of them, standing with Ed and Draper on the steps outside the bar the day we graduated from high school, and I was pleasantly surprised to notice the picture still hung above the old booth where we’d all carved our names. I took a step toward it, wanting a closer look, but Draper took my elbow and guided me away from it and into another booth.

  “What can I get you to drink? On the house, of course.”

  “Whatever’s cold and in a bottle.”

  “Be right back.” He went back out to the bar, and I heard him talking in low tones with Bill Foulks. I wondered what Draper was saying. Probably not giving me a hell of a lot of support. He’s here on business.

  When Draper came back to the dining room, he had a bottle of Moosehead Canadian in each hand, and the guy in the jeans and silk shirt trailing behind him. Draper handed me one of the beers, then nodded at his companion.

  “This guy was Ed’s boss,” Draper said. “I was just filling him in on what happened last night.”

  I looked at the stranger with interest now.

  “Jimmy Cancerno,” he said, offering his hand as he slid into the booth beside Draper. He wasn’t as old as I’d originally thought, probably no more than fifty, but he carried himself with slouched shoulders, and his thinning hair was shot with gray.

  “You want anything to eat?” Draper asked me.

  “You kidding me?” I hadn’t eaten in many hours, but the Hide-away food wasn’t going to improve on an empty stomach.

  “What? Food’s better around here now, Lincoln. We made some changes.”

  “So the grill got cleaned?”

  He grinned. “Some of the changes are still on the list. But we got new pickles.”

  “Dill chips?”

  “Spicy dill chips. They were on sale, of course.”

  Cancerno watched this interplay without interest. We were jammed together in one of the tiny booths, hunched over an old wooden table. Above the booth we sat in today was an old black-and-white photograph showing Draper’s grandfather sitting on the hood of a big Oldsmobile, probably taken around 1950.

  “Bar’s been here a long time,” I said, looking at the picture.

  “Better than a half century,” Draper said. “My grandfather opened it when he got back from World War II. Dad took over when he came home from ’Nam. Family tradition called for me to fight a war before I could run the show, but then my old man died before I had the chance, so I took over.”

  “Died too young,” I said. David Draper had died from lung cancer a few years after we graduated from high school. He’d smoked better than a pack a day for forty years and spent the rest of his time working in a bar that was generally so hazy with smoke it was difficult to see the television screens.

  “Hell, all of our dads did,” Draper said. “Yours was the oldest when he went, and he was still too young.”

  Draper took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out for himself, and offered them to me. Apparently his father’s illness had done nothing to deter Scott’s habit. I declined, and he lit his own, then immediately set it on the edge of the ashtray.

  “They put Ed in the ground this week,” he said, and his brown eyes were flat. “I haven’t decided if I’m going out for it or not. Wouldn’t make a bit of difference to Ed.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Poor bastard,” Draper said, sighing and lifting his cigarette back to his lips. “But in a way, it’s almost better, you know? Things would have been ugly for him, Lincoln. You know that.”

  “If he didn’t kill her, we could have proven that, maybe gotten him back out.”

  “We?”

  I shrugged. “The police, then. I offered to help him, but it’s too late now.”

  Draper drained a third of his Moosehead in one swallow and wiped his mout
h with the back of his hand. He was wearing a white T-shirt that hugged his muscles closely, a thin silver chain hanging over the collar.

  “I got to admit, I was pissed off at you last night, and I mean good,” he said. “It’s for the best that they put you in the police car. I was blaming you for it, even if you hadn’t shoved him. I mean, he was fine upstairs until you showed up.”

  I sipped my beer and kept silent. Ed had been anything but fine, hiding out in a bar, drunk, with a cop’s blood on his shirt, but if Draper wanted to tell himself he’d played the role of a protector, I wouldn’t challenge it.

  “I’m past that now,” he said. “Blaming you, that is. You showed up, right? And I know you showed up ’cause you wanted to help him. That took some serious balls, Lincoln.”

  I leaned back, trying to clear some space in the little booth. He watched my face carefully, smoking his cigarette. Then he shrugged. “I think Ed had to appreciate the effort. And if he was going to go down that day, well, must have been nice for him to have an old friend by his side as he went.”

  I thought of Ed’s drunken run into the street, the clumsy way his feet had tangled, the screech of brakes that were doing too little, too late.

  “Sure,” I said. “Must have been nice.”

  Cancerno hadn’t said a word during our exchange, just sat and sipped a whiskey on the rocks.

  “How long had Ed worked for you?” I asked him.

  “Six months, maybe?” He shrugged. “Scott’s the one recommended him to me.” He gave Draper a look that had more bite than the whiskey in his glass.

  Draper met it coolly. “I’d recommend him to you again, Jimmy.”

  “Hell of a thing to say, considering.” Cancerno scowled.

  “Pretty broken up about Ed, huh?” I said, the small booth feeling smaller to me with every word Cancerno said.

  “I supposed to give a shit?” he said, eyes wide. “I hardly knew the guy. He was just a carpenter and a painter, same as a dozen other guys. ’Cept a dozen other guys don’t bring the cops to my door.”

  “That bothers you,” I said, and his gaze narrowed.