Songs of Innocence (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback))

by Richard Aleas

  I swung open the door that led from the main stairwell to the short extra flight up to the roof. Seconds later, I was outside. It was a cold night, but clear. Wind-blown clouds scudded beneath the nearly full moon, alternately obscuring and revealing it. I let the door swing shut behind me, holding it so it wouldn’t slam. Then I crossed the overlapping squares of tarpaper to the edge of the roof and looked down. A cop car was parked at the curb, red and blue lights revolving. The fire escape was tempting—but I couldn’t climb down that way without crossing in front of my apartment windows, and that was a sure way to be seen.

  Which left only one way off the roof. The buildings on either side were taller than mine, but one wasn’t taller by much. Unfortunately, that was also the one that didn’t abut my building—there was a narrow alleyway that ran between them. Only three feet wide, not much more than an airshaft, but—

  But three feet across was still sixty feet down.

  I heard a muffled crash below me. That would be my door. Right now they’d be turning on the lights, and in a moment they’d have seen the corpse, and then—

  From years of watching old movies on TV, I think I was expecting a shrill whistle to blow, the sound tearing through the night like an alarm. What I heard instead was the crackle of a walkie-talkie, followed by Mirsky’s nasal voice, calling for backup, for a coroner’s van. Through my apartment’s open window, I heard the response. They were on their way. I didn’t have long.

  I looked across at the other building. On a level with my roof there was a window—dark, thank god, either the people who lived there weren’t home or they’d drawn the blinds and gone to bed. And the window had a nice, deep sill protruding from the wall—deep enough to hold a good-sized potted plant, and plenty deep enough to stand on. Above the window was a stone balustrade with thin, widely spaced uprights. A person who was standing on the sill wouldn’t have to be especially nimble or strong to grab hold of one of the uprights and pull himself up to the roof above. It wouldn’t require superhuman acrobatics, just basic high-school chin-up skills.

  That, and crossing three feet of empty space.

  I closed my eyes. What was three feet? New Yorkers made leaps wider than that every time there was a storm, when they strained to step over patches of snow or deep puddles of rainwater at a street corner. But of course sometimes I missed those steps—we all did. And the penalty then was a shoeful of filthy water. The penalty here would be...

  Don’t think about it, I told myself. There’s no time. Just go.

  I still had the plastic bag with me, the one with the bloody shirt and wallet wadded up inside it. I raised it with both hands, aimed it like a basketball, and released it like a free throw from half court. The bag soared easily above the balustrade, landing with a soft plop on the other roof.

  If only I could cross so easily.

  I stepped carefully up onto the waist-high parapet at the edge of my roof, took several deep breaths. Beneath me, the alleyway was dark—dark and deep. My Frost came back to me. The woods, I thought. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to

  I raised my right foot and lunged out with it, into space.

  My foot landed on the sill opposite—and I realized, with horror, that I hadn’t thought this through. Because now I had one foot on each building and no way to bring the other one across. I scrabbled with my hands against the wall in front of me. All my weight was on my forward leg, my right leg, but I could feel the other leg pulling me back, and my balance going, and below me, the yawning gulf of the alley, hungrily dragging me down.

  And there was a quiet voice that whispered to me in that moment, a seductive voice, a voice that whispered inside my head, saying, So much simpler. No? And: You’re so tired, so very tired. You deserve to rest. And: Why struggle? For what, really? For what?

  But then my grasping fingers found one of the uprights of the balustrade over the window and reflexively gripped it, and I used it to pull myself forward, to pull my other leg across. I found another upright with my other hand and stood there, holding on for dear life. My heart was exploding, my ribs ached—but I was steady and stable and alive and over on the other side, and that little voice in my head had shut the fuck up.

  I didn’t let go of the balustrade till I’d pulled myself up and over, swinging one leg over the edge of the roof and squeezing through the gap between two uprights. I lay there, breathing ragged breaths, and it was a minute before I could stand. I spotted the plastic bag about twenty feet away. Good thing I hadn’t thrown it harder—it might have gone over the edge and landed in the street, at the feet of the cops.

  I dragged open the heavy stairwell door and climbed down the seven stories to the ground floor, then one more to the basement. There was a garbage room here, and a small office furnished with damaged, mismatched pieces: a sofa with one missing foot and a stained cushion; a metal folding chair with no back; a TV stand covered with “Hello Kitty” stickers. Presumably all scrounged by the super from things his tenants had thrown out. The man himself was nowhere to be seen, though the TV was running, so he’d probably be back any minute.

  I hunted around till I found the service entrance, opened it, and peeked out. The rear of the building was in shadow. A narrow passage led off between two trees and then took a sharp left turn, leaving me on Bedford Street. There were no cops in sight. Not yet, anyway—I could hear a siren in the distance. I saw an empty cab and wanted desperately to flag it down, but with only a few bucks in my pocket, there was no way I could pay for it. And the last thing I needed right now was a cab driver calling over a cop to complain about his deadbeat fare.

  I let the cab go and just walked, as quickly as I could without breaking into a run, toward Leroy Street.

  Chapter 15

  On Leroy there was a deli with an ATM in the back. It charged a $2.99 fee for a withdrawal and wouldn’t give you more than a hundred dollars at a time, but that was a hundred dollars more than I’d had before, and I took it gladly. On the way out I bought a bagel, which turned out to be rock hard, and a 3 Musketeers bar. I ate the candy bar as I walked west. There was a big construction site near the West Side Highway and one of the full dumpsters became the new home for the plastic bag I was carrying. The bagel, too, while I was at it.

  I realized too late that it would’ve been smart of me to take Ramos’ drivers license out of his wallet before throwing it away—but I’d shoved the bag in deep and wasn’t climbing in to find it again. With luck, no one else would either.

  When I hit the highway I walked north, paralleling the waterfront. My cell phone battery was nearly dead, but I had enough of a charge left to make one call, and I made it to Susan.

  “John? What is it? You sound—”

  “No time,” I said, “my battery’s about to go. Ramos is dead. They left him in my apartment and then called the cops.”

  “What? Where are you?”

  “Never mind where I am. We need a place to meet tomorrow. I won’t call you at this number again, they may tap your line.”

  “Why would—”

  “Susan, please. Tomorrow night. Nine o’clock.” I tried to think of some place to meet. “You remember the Cop Cot? In Central Park?” It’s a little house of sticks perched on a steep hill just inside the park—one of the park’s least-used public spaces, especially at nine at night. We’d gone there once or twice together.

  “Sure—but why don’t you just come here?”

  “They know I know you, Susan. They’ll be looking for me there.”

  “Jesus, John,” she said, “you can’t run from a murder charge.”

  “Watch me,” I said.

  I hung up, pocketed the phone.

  Too late, I remembered the last time Susan had gotten an urgent call insisting that she meet someone in a remote corner of a city park. It was the day she’d wound up stabbed and left to die in the shadows of an abandoned bandstand. I hadn’t meant to stir up those memories for her. But it was too late now. The
battery was dead, so I couldn’t call her back even if I wanted to.

  The green globes of a subway entrance caught my eye and I darted down into the station. I needed to get out of this neighborhood. I needed to get off the street. And I needed to talk to someone who could help me unravel what had happened to Dorrie—and what was happening to me.

  I caught the subway up to 28th Street, sticking to a deserted corner of the subway platform until the train rolled in and choosing an empty car to ride in. Two girls got on at 14th Street, teenagers in faded jeans and corn-rows, but they paid no attention to me and got out at 23rd. I was on my own the rest of the way.

  The streets around Sunset’s building were livelier on a weeknight than they had been on a Sunday afternoon, but only a little. I kept to the shadows, hugging the walls of buildings and fighting the urge to run. It felt like every muscle in my body was clenched, like I was waiting for a tap on my shoulder, the press of a gun at the small of my back. But no one stopped me. I’m not sure anyone even noticed me. Lord knows, I didn’t notice them—and who’s to say I didn’t pass a murderer or a burglar or some other species of wanted man along the way? It was nighttime on 28th Street and I and my fellow pedestrians were keeping our sins silent

  At the front door of the building, I pressed the buttons on the intercom panel one by one, skipping Sunset’s, hoping one of the other tenants would buzz me in. It always works in the movies, and in mystery novels, and more often than not it works in real life, too. But sometimes it doesn’t, and this was one of those times. I leaned on the door—no luck. I’d been hoping to make a quiet entrance, unnoticed, but there was no help for it. I pushed the button for the top floor.

  The intercom crackled to life. “Who is it?”

  It sounded like Di’s voice.

  “Di, it’s John Blake. I need to talk to you.”

  “John — !” I heard a sharp intake of breath.

  “Di?”

  “Where are they? What have you done with them?”

  “Where are who? What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Julie! And Joey, goddamn it—”

  “I can tell you where Julie is. I don’t know any Joey. Would you please just let me up? I can’t talk down—”

  The buzzer buzzed and I stepped inside. The elevator slowly hauled me to the fourth floor and I knocked on Sunset’s door. Three brisk footsteps approached on the other side and I heard the locks turning.

  “Di, listen, I—” I said as the door swung open.

  Then she was in front of me with her arm raised and the canister of pepper spray in her hand and she pushed down with her thumb and shot me full in the face.

  Chapter 16

  In sixth grade I had perfect vision; then the summer came and something happened, and when we all showed up for the first day of junior high in the fall, I was four inches taller, my voice was an octave deeper, and I’d turned into a nerd, at least by outward appearance. Not once since then, not one day, had I been grateful for needing to wear glasses. Not once.

  Until now.

  I whipped my hand up and knocked Di’s arm away. I heard the canister hit the floor and bounce away. I couldn’t see what I was doing—my lenses were coated with a slick, oily film that turned the room into a prismatic haze, Di into a dark, featureless shape. My cheeks and forehead were burning and I could feel the spray running down my skin. I brushed the back of one hand across my forehead to stop any of it from getting in my eyes.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “Jesus, Di, Julie’s fine. She’s in the hospital, but she’s okay. And—” I carefully lifted my glasses off my face, held them out at arm’s length. “Where’s the bathroom in this place? I’ve got to wash this stuff off.”

  I saw her bend and lunge for a corner of the room. She had to be going for the canister. I quickly wiped the lenses of my glasses against my shirt and put them on again. “Di, stop it. I don’t know what you think I’m going to do to you, but I’m not, I promise.”

  “You son of a bitch,” she said. Through the smears on my lenses I could see she had her arm up again. She came toward me and I circled around, trying to keep her a few steps away. “You motherfucking son of a bitch, where are they? Where’s Joey?”

  “Who’s Joey?”

  “My fucking boyfriend! You know who he is!”

  “No I don’t.”

  “I told her,” she said, and there were tears in her voice, “I told her not to go, I told her you’d pull some shit, but she said, ‘What’s the worst he can do to me in a public place?’ Like that makes a difference.”

  “Di—”

  “He called me. I told him to follow her, keep an eye on her, make sure she was okay, make sure you didn’t do anything to her, and he called me afterwards, said you grabbed her, dragged her into some tunnel, and when he followed you, you hit him with a fucking two-by-four, left him lying in the fucking dirt...”

  My gut seized up as she spoke.

  “Joey,” I said, “is that short for something?”

  “Jorge!” she shouted.

  Jorge.

  I pictured Jorge Ramos as I’d first seen him, eating on the grass across from Buell Hall, looking in our direction from time to time. Then, when we moved, picking up his stuff and following, doing his conspicuous stretches. Then pulling his gun. But when? When had he pulled it? I remembered my conversation with Julie growing heated. She’d shouted at me; she’d slapped my hand away and said “Don’t touch me.” And I’d shouted at her. From yards away, could it have looked like I was threatening her? Especially to someone who’d been told I might?

  And then he’d pulled his gun, and I’d grabbed Julie and run. She’d struggled, she’d screamed—Let go of me! Get your fucking hands off me!—and what had I done? I’d dragged her into a building and down a flight of stairs and into a tunnel underground.

  What else was the man supposed to think was going on?

  And now—

  And now, thanks to me, he lay in my bed, the wound in his throat gaping. His last sight had been his blood geysering toward the ceiling of my room.

  “Di, stop,” I said. I let my hands drop. Something in my voice must have gotten through to her, since she stopped circling, stopped making little lunges at me with the canister.

  “Julie’s okay. She’s actually the one who hit... Joey. We thought he was trying to kill her—trying to kill both of us.”

  “You thought he was trying to kill her? He was trying to protect her!”

  “He had a gun,” I said. “He pulled it and came after us. We thought Ardo had sent him.”

  “He brought the...I didn’t tell him to bring the gun!”

  “Well, he brought it. And we thought what you’d have thought if you saw a man come after you with a gun.”

  She shook her head. “Fuck.”

  “But I promise you, he was okay when we left him,” I said. “Unconscious, but breathing. I took Julie to St. Vincent’s—she needed more surgery on her hand. That’s where she is now.”

  “So where’s Joey?” she said. “He called me at work, but when I got home, he wasn’t there. He won’t answer his cell, I can’t find him anywhere.”

  No, I thought, he won’t answer his cell. But you can find him somewhere. Right now, that would be the police morgue.

  “Di, I’ll tell you what happened, but you’ve got to promise not to spray me—”

  “Just talk.”

  “Promise.”

  She hesitated, then slammed the canister down on a shelf, walked five steps away from it. “Tell me what happened.”

  I told her.

  Samantha wasn’t working tonight, but another woman was, a tiny Latina with little teacup breasts and enormous eyes. This was Rodeo, only she corrected my pronunciation when I said it—“No, no, man, Ro-DAY-oh, like the drive, you know?” I said I knew. She got me a cold compress, which I used to mop my face. I washed my glasses twice, using Palmolive from the kitchenette, but they didn’t get completely clean. I wondered if they ever
would.

  Di had been crying, but Rodeo had gotten a compress for her, too, and now her face was set in stern lines, her eyes focused a thousand miles away. She was thinking about her daughter, I imagined, thinking about her job, about her life. Thinking about her dead boyfriend. I wondered if he’d been her daughter’s father. None of my business. Just that much worse if he had.

  I’d told her Miklos and Ardo had killed him after tying me up in the church basement. I hadn’t told her of my role in the whole thing, about how I’d tossed Jorge Ramos to the wolves—to the lion—in order to keep him from devouring me. But I’d told her the rest, including how I’d found his body and how the police had found it minutes later, how the newspapers would be full of it tomorrow.

  “Shit, man,” Rodeo said, “ ‘Spanic man found dead on Bedford Street, no paper’s gonna be full of that, ’cept maybe El Diario.”

  “Even if he’s found in a white man’s apartment?”

  “In the Village?” Rodeo said. “They’ll just think it’s a gay thing.”

  They might. I hated myself for it, but silently I was hoping she was right, that the city’s persistent racism would work in my favor, would keep the story buried on page 39 or 56 or nowhere at all.

  “I’ll kill them both,” Di said in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. She’d been saying things like this on and off for the past hour. She didn’t look at either of us as she said it. We might as well not have been there.

  Then the phone rang, and since Di was very obviously in no condition to answer it, Rodeo ran to get it. When she returned she said, “It’s Willie. Little Willie. He’s here.” She put her hand on Di’s shoulder, snapped her fingers twice. Di turned her head, slowly, then stood and walked to the back room without saying anything.

  Rodeo turned to me. “You stayin’ or goin’, man? You can’t be out here.”

  “I’d like to ask you some questions. About Dorrie—Cassie, I mean. You going to be long?”

  “With Little Willie?” She laughed. “Twenty minutes, tops. Man can’t last worth a damn.”