Pittsburgh Noir

by Kathleen George

  Behind the wheel he scratched a few comments into a notebook, the sort of thing he always did because he realized that in this business, the final report is everything. Send the report and attach the invoice, and hope that the report convinces the customer to pay the invoice. His notes described the people who had left their children. All had been working class, the two couples appearing to be stuck at the bottom of the scale. The men had the half beards of hoped-for maturity and wore old jeans, T-shirts with a hockey-playing penguin on them, and matching ball caps. The women wore the same outfits, but they somehow made them appear a bit more feminine. The single woman had been dressed in the white uniform that identified her as anything from a nurse to a waitress. It convinced Dorsey that the nursing profession should find itself new, and more specific, attire.

  He dropped the notebook on the seat next to him and worked his back deeper into the upholstery. Why bother with notes? He reminded himself that after his last job with Mrs. Leneski, she had refused a written final report, but she had paid. As always, she was an exception. And you, you figured she might be heading toward dementia. The undertaker steals, the checkout girl cheats customers to get in good with the manager she’s already sleeping with, and maybe the cabbage heads are talking to her. But Catherine has been nowhere near the serving counter all morning and instead is up to something on the second floor. Mostly shaky people knock on the door, she drops the key, in they go and come back without their kids. Nothing illegal in that—pretty goddamned weird, but not illegal.

  Dorsey stayed on watch for another hour or so until one of the young couples who had been there earlier returned. The routine with the key was repeated, and they came back out with a child and stroller. Dorsey slipped out of the car, adjusted his sport shirt to cover the Glock he carried in a waistband holster, and crossed the street. He slipped by the young couple without a word and went into the Lunchbox.

  “Where’s the back steps?” Dorsey asked the young man behind the counter. “Tony and Outlaw said I ought to use the back way, not mess around with the key.”

  “Neither of them are here,” the young man said, dunking coffee cups into a sink of blue water. “Want to wait? Supposed to be back in just a bit.”

  “I know all about that,” Dorsey said, “but I’m supposed to wait up top.”

  Dorsey watched the young man’s eyes dart about. C’mon, kid, buy into it.

  “Maybe I should call them on the cell,” the guy said.

  “Fine by me, but I’m supposed to be looking over the second floor before they get back, understand?”

  The man sighed. “C’mon, back this way. But I’m still gonna call.”

  He led Dorsey behind the counter and past the glass doors of a cooler stocked with sliced luncheon meats and into the backroom. There was a flight of steps to the left and as they climbed Dorsey asked the young man if he had to get ready for the lunch crowd.

  “What there is of it,” he answered, unlocking the door at the top of the steps. He pushed it open and stood aside. “But I still have to get it ready.”

  Dorsey wedged past him and heard the door being closed and locked behind him. He was in what had once been an apartment kitchen, no appliances but a large sink decorated with rust stains was attached to the far wall. Around it, three stacks deep, were sealed cardboard cartons. Dorsey looked them over and found flat screens, microwaves ovens, and a few Bose radios. He smiled. Don’t look too bad for having fallen off the truck.

  Out in a long hallway that ran the length of the building, Dorsey moved along listening to the sound of recorded music and children’s singing voices. He passed a closed door and made his way to an open doorway at the front of the building, across the hall from the front staircase. Inside were two boys and a girl, topping out at age five, Dorsey figured, half asleep on the floor in front of a flat-screen TV. An animated story was playing out; a couple of bears were singing advice to a wide-eyed girl.

  None of the kids took notice as Dorsey crossed the room to three cribs against the far wall, opposite the windows. One was empty but the other two held sleeping infants, apparently undisturbed by the singing. On the floor between two of the cribs was a kitchen food scale lying on its side, plastic baggies scattered around it. He heard some light footfalls in the hallway, turned, and saw Catherine walk into the room.

  “Who the hell are you?” she said in a voice that was a bit angered but also bewildered. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt and her hair was matted back against the sides of her head. It was the eyes that Dorsey concentrated on. Half shuttered and high as a kite. “I didn’t hear anyone knock.”

  “And you didn’t send down the key,” Dorsey responded. “Forgot about that part.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “The key.”

  Dorsey shook his head and turned to the children in front of the TV. He took two of them gently by the shoulder and tried to rouse them. All he got in return were two weak yawns. He turned back to Catherine.

  “Doesn’t really matter what you’re on these days,” Dorsey told her, settling his eyes on her face. “But what did you give these kids? And what are you doing with them?”

  Catherine appeared to drift for a second. “Benadryl,” she said. “Just a little. Keeps them quiet.”

  Dorsey stepped back to the cribs. “The infants too?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “They sleep for hours that way.”

  Jesus, Dorsey thought, day care for drugged-out parents. “What is it?” he asked her. “A young couple needs to get their heads straight, so they drop the kid off while they score?”

  “Some.”

  And more than that, Dorsey realized, remembering the young woman in white. Poor, single, and working for a paycheck. But not one big enough to get legitimate child care. No family, no friends. The underground economy of stolen goods and drugs. Just add a little day care for the clientele. For a fee. And don’t even think about what that might entail.

  Dorsey took another look at one of the infants and started digging in his pocket for his cell. “Got a problem here,” he told Catherine. “This kid’s turning blue.”

  He started to punch in 911 when the young man from the Lunchbox came in from the hall. “In here,” he called out. “Right in here.” He pointed at Dorsey. “Better stay off that phone.” “Why?” Dorsey said. “You obviously didn’t.”

  Despite the intervening years, Dorsey recognized the man as soon as he entered. He had a few inches of height on Dorsey, but it was the shoulders that told the tale. Twice Dorsey’s width, Outlaw walked with a minor shuffle and Dorsey figured he hadn’t forgotten how that came to be. Even worse, there was a Louisville Slugger, brightly shellacked and the grain jumping out, in his hands.

  “Hank Aaron model?” Dorsey asked, hoping to throw off the big man. “Better get this straight, we got a sick kid on our hands, not-breathing-so-well sick. I’m calling for paramedics. Whatever you want to do with me can keep for later.”

  Outlaw grinned, pushed back his long black hair with his left hand, then dragged himself across the room and took his first swing. Dorsey ducked and fell back to the wall, surprised that he was more concerned with protecting the cell than his own body. The swing was wild and Outlaw lost his balance for a moment, but just that. While he righted himself, Dorsey got to the Glock at his hip.

  “Hold on,” he told Outlaw, pointing the gun to the floor. “I’ll shoot you. Just to be a prick, I’ll shoot you in your other foot. Okay?”

  Outlaw hesitated for a moment, then went at him. Dorsey straightened his elbow and fired. He looked down at Outlaw, checked out Catherine and the Lunchbox guy. “Now,” Dorsey told them all, punching numbers into the cell, “I’m making a phone call. All right with everybody?”

  “Not the same foot?” Uncle Danny asked. “You shot him in the other foot?”

  They were back at the table, a ginger ale each.

  “The other foot,” Dorsey told him. “Just like you asked.”

  OVERHEARD

  BY REGIN
ALD MCKNIGHT

  Homewood

  That’s the thing about this town, Merce: you cross one street—the right side of the street—and you’ve crossed over to a whole other world. Do I have to tell you this? You know. You own property everywhere your dad was allowed to buy. So-called Homewood One and so-called Homewood Two are separate planets, no closer than Earth and Pluto.

  I told you what that dude Matt said to me the first week Colleen and the boy and I moved into our place on Lang—

  Yes I did, man—

  I did, Merce. You never—

  All right, so he walks up to me while I’m out front sweeping the walk, and he says, “Welcome to the neighborhood,” and he says his name is Matt, and he lives right over there across the street. Points with his rake.

  I had a broom. Him, he’d been raking. Sweeping, raking, very neighborhoody behavior, right?

  Yes! He was white. Of course he was white. That’s my—

  Merce, just listen to me, okay? Follow along, man, and I’ll tell you all this stuff about the girl getting beaten, and what I think happened upstairs, and what this has to do with my rent.

  Man, I have never in my life missed rent. I been late once or twice, but …

  So this guy Matt points with his rake and squints at me like he’s got battery acid in his eyes, and smiles like it hurts, and he shrugs at me and goes … How does he put it? “So we were just wondering why you all chose Point Breeze instead of the actual Homewood for a place to settle.” Something like that, see? And by “we,” he means the people up and down Lang, dig?

  It took me a couple beats to gather this. At first I thought he was talking about just him and his own brood, but when he starts talking about what the DelGrossos had to say, and the Millers, and so forth, I see he’s talking about person-to-person, house-to-house, what the whole village—idiots included, apparently—thought about us moving in next to them. Instead of the proper one.

  Dude, listen to me. I’m not from here. I grew up on military bases. We been a-integratin’ since before I was born: ’47, ’48. What the fuck do I know about living on the right side of the street?

  Actually, no. He said about eighty percent of them were cool with us living there. I mean, yeah, it creeped me out that they actually clustered their heads together and practically voted on it, but yeah, they did vote us in, I guess you could say.

  Where? Dancing Goats.

  * * *

  Dancing Goats? The place on Ellsworth, near—

  Yeah, that’s the one. I don’t know. Coffee’s coffee, right?

  No, it wasn’t that. Lang Avenue didn’t help the marriage, but that wasn’t the reason. I told you the reason.

  Yeah.

  And for your information, I didn’t move into the real Homewood because I’ve learned to agree with guys like Matt. I took your place because it’s huge and beautiful: lots of wood, full of light, high ceilings. It’s nice and quiet, except for, you know … But I’ll get to that in a minute.

  Three bedrooms. Three, for seven-fifty, and manageable utilities. I’m like six blocks from the Lang place but I feel far enough away from Colleen and Brian not to hurt all the time.

  I know, I know, you don’t keep tabs on old girlfriends without paying the price. I know what I did. Half the puddles I wept into your nice carpet and wood were from shame and embarrassment. The other half were because I missed Brian so much.

  Yeah, yeah, I know you guys did too. You know it’s complicated, yeah. That’s why I guess I hardly noticed the people upstairs, at first. It’s the usual thing with couples who live above you. You hear their bedsprings, you hear him raise his voice or punch a wall; sometimes the music is a bit too loud, but she keeps it down. You hear them shower and flush, and hang pictures, stack dishes. Pretty soon you know the difference between his footfall and hers. Everybody’s pretty much the same.

  No-no-no, that’s not my point. The thing is, they weren’t all that noisy. I used to live below a couple of opera singers in Colorado Springs. That was much worse.

  I’m serious. No, they made normal noises, for the most part, and when Brian isn’t with me, it kind of made me feel a little less alone. Besides, I have this big-ass air filter in my bedroom … Of course, you’ve seen it. Duh. Anyway, I usually run it all night, and it whites out the universe.

  No, I hardly ever thought about Tamara and that guy, but like this one night? Brian was with me? And we’d had a very cool weekend. We’d watched The Lion King for like the eight millionth time. He spent all day in that ridiculous lion costume, roaring at people in the mall, at The Strip, Frick Park. But anyway, the weekend’s almost done, so of course I’m depressed. The filter’s on, cause I don’t want to hear them having sex; I don’t want to hear sirens, nothing. Brian’s in his room long asleep, and I’m tipped that way myself. It’s, like, two.

  Brian taps on my door. “Papa.” Barely hear him, but I’m up. “There’s a loud noise,” he says. He points to the ceiling. I shut off the filter and we listen. I hear thumping out in the stairway. I walk Brian back to his room, go out into the hallway, and see them both at the bottom of the stairs at the entrance. Tamara’s sitting on the last step, with her arms over her head, and boyfriend’s standing over her, trying to whale on her, but he’s being patient, like a boxer. He wants her face, not her arms. First time I’d seen him, actually. He’s got the tan Timberland boots, the baggy pants, hoodie, watch cap. He’s beating a woman. Very disappointing.

  He’s in midswing, and she’s swollen under the eye and bleeding from the nose. I say, “Tamara, you all right?” And asshole turns around and says, “What you need, bitch?” But I look past him and repeat myself. Tamara says, “Can you call the cops?”

  “Already have,” I said, which wasn’t true, but I figured it’d cool the asshole, which it did. He slams out the door, and by that time, at the bottom of the stairs, Tamara’s on her feet. I lock the front door and walk her back up to her own door. I ask her if she needs anything. She tells me no, but I just stand there for a while, not sure if I should walk her down to my place for first aid, or ice, or whatever.

  You ever notice how beautiful she is? Cause I really hadn’t till then. I mean, I’d seen her a dozen times or so, more or less up close, at the mailbox, mostly, or passing on the stairway. But I’d never stood so close and face-to-face. She smells like gardenias and some kind of sweet spice. I like those almond eyes, the long lashes, her skin. It’s like smooth and the color of pecans. I mean, you have to be blind not to notice the hourglass body, but even with the swollen eye, the face is like love, like art.

  Yeah, well, if it’s conventional it ain’t beauty.

  Yeah, actually did call, when I went back down to my place. They showed up fairly quickly and I’m not sure my boy would have gone back to sleep at all if I hadn’t lain there with him for a while as the two of us watched the blue lights flash across the walls and ceiling.

  * * *

  Couldn’t tell you. We both slept till about nine.

  All right, so I got back from dropping off the son, and there’s Tamara and this portly dark-skinned woman outside the landing in front of her door—her second door. You know, the one that—

  Yeah. They were trying to fix it, see?

  No, they weren’t changing the goddamn lock, Merce. The thing just doesn’t work, okay?

  Can you blame these folks? How does she know you’re not one of those landlords who shine you on, put you off, blow you back, toss you out? You get used to things running a certain way in your world and you don’t bother.

  Exactly. Let me go on. This isn’t about you.

  I know I owe you money, but let me tell you what happened, all right? There are some things bigger than your money.

  I know, I know, but listen.

  They were actually having a good time. Giddy, giggling with frustration, seemed to me. “What are y’all up to?” I asked them, and Tamara smiles at me like I’m some kind of super Jesus and says, “Can you fix this, Reggie?” and I winced a little,
but let it go, that Reggie, and just said back, “Did he break in?”

  “Last night?” she said. “Naw, I let him in.”

  Her friend says, “You don’t even need no credit card to open this door.”

  And Tamara said, “You could blow on it and it’ll just lay open like a ho.”

  “Girl,” her friend said, “you going to hell for that one!”

  I told them I’d be back up in a second with my toolbox, and I was back up in two seconds. The only problem was the thing was loose, every—

  All the plates and stuff, and needed a little machine oil. It was tight, and the only thing that could open it was the key. I told Tamara to buy a slap bolt for the inside, and I’d put it on for her, if they needed me to.

  Don’t mention it, man. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I’d been wearing sandals that day. And while the women were watching me work, Tamara said, “Dee, don’t he have some pretty feet, for a man?”

  “You got that right, Tam. They some pretty dogs. For a man? Sheeit, I’d trade him straight up.”

  “Reggie, how you get them feet?”

  I know, what was I supposed to say, Footlocker, morgue, Mom and Dad, Homewood Cemetery?

  Right, right, right: Well, you know how you just see feet slung up over telephone lines and on roadsides? Yeah, they’re all over the damn place. Take ’em home; throw ’em in the washer, presto! Lady’s feet, mahogany, good as new!

  Anyway, it was quiet for two weeks, and I didn’t hear her come or go. Little music, TV off or turned down low after eleven, as per your lease agreement. Come to think of it, she was living pretty much as she had before the guy started coming around. Hadn’t even thought about how quiet she’d been at first. I got to figuring she was from a good home. I mean, she dressed well for her job, rarely worked the cleavage in her play clothes. But it was more than that. There was something … I don’t know, pristine about her. Yeah, that’s the word. I didn’t think she “belonged” here any more than me. Very middle class, I suppose.