Destroying Angel

by Richard Paul Russo

  O O O O

  Widgie’s was something like an open-air café, a vast network of interconnected fire-escapes between two red brick buildings; swaying catwalks linked the fire-escape platforms across the alley, along with a seemingly random system of dumbwaiters that moved up and down among the dozen or so levels. Another network of pneumatic tubes for orders ran among the ladders and catwalks. A clear plastic dome covered the entire alley, shelter from the daily rains.

  Tanner entered the alley, searched the platforms, and spotted Carlucci at one of the most isolated tables, up on the sixth or seventh level. Shit. It was going to be a climb.

  A host approached Tanner to seat him, but Tanner said he was meeting someone. The host frowned, bowed, then retreated, and Tanner started up the nearest ladder.

  After leaving Rossi’s place, Tanner had gone to a café down the street for breakfast, a tiny run-down place called Maria’s Kitchen, where he had an enormous, and delicious, plate of black beans, rice, eggs, and salsa. He had eaten every bit of it, including two warm tortillas, surprised at his appetite. He decided it had something to do with being alive. It was only now sinking in just how lucky he was.

  Tanner stopped twice to rest on the way up, and felt exhausted by the time he reached Carlucci’s table, sweating heavily in the damp heat. But the exertion and sweat felt good, almost cleansing. He dropped into the seat across from Carlucci. There was a thermal pot of coffee on the table, along with two cups. Carlucci poured a cup for Tanner, pushed it to him. Tanner was ready for coffee, something to help get his head going again.

  “You look like shit,” Carlucci said.

  “Thanks. That’s what Hannah said, too.” He drank from the coffee, which was hot, but not too strong. It would help, and his stomach would survive it.

  “Well, she was right. What the hell happened to you?”

  “Long, painful story,” Tanner said. “You won’t like it.”

  Carlucci grimaced. “I don’t guess I will.” He shook his head. “You know that name I gave you? For help in the Tenderloin. Francie Miller.” He breathed deeply once. “She’s dead.”

  Tanner drank from his coffee, sipping slowly, not looking at Carlucci. “I know,” he finally said, turning to face him. “I watched her die.”

  Carlucci didn’t say anything for a long time, staring back at Tanner. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost without inflection. “Jesus... Christ.” Another long pause, a shake of his head, then, “So tell me about it.”

  Tanner did. Everything from the time he entered the Tenderloin until he emerged into Tornado Alley. Carlucci listened without interruption, occasionally grimacing or shaking his head or pressing his temples, but not saying anything. When Tanner was finished, neither one of them said anything for a long time. Tanner looked around Widgie’s, listening to the mix of voices, clattering dishes, dumbwaiter squeals, muffled thumps of pneumatic tubes, echoing footsteps.

  “Well, shit,” Carlucci eventually said. “This is real fucking progress.” He leaned back and patted at his shirt pocket. “God damn it, times like this I wish I hadn’t quit smoking.” He set both hands on the table, stared at them for several moments, then looked up at Tanner again. “And we’ve got more bodies.”

  “How many?”

  “Four. One triple, and a single.”

  “A single?”

  “Yeah, that’s a new one. Kind of strange, guy chained to himself. We pulled him out of a cistern back of a condemned warehouse.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “Not typical, but it’s definitely our old friend, the same mother fucker. Maybe he’s just ‘expanding his horizons.’ ” Carlucci made a harsh growling sound in his throat. “Wonderful thought.”

  “Are they coming faster than last time?”

  “So far, looks that way. Making up for lost time, that’s what Rollo says. He may have something.”

  Carlucci poured another cup of coffee for himself. Tanner held his own cup with both hands, tipping it from side to side, watching the dark brown liquid swirl. High above them, rain started on the plastic dome, a high, echoing clatter; at the far end of the alley, Tanner could see it coming down in sheets, a real downpour. He did not like the way any of this was going.

  “What about what Max said?” Tanner asked. “Rattan and some cops working something together.”

  Carlucci breathed in deeply, slowly let it out. “May be true. I’ve heard some things the last few months. Didn’t pay much attention, really, none of it seemed too likely.” He paused. “No idea what it’s all about, but I guess I’ll have to check it out now.”

  “Yeah, do that. I don’t like feeling like I don’t know shit about what’s going on. It’s my ass out there, and I’ve already come damn close to losing it.”

  Carlucci nodded once. “Maybe it’s not a good idea to go back in there looking for him.”

  Tanner gave him a brief, chopped laugh. “It’s a terrible idea. But have you got a better one?”

  Carlucci shook his head. “I tried. I even set up a private session with one of the slugs, fed him the info about you and Freeman and Rattan, anything I had.”

  “So what did he come up with?”

  “A lot of useless bullshit, and one concrete course of action.”

  “Which was?”

  “Find Rattan.”

  Tanner tried laughing. “That’s fucking great. The slug boosted all that brain juice to come up with that?”

  Carlucci shrugged. “You want to reconsider?”

  “I’m constantly reconsidering,” Tanner said. “But I’ll go back in. I’ll find the son of a bitch.” Tanner wished he actually felt that confident.

  “Where you going to stay now?” Carlucci asked.

  “Probably not inside. I’ll be better off now going in and out. And with Max running loose, I’ll have to stay away from my apartment.”

  “I know it probably won’t do much good, but we’ll put out a warrant for Max’s arrest, try to pick up the little fucker. Another goddamn cop killing.” He paused, looking steadily at Tanner. “I wonder what the hell Francie was up to, trying to find Rattan.”

  Tanner nodded. He had asked himself the same question. One more thing he didn’t know. “Trying to nail him for the cop killings?” Tanner suggested. “A boost for her career?”

  Carlucci shook his head. “No, not the way it played out, something not right about the whole thing. So, where are you going to stay?” Carlucci asked again. “I want to be able to reach you.”

  “With Hannah and Rossi, probably. I’m sure they’ll put me up.”

  Carlucci nodded. He sipped at his coffee, made a face, then poured it back into the thermal pot. He swirled the pot, poured himself a fresh cup, then poured some for Tanner. “You don’t carry a gun, do you?”

  Tanner shook his head.

  “You should. Now, anyway.”

  Tanner shook his head again. “A gun wouldn’t have done me a damn bit of good with Max. What I could use, though, is some cash. I’ll be able to get most of the money back from the streetbank, but I’m broke until then.”

  Carlucci took several bills from his wallet, handed them to Tanner, who stuck them into his pocket. “I’m also trying to work up a few more grand,” Carlucci said. “In case you need it.”

  “I hope I get the chance.”

  They drank their coffee in silence. Tanner listened closely to the sounds of the rain, letting it wash out all the other sounds in Widgie’s. He was tired and depressed, yet somehow invigorated as well. A part of him wanted to just collapse and sleep for a few days. But another was anxious to get back into the Tenderloin, anxious to resume his search for Rattan, anxious to talk to Rattan. Tanner wanted to know what the hell was going on, and what, if anything, it had to do with the Chain Killer.

  “I want to meet every two or three days,” Carlucci said. “We’ve got to stay in touch. We have got to keep together on this, or we’ll both end up in deep shit, and you deeper than me.”

  Tanner nodded. “I’ll call yo
u,” he said.

  “You going to rest up a couple days?” Carlucci asked.

  “No, I’m okay. I want to get back at it. I’m tired of hearing about more and more dead bodies.”

  “Yeah, well just make sure yours isn’t one of them.”

  Tanner smiled. “Good thinking. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  SOOKIE FOLLOWED HIM all night and day. Behind him up the rungs and out into Tornado Alley. Creeping along a few feet back, silent and on all fours, crabbing among the bodies. What a stink!

  Worse, though, was waiting all night across from the apartment building. He went in and didn’t come out, so she had to wait. She wedged herself onto a second-floor ledge directly across the street, jammed between a window frame and a sewage pipe. It rained once. Noises from the pipe all night; wood jammed into her side. She didn’t sleep much.

  Morning, and nothing. Lots of other people came out of the apartment, but not Tanner. Maybe she’d missed him? She crawled down from the ledge, her ribs and knees aching, walked around, working it out. She had to keep moving to stay away from the pervs who kept after her.

  Then, close to noon, he came out, and she followed him to Maria’s Kitchen. Hung out while he sat inside and ate. Crouched behind a trash bin, she could see him in the window. Her stomach twisted in on itself, a few sharp pains. A long time since she’d eaten, but she was afraid of losing him.

  On to Widgie’s, more than an hour in there, then back to the apartment for a couple more hours. What was he doing in there, taking a sleep? Maybe. And what was she doing out here, waiting for him? Goofball.

  Finally, early evening, he came back out again. She followed him over to Chinatown and a restaurant on the edge of the Tenderloin. Joyce Wah’s. He met two people in front. A very tall, long-haired woman, beautiful in a dark shimmer coat. And a girl wearing white jeans, brown jacket, and blinking sneakers. Fifteen or sixteen years old, Sookie thought. Tanner hugged the girl, and that made Sookie feel funny. Then they all went inside.

  She waited a few minutes, then went in and ordered some food to go. Three small cartons and a pair of chopsticks. She liked eating with chopsticks, they were like funny long fingers. Sookie took the food and crossed the street. When she looked back, first at the ground floor, then up, and up again, she saw Tanner and the woman and the girl in one of the third-floor windows. The girl was sitting across from him, and they were talking to each other. Arguing, maybe. The woman didn’t seem to be talking at all, sitting back a little.

  Sookie squatted down against the brick wall, opened one of the cartons, and dug in with her chopsticks. Ate and watched. She didn’t really know why she was following him. She wanted to talk to him again. The way he had kept looking at her. What was that? She wanted to ask him.

  But there was something else, too. Something she wanted. She just couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Sookie sat and ate and watched... and waited.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  WHY DID YOU stop seeing Mom?” Connie asked.

  There it was, Tanner thought, the point of all this. He drank from his tea without taking his eyes off Connie, trying to decide how to answer her. Alexandra was silent, sitting back and away from them. She had offered to go somewhere else, or eat at a different table, whatever, but Connie had insisted she stay. Moral support?

  Dinner itself had been relatively quiet, no one talking much. No one ate much, either. A lot of picking at the food, picking at conversation, both Connie and Tanner biding time. Then the meal was finished, the plates taken away, fresh tea brought to the table. And Connie asked the question.

  There was not, of course, a simple answer to it. He had learned that a little over a year ago when he had tried to explain things to Valerie. Tanner wondered why Connie had waited so long to come to him with the question.

  “I was afraid of hurting her,” he finally said. The statement was so broad and general that it was true to a certain extent. Tanner felt almost embarrassed at giving it as an answer.

  “What do you mean?” Connie asked.

  “You remember the time I broke your mother’s nose?” He felt a little sick now just thinking about it.

  “You said it was an accident.”

  “It was. I’d had a nightmare, and I’d come out of it swinging my fists. It wasn’t the first time I’d hurt her like that, but it was the worst.” He paused. “I didn’t want to risk doing that again to her.”

  “Nightmares that bad?” Connie said.

  Tanner nodded, glancing at Alexandra. She was not looking at him.

  “Do you have them a lot?” Connie asked.

  Tanner breathed in slowly, deeply, then gradually let it out as he shook his head. He did not like talking about this. “Not really,” he said. “Now and then. More than I’d like, though.”

  Connie didn’t say anything for a minute or two. She sipped at her tea, and Tanner could see she was thinking about what he had said. She frowned, shaking her head, and set her teacup carefully on the table.

  “You know, Louis,” she said, “that’s just bullshit. If that was the real problem, it’s so easy to take care of.” She stopped; hesitating, Tanner thought, to actually mention sleeping arrangements. She finally went on. “If you really loved each other, you could live with that. And you did love her, didn’t you? I know she loved you.” She paused, looked down at the table, then back up at him, defiant. “She still does. Do you?”

  Jesus, Tanner thought, how was he supposed to answer that? He looked at Alexandra, who was holding her teacup without drinking from it, gazing out the window. She glanced at him, then looked away without expression. Alexandra had asked him the same questions a year ago, trying to pull answers out of him with patience and persistence. He resisted now, as he had then, and said nothing.

  “Why did you stop seeing Mom?” Connie asked again. “Did you stop loving her?”

  “No,” Tanner answered. He tried to leave it at that.

  “Then why?”

  Stalling—he knew she would not be satisfied with anything less than a full explanation—he asked, “Why did you wait so long to ask me?”

  Connie sighed. “I was afraid. But I’m older now, and I’m not afraid anymore, and I think I have a right to know.”

  Tanner nodded. He guessed she did have that right. Except he did not know if he could explain it to her. He did not think he had been very successful at explaining it to either Valerie or Alexandra. Or to himself.

  “Things were always real hard between your mom and me,” he began. “It wasn’t that we didn’t get along. We didn’t fight, it wasn’t that kind of thing, but it was hard, it took a lot of work. Which is all right, to a point. But it just got harder and harder, kind of wore us down. Wore me down.” He paused, still struggling to put things into words after all this time.

  “It had a lot to do with being a cop,” he continued. “The people I saw, the things I watched people do, the things I had to do, it all depressed the hell out of me. The bad thing was, I brought a lot of it home. I tried to keep it from you and your mom, but I really wasn’t able to.” He smiled. “You remember, when you were younger, you used to come up to me and scream ‘Lighten up!’ right in my face?”

  Connie smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I remember. It worked, too.”

  Tanner shrugged. “Yes, but never for very long. I thought that when I quit the force things would be easier for me, for us. I thought I’d ‘lighten up.’ ” He paused. “But I didn’t. I don’t know, in some ways things just got worse, I felt like I was bringing clouds into the room every time I walked in. I just...” He shook his head. “I don’t know, I tried real hard, Connie, I tried a long time, but I just couldn’t do it anymore, I...” But that was it, he couldn’t get out another word.

  Connie did not say anything at first. She was not making a sound, but he thought she was shaking slightly. Her hands were out of sight beneath the table.

  “Do you still love her?” she finally asked.

  Jesus,
Tanner thought, why won’t she let me be? He rubbed at his face with his hand, but did not answer.

  “Do you? Do you still love me?”

  Tanner looked down at the table for a moment, then back at Connie, a terrible ache in his chest. “Yes,” he finally said. “I still love you both.”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  How could he answer that? He slowly shook his head. “No. It’s just not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  Tanner did not know what to say. He wanted to give her an answer, he wanted to be able to say something that would make things all right with her.

  “I don’t know, Connie,” he finally said. “I just don’t know.”

  Connie was shaking her head slowly from side to side as if she could not believe what he was saying. She was crying now, quietly, steadily, and she put her head in her hands.

  Tanner reached across the table, put his hand on her arm, and said, “I’m sorry, Connie.”

  She pulled her arm away from him, not quickly, but sadly, he thought. She raised her head and looked at him, dark makeup streaking her face. He thought of the woman with the tattooed tears.

  “You’re such an idiot sometimes, Louis. You probably think I’m crying for myself, don’t you? Well I’m not, I’m crying for you.” Connie breathed in deeply, held it for a minute, then let it out. She stopped crying, and wiped her face, smearing the streaked makeup. She slowly shook her head, looking at him, then stood up and said, “Excuse me, I’ll be back in a minute.” She turned and walked to the back of the restaurant and into the hall leading to the rest rooms.

  Tanner looked at Alexandra, who gazed steadily back at him. He could not read her expression.

  “Don’t look at me like that, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “I’m doing my best.”

  Alexandra blinked twice, but otherwise did not change her expression. “And it’s not good enough, is it?” she said. “She’s young, Louis. But she’s probably right about a lot of it.”

  He turned away and looked out the window. Night had fallen, and he wished a rain would start, fall long and hard, wash things away. Across the street a small figure huddled against the building, partially hidden by shadows, eating with chopsticks from a white carton. He could not be sure, but he thought it was Sookie. Was she following him? Why else would she be here?