A Cast of Killers

by Gallagher Gray

  He gulped. Now came the real test. What would they talk about?

  That part turned out to be easy. Once a tubby waiter appeared and their drink orders had been taken, Lilah was sufficiently composed to want to talk about murder.

  "Auntie Lil will not rest until an answer is found," she warned T.S. "You and I have both seen her this way before." Lilah had a habit of lacing her long, elegant fingers together and resting them on the table while she talked. It made her look a bit like an obedient child. T.S. thought it was a very charming gesture. Of course, Lilah could have whipped off her bra and whirled it above her head while she danced on the bar, and T.S. would have thought that was a charming gesture, too.

  "No, she won't give up," T.S. agreed. "I'm not even going to try to stop her."

  "Will you help her?" Lilah asked huskily, leaning forward and searching his face in the candlelight. T.S. half expected the piano player to break into "As Time Goes By."

  "Someone has to keep her out of trouble," he agreed gallantly, any thought of deserting Auntie Lil now fleeing at the sight of Lilah's expectant face. Their drinks arrived and the woman at the piano began a new tune, filling the bar with another melancholy melody. T.S. took a sip. The Scotch burned a tidy path down his throat and he sighed. Someone dimmed the lights in the bar and he became more aware of the candle flickering between them and the way Lilah's face grew even more radiant in the flattering light. The room's atmosphere thickened with unspoken sentiments as the music wove an air of unexpected intimacy about them. Even the dark oak of the restaurant's wainscoting seemed to deepen with the mood. Other diners around them also grew quiet, drawing their heads together to whisper.

  Was this what it was like, T.S. wondered. Was this what he had been missing all those years that he'd buried himself in his books and in his career?

  Lilah suddenly stared over his shoulder toward the bar, breaking the mood. "The bartender just made the funniest face."

  T.S. turned in time to see the front door bang open with an intrusive thud. An extremely tall woman, lanky and awkward with drink or drugs, tottered in on high spike heels. She was squeezed into a long-sleeved spandex tube dress sprinkled with cheap silver spangles that sparkled against her cocoa-colored skin. A wide run in her silver hose snaked down the length of her long legs like a jagged scar. Dark hair was swirled in a tall pile atop her head in a style reminiscent of Motown in the mid-1960s. Garish earrings dangled from extremely prominent ears. She had a tiny round head that topped a long, skinny neck and her pinched face was covered with a heavy coating of cheap makeup. When she blinked her eyes sleepily, her small head arched forward like a turtle's. Her lipstick was a garish silvery pink that glittered in the reflected candlelight. But her fingernails were long and elegantly manicured into blood-red tapers.

  The bartender's scowl deepened when the woman approached the bar, waving a dollar bill at him. "Change, sweetie?" she asked the bartender in a throaty whisper.

  "Beat it, Leteisha. I told you. You've been eighty-sixed from here. Get lost." A man of few but pointed words, the bartender crossed his beefy arms and nodded grimly toward the door. The woman's expression did not change as she smoothly turned on her high heels and slithered as sulkily out the door as she'd entered.

  "Just in case you'd forgotten where we were," T.S. noted.

  "Now, now, Theodore. Don't be a snob." Lilah's rebuke was real. She was so thoroughly insulated from the crasser elements of society that she did not even understand the concept of being a snob and hated people that were, especially when they fawned all over her trying to sniff out the source of her money.

  "I know." T.S. shook his head guiltily. "I've been awful about everything. About coming back to this neighborhood. About helping Aunt Lil in the soup kitchen. I've only been there two days, you know. I'm not the cheerful giver you think I am. And I didn't want to find out who the dead woman was at first. The truth is, I am being a snob. I don't want to be back here, traipsing all over these streets. My family lived here, you know. Before my grandparents moved upstate. I'm just two generations removed from Hell's Kitchen myself." There. He had said it. Now she would know he was just another common fortune seeker.

  Lilah patted his hand reassuringly. "That only proves you have honest blood. Just because you feel like a snob doesn't mean you have to act like one. We all have our demons to face, remember?" Her own demons, compared to those of many, were quite mild. But they pricked at her conscience nonetheless. "I'm sure you'll be a big help to Auntie Lil. And I hope that you'll let me help you, too. I don't think anyone should be allowed to die that way, Theodore. Murdered and unknown. No matter how poor or old they might be."

  She was right, of course. He would help Auntie Lil find the killer. He'd do whatever it took to unlock the secrets behind Emily's death.

  Lilah asked him about his family, and the talk of murder passed. Their hours together went by quickly and dinner was forgotten. He would later be unable to really remember what they'd talked about. He would only recall, instead, the soft sound of the piano and the air heavy with cigarette smoke and secrets. He'd remember Lilah's laugh cutting through the surrounding noise, as if it were meant for his ears only, and the quavering high notes of a drunken old lady at the bar who stood up to sing an Irish ballad to herself. He and Lilah joined the rest of the crowd in applause and—if only for a few moments of alcohol and music-inspired togetherness in a lonely city—they were all part of the same family. He would remember the ache that the old woman's voice produced in his heart, and the recurring vision it conjured of sailing ships entering New York Harbor, crowded with people filled with meager hopes and facing a new land. Their dreams did not seem so ridiculous to him anymore.

  It was as if he had disembarked in a strange land, where time stood still and strangers welcomed him with open arms. Best of all, he spoke their new language magically, while slipping effortlessly and without fear from one adventure to another. He did not want the feeling to end and was so lost in belonging and warmth for the people around him that he was shocked when Lilah waved at Grady through the window. How had two hours passed so quickly from his grasp? Yet, checking his watch, he discovered that three hours had gone by, with Grady waiting tactfully outside for Lilah's discreet signal. It was nearly midnight by the time they were ensconced again in the back seat of the limousine. They pulled away onto the streets of Hell's Kitchen at dark and New York's human night crawlers emerged from doorways to watch them glide past. The cozy comfort of Robert's was quickly left behind.

  "Where do all these people come from?" he wondered out loud as they cut across Forty-Second Street to the photo store. The streets were clogged with hustlers of all colors and ages, eyeing one another for territorial transgressions and scrutinizing each unwary tourist for potential profit. Brightly attired in tee shirts and long shorts that reached to their knees (despite the cool night air), New York's night citizens clustered in ominous groups across from the chaotic entrance to the Forty-Second Street Port Authority bus station entrance, laughing and shouting insults as frightened visitors dashed to their cabs. Some hustlers tried to tug at their luggage or hail cabs for them, in hopes of extracting a bribe or two. But most simply watched with smug expressions of streetwise superiority, clutching small brown paper bags containing cans of beer as they waited for something bigger and better to come along.

  The limousine crossed Eighth Avenue and made its way toward Broadway through the jangle and noise of the seedy Forty-Second Street strip. Boarded-up theaters awaited renovation that would never come, providing dark pools of shadows between the brightly lit storefronts of cheap electronic stores and fried chicken joints. The sidewalks churned with people jostling and seeking a fast score. Hardly anyone noticed or cared that a limousine was passing by—they all had their own sly business to conduct.

  "Is it my imagination or does this place look completely different than it did three hours ago?" T.S. asked out loud.

  "Is it my imagination or do many of these people look like they ou
ght to be in junior high school, not here?" Lilah answered.

  She was right. The night had brought out New York's young runaways. They huddled in empty doorways, wan and unfed, their dark, bright eyes hungrily scrutinizing passers-by with a cynical knowledge far beyond their young years.

  Lilah sighed and shook her head. "Thank God my daughters are at college."

  The twenty-four-hour photo store was, apparently, a bustling center of cheap nightly entertainment. T.S. had to push through a crowd of twenty or more chattering teenagers to reach the front door. They stood clustered in front of the store's picture window watching a small, dark brown man tinker among the automatic photo-developing conveyor belts. The man straightened up wearily and stuck a screwdriver back into his rear pocket.

  "Yo, man. It's fixed," someone in the crowd announced with satisfaction. "We gonna get us another peek now."

  This crowd must really be bored, T.S. thought as he squeezed in the front door. Surely there were better things to do than watch bad photos of other people's birthday celebrations and vacations crawl by.

  The optimistic voice in the crowd had been right. The machinery was fixed. The conveyor belt groaned slowly forward just as T.S. approached the front counter. The bored cashier was gone, replaced by a small Pakistani man who emerged from the elaborate developing contraption holding a wrench in one hand like a weapon.

  "I pay much money for this franchise and equipment," he told T.S. "Damn thing breaks down every night. Holy shit."

  "What a shame for the neighborhood," T.S. remarked drily as he handed over his receipt. "Looks like this is a real hotspot for cheap entertainment."

  The proprietor shrugged philosophically. "Not always. But tonight, some pervert drop off whole roll of pictures of a poor dead woman. As old as my beloved mother. What someone want with such photos, I do not know. This is sick city. Sick city, indeed." He nodded toward the picture window. "The machine jammed in the middle of the order and the crowd that you see gathered. They love death, this bunch. Look at them. They salivate like animals at the kill."

  T.S. froze. Outside, the crowd began pushing forward to get a better view. The strip of pictures affixed to the conveyor belt rounded a turn and approached the picture window once again. Eyes grew wide and the jokes began, boys nudging their girlfriends and grabbing the backs of their necks in hopes of eliciting squeals.

  "Oh dear," T.S. murmured lightly, running a finger under his collar. It did no good. The flush began at the base of his neck and quickly spread across his face. He was humiliated. He was the pervert.

  The proprietor had already discovered that fact. He stared at the number on T.S.'s receipt and raised his eyebrows in slow recognition. He surveyed T.S. from head to toe, then peered over his shoulder at the waiting limousine without comment. Then he inched away from T.S., making it plain that he preferred to stand by his conveyor belts rather than be in close proximity to such a clearly debauched human being. Crossing his arms primly, the proprietor took turns staring back and forth between T.S. and the crowd outside while he waited for the morbid photos to make their tortuous way through the labyrinth of belts. Some in the crowd got the proprietor's hint and began to eye T.S. with great interest.

  T.S. carefully brushed dirt from his shoe, straightened his shirt collar and tried hard to imagine himself somewhere else. When that failed, he thought of the ways he might seek revenge against Auntie Lil for sending him on this mission. After a two-minute wait that seemed more like a two-year prison sentence, his pictures reached the end of their mechanical journey. As the strip of photos neared the automatic cutter, T.S. saw that his exposure settings and framing had, alas for his immediate reputation, been outstanding. The images of a dead Emily were crisp and relentless. At least fifty eyes stared at him intently as the proprietor made a great show of holding up each finished photo before ceremoniously placing it into the order bag.

  Once the last damning photo had finally been plucked from the stares of the enraptured crowd, the proprietor marched across the room with the bag pinched between two fingers as if it smelled very bad indeed. He held it out toward T.S. "Twenty dollars," he said primly, holding out an open palm. "You surprise me, sir. Really. I feel compelled to inform you. You really do surprise me."

  Humiliated, T.S. paid the hefty tab, suspecting it was at least five dollars over the regular charge. He did not have time to think much about it, however, as his eye had been caught by a small face whose expression was quite different from those surrounding him. A skinny black boy, not more than eleven or twelve years old, stood in the doorway staring at T.S. His eyes were wide and suspicious, his features hardened into a permanent accusatory stare. Yet, T.S. was sure that his unblinking eyes were filling with tears and that the young boy's mouth was trembling. The child stepped back in fright as T.S. opened the door, and he watched T.S. hurry to the limo with undisguised confusion before moving forward as if he had something to say. T.S. stopped with his hand on the door handle and stared at the child. Why had the photos upset him so much? Everyone else in the crowd loved the macabre real-life postscript to the slasher movies they'd probably just seen.

  "Son?" he said to the young boy, who responded by darting forward. T.S. thought he was being attacked but the child veered at the last moment and took off down the block, running as fast as he could. T.S. was so astonished he made no move to get into the limousine until Lilah rolled down the window and called out his name.

  "Theodore. We're attracting quite a crowd. Perhaps we should be on our way."

  T.S. looked over at the picture window and the crowd of teenagers stared back at him in mystified curiosity and misdirected envy.

  "Yo, pops. That's kinky!" someone called out. A few people laughed and that was more than enough for T.S. He quickly hopped into the back seat next to Lilah and thrust the bag of photos into her hands.

  "Remind me to kill Auntie Lil in the morning," he told her. "And, Grady, for God's sake, get us out of here."

  He was awakened early the next morning from a troubled dream in which he lay in a glass coffin, surrounded by leering women in cheap outfits and garish makeup. They leaned over him, grinning suggestively, their pink tongues licking at the glass and their features distorted as they pressed against the sides of the coffin. He woke suddenly, convinced that the tremendous pounding he heard was really his heartbeat, until he finally realized that someone was trying to break down his apartment door. He stumbled to it, still half-asleep, and found an impatient Auntie Lil waiting on the other side. She surveyed his pajamas with energetic disapproval.

  "Mahmoud let me in," she explained cheerfully. "I've been up for hours. Here, I've brought you bagels. It's time to get to work."

  T.S. made a mental note to cut the doorman's Christmas tip in half. He stared at the clock on the wall. It was barely eight o'clock in the morning.

  "You're certainly serious about this thing," he told Auntie Lil grumpily, stepping aside to let her through before he was mowed down. Auntie Lil hated to get out of bed before 10:00 a.m. She claimed the human body had not been made to function before noon and customarily spent her mornings reading tabloids and detective magazines while she drank quarts of black coffee.

  "We've got to find out who she was before we can find out who killed her," Auntie Lil announced loudly as she plopped her bag of goodies onto the immaculate surface of his dining room table. T.S. winced. It was the single heirloom he'd taken from his parents' house upstate and in the twenty-five years of his ownership, it had hardly sustained a scratch, despite what he considered flagrant abuse by Auntie Lil.

  Brenda and Eddie wandered in belatedly, hating to give up their warm spot at the foot of T.S.'s bed. Letting them sleep there was his sole concession to affection when it came to his pets. They eyed him with suspicious hope. Would they get fed early? Would he come across with the chicken and cheese dinner?

  "Feed them so they leave me alone," Auntie Lil ordered. She liked cats about as much as she liked the NYPD.

  "I thought yo
u weren't a morning person." The whirr of the can opener whipped Brenda and Eddie into their obese version of a frenzy: their tails switched back and forth, perfectly synchronized, and Brenda let out a ladylike meow.

  "This morning, I am a morning person," Auntie Lil replied calmly. "How did the photos turn out? Can you see her face clearly?"

  "I'll say. Our little photo exhibit made quite a stir last night. Who says culture is dead in NYC?" He slammed the refrigerator door and felt a little better. There was just enough fresh orange juice left for a single glass.

  "Is that orange juice?" Auntie Lil asked with great interest. "If so, I'll take a glass."

  "No, you won't." He was being rude, but he didn't care. She knew better than to wake him up. She'd just have to take her lumps.

  "If you're going to be so grouchy, why don't you just go back to bed?" She stopped her scolding long enough to discover the package of photos lying on the coffee table next to his precisely aligned rows of The New Yorker and Cat Fancy. She thumbed through the stack of images with approval. "Say, these are very good, Theodore. You did a wonderful job." She looked at him from over the reading glasses she seldom wore because of her vanity. "I've been thinking about this. Our first step is to find out who she was. Then we can find out why she was killed."

  "What do you want me to do?" He held up the photos and flipped through them. It would be good to dive into the puzzle and keep his mind off his personal confusion about Lilah.

  "I'm going to start canvassing the neighborhood," she told him. "Show the photos around and find out where she lived. Someone has to know, even if she was very, very private. There's nothing else to go on. We need to question Adelle and her friends again, then try to track down the funny old man who saw Emily's pocketbook get stolen the day she died. We know so little about her."