Dancer in the Flames

by Stephen Solomita

  The light in question, Boots realized after a few seconds, was on a timer. The timer would switch the light off and on several times each day, as other timers would turn other lights off and on. The goal was to frighten burglars and vandals by simulating the activities of a family in residence. In fact, timers are an aid to burglars, as these were to Boots. Now any light in the house could be turned on without attracting the attention of meddlesome neighbors.

  Boots started in the attic and worked his way down. He’d been all over the house only a day before without uncovering anything out of place on the upper floors. Still, he methodically searched each room, all those years of experience coming into play. By the time he reached the basement, he was able to concentrate on the problem at hand without a nagging fear that he’d missed something. If Chris Parker had a hidden stash upstairs, it wasn’t in a closet or along the baseboards or behind any cabinet or beneath a trap door.

  With the house cleaned out by the movers, the basement seemed empty: a few makeshift workbenches, plastic water pipes, an oil burner, a washer and dryer in a small laundry room. Not so on the day before, when every nook and cranny was taken up by Chris Parker’s woodworking tools.

  Still permeated by the pungent odor of wood shavings, the basement had been Parker’s retreat, the place he came to be alone. If he was going to hide something in the house, something he didn’t want even his wife to know about, this was where he’d put it. Still, the basement had been so cluttered that if not for Anita Parker, Boots might never have uncovered the anomaly. Anita had spoken at length about her home’s many advantages, seeming, once she got started, unable to stop. Boots had listened patiently, aware that she was cataloguing her memories, not pitching real estate. Anita remembered completing the addition over the garage, replacing the roof, remodeling the kitchen, preparing a bedroom for their first child, upgrading the furnace in the basement.

  ‘We replaced the furnace two years ago,’ she’d said. ‘The system we installed was top of the line. It uses half the fuel that the old system used and it doesn’t clank every time it shuts down.’

  When Boots had finally reached the basement, he’d made a cursory inspection, then stood before the new furnace for several minutes before he put his finger on what was bothering him. A sheet-metal duct running above a long workbench wasn’t connected to the new heating system on either end, though one end rested against the furnace. Had the contractor who installed the new system left the duct behind? Had Chris Parker taken advantage?

  Boots had been about to find out when Anita came thumping down the stairs, a laundry basket cradled in her arms.

  ‘It never ends,’ she’d said.

  Boots gave the end of the duct resting against the furnace a tug, moving it far enough to get his hand inside, but found nothing. He walked calmly to the other end, twenty-five feet away, and focused the beam of his flashlight along the inside. About halfway down, a small shadow blocked the light. Boots twisted the flashlight to angle the beam into the shadow which then became a black shopping bag.

  The duct was made of box-like segments, press-fit into a single unit. Boots separated the two segments at the center by holding them against his body, then yanking in opposite directions. They came apart easily, one end dropping down to release the bag. Boots could tell by the sound the bag made when it hit the concrete floor, the muffled ker-chunk, that there was money inside.

  Something over twenty thousand dollars, as a quick count revealed, more than enough to set up Joaquin. Boots found himself wishing that Father Leo was in the room so he could kick the priest’s ass from one wall to the other. Yeah, the commandment says, Thou shalt not steal. But if the money didn’t belong to Boots, who did it belong to? Who was he stealing from? Anita Parker? On the grounds that her husband had extorted it, fair and square? Or maybe the city or the state? Or how about Maytag LeGuin? What would Maytag say if Boots walked up and handed him a bag of money?

  ‘This is yours, I believe.’

  Boots shook his head in an effort to erase the entire train of thought. He let the money fall to the floor, then retrieved the only other item in Parker’s stash – a DVD in a jewel case. Boots examined the disc for a moment, but there was no label to indicate its contents, which he found encouraging. Parker would not have taken such pains to conceal a few hours of video shot at a family celebration.

  Boots slid the DVD into his pocket, then dropped to his knees and stuffed the cash into the bag. It was time to get out and he knew it. Still, for the length of a drawn breath, he continued to stare down at the stacked bills. He wanted them so bad. He wanted them more than anything they could hope to buy, and he couldn’t shake off the notion that only a chump would leave them behind.

  Boots released his breath, shoved the money into the bag and the bag into the duct, and finally pressed the segments together. Whoever’s money it was, it wasn’t Boots Littlewood’s money. That was how you knew, or so the nuns had explained way back when. Plus, there was Father Leo’s threat to withhold absolution. If Boots ignored the priest, he might as well quit going to church altogether.

  It was well after two o’clock when Boots turned the key in Frankie Drago’s door. He tiptoed through the living room, down the hall and into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, he was asleep. This was a trait for which Boots could take no credit. Except for those rare occasions when his conscience troubled him, he was able to drop off at will.

  Boots slept deeply for several hours, then fell into a series of dreams centering around his mother. In the years since her death, Boots often dreamed of Margie Littlewood, dreams in which he and his mother might be any age, in which they skipped from season to season, setting to setting. He walked beside her in the Bronx Zoo, watched her prepare dinner on a snowy day, swam next to her in a YMCA pool.

  In his dream on this night, Boots sat beside his mother in a wooden pew at Mount Carmel. He felt her thigh pressed against his own, smelled the flowery perfume she wore to church. He rose with her, sat with her, knelt with her, sang with her. So happy he could barely contain himself.

  And then, without transition, Margie Littlewood was no longer beside her son. She was at the front of the church, beyond the altar rail, in her coffin, and she wasn’t coming back, never, no matter how much he wanted to see her again.

  Boots awakened in a panic. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and put his face into his hands. Even now, when he entered his father’s apartment, he sometimes heard, very faintly, his mother call out his name.

  Fully awake, Boots took a shower, then retrieved the DVD and headed for the kitchen, drawn by the odor of onions browning in olive oil. When he came through the door, Frankie Drago was breaking eggs into a mixing bowl.

  ‘Boots, I been wantin’ to talk to you.’ Drago added salt, pepper and chopped garlic, then whisked the eggs into a froth before pouring them over the onions.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘What do you think?’ This time Frankie was prepared. No more evasions.

  ‘About that question I suggested your lawyer ask me?’ Boots’s grin flicked on and off.

  ‘Yeah, that one. And no more bullshit. I wanna know what you’re gonna say.’

  ‘Well, Frankie, should your mouthpiece ask me if there’s any physical or circumstantial evidence provin’ that you intended to kill Angie, I’m gonna say no. But you could’ve figured that one out for yourself.’

  ‘How so?’ Drago folded the omelet, then cut it in half.

  ‘Because no evidence that you intended to kill your sister exists. Of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll be acquitted. Remember, I’m just one little arrow in the state’s quiver. That’s why I’m gonna give you a piece of advice. The prosecutor will raise a question of his own – a very important question which you’re gonna have to answer convincingly if you hope to walk away relatively unharmed.’

  ‘And what question would that be?’

  ‘Why was your basement door open, exposing a steep and narrow staircase with a concrete
floor at the bottom end? My father doesn’t leave the door to the basement open. In fact, nobody I know leaves the door open. So why did Frankie Drago’s basement door happen to be open when he happened to shove his sister through it?’

  THIRTY

  Boots ate his omelet standing up. He was annoyed by Drago’s ingratitude. The issue of the open door would play a far more important role in the bookmaker’s trial than Boots Littlewood’s testimony. But Frankie Drago was pissed off because Detective Littlewood had rained on his freedom fantasy. Par for the course. Boots took Chris Parker’s DVD out of his pocket and held it up.

  ‘You have a player for this?’

  ‘What’s on it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Frankie. That’s why I need the player.’

  Drago led the way into the living room, handed Boots a remote control, then slid the disc into his DVD player. When Boots didn’t ask him to leave, he dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette.

  The disc opened on an outdoor scene in a neighborhood that might be found in any of New York’s outer boroughs, a block of five-story apartment buildings and two-family, attached homes, brick, brick and more brick. There were parked cars on both sides of the road, a half-dozen pedestrians going about their business, a Con-Ed crew digging up the street.

  The scene remained static for a few seconds before a car – a blue, late-model Volvo, driven by a woman – glided into view. The Volvo came to a stop next to a Toyota, then attempted to parallel-park. The effort was comical, the Volvo’s rear tires pounding the curb several times before the car again pulled up alongside the Toyota and the driver got out. Bundled up in a puffy, down jacket, she walked directly to the camera, reaching out as she came.

  The camera tilted down for a moment, then righted itself to reveal Chris Parker striding toward the Volvo. He spun on his heel to offer a brief smirk, climbed in, finally parked the car with practiced ease. Fade to black.

  The Bronx Zoo followed. Parker or his girlfriend striding along various paths, watching various animals, eating hotdogs, eating cotton candy. All sunshine and smiles.

  After ten minutes of sightseeing, Boots pressed search and was rewarded with Parker and pal on a sandy beach. Both wore bathing suits, the contrast between the pair so extreme Boots couldn’t ignore it. The woman – a girl, really, in her early twenties at most – was thin enough to be the victim of a wasting disease. Her skin was sallow, the undersides of her eyes dark and heavy, the muscles of her legs and arms slack. Next to the toned and tanned Chris Parker, she was small enough to be a child, an effect emphasized by the pink barrette that held her brown hair in place.

  ‘What, you’re into home movies now?’ Drago asked.

  ‘That’s Chris Parker. That’s the man Vinnie’s accused of killing. I found the DVD in a heating duct.’

  ‘Yeah? So what?’

  ‘So there has to be something on it that Parker wanted to keep hidden. If not, why hide it?’

  Boots pressed search again, his persistence this time resulting in a pay-off of sorts: Chris Parker on a king-sized bed with a thirtyish blond, both naked, going at it for all they were worth.

  Another press of the search button produced a second woman between the sheets with Chris Parker, then a third and a fourth, none of them the girl Boots had seen in the earlier footage.

  Boots shut off the DVD player. ‘Frankie, you better go upstairs, tell your mother not to come down. If she sees this, she might get the wrong impression.’

  ‘Good thought.’ Drago ground out his cigarette, then rose. ‘I gotta take Mom to church anyway, and after that I’m gonna head for Silky’s. Be a lotta business today, what with the Mets playin’ the Yankees for the last time this season. You wouldn’t wanna place a bet, would ya – give me a chance to get even?’

  Boots shook his head, his mind already turning back to the video. He waited for Drago to leave the room, then laid the remote control on a table and stared at the half-smoked butt in the ashtray with frank desire. If his cravings were more infrequent now, they were no less powerful. He got up, sat down, his eyes jumping across the room as though seeking an escape hatch. Boots found Drago’s resolutely early-American furnishings somewhat unnerving. Wing chairs and a three-seat couch with an unnaturally high back, American-eagle lamps with black shades, Washington crossing the Delaware on the wall behind the television. Every single piece, Boots knew, including a factory-frayed Betsy Ross flag, had fallen off the back of an eighteen-wheeler. Another day, another truck, and Frankie would have surrounded himself with chrome, glass and leather.

  Boots was trying to decide if he needed to review the entire DVD. Parker’s reason for hiding the disc was obvious enough. What Boots had discovered was a kind of trophy wall – here the head of an ibex, there a gazelle, there an impala. The private journal of a man addicted to sex. Though Boots was a strong believer in the concept of consenting adults, he very much doubted that the women on the DVD had consented to being taped. Still, no matter how despicable Parker’s conduct, he wasn’t around to punish and there was no sense in getting worked up. There were other things to consider, like maybe some of the women in Parker’s videos were married and he was using the videos for blackmail. As a motive for murder, blackmail would definitely suffice.

  When Boots heard the front door close, he crossed to the window and watched Frankie and his mom head off to Mount Carmel. Boots usually accompanied his father to mass when he had Sunday off. But not today. Today, Andy was in Astoria, driven from his home by his son’s bullshit.

  Boots fetched a spiral notebook and a pen from his room, then returned to his chair and made a few notes about what he’d seen. When he finished, he knew that he had to review the disc. All of the video was shot in the same room through two cameras, positioned on the front and back walls. These cameras had a zoom capacity which could only have been implemented by a third party, and unless Parker was chronically quick on the trigger, the footage had been edited down. These factors, and the near certainty that the video had been shot over a long period of time, led to a simple conclusion: Chris Parker had maintained a private hidey-hole, a place where dreams come true, his own little Shangri-La. Finding that garden of Eden would be priority number one for Boots Littlewood.

  Boots dragged his chair to within a few feet of the television, then used the remote to start the DVD player. A moment later, the Volvo glided into view. Boots was hoping to get a plate number off the car. When that didn’t happen, he paused the disc, then concentrated on the setting. Boots was assuming the scene had been shot close to Parker’s hideaway and he wanted to remember the block when he came upon it. Finally, his eye settled on a five-story apartment building near the far corner. Flanked by two-family homes with sunken garages, the building’s white brick and featureless architecture made it the closest thing to a landmark.

  Boots restarted the disc, then settled back to endure thirty minutes of zoo and beach before he caught a break. The particular footage he watched had been shot from the passenger seat of a car with the camera focused on Chris Parker. Boots watched for street signs, business signs, anything to place the car at a particular location. He was almost ready to give up when the car slowed to a stop at a red light and Parker gave the camera a playful shake. The lens zoomed out, hesitated briefly, finally pulled back.

  Boots reversed the disc, then made three attempts before he managed to freeze the image at just the right moment. The camera was now focused on a small plaque mounted beside the door of a frame house. The plaque was easily read: A. Gubenkian and Son, Attorneys at Law. Better yet, after the light changed, the car drove for less than a mile before turning on to a street with a white apartment building at the end of the block.

  Boots leaned back as the scene shifted to the bedroom and Chris Parker’s sexual exploits. He told himself to put aside his distaste, that he’d seen far worse in his time, that reviewing the entire contents of the disc was a job that had to be done and there was nobody else to do it. Plus, the room was dark and the focus poor. Park
er had not so much recorded his triumphs as created a way to resurrect them in his memory.

  Fortunately, the disc’s many segments were short, most around five minutes, with abrupt transitions as Chris and his partners skipped from position to position. Boots had the DVD set to run on double time, which made the whole thing even jerkier. At times, the mattress bounced up and down like a dinghy in a hurricane.

  After a while, Boots realized that some of Parker’s love partners were common prostitutes, which made the whole business even more pathetic. He began to grow bored at that point, his mind wandering away from the action, but then he saw the face of his partner, saw Jill Kelly naked against a stack of pillows, beckoning Chris Parker forward, smiling that enigmatic smile, eyes sparkling with excitement.

  In an instant, as if the pieces had only been waiting to jump into place, Boots knew everything. He shut off the DVD player, then stared at the blank screen until he heard the front door open. Mama Drago returning home.

  Boots glanced at his watch to find that an hour had gone by, an hour in which he’d asked himself a single question: What am I going to do? An hour in which he’d been unable to form a single coherent response, though he did conclude that he was truly and irrevocably fucked.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The Yankee game was playing on the radio and Boots knew they were behind, though he didn’t know the score. He was parked in a nondescript neighborhood in the Brooklyn community of Bensonhurst, five minutes from the Verranzano Bridge leading to Staten Island. Outside, the sky was rapidly filling with dark-edged clouds, the string of perfect June days about to end, but he was as unaware of the weather as the ball game. Boots was feeling sorry for himself. Talk about your bad breaks. Talk about your dumb decisions. Boots had volunteered to brace Frankie Drago, figuring he was familiar with the bookmaker’s little quirks. How could he predict that Drago would name Vinnie? That Vinnie would be charged with murder? That Crazy Jill Kelly would land, feet first, in the middle of his contented little life? Even thinking about her, he felt himself stiffen.