Dancer in the Flames

by Stephen Solomita

  ‘I want to help you stay alive,’ he said, ‘so I can keep on fucking you.’

  And not even Crazy Jill Kelly had an answer for that one.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Early the next morning, shortly after sunrise, Boots stood before the open window in his front room. Pushed by a cool breeze, a pair of lace curtains fluttered to either side of his face. The breeze carried the fragrance of the pink roses, many hundreds of them, blooming on a trellis in Fianna Walsh’s tiny yard. Fianna’s trellis was the wonder of Newell Street, a source of intense pride, an event that marked the passage into summer as surely as the rising temperatures. But Boots neither smelled nor even noticed Fianna’s roses. Nor did he hear the sudden blast of a fog horn out on the East River, or Ivan Pinetka’s blaring television. No, after carefully checking the vehicles parked by the curb, and the rooftops across the street, his thoughts had turned inward.

  Reaching far back into his childhood, Boots had always been an optimist, a believer in solutions to life’s problems, major and minor. Not perfect solutions, of course – Boots wasn’t a fool. He merely thought that if you took this little piece and moved it this way, and that little piece and moved it that way, and another little piece and moved it another way, you eventually reached a door marked ‘Exit’. A door you were willing to open because what was on the other side didn’t scare the crap out of you.

  But for all Boots knew, the dicks assigned to the Olmeda homicide had already collected the evidence needed to arrest Jill Kelly. Maybe they were searching for her right now. Maybe it was only a question of who’d find her first, the cops or the assassin hired by Mack Corcoran. And even if Michael Shaw protected Jill on the first count, and Corcoran was persuaded to accept a truce, the maze continued to twist back and forth, from one dead end to the next. Boots hadn’t changed his mind about Parker and Olmeda. With no sympathy for either man, he’d let God judge Detective Kelly. But that didn’t mean he could let her kill anybody else, now that he was personally involved. Unlike Ms Kelly, Boots lacked the mitigating factors necessary for a pass on the Fifth Commandment.

  Boots laughed to himself. Let her? Last time he looked, Jill hadn’t asked for permission. Probably, she’d never asked for permission in her entire life. And that was the problem. You don’t catch comets when your fancy boots are anchored in concrete. No matter how it turned out, he’d eventually lose her.

  Well, he decided, that would be his anchor. Fuck the concrete. He would lose her. To a hired killer’s bullet, to the State, if he turned her in to save Vinnie Palermo, if she put a round through his head in order to stop him. He would lose her even if murder charges against Vinnie were dropped and the possibility of happily-ever-after reared its alluring head. There was no exit at the end of this maze.

  ‘Boots, what are you doing up so early?’

  Afraid that Jill had come directly from bed, eyes swollen with sleep, stark naked, Boots didn’t turn around. ‘We have to leave,’ he said. ‘We have to get out.’

  ‘Are you trying to get rid of me before your father wakes up?’

  Jill’s tone was playful, echoing as it did her perfunctory eviction of Boots Littlewood from her mother’s home. Not so his reply.

  ‘I put my family in enough danger having you here at all. Now we have to leave.’

  If Artie Farrahan was unhappy when Boots Littlewood stepped into his back yard, he was utterly dismayed when Jill Kelly followed. Artie was lying on a lounger, enjoying the early sun. He wore a canary-yellow swimsuit, small and tight, a choice of attire he instantly regretted. Jill was looking him up and down, contemptuous in the way only a beautiful woman can be. Farrahan grunted against the pain in his ribs as he raised himself to a sitting position, the inner tube of flab around his waist settling below his navel.

  As Boots and Jill Kelly approached, Farrahan searched for something to say, some witty comment that would lift him to their level. Unfortunately, until he knew what they wanted, those words didn’t exist. Finally, he settled for ‘Hey, Boots.’

  Boots sat down at a metal table with a folded umbrella in the middle. Without hesitation, he lifted a copy of the New York Times, exposing Farrahan’s Browning automatic. He winked at Farrahan, then put the newspaper down.

  For the next moment, Boots and Artie measured each other’s battle scars – Boots’s eye and forehead, a pronounced depression in Farrahan’s left cheekbone.

  ‘You gonna need surgery?’ Boots asked.

  ‘Yeah, my sinuses don’t drain on that side. And you?’

  ‘It’s elective. Whether I wanna look good or not. I can see fine.’ Boots lowered his chin slightly. ‘So, whatta ya think, Artie? You think the eye gives me character?’

  Jill Kelly watched this exchange from a chair to Boots’s left. She pronounced it typical male bullshit, and instantly boring. Men couldn’t be in the same room for two minutes before they started wagging their dicks. Meanwhile, the biggest dick in this room was snugged into the holster attached to her belt. It was all she could do not to execute Artie Farrahan on the spot.

  Boots turned the crank in the umbrella’s shaft, putting a little zip into the effort. He watched as the umbrella expanded to reveal alternating wedges of red and gold that reminded him of Farrahan’s ties. The day was rapidly warming and Boots was overdressed in his customary gray suit.

  ‘We have to stop this thing,’ Boots said. ‘It’s gone too far.’

  Caught off-guard, Farrahan took a minute to consider his options. Finally, he said, his tone wistful, ‘I got a call earlier this morning from the headhunters. I’ve been suspended.’

  Boots nodded to himself. IAB Chief Mario Polanco was Michael Shaw’s ally. The boys were on the move.

  ‘Weren’t you already on sick leave?’

  ‘Yeah, could ya believe it? Ten days ago, they were callin’ me a hero. Now I’m the target of an investigation.’

  Boots nodded. ‘So, you can see what I’m sayin’, right? We each have our own problems. This other business, it has to stop.’

  ‘You speakin’ for …’ Farrahan couldn’t bring himself to pronounce Jill’s name, or even look at her.

  ‘I’m speakin’ for all concerned.’

  Farrahan leaned forward, dropped his hands to his knees. ‘I haven’t left my house in days,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want any part of this from the beginning. You should be talkin’ to the inspector.’

  ‘Corcoran? Well, it’s a funny thing, Artie, but Corcoran’s upped and disappeared. That’s how come we stopped by. We’re hopin’ you can tell us where he is, maybe start the negotiations.’

  ‘I got no idea where he is.’

  ‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’

  ‘Four, maybe five days ago. It was right after they found Lenny Olmeda.’

  ‘What’d you talk about?’

  ‘Whatta ya think?’

  ‘Besides Lenny.’

  Farrahan looked up and to the left, the movement so fast it escaped Jill Kelly’s attention. Not so Boots Littlewood’s. Artie Farrahan was censoring himself.

  ‘We talked about Parker, too,’ Farrahan said. ‘Corcoran was scared.’

  ‘Scared enough to put out a second hit on Jill?’

  Another hesitation, another lie. ‘He was scared enough to do anything, but—’

  ‘You’re lyin’, Artie. It won’t do.’

  As though she’d produced it by sleight of hand, Jill’s gun was out and pointing directly at Artie Farrahan’s head. Boots was impressed. He’d barely seen her hand move and he’d known it was coming. Boots placed his own hand on the gun and pushed the barrel down. Farrahan responded with something between a sigh and a moan.

  ‘Why don’t you give us a little room?’ Boots said to Jill Kelly.

  Jill stared at Boots for a moment, then pulled Farrahan’s Browning from beneath the newspaper. She ejected the clip and the round in the chamber, then stood.

  ‘Did you wet your pants, Artie? Do you fear death? Because if you fear death, you’ve already lost.�
�

  Boots watched Jill retreat to the shade of a Japanese maple, thinking her remark a bit on the cryptic side. But then he turned back to Artie Farrahan. The man’s fingers were still trembling.

  ‘That bitch is crazy,’ Farrahan said.

  ‘Actually, I think it’s a clan thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You killed a Kelly. Nobody gets away with that.’

  ‘Boots, I swear, I had nothin’ to do with Pat Kelly.’ Farrahan was almost whispering now. The hair combed across his forehead was dripping sweat. ‘Look, I admit I was dirty. I took the money and mostly did what I was told. But I didn’t kill anybody. I’m not a murderer.’

  ‘Did you know it was gonna happen?’ Boots watched Farrahan hesitate yet again. Jill had unnerved the man. His balls were in her pocket. ‘Why’d they do it?’ he asked.

  ‘Kill Pat Kelly?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He was IAB.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘If you knew Corcoran, you wouldn’t be sayin’ that. And Chris Parker was the same way. Those guys thought they could get away with anything.’

  Which they would have, Boots thought, if not for that scar and Chris Parker’s ego. As it was, they’d bought six more years.

  ‘Was that why Chris Parker made another move on Jill?’ he asked. ‘Because he thought he was invulnerable?’

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Forget that.’ This time, Farrahan’s confusion was genuine. He knew nothing of Jill Kelly’s rape. Boots murmured a silent prayer of gratitude. ‘Look, I’m gonna ask you a question now and I want a straight answer. No bullshit, Artie. If I think you’re lyin’, I’m gonna walk through the gate, leave you to Crazy Jill.’

  ‘Boots …’

  ‘Tell me everything you know about Corcoran puttin’ out a second hit on Jill Kelly.’

  Farrahan swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. His ribs hurt with every breath and the side of his face ached. He was trapped, a rat so crippled he didn’t have to be caged.

  ‘The last time you spoke to Mack Corcoran,’ Boots continued, ‘was after LeGuin’s failure, right?’

  ‘Yeah, a couple of days. Corcoran was pissed.’

  ‘Pissed enough to hire someone else?’

  ‘Yeah, he was really pissed.’

  ‘Artie, try to concentrate. Did Corcoran hire somebody to finish the job that LeGuin botched?’

  ‘He kept goin’ on about Jill Kelly, how much he wanted to kill her, how much he hated her, how his problems were all her fault. I swear, Boots, he sounded like one of those assholes who kills his ex-wife or his girlfriend, then tells you that she brought it on herself.’

  Farrahan stopped suddenly as he realized that Boots was about to slap him. He’d already been hit by Boots and had no desire to repeat the experience. ‘Yeah, OK. Corcoran told me he was gonna use somebody else, but he didn’t tell me who it was. He just said this guy wouldn’t fuck it up. But I got an idea who it is, Boots.’

  ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘You understand, I’m guessin’ here. I’m thinkin’ what I would do in the same situation, who I would pick.’

  The words tumbled out, one after the other, without any rise or fall in tone. Though Boots couldn’t be absolutely sure, he believed it very likely that Farrahan was telling the truth.

  ‘So, who would you pick, Artie? If you were Mack Corcoran?’

  ‘About six months ago, the inspector brought this kid named Rick Bauer into Narcotics. Rick’s maybe twenty-five, only been on the job for a couple of years, but Corcoran jumped him over a dozen other guys. Boots, you can believe me when I tell you Bauer came with both hands out. He was dirty from day one.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Bauer was special forces in Afghanistan. From the stories he told, I got a definite feelin’ that he enjoyed the killing. Anyway, it’s not like the inspector has a directory of hitmen. It’s not like he can pick and choose. Bauer makes sense and he’s available.’

  Farrahan was feeling a little better now. Jill Kelly was on the other side of the yard and Boots appeared to be in control. But then Boots rose to his feet, his jacket coming open to reveal an old-fashioned shoulder holster and a dangling automatic.

  ‘If I was you,’ Boots said, ‘I’d consult my lawyer, then cut a deal, maybe ask for protective custody. The alternative is to get your ass in the wind, like Corcoran. But what you don’t want to do, Artie, is make yourself an easy target, which is what you’re doin’ now. Jill’s not a forgiving sort.’

  ‘I hear what you’re sayin’.’ Farrahan tried to smile, but couldn’t bring it off. ‘Only I know you, Boots. You’re the white knight who risked his life to free Vinnie Palermo. You won’t let her kill anyone. It’s not in you.’

  There it was again. Let her. Boots shook his head in disgust. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said.

  FORTY

  The bullet that punched through the windshield missed Jill Kelly’s head only because she turned to flick her cigarette out the window. Sitting next to her with the keys in his hand, Boots failed to process what happened, even when the headrest next to him exploded, even when Jill pushed the door open, rolled out on to the sidewalk and began running up the block. It took a second crack of the rifle, this one tearing a hole in the trunk of a Ford Taurus, before he came to his senses. And even then a good five seconds passed in which he was able to do no more than watch Jill dodge and weave, staying close to the cars parked along the curb as she flew toward the far corner.

  Cursing to himself, Boots finally tumbled out of the car. His every instinct was to take cover, to call for back-up. Instead, he crossed to the opposite sidewalk, then ran after his crazy partner, his feet already hurting. Boots was hoping against hope that Jill was running away from the shooter. That didn’t seem likely because she was pointing her weapon ahead of her, but hope was all he had at that point. The rest was about fear – not for his own life, but for hers. If those bullets had been meant for him, he’d already be dead.

  Jill crossed the street at the corner, then sprinted the length of a short block, running alongside a fenced schoolyard. She stopped abruptly at the center of the next intersection and swept the road ahead.

  ‘C’mon,’ she muttered, ‘c’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Show yourself, you prick. Show me where you are.’ She was still muttering when Boots came up beside her.

  ‘Jill …’

  On the far side of the next intersection, a red car pulled away from the curb and headed in the opposite direction. Jill leveled her weapon, her concentration divided equally between the pressure of her finger on the trigger and the target centered between the gun’s sights. Boots had to yank her hand up to catch her attention.

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘Do you know who you’re shooting at?’

  Jill turned to a small parochial school on her right, St Anselm’s. She gestured to a door standing ajar. ‘He came out of there. He had to.’

  Boots eyes shifted to a pair of filthy windows on the second floor. Both had broken panes of glass despite the wire mesh covering them. Out in the schoolyard, the basketball court was marked by broken concrete and hoops long bent out of shape. St Anselm’s had apparently been among the losers in the last round of Catholic school closings.

  Jill holstered her automatic. In the distance, a siren wailed. Now they’d be tied up for hours. Now she’d have to deal with Uncle Mike. Resigned, she took Boots’s arm and led him back the way they’d come. When they reached the car, she pointed to a hole in the windshield an inch below the roofline, then to what was left of the headrest.

  ‘There’s only one line of sight that could have produced that trajectory. The shooter was up on the roof of the school.’

  ‘Now, you’re telling me you calculated the trajectory while you were rolling out of the car?’

  ‘Do you doubt me, Boots?’

  Boots was grinning now. His adrenal glands were still pumping away, but Jill, except for a sheen of perspiration on her forehea
d, seemed perfectly relaxed. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he told her, ‘I think you’re lying through your teeth. But it does make for a good story. In fact, I’d have to say it enhances the legend to a considerable degree.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Well, I might have noticed somebody rise up and fire that second shot. I might even have noticed that he was firing a rifle with a four-power scope. But I was heading for the school, anyway.’ Jill smiled. ‘I love ya, Boots, but combat’s not your thing.’

  Boots raised his shield as a cruiser turned on to the block, its siren running full out. He could barely hear himself think. ‘Are you still pissed about the red car?’ he shouted.

  ‘A little bit,’ Jill admitted.

  ‘Jill, you were two hundred yards away and the car was moving. Plus, you don’t know who was in it.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell me, on the way to the car, that Rick Bauer was ex-military?’

  ‘Special forces.’

  ‘Well, that’s what the military teaches its snipers. Shoot and move, which is what actually happened. And what I was hoping to do was hit the car, not the driver. I wanted to mark it, so we’d know it if we saw it again. The shot was challenging, but I could have pulled it off.’

  Jill took out her telephone as two uniformed cops walked up to Boots. The older of the two nodded once, in recognition of the shield Boots displayed, then asked, ‘Who’s she callin’?’

  ‘Her uncle, the Chief of Detectives.’

  The cop stared at Boots for a minute, then turned to his partner. ‘Rope off the whole fuckin’ block,’ he instructed. ‘I’m gonna call the sergeant.’

  The detective-captain who finally showed up to run the scene had Boots hauled off to the nearest precinct, the One-Twelve. ‘Nothing personal,’ he said, ‘but I want you outta here before the reporters show up.’

  Once delivered, Boots was stashed on a wooden bench in the squad room. Nobody told him he couldn’t leave, but, except for a trip to the john, he stayed where he was. Boots watched the detectives going about their business, on the phone, taking complaints, processing the mutts and skells who came their way. It was like watching a memory. And the fact that no one paid any attention to him only added to the illusion, as if he wasn’t there at all.