Dancer in the Flames

by Stephen Solomita

  ‘What about Rick Bauer? You want me to handle him alone?’

  Boots was about to say something about his presence being a liability, given the relative skills of all concerned parties, when his cellphone began to trill. He considered letting the call go over to his voicemail, but then picked up.

  ‘It’s Frankie Drago, Boots. I just got a call from Vinnie. They’re droppin’ the murder charge.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Accordin’ to Vinnie’s lawyer, the cops are sayin’ there’s a possibility the blood they found was contaminated. Don’t ask me for the details. I don’t have ’em and I wouldn’t understand ’em if I did.’

  The gears in Boots’s skull began to click. Mike Shaw was giving him an excuse to back off. Jill didn’t – and wouldn’t – need him. Did she know? Jill’s head was turned ever so slightly to the left, her look sideways and up. She was smiling, too.

  ‘Hey, anybody home?’ Frankie said. ‘You did it, Boots. You got Vinnie out. It’s like a fuckin’ miracle.’

  ‘I gotta go, Frankie. Tell Vinnie not to steal any more cars.’

  Boots shoved the phone in his pocket. ‘The murder charge against Vinnie Palermo has been dropped,’ he told Jill Kelly. When she didn’t answer, he said, ‘I’m gonna go.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Didn’t you tell me that Bauer was in the wind? Besides, your uncle’s after him now. After Corcoran as well.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because the attack took place a block away from Artie Farrahan’s home; he has to be thinkin’ he was Bauer’s real target. You just happened to come along at the right time. Now maybe he’s wrong, maybe we were followed. But Artie has Jill Kelly to worry about, too. He can’t afford to let events play themselves out.’

  ‘So, he’s cooperating?’

  ‘Yeah, and if hard-pressed, he’ll implicate Corcoran in your father’s murder. Add it up, Jill. Corcoran will get fifteen years on the drug charges alone. He’ll get another ten for conspiring to kill you. Even if the sentences run concurrently, he’ll be in his mid-seventies before he gets his first parole hearing.’

  Jill surprised Boots when she stepped close enough to stick a playful finger into his navel. ‘Go on, Boots. Get moving.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  On his way out, Boots noticed that every window was covered, and that Jill had placed a lamp before each of them. This didn’t make walking through the front door any easier. He thought briefly of making his exit through the back, then took the plunge.

  A gentle rain washed over him as he made his way to his car. He walked slowly, refusing to run, his fear of being afraid greater than his fear of Rick Bauer, but he let go a sigh of relief when he slid into his rented Dodge. After a moment, he started the car and got the defroster going, then slid the seat back and took out his phone.

  ‘Inspector, it’s Boots Littlewood.’

  Najaz hesitated, then said, ‘You’ve heard about Palermo? We’re letting him off on the homicide, but not the grand theft auto. He’s got priors, so you can expect him to do a couple of years.’

  ‘Fine with me, inspector. Vinnie’s no angel. And I wanna thank you, too.’

  Najaz laughed. ‘Gimme a fuckin’ break.’

  ‘All right.’ Boots returned the laugh with a manly chuckle. ‘I’m calling about a cop named Rick Bauer, one of the boys at Brooklyn Narcotics.’

  ‘I know who he is.’

  ‘Well, what I want to know is if Bauer was ever on a SWAT team.’

  ‘With Jill Kelly?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  FORTY-THREE

  Jill Kelly paused to examine her reflection in the storm door before ringing Gladys Kohl’s bell. She was wearing a linen jacket the color of old ivory, white jeans and a pale yellow blouse. A mistake, she finally decided. The contrast between the light clothing and her dark red hair was too extreme. She should have balanced her look with the emerald-green slacks still in her closet. Why hadn’t she noticed when she checked herself out in the bedroom mirror?

  ‘Jill, so nice to see you. It’s been ages.’

  ‘Cut the shit.’ Jill pushed Gladys back into the house, leaving the door open behind her. ‘Your brother tried to kill me.’

  ‘What …’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon. He missed.’

  As she walked through the foyer and into the living room, Jill’s eyes moved systematically. She saw nothing and missed nothing, looking only for movement, the shadow at the corner of the eye. Finally, she took up a position with her back to the fireplace.

  Gladys approached to within a few feet. ‘You think you’re some kind of Wonder Woman,’ she muttered through trembling lips, ‘but all you are, all you can ever hope to be, is a common bully.’

  Jill was holding the hem of her jacket between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, prepared to lift the jacket away from the weapon at her belt. There were three paths into the room: through an archway directly ahead of her and through doors to her right and left. Jill monitored these points without looking directly at any of them. If you focused too hard on the details, you tended to miss the big picture. That’s why you developed reflexes through practice. Thinking slowed you down.

  ‘Is he in the house, Gladys? Would you tell me if he was?’

  ‘I’m going to call the police.’

  ‘Good idea. Only I should warn you, they’ll ask for permission to search the premises.’

  ‘Which you plan to do without permission.’

  ‘Actually, Gladys, I came here to cut a deal. I don’t have anything against Rick. In fact, I remember our little affair as reasonably pleasant. And I don’t blame him for trying to kill me. What, with the uncontrollable greed, Rick has a habit of making bad choices.’

  ‘Is there a point here?’

  The shadow came from Jill’s right, a ghost image that preceded Rick Bauer into the room. Jill stepped to her left, placing Gladys Kohl between herself and the Colt Commander in Rick’s hand. In her forties, Gladys was fifteen years older than her brother and probably a bit heavier; she made a good shield. Nevertheless, Rick’s best chance was to shoot first and the hell with his sister. But Rick had a fondness for melodrama and it came as no surprise when he used his sister as an excuse to indulge this quirk.

  ‘So,’ Rick said, ‘how have you been?’

  ‘Still above ground. How about you?’

  ‘I seem to have screwed up.’

  ‘That’s the greed. Once you give in to greed, your fate is out of your hands. Greed is worse than dope.’

  ‘And you? What did you give in to?’

  ‘Vanity.’

  Jill knew, at that moment, that if she chose to, she could take Rick Bauer. He would concede the first move and he would not survive. ‘I didn’t come here to hurt you, Rick. You have enough trouble already.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘Mack Corcoran.’

  ‘And what happens if I don’t help? Or if I can’t?’

  Jill stepped in close to Gladys, who’d gotten the picture by then. Her eyes were wild with fear, not least because she couldn’t bring her legs to move.

  ‘You don’t wanna go there,’ Jill said.

  Boots was sure Jill made him. She’d driven away from her home at top speed, powering the big Chrysler into a screaming left turn before tearing off toward Northern Boulevard. Then she’d slowed to a near crawl on the long drive to eastern Queens and the community of Bayside. Boots had no choice except to match her pace, his nondescript Dodge Stratus, despite the rain, as conspicuous as a horse-drawn carriage. There was comfort in this, comfort of a sort. Jill’s Chrysler was far more powerful than the Dodge with its energy-conserving four-cylinder engine. If she wanted to, she could lose him in a matter of seconds.

  Boots knew where Jill was headed once they passed through Flushing. After leaving the military, Bauer had moved in with his sister and her family in Bayside. He was still living t
here when he applied to the NYPD, only moving to College Point a year after leaving the Academy. At least, according to Inspector Murad Najaz.

  If pressed, Boots could not have explained why he was tailing Jill Kelly. True, his educated guess (based almost entirely on past performance) had been prescient. Both Jill and Rick had worked on the Manhattan SWAT team, their tenures overlapping by eight months. Rumor had it they were lovers.

  Jill had lied to him again. Her affair with Rick Bauer had been far from the unsatisfactory one-night stand she’d described. But there didn’t appear to be any reason to care. He was resigned to losing her, even assuming he had her now. The smart move was to back away, let Jill, Mike Shaw and Corcoran finish their game, pick up the pieces afterward. And if it was Humpty Dumpty time, if the puzzle could not be reassembled, then so be it.

  But there was that tug, like someone had attached a fishing line to his brain and Jill was holding the rod, every flick pulling him further away from his old life. He needed to speak with his father, with Leo Gubetti, to be brought down to earth. Instead, he was following Jill Kelly along rainy streets, listening to the rap music blaring from a car alongside him. Boots couldn’t make out the lyrics, only that the artist was repeating the same words over and over, faster and faster, louder and louder.

  When he parked the car forty-five minutes later, Boots made no effort to conceal himself. He pulled to the curb fifty yards from Jill’s Chrysler, then watched as Jill approached the front door of a Tudor home, paused to admire her own reflection, finally conferred with a middle-aged woman before pushing her way inside. He was encouraged when Jill left the door ajar, but stayed where he was for several minutes, listening to the rain spatter on the roof and the thump-thump of the wipers running back and forth across the windshield. His adrenals were already pulsing. Reality times ten.

  Jill saw Boots first. He was coming forward slowly, but deliberately, his Glock pinned to Rick Bauer’s skull. And why not? Bauer had a gun in his hand and he was pointing it at what he could see of Jill Kelly’s face. Jill wanted to tell Boots that she had the situation under control, but was afraid the threat to Rick’s ego would force him into action. Rick had begun to sweat, his surfer-blond hair to mat at the temples. He was so locked on Jill Kelly that he didn’t see Boots until Boots was ten feet away.

  ‘Drop the gun, Rick,’ Boots said.

  ‘I’m on the job,’ Bauer returned. ‘This woman broke into my home.’

  ‘Drop the gun.’

  This time Rick managed a little laugh: heh-heh-heh. ‘Looks like we have ourselves a stand-off. You kill me, I kill her.’

  ‘Drop the gun.’

  Boots’s single-mindedness finally drew Bauer’s attention. ‘And what comes next?’ he asked.

  ‘All I can promise is that I won’t let her kill you. Drop the gun.’

  There it was again. Let her. Talk about making promises you can’t keep. Boots took a breath, held it for a second, then squeezed the trigger. His hands, he noted, were rock steady.

  As though chasing the bits of brain and bone that spattered across an oil painting on the far wall, Rick Bauer pitched sideways. He did not pull the trigger of his Colt, nor did he let go. Although he was obviously dead, he looked, to Boots, as if he was still making up his mind.

  Boots turned to Jill Kelly. She was pushing her way past a screaming Gladys Kohl, coming directly for him, her eyes as wild as he’d ever seen them.

  ‘Crossed a line there, buddy,’ she said as she took out her phone, ‘and you won’t be comin’ home any time soon.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  They stashed Boots in an upstairs bedroom this time. He’d pulled the trigger and there’d be no keeping his identity from the press. The only good news was that the shooting had gone down in Queens, which left the boys at Brooklyn North out in the cold. But that didn’t mean Boots was off the hook. Far from it. Line-of-duty shootings were subject to close scrutiny by a review board. Boots’s gun would be examined, the scene assessed and witnesses interviewed. Maybe Gladys would remember that he’d ordered her brother to drop his weapon four times, but that didn’t mean she’d tell the truth.

  The room Boots was in belonged to a teenager, a boy. There were sports posters on the wall, a pile of dirty clothes topped by a pair of high-end Nikes with soles smooth enough to pass for slippers. Jammed between a closet and the foot of the bed, a weight bar with plates at either end threatened to trip the unwary housekeeper.

  Boots picked up the weights. Sixty pounds; he was used to more. But he couldn’t remain still and he began to work anyway. Curls, presses, pull-ups, knee bends. He’d taken a man’s life; tradition dictated that he be overwhelmed by the gravity of the deed. In fact, he was obsessed with the look in Jill Kelly’s eyes. Through some black magic forever unfathomable to the likes of him, Jill could live within her craziness. And if she couldn’t tame the beast, she could exercise enough control to enjoy the ride.

  Not so, Boots Littlewood. For as long as he could remember, he’d battled to stay on the right side of the odds. Burglars, thieves, rapists, killers. They were enough for him. He didn’t need to slay dragons. He didn’t want to be a hero.

  Twenty minutes later, the door opened to admit Farrell Monaghan from the Detectives’ Benevolent Association, Boots’s free lawyer. Boots laid down the weight bar.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Monaghan said through stained teeth, ‘you’re a hero.’

  Gladys Kohl, he continued, had not only confirmed Detective Littlewood’s account, she’d also claimed that her brother forced the Kohl family to admit him on the night before. Then she’d led the investigators to Rick’s bedroom where they discovered five kilos of Afghani heroin in an army duffel bag.

  Boots thanked Monaghan for the information, then sent him packing. If Mike Shaw decided to screw Detective Littlewood, no DBA lawyer could stop him. Boots wondered if Shaw and Polanco had known about the heroin all along, if Jill had known. The taint from that dope would eventually rise through the ranks to engulf Michael Shaw’s rivals.

  Inspector Najaz showed up at noon. ‘You’re being promoted,’ he announced, ‘to detective, second grade. Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Plus, you get the next two weeks off.’ Najaz winked. ‘To recover from the shock.’

  Boots wanted to tell Najaz that he felt fine, but with the adrenalin having fled his body, the only thing he really felt was limp.

  ‘What about Corcoran?’

  ‘You leave Corcoran to us, Boots. We have a warrant for his arrest. We’ll find him.’

  ‘Does that mean Jill no longer needs my help?’

  ‘Did she ever?’ Najaz laid a fatherly paw on Detective Littlewood’s shoulder. ‘For the record, the Chief thanks you for protecting his niece this morning. But what I think is that you were more likely protecting yourself.’

  And that was exactly right. Driven by the certainty that he was the slowest gun in the room, Boots had decided to counter his disadvantage by shooting first. Or, at least, that’s the way he remembered the decision-making process, the way he wanted to remember it.

  At three o’clock, shielded by a posse of uniformed officers, Boots was rushed to his car, then chauffeur-driven to his father’s house in Greenpoint. The hope was to avoid the cameras, but the strategy backfired. When Boots saw his face on the evening news, he looked like a cringing perp.

  ‘If you’re supposed to be a hero,’ Libby asked, ‘why were you hiding?’

  ‘The bosses – Shaw and his underlings – wanted to make sure I didn’t speak to the reporters.’

  Boots was already irritated by the penetrating glances, from Libby, from Andy, from Joaquin. What were they searching for? Signs of an imminent collapse? At seven o’clock, he went for a walk. Big mistake. Word had spread through the neighborhood. Now he was a fucking celebrity. For just a moment, he thought Jenicka Balicki was going to ask him to autograph her babushka.

  He ended up at Mount Carmel’s rectory, no surprise, in a room with Leo
Gubetti, who uncorked a bottle of wine. This was a social visit, not a confession.

  ‘I’m tryin’ to feel something for this dope-smuggling jerk,’ he told the priest, ‘but I can’t get there. Even his sister hates him.’

  ‘You still seem upset.’

  ‘Not about Rick Bauer.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Something Jill Kelly said right afterward. She told me that I’d crossed a line and I wouldn’t find my way back, not in the short term.’

  ‘And you believe she was right?’

  Boots shook his head. ‘God forgive me, Leo, but I can’t help thinkin’ that next time it’ll be easier.’

  Later on, with the bottle drained, Boots finally gave voice to his real concerns, which were not for himself. ‘Mack Corcoran,’ he told the priest, ‘is living proof that the eyes are not the windows of the soul. His are completely flat, like mirrors. Flat and empty. That’s because he hasn’t got a soul and there’s nothing to look at.’

  ‘Everyone has a soul.’ The words were meant to provoke and Gubetti wasn’t disappointed when Boots snorted in contempt. When it came to evil, cops were self-proclaimed experts. You couldn’t argue with them.

  ‘I’ve seen eyes like his before, Leo, seen them many a time. The men who own those eyes are beyond redemption.’

  ‘That’s blasphemy.’

  Boots thought it over for a moment, then said, ‘Mike Shaw’s playin’ his own game. Jill, too. And me, I’m like a blind man tryin’ to cross Park Avenue without a guide dog. Cars are comin’ at me from every direction. I don’t know whether to jump, dodge or crawl. I don’t even know who’s more dangerous – Shaw, Corcoran or Jill Kelly.’

  Jill called at eleven o’clock that night. ‘Hey, Boots, what are ya doin’?’

  ‘Waitin’ to hear your voice,’ Boots admitted.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘I figured you were out lookin’ for Corcoran.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s a problem, Boots. But it’s a problem for tomorrow. In the meantime, I was wondering if you wanted to play a game.’

  ‘Sure, what game do you have in mind?’