Dancer in the Flames

by Stephen Solomita

  Boots didn’t think Jill had scanned the rooftops in search of a concealed shooter. Jill was looking for a way inside. But inside which building? Boots’s eye was drawn to the five-story tenement at the southern end of the block. Except for two apartments, on the second and third floors, all the windows were covered with sheets of plywood.

  Fifteen years earlier, when Boots first put on the uniform, he would have assumed the structure to be abandoned. But times had changed. Once the last tenants were out, the landlord would reconfigure the cramped apartments, then market them as luxury condominiums. Even in this weak housing market, the units would likely be sold before the contractor finished working.

  Boots crossed the street and walked down the block. The metal door to the nearly emptied building was jammed between two shuttered businesses, a laundromat and a copy shop. Boots tried the door, found it locked, then peered through a window scribbled over with graffiti. The darkened hall inside was narrow, barely arms’ width, the stairs leading to the second floor narrower still. It was the perfect spot for a set-up.

  Impulsively, Boots rang the buzzers to every unit, all twenty, in the hope that somebody in one of the still-occupied apartments would let him in. But there was no response and he finally backed off to lean against a car parked at the curb.

  ‘Hey, get the fuck off the car.’

  The author of this request was a smallish man, no more than five-eight. Clearly drunk, his arms were splotched with fading tattoos, from shoulders to wrists.

  As Boots stared at the man, he was reminded of a late-night conversation he’d had with Jill Kelly. Boots had asked her about an encounter with a Russian pimp on a rooftop in Brooklyn, an encounter that left the pimp dead. Jill’s initial response, which she offered without a trace of apology, went to the heart of the matter: ‘I was in a foul mood that day.’

  ‘Did you hear what I fuckin’ said?’

  Boots Littlewood was in a foul mood, too, and while he didn’t consider shooting the drunk, he was keenly aware of a desire to beat the crap out of him. Like most cops, Boots detested belligerent drunks.

  ‘I’m a cop,’ Boots said.

  The drunk took a step forward. ‘And?’

  Sighing, Boots produced his shield. ‘You want to move the car, say so. Otherwise, be on your way. I’m not gonna tell you again.’

  Boots didn’t have to. An instant later, before the drunk’s alcohol-befuddled mind registered the underlying threat, the top corner of the building exploded, showering First Avenue and Ninth Street with broken glass. Boots looked up to see a tongue of orange flame leap through the window, pause for an instant, then turn upward to lick at the side of the building. A cloud of oily-black smoke followed, pouring into the night sky.

  ‘Holy shit.’

  The drunk staggered toward Boots. His face had been cut by the falling glass and there was blood running from his cheek. Boots pushed him aside, ignoring a cut that ran for several inches along his own bicep.

  The screams of a woman just a few yards away seemed more compelling and Boots raked her with his eyes. When he failed to observe any injury beyond the one to her psyche, he ran to the corner, grabbed a wire trash can and carried it to the door. He could hear the fire crackling overhead, along with a steady hiss that might have signaled an eruption of steam. The flames in the windows were now white-hot.

  Boots slammed the trash barrel’s weighted bottom into the door’s window. Made of high-impact plastic and designed to resist an assault, the window bent, but did not break. Boots retrieved the barrel and raised it again just as the door opened and an old man ran out, shortly followed by a younger man carrying an elderly woman over his shoulder. The woman looked at Boots as she came past, blinked once, then smiled.

  ‘Thank you, sonny,’ she said.

  Boots pushed his way inside and started up the stairs. On the second floor, he passed a man and a woman, each cradling a young child.

  ‘Is there anyone else in the building?’ he asked.

  Barely pausing in his headlong flight, the man called out, ‘No.’

  Boots continued on, climbing the last flight of stairs to find the apartment at the corner of the building fully engulfed. Even from twenty feet away, the heat was intense. But the fire was drawing oxygen up the stairwell and through the apartment, pushing the smoke out the windows, so that he was able to see the dancing man well enough. Suspended between floor and ceiling, the man twisted back and forth as if in agony. Then the rope around his neck gave way and he plunged to the floor.

  Boots took several steps toward the flames, the hiss of the fire now a steady roar. His eyes swept the landing in search of another body and he peered into the apartment through the flames. Much as he wished it was different, he couldn’t reject the evidence right in front of him. The door to the apartment would be lying in the hallway if it had been dislodged by the explosion. Instead, the door was inside the apartment, still on its hinges. Someone had been here to open it, but not the man on the rope. The man on the rope was Mack Corcoran. He’d been dead for at least a day, probably longer.

  Boots took a breath, found it hot enough to hurt. His face was burning, but he inched forward anyway. He was imagining Jill trapped inside, somehow alive, and he unable to help her, just as he’d predicted. When the heat forced him to stop, his heart was seized by a cluster of emotions midway between dread and despair. The fire was pushing into the hallway, the smoke, too, and the roof above his head was surely engaged. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to flee, not until the banister on the stairs leading to the roof burst into flame. Even then, he backed down the stairs, one flight at a time, convinced that averting his eyes would lead to some further catastrophe.

  ‘Yo, Boots, fancy meeting you here.’

  Boots whirled, his hand reaching for his weapon, the same weapon that had been confiscated two days before. Jill Kelly was standing in a third-floor doorway, holding a small dog, a terrier of some kind. The animal was looking up at her through adoring eyes.

  ‘Would ya believe it,’ she said, ‘the fuckers ran out and left the dog behind. I heard him cryin’ when I came past and thought it was a kid.’

  Boots could not bring himself to utter a sound. Jill’s face and body were blackened with soot, the hair on the right side of her head singed. Her eyes were as round as marbles.

  ‘I saw it coming,’ she said. ‘I knew I was being set up.’

  ‘Then why did you open the door?’

  ‘What?’

  Boots had just time enough to record the blood trickling from Jill’s right ear before she collapsed into his arms.

  Jill was gone before Boots reached the lobby, handed over to an onrushing firefighter who began to administer oxygen as he hustled her out the door. Seconds later, she was on her way to Beth Israel Medical Center.

  Boots’s first instinct was to follow, but the uniformed officers on the scene, encouraged by their sergeant, insisted that he remain. And so he did, allowing a stray paramedic to clean and dress the cut on his arm.

  ‘If you don’t get that sutured,’ the paramedic cautioned, ‘you’re gonna have a hell of scar.’

  Boots stared at the man through his drooping eye. ‘Thanks for the advice.’

  His medical needs addressed, Boots was approached by a detective named Lansky. Their conversation was brief. ‘I’m on assignment to the Chief of D, but I can say this much,’ he told Lansky. ‘I was standing in the street when the explosion took place. I entered the building to help evacuate the residents. I ran into Detective Kelly on the third floor. I never reached the scene of the fire.’

  ‘Do you wanna tell me what you were doing here in the first place?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Lansky nodded twice, then fell back on one of the ten commandments of policing: when in doubt, pass the buck. He called his lieutenant, leaving Boots to cool his heels. Najaz showed up ninety minutes later, driving a black Jaguar sedan. He was smiling as he approached Boots.

  ‘The Chief wants a word wit
h you,’ he said.

  On cue, the rear door of the Jaguar opened. Boots tried not to smile as he crossed the street and settled into the butter-soft leather. He ran a speculative finger over the wood trim.

  ‘Sapele,’ Michael Shaw declared.

  ‘Sapele?’

  ‘Sapele wood, also called African mahogany. Myself, I don’t know how Najaz affords a car like this. I make do with a Lincoln Town Car.’

  Boots closed his eyes. ‘How’s Jill?’

  ‘Almost deaf, at least for the short term. But she’ll go home in the morning. Thanks to you.’

  Boots understood the last remark to be a reprimand. He’d been instructed to leave town, but here he was, still on the playing field.

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘I wrote down a few questions and she answered in a rather loud voice. It seems she went to that apartment after receiving a tip from an anonymous source.’

  ‘Who was she looking for?’

  Shaw was leaning into the shadows, yet his skin was somehow whiter than ever. His face seemed to float, as if his body stopped where the collar of his shirt began.

  ‘Jill was in search of Mack Corcoran. Whether or not she found him will be determined by DNA comparison. The body, I’m told, was burned beyond recognition.’

  Boots stared down the block. The fire was out and the firefighters were gathering their equipment. Huddled next to a step-in van, a covey of white-suited CSU cops drank coffee while they waited for the apartment to cool.

  ‘You tried to murder your niece,’ he said. ‘You killed Mack Corcoran and created a false trail with his credit cards, a trail Jill followed.’

  Boots allowed the silence to build for a moment, then said, ‘Let me suggest a pair of scenarios. The first, to be used in case Jill survives, goes like this. Driven to madness by his hatred for Jill Kelly, Corcoran rigs a booby trap, calls Jill, reveals his location, then hangs himself.’ Boots shifted in his seat. ‘The alternate scenario, if she doesn’t survive, is a little more complex. Here, Jill is just one of the many detectives assigned to run Corcoran down. As a matter of routine, she follows a money trail in the form of credit card purchases to the Lower East Side where she uncovers his lair. The how part is irrelevant, of course, since Jill isn’t around to explain herself. No, what’s important is Jill’s decision to confront Corcoran without calling for back-up, a decision with fatal consequences. But that’s Jill Kelly, right? Never happy unless her toes are hanging over the edge of the cliff.’

  Boots smiled and shook his head. ‘In a way,’ he concluded, ‘I don’t blame the family. I mean, talk about an inconvenient woman. What will she do next week? Next year?’

  Shaw’s face tightened down. ‘There’s a limit,’ he warned.

  ‘To Crazy Jill Kelly? A limit?’ Boots turned slightly. ‘I used to believe that Jill had no fear. You know, a kind of genetic defect, like some people can’t feel pain. But I was wrong, Chief. Jill likes danger. She likes the way it feels when her life is at risk. This may not work out to your advantage.’

  Shaw waved the comment off. ‘Corcoran knew he’d die in prison. I suspect he chose the easy way out. That he also wanted to avenge himself comes as no surprise. According to both Artie Farrahan and Elijah LeGuin, Corcoran hated Jill Kelly.’

  ‘Listen to me. I know Corcoran didn’t use his credit cards over the weekend. Another man used them, someone much younger. I’ll have his photograph within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘But will you show it to my niece? Knowing how easily she becomes upset? I mean, hasn’t the poor girl suffered enough? Does she really need another war?’

  Though Shaw’s features were in shadow, Boots detected a trace of liar’s delight in the man’s tone, a smug satisfaction that hinted of an underlying narcissism more appropriate to a preverbal infant. Boots had run up against this syndrome before. Shaw knew he was ruthless. Ruthlessness was what he liked best about himself.

  ‘I used to think that all men – and a few women, it should be admitted – were equally ambitious. As ambitious as I, myself. That’s not true, of course. There are men like you, Boots, who spend their entire careers in a backwater precinct without ever realizing they’ve missed out on the juiciest parts of a human life. In some ways, I pity you. In others, now that my declining years approach, I find myself envious. Contentment is beyond me.’

  ‘Is there a point here?’

  ‘Yes, if Jill were to buy into your theory, she’d feel compelled to do something about it. In which case, of course, you’d lose her, one way or the other. So I’m advising you to go back to your simple life in the Sixty-Fourth Precinct, to your dad and your boy, and leave Jill Kelly to me. That girl and I, we understand each other.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Slick! Slick with two exclamation points!! That’s how Boots came to think of the all-out assault on the media engineered by Mario Polanco and Michael Shaw. In the weeks following the death of Mack Corcoran, Internal Affairs, with the full cooperation of the Detective Bureau, arrested twenty-seven police officers. There were press conferences every morning, Polanco at the podium, Shaw a respectful step behind. Polanco was brilliant, displaying a level of righteous indignation that would have made a Pentecostal preacher blush. In this context, his jutting brow and blade-sharp nose became assets. Mario Polanco would not be turned back in his fight to purify the New York Police Department, despite accusations of witch hunt leveled by the unions representing the many suspects. By the end of the first week, he’d earned a media nickname: Super Mario.

  By the start of the second week, the news cycle had turned over. Corcoran was left behind, lost in the tumult. Corruption was now the story. Not to say that Corcoran went unmentioned. No, only that the focus had changed.

  Enter Jill Kelly, hero. And why not? Jill in her hospital bed. Jill wheeled through the hospital’s lobby. Jill recovering at home. Jill newly promoted. Jill nominated for a New York City Medal of Honor. Jill as tough and beautiful in her photographs as she was in person.

  This was a combination the media could not, and did not, resist. The Department was forced to deny requests for interviews from a dozen celebs, including Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres.

  And, oh, by the way, the untimely deaths of Chris Parker and Lenny Olmeda? They were likely the result of a falling-out among thieves. Polanco dropped this nugget on Friday afternoon just before the conclusion of a scheduled news conference, the information instantly lost to a succession of carefully staged perp walks.

  There were no guarantees here, not for Mario Polanco and not for Michael Shaw. Yes, cleaning house was a good idea. But how did the dirt get there in the first place? Why was the filth allowed to accumulate? The arrests being made all over New York were not of allied co-conspirators. These were rogue cops operating in small, self-contained units. They’d been operating for years. So, why the delay? And why now?

  Would these questions eventually be asked? Would Polanco be tainted by his own zeal? Boots didn’t know. But Polanco had cracked the blue wall of silence and neither the rank and file nor the unions would support him for Commissioner. If the media turned against him, he and Michael Shaw would promptly retire when the next Mayor took office in January.

  Beyond a grudging admiration for Polanco and Shaw, Boots had no real interest in the power struggle unleashed by the murder of Chris Parker. Yet he continued to watch the evening news before dinner. It was only after ten days that he admitted the truth. He was awaiting a glimpse of Jill Kelly, as though a staged appearance could substitute for the phone call she hadn’t made.

  On the second Friday, the kickoff to the Fourth of July weekend, Boots took himself to a cop bar named Sally’s on Bushwick Avenue. There he fulfilled his promise to Craig O’Malley and Boris Velikov. The party began an hour after the four o’clock shift change and continued well into the evening.

  There were two television sets in Sally’s, on either end of a long bar, one playing the Yankees, the other the Mets. Boots stayed down at the Yan
kee end, along with a knot of diehard fans, though he did not have a bet on the game.

  Boots had given up on the season, even though the Yankees were in first place. Mariano Rivera, their Hall of Fame closer, was down for the count, as was Andy Pettitte, their lefty ace. Worse still, the bottom of the batting order was mediocre in the extreme, a failure Boots laid at the door of Brian Cashman, the team’s general manager. The Yankees had failed to sign any of the available free agents over the past two years, relying instead on aging superstars who were no longer super.

  The contrast with the Boston Red Sox was so extreme that Boots couldn’t ignore it. ‘Over the last few years,’ he told Sally Hernandez, ‘the Sox signed John Lester and Adrian Gonzalez. That’s why they’re leading the league by four games. I’m tellin ya, Sally, this is a front-office problem, Theo Epstein versus Brian Cashman.’

  Boots was prepared to go on, but Sally’s eyes were already glazed. Boots let his own eyes drift back to the television. On Tuesday afternoon, he would return to the Six-Four, to Lieutenant Sorrowful, to the muggers, burglars, robbers and knuckleheads who populated his working days. And if Jill Kelly was gone, gone for good, he would not mourn her.

  At midnight, Boris Velikov challenged Boots to an arm wrestle. Boots looked the Bulgarian up and down, a contemptuous evaluation that brought a smile to Velikov’s slash of a mouth.

  ‘How long ya think you’re gonna hold out?’ Boris asked.

  ‘Five seconds,’ Boots promptly replied.

  In fact, he lasted for three.

  Two nights later, at one o’clock in the morning, Boots piloted his recovered Chevy over the Verranzano-Narrows Bridge, from Brooklyn to Staten Island. The night-time view of Manhattan’s southern tip from the bridge’s crest was normally spectacular, especially at night. But not on this July Fourth weekend. There was barely a lit window in any of the office towers. From this distance, they looked like tombstones in a graveyard.