Shadows Still Remain

by Peter de Jonge

  Across Eleventh Avenue, a soccer game is in progress on the well-lit Astroturf soccer field, and beyond that across the West Side Highway is Chelsea Piers. McLain might have headed for either, and as O’Hara weighs which is more likely, the side door of the strip club across the street crashes open, and McLain, propelled by an enormous tuxedoed bouncer, flies through it. McLain’s momentum sends him staggering backward into a small vacant lot, where he trips and falls into an oil-filled puddle. O’Hara fears that McLain will not have the good sense to keep his mouth shut, and she’s right. He springs to his feet and points at his soiled pants and torn jacket as if he bought them that morning at Bergdorf’s, and whatever he shouts is all the excuse the bouncer needs to charge back through the door like an enraged bull. Instinctively, O’Hara pulls her gun and her badge, but as she steps into the street, she is cut off by a van pulling out of the garage behind her. By the time it clears, the bouncer is practically on top of McLain. O’Hara can do nothing but watch as McLain twists, tilts and kicks the bouncer in the face. The impact is so solid, it echoes off the walls, and the well-dressed behemoth stops in his tracks and topples over like a black refrigerator. Laid out on his back, he offers no resistance as McLain reaches into his shiny jacket and empties his wallet, and although it’s not the response to a violent mugging taught at the academy, O’Hara returns her gun to its holster and smiles.

  Money talks. Bullshit walks. Suddenly flush, McLain straightens his tie and hails a cab, and O’Hara, her blistered feet in agony, gratefully does the same. McLain’s cab exits the West Side Highway at Fourteenth, and O’Hara, staying a couple cars back, follows him all the way east to Avenue A. At Tenth Street and Avenue A, McLain jumps out and slips into Tompkins Square Park, where he joins a bench full of homeless juicers, who razz him mercilessly about both the style and condition of his suit. Ignoring the soup kitchen sandwiches that lie beside them in plastic bags, the men pass a pint, and when it reaches McLain, he helps himself to such a long pull, their laughter turns into howls of protest.

  Not for long, however, because as O’Hara watches from a nearby jungle gym, McLain pulls out his wallet and hands each man two bills; judging by the reaction, they’re not singles. Then McLain gets up and displays the same largesse toward the occupants of the next bench and the one after that, duking every bum in sight like the Sinatra of Tompkins Park. Having done what he could for the standard of living in the southwest corner, McLain heads to the center of the park and slips bills to the owner of an elaborately loaded cart and two of his friends. His ill-gotten cash tapped out, McLain enters the dog run set aside for small dogs and sits on the bench in the corner. With all the yapping and commotion, it takes O’Hara several minutes to see that McLain is weeping.

  26

  Tuesday night O’Hara gets out of the subway again at Twenty-third and Eighth. Just as she did the previous night, she walks west toward the river until she is standing in front of the strip club, outside of which McLain went Beckham on the bouncer. The place is called Privilege, and O’Hara is quite sure the irony is unintended. It is housed in the ground floor of a boarded-up fleabag hotel, and its one flourish is the mane of teased-out hair drawn onto the back of the P on the awning. O’Hara pushes through a classy metal turnstile and enters a murky interior laid out like the rungs of hell. Room opens on room—a dancer and a pole at the center of each—culminating in a private chamber where select VIPs enjoy the privilege of getting dry humped and pickpocketed out of the cash they have left. And when the empty light goes off in their wallets, there’s the ATM, the only link to the outside world, glowing in the corner. The setup’s as cold as a heart attack, but at least the thermostat’s pushed up. You can’t send girls on stage with goose bumps bigger than their tits, and for the first time all day O’Hara isn’t freezing. The other perk is the sound system, and the DJ knows exactly what he or she is doing. The Fiona Apple single “Criminal” revs up as O’Hara reaches the main bar. To a sampled beat, Apple boasts about being a bad, bad girl, and for all O’Hara knows it’s true, but the little blond stripper lip-syncing the lyrics as she lazily sways her arms overhead is a lot more convincing. And when Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” pours into the room, O’Hara almost forgets her feet are killing her. She sips her nine-dollar beer and looks around. Halfway down the bar, a grotesquely swollen face leans toward the straw sticking out of his Heineken. O’Hara walks over and extends her sympathies: “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Motorcycle accident,” says the man through a busted jaw.

  “What was that?”

  “Motorcycle accident,” he repeats, eyes brimming with pain.

  “You hit a snowplow? The only reason I ask is because it looks more like you got the shit kicked out of you.” When this gets the gargoyle’s full attention, O’Hara’s flashes her shield. “I just want to know why the kid was here.”

  “Ask Sylvie,” he says, and, trying very hard not to twist his neck, points over his shoulder with his thumb. “She’s head mom. And please don’t say nothing.”

  “Not good for the career?”

  “No.”

  O’Hara pushes through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. On the other side, half a dozen girls surround a space heater, their casual nakedness entirely different from the preening nakedness of the dancers on stage. Sylvie is the only clothed woman in the room, thankfully, because she’s pushing seventy. “The little pimp wanted his girlfriend’s back pay,” says Sylvie. “I told him, she wants it so bad, she can come in herself.” O’Hara takes out a picture. “Yeah, that’s Holly. At least that’s her dancing name, Holly Gomez. She worked Monday nights.”

  “Her real name was Francesca Pena. She was murdered a week ago.”

  “I thought she looked a little like Holly,” says Sylvie. “No wonder she didn’t show up.”

  Only Sylvie’s advanced age keeps O’Hara from decking her on the spot. “It doesn’t bother you that one of your dancers got murdered? And they call you ‘head mom’?”

  “I never get to know the girls,” says Sylvie. “That’s the only way to do this job.”

  When O’Hara leaves, the petite Hispanic dancer O’Hara noticed while talking to Sylvie takes the stage. Apparently, it didn’t take long for Privilege to find a new Pena. She has the same sturdy legs and small top and the same short, dark hair, and when she recognizes O’Hara from the backroom, she flashes a dazzling smile. Before O’Hara can return it, the DJ cues up the Guns N’ Roses ballad “November Rain” and the dancer spins away.

  When the song was released as a single off Use Your Illusion I, O’Hara was twenty-one, fresh out of the Academy and working plainclothes in an Anti-Crime Unit in Times Square. That winter, it seemed like the video, the one that starts with Axl marrying Stephanie Seymour and ends with her funeral at the same church, was playing every time she turned on the TV.

  As O’Hara pushes toward the bar, the girl smiles again and throws herself at the pole. When she lets go, her momentum sends her skipping toward O’Hara, who reaches up and slips a twenty into her g-string.

  27

  Bruno is fourteen pounds of empathy. He knows right away O’Hara is hung over and doesn’t resist when she turns around and gingerly heads for home after five measly blocks. Safely back in the kitchen, O’Hara is about to call in sick again, when she sees that her own answering machine is lit up. In the ten minutes it took to walk Bruno, four new messages have come in. Hoping to Christ they have nothing to do with Axl, she hits PLAY: “Flumygoddammfuckingass!” shouts her sergeant, the angry words glommed together like congealed pasta. At least it’s not Axl. Message two, ten seconds later: “I trusted you, O’Hara, and you fucked me without the Vaseline. Don’t worry, I’ll never make that mistake again.” Despite her predicament and piercing headache, O’Hara smiles at the unintended ambiguity. Message three, seconds later: “Darlene, how you doing? Just did an all-nighter on a history paper and thought I’d catch you before you left for work.” This time the caller is in fact her son, and
although she’s not sure she buys the part about the history paper, she is delighted by the sound of his voice. “Thanksgiving was a piece of cake,” continues Axl on tape. “Both her ’rents are MDs and drive matching blue Beemers, but all they wanted to hear about was my mom the New York City detective. It was like you were there. Love you. Hope you’re good. So long for now.” O’Hara smiles as long as it takes to cue up one last addendum from the sergeant: “If you’re well enough to hang out at strip clubs, O’Hara, you’re obviously well enough to work. I expect to see you at the start of your shift.” Regarding Axl’s call, O’Hara couldn’t be much happier and is relieved he passed his first social test so handily. Regarding Callahan, she is more perplexed than alarmed. She hasn’t told anyone about Pena and Privilege, except Krekorian. So how does her dumb-ass sergeant know about it?

  The Wednesday-morning papers in their blue plastic sheath lie on the table where she dropped them. When she rips the bag open, the stripper’s pole at Privilege is on the cover of the Post. Above it is the twenty-four-point headline BI-POLAR. MURDER VICTIM LED DOUBLE LIFE. The Daily News goes with AN ATHLETE, A SCHOLAR AND A STRIPPER and Pena’s innocent-looking headshot from her prep school yearbook. Even worse, Darlene O’Hara, NYPD detective, is in both stories. That shameless bitch Sylvie must have called the papers for the free publicity. No wonder she’s still herding strippers in her golden years.

  There’s a second problem. O’Hara’s car is on East Fifth Street. Her visit to Privilege had left a sour taste. To rinse it out, she stopped at her new favorite bar, Three of Cups, and when she stumbled onto the sidewalk after four Maker’s Marks, was in no condition to drive. That means the subway. There’s a delay on the 1 train, and O’Hara shows up forty-five minutes late for her own reaming. Not to mention badly hung over. In one way, however, the hangover is fortuitous. Without it, she’d never nail that hangdog expression of abject contrition.

  Callahan blows hot about O’Hara’s glaring lack of judgment, maturity, teamwork, the potential risk to herself and a high-profile case and most of all her blatant lack of respect for Callahan. But with nothing coming back from O’Hara, it’s hard work. When Callahan says, “Let’s make one thing real clear,” she knows he’s winding down. “Your participation in this investigation—officially, unofficially, on duty, off duty, is over. The case is with Homicide South now, where it belongs. You and Krekorian are back to precinct business. Understand? No more playing homicide detective. You’ve done enough harm already. That’s it. We’re finished.”

  It’s as mild a rebuke as she could have hoped for, but those last couple of cracks are too condescending to leave alone. “I guess no one’s going to congratulate me,” she says.

  “You listen to a word I said?” asks Callahan, disgusted.

  O’Hara leaves Callahan’s office and walks over to Krekorian, who’s at his desk pretending to stare at his computer. “That was classic, Dar. You’re literally halfway out the door, and you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

  “Nope,” says O’Hara, painfully aware that her one snide remark undid twenty minutes of semi-brilliant Method acting. And then in a whisper, “Come talk to McLain with me.”

  “Is that an intelligent thing to do right now?”

  “Nope.”

  28

  When O’Hara and Krekorian get to McLain’s temporary new home in Hell’s Kitchen, McLain is vacuuming his host’s living room rug, and despite the beer in his hand, is doing a terrific job.

  “David,” says O’Hara, “when were you going to tell me Francesca danced at Privilege?”

  “I wasn’t,” says McLain, and turns off the machine. “Her stripping, which she did exactly once a week for four months, has nothing to do with anything. It was easy, and it paid well. End of story.”

  “That place is a magnet for assholes. One of them could have killed Francesca. Maybe even the goon you beat the crap out of.”

  “You were there? Next time, feel free to jump in.”

  “I was considering it, but it hardly seemed necessary. You learn that at soccer practice?”

  “No,” says McLain with a sheepish smile. “A Jet Li video.”

  O’Hara and Krekorian leave McLain to his chores, but not before O’Hara pries the can of Pabst from McLain’s hand and pours it down the sink, an egregious act of maternal interference and wastefulness that elicits an arched eyebrow from her partner. “You’re still sweating out last night’s Maker’s Mark,” says Krekorian in the elevator, “and you confiscate a man’s beer? He’s vacuuming, not operating a forklift.”

  “That doesn’t count as heavy machinery? I can’t help it. The kid’s loyalty gets to me. He doesn’t mean a word of that crap about stripping being no big deal. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given away her wages like they were radioactive. Plus, he vacuums.” O’Hara saw no reason to inform Krekorian that Pena’s stripping money was actually removed from the bouncer’s wallet and probably far exceeded anything owed to Pena.

  “How about learning those moves from a kung fu flick?” asks Krekorian. “You buy that?”

  “Not really. But he’s obviously an athlete. You should see him ride a bike with no hands wearing a suit two sizes too small.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  O’Hara and Krekorian have just stepped back onto Ninth, when a call comes in for O’Hara from the Post reporter who filed this morning’s story. Before she can stop herself, O’Hara is repeating the same far-fetched party line McLain fed her. “It’s not enough for you guys that a teenage girl is raped, tortured and murdered; now you have to drag her name through the mud,” she says. “It’s an expensive town, and Pena needed the money. This has nothing to do with anything except selling papers.”

  “You don’t think the fact that Pena worked as a stripper is news?”

  “I don’t. If I had the body for it and NYPD’s blessing, I’d strip too. Why the hell not?” Krekorian taps O’Hara on the shoulder and pulls his finger briskly across his neck, and O’Hara finally hangs up. “Dar, you ever hear the expression ‘no comment’?”

  They stop for coffee and don’t get back to 19½ Pitt for another forty minutes. When they do, Loomis and Navarro look at her anxiously as Callahan calls her back into his office. In a chair beside Callahan’s desk is the commanding officer of the Seventh, Captain Aaron Hume. In front of it is Jeff deCastro, her delegate from the Detective Endowment Association. O’Hara knows deCastro wouldn’t be here unless she’s jammed up. Hume points at the chair beside deCastro. “Have a seat, O’Hara,” he says. “We got a situation. Like everyone else here, I read all about your exploits at Privilege. Until I just spoke to your sergeant, I didn’t know that you were out there on your own, having called in sick three days in a row. Callahan tells me he called you out on this matter less than two hours ago and made it abundantly clear that your involvement in this homicide investigation is over. Is that true, O’Hara?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Then why the hell did I just get a call from that arrogant fuck Patrick Lowry at Homicide South, who tells me that one of their detectives just saw you and Krekorian walk in and out of a building on Ninth, where they happen to know McLain is staying? In other words, even though you had just been told to back the fuck off, you went directly from Callahan’s office to talk to McLain. But that’s not all, O’Hara, and again I got to hear it from Lowry. Two days ago, Lowry found out that McLain, who regardless of what you may think is our prime suspect in a high-profile murder, fired his assigned lawyer and hired another public defender, Jane Anne Murray, who we all know is a massive pain in the ass.” You mean she’s a decent lawyer, thinks O’Hara. “Lowry wondered what prompted the change, so he called Rikers and had them go through their log. It turns out that right before McLain called Murray, you visited him.”

  “But that’s still not all,” says Hume, a decent enough CO whom O’Hara had always gotten along with till now. “Ten minutes ago, Callahan gets a call from a Post reporter seeking comment for a s
tory for tomorrow’s paper. It’s not set in stone yet, but the approximate headline is DETECTIVE ON MURDER CASE SEEKS PERMISSION TO STRIP. What the fuck is going on with you, O’Hara?”

  “I never said that, captain.”

  “The reporter made it up?”

  “Essentially.”

  Hume doesn’t waste his breath on a lecture, just tells O’Hara to go home. “Pending a hearing in a couple weeks, you’re suspended for a month. You’re lucky I like you, O’Hara, or it would be three. Lock your piece up before you leave.”

  Stunned, O’Hara pulls herself out of the chair and walks out of Callahan’s office. The detective room is dead silent, and if you saw the faces of the men on O’Hara’s team, you’d think that what just happened to her had happened to them. O’Hara keeps a brave front, but inside she’s sixteen again, leaving the office of the school nurse at Bay Ridge High after being required to pull her hippy blouse up over a nine-month bulge. She picks through the mess on her desk as if she’s looking for something important but in fact is too rocked to think straight. In the midst of her pathetic pantomime she knocks her phone and it rings. She thinks her fumbling set it off, until it rings again. “Detective O’Hara,” says the polished voice on the other end. “This is Richard Mayer. I’m an attorney calling on behalf of a client with information of value to your investigation.” O’Hara first thinks it’s a prank. One of the guys is trying to get a smile out of her. But everyone on her team is in the room, and none of them is on the phone. Mayer, who can’t know she’s just been suspended, must have gotten her name from the papers, and O’Hara knows she doesn’t possess whatever poise or good judgment might be required not to take his call.

  As everyone in the room stares at her, O’Hara gives Mayer her cell number and hustles him off the recorded line. After he hangs up, she says, “This isn’t a good time, Mom. I promise, I’ll call as soon as I get home.” Then she turns to the room. “Moms,” she says, “somehow they always know.”