Walking the Perfect Square

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  Holstered beneath a blazer and overcoat, my short-barreled .38 was as much use to me as sharp edges on a bowling ball.

  “Sorry,” I shrugged, “no watch.”

  I sensed someone coming up behind me. I dropped my cane. Instinctively, I pushed Katy away and screamed for her to run. I leaned forward to try a shoulder roll. Anything, I thought, to buy time so I could get at my gun. Too slow. A pair of crushing hands pulled me back up straight. By chance, my right hand dropped into my coat pocket. My fingers latched onto the half roll of quarters that had gone unused the other night at Pooty’s.

  Now the hands that had pulled me upright were snaking around my arms, rendering my upper torso immobile. My right hand yanked so fiercely out of my pocket, I nearly dropped the half roll of quarters.

  “You don’t listen so good, do ya?” a voice I recognized from the phone whispered in my ear. “You were told the next time it wouldn’t be your car.”

  And with that, Harry Lime buried a fist into my ribs. The wind went out of me so hard I nearly coughed up a lung. Even though Iron Hands hadn’t relaxed his grip, the power of the other man’s punch doubled me over. I’d lost sight of Katy. Where was she? Had they—

  Something whooshed in the air behind me. A sharp crack, as if two pieces of oak had been slapped violently together, echoed through the SoHo streets. The arms bracing mine went utterly limp. Free, my right arm shot straight ahead, blindly, to where I hoped an unsuspecting jaw would be waiting. Whatever I hit made a sickening dull sound. Someone moaned. Something crumbled at my feet. I dropped to one knee, tossed the quarters and reached under my coat and jacket. But by the time I got my .38 unholstered, the man who had held me was holding a standard issue police special in his hand. His face was partially obscured by shadow. His gun hand, however, was perfectly visible.

  “Even if you get the first shot off, I’ll blow a hole in her before I go down,” he warned through what sounded like clenched teeth.

  Suddenly I was aware of Katy’s hard breathing. She must have been standing fairly close by, over my left shoulder, toward the gutter.

  “Pick your trash up off the street and get the fuck outta here,” I snarled.

  “First, back off, across the street, you and her.”

  Standing slowly, the pain in my ribs almost made me crash down, but I managed to step back and brace myself on Katy’s shoulder. Anticipating my question, she whispered that she was all right.

  “One thing:” I shouted in retreat, “tell your boss I know who he is and that I’ll be paying him a call real soon.”

  On the opposite sidewalk, I tried to watch the gunman load his accomplice into a car parked almost directly in front of Katy’s door. It was no good, pain was making a disinterested party of me. As they pulled off, Katy said she’d gotten most of the plate number.

  “Good,” I said, wincing as I spoke. “Write it down for me.”

  “Don’t you want me to give it to the police?”

  “We’re not calling the cops,” I insisted. “This is my business to take care of.”

  I could see in her expression she wasn’t happy, but she was a bright woman. She knew I meant what I said.

  “Okay,” Katy relented. “Let’s get you to the emergency room.”

  To show her how silly her idea was, I stood straight up. “I’m fine.”

  “Look at your hand,” she screamed. “You’re cut.”

  Only then did I notice my right fist was wet with blood. I didn’t have much time to inspect the damage before the sidewalks of SoHo started spinning out from beneath my feet. I couldn’t hold my footing and went down in a heap. When my side connected with the pavement, even my hair screamed in pain. I could feel Katy fishing around in my pockets for the car keys. She told me not to move. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I must have closed my eyes.

  Katy, Kosta and Misty were mostly asleep when I walked from the treatment area into the waiting room. The news was all good. My ribs were bruised, not broken, and the blood on my hand hadn’t been mine. Apparently, I’d broken the man’s nose, not his jaw. Bruised ribs for a broken nose; I’d gotten the better of the deal. With every breath, my ribs begged to differ.

  Checking my watch, I offered to treat them all to breakfast, but even I thought it was a stupid idea. We piled into my rented car and, stubborn fool that I am, I insisted on driving. The plan was for me to drop them off before heading home. I was two for two in stupid ideas. After the first time I turned the wheel, Katy drove.

  At Katy’s front door, Kosta took the wheel. He knew a cheap place to park the car until I was up and around. I wasn’t in any position to argue. As Katy walked me from the car to the door, I first realized my cane was missing.

  “Where’s my cane?”

  “In the trunk of the car in two pieces,” she said. “I hit that guy over the back of the head with it.”

  “Like I said before, tough Catholic girls drive me crazy.”

  But by the time we made it up the steps, all I wanted to do was eat a handful of pain pills and go to sleep.

  February 13th, 1978

  I COULD ACTUALLY move without much pain, but I wasn’t itching to practice my golf swing. I’d pretty much spent the previous day in bed. Katy couldn’t join me. She had to go to work. Misty played nursemaid to me in spite of nursing her own hangover. Kosta went down to a medical supply store and bought me an adjustable metal cane. At first I was puzzled by the extent of their tender loving care, but when Katy got home she cleared up my confusion. In the ER, while I was getting my ribs tended to, Katy had fed them a line of bullshit about me saving her from two muggers. In her version, I broke one mugger’s nose with a lightening right jab before dispatching the other with my cane. I was their hero for a day and in too much pain to set Misty and Kosta straight.

  When Katy got home, she seemed pretty glum. Of course she was worn out by lack of sleep, but there was more to it than that. Yes, she said when we were alone, she was worried about me, about the attack, about when they’d try again. That wasn’t it either. She had spoken to her father and things at home were deteriorating. Her mom, so encouraged by the sighting in Hoboken, was devastated by the lack of progress.

  “It was like losing him all over again,” Katy sighed. “And then it brings up all the heartache over losing Francis Jr. I don’t know how much more of this she can take.”

  I told her to get her ass on home. Her mom needed her more than I did. Bruised ribs, I said, would heal in time. There was only one cure for what her mom was suffering from. I told her I’d be fine and that I didn’t think whoever was behind the rough stuff would try again. My fingers were crossed the whole time.

  “As long as you get back for the party tomorrow night, I want you to go back home,” I half joked. It seemed to me the party would feel empty without her. Strangely, it was lovely to feel that way.

  I treated for takeout pizza—Ray’s Famous—beer and strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert. That was another thing you had to love about the city. You could get fresh fruit pie in the middle of February. Kosta and Misty went back to Kosta’s apartment to spend the night, as much to give Katy and me some space as anything else. We used the time for gentle kisses, tears and sleep.

  When I woke up in the loft, I had no one to tell about my vastly improved ribs. Kosta and Misty had not yet returned and Katy had already returned to Dutchess County. The shower felt great until I reached too quickly for the soap. Okay, so I wasn’t quite ready to enter a twist marathon, but the pain was only short-lived. Katy left me a note with a partial license plate number, the location of my car and promising she’d meet me at Pooty’s tomorrow night come hell or high water. On the flip side I wrote a note thanking Misty and Kosta for their help and inviting them to Pooty’s Friday night.

  THE LAST THING I wanted to do when I got back to my apartment was sprint to a ringing phone, but I did it anyway. Tossing my mail on the couch, I made it to the phone in record time.

  “Yeah,” I picked up.

  A voice I wasn�
�t sure I recognized wanted to know: “Where’ve you been, man? I been calling for two days.” When I responded with silence, he said: “It’s Nicky. You know, Nicky from Dirt—”

  “Shit, I’m sorry, Nicky. I’m a little out of it. What’s up?”

  “I think I got a line on your boy.”

  “You know where he—”

  “Easy, easy,” Nicky tempered my enthusiasm. “One of my doormen got something to say to you. I think maybe you should listen.”

  “Put him on. Put him on!” I could feel my palms sweating.

  “No, he wants to talk to you in person, in private. There’s issues here besides Katy’s brother. Okay?”

  When I questioned Nicky about what those issues might be, he got stubbornly quiet. It wasn’t up to him, he said. I complained about having just gotten back from the city. He was sympathetic, but unyielding.

  “Look, Moe,” said the little aristocrat, “it ain’t up to me.”

  “You think this guy’s leveling with you or trying to pick up some meal money?”

  “I wouldn’ta called you if I thought he was full of shit,” Nicky sounded hurt.

  “No offense,” I said. “It’s just that at this stage of the game, false hope might be worse than no hope at all. If you catch my meaning.”

  “I understand, but to be on the safe side maybe you shouldn’t let Katy in on the deal till you hear what’s what.”

  I agreed that was a good idea. He told me to come to Dirt Lounge after 4:00 P.M. His man would be waiting. Though I figured he’d never be able to get a Friday night off, I invited Nicky to Pooty’s as a gesture of thanks. I was right, but he seemed pleased I’d asked.

  I switched ears and dialed Rico’s office.

  “Hey buddy, where ya been?”

  “What’s that, the question of the day?” I asked.

  “I mean I been tryin’ to get ya for days. Sully wantsa talk to ya. He tried to call and when he couldn’t get ya, he asked me to try.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “A date. How the fuck should I know?” Rico bellowed in my ear. “Call him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “when I get a chance. Listen, I need you to run a partial tag number for me.”

  “This a lead on Patrick?” he perked up.

  “You know I’m not working that case anymore, remember? You’re the one who handed me my pink slip. You got a pencil?”

  I’m not sure he believed me. I gave him the tag number as Katy remembered it and described the car as best I could—though, given the amount of pain I was in at the time—I wasn’t sure my best was very good. He was pessimistic about getting me a quick answer and once again reminded me to call Sully. I began to invite him to Pooty’s, but the words stuck in my throat. I thought his presence might be an unwelcome reminder to Katy about how this whole mess got started in the first place. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

  I looked at the mail sitting on the couch and decided my million-dollar check could wait a little while longer. My ribs were insisting that I find the closest bed and make good use of it.

  The phone was ringing in my dream before it rang next to my bed. It was Nicky wondering where I was. Not in the dream; I forgot that the second I opened my eyes. I looked at the clock next to my bed. It was nearly 5:00. I was late. I apologized and promised to get to Dirt Lounge before 6:00.

  I kept my word with twenty minutes to spare. Other than 1:00 A.M., rush hour’s about the only good time to drive into Manhattan from Brooklyn. The bulk of traffic is headed in the opposite direction.

  Nicky greeted me at the door and ushered me upstairs to the office. I immediately recognized the big guy seated at the desk as the doorman Nicky had referred to as Bear the night Katy and I had first visited Dirt Lounge. Bear was sucking furiously on an unfiltered Camel, drawing the smoke in so hard I didn’t see how the tobacco stayed in its wrapper. The ashtray in front of him was littered with cigarette butts he’d apparently handled in the same rough fashion. Between puffs, he’d rinse his mouth with Budweiser.

  “You want a beer?” Nicky asked me, as he gestured for me to sit behind the desk.

  “Beck’s, if you—”

  “This is Dirt lounge, Moe. You want Beck’s, go to Bavaria.”

  “Bud it is.”

  Bear nodded that he’d like one, too.

  When Nicky left, Bear stood, reached across the desk and offered me a huge hand. It would be a lie to say I took it. His hand sort of swallowed mine, munched on it some and spit it back.

  “Nicky says he talked to his cousin Tony about you and that I can trust you,” Bear fairly whispered. “That’s important, that I can trust you.”

  “And Nicky says I should trust you. So now that we’ve got that out of the way, maybe we can get down to business.”

  Bear looked hurt. “This isn’t business. Nicky explained about how this kid’s family is going crazy. That was his sister here with you the other night, right?”

  “Yeah. Look, Bear, why don’t you give me what you got and we can sort out our feelings later. So, do you know where Patrick is?”

  Nicky picked that moment to walk in with the beers. Bear lit up another Camel and said: “No.”

  I slapped the desk. “So what the—”

  “Hear the man out, Moe,” Nicky pleaded. “This ain’t easy for him.”

  “I work at another club,” Bear said, clearing his throat nervously. “It’s a different kinda club.” He looked at me as if he expected me to catch his drift, so he wouldn’t have to explain further. But I didn’t catch on.

  “It’s on the West Side, Moe,” Nicky interpreted for me, “the West Village.”

  “Holy shit!” I slapped my thick head instead of the desk. “A gay club.”

  And in a dizzying rush, the puzzle with mismatching pieces nearly put itself together. I had the right uniform—short hair, earrings, tattoos—but the wrong team.

  “SBNF’s on West Street, north of the Ramrod,” Bear said.

  “SBNF?” I puzzled.

  “Seafood, But No Fish,” the big man explained. “Sailors, but no women.”

  “Cute,” I said, tipping my beer to him. “So you’ve seen Patrick there?”

  “Two or three times, a few months ago.”

  “How many months? What month?”

  “October, I think. November. Maybe both.”

  “But definitely not December?” I asked, hoping he was wrong.

  “Not December.”

  I stood to leave. “Thanks, Bear. You cleared some stuff up for me. Maybe now I can understand why he split in the first place. But if you haven’t seen him since November, it doesn’t really—”

  “My cousin Tony was right about you, Moe,” Nicky chided. “You are an impatient fuck.”

  I sat back down. “Sorry. There’s more?”

  “He, Patrick wasn’t alone when I saw him,” Bear continued. “He was with the same guy every time. They weren’t buddies out trawling, if you know what I mean. They were a couple, I think. The thing about it is, I saw that guy, the guy he was with, in here Sunday night.”

  “This last Sunday?”

  “This one just past, yeah,” Bear said.

  “Alone? Was he by himself?” I wondered.

  “Without Patrick, you mean? Yeah, he was alone.” Bear frowned. “But I was thinking that if you could track down this other guy, maybe he could lead you back to Patrick.”

  “That’s good thinking, Bear,” I complimented. “I’m sorry I was such a schmuck before.”

  Bear gave me a detailed description of the man he had seen at both clubs: white, five foot seven or eight, honey brown eyes, short brown hair, mid-twenties to thirty, thin, maybe one hundred and sixty pounds, thin brows, full lips, crooked mouth, angular nose, sharp chin, strong jaw line.

  “Sexy more than handsome,” Bear thought, “if you liked that type. A little edgy, I mean. But he’s no New Yorker by birth. He thanked me here and at SBNF when I let him through the door. He had kinda a white-bread voice.”r />
  If only the cops could get descriptions like this on a regular basis, I laughed to myself, the crime rate would plummet. Manhunts are tough in a city of four million men, but we wouldn’t have to weed through all four million. Blacks were out, the Spanish and Orientals, too. And though not all gay men lived in the West Village or in Manhattan, for that matter, I thought it was a safe bet to focus on the Village. I told Bear I might try to have him work with a sketch artist. Before he could balk at the idea, I swore he wouldn’t have to repeat any of what he just told me.

  “Just the description,” I vowed.

  He agreed. I thanked him for his help and tried, as diplomatically as I could, to offer him some compensation for his trouble.

  “Don’t ask me that again!” He screwed his face up into a raging mask. Then, just as quickly, unmasked himself, winking at me before heading downstairs.

  “That’s why he works the door,” Nicky said. “Would you fuck with him if he made that face at you?”

  “He did and I wouldn’t.”

  Once again Nicky asked that I keep Bear’s part in this just between the three of us. “He’s in a motorcycle gang and he doesn’t think some of his brother members would appreciate—”

  “I understand.”

  But did I? Sure I understood about not betraying Bear’s trust. But I don’t think I understood anything about men like Bear or Jack, if what Pete Parson said about him was true, or Patrick. What could I know about the men who sought comfort at SBNF? Unlike some of my brother cops, I never saw homosexuals as the enemy. I never saw any group as the enemy. Maybe I never saw them as anything at all. No, that’s not right. I guess I viewed them like some people view the Amish, except you didn’t have to go to Pennsylvania. All you had to do was cross west over 6th Avenue to eavesdrop on their “quaint” customs and “odd” manner of dress. And how was I supposed to reconcile what Patrick had done with Tina Martell and to Nancy Lustig?

  I asked Nicky if I could use the phone. He nodded that I could, apologized again about not being able to come to Pooty’s and left.

  “What you got for me?” I asked Rico when he got on the phone.