Solitary Dancer

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “In bed with each other, you mean.” McGuire removed his hand and stared across the room at the wall, thinking of nothing.

  “You always bring up the good stuff,” she said sarcastically. She smiled and wove her fingers together. “If we only got along, you know, in the rest of our lives as well as we do in bed. . . .”

  “We didn’t do that badly.” He twisted his head to look at her. “What happened this morning? Everything was fine and then . . .”

  “I don’t know.” She folded her hands and lay her head on them, like a child preparing for sleep. “I heard you come in, I knew you had the morning paper and I thought, ‘It’s like those Sundays when Joe’d go for a walk in the morning and I’d hear him leave and go back to sleep and wake up and smell bacon and coffee and toast and we’d have breakfast together and talk.’ But it’s not like that . . .”

  “Would’ve been for one day.” A weight settled in McGuire’s chest. “That’s what I was going to do. . . .”

  “That’d be dumb, wouldn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Trying . . .” She pulled a tissue from a pocket of the robe and dabbed at her nose and eyes with it as she spoke. “Trying to act like nothing’s happened, having breakfast, pretending it was ten years ago when it’s not.”

  “Even last night?”

  “No, last night was terrific.” She smiled at him. “Wasn’t it?”

  McGuire nodded.

  “I meant thinking we could ever have a life together again.” She bit her bottom lip and looked away. “I’m sorry. Maybe I’d better go back to Florida.”

  McGuire rose from the bed and began putting on his clothes. “Make it soon,” he muttered. “Soon as you can.”

  “Why the hell not, Eddie?”

  Phil Donovan stood shaking in the captain’s office, watching Fat Eddie trying to stay cool, popping another thick tablet into his mouth.

  “You know why,” Vance said. “It’s classified. You tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll locate it for you.”

  “I told you, I got an eyewitness description—”

  “From a convicted felon, a street person, probably addicted to the same chemicals he peddles on the streets. You think I’m going to break the commissioner’s instructions on something that weak? Now if you want to bring your witness in here where we can question him correctly and in some depth. . . .”

  “The guy’s not gonna risk his ass comin’ down here, not unless we arrest him. And then there’s nothing in it for him if he talks, we got nothing on him.”

  “Yes, we have.” Vance smiled. “We could lay trafficking charges very easily, you know that.”

  “And he still won’t talk unless we get him protection.” Donovan walked to Vance’s window and back. “Can you promise him that?”

  “I can’t promise anything,” Vance said. “But if you want to find this witness and bring him in here, we could assess things.”

  “Do you know who he saw?” Donovan asked. “Do you know who he described?”

  “I think so,” Vance said. Something was doing somersaults in his intestines. “But I don’t believe it.”

  Donovan stared back at Vance, then turned and left, leaving the captain alone in his office reaching for his antacid tablets.

  Should he tell Zelinka, Vance wondered. Zelinka, sitting up there in his cubbyhole near Government Center, spinning off requests for files that even Vance himself would normally not have access to except with the commissioner’s directive. Files from everywhere, few of them connected with anything except some convoluted bookkeeping among a few downtown businessmen, none of it decipherable to Vance, none of it directly linked to the murders of Heather Lorenzo and Tim Fox.

  No, he decided. There was nothing to tell, all Donovan had was a wild tale from some half-crazed street person. He would rather find a way to rein in Donovan, let him know if he was going to explode like he just had, he’d better back it up with results. That’s what McGuire and Schantz had done.

  McGuire and Schantz.

  There were times when he almost missed them.

  Grizz my buddy, Django repeated to himself. He tell me once, he say, “You okay, some day I let you have a little taste of the Gypsy, show you what a real woman can do, she love a man ’nough.”

  Never say that to nobody else, Django assured himself.

  He was cold, the concrete beneath his body like the floor of a freezer chest, and the wire cut into the skin of his wrists. The blood on his cheek had hardened to a crust and in spite of his fear and panic he was weary. When Grizzly came and let him go, he’d head back to the Warrenton, crawl into bed, have a good sleep, refresh himself.

  Django couldn’t judge time, never owned a watch, but less than an hour had passed before he heard footsteps on the bare dry earth of the square surrounding the rusting barrel. No voices. Just footsteps and a fumbling at the hasp. Django sat up painfully on his haunches, facing the door.

  When the door swung open, the gray light that flooded in on Django was like life itself, and he smiled back at the silhouettes of Grizzly and Garce looking down at him. Behind them stood the Gypsy in the massive oversized gray parka, muttering to herself, one hand rising to stroke a fresh raw welt on the side of her neck then falling, rising and falling, over and over, like a mechanical device marking the time or signaling danger.

  “Hey, Grizz,” Django said. “Everything cool, right?”

  Grizzly looked back at Django, his face cold and unyielding like the pitted concrete floor, and when Django looked at Garce, the Cuban turned his head away and Django began to panic.

  “Goddamn it, Grizz!” Django tried to rise to one knee but with his hands behind his back he had no balance, no momentum, and he fell sideways, feeling more vulnerable than ever. “I good to you, Grizz,” Django said. “I good to you, I your man, Grizz!” He rose to his knees again, a man shouldn’t die on his knees but he didn’t want to die lying there on the floor, giving up, either.

  Garce had taken a step back from the door and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking around, staying cool.

  “Tol’ you,” Grizz said. “You good to me but other people, they better to me, you know that. Need them more’n I need you. An’ they don’ need you at all. Don’ even want you around.”

  Grizzly held a hand out toward the Gypsy, keeping his eyes on Django, and the Gypsy, still muttering to herself, reached inside the parka and withdrew a blue-steel snub-nosed revolver.

  At the sight of the gun, Django panicked and tried to stand and run until Grizzly’s boot shot out and the blow to Django’s chest sent him rolling on his side, deep within the storage shed, facing the open door, watching it all.

  The Gypsy was staring down at the gun, turning it over in her hand like maybe her name was written on it somewhere.

  Grizzly raised his right arm again, stretching it out toward the Gypsy, his fingers moving in an impatient give-it-to-me motion while Django watched, unable to take his eyes off her and the gun in her hand.

  The Gypsy was still muttering something to herself and her other hand, the free one, rose to stroke the welt on her neck. She took a step toward Grizzly, raising the gun.

  Django didn’t hear what she said, never heard anything above the sound of traffic out on Washington, but Grizzly heard it. A puzzled expression crossed his face, and when the big man turned to look at her for the first time, she raised the gun to the level of his head and fired.

  The bullet struck Grizzly in the face, shattering his lower jaw. He dropped to his knees, keeping his arm outstretched to her, still wanting the gun and she repeated the words and fired into his shoulder. Still Grizzly remained kneeling until a third and a fourth bullet entered his chest, the Gypsy talking to herself between each squeeze of the trigger. She stepped toward Grizzly’s prone body and shot him again, repeated the words and shot him a sixth time before squeezing the
trigger on an empty chamber.

  Garce had ducked against the building at the first shot, crouching there, watching it all. Now the Gypsy raised the gun in his direction and pulled the trigger again, then swung her arm toward Django and tried to shoot him. Django heard the hammer click harmlessly, watching as the Gypsy slouched to the ground where she sat and stared openmouthed at Grizzly’s body.

  Django wriggled through the open doorway. Garce, circling Grizzly’s body, his eyes on the river of blood running down the slight incline toward the alley, almost tripped over him.

  “He’p me, Garce,’ Django said. “Get the wires. Or cops’ll find me, we all be in shit.” Garce knelt beside Django and untwisted the wire before bolting away, Django behind him, glancing briefly back at the Gypsy who was still watching Grizzly, the empty gun pointed at him like she was daring him to get up. Like she could do anything about it if he suddenly came alive to hurt her again.

  Django and Garce ran together down the lane and along Washington in the direction of the Common until Garce noticed people watching them, a Cuban and a black, street people, running in panic, one of them with fresh blood on his face. Had to be bad news, keep an eye on those hoodlums, and Garce and Django ducked around the corner on Oak Street, through a parking lot and down a service lane. At the end Garce sat against a dumpster smelling of rotting Oriental food and rested his head in his hands, his breath sounding like a steam engine at rest.

  Django paced in circles in front of him. “D’ja know he doin’ that?” Django said. “He ready to blast me?”

  Garce shook his head. “Said you had a lesson comin’,” Garce said. “Din’t know wha’ kind.”

  “Listen,” Django said. “Hear?”

  They both held their breath as a police siren approached from the north, and Garce leaned forward to look down the lane toward Washington, watching two police cars scream past.

  “See you ’round,” Garce said, standing. He grinned almost shyly at Django. “You gotta be the luckiest black man in Boston.”

  Django nodded. He was thinking of his hotel room, the few belongings he had, the little bit of his money stashed away behind the loose baseboard under the bed. Two thousand dollars nearly. Enough to get him started, set him up, think about where he’d go, what he’d do.

  Garce was already walking down the lane, hands in the back pockets of his tight black jeans, swivel-hipping away.

  “Hey, Garce,” Django called.

  Garce stopped and turned to look at Django warily. “Wha’?”

  “What she be sayin’?” Django asked. “The Gypsy, she mutterin’ somethin’, I couldn’t hear. You hear what that crazy woman sayin’?”

  Garce smiled and nodded. “She prayin’. But she couldn’t get pas’ the firs’ par’.”

  “Prayin’?”

  Garce nodded again. “She say, ‘Our father, who art in heaven, hallow be thy name,’ thas’ what the craz’ bitch sayin’ over and over. Craz’ bitch.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You have a message,” Ronnie Schantz told McGuire over the telephone.

  McGuire lifted a coffee cup to his lips. From upstairs he could hear the sound of the shower. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Somebody invited you to dinner tonight. He just called a few moments ago, said this was the number Berkeley Street gave him.”

  “Who?”

  “Man named Harley DeMontford. Ever heard of him?”

  “Yeah,” McGuire said. “I’ve heard of him.”

  It swept over him again, propelled by the prospect of pain, the knowledge that Micki was already planning another departure from him, the awareness that he would be able to hold back the distress and depression for only a few hours until it crushed him again.

  And he wanted a taste, a ripple of the wave that the meperidine could ride to him. He wanted to escape with it on the warm wave of vertigo he had ridden for so many weeks. . . .

  Ronnie was speaking to him. He rubbed his forehead, told himself to dredge up some goddamn courage and listen to her voice.

  “Sounded very nice on the telephone. Very cultured. If you go, you may have to come up and change into one of your suits. Dinner’s at six o’clock. In the dining room at the Four Seasons.”

  McGuire released a slow whistle. “Let me talk to Ollie.”

  He heard a click on the line before Ollie’s voice rasped through his speaker phone. “Joseph!” his former partner barked. “Where are you?”

  “Newbury Street,” McGuire said. “Heather Lorenzo’s apartment.”

  “Scene of the crime. One of ’em anyway. What the hell you doin’ there?”

  “I’m with Micki.”

  Ollie waited a beat or two before speaking, more slowly, more gently now. “Ronnie tell you about your dinner date?”

  “She told me.”

  “Who’s Harley DeMontford?”

  “Owns a stock brokerage. Dan Scrignoli fingered him in a Green Team operation and turned him, got him to name some names.”

  “And DeMontford gets off the hook.”

  “Scrignoli says he’s one guy in a big bunch, he’s a small price to pay.”

  “So what’s he want with you?”

  “Heather Lorenzo was blackmailing DeMontford. There’s no evidence, no paper trail. Scrignoli told me about it.”

  “This guy DeMontford, he married?”

  “So I hear.”

  “Lemme guess. Once a month his accountant adds up his net worth, pays him a visit and says, ‘Harley, you really love your wife, don’t you?’ and old Harley looks at the balance sheet and says, ‘Sure as hell do.’”

  McGuire smiled. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “And if it spills that DeMontford was doing elbow push-ups on Heather Lorenzo, DeMontford threatens to take his chances in court instead of testifying against his country club buddies, that the way it works?”

  “Without DeMontford, Scrignoli’s case might not even make it to the grand jury.”

  “Who talked to him from Fat Eddie’s group?”

  “According to Scrignoli, nobody.”

  “They nuts over there? Timmy Fox is dead, it’s got something to do with the Lorenzo thing, he’s banging her for bucks and nobody’s talked to him?”

  “Calm down, Ollie,” McGuire began.

  To McGuire’s surprise, Ollie did. McGuire heard three long noisy breaths drawn in and exhaled, then Ollie’s voice again. “You know something, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do,” McGuire said.

  “What?”

  “I know DeMontford’s involved.”

  “Where was he that night the Lorenzo woman was killed?”

  “On Cape Cod with Dan Scrignoli, pulling all the parts of Danny’s case together.”

  “So what’re you saying, DeMontford got some goon to do her?”

  “No,” McGuire said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs in front of him. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

  Billie was out of cigarettes, which was a royal pain in the ass. She was also on her second pot of coffee, sitting there watching the goddamn television, bunch of crazy people on talk shows, where the hell do they get these freaks?

  Maybe the telephone wasn’t working. It had happened before, Dewey trying to reach her one afternoon and some jerk working on the roof clipped the telephone lines, didn’t tell anybody about it.

  Don’t be stupid. The telephone’s working.

  So why hasn’t he called?

  Go out and get some cigarettes and he’ll call for sure. Why didn’t she get an answering machine last month when she saw them on sale, fifty bucks? Could use one now.

  Maybe she’d have a drink, a little taste of Wild Turkey from the bottle in the cupboard behind the oatmeal.

  She stood up, took three steps toward the kitchen and detoured past th
e telephone, picked up the receiver.

  Damn thing’s working.

  “I’m going for a walk.” Micki handed McGuire a brass key. “Take this in case . . . in case I’m not here when you get back, okay?”

  Micki stood in the open bedroom doorway watching McGuire, who lay back with his hands clasped behind his head. He had been thinking of small white pills.

  “I don’t belong here anymore.” Her face shattered like a fearful child’s. “No, don’t, please,” she added as McGuire began to rise from the bed to reach for her. “I’m going back to Florida tomorrow. I’ll let you know where I am, what I’m doing. Okay?”

  “What happened?”

  The question seemed to stun her. “What?”

  “What are you afraid of?” McGuire said gently. “What’s the worst that can happen? We try to make it work again and it doesn’t? Is that what scares you?”

  “Yes.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and bit her lower lip.

  “But isn’t it worth trying anyway?”

  “No.” She shook her head vigorously, like a terrier. “Not unless I know for sure.”

  “There’s nothing to know for sure.”

  “I never knew you!” She held her small hands at her waist, her fists clenched like an angry schoolgirl’s, and when she spoke she kept her eyes closed, maybe concentrating on her words, maybe blocking out the sight of McGuire, he didn’t know. “I don’t know who you are. Who are you? Do you know? Are you some tough son of a bitch like other people, the ones you work with, think you are? But you’re not. There were times when I wanted you to get angry with me, just to let it out, but you didn’t or you couldn’t, you just withdrew, over and over, until something would happen, I never knew what, and you’d put your head on my chest and cry like a baby and . . .”

  “Micki—”

  “. . . and I never knew why, you’d never tell me. Who the hell are you anyway? I mean really, inside? Do you know yourself?”

  “Maybe I never gave a damn. About knowing who I was.”

  “Yes, you did, yes, you did. You were just scared to find out. You were scared, and it frightened me, it scared the hell out of me. That’s what made you dangerous, can’t you see that? Other men, they can hit me or threaten me, I can deal with that because . . . because it’s there, it’s in front of me, but you . . . It was all hidden, it’s still all hidden and . . . Can’t you see?”