Pulse

by Michael Harvey

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are you related to Harry Fitzsimmons?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “I’m sorry, Daniel, but your brother’s dead.”

  The kid rocked a little faster. “I already knew that.”

  “You sure you don’t want some water or something? Go get him some water, Tommy.” Barkley heard his partner leave and pulled the chair an inch closer. “Can we talk for a second, Daniel? Just me and you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you.” Barkley’s voice was a clean river running over smooth stone. Most of the people he questioned called it hypnotic, soothing, comforting even. Whatever it was, it worked. People liked to talk to Barkley, unload their secrets, bare their souls.

  “I’m sorry about Harry.”

  Nothing. That was all right. Barkley knew there was plenty bubbling underneath. So he’d talk. And he’d wait. Sorta like fishing.

  “My partner tells me you were running.”

  “I was.”

  “You run a lot?”

  The kid shrugged.

  “How did you wind up in the alley, Daniel? Did you plan to meet Harry there?”

  Why the fuck would you meet your brother in the middle of the night, in an alley in the Combat Zone, Daniel? Tell me that.

  “Harry had no idea I was gonna be down in the Zone.”

  “But you knew he was gonna be there?”

  Daniel shook his head. Barkley sat back. Cocksucker. Tommy came back in and set a Styrofoam cup of water on the table. Barkley waited until he returned to his spot by the door.

  “Now, Daniel . . .”

  “Who was he with?”

  “We don’t know . . .”

  “Who was he with?” The kid rocked a little faster in the chair.

  “A couple of his pals from the football team, best we can tell.”

  The kid stopped rocking and leaned in, eyes locked like fucking lasers on Barkley until a spot behind the detective’s temple grew warm and started to throb. Barkley broke off, severing the connection with a subtle shift of his shoulders.

  “Let’s get back to the alley, Daniel. Why were you down there?”

  “I told you. I went for a run.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “I run at night all the time. I like it.”

  “You on a team?” Tommy’s voice carried in a higher pitch that popped and pinged off the concrete walls.

  “I run track for my high school. Sometimes, anyway.”

  “Where do you go to school?” Barkley said.

  “Boston Latin.”

  Good, Barkley thought. Good. “You live with your parents?”

  “They’re dead. I live with Harry.”

  “How about relatives? Family in the area?”

  “No one.”

  “Okay. We can get someone to take you home when we’re through here.”

  “I’d like to go now.”

  “Tell you what. Help me with the alley and we’re done.”

  “Maybe you should be thinking about finding the guy who killed my brother.”

  “Hey . . .” Tommy came off the wall. Barkley held out a hand.

  “I hear you, son. Believe me, I fucking hear you. And if it was up to us, we’d drag the prick in here, give you a gun, and let you empty it in his skull. But it ain’t up to us. And that ain’t never gonna happen. And you’re smart enough to know that, so I’m gonna ask again. How and why were you in the alley?”

  “I told you. I was running along the river when I got a feeling Harry was in trouble. And I had to help him.”

  “A feeling?”

  “Very strong.”

  “And you knew exactly where to go?”

  “You wouldn’t understand, but, yes, I did. I knew exactly where to go. At least until I got into the alleys. I lost it a little there and then I heard all the noise and I knew I was gonna turn a corner and find Harry, just like I found him.” Daniel’s eyes turned up again, yellow light glancing off the patterned black of his pupils. The pain that lived there sprang from love. Barkley knew that pain. It was the kind that fed on people’s souls and had no use for tomorrow.

  “You should get some sleep, son. And we’ve got a lot of paperwork to get through.” Barkley scraped his chair against the floor as he stood. “Detective Dillon can arrange a lift home.”

  The kid didn’t move.

  “Daniel?”

  “I’m guessing you don’t want me talking to any reporters.”

  “Now that you mention it . . .”

  “Not a problem. But you gotta do something for me.”

  Barkley sat back down. “And what would that be?”

  * * *

  The partners had identical desks, gunmetal gray, pushed together in a corner so they were sectioned off from the rest of the squad room. Barkley was tilted back in a swivel chair with his feet up. Tommy was drinking coffee from a thermos and eating a sandwich that had come wrapped in wax paper.

  “Where did you get that?” Barkley said.

  “Katie made it. Meatloaf with ketchup. You want a bite?”

  Barkley held up a hand.

  “Hungry as a motherfucker.” Tommy chewed as he talked. “Ate around seven. Still starving.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Fast food. Crap.”

  Barkley had been at his desk, filling out pain-in-the-ass paperwork when the call came in on the Fitzsimmons kid. Tommy had been doing his thing, beating the bushes on the guy they’d pulled out of the harbor.

  “You get anything on the John Doe?” Barkley said.

  “You mean Juan Doe. Didn’t get shit. Something else came up, though.”

  Tommy’s voice rippled across the empty squad room, stirring the chemicals in Barkley’s brain. He looked up from the report he’d been reading. “We need to talk about it?”

  “Got a dead kid from Harvard sitting in our laps. What do you think?”

  “You sure?”

  “It’ll keep.”

  Barkley nodded and made a mental note to circle back to whatever it was that was bugging his partner. He flipped the report shut and eased his feet off the desk. “Okay, let’s talk about our football player. What are we thinking?”

  “Left word for people down the Zone. Should hear something soon.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why not? Probably some fucking street punk, sees Fitzsimmons wandering around in the alley. Figures he’ll roll him.”

  “But Fitzsimmons fights back?”

  “Exactly.” Tommy took another bite of his sandwich and put it back on the wax paper he’d spread out on a corner of his desk. “You got a napkin?”

  Barkley found a stack in a drawer with some Chinese take-out menus and tossed them over. Tommy wiped a lick of ketchup off his mouth. Barkley waited. Tommy wasn’t as quick at putting things together, but when he did, it usually held up.

  “So they fight?” Barkley said.

  “Fitzsimmons is a football player. Young, tough. He’s not gonna roll over even if he is an Ivy Leaguer. Maybe especially cuz he’s an Ivy Leaguer. So, yeah, they fight. Fitzsimmons figures it’s a fistfight. Takes a couple of swings, but our boy says ‘Fuck that’ and pulls out the knife.”

  “He’s playing for keeps.”

  Tommy nodded. “Fitzsimmons probably never saw it. Blade in the gut, down he goes, and the guy books. My point is, whoever he is, he’s a fucking punk, which means people are gonna be willing to give him up.”

  “And what if our guy’s black?”

  “What if he is?”

  “Shitstorm, Tommy.”

  “We’ve handled worse. Either way, I’ll get us a name by the end of the day. Tomorrow, at the latest. Just promise me one thing.”

  “No cameras in your face?”

  “Fucking hey.”

  “Tell me about the Harvard guys.”

  “We already went over that.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Tommy sighed and pulled out a black
leather notebook. They had stacks of the things, Tommy usually scribbling while Barkley conducted his interviews.

  “Neil Prescott and Jesus Sanchez. Nickname Zeus. Both football players. Both say they were at the Naked i with Fitzsimmons. Came out of the club a little juiced, walked around a bit, then back to the car on Washington. Sanchez and Fitzsimmons are in the backseat.”

  “Prescott’s up front with the cooler.”

  “Right. A girl comes by and starts chatting ’em up. At some point she reaches in and grabs Sanchez’s wallet. Runs down LaGrange and Sanchez follows. According to him, it all happened real quick.”

  “Fitzsimmons is still in the back?”

  “He tells Prescott to stay with the car, then goes after Sanchez. Prescott says it might have been ten, twenty seconds between Sanchez leaving and Fitzsimmons following.”

  “Okay,” Barkley said. “Then what?”

  “Sanchez says he ran after the girl. Thought he saw her take off down an alley and followed. Never knew Fitzsimmons was following him. Says he went down two or three more intersecting alleys . . . there’s a shitload of them back there . . . then found his way back down Washington to the car. Best we can figure, by then Fitzsimmons was already dead.”

  “How about the yelling?”

  “Fuck, B, you did the interviews. You know all this shit.”

  “Just tell me.”

  Tommy flipped through the notebook some more, then tossed it on the desk and produced a second. “I haven’t typed any of this up yet.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “All right, here it is. Prescott says Fitzsimmons yelled at Sanchez when he got out of the car.”

  “When who got out?”

  “Sanchez. Fitzsimmons yelled at him to stop. Then Fitzsimmons yelled again as he ran down the street.”

  “Prescott doesn’t know what he said?”

  “That’s right. Says it might have been Sanchez’s name. He’s not sure. Sanchez says he never heard a thing.”

  “How many beers did they have?”

  “Sanchez says he had a few. Both of them say Fitzsimmons didn’t drink.”

  “So he wasn’t necessarily an easy mark in the alley?”

  “The punk who did him wouldn’t know that. Sees the kid wandering around. What else is he gonna think? My theory’s still good, B.”

  “What do we got on the girl who pinched the wallet?”

  “Caucasian. Sanchez says she had blond hair and might have been wearing heels. Not much, but we got people working it. They’ll turn her up.”

  “Good.” Barkley put his fingertips together and talked over the top of them. “What did you think of the little brother?”

  “Felt sorry for the poor bastard.”

  They’d finished with Daniel Fitzsimmons just over an hour ago. His price for not speaking to reporters was a final visit to see his brother. Barkley wasn’t a hundred percent on the request, but he didn’t want the kid talking to the press either. So he made a couple of calls and told them to hold off on releasing the body to the morgue. Then they’d packed Daniel off to Boston City Hospital where he’d get to say his good-byes.

  “Why was the kid in the alley?” Barkley said.

  Tommy shrugged and flipped his notebook shut. He’d finished his sandwich and drained what was left of the thermos into a plastic cup. “Who knows? Maybe he just had a feeling like he said.”

  “You believe that?”

  “You really don’t get feelings? Intuition?”

  “You’re not gonna start on the fairy rings again?”

  “Fuck you, Bark.”

  They shared a cop’s smile, passed between partners who’d known each other too long and too well to have it any other way.

  “Let me tell you a story,” Tommy said.

  “I was hoping.”

  “One night I’m off duty, drinking with some pals at the Tap.”

  “Southie’s chapter of the KKK.”

  Tommy extended his middle finger and kept talking. “I have a few and decide I better not drive. So I leave my car parked in front of the bar and grab a ride home from one of my buddies. Katie makes me something to eat and I’m fucking comatose by ten. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So two thirty in the morning, I sit straight up in the bed like someone greased the fucking Pesky pole and shoved it right up my ass. Katie jumps up with me—it’s like we’re sharing the same brain or something, except we’re most definitely fucking not—and thinks I think someone’s in the house. I’m swearing a blue streak. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ She’s asking what’s the matter and I tell her our car’s been stolen. Tell her I left it parked in front of the bar and the fuckers just busted out a window, popped the ignition, and are joyriding around like a bunch of cocksuckers who need to get their roof caved. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I say, and put on my socks and go downstairs into the kitchen. Katie follows me down and asks how I know the car’s gone if I left it at the bar. I tell her I just do, but not to worry. Car’s a piece of shit, go back to bed, we’ll deal with it in the morning. She thinks I’m fucking Looney Tunes and goes back upstairs. I sit up in the kitchen, phone on the table in front of me. I sit there and I drink my coffee and I stare at the thing, not wondering if it will ring, just waiting for it. Fifteen minutes later, boom. It’s a uniform calling from Station Six. Wants to know if I own a ’65 Bonneville. Says they found the thing torched and dumped in a lot off Emerson. Windows busted out, ignition popped. Not a surprise to me. Not a bit. Cuz I knew. When I woke up, I just knew it was gone. How did I know? No idea. But I knew, Bark. Abso-fucking-lutely, I knew.”

  “So you’re telling me you believe the kid?”

  “What did I say yesterday? Not everything has to have a reasonable explanation, B. Some things just are.”

  “You wanna put that in our report?”

  “The kid didn’t kill his big brother, run off, and then come back to scream and wail over the body. That make more sense to you?”

  “No.”

  “All right, then.”

  Barkley leaned his forearms on his desk and rolled the still mostly blank police report up and down in the typewriter. As usual, Tommy had a point. At the end of the day life was a blind free fall and no one could tell you when or where or how you were gonna hit the pavement. Just that at some point, sure as fuck, you’d hit it.

  “Listen, I’m not saying you’re wrong . . .”

  “You can’t buy in, B. You’d like to, but you just can’t.”

  “I like facts, Tommy. Keeps me warm at night.”

  “Well, the fact is this kid was in the alley. And there’s no getting around that.”

  “How about him wanting to see the body?”

  Tommy shrugged. “It’s fine. Besides, they said they’d watch him.”

  Barkley grumbled to himself, then checked a watch that wasn’t on his wrist. “What time you got?”

  “Just past five. Why?”

  “Nothing. While we’re waiting for one of your sources to call, why don’t you do me a favor and dig in to some files.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Daniel Fitzsimmons. And Harry. Police reports, newspaper clips, school records, whatever you can find. Just for the hell of it.”

  A door slammed somewhere and loud voices drifted back from the front of the station house. A skinny uniform named Guilfoyle stuck his head in.

  “Yeah?” Barkley didn’t like anyone from the outside hanging around when they discussed the guts of a case. That included cops he didn’t know who worked the front desk.

  “You guys caught the thing tonight in the Zone?”

  “What is it?” Tommy said.

  “There’s a guy out front. Says he’s a photographer. Lives right over the alley where the thing happened.”

  Barkley felt himself sit up in his chair. “What’s he want?”

  “Wants to talk to you guys. Says he got pictures of the killer. I’m not a detective or nothing, but I thought that might be something you�
��d be interested in.”

  Guilfoyle had a wiseass grin on his ugly face, but Barkley didn’t give a fuck. He could have kissed him.

  “Where’d you put him, Guilfoyle?”

  “Down the hall in Room Three. Locked the door just in case the fucker changes his mind.”

  * * *

  “So you take naked pictures for a living?”

  “We’re gonna do that, huh?”

  Tommy Dillon smiled hard and toothy behind a blue screen of smoke. He’d wanted to take the lead on questioning the photographer. Unusual, but Barkley didn’t mind. Best he could tell, it was all headed to the same place.

  “I got a studio, top floor of the Brompton.”

  “You mean Hooker Central.”

  The photographer’s name was Nick Toney. He was middle-aged, long and angular in that starving-artist, hippie-freak, I-might-be-banging-your-teenage-daughter sort of way some guys just had, even if most of them turned out to be harmless.

  “Look, I take pictures of the girls, but it’s art. ‘Decisive moment’ type stuff, you know?”

  “Why don’t you show us what you got?” Barkley said.

  “I’m gonna, but why’s this guy giving me a hard time?”

  “No idea. You two know each other?”

  “Only like I know every other fucking skeeze-ball down there,” Tommy said. “Giving fifteen-year-olds a skinful so they can take their picture, then get their dicks sucked.”

  “Hey . . .” Toney got up out of his chair. Guy didn’t look like he was gonna start swinging, but he might just leave and Barkley couldn’t have that.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Tommy. Sit down, Mr. Toney.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this crap . . .”

  “Give us a second, okay?”

  Toney held up his hands but sat back down to his cigarette. Barkley and Tommy stepped into the hall.

  “Guy’s full of shit,” Tommy said.

  “You don’t know that. What the fuck’s eating you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “We seen a million of these guys, Tommy.”

  “Yeah, but now I got the twins in school. I know that’s bullshit . . .”

  “It ain’t bullshit.”

  “Every day, I kiss ’em good-bye and smile and watch ’em go off and think to myself it’s a fucking sewer.”

  “The girls have lots of years, Tommy. And they got you and Katie. And they got me.”