by Mark McNease
They stepped off the elevator and out onto a hallway. Apartment doors lined the walls in both directions. Taking a quick look at the first two, Kyle determined that Vincent Campagna lived three doors down to the right. They walked to the door and knocked.
Kyle was startled at first by Vinnie’s appearance. He looked like a man who had not slept for two days, which was the case. He was on the short side, about five-five, with dark, almost black hair that had not been washed recently. He also hadn’t shaved, and a thick stubble covered the lower half of his face. He was wearing a t-shirt that said Key West on it, jeans and no shoes or socks.
“Mr. Callahan,” he said, surprised to see Kyle.
“Vinnie, please call me Kyle.”
Vinnie looked at Linda.
“This is my friend, Detective Linda Sikorsky.”
Linda was surprised Kyle introduced her that way and guessed he was doing it for a reason.
“I spoke to the police already,” Vinnie said. “A couple times.”
“She’s not with the New York City police. She’s visiting Danny and me from New Jersey. May we come in?”
“Oh, sure, sure.” Vinnie stepped aside and waved them in. “Don’t mind the mess.”
What mess, Kyle wondered, as they entered the apartment. Vinnie Campagna was neat and orderly, among his other traits. The apartment was a studio, with a murphy bed folded up into one wall, a small dining table beneath a window, and a comfortable couch and chair in one corner. A television was on but muted, with a news channel playing.
“I’d offer you something …”
“No, Vinnie, that’s fine,” said Kyle. “We won’t stay long. Linda just wanted to ask you some questions.”
I did? Linda thought. She wished Kyle had told her before they got there.
“Yes, well,” Linda said, improvising as she sat in the chair with Kyle and Vinnie taking the couch. “I was wondering …”
Kyle saw the hesitation. “She was wondering what you could tell us.”
“What I could tell you?”
“About the last time you spoke to Victor.”
Vinnie thought about it. He didn’t know what difference it would make, since he’d been over these details with the police, but anything that might help find his brother’s killer was worth it.
“It was Monday,” he said. “I was at home in the afternoon. Vic’s on a dayshift at 230 Park” – that was the apartment building Victor worked at – “and he was off Mondays and Tuesdays. He was excited about our niece’s christening on Saturday. Ah, Christ, that’s been postponed.”
“I’m sorry,” Kyle said. “But please go on. You spoke Monday?”
“Yeah, for a few minutes. We talked every day. We were very close.” He stopped a moment, composing himself. “Vic wanted a new suit for the christening and said he was going to look for something nice.”
Linda had taken her phone out and was making notes on one of its applications.
“But he was stopping for a drink first,” Vinnie continued. “Said he was meeting a friend at Cargill’s.”
“What’s Cargill’s?” Linda asked.
“It’s a bar. A gay bar. On East 58th Street.”
Kyle knew of the place. It was one of the oldest gay bars on the East Side, and one of the few remaining. Kyle remembered it as a local watering hole that catered to a neighborhood crowd. No go-go dancers, no drag shows. Just booze and companionship.
“Do you know the name of the friend he was meeting?”
“No, sorry. Vic was out of the closet, but very … discreet, I guess you’d say. He had boyfriends from time to time but never brought them around. He wasn’t uncomfortable being gay, he just didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere. The gay scene, whatever that is, it wasn’t for him and he was still looking for his place in the world. Now he’ll never find it. But he liked that bar, yeah, something about it.”
“Did you hear from him after that?” Linda asked.
“No.”
“And what time was your conversation?”
“About three o’clock, sometime in there.”
Kyle hesitated. He didn’t want to bring up anything that would make Vinnie uncomfortable.
“Do you know if Vic ever met men online?”
Vinnie stared at him. “For hookups, you mean?”
“Or dates. Dinner, a movie, whatever. People meet online all the time.”
“Is that how you met Mr. Durban?”
“Danny,” Kyle said. “You can call him Danny. You’re not on duty, Vinnie. And no, I didn’t meet Danny online. We met at an art gallery.”
Vinnie nodded. “I don’t really know if he met guys online,” he said. “Vic was …”
“Discreet,” said Linda.
“Yeah, discreet. I’m sure he did meet men that way. But it’s not the kind of thing he would tell me.”
“So your phone call on Monday was the last.”
Vinnie didn’t answer and looked about to cry. He glanced away a moment, not wanting to break down in front of these people.
“Yeah,” he said at last. “I called him later to make plans for Saturday, we were going together to the christening. But it went to voicemail. Tried texting too but that didn’t get a response. He was known to turn his phone off, especially on his days off. He liked to ‘unplug’ he said, walk around and just look at things, listen to sounds and other people’s conversations. He had his head in the clouds sometimes, that kid. He was my little brother, did I say that? Three years younger.”
“You didn’t mention it, no,” Linda said. “We’re so sorry, Vinnie.”
“Thanks.” He took a deep breath. “So I talked to him Monday when he was going to Cargill’s, and never again. Never will, either. You think they’ll catch the guy who did this?”
Kyle did not answer immediately. He knew the Pride Killer had not been caught for four years before vanishing. “We’re going to try,” he said. Then, very gently, he asked, “Do you have a photograph of Vic?”
“A picture?”
“Yes,” Linda said. “So we can ask around, see if anyone remembers seeing him on Monday.”
“Sure, sure.” Vinnie got up and crossed to a small bookshelf. He had several framed photographs of his family and friends. He took one of his brother, quickly slipped it out of the frame, and brought it back, handing it to Kyle. “It’s a couple years old but this is what he looks like.”
Kyle took the photograph, glanced at it and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Thank you, Vinnie, thank you very much. I’ll be sure to get this back to you. We’re going to go now, but I really am terribly sorry for your loss.”
“My loss? Vic’s the one who lost. Lost it all. I just want to find the man who took it.”
“We’re going to do our best,” said Linda.
Kyle and Linda rose and thanked Vinnie again for talking with them. Vinnie followed them to the door.
“He’s not the only one, is he?” Vinnie asked as he opened the door for them.
Kyle had not wanted to tell Vinnie what he knew of the killer, his elusiveness and success. But Vinnie had spoken to them at the most difficult time of his life and was owed the truth.
“No, Vinnie, I’m afraid not,” Kyle said. “But we’re trying to make sure there won’t be any more.”
“Good luck,” Vinnie said as they left the apartment. “You’ll let me know, right? If you find him?”
Linda turned back and said, “You’ll be the first to know. Then we’ll call the morgue.”
Kyle was struck by the coldness in her voice, and by the implication in her words. She was prepared to make sure the Pride Killer never claimed another victim. Dead predators can’t hunt.
They left Vincent Campagna’s building and headed back to the subway. As they climbed the stairs at the station, Linda said, “Where to now?”
“I could use a drink,” Kyle said. “And I know just the place.”
The train pulled into the station just as they reached the turnstiles. Kyle used his
MetroCard to swipe them through, and together they rushed up the stairs. Even the ten minutes it would take for the next train to arrive was time they did not have to waste.
Chapter 15
Ed Cargill opened Cargill’s bar when he was just twenty-five and new to New York City. Back then the Upper East Side was an inexpensive part of the city to live in, which could be said of much of Manhattan in the late 1950s. Ed made his way from Dayton, Ohio, as a young gay man looking for a place to belong. He found it in New York. He also found it in the bar that bore his name, and even though he endured police raids and the pervasive discrimination of a society and its police force that thought homosexuality was a mixture of crime and illness, he loved his patrons and he loved his city.
Cargill’s had weathered the storms and the decades, and though Ed had long since passed on to the Great Gay Bar in Heaven, the establishment he founded still served the locals who had come to know it as their bar. They weren’t all gay, either. Cargill’s was inclusive before inclusivity was in vogue. You can find gay customers there having an after-work cocktail with their straight co-workers, their bisexual co-workers and, increasingly, their transgender co-workers.
The interior remained understated and comfortable. This was no splashy Chelsea bar. There was no loud music. Ed had installed a jukebox that people still loved putting quarters in, playing records by Janis Joplin and Patsy Cline mixed with current music from the bartenders’ mix-tapes. Cargill’s managed to be a comforting friend without being a throwback. It was run now by Ed’s nephew, himself a man in his 60s who’d made his way to New York when he was just out of college and needed a little coming out of his own. Phil Carter didn’t work at the bar much and wasn’t there when Kyle and Linda arrived, but he’d kept the place in almost exactly the same shape, look and feel his uncle had left it when he took over in 1995.
“So this is a gay bar,” Linda said as they walked through the door.
Kyle was surprised. He knew gay life was new to Detective Linda, but he hadn’t imagined she had not visited at least one bar since her coming out a year and a half ago. Then he remembered so much had changed with the advent of the internet. Gay bars were becoming an anachronism, and bars like Cargill’s almost museum pieces.
“Yes and no,” Kyle said. “There are lots of different kinds of gay bars. Not that I know. Danny and I don’t go to bars and I was never much of a bar person before I met him. This is more like an old neighborhood bar with a more interesting clientele than most.”
There were only a half dozen people there; it was the middle of the afternoon, and the few customers at the bar (with two at a pool table) were the types who either stopped by for a friendly drink or who never left.
A tall man in his 40s was behind the bar washing glasses and nodding to patrons who talked to him whether he listened or not. He was dressed in khakis and a green long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs rolled up to reveal several tattoos on his forearms.
“Afternoon,” Kyle said as he and Linda each took a stool.
“Afternoon,” said the bartender. He put down a glass and walked over. “What can I get you folks?”
“Diet Coke for me,” Linda said and Kyle ordered the same.
When the bartender set their drinks on napkins, Kyle said, “We’re looking for some information.”
The bartender eyed them, but not suspiciously. He’d had plenty of people—police and others—who came in every now and then looking for information. Most were just tourists wondering how to get to the South Street Seaport or the Empire State Building. Occasionally he’d get a private investigator trying to track down someone’s errant spouse.
“I’m Kyle, by the way. And this is Detective Linda Sikorsky.”
The bartender came to attention. “Robert,” he said. “Robert Jeffries.”
“Yes, well, Bob …”
“Nobody calls me Bob.”
“Sorry,” said Kyle. “Robert … we were wondering if you saw this man on Monday afternoon.”
Kyle pulled out the photograph of Vic Campagna and handed it to Robert. He took the picture and held it up to the light.
“Vic,” he said. “Yeah, I knew Vic. Very fucked up, what happened to him.”
“Very,” Linda said. “We think he may have met someone here.”
The implication was not lost on Robert. He glanced around, as if someone dangerous might be sitting at one of his bar stools.
He handed the picture back. “He was in here to meet his buddy Sam, but Sam’s no killer. He never even showed up. I remember Vic waiting about a half hour. Then he said Sam stood him up again and he left.”
“Sam stood him up?” asked Kyle. “Were they dating?”
“Dating? Ah, no. Sam’s got a husband. They’re just friends, as far as I know. They met here a couple years ago, I remember that. And once or twice a month they’d meet for drinks, get caught up I guess. I try not to eavesdrop.”
“Does Sam have a last name?” Linda asked.
“Paddington. Fortyish, works at the Met I think. The museum, not the opera.”
“Any idea where we might find Sam?”
“The museum,” Robert replied dryly.
“Right,” said Kyle. “Not the opera. Do you know what he does there?”
“He’s a ticket-taker, maybe an usher, I’m not sure.” Robert leaned closer. “Listen, you think this is that guy, that Pride Killer? I heard he died or something. I remember when he was doing this before. Very scary.”
“No one knows what happened to him,” Kyle said. “Only that he’s back. If he’s back. It could be a different killer. It could be random.”
“Word’s starting to spread. My customers are getting nervous. Some of them, they knew Vic, they knew he came in here.”
“I have a feeling that’s not how Vic met his killer. The internet’s a much more likely place to meet men who don’t want to be found.”
“Or seen,” Linda added.
“Right, right. Should I put up posters or something? You know, warn people?”
“That’s up to you,” said Kyle. “But it might start a panic. As long as people know to use their instincts and common sense.”
“I never meet guys on the internet, and I don’t hookup. It’s crazy. I’m like, control your impulses already, you could get killed doing this. And now they got apps on phones, you can find some guy in the coffee shop sitting next to you.”
Kyle had read about these things but knew nothing of them and didn’t want to know. The only man he ever wanted to find was Danny, and that was easy enough.
“Listen, Robert, you’ve been very helpful,” Kyle said. He slid off his barstool and Linda followed.
“You gonna talk to Sam?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“It’s not him, I’m telling you. Sam’s been coming in here for years. Quiet guy, not your hookup type either. And definitely not a killer.”
“Thanks,” said Linda. She threw a ten dollar bill on the bar. “Keep the change.”
They left Robert standing there wondering if he’d served a drink to a murderer in the last three days and if he should sound some kind of alarm. Heading back out to 58th Street, Kyle stopped on the sidewalk and mulled over the information they had, which was next to none.
“So,” Linda said.
“So … Vic comes here to meet Sam, Sam doesn’t show up.”
“Do they text? Do they call?”
“The police will know, if they have Vic’s phone. That’s not the kind of information they put in news reports.”
“Should we leave it up to them, then? The police?”
Kyle looked at her. “There’s no time,” he said. “For all we know Vic wasn’t the first victim.”
“Sam was. He didn’t show up. It’s possible there’s some connection between the three of them—Vic, Sam and the Killer.”
“Possible, yes. We have to look at everything as possible, although I have my doubts. It doesn’t fit this killer’s pattern, but neither does disappear
ing for three years.”
“So you want to go to the Met?”
“Yes,” said Kyle. “The museum, not the opera.”
“But we don’t know what Sam Paddington does there.”
“Someone will tell us.”
Kyle stepped to the curb and held up his hand. A taxi heading west pulled up within seconds, and they drove off after Kyle told the driver they were going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Chapter 16
D was uncharacteristically anxious. It was another thing that had changed since he was last in the hunt. First there had been the curious disappointment with killing Victor, as if he’d lost interest in the one thing he’d been most passionate about in his life. And now this anxiety, this impatience. He refused to believe he was nervous—that was for novices and people unsure of themselves. D was supremely confident in everything he did. This was more like a general anxiety, and it had gotten the best of him as he’d waited in the store, checking his watch every fifteen minutes. Finally, at 3:15 p.m., he’d told Jarrod he was feeling just a little under the weather and he wanted to go home and lay down for a bit.
“Is it something you ate?” Jarrod asked, concerned for his boss. He’d noticed a change in Mr. K since his return from Germany. He attributed it to the loss of his mother. Jarrod’s mother had passed away six years ago, and he knew how difficult it could be. He’d learned that grief was not linear, that it came and went in waves. He suspected a wave had overtaken Mr. K and he just needed to be alone.
“No, I’m sure that’s not the cause,” D replied. “But thank you so much for asking, Jarrod. You’re a true friend. I just want to rest awhile. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
D had left the store then, walking the three blocks to his townhouse. He wanted to center himself before meeting Scott. He was worried Scott, too, would not be the one, and he would find himself in a rush to identify a replacement. Rushing was dangerous. People who hurried made mistakes, and he could not be one of them. He walked briskly north toward home, wanting to get there quickly. He knew he would feel better once he was there—and not in his bed, as he had told Jarrod, but in his basement.