Billy buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Then that brings us back to now.”
I straightened my gun arm. “I’m not letting you walk, Billy.”
Billy said, “I’m walkin’.”
“Don’t try it, Billy. I’ll shoot you in the back.”
“No, you won’t.” Billy smiled. “I’m walkin’, Greek. I’m walkin’ back to my car. You’re going to let me, and you’re going to give me some time to do it. After that, everything’s fair.”
“Don’t, Billy,” I said, my voice shaking.
“So long, Nick.”
He turned. I shouted his name once, keeping the gun pointed at his back. I held it there until his royal blue jacket faded in the thickness of the forest. Then I lowered the gun to my side. A few minutes later the crows returned to the clearing. I holstered the Browning, sat on the trunk of the oak, and pulled the Jim Beam from my jacket.
Billy was right—I couldn’t have squeezed that trigger on him, ever—but he was only half right. He wasn’t going to walk. I had called Hendricks earlier that day, from the pool hall on 301.
There are only two ways off the peninsula that ends at Cobb Island—by highway or by water. Billy didn’t own a boat. Hendricks was waiting for him, the big cop-car engine idling out front of the hardware store, where 257 meets 301.
THE WOODS GREW DARKER as I finished the pint. I rose off the trunk and walked toward the deep gray light, through another stretch of woods to the highway. A long-haired young man in a Chevy truck stopped as soon as my thumb went out, and he drove me onto the island, letting me out at the Pony Point.
For the next three hours Russel and I sat together, drinking with slow and steady intent. Hendricks showed at dusk and joined us at the bar until closing time. At the end of the night the three us made a wordless toast, and after that Hendricks drove me all the way back to my place in D.C.
I offered him my couch, but he declined. I said good-bye, moved across the yard, and walked around the side of the house. At the stoop, I reached down to stroke the ball of black fur that was lying on the cold concrete and felt the push of a tiny nose against my hand. I put the key to the lock and turned the knob. The two of us crossed the threshold and stepped into the darkness of my apartment.
THIRTY-TWO
I TOOK ON no new cases in the months that followed. At Billy’s trial, sometime in April, I was asked to testify as to the deceptions he had initiated relative to the cover-up of April Goodrich’s murder.
The state went for conspiracy to commit murder, hoping to ensure a conviction on a lesser charge, and I answered their questions. Billy wisely claimed that the money in question had been gotten through gambling, eliminating the involvement of the DiGeordano family in court. I went along with that part of it, allowing Billy to play that particular string out to the end.
On the final day of my testimony, I walked from the court-house and did not return. Hendricks phoned a few days later and told me that Billy had been given a two-year sentence for conspiracy after the fact. Billy and I had not made eye contact once during the hearing; he was gone from my life.
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, ON a Saturday afternoon, I was driving my Dart down the Dulles Access Road, the windows rolled down, the spring sun whitening the road. Jackie Kahn was beside me on the passenger seat, and Sherron was seated in the rear. Their luggage had been shoehorned into the trunk. The Smithereens’ “Behind a Wall of Sleep” played loudly from the radio, just covering the sputter of the engine beneath the hood. I lit a cigarette and watched Sherron’s face in the rearview.
She frowned. “You sure this piece of junk’s going to make it, Stefanos?”
“Mopar engine,” I said. “You can bet on it. What time’s your flight?”
“In about twenty minutes,” Jackie said.
I goosed the accelerator and swerved into the left lane.
We reached Dulles International Airport ten minutes later. I dropped Sherron and Jackie at the terminal and told Jackie to meet me at the gate.
I parked the Dart and walked across the lot, toward the main terminal’s great arced wall of glass. Inside, I checked the arrival/departure board, then made my way to the gate through a block of servicemen and European tourists. The steward had made the final call for boarding, and the line had dwindled to three. Jackie and Sherron were standing at the end of the line, the tickets in Jackie’s hand.
“Think we cut it close enough?” I asked as I reached them.
“Didn’t know that Dodge could break eighty,” Sherron said. She wore a double-breasted designer suit, and her lips were painted a lovely pale pink.
Jackie looked at Sherron and made a gentle nod toward the gate. “I’ll be right along. Here.” She handed Sherron her boarding pass.
Sherron put a hand to Jackie’s shoulder and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Take it easy, Stefanos. You come visit, okay?”
“I will.”
Sherron walked stylishly through the gate. She looked back once and smiled in my direction, and capped the smile with a wink. When she rounded the corner, I turned to Jackie.
Jackie wore a smock-and-pants arrangement that day, a colorful handbag draped over her shoulder. Her short black hair was combed forward at the sides, flapper style. Small gold coins hung from her ears, and her brown eyes seemed translucent in the light.
“I’d better go,” she said.
“You’d better.”
“Got a lot to do when I get there.”
“I’ll bet. You’ve got, what, two or three weeks before you start your new job?”
“Something like that. It’ll give me a chance to explore, get comfortable.”
“San Fran’s a nice town, what I hear.”
“I couldn’t turn down the offer,” she said. “And, with what’s coming up”—Jackie stopped to run a hand across her stomach—“I thought a new start was in order, all the way around.”
I dug my hands into my pockets. “You know I don’t want you to go.”
“Sherron wasn’t just being polite,” Jackie said. “We want you out there, Nick. You’re welcome anytime.”
“I plan on it,” I said. “In the meantime, write. And send pictures.”
The steward began to attach a rope at the gate. Jackie stood on her toes and kissed my mouth. She pulled away and touched a finger to my cheek.
“I trust you,” I said. “You know that?”
Jackie smiled. “You did good, soldier.”
She squeezed my hand and walked away.
Later I stood at the window and watched her plane lift off. It gained altitude, made a wide arc, and flew west. When the plane was only a dot of black entering the clouds, I walked back through the main terminal, out into the parking lot. I found my car and sat in it for a while, watching the sunset, and the flow of foot traffic and cars. A chill cut the air. I started the Dart, pulled out of the lot, and headed back downtown.
MAI PLACED A COLD bottle of Budweiser on the bar when I entered the Spot. I walked to the stool that was centered beneath the blue neon Schlitz logo. I bellied up and wrapped my hand around the bottle. The joint was empty.
Mai stocked beer in the cooler while Darnell washed the last of the night’s dishes. I could hear the clatter of china and see his long brown arms against his stained apron through the reach-through as he worked.
“Slow night?” I said to Mai.
“Yep,” she said, her plump little hand buried in the cooler, her blond hair pinned up in a pretzel-shaped bun. “A long night watching Happy stare at the cigarette burning in his fingers.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“I did get a seventy-five-cent tip out of it, though.”
“Then it was worth it.” I saw some sweat roll down the back of her neck and felt the guilt. “You got plans tonight, Mai?”
Mai pulled her arm out of the cooler and faced me. She wound a twist of blond back behind her ear and showed me some teeth. “Got me a new soldier boy, Nicky.”
“Why don
’t you take off, then, take a hot bath, get ready. I’ll close up.”
She smiled and straightened her posture. “You mean it?”
“Go on, get out of here.”
Mai untied her tip apron dexterously and tossed it behind the register. She kissed me on the cheek, yelled good-bye into the kitchen, and skipped out the front door. I followed her, locked up, and walked back in.
I slid an old wave mix—Squeeze, Graham Parker, and Costello—into the tape deck. I listened to that while I finished restocking the cooler. When I was done I wiped down the bar, drained the sinks, and laid the green bar netting out in the service area to dry. I put most of the cash in a metal box and placed it underneath the floorboards, and left the register drawer open with a few ones and a five in the till. Then I grabbed an empty shot glass, the bottle of Grand-Dad off the call shelf, and a fresh Bud, and set them all up on the bar next to a clean ashtray. I placed the deck of Camels and a pack of matches beside the ashtray, had a seat, and settled in.
Darnell came out of the kitchen an hour later, tucking the tails of his beige shirt into his work pants as he walked. He stood next to me, leaned one foot on the rail, and unwound his long arms, resting them on the bar. I finished my fourth shot of bourbon and poured another to the lip of the glass.
“Private party?” Darnell said.
“Uh-uh.”
“Mind if I hang?”
I gestured toward the empty stool to my right. “Have a seat.”
Darnell sat and picked up my bottle of beer. He looked at the label, studied it, and placed the bottle back with the shot glass. I cupped my hand around both, a low, even tone encircling my head, entering my ears.
Darnell said, “You look pretty far away, man.”
“I guess I am.”
“Trouble with the ladies?”
I concentrated, looking at myself in the bar mirror. I had been thinking about Jackie at the beginning of the night, and then Billy Goodrich. But afterward my thoughts had gone much further back, long before the day I had met Billy on the bench in Sligo Creek Park. More skeletons, come to life.
“No,” I said. “I was thinking about this Greek boy I knew way back. A kid named Dimitri.”
“Never heard you mention him.”
“He’s been gone,” I said, “a long time.” I had a drink of bourbon, rolled it around the glass, and followed it with another swallow. I chased that with beer and rested the bottle on the bar, keeping my fingers on the neck. Costello’s beautiful country import, “Shoes without Heels,” flowed through the speakers.
Darnell said, “Talk about it, man.”
I looked into my shot glass. “I met this kid Dimitri, playing basketball in the church league, when I was seventeen. He was from Highlandtown—Greektown—up in Baltimore. We came from different places, but our friendship clicked for some reason, real fast. We started hanging out together, I’d drive up to Baltimore to see him, he’d take the bus to D.C. This kid was tough, big shoulders, but he had this smile…. He had a lot of life, you know what I’m saying?” Darnell nodded, watching my eyes in the mirror. “That summer, we used to crank up J. Geils’s Bloodshot, dance out front of his row house, the tape deck set up right on his stoop. So when Geils came to the Baltimore Civic Center, you know we were the first ones with tickets, the first ones at the show.” I paused. “Dimitri was wearing this hat that night, sort of like a Panama hat, but gangster style. And J. Geils came on—this was the Ladies Invited tour, they opened with the first track off the LP, ‘The Lady Makes Demands’—and turned the place out.” I poured another inch of Grand-Dad into the shot glass, downed it, and exhaled. The glass left a ring of water on the mahogany bar. “Somehow I lost Dimitri in the crowd. But later, from my seat above, I recognized him by his hat, pushing his way up to the front of the stage. That show was bumpin’, man.” I paused, picturing the crowd, girls in halter tops, a cloud of marijuana hovering in the arena. “Anyway, when Dimitri finally came back to the seats, he wasn’t wearing the hat—when I asked him where it was, he said he had handed it to Peter Wolf, on the stage. I told him he was full of shit, and Dimitri didn’t argue about it—that wasn’t his style. He just smiled.”
Darnell said, “What happened to that boy?”
I moved my face around with my hand and pushed hair away from my eyes. “A couple weeks later he got into a car with a couple of Polish boys from the neighborhood. He didn’t know the car was stolen. They were driving down the Patterson Parkway, and a cop made the car, and the driver tried to outrun the cop. He flipped it doing seventy. Dimitri went through the windshield. He was in a coma for a week, and then he died. The boys who stole the car walked away with scratches.”
Darnell said, “You don’t need to be thinkin’ about that tonight, Nick.”
“Listen”—I smiled and shook my head—“that’s not the end of the story. Six months later I pick up an issue of Creem magazine, off the newsstand. Inside, there’s a story on the J. Geils Band, and on the facing page there’s a photograph of Peter Wolf. He’s wearing Dimitri’s hat, Darnell. And the caption underneath says, ‘Lead singer Peter Wolf wears a hat given to him by a fan at a Baltimore concert.’”
“That must’ve tripped you out.”
I had a sip of bourbon, put it down, and drank deeply of the beer. “Dimitri went out like a fuckin’ champ.”
Darnell frowned. “You don’t believe that, Nick.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “Dimitri checked out at the top of his game. The way everybody should.” I lit a cigarette, blew smoke over the bar, and let it settle. “He never had to watch himself get old in the mirror. He never had to hold a fucking gun on his friends.”
Darnell looked at the drink in front of me and straight back in my eyes. “Man, you’re the one that’s wrong. That shit you’re drinkin, it’s got you all twisted up inside.” He put a hand to my arm. “I’ll tell you what that boy never got to do. He never got to walk his woman down the aisle. He never got to hold his baby up to the sky. He never got a chance to taste the good or the bad. You better see that, man. If you don’t, you’re lost.”
I reached for my drink. Darnell pushed the glass away, out of my reach.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“I’m drivin’ you home.”
“Let me sit here for a little bit.”
“I’m drivin’ you home,” Darnell said. “Come on.”
I steadied myself, my hand on the bar. “I’m all right.”
“Let’s go, man.”
I focused on Darnell’s eyes. “You lock the place up. Okay?”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, getting under my arm.
We walked together to the front door. A cool blue light burned behind us in the room, and smoke rose off the ashtray on the bar.
I STOOD IN THE shower and slept on my feet. The water temperature fell, and when it did, the coolness of it woke me. I exited the stall, dried off, combed out my hair, and dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans. My cat followed me into the kitchen, circling my feet as I brewed a cup of coffee.
I took the coffee out into the living room and had a seat on the couch, resting the cup on the couch’s arm. I sat there and drank the coffee, stroking the cat on my lap. I did that for a while, and then the phone rang. The cat jumped off as I picked the phone up from the floor and placed it in my lap. I put the receiver to my ear.
“Hello.”
“Stefanos?” It was a woman’s voice, unidentifiable but familiar.
“Yes.”
“You never called me.”
“Who is this?”
“A fan,” she said.
I thought about that, and I remembered the note. Then I thought some more about the voice. “How’s it going?” I said.
“It’s goin’ good. Why didn’t you call?”
“I’m not the aggressive type.”
“You got aggressive pretty quick on the William Henry case.”
“What’s that?”
“I read the Post,�
� she said. “I figured you were behind it somehow, though I don’t know how you finessed it.” I let her talk. I liked the sound of her voice. “Don’t want to discuss it, huh?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You drunk, Stefanos? You sound a little drunk.”
“Tired,” I said.
“Well, it is late. So I’ll get right to the point. Listen, I was wondering—you didn’t call, so I thought I’d take the initiative here—I was wondering if maybe you wanted to take in a double feature tomorrow night, down at the AFI.”
My cat sat on the radiator, watching me twist the phone cord around my hand. “What’s on the bill?” I said.
“Some shoot-em-up out of Hong Kong, and a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Magnificent Obsession. Something for you, something for me.”
“No Liz Taylor?”
“Nope,” she said. “And no Isaac Hayes.”
I grinned. “Sounds good to me. You buy the tickets, I’ll spring for whatever comes up next. Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll pick you up at your place,” she said. “About six-thirty.”
“You know where I live?”
“Your number’s on the card. I crossed-referenced it to your address in the Hanes Directory.”
“You’re a hell of an investigative reporter.”
“See you tomorrow night, Stefanos.”
“Right.”
I got off the couch with the phone in my hand, and I stood in the center of the room. A Dinah Washington number played from my landlord’s apartment above. I danced a few steps and put the phone down. My cat watched me and blinked her eye.
I took the coffee cup to the kitchen and found the note that had been signed “A Fan” on the plain white card, in the basket where I dumped my overdue bills. I walked with the note to my bedroom, and I opened the top dresser drawer.
I wasn’t certain that night as to why I kept the note. Call it a feeling, listening to the woman’s voice on the phone, that something right would happen next. But as spring became summer, I began to understand.
That was the summer that I first noticed the texture of the crepe myrtle that grew beside my stoop, the summer I woke each morning to the sweet smell of hibiscus that flowered outside my bedroom window. That was the summer that a tape called The La’s played continuously from my deck, the summer that a Rare Essence go-go single called “Lock It” raged from every young D.C. driver’s sound system on the street. And that was the summer that I held hands in the dark with a freckly, pale-eyed redhead with the perfectly musical name of Lyla McCubbin.
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