by John Florio
From the corner of my eye, I see Thorndyke inching his revolver out of its holster.
“Put the gun down, Myra,” I say, knowing how bloody this scene could get. “Even if you kill me, you’ll never get out of here alive.”
Her tears—or maybe the raindrops—are turning her eye makeup into thick black streaks. As they run down her face, she looks like some sort of almond-eyed ghoul.
“Just turn around and start walking,” she says.
I don’t budge, mostly because I know she’s ready to put a slug between my shoulder blades.
Then she adds, “We’re leaving right now.”
If she’s thinking we can walk to the Auburn and drive off to California, she’s crazier than I thought. Even if I wanted to go with her, the bulls would nail her in the back before she hobbled her way to the shipping containers.
“It won’t work, Myra,” I say, nodding toward Thorndyke and his partner, who have their revolvers trained on her.
“Lower the gun, lady,” Thorndyke says.
“Listen to him, Myra,” I say. I lock my eyes with hers, afraid she’ll get rattled if she keeps looking over at Thorndyke and his partner. “It’s over.”
She looks at me, still crying. Her upper lip is quivering as the downpour continues to paint shiny black bars on her tan cheeks. Her hair is soaked and flat; the rain is running off the rim of my fedora.
“I said lower the gun,” Thorndyke says, more loudly this time.
I see Homer standing in the rainfall behind Thorndyke, his mouth hanging slightly open. I hope he doesn’t do anything stupid, anything that would stop Myra from dropping the rod.
“What are my chances?” she asks me.
I’m assuming she means the odds she’ll walk away clean. “We’ll find you a good lawyer,” I say.
“A lawyer can’t stop Lovely from making minced meat out of me.”
“I’ll handle him,” I tell her.
The smirk on her face says she doesn’t believe me.
“I promise,” I say.
“Drop the gun now,” Thorndyke says and cocks the hammer.
Myra looks me in my eyes. “I did love you,” she says. Then she aims the gun at me and pulls the trigger.
A split-second after she fires, a second shot rings out and hits her in the left cheek. She drops to the ground, her crutches bouncing on the wet ground beside her.
“Myra!” I shout, my voice swallowed up by the empty darkness around me.
I run to her but there’s nothing I can do. She’s motionless—blood is flowing down the side of her face, tinting the puddle of rain beneath her. Her plastered foot is twisted awkwardly beneath her.
Thorndyke drops to his knees and holds his head in his hands as the downpour soaks the back of his uniform. His eyes are shut and his lips pulled tight; he looks as though he just got hit himself. I wonder if Myra is the only person he’s ever killed. Either way, he must be coming to grips with the same thought I am. Myra never aimed to hit me—the bullet sailed eight feet over my head. She only pulled the trigger because she knew that once she did the bulls would put an end to her troubles. And she was right, I suppose.
Homer comes over to me, his drenched cap pulled low on his sloped forehead, his lips turned downward. He puts a hand on my shoulder and I try not to break down, but the grief pours out of me as powerfully as the river beneath us rushes toward the ocean.
I don’t try to explain to Homer why I’m sobbing. Nobody—not him, not Thorndyke, not even the champ—can understand what Myra meant to me. When she died, the light went out at both ends of my tunnel.
She was one of the few bright spots of my childhood.
And the only glimmer of hope for my future.
CHAPTER 16
I load my suitcase into the back of the Auburn. A cloud drifts in front of the morning sun, so I take off the scarf I’ve got wrapped around my jaw and toss it into the backseat.
I said my final good-byes to Myra a week ago. There were no services, no priests, no crying friends, no family. Not even her father showed up. In the end, she had nobody but me. I bought a plot at Laurel Hill and had her buried there; I placed a bouquet of roses on her grave and stayed until it started to rain. I knelt in front of the stone marker, the rain spitting on the top of my fedora, and the moist, freshly broken earth dampening the knees of my pants. I told her I thought I might have loved her, and that I’d have had her buried in Hollywood if I’d had the money. I couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been different had we made it there, but I’m better off having never found out. The only thing more dangerous than spending your life with a woman who doesn’t love you is spending it with one who’d set you up for the electric chair.
When I got up, I brushed off my pants, and walked to the Auburn, ignoring the warm drizzle. I started the engine and drove past the cemetery gates, knowing I’d never return.
A mile up Ridge, I passed a newsboy hawking the Inquirer. He held it high over his head and shouted the headline: Records Uncover Police Sergeant’s Web of Deceit, Garvey Case Revisited. I pulled to the curb and called the kid over. The article was a beauty—it took over the front page and even had a picture of Garvey standing in front of Elementary School Four holding a baseball bat across his shoulders. Somebody must have done some serious digging for that one. I bought five copies, gave the kid a buck, and told him to keep the change. Then I sat in the car—right there on the side of Ridge—and read every word, wishing Garvey were with me to see the justice he’d served.
I’ve got one of those copies with me now as I pay one last visit to the Ink Well. Doolie is never here before noon on a weekday, so I let myself in with my spare key. The place is empty, hot, and stuffy. I can practically smell the dust that’s settling on the memory of the albino bartender with the busted nose.
I’ve got the Zealandia shoebox under my arm and I put it exactly where I’d planned: on top of the ice machine, not far from where Angela’s apron hangs. On it, I leave a note that tells Angela to use the money to chase her dream out of the Ink Well and into the classroom. I hope she listens.
Next to the ice machine, that blasted issue of the Inquirer still hangs on the wall. There’s my face, scarred by the rips that Reeger left in it. I take it down, crumple it up, and toss it in the trash. Then I grab a roll of tape by the cash register and replace it with last week’s paper. Hopefully, the locals who sit here trying to forget their workdays will learn a lesson about judging a man before knowing him.
As I step out from behind the bar, I picture Myra sitting on the end stool, a frosted martini glass between her polished fingernails, a litany of sweet lies coming from her painted lips. I remember the nights we spent right here, how young and free and happy I felt when we were alone. I want to feel that way again; I want to be in love again. It occurs to me that I miss myself as much as I miss Myra.
I walk to the door and take a look around the joint. Garvey stares back at me from behind the bar, a smile on his young face, and I wish him good-night before turning out the lights.
An orange sun is shining on Juniper when I get in the Auburn. I’ve got one more stop before heading back to New York—I want to find Lovely and return his twenty grand. I start the engine and head toward Fitzwater, making my way through the streets that seemed so sinister when Reeger was prowling them. I pass Washington—which is only a mile from Bobby Lewis’s—when the radio announces that Otto Gorsky, the man the locals call Mr. Lovely, died last night from an unnamed disease. They refer to Lovely as a friend of the Philadelphia police, but they don’t mention that half the force is as crooked as the Schuylkill. I picture the old man dying inside his mansion and wonder if his hired goons carved him like a turkey as he took his final breaths—or if he spent those last few moments sitting in an armchair, sipping cognac, wishing he’d lived a life he could be proud of. I promise myself I won’t wind up in either one of those positions.
I lower the visor, slip on my dark glasses, and make a U-turn toward Northeast Philly. I�
��m tempted to bring the dough to the Hy-Hat, but not everything the champ has spent a lifetime preaching has been lost on me. If I can’t return the cash to Lovely, I can put it where it belongs. I turn off Richmond, wind through a few side streets, and pull to the curb in front of 86 Fuller. It’s a small, two-story brick rowhouse; I’m surprised to see Rose working in the garden so early in the morning. I picture Calvin coming home from the graveyard shift at the Baldwin factory and Rose waiting for him here, tending to her plants, just like she’s doing now. Neither realized how soon their world would come crumbling down.
I reach into Lovely’s envelope, pull out half the cash, and put my glasses on the seat beside me. As I walk up the path, Rose is on her knees, tying up a batch of dried branches. She probably hasn’t done much out here since Calvin died and wants to clean it up before we roll into autumn.
“Hiya, Rose.” My eyes shimmy but I don’t bother turning away.
She looks up but continues working. She’s not wearing any makeup and looks older than I remember—the pain of losing Calvin is still etched around her eyes. Her gloved hands are dirty; her smock is stained by grass and dirt.
“Jersey,” she says. She has a vacant stare, the kind of look somebody gets when they’re going through the motions of life but not really living it. She gives me a smile—from her lips, not her heart.
“Did you see the papers?” I say.
“Sure did,” she says, gathering another bundle of branches. “I guess the truth had to come out sooner or later.”
“Reeger had some scam going,” I say. “Eventually, it came tumbling down. These things always do.”
Rose stops working for a moment and her face sags.
“I’m glad that cop is dead,” she says. She seems to be listening to her own words, as if they’re coming from somebody else. I’m sure she never expected to be saying them herself. “I hope it was slow and painful.”
“Well, Calvin helped,” I say. “He didn’t die in vain.”
I’ll never admit the truth: Calvin’s death was a waste; it was the whimsy of a rogue bull with an agenda to fill and a wake of bodies behind him.
She shrugs. “I suppose so.”
She gets back on her knees and starts plucking some weeds from the dirt.
“Calvin left you this,” I say and hand her the cash. “I found it in the safe at the Hy-Hat.”
Her eyes scrunch together; she doesn’t believe me. “Calvin didn’t have this kind of money,” she says.
“I think he’d been putting it aside from his pay at the plant. He told me to give it to you if anything ever happened to him.”
She shoves the cash in the pocket of her garden smock. Then she looks down and puts her face in her hands. She doesn’t cry but her shoulders bob and her elbows shake.
“It can’t get me Calvin back.”
I feel guilty, as if I’m trying to buy her absolution with Lovely’s blood money. But nobody can save Calvin now, and he would have wanted me to take care of her. This is the best I can do.
“He wanted you to have it,” I say, swallowing the grief that’s rattling the cage inside of me.
“Thank you,” she says.
There’s nothing left to say and we reach an awkward silence. It’s clear she wants to be alone, so I tell her that I’ve got to leave. But I add that I’ll visit the next time I’m in town.
“I’ll be here,” she says as she takes out a pair of pruning shears and goes to work on a shrub.
I wish her well and walk back to the Auburn. When I leave, I pull away slowly, and give one more wave from the driver’s seat even though she’s not looking my way. Then I turn on the radio. Connie Boswell is crooning “I’m All Dressed up with a Broken Heart.” I know how she feels, and I bet Rose does, too.
It starts to rain, so I put on the wipers. It’s a sun shower; it shouldn’t last long. I’ve still got ten large in the envelope and I know where it’s going to go. I drive into Overbrook and pull up on Malverne in front of the building marked Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, a towering stone structure that sits at the top of a grass field. Three arches mark its main entrance.
I tug on my fedora and raise my lapels before hopping out of the Auburn. It’s a light, steady rain; I trot across the manicured lawn and duck under the center arch, where I pull out a handkerchief and wipe my face dry. Then I shake the water from my oxfords and walk through one of the building’s tall oak doors. The tiled lobby has a vaulted ceiling and an elaborate, gilded chandelier, but nobody is there to see it. Judging by the distant piano and singing voices, all the teachers and students are in an auditorium on the other side of the building.
I scan the lobby and spot a door with the words Director’s Office written in gold across a beveled window. That’s my man. I walk over and tap lightly on the glass; when nobody answers, I slip into the room and shut the door behind me. The place is dead quiet. Across the room, there’s a desk with a nameplate that reads Robert Sullivan, Director, so I take out the rest of Lovely’s money, grab a pen, and write a short message on the outside of the envelope: For Louise Connor. I leave it on the desk and trust that Mr. Sullivan will see it gets put to good use.
When I make my way out of the building, the rain has stopped, the sun is still shining, and the smell of wet grass fills the air. I walk back across the lawn and take off my fedora, letting the sun toast my damp skin for a few brief, glorious seconds.
Then I get behind the wheel of the Auburn, toss my hat on the seat beside me, and start the engine. There’s nothing left for me in Philly. But that doesn’t mean I have nowhere to go.
It’s barely noon when I pull into Harlem. The sun shines down on 127th Street, and a cool breeze blows through the Auburn’s open window. The doc’s cream protects my face, and my dark glasses are doing the same for my eyes.
As I drive up 127th, I spot a delivery truck in front of the Hy-Hat. Something is out of whack. Three guys in overalls have pulled a new icebox off a truck and are wheeling it into the alleyway that leads to the service entrance. A dozen other boxes sit next to the truck; I can only assume they’re also on their way into the joint.
I park across the street and walk into the club. The place is busy—four girls are playing ping-pong and a couple of boys are outside the kitchen licking ice cream cones—but the front of the game room has been cleared out. Fats Waller is coming through the radio and Billy Walker is pounding the dummy bag in the corner. The champ’s got his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up as he barks out combinations.
“Left, right, left, uppercut,” he shouts and Billy responds with a lightning-fast combination to the dummy bag.
“Hey, Champ,” I call out.
His eyes light up when he sees me—they always have—and I hope he can tell that mine do the same when I see him. He gives me a wave and my lips stretch into a smile. His hand is free of the plaster cast that had been driving him crazy and racking me with guilt for the past two months.
“Sorry about Myra,” he says as he walks over to me.
My father knows Myra died but he has no idea she set me up. I plan on leaving it that way—for the champ and for Myra.
“Thanks,” I say. “But I’m doing okay.”
He sizes me up and sees I’m speaking the truth.
“Hey, did you hear about this?” I say. I hold up the Inquirer with Garvey on the front page. My father never learned to read, but he can see Garvey’s young, smiling face. I read him the headline.
“Yep, heard all about it,” he says, nodding and taking the paper. “I’m gonna hang it up,” he says. “Right over there.”
He points toward the wall by the punching bag, about six feet from where he spends most of his time.
“Garvey would like that,” I say and the champ nods again, more slowly this time.
One of the delivery guys pokes his head into the room and asks where we want the icebox. My father points toward the kitchen.
“What’s going on, Champ?” I say. “We’re f
ixing up the joint?”
My father gives me a smile. “We sure are. New pool tables, too.” Then he nods toward the open area. “And a boxing ring.”
“With what?” I say, cursing myself for giving away all of Lovely’s cash.
“With the twenty-five large,” he says.
Two more delivery guys trudge into the place carrying long boxes that I’m assuming hold the corners of the ring. The short guy with the beard wants to know where they should set up.
“Right over there,” the champ tells them, pointing to the empty area by the dummy bag.
As the workers lay down the boxes, I turn and face the door so they can’t hear me.
“What twenty-five large?” I ask the champ.
“The twenty-five large I found on my desk,” he says and flashes me a sly smile.
I know my father, and he thinks I sent him the money. But I also know me, and I’m sure I didn’t. I’m dead broke—I left the last of the cash on Sullivan’s desk for Louise Connor.
“When did you find it?” I say.
His eyes narrow. I can see his wheels turning, trying to figure out if I’m covering up or not.
“Yesterday mornin’,” he says slowly.
I may not have given the club the money, but I know who did. Lovely. It fits perfectly. He lived long enough to see the Inquirer—to see that Reeger died in disgrace—and credited me for it. He knew I wouldn’t take the money, so he sent it here.
The champ’s looking me over, the glint gone from his eyes. “That money ain’t yours?”
His lower lip is hanging down as he waits for an explanation. He doesn’t want anything that came through the law-breaking hands of Lovely, or Reeger, or any other crook. And I’m not about to argue with him because his convictions have put him in the shoes I wish I were wearing. He once told me that bloodstained money soils the soul and he was right.
But that particular pile of cash is stained with Lovely’s blood, and Lovely is dead.