I Detest All My Sins

by Lanny Larcinese

  “I guess you’re right. The best defense is a good offense,” Jericho said.

  “So, you gonna come to Dirty Frank’s with me?” Bill asked. “You and I can have this figured out before Philadelphia P.D. finishes lunch. Have you learned anything about that litigation?”

  “Filed under the auspices of Pennsylvania Convict Association. I contacted their office. Nothing is progressing, only motions back and forth. I’m trying to see what their theory is, what kind of evidence they have. The guy I want to talk with is Dupree Williams. He’s general counsel.”

  Getting his head back into the case seemed to distract Jericho from his ever-mounting problems. Maybe this Williams would talk. If Jericho could put his troubles on the shelf, Bill wouldn’t have to prop him up. The downside was that it made room for Bill’s own troubles to percolate up. Jericho’s nemesis, ServMark, was murky. Bill’s was better defined: Eddie Matthews.

  “OK then to Dirty Frank’s we go,” Bill said. “The worst that will happen is we’ll watch the circus and hang with Louise.”

  “And the best?”

  “Eddie comes in. We act like it’s a class reunion. You can be the repentant bully. We drink together. You say now that you’re no longer the man and just a regular citizen, you can finally breathe just like regular people.”

  “Would he buy it?”

  “Doesn’t make any difference. You’re only bait anyway.”

  Jericho laughed, but Bill wasn’t kidding. Had he not tossed his religion’s rites, rituals and sacraments—the things that rendered abstract faith into meaningful life—onto the trash heap for Pam Rogers fourteen years ago, he might have discovered the spiritual currency of mere struggle.

  “So tell me about this Dirty Frank’s,” Jericho said.

  “Not much to tell. It’s a joint where the bourgeoisie likes to slum and has a cast of characters straight outta Hieronymus Bosch.”

  “And you let your girl work there?”

  “Nobody lets Louise do anything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Eddie popped three ibuprofen to ease the cramping in his jaw and studied his image in the bathroom mirror. He faced sideways and aimed his eyeballs as far to one side as he could in order to get a glimpse of his profile. The best he could do was a one-quarter view of his head. The barmaid’s attention had reawakened his confidence following the trimming he took from Luca’s soldiers. He could still barely speak with the wired jaw, but concluded fancy words, or for that matter any words, were not what he was about. What Eddie Matthews was about was pure, raw manhood and danger. It must be what she saw in him.

  He dressed nice, khakis and a white shirt that showed off the blue ink of his tats, left open enough that chest hair insinuated itself from the top. On his way to the bar he got flowers from the 7-Eleven, two bouquets for ten bucks. He showed up at the bar when it was crowded. He wanted everybody to witness his gesture. His plan was that as soon as he got her up to his place, he would slide her hand onto his lap and tell the story behind each of the teardrops tattooed under his left eye, after which she would be moist and beg him for it. Maybe he’d make her wait, maybe not. One thing he was sure of, she’d like it rough.

  He walked into Dirty Frank’s a little after ten. The place was raucous with a Friday crowd. He elbowed his way to the bar just as Louise was walking away from that end. He didn’t even notice her limp anymore, but did notice her luscious ass, snugly defined by black slacks that suggested the cleft and triangle of light that penetrated her thigh gap. Jesus, she was hot.

  “Hey doll!” he yelled just above the crowd noise.

  As she turned toward him he raised the flowers and aped the best smile unparted lips could conjure. Louise mouthed, “Me?” He nodded. She came down to his end of the bar, pulled his shirt forward and planted a kiss on his cheek. “How sweet!” she said. “Let me buy you a drink. What’ll you have?”

  “Gin and tonic,” he said, though it wasn’t even St. Patrick’s Day yet, and he would have preferred a Schmidt’s and shot of Old Crow.

  Later, when she had worked her way back down to his end of the bar, she said, “Hey Eddie, I got good news. That guy you wanted to see? Bill says he’ll bring him in. I guess they want to see you too. Like old home week, huh?”

  Eddie bobbed approval and tried to flash a smile, but feared it came across like a grimace. “That’s good,” he said through clenched teeth. “Yeah, old home week.”

  It was another win, more proof that she dug him. Too bad he couldn’t get the adulation mileage like he got from the guys on his block at Graterford after he dispatched that flake Mikey Osborne.

  As he reveled over his prospects, he felt a tap on the shoulder. He swiveled around to see Thunder Woman standing there with a cute, brunette friend. Time was, Eddie would have cultivated Thunder Woman, for her friend if not for her, but not tonight. Tonight he had to get to the club and see Luca, tell him the trap was set so Luca wouldn’t break any more of his bones. After he cleared up that detail, he had a date with his latest acquisition from Philly Video, “Fire Down Below,” co-starring sweet albeit imaginary images of Louise…Louise…Lou…Jesus, he didn’t even know her last name.

  A sliver of light knifed through the painted transom of the Spaciad Club at Seventh and Catherine in South Philadelphia. Eddie pressed his ear against the window of the former corner grocery now painted black, the only evidence of its current incarnation was a beige poster with a black cut-out profile of a man with a huge pompadour holding a finger to pursed lips. Spaciad meant, “not talking,” a warning that if not heeded would result in a banquet of fractures and burns, with a pill in the attic as a digestif. He heard laughter and cursing in Italian. The crew was playing cards.

  He knocked on the steel door and placed his face directly in front of the eyehole, then waited as numerous latches disengaged and the door opened a crack. “Luca,” he said.

  “Luca ain’t here,” a gravelly voice under a brown eyeball said. Eddie wasn’t invited in.

  “Tell him Eddie has good news.”

  “Tell him yourself. Come back when he’s in.”

  “Whe…” The door slammed shut.

  He only had three more days. Luca was apt to send a posse if Eddie didn’t offer Jericho Lewis up. For all he knew, Luca was in Bermuda or someplace, and left standing orders to snatch Eddie off the streets.

  He decided to cruise around Fishtown. The priest was probably at Louise’s house while she worked. Maybe Jericho’s Expedition would be parked nearby. He parked on Girard Avenue where he could see Louise’s house. Lights were on. Her Mustang was parked in front, but no sign of Jericho. Evidently the priest would pick Louise up from work.

  He began to stew. What did she see in the priest anyway? If it wasn’t for being asshole buddies with Jericho Lewis in the joint, Bill Conlon would have become a stain in short order. Maybe he has some kind of hold over Louise. Maybe he manipulates her with some of that priest shit. Eddie remembered suggesting to Luca that they take both Jericho and Conlon. How sweet that would be.

  Instead of going home to pants around his ankles and a date with himself, he decided to go back to the bar. Louise was tending to a few stragglers including Thunder Woman and her friend. As soon as he sat at the bar, Thunder Woman ran up to him.

  “You couldn’t resist, could you?” she said, sliding onto the stool next to him. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Louise’s tight ass as she picked up the telephone ringing behind the bar. When Eddie saw her smiling he figured she was talking to the priest, maybe about what time to pick her up. He twisted a bar napkin into a tight little wad as he watched her on the phone talking and laughing. The bitch. She didn’t know who she was dealing with, but she’d find out soon enough.

  With his eyes still on Louise and not the costumed groupie next to him trying to intertwine her arm though his, he said “I was thirsty.”

  “Why are you talking funny?” Thunder Woman said.

  “I got in a fight with a guy and got busted up,” he
said through lips moving independently of his jaw.

  “But you took care of him, didn’t you Eddie?” she said, grasping his bicep. “I bet you got him good.”

  He looked Thunder Woman up and down. Her sparkly blue bustier rode down, exposing more of her perky tits as she leaned forward. He took in her admiring eyes and allowed himself to smile.

  “Why don’t you lose the friend?” he said.

  “No prob, Eddie.” She strode to the table where she had left her friend and took a seat.

  “Hey Louisey!” Eddie shouted as she hung up the phone. Louise looked annoyed at being summoned in that tone.

  “What’ll it be, Eddie?”

  “A Schmidt’s and a double Old Crow and bring whatever Thunder Woman is having. Oh, and let me have a pencil and paper too.”

  Before pouring the drinks, Louise put a pad and pencil in front of him. He tore off a sheet and wrote down his address and tucked it away.

  Thunder Woman returned and gave him a wink. “All clear,” she said. They had two more rounds when Eddie leaned over to her and said, “Look, I want us to meet at my place, but I don’t want to be seen leaving together. You know how it is.”

  “I do know how it is, Eddie, what’s the plan?”

  He pulled the note out of his pocket and surreptitiously placed it in her hand. “You leave first. It’s only three blocks away. I’ll be five, ten minutes behind you and meet you in front of my building. I’ll bring refreshments. When we get to my place I’ll explain each of these teardrops tattooed under my eye. Each one is a story you’re gonna love. Go ahead now. Don’t stop to freshen up, you can do that at my place.”

  He watched as she scooped up her Thunder Woman purse and retrieved her cape from a rack near the door. She made no sign to the friend who sat reading a book. As she left the bar she shot a smile to Eddie. He sipped his beer for another ten minutes. “Hey Louisey!” he yelled, “how ’bout a check or you buyin’ tonight?”

  He paid the check and walked into the cold night air. Louise had seemed preoccupied and business-like. What did she see in that priest anyway? He was nothing but a punk-ass bitch and if he didn’t have Jericho Lewis watching over him he’d need more than that stupid homemade rosario, or whatever it was called, like he prayed on when Mikey got whacked. And Louise picked him? It made no sense. Just wait until he got her in bed, she wouldn’t be able to walk for a month.

  Meanwhile, he had Thunder Woman waiting at his apartment. If he couldn’t be with the one he loved, he’d love the one he was with. Imagine if she would tell Louise know how good he was in the sack. Women talked about that stuff, didn’t they? Louise would then have a choice between a real man and a jerk who prayed on a bunch of raisins. Eddie would show them. Luca too. He’d show them all who really had the goods.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Thunder Woman was shivering in the cold in the doorway of Eddie’s building.

  “I thought you forgot about me,” she said.

  “Some Thunder Woman you are,” he said, “feeling cold and all.” He unlocked the door and followed her up to the second floor, unable to take his eyes off her jiggling butt cheeks and imagining the location of the holy grail as she mounted the steps.

  He opened the door to a furnished room.

  “It’s so tidy,” she said. “And clean.”

  He took her cape as she unfastened it. “Everything in its place,” he said. “When you do time, you learn how to live in small spaces.”

  Her eyes were wide and she was grinning. “Where’s the bed?” she asked.

  There was a name for women like her, a fancy word that Eddie heard inmates talk about, but all he could remember was Bonnie and Clyde types, for women who liked bad boys, really bad boys, boys who had robbed, raped, and killed. They were the only kind of guys they could get off with. It worked for Eddie. He was one of those guys.

  He opened a pint of Old Crow, took a gulp from the bottle and offered it to her. She tilted her head back, took a pull and grimaced.

  “What,” he said, “you don’t like bourbon?”

  “Not really Eddie. But that’s okay, I don’t need it.” She dropped on her knees in front of him, undid his zipper, and began to lick his dick like a Tootsie Pop. “Do you like this” she said, looking up at him with almond-shaped brown eyes.

  “My, my, my,” he said, “keep it up.”

  After she fluffed him, he took her by the shoulders, lifted her off her knees and pulled down her bustier. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her watch him as he leaned over and began sucking her jaunty little breasts through pursed lips.

  “That feels so good,” she said. She took him by the hand, led him to the sofa and sat him down while she turned around and without removing her four-inch heels, stepped out of her bustier and red shorts.

  “I have a nice surprise for you,” she said.

  She peeled out of her tights revealing narrow hips and a luscious ass. Eddie’s anticipation was charged as he waited to feast on a vulva dripping with desire. Instead, she turned around laughing and sang out, “Ta-da!” and pointed to an uncircumcised penis, thick as a bratwurst, dangling over a constricted scrotum.

  Eddie blinked at the sight. It suddenly took him back to West Penn where he had been raped over a folding table in the laundry room. The pain was enormous, but the shame was worse. It kept up for weeks until he finally pushed the handle of a plastic fork into his rapist’s eye during a prayer meeting.

  Rage overtook him as he stood and delivered a solid punch to Thunder Woman’s forehead, knocking her back. He ran to a kitchen drawer, pulled out a chef’s knife and ran back as she was shaking off the punch. She struggled. He put a hand around her neck and punched her again and again. She fell back, hit her head on a radiator, and was out cold. Eddie dropped onto her chest with a knee. She flinched as he buried the knife deep between her ribs, confident as she shuddered that it found her heart. Good. One plunge would do. He continued pressing the knife down with both hands. He didn’t want too much blood. Finally, he extracted the ten-inch blade and forced a dish towel into the wound, then waited until Thunder Woman took her final breath.

  He wrapped her body in her cape and sat back and lit a cigarette. What kind of motherfucking freak was this? She was like a half-tranny.

  He thought he saw it all in prison. Trannies had a place in the joint, especially when they dolled up and would go down on you, let alone spread their cheeks for a box of Good & Plenty or a chit from the canteen. But this jerk wasn’t even a good tranny, with the Thunder Woman thing and all. At that, being kinky even for a tranny wasn’t what bothered Eddie. What bothered Eddie was the deception, leading him on then surprising him with a man’s junk. Did she take him for a bottom? He butted out his cigarette, got up and kicked her corpse in the ribs, then stomped on her face and kicked her in the ribs again. Emptying out her Thunder Woman purse earned him thirty-eight dollars. He yanked out his penis, primed it until engorged, and moving the cape aside, jerked-off into Thunder Woman’s dead stare.

  By now it was 3:30 a.m. No one would be around. He had enough time before daybreak to roll her up in a blanket, get her into his car and dump her into the Schuylkill River off the South Street Bridge. He tossed the purse into a litter basket a few blocks away.

  He slept until 4:00 p.m. He went by Spaciad again. Luca wasn’t in. Nobody knew when to expect him.

  He went to Dirty Frank’s. Louise wasn’t there so he threw darts and sat reading the Daily News at a table near the men’s room. According to the paper, the ACLU had filed an amicus brief in the prison food litigation. Eddie was pleased, the more publicity, the better.

  He struck up conversations with whoever would talk and killed time until Louise’s shift. He was nonchalant for having only the previous night thrust a knife deep into Thunder Woman’s chest and dumping her body. It was too soon after her disappearance for anybody to be curious about her, so why not?

  When Louise came in she had good news.

  “You’ll never gu
ess who’s picking me up tonight after work. Yep, Bill and his friend Jericho. They’ll be in before closing. I told them you’ve been wanting to hook up with them. They said to tell you to expect them tonight.”

  “Oh, good,” he said.

  He went to the pay phone and called Spaciad. Speaking into a cupped hand he said, “No bullshit, don’t hang up. Get it to Luca that our package will be available at Dirty Frank’s for pick-up tonight. Be here by midnight.”

  Back at the bar, Louise was counting the cash in her drawer. It was only 8:00 p.m. Eddie swiveled around and saw Thunder Woman’s friend. He caught her eye and wiggled his fingers at her. “Where’s your friend?” he asked.

  “I dunno. I thought she was with you.” she said.

  “What made you think that?”

  “Didn’t she leave with you last night?”

  “I didn’t leave with nobody,” Eddie said in a voice louder than needed.

  Oh shit. Had Thunder Woman confided in her after all? Can’t fucking women ever keep secrets from each other? Did Thunder Woman tell her friend she was going to his place?

  “She left before I did. I don’t remember how long. I went straight home. Now that we talk about it, I wish she had left with me. She’s quite a cupcake, yo.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Louise asked.

  “Thunder Woman.”

  “Yeah,” Louise addressed the friend. “She left before Eddie did.”

  Eddie’s brain was at full throttle. Who saw them together? What about the apartment? He had cleaned up the few spots of blood and threw…wait! The dishtowel! He had stuffed it into the slice in her chest to sop up blood! What did he do with it? Did he leave it in her? Oh, fuck! And the purse he ditched, did it have his address in it?

  Louise’s lips were moving but his accusing thoughts drowned out her words. Did that damned towel have any markings? It came with the furnished apartment. The landlord might be able to identify it. And the street was busy when he left ten minutes behind her. What about the front of his building where they met up? People were in the street there, too, and she was dressed in her fucking Thunder Woman costume for Christ’s sake!