I Detest All My Sins

by Lanny Larcinese

  Bill had to think. His plan for Louise was a good one. The exchange with Eddie was the choke-point. Luca would expect to find them on the deserted platform closed for repairs. It would be dark. It would also be curtains. Bill thought fast. Keep Louise safe, don’t let Luca kill Eddie, get the docs, to hell with the money.

  He walked right by Luca’s man and re-entered the station at Eighteenth. Eddie and Louise were waiting.

  “What the fuck took you so long?” a nervous Eddie asked.

  “We’re being tailed,” Bill said, “so listen and listen fast. The platform is a trap. Let’s stroll down the concourse. We leave Louise at Seventeenth. Instead of you and me going down to the platform, we stay in the station where all the people are and head back in this direction. On the way, I give you the money, you give me the docs, everybody on his own after that. You willing to take that risk?”

  “I can take care of myself. If you’re fucking with me, I’ll kill you and her both right here in this train station. Don’t think prison time scares me. It don’t.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Both men walked slowly, arm in arm with Louise. Bill looked behind and saw Luca’s man following from fifty feet. Where was the other one, and where was Luca? When they arrived at the platform stairs, Bill looked around again. Luca’s man had also stopped. Eddie scanned passers-by. Bill reached into his jacket pocket. He let his hand slip down Louise’s arm to her wrist, forcefully grabbed it, slipped on a handcuff, and secured it to the brass banister.

  Louise pulled at it. “What are you doing?” she said.

  Eddie didn’t see the maneuver, but as soon as he did, went to pull his gun.

  “Easy, easy,” Bill said, holding up the palm of his hand. “We’re still good,” he said, lifting the duffle bag to eye level. “Don’t be goin’ off. She’s just my part of the deal.”

  Eddie had a panicked look in his eyes. “We’re still good,” Bill reassured him again in a calm voice.

  “Unzip that bag,” Eddie said. “There better be money in it.”

  Bill complied. It was money. “Let me see the docs,” Bill said.

  Eddie took a randomly folded wad of papers from his back pocket, unfolded them and held them up for Bill to see the Lysco Foods blue letterhead. The wad of papers was thick. Bill shuffled through. It all seemed to be there.

  “Let’s do it,” Bill said, looking right at Luca’s man, now twenty-five feet away.

  Eddie and Bill walked through the exit door to the bottom of the stairway to sidewalk level and made the exchange. Eddie took off, running up the stairs to the street and disappeared.

  Bill went back into the station to Louise. Luca’s man looked flummoxed.

  “What have you done with Eddie?” Louise said.

  “He got his money,” Bill said, not yet uncuffing her. He was waiting for a reaction, but there was none—only a glassy-eyed look of resignation.

  As he watched her, Luca and both of his men suddenly appeared.

  “What the fuck you up to?” Luca hissed.

  “Isn’t this what you want?” Bill asked, holding up the documents.

  Luca took them and leafed through. His taut expression melted into one of relaxed satisfaction. “More or less,” he said, “but I also want my money.”

  “If you want it back you’ll have to get it from Eddie.”

  By now, the station was busy as Times Square. Louise was still handcuffed to the railing. Luca had little choice but to leave. There wasn’t much future in leaning on Bill to make up the money. Defrocked clergy didn’t have much.

  Bill looked into her eyes; it was hard to tell if anybody was home. She stood in front of him, shoulders sagged, one arm dangling at her side, the other, handcuffed to the rail, hanging as limp as the cuff would allow.

  Without thinking, his own needs were suddenly trumped by the tender and loving compassion that took him into seminary. Every muscle in his face and body relaxed. He wanted to say something but thought it best not to. He felt the corners of his lips prepare to smile, but he constrained it. Looking at Louise’s vacant stare ignited a spark that burst into flame over this desperate, helpless, and wounded creature.

  He knew what it was like to navigate life-threatening danger, call upon every brainwave, struggle over every strategy and obsession just to survive, survive to live one more day, one more hour, until the next hour and the next day, never knowing if it would be his last hour or last day on earth.

  He slowly slid the sleeve of the jacket above her wrist, removed the cuff and gently massaged where it had reddened her skin. He let his arms fall to his sides and made no attempt to hold her or constrain her. He said nothing as she looked into his eyes as if awaiting further direction. He smiled faintly and gave a slight nod toward the exit.

  As they walked side by side he did not take her hand or arm, or put his hand on her shoulder or in the small of her back. He wasn’t sure if she would run or not, but kept a yard’s distance between them as they exited the station. At the cab stand he slid into the back seat and let her follow. He said nothing during the short cab ride back to her home on Day Street.

  He unlocked the door and motioned for her to enter first. It wasn’t until they were inside that he made his second contact with her body, by gently touching her elbow with his fingertips and nodding toward the stairs to her bedroom. She looked upward and tentatively began to climb the steep staircase, as if she had never been there, as if fearful it might end in an ominous place. He followed.

  At the entrance to her bedroom he ever so lightly touched her elbow again. She looked at him as his eyes directed her toward her closet. At the closet, he stepped in front of her and with both hands, swung open its doors. She hesitated, then stepped into it.

  Inside hung freshly pressed slacks and jeans, skirts and blouses, three cocktail dresses and two gowns, all freshly cleaned. Her sweaters in a variety of colors were folded and blocked on shelves above the hangers. Her earrings were pinned against a side wall in a display of gold and silver and array of colored stones. Bracelets and bangles dangled from different colored push-pins. On the floor was a platoon of shoes and boots, newly heeled, soled and polished, standing proudly at attention.

  She reached out her hand to touch each garment, letting the tips of her fingers slide down the fabric, lifting the sleeves, moving hangers to expose each to a little more light. Bill remained silent. He watched as the faintest of smiles strained to shatter her sad expression.

  Tears began to roll down her cheeks. He made no effort to calm her or comfort her as the rivulet of tears became cries of anguish. She sank to the floor, onto her knees, then onto her side and curled up and began to sob and tremble. He stood by as her sobbing got louder and more desperate. He wanted to take her in his arms, comfort her, tell her it was over, but it wasn’t over. It might never be over.

  The thought that her once loving heart had been riven caused tears to well in him, too, and as the image of her future came into higher relief his sniffles became cries and he sank down, sitting on the floor next to her and crying out, “Please Lord…please Lord…please Lord…” But please Lord what?

  He buried his face in the crook of his arm, not wanting her to see his pain, wanting instead to be strong for her, be her armor against life. She would need it, yet so hard to do.

  It changed the instant he felt her arm slide around his shoulder.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Sam Lanza pushed the play button on the cassette recorder. The recording was muffled with static. “Where did you have it?” he asked Willie.

  “Here,” Willie said, patting his chest.

  “What were you wearing for underwear, potato chip bags?”

  “No,” Willie said. “But listen, you’ll hear voices.”

  The sound of a radio came through. Sam heard “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” by Def Leppard.

  “All I hear is music, if that’s what you call it,” he said.

  “Keep listening,” Willie said. “It’s after the
next song.”

  Sam sat impatiently and frowned through the steady beat of “Devil Inside,” which followed a barely audible introduction by disc jockey Pierre Robert. Then he heard it.

  A faint voice, Luca Cunnio’s, was saying something indecipherable. Sam looked at the recorder, turned the volume to max, and pressed it against his ear. But the background music—this time George Michael’s “Faith”—also came in louder. For sure it was Luca’s voice, but Sam still couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  “Why did you have the music so fucking loud?” he asked Willie.

  “Luca wants it that way. I guess he figures bugs are all over the place. I thought his voice would still come through.”

  “Well, what was he saying?”

  “That Mr. Bigelow would be giving me something to bring to him at the social club in South Philly.”

  “Did he? Bigelow, I mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And…? C’mon Willie, talk to me.”

  “I took it to Spaciad.”

  “What was it?”

  “I didn’t look. People trust me not to look.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “A duffle bag, khaki colored, with a lock on the zipper.”

  “Was it heavy?”

  “Fifteen, maybe twenty pounds.”

  “What else did Luca say?”

  “He said money talks, bullshit walks. Then he held his finger up to his lips, you know, like that sign in the window of Spaciad.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “Who knows? But when Luca Cunnio wants quiet, you shut up.”

  Sam was feeling cop blueballs—getting closer and closer but couldn’t get the head in.

  “Willie, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to let me know the next time you’re scheduled to take Bigelow somewhere.”

  “The only scheduled rides are to and from the office or the airport. Otherwise I’m on call.”

  “I mean the next ride where you’ll connect with him on Cuthbert Street.”

  “That’s easy. Today at 7:00 p.m.”

  “Is he punctual?”

  “Like an atomic clock.”

  Deputy Assistant Ralph Imhoff of the General Counsel’s Office in Harrisburg had warned Sam away from contacting Bigelow. But hell, if tailing Willie during a homicide investigation accidently resulted in bumping into Bigelow, well, shit, how was Sam to know?

  “I’ll be around the corner by 6:30,” Sam said. “When I bump into you and Bigelow, act surprised.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  For all the reasons ex-felons couldn’t get passports, doing time for killing somebody wasn’t one of them. Eddie’s plan to wind up in Central America would have taken a circuitous route via places in Europe in order to shake any tails, cops, ServMark private dicks, or Luca knee-cappers. But that plan got complicated. Airlines and travel agents wanted deposits. He’d take care of it after he got his money.

  Eddie had never bought into the saying about honor among thieves. Honor was the last thing crooks thought of. Their minds never went there, except maybe honoring their mothers. Assuming their mothers weren’t crack addicts or whores. The upper hand, not working too hard, risking consequences, outfoxing the law, robbing when possible and killing if necessary—all for gain—was the stuff of the criminal mind. So he was only half-shocked when he opened the duffle bag and beneath a few hundred dollar bills were a thousand dollars in singles, and under those packets, cut-up magazines.

  This was Luca’s work.

  Eddie still had color copies of the real bids, and could send them to the newspapers, but that would be firing his last shot and kissing a bundle of money goodbye, unless he could sell the story to the papers. He went to his file of newspaper articles for a name covering the prisoner lawsuit against the Department of Corrections and dug out Erik Arneson, whose reporting was the most informative. Eddie called and asked for the reporter.

  Arneson answered.

  “My name is Eddie.”

  “And?”

  “You know that lawsuit between the food company and prison system you been writin’ about, well, I have some information about it.”

  “What kind of information? What’s your last name and a number I can reach you?”

  “Can’t tell ya that. We have to meet. Can we meet at your paper?”

  They set an appointment, but Eddie had no intention of giving him anything, at least not now. All he wanted was Arneson’s business card, something to show to Luca.

  The appointment at the Daily News lasted twenty minutes. Arneson tried to pry information out of him, but Eddie had been lying all his life. The reporter was a cupcake.

  He had the documents copied again, and along with the business card, mailed them with a note to Luca at Spaciad: Yor gong down funy man. Wach the papers for more news. I call you sat at nine.

  Using the priest as middle-man was one thing—Eddie held the cards then. Luca was different. Eddie couldn’t forget the busted jaw and trimming he took at the marble place on Washington Avenue, and Angie obviously became dispensable. Angie must have found something out he shouldn’t have—just like Eddie had.

  This connection with Luca was Eddie’s last chance. If those guys didn’t want to pay up, Eddie might just forget the whole thing. Once he squawked to the papers, then what? What would he get out of that besides dead?

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  “Talk to me Jericho,” Lanza said. “You were part of the DOC system. You must know something you’re not saying.”

  “I’ll talk some, but you can’t use it to squeeze Bill Conlon, for the simple reason that he is innocent.”

  “Oh, yeah? Innocent of what?”

  “Of whatever the hell you intend to pin on him.”

  “Okay, I give you my word—but only based on what I know now.”

  Jericho confirmed that the Philly mob had something to do with the scandal, but would say no more than that. He put Sam onto Dupree Williams, General Counsel to the Pennsylvania Convict Association. He said that Dupree and his staff were ahead of the curve. They had been investigating the issue long before they instituted suit, and at this point would know more than the police agencies. How much Dupree would be willing to share was an open question.

  “What does your pal Conlon have to do with Luca Cunnio? I saw them together,” Sam said.

  “I don’t know from Luca. Bill’s girlfriend was his only interest.”

  “I know. She came up missing.”

  “Eddie had her hostage.”

  “Had…?”

  “She’s back home. It went down a few days ago. Look, Sam, Eddie Matthews is who you want, not Bill Conlon. You still working homicide? I thought organized crime was the task force’s turf.”

  “I still have to see Conlon about the girlfriend. I can’t tell Missing Persons to just close their file.”

  “Who you kidding? All you have to tell them is that the girl went to see a relative and forgot to leave a note or something.”

  “All right. You’re right. But I want one last shot at him before I cut him loose.”

  “Now that he’s got her back, he’ll tell you whatever he knows. But then lay off, you gave me your word.”

  “That I did, big guy, that I did.”

  Dupree Williams was the switch Lanza needed to shed light on the food case. Dupree’s outfit could do the gumshoe work while Lanza avoided the highly charged racial political wires. The city’s formidable black power structure would insulate Dupree and the PCA from whatever unpleasantness it exposed. Lanza would find a way to garner credit for himself after they got results.

  Williams and his staff occupied a suite of seven rooms upstairs from Freedom Bail Bonds and We Buy Gold! Pawn Shop. Lanza wheezed as he ascended a steep staircase covered with faded carpeting threadbare enough to spawn a bevy of torts. It stretched from the first floor directly to the third. Lanza’s detective mind wondered if it bypassed a room or rooms where illegal activity took place, like gambl
ing or prostitution, but as long as it didn’t involve a homicide, he’d let somebody else worry about it.

  Though Lanza would ordinarily consider Dupree the enemy—indeed he was responsible for some of Dupree’s constituency—it was also known for helping both jailed as well as former convicts, and no way could Lanza say they lived high on the hog. Dupree himself resided on Master at Eighteenth in dicey North Philly.

  “Our offices are modest because our clientele is poor,” Dupree told Lanza. “Sure, I’m a lawyer and could score better digs, but the idea is to help men and women in dire need.”

  The detective knew that Dupree’s father had done time for murder, but the old man must have inspired Dupree. Jericho vouched for him too, said Dupree was honest as George Washington but battled like George Patton.

  “Jericho asked me to be helpful,” Dupree said, “but I can only reveal so much.”

  “Then let me offer you something,” Lanza said, hoping Dupree would reciprocate. “Luca Cunnio is involved in your prison food case. Him and ServMark bribed people in Harrisburg. I need for you to find somebody. It will help your case, too.”

  “You have solid instincts, Detective,” Dupree said. “I’ll help as long as it’s consistent with our case.

  “I’m only Homicide,” Sam said, “but if someone in your position closely examined the bidding documentation, I wouldn’t be surprised if some important discovery came to light.”

  “I might pursue that. What else can you tell us?”

  Lanza told him about Willie’s package delivery trips to Harrisburg. He told him about Ginger, too, then said, “I need for you to find out who this Ginger is, who she works for. It’s somebody in state government for sure. Might even be the DOC.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Dupree said. “ServMark, Department of Corrections, food problems, packages that change hands, hell, this ain’t my first rodeo. This state is the wild west and makes Deadwood look like a Tibetan village. So, how can I return the favor?”

  “I need to find an ex-con. I believe he killed a couple of people. His name is Eddie Matthews who goes by the handle Deadly Eddie. He did time at West Penn, Graterford too, and other out-of-state spas.”