Crime Wave

by Adam Carpenter

  “I know, but…I can’t just leave until he comes out. I have to know.”

  “You don’t know when that might be, and you also don’t know what’s going on. It could be as innocent…never mind, even I can’t pull that bullshit off. Look, he could be settled in for the night. You gonna leave Ma short on the final weekend of the show? It’s sold out.”

  Meaghan’s pretty face looked deflated. “I need to know who she is.”

  Jimmy raised an eyebrow. “You sure it’s a she?”

  “Eww, Jimmy.”

  “You ever hear of Rocky the Musical.”

  “Funny guy. Trust me, Rocky’s not gay.”

  “Not the kind of assurance I need from my little sister.”

  “Besides, just because you’re gay, doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

  He held up his hands in defense. “I don’t make the rules; I just play by them. Sometimes. I’m just saying, prison changes a man. Or confirms what’s laid dormant. He is a good-looking guy, I’ll give him that. Not much else, but that.”

  Any chance of a reply from Meaghan was interrupted by the vibration of Jimmy’s phone.

  “It’s Ma.”

  Even though he’d already told her she was late for work, Meaghan panicked. “Shit, don’t tell her what we’re doing. I’m not here with you.”

  “I can do discreet. But you need to get your ass to the theatre—now. The one train is four blocks away at One Hundred and Third.”

  “Right, I’m on it. Promise you’ll stay here until Rocky comes out.”

  He thought it was a funny phrase considering what they’d just been talking about.

  The phone buzzed a third time, and he grabbed for it just as his frazzled red-headed sister made a mad dash down the sunny street. She was young, she was in shape, and if she got lucky with the subway she just might make it to 50th Street with a minute to spare. It was the closest station to the Calloway; unfortunately, it was also a local stop so hopping an express at some point wouldn’t help.

  “Hi, Ma.”

  “Where’s your sister?”

  “She’s on her way.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If you didn’t think I’d know, why did you call me?”

  He was met with stony silence on the other end before she said, “No flies on you, Jimmy. Just because she’s my daughter doesn’t give her a free pass on being late for work. If she’s not here by seven-fifteen, she goes home and Kevin works short.”

  Short meant working a double-aisle. You got paid double, too.

  “Ma, she’ll be there.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Too far away if you’re calling to ask me to fill in for her, or anyone else.”

  “I did need someone earlier, but I filled it.”

  Sometimes Maggie would call Jimmy at the last minute to work an aisle, and even though it was one of his least favorite jobs, worse than a stakeout on a steaming day, he would never tell her “no.” Jimmy McSwain was raised to not only respect his mother, but sometimes to fear her Irish temper. She got it from her own mother, a fiery broad who could inflict a wound with just a withering glance.

  “Ma, I’m on a job,” he said.

  “Something interesting?”

  If she only knew. “Boring stakeout. Been sitting here so long, I’ve got grill marks.”

  He heard her laugh and then her good-bye. Jimmy hung up and resumed his watch, hoping for some action at the front door. It was a standard New York brownstone, a stoop of eight steps with metal guardrails that led up to the double set of doors. Jimmy considered getting out of his car, if only to stretch, but more so to see if he could catch a name from the buzzers by the door. Grabbing for his phone, he stepped out of the car and felt his damp T-shirt cling to his back. Once free, he felt better, released. A slight breeze was finally coming off the Hudson and down the narrow street, providing Jimmy with a brief respite from the stifling heat. Thankfully, the parking spot he’d found was beneath a tree, so at least he’d been in the shade all this time. Now, though, he stepped into the direct sunlight as he strode toward the stoop. He looked around as several people walked by, none of them paying him any mind and none headed toward the same building. New York was good for that, people minding their own business.

  He took hold of the rail, walked up the steps to a set of two wrought-iron covered doors, each of them adorned with a brass knob. He tried them, knowing they’d be locked, and he was right. Not that he planned on going in, good to just check the security features. Looking to his right, he saw a series of buzzers, each accompanied by a strip of paper with names printed on them. There were twelve apartments in all. His eyes immediately went to the uppermost buzzers. Crouse, Wolciezcweiz, Ahkbar, Benson-Rather, wondering if the last listing was a hyphenated single person or a dual-named married couple. Thinking he’d never remember all of them, he pulled out his iPhone and snapped a quick picture. Which of these names, he wondered, and which apartment had captured Rocky’s interest?

  Jimmy retreated back to his car, leaning against the hood. He occupied himself with his phone if for nothing else than to look distracted. He kept a sidelong glance at the building, and it was another twenty minutes before there came any activity. The door opened, and stepping out onto the stoop were two people, Jimmy easily recognizing Rocky, his dark hair cut short against his skull, prison-like, his large frame thick from workouts. He was holding hands with the other person, but Jimmy couldn’t get a good look. Partly blocked by Rocky’s big body, and partly by tree branches, he tried to peer without being obvious. Thankfully, Rocky moved sideways, his head bending down to plant a kiss on the person’s lips. And not the kind of kiss you gave a friend. It was soulful and lingering, the afterglow following a particularly passionate afternoon of love-making.

  When Rocky pulled away, Jimmy finally saw who he was with. He had to give his sister credit, she’d pegged Rocky as a cheating louse and here he was doing just that, plain as the day was long. But Jimmy took the ultimate prize. Because Rocky was in the tight embrace of another man, more slight than he with curly dark hair and chocolate-colored skin. When they parted, the smiles they exchanged could only be translated as one thing: Rocky Martino was in love. And if so, then what was this entire pretense with Meaghan? She said they’d been sleeping together, so did that make Rocky bisexual? Under whose covers did his true self live, a man’s or a woman’s?

  Jimmy had never trusted Rocky, not before prison, now not after.

  Now Rocky had gone one step further by messing with his sister. Tempted to confront him now, he held his anger in check. Thinking the two lovers were about to part ways, he instead saw them clasp hands and begin to walk down the quiet street and go past an empty lot, each of them with noticeable bounces in their step. When the lust was fulfilled and you still acted that way, it had to be love. Rocky was thirty-one, two years older than Jimmy. His partner looked a bit older, maybe thirty-five.

  They turned onto the busier stretch of West End Avenue and entered a bar on the corner called the Tomorrow Lounge. They had to go down a few steps to go in, a black awning there to shield them. Jimmy knew a lot of the gay bars in the city and this one wasn’t one of them. Still, Jimmy silently thanked them. It would be nice to get out of the sun. Because he wanted to talk to Rocky, and what better way than to do it over an ice-cold beer.

  He followed his prey, and soon, he was entering the dimly lit space.

  Rocky Martino’s night was about to turn bad.

  § § §

  The joint was small and smelled of stale beer, with a long wood bar taking up space on the left, a bunch of stools in front of it that looked out a long window onto the side street. Most stools were occupied, none of them by Rocky or his friend.

  “What can I get you?” said a bartender with unruly dreadlocks and a soul patch.

  Jimmy sidled up before an available stool, enjoying the cool air conditioning against his skin but not the harsh looks of the local barflies. The only welcome he felt was the
shiver down his spine. Ignoring the regulars, he eyed the barkeep carefully before saying, “Information?”

  “Gee, just tapped out.”

  “How about a Bud? Bottle.”

  “That I’ve got,” he said, turning around to pull a bottle out of a sink filled with ice.

  Jimmy slapped down a twenty and got back fourteen singles. He couldn’t argue with the price. For now, though, he left the change. The bartender looked down at it as well while Jimmy took a long pull on his beer. He’d tried the discreet approach, now it was time to be more direct.

  “Two guys just walked in,” he said.

  “Just one. You,” the bartender said with a smirk. Thick, corded arms with lots of ink were crossed over a muscled chest.

  Jimmy noticed nervous eyes darting sideways toward a closed wooden door. A guy you’d want to play poker with.

  Jimmy set his beer down, empty. He pulled out another twenty, ordered another beer.

  “You got change right there on the bar.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Don’t see anything,” he said, holding out the twenty.

  The guy hesitated but then took it without further protest. Jimmy moved toward the door that separated the bar from whatever went on behind it, hesitated.

  “What’s that room used for?”

  “Performances. Amateur nights. Cabaret, stand-up comedy, you name it. It’s pretty well sound proofed, so it doesn’t really bother the guys in this room. That’s the lounge part.”

  “So this room is the tomorrow part?”

  “These guys, they’re content to live through this day. Never know when it all ends.”

  Prophetic words because before Jimmy could get his hands on the door handle, a muffled bang erupted from the other side. Clearly not a sound any of the regulars were used to hearing, since most jumped out of their seats. A couple ducked for cover. No prop comic was inside.

  “But not one hundred percent soundproof,” he said.

  “What the fuck...” asked the bartender. “Was that…”

  “A gun shot, yeah. Everybody stay down,” Jimmy said, hoping to calm the barflies.

  Jimmy wasted no time, and he grabbed the knob, swinging open the door.

  He smelled the fresh scent from a spent gun, but even worse he could see a body lying on the floor in an ever-widening pool of blood. A wound in the center of his chest said it all. The victim wasn’t Rocky. That much Jimmy could tell, as the victim was too slight of build and the wrong color skin. It was the guy he’d seen just moments ago on the stoop and leaning upwards for a passionate kiss, and from the way his empty eyes stared up at the ceiling, he could also tell it would be his last kiss.

  Rocky was hovering over him, a gun in his hand, head bowed down.

  “Jesus, Rocky, what the hell have you done?”

  Looking up, Rocky’s eyes were wet with tears that suddenly ran down his cheeks like a river. He didn’t seem to realize someone had spoken to him, and he certainly didn’t recognize Jimmy. Perhaps he was in shock, or denial over what had happened…over what he had done. The gun dangled in his hand, as though it were about to drop to the floor. Jimmy moved quickly but it was too late, the gun clattered to the dusty wood floor, and he braced himself for a possible blast. It lay silent, though, unmoving, not unlike its victim.

  Ignoring Rocky, Jimmy leaned over the body, checking for a pulse and failing to get one. When he looked up he saw the bartender standing in the open door frame, and from outside he could hear sirens already, ambulance and cops on their way. That’s when Jimmy gazed back and noticed a separate street entrance to the cabaret room, and on the glass, he saw a runny smear of blood from a partial handprint. How had that gotten there?

  “Jimmy McSwain, is that you? What the fuck man…?”

  Jimmy nodded. “Hey, Rocky, you all right?

  He just continued to stare at the body, unable or unwilling to wipe away the tears.

  “Rocky, what happened?”

  “I didn’t do it,” he said, eyes glancing over to the secondary entrance. “I didn’t do it.”

  His eyes held fear, and they held regret. What Jimmy didn’t see was guilt.

  With the cops fast on their way, Jimmy had to guess he’d just gained a new client.

  He probably couldn’t pay either.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He might have been better off accepting the shift at the theatre than following Rocky into the bar. He would have been home no later than eleven o’clock, he’d have avoided involvement with the police, and he wouldn’t be coming home with blood stains on his clothes. Except he hadn’t, and now he did, and it was after two a.m. that had Jimmy finally taking the stairs one at a time to his office, where he decided he would sleep for the night. He didn’t want to disturb his mother, nor worry her with the sight of blood.

  Not that that was his only problem.

  Rocky Martino was one of them. He had a feeling his case was going to get complicated real fast.

  Jimmy unlocked the front door to his second floor office—located just upstairs from his uncle’s pub—and entered without turning on the lights. He turned the lock again, closing himself off from the world and grateful to be able to do so. On any other night, he might have stopped at the bar owned by his Uncle Paddy, but the joyous sound of two a.m. drunken revelers was the last thing he needed bothering him. Tonight, he’d stared at the face of death, and possibly that of a murderer. He wouldn’t be good company for happy people.

  The one-room apartment was hot, the windows having been closed off all day. He tossed off his bloodied T-shirt, stripped down to his boxers, and then padded over to the small fridge he kept well stocked with beer. He turned the cap on a bottle of Yuengling and let the cold brew refresh his body if not his soul. Dropping to the sofa, he stared into the darkness, his eyes fixing on a streak of light from outside that hit the floorboards. He thought it was life offering up a sign of hope.

  Taking a second pull and oblivious to the beads of sweat that began to drip down his face and chest, he went over, again, the events of the night. The police from the nearby 24th Precinct over at West 100th Street had arrived and immediately sealed off the room, CSU arrived, the medical examiner, etc., all the necessary folk to determine whether the body on the floor was dead. A glassy, empty stare while lying in a pool of blood just wasn’t conclusive enough. As the professionals steadily arrived, both Jimmy and Rocky were escorted outside by two detectives named Rand and Rodriguez, and gave preliminary statements, Rocky adding, almost numbingly, that he was not the guilty party. His claim of innocence didn’t seem all that convincing, as he was taken away in handcuffs and booked. With a prior record and just out on parole, Rocky Martino wasn’t going to see the light of day anytime soon.

  Jimmy had been right in guessing he had a new client. Because as he was being stuffed into the back of the police cruiser, Rocky had pleaded, “Jimmy, no matter what else I did in life, I’m not a killer. Please, prove I didn’t do nothing.” The detectives had laughed at that and then, before speeding off to the precinct, Rand, the more seasoned of the two, had told Jimmy to mind his own business. Showing them his private investigator’s license when they’d originally asked him for identification hadn’t gone over so well. Night had fallen by the time the crime scene was secured. The Tomorrow Lounge was forced to shut down for the night, and Jimmy was the lone person left standing on the sidewalk, staring at the closed-for-the-night bar and replaying in his mind the sound of the gunshot, the amount of time it had taken him to get through that second door, and whether the blood stain on the door was Rocky’s or the real killer?

  He’d have to wait for forensic results and see how that affected Rocky’s situation.

  He’d have to use connections within the NYPD to get anything out of Rand.

  For now, he knew there was nothing for him to do.

  But at this late hour—or was it considered early morning?—the one thing that continued to evade him was sleep. His eyes danced with adrenaline, his mind raced, think
ing about how an innocent stakeout of his sister’s boyfriend had led him into the bloody waters of murder. Setting the bottle down on the floor, he suddenly thought of Meaghan. He had to tell her what happened before she saw it on the news, which, knowing her, would come courtesy of some app on her phone. She was a modern girl, scorning newspapers and television newscasts. She’d called him a few times earlier, but he’d been unable to pick up, and now he wondered if she might still be awake, or even out, drowning her sorrows over her boyfriend’s cheating ways.

  Murdering ways…

  Jimmy shook his head in an attempt to clear it of the image he’d seen inside the cabaret room.

  Grabbing for his phone, he opened his text messages and found the last one he’d received from Meaghan, and then he began to type. YOU AWAKE? SORRY I COULDN’T TALK. GOT NEWS. Then he set the phone down on the table and reached for his beer, not realizing it was empty. He considered getting a second and then changed his mind, only to change his mind yet again. This fresh beer he sipped at, all while he stared out the window on Ninth Avenue between 44th and 45th Street. The sidewalks were still crowded at this hour, bar hoppers still hopping, while others hailed cabs in an effort to get home safe. Good idea, Jimmy thought, considering the murder he’d nearly witnessed tonight, not to mention the string of deli robberies plaguing the city that had intrigued him.

  Just then his phone buzzed with a return text.

  BUSY NOW. REVENGE IS HOT.

  Jimmy shook his head at his sister’s suggestive reply. She was nothing if not resilient, and impulsive. Rocky had not meant anything to her beyond a fun time, there was certainly no future between them. So if hooking up with a new guy was Meaghan’s way of cleansing him from her heart, so be it. Jimmy was the last to pass judgment on other people’s love lives. At least she had one.

  The last guy he’d dated had come and gone quickly, a British editor named Barry who had been in New York on a three-month work exchange. The two of them had met at Gaslight, Jimmy’s local gay hangout, during an inconvenient time, right near the anniversary of Jimmy’s father’s death, and he supposed he’d been acting out, on the hunt for someone who would allow him to bury the annual pain he felt. Once the anniversary had passed, so too had his involvement with Barry; he had no idea if Barry had extended his stay in the city or if he’d jetted home to London. Sometimes relationships ran their course so fast, they had no sustainable chance. Other bonds had trouble getting off the ground, and as Jimmy tried to process that thought an image of Captain Francis X. Frisano flashed in his mind.