“You don’t understand. These people can be dangerous.”
Jessica glared at Kilbane. “Um, that’s pretty much the point, Eugene.”
Kilbane looked from Jessica to Nicci to Nick Palladino to Eric Chavez. Sweat gathered on his upper lip. He wasn’t getting out of this.
“Shit,” he said. “Let’s just go.”
45
KEVIN BYRNE UNDERSTOOD the rush of crime. He knew well the adrenaline surge of larcenous or violent or antisocial behavior. He had arrested many a suspect still in the flush of the moment and knew that, in the grip of that rarefied feeling, criminals seldom considered what they had done, its consequence to the victim, its consequence to themselves. There was, instead, a bitter glow of accomplishment, a feeling that society had prohibited this behavior and they had done it anyway.
As Byrne prepared to leave his apartment—the ember of this feeling igniting inside him, against his better instincts—he had no idea how this evening would conclude, whether he would end up with Victoria safe in his arms, or with Julian Matisse at the end of his pistol sight.
Or, he was afraid to admit, neither.
Byrne pulled a pair of workman’s overalls from his closet, a grimy jumpsuit belonging to the Philadelphia Water Department. His uncle Frank had recently retired from the PWD, and Byrne had gotten the overalls from him once when he needed to go undercover a few years earlier. Nobody looks at the guy working on the street. City workers, like street vendors, panhandlers, and the elderly, are part of the urban curtain. Human scenery. Tonight Byrne needed to be invisible.
He looked at the figurine of Snow White on his dresser. He had handled it carefully when he removed it from the hood of his car, placing it in an evidence bag as soon as he slipped back behind the wheel. He didn’t know if it ever would be needed as evidence, or if Julian Matisse’s fingerprints would be on it.
Nor did he know which side of the legal process he would come down on by the time this long night was over. He put the jumpsuit on, grabbed his toolbox, and left.
HIS CAR WAS bathed in darkness.
A group of teenagers—all about seventeen or eighteen, four boys and two girls—stood half a block away, watching the world go by, waiting for their shot at it. They smoked, shared a blunt, sipped from a pair of brown-paper-clad forties, snapped the dozens on each other, or whatever they called it these days. The boys competed for the girls’ favors; the girls primped and preened, above it all, missing nothing. It was every urban summertime corner. Always had been.
Why was Phil Kessler doing this to Jimmy? Byrne wondered. He had stopped at Darlene Purify’s house that afternoon. Jimmy’s widow was a woman not yet beyond the reach of the tendrils of grief. She and Jimmy had divorced more than a year before Jimmy’s death, but she had not stopped caring. They had shared a life. They shared the lives of three children.
Byrne tried to remember what Jimmy’s face looked like when he was telling one of his stupid jokes, or when he got really serious at four in the morning, back in his drinking days, or when he was interrogating some asshole, or that time when he dried the tears of a little Chinese kid on the playground who had run right out of his shoes getting chased by some bigger kid. Jimmy took that kid over to Payless that day and hooked him up with a new pair of sneaks, out of his own pocket.
Byrne couldn’t remember.
But how could this be?
He remembered every punk he had ever arrested. Every single one.
He remembered the day his father bought him a slice of watermelon from a vendor on Ninth Street. He was about seven years old; the day was hot and humid; the watermelon was ice cold. His old man had on a red-striped shirt and white shorts. His old man told a joke to the vendor—a dirty joke, because he whispered it out of Kevin’s earshot. The vendor laughed high and loud. He had gold teeth.
He remembered every fold in the bottom of his daughter’s tiny feet on the day she was born.
He remembered Donna’s face when he had asked her to marry him, the way she cocked her head at that slight angle, as if skewing the world might give her some sort of insight into his true intentions.
But Kevin Byrne couldn’t remember Jimmy Purify’s face, the face of a man he had loved, a man who had taught him just about everything he knew about the city, the job.
God help him, he couldn’t remember.
He looked up and down the avenue, scanning his three car mirrors. The teenagers had moved on. It was time. He got out, grabbed the toolbox and a clipboard. He felt as if he were swimming in the overalls, due to the weight he had lost. He pulled the ball cap down as low as he could.
If Jimmy were with him, this would be the moment he would flip up his collar, shoot his cuffs, and declare that it was showtime y’all.
Byrne crossed the avenue and stepped into the darkness of the alley.
46
THE MORPHINE WAS a white snowbird beneath him. Together they soared. They visited his grandmother’s row house on Parrish Street. His father’s Buick LeSabre rattled gray-blue exhaust at the curb.
Time toggled on, off. The pain reached for him again. For a moment he was a young man. He could bob, weave, counter. The cancer was a big middleweight, though. Fast. A hook to his stomach flared—red and blazingly hot. He pressed the button. Soon the cool white hand gently caressed his forehead …
He sensed a presence in the room. He looked up. A figure stood at the foot of the bed. Without his glasses—and even they did not help much anymore—he could not recognize the man. He had for a long time imagined what might be the first thing to go, but he had not counted on it being memory. In his job, in his life, memory had been everything. Memory was the thing that haunted you. Memory was the thing that saved you. His long-term memory seemed intact. His mother’s voice. The way his father smelled of tobacco and 3-IN-ONE Oil. These were his senses and now his senses were betraying him.
What had he done?
What was her name?
He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember much of anything now.
The figure drew closer. The white lab coat glowed in a celestial light. Had he passed? No. He felt his limbs, heavy and thick. The pain stabbed at his lower abdomen. The pain meant he was still alive. He pressed the pain button, closed his eyes. The girl’s eyes stared at him out of the darkness.
“How are you, Doctor?” he finally managed.
“I’m fine,” the man replied. “Are you in much pain?”
Are you in much pain?
The voice was familiar. A voice from his past.
The man was no doctor.
He heard a snap, then a hiss. The hiss became a roar in his ears, a terrifying sound. And there was good reason. It was the sound of his own death.
But soon the sound seemed to come from a place in North Philadelphia, a vile and ugly place that had haunted his dreams for more than three years, a terrible place where a young girl had died, a young girl he knew he would soon meet again.
And that thought, more than the thought of his own death, scared Detective Phillip Kessler to the bottom of his soul.
47
THE TRESONNE SUPPER Club was a dark, smoky restaurant on Sansom Street in Center City. It was formerly the Coach House, and in its day—somewhere in the early 1970s—it was considered a destination, one of the tonier steak houses in town, frequented by members of the Sixers and Eagles, along with politicos of varying degree of stature. Jessica recalled when she, her brother, and their father had come here for dinner when she was seven or eight years old. It had seemed like the most elegant place in the world.
Now it had become a third-tier eatery, its clientele an amalgam of shadowy figures from the worlds of adult entertainment and the fringe publishing industry. The deep burgundy drapes, at one time heralding a New York City chophouse ambience, were now mildewed and grimed with a decade of nicotine and grease.
Dante Diamond was a Tresonne regular, usually holding court at the large, semicircular booth at the back of the restaurant. They had run his rap sh
eet and learned that, of his three trips to the Roundhouse in the past twenty years, he had been charged with nothing more than two counts of pandering and a misdemeanor drug possession.
His most recent photograph was ten years old, but Eugene Kilbane was certain he would know him on sight. Besides, in a club like Tresonne, Dante Diamond was royalty.
The restaurant was half full. There was a long bar to the right, booths to the left, a dozen or so tables in the center. The bar was separated from the dining room by a partition made of colored plastic panels and plastic ivy. Jessica noticed that the ivy had a thin layer of dust on it.
As they made their way toward the end of the bar, all heads turned toward Nicci and Jessica. The men scoped Kilbane, sizing him immediately, cataloging his position on the food chain of power and masculine impact. It was immediately clear that in this place, he was perceived as neither a rival nor a threat. His weak chin, destroyed upper lip, and cheap suit pigeonholed him as a loser. It was the two pretty young women with him who gave him, at least temporarily, the cachet he needed to work the room.
There were two stools open at the end of the bar. Nicci and Jessica sat down. Kilbane stood. Within a few moments, the bartender approached.
“Good evening,” the bartender said.
“Yeah. How ya doin’?” Kilbane replied.
“Quite well, sir.”
Kilbane leaned forward. “Dante around?”
The bartender gave him a stony look. “Who?”
“Mr. Diamond.”
The bartender half-smiled, as if to say: Better. He was in his late fifties, trim and savvy, manicured nails. He wore a royal blue satin vest and crisp white shirt. He had the look of many years behind the mahogany. He placed a trio of napkins on the bar. “Mr. Diamond isn’t in tonight.”
“Do you expect him?”
“Impossible to say,” the bartender said. “I’m not his social secretary.” The man locked eyes with Kilbane, communicating that this line of questioning was over. “What can I get for you and the young ladies?”
They ordered. A coffee for Jessica, a Diet Coke for Nicci, and a double bourbon for Kilbane. If Kilbane thought he was going to drink all night on the city’s dime, he was mistaken. The drinks arrived. Kilbane turned to face the dining room. “This place has really hit the fucking skids,” he said.
Jessica wondered by what criteria a lowlife like Eugene Kilbane judged something like that.
“I see a few people I know. I’m gonna ask around,” Kilbane added. He drained his bourbon in one gulp, straightened his tie, and walked into the dining room.
Jessica looked around the room. There were a few middle-aged couples in the dining room whom she had a hard time believing had anything to do with the business. The Tresonne did, after all, advertise in City Paper, Metro, The Report, and other venues. But for the most part, the clientele was hard-looking men in their fifties and sixties—pinkie rings, collar bars, monogrammed cuffs. It looked like a waste-management convention.
Jessica glanced to her left. One of the men at the bar had been ogling her and Nicci since they sat down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smooth his hair and spritz his breath. He ambled over.
“Hi,” he said to Jessica, smiling.
Jessica turned to look at the man, giving him the obligatory twice-over. He was about sixty. Sea-foam rayon shirt, beige polyester sport coat, tinted steel-rimmed aviator glasses. “Hi,” she said.
“I understand you and your friend are actresses.”
“Where did you hear that?” Jessica asked.
“You have that look.”
“What look is that?” Nicci asked, smiling.
“Theatrical,” he said. “And very beautiful.”
“It just so happens we are.” Nicci laughed, tossed her hair. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m a film producer.” Seemingly out of nowhere, he produced a pair of business cards. Werner Schmidt. Lux Productions. New Haven, Connecticut. “I’m casting a new full-length feature. High-def digital. Woman on woman.”
“Sounds interesting,” Nicci said.
“Hell of a script. The writer went to USC film school for a semester.”
Nicci nodded, feigning deep attention.
“But before I say anything else, I have to ask you something,” Werner added.
“What?” Jessica asked.
“Are you police officers?”
Jessica flicked a glance at Nicci. She looked back. “Yes,” she said. “Both of us. We’re detectives on an undercover sting.”
Werner looked slapped for a second, like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. Then he burst into laughter. Jessica and Nicci laughed with him. “That was good,” he said. “That was really fucking good. I like that.”
Nicci couldn’t leave it alone. She was a pistol. Full mag. “We’ve met before, right?” she asked.
Werner looked even more encouraged now. He pulled in his stomach, stood a little straighter. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“You ever work with Dante?”
“Dante Diamond?” he asked with hushed reverence, as if uttering the name Hitchcock or Fellini. “Not yet, but Dante is a class act. Great organization.” He turned and pointed to a woman sitting at the end of the bar. “Paulette has made a number of films with him. Do you know Paulette?”
It sounded like a test. Nicci played it cool. “Never had the pleasure,” she said. “Please invite her over for a drink.”
Werner was off like a shot. The prospect of standing around the bar with three women was a dream come true. In a moment he was back with Paulette, a bottle brunette around forty. Kitten heels, leopard dress. Thirty-eight DD.
“Paulette St. John, this is …”
“Gina and Daniela,” Jessica said.
“Pleased, I’m sure,” Paulette said. Jersey City. Maybe Hoboken.
“What are you drinking?” Jessica asked.
“Cosmo.”
Jessica ordered for her.
“We’re trying to locate a guy named Bruno Steele,” Nicci said.
Paulette smiled. “I know Bruno. Big dick, can’t spell ignorant.”
“That’s him.”
“Haven’t seen him in years,” she said. Her drink arrived. She sipped it delicately, like a lady. “Why are you looking for Bruno?”
“A friend is casting a film,” Jessica said.
“There are lots of guys around. Younger guys. Why him?”
Jessica noticed that Paulette was weaving a bit, slurring her words. Still, she had to be careful with her response. One wrong word and they could be shut out. “Well, for one thing, he’s got the right look. Plus, the film is hard S and M, and Bruno knows when to pull back.”
Paulette nodded. Been there, felt that.
“Loved his work in Philadelphia Skin,” Nicci said.
At the mention of the movie, Werner and Paulette looked at each other. Werner opened his mouth, as if to stop a Paulette from saying anything further, but Paulette continued. “I remember that crew,” she said. “Of course, after the incident, nobody really wanted to work together again.”
“What do you mean?” Jessica asked.
Paulette looked at her as if she were crazy. “You don’t know about what happened on that shoot?”
Jessica flashed on the scene in Philadelphia Skin where the girl opened the door. Those sad, haunted eyes. She took a chance, asked. “Oh, you mean with that little blonde?”
Paulette nodded, sipped her drink. “Yeah. That was fucked up.”
Jessica was just about to press her when Kilbane returned from the men’s room, pink with purpose. He got in between them, leaned into the bar. He turned to Werner and Paulette. “Could you excuse us for a sec?”
Paulette nodded. Werner held up both hands. He wasn’t going to take anyone’s play. They both retreated to the end of the bar. Kilbane turned back to Nicci and Jessica.
“I’ve got something,” he said.
When someone like Eugene Kilbane comes rushing out of a
men’s room with a statement like that, the possibilities are endless, and all unsavory. Instead of speculating, Jessica asked: “What?”
He leaned closer. It was clear he had just splashed on more cologne. A lot more cologne. Jessica nearly gagged. Kilbane whispered: “The crew that made Philadelphia Skin is still in town.”
“And?”
Kilbane raised his glass, rattled the cubes. The bartender poured him a double. If the city was paying, he was drinking. Or so he thought. Jessica would cut him off after this one.
“They’re shooting a new movie tonight,” he finally said. “Dante Diamond is directing it.” He gulped his drink, put the glass down. “And we’re invited.”
48
AT JUST AFTER ten o’clock, the man for whom Byrne was waiting rounded the corner, a thick ring of keys in his hand.
“Hey, how ya doin’?” Byrne asked, cap brim pulled low, eyes hidden.
The man found him in the dim light, a little startled. He saw the PDW jumpsuit and relaxed. A little. “What’s up, chief?”
“Same crap, different diaper.”
The man snorted. “Tell me about it.”
“You guys got any problems with the water pressure up there?” Byrne asked.
The man glanced at the bar, then back. “Not that I know of.”
“Well, we got the call and they sent me,” Byrne said. He glanced at the clipboard. “Yeah, this is the right place. Mind if I take a look at the pipes?”
The man shrugged, glanced down the steps to the access door that led to the cellar underneath the building. “Ain’t my pipes, ain’t my problem. Help yourself, bro.”
The man walked down the rusting iron steps, unlocked the door. Byrne glanced up and down the alley, then followed.
The man flipped on the light—a bare 150-watt bulb in a metal mesh cage. In addition to the dozens of stacked upholstered bar stools, disassembled tables, and stage props were maybe a hundred cases of liquor.
“Holy crap,” Byrne said. “I could stay down here for a while.”
“Between you and me, this is all shit. The good stuff is locked in my boss’s office upstairs.”
Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands Page 58