City of Woe

by Christopher Ryan

  Mallory, then Gunner crossed the threshold, but Mr. Hill hadn’t given them much room. Gunner squeezed around the closing door.

  “What complication, detectives?” Mr. Hill cast his eyes to the ground. “They’ve released the body.”

  Mallory entered the doily-infested living room. His eyes were drawn to Mr. Hill’s chair, especially the garish bolts holding the arms back in place. “Sir, there is reason to believe the person we suspect in Will’s murder has killed again.”

  “William wasn’t enough?”

  Mallory avoided looking at the pictures on the walls. “Sir, we need a sample of William’s handwriting.”

  Mr. Hill raised his eyes slowly. “Why?”

  “A sample would help our efforts, Mr. Hill.”

  The father went to a back room. He returned with a notebook. “This is his last school work. Get it back to me when you can.” Mr. Hill passed the detectives, who pressed themselves against a wall allowing him to get to the door. He opened it. “Mailing it would be fine.”

  The detectives thanked him and left quickly.

  Walking down the stairs, Mallory flipped through the pages. William’s handwriting was big, childish, sloppy, rarely on the line, full of misspellings, grammatical errors, and cross outs. Mallory showed Gunner. “Nowhere near the handwriting meant to be Will Hill’s on the index cards.”

  “Good.”

  The detectives had reached the second-floor landing when they heard a familiar yell from 2-B.

  “I’ll go out whenever I want, dammit!”

  “Ahh, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.” Gunner winked, “Sounds like a job for Superman.” He hustled over just as the door swung open.

  Johnny backed out, brandishing his middle finger at his mom like a saber, and slammed right into Gunner’s chest. The kid bounced back like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. “Holy Fuck!”

  Gunner leaned against the door, one arm casually extended, his bear-like paw pinning Johnny against the far wall. “We’ve spoken about proper respect for your mother already, haven’t we, John?”

  “How the fu—”

  Gunner applied a bit more pressure to the kid’s chest. The sentence died in a gushing exhale. The detective leaned forward a bit, looking into the apartment. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  From inside, sounding astonished, Johnny’s mother gushed. “Detective Gennaro!” She absently touched her hair, smiled.

  “What did you want our friend here to do for you?”

  “Just to eat, that’s all.”

  Gunner eyed Johnny. The kid struggled to remain defiant. Gunner shifted his fingers slightly. All color drained from Johnny’s suddenly shocked face. His eyes and mouth popped into a comical trio of perfect circles. Gunner relaxed; the kid gasped, “Icouldeat.”

  “Ma’am, have you prepared anything, or do you need…?”

  “I was just about to…” The voice changed suddenly. “Are you hungry at all, detective? Stay. I could—”

  “Only if you allow me to order us all some pizza,” Gunner used his most gallant tone of voice. “On me.”

  “Pizza would be cool, Ma.”

  Gunner urged the boy in with a light shove. The big detective shot a glance over his shoulder, eyebrow wiggling.

  Mallory laughed softly. “I got you covered. But what happened to Callabuffo?”

  “Later. Tomorrow,” Gunner, mischief sparkling in his eyes, raised his shoulders slightly. “Duty calls.”

  SIXTEEN

  Exhausted from the congested drive back to the office, hours of dull paper work, then the drive home, Mallory finally climbed the three steps to his house, disgusted by his front entrance. The storm door, in the later rounds of a bout with the elements, had already taken a standing eight count. Scuff marks scarred the bottom, a dent and assorted scrapes at the top. Even with the wear and tear, at least the storm door covered two thirds of the even uglier, shit-brown wooden mess behind it. Whoever had stained it before Mallory owned the house had ruined the rich cherry finish visible on the interior side. As a result, the storm door’s exposed top third, meant to show off the wood’s beauty, actually looked from the street like an ominous maw.

  Yanking the storm door open, Mallory stepped back and examined this, the main entrance to his true world. The color offended him. But the wood itself was sturdy. Mallory liked and wanted to keep this door, but the look had to go. He smiled at the birth of yet another home improvement project. Hit just needed paint. Red. Fire engine red. With new brass knobs and house numbers. And one of those full glass exposure storm doors to show it all off. That would renew the whole outside of the house.

  On the last case the Lieu had forced him to take he had refinished half the basement, gutting it, then sheet-rocking, plastering, sanding and painting, creating a playroom for the boys. All the while he thought out the case, an exercise he knew helped solve that one. He never allowed himself to bring the physical horrors of The Job into his home, but thinking about it while banging away seemed permissible.

  Lots of cops went to a bar after work to ease out of the on-duty mind set, talk through events, blow off steam, prepare themselves for the civilized world. Mallory understood that halfway house approach, had embraced it for years before settling down with Gina. Now such a move took too much time away from the family. But he hadn’t abandoned the guiding principle behind it: leave The Job outside your door.

  And he did. Mostly.

  Mallory slid the key into the top lock, listening. As soon as he turned the tumbler, he heard two excited screams, then stampeding feet. He grinned. The familiar cadence of flip-flops followed behind the rush. The other lock opened without his using a key.

  “DADDY!” Max and Kieran greeted Mallory at top volume.

  “MAXIE! KIERIE-BOY!” Mallory greeted the fellas at top volume right back. The guys crashed into him, Max’s arms slamming around his legs, Kieran’s around his waist. He bent, folding himself around them, hugging and squeezing arms, backs, butts until they both yelped with laughter.

  A low, appealing chuckle told Mallory he had amused Gina as well. Hat trick.

  “Hey,” he smiled at her, drinking in those enormous brown eyes, leaning over the fellas for a kiss. Delicious. He went for seconds, and lingered on Gina’s petite lips. He stayed there until the Sex Police took action.

  Kieran wedged himself between them, pushing Mallory away from his mother.

  “All right, Oedipus, I can take a hint,” Mallory smirked, rubbing his eight-year-old’s head. Kieran frowned.

  Gina nodded toward Max. Both hands were now behind his back, but drawing paper jutted out either side. Max had completed another masterpiece.

  About a month ago, at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning, Max had bound into their bedroom, leapt onto their bed, stood triumphantly in his Batman underwear, tiny fists planted on bony hips, little legs straddling a barely conscious Gina, and proudly announced, “I am an artist!” Since then, the little fireball had produced at least one masterpiece per day.

  Mallory dutifully played his expected role. “Maxie, what have you been up to?”

  Max’s already impossibly large eyes grew even bigger, the smile wider. “Ta -da!” he screamed, bringing the page around with a flourish.

  Van Gogh had his blue period. Max’s current thematic motif was rocket ships. The classic he held aloft today featured six of them. Some shot lightning bolts. Others had lines rushing out behind them to show how fast they were going. And the details just kept on coming: Planets, stars, and something that looked a lot like a large, menacing bagel.

  “Wow, buddy, I love these ships.”

  “Rockets, Dad,” Max corrected. “I’m flyin’ this one and Kieran’s flying this one, and Uncle Matt’s in this one, Aunt Maggie is in this one, and you and Mom are in this one.”

  “All right! I get to fly with Mom,” Mallory said. “And I’m shooting lightning bolts.”

  “Blasters, Dad. And Mom’s in charge of them.”

  “So… I’m flying the rocket?”


  Max giggled. “No. Mom’s in charge of flying too.”

  “So where am I in this picture?”

  “In the bathroom!” Max was off like a shot, Kieran right behind him, both laughing and screaming as Mallory thumped after them.

  It was good to be home.

  SEVENTEEN

  After dinner (Gina’s signature ravioli with her parents’ homemade gravy, a synonym for heaven) they sat out front, which, to Kieran’s way of thinking, could only mean breaking out a baseball and their gloves. Max had no time for baseball right then. Evil rocks were invading Mom’s flower bed and his Power Ranger action figures had to save the day.

  Mallory threw the ball to Kieran, who invariably dove for it, no matter how soft the toss. It took 10 minutes of arguing that Jeter did, in fact, engage in a simple pre-game warm-up catch with teammates to get Kieran to abandon the role of human highlight film.

  “Our next game is this Saturday,” Kieran said, furrowing eyebrows in his serious way, as he threw Dad some heat. “The game starts at 2 o’clock, but we have to be there at 12:30, you know, to warm up and stretch.”

  Mallory caught the ball. His hand stung. “And have a simple catch like this.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes? The coach? He throws us pop ups? Or grounders? So you can throw those to me, Dad.”

  “I thought we were having a simple catch?”

  “Okay, fine.” Chuckling, Mallory delivered, sending the ball 30 feet in the air. Kieran watched, adjusted his position, and caught it, delighted. He threw back a wild pop-up. Mallory leapt, barely snatching the ball.

  Mallory lobbed it to his son. “You can just give me easy ones, okay?”

  The ball made a familiar “pok” sound hitting the glove. The boy lobbed it to his father. “All right, Old Man.”

  Pok. Pop-up. “Old Man? Nice.”

  Pok. Kieran made a ‘C’mon!’ gesture. Lob.

  Pok. Higher pop-up.

  Big smile. Lob. “Grounder.”

  Mallory sent one bouncing, a bit further right than he wanted it to go. “Monkey! Monkey,” he called out an old tee ball command meaning sidestep to the ball. Kieran did, scooping, spinning, then firing it back in a fluid motion that shocked Mallory. The kid had moves. The throw stung his palm, again.

  “He’s out!” Kieran always had a game scenario playing in his head.

  Gina appeared with an apple (peeled, cut into slices, all seeds and brown spots removed, as per Max’s strict requirements) and a photo envelope. “I made that appointment for the portrait. Sears. Wednesday, 5:30. That good for you?”

  “I’ll make sure it is.”

  She held up the envelope. “And I printed up the pictures from the Yankees Opening Day game.”

  Kieran was at her side before his glove hit the ground. Mallory followed. Gina showed the pictures to Kieran, but didn’t let him handle them, knowing Mallory’s pet peeves all too well, one of which were messy or “out of order” pictures. When a few were done, she handed them to Mallory and continued showing the others to the kids.

  “You look great there, sweetie,” she enthused over a shot of Kieran standing, Yankee hat over his heart, during the National Anthem.

  “Good man,” Mallory rubbed the boy’s head. He took another batch from Gina, lingering on each before moving on. The fourth shot stopped him cold. It was of his father, The Bronx’s own Patrick Francis Mallory. Seeing the picture felt like someone had smashed Mallory’s chest with a sledgehammer. It wasn’t the image of Pop that Mallory held in his mind’s eye.

  Pop was six foot, two; Mallory had only reached six foot even. The father had been a cop 28 years, most of it out of the Four-One in the South Bronx. Pop had never said a word about the dangers; he’d just gone down to the battleground each shift, serious, stern, determined.

  The tired old man in the picture was not that heroic figure. Mallory stared at the simple portrait of a grandfather sitting flanked by grandsons at a Yankees game. The hair, which had been pitch black even last May when Pop turned 73, had suddenly gone gray. The sharp lines of his father’s face, at one time so intimidating, were gone now. They hadn’t softened so much as collapsed, splintering into crags, blunting the once handsome features. And the eyes, once sharp and all encompassing, were now clouded, distracted. The photo was both hard to look at and impossible to turn away from.

  Gina watched quietly. Mallory spoke so only she would hear. “The arthritis was bad that day. Really bad. I even asked when I picked him up, did he still want to go, he was walking so slowly. You know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “He goes, ‘Frankie, I want to sit in The Stadium with my grandkids. Watch a game with them around me. Even if it takes me longer to get there, that’s what I wanna do.’ How could I argue?”

  “You couldn’t. And he had a great time. Here he is laughing with his Maxie.”

  She held up another photo. Max was dancing, holding Pop’s thick fingers. Mallory chuckled. “That was the end of the fifth, when the ground crew cleans the field and dances to ‘YMCA.’”

  Gina let out that low chuckle Mallory loved so much. “Max’s favorite part.”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t really care about the game yet.”

  “Your father’s got Kieran for the plays, Max for the between innings stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Mallory looked at the troubling picture again. “He’s not in pain this picture?”

  “He was doing what he wanted to do, that’s important, hon. I like to believe he was just squinting, or concentrating on hearing Kieran’s opinions of the game. It’s getting harder for him to hear the kids.”

  “Yeah,” Mallory took one set of the pictures, gave the rest back. He spent the next few moments staring off.

  “Go.”

  Mallory looked at her.

  “Go ahead,” she nodded.

  Mallory took the photos with him.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Hey, what you doing here?”

  Mallory stood backlit in the hospital room door, the night shift behind him quietly going about their business. His gold shield got him in after visiting hours, when the rest of the family had been safely shooed away. “Hey Pop.”

  “Francis Patrick. How are my bananas?” Since the day Max was born, Mallory’s father had referred to his grandsons as “his bananas.” When it was just Kieran, Pop used the boy’s name. But Max had forced a definite spin towards the amused in Pop’s usually serious demeanor.

  He walked in, sat next to the bed. “Great, Pop. They’re playing in the front yard with Gina. Kieran’s batting behind Jeter tonight, bases loaded, of course.”

  “Good man, good man. And Mister Max?”

  “He’s saving the lawn from alien hordes, I think.”

  Pop’s laugh was genuine. “He’s something else, that one.” The voice had a touch more sandpaper in it these days. Did aging have a particular sound? He glanced at the set of photos still in his hand. Aging definitely had a particular look, damn it. “Your brother Barry was here before.”

  “Sorry I missed him.”

  “Sure you are. That’s why you always come by after visiting hours.”

  “We got those pictures back, from the game.” Mallory evaded, handing the pictures to his father. “I had doubles made up.”

  Pop smiled, looked at them for a long time. “There’s my bananas.”

  Mallory waited, gazing around the room. Nothing much happening beyond a heart monitor. When his father finally looked up, Mallory cleared his throat. “Um, how you been since then? With the pain, I mean?”

  “Comes and goes. Keeps life interesting.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “Getting paroled in a few days, so it’s gotta be good news.”

  Mallory nodded toward the picture. “I was concerned that day, Pop.”

  “Why? The Yankees pulled it out. Max danced. Kieran called pitches before Petite delivered. That Kieran knows everything, doesn’t he?”

  “About the Yankees, yeah he does.” />
  “And Max. That boy can move. Gets it from your mother’s side.”

  Mallory hesitated. “You had a lot of trouble walking.”

  Pop chuckled. “I’m old. Some guys my age can’t walk around at all. Weighed down by six feet of dirt. From that perspective, I’m doing pretty damn good.”

  “Seventy-three is not that old these days.”

  Pop chuckled, forcing it just a bit. “It was that day.”

  “Come on, Pop. What’s the deal?”

  “They say they got the whole tumor. They’re keeping me here to monitor recovery, but they said that’s the end of it. Got one last check up tomorrow, then I’m seeing my doctor Thursday, to discuss aftercare. You’re so interested, how ’bout you pick up your mother and me, give us a lift home?”

  “Done.” Mallory let out a brief chuckle, relieved.

  “We’ll probably be ready to go about four, Dr. Rhinebeck says.”

  “Four it is. Want me to meet you out front or somewhere in the building?”

  “Fourth floor. West wing. Four-W. Meet us in the waiting area. Your mother will be there, harassing complete strangers with tales about your sons. What’s doing at work?”

  “I got stuck with another weird one.”

  “Those seem to flock to you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Hey, I wound up with lots of runaway cases. All right, I was in the Youth Division, but three out of every four runaways came in, I caught. Worked out that I was pretty good at them, whether because I had talent, or all that experience. Can’t explain these things. They just happen. This the one in the paper? Subway murder?”

  “Yep.”

  “Lot of heat on that one, Francis. I don’t envy you.”

  “This one didn’t ‘flock’ my way, it was shoved.”

  “Way of the world. So, what’s the problem? No leads?”

  Mallory told him everything about both murders, especially the index cards. “I think it all surrounds this guy from the concert. We find him, we got the case nailed.”

  “Don’t count on theories working out. Rarely goes that way with police work.”