Lights Out Summer

by Rich Zahradnik

  “Did she go to the cops?”

  “You kidding? Black woman, White man. Black witness. Besides, she was scared about the attention it would bring to the building—”

  “And the DeVries family.”

  She nodded yes.

  Chapter 13

  Taylor rode the subway out to Bed-Stuy and found the Gibson’s building, which was in poor condition. Some windows boarded up. Others broken.

  A middle-aged woman, thin and quick on her feet, invited him in as soon as she heard Martha’s name. The apartment was in much better shape than the building. Furniture of dark wood. Porcelain knickknacks took up space that framed pictures didn’t. Some of the photos looked antique.

  Mr. Gibson rose from the couch and folded a newspaper—The Daily News, with another .44-caliber shooter story on page one. There were reminders every day, every hour that the killer was out there.

  Gibson shook Taylor’s hand.

  “I’m very sorry about what happened to Martha,” Taylor said.

  “Please have a seat.” He pointed to an easy chair upholstered in a complicated pattern featuring antique cars—Model Ts, Model As, Duesenbergs, Packards, Bearcats, Hudsons.

  Taylor sat and couldn’t help but continue observing the furniture and fixtures all around him.

  “You’re wondering why we’re in this awful building?” Before Taylor could find a polite way to answer his way out of the question, Mr. Gibson continued, “We’ve lived here almost thirty years. Moved over from Harlem when it was a good neighborhood. Now, the landlords are giving up. Our landlord is giving up. We like this apartment. ’Course, wouldn’t matter if we didn’t. We can’t afford the rent anywhere else. So we’re going to hold on. How can we help?”

  His voice was matter-of-fact, though his eyes looked sad and tired.

  “I’m writing a story about your daughter. I want to learn as much as I can about her life.”

  “Her life was in her apartment. We’ve been to it once since she was killed.” He let the paper drop into his lap like a dead thing. “We saw our junkie of a daughter and that thug McGill she’s living with. They … he threw us out after five minutes. We only wanted some of Martha’s things. Pictures. The diplomas. Mementos of her life.”

  “Be careful of McGill,” Taylor said. “He’s a contract killer. Seems attached to the apartment.”

  “Oh goodness.” Mrs. Gibson perched on the edge of the same couch her husband was sitting on. “We’ve got to get Abigail out of there.”

  “Do what with her?” Mr. Gibson said. “She’ll steal from us to buy dope.”

  “She’s still our daughter. Our only daughter now.” She turned to Taylor. “We were so at a loss during the funeral …. We thought we’d deal with other things—with Abigail and the apartment—once things settled down. Suddenly, he’s living there full-time.”

  Taylor took out his notebook and opened it. “I’d like to ask some questions about Martha.”

  The wife nodded.

  “Did she like working for the DeVries family?”

  “I think she was adapting. I mean, she was disappointed at leaving the job at Manning. The family treated her well. They were all at the funeral.”

  “Do you know why she left Manning?”

  “Bastard,” said Mr. Gibson.

  Taylor paused to let the one word sum it up. “She was brave. I’ve only learned today he continued harassing her after she left. Did she mention that to you?”

  The Gibsons looked at each other. Mr. Gibson shook his head. Finally, Mrs. Gibson said, “She didn’t say anything. We thought it was because she’d had such a big setback. She started doing odd things. Peeking through the curtains when visiting us. Pacing. Looking out the window of her own apartment all the time. If you asked her why, she would go quiet. Wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “He do anything to her?” Mr. Gibson asked in a near whisper.

  “My source says he tried to attack her and was stopped by a janitor outside the building where she worked. He’d hit her a couple of times before that. That’s all that I know.”

  “Poor Martha.” The father brought both hands to his face and rubbed his fingers deep into his forehead. “She worked so hard. First college degree in the family. Took in her sister when she knew what kind of mess that would be. Was certain she could help Abigail. And the worst happened to Martha instead. The very worst.”

  Mrs. Gibson left the room and came back after a couple of minutes clutching a handful of tissues.

  “Why are you visiting us now?” Mr. Gibson asked.

  “As I said, I want to tell her story.”

  “She’s been dead a month.”

  “Some stories take a while. I’m going to talk to her boss MacDonald at Manning. Did she ever say anything about problems in the DeVries household? A family member who didn’t like her?”

  “That seemed like the part of her life that was improving—if slowly, as the job was an adjustment. She was calmest when talking about her work. She mentioned Mr. DeVries often. He sounded liked a good employer and a good man. Sent her on a couple job interviews.”

  “What about the staff?”

  “She liked them all.”

  “Talk about the rest of the family?”

  “Didn’t say much. Martha was the type who only talked about people if she had something good to say.”

  Chapter 14

  Ten or 15 years ago, Taylor used to be able to read the graffiti on subway cars. “Tony loves Mary.” That sort of thing. As the spray-painted messages multiplied to the point where they covered everything—windows, walls, seats, ads, subway system maps—the graffiti went from readable to cryptic. It seemed that the more of it there was, the more the vandals (or artists, depending on your view) needed their own symbols and styles to stand out. He couldn’t make out anything in this scrawl-covered car. He’d done a story on the graffiti explosion a couple of years ago and had had to pay a kid to translate for him. The kid had this wry smile as he did it, leaving Taylor to wonder if he was getting an accurate report. Tough to fact-check except hire another wry-smiling teen. It was their language.

  He took his notebook out of the Army field jacket. He’d removed the winter liner from the coat two weeks ago. He’d wear the outer shell until summer heat made it impossible. Out of habit, as a salve to a mind twitching to know what sort of story he really had, he read each page of his notes on the ride, then flipped back and forth comparing quotes and facts. There was no guarantee the murderer of Martha Gibson was in the notebook yet, but as was also his habit, he made a list of possible killers based on what he knew.

  First, she could have been killed by some unknown player in the drug game because of Abigail Gibson’s heroin habit. Add in the fact that Jerome McGill was into drugs, and according to Jersey Stein, contract killing, and Martha could easily have died because someone mistook her for Abigail. Next on the list came whoever had the conversation in the DeVries’ sitting room. For certain, it was a threat against Edmond DeVries. Not certain: did the speaker see Martha retreating to the kitchen? Taylor had called this morning to get the information about that threatening talk to DeVries—and to find out if Martha had already told him about it—only to learn the family had left on a three-week European vacation. The butler had said he had strict instructions not to put anyone in touch. Taylor insisted he take a message and pass it on to Mr. DeVries. Even the words life or death didn’t seem to impress the butler. Three weeks was a long time. City News Bureau’s budget didn’t extend to sending him searching for them around Europe.

  At the 112th, Detective McCauley, on hearing the story about the conversation, had told Taylor he was pedaling hearsay of hearsay.

  Finally, Martha’s ex-boss Ricky McDonald made Taylor’s list for harassment and attempted rape. Taylor had three ways to go, though two involved unknown attackers. All the possibilities on his list could send him in the wrong direction. It could be some person and motive he hadn’t uncovered yet. This is what happened when he dug into
the life of a victim. The dead left behind histories that were complex, and not even those closest to them knew everything.

  Instead of going back to Manhattan from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, he changed trains for Queens. He decided he’d give the McGill stakeout a bit more time. Whatever McGill got up to, it could lead to a story, even if that wasn’t what brought a killer into Martha Gibson’s life. He hoped to score both. There was chance in every direction he might pick.

  He walked past the redbrick apartment building, crossed the street so he was cattycorner from the main entrance, and found a bench with a good view of the front door. The minutes, then hours, ticked by. He watched three men and one woman, all of them scruffy and dirty enough to be addicts and too much of both to live in the building, use the payphone halfway down the block, get buzzed in and come out no more than five minutes later, hurrying away with that telltale junkie shuffle. Why hadn’t he seen this on his previous stakeouts? Maybe Jerome had waited a few weeks before he started selling from the apartment, had supply issues, had waited a decent period of mourning …. He chuckled darkly at that thought.

  He witnessed six possible sales. Yeah, maybe. Could be any apartment. He had no proof. He planned to follow the next probable addict all the way in to confirm they were going to the Gibson flat.

  Before he could, McGill came out of the building carrying a slate-gray duffle bag. He checked up and down the street, the wary move someone out for a stroll wouldn’t make, and started walking. Once McGill reached the far corner, Taylor got up and followed on the other side of the street. Short of Hillside Avenue on 182nd Street, McGill unlocked a red Granada. Taylor sped past him to Hillside, flagged a cab, and got in.

  “A red Ford Granada is going to come out of that side street. Follow it.”

  “C’mon, pal, I ain’t got time for crazy movie horseshit.”

  Taylor dropped $10 onto the front seat. “For anything under seven bucks on the meter. Goes higher, it gets better for you.”

  Taylor couldn’t lose McGill.

  The cabbie stayed with the Granada, which made a fast stop at the Jamaica subway station to pick up two more men, both Black, one medium height, one tall. They drove east through Queens, mainly using Brinkerhoff and 109th Avenues.

  On the radio, WNBC-AM segued from ABBA’S “Dancing Queen” to “Southern Nights” by Glen Campbell. Taylor decided he’d be pushing it to ask the driver to change the station.

  He leaned over the front seat for the best view into McGill’s car. At a stoplight, McGill handed the duffle over to the man in the back, and that man opened it and took out several objects. A hitman and his gang … what else could he be removing but weapons?

  After a 20-minute drive, McGill pulled to the curb on Rockaway Boulevard in front of a row of shops several blocks from Aqueduct Raceway. All three men got out. Taylor threw another $10 over the seat and exited the cab, telling the cabbie to get out of there quick and report a shooting at that address. The cabbie took off so fast Taylor worried the driver would forget the other thing he was supposed to do.

  The three men came together in front of Philby’s Pawn Shop. They all held guns down at their sides. The display windows were so empty of merchandise, it was a dead giveaway this place did some other sort of business.

  McGill and one of the other men started for the door, while the third held his position as lookout.

  Whatever was going to happen, it wasn’t going to be good and it was going down now.

  Waiting for the cops was no plan. If the cab driver did bother to call it in, they’d get here far too late to stop the crime.

  McGill and his accomplice were halfway to the front door.

  The back entrance.

  Taylor ran down a narrow alley between the pawnshop and an adjacent Chinese restaurant. He pulled open a metal door covered in chipped red paint.

  “There’s guys coming in the front with guns ….”

  Four men rose quickly from folding chairs, one knocking his to the floor with a crash. All four pointed their own semiautomatics at Taylor’s face. On the table was piled white bricks, stamp bags used to hold heroin for sale to junkies, and cash in a stack half as high as the drugs.

  “I don’t know who you think you are,” said a small Hispanic man, “but you just ended your life.”

  “I’d really worry about the guys coming in the front.”

  At that instant, gunfire erupted from the front of the shop. The men turned, with the little guy signaling two to go down a short hallway in the direction of the firing. Seconds after they disappeared, the noise of weapons doubled, tripled. A cacophony.

  Taylor dropped to the floor.

  I tipped off one set of villains that they were getting hit by another set. I’m way too close to this.

  Taylor crawled back to the door and slipped out, while the remaining two men were focused on the gunfire. Once he was in the alley, two bullet impacts puckered the door. This was definitely as much of this story as he needed to see up close and personal. He sprinted along the back of the shops, ran next to a fence and into a parking lot. He could stay lost in here until the police arrived.

  Three squad cars pulled up seven minutes later. McGill was a dead tangle of limbs outside the front door, his life over and his mission a failure because Taylor had informed the other bad guys. Two were dead inside. Everyone else was gone.

  Emptiness, something hollow in his chest. He hadn’t pulled a single trigger. He hadn’t made a plan to come here. Some of those seven men were bound to die no matter what he’d done. But the outcome changed when he’d gone in that back door. He wouldn’t have done things differently. He couldn’t know it was bad guys in back as well as front. Maybe that was what the emptiness was about. At some point in these brutal situations, he had to make a choice—and that choice couldn’t help everyone, or even only the good guys.

  He phoned in a quickie on the gunfight to Cramly.

  Back at the office, he called Mr. and Mrs. Gibson and told them they’d have no problem visiting their daughter and getting Martha’s things.

  Next he called the 106th Precinct, where the man on the desk was surprised Taylor was asking about the shooting.

  “Detectives just got in the house.”

  “Why the attack?” He wanted hard numbers.

  “Pawn shop had about seventy-five thousand dollars worth of heroin and half that in cash money.”

  “A robbery?”

  “No, a hit. Detectives think someone stepped on someone’s territory. Couldn’t tell you who. They’re still working on it.”

  McGill died doing what he loved.

  Taylor filed an update. Cramly asked how he had such a detailed description of the gunfight.

  “Good reporting.”

  “How can I help you?” A cigarette in a black holder bounced between the fuchsia lips of the blue-haired woman sitting inside the office door of Manning Corp.

  “I’m here to see Ricky MacDonald.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  Boxes were scattered everywhere around the office on the 55th Floor of the Empire State Building. Folding chairs served as furniture. The walls were painted a faded peach. The place, in New York’s most prestigious address, looked like a warehouse. Who would invite anyone here for an appointment?

  “I don’t. I’m reporter doing a story about a former employee.”

  “Who’s that?” Almost accusatory.

  “The late Martha Gibson.”

  “She’s dead?” The cigarette holder stuck straight out, clamped in her teeth. “I’ll take you to my son.”

  Taylor was led through a doorway, around more stacks of boxes, until the woman held up her hand for him to stop and disappeared. She returned and showed him to a desk partitioned off by additional walls of cartons.

  Like any good salesman, Ricky MacDonald rose and grabbed Taylor’s hand like he planned to take it away. He had a pumpkin-shaped head and wore a leisure suit a deeper fuchsia than his mother’s lipstick. The huge collar of
his bright yellow shirt covered the jacket’s lapel. The shirt was open three buttons down.

  Taylor sat down in the one guest chair, which was metal and folding.

  “Martha’s dead?”

  “You hadn’t heard?”

  “She only worked here a few months.”

  “Why’d she leave?”

  He answered quickly, like he didn’t need to think. “I fired her for insubordination.”

  “Not because she refused your sexual advances?”

  A salesman’s smile. “Is that the story she was telling? I’m sorry she had to stoop so slow.”

  Taylor didn’t feel like dancing around with this one, who’d lied from the beginning and oozed sleaze. “You harassed her. You continued to do so after she left. Attacked her outside the Park Avenue apartment house where she was working. You’ve got history. Conviction for solicitation and arrested for sexual assault. Makes you a good candidate for her murder.”

  “The assault charge was dropped. The police haven’t even talked to me about this.”

  “This is my lead. So far. I’ve got witnesses who say you attempted to rape her. Martha may be dead, but they’ll tell her story. Cops read that, they’ll want to know if you went after her again. Maybe this time to kill her.”

  Blue hair stepped around the corner of the box-wall. “You can leave now. Ricky’s much smarter brother Harry is a lawyer. I called him. This discussion is over. That nig … Negro girl wasn’t worth hiring in the first place. Ricky should have known that. She’s not worth wasting any more of this company’s time. A news story about her?” She laughed. “They can’t even read.”

  “Martha could read. Had a college degree, as I’m sure is noted in a file somewhere in this mess.” Taylor stood. “Keep brother Harry at the ready. I’ll get more on the attack from the janitor who chased you away. The cops will come calling when I write a story.”

  “Do you know who you’re dealing with?” she asked.

  “Mother, please. He’s leaving.”

  “I know exactly what I’m dealing with. Maybe your son didn’t kill Martha. I’ll find out exactly what he did do.”