Revolver

by Duane Swierczynski

  Downstairs Stan pours tomato and clam juice over some ice and throws a shot of vodka in there, too. Drinks it down and makes another. Rosie pretends not to see, offers to make him some eggs and pork roll. Stan shakes his head. He doesn’t want anything to eat right now.

  He also doesn’t want to tell Rosie and the boy about the fireball couch. But Rosie will talk to Taney’s wife at some point today and then she’ll be pissed at him for not telling her.

  But of course Rosie gets pissed anyway, because two sentences into his story—which downplays the danger as much as he can—she’s off on a tear, slapping him on the shoulder for not telling her earlier. Earlier? How much earlier did she want to know? Good morning, Rosie, some murzyns dropped a burning couch on Billy Taney, hey, you feel like making me some eggs?

  Rosie makes a beeline to the phone just as Jimmy enters the kitchen, having heard enough of the story.

  “They dropped a couch on you?”

  “No, not me or Wildey—just Billy.”

  “Who’s Wildey?”

  “Some guy they partnered up with us last night.”

  Jimmy takes a seat across from his dad. Their rectangular table takes up most of the floor space in the kitchen. You have to shimmy around the table to do anything else in there, like open the fridge or check something in the oven. Stan never could understand why they need a table in the kitchen, because they have a perfectly good one in the dining room. But Rosie is stubborn. The dining room table is for holidays and entertaining; otherwise, they take their meals in the kitchen.

  “Did you see who did it?” young Jimmy asks.

  “No.”

  “You’ll catch ’em, Dad.”

  “Yeah, you think?”

  “Hey, partner. Welcome back to Hell.”

  Stan grunts.

  While daylight seemed to send the worst of the looters into hiding, the fast-approaching evening has fired them up again. Even more cops were brought in for tonight’s shifts, yet somehow, in all the chaos, Wildey found him again.

  Wildey is waiting for him at the rendezvous point. “Hey, Stan. How’s Taney?”

  Stan shakes his head. He honestly doesn’t know—he’s a little ashamed that he hasn’t thought of Taney much today. But that Irish bastard is tough. What’s a flaming couch to a man like that?

  “My wife talked to his wife,” Stan says. “I think he’ll be okay.”

  “You ready to do some hunting?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Wildey smirks. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna let some guys throw a motherfuckin’ couch on us and just get away with it.”

  “Jesus, you sound like Jimmy.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  A few hours after dark the riot is in full swing again. Rioters: throwing bottles, bricks, launching more furniture off the roofs. Scrambling to start fires. Smashing any remaining windows that by some miracle weren’t smashed the night before. Stan swears the word must have gotten out to neighboring areas. Free shit on Columbia Avenue! Bring your own bricks and bats, take whatever you want.

  Tonight, though, their marching orders are different.

  Tonight Deputy Commissioner Rizzo spreads word through the ranks: Take no prisoners. The club is trump. Meaning: Use your baton to stop any and all looting. “Beat ’em and leave ’em.” No arrests. And if some bastard has the stone to take a shot at you, then you shoot back. He doesn’t care what Leary said.

  Wildey glances over at Stan.

  “Tonight’s gonna be interesting.”

  Stan’s about to ask what he means when a police inspector walks up to him and taps his nameplate.

  “Walczak. Stick your badge and your name in your pocket. Tell your partner to do the same.”

  “What for?”

  The inspector stops and turns on his heel. A hairy fireplug of a man, he’s clearly used to snapping orders without anyone questioning him.

  “Just do it.”

  All the other uniforms in the area have apparently gotten the same word, because they’re shoving all pieces of ID into their pants pockets.

  “No,” Stan says.

  “What the fuck do you mean, no? Take ’em off! Orders from the deputy commissioner.”

  “I’m not taking my name off.”

  The inspector’s face goes red. But he’s apparently all hair and no backbone. He stalks away without another word. Stan catches Wildey staring at him.

  “What? You want me to take it off?”

  “Not at all,” Wildey says, smiling. “C’mon. We’d better get in there.”

  “Yeah. Just don’t do anything stupid like last night.”

  “I say we hit the roof again. See what we see.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”

  Tonight’s assignment: search the rooftops to look for bottle-throwers—or worse, guys with guns. Wildey gestures to Stan: Follow me. Wildey tries to kick in a door next to Hollywood Shoes. The door won’t yield. He tries again, putting more body weight into it, but Wildey’s a lean, wiry guy. He could shoot himself out of a cannon pointed at that door and nothing would happen.

  “Move out of the way.”

  Stan is not the swiftest cop on the force. He is not the smartest. He is nowhere near the most agile. Nor the most athletic. But at six two and 277 pounds, he’s a force of nature. He’s kicked in doors before.

  One stomp of his black oxford and the door splinters and pops open. Wildey gives Stan an appreciative glance. Whatever. There’s a moment of indecision before Stan sweeps his arms toward the door.

  “After you.”

  Wildey shakes his head. “Okay, boss.”

  By the time they make it all the way up to the roof, Stan huffing and puffing, there’s a loud shattering of glass and a terrified scream coming from street level. Wildey is already headed back down the rickety and dusty stairs they just climbed. What the hell. What choice does Stan have but to follow?

  There, on the corner, a crowd armed with bats and rocks surrounds a man in a suit inside a glass telephone booth that’s been shattered and knocked over on its side. The man has his forearms up to shield his face from the blows. The crowd seems intent on smashing the booth until there is nothing left—except the cowering white man inside.

  Wildey is already running across the street with his nightstick out, yelling at them.

  “The fuck’s wrong with you? Get away from that man!”

  The mob turns. They lift their bats. A few break off to greet Wildey with colorful language of their own.

  Goddammit—Stan refuses to lose two partners in the same weekend.

  Stan picks up his pace, pulling out his nightstick. By the time he reaches the crowd some of them are already pushing back on Wildey. Stan grips the stick at both ends, leaving two inches poking out on either side, just like he was taught at the Academy. When it’s time to hit, you use controlled movements, firmly gripping the butt of the baton and keeping your feet balanced. Stan’s going by the book for this—he’s not going to start swinging wildly. Someone doesn’t move, you go for the fleshy areas first—buttocks, meat of the arms and legs. Still won’t move? Then you go for the joints—elbows, knees, wrists.

  A few strikes and the crowd knows Stan is serious and starts backing away. They call him all kinds of names—devil, cracker, whitey—he’s heard it all before and doesn’t care.

  Wildey pulls the man out of all that broken glass, wrapping his arm around the man’s torso, helping him to a clear piece of sidewalk. He continues to yell at the crowd. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Stan keeps guard, ready to strike if need be.

  The guy’s cut up and knocked around pretty bad, but he’ll be okay. Wildey talks to him for a while in a low, quiet voice until the fire department medics show up.

  “They didn’t know what that was,” Wildey mutters. “Unbelievable.”

  Stan squints. “Who was that?”

  “Radio reporter for DAS. He was calling in what he was seeing. They saw th
e suit, thought he was a white guy, then started throwing rocks at the booth. He barricaded himself up, so they knocked the fucking booth over on its side.”

  “What do you mean, thought he was a white guy? Isn’t he?”

  Wildey stares at him. “Would it matter?”

  Jim Catches a Case

  November 2, 1995

  Jim wakes up with no idea where he is. He tries to roll over. Claire’s unconscious grip on his arm tightens.

  Oh, that’s right. I’m home.

  He’d made it a late one, and he can only remember pieces of it. It all started when he decided he could use a drink or three at the Palm, but that wasn’t enough, so he headed over to…gahhh. Some other bar. Come on, think…wait wait. The Pen & Pencil, over on Latimer Street. He barged his way in for an impromptu game of darts with the newspaper boys. Ron Patel was there. Clark DeLeon, too. Danny tending bar, talking him into a fat juicy cheeseburger he really shouldn’t be eating, considering he’s gone up two full pant sizes since spring. Lots of young kids—aspiring reporters, making stupid jokes and killing brain cells by the bucketload. But it was a much-needed break from the job.

  Jim frees his arm and glides out of bed and steps on something hard yet pliable in places. Turns out to be his watch. He swallows a yelp. Claire stirs but doesn’t wake up. Some lizard part of her brain knows she doesn’t have to rise until the first child awakens, so she doesn’t.

  And now there’s an urgent beeping sound. Shit, where are his pants? His beeper is in his pants.

  Shit.

  The beeper goes off again. Jim finally locates his pants (great detective work, Detective). His beeper inside the right pocket. The 215 number on the display belongs to Jim’s partner, Aisha, which means somebody has died.

  Jim slips on his pants, makes his way downstairs and around Staś on the pullout couch and finally over to the kitchen phone, stepping around Audrey’s dolls and trucks and Fisher-Price doctor gear. He loves the girl, but damn if she isn’t like a locust, spreading a wide swath of destruction and ruin everywhere she goes.

  He dials his partner without even thinking about the number. Of course she’s up, most likely freshly showered, dressed, highly caffeinated.

  “What’s up, Aisha?”

  “We’ve got a dead girl near Twenty-First and Pine. How fast can you get there?”

  “We’re up again?”

  “Apparently. So how soon?”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  And he can. The joy of being awake in Mayfair at this time of the morning is that he can zoom down I-95 in ten minutes flat, merge right, dart up the Vine Street Expressway, and boom, he’s in Center City. If this were an hour later, though, he’d be screwed, and better off crawling down Aramingo Avenue. Or huffing his way down there on foot.

  Jim hangs up, take a deep cleansing breath. There’s no time for a shower, just breakfast. He dresses in whatever’s available and makes his way down to the kitchen, where he pours a glass of orange juice, spiked with a little Absolut—perfect hangover cure.

  Pants on, shirt buttoned, tucked in, tie tied, jacket on, shoes on, wallet check (check), watch on, badge check (check), gun (check), and downstairs Jim goes, as quietly as possible.

  That’s because his oldest, Staś, is sprawled out on the sleeper sofa, one gangly foot sticking out from under an afghan his grandma made. This past school year Staś, a senior, announced he was sick and tired of sharing a bedroom with his brother. So until (a) they moved into a bigger house, or (b) Dad surrendered the basement and finished it into a spare bedroom, Staś informed the family he would be taking over the living room couch at 11 p.m. every night.

  Jim really couldn’t say much to that. Kid was right.

  So now he edges around the sofa bed, which takes up a fair chunk of living room real estate. Staś snores with his mouth open. Just like he did when he was a baby.

  Jim is almost home free.

  Almost…

  Because standing there, in the kitchen doorway, is baby girl Audrey.

  Swear to God—the girl never, ever sleeps.

  “Honey, what are you doing up?”

  “Good morning, Daddy!” she says, knuckling her eyeball to dislodge the sleepies and crusties. “I’m hungry.”

  Jim kneels down next to her, even though dipping down like this makes him a little dizzy.

  “Shhh or you’ll wake Staś.”

  “I’m hungry!”

  “Look, I’ve got to go to work, sweetie. Your mommy will be up soon. She’ll fix you breakfast.”

  “But I want pork roll!”

  “I wish I could stay and make you pork roll. Believe me, sweetie. But I really have to go and be a policeman.”

  She pouts. Jim hugs her. She still pouts. Jim picks her up, twirls her around once (even though it roils his stomach in an extremely disturbing way), sets her back down, kisses her forehead, then sends her back up to Claire. Let her deal with the pork roll situation.

  Outside, Jim blinks as the harsh early-November wind whips down the street and flash-freezes his sweat. It’s raining, too, which adds more moisture to the sweat. He’s got his own weather system going on, in addition to the hurricane in his guts.

  And it’s not going to get any better once he sees what’s waiting for him downtown.

  Two squad cars are blocking off Twentieth and Pine, yellow tape already up. The uniforms’ faces are familiar but Jim can’t recall their names. He fakes it with a nod.

  They lead him to a stairwell a dozen yards away from the corner, along the side of a building. A black wrought-iron fence prevents passersby from taking a tumble down the stairwell, which leads to the basement level.

  And there she is.

  Her neck is twisted as if someone called her name and she whipped her head around to see who. Mouth slightly open, registering surprise. Eyes closed.

  Top half of her is on the concrete landing, the rest of her curled up on the last two steps from the bottom. She’s athletic, good body, wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers, socks, and a sports bra. A ripped black tank top is in the corner of the landing. No sign of her pants.

  A set of keys, a few steps down.

  Jim takes a step back, takes in the context. This is a beautiful block, one of the nicest Philadelphia has to offer. Tree-lined, with immaculate turn-of-the-century rowhomes, with late-model cars parked in front of them. The kind of place Jim could afford if he didn’t have three kids.

  Jim’s beeper goes off. The number: 215-744-5655. He doesn’t recognize it. If it doesn’t have anything to do with this particular job, he doesn’t want to hear about it right now. He’s no good at multitasking.

  A few yards away, the passenger window of a Plymouth Acclaim is cracked.

  “Does the car belong to the 5292?”

  The number is slang for a dead body—and the last four digits of the old city morgue phone number.

  “We’re running the plates now.”

  “Call Tow Squad and make this car a guard for prints.”

  Between the Acclaim and the stairwell is a Walkman, headphones still attached. Jim bags it—maybe it belonged to the vic. If so, robbery was not a motive. Though he knew that from the missing pants.

  “Any ID on the 5292?”

  Nope.

  He asks a uniform who called it in.

  At about 7:40 a.m., guy walking his dog happened to look down, see the body. At first he thought it was a department store dummy. Then he realized she was real. He threw up, then went to a pay phone to dial 911.

  Guy checks out, at first glance—he’s an attorney, gay, young, rich. Worth a follow-up, but he’s probably not the guy.

  “Who can tell me about that door?”

  A patrolman tells Jim the landlord says it can only be opened from the inside. No knob on the outside.

  Aisha’s not here yet—she’s coming all the way from Mount Airy and Lincoln Drive is probably a nightmare.

  Jim has the stairwell photographed like crazy. He doesn’t want a sing
le detail to disappear.

  Jim tells the uniforms to watch for any lookiloos. The kind of creep who would snuff a girl, then hang around to watch the aftermath. There’s always a decent chance the doer is there watching them process the scene.

  The TV news trucks arrive, one after the other. Word spreads fast. Jim has the patrolmen keep them back. This story is going to blow up; he knows that already. Pretty dead white girl killed in a nice neighborhood—the nicest neighborhood in the city, in fact.

  Aisha arrives just after the first news van. She’s a few years younger than Jim, pretty new to homicide, married with two kids, unhappily from what you gather. But works hard to keep both sides of her life going at full tilt.

  “Hey.”

  “Detective. What do you have?”

  Jim tells her, jack shit, then brings her up to speed. The girl is probably in her early twenties. The coroner will tell you more.

  But a narrative is already forming. Part fact, part questions, part possibilities.

  Girl out for a morning run, some scumbag grabs her, maybe with the idea that he’s going to pull her into a car and take her somewhere. She’s strong and fit; she fights back. Scumbag doesn’t like that. Scumbag slams her into the Acclaim. Punches her once or twice to let her know he means it for real. She drops her cassette player. Why doesn’t she scream? Even at 7 a.m., this block is full of joggers, dog-walkers, people headed into work early. Up and down this block, people were waking up, squeezing their eyes open, knocking back their first cup of Folgers. If she screamed, someone would have heard it, called it in. This isn’t the sixties; this isn’t a Kitty Genovese situation.

  No, scumbag cut off her air supply, most likely. And when he couldn’t get her into the car, maybe he dragged her down into the stairwell to do his thing. He got as far as pulling off her pants—jogging pants, had to be—before realizing that his forced “date” was dead.

  Then, presumably, scumbag flees.

  But nobody sees him? This time of morning, in a busy neighborhood just waking up for the Thursday workday?