“No, we need to think about this from the beginning. Figure out what we’re missing.” He flipped the narrow pages. “Declan McNally leaves his house Sunday night after arguing with his father. His mom says they fight a lot.”
“So do all teenagers.”
“He’s found dead early Tuesday morning in the Meatpacking District wearing Mark Voichek’s field jacket. He’s frozen from the inside out. In fact, his underwear is frozen to him.”
“Someone wanted him to look homeless.”
“That’s one theory. Whoever did it was hoping the system would swallow him up. That he’d be buried without anyone taking notice. It’s not a crazy plan, given we’re talking about Bellevue. Still, we won’t know for sure until we have a cause of death. You can bet Quirk is working hard on that tonight.”
“It’s possible he put the clothes on himself and died sometime after.”
“Right. So it could be exposure. Changes the whole story.”
“Or maybe someone thought they were killing a homeless boy.”
“How or why did he get wet?”
“I think that happened when he was inside somewhere. It’s too cold outside to get wet. So he put those clothes on—”
“Or someone dressed him.”
“After he was dead?”
“Maybe he was murdered, soaked down in his skivvies and dumped outside in the clothing. Fits with trying to hide the murder.” Taylor tapped his Bic against the notebook. He loved this. Pizza, beer, and the facts of the crime. Nothing better. “The key right now is Voichek. It’s his jacket. Maybe they’re his jeans and sweater too. He must have seen Declan McNally sometime between Sunday night and his death. Maybe he was the last person to see him. Maybe he’s the killer.”
“Why put his clothes on the kid? The jacket would ID him as the murderer.”
“Yeah, and he loved that thing. That’s what Jansen said. It’s always about connections. These two are connected. Voichek’s on the run from something. That’s connected too. I know it.”
“What was the cause of death, if not exposure?”
“Wish we knew.” He picked up the second slice. “Can you go to Bellevue tomorrow and see what they found?”
“Sure.”
“Try to get to Quirk. He was quick to decide Declan was a homeless person when the body came in. He’s got every reason to try and look good now.”
Taylor finished the beer. He shouldn’t like these full-sized bottles. They broke the rule. But the first one tasted good, and he wanted another. Figuring out the McNally story was his idea of a good time. Laura’s too, judging from the way her warm dark eyes regarded him. He got up absently and remembered to come back and ask Laura if she wanted anything.
“A Michelob this time. You’ve got that ‘looking down into the crime scene’ stare.”
“I’m sorry, it’s—”
“No, I like it. The intensity.”
He returned with both beers and leaned all the way back against the chair. He’d read enough of the notes. “The Gansevoort. Why there? Harry Jansen swears it’s a no-go zone for the homeless. The mafia boys roust anyone who tries to hang out.”
“We need to be sure it’s murder. I’ll get to Quirk tomorrow. Long as I get my research done, Worthless doesn’t care what side projects I work. They’re not trying to fire me.”
The reminder he was running out of time came almost as a shock. He’d gotten so comfortable planning their next steps. What could he do? Panic? There was no point. There was no going back. The only option was to think of nothing else but getting a story no one in that newsroom could ignore. The death of Declan McNally could be that.
“Okay, the kids from school. Reginald Morton says McNally was a cheat and a drug dealer. That’s some nice list of activities for a high school kid. All at a place like Eli. Were there drugs at Dalton?”
“Sure. Private school kids get the best stuff. Didn’t you know?”
“I did not.”
“I stuck with weed, but oh, what good weed.”
Taylor laughed. “Hippie.”
“Sometimes I wished I’d stayed one.” Her voice was tinged with regret. Taylor wanted to ask if there was a path not taken by Laura Wheeler, but she got a question out first. “In Queens?”
“Beer, always beer.”
“Still the case, I note.”
“I’m trying to shrink my consciousness, not expand it. I already see enough of what’s going on in the world.” That was way too serious. Why was it that the instant she brought up Queens, he got insecure? Private schooling, college degree, Eastside money. All good reasons to think she was out of his league. Drop it. Talk about the story. “See if you have better luck getting Dickie Bennett, that yearbook photographer, to say something.”
“I know. Get any details there are on the drugs. Get anything else that might point to a killer. You got it, Chief.”
“I’m not your chief.”
“No, you’re not. What am I?”
“About my only friend at the paper right now.”
“You’ve got Mrs. Wiggins.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Now, what to say? “You’re my partner on this story for as long as I’ve got a job.”
“That’s not much of a deal, the way you’re going.”
“Says a lot about your judgment.”
He bought another round and they talked more about the story, the cop shop and other newsroom gossip, whiling away a relaxed hour until Laura said they could get into CBGB and continue drinking there while they waited for the Ramones to come on.
Outside, a light snow drifted through the air, which was cold yet mercifully still. They walked east to get to the Bowery, paused to wait for a gap in the traffic and trotted across Lafayette. A Checker cab honked, and Taylor threw the driver a friendly finger.
The East Village closed in on them as they went. Dark and impoverished. It was a very different city here, a foreign one. The skyscrapers and 24-hour lights of midtown were gone from sight. It was easy to disappear down one of these narrow streets and show up the next day in the police blotter. Taylor and Laura passed figures flitting by on the sidewalk. Vagrants, squatters, addicts. Possible muggers? They approached 315 Bowery from across the street. The sign read “CBGB” with “OMFUG” below it, in red capital letters the typeface of a circus poster.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers.”
“Really?”
“It’s all the other music now. Hilly only books punk and art rock, which is punk anyway. There’s a huge debate about that, of course. I mean what is the band Television, punk or art rock?”
“I’m going to sound like an old fart if I say I watch mine, right?”
“Worse.”
He pulled open the door. The stench of the stalest, oldest beer from spills never cleaned up mixed with cigarette smoke, new and ancient, and sweat clobbered him. His shoes made a gummy smack coming off the floor as he moved over to a small glass window. He paid the woman ten bucks. Laura tried to argue over this, so he said she could buy drinks, never intending to let her. Inside, the bar appeared to be built out of scavenged plywood. Only a few people were drinking at this point. Blue, red, and gold neon Pabst, Miller, and Michelob signs floated above the bar, giving eerie light to the dark, narrow space. They provided Taylor some comfort in these alien surroundings. Ahab’s had the same signs, after all. Through a door at the back of the bar was an opening into a room with a small stage lit a bit better than the bar. Silver microphone stands, the only objects on the black stage, glinted in the light. He wanted to stay here, safe under the beer signs.
Laura took a seat on one of the stools. She waved her hand to offer the next one, as if they were somewhere far more formal.
“I have this theory, an idea at least.” He sat down. “There’s something that happens without warning. I can’t say exactly when. In one instant your music is the soundtrack of the moment, of the world. In th
e next, it’s in the oldies bin.”
“I said you’ll like the Ramones.”
He eyed three punks drinking PBRs.
“Everyone obsesses on the leather and the pierced ears and noses because those make for great photo spreads. Even in Rolling Stone, which is so old fart now. It’s not about all that. It’s about stripping everything away and getting to the music. The Ramones could be the Beach Boys if those guys had been really, really angry. And from Queens. Wait till you hear ‘Rockaway Beach.’ ”
He laughed and took a swig of his seven-ounce Rolling Rock. His three-beer buzz had vanished as soon as they left Ray’s and walked through the cold. As he drank now, the fizzy lager woke up the buzz and put him at lightheaded ease. With a few more, he might even get comfortable here. Hell, he could get comfortable anywhere. Wasn’t that the point? “I’ve been thinking about the boy’s family.”
“Do you ever let go of a story, and you know, relax?”
“I’m not sure I do.” He didn’t.
Laura sipped vodka and cranberry through a thin straw. She’d broken one of Taylor’s drinking rules. Never, ever mix.
He didn’t tell her that, since the rules only applied to him. Besides, one of the rules was he didn’t tell people he needed rules. “The father, Constable, handles the legal end of the city’s purchasing. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business. Often dirty business. The grandfather, Big Johnny, he’s another one. He’s got more enemies than Nixon had on his little list. What if Declan’s murder was an attack on the family?”
“That’s a new theory.”
“Gotta have theories.” He waved to the bartender for another Rolling Rock.
The crowd grew as they talked. Kids in their late teens and early twenties pressed up against the bar. The noise in the place seemed to leap to a roar all at once. Leather everywhere—jackets, pants, vests, halters—and various horror-show hairstyles, short and spiky, plus a couple of bristling Mohawks. It was funny all the same. The Mohawks aside, the leather and slicked hair reminded Taylor of the greasers who stalked his neighborhood a decade and a half ago. Of course, none of those kids stuck safety pins through their noses. And none of these kids looked like they were up to sticking you with a knife. They weren’t poor or working class. All the stuff they wore cost money.
“We should go in the back before it gets too crowded,” Laura said.
He bought two more beers and another Cape Codder for her and followed her lead as she squeezed through the crowd, which was tight-packed but friendly. He parked himself beside Laura at the back wall. They were at most twenty feet from the tiny stage. Punks in leather with sculpted hair and shiny baldheads crowded the dance floor. The Ramones stalked onto the stage, beat-up leather jackets and clouds of black hair, and slashed their way through three songs in less than five minutes. The tunes were brutally loud and lightning fast. The kids on the floor jumped up and down in a primal tribal bop. He glanced at Laura, worried she’d want to join that mass, but she watched, fascinated. Underneath the noise, he made out the words to a song the greasers actually would have sung if they’d known it. “Rock ’n’ Roll High School.” It was almost like the boys from his neighborhood returned from the musical dead, furious at what the seventies had done to their sound. The storm of music crashed over him. It wasn’t alien or foreign, just good old rock and roll. He liked it.
They finished in 20 minutes, the fastest set of the fastest songs. They gave way to Patti Smith, who was fiercely, proudly ugly. Rail thin with long black hair, she could have easily been another Ramone. She played a bit slower, but as loud and with as much fury. Smith launched into a cover of “Gloria,” the classic written by Van Morrison while he was a member of Them.
“I love this song.”
“What?” She put a hand on his shoulder.
He leaned down. “I love this song.”
“Oh, so do I! See? You are a punk.”
“Guess I am.”
His mouth met hers. They kissed tentatively and would have kept at it, but a trio of bounding punks pushed them apart. They were barely able to stay next to each other as the bouncing crowd jumped and thumped through the end of the concert.
Taylor climbed—fell almost—into the backseat of the cab after Laura. Once the cab pulled away, she leaned against his shoulder, looking across him out the window. Cars, streetlights, traffic signals, and signs passed, fuzzy blurs of light. He kissed her, and she pressed against him and sighed. He put his arm around her shoulders. They contorted into the awkward sideways necking required by the confines of a New York taxi. Spine-twisting it might have been, but it was good and long and ended as they pulled up to a row of walkups on Third Avenue just above 77th.
She unlocked the red steel front door of the four-story building. Taylor stepped over Chinese delivery menus and four-color fliers carpeting the entryway and followed as Laura started up the stairs, her rear end swaying as they climbed. She unlocked her apartment door on the fourth floor. They walked down the hall past the kitchen and entered the living room, where they both dropped onto a futon couch that looked like a big folded noodle.
“Man, you hike that every day.”
She laughed and picked up a big jug of red wine by the glass loop. “Wine?”
“You wouldn’t have anything in the way of a beer?”
“You think this is Queens?’
“No, definitely not Queens.” He shook his head a bit too hard. His brain sloshed around in his skull. This was about the time of night he started breaking his rules. “Sure, why not.”
“I’ll get glasses.” She tried to rise from the noodle and fell back.
He caught her by the hips.
“Whoa. Bit unsteady there.” Once up, she went down the hall to the kitchen.
The compact living room was comfortable and neat. A small TV with rabbit ears sat on a table in the corner. Two impressionist prints were tacked to the wall. A component stereo system included amp, tape deck, and turntable. Taylor flipped record albums in a blue milk crate. New York Dolls, Ramones, Television. Farther back, he tipped past The Beatles, The Doors, Velvet Underground, John Denver. John Denver?
“Goddammit Sarah Jane, you have got to wash the dishes.” The sound of running water.
At the back of the carton, he found Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits, the album everyone ended up with, one way or the other. Taylor had two, an LP and a cassette. Both gifts from women. They’d left. Simon and Garfunkel had stayed.
Laura came in and poured wine in a tall glass and handed it over. On it, Fred Flintstone chased Barney Rubble.
“Nice wine glass.”
“They were grape jelly jars. Sarah Jane says they remind her of home.”
“She’s from Bedrock?”
“Almost. St. Louis.”
She sat on the couch. He held up the John Denver. “This hers too?”
“No, that’s mine.”
“John Denver isn’t very punk.” He sipped the wine. Mixing was a one-way ticket to next-day disaster, but it tasted good and was going down warm and relaxing like red wine always did. It was a different sort of buzz from beer. Maybe he needed to have it more often. Anyway, he couldn’t let Laura drink alone.
“You don’t know? He’s a very, very angry man.”
“At the songs he’s forced to sing?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” She drank from her Flintstones glass. “I bought it in high school. My musical tastes have changed a whole lot since.”
“Because that was so long ago.” He kissed her and kept his arm around her after. She leaned against him. “Why did you keep the album? I mean, if your tastes changed so much?”
“There are times I like it, when I’m alone, when no one’s judging whether my music fits their urban nihilistic vision.”
“Sometimes too much of nothing?”
“Yeah, guess so. What I want right now is for you to stay the night.”
“I’d like that.”
She led the way to
the bedroom with its twin beds, one against each wall. One was made up, one covered in clothes. She took his glass, set it down on a small dresser with hers, came close and undid his belt. He kissed her and pulled her blouse from her skirt.
The apartment door banged opened. Two laughing voices entered. Stumbling.
“C’mon. Get your ass up,” said a woman’s voice.
Laura frowned, moved to close the bedroom door, but as she got there, a blond woman pushed inside. She had the pretty face of a farm-fed Midwesterner and wore jeans slashed up and down the legs.
“I have the room tonight,” said the woman.
“You know I’ve never asked for it before.”
“I put in for tonight and no one objected. They’re your rules, Laura.”
“I know. Just tonight can—”
“No, I can’t. C’mon in.”
The man entered the crowded room, smiled and stretched out on the bed covered in laundry. “They can stay. I don’t mind a crowd.” He was rail-thin, with a shaved head, except for the frill of a Mohawk.
“Why can’t you go to his house?”
“His parents kicked him out.” The blonde dropped her coat to the floor.
“Parents can be tough on the anarchist lifestyle,” said Taylor.
“Silly old man.” The boyfriend pulled Sarah Jane down on top of him and groped for her rear as he applied his lips to hers with some diligence.
“Let’s go.” Laura grabbed Taylor’s hand and pulled him out of the room. “We can hang out for a while, at least until Annie gets home.”
They went back to the living room.
“Where does she sleep?”
“On the futon. Sarah Jane and I share the bedroom, except when someone needs it for privacy. I thought she’d give me a break tonight.”
“Who was that old guy?” the boyfriend loudly asked Sarah Jane.
“I don’t know. Someone from the paper. Probably her boss.”
A low moaning started, followed by a rocking banging to the unmistakable rhythm.
This killed Taylor’s desire. The red wine buzz began the quick slide into a hangover. If Annie came home, he’d be really uncomfortable. “I should go.”
“With roommates it’s difficult, you know …. Can we go to your place?”
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