Authors: William Lashner
We ended up in a busy Spanish joint in Old City called Amada, just the two of us at a high butcher-block table next to a bar with hams hanging from the ceiling and wooden casks in the wall. The décor was spare, the crowd was hip, the sign outside read tapas y vinos. Trocek was familiar enough with the specialties of the place to order for us both without a menu, providing us each a tall beer and a wide selection of appetizers on little plates. I pawed at the octopus and marinated white anchovies while piles of cod croquettes and crab-stuffed peppers disappeared within the maw hidden in Trocek’s beard.
“I love Iberia,” said Trocek with a lecherous growl. “The food, the sun, Portuguese girls. I have a home in southern Portugal, in the Algarve.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Nice? Nice is for schoolboys with pimples on their chests.”
“Have you ever been to Nice?”
He looked at me for a moment, pulled at his beard for a bit, and then stuffed a folded piece of Serrano ham into his mouth.
“Even thugs in Iberia, like Sandro, have special quality. A cruelty that comes from too much sun and not enough honest work. He is from Cádiz, the unemployment capital of Europe. He had much time to learn his current trade.”
“He seems quite sweet, all warm and fuzzy. You mentioned that you visited Julia for business. What kind of business?”
He ignored my question, stabbed a slice of chorizo with his fork, and pointed it in my direction. “That must have hurt, when Wren snatched Julia from right within your embrace.”
I lifted my beer, looked for a moment at the tiny bubbles rising in it before taking a sip. “Yeah, well, life sucks.”
“He used to love telling that story,” continued Gregor. “His how-we-met story. He’d have his arm around her neck when he told it, and in the middle of it he’d give her a little squeeze. ‘I rescued her from some shyster,’ he’d say. That was word he used, and he always laughed when he said it. Shyster.”
“Jew shyster?”
“No.”
“I’m surprised.”
“It was implied.”
“And what was Julia’s reaction?”
“Oh, you know Julia, she doesn’t react much. But he would laugh and laugh.”
“I’m so sorry that he’s dead.”
“Me, too,” he said as he speared a ring of calamari with his fork. “He was quite a valuable friend. Long ago we were partners in a business venture to sell used medical equipment to the poorer countries of Eastern Europe. We were performing great public service.” He stuck the calamari in his mouth and chewed. “Sadly, we were shut down by pack of petty bureaucrats—there were libelous reports of diseases being spread by our product—but we remained friends. And later he was helpful in treating certain conditions that arose from my unique lifestyle.”
“It’s always handy to have a urologist on call.”
“Indeed it is. He will be missed. In fact, we should drink toast to him right now.”
I lifted my beer. “To Dr. Wren Denniston, that son of a bitch.”
“Yes,” he said, lifting his own beer in response. “To that glorious son of a bitch.”
He downed his beer in a quick series of swallows, slammed the glass on the table, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, snapped his fingers for another round.
“In fact, Victor,” he said. “You might find this peculiar, but we talked about you last time we spoke.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” Trocek swirled a tentacle of squid in black ink and deposited it in his mouth. A squirt of the ink stayed on his thick lower lip, dripping into his beard. “He asked me to kill you.”
“What?”
“Kill you.”
“Come again?”
“Should I shout it?”
“No, that’s fine.” I felt my nerves fly loose, like a flock of startled swallows, and then settle again. I looked quickly around the restaurant, leaned forward, lowered my voice. “Me?”
“You.”
“Gad.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It seemed Wren somehow discovered that his dear Julia was seeing someone behind his back. Meetings at coffee shop and hotel bar. Tell me, Victor, does anyplace ooze wanton and anonymous sex more than hotel bar? And then he discovered that the someone his wife was seeing in hotel bar was you.”
“We’re just friends.”
“Which was why you were parked on her street this very afternoon, staring at her house with longing eyes.”
“How did Wren find out? Did he tell you?”
“I think he had spy on her.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“It was hard to turn offer down. First, the money was good. And second, Sandro so likes the work. I have very little scruples, it’s major part of my charm, but killing you seemed overreaction. As friend, I strongly advised him to forget about it.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But Wren was just talking anyway. He was always great talker. Not great doer, actually. Aside from the wrestling and stealing his wife from you, he was pretty much failure. Not much of doctor, not so successful in business. And even in wrestling, a monster from Iowa broke his back and ended career, so that did not work out either. Leaving Julia as his only real achievement. And then you come along, trying to snatch her back. You can see from where was born his upset. I told him to get grip. It was just wife, not like it was mistress cheating on him. Now, that would be serious. That is worth sending Sandro. Were you sleeping with his mistress, too?”
“I wasn’t sleeping with anyone.”
“Now you are not being serious with me. But still I found it curious that day after he told me he wanted you murdered, he ended up dead.”
“Curious?”
Trocek jabbed at a shrimp, dipped it into the butter sauce until it was covered with bits of garlic, delicately placed it between his teeth, and chewed slowly. “It’s like ambrosia, isn’t it?”
“The shrimp?”
“No, not shrimp, though that, too, is quite good. I was in love once. I was young, she was younger. I’ve never recovered. I spend my life now trying to recapture feeling. It’s never quite same, though, is it? Ultimately a quest doomed to failure. It can never be same because we are no longer same. But the moments of anticipation, the fleeting sensations as you slowly peel off her
clothes and think that maybe, this time, it will stir you equally. Well, that delicious moment of anticipation is what I live for now. It is worth everything.”
“I think you have the wrong idea.”
“I would kill for it.”
“I didn’t.”
“But would you, Victor? That’s the question.”
“Why is that the question?”
“How far would you go to recapture love?”
“Is this rhetorical?”
“I’m looking for Miles Cave,” he said. “Do you know him?”
“No,” I said.
“We were in business together, Wren and Miles and me. Wren was go-between, so I never met this Miles. A friend from school, Wren said. But now, with Wren gone, I need to find him. That’s why I visit Julia. She said she didn’t know him either, which is quite strange. Wren told me Miles Cave was friend he could trust. I would expect he would have introduced such friend to his wife.”
“Maybe not.”
“Maybe yes. Are you defending her out of gallantry, Victor, or is it something else?”
“What is it you’re getting at?”
He gestured to one of the plates. “Garbanzos con espinacas?”
“I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”
“Pity, no matter what befalls me, I never lose my appetite. What do you think of Detective Sims?”
“I don’t.”
“Personally, I wouldn’t trust him. His shoes are a bit too French, don’t you think? But I am quite taken with Detective Hanratty. He’s all jaw. You don’t see jaw like that outside of old American movies or the sporting field.”
“You met them?”
“No, please. I make practice of avoiding police. But I also make practice of knowing who I am dealing with, and in this
case I seem to be dealing with this Sims and this Hanratty. What do you think they would say if I showed up and told them of my last conversation with Wren?”
I rubbed my thumb down the side of my beer, leaving a trail in the condensation.
“And what would they say,” continued Trocek, “if I told them that right after my conversation with Wren I called Julia and relayed to her what Wren had requested of me?”
“But that would be a lie.”
“Would it?”
“She would have told me.”
“That would be the obvious conclusion, yes, whether it happened or not. And, of course, other conclusions would be drawn. Maybe she told. Maybe you both panicked. Maybe you decided it was kill or be killed. Don’t look so worried. You could plead self-defense. From what I know of American law, it would fail, but you could plead it. You would not be standing there with just your peter in your hand.”
“She never told me, and I didn’t kill him.”
“Details. Now, I know you’ve lost your appetite, Victor, but you simply must try the foie gras and orange marmalade. It is as bright as a bite of a young girl’s tongue.”
“They won’t believe you.”
He shrugged, spread the concoction on a strip of toast, swallowed, and swooned. “They won’t have to,” he said as he slathered another piece of toast. “They can trace the phone records. A call from Wren to my hotel room and then a call from the hotel room to Julia’s cell right after.”
“What do you want, Mr. Trocek?”
“I want to find Miles Cave. He has something of mine.”
“Maybe you should use the Internet.”
“I found a Miles Cave on the Internet, yes, in upstate New York. Sandro paid him visit. Nice man, but, unfortunately, not the one. Sandro was careful with the fingers, preserved them in
ice, at least the one he didn’t keep, so maybe they’ve been reattached, who knows with the wonders of modern medicine? I hope so. You see, Victor, at heart I am a humanitarian. But the pity is that I am one of those poor deluded souls who is led by his peter, and my peter is all business. So still I am seeking my partner.”
“I don’t know who the hell he is or where the hell he is.”
“Then maybe start looking. And maybe give Julia little nudge to jar her memory.”
I sat back, lifted up the beer. It was a bit early, but I still drained it and looked immediately for the pretty young waitress so I could order another. I had never dreamed of a fat guy with a black beard sticking tapas in his craw, but even so, this son of a bitch was my worst nightmare come alive. Was he lying? Maybe, except what he told me explained why Gwen had heard Wren and Julia Denniston fighting about me the night of Wren’s murder. And even if it was a lie, it wouldn’t much matter. If Trocek spilled, Hanratty’s hard-on for me would grow only harder. And it would be just as bad for Julia as it was for me. It wouldn’t make much difference then who pulled the trigger, motive was motive and conspiracy was conspiracy and both of us would go splat.
“Dessert?” said Gregor Trocek. “They have very nice fried milk with orange and butterscotch.”
“No, thank you. I’m ready to throw up as it is.”
“Trust me, Victor, it’s to die for.”
“Tell me about it.”
I sat and drank another beer and watched him shovel the brown concoction into the hole in his beard and tried to think it through. No matter how you sliced the fried milk, I was in a vise.
“What do I do after I find this Miles Cave?” I said.
Trocek reached into his shirt pocket, took out a card, slipped it across the table. It had no name, just a phone number.
“Don’t do anything rash,” said Trocek. “Just give me call and
tell me where he is. Sandro will take it from there. And with call, my conversations with Wren and Julia on the eve of his murder will disappear.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Don’t see, do. And do quickly.”
“I didn’t kill your old friend Wren.”
“That’s sweet,” he said, “but really, I don’t care.”
Okay, so this is what I had. There was a dead doctor. There was a cop who thought I had murdered him. There was a squirmy lawyer with the facial expressions of a teenage mass murderer who was threatening me with unpleasant consequences. There was a Russian gangster with a Spanish henchman and a taste for young Portuguese girls who had been asked to kill me. There was an old school chum of the dead man’s named Miles Cave who had gone missing and yet seemed to be at the center of everything. And there was a girl who was either the key to my future or a cold-blooded killer trying mightily to make me her fall guy.
When did love get so hard?
It was enough to send me driving deep into the dark, drug-addled heart of North Philly to find some answers. Before I fell any further into the mire, I needed to learn the truth about Julia Denniston, and I figured it took one dark, drug-addled heart to know one.
I was in a single-file line of cars moving slowly down North Fifth Street as if at a Taco Bell drive-through. There was an SUV from New Jersey in front of me, a Trans Am with what looked like a couple of suburban kids behind me. The street was well lighted, music was playing, crowds were swarming around the intersection. It was like a party, festive and bright, with a cash bar.
“What can I do you?” said a kid who sidled up to my window. He had to rise on tiptoe to get a view.
“Isn’t this a school night?” I said.
“I got a special deal for you, mister. How about a lady to go with your goods?”
“Does your mom know you’re out here tonight?”
“It’s my moms I’m talking about.”
“That is so sweet. You just won my Son of the Year award.”
“Come on, let’s go. I got a business to run.”
“It looks to me like you’re the one being run. How often do you get picked up by the cops?”
“I don’t. They sweep in here, I just tear. I’m so fast all they see is a blur.”
“What about the bullets? You outrun those, too?”
“If I have to, sure.”
“I must say, you are enough to bring tears to a man’s eyes.”
“You here to buy or to cry?”
“Neither, really. You know Derek Moats?”
“Skinny guy, never stops talking, combed-out Afro.”
“That’s the one.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Here’s a ten,” I said, slipping him a bill. “Derek told me he’d be around tonight. Go find him and tell him Victor Carl will park a block down and wait for him. Then why don’t you go on home and get some sleep so you’ll be fresh and ready for school tomorrow.”
He looked down at the bill, back up to me. “It’s going to take more than a dime to save me.”
“You want to be saved?”
“Hell, no.”
“Just tell Derek,” I said as I took my foot off the brake pedal and slowly drove away. If you put a dog in a room and shock him, he’ll leap around and bark like crazy. If you shock him again and then again, shock him without rhyme or reason and without giving him any way to stop the shocks, he’ll eventually stop all the leaping and barking and just lie down on the floor and take it. It’s called learned helplessness, and sometimes this city makes me feel like a dog on the floor with an electrode up his butt.
“Hey, bo,” said Derek a few minutes later when he leaned into the passenger window of my parked car.
“I thought you weren’t in the business.”
“I told you I don’t sell. I’m just hanging with my boys.”
“They pick you up again along with your boys, my tricks won’t work a second time.”
“Did you come here to lecture me, or did I hear something about a job?”
“Get in,” I said.
With Derek inside the car, I drove a bit, away from the drug corner, toward an area more residential. I parked and turned on the overhead light.
“What’s up?”
“I want to show you something, but you have to keep it quiet.”
“Something good?”
“No,” I said. “Something not good at all.”
I reached down beneath my seat and pulled out a small red zippered purse and handed it to Derek.
He looked at it, front and back. “Coach,” he said. “Nice. Bet it fits in right fine with your man purse.”
“It’s not mine, Derek. Open it up.”
He took hold of the zipper pull, opened the purse, and emptied
its contents on the little tray between our seats. A wad of cash, a lighter, a silver spoon, a hypodermic needle with the point capped in plastic, cotton balls, packets of alcohol swabs. And small plasticine envelopes the size of a postage stamp, all of them empty, the picture of a cat printed in black ink on the side of each. Derek stared at the little pile, rubbed the stubble on his chin, dramatically grimaced, like he was diagnosing a swollen appendix.
“You know, just having this stuff is illegal,” he said.
“I know.”
“Looks like some high-class society fly is hopped on H.” He leaned over the tray, sniffed the air. “Yep, that’s what it is.”
“I’m curious about the little packets.”
“They’re all empty.”
“They weren’t when I found the purse. I emptied them into the toilet.”
“Now, that was simply a crying waste.”
“Do you recognize the stamp?”
“Black Cat,” he said. “It’s the mark of a Jamaican group working out of Hunting Park. They have all kinds of names for their stuff, depending on where it’s sold. Face to Face, Viagra, Turbo, Versace, Viper, Blue Label.”
“Where’s Black Cat sold?” I said.
“Don’t know. It changes corner to corner.”
“I want to find where it’s being sold and by whom.”
“Where did you say you found all this stuff?”
“I didn’t.”
“And why you want this information for?”
“It’s personal,” I said. “Can you just help me out here?”
“How much?”
“Ten bucks an hour.”
“What’s your middle name, McDonald? Come on, bo. Fork it over.”
“What about the money you still owe me for your defense?”
“What’s that? I paid you a retainer.”
“That didn’t even cover trial prep. You still owe me for the trial itself.”
“Apples and oranges. You want my help or what?”
“Twenty an hour, then, but that’s it.”
“Okay, though this might take a while.”
“I figure.”
“There’s a guy I know who might know what you want to know. You want to meet him?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Tonight soon enough?”
“Perfect.”
“You got cash?”
“I got cash.”
“Good, let’s go get ourselves a drink. You like Red Stripe?”
“The beer?”
“Yah, mon, the beer,” he said, lilting his voice into an island accent. “Have your cash ready, bo. We’ll be eating goat and drinking Red Stripe tonight.”
“Goat?”
“Tastes like dog, but with a kick.”
“Sounds yummy,” I said.