Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City (12 page)

“How’s that?”

He grabbed the bottle and poured some whiskey for himself and me. He didn’t drink any more just yet, instead fixing his eyes on the Christmas-like colors from the barroom’s neon beer signs swirling in the golden liquid of his shot glass.

“The city’s gone to hell. My guess is someone from off the street looking for drug money killed that ballplayer.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t wash. Someone after a fix doesn’t slip into a hotel like the Spinelli.”

“I didn’t say a fix Crager. I’m saying our dead ballplayer might have been involved in some drug dealing.”

I watched Gallagher take a sip from his whiskey. “Unless you know something I don’t know.” He put down the glass and stared past me at the television. “To tell you the truth Crager
, m
y boys aren’t getting anywhere with this. You know this is the fourth murder in the city this year. That’s more than we used to get in five years.”

“Keeps you boys on your toes.”

“Damn niggers from Philly bringing’ their shit to Centre Town,” he continued.
“Killing each other over rock candy. You know we shut down two crack houses in the spring? Crack houses. Hell, when I started on the force it was the long-haired faggots and their marijuana.”

The alcohol was beginning to slur his words. His hand fumbled with the whiskey bottle. Somehow though, he managed to fill both our glasses without spilling a drop.

“Yeah. The town’s gone to hell,” he said.

“Joe. Who knocked off Lance Miller?”

He shrugged. “Some madman. Or someone pretty hopped up on drugs.”

“I thought you said it involved a drug deal.”

“Nah. My guess is someone slipped into that room looking for something, found the ballplayer there and plunged a knife in his back.”

“Just like that?”

“Had to be. You saw the body. No knife wounds on the victim’s hands, arms or anyplace else. What does that tell you?”

“That there was no struggle.”

Right. In and out. Nice and clean.”

“And the weapon was never found either.”

“Exactly. The guy knew enough to take the weapon with him. A lot of guys would have left the blade before fleeing.”

“That’s assuming it was a guy.”

Gallagher drank off the rest of his whiskey and leaned in toward me. His face had become more flush; his eyes were as droopy as a bloodhound’s.

“I think the drunkenness becomes you,” I said.

He turned away and lifted his empty glass away from him “The lad thinks I’m drunk,” he announced in a thick Irish brogue. “Imagine that. A drunken Irishman.”

He looked to Red who was talking on the phone at the other end of the bar. “Say Red. Come drink with us lad.” Red cradled the phone to his ear and turned his back on us.

“Ah the hell with you Red. I got me friend Crager here. Me drunken friend Crager.”

“Tell your drunken friend Crager who murdered Lance Miller.”

Gallagher grinned like a baseball manager riding a seven-game winning streak. “Oh I get it. Get your cop friend good and oiled then pump him for information.”

“Bad idea huh?”

“The worst sort of brainstorm me detective friend.” He gave me a sly wink and grabbed the bottle. It was still a good two thirds full, and I knew Gallagher wasn’t planning on leaving until we finished it off. He grabbed my glass and refilled it. “What do you say we really get to work on this stuff?”

If I thought I was going to get anything out of Gallagher I was wrong. As we continued drinking in that barroom he had little more to say on the subject of the murder.  I wasn’t sure if he was holding out on me or if indeed the murder had his department stumped. You never knew with Joe Gallagher. He could play dumb
,
and he could play games with you. At any rate, the conversation turned to other topics: baseball, the price of supermarket food, and ultimately marriage, a subject of which he considered himself somewhat of an expert. Gallagher had been through three marriages and never tired of recounting the emotional and financial wreckage each woman had wrought upon him.

“You know what the worst part is?” he said.

“I don’t know Joe. What?”

He was wearing one of those heavy-banded rings on the third finger of his right hand. A bulldog’s mug was plastered on the front of the ring, and a pair of ruby-colored stones served as the canine’s eyes. He made a fist with the hand and considered the ring for a few moments before gazing up at me, his eyes appearing weary and
more
glassy now from the drinking. “When they take your pride too.”

He shook his head and finished off his drink.

I turned my attention to Red who was doing battle once again with the television.

It was either that or listen to Gallagher go on about how his third wife had run off with the state trooper from Harrisburg.

“Ah lad,” he said. “Tis no sadder sight than a man who’s been left on his own to die.”

A cold chill ran though me. “You ain’t dying,” I said, forcing a grin. Somehow the words sounded strange to me though, as if I didn’t quite believe what I’d said. I watched Red pound away at the television like a medic trying to restart a stubborn heart. He was having little success with the thing though. Finally, he turned the set off and joined us at the other end of the bar.

“Gallagher thinks he’s dying,” I said.

With a nitwit smile Red looked Gallagher up and down. “You do look like a sack of potatoes in that uniform at that. But nah. You ain’t dying.”

“Sack of potatoes my ass you red-headed bastard.”

“Hey Cozz,” Red said. “Why do flies have wings”

“Beats me.”

“To beat the Irish to the garbage cans.”

That brought a roar from Gallagher. And with that he filled our glasses with more of the whiskey. For the next couple of hours, that’s how it went. We’d talk awhile, and Gallagher would suddenly retreat into one of his dark, self-pitying moods, and then Red would come up with some inane observation or witticism to lift the big guy’s spirits. As he drank, Gallagher’s voice became louder, his tongue looser. I was sure I could get him to spill some information about the murder. But he turned out to be harder to crack than I thought. Each time I brought up the murder he’d wave me off with his hand. There was too much other inside stuff about city hall and his work he wanted to share instead. I had allowed him to have most of the whiskey for a
while, not even attempting to match him drink for drink. But then I found myself gulping down shot after shot. It was a mistake. The room began to sway. I knew I was creeping past my limit. Still, I pushed on. Gallagher called for another bottle, and by the time we were well into that one, I was plastered but good, and he knew it. Gallagher, for his part, was like a racehorse, raring and ready to go for the stretch run.

“Now lad,” he said, leaning closer to me with a smile. “All this business about a murder. You seem to be a mite curious about it.”

By now, my bladder had begun to ache. I didn’t much care about a murder or that
Gallagher was taunting me. I just wanted to piss out the whiskey and get my head to stop spinning.

“Think I’ll hit the can.” I took one step from off the bar stool and went down. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor staring up at both Gallagher and Red.

“I say Red. Call a cab for the lad.”

I was in no position to fight it. The two of them managed to get me on my feet and outside into a cruel August sunshine. The sun’s rays were like drills boring into my skull, and the explosion of afternoon heat nearly blasted me into sobriety. I closed my eyes. My head was spinning like a revolving door at quitting time as I let them stuff me into the cab.

“Next time you try to out drink an Irishman bring a friend lad,” I heard Gallagher say. He and Red roared. I felt the cab lurch, then pull away, and then the streets of
Centre Town swallowed me up.

The aroma of sausage and eggs sizzling aroused me from my dreamless state. My stomach groaned like a tree bending in the wind. But not from discomfort. I was hungry. Funny thing. When I’m
hung over
, my head often screams for mercy, but I never get sick to the stomach.

Pat was across the room in a chair watching me. She was wearing my favorite outfit: the sundress that showed more than a modest bit of cleavage. It was obvious she had spent time fixing herself up. Her hair was pumped and had a golden shine to it. Then it hit me. Today had been our
rain date
to hit the kiddy park.

“You’re lucky I even talk to you after today,” she said.

I got myself to a sitting position on her couch. My head hurt only a little. Most of the wooziness was gone.

“What time is it?”

“Way past time for you buddy,” she said.

“I guess so,” I said.

Pat sat eyeing me. Just take it easy, I told myself. She’s only a woman. A woman you stood up.

“I guess this calls for an explanation,” I said.

“I give you all the space you need.” She rose from the chair before turning on her heels and heading to the kitchen.

“The food smells good,” I called out.

Pat had cooked up one of my favorite post-drinking meals: ham & cheese omelets with side orders of German sausage rolls, and slabs of French toast lathered in butter. There was freshly squeezed orange juice to top it off. All in all, the perfect breakfast for an early evening. I
hadn’t eaten since the morning, and I was hungrier as hell.
I
had the nagging suspicion Pat was gonna make me ante up somehow for cooking me this feast.

We were back on the couch later. I was massaging Pat’s toes - my penance for showing up silly drunk and partaking of her food - and watching the brats do battle over the video tapes. A pretty normal evening for us. Both of her long legs were poking out of that sun dress and across my lap. God. I wanted to take her right there. To hell with the kids. But I knew this was no night for me to call the shots. No way. Pat knew it too. Every once in a while, when the kids were busy bouncing tapes off each other’s heads, she’d use the big toe of her one foot to prod me significantly in the groin area. This playful little torture scene went on a little too long for my taste. But that’s what you get for hooking up with a woman who can throw back even harder all the crap you hurl at her. It’s hell trying to make love to a single mommy.

“So tell me about your case.”

And I did. Everything from my suspicions about Mick Slaughter to my break-in of Giles Hampton’s home to my questioning of Lance’s brother and his wife Reba. It was
Reba Miller who raised Pat’s always active curiosity. I could feel every muscle in each of her long, lovely legs tighten. “You know her?”

Pat nodded and looked away. She began biting hard on her lower lip. “The bitch,” she added.

“I take it Reba Miller’s not on your Christmas card list?”

She frowned. Then, quite suddenly, she began to giggle.

“After all these years,” she said, shaking her head. “After all these damn years.”

“Okay. You want to let me in on it?”

“Reba Miller. Jesus. She was a classmate back at Peabody.”

“Peabody High School?”

Pat nodded. “A cheerleader, a homecoming queen. Miss All American princess bitch.”

“Whoa. Is there a food fight coming?”

Pat smiled and allowed herself to fall back against me. “She had most of the guys fooled
,
but I knew her game. In gym class one day I saw her stuffing her damn bra with toilet paper.”

“Gee. They looked kind of real the other day.”

Pat dug her nails into my arm. I let out a yelp that caused Timmy and the twins to pause from their tag team wrestling and stare in our direction.

“Reba Miller. What a piece of work. They broke the damn mold creating that woman.”

“What happened to our little princess after high school?”

“What happens to all those little ball breakers? She went off to college and married the campus stud.”

“I got news for you honey. Ron Miller ain’t exactly the campus stud.”

“That marriage came later. She was still in college when she married Roger
Reynolds.” Pat got a faraway look in her eyes. “A guy much too good for her. Anyway, she got married here in Centre Town at Ocyl Chapel, and they had a big reception at Foxboro Gardens Country Club.”

“Foxboro Gardens. Hell. Her old man must have mortgaged the farm for that.”

Pat made a face. “Let me tell you, little expense was spared in making it the social event of the year.”

“Wait a minute. You went?”

“I didn’t have much choice. The caterer I was working for prepared and delivered all the freakin’ food.”

“How lovely.”

“Tell me about it. I had to serve up escargot to that snooty crowd.”

“But we were a perfect lady now weren’t we?”

“I didn’t say anything. I had a job to do, and God knows I needed the money. I was working two other jobs and going to school at night to become a hairdresser. So I just went about shoveling the escargot onto the plates of the bluebloods when lo and behold Miss Princess Bitch herself comes through the food line.”