My Brother's Keeper (21 page)

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Why would you be sorry? It was something he always wanted. He wanted to be a Marine before he was old enough to shave. My ex-husband was in the military. He used to say it was a noble profession. He'd say there was no higher calling than being a soldier.' Betty removed her glasses and closed her tired eyes and dropped the glasses on the counter and leaned back in her chair. ‘Nobility is something you read about in books. Not a way to characterize your son.'

‘I don't know.'

‘You don't know?'

‘I've seen noble men, Betty. I've known them. And I didn't read about them in books or see them in the movies. I saw them in action. It's our actions that define us as noble. It's one of the few things I've ever been sure of.'

‘Then, I suppose, you classify yourself as noble.'

‘I didn't say that.'

‘I think you just did.'

Maggie was coming down the hall now, side-stepping the blood stains as Lou had done. She stared alternately at her father and then at Betty as if she'd just entered her parents' bedroom and interrupted a domestic dispute.

‘Betty, I do have one more favor to ask you.'

‘You haven't asked any yet.'

‘Franny Patterson was brought in here last night. I know she's in pretty bad shape. I'm just wondering if you can tell me what room she's in?'

‘Jimmy's little sister, right?'

‘Yeah.'

Betty rolled her eyes and turned to the computer screen in front of her. She started pounding the keys and then turned the computer screen toward Lou so he could see it over the counter.

‘She's still in intensive care.'

‘Thanks, Betty.'

Lou and Maggie rode the same elevator back down to the main floor and proceeded through a long hallway connecting separate wings of the hospital. The hallway was essentially a glass tube, two thick glass walls on each side with a view of the parking lot, cars going silently by on Lancaster Avenue and clusters of sparse, bare trees littering the grounds. The trees didn't appear to be arranged in any particular order, each one looking like a crippled hand emerging from the earth. Air whistled down the hallway like it was a wind tunnel. Lou picked up his pace, Maggie walking a few paces behind. She was running now to keep up.

Franny wouldn't be allowed visitors, not if she was in intensive care, not from anyone other than the immediate family or a parish priest if things looked that bad, someone to administer the last rites so her soul could enter Paradise as opposed to wandering the streets of Philadelphia looking for revenge. All things considered, she'd probably have a cop outside her door; maybe it'd be a friendly face, one of her brother's old friends.

The detail would have come down the seniority list with very short notice and whoever was looking to pick up a little overtime would have to do it after eight hours on the midnight shift with no sleep. Lou had done it plenty of times, babysitting a witness or a victim in the hospital, grabbing a chair from the waiting room and parking it in the hall and slugging coffee from the machine.

‘I think I should handle this myself, Maggie. Sorry.' He pulled a crumpled five out of his pocket. ‘Why don't you meet me in the cafeteria?'

‘If I knew you were going to blow me off I wouldn't have come this far.'

‘It kind of just dawned on me. It's going to be hard enough getting myself in.'

She folded the five-dollar bill and slid it into her back pocket.

‘Big spender.'

It was Donny Weeks sitting outside Franny's room. Lou recognized him instantly. Donny was a career patrolman. In twenty-five years he'd never managed to climb even one wrung on the promotional ladder. After a while it had become a badge of honor to him. There were days on end when he and Lou met outside Tony Luc's, sitting car to car, inhaling cheese steaks and talking with their mouths full and washing it all down with Diet Pepsi. Thinking about it now, Lou couldn't remember what those conversations had been about. Yet he felt he knew Donny pretty well. Donny felt the same. Who knew why?

Approaching from down the hall Donny looked like a caricature of his earlier self, the same long, thin face, always a little pasty. He was in his early fifties now with a dark pompadour and only a touch of gray. He'd never had a chin. What he did have was this slim, rubber-like neck that protruded over his collar and twisted spasmodically every so often, his whole head twitching. Lou remembered watching Donny over the door of his police cruiser, waiting for his head to spin all the way around, thinking he looked like a nervous rooster.

Donny held a white Styrofoam cup and his head was back against the wall. Lou was a little surprised to see him still on the job. He was another one of those guys with enough time to retire and just waiting for the right time to do it, wondering if there was ever going to be a right time, always finding something else to spend his money on: a boat, a motorcycle, a cottage in the mountains, a twenty-something girlfriend.

Lou remembered hearing that Donny had bought a place in South Carolina. A lot of the guys in the department seemed to be going that way lately. Their pension money went a lot further down there, a little place a few blocks from the beach, the same ocean but touching the shores of a more civilized society, southern manners and hospitality, where the man was still the man and graffiti was something they threw at the Thanksgiving Day parade. You could drive along the same stretch of road for mile upon mile and not see an office building or a strip mall or an industrial park or an oil refinery, just one shanty town after another, poor upon poor living side by side, unchanged for a century. It was everything an ex-Philly cop could ask for at half the price.

Donny had known Jimmy Patterson as well as Lou had, all of them assigned to the Seventeenth District early in their careers, keeping the blacks in Point Breeze and the whites in Grays Ferry from killing each other.

‘Hey, Donny.'

Donny's eyes fluttered open and he casually put the cup to his lips before turning to the sound of Lou's voice.

‘Hey, Lou. Long time no see. How's things?' He used his shirt sleeve to wipe the dribble of coffee from his chin. ‘I heard you were back in town. Someone said they ran into Joey G down at the Ivy, said you guys were starting a PI business.'

‘It's not much of a business.'

‘It's the kind of business that takes connections, that's for sure. And come to think of it, Lou, I don't remember you havin' a lot of connections. And I know there ain't no money in cheatin' housewives.'

‘I've met a few housewives that have made a pretty good living at it.'

They laughed out loud and any tension between them melted away.

‘You ain't shittin'.' Donny got slowly to his feet and placed himself in front of the door. ‘That's a shame what happened to Jimmy. It's got a lot people pissed off. The fuckin' Haggertys. For Jimmy's sake, I don't mind keeping an eye on his baby sister but she should have known better, gettin' mixed up with them.'

‘It's not always easy knowing what the right thing to do is.'

‘You don't believe that, Lou. Her old man's a cop, she got two brothers who are cops and she throws in with a gangster. There's a problem there.'

‘The father and the son, Donny, they're two different people.'

‘The apple don't fall far from the tree. You know that.'

‘Maybe she thought she could change him.'

‘Hey, you don't have to defend Franny Patterson to me.'

‘I know, Donny.'

‘She was like family. You know what I'm sayin'?'

‘You never know. Maybe it wasn't Brian Haggerty who killed Jimmy.'

‘C'mon, Lou. After all that shit that went down with the old man. Hey, like I said, I don't blame Franny. Women get a little crazy when it comes to money. And I don't put it past Jimmy to have a few friendly words with Brian Haggerty, just to keep the record straight. If it was my kid sister, I'd do the same. And I don't put it past this Haggerty clown to think he can put the hammer down on anybody he damn well pleases, cop or not.'

‘Can I have a few minutes?'

‘I don't even think she's awake, Lou.'

‘A few minutes, that's all I ask. If someone comes, one knock at the door and I'm out of there.'

Donny nodded and stepped aside and Lou went in. His first impression was that Franny looked worse than Catherine Waites. But head trauma and blood loss were two entirely separate types of injury and Franny had obviously lost a great deal of blood; she might have bled to death if Lou hadn't found her. It had only been the night before but it seemed now like it had been a lifetime ago, as if it had been one of his dreams. But he would always wake from his dreams and know they weren't real. Reality, however, was becoming problematic: a burden, always there regardless of how he chose to define it. It never went away.

Franny's face was pale, ghostlike. Her eyes were closed and her hair spread out on the pillow under her head. The wave of light that pulsed across the monitor seemed like a silent bolt of lightning on the horizon. Lou went to her bedside and lightly touched her arm. The skin felt cool. A large needle protruded through layers of clear plastic tape. There was the beginning of a black, burgeoning bruise. The hand had been heavily bandaged, a yellowish stain forming over the missing knuckle of her ring finger.

Her eyes twitched under her thin, almost transparent lids, rippled with red, web-like capillaries. They looked like the wings of a butterfly.

‘Franny? It's Lou.' His hand moved to her shoulder. A sliver of white slowly emerged as her eyes came open. She was still far from consciousness. ‘It's Lou, Franny.'

The groan that emanated from her seemed to come from deep in her throat, the pain in her body pushing to the surface.

‘Who did this to you, Franny?'

‘Oh, Lou.'

‘Who was it, Franny? I want to help but I can't if you don't tell me the truth.'

‘Where's Jimmy?'

‘Tell me what happened, Franny. Please.'

‘Lou. Where's Jimmy?'

‘He's gone.'

‘Where, Lou? Where is he?'

‘He didn't make it, Franny. I'm sorry. I . . .'

Franny began crying but the crying sounded more like gasps, like hiccoughs cut short through lack of air, like maybe she might stop breathing altogether. And her eyes were so dry and her mouth was so thick that she couldn't even produce a tear and her cracked lips just trembled.

‘Oh, God help me. It should be me, Lou. I should be dead.'

‘It's time I heard the whole story, Franny. There's no other way.'

‘I can't.' She seemed to take a gulp of air but nothing went in. She was struggling for a breath. Her lungs seemed to be shutting down. She couldn't remain conscious much longer. The effort it took to speak was draining her.

‘Franny, stay with me.' Her lids fluttered again, only a thin rim of white showing now and her two eyes moving beneath the surface of the lid. ‘You have to talk to me, Franny. Please. It's now or never.'

Lou heard the knock and before he could move the door opened and the same resident in green scrubs was standing there, his glasses making his eyes look three times their normal size. He hadn't moved from Franny's bedside and her last words came to him in a whisper.

‘Sapphire. It was Sapphire.'

‘What the hell is going on in here?' He turned his head quickly toward Donny, addressing him in the same tone. ‘Did you have knowledge of this, Officer?' Donny was standing behind the doctor, holding the door open. ‘I want an answer. Did you have knowledge of this?'

‘No, Doctor, he didn't.' The doctor moved past Lou, putting the stethoscope into his ears and placing the business end of it against Franny's chest. ‘I needed to speak to her. It was important.'

‘Important enough to jeopardize her life?' He pressed a button on a bedside panel and two nurses came rushing into the room. ‘Who the hell are you, anyway? You're not the police. And how the hell did you get in here?'

‘I'm a family friend. A private detective hired by this woman.'

‘This woman is a victim. Does she look like she's in any condition to be hiring private detectives? You could have killed her.'

‘That wasn't my intention.'

‘Famous last words. I want your name, Mr Private Detective, and believe me, this won't end here.'

‘Lou Klein, Doctor. My name is Lou Klein.'

TWENTY

O
ut in the parking lot, Lou handed Maggie the keys.

‘You mind driving?'

‘You OK?'

‘I've had better days.'

Maggie guided the car down the ramp toward the street and they sat waiting in a long line of idling cars while the light cycled through. There was a little bit of sun and people looked happy to be out driving around though it was still cold. It was already past lunchtime but there were still cars going in and out of the fast-food joints along Lancaster Avenue.

‘You hungry?'

‘We can get something at Heshy's.'

‘OK.'

‘You working today?'

‘Supposed to be. But I'm already late. I think Heshy was expecting me there for lunch. That's when he really needs me.'

‘He'll survive.'

The lunch crowd was filtering out of the Regal Diner as Lou and Maggie showed up, a lot of construction workers in Carhartts and work boots and dusty caps coming from the project down the street, a new bank going up in record time, supposed to help with new money for new business, new blood for an old neighborhood. They looked disappointed, walking past Maggie as if they'd come expecting to see her with her apron and her ponytail and her smile, a communion of working stiffs. Most of them said hello and Maggie said hello in return.

‘Nice of you to show up. Not a call? Nothing? I'm here by myself.'