My Brother's Keeper (28 page)

‘I never could understand why you and Mitch didn't get along. I think I do now.'

‘What d'ya think?'

‘He thinks he's always right. And he'll do anything to prove it. Even if he's wrong. Even if the evidence is against him.'

‘You don't know the half of it.' They continued down the street, their shoulders touching as if they would link arms and go strolling down some fog-drenched runway and board a plane for sunnier places. ‘You want to know the real story?'

‘Don't hold back now.'

‘Remember, I came on before either of you guys. If I was still with the department, I'd be a captain right now.'

‘And Mitch doesn't like the sound of that? Doesn't like the idea that you would have been his boss?'

‘That's part of it. But there's more.'

‘Another history lesson.'

‘You can learn a lot from history, Lou. You of all people. And it's not the kind of history you read in a book. You can't learn it in school. You learn it on the street.'

Joey paused for a second as a ladder truck roared past, blaring its horn as the cop pulled the barricades apart.

‘True.'

‘Mitch and I were riding the Twelfth District. It was the coldest night of the year, just before Christmas. We usually rode the Seventeenth, like you did. But we were covering for Joe Mecca and Johnny Zombec. They were playing cards over at Weber's and asked us if we'd cover.'

‘I get it. So what happened?'

‘We're dispatched to a call at the homeless shelter at Trinity Lutheran. They got like a hundred black guys sleeping on mats on the floor in the basement. The smell will make your eyes water. But it's cold outside and the shelters are packed. You can't imagine what goes on in there once the lights go out. You fall asleep and you got some schizo humpin' your leg and stealing the change in your shoe.'

‘Is there a moral to this story, Joey?' They'd stopped walking. Another cop had come over and was arguing with a college-aged girl, a first-year law school student with purple spiked hair and a ring in her nose. She refused to leave and was quoting the constitution as if she were practicing for a future with the public defender's office. ‘'Cause I'm ready to call it quits for the day.'

‘They got this guy at the shelter, young guy, maybe mid-thirties and big. And he's freakin' out. Highed up on something or just plain crazy. We get there and this guy's got the thousand-yard stare going and he don't hear a word we're saying. He's in his own fucking world and they want him out of there.' Joey tapped another cigarette from the pack. ‘These goddamn do-gooders drive all over the city in these white vans picking up the homeless and bringing them to these glorified shelters in nice residential neighborhoods. And when they can't deal with them they call us.'

‘That's how the system works.'

‘Well, there's no talkin' to this guy. So we each grab an arm and we get the guy out the door. The next thing you know, we're on the ground rolling with this fuck. And the guy's like a raging bull. The way he was throwing us around he could have killed us. And we're not small guys.'

‘You're still here and so is Mitch. So I guess he didn't kill you.'

‘It was the other way around.'

‘You killed him?'

‘Not right away. I mean, we didn't kill him. We wrestled him into a double set of handcuffs and managed to get him in the back seat. He starts headbutting the cage and trying to kick out the windows. He's going nuts back there. We're going to take him down to the crisis center at Fitzgerald Mercy. It's the only place that would take him. Try to get him some help, you know.'

‘Sure.'

‘Then it suddenly goes quiet back there and we can't see him anymore. We open the door. He's slumped over in the seat and he's not breathing. So we drag him out, start CPR and we're trying to get the cuffs off and we're pounding on his chest. Nothing. The guy's fucking dead.'

‘You should have called the medics.'

‘Yeah, we should have but we didn't.'

‘OK. But you still haven't done anything wrong. It's not like you beat him to death.'

‘I knew that and so did Mitch. But needless to say, we weren't happy. And for different reasons. I'm thinking of all the paperwork. It was late and I didn't want to be in front of a typewriter for the rest of the night instead of sacked out somewhere.'

‘And what's Mitch worried about?'

‘Mitch is more concerned about his spotless record. He's thinking this corpse could become a thorn in his side. Maybe turn into an official investigation, maybe a written reprimand, maybe a fucking civil suit. Right away, I know he's thinkin' of something. I could hear the wheels turning in his head.'

‘One of the department's great thinkers. There should be a statue of him in bronze at the Rodin.'

‘So, Mitch decides to get rid of the body. Just like that. We pop him in the trunk and we head back up to the Seventeenth. Back on familiar ground. Mitch is driving and he's headed for The Hole.'

‘Jesus Christ. The Hole. I haven't heard that place mentioned in a long time. I used to meet up with Donny Weeks down there and we'd smoke cigars and relieve ourselves in the river. Our headlights would shine out onto the refinery across the river and then we'd turn them off and it'd be pitch black.' Lou took a cigar–ette from Joey and put it in his mouth. ‘Did I tell you I ran into Donny at the hospital? Working a detail, watching Franny Patterson. Never knew the man to turn down an hour of overtime.'

‘If you see Donny again, tell him I said hello.'

‘I will.'

‘Anyway, Mitch figures The Hole is a real scenic spot to dump this guy. A lot of the bums set up camp down there and it'd be no big surprise to find one dead.'

‘A lot of dirty laundry got washed out down there, too.'

‘That's where Glen Sickler shot Patty Passariello for fucking his wife. Actually had a duel. It was like the goddamn wild west.'

‘Lucky Patty didn't die.'

‘Lucky they were all cops.'

They finished their cigarettes, threw the butts down and watched them roll in the damp breeze. The street was practically deserted now. They started walking again.

‘I don't like it, Joey.'

‘What? The Hole? It was a good place to dump a body. Slid his ass right into the river and it just carried him away.'

‘It was a bad decision.'

‘Nobody knew the difference, Lou. I'll admit it bothered me for a couple days, thinking maybe somebody saw us. But the only people down there are the bums and no one's gonna believe them anyway.'

‘And the cops. They're down there, too.'

‘Yeah. And the cops.'

‘And that's why you and Mitch don't get along?'

‘I got something on him. He'll never be comfortable with that.'

‘Prefers it the other way around.'

‘Wouldn't you?'

Lou and Joey found themselves walking behind the group of kids that had been giving the officer a hard time. They all seemed to be congratulating the girl with the spiked hair for using her wit to make the cop seem like an idiot. But not all of them were laughing. One guy was lagging behind, didn't seem to be part of the group.

He was wearing a long wool coat to his knees. It looked like Salvation Army material or some Main Line thrift shop. It could have belonged to his grandfather; he could have found it hanging in a garment bag in his parents' attic. His head lolled forward as if there was a screw loose in his neck. He just seemed to be carried along with them like a broken branch carried by the tide. And this thin, sleepy stick-man in the oversized wool coat suddenly looked over his shoulder and tripped on the cracked sidewalk. Lou saw his face. It was Billy Sapphire.

He'd been there all the time watching the fire burn, watching the firemen struggle against the flames and the thick, black smoke. He was there to watch the crowd gaze admiringly at his work and to see this house burn. Lou should have been looking for him, should have known Billy Sapphire wasn't very far away.

Their eyes met in a momentary flash of recognition before they were both running. They ran through a parking lot, dodging the few cars parked like stray puzzle pieces on a board. Their footsteps clapped on the wet pavement. The lights in the lot were on but Beach Street was dark in the distance and that's where Billy Sapphire was headed.

Lou could still smell the smoke from the Arramingo Club but he could smell the river now too, hear it moving apathetically in the night nearby.

The initial rush of adrenaline helped Lou to keep pace with the younger man, his legs moving autonomously, all that exercise finally paying off. But Billy Sapphire was already starting to put some distance between them, taking two and three steps to Lou's one. They'd come alongside the Greyhound Bus Terminal and Lou lost sight of him in the shadows before Sapphire seemed to suddenly appear at the top of the chain link fence that surrounded the terminal. In the next second he'd dropped to the other side and was lost in a maze of buses parked side by side in four long rows the length of a city block.

Lou willed himself forward, hitting the fence at full throttle, hooking his fingers into the metal fence while his legs scrambled for a foothold. The fence swayed under his weight but he made it to the top and hoisted himself over. His grip gave way and he plummeted to the ground, landing on two feet and rolling to his side. He'd heard the pop in his left knee. He pulled himself up and limped toward the first row of buses.

The only thing Lou could hear now was the sound of his own labored breathing. It had replaced the hush of the Delaware River rushing by in the otherwise silent night. The endless drone of cars speeding down Delaware Avenue had melted away. Lou kneeled in the shadows, leaning against a dusty bus tire. The terminal was completely deserted behind him. He could smell the pitted rubber from the tire. There didn't seem to be anyone left to chase. He took a deep breath, nourishing his strained muscles with oxygen and trying to keep his mind alert. Billy Sapphire was close by. He could feel it.

He crept slowly down the length of each bus, peering cautiously around every corner. There couldn't have been more than a few feet between buses, their tall shadows making it difficult to see. There were a few spotlights shining from the top of the terminal building but their light never reached the ground. It seemed to reflect off the buses, their silver exterior glimmering like burnished armor. Creeping from bus to bus like a rat in a maze, all Lou could do was listen.

He rounded one corner and then another. It was as if Sapphire had disappeared into thin air. They could spend all morning roaming around in that bus yard, playing cat and mouse, and never lay eyes on each other. Billy Sapphire could be reclining in a seat inside one of those buses, watching Lou from behind the tinted glass as he wandered aimlessly in the dark. He could have found a way into the terminal or he could have gone straight to the other side of the lot, climbed the fence and been long gone.

At the end of each bus there was a thin, vertical mirror. Lou used them to see between the narrow rows. The images in the clouded mirrors were obscured in the dark. He caught movement and stopped dead in his tracks before realizing that it was his own reflection he'd seen. He deliberately slowed his breathing and waited for his pulse to catch up.

It was no use and he decided to try a different approach. He stood up, stepping out from behind one of the buses and yelled.

‘Billy Sapphire!'

He got only his own voice coming back to him, hollow amidst the solid partitions of steel and glass.

‘Billy Sapphire! Come out.'

Still nothing.

‘Billy! I just want to talk. I'm not the police. I'm not going to arrest you. I'm here to help.'

The sound came from above followed by movement in the corner of his eye. Sapphire had leapt from the top of the bus, descending upon him like some kind of wild bird, feet first with his arms outstretched and the gleaming blade of a knife visible in his right hand. His face was twisted into a snarl, his eyes like black pearls. The long coat he'd worn was gone. The black skull-cap remained, covering a head shaved bald and marked with tattoos.

Lou jumped back and attempted to deflect the blade with his upper arm. He felt the point ripping through the leather jacket, puncturing skin and muscle and entering deep into his shoulder. He felt the warm blood running down his arm under the jacket. What pain there was seemed not to belong to him. It seemed to belong to someone else, someone in one of his dreams, him and at the same time not him. He'd had that feeling before, things slowly winding down, the tunnel vision exploding in his brain.

The blade came again. Lou turned his body sideways, making himself less of a target. Sapphire seemed tireless, the knife slashing again and again with the same speed and the same force, the same hyperbolic arc. Lou was bleeding. And not just from his arm.

Then, everything began to slow down again. And again he felt as if he were in one of his dreams, the seemingly translucent blade taking forever to reach him, his own hands moving with a lethargic malaise, his whole body weighed down. He began to envision himself floating, gradually losing command of every muscle in his body, a slow relaxation of physical control. And what he feared most in this dream-like struggle, this seeming pantomime of life and death was that his will to live would fail him at last, for with each stroke of the knife his blood seemed to flow more freely.

He was fending off the attack purely by instinct now, his conscious mind fighting the urge to believe that this wasn't real.

Another flash of steel streaked before his eyes and he reached for it. The edge of the blade sliced the top of his hand but he didn't pull away. His hand slid down the knife, greasy with his own blood. His fingers were cut and stinging. He grabbed hold of Sapphire's wrist with one hand and then the other. Sapphire leaned in, grabbing hold of his own wrist, his hand on top of Lou's, rotating toward him until they were face-to-face and struggling for leverage over the knife, which was now pointed at Lou's chest.