My Brother's Keeper (5 page)

Lou walked through the front door and Joey Giordano rotated slowly away from a stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup.

‘Where the hell have you been?'

‘Talking to a client.'

‘Yeah, right.'

Heshy Rigalski's voice boomed from behind the counter, where he was making a pot of fresh coffee and dumping the remnants of the old pot down the drain. He stood in front of a large steel sink. He turned the water on full force and it sounded as if a pipe had burst in the basement. His balding head was dripping with sweat and the white apron tied around his waist had turned a dingy gray. His Russian accent was still thick, even after forty years behind the counter at the Regal Deli.

‘You are late.'

‘Nice of you to notice, Hesh.'

‘I mean late with the money, Officer. You have balance due. You eat here every day and I don't see no money. “Put it on tab,” you say.'

‘You'll get it, Hesh. Stop worrying. Have I ever stiffed you?'

‘I do worry. Your father, he eats here every day, like you. He pays. Every time.'

‘My father was a good man, Hesh, and a good cop. But he's dead. So for now you're stuck with me.'

‘Stuck?'

‘Yeah, stuck. It's an expression, Hesh, like you can't get rid of me, like I'm sticky with glue, never go away, difficult to peel off. You get it?'

‘I got it. Like fly on flypaper. Flap wings but don't go nowhere.'

‘You got it, Hesh.'

Lou cracked a hesitant smile and turned toward a set of swinging double doors where his daughter, Maggie, had emerged from the kitchen in a black apron and white shirt, a yellow pencil tucked behind her ear. She sped past them, grabbing a couple menus off the counter. An elderly couple had taken a booth in the back and Maggie approached them with a smile. She handed them the menus and they sat, squinting at the small lettering and glancing at each other over the top of the molded plastic as if they were still in love after a lifetime of late breakfasts at the Regal Deli. Maggie poured them each a cup of decaf coffee and turned, saving the tail end of her smile for her father.

Heshy filled a cup of coffee for Lou and set it on the counter in front of him. Maggie slid behind the counter, smoothing back her hair and retying her ponytail. With her hair off her face and flat against her head, Lou thought she looked like her mother back in the day, back when they'd first met, when he believed he'd found a woman who wasn't afraid of a little hard work, a woman who could deal with the daily struggle of being a cop's wife. Those days were long gone and now as he took a second look at his daughter, he realized how startling the resemblance actually was. But it was a physical likeness only and as he sipped his coffee, he smiled.

Lou had arranged for her to work at the Regal while she was in school. At first he'd asked Hesh as a favor, but it turned out to be a good arrangement for everybody. Maggie never had to ask Lou for money and she was typically too tired to do anything but work, study and sleep. Heshy had even offered her one of the apartments over the deli, a one-bedroom with an entrance on the side. She'd gotten excited about it and asked her father for his permission, though she was old enough not to need it.

She'd been living with him and he'd hoped they would be comfortable together, back in his mother's house, in the old neighborhood on Meridian Avenue where he'd grown up. The house hadn't changed that much. The neighborhood had but he'd hoped since she'd come back into his life she could have learned to love the place as he had, let it become a part of her. But she'd found out what had happened there, knew of her grandmother's murder, knew how long she'd laid there on the floor in the Philadelphia heat. Maggie had never been able to erase it from her mind. And it wasn't from lack of trying. She slept there and ate there but always her eyes went to the spot on the kitchen floor where her grandmother's body was found and a chill went down her spine.

Maggie set out napkins, knives and forks and paper placemats in front of her customers in the booth. She brought them eggs and toast and refilled their cups. Lou sipped his coffee and turned toward Joey.

‘Sorry I'm late.'

‘Forget about it. Any trouble?'

‘Not really.'

‘You don't sound very convincing.'

‘Remember I told you I've been seeing Jimmy Patterson on my morning runs? Well, I ran into him again today and he wants me to look into a little problem his sister is having with her husband.'

‘His sister, huh?'

‘Yeah, Franny Patterson. You remember her. Jimmy's little sister.'

‘Sure. I thought we didn't do divorce work. Too sticky, you said.'

‘Normally I wouldn't touch it, but I've known Jimmy a long time. And I don't think I have the whole story. He's bringing her by the office this afternoon.'

‘Franny Patterson? You used to have something going with her, right?'

‘I wouldn't say that.'

‘I won't say it if you don't want me to. Come to think of it, Lou, there were a lot of girls that you had something going with. But you never seemed to end up with any of them.'

‘I get off to a good start but I don't finish well.'

‘Whatever you say.'

They both sipped their coffee. Joey pawed the morning paper, crumpling the corners in his meaty hands.

‘You know a guy named Brian Haggerty?'

‘I know the name.'

‘Yeah, that's what I said.'

‘He's probably Billy Haggerty's kid. Everybody's heard of William Haggerty.'

‘That's right. I know who you're talking about now. Had a couple of run-ins with him myself.'

‘He ran the unions down on the docks, back in the days when that fucking meant something.'

‘And it doesn't mean anything now?'

‘It's all about money now.'

‘It was always all about money, Joey.'

‘Yeah, but now big money calls the shots. Back then you could be a union boss and wield a lot of power and not necessarily be filthy rich. You'd get rich, if you played your cards right, like Haggerty did. But it wasn't just about the money. It was about control.'

‘You mean control over people.'

‘Exactly. What good is money if you can't get any work done?'

‘Yeah, but how do you stay in control? Money buys a lot of loyalty.'

Joey folded the paper in half and swatted a fly on the counter. A fluorescent light began to flicker in the ceiling. Heshy got under it and tapped the ceiling with the point of a broom handle. The flickering stopped.

‘Guys like Haggerty had personality, Lou. They used intimidation, sure. But they kept to their own. They lived in Irish neighborhoods. They employed Irish people. Haggerty was like a fucking saint to those people. If Franny Patterson's husband has got Billy Haggerty's blood in his veins, he's a son of a bitch.'

‘Franny always did have good taste in men.'

‘Is that why she dumped you?'

‘Maybe she set her sights too high. Franny was always a bit of a social climber, Joey. She wanted status. She craved it, if you ask me. I think that's what finally broke us up. And she needed to be in control. Maybe when she landed Brian Haggerty she bit off more than she could chew.'

‘Something tells me Franny Patterson wouldn't have any trouble fitting in with the Haggertys.'

‘You didn't know her like I did. She wasn't as confident as you think. She dressed the part but she was covering up.'

‘Covering up for what?'

‘Insecurities. Her working-class background. Her father was a fireman. Her brothers were cops. No real money in the family, no education. That bothered her. All she had was her looks. And she knew she wouldn't have them forever.'

‘You make her sound desperate, Lou.'

‘I remember when she worked as a salesgirl at Boscov's. She'd spend her whole paycheck, money she couldn't afford to waste, on expensive clothes. Just to look like something she wasn't.'

‘And what was that?'

‘Class.'

‘Well, if she's married to Brian Haggerty, she's got it now.'

The lunch crowd was starting to filter in. A group of college kids slid their backpacks under a booth and crammed three to a side. A few businessmen in suits and ties followed. Workmen from the construction site down the block pushed two tables together and gathered around it. They tracked in mud on their boots and their faces were flushed and sweaty under the visors of their wrinkled baseball caps.

Lou watched Maggie wait tables. Lunch was her time to make money and she hustled. She was about the same age as the kids wedged into the booth but they seemed like children compared to her, a distinction Lou was noticing for the first time. How fast she'd grown up. And though she had the same athletic build as her mother, the same quiet intensity, the same vivid concentration buried in the dark furrowed ridges above her eyes, it seemed like such a cleaner look on her – more alive, more vital.

His wife had possessed those same qualities. That was before she'd made the transition from a young working mother to a bored suburban housewife, before she'd gotten rid of him and married a real-estate lawyer, the first of two subsequent marriages. Maggie had dreaded the idea of her mother marrying for money and after she watched her mother lose the lawyer and hook up with the family dentist she decided that she preferred life in the city with her father, working at Heshy's and eating diner food. There was something honest about their time together and every day Lou was seeing more of the world through her eyes.

‘What part of town they from, Joey?'

‘The old man has a big house up in Torresdale but he's been dead a long time now. Went out with a real bang, too.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘They found him in bed with his son's first wife, very naked and very dead. Both of 'em.'

‘Jesus Christ! He was fooling around with his son's wife?'

‘Don't sound so shocked. These people might have money but they're no different than some of the scumbags you and I locked up. They just dress nicer.'

‘I'm assuming they didn't die of natural causes.'

‘The DA called it a murder/suicide and the whole thing went away.'

‘What do you think really happened?'

‘The same as you would, same as everybody else. That Brian Haggerty did it, probably in the heat of passion. Found them in bed together and started blasting. But he bought someone off and they never proved anything.'

‘Did anyone try?'

‘They went through the motions but I don't think anyone really cared what the truth was. The whole city was having too much fun fantasizing about it, coming up with their own theories. Brian Haggerty never admitted to anything. Half the city didn't care and the other half didn't blame him for what he did. Don't act so surprised, Lou. You were a cop in this town almost as long as I was.'

‘Do you think Franny knows about it?'

‘Ask her when you see her.'

‘How do you learn this shit, Joey?'

‘It's all in the papers, Lou.'

Joey reached for the rolled-up newspaper and touched it gently to each of Lou's shoulders. Lou grabbed the paper from Joey's hand, rolled it a little tighter and jabbed him in the ribs with it. Joey flinched and his elbow toppled the coffee cup, spilling the last remaining liquid onto the counter. The coffee had grown cold anyway.

‘Nobody knows Philly like you, Joey.'

Heshy mopped up the spill with a wet rag and wrung it out in the sink.

‘A Philly boy through and through.'

Heshy switched on the slicer and started slicing corned beef. The spinning blade whined as it shaved the meat into paper-thin slices. Heshy would catch each slice in his flattened palm and slap it onto a piece of wax paper until the pile grew to about three inches high. Then he'd grab the paper at the corners and drop it onto a scale. He'd fold the paper over and seal it with a strip of tape and scribble something illegible on the package in black marker and toss it into a wide steel refrigerator.

Lou and Joey watched Heshy work, mesmerized by the sound of the machine and the motion of his hands. There were beads of perspiration on Heshy's forehead.

‘I wonder if he counts his fingers after he's done?'

‘Funny. I was wondering the same thing.'

FOUR

T
hey took separate cars back to the office. Joey parked his white Cadillac in a lot across the street. The lot belonged to a rug shop owned by two Pakistani brothers. Joey couldn't tell them apart and when they'd first moved in Joey flashed his badge a couple times and had them both believing he was still a cop.

Joey had always driven a Cadillac, a Fleetwood and then a Deville, a long sedan with spoke wheels, a cloth roof and leather interior. He had a Cadillac before he joined the department, a white one with red leather interior. His ex-wife, Marie, had gone nuts over it. She was the spoiled rotten daughter of Petey Santi, the baby of the family and used to getting whatever she wanted. Petey ran the seventh ward from his office over the Pellegrino Social Club and Joey had always been on good terms with him. Petey got Joey his first promotion. But since the divorce Joey was sure Petey had it out for him. Joey still walked around the car three times, looked under all four tires and checked the trunk before he got in. And he never parked on the street. Never.

These days Lou couldn't have cared less what he drove. He'd gotten rid of his old black Thunderbird and bought himself a used four-door Honda. He was sick of listening to Heshy and Joey ride him about driving a car older than his daughter. They'd told him it looked like a relic from a fifties drive-in movie. He hadn't really gotten rid of it. Joey rented a garage on 54th Street, just off Lebanon Avenue, behind the old movie house and he'd talked Lou into storing it there. Lou parked it right next to Joey's '78 Coupe Deville, all wrapped up under a brown tarp like a body in the morgue.