My Brother's Keeper (8 page)

She lowered the window without turning her head and Lou leaned in. Her face was a mask behind the sunglasses, smooth and hard and unmoving. She had nothing more to say to him. She turned the volume up on the stereo and slammed the car into gear. Lou jumped back as she peeled out, forcing her way across two lanes of congested traffic in a U-turn that pointed her back down Lancaster Avenue and deeper into the city.

Lou's car was parked up the block in front of the camera shop. His cell phone beeped and he flipped it open. It was a text message from Joey. Joey's text messages were beginning to read like pulp fiction. He knew that Lou wasn't much of a talker on the phone and rather than listen to his sighs of impatience and his long silences, Joey had learned how to text. Lou often wondered how Joey managed the dexterity it required with those stubs he called thumbs. He read as he walked.

Jimmy Patterson had caused a disturbance at Fortunato's and got himself thrown out. He'd flung an empty beer glass at Butchy DeLuca, smashing a mirror behind the bar. The argument started after Jimmy got a full house on the video poker machine and DeLuca refused to pay out. Luckily Jimmy missed or it could have started a war with Joey in the middle. Joey thought he'd missed on purpose, that he just needed to flex his muscles. The point was don't disrespect Jimmy Patterson and don't turn your back on him either. Jimmy had made the same point in half the bars in West Philly. Joey had gotten him out of there and loaded into his Cadillac. He would drop Jimmy off and meet Lou back at Heshy's.

Maggie's shift was over at four and Lou had promised to take her out for Chinese food at the Peking Dragon. It had become their custom, a quiet dinner once a week at their favorite restaurant. He'd taken her there as a child, before the separation and divorce. She'd always been mesmerized by the tropical fish floating aimlessly in hundred-gallon tanks. It was dark in the Peking Dragon and it seemed like the only light came from those aquariums. The fish seemed to glow in the clear water, brilliant yellows lacquered with black, rusty orange over translucent silver and azure blue with spots of white. But their eyes were opaque, black and round and empty as painted glass.

Whether it was the colors or the slow, languid movement of the fish that captured their attention, Lou and Maggie could sip tea and stare at them complacently for hours. Sometimes they'd eat egg rolls or an occasional bowl of soup. Lou had been surprised to find himself hypnotized by the fish as well, matching Maggie's fascination with their motion, constantly flowing, never still. He'd imagine himself swimming in one of those tanks, swimming as if in one of his dreams, the same fluid motion as the fish, his eyes open and unblinking, and yet imprisoned by four walls of thick glass. And from inside that glass cage, he could still see the world beyond, the boundary seemingly transparent and yet solid as stone.

Maggie must have felt like one of those fish, he thought. He remembered feeling the same way when he was her age. He'd dreamed of flying like the hawks that nested high in the trees behind Karakung Creek. He would watch them hunt in Fairmont Park, stalking rabbits and mice behind the bronze statue of Washington, his horse rearing at the sight of all those cars going by on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. But the farthest Lou's feet had ever come off the ground was when he'd climbed the marble pedestal to share the saddle with galloping George. His father had snapped a picture of him sitting on that bronze horse and kept it in his wallet, showing it to his cop buddies every chance he got. It looked as if Lou was trying to nudge the old campaigner out of the way.

He often wondered if the dinners with Maggie had made a difference, those silent dinners, trying to understand the power of raw emotion for a nineteen-year-old, hoping he could touch the nine-year-old girl inside and give her a way now to spend time with her father that wasn't equated with pain. Maybe she'd looked at those fish and thought they'd found peace, surrounded by all that water, safe behind the glass.

He always felt that he'd failed her and that sentiment prevailed even now. Though at least now there was conversation between them. There were no answers, not to the questions she hadn't known how to ask then and was afraid to ask now. Where had her father been for those years after the divorce? Why wasn't he around? What kept him away? How could he forget his only daughter? Maybe the emotion that had persisted all these years was actually fear, a fear that one day they'd lose each other forever. And maybe dinners at the Peking Dragon reminded them both that it was within their power to change all that, give the past new meaning and create a future for themselves.

But it had been a few weeks now since they'd been out, Lou's police pension not allowing for much extravagance. He'd made excuses but Maggie knew that it was about money. They'd come to an unspoken agreement, cutting their restaurant trips from once a week to once a month.

Joey had beaten him back to Heshy's and was already sitting at the counter, nursing a cup of black coffee as Lou came through the door. His worn tweed sport jacket hung on a hook at the end of the counter. Maggie was coming out of the ladies' room, ready for dinner, with her hair freshly brushed and a pair of purple glasses on her face and her best earrings in her ears. Lou held up an index finger, signaling her to wait while he had a few words with Joey. Maggie's upper lip curled as she fell into a booth with an exasperated sigh.

‘What the hell went on over there, Joey?'

‘Your friend, Jimmy. That's what went on. He's a goddamn maniac. I thought I was bad. He makes me look like a fucking saint.'

‘I find that hard to believe.'

‘Jimmy's playing the Joker Poker machine, right? He's maybe into it for ten bucks, no more. Pretty soon he's bumping the thing with his knee, slapping it. He's cursing out loud at a video game, for Christ's sake. Butchy is looking over at me like I'm his caretaker, you know, like he'd never even be in there if I hadn't brought him.'

‘I thought he was a regular in there.'

‘He was, but Butchy didn't want him coming in anymore. They had it out a couple times before.'

‘Couldn't you calm him down?'

‘Easier said than done. Next thing you know Jimmy's got a full house and he's standing at the bar pointing at the cards on the screen telling Butchy he owes him thirty bucks. Butchy tells him it don't work like that. Jimmy's getting pissed and Butchy tells him to go fuck himself. That's when he throws the glass.'

‘Just like that?'

‘Yeah, Lou. Just like that.'

Heshy poured Lou a cup of coffee without being asked. He caught Lou's eye and nodded toward Maggie, who was gritting her teeth and growling into her cell phone. Lou recognized the tone. He could picture Maggie's mother on the other end of the line, the same grimace on her face, trying to control the daughter who'd run away from her a dozen times because she was sick of dealing with the different husbands and the moves and the different houses and the schools, sick of feeling like a piece of furniture. Maggie felt Lou's eyes on her and slumped down inside the cramped booth. She was quiet for about ten seconds and then abruptly snapped the phone closed.

‘Did you talk to him at all, Joey, or did you two guys just get drunk?'

‘Jimmy don't just get angry when he drinks, he's also got a lot to say.'

‘His sister said the same thing.'

‘It turns out that Jimmy knew Brian Haggerty's first wife, the one that got herself dead with the old man. She went by the name Valerie Price, but he didn't think that was her real name. The impression I got was that she was more than just a casual acquaintance.'

‘Complicates things, doesn't it?'

‘He didn't have one good thing to say about her. He did say she started as a dancer at the Arramingo Club, had quite a reputation.'

‘The Arramingo Club again.'

‘Yeah. Jimmy said she was gorgeous and she knew it. Wasn't afraid to use it either. But she was reckless. These are Jimmy's words, Lou, not mine. I couldn't help get the feeling he thinks she got what she had coming to her.'

‘A thousand years ago they would have burned her at the stake or had a good old-fashioned stoning in the town square. A bullet in the brain is much more expedient.'

‘You said it.'

‘What else did he say?'

‘You ever been to the Arramingo Club? It's a home away from home for some of Philly's finest: cops, politicians, gangsters. They call a truce just long enough to sip their Scotch and stuff a dollar bill into a stripper's thong. Put it on the taxpayer's tab.'

‘Never had the pleasure. But that's going to change real soon.'

‘According to Jimmy he wasn't the only person getting his fingers wet with Valerie Price and neither was Brian Haggerty. She was a climber, kept her eyes on the prize. She'd latch onto the fattest wallet she could get her hands on. Jimmy seemed to imply that he'd gotten her out of his system pretty quick. Couldn't say the same thing about Haggerty.'

‘I've seen it happen to the best of them.'

‘He said Haggerty made a fool of himself, chasing her all over town, pulling her out of bars, hotel rooms, parked cars. The jealousy drove him insane. Even Jimmy was surprised when Haggerty married her. Jimmy thought maybe she got knocked up and talked Haggerty into making an honest woman out of her.'

‘You sure Jimmy was over her?'

‘Famous last words, right?'

Heshy grabbed a fly swatter from over the stove and swung it like a tennis racquet at a big black fly circling over his head. The buzzing sounded like an airplane propeller. He fanned the air a few times until the thing landed on the wall. He snuck up on it and got it with his next swing. It slid down the tile and landed on the floor but it wasn't dead. Its wings fluttered and it spun around in a circle like a dog chasing its tale until Heshy stepped on it and kicked it into the corner.

‘Did Jimmy say anything about her murder?'

‘What's he going to say? “By the way, you know how everybody thinks Brian Haggerty found his wife in bed with his old man and offed them both? Well, that was me who did that.”'

‘I was thinking maybe he knows more than he's telling.'

‘I wouldn't describe Jimmy Patterson as tight-lipped.'

‘I guess not.'

‘I think the reason he's pissed off doesn't have anything to do with Valerie Price. It's got to do with his sister.'

‘And that leaves us right where we started.'

‘Not necessarily. Haggerty had an alibi for those murders, if we're assuming they were murdered.'

‘Let's hear it.'

‘His alibi was Franny Patterson. She said he'd been with her the whole night.'

Lou let out a long whistle and Maggie looked at him from her booth in the back, making no attempt to hide her annoyance.

‘And Jimmy thinks Haggerty forced her into it?'

‘Could be. Or maybe he just can't stand the idea that it could have been her idea from the start.'

‘You're smarter than you look, Joey. When Maggie and I get back from dinner, I'm checking out the Arramingo Club, hear what Brian Haggerty has to say for himself.'

‘You want company?'

‘No, thanks. You put in your time already today.'

‘One more thing, Lou. What exactly are we doing here? We trying to help one of your old girlfriends out of a tight spot or are we trying to solve a ten-year-old murder?'

Lou raised his coffee cup in a mocking toast and took a good long sip. He called Maggie over with a wave.

‘Maybe a little of both, Joey.'

SEVEN

T
he Peking Dragon had been remodeled, a sandy stucco applied over the worn brick in swirling waves the color of the Arizona desert. The windows were trimmed in dark wood and covered by overhanging awnings, black canvas held up by black iron rods, the amber glow of candlelight emanating from each window. There was a portico that led to a parking lot on the side of the building. Large lanterns hung from the exposed beams of the portico, casting a soft orange light over the sidewalk. The soft, artificial light both inside and out seemed, by design, to resemble a western sunset. The problem was there weren't any desert sunsets in Philadelphia and the Chinatown Lou remembered never looked anything like a Hollywood movie set, at dusk or any other time.

Maggie was excited, though, now that they were off by themselves. She was smiling again and hanging on his arm as girls do with their fathers and it seemed to transport Lou back to an earlier time, as if they were both ten years younger, facing an opportunity to relive a lost decade of their lives, do it all over again, do it right this time.

Maggie hadn't hung on him that way since he'd escorted her to her mother's wedding about a year ago, her second since she'd divorced Lou. He'd played the dutiful father and supportive ex-husband, while painfully aware of the conflict in his daughter's eyes. They'd stood together among a small group of onlookers watching her mother walk down the aisle on the veranda at the Merion Country Club. She'd married a short, black-haired Greek who owned three restaurants and had two ex-wives of his own. Maggie had held his arm as if she'd been seasick, gripping the railing on some cruise ship, afraid to let go and fall from the deck into all that bottomless black water.

They'd stood together and watched her mother pick grains of rice from her new husband's hair like the monkeys they'd seen at the Philadelphia zoo, who sat back to back, taking turns scraping insects from each other's skin.

As soon as they stepped inside the restaurant Maggie immediately had her nose against the long aquarium that separated the entrance from the dining room. She ran her hand gently across the outside of the cool glass. The maitre d' gave her the evil eye from behind a wooden stand. He needed a stool to see over it and he slid his bifocals down on his nose and said something in Chinese to one of the waitresses. He licked his thumb and began turning pages in the notebook on his stand.