Blind Moon Alley (13 page)

Johalis nods and I can tell he understands.

From the booth behind him, two silver-haired gentlemen call out for Rob Roys on the rocks. It's nearly one o'clock, so I announce last call as I grab the bottle of scotch. I mix the drinks and slide them across the bar; one of the gents comes over to get them. When he's out of earshot, I pick up my conversation with Johalis.

“We should probably keep an eye on the Canary,” I say. “Reeger's always shaking down Myra for payments, and Garvey's been there, too.”

Johalis nods. “All true. But I've got to warn you about some other news, and I'm not sure you're going to like it.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“It's about Myra.”

Oh, shit. My face goes hot and my ears feel like they're being pricked with needles. I'm not sure why I care so much—I guess I don't want to see her land in hot water, even though she seems to enjoy diving into it.

“What about her?”

“Reeger dug up some stuff,” Johalis says. “He found out how she grew up, how you two were at school with Garvey. He got the story from Connor. Turns out Myra and Connor had quite a thing going.”

I'm surprised that Myra had anything going with Connor, but if that's all Johalis has, I'm going to be fine.

“That's it?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

I want to pour myself a finger or two of scotch, but I don't.

“According to my guy at the stationhouse, the cops think Myra played Connor and Garvey off each other. First, she told Connor she didn't want to pay Garvey, that they should keep the payments. Then she told Garvey that Connor was a troublemaker. She figured they'd go at each other and that it would end ugly. She was right. Connor's dead and Garvey was sent to the chair. So she had the twenty grand and didn't have to pay anybody. But she never counted on Reeger coming after her.”

It's hard for me to picture Myra as a mastermind. Then again, it's even harder to imagine the she was altogether surprised by what went down at Lovely's.

“Is that it?” I say. “Because it doesn't change anything. I've still got to get Garvey outta here.”

Johalis's wrinkled lids sag. “Think about it,” he says. “You said Myra wants you to take Reeger's payments.”

“I also told you I said no.”

“But if my guy is right, she might be trying to pull the same number on you.”

I know Johalis has a line on the street, but I'm having a hard time believing Myra is setting me up.

“I trust her,” I say. “I've known her since we were kids.”

“Maybe so,” Johalis says. “But it's the same pattern. She wants to give you Reeger's payments. If you and Reeger take care of each other—just like Connor and Garvey did—she'll walk away scot-free. She'll have a piece of the Canary and not owe anybody a single penny.”

Angela comes behind the bar with cash from table number two. She's got her hair pulled back behind her head, and I wonder if Johalis can see that the last thing he's got to worry about is how I feel about Myra Banks.

“Okay, I'll be on the lookout,” I say to Johalis, just to end the conversation.

Angela opens the register, slides in the money, and stuffs the check in our bill jar.

My nose is all but healed, my eyes look better, and Wallace is out of the picture. If I'm ever going to get anywhere with Angela, now's the time.

“Maybe I'll stay clear of the Canary altogether,” I say to Johalis.

He looks at me, and then at Angela, and says it's a good idea. Then he leans on the bar and finishes his drink.

It's nearly closing time, and one by one, the customers leave the joint like the last drops of vermouth from a tall-neck bottle. By one-thirty, there are four of us left: Johalis, Homer, Angela, and me.

I tell Johalis and Homer to get some sleep, that I'll see them tomorrow night.

Homer looks dejected as he puts on his cap. “Slow night tonight, Jersey,” he says. “I'm sorry.”

To him, “slow night” means no Reeger.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” I say.

Once he and Johalis leave, I hang my apron behind the bar. I turn to Angela. “Want some company on the walk home?”

“Sure,” she says, as if our walking the streets together is as natural as the sun rising over the Schuylkill.

She hangs her apron on top of mine and we walk out into the steamy night air, no longer selling happiness but ready to experience some of our own. She lives below Doolie on Buttonwood, so we head in that direction. I'm picking up the scent of her perfume, even though it's buried under the grease and cigarette smoke that accompanies a night's work in the Ink Well kitchen.

I take the lead and snake through the humidity-filled side streets, staying in the foggy shadows just in case Reeger is on me. I'm packing my rod and knucks, but I'm hoping I won't need either one, at least not until I get Angela home. As I cross the street to avoid the glow of a streetlamp, I spot a figure behind a bush. It turns out to be nothing but a shadow cast by a clump of wires attached to a telephone pole.

Angela takes a look at my nose and says she can't even tell where I got hit. Then she asks me again if I'm worried about the hooligan who busted it.

“No,” I say, trying to look as relaxed as possible. “He's moved on by now.”

“You really think so?” she asks. It feels nice that she's worried about me.

“Absolutely,” I say. “Nothing to worry about. If he shows up again, I'll point him out to Homer and we'll shut the door on him.”

We turn onto Noble Street and pass two lovers leaning on a wrought iron fence, kissing in the shadows. I have no idea what it would take for Angela and me to land in their shoes, but I'd imagine the first step involves finding the chromosome I was shorted at birth.

Angela doesn't seem to notice the couple, but she's obviously relieved that I'm not worried about the Ink Well. “I knew you'd figure things out,” she says. She smiles and her cheeks get even rounder.

I can't keep lying to her, so I change the subject. “So how are the plans for school?”

My eyes start to shimmy; I turn away from her and thumb the sweat off the side of my neck to block her view. But from the corner of my eye, I can see she's not even looking at me—she's gazing down at her heels and shaking her head.

“I'm not going any time soon,” she says.

Maybe Wallace really is out of the picture. I wish I could step in and tutor her, but I wouldn't know where to start. I spent most of my year in college playing ping-pong at the Hy-Hat and rolling kegs on Ninth Avenue. The only thing I've got to offer Angela is the money in my closet, which couldn't replace her salary for more than six months. I see the frown on her face and promise myself I'll feed the box more regularly.

“How about you?” she asks. “Have you ever thought about going back to college?”

“Yep,” I say, keeping my shaking eyes trained on a rowhouse mailbox as I hand her the same lie I give my father and, once in a while, myself. “All the time.”

I want to tell her the stone-cold truth—that Reeger's probably tailing us right now, and that if school were in my plans I'd be attending class. But I can't stop lying. When she hears I'm thinking of going back, she shows me one of the smiles that I thought she'd reserved only for Wallace.

My pupils are still shaking as we turn onto Buttonwood, so now I turn my head toward the cracked sidewalk. Angela's telling me something about the Ink Well's cash register, but I'm not listening—I'm too busy hiding my eyes and wondering if we'll do this again tomorrow night. I have my answer when we find Wallace waiting on Doolie's front steps.

“Wallace!” Angela says. “What are you doing here? It's late.”

“I have your books,” he says. Then he turns to me. “Hi, Jersey.”

I give him a nod, but I can't bring myself to join the conversation. I've been around long enough to know that no schoolbooks have to be read at two in the morning. I'm sure Angela knows that, too. And it's obvious she doesn't care.

I turn to leave and she doesn't call me back. Instead, she says good-night to the back of my head.

“Thanks for the company,” she says. There's a lilt in her words that wasn't there back on Juniper.

“'Night,” I say and walk back up Buttonwood without turning around.

The street is almost entirely in shadow and I welcome the dark; it's a place where I can be alone, where the sun can't reach me, where I can pretend I have a full set of chromosomes. I pull my fedora low on my forehead as my eyes well up with tears. I tell myself that Angela and Wallace can have each other—that she's not for me if school and books and Wallace mean so much to her. And I try to convince myself that Myra is waiting for me, that Johalis is wrong about her, that she has all the innocence and heart that Angela has. As far as I know it might even be true. But I'm not buying it.

I wipe my eyes as I reach Broad and Callowhill and then, shamefully, duck into Chester's Chicken Shack. Chester's is a taxi-dance hall, a place where Philadelphia's loneliest misfits pony up ten cents to dance with a fallen angel. Reputable it's not.

I've been here before. I met with Chester about tending his bar but wound up working at the Ink Well. The truth is I didn't need Doolie's offer to walk away from this place; I refused to spend my nights working a joint as depressing as this one. I don't miss the irony that I'm here again, paying to get inside.

When I open the door, I'm greeted by a musclehead wearing a tuxedo. I wonder if Chester thinks the doorman's tails will fool people into thinking the Chicken Shack has class or, for that matter, chicken.

“One dollar,” he says, giving me the once-over. He's obviously confused at what he sees, and I don't blame him. Chester's attracts just about every misfit in Philly, but not a lot of sweaty, chapped albinos with faint yellow haloes under their eyes.

I pony up my buck and the penguin hands me three tickets: one for admission, one for a dance, and one for a beer. I'll pass on the beer. Here, I'll order nothing but Aunt Robertas. After the first one, I'll forget Angela. After the second, I'll forget me.

I walk up the stairs. Chester's is no bigger than my apartment and the air's no fresher than a high school locker room. Cab Calloway is blaring through the music box, and twenty men are crammed around the dance floor, watching a middle-aged taxi-dancer grind her hips against a short, sweaty bald guy with an iron hook for a hand. She's wearing thigh-high stockings and a corset; she looks as if she's half-dressed for a Victorian ball. Nobody in the crowd is talking; they're all just staring at the dancer. I guess they're respecting her privacy.

When I get to the bar, I order an Aunt Roberta. The tender, a big guy with a shiny face and a drooping mustache, arches a bushy eyebrow. I repeat myself and this time it's not a question. He shrugs his shoulders, pulls the absinthe, brandy, gin, vodka, and blackberry liqueur, and mixes up a beauty. Then he slides it to me with an apologetic look on his face. I take a pull and it's exactly what I expected—slightly nauseating but strong as a steam engine. I swear, they could use these things to power street lamps.

The dancer turns my way while grinding away at her partner. She looks through me, high on something. She's working hard for her tickets—she's got a stack of them in the top elastic band of her stocking. But instead of feeling better about myself, which is why I came in, I feel worse—like I'm peeking through a bedroom window at a woman grieving over her younger self. If it were payday, I'd hand her ten bucks so she could take a break for a while. If she got lucky, she'd never come back.

Myra's over at the Red Canary and I can get there before last call. She's not Angela, but it occurs to me she might be more. She'd certainly never leave me feeling as empty as I do right now. Besides, I can have her all to myself for the duration of a chilled martini—and despite what Johalis may think about her, she's never charged me one red cent for a dance. I slug down the Roberta and give my dance ticket to a college-aged Joe wearing an eye-patch under a pair of thick specs. Then I head for the door.

When I reach the stairs I bump into an overly made-up platinum blonde with gold hoop earrings. She's got that Jean Harlow look, the kind you buy at the beauty parlor.

“Got a light, sweetheart?” she asks me with a smile.

She's either one of Chester's dancers or a hooker—or both. I strike a match and light her cigarette. She leans in toward the flame and puts her hand lightly on mine as she torches her smoke. She's trying to hook me, but she might as well be selling beach oil—my mind is already out the door. I trot down the stairs and pass the musclehead. I give him the quickest of nods.
I won't be back any time soon.

The outside air feels fresher than it did when I got here. I walk down Broad, hop in the Auburn, and head across town to the Red Canary. I don't walk through the door until three in the morning, but when I do, the joint is still going strong.

Myra just finished her last set of the night, so I wait for her in the bar area. I take the corner table next to the fire exit. From here, I can keep an eye on the entrance and still have an easy out. If Reeger walks in, I'll sneak out the exit. If Garvey does, I'll take him to Blind Moon Alley. If they both show, I've got trouble.

The redhead is working again tonight. She must realize Myra will be joining me because she puts two chilled martinis on the table.

“You're looking a lot better,” she says with a nod toward my nose. “I can see your face now.”

I don't say anything because I'm not sure seeing my face is a good thing.

She puts two cocktail napkins next to the drinks. “I guess all wounds heal in time.”

“Not all,” I say.

Red looks confused but drops the subject. As she hustles off to the kitchen, I spot Myra sashaying across the main room. She's wearing a snug turquoise number that hugs her chest, clings to her hips, and leaves her calves exposed; her hair is pinned to the side of her head and falls in loose waves over the opposite shoulder. She takes the seat across from me; her lips look soft and wet in the glow of the table lamp. The piano player launches into “Walkin' My Baby Back Home,” and I try to forget the way ­Angela's face lit up when she saw Wallace.