Blind Moon Alley (20 page)

She shakes her head. “Fucking Reeger. That bull hit me with everything he had. It's all bogus.”

I'm about to tell her that I've got receipts that prove otherwise, but a wave of shame rolls over her eyes. This is the real Madame—not the one that claims she grew up a gypsy in the circus, but the young pigtailed girl who dreamed of doing something grand with her life. It hits me that the Madame and I aren't all that different. For all of her gyrating, cursing, kicking, and spitting, she's a mouse hiding inside a lion's suit.

“Your friend Garvey's got an angel looking out for him,” she says to me. “Reeger and his boys busted into my place right after he left.”

“I know,” I say. “I was there.”

“Not then,” she says with a smirk. “Garvey came back again. I gave him some food and sent him out on the road.” She takes another slug of hooch and wipes the shine from her lips with the back of her hand.

“Figures,” I say. “I think he's looking for Reeger.”

“Well, he shouldn't have a tough time. Reeger's out for him, too.”

“Yeah, but he probably wants to get Reeger alone.”

She shakes her head. “He's crazy. Why doesn't he just get the hell out of here?”

“He needs money.”

“Then fucking give it to him,” she says. She takes another hit from the flask, but it's a smaller sip this time. “This whole thing has brought me nothing but trouble.”

“Same here,” I say. “I've got a lady in the hospital and a body in the morgue.”

Her eyebrows scrunch into her version of a question mark. I'm sure she's trying to get her arms around the idea that I've got a woman who isn't charging me by the hour.

I lower my voice and tell her about Myra. And Calvin. And the Ink Well. What I don't mention is the party I've got planned for Reeger. But she knows the rules of the street, the rules we play by. The Sarge is picking off my friends one at a time. The only move I've got is to bring him down.

“You're talking about a fucking bull,” she says.

I give the Madame a subtle nod, as if the guards will hear me if I nod too loudly.

“I know,” I say. “Any idea where I can find him? Before Garvey does? I want him all to myself.”

“You're as crazy as your friend,” she says.

When I don't answer, she sizes me up: my shimmying green eyes, my yellow hair, my white skin. I can see she's afraid to help me any more than she already has. I can also see that I'm the only one here for her.

“Some pool hall,” she says. “Garvey was planning on nailing Reeger there. But that's all I know.”

My mind races back to the matchbook I palmed at Reeger's. It came from a pool hall, but I can't remember the name.

“I'll find it,” I say.

“Good,” she says before taking a sip from the flask. “Now how 'bout getting me out of here?”

She puts her elbows on the table and leans toward me. If I did the same, our lips would lock. “I'll make it worth your while,” she says in a husky voice.

I don't want to turn her down, not like this, not while she's selling her last shred of femininity. But I've got Myra waiting at Philly General, her foot blasted into a million pieces, and I'd like to bring her something worth more than the old me.

“I've got Johalis greasing some bulls,” I say. “Sooner or later, we'll spring you. And you won't owe me anything in return.”

“Nothing?” she says.

My eyes are shimmying and I don't give a damn. “Not anymore,” I say.

The Madame leans back and takes another shot of booze. I've gotten what I need but I stay anyway, listening as she tells me of her plans to stop drinking, to quit hooking. But visiting hour only lasts sixty minutes and we soon eat them up.

A guard barks out that it's time to leave. I say good-bye to the Madame and promise her that she'll see daylight soon. Right after I find Reeger.

I'm cruising along the Schuylkill with the windows open, cooling off, letting the misty rain soothe my broiled ear. I've got Reeger's matchbook in my pocket. It's from Bobby Lewis's joint, a billiard parlor over by the Delaware. Lewis is a shark, one of the best, but his place is tucked away in a section of town that most working stiffs are too scared to visit, and most bulls won't go without backup. I've spent the morning trying to connect Reeger to the place. A rogue bull and a pool shark? It doesn't fit, not in any way that helps me.

I pull into the hospital parking lot and walk in through the main entrance. I'm wearing dark glasses and have my handkerchief wrapping my jaws; the sun has already branded my exposed cheeks. A busty brunette is working the reception desk. When she sees me, a look of confusion crosses her face. I guess she thinks I'm here to be cured.

“I'm here for a woman named Betty Blake,” I say, holding up my box of flowers to show I'm a visitor and not a patient.

“One hour limit, no exceptions,” she says, still eyeing my raw cheeks with that bewildered look. She'd fit in nicely with the guards at Eastern State.

“I know the rules,” I say.

I take off my glasses and shove the handkerchief into my pocket. Then I skip up three flights of stairs with a bounce in my step that only comes from knowing you're making somebody's day. Halfway down the hall, I pass a young Joe with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a towheaded girl in the other. I wonder if the guy knows how good he's got it, how much other people would give to be walking in his shoes.

When I reach Room 311, I find Myra in bed, lying on her back with three pillows under her head. She's half asleep; her hair is fanned out behind her on the white linen. A plaster cast covers her right leg from the knee down.

She gives me a drugged smile.

“The doctor says I'll be out in a week,” she says. Her speech is as thick as buttermilk and her lids as heavy as wet velvet. My money says the laudanum has got her floating somewhere north of Mars and southwest of Pluto.

Her head rolls in my direction. “We're still running away, right?” she says.

I'd put her in the Auburn and drive to the train station right now, but she deserves to come back down to earth before re-­committing to riding shotgun with me.

“As soon as you're back on your feet,” I say. “For now, you've got to rest up.”

She was asleep before I made it to the period.

I put the roses in a water pitcher on the windowsill and slide them to a corner where she'll be sure to see them. I write a note—
To my prom queen of Elementary School Four
—and put it on the
Inquirer
beside her. The headlines are shouting about a protest at City Hall and I'm relieved Garvey has finally dropped off the front page.

I shut the lights and leave the room. In the hallway, I look for Johalis's friend, Dr. Dailey. He's walking the hallway with a clipboard in his hand.

“So how's she's doing, Doc?” I ask him. “Betty Blake? Room three-eleven?”

Dailey nods and says he remembers me. I guess he doesn't have a lot of patients with busted feet and albino visitors.

“Your friend doesn't know this,” he says in his slow, halting rhythm. “But we ran into a few, umm, complications during the surgery.”

My stomach rolls; I feel as if the doc is dangling me from the rooftop. I'm hanging onto his words, and the slow pace of his speech, the way he pauses between words, is unbearable.

“I'm afraid several of the small bones were shattered,” he says. “We did our best, but we were unable to repair all of them.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don't know yet,” Dailey says. “I'm hoping she'll be able to walk on the foot, but it's too early to tell. If she does, she'll probably have a limp, or she'll need a cane. Maybe both.”

“But she may not be able to walk at all?”

Dailey looks at me and gives me the first clear answer I've ever shaken out of him. “That's correct,” he says.

I picture Myra, pint-sized, in Hoboken, a look of humiliation stamped on her face as she crosses the schoolyard with that blasted boot on her foot. Then I think of how she'll crumble if she gets the news that she'll be limping her way through life again, that the few years she had of walking without a boot, a cane, or a crutch have come to an end.

I want to be there when the doctor tells her all this. I want to console her. I want to touch her skin, stroke her hair, and wrap my arms around her. I want to tell her everything will be swell and know that I can back it up. I want her to believe in me, the albino from Hoboken who was a hero for a day.

And I want to kiss her tear-stained cheeks until that beautiful, broken foot becomes whole again.

The neon
Billiards
sign stopped glowing over an hour ago. The hustlers have come and gone, as has the rain. Bobby Lewis's is a two-story joint; it's at the intersection of Fitzwater and the grift. The roads are dark, wet, and empty—Fitzwater might as well be in total blackness. The only streetlamp around here is behind me; there's also a light burning in the building's side window, but it isn't strong enough to reach the walkway. I can't imagine who would still be inside the place; maybe one last sucker still has a buck to lose.

I'm behind the wheel of the Auburn, parked halfway up the block. The champ, Johalis, and Homer are with me; they insisted on coming along in case I run into Reeger's triggermen. The champ is still hoping I can cut a deal with Reeger, that I can give him Myra's payments in exchange for his calling off the witch-hunt. I don't blame him for pushing me to walk away from this—he doesn't want to see me wind up in Garvey's state-issued slippers—but Reeger will never go for that deal. Besides, the champ isn't the one who just left his heart soaking in laudanum in Room 311. If he were, he'd have come up with a plan similar to mine: jam a gun into Reeger's mouth and see what happens next.

“The place must be emptied out by now,” I say. There's a quiver in my voice and I hope the champ doesn't hear it.

“Maybe it is,” Johalis says. “But maybe not.”

Johalis is nearly as jumpy as I am. He already tried the front door, which was locked, and then peeked through the side window but couldn't get a good look inside. He also checked the back door but found it blocked by a garbage truck—left there either by a lazy custodian or a corrupt cop who doesn't like snoops. My gut says it's the latter.

“There's got to be a way inside,” I say.

The champ tells me to wait to be sure there are no stragglers left, but I scramble out of the Auburn before he can finish.

I trot across Fitzwater, my feet keeping time with my pounding heart as the champ curses and gets out of the car behind me. Once I'm on the far side of the street, I turn around and see the champ and Johalis running to cover the front of the joint and Homer taking the wheel of the car. Johalis motions that I should go around back and try the rear entrance again. The champ doesn't look happy.

I creep down the side of the building toward the back alley. When I get there, I find an abandoned path even darker than the side street—the lamps back here stopped burning hours ago and my albino eyes aren't helping the situation. I can barely make out the silhouettes of the brick apartment building on my right and the back of Lewis's place on my left. The garbage truck is overflowing with rubbish and blocking the pool hall door. What I can't see of the trash I can smell. The heat is cooking the debris; the alley stinks of rotting fruit and stale beer.

Somebody doesn't want any late-night visitors.

Johalis told me about the garbage, but he didn't tell me about the transom above the door. It's sitting six feet over the truck, wide open. The only thing missing is a sign that says
Enter Here
. I climb up on the truck and plant my feet on its hood. A rat crawls over my right oxford and I shake it off. As I reach for the transom, I hear voices coming from inside. They could be paying customers, but it seems awfully late for a nine-ball tournament.