Blind Moon Alley (27 page)

It's starting to rain and the shower mixes with her tears. I want to take out my handkerchief and blot the anguish from her face. I want to kiss her until it's yesterday.

When she speaks, her voice is weak and shaky. “I only did it because I didn't believe you'd come away with me. You were never gonna get the money, not if you kept pouring it into that precious club of yours.”

Part of me believes her, at least the part about my coming up short on dough. Had I put the Hy-Hat aside and worried about us—and had I somehow managed to come up with the cash—our ride together might have lasted a while longer. But it's too late for us now. And it's too late for Myra. Once the bullies broke her spirit, she was never able to mend it again.

From the corner of my eye, I see Thorndyke inching his revolver out of its holster.

“Put the gun down, Myra,” I say, knowing how bloody this scene could get. “Even if you kill me, you'll never get out of here alive.”

Her tears—or maybe the raindrops—are turning her eye makeup into thick black streaks. As they run down her face, she looks like some sort of almond-eyed ghoul.

“Just turn around and start walking,” she says.

I don't budge, mostly because I know she's ready to put a slug between my shoulder blades.

Then she adds, “We're leaving right now.”

If she's thinking we can walk to the Auburn and drive off to California, she's crazier than I thought. Even if I wanted to go with her, the bulls would nail her in the back before she hobbled her way to the shipping containers.

“It won't work, Myra,” I say, nodding toward Thorndyke and his partner, who have their revolvers trained on her.

“Lower the gun, lady,” Thorndyke says.

“Listen to him, Myra,” I say. I lock my eyes with hers, afraid she'll get rattled if she keeps looking over at Thorndyke and his partner. “It's over.”

She looks at me, still crying. Her upper lip is quivering as the downpour continues to paint shiny black bars on her tan cheeks. Her hair is soaked and flat; the rain is running off the rim of my fedora.

“I said lower the gun,” Thorndyke says, more loudly this time.

I see Homer standing in the rainfall behind Thorndyke, his mouth hanging slightly open. I hope he doesn't do anything stupid, anything that would stop Myra from dropping the rod.

“What are my chances?” she asks me.

I'm assuming she means the odds she'll walk away clean. “We'll find you a good lawyer,” I say.

“A lawyer can't stop Lovely from making minced meat out of me.”

“I'll handle him,” I tell her.

The smirk on her face says she doesn't believe me.

“I promise,” I say.

“Drop the gun
now
,” Thorndyke says and cocks the hammer.

Myra looks me in my eyes. “I did love you,” she says. Then she aims the gun at me and pulls the trigger.

A split-second after she fires, a second shot rings out and hits her in the left cheek. She drops to the ground, her crutches bouncing on the wet ground beside her.

“Myra!” I shout, my voice swallowed up by the empty darkness around me.

I run to her but there's nothing I can do. She's motionless—blood is flowing down the side of her face, tinting the puddle of rain beneath her. Her plastered foot is twisted awkwardly beneath her.

Thorndyke drops to his knees and holds his head in his hands as the downpour soaks the back of his uniform. His eyes are shut and his lips pulled tight; he looks as though he just got hit himself. I wonder if Myra is the only person he's ever killed. Either way, he must be coming to grips with the same thought I am. Myra never aimed to hit me—the bullet sailed eight feet over my head. She only pulled the trigger because she knew that once she did the bulls would put an end to her troubles. And she was right, I suppose.

Homer comes over to me, his drenched cap pulled low on his sloped forehead, his lips turned downward. He puts a hand on my shoulder and I try not to break down, but the grief pours out of me as powerfully as the river beneath us rushes toward the ocean.

I don't try to explain to Homer why I'm sobbing. Nobody—not him, not Thorndyke, not even the champ—can understand what Myra meant to me. When she died, the light went out at both ends of my tunnel.

She was one of the few bright spots of my childhood.

And the only glimmer of hope for my future.

CHAPTER 16

I load my suitcase into the back of the Auburn. A cloud drifts in front of the morning sun, so I take off the scarf I've got wrapped around my jaw and toss it into the backseat.

I said my final good-byes to Myra a week ago. There were no services, no priests, no crying friends, no family. Not even her father showed up. In the end, she had nobody but me. I bought a plot at Laurel Hill and had her buried there; I placed a bouquet of roses on her grave and stayed until it started to rain. I knelt in front of the stone marker, the rain spitting on the top of my fedora, and the moist, freshly broken earth dampening the knees of my pants. I told her I thought I might have loved her, and that I'd have had her buried in Hollywood if I'd had the money. I couldn't help but wonder if things would have been different had we made it there, but I'm better off having never found out. The only thing more dangerous than spending your life with a woman who doesn't love you is spending it with one who'd set you up for the electric chair.

When I got up, I brushed off my pants, and walked to the Auburn, ignoring the warm drizzle. I started the engine and drove past the cemetery gates, knowing I'd never return.

A mile up Ridge, I passed a newsboy hawking the
Inquirer
. He held it high over his head and shouted the headline:
Records Uncover Police Sergeant's Web of Deceit
,
Garvey Case Revisited
. I pulled to the curb and called the kid over. The article was a beauty—it took over the front page and even had a picture of Garvey standing in front of Elementary School Four holding a baseball bat across his shoulders. Somebody must have done some serious digging for that one. I bought five copies, gave the kid a buck, and told him to keep the change. Then I sat in the car—right there on the side of Ridge—and read every word, wishing Garvey were with me to see the justice he'd served.

I've got one of those copies with me now as I pay one last visit to the Ink Well. Doolie is never here before noon on a weekday, so I let myself in with my spare key. The place is empty, hot, and stuffy. I can practically smell the dust that's settling on the memory of the albino bartender with the busted nose.

I've got the Zealandia shoebox under my arm and I put it exactly where I'd planned: on top of the ice machine, not far from where Angela's apron hangs. On it, I leave a note that tells Angela to use the money to chase her dream out of the Ink Well and into the classroom. I hope she listens.

Next to the ice machine, that blasted issue of the
Inquirer
still hangs on the wall. There's my face, scarred by the rips that Reeger left in it. I take it down, crumple it up, and toss it in the trash. Then I grab a roll of tape by the cash register and replace it with last week's paper. Hopefully, the locals who sit here trying to forget their workdays will learn a lesson about judging a man before knowing him.

As I step out from behind the bar, I picture Myra sitting on the end stool, a frosted martini glass between her polished fingernails, a litany of sweet lies coming from her painted lips. I remember the nights we spent right here, how young and free and happy I felt when we were alone. I want to feel that way again; I want to be in love again. It occurs to me that I miss myself as much as I miss Myra.

I walk to the door and take a look around the joint. Garvey stares back at me from behind the bar, a smile on his young face, and I wish him good-night before turning out the lights.

An orange sun is shining on Juniper when I get in the Auburn. I've got one more stop before heading back to New York—I want to find Lovely and return his twenty grand. I start the engine and head toward Fitzwater, making my way through the streets that seemed so sinister when Reeger was prowling them. I pass Washington—which is only a mile from Bobby Lewis's—when the radio announces that Otto Gorsky, the man the locals call Mr. Lovely, died last night from an unnamed disease. They refer to Lovely as a friend of the Philadelphia police, but they don't mention that half the force is as crooked as the Schuylkill. I picture the old man dying inside his mansion and wonder if his hired goons carved him like a turkey as he took his final breaths—or if he spent those last few moments sitting in an armchair, sipping cognac, wishing he'd lived a life he could be proud of. I promise myself I won't wind up in either one of those positions.

I lower the visor, slip on my dark glasses, and make a U-turn toward Northeast Philly. I'm tempted to bring the dough to the Hy-Hat, but not everything the champ has spent a lifetime preaching has been lost on me. If I can't return the cash to Lovely, I can put it where it belongs. I turn off Richmond, wind through a few side streets, and pull to the curb in front of 86 Fuller. It's a small, two-story brick rowhouse; I'm surprised to see Rose working in the garden so early in the morning. I picture Calvin coming home from the graveyard shift at the Baldwin factory and Rose waiting for him here, tending to her plants, just like she's doing now. Neither realized how soon their world would come crumbling down.

I reach into Lovely's envelope, pull out half the cash, and put my glasses on the seat beside me. As I walk up the path, Rose is on her knees, tying up a batch of dried branches. She probably hasn't done much out here since Calvin died and wants to clean it up before we roll into autumn.

“Hiya, Rose.” My eyes shimmy but I don't bother turning away.

She looks up but continues working. She's not wearing any makeup and looks older than I remember—the pain of losing Calvin is still etched around her eyes. Her gloved hands are dirty; her smock is stained by grass and dirt.

“Jersey,” she says. She has a vacant stare, the kind of look somebody gets when they're going through the motions of life but not really living it. She gives me a smile—from her lips, not her heart.

“Did you see the papers?” I say.

“Sure did,” she says, gathering another bundle of branches. “I guess the truth had to come out sooner or later.”

“Reeger had some scam going,” I say. “Eventually, it came tumbling down. These things always do.”

Rose stops working for a moment and her face sags.

“I'm glad that cop is dead,” she says. She seems to be listening to her own words, as if they're coming from somebody else. I'm sure she never expected to be saying them herself. “I hope it was slow and painful.”

“Well, Calvin helped,” I say. “He didn't die in vain.”

I'll never admit the truth: Calvin's death was a waste; it was the whimsy of a rogue bull with an agenda to fill and a wake of bodies behind him.

She shrugs. “I suppose so.”

She gets back on her knees and starts plucking some weeds from the dirt.

“Calvin left you this,” I say and hand her the cash. “I found it in the safe at the Hy-Hat.”

Her eyes scrunch together; she doesn't believe me. “Calvin didn't have this kind of money,” she says.

“I think he'd been putting it aside from his pay at the plant. He told me to give it to you if anything ever happened to him.”

She shoves the cash in the pocket of her garden smock. Then she looks down and puts her face in her hands. She doesn't cry but her shoulders bob and her elbows shake.

“It can't get me Calvin back.”

I feel guilty, as if I'm trying to buy her absolution with Lovely's blood money. But nobody can save Calvin now, and he would have wanted me to take care of her. This is the best I can do.

“He wanted you to have it,” I say, swallowing the grief that's rattling the cage inside of me.

“Thank you,” she says.

There's nothing left to say and we reach an awkward silence. It's clear she wants to be alone, so I tell her that I've got to leave. But I add that I'll visit the next time I'm in town.

“I'll be here,” she says as she takes out a pair of pruning shears and goes to work on a shrub.

I wish her well and walk back to the Auburn. When I leave, I pull away slowly, and give one more wave from the driver's seat even though she's not looking my way. Then I turn on the radio. Connie Boswell is crooning “I'm All Dressed up with a Broken Heart.” I know how she feels, and I bet Rose does, too.

It starts to rain, so I put on the wipers. It's a sun shower; it shouldn't last long. I've still got ten large in the envelope and I know where it's going to go. I drive into Overbrook and pull up on Malverne in front of the building marked
Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind
, a towering stone structure that sits at the top of a grass field. Three arches mark its main entrance.

I tug on my fedora and raise my lapels before hopping out of the Auburn. It's a light, steady rain; I trot across the manicured lawn and duck under the center arch, where I pull out a handkerchief and wipe my face dry. Then I shake the water from my oxfords and walk through one of the building's tall oak doors. The tiled lobby has a vaulted ceiling and an elaborate, gilded chandelier, but nobody is there to see it. Judging by the distant piano and singing voices, all the teachers and students are in an auditorium on the other side of the building.

I scan the lobby and spot a door with the words
Director's Office
written in gold across a beveled window. That's my man. I walk over and tap lightly on the glass; when nobody answers, I slip into the room and shut the door behind me. The place is dead quiet. Across the room, there's a desk with a nameplate that reads
Robert Sullivan, Director
, so I take out the rest of Lovely's money, grab a pen, and write a short message on the outside of the envelope:
For Louise Connor.
I leave it on the desk and trust that Mr. Sullivan will see it gets put to good use.