Fall Guy (23 page)

Brody didn't answer his cell phone and when I called the precinct, I was told he was unavailable. I walked back to West Twelfth Street, crossed the highway and headed north a block, back to Jane Street. There was an outdoor parking lot across the street from the hotel's entrance, the lot where O'Fallon's car had been parked. For a moment, I was sorry Tim's car was no longer there. But even if it were, this was a lot where the attendant parked the cars. I doubt I could have asked for the car to be parked on the north side of the lot and then have sat in it without the attendant thinking I was very peculiar. Unless, of course, I gave him an obscene tip.

I suppose I could have done that anyway, asking him to let me sit in someone else's car. But what would he say if the person came to pick up their car? There was no tip large enough to make him risk losing his job. And standing on the sidewalk at the side of the lot in broad daylight, I'd be completely exposed. Even without Dashiell, I could be easily recognized. I'd have to think of something else.

I thought about Irwin again, wondering if he knew the last names of the men he played poker with, if the names they used were their real names in the first place. But if I asked Irwin, wouldn't he just repeat what I'd said at the next game?

Whoever I was looking for had killed three times already. He might already be hunting for me in order to protect himself, because of what I'd told Irwin. But knowing I didn't think Tim had killed himself and knowing I was looking for him as the doer were two different things. Making him nervous was one thing. Making him feel his survival was at stake was another. Asking for names would rev up the hunt and the risk. There wasn't a doubt in the world that he would kill again if he thought his identity was about to be revealed. The question was whether or not I could find him before he found me. And in order to find him, I needed a name.

I headed back toward Horatio Street, let myself in and walked up the flight of stairs to Irwin's door.

“I knew it,” he said, smiling. “You can't keep away from me.”

“True.”

“Like a bear to honey.” Grinning.

“Speaking of which…”

“What, doll? Name it, it's yours.”

“A cup of tea?”

“Yours, doll.”

“A spoonful of honey.”

He nodded, pleased to have the company.

“Got lemons?”

“I do.”

“Real ones? Not that awful stuff that comes in a little plastic lemon-shaped container.”

“Everything here's the real thing,” arms out to the side, looking himself up and down as he did. “Care to check it out?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “But I would like a squeeze of lemon in the tea, then drop the wedge into the cup.”

“Aren't we the little princess,” he said. “You figure this for a full-service joint, doll?”

He didn't bother to wait for an answer. If he suspected it was all busywork, he didn't say so. I didn't have time to worry about that. I turned around and looked for the phone. It sat on a small cabinet near the daybed, two small drawers and an open space beneath where he kept his phone books. But I wanted the other kind, the personal kind.

“Mallomars or sugar cookies with your tea?” he asked, standing in the space between the rooms, a small plate in one hand. “I have both.”

“Surprise me,” I said. I waited until I heard him drag the step stool across the kitchen floor. Then I walked over to the daybed and opened the top drawer. His address book was there, as I thought it would be, some condoms that looked as if they had been manufactured sometime between the great wars, a hairbrush with red hair in it, a nail clipper, pain pills, more pain pills, and more pain pills. I felt a twinge of guilt as I lifted the phone book and slid it into the back of my jeans, under my T-shirt. I turned around, half expecting to be caught, to see Irwin standing near the partition
that divided the living quarters from the kitchen area, irate. But then I heard him. He was humming. The refrigerator door opened and closed. The kettle began to whistle. I smiled at my own cleverness. I'd figured out a way to keep Irwin busy long enough for me to get what I'd come for.

I hadn't figured out how I'd return the address book. I could ask to use his bathroom, check it there, drop it anywhere in the apartment in the hope he'd think he'd left it out. Or I could take it home, worry about returning it another time.

We sat at a small table in the kitchen, the sun streaming in the window over the sink. I took a sip of tea, told him it was delicious and tried not to lean back onto the phone book, hoping it wouldn't slip out.

“Have you been thinking about my offer?”

I took a sugar cookie, broke it in half, put one half into my mouth, buying time.

“The dog,” he said. “Even if he doesn't know that much, you could teach him. He's smart. And I'd give you a percent of whatever I got. Where is he, by the way? First time I've seen you without him.”

“He's getting groomed,” I said. “Bath, cream rinse, nails, the works.”

He frowned again. “That is why you came, isn't it?”

“What is?”

“The dog. The deal I proposed the other day, help a little guy earn a living, make a buck for yourself at the same time.”

I nodded, happy not to have to invent a cover story myself.

“Or was it something else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever you slipped into the back of your jeans, doll. My address book, is it?”

“Shit.”

“And the reason you took it is?”

“I need the last names of”—tilting my head toward the poker table—“your buddies.”

“You ever thinking of asking, doll?”

“No, actually, I didn't.” I pushed the cup away, reached my hand behind me, pulled out the address book and put it down on the table. “That's not true. I did think of asking.”

“And?”

“I was afraid you'd mention it to the wrong person.”

“And which person would that be, doll?” He pulled a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket, began patting his pant pockets looking for matches.

I took the Hotel Riverview matches out of my pocket and lit one, holding it near the tip of his cigarette.

“I don't know which person that would be, Irwin. That's the problem.”

He hopped down from the chair, walked over to where I was sitting, put his hands on the edge of the table. “But you're thinking that whoever it is…”

“I am.”

He pointed toward the phone book. “Be my guest, doll.”

He walked out of the kitchen. I opened his address book to the beginning and began paging
through it. None of the names I wanted were there, not even the first names. I got up, carried the book into the living room and put it on the poker table.

“I'm disappointed in you,” he said. “That you'd think so little of me. I'm short, doll, not stupid.”

“How did you know?”

He walked back toward the kitchen, pointed up to a mirror in the corner of the room, near the ceiling, the kind you see in stores so that the clerk at the register can see who's in the aisles, and what they're doing.

“Do you think I'd let those deadbeats into my home if I couldn't keep an eye on them?”

“I feel so foolish,” I said. “I should have been honest with you.”

“Always the best policy,” he said. “But you can make it up to me.”

I didn't ask how. I wasn't
that
foolish. He decided to tell me anyway.

“You could go to bed with me, doll. That would square things.” Smiling now.

“I could,” I told him. “But the minute you were finished you'd be telling me you're out of clean socks. Next you'd tell me I could stand to lose ten pounds. You'd start telling me what I could and couldn't do, what I should think, who I should vote for, as if any of that was any of your fucking business. Makes me think it's not the best idea in the world.”

“Too much caffeine today, doll?” He tossed his cigarette into the sink, where it made a hissing sound. “So now what?”

I shrugged.

“You're giving up?”

“Yeah, I am. I'll leave it where it belongs.”

“With the cops?” He snorted, shook his head from side to side. “Bull.”

“No, really. I'll finish up with Tim's apartment in the next couple of days, sign whatever paperwork the lawyer sends me and look for some respectable work.”

His hand came up, the palm toward me. “Don't try to kid a kidder, doll. It never works.”

“You got mirrors somewhere else, too?” I asked. “You think you can see into my mind now?”

“More than that, doll, more than that.”

For a moment we just stood there, glaring at each other. When I walked to the door, he walked back to the kitchen. I didn't say good-bye. Neither did he.

I was tired and hungry and needed to get the sour taste of failure out of my mouth. As I passed the building on the corner, I noticed that the Dumpster was gone, hauled away, I guessed, by the police to check every piece of debris in it.

It was one of those steamy afternoons when the air is thick and still, not enough breeze to get the sweat to evaporate off your skin. I headed for Hudson Street, trying to keep in the shade as much as possible. When I was a block from home, my cell phone rang.

“You called?” he said.

“Yeah, I was wondering if there's any news about Parker.”

“Not yet. These things take time.”

I had always been under the impression that most of the successful work after a homicide hap
pened within the first forty-eight hours. Time was the enemy in a case like this, but once again, I didn't say what I was thinking.

“I was just sort of going over things in my mind,” I said.

“And?”

“Well, I was thinking about that guy Parker said he was supposed to meet the morning Tim died.”

“Fred?”

I inhaled so loud he asked if anything was wrong. I told him no, I was crossing the street, I said, and I hadn't noticed a car coming. He told me to go home, get some rest. I said I would. I could hear someone yelling in the background, someone totally out of control.

“Fred?” I said. “You're sure that's the name he gave you?”

“That's what he said. ‘I went out to meet this guy Freddy, but he never showed.' That's a quote.”

I felt a little prickle at the back of my neck and on my arms.

“Rachel?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. You're right. I think it's all catching up with me. I'm on my way home to get some sleep. I can't think straight anymore.”

“We're taking care of this, Rachel. Do you understand?”

“I was just thinking, that's all,” I said into the phone, remembering Irwin telling me, “Don't try to kid a kidder, doll.” The line was still open. “I'll talk to you later,” I said, taking the phone away from my ear and pressing
end
before Brody had the chance to respond.

The phone still in my hand, I dialed a number I knew by heart now, waiting for the desk clerk to pick up.

“Freddy Baker, please.”

“Hold on,” he said, “I'll ring him.”

I hung up without waiting for an answer. I no longer needed the names I'd hoped to get from Irwin's address book. There was something much more urgent now. I headed home, crossing against the lights, not a minute to lose.

Standing across the street from the Hotel Riverview, I waited for someone familiar to exit. I didn't know which of the men I'd met it would be, or even if the person calling himself Freddy Baker was someone I'd ever seen. Anyone in New York City might have heard any of Parker's stories, meaning any of Tim's as well.

Even if Tim had never said a word about the incident at Breyer's Landing, why not tell the Freddy Baker stories? “Look,” he might have said, “I used to lie and steal and do stupid, hurtful things and I straightened myself out. It can be done,” thinking they'd be grist for the mill, that they might inspire Parker to change.

And how might Parker have reinterpreted what he'd heard? As comedy, no doubt, how this guy he lived with and his brothers and cousins had successfully hoodwinked their parents; his father a cop, too. That must have been the best part, putting one over on a cop, making him believe a terrible accident was the work of a kid who didn't even exist, for God's sake. It was an
unbeatable story, one someone like Parker would not have been able to resist telling anytime he got the chance. And then there was the kicker: how this guy, the one he lived with, was a cop himself, and how he, Parker, kept putting one over on him. Priceless.

And what about the rest of it? Lying in the dark, one of those terrible nights when Tim couldn't sleep for remembering, had he hinted that he'd done worse, far worse than lying and stealing? Parker might have said, “Hey, man, who didn't? I could tell you some stories of my own.” And then what? Did Tim say, “No, you don't understand,” thinking no one could, least of all Parker, ending the conversation right there. He might have told the Freddy Baker stories, that made sense, but he never would have told Parker what was keeping him up in the first place. He never would have told him about what really happened at Breyer's Landing.

How often, I wondered, had Parker told the Freddy Baker stories, perhaps mixing in some details of his own invention, entertaining his fellow miscreants in bars, at the poker game, sitting and shooting the bull in Abingdon Square Park, where he'd talked to me, confiding, confessing, getting the attention he needed with someone else's pain. Didn't we all do that at one time or another? Wasn't that what we called gossip, not all of it harmless?

The sky was overcast and it was as dark as it gets in New York City, not very. But there was light under the canopy of the Hotel Riverview and none across the street where, behind the row
of cars parked on the south side of Jane Street, I was leaning against the chain-link fence of the parking lot, not knowing if I'd recognize anyone, hoping no one would recognize me.

Of course, since Parker had probably told Tim's stories to dozens of people I'd never met or seen, chances were good that no one would recognize anyone. That aside, my whole damn theory could be wrongheaded. One foot behind me, slouching so that I could see under the canopy, I watched the throngs of people heading up the stone steps to see
Debbie Does Dallas
at the Jane Street Theater, people who wouldn't ordinarily be in the neighborhood, hanging on to each other for dear life. I switched legs and waited some more. An old black man came out, walked slowly down the stairs and sat in a little niche to the right, taking in the cool evening air. A woman with a small teddy bear sticking out of her backpack came down next, heading toward Washington Street, sipping out of a bottle that she kept in a paper bag. A golden retriever, a bottle of Poland Spring water in his mouth, passed, his owner glancing at me, then looking away quickly, as if I might be one of the hookers who hung out on street corners two blocks north of where I stood. I waited some more, not knowing if this would get me anything, wanting answers and not knowing what else to do.

The people coming from Washington Street were in a big hurry. I checked my watch. It was nearly show time. And when I looked back at the hotel, there he was at the top of the stairs. Like nearly everyone else who had exited the hotel, he
stopped partway down the steps and looked around. He stood in the light, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets. I didn't think he'd recognize me, especially without Dashiell. I was just someone he'd passed on the stairs one day. Andy was looking down, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

I pushed off the fence, crossed the street and joined the latecomers, as if I, too, were going into the theater. When I got to where he was standing, I stopped and fished around in my pockets, as if I were looking for my ticket, so that I could get a better look. And that I did. A cigarette was dangling from his mouth now. He struck the match, holding it to the cigarette, cupping the flame with his other hand.

The hands gave him up, raw and shiny like Maggie's legs, even after all these years. As he shook the match, he glanced over at me, and for just a moment, I saw his eyes. The fire Maggie had described was long gone. His eyes, now that he was a grown man, were as cold and black and uncaring as the swimming hole that had swallowed his closest friend, the swimming hole that had become the beginning of the end for all of them. Standing on the steps, latecomers brushing by, I didn't have a doubt in the world that I was a foot away from Francis Connor, a foot away from the man who had killed Timothy O'Fallon, Elizabeth Bowles and Dennis O'Fallon. And knowing who, I knew why.