Play It Again (23 page)

“You want to help me, just forget you ever saw me and run your meetings. I’ll be there.”

“I don’t know about that, R.J. You being there, I mean.”

R.J. laughed and stood up. “You can’t stop me, Frank. Remember? My name is R.J. I’m an alcoholic.”

CHAPTER 28

It wasn’t much of a victory. Frank was a decent guy, trying to do the right thing. Still, it was about the only win R.J. had had lately, and he felt his blood moving faster.

R.J. was getting the smell of the killer. Casey was right that he was an actor; he was sure of it now. R.J. felt closer to finding him than he had before, and the feeling was a good one.

In fact, R.J. felt so good he decided to take the subway home. The train was only about half full at this hour. But as they rattled uptown a large black man in a beret stormed into the car.

“Hey!” he shouted. Nobody looked at him.

“You people are lucky! You riding
my train
! Ain’t nobody fuck with you on my train! I got a black belt in Tie-crown-doo! Y’all are
safe
now!” And then he took off his beret and moved down the train, shoving the greasy cap under the nose of every single passenger.

Most of them fumbled some change into the hat. When he came to R.J., he paused. R.J. looked up at him, smiling.

“You a transit cop?” the man asked.

“No,” R.J. said.

“Then why you looking at me like that, man?”

“I’m a masochist. I was hoping to get robbed and beaten, and you just spoiled my whole day.”

“Shit,” the man said as he moved away. “I hate this goddamn city.”

As R.J. walked the last three blocks from the train he felt his glow wearing off. So he was closer. Big deal. He had been so far from finding the guy that closer was meaningless. Besides, what did he know that he hadn’t known before? That the killer talked nice? So the last thing his mother had heard would have been good diction. That was a help.

He was fucking it up. She had worried about him in her journal, and she’d been right to worry. He was at a dead end in finding this killer because he was in a dead-end life: rotten past, dismal future, and not enough brains and balls to do anything about it.

If he had any smarts at all he would talk to Casey. Maybe even talk about the future with her. Let her know how he felt about her, how she was tearing him up inside. If he’d done that with his mother things would have been different. Maybe they would have gotten along. Maybe she’d still be alive.

And maybe, R.J. thought bitterly, if I flap my arms hard enough I can fly to the moon.

By the time he got back to his apartment he had ridden the mood swing all the way through the cycle and he was feeling pretty bad. As he opened the door and saw Casey he felt better briefly—a quick shot of adrenaline: She looked great, and she was waiting for him.

“What happened?” she asked. “Guy crap out on you?”

“No,” he said. “Hookshot doesn’t crap out. One of his kids ID’d the picture. Guy was at an AA meeting at St. Mark’s last night. AA leader says it was him.”

“That’s great. So what’s with the face?”

“What do you mean?”

“You look like a pigeon just shit on your ice-cream cone, R.J. What’s the problem?”

Here was his opening. His heart gave a quick double knock of excitement. He could tell her everything, pour out his soul and let her sponge it up. Instead, he just said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s that much of a lead.”

She looked at him like she thought he might say something else, but when he didn’t she just said, “Tell me about it.”

He told her about it. He ran through Benny’s ID of the picture, his interview with the giant priest, and the talk with Frank.

“So now what do I know? Maybe he shows up at AA again next week. That’d be nice. If he does, I nail him. But he probably won’t, and if he doesn’t, where am I? Nowhere again. Or nowhere still. No closer to finding him than I was two weeks ago.”

“You know, R.J.,” Casey said, “you’re cute, but you’re dumb.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means he handed it to you and you’re too boneheaded to pick it up and run with it. You’re acting like a quitter, and you’re giving up on the only really important thing you’ve tried in who knows how long.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Listen, schmuck. We got confirmation that the picture is good, right?”

“Right. So—”

“So we know what he looks like. And now we think we know something about his past. So we can follow his back trail with the picture and find out who he is. Do you think you can catch him if you know his name and what he looks like, R.J.?”

He shook off her heavy-handed sarcasm. “You’re not making sense. What do we know about his past?”

“I’m not making—For the love of God, R.J., you’re supposed to be the hot-shot investigator. I’m just a piranha, remember?”

“I remember. I wish you’d drop it.”

“Frank told you—what did he say? That the guy had a speech pattern like he’d gone to one of the good acting schools. So if he went to one of the good acting schools—and there aren’t that many—somebody will remember him.”

R.J. nodded. “It’s something,” he admitted.

“Asshole,” she said. “What do you mean, ‘something,’ it’s brilliant. Get to work on your big-time show-biz connections and find out what schools to call. You want to tell the cops any of this?”

“No. They haven’t helped me any. All Kates wants is to see my head on his lunch plate. They get nothing from me.”

“Angelo might take it bad if you don’t tell him.”

“Angelo has to report everything to Kates. He’ll understand.”

She shrugged. “Your funeral. Think you can handle the phone calls, or you want me to hold your hand?”

“Lay off, Casey.”

She nodded. “That’s a very strong comeback, R.J.”

“Why are you on my case like this?”

“Why are
you
so pathetic all of a sudden?”

R.J. felt his stomach knot. “Is that what you think?”

“Well, for Christ’s sake!” she exploded. “We’ve been cooped up in here for days, and if it was up to you we’d be here forever! You are nowhere at all on solving this and you’re not trying to get anywhere! She was your mother, R.J., and all you’re doing is moping around and grabbing some free ass!”

“I don’t see you complaining about the ass-grabbing, Casey.”

He knew as he spoke it was the wrong thing to say and he would have called the words back if he could, but it was too late. She gave him a look of pure disgust and contempt.

“Well then you can consider this your notice,” she said. She turned and walked toward the bedroom door.

“Casey…” R.J. said.

She stopped and looked at him again. This look wasn’t any better. “What a sleazy piece of shit you are,” she said and went into the bedroom. She closed the door very firmly behind her.

* * *

He had been feeling it since he woke up that morning, and with the coming of full night it is so strong he is almost shaking with the power of it, the roaring in his veins and the surge through his head that is almost like singing.

“Hallelujah,
”
he sings to himself.

“What was that?” asks the bartender from fifteen feet away.

“Nothing,
”
he says. “Nothing at all.
”

The bartender nods and says nothing. Good man, that. Knows the value of silence. He drains his drink and raises a finger for another.

He can drink all day and it won’t affect him. Not when he is like this. Not when he can feel that splendid thing uncoiling inside him, flexing, fangs bared, ready to strike.

It is time.

Oh yes, it is time now, time at last, time to do it. He can feel the certainty of it bubbling inside him, and he lets it perk, feeding it with his thoughts, teasing it, drawing out the feeling as long as he can.

This will be the best ever. Because it is personal, has always been personal. Unfinished business, something that has been hanging incomplete all these years and making him steadily, quietly furious; and now it is happening, the pattern is almost complete.

It is all coming together now, all the threads from so long ago,
everything falling into a perfect pattern that he will weave into the greatest scene of his life.

Tomorrow. That will be the day.

He sips.

And he laughs quietly as it comes to him how he will begin.

CHAPTER 29

R.J. woke up feeling like his head was packed with sand and all his joints were fused. He was lying facedown on the couch, still dressed, where he had finally dropped, exhausted, at around four-thirty.

He noticed right away when he opened his eyes. In spite of being dead tired, in spite of feeling like he’d been beaten up again, it was the first thing he noticed.

The bedroom door was open.

Casey was gone.

It must have been the sound of her leaving that woke him. He sat up. Through the open door he saw how neatly the bed was made. With a sick lurch in his stomach he stepped into the room and looked around.

There was no trace of her left behind. All her small items of makeup were gone, her toothbrush taken from the bathroom. Her clothes too, which he had watched her buy, and seen spread out across the bed and the chair. All the skirts and blouses and underwear. All gone.

Casey was gone.

She would rather take her chances with a psychotic killer than put up with him any longer.

He sank onto the bed, rubbing his eyes. It wasn’t just a fight, it was the end. She wasn’t coming back.

And why should she? Come back to what?

Come back to a guy who could barely function emotionally? To somebody so closed off he had never even told his own mother what he felt about her, let alone ever telling a lover anything. He had told Casey nothing at all, except that he didn’t hear her objecting to the ass-grabbing.

That was great stuff, man. Real smooth-talking. Amazing that she hadn’t thrown herself at his feet when she heard it.

She was right. He really was a sleazy shit. A sleazy, amoral, orangutan-shit.

He flopped onto the bed and lay there for a while, unable to see any reason to move. The bed still smelled of her, and it made his head throb so hard his teeth hurt.

All right, he finally said to himself. She’s gone. So what?

So everything. So he’d done it again, chased away somebody he loved. It was starting to look like that was his only real talent. The only thing he could do with people he loved: force them to run from him. What a rare and special gift.

He wallowed in his emotions for half an hour. Finally he sat up on the bed.

“Aw, the hell with it,” he said. He didn’t really believe it, but that didn’t matter.

He had work to do.

* * *

It was still early on the Coast, but Arthur answered after six rings.

“It’s R.J., Arthur,” he said in a loud voice.

“I have my ears switched on, old chap. No need to bellow.”

“Have you found anything yet?”

The old man gave a short bark of laughter. “You must remember how things work out here, laddy boy. As of my retirement seven years ago, I am capital
N
Nobody. It’s going to take several weeks before my calls are returned.”

“I remember,” R.J. said. “I got another angle for you, if you’re still willing to help.”

“Of course I am, R.J. Of course I’ll help.”

“I have a composite picture, Arthur.”

“You mean one of those dreadful drawings? My word, just like in the movies.”

“This one isn’t that bad. The guy has been recognized from the picture already.”

“Well, send it to me, posthaste. I’ll take it ’round and see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Arthur. You’ll have it tomorrow.”

“Splendid.”

“I don’t know if this helps, Arthur, but there’s a chance this guy had some training at one of the good drama schools.”

“How so?”

“Well, I got a witness who says that’s what his speech sounds like. Polished, like they teach actors.”

“Used to teach, old boy. Used to teach. Nowadays oatmeal mouth is all the rage. But back then… Well, back then diction was one of the calling cards of a legitimate actor. That would mean either Carnegie or Juilliard, I should think.”

“Juilliard? Here in Manhattan?”

“The same. And Carnegie in Pittsburgh. Now Carnegie-Mellon.”

“Arthur, that’s a real help.”

“You mean I have provided a
lead
, my boy? How extraordinary. I’m delighted.”

“I appreciate your help. I’ll call when I find something.”

“Godspeed, old chap. Godspeed.”

R.J. hung up. The old boy would do his best, he thought with affection. Always had.

R.J.’s next call was to directory assistance in Pittsburgh. He got a number for the main switchboard at Carnegie-Mellon and called it.