Simple Intent (18 page)

Berger talked to the flames, “Think you can get me to do your dirty work? What the hell am I protecting? The reputation of a dead man? Fuck it. My family? What family? That dumb bitch won’t let me see my kid, and now that I’ve lost Gina, nothing matters. Nothing.” 

He moaned, swiping his arm across the coffee table and sending empty beer cans and plastic pill containers flying. Then Hiram Berger tipped his head back and howled. 

Twenty minutes later, he steered the Impala toward the pier. Heavy duffle bags shifted in the trunk, something clunked against the tire well. Berger didn’t blink.

Ray sat in the recreation room reading his book. Some men cheered for the transvestite on The Jerry Springer Show. Others played chess in the corner. A few hunched over pads of paper with stubs of pencils—drawing, writing, or just dreaming. 

He opened his book.

“What you got there, Ray? Life Behind Bars?” The skinny black man laughed, his mouth a red cave with stumps of rotten teeth. He alternated between scratching at his arms and flapping them.

Ray scrunched his nose. “Shit, Amos. You stink. What the hell have you been doing?”

“Working in the kitchen. We’re having French Onion Soup for dinner, Ray. And that be some good shit, too.” A line of blood dripped from his arm. “They was talking about you. You and your boy, Stash.”

“Who was talking?”

“Some of the regulars on the line. Seems like somebody got a problem with Stash Neely. You best tell him to fly low.” Moses flapped his arms some more, then leaned closer to Ray. “You want some of Cook’s hooch? I can get you a deal, brother.”

Ray smiled. “You know I don’t do that stuff any more, Amos. Here.” Ray palmed him a few bills. “Go on and get some for yourself—and take care of that arm.” Amos looked down, seeing the blood and doing nothing about it. He pocketed the bills and wandered off, looking to hit up somebody else. Ray made a note to steer clear of the soup and tried to go back to his book. But he kept thinking about Stash.

Sailor kicked off her running shoes and stepped out of her sweats. She tore her t-shirt pulling it over her head. “Damn it!” She wasn’t used to the honking cars or the smell of exhaust or stopping at every street corner in Philadelphia. She missed the long winding trails of campus, the path around the tennis courts of the family estate, grass and dirt beneath her feet. That’s how you should run. Not on a treadmill. Not on a dirty city sidewalk. 

Thinking a long shower would make her feel better, she was headed to the bathroom when the house phone rang. She wrapped herself in a towel and flopped across the bed, reaching the extension on the nightstand.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Well, hello me. How are you?”

Sailor tugged the towel tighter and smiled into the receiver. The day was already looking up.

Ray passed by the yard on the way to the laundry room, where he hoped he’d find Stash. He stepped into the bright sunlight, instinctively shielding his eyes. 

Ace and his white brothers were counting out the push-ups of an overweight newcomer.

“Six? That all you got?”

“Six? I think that was five, Ace. You ain’t counting that first one, are you?”

The fat prisoner’s arms began to shake. He looked up, pleading. Bad move. The metal toe of a highly polished boot cracked the fat man’s lower teeth away from the jawbone in a swift shot. 

“Stay out of the weight room, fat man!” 

Another kick, another stream of blood and a high-pitched scream. The fat man rocked and moaned in the dirt, his hands clamped over his bloody mouth. 

Ray almost offered to help the poor guy, but Ace was watching, and a second later, the CO was there to give the fat man an infirmary pass and a soft bed for the afternoon.

Ray changed course, taking the long way to the Laundry. No pass for him today, not with a white fat fish as a roommate.

He pushed through the double doors of the laundry area, smelled the bleach, felt the heat of the dryers. The place was usually busy, but he saw no one. A whining sound came from the back of the room. Ray walked past tables of laundry—stacks of neatly folded sheets, piles of stained jumpsuit, threadbare blankets. Where was everyone? 

The closer he got to the machine, the louder the whining. Like a jammed gear. Like something that needed fixing. 

Ray turned the corner, expecting to see five guys with tools and ideas, and a CO standing over them, pointing. Instead, he saw a pool of blood and Stash Neely’s tattooed left arm dangling from the jaws of the Milnor press.

Sailor knocked on Reilly’s door, then walked in. 

“You ready?” she called. 

Dressed and looking handsome in his pinstriped suit and blue shirt, with mismatched socks, he sat on the couch tying his shoes. 

She said, “Hey, I was looking for you last night, at the office.”

Reilly froze. “Really?’ He didn’t look up, just paused, then went back to tying and said, “Why, what’s up?’ 

“I wanted to show you something. I found something interesting in Deluca’s files.”

Reilly stood and began stuffing gadgets in his pockets. He barely looked at her as she spoke.

“I found some documents that had nothing to do with his prosecutions in the seventies, but a lot to do with Berger.”

Reilly grabbed his briefcase. “Why would Deluca keep files on Berger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Berger was going to hire him at some point.”

They left the apartment. Reilly locked the door and said, “But don’t cops have private representation? And what was Berger accused of?”

“Besides being a crooked cop?”

“Yeah, besides that.” 

Reilly’s cell phone rang with the tune of La Cucaracha. Sailor shook her head and pushed the elevator button as Reilly glanced at the incoming call display and smiled, putting the phone to his ear. 

“What? Wait a minute, slow down.” Reilly closed his eyes. “Where is she? You’re sure she’s breathing?’ 

Sailor knew that tone, having grown up in a doctor’s house. She could hear the high-pitched voice on the other end.

Reilly said, “No, you’re doing the right thing. Turn her head to the side, she’s going to be okay. Just don’t leave her. Do you understand?” The elevator doors opened. “I don’t care, listen—I’m on my way.” 

Reilly looked at Sailor. “I need to borrow your car.”

She said, “I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

Sailor touched his arm. “Reilly, I’m coming with you.”

He looked in her eyes, saw a fight. “Okay. But, I’m driving.”

They pulled up in front of a brick walk-up. Reilly ran through the small lobby and took the stairs two at a time with Sailor close behind. The hall carpet on the second floor was new. The smell of glue and synthetic fiber hung in the air. At number seventeen, Reilly didn’t bother to knock. He went right in. Sailor followed. 

A bushy-haired blonde in white leather knelt beside her friend passed out on the floor. Her face was streaked with tears. “What the fuck! Right, Reilly? I mean what the fuck is this? She was fine. She was fine!”

Reilly ignored the blonde and spoke to the girl on the floor. He placed his fingers on her carotid and put his face next to hers. “Shelly, come on now. Wake up.” He lifted her eyelids, then her arms. “That’s a good girl. Come on, now.”

He looked at Sailor. “Get me a cold wet washcloth and see if there’s a medical kit—smelling salts or ammonia.” 

Sailor hustled to the rear of the apartment. She looked in two rooms before she found the bathroom. The place was neat and nicely decorated. It would have been a nice place to visit under different circumstances. She pawed through the drawers of the bathroom vanity. In the last one she found a first-aid kit and raced back to the living room. 

Sailor handed the smelling salts to Reilly. He broke a capsule open and waved it under Shelly’s nose. 

Shelly tossed her head, gagging, then scrunched up her face and opened her eyes. “What the fuck?” She pushed Reilly’s hand away. “What are you doing here?” Shelly looked around, focusing on her friend, then Sailor. “Who the fuck are you?”

Shelly pushed Reilly away, rolled over and tried to sit up. 

“I don’t feel so good.”

Reilly scooped her off the floor and carried her to the bathroom. 

Sailor paced the living room, and when she heard the shower start up she wondered if she should leave. There wasn’t anything else for her to do. 

The blonde said, “I like your suit.”

“Thanks.” 

Sailor sat next to the girl on the couch. “Were you here? When she? When it happened?”

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t see it or nothing. I was in the other room with a friend.”

Sailor said, “Shelly’s lucky you were here,” and wondered where the friend was now. 

“Yeah. I guess. She’s going to be okay, right? I mean, it was just some bad blow, not like it could...you know.” The girl looked away, still talking but not like she wanted to hear the truth. 

Sailor knew how she felt. So she didn’t say anything.

Mutual interests suffer consequences from known opposition, offer opportunity for sacrifice before defeat. Vitriolic confrontation avoidable. D.

Sailor was sitting in Deluca’s office reading his email, copying some to a personal document and hiding it under some layers of spam. She was trying not to think of the morning, how the whole thing had felt surreal, when her cell phone rang.

“It’s Reilly, just wanted to thank you for this morning. I’m sorry about all that. You were great.”

“Me? You’re a regular Rescue Hero.” 

“Not quite.” His voice softer, “I should’ve done more.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” 

“I should have been there.”

“And what would you have done?”

Silence.

Sailor continued. “That’s right, there’s nothing you could have done. Not to stop her, not to change her, not anything. She—Oh God.” Sailor closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. 

“What? Sailor?”

Reilly barely heard her when she said, “It’s just like my mother.”

“Your mother? Wait a minute. She died of cancer.”

“Yeah, my adoptive mother did. My real mother died of a heroin overdose when I was three months old.”

“Your real mother?”

Sailor sighed, then decided to tell him everything. “The Beaumonts adopted me through a Philadelphia attorney. He knew the girl’s—my Mom’s family. My parents never told me anything, not until Mom got sick. She said she wanted me to know, in case I ever wanted to find my family.”

“Did you?”

“No. They were my family. Besides, from what my dad said, my mother had been disowned. The family even refused to speak her name. What would they want with her daughter?”

“What about your father?”

“I never got the whole story. He abandoned my mother when she was pregnant with me. He married her, but it was all screwed-up from the start. Young black street punk meets upper-middle-class white girl. Add some drugs into the equation and you know the ending. I’m glad it was different for Shelly.” 

“Sailor, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?’ Sailor wiped her eyes, sniffed. “You didn’t know, Reilly. How could you have known? Look at me, I’m no better than those whores we saw at Graterford.”

“Don’t say that. You’re amazing. You’re smart and kind and beautiful and I bet you don’t even own a trench coat.”

Sailor laughed, loved that he could make her laugh when she felt like shit. 

When Sailor hung up, she couldn’t help thinking about her mother and wondering who had found her all those years ago, and where her father had been when her mother needed him most.

TONY CIGARS and Billboard waved to the men in the tractor-trailer. Even from his vantage point on the hill, Berger heard the throaty rumble of the big engine, the shouts above it. Tony pointed to a stack of red-striped containers at the far end of the terminal yard. Berger peered through his binoculars and scanned the area around the pick-up point. Clean. Nothing gave him away. They’d never know what hit them.

A bearded man in a yellow T-shirt jumped from the truck’s cab then jogged to a forklift and set it in motion. The driver went around to the back of the truck smoking a cigarette and laughing at something Tony Cigars said. As they swung the big doors open, Berger lost them for a minute. The metal door obscured their faces, but he saw their legs, their shuffling feet. If only they knew this would be their last tango, they might have made a better effort. Berger smiled, then pressed the button in his left pocket. 

It was all over the morning news. A split screen interruption ran on all the local stations: Dock Explosion. Several presumed dead. Ten wounded. Cause unknown. Investigators on the scene. 

Reporters rushed to the site to see first hand what had shaken the Parker Avenue Marine Terminal. Producers wondered if they could use this coverage to segue into the growing union concerns. Would they still strike? Did the union have anything to do with the destruction of the Chinese electronics shipment?