Solitary Dancer (17 page)

He woke several hours later, his memory flooded with a clear recollection of the railroad tracks again and an incident from his childhood.

Word had swept the neighbourhood one Sunday morning that some boys had lain a dead dog across a rail beneath the Pearl Street bridge ahead of a late-night train. McGuire, nine years old, had run to the bridge and stacked three pieces of two-by-four and stood on them to peer over the railing.

The beagle lay on the tracks, its head and front paws on the gravel bed and the rest of the body between the rails, severed like a frankfurter divided by a kitchen knife. McGuire remembered the dog's brown eyebrows and white tail, and saw that its eyes were closed, the entire scene, viewed from twenty feet overhead, strangely calm and surreal.

The image haunted him still. Not the gore or the stunning reality. But how immaculate it all appeared. How easily acceptable the horror was.

He lay there perspiring and shaking, probing for the reserve of anger that had once fueled his resolve, a reservoir of strength that had been there to meet his need but had dissipated some time in his past. The hell with it, he told himself, the hell with it, the hell with it, and he rose from the bed, fell to his knees and rose again at the sound of footsteps outside his door.

“Joe?” Ronnie called. “Are you all right?”

He fell against the door, turned the knob and opened it, the glare from the overhead light in the hall shining off his body.

“My God, Joe, put some clothes on,” Ronnie said, her eyes darting from the sight of him.

“I need some,” McGuire said. He stretched out a hand, touched Ronnie's chenille robe until she pulled away, her head still turned.

“Joe, go back to bed . . .”

“Just two or three, Ronnie. Just a couple to get me through the night . . .”

“No,” she said, and spun away. “I don't have any, and even if I had—”

“There's an all-night drugstore down the street . . .”

“Joe, don't even ask me—”

“
Goddamn it, you don't know what it's like!
”

At the sound of his anguish she stopped, breathed deeply and turned to stare at him, her eyes locked on his. “You go back in there and you wait until it's over,” she said. “And that's that. Or you leave here now and you never come back to bother Ollie and me again. Never. And for God's sake, put some clothes on. You're embarrassing both of us.”

“All right,” he said. “Fuck you both. I'm . . . I'll get out, get the hell out of here.”

He closed the door, angry at her refusal. But the anger opened another door and he stumbled back to the bed, determined to wait it out, to overcome the tyranny of the narcotic.

From the corner of the room he thought he heard a snuffling sound. In the shadows, he was sure he could see them, waited two small pigs and perhaps a dog, a sad beagle. “Where's the horse?” he asked. He grinned to himself and began to laugh, except the tears kept flowing and the laughter hung in his throat like a bone.

McGuire woke to a gray dawn. Ronnie entered the room and steadied him with a hand at his back while he sat up and sipped from a glass of juice before curling on his side again.

“Sorry,” he said.

“About what?” Ronnie asked, fluffing his pillow.

“About last night.”

“A bad dream,” she said. “We both had the same bad dream.” She paused at the doorway and permitted herself a sly smile. “But a little bit of mine was actually kind of fun.”

When he lay back, shivers racked his body and his skin acquired a sheen of perspiration. Within an hour he vomited the juice into the bucket, leaning over the edge of the bed and retching uncontrollably. He was enveloped in a rankness that seeped from within him, rising through layers of perspiration, an aroma as warm and cloying and greasy as chicken soup.

The bed was an airship and a vault, and when he closed his eyes he felt himself simultaneously rising weightless and sinking within the folds of the bedclothes, held down like a small animal in a snare. The nausea rose within him again and he opened his eyes to steady himself. The room ceased its spinning but small articles began to move: the cornice molding slithered along the wall, the heavy oak-framed picture glided slowly to the floor and his clothing, tossed casually across the back of a rocking chair, rolled itself into a ball.

The rest of the day passed in short spells of sleep and violent spasms of sickness. In the evening Ronnie persuaded him to swallow a few spoonfuls of broth which McGuire managed to keep down until some time in the middle of the night when he awoke from a dream of Timmy Fox and Janet Parsons and McGuire together in Green Turtle Cay. He remembered nothing of the dream except the location and the people who had been there with him. When he fell asleep again he imagined himself walking on a floor constructed of writhing gray snakes whose bodies moved within a glassy slime and he felt himself sliding among them, knowing that to fall was to never rise.

He woke in the fading dusk light. His skin was dry and he shivered uncontrollably, feeling his body quiver as though driven by some unknown, ungoverned engine within him.

“Don't need to know why.” Grizzly leaned against the door frame and stared past Django down the alley beyond the fire blazing in the steel drum. “Just need to
do
. You axed to
do
it, you
do
it, hear?”

Django stood shifting his weight lightly from one foot to the other. His hands were in the pockets of his long leather coat and his tweed hat sat on the rear of his head, its brim up, the effect like a laughing cat with its head thrown back. “Don't know where to find the Jolt,” Django said. “Ain't seen him since the black dude got it right there on Jolt's doorstep behind the Bird.”

“You find him, he finds you, no difference,” Grizzly said. He hunched his shoulders and tilted his head, the gray beard beneath his chin thick and pliable and impenetrable like a sponge, and he stared down his wide flat nose at Django. “You put him where I can get him, all that matters. He find you when he need you.”

“Find me?” Django's small mouth broke into a grin. “Why the man find me? Ain't nothin' I can do for him. We dry, remember? Leastwise, I'm dry. Drier'n a nun's pussy on Good Friday, that's what you tell me I be.”

“Gonna make you a little damp.” Grizzly nodded. “Here she come now. She late but dependable, ain't she?”

Django turned to look down the alley where the Gypsy was trudging toward them in a moth-eaten gray sweater-coat that fit her like a dress, her tiny feet moving quickly in white ankle socks and tattered Nikes. She glared at Django as she always did and withdrew her hand from the pocket of the coat. Opening her hand, she offered a small plastic vial to Grizzly who took it from her, glanced at it and nodded approval. Then he tossed it in an underarm motion to Django and said, “You not dry anymore, monkey.”

Django counted twenty small tablets in the vial before dropping it in the pocket of his topcoat.

“Your man comes lookin', tell him you back in business again, hear me?” Grizzly held the first two fingers of his right hand up, making the V sign, and the Gypsy reached in another pocket of her sweater-coat, looking for her Camel Lights.

“Don't know where he's at,” Django said.

“Man's got the whore Billie, ain't he?” Grizzly said. The Gypsy was lighting a cigarette for him, the flame of the match dancing in the breeze.

Django nodded, feeling glum.

“Lucky fool, got a woman like Billie givin' him what a man needs now and then. Woman's got time on her hands these days, what with the Bird closed. So you go see his whore, you start there.” The Gypsy slid the cigarette into Grizzly's waiting fingers and he brought it to his lips, still watching Django through narrowed eyes. He took a deep pull on the Camel Light and when he spoke his breath was a blend of condensation in the cold November air and exhalation of tobacco smoke. “Ain't askin' you to
waste
the fool. Jus' tellin' you to
find
him. An' put him where
I
can find him. Ain't so ball-breakin' tough. Izzit?”

There were four doors on the second-floor landing and Donovan squinted in the dim light until he found number three, the brass numeral bent and corroded.

He rapped sharply on the door twice and stood there sniffing the air. Sauerkraut. Somebody's cooking goddamn sauerkraut for dinner. Jesus, you can smell it everywhere.

“Who is it?” The woman's voice was flat, as though she had just woken up.

“Police.” Donovan removed his shield from inside his jacket. “Like to talk to you for a minute.”

“What about?”

“Homicide investigation.”

“I don't know nothin' about it.”

Somebody was moving behind the door of apartment two. Donovan could hear the floor creak.

“You want me to come back with a warrant and three pissed-off uniformed cops I can do it, lady.” Donovan turned to stare at the door of apartment two and slipped his hand inside his jacket to grip the Police Special nestled in the shoulder holster. Probably just a nosy neighbour but you never know. . . .

The door to number three opened and the blond was standing there in a pink chenille robe. Her eyes were puffy and her hair looked like she'd set it with an eggbeater but you could see she had a good chest and healthy hips. Donovan flashed his shield, and Billie nodded and said, “Come on in.”

Donovan walked past her into a living room that surprised him with its cleanliness and order. Good solid furniture, clean and not too glitzy. Couple of paintings on the wall, nice crystal chandelier over the dining room table. No dust, no dirty dishes, none of the whorehouse atmosphere he'd seen in other apartments where women like this one lived, a stripper with a criminal record, probably a part-time hooker like the rest.

“Your name's Chandler?” Donovan said, standing there in the middle of the living room, looking around.

“That's me.”

“First name Billie?”

“Only one I got.”

Donovan bent to lift a ceramic figure from a walnut hutch cabinet. “Chandler your maiden name?” He turned the figure over, raised his eyebrows at the Royal Doulton signature on its base and returned it to the hutch.

Billie grunted.

Donovan turned to look at her.

She was sitting in an upholstered armchair, her legs crossed, shaking a cigarette from a pack that had been resting on a side table. He watched her light it with steady hands, take a deep breath and tilt her head back blowing smoke toward the ceiling. Donovan walked across the room to sit opposite her, watching her with a crooked smile on his face. “Know why I'm here?”

Billie tapped the cigarette against a glass ashtray. “Don't have a fucking clue.” Pronouncing each syllable carefully, like she wasn't just another tough street broad.

“It's about Heather Lorenzo.”

“Never heard of her.”

“And Detective Fox.”

“The guy who got shot at Joe's the other night.”

“That's him. He talked to you at the Flamingo a week ago.”

“Black guy.” She took another drag, still not looking at Donovan. “Him I remember.”

“Your buddy McGuire's involved in both of them.”

“No, he's not.”

“Well, I think he is. And I'm gonna prove it.”

“So prove it. What're you talking to me for? He's not here.”

“Maybe I don't want to talk to him. Maybe I want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

Donovan shrugged and dropped his eyes down to where her gown had slid open exposing a leg. Nice calf, slim ankles. “Maybe something that slipped out, something he told you that he didn't tell us. Hell, you were fuckin' him, weren't you?”

Now she looked at him for the first time, burning her eyes into his, staring at him like he was a stack of fresh shit, the look she used to give guys at the Bird who came on to her, thinking she's an easy lay just because she makes money by taking her clothes off in front of people.

“Let me know if you ever get a red-hot poker up your ass,” she said. “I'll come and applaud.”

Donovan's grin widened. “Oh, you're one tough lady, aren't you, Wilhelmina?”

“I answered questions half the night when they took Joe out of here,” Billie hissed. “Then you guys come in here, tear my apartment apart, rip open my mattress, threaten me with jail, upset my neighbours. . . .” Jesus, she was starting to cry. Damn it . . . “I'm out of a job, I got bills to pay, and you're still on my ass and there's nothing else I can tell you. . . .”

She bit her lip and tilted her head back again which made the tears well in her eyes.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Donovan said. “We got a dead cop and a dead civilian, and both of them're linked to McGuire. We're gettin' heat, lady. If you think those gorillas who came in here last week are something, I'm telling you they're only the beginning. Only the beginning.”

Billie took a deep breath, which made her chest do wondrous things for Donovan's imagination. “You wanta tell me what you want from me?” she said.

Change of tactics, Donovan told himself. “Hey, I'm sorry I upset you, okay? Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Just need to ask a few questions, that's all. Cop gets killed, all hell breaks loose, you know that.”

“Joe and me, we had nothin' to do with it.”

“You were at the club the night Fox got it. Maybe you saw something.”

“I didn't see anything. None of us, we didn't see anything, didn't hear anything until about fifty of you guys came through the door of the club and grilled us, all of us, most of the night, and the next day the city shuts us down.”

Donovan watched her, waiting.

“So me and the rest, we're out of a job and you guys still won't leave us alone.”

“Yeah, well, I said I'm sorry.”

Billie looked at him like he'd just said he was born on Mars.

“I'm sorry about all that stuff, okay?” Donovan spread his arms, opened his hands. “I wasn't with the first team, the guys who put the pressure on the Flamingo, all you people down there. But now I am. Hell, everybody is. Cop gets shot in this town and it's like somebody bopped the president. So I heard about you and I thought maybe I could do something, ask a few questions from a different angle, you know?” He grinned, lopsided. “I mean, I'm workin' on my own time here, okay? I just put in ten hours on Berkeley Street. I got a right to go home, have a beer.”

“What happened to you?” Billie asked, referring to the bandage across the bridge of Donovan's nose.

Donovan touched it hesitantly, remembering how McGuire had knocked him against a doorjamb in the interrogation room. Son of a bitch should've been charged with assaulting a police officer. “Had to get rough with somebody on the street,” he said.

“Broken?”

“Naw, just cut a little. No big deal.”

“So I still don't know what you're here for.” She pulled a strand of hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear.

Donovan shrugged, started to speak, stopped and thought, ah, why not? If it works, wouldn't it be something to hit McGuire with? Hey, asshole, I porked your old lady last night, how's that make you feel? Then, laying his warmest smile on her, “Thought you and me, we could go out for a drink, talk about things a little.”

Billie looked up at him, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Jesus Christ,” she said, and Donovan shrugged again, watching her. “Jesus Christ,” she said again, looking around her apartment as though she'd just woken up. Then she threw her head back and laughed, her body shaking a little, and said “Yeah, sure.” She rose to her feet. “Sure.” She covered her eyes with her hand and stared at the floor for a moment. “Give me ten minutes to get ready,” and Donovan watched her walk away from him toward her bedroom, combing her hair with her fingers, her shoulders shaking with laughter. “I don't believe this,” he heard her say. “I don't fucking believe this.”

He told Billie he knew a bar down Mass Avenue near Huntingdon, asked if she'd like some dinner with the drinks, maybe a decent steak. She said sure.

Walking down Mass Avenue he sneaked sideways looks at her, the way she cinched her light raincoat tight around her waist so it made her chest look better. Good-lookin' broad, you gotta admit. Not the kind you take home to your family but, Jesus, you'd have to be a goddamn robot not to wonder what it'd be like riding her in bed, hands under that great ass of hers.

They were passing the Christian Science Center, heading down Mass Avenue, the streets wet with the light rain that had fallen all day. Donovan was enjoying himself, going out for a beer with a good-looking woman, a sleaze and maybe a witness to Fox's murder, but you couldn't argue with that chest. Besides, after more than ten hours in that pressure cooker on Berkeley Street, everybody trying to solve Fox's murder on his own, he needed a break. Spend a little time with a sexy broad, might tell him what he needs to know.

Fox is dead, he reminded himself. Any regrets you got won't do a damn thing to bring him back.

“You wanta take a picture?” she asked, looking straight ahead.

“Picture?” he asked. The bar was a block ahead, light spilling through the windows onto the street.

“You wanta see what's on my chest, you can buy a ticket, soon's I get another job in a club,” said Billie glancing sideways at him, looking him up and down as she walked.

“Can't blame a guy for using his imagination.”

“So how come you're not using it to find the guy who killed your buddy, Fox, whatever his name was?”

“Imagination never found anything. I'm looking for facts, stuff you can tell me, maybe you forgot to tell somebody else.”

“Aw, shucks,” Billie said in a corn-pone accent. “And I thought this was gonna be a real girl-boy date.”

They entered the bar and Donovan noticed how the guys on the stools watched Billie as she passed, Donovan staying a pace or two behind, his gaze either on her ass moving so nicely under her raincoat or looking up at the expressions of the men nudging each other, and he would catch their eye, let them know who she was with, who they'd have to get past if they wanted to make a move.

She chose a booth in the corner near the back and he asked her if she'd mind moving to the other side.

“Lemme guess,” she said, sliding out and sitting opposite the way she'd been facing. “You don't like your back to the door.”

“Something like that,” Donovan said. He sat across from her, elbows on the table, hands clasped in front of him. “Just like to know where the threat's coming from, that's all.” He scanned the bar, the guys on the stools going back to their talk about broads they'd known and those dumb-ass Patriots.

“You guys are all alike.” Billie glanced down to her waist, unfastened the buckle of her coat.

“Men?”

“Cops.” She opened the coat and slid out of it, arching her chest forward. Donovan made no effort to help her.

“You run into a lot of them?”

“Some. Dated a couple back in Portland. My old man was a cop, can you believe it?” She was out of her coat and looking at him.

“Funny thing for a cop's daughter to do, isn't it?”

“What is?”

“Working at the Flamingo, walking around naked.” He was staring down the bar, watching who came and went, trying to catch a waiter's eye. “Hanging out with dope pushers.”

“Hey, listen to me,” Billie said. She jabbed his hand with her finger until he looked at her. “Look, I don't know where you come from and I don't care. You're a big city cop, spend your time looking at dead bodies, well, I guess it's a living. But people like me and the other girls, and guys like Django, okay, he's black and I'm white, but you gotta understand. We do whatever the hell it takes to survive, okay? I show my tits and Django deals a little drugs on the side. So maybe we're not Ozzie and Harriet, okay? But that doesn't make us scum, him, me, any of us. Maybe the people we deal with, maybe they're scum. But Django's just tryin' to make it and so am I and if you gotta act tough around us or rough me up a little, so do it if you get to keep your job. Just remember that Django and me and Dakota, some of the rest, we'd rather not be doing this shit, okay? Okay?”

She leaned back and stared out the window, her face flushed with anger.

The waiter, whose expression said he'd rather be anywhere else except where he was, was walking toward them. He tossed two greasy menus on the table. Billie ordered a vodka gimlet and Donovan asked for a Michelob.

When the waiter had gone, Donovan placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Tell me about yourself,” he said.

“What's to tell?”

“Where you were born. Where you grew up. You ever been married?”

“Portland, Portland and no.”

“Why not?”

“Never wanted to make the same mistake once. You?”

“What?”

“Ever been married?”

“Once.”

“What happened?”

“We stopped.”

Billie took a cigarette from her purse. “You miss her?”

“No.” Donovan found a pack of matches in an ashtray, lit one and held it while Billie leaned across the table toward him.

“Why'd you bring me here tonight?” Billie asked. She put her head back, aimed a stream of smoke at the ceiling.

“Told you. Have a drink, nice little steak. Get to know you. Your old man really a cop?”

“That's what I said.”

“What's he think about you now, what you do for a living?”

“He's dead. Died when I was fourteen years old.” She took a long drag on the cigarette and looked down at it as she spoke. “He used to paint, if you can believe it. Watercolours. He was really good at it too. Said it helped him relax. And he'd sing, he liked opera. My old lady was a jazz freak but Pop loved opera. I'd wake up in the morning and hear him singing right through the noise of the shower, this great big booming voice. Then he'd put his cop uniform on and go to work. He was a hell of a guy.”