2 Grand Delusion (8 page)

9

And I lied again an hour and a half later. I told Andrea I was going for a little walk around the neighborhood before dinner, to give my legs some post-prison stretching. Where I was really going, though, was Tony's house.

I felt guilty about leaving Andrea and the boys so soon after I came back. But if I wanted to keep that promise to my boys about not going back to jail, I'd better get cracking.

Muldoon was still in front of our house, probably waxing his mustache while he waited, so I slipped out the back door. I vaulted the back fence and cut through our neighbor's yard, then started down Ash Street, planning to double back to Tony's house. But as I passed the Orian Cillarnian Sons of Ireland Hall, I saw Hal Starette of the SERC coming out. I stopped to chat with him.

"Hi, Hal," I said.

He turned toward me and his face instantly turned white, like he was seeing a ghost. Or a murderer. "Hi," he mumbled.

Beyond playing chess together, Hal and I didn't have much of a relationship. But I was starved for some plain old ordinary, uncomplicated human contact. "You gonna play in the Capital District Open next month?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said monosyllabically.

"Me, too. Which division?"

"Dunno," he grunted, and headed for his car.

I tried another conversational gambit. "Everything going okay on the Grand Hotel project?"

This time Hal didn't even favor me with a monosyllable, just nodded his head up and down a couple times as he quickly got behind the wheel and took off.

Evidently being labeled a murderer was not going to do wonders for my social life, I thought, as I headed for Tony's house. I stepped around the rotten planks on his front porch, with their rusty nails standing tall and shouting
"Watch out! Tetanus!"
as loud as they could. Which of course wasn't very loud. I rang the doorbell, but it was no louder than the nails. So I knocked. Some peeling paint flaked off the door, but except for that, I got no response.

The sky was growing dark, with a full moon hanging down low. It was a perfect night for werewolves and madmen. My recent jail time must have made me jumpy, because I suddenly had an awful premonition.
"Tony!"
I shouted, pounding on the door.
"To-nee!"

But still I got no answer, except for an urgent pounding in my chest. I threw my shoulder at the door. No go. I threw my other shoulder at the door—still no go.

I ran to the front window and pushed upward. It made a token effort at resistance, but then it gave. I quickly climbed in.

I found myself inside a darkened living room that smelled like death. Or not death exactly, more like a mixture of stale socks, stale cigarettes, stale excrement, and . . . what was that other odor?
Peppermint?
Some kind of air freshener, I guess. Nice to know someone cared. But even the air freshener smelled stale, and it did nothing to ease my premonition. A sliver of light showed underneath the door to the kitchen. I hurried to the door, opened it, and went in. Then I stopped.

Three people were sitting on the kitchen floor. One of them was Tony's mom. She was thin as a rail and buck naked, and she must have been awfully cold on that chipped linoleum floor. But maybe she was too high to notice. Right now she was taking another hit off a glass crack pipe.

Sitting beside her and eagerly reaching out for the pipe was a scruffy-looking man of indeterminate age with an eye patch, a dirty leather jacket, and heavy boots. Next to him was another man who looked about the same, except his pants were down around his ankles. Interestingly, he was wearing boxer shorts.

Looked like a great party.

As Tony's mom handed the pipe to Eye Patch, she looked over at me. Surprise, then fear, then annoyance registered in her bloodshot eyes. She waved at me to get the hell out of there.

Which I would gladly have done, except the guy with the rolled-down pants picked that moment to turn his head. He spotted me.

"Fuck you want?" he snarled, no doubt vexed that I might want to share the crack, or the woman. Then he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at me.

"Sorry, guys, just passing through," I said, as cheerily as I could. "Guess I'll be on my way."

"Fucking answer me!" Gunman yelled, jumping up and waving his weapon. Meanwhile Eye Patch was glowering at me with his one good eye, obviously furious that I had interrupted him just when he was about to take a hit.

I turned to Tony's mom for support. She was still sitting there on the floor. "Hi, Mrs. Martinelli," I gulped. "Or Ms. or Miss," I added inanely. "I was looking for Tony."

Gunman glared at me, then at her. "Tony?! Who the fuck is Tony?"

"Nobody. Just my son," his mom said impatiently. "He's not here."

"Do you know where he is?" I asked, not expecting an answer really, but not knowing how to get out of the conversation gracefully. If I ever run into Miss Manners on the street, I'll have to ask her what to do in a situation like this.

Fortunately, Gunman was able to rise to the social occasion. "No, she don't know, fuckface. Now get out before I bust your ass!" he said, advancing on me.

I backed up. Tony's mom didn't say anything, and neither did Eye Patch. He just fired up his pipe.

As I started out the door, Gunman turned back toward his friends and put away his gun. He curved his lips into a tight, hard smile, looking forward to his turn with the pipe, and with the local sex goddess.

I was glad Tony wasn't at home right now to witness this. I had to get that poor kid out of this hellhole. Permanently.

Eagerly sucking in the fresh outside air, I stepped around those nails on the porch and started searching the neighborhood for Tony. I looked in Arcturus, the local pizza joint, and a couple of other likely places, but he was nowhere to be found.

Then it occurred to me that Tony might actually be at my house, since that seemed to be his home away from home these days. So I headed back there. I was happy to see that all the TV vans were gone; probably the media folk were out enjoying nice expense account dinners on Broadway. I'd be able to sail right through our front door without harassment.

But when I came to the infamous house next door, I stopped. One of our friendly neighborhood crack dealers, Zapper, was sitting on the front steps drinking beer. His eyes hit mine briefly, and then he aimed them over my head, just like always. With his Tyson-like muscles and sullen, dead-eyed scowl, Zapper would make a perfect henchman in a Ninja Turtle video.

Zapper
. Interesting name. Who or what had he zapped in order to get it?

And what exactly did "zapping" mean, anyway?

Sometimes he shared his tiny apartment for days at a time with a black woman in her early twenties and two small infants. I hadn't seen them the night Pop got murdered, but I sure remembered seeing Zapper. When the cop sirens filled the street, he'd come out on his front steps along with his twitchy colleague, Dale.

Had either of these two fine, upstanding young men seen anything that night? I was desperate for Zapper to open up to me. If only I could do some male bonding with this drug dealing creep. I pointed at his beer. "Colt 45. My favorite."

Zapper just kept staring vaguely over my head. I followed his gaze. "Nice moon," I said.

Silence.

"You see that bright star?" I prattled on. "That's a planet, actually. Jupiter."

Zapper didn't seem overly impressed by my astronomical knowledge. So much for male bonding.

Maybe if I watched more Miller commercials, I'd be better at it.

But what the hell should I do now? Goddamn it, I
needed
this scumbag. He might know something that could keep me out of jail. On a sudden impulse, so sudden I didn't even know I was doing it until it was already done, I stepped right up to Zapper, real close, so close he couldn't look over my head anymore unless he put his neck so far back he'd get whiplash. Then I hissed between my teeth, "What did you see that night?"

Finally Zapper looked at my face. Score one for my side. But his voice stayed blasé. "What night?" he said, bored. Then he took a vicious-looking knife out of his pocket, some kind of hunting knife. He opened it up and began ostentatiously cleaning his fingernails.

Talk about overkill. I mean, with those monster muscles of his, what did the guy need a knife for? I was so mad, I ignored the darn thing. Hey, after staring down so many gun barrels lately, the knife seemed downright nonviolent. "Listen, asswipe," I said, "you were home that night, and your window faces the backyard. I think you looked out there when you heard screaming. I think you know who killed Pop."

Zapper just lifted his thumb and inspected the nail for dirt. His forearms were thicker than my thighs. If size was all it took, he could have hit more home runs than Mark McGwire.

"Or maybe you killed him yourself," I went on. "Maybe that's why you're scared shitless." He didn't actually look scared, shitless or otherwise, but hopefully I could rile him into talking.

And the truth was, maybe Zapper really
did
kill Pop. After Tony, he was my best suspect. What if Pop caught Zapper selling crack and tried to bust him?

Or what if they had a landlord-tenant dispute that turned physical?

Or—

"I know you," Zapper said quietly, and finally focused straight into my eyes.

We gazed intently at each other for a few moments. What the heck, maybe I should give the male bonding thing another whirl. "Sure, you know me. I live right next door. My younger boy is just a little older than your kids."

Zapper nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know you. You the dickhead keeps calling the cops on me."

I nodded politely back. "Yeah. And you're the dickhead sells drugs and abuses his wife and children." I suppose this
was
male bonding of a sort, though it would never make it as a beer commercial.

"Bitch ain't my wife. Think I'd marry that ho?"

"Let me ask you something. Do you hate me so much that you want me to go to jail for a murder I didn't do?"

"Don't hate you, man. Just plain don't give a ladybug's ass about you."

"What about my kids? You've seen them around, playing hockey on our driveway. You want them to grow up fatherless?"

"Fuck your kids." He grinned at me, showing a couple of gold caps. "Yo, bro, you mind getting out of my way? You blocking my moonlight. An' Jupiter, too.
Shee-it."
He slapped his knee and started chortling. "Man tries to be my friend, tells me about fucking
Jupiter."

He thought that was utterly hysterical, and his body shook with laughter—which was his mistake. I was beyond desperate, and hearing this pimple on the face of humanity get witty at my expense just sent me over the edge.

Zapper was so busy cracking up, he let down his guard. Using the roundhouse karate kick my children had taught me, I thrust my leg out sharply—and kicked the knife right out of his hand.

It went flying into the bushes. Zapper jumped up to grab it, but I was already standing and it was no contest. I grabbed the knife and pointed it at his chest. My Ninja Turtle sons would have burst with pride. My wife would have flipped.
Macho man returns!

Zapper backed up, eyes widening with panic. I had a sudden flash that for all his trash talking and all his henchman muscles, the guy was still nothing but a punk. Maybe he was a brave man with a gun in his hand, I couldn't say, but without it he was just a 250-pound weakling. "Sit down, turkey," I spat out. He stumbled on the steps and sat down.

I stood there brandishing the knife and panting with rage, feeling like I was foaming at the mouth. What the hell had gotten into me? Leftover adrenaline from getting beaten up by those guards? Whatever, it sure was fun being the one holding the weapon for a change. Poor Zapper better hope my kids weren't watching out the window, or they were liable to come outside and stomp him into the sidewalk.

"Yo, chill, man," Zapper whimpered. "I was just funning you, that's all."

"You better tell me what happened that night," I snarled, "or I'll stick this knife from your belly button straight through to your asshole."
Not bad,
I thought to myself. That time in jail had clearly sharpened my dialogue.

"I didn't see
nothing,
man!"

"Then you're one dead motherfuck—" I began, but I was stopped by a voice from behind me. "What's going on here?" it rumbled.

I didn't need to turn around to recognize that voice. Shit, it was
Dave the cop.
And here I was, holding a lethal knife and threatening murder.

This probably wouldn't do wonders for my legal defense.

My back was still to Dave. Had he seen the knife? I wasn't sure. Holding it close to my body and out of his sight, I sidled up next to some overgrown juniper bushes. "What're you doing?" Dave demanded hotly.

I flicked my wrist, and the knife flew deep into the brush and disappeared. Then I turned back around. "Hey, Dave, what's up?"

Zapper found his voice again, big time. "Officer, this muthafucka had a knife!" he screamed.