Blind Moon Alley (12 page)

Calvin nods. “Me, too. I'll bet he didn't do nothing to that cop.”

“You might be right,” I say.

As I walk out through the game room, I take a good look around. All of these young kids are making friendships that will last a lifetime. I wonder if one of them will wind up hunting down his buddy to get him out of the country and save him from the electric chair.

CHAPTER 7

It's two-thirty in the morning and I've got the Auburn idling on South Philip. Maple trees line the block and a lone streetlamp lights a short stretch of sidewalk.

I'm watching Reeger's house with the champ and Johalis; we're convinced Garvey is going to show up tonight. Myra called me an hour ago—she told me Garvey had tracked her down at the Canary, that he'd been hiding in the alleyway hoping she'd give him some cash. She gave him all she had—twenty bucks—but warned him that Reeger was inside the joint, half in the bag and throwing his weight around.

“All Garvey kept asking me was what time Reeger would be leaving,” she said, her voice unsteady after seeing what had become of our old friend.

I told her not to worry, that Garvey wouldn't do anything stupid. But the second after I hung up the phone, I dialed Johalis. My hunch was that Garvey would head straight here to wait for the Sarge, gun in hand. Johalis had the same hunch.

I'm looking at the two-story brick rowhouse and trying to think like Garvey. Aside from crawling through a window, the only way to get into the place is through the front door. I'll bet that Reeger, being a cop, has a deadbolt on it. And I'll double-down that Garvey—being a death row inmate who broke out of Eastern State—found a way around it.

“Garvey's gotta be in there,” I say. “I'm going in.”

“Just wait here,” my father says, drumming his fingers on the top of his thigh. “You ain't sure of nothin'.”

I knew the champ would want to stop me from breaking into the place, but the longer we wait, the sooner Reeger will get home.

Johalis pipes in from the backseat. “If Garvey knows that's Reeger's house,” he says, “then he's in there.”

My father's lips tighten but he keeps quiet.

“I'll be fine, Champ,” I say and open my door.

Johalis does the same behind me. “I'll cover you,” he says.

As I step out of the Auburn, my father grumbles that he'll keep the engine running and slides over to take my place behind the wheel. I cross the dank air of South Philip, jacketless, skirting the glow of the streetlamp and cursing myself for not paying the lamp lighter to leave the street in darkness. As I reach the sidewalk in front of Reeger's, I check my ankle holster and jacket pockets for my essentials: flashlight, gun, and brass knuckles. Check, check, and check.

Johalis is two steps behind me. I motion that I'm going to try the front entrance. I can't imagine Reeger left his place unlocked, but it's worth a try. I climb the three short steps that lead to the door as Johalis waits by the curb, under a maple tree, keeping an eye on the street.

A lamp burns to the side of the entrance—it shines on Reeger's address—so I pull my fedora low in case a nosy neighbor is having trouble sleeping. I grab the knob and give it a gentle turn. I was right—it's locked and doubled by a deadbolt. I look toward the maple tree and shake my head.

It's a corner lot, so I walk to the driveway on the side of the house. It's darker here, nearly entirely in shadow, and when I step into the blackness, my eyes shimmy. I don't want to use the flashlight; I'd prefer to remain invisible. A sliver of light from the street crosses in front of me and hits the building. I spot a window that probably leads into Reeger's sitting room—the only problem is that it's ten feet off the ground. I'm going to need a boost.

I turn toward the maple tree. “Psssst.”

Johalis doesn't budge, so I call again. “Psssssst.”

This time, Johalis comes out from under the maple. The thin beam of light flickers across his white shirt.

I point toward the window and he takes a look. When I extend my hands—
how do we get up there?
—he crouches down and whispers, “Climb on my back.”

I put one knee on each of his shoulders. Then he stands up slowly and lifts me into the air. We're swaying from side to side like a circus act.

“Get me closer,” I whisper hoarsely.

We wobble closer to the building, and I grab hold of the window frame. As I slide the window open, I slip off Johalis's shoulders and hang from the window—the metal frame digs into my sweaty fingers and a knifing pain shoots down both my arms. I'm kicking my feet in the air, biting on my lip, trying not to scream.

Johalis catches my feet and slides his shoulders under them to relieve some of the pressure on my fingers. But when a car turns onto South Philip, we both freeze. If that's Reeger's car, we're dead. I've got a smooth tongue, but there's simply no way to explain dangling from a bull's window at two-thirty in the morning.

Headlights brighten the block as the car slowly approaches the driveway. I hold my breath, as if exhaling will make too much noise. I'm expecting to meet up with a drunken Reeger steering with his right hand and pointing a loaded thirty-eight with his left. What I get instead is a young Joe singing an old tavern song with his girlfriend. A few seconds later, they're gone.

I let out a gust of relief and tell Johalis to push me higher. I pull myself up, lean my head through Reeger's window, wriggle through the opening, and land face-down on an end table. When I get to my feet, I clutch my chin and lean out the window.

“Whistle if there's trouble,” I say to Johalis, as if he wouldn't know what to do on his own.

He gives a nod and a test whistle.

I whistle back and flick on my flashlight. The house is hot and dark, and it smells of stale cigars. I shine the light around the long, narrow space. I'm in the sitting room, which is separated from the kitchen by a wide plaster archway. Beyond the kitchen is a study and, I assume, the bedroom. Behind me is the front door and a dining area. The place feels worn, as if somebody dressed it up twenty years ago but hasn't thought about it since. The chairs and curtains are threadbare—and were probably last washed when Coolidge was in office. I wonder if Reeger built this castle for a queen who never showed up or, maybe, was here and left. The only item that seems like it gets any use is the armchair next to the radio. Next to it, on a small side table, rests a stack of magazines and a drained whiskey glass.

I'm tempted to call out for Garvey, but any sound above a whisper makes me nervous. Especially after that entrance.

“Garv?” I say no louder than a kitten's mewl. “Garv?”

I shine the flashlight into the kitchen. Nothing seems out of place and I see no sign of my friend. I spot a stack of papers on the counter next to the toaster; I flip through the pile but find nothing more than a hodgepodge of dry-cleaning tickets, punched deposit slips, and paid bills. I open a large brown envelope next to the sink and find something far more suspicious: a wad of hundred dollar bills. No straight cops take home this kind of dough. I think about Calvin up at the Hy-Hat, trying to feed the kids with the thin stack of cash I send every week. And I remember Garvey, living on the streets, hiding from the cops, and getting by on the few bucks I put in his pocket. I push Garvey and Calvin from my mind when I see that the envelope also holds three bankbooks. The first two are in Reeger's name. One is good for a couple of hundred bucks, but the second holds nearly four thousand. The third belongs to a Louise Connor and tallies a couple of grand, saved mostly from deposits of a hundred bucks each. I have no idea how Reeger got this much dough, but it can't all be off Myra. I restuff the envelope and put it back where I found it.

“Garv?” I whisper again, shining the light into the bedroom.

The champ was right. Garvey's not here.

I'm about to check the study when I hear Johalis whistle. I kill the flashlight and stuff it back into my jacket pocket as I scoot toward the sitting room window—but I'm still in the kitchen when I hear the whistle again. This time it's accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a key unlocking a deadbolt.

I draw my pistol and crouch in the darkest area next to the sink. The door opens and Reeger staggers into the room, buckling under the weight of his last whiskey. His hat sits crookedly atop his head; he's slurring the chorus of “Marie” and fumbling with the deadbolt as he relocks the door. He can't be more than thirty feet from me, but he's also in lala-land.

I stay in a crouch, my right knee locked as tight as a pair of rusty pliers. My foot is resting on a matchbook; I reach down and grab it, then slip it into my pocket as Reeger stumbles along a shaky path to his bedroom. If he goes straight through the kitchen, he'll never notice me. If he stops at the sink for a glass of water, I'll soon be at the morgue, wearing a toe tag.

Beads of sweat are trickling down behind my ear and I pray Johalis is on the champ's shoulders, ready to climb through the window and enter shooting.

Reeger takes off his jacket and throws it in a lump onto the armchair. Then he fists his necktie and tugs it loose, staggering to his side as if he just yanked his own leash. He trips over his foot and grabs onto an electric floor lamp—but takes the lamp with him to the floor. He lands with a crash; the glass shade shatters and the bulb lights up, shooting its glow into the kitchen and onto my colorless cheeks.

Reeger's out cold. He's lying face-up on the floor; his revolver sits in his shoulder holster and the rank smell of stale whiskey oozes out of him. This helpless lump is the badge who busted my nose—I should slip on my knucks and return the favor. But I fight the urge. Instead, I focus on the window and the frantic whistle I hear coming from the driveway below.

My knee smarts as I come out of the crouch. I limp my way through the sitting room, stepping over Reeger to get to the window. As I reach my right leg over his shins, his lids open. I don't move and neither does he. He just looks up at my shimmying green eyes with a confused expression on his face.

The seconds drag on as I lock eyes with Reeger's glassy pupils, trying to stay as still as a hat rack. I hear the Auburn's engine idling outside—freedom is less than thirty feet away. I slowly close my eyes and rest my head on my shoulder, hoping he'll follow suit. I keep my lids shut for ten seconds, and by the time I open them, Reeger's eyelids have gone slack. I don't know what they put in their whiskey at the Red Canary, but if we had it at the Ink Well we'd be millionaires.

When I get to the window, I see Reeger's police car below me—and Johalis standing on the far side of it, waving for me to get the hell out of the house. I lean out the window and lower myself onto the roof of the car. I slide down the windshield, scramble off the hood, and limp out of the driveway without looking back.

My father's at the wheel of the Auburn, leaning forward to make sure I'm in one piece. Johalis slips into the backseat and I jump into the front. My father barely waits for me to shut the door before taking off toward the center of town. He's so anxious to leave he doesn't bother to remind me that I just risked my neck for no reason. Garvey wasn't even there.

But that doesn't mean he's not here in Philly. And it doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking for him.

CHAPTER 8

Johalis lights a Lucky. I pour him a splash of brown and give him a soda to chase it. The Ink Well is half-full, not bad considering we're due to close in a half-hour. Angela's waiting tables again tonight; she crosses the room carrying a tray of sandwiches for a group of clerks from City Hall. I haven't seen Wallace lately and I hope Angela can say the same.

As for Reeger, nobody has heard a peep out of him since I lulled him to sleep two nights ago. My guess is that he doesn't remember anything after his last whiskey at the Red Canary. Still, I stationed Homer at the door and made sure he's packing metal.

“It has to be dirty money,” Johalis says. He's talking about the envelope of cash I found in Reeger's kitchen. He's spent the last two days calling every contact he has on the force, trying to figure out Reeger's game.

“But nobody knows where it came from,” he says, snuffing his cigarette in an ashtray. “And nobody knows a Louise Connor.”

“She's not Connor's wife?”

Johalis shakes his head. “Dead for years.”

I thought for sure we'd find out Reeger had something going with Connor's wife. It seems like the kind of thing a corrupt cop like Reeger would pull.

Angela comes over to the bar, her tray filled with empty beer mugs. “The boys want another round.”

I grab five clean mugs and bring them to the tap.

Johalis asks her, “Where's Wallace tonight?”

My face flushes, so I turn away and wipe down the cash register. Johalis is asking for me, but I wish he'd given me some warning.

“No idea,” Angela tells him, shrugging. “Maybe he's home studying.” She doesn't sound happy when she says it.

“Good for him,” Johalis says. “He's better off there than here.” His rich voice is nearly as melodious as the crooning coming from the radio. Bing Crosby is singing “I'm Through with Love,” and I hope Wallace is listening, wherever he is.

I swap the filled mugs with the empties on Angela's tray and she carries them to the front room. Johalis is looking into his bourbon, swirling it in his glass. He doesn't mention the conversation with Angela, and I'm grateful.

“So we're back at square one,” he says.

“I think so,” I say. “Garvey's gotta be here in Philly, waiting to pounce on Reeger. He wants him bad.”

“So we should stay on the bull,” Johalis says.

“I don't have a choice,” I say, wiping my hands dry on my apron. “I can't sit back and let Garvey fry without at least trying to help.”