Parker 04 - The Fury (12 page)

I ripped out the picture from the
Gazette
and tossed

the rest of the papers in the trash.

I was no detective. My career thus far had progressed

almost solely on instinct. Seeing a thread, no matter

how thin or frayed the strand, and pulling on it until

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something larger unspooled. At this point, though, I

had no thread. There was nothing to pull on. No leads,

no witnesses. Nothing.

So I started where any reporter or cop would when

they had nothing.

When in doubt, talk to everybody.

I walked straight into Tompkins Square Park looking

for young families and older pedestrians. I figured those

were people most likely to come to the park because

they lived in the vicinity. And if they lived nearby, there

was a greater chance they might have seen Stephen

Gaines at some point.

But what if they
had
seen him? That hardly meant they

saw him being killed, or even knew who he was, what he

did, or anything about him. Still, it was the best shot I had.

Walking around, I noticed a couple in their early

thirties sitting on a bench. A baby stroller sat in front

of them. I hated bothering nice people who looked like

they just wanted to spend their afternoon relaxing with

loved ones, but I hoped they'd understand.

Of course not too many people could sympathize

with trying to hunt down the man who'd killed your

brother, while your father sat in prison.

I approached the couple in as nonthreatening a

manner as possible. Smiling, even. They paid no atten

tion to me until I got closer and it was clear they were

my targets. The husband looked up at me, and I noticed

his hand slowly plant itself on his wife's leg. Guarding

her. Nobody trusted young people these days.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," I said, putting my hand

out in apology. "I was wondering if you happened to

have seen this man in the area."

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99

I showed them the picture from the paper. They

looked at it long enough and with enough confusion to

show they didn't know him.

The wife said, "No, I'm sorry."

I thanked them for their time. Then it was on to the

next stop.

I approached an older black man sitting at a chess

table. The other seat was unoccupied. He was studying

the board, perhaps planning out moves in his head. I

crouched down at the other side of his table, cleared my

throat awkwardly.

"Excuse me," I said.

"Have a seat, young man," he said, his mouth

breaking into a smile. He reached into his briefcase and

pulled out a cloth containing numerous chess pieces.

"Pick your poison. Speed chess? I've got a killer Danish

Gambit, so hold on to your hat."

"I'm not looking for a game," I said somewhat apolo

getically. "I was wondering if you might have seen this

man before."

He looked at the picture, a blank expression on his

face. He said he'd never seen Gaines, and I believed

him.

I spent the rest of the day questioning every person

I could find in the park, until by the end people started

to recognize me as having pestered half the lot and they

began to move away before I even approached them.

One couple I asked twice within half an hour.

Nobody had seen Gaines. Nobody had noticed him.

He was a ghost in his own neighborhood. Or at least to

these people.

When people asked what I was looking for, I

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mumbled something about him having gone missing. If

they knew I was looking into a murder, they'd clam up

faster than a vegetarian at a barbecue.

The sun began to set. So far my efforts had yielded

nothing. I took a seat on a park bench. Desperation had

come and gone, and I was left holding a crumpled photo

of a man I barely knew, who'd lived a life seemingly

nobody had known. Several days ago none of this

mattered. Work was good. My relationship seemed to

finally be on stable ground. And now here I was, bother

ing strangers, hoping they might have happened, by some

ludicrous hope, to have seen someone other than my

father shoot a man in the back of the head. Or at least knew

more about Stephen than I did which was next to nothing.

I was searching for a needle in the East River, with

no clue which way the current was flowing.

I was about to give up, to try to think of a new angle

to attack from, when a shadow fell over me. I looked

up to see a young woman, late twenties or so, standing

in front of me. She was reed thin, one arm dangling limp

by her side while the other crossed her chest, holding

the opposite shoulder. Her hair was red and black,

mascara haphazardly applied. Perhaps twenty pounds

ago she'd been attractive, but now she was a walking,

painted skeleton. She was wearing a long-sleeved

sweater, but the fabric was dangling off her limbs. It

allowed me to see the bruising underneath. The purplish

marks on her skin immediately caught my attention. My

pulse sped up. Her lip trembled. I didn't have to show

her the newspaper clipping. I knew what she was going

to say even before she opened her mouth.

"I knew Stephen."

13

A cup of steaming tea was set in front of me. It smelled

like mint. She offered me milk, which I politely

declined. I watched her sit down, a cup of the same at

her lips. She'd poured both from the same kettle, so I

didn't have to worry about being poisoned. I began to

think about how much more paranoid I'd become over

the years.

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't mention it. I brew three pots a day."

I nodded, took a look around.

This woman, Rose Keller, had taken me up to her

apartment after I told her who I was and what I was

doing. She seemed apprehensive, but once convinced of

my authenticity she was more than happy to help.

She lived in a studio apartment at the top of a fourstory walk-up on Avenue B and Twelfth Street. The

floor was covered with gum wrappers, the walls deco

rated with posters of vintage album covers and artsy

photographs, usually of frighteningly skinny women

shaded in odd pastel light. The room smelled like patch

ouli and cinnamon. Our tea rested on what appeared to

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be an antique trunk, covered in customs stickers from

every corner of the earth. Portugal, Greenland, Syndey,

Prague, the Sudan. This woman didn't look like she

traveled much. Odds were she'd bought the pieces,

stickers already applied.

The bed was unmade, and I noticed a large box

sticking out from underneath. She saw me looking at it,

said, "Clothes. I keep meaning to donate them."

She was lying, but I wasn't here to judge.

"So how did you know Stephen?" I asked.

"We used to..." She looked away from me. Then she

pulled a lighter from her sock, took a bent cigarette

from a drawer. "You mind if I smoke?"

"Go right ahead."

She took out a glass ashtray and set it on the table.

It was crusted with old butts and ash. Flicking the

lighter, she lit the cig and took a long puff, holding it

aloft between two fingers.

"We used to get high together," she said.

"Used to?" I asked.

"I met him when I moved to the city eight years ago.

Wanted to be on Broadway, you know? All that kicking

and dancing. I was voted 'most likely to succeed'in high

school. Starred in all the drama shit. Figured I'd come

here and show those Rockette girls how things are really

done."

"And then?"

"It's a tough gig," she said like a woman who'd given

up the dream long ago and had come to peace with it.

"Too tall. Too fat. Too short. Nose too big. Tits too small.

There's always an excuse. So I started waitressing in

Midtown, cool little Irish pub. Some of the actors used

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103

to go there for a drink after the shows. Then I'd come

back here, get high and crash. That's how I met

Stephen."

"How exactly did you meet him?"

"Funny story," she said, taking another long drag. "I

used to call this guy named Vinnie when my stash

needed re-upping. Well, his name wasn't actually

Vinnie. It was kind of a global pseudonym that all the

runners used, they'd all call themselves Vinnie. There

were probably a dozen different Vinnies working at any

given time, covering different parts of the city. So one

day I'm outside on the stoop waiting, and another guy

kind of ambles up and just stands around. I can tell from

the way he's walking, kind of looking at the street, side

to side, he was
definitely
a user. So I said hi. He said hi

back. Vinnie rolls up half an hour later, this greaser

wearing a hat turned sideways, couldn't have been a day

over fifteen, and fills us both up. And since it's always

more fun to see those bright lights with company, we

went back to his place."

Rose's eyes flickered to the walls, then back to the

table. There was sorrow and pain in her eyes that hadn't

been there a minute ago. She was trying to stay cool,

but I could tell she'd cared about Stephen.

"It was kind of funny, because Stephen and Vinnie

had this little, I don't know, chat. Friendly, like two

buds. I figured Stephen had used this guy before. You

know how sometimes you order pizza so often, the

delivery guy kind of becomes your pal? At first it's all

tips and friendly hi's but then you're talking about the

weather. One pizza guy actually asked me out once.

That's when I knew I needed to learn how to cook."

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"How long did you know Stephen?" I asked.

Rose sniffed, tapped out her cigarette until it stopped

smoking. Then she placed it in the ashtray amidst a

graveyard of used butts. She stared at them for a

moment, like a woman who'd been trying for years to

quit and realized just how addicted she was.

"Just about seven years."

"Were you two close?"

"Depends on when you mean," she said. Her voice

had become a little more abrasive. She had feelings for

Stephen, but there had been some bad times, too. I

imagined that when two junkies got together it wasn't

exactly Ozzie and Harriet. If a relationship between

two such people could be thought of as "tumultuous,"

it was probably the best one could hope for. I'd had

enough relationships that were able to find trouble on

their own without the uncertainty caused by stimulants

and hallucinogenic substances.

"Did you date?" I asked, hoping she wouldn't get

offended at my prying.

"Again," she said bitterly, "depends on when you're

talking about."

"Were you seeing each other when Stephen got

killed?"

"Hell, no," she said irritably. "See, thing is, after a

while you get tired of the life. It's one thing to be irre

sponsible and screwing around in your twenties. I mean,

everyone does it. Most folks don't settle down by

twenty-five and spend time worrying about a mortgage

and a 401k. I didn't, and neither did Stephen. But then

you hit thirty, and you're still renting a studio smaller

than a shoe box, and guys like Vinnie stay the same age

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105

because whoever the dude is who supplies them just

keeps hiring high-school kids. Funny. I must have had

half a dozen dealers all named Vinnie, all under the age

of twenty-one. You know how stupid you feel when

you're thirty and some kid is selling to you, and you

know he's still in high school and probably makes more

money than you?"

"So you were looking to go clean," I said.

"Have been for a year now," Rose said. She stood up,

picked up the ashtray and brought it into the kitchen

where she tapped out the contents into a trash bin. She

came back, put the tray back into a drawer like it had

never been taken out. "Trying, at least. The hooks are

a lot easier to dig in than they are to pull out."

"What about Stephen?"

Rose sighed, leaned back in her chair. A wistfulness

crossed her face. "I thought he was trying to quit. He

seemed like he was. See, I never really thought Stephen

had that serious a problem. Just recreational crap. I mean,

everyone smokes a bit. Shoots up a bit. It's all about

keeping it under control. I did that, and then I quit. Stephen

never quit. And in case you haven't noticed, addicts never

stay even keel. They either get better or they get worse."

"And Stephen got worse."

"Like cancer," she said.

I looked again at the skin under Rose's shirt. I could

see the bruises weren't track lines, but destroyed veins.

Dark blues and black, yellow skin surrounding them.

Perhaps even an infection gone untreated. Whether drug