Shade of Pale (19 page)

George thought that was funny.

The hamburger was greasy and fries were cold. Bobby was alone in the diner except for a couple of teenagers talking loudly in a corner booth. Things were damn fine. He was nice and relaxed since his photo session with Dolly. Even Cathy was in line.

The pictures were definitive, perfect. He'd captured the elusive face of death like a butterfly pinned and mounted.

He was looking forward to a day at the movies. He liked to spend a whole afternoon at the theater, slipping out occasionally to the bar across the street for a few pops, then back to the movie.

Bobby didn't have too many days like this. It usually only happened after he'd had a good photo shoot. He felt alive, free.

He knew that soon he'd have to split for a while, and he wanted one last blast of the old neighborhood.

He finished up his lunch and walked out into the street just as it started to rain. He slipped his hands in his pockets; Bobby was always putting his hands in his pockets or pulling them out, a nervous habit he had. He felt the reassuring weight of his Smith & Wesson .38 Special, its two-inch barrel snug against his thigh.

Bobby seldom went anywhere without the gun these days. It was a necessary fashion accessory in this part of town, one that any self-respecting tough guy should never be without. He liked the .38 'cause he could pack it easy in his jacket and it didn't show.

He turned the corner and saw the movie theater up ahead. It was time to see the wicked stepmother again; she was so much like Bobby's real mom. In fact, Bobby fancied himself to be very much like Cinderella.
Life's like that
, he thought,
a real unfair trip
. At least, in the movies it had a happy ending. He looked up and saw the sign,
CINDERELL;
he was so used to seeing it without the final A that he had all but forgotten it was ever there to begin with.

It was time to see his old buddies again, the same ones that he'd visited when he was a kid.

He walked up to the old woman behind the glass. “One for
Cinderell.
”

She took his money and gave him a ticket. He entered the theater and the doorman took the ticket and tore it in half, dropping one piece into a cigar box and handing the other back to Bobby.

He walked down the center aisle and waited for his eyes to adjust. Kids skittered past him laughing and spilling popcorn. He cussed at them and made his way toward the front, close to the screen.

The movie began and Bobby slid back into his seat and relaxed. Life was grand, at least for a few hours until he had to go back out into the real world again. Until then, he was a citizen of the magic kingdom.

He watched in rapt attention while the evil stepsisters made Cinderella's life a living hell. They baited her and teased her, gave her all the dirty jobs to do.
Man
, he thought,
ain't that the truth
.

Bobby knew the movie by heart and he was sailing along, deep into another viewing, when he saw something that made him sit up.

He looked around, wondering if anybody else saw it. Then he realized that everybody around him was a kid.

He looked back up at the screen and became somewhat confused. Why hadn't he noticed this character before?

Bobby figured that the theater had gotten hold of a new version, anew print, with a new character in it. He stared up at the screen and wondered why the new character looked familiar to him.

The new character wasn't interacting with the others in the story; it seemed to be preoccupied with something outside the screen, something beyond the frame. Bobby couldn't pull his eyes away.

I've seen her before
.

He wanted to laugh, to throw his head back and howl like a dog. Something about that new character was making him feel crazy.

He leaned forward in his seat, his shoes making sucking sounds as they shifted on the sticky, gum-splattered floor beneath him. The new character leaned out of the screen, out of the movie itself, and pointed at him.

Bobby nearly jumped out of his seat.

It was a woman, a real babe in Bobby's estimation, with wild red hair and ivory white skin. Her eyes were neon intense, an unnatural shade of green, and Bobby could see a tear running down the side of her face.

Where did she come from?

Something about her hypnotized him and he couldn't wrest his eyes away long enough to blink.

Her animated beauty seemed to shimmer on the screen.

The thing Bobby thought was cool was that the woman reached right out of the movie and pointed directly at him. 3-D at its finest, and he wasn't even wearing the special glasses. Wow!

How did they do that?

Bobby jumped back in his seat as the pale, slender finger extended from the screen and stopped a few inches from his face:

The red-haired woman stared at him and whispered something.

Bobby kept looking around, but none of the kids seemed to notice. His eyes went back to the screen. The woman whispered again. She said, “Dolly. What did you do to Dolly?”

George Jones cursed the fact that he didn't have an umbrella. Panelli cursed the fact that George was making him tromp all over the city.

They went from one seedy apartment building to the next, asking everyone they met if they had seen a man with red hair.

The trail was getting colder and Panelli was starting to sneeze.

“Let's try one more place; then we can go back to the station.”

“Thank God.”

George asked a guy who worked at the newsstand if he'd seen a man with red hair. The newspaper vendor was small, like a jockey, but had a tough face with a long scar across his cheek. He chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes and coughed constantly.

George believed newsies always knew what was going on in a neighborhood. People bought the morning paper, cigarettes, magazines, and gum, even in the worst part of town. They came and went, but newsies usually noticed the regulars. George knew from experience that they were a valuable resource.

He bought a cigar and struck up a conversation.

“Red hair?”

“Yeah.”

“Tall guy?” He spit. “Dresses in black?”

“Yeah.”

The man squinted at them and said, “I seen a guy like that, but only once. Red hair. He's not a local, though, or I'd know him.”

“Was he checkin' out the girls?”

The newsie nodded, coughed, and spit again. “Could've been.”

“Would you recognize him?”

“Maybe. You gonna bust him?”

“Yeah, if I can find him.”

“You guys are cops, right? You take me for a fool? I don't rat on anybody out here; otherwise I'd be dead meat. If word got back that I told the cops anything, something real bad might happen.”

George brought his new cigar to life with a wooden match and bellowslike cheek muscles. “I'm not interested in the local lowlifes. I'm looking for the strangler.”

The newsie's eyes lit up. “No kiddin'? The strangler? Man, that's cool. That's one motherfucker I hope gets caught; he's makin' everybody crazy.”

George turned to Panelli. “See? The food chain has been interrupted. Girls stay away, customers stay away, money stays away. This community wants to rid itself of the cancer. Pretty soon they're gonna spit him up like a hairball.”

Panelli flashed a wry smile. “That's deep.”

George puffed his cigar and perused the magazines on the stand.

The newsie watched. “So you're the new guy they called in? The ringer?”

“Yeah.”

“I seen you on TV.”

“That's me.”

“Hey. Would you pay me for information?”

George nodded. “I might.”

The newsie scratched his chin. “It might be worth big money.”

“You won't be able to retire on it,” George said, “but if it's the right information, I'll go something decent for it.”

“You say you're looking for a guy with red hair?”

George looked at Panelli. “Yeah.…”

“So maybe I might be able to turn you onto somebody.”

“Who?”

“How much money you got?”

George pulled out his wallet and counted out five twenties. “Try this,” he said, and handed it to the newsie.

“There's a guy I know, a small-time street dealer. He told me he was lookin' for a red-haired guy who burned him on a dope deal.”

George was listening intently. “A dope deal, huh? That's interesting. The red-haired guy was buyin'?”

The newsie looked down at George's wallet. “The answer to that question is also for sale.”

George counted out another hundred.

The newsie snatched it up with the same hand that still held the first hundred. “The answer to your last question is no.” He looked at George and grinned. “He wasn't buyin'; he was sellin'. That's how come my buddy got burned.”

“Let me get this straight. Your buddy was gonna score from the red-haired guy, and he got burned?”

“Yeah. He took the money in front and never delivered.”

“What's your friend's name?”

“That'll cost you another bill.”

George frowned. “How do I know you're tellin' me the truth?”

The newsie laughed. “I ain't goin' anywhere. I'm here every fuckin' day of the year. If you find out I'm lyin', come back and break my legs. We're livin' in a fishbowl, man.”

George counted out another hundred, this time borrowing half of it from Panelli, who acted like it was all he had. When the money was in the newsie's hand, he went back into his little booth and motioned for George to come closer.

“If it gets back that I talked to you guys, bad stuff might happen.”

“Nobody's gonna get popped except the strangler. You have my word.”

“My buddy's name is Tony B. He's usually out on Tenth Street, two blocks over. The
B
stands for Brooklyn, Tony Brooklyn. He's got a mustache and wears a fringe jacket, looks Hispanic, black hair with a ponytail, midthirties, short.”

Jones and Panelli crossed the street and made their way through the thickening raindrops toward the haunt of Tony B.

They found him just where the newsie said he would be.

As soon as Tony got a good look at them, he sprinted down the street like a halfback.

Had it not been for Panelli's quickness and agility, Tony would have gotten away. But the athletic detective ran him down like a linebacker and pinned him to the pavement in front of a red neon sign proclaiming:
LOVE ACTS
.

By the time George caught up, out of breath and limping a little, Panelli had Tony up and handcuffed from behind.

Tony screamed, “You fuckin' fuckers 'r fucked!”

“Wow, did you hear that?” George said. “I didn't think that was possible, man. I'm gonna have to write that down, I think you just made a breakthrough in the English language. You managed to use the word
fuck
as a noun, a verb, and adjective, all in the same sentence. That's quite an accomplishment.”

“Fuckin' fuckers,” said Tony, sputtering like a dud firecracker.

George wheezed. “He's doing it again.”

“Where were ya goin', man?” Panelli asked. “We just wanted to talk to you.”

“I got nothing to say.”

“Search 'im,” George told Panelli.

Panelli patted him down, went through his pockets, and found a wrinkled plastic Baggie containing several packets of white powder. Panelli held the Baggie up and said, “That was too easy. No wonder he took off.”

George smiled, pulled out his badge, and showed it to Tony. The big gold detective's shield glinted, a symbol of righteous indignation. “Well, looks like you got big problems now, asshole. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Tony struggled like a trapped insect. “I ain't sayin' nothin, man.”

George affectionately wiped a piece of dirt off Tony's shoulder. Tony looked at him as if he'd just looked in the mirror and noticed that George cast no reflection.

“This is a very delicate situation,” George said. “We got you here red-fucking-handed, man. And now you're telling me you don't wanna talk. That's very discouraging.”

George spoke to Panelli in a stage whisper. “What do you think we should do?”

Panelli's reply was much louder. “Bust him; lock him up. What else is there?”

Tony struggled anew. “Shit, man! What you want me for? I didn't do nothin'.”

George thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “You wanna walk, Tony? Is that what you wanna do? You wanna walk away from here and never see us again? I'll bet you'd love that, wouldn't you? Walk your candy-ass right down the street, huh?”

With his wrists bound behind him, Tony's struggles were so hopelessly futile as to be almost comical. His head was the only thing that moved now, as if it were trying to detach itself from the rest of his body. “What are you sayin', man?”

“What I'm sayin' is you might have one chance to walk. It's all up to me. I could set you free as a bird or make your life a living hell. The whole thing's at my whim. And frankly, I gotta tell ya, Tony, after that run, I'm in a pretty shitty mood right now.”

Tony looked from cop to cop, his eyes crazy in the reflection of red neon. “What do you want? Just tell me, man.”

“We want to know about the guy with red hair.”

Tony laughed a short bark. “That asshole? You wanna know about him? Shit. What do you want him for?”

“Suspicion of murder,” George said before Panelli could tell Tony it was none of his business.

Tony smiled, showing a mouth with several missing teeth. “Whoo-ee. I knew that fucker was trouble; I knew it right from the start. He's not from around here, you know, just comes down once in a while. I bought shit from him before, man, couple of times. Real good shit, uptown stuff. Then last week, he takes my money for a quarter and burns my ass. Now I got guys lookin' to cut me, you know what I mean? It's real ugly 'cause of him.”