Richard Montanari: The Echo Man

'Okay.'

'But so do I, right?'

'Yes, you do.'

'So it's not a bad thing.'

'No, it's not a bad thing at all.'

They pulled into their driveway, cut the engine. Jessica soon realized that she had no idea how much Sophie knew about sexual orientation. Even thinking about the words 'sexual orientation' in connection with her little girl freaked her completely out.

'So, what happened?' Jessica asked.

'Well, this girl was saying mean things about Brendan.'

'Who is this girl?'

'Monica,' Sophie said. 'Monica Quagliata.'

'Is she in your grade?'

'No,' Sophie said. 'She's in third. She's pretty big.' Consciously or subconsciously, Sophie balled her fists.

'What did you say to her?'

'I told her to stop saying those things. Then she pushed me and called me a skank.'

That bitch, Jessica thought. She secretly hoped that Sophie had cleaned the little shit's clock. 'What did you do then?'

'I pushed her back. She fell down. Everyone laughed.'

'Did Brendan laugh?'

'No,' Sophie said. 'Brendan is afraid of Monica Quagliata. Everyone's afraid of Monica Quagliata.'

'But not you.'

Sophie glanced out the window. It had begun to rain. She traced her finger on the misting glass, then looked back at her mother. 'No,' she said. 'Not me.'

Yes, Jessica thought. My tough little girl. 'I want you to listen, okay, honey?'

Sophie sat up straight. 'Is this going to be one of our talks?'

Jessica almost laughed. She checked herself at the last second. 'Yes. I guess it is.'

'Okay.'

'I want you to remember that fighting is always the last resort, okay? If you have to defend yourself, it's all right. Every single time. But sometimes we need to take care of people who can't take care of themselves. Do you understand what I mean?'

Sophie nodded, but looked confused. 'What about you, Mom? You used to fight all the time.'

Ah, crap, Jessica thought. Logic from a seven-year-old.

After Sophie was born, Jessica had discovered boxing as an exercise and weight-loss regimen. For some reason she took to it, even going so far as to take a few amateur bouts before letting her great uncle Vittorio talk her into turning pro. Although those days were probably behind her — unless there was a Senior Tour for female boxers closing in on thirty-five — she had begun to visit Joe Hand's Gym in anticipation of a series of exhibition bouts planned to raise money for the Police Athletic League.

None of that training helped her at this moment, however, a moment when she was faced with explaining the difference between fighting and boxing.

Then Jessica saw a shadow in her side mirror.

Vincent was walking up the drive, carrying a pizza from Santucci's. With his caramel eyes, long lashes and muscular physique, he still made Jessica's heart flutter, at least on those days when she didn't want to kill him. Sometimes he dressed in suits and ties, cleanshaven, his dark hair swept back. Other days he was scruffy. Today was a scruffy day. Jessica was, and always had been, a pushover for scruff. She had to admit it. Detective Vincent Balzano looked pretty damned good for a married man.

'Sweetie?' Jessica asked.

'Yeah, mom?'

'That thing we were talking about? About fighting versus boxing?'

'What about it?'

Jessica reached over, patted her daughter's hand. 'Ask your father.'

They had lived in the Lexington Park section of Northeast Philadelphia for more than five years, just a few blocks from Roosevelt Boulevard. On a good day it would take Jessica forty-five minutes to get to the Roundhouse. On a bad day — most days — even longer. But all that was about to change.

She and Vincent had just closed on a vacant trinity in South Philly, a three-story row house belonging to old friends, which was how many houses in the neighborhood changed hands. Rare was the property that made it to the classifieds.

They would be living in the shadow of their new church, Sacred Heart of Jesus, where Sophie would be starting school. New friends, new teachers. Jessica wondered what the effect on her little girl was going to be.

Jessica's father, Peter Giovanni, one of the most decorated cops in PPD history, still lived in the South Philadelphia house in which Jessica had grown up — at Sixth and Catharine. He was still vibrant and active, very much involved in the community, but he was getting on in years, and the trip for him to see his only granddaughter would eventually become a burden. For this, and for so many other reasons, they were moving back to South Philly.

With her daughter fast asleep, and her husband ensconced in the basement with his brothers, Jessica stood at the top of the narrow stairs to the attic.

It seemed as if her entire life was in these boxes, these cramped and angled rooms. Photographs, keepsakes, awards, birth and death certificates, diplomas.

She picked up one of the boxes, a white Strawbridge's gift box with a piece of green yarn around it. It was the yarn with which her mother used to tie her hair in autumn, after the summer sun had made her brunette hair turn auburn.

Jessica slid off the yarn, opened the box: a faux-pearl mirror compact, a small leather change purse, a stack of Polaroids. Jessica felt the familiar pangs of pain and grief and loss, even though it had been more than twenty-five years since her mother had died. She slipped the yarn back around the box, put it by the stairs, gave the room one last survey.

She had been a cop for a long time, had seen just about everything. There wasn't too much that unnerved her.

This did.

They were moving back to the city.

'Fuckin' city,' the man said. 'First my car gets booted, then I they tow it, then I hadda go down to PPA and spend two hours standing around with a bunch of smelly lowlifes. Then I hadda go down to Ninth and Filbert. Then they tell me I owe three-hunna-ninety dollars in tickets. Three-hunna-ninety dollars.''

The man slammed back his drink, washed it down with a mouthful of beer.

'Fuckin' city. Fuckin' PPA. Buncha Nazis is what they are. Fuckin' racket.'

Detective Kevin Byrne glanced at his watch. It was 11:45 p.m. His city was coming alive. The guy next to him had come alive after his third Jim Beam. The man migrated from tales of woe that began with his wife (fat and loud and lazy) to his two sons (ditto on the lazy, no data on body type) to his car (a Prism not really worth getting out of hock) and his ongoing war with the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The PPA had few fans in the city. Without them, though, the city would be chaos.

They were sitting at the bar in a corner tavern in Kensington, a hole in the wall called The Well. The place was half-full. Kool and the Gang were on the juke; an ESPN wrap-up of the day's sports was on the television over the bar.

Byrne slipped in the earbuds, blotting out the Parking Wars victim, looked at the screen on his iPod, dialed down to his classic blues playlist. The jukebox in the bar was now playing something by the Commodores, but here, inside Byrne's head, it was 1957, and Muddy Waters was going down to Louisiana, saying something about a mojo hand.

Byrne nodded to the bartender, the bartender nodded back. Byrne had never been to this tavern before, but the barkeep was a pro at what he did, as was Byrne.

Byrne had grown up in Philadelphia, was a Two-Streeter for life, had seen the city's best days and its worst. Well, maybe not its best. It was, after all, the place where the Declaration of Independence had been signed, the place where the Founding Fathers had gathered and hammered out the rules by which Americans, at least to some small degree, still lived.

On the other hand, the Phillies had won the World Series in 2008, and for a Phillies fan that trumped some faded old document any day.