Craig Johnson - Kindness Goes Unpunished

“I may not last that long.”

He smiled. “I understand. I will meet you there.”

Michelle Reddington, the dapper woman with the black dress and security pass, came around the corner from the gift shop and took Henry up the ornate, brass-railed stairs toward the Great Hall, where the majority of the photographs had been hung. He paused at the railing, looked back at me, motioned with his right hand in a fist against his chest, and then pointed his index finger down, the Cheyenne sign-talk for hope/heart.

I smiled back and brought my open right hand within a foot of my face, lowering it down and out to the right with a slight bow: thank you.

Katz and Gowder were equally congratulatory, but I told them what Rissman had said about being overly optimistic. They agreed that whatever the outcome, Cady’s eyes opening was certainly a good sign. Vic stood apart, clutching herself with her arms and smiling; after a moment, she turned and walked away.

Katz excused himself, and suddenly Gowder and I found ourselves looking at each other. “I owe you an apology.”

He waved me off. “Forget about it.” He gestured toward the bar up on the mezzanine. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a drink.”

As we were walking up the steps, I noticed that the gates had opened and the lower lobby was filling with well-dressed receptionees. Vic and Katz were carrying on a conversation by the revolving door at the front, and I started wondering what they were talking about-and then wondering why I was wondering. It was about that time that I noticed Vince Osgood and a beautiful young woman handing over their wraps at the coat check. This was beginning to have all the makings of an interesting evening.

Gowder ordered a gin and tonic; I ordered a Yuengling. We wandered up the rest of the stairs and decided to beat the rush to the exhibit. There were about two hundred of the photographs, some in montage, some in their original snapshot format, and some enlarged to the size of doors. Dena Many Camps’s poetry was etched across the bottoms and sides of the large ones in a bold italic.

I sipped my beer. “You mind if I ask you a question?”

He studied the photo of the chiefs, who were holding one end of the American flag while some cavalry officers held the other. “Go ahead.”

“This case seems pretty important to you and Katz.”

“Is that your question?”

I tipped my hat back. “Yep.”

He thought about it for a while. “Different reasons; with Katz it’s a way of cleaning house. Dirty cops, dirty lawmakers, dirty lawyers bring out the inquisitor in him, and the last thing anyone in Philadelphia ever wants to hear is that Asa Katz wants a sniff of him. He did fourteen years with homicide and they tried to kick him over to cold case, but he took Internal Affairs Division.”

“That kind of move can make a man unpopular.”

Gowder smiled. “He doesn’t care. He never went in for that cult-of-the-cop shit.”

“So it’s Osgood?”

“For Katz.”

I nodded. “He’s here.”

“Osgood? Yeah, I saw him. Why do you think I stayed?”

I smiled back. “And you?”

He glanced at the picture of Henry’s father sitting on the steps with the cat. “You know all these people?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and chewed on an ice cube. “You know that crack house you guys took out earlier this week? I was born two blocks away from there.”

I studied him carefully. “You mind if I ask you another question?”

“Go ahead.”

“You guys were interested in Devon because of the money laundering thing, but who put you onto Cady and me?”

He took a sip of his drink and smiled. “Asa got a phone call from somebody who wanted you looked after.”

“Who?” He kept looking at the picture, but the message was loud and clear.

I left him behind and walked along, looking at the familiar photographs. I stalled out at the one of Frank White Shield’s wife, who was stringing snap peas on the front porch of their two-room cabin. The photo was compelling, but it was Dena’s words that froze me. can you hear the sound of old women clacking their old tongues to the roofs of their mouths in the dust? this is prophecy so never ask the Indian whether she’d take the million dollars or the match. gasoline is on the shelf in all our houses.

I hadn’t noticed that Vic was standing beside me. “You look nice, Walt.” I wasn’t sure what to say, so I self-consciously straightened my tie. She made an exasperated sound and reached out to straighten my now crooked tie. “I said you look nice. Stop fidgeting.”

“Sorry.”

“And stop apologizing.”

“Okay.” She studied the photograph and was reading Dena’s poetry, the point of her nose turned up. I couldn’t help but wonder if the world had changed, that things were, indeed, different. “Lucian calls it my union-organizer suit jacket.” She wasn’t really paying attention to me but was thinking about Dena’s words. “You look great, too.”

Her head turned back to me. “Thank you.”

She smiled, and I smiled back. “Why do I have a feeling that what we did this afternoon was for my benefit?” She didn’t say anything, but took a sip of her dirty martini, and I watched the iridescent sparkling in the tarnished gold eye, and was thinking that I was doing exactly what I’d been fighting against for years: falling in love with my deputy.

Someone was standing beside us. It was Osgood and the young woman I’d seen with him in the lobby. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”

“Howdy.” I stepped back and introduced Vic. The blonde’s name was Patricia Fulton, and she was making it abundantly clear that we hillbillies were not the people she had come to meet. He dismissed her to get drinks, which produced volumes of lower lip, but she disappeared.

Osgood gave Vic a strong look, from her turquoise choker to her boots, and I had the urge to toss him off the balcony. “So, you’re from Wyoming?”

She finished off her cloudy cocktail and took an olive out that had been impaled by a tiny, plastic sword. “I’m from Ninth Street, shitbird, and don’t you forget it.” She bit the olive, turned, and started for the bar in a calculated retreat.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” We both looked after her.

“Is she a Moretti Moretti?”

“I’m afraid so.”

He sighed, and his head dropped a little. “Man, I can’t catch a break.” He noticed my stitches and the finger guard. “What happened to you?”

I shrugged. “I got mugged.”

“When?”

“This morning. It’s no big deal.”

He leaned in closer to me, and his voice dropped. “I have some information for you.”

I waited. “Okay…”

“Not here.” He glanced around. “The bridge. Later?”

I took a moment to respond. “No.”

He studied me. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no. I’ve got other things I have to do tonight and running to the other side of town and hanging around on bridges is not one of them. If you’ve got something to tell me, just tell me.”

“It has to do with your daughter.”

“Cady. Then I’m interested, but I don’t have the time to go anywhere else.” I pulled out my pocketwatch. “As a matter of fact, I’m only going to be here for about twenty more minutes.”

He thought about it. “I’ll meet you outside.”

“Where?”

“There’s an alley behind the building; it turns a corner and there’s a loading dock. I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

I took a tip from the blonde and tried to look bored. “You bet.”

I left him and continued around the gallery, careful to catch Gowder’s eye as I got another beer from the bartender and retrieved Vic. “You got your sidearm?”