Richard Montanari: The Killing Room

‘Called origami,’ Gabriel said. ‘Chinese or something.’

‘You have a real talent,’ Byrne said. ‘I mean, this is really good.’

One more shrug. Byrne wondered what the world record was.

When they stepped out onto the street the lunchtime crowd had thinned. Byrne had the rest of the day off, and was going to suggest doing something else — a trip to the mall maybe, or a tour of the Roundhouse — but he figured the kid had probably had enough of him for a first date.

‘Come on,’ Byrne said. ‘I’ll give you a ride home.’

The kid took a half-step away. ‘I got bus money.’

‘I’m going that way anyway,’ Byrne lied. ‘It’s really no big deal.’

The kid started rooting around in his pocket for coins.

‘I don’t drive a police car, you know,’ Byrne said. ‘It’s just a shitty old Taurus with bad shocks and a worse radio.’

The kid smiled at the word shitty . Byrne took out his keys.

‘Come on. Save the bus money.’

Byrne grabbed the lead, walked across the street, willing himself not to turn around to see if Gabriel was following.

About a block up Filbert he caught sight of a small shadow coming up next to him.

The group home where Gabriel Hightower lived was on Indiana Avenue between Third and Fourth Streets, deep into a blighted area of North Philly called the Badlands. Byrne took Third Street north and, during the entire ride, neither of them said a word. When Byrne turned onto Indiana Gabriel said, ‘This is cool right here.’

The group home was nearly a block away.

‘I’ll take you all the way. It’s not a problem.’

The kid didn’t say anything. Byrne acquiesced and pulled over. They were now a half block from one of the most infamous drug corners in the city. It didn’t take Byrne long to spot two young men scouting the area for 5–0. He caught the eye of one hard-looking kid of about eighteen, trying his best to look inconspicuous. Byrne threw the look back until the kid looked away. The spotter took out a cell and sauntered in the other direction. Byrne had clearly been made. He put the Taurus in park, kept the engine running.

‘Okay, G-Flash,’ he said. As he said this he looked over, saw Gabriel roll his eyes, shake his head. Byrne understood. The only thing worse than hanging out with an old white guy — and an old white cop to boot — was having that old white guy say your street name out loud.

‘Just call me Gabriel, okay?’

‘You got it,’ Byrne said. They went quiet. Byrne got the feeling that, if he didn’t say something soon, they would sit there for the rest of the day. ‘Well, we’re supposed to give this three times, see what’s what. You think you might want to hang out again?’

Instead of answering, Gabriel stared at his hands.

Byrne decided to give the kid an exit line, make it easy on him. ‘Tell you what. I’ll give you a call in the next few weeks, and we can see where we are then. No pressure one way or the other. Deal?’

Byrne stuck out his hand. He put it right in front of Gabriel, so the kid was either going to shake hands, or disrespect Byrne big time. The kid hesitated for a few moments, then put his hand in Byrne’s. It wasn’t really a handshake, but more the idea of a handshake. After a second or two Gabriel tossed up his hood, opened the door, and got out. Before he closed the door he turned back, looked at Byrne with his young old eyes, and said: ‘John’s is good, too.’

Byrne had no idea what the boy was talking about. Who is John? Then it registered. He was talking about John’s Roast Pork.

‘John’s? You mean over on Snyder?’

The kid nodded.

‘That’s true,’ Byrne said. ‘John’s is good. We can go there some time if you want.’

Gabriel started to close the car door, stopped, thought for a moment. He leaned in, as if to share some kind of secret. Byrne found that he was holding his breath. He leaned forward, too.

‘I know you know about me,’ Gabriel said.

‘Know what about you?’

‘ Man .’ Gabriel shook his head. ‘White people always got a piece of paper when they talk to me. Social workers, counselors, teachers, people who work for the county. Foster-home people. They all look at that piece of paper, then they talk to me. Gotta be something on there, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Byrne said, keeping his smile in check. ‘I guess I know a little bit.’

‘Well, there’s one thing you gotta know, something that ain’t on that piece of paper.’

‘What’s that?’

‘He didn’t bang.’

‘What do you mean?’ Byrne asked. ‘ Who didn’t bang?’

Gabriel looked up and down the street, behind, watching his back. ‘My brother Terrell,’ he said. ‘Terrell didn’t bang like they say.’

A few seconds later Gabriel closed the car door and quickly cut across a snow-covered vacant lot, gracefully skirting a discarded refrigerator and a small pile of demolished concrete blocks. Soon, all Byrne could see was the top of the boy’s faded hoodie, and then Gabriel Hightower was gone.

Byrne made himself a microwave meal for dinner — some sort of too-sweet chicken and limp snow pea pods — then, finding himself restless, went out. He stopped by the American Pub in the Centre Square Building, across from City Hall. He always felt completely dislocated on his days off. Whenever he pulled seven or eight tours in a row, including the inevitable overtime the job of being a homicide detective in Philadelphia demanded, he often found himself daydreaming of what he would do on his day off. Sleep in, catch up on the DVDs he found himself renting but never watching, actually doing laundry. When it came time to do these things he always found himself twitchy, wondering about lab results, ballistic reports, whether some witness had come forward in a current case, anxious to get back into the harness, compelled to be in motion, to pursue.

He was loath to admit it, but his job was his life. If you opened a vein, Kevin Byrne would run blue.

He left the pub around 11.30. At the corner of Pine and Fifth Streets, instead of heading home, he headed north.

Byrne had called the office earlier in the evening and gotten a few more details on exactly what had happened to Terrell Hightower.

After Tanya Wilkins’s death, Gabriel and his brother — both of whom had been adopted by Tanya’s third husband, Randall Hightower, himself killed in a high-speed chase with the PPD — were put into two different foster homes. By all accounts, Terrell Hightower was a good student at Central High, a tense, fidgety kid who came up at a time when there was no such thing as ADD, at least not in the inner city, a time when kids who tapped their feet or banged their pencils on their desks or acted out in any way, were sent to the office for being a disruptive influence.

When he was fifteen, Terrell found an outlet for all that nervous energy. His outlet was track and field. With hardly a single season of training under his belt he became a holy terror in the 100- and 200-meter events, taking all-city in his sophomore year and leading his team to the state finals as a junior. Scouts came from as far away as UCLA.

One night, while Terrell was sweeping up at his part-time job at an auto body shop on Frankford, two men entered. They fired six bullets into the shop’s owner, James DuBois, two into Terrell’s stomach. DuBois was DOA; Terrell was rushed to Jefferson Hospital where, within four hours, he was listed in stable condition.

Nothing of value was stolen.

Police investigated the case, but neighbors, as expected, saw nothing, heard nothing. Another phantom killer in the city of Philadelphia. Word on the street was that a North Philly drug dealer named DeRon Wilson had done it as a payback to Terrell because Terrell had disrespected Wilson by not joining the gang.