Carlin Romano - Philadelphia Noir

“What about the baby?”

“What baby?”

“Millie had a baby, a little boy about two years old.”

“I never knew. Where’s Billy Haggerty?”

“He’s not the father.”

“Then who is?”

“A guy named Nathaniel. He lives down in Point Breeze.”

“Millie’s boyfriend is from Point Breeze?”

“Yeah. Billy was furious when he found out. He’s still furious. It’s one thing when you find out your wife’s been running around with another guy. It’s another thing when you find out he’s black. I thought something like this was going to happen.”

“Where does this Nathaniel live?”

“Twenty-second and Moore over the laundromat.”

“Do you know where Billy is?”

“Haven’t seen him all night. If he’s not here, he’s at the Golden Rose.”

“Thanks.”

The tears began to flow again and she reached out and took a long drink from my glass. The cigarette had gone out and she drew on it, frantically trying to bring it back to life, and when she couldn’t, she threw it down on the floor.

“You know, I talked to Millie last night. She said she talked to a guy she used to know a long time ago. She said he was real nice and that they might have had something together once and maybe they could get it back. She said that when she spoke to him she heard something sweet in his voice like maybe he was hoping for the same thing. She wanted to get away from this place, away from the Arramingo Club, away from Grays Ferry, away from Billy Haggerty, away from this whole life. She was hoping he could help her. She said he used to be a cop.”

She turned her back to me and lifted her eyes just high enough to see my face in the mirror behind the bar. “Now would you please get the hell out of here.”

I parked behind Lanier Playground and hurried across the crumbling asphalt. As I ran across it, I couldn’t help but think that this had become a wasteland, a memory of a long abandoned dream for so many kids that would take a miracle to resurrect. It was dark, the spotlights broken by those same kids-they used them for target practice, throwing pieces of broken pavement like stones from a slingshot until the area was in total darkness.

I got halfway across when I heard them, five or six figures silhouetted against the concrete ledge, the light from the Golden Rose casting distorted shadows over the sidewalk. Haggerty was there, strutting back and forth like an alpha male while his pack of wolves sat before him, tuned to his every word, his every move. He saw me too and a snicker of recognition snaked across his lips as I emerged from the darkness.

“Seamus Kilpatrick. What the fuck are you doing here? Did someone call a cop?”

His gang laughed in unison, up on their feet now, the rusty chain-link fence like an iron curtain between us.

“Did you have to kill her, Billy? Was it because she went out and got herself a boyfriend? Was it the kid, Billy? Or was it because she came to me for help?”

“You think I killed her? Jaysus, Kilpatrick. You are a piece of work. You think I give a shite about that whore, Millie Price? She could have taken that kid of hers and gone down into the gutter to live. That’s where she belonged.”

“Where’s the kid, Billy?”

“How the hell should I know? You got it all wrong, as usual, Kilpatrick. You’ll never learn. Trying so hard to be something you’re not.”

“And what’s that?”

“A fucking martyr. A pathetic fucking martyr. But even a dumb shite like me knows there’s no such thing as a live martyr.”

I came around the fence and Haggerty’s gang circled us. I recognized most of them. Jimmy Connors and Chris Dougherty looked inseparable, as if they were still sixteen and just snuck out of the house with their father’s quarts in their pants. Denis McNulty was the biggest of the crew, leaning against the fence with the fingers of one meaty paw hooked onto the chain link.

“I don’t presume to judge you, Billy Haggerty. But don’t expect me to agree with your way of thinking.”

“You always pick the wrong side. Don’t you. Deny your people, your family. This is your fucking home, Kilpatrick, and you won’t lift a finger to save it. Just don’t get in our way. We’ll show you no mercy.”

“You can’t build a wall down the middle of this neighborhood, Billy.”

“Watch me.” His finger was pointed at my chest as if it were a loaded gun. “And one more thing you’d want to know before you leave. I have from a reliable source that not only has this rooster Nathaniel Jeffers been banging my ex-wife, word is he’s the trigger man what put down your old friend, Charlie Melvyn. Now ain’t that a kicker, boyo?”

Chris Dougherty crossed himself and they all laughed and my fists went white at my sides. I looked at Billy Haggerty and our eyes locked and at that moment it was like no one else in Grays Ferry mattered, like it was just the two of us and we were telling the whole world to go fuck themselves. Not knowing where else to look, I turned my gaze to the Philadelphia skyline in the distance, the dark sky behind it like a black veil.

“One more for the road, boys?”

They all shuffled back inside the Golden Rose and left me alone on the deserted sidewalk.

I walked a few aimless blocks until I found myself in front of the twenty-four-hour laundromat with its fluorescent lights shining through the glass and the dryers whirring inside and a fat old black lady thumbing the pages of a worn newspaper on the bench. The stairwell to the second floor smelled like piss but it didn’t matter. I reached around to the small of my back and pulled out the Glock that had been gathering dust in a drawer since the day I left the Philadelphia Police Department. I took a deep breath and kicked in the door.

I was face-to-face with Nathaniel Jeffers. He didn’t move. He was younger than I thought he’d be but not childlike in his appearance. He had short cropped hair over a broad forehead and a thin mustache and the body of an athlete. I pointed the gun at his chest, holding it with two hands, my arms thrust out in front of me, my grip beginning to tremble. The look in his eyes seemed to say that he knew why I was there, that he knew it wasn’t because of Millie Price or their son or Billy Haggerty or all the bullshit that defined him as black and me as white. It was because of Charlie Melvin, and Nathaniel Jeffers knew it.

“Did you kill Charlie Melvyn?”

“Who?”

“The old man in front of the barber shop.”

His lips were sealed firmly across his face but I had my answer in the way he stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and the way he shrugged his shoulders and ground his teeth. He was a typical Philly liar, I thought. The truth made him squirm.

My fingers curled around the trigger and the hammer slowly lifted from its seat, and in my mind I heard the voice of Johnny Izzard telling me how once I pulled the trigger, everything would change, my legacy with the Philadelphia Police Department, the reasons I became a cop, and the reasons I left. But it was too late to think about regrets. I owed this to Charlie Melvyn.

I adjusted my aim and fired. The blast stung my ears and Nathaniel Jeffers jumped back onto a dingy yellow couch. The sound of that single gunshot was so loud I thought it would wake the entire neighborhood. A door opened in the hall and out stepped the boy as if the sound of gunfire was a sound he’d become accustomed to. He had waves of curly black hair and sleepy eyes and caramel-colored skin. He ran to his father and dropped into his arms.

I’d fired wide and the bullet had lodged in the wall, a crack in the plaster spreading from floor to ceiling like a fault line. I heard the sirens already, wailing in the distance, coming closer with that sense of urgency like they knew what they’d find when they got there.