William Lashner - Falls The Shadow

Do me a favor, little sister, he had said, and don’t. Don’t. That’s what he said. Each time I held that word in my mind, it seemed to sing to me. And then, quick as a “Hey, baby,” I listened, and the raw possibility came clear.

So I called up Torricelli. Tommy Torricelli was a lunkhead, absolutely, and we weren’t exactly buddy-buddy, but he was the homicide detective who had investigated the Leesa Dubé murder, who had found the bloodied shirt and gun, who had concluded that François Dubé was the killer, who had testified convincingly at the trial in which François Dubé was convicted. He would be oh so delighted to learn that I was looking into his case. But before I told him that little gem, perfectly designed to make his day, I had a few other questions.

“How you doing there, Detective?” I said.

He wasn’t inclined to tell me. He wasn’t inclined to tell me anything except to get lost, which is exactly what he did. I had never worked one of Torricelli’s cases before, but we knew each other enough to be wary. I was acriminal defense attorney with sharp teeth and a well-honed shamelessness. He was a cop known to cross a line or three in order to get the results he was looking for. Not quite oil and vinegar, more like fertilizer and diesel fuel.

“I only called to say hello,” I lied, “and to give you some news that might interest you. But first I thought we’d gossip a bit.”

Torricelli lied back when he said he wasn’t one to traffic in gossip. Torricelli trafficked in gossip like I-95 trafficked in cars.

“I was just at the auto squad on Macalester,” I said. “Ran into Detective Gleason. How’d he end up in that backwater?”

He told me.

“Wow,” I said, acting surprised. “But they didn’t pull his badge?”

He told me that they hadn’t, that everything had checked out, but still the transfer.

“Well,” I said. “At least it turned out okay. What’s with those sideburns, though? Yeah, and that southern twang in his voice?”

He laughed and made a snide comment.

“Right,” I said, “more like South Street. You have any idea where he drinks?”

He gave me the name and a description of the place.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “I didn’t know they had a place like that outside of Memphis. You ever go down there, have a drink with him?”

He said no, he said they couldn’t drag his fat Italian ass into a place like that with a team of horses.

“I don’t doubt it,” I said.

He growled something at me.

“You know, Detective, I’ve been thinking about you. We ought to have dinner sometime. Someplace nice. Candles and violin music. Someplace romantic that makes up a nice pasta fazool. My treat.”

He was quiet for a long moment and then let out an expletive I have tactfully deleted.

“And maybe we can talk about a new client I’ve just been hired to represent. François Dubé. Remember him?”

I held the handset away from my ear to save my eardrum the wear and tear as he told me, in his own way, that yes, he did remember François Dubé and how delighted he was that I had decided to take up his cause. That was one of my favorite things about my job as a defense attorney, the way I was able to create pleasant and meaningful relationships with the noble members of the city’s police department. But even as I suffered the detective’s abuse, I still felt the shivery thrill of discovery, the same thrill you get when you slide in the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It was coming clear for me, the story of Seamus Dent, not all of it, I would learn more in the course of my investigation, but now maybe just enough was coming clear to get François Dubé that new trial he so desperately sought.

It was late already by the time I figured it out. Beth was gone, my secretary, Ellie, was gone, it was just me in the office, the sole representative of the law firm of Derringer and Carl, but I was enough. I sat in Ellie’s chair, took out a blue-backed document, rolled it into the typewriter my secretary used to fill the blanks in preprinted documents, hunted and pecked, whited out the mistakes, hunted and pecked some more.

And then I put on my jacket, stuffed the document into my jacket pocket, and drove out to the Great Northeast to have myself a drink in the shadow of the King.

King’s Dominion was not the kind of joint people stumbled into by mistake. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d never find it, but then again you wouldn’t want to.

I parked in the lot of a small shopping center just off Roosevelt Boulevard. There was a Radio Shack, a T.J. Maxx, a dry cleaner, a vacant storefront, a CVS, a dollar store. Scintillating, no? The number I was looking for was taped onto a glass door next to the dollar store. I pushed open the door and was immediately hit by a deep throb of bass that resonated in my bad tooth. As I climbed the stairwell, I passed a series of signs tacked to the wall.

NO SNEAKERS

CHECK ALL GUNS

PEANUT BUTTER AND NANNER SAMMICH – 75¢

Not my kind of place, exactly. I just hoped they served Sea Breezes.

Beside the closed door at the top of the stairs, an old man sat on a stool, clipboard in hand. He was tall and stooped, his shoes were white patent leather, and it looked like a gray poodle was perched on his head. When I tried to walk past him, he shot out a bony arm and stopped me cold.

“What’s your song?” he said.

“I’m just here to see a Detective Gleason,” I said. “Has he shown up tonight?”

“Do I look like a matchmaker?” he said.

“Hello, Dolly,” I said.

“The name’s Skip.”

“Kept that from summer camp, did you? I like your shoes.”

“Dancing shoes. I know a guy what knows a guy what gets them direct from Hong Kong.”

“Maybe he can get me a pair.”

“You want a pair?”

“Nah. So is Gleason in?”

“Yeah, he’s in.”

I gave the old man a wink, and started again for the door, and again the bony arm barred my way. I looked at it for a moment and then at the old man.

“What, is there a cover?”

“No cover,” he said. “But it’s karaoke night.”

“Just my luck. I should have come tomorrow.”

“It wouldn’t do no good,” said the old man. “Here, every night is karaoke night. What’s your song?”

“I don’t sing.”

“Sure you do, if you want in. Everyone sings, at least once. Makes you part of the show, keeps it festive.” He cocked his head, the poodle shifted, his eyes brightened crazily. “It’s karaoke night.”

“I know ‘Feelings.’ Should I sing ‘Feelings’?”

He looked at me, looked at his clipboard, paged through the pages, looked back at me. “We don’t got it.”

“How about ‘Kumbaya’?”

He looked back at his clipboard. “We got ‘Kismet,’ we got ‘Kiss Me Quick,’ we got ‘Ku-u-i-po,’ which is pretty close, but no ‘Kumbaya.’ ”

“ ‘Satisfaction’?”

“None.”

“You don’t got much, do you?”

“Only everything he ever sung.”

“Ah,” I said. “Now I get it. Why don’t you pick something for me.”

“How’s your pipes?”

“Not so good.”

“Then stay with something low, something easy. I got one here that usually works for first-timers. There’s a slow part you can talk your way through.”

“Done.”

“What’s your name?”

“Franz.”

“Funny,” he said as he pulled a white slip from his clipboard, filled it out, handed it to me, “you don’t look like a Franz. That will be ten bucks.”

“Ten bucks a song?”

“Just for the first song. After that’s it’s free.”

As I pulled out my wallet, I said, “Good thing you boys don’t charge a cover.”