William Lashner - Falls The Shadow

None of it made sense if Dr. Bob hadn’t done the crime. But if Dr. Bob hadn’t done the crime, who had?

Strangely, at that moment I thought of Rex, the man mountain with the soft gaze who had confronted me outside the Hotel Latimore. Something Dr. Bob had said about Rex struck a chord. I’m always on the lookout for new talent, had said Dr. Bob, a pure soul with the heart, the muscle, the determination to make a difference in the world.

Rex had entered the story far too late to be involved, but maybe it was one of Dr. Bob’s other recruits who had done it, maybe someone whom Dr. Bob had found and trained, someone who had done Dr. Bob’s bidding and then left to go out on his own and who had now gone deep underground. But who could it be? And how would I find him? And how could I use him to save my client?

It was the phrase “deep underground” rattling through my thoughts that finally clued me in to the entire truth. When it came to me, it was as if a window shade had been lifted and the sun was streaming through. When the light hit my face, I stood up suddenly.

Beth was in the middle of framing a question. She stopped midsentence and looked at me. The courtroom stilled, all heads turned in my direction.

“Is there anything you want to say, Counselor?” said Judge Armstrong.

“Just that I have to go, Judge,” I said. “Right this instant.”

“Something you ate, Mr. Carl?”

Before the laughter died, I was out the courtroom door. Where was I headed?

To find me a two-bit whore.

Detective Gleason was nothing if not a professional. It was in the way he could spot the prostitutes from even a great distance. “Look for the shoes,” he advised me. It was in the way he walked on the street with total assurance while I sat in the car, the way he approached the claques with a smile and a wave, the way he spoke softly to the women one at a time, the way he asked his questions, laughed at their wisecracks, listened to their answers with nodding unconcern, the way he slipped them the bills when he was through talking.

And he did all this, projected all this authority, without a badge, being as he was still confined to desk duty. But for him this wasn’t business, this was personal.

I had found his Elvisine figure at the auto squad’s front desk, sitting there glumly, answering phones, handing out paperwork to the saps who had lost their cars. When he looked up and saw me, it’s safe to say he didn’t flash a smile of welcome.

“I need your help,” I said.

“Your car missing?”

“No.”

Detective Gleason shook his head. “No crying in the chapel, boy. We’ve helped each other enough. I helped you get a new trial for your sleazeball client, and you helped get me permanently deskbound.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Want me to talk to the commissioner?”

“You really want to bury me, don’t you? What happened to your face?”

“My television bit me.”

“So even your TV hates you.”

“That’s me, Mr. Popularity.”

He let out a long breath. “What are you looking for, Carl?”

“The truth,” I said, “about Seamus Dent.”

His eyes squinted at the name.

“I think I know what he was doing in that crack house when he was killed,” I said, “and I think I know who drove him to it.”

“Okay, so?”

“You want to help me prove it?”

“Not especially. I’m moving on. And it’s hard to dig out facts from behind a desk.”

“You’re not allowed on the street officially. Don’t do this as a cop, do this as a guy who wants to find out what really happened to a kid he helped.”

“And why should I care anymore?”

“Because you tried to make a difference in that boy’s life and you want to find out why it went all wrong and who might be responsible.”

“Some things just don’t work out.”

“No, this was more. There was someone who pushed Seamus in the direction he took, someone who set him on the path that led to his death.”

“And you think you know who?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Baby, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to help me prove it.”

“How?”

“There’s a girl.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Not like this one, a sad mess of a girl who is looking for the surest path to oblivion. Drugs, violence, complete and total self-degradation.”

“You think she’s on the street?”

“Can you think of a better place to find what she’s looking for? Her name’s Kylie, and I think she’s the reason Seamus is dead. If anyone knows what really happened to Seamus, it’s Kylie.”

“So why do you need me?”

“You were in vice before homicide. You know the street better than I ever will. I need you to help me find her.”

Gleason leaned back in his chair, stroked his sideburns. “You’re going to get me fried again, aren’t you?”

“That’s not my intent.”

“For those who really screw the rest of us, it never is,” he said. “I get off at four.”

“That’s great. You won’t regret it.”

“I do already.”

I looked around at the auto squad’s lobby, the empty space with its plastic chairs. “Can I wait for you here?”

“No,” he said.

I drove my car down a dark, narrow street in an old, abandoned part of the city, a festering urban sore just east of the Schuylkill River, within a stone’s throw of the refineries and porn shops that line the expressway. Whatever light had been left in the day when we started our search had fled west, so we were now cruising in shadows, only a few scattered shards of asphalt illuminated by the dim streetlights. This wasn’t a high-priced locale for selling your body, this wasn’t even Wal-Mart, this was a place for discontinued lines and damaged goods, this was streetwalker hell.

“My God,” I said. “Who would come here for a hooker?”

“That’s not the question,” said Gleason, “because they’ll always come. Set up in a cemetery, open a coffin, and watch the line form. The question is, who has fallen so hard that she has to sell herself here?”

“Kylie.”

“From what I could gather, she’s pretty much hit bottom. A bad drug jones, a pimp who kicked her out when she couldn’t make enough to keep herself above the Mendoza line, a body riddled with shakes and sores.”

“Last-chance corner, is that it?”

“This is where they end up when their last chance fails.”

“Where do they go from here?”

“The morgue.”

“Seems that’s what Kylie wants.”

“Hold on,” said Gleason. “What’s that over there?”

There was a shadow leaning against a wall not far from a lamppost. I pulled the car into the dim circle created by the streetlight. The shadow pushed itself off the wall, strolled over, looked fore and aft before bending down so that its arms leaned on the doorframe and its face loomed close to mine in the window, a hard, tired face, dark eyes, pale lips, a red welt on the cheek.

“You boys looking for a party?”

“What’s your name, honey?” said Gleason, leaning over from the passenger seat.

“Do it matter?”

“We got to call you something.”

“How about Jenny?” She smiled, and her teeth were like the neighborhood in which she worked, a few crumbling structures teetering over vast vacant lots. “You want to party with Jenny? I got tricks.”

“I’m sure you do, sweetheart,” said Gleason, “but we’re not looking for a Jenny. We’re looking for a Kylie.”

The woman lifted her head up, glanced down the street. “Who are you?”

“We’re here on business,” said Gleason.

“What the hell you think I’m doing here? That don’t mean we can’t party together. I got a place right back here, you want. I’ll make you happy” – she slapped her butt – “if you’re man enough to handle this.”