William Lashner - Falls The Shadow

“We need to ask Kylie some questions,” said Gleason. “You mind if we take your competition off the street for a bit?”

She snorted. “That skinny bitch ain’t no competition.”

“Where is she, Jenny?”

“Is she in trouble?”

“Nah,” said Gleason. “Just some questions.”

“Too bad. Trouble would be a step in the right direction for her. Try a few blocks up on the right, in that warehouse where she does her stuff. You find her, you tell that princess with her little white ass that Jenny says fuck you.”

“It’s nice to see such camaraderie among the working folk,” said Gleason as Jenny backed away and blended again into the shadows.

I drove to the warehouse and pulled right behind an old two-tone Chevy parked at the curb. The warehouse was a crumbling brick building, its windows and door boarded with gray plywood. The thin wood over one of the low windows was smashed, darkness streamed out like some vile smoke from the opening.

Gleason cut the engine and we waited quietly.

A few moments later, a shadow slipped furtively out from the gap in the window, over to the Chevy, around the front. It glanced our way as it opened the door, slid into the front seat. The engine of the old beater roared through a failing muffler as it drove off.

“I suppose it’s our turn,” said Gleason.

“We’re going in there?” I said.

“Don’t worry,” said Gleason, reaching into the glove compartment of his car. “I got my little friend.”

I was disappointed when he pulled out a heavy blue flashlight.

“No gun?”

“I’m still on desk duty,” he said.

Out of the car, I followed him across the wide sidewalk to the shattered window. Gleason slipped over the sill and through the narrow opening. I hesitated for a moment and then followed, landing unsteadily on my feet on the other side. It was pitch-black in the building, fetid and dank, it smelled of urine and wet cement, of rats with damp fur, of sweat and cinder and old sad stories turned to ash.

Gleason turned on his flashlight, illuminated the piles of garbage, the twisted beams, the crumbling plaster walls, a sleeping bag in the corner quivering with life. And then, all the way to the left, a mattress, and on the mattress a young woman, all in rags, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin on her knees, her eyes staring straight up at the light, a sneer of defiance on her lips.

“Turn it off,” said the woman in a lifeless monotone. Her face was round, and it had been pretty once, you could tell, but not anymore. Her hair was greasy, her eyes red and watery, her cheeks sunken, her lips scabbed, her skin mottled with blood and filth.

“Are you Kylie?” said Gleason.

“I’m nobody,” said the woman.

“Then you’re our girl,” I said.

“Turn off the light, assholes,” said Kylie, raising a hand to ward off the beam.

“We want to talk to you,” said Gleason.

“It costs extra to talk.”

“How about if we only talk?”

“That you can’t afford.”

“Are you hungry, Kylie?” I said. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

“I don’t eat anymore.”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No.”

“I am,” came a voice from the sleeping bag. “I’ll drink anything, don’t matter what, so long it’s got a proof on it.”

“Shut up,” said Gleason.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” said the sleeping bag, “but I could always use a drink.”

“Just shut up.”

“Whatever you got, give to Al,” said Kylie. “You don’t need to liquor me up, I’m not that type of girl. Just shut off that light and do whatever you want.”

“We want to talk,” I said. “We want to hear a story.”

“Buy a book.”

“A story about Seamus Dent,” I said.

“Seamus? Jesus. What about Seamus?”

“We want to know why he died.”

“That’s easy,” she said. “Because he cared.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“What about you? What do you care about?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even Seamus?”

“Turn off the light.”

“If we turn it off, will you tell us?”

“If you turn it off, I won’t claw your eyes out.”

Al, in the sleeping bag, laughed.

“Name a price,” said Gleason.

“Now you talking,” said Al. “How much you talking about?”

“What does it matter anymore, what happened to Seamus?” said Kylie.

“It matters to the man here,” I said, indicating Gleason, “who did what he could to clean up Seamus when he found him wasted and lost in a drug house. And it matters to my client, who’s on trial for his life for something I think Seamus might have done. And it matters to Wayne, who still feels betrayed by Seamus because Seamus saved Wayne’s life and then apparently gave his up for nothing.”

“Wayne? You’ve spoken to Wayne?”

“That’s right.”

“Jesus. Wayne. You’re hitting the trifecta. How’s he doing?”

“All right, actually. Seamus took him to Father Kenneth back in your old parish, and Father Kenneth helped him clean himself up. Wayne works at the church now.”

“He always had a pious streak in him.”

“He’s getting his life together.”

“Good for him,” said Kylie.

“Let’s talk some more about the money,” said Al.

“What are you, her agent?” said Gleason.

“Just a businessman trying to do some business.”

“And a hell of a successful businessman at that, I can tell,” said Gleason, waving his flashlight about the decrepit space.

“Turn out the light,” said Kylie. “I can’t talk when I can still see myself.”

“Will you tell us the story if we turn it out?”

“I don’t know it all,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what he did before, but he said it was bad.”

“Tell us what you do know.”

“He said he didn’t mean it, that it was an accident, that he was only trying to help her, not kill her. And that afterward he tried to make it right but the lawyer wouldn’t let him.”

“Is that why he got the trench coat?”

“He said the trench coat was like a cape the superheroes used to wear in the comic books. He decided that was what he was going to be, a superhero. That was how he was going to make it right.”

“For the accident, for killing that woman.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why he fell back into drugs? Because of the guilt? Is that why he ended up in that crack house where he was murdered?”

“He was clean at the end,” said Kylie. “He didn’t come to the house for drugs. He came for me.”

“Damn cowboy,” said Gleason.

“If we turn out the light,” I said to her, “will you tell us the whole story?”

“I don’t know it all.”

“As much as you know.”

“Will you leave me alone after?” she said.

“If that’s what you want.”

“And the money,” said Al. “Don’t forget the money.”

“We won’t,” I said. “We’ll take care of both of you. All right, turn out the light.”

Gleason flashed the beam around to see if anyone was behind us, and then he clicked off the flashlight. Darkness fell over the clammy space like a fetid blanket. Something scurried in the corner, something wet fell from an overhead rafter, something in the distance moaned. We stood in the uneasy quiet of collapse and decay and waited, and waited some more.

And then Kylie began to talk.

It was early morning when finally we left that dank, stinking warehouse. Gleason and I had stood for a long time in the darkness, listening as Kylie told us her story, emotions overflowing in all of us, even Kylie, I could tell, despite the dead monotone of her voice. And when, at the end, Gleason turned the flashlight back on, the filth on her face had become streaked by her tears. Now, in the car again, we could see the first stirrings of dawn in the eastern sky as I drove us out of the rotting neighborhood. I drove east until I hit the expressway and then west to 676, east to 95, north again to the Aramingo Avenue exit and on to Fishtown.