Fresh Kills (31 page)
Authors: Bill Loehfelm
“I wouldn’t drink to the old man,” I said, sitting, “if you were buying. Thanks for holding my seat.” I turned to him. “See you around.”
“C’mon,” he said. “Lighten up.” He slapped his palm on the bar and waved his empty beer bottle at the bartender.
“I’ve had a long couple days,” I said. “I’d rather be alone.”
“We’ve known each other for years, least I can do is buy you a drink. One drink. Let’s do a shot. I’m buying.” He breathed cheap light beer in my face. “We used to hang out all the time, right? And I’m sorry about the other day at your folks’ house. C’mon. We’re both men now. It’s about time we had a drink together.”
He stared at me, his face way too close to mine, waiting for an answer, for permission. His drunken brain had locked on to buying me a drink. I knew there was nothing in the world more important to him at the moment. There’d be no shutting him up about it, no getting rid of him until it happened.
I figured I could tolerate one drink, one shot, with him. Maybe it could be a start toward making my peace with things, like Jimmy had said. Spending five cordial minutes with Purvis would show some kind of progress. When the bartender came over, he ignored Purvis, looking at me.
“Two Jamesons,” I said. Purvis grinned at me stupidly. Let’s see what he’s really made of, I thought. “Make ’em doubles. And a Brooklyn for me. Coors Light for him, I guess.”
“On me,” Purvis blurted, leaning way over the bar.
Purvis made a weak move for his wallet when the drinks arrived, but the bartender waved him off. Despite the freebie, Purvis didn’t tip. I slid a ten across the bar.
“So much for you buying,” I said. “That’s twenty-five dollars’ worth of drinks. When’d you get that kind of weight around here?”
Purvis pulled from his bottle of Coors Light, glancing nervously at his shot. “September twelfth. I can’t pay for a drink anywhere anyone knows I’m a cop since the Trade Center.”
And I’m sure, I thought, they know you’re a cop everywhere you go. And then I winced, glad I hadn’t said that aloud. I was trying to make progress here. Besides, it was a hell of a thing to accuse even Purvis of, capitalizing on something like the Trade Center. At the Cargo, we never charged the guys from the firehouse around the corner. Sure, I told myself, Purvis was a prick, and we had our differences, but this was 9-11 we were talking about.
“Know anyone?” I asked.
“A few. You?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not in touch, but I checked the lists.”
We drank our beers in silence.
“You down there?” I finally asked.
“When the second tower came down,” he said, looking at his feet. “Never seen nothing like it. Nowhere. Ever. The fucking sound of it, you wouldn’t believe.”
Suddenly, I got the feeling he was lying to me. His eyes worked the edges of my face, flitting to my forehead, my chin, over my shoulder, looking everywhere but right at me. I didn’t believe he’d been there. The little prick was lying. My mouth fell open. He hadn’t set one leather-clad toe on Ground Zero that day and was desperate for everyone not to know it, still. Wrapping himself in stolen, bastardized bravery. Using the deaths of his brothers and fellow citizens as a pass for free drinks. I didn’t know what stunned me more, that he was lying or that I had actually believed him for even a few seconds.
I was angry, but more than that, I thought he was pathetic. Like it was a crime not to have been there, to have been doing some other normal thing on what started as so normal a morning. I would’ve slept through the whole disaster if Julia hadn’t called after the second plane hit. Maybe it was a cop thing for him. He couldn’t say he was lucky enough to be home in bed while so many others, like Molly’s brother, took the ultimate loss for their city. It was Purvis but I wanted to give him credit for something. I wanted his lie to have noble roots. I wanted him to be capable, somewhere inside himself, of shame. If he had that capability, I wouldn’t have to feel sick and hateful. I had come down here to relax, not to wallow in yet another filthy little secret. I couldn’t stand it. I needed a way to break the moment, to change the subject. I pulled my smoke out from behind my ear.
“I need a cigarette,” I said.
Purvis looked at the shots, still sitting on the bar.
“You’re right,” I said. “We better knock those off first.”
I picked up mine and handed him his. He was terrified, but he lifted his glass.
“To Julia,” he said. “And Molly.”
I let it go and touched my glass to his. “To Eddie Francis.
Sláinte.
” I threw back my shot.
Sláinte.
” I threw back my shot.
Purvis looked at his glass, up at me, then back at his drink. I waved the cigarette before his eyes. Suddenly, I was enjoying myself. Purvis swallowed most of the whiskey. His face contorted, and one leg jerked up at the knee. He drank the rest and gagged, turning red and then a light shade of green. I patted him on the shoulder and, grabbing my jacket, headed for the door. I thought he’d make a break for the men’s room, but he followed me outside.
As I lit up, Purvis bent over with his hands on his knees, taking slow, deep breaths. I waited for him to recover. Wounded as he was, he kept the whiskey down. He straightened, exhaled long and loud, rubbed his palms on his shirt, and asked me for a cigarette.
“You don’t smoke,” I said. “You never did.”
“I do sometimes, lately,” he said. “It’s the job.”
I pulled one from the pack and held it out to him. “You better smoke the whole fucking thing. I hate wasting cigarettes on social smokers.”
“Relax,” he said, his badge and booze-induced bravado returning. “I finished the whiskey, didn’t I?”
“It almost finished you,” I said, but I lit his smoke.
He laughed, resting his elbow in the opposite palm, holding the cigarette inches from his lips. “True.” He sighed. “Man, you drink that shit all the time?” I nodded. He shook his head. “You learned something from your pop.” He took a tiny puff. “Don’t tell me Julia drinks like you and your father.”
“Not at all.”
“Roger that,” he said.
His eyes narrowed in thought. Don’t, I thought. Don’t stay on the subject of my sister. But a grin tickled the corners of his mouth. The booze had settled in him heavy. He was hitting the next stage, where he wouldn’t stumble or slur but his mouth would get way too bold. I’d seen it happen at work thousands of times. It never ended well.
“How is that hottie sister of yours?” he asked. He glanced at me, still grinning, like he was scoring points with me by declaring her hot. “She seeing anyone? She ever moves back from Boston, I’m way available. Cops are at a premium these days.”
I studied my cigarette. What did it take to get through to this guy? Maybe he thought, mistakenly, that we’d cleared the air somehow on my parents’ lawn, or that we’d bonded during our brief 9-11 conversation. I decided there were two ways to handle him. One was to smack the grin off his face. I’d threatened him so many times, not hitting him would be like breaking a promise. But he was a cop. I decided to at least start down the high road, and let him decide how far along it I’d get. I thought of a way I could bring some truth into Detective Purvis’s life and have some fun doing it, without punching him in the mouth.
“What is it you do again, Purvis?” I asked.
He frowned at me. “I’m a detective. You know that. I’m on your dad’s case, for chrissakes.” He dropped his jaw and wiggled his head. “Duh.”
“So let me see if I have this right,” I said. “Not to get too Scooby-Doo, but your job is to assemble clues and solve mysteries. You gotta be logical, perceptive, observant.”
“Well put,” he said, nodding, puffing again on the very end of his cigarette.
How did he learn to smoke? Watching the starving model channel?
“We have to be all those things,” he said. “Much more than your average guy in the street. But it’s not just a job, not just my job; it’s my life. You live for it. Always thinking, searching, always looking for the way things fit together.” He actually sighed. “Keeps me up at night sometimes.”
I wanted to laugh. I was getting his pussy-hunting speech, the same routine he ran on every fake-tittied, empty-headed girl he came across.
“Well, Sherlock,” I said, “I don’t know how you missed it, doing what it is you do, but my sister’s gay.”
Purvis gagged on his cigarette, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he coughed. He looked around the street and over his shoulder, as if to make sure that not only no one saw him but that no one had heard me. He leaned close to me, as if we were suddenly exchanging secrets.
“What is it about art school that turns everyone queer?” he said with a weak laugh. He dropped his smoke in the street and slapped me on the back like I was the one who’d been choking. “Don’t worry, John. It’s a phase, I’m sure. She’s finding herself.”
“I’m not worried,” I said with a genuine smile, “and it’s not new and it’s not a phase.”
He bumped me with his shoulder. Hard. “Hah, you almost had me there, you crazy mick. You sure can sling the blarney. Look, you don’t want me to date her, fine. You got your reasons. But you don’t hafta go spreading lies about her.” He cocked his head at me, eyebrows high, looking at me like he’d caught me stealing hubcaps. “This gets back to her, she’s gonna be pissed. Not that I’d ever tell her, but, you know . . .”
“If I remember correctly,” I said, my voice rising, “you were the one who got in trouble, got his ass kicked, in fact, by me, for spreading lies about my sister.” I poked my finger in his chest. “She came out to me when she was in high school. She’s a bona fide lesbian, through and through.”
“Fuck, all right.” He backed away from me, rubbing his hand on his shirt, as if wiping away a stain. “You gotta be the first guy ever to get pissed ’cause someone said his sister
ain’t
a dyke.”
ain’t
a dyke.”
“I’m going back inside.” I turned away, jumped up the stairs, and pushed through the door.
My seat was taken. I tapped the guy in it on the shoulder, intending only to ask that he hand me my money, but he popped off the stool so fast he almost knocked it over. I thanked him and sat down. I slid a twenty across the bar, ordered another beer, and bought the poor guy’s next round. I needed to do something nice to flush out the bitter burn in my gut. Just when I’d started feeling better, Purvis reappeared at my elbow.
“She never looked like a dyke,” he said. He wagged a finger in the air. “Although, that would explain what happened in the car.”
“I wouldn’t bring that up if I were you. For fuck’s sake, let it go.”
“We got a few on the job,” he said. “I know what dykes look like and Julia ain’t it.”
I snapped around in my seat. “Then what’s she look like, Purvis?” The question was out before I realized what a bad idea it would be for him to answer it.
“She looks like, like, I don’t know . . . a woman. A gorgeous, feminine woman who would dig a good-looking, successful man. Like, you know, a normal woman.”
“A man like you?”
“Shit, you said it, not me.” He flagged down the bartender and ordered us another round of shots. Doubles. A bad idea. He was feeling too brave for his own good, and I wasn’t feeling much like protecting him from himself.
“Look,” I said, “I realize your experience is limited, but gay women
are
normal women. They just pick off a different menu.”
are
normal women. They just pick off a different menu.”
“Yeah, our menu.” He pulled on his beer. “It’s a damn shame. I’m sorry to hear that about Julia. Not that you seem to care.”
“What’s there to care about?”
“I guess there could be advantages, you know, for a guy like you.”
“A guy like me?” I asked. “Advantages?”
He ignored my questions and handed me my shot. This time, he put his down without a wince. “C’mon, Junior. It’s no secret you got, what would we call it, alternative tastes. It’s no secret Virginia goes both ways. Ever try on any of your sister’s leftovers?”
“What?”
“C’mon, don’t act all offended,” Purvis said. “Lord knows you’ve always had a special taste for other people’s girlfriends.”
I dragged my finger across my throat. “Let’s eighty-six this conversation right now. Let’s call it a night right here.” But if Purvis heard me, he ignored me.
“Like Molly. You banged her back in the day when she was my girlfriend. She’s David Coyle’s girlfriend now and you’re banging her again. Not only do you mess with other guys’ girls, but it’s always the same girl when you do it. That ain’t weird to you?”
“What it is to me is my business. So drop the fucking subject. In fact, this whole conversation is over.” I started to stand and then eased back down. He stood so close I couldn’t get up without bumping into him. I turned my back, but there was little room to move. I had to keep my eyes off him.
“Your mother must’ve blown a gasket,” he said, “when she heard her only daughter was gay. A good Irish Catholic woman like your mother.”
I turned back to him, held up my hand. It was imperative that Purvis stop talking. I patted his shirtfront and then tucked my cigarettes in my jacket. If I kept that hand moving maybe it wouldn’t end up with a fistful of this stupid cop’s collar.
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