JM03 - Red Cat (17 page)

“Suspect?” David laughed again, crazily this time. “I ain’t no steenking suspect.”

I ground my teeth and thought hard about hanging up. Then I heard a noise like glassware in the background. “Where are you?”

“Why, you gonna join me? I thought you pretended not to go in for this stuff anymore.”

“Where are—”

“I’m in the only open bar south of Fulton Street— the only one I could fucking find, anyway.”

“Jesus— you’re talking about this in public? What the hell’s wrong with you? Are you trying to blow up your life?”

“You’re the last person to be giving out life advice, don’t you think, Johnny-boy? Like you’ve done such a bang-up job with your own— that swell career, and all those friends.”

I counted, I breathed, and finally I gave up. I put down the phone and turned around and Clare was there, leaning in the bedroom door. The light from the street was softened by the snow, and it fell in pale pink bands across her arms and legs and small, bare breasts. Her face was in shadow, but even so I could see the worry in her eyes.

19

Clare wanted to come along to the 9:30 Club, but between the snow, and my dissuasions, and maybe the gun behind my back, she gave up on the idea.

“What the hell is that?” She froze with a forkful of pad thai halfway to her mouth.

“It’s a Glock 30, a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.”

“I see it’s a gun. What are you doing with it?”

“I’m putting it in its holster and fastening it to my belt.”

“Don’t be funny. Why do you need it?”

“I’m hoping to find the guy I romped around Central Park with last night, and I’m hoping for a more sedate conversation.”

“You’re going to…shoot him?”

“I’d rather talk, but it’s nice to have options.”

“Jesus,” she breathed.

Clare ate her noodles and watched gravely as I dropped the clip out of the Glock, checked the load, worked the spring and the slide, ran the clip back up, and tucked the gun away. I was pulling a waterproof shell over my fleece jacket when she spoke again.

“Was that your brother on the phone before?”

I looked at her, surprised. I’d never discussed my family with her, and had no clue what, if anything, she knew of them. Her face was still and her gray eyes said nothing. “One of them,” I said slowly.

A rueful smile came and went. “I know the tone. My sister gets it when we talk on the phone sometimes; I get it too, I suppose. A kind of ‘I’m going to explode and I’m going to strangle you all at the same time’ thing. Only family can make you crazy like that.” I nodded. “He’s your client?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I can’t—”

Clare held up her hand. “It doesn’t matter. I was just going to say that, whatever it is you’re doing, the work agrees with you.” She saw my surprise, and smiled. “Dents and dings aside, you look better than you have in a while. You’re eating better and sleeping better, and that cloud above your head is not so dark.” She went back to her dinner and looked startled when I kissed her goodbye.

* * *

There were no taxis or Town Cars in front of the 9:30 Club, and if there was a velvet rope, it was buried under a foot of snow. I leaned on the bar and drank my cranberry juice and surveyed the room. It was a big, rectangular space, dimly lit and done up like a seraglio in a pumpkin patch. Acres of green and orange silk covered the walls, and leafy green pennants twisted down from the high ceiling. A dance floor dominated the center of the room, flanked by round green tables on one side, and on the other by curtained alcoves with fat orange sofas. A wide stairway with translucent green risers climbed up a wall in back and emptied into more alcoves and the VIP rooms. The bar was opposite the stairs, an orange crescent topped in green frosted glass. There was a row of flat-panel monitors above it, just then looping footage of Copacabana Beach. The sound system was pumping out a low-key techno rhythm, and there were a dozen bodies on the dance floor, doing all they could with it.

I counted fifty people scattered around the place, dancers and staff included— nothing close to a typical Friday night, I was sure, but not bad for a blizzard. The shared disaster of the storm made everyone a friendly castaway, happy to be alive and happy to be there, and it lent a faintly manic tang to the proceedings. The kitchen was serving what food there was without charge, though the drinks were still ringing at full price.

Babyface— Jamie— wasn’t in the house, but the reedy-voiced man I’d spoken to on the phone was. His name was J.T., and I’d found him at the end of the bar, looking dolefully over the room. He was a skinny thirtysomething, with a tangle of peroxide hair, three days of dark beard, and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt. He was the manager, more or less, and he hadn’t been happy to see me.

“Fuckin’ A, you’re the guy who called,” he’d said. I’d nodded, and he’d frowned. “I told you, the only Jamie working here is a girl.”

“So if I ask your staff, none of them will know another Jamie?”

The frown deepened. “What are you, some kind of cop?”

“Not a cop, and not from the State Liquor Authority, either.” J.T.’s eyes darted away, and he ran a nicotine-stained hand down his narrow face. “What’s that mean?” he asked.

“It means I don’t give a shit about your hiring practices. Martians, felons, it’s all the same to me.”

He shook his head and grimaced. “No good deed, man, no fuckin’ good deed.”

“I’m not looking to make trouble, J.T. Not for you, or Jamie.”

“Then go away.”

“Talk to me about Jamie, and I will.”

J.T. fished a cigarette from his pocket and dangled it, unlit, from the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know what I can tell you. It’s not like we’re running buddies.”

“You know his last name?”

“Coyle,” he said, and he spelled it for me.

“How long has he worked here?”

“About ten months.”

“Off the books?” J.T. nodded. “Because he was inside?” Another nod.

“You know what for?”

He shook his head. “I don’t press.”

“What does he do here?”

“Mostly he works the door, but he helps out with other stuff too.”

“Like?”

“Like behind the bar sometimes, or security in the VIP lounge.”

“He work every night?”

“Two, three nights a week, usually, until he started this no-show crap.”

“No-show?”

“He hasn’t been around for going on three weeks. He hasn’t called, either.”

“That’s not like him?”

“Nope. Before this he was Mr. Dependable— on time, on top of things, never any bullshit.”

“And his work was good?”

“I had no complaints,” J.T. said. “He knew when to be cool and when to be scary, and he knew how to keep the messes out of sight.”

“You didn’t worry about his…prior experience?” J.T. squinted at me. “I put him behind the bar, and that’s all cash back there. I wouldn’t do that if he worried me.”

“You know his girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

“You have an address for him, or a phone number?” J.T. pulled out a multifunction digital doohickey, and had at it with his thumbs. He read me a phone number and a P.O. box, and I copied them down. “Kind of a risk for you, taking on a guy like that,” I’d said.

He’d shrugged. “My wife’s kid brother was up in Coxsackie,” he’d said. “Jamie looked out for him.” Then J.T. had wandered off, in the direction of the deejay’s booth.

I looked up and saw him still there, smoking by an open window and sorting through stacks of CDs. I finished my drink and put the glass on the bar. There was a waitress doing nothing near the passage to the kitchen, so I went over.

Her name was Lia. She was young, not much over drinking age, and nearly my height, and her unruly, strawberry-blond mop went well enough with her freckles and blue eyes to be natural. Her mouth was wide and her chin was pointed, and I imagined her agent described her as a well-scrubbed waif. She scanned the crowd lazily as we spoke.

“I haven’t seen Jamie in, what, a couple of weeks, which is weird for him.”

“You friendly with him?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“He a nice guy?”

“Sure. I mean, he’s a little scary at first, but once you get to know him, what’s not to like?”

“Scary how?”

“You know, he’s all big and broody, and he doesn’t say much at first. But really he’s a teddy bear, and he looks out for all the girls.”

“Looks out for what?”

“Like, for when a customer gets too touchy, and thinks the tips buy something more than thanks.”

“That happen a lot?” Lia smiled regretfully and nodded. “What does Jamie do about it?”

Her smile broadened. “Basically he scares the piss out of them.”

“Just scares them?”

“You mean does he actually like beat them up?” I nodded and Lia thought about it. “There was one guy, a few months back, a real big guy, and a real groper— legs, asses, tits, anything he could grab or rub up against. This one night he was all over Sheri, who was brand new then, and really freaking out. She’d been avoiding him the whole shift, when finally he corners her on her way to take a piss. Now Sheri’ll blow away in a strong wind, and this guy’s like six two and double-wide, and he’s got her by the arm in the hallway when Jamie comes along.

“Sheri told me he said something in the guy’s ear— she didn’t know what— and the guy lets go of her and turns around and throws a punch at Jamie. And Jamie catches it— just like that, Sheri said.” Lia made a fist with one hand and covered it with her other. “And then she tells me the guy just starts turning red and kind of crying, and he falls down on his knees with Jamie still holding his fist.”

“And then what?”

“And then Jamie makes him apologize to Sheri, and he picks the guy up by his belt and throws him out the back door.” She grinned. “That part I saw for myself. It was cool.”

“No doubt. You know Jamie’s girlfriend?”

Lia furrowed her freckled brow. “That redhead— the one who makes indy films or something?” I nodded and Lia nodded back. “She’s been in. I heard they were a thing but I didn’t know for sure. She’s hot.”

“She in here lately?” A shrug. “They get along pretty well?”

“I don’t know; they seemed to. I don’t pay attention.” She looked at me, curious for the first time. “Why do you want to know all this stuff? Jamie’s not in trouble, is he?”

I shook my head. “I’m just trying to get in touch.”

Lia studied my face and looked worried. “Look, he’s a good guy,” she said, “and I don’t know how to reach him.” And she disappeared into the kitchen.

Lia didn’t come out again, and the bartender and the other waitresses had less to say than she did. I hung around for another half hour, and watched people troop in, in twos and threes, frosted and windblown and happy to join the lifeboat party.

It was close to eleven when I left, and the route home was straight into the wind. Even with head down and jacket zipped high, the cold was crushing. In two blocks my face went from frozen to burning numb, and in two more my limbs followed suit. By Avenue B, walking had devolved into an endless struggle with the next step, and all sense of time was lost. The wind pried at my lungs and howled around my ears as I pushed forward, and Lia’s words repeated in my head—“Look, he’s a good guy”— and echoed alongside the last thing Orlando Krug had said—“Just tell her to call me.” After a while, I wasn’t sure who had said what.

I had a hard time with the key to my building, and I stood for a while in the lobby, catching my breath while pricking pain spread across my face. I rode the elevator up and opened my apartment door and Clare was standing across the room. She was holding a towel and looking at me and at the sofa, and her expression was a mix of puzzlement and disgust. I stepped inside and the smell of vomit hit me. I looked over the back of my sofa and found the source: my brother David, spattered in puke, slumped over, and passed out.

20

We got his clothes off— the sopping cashmere overcoat, the sodden English shoes, the Italian suit, soaked and stained from the knees down— and cleaned him up as well as we could with a damp washcloth. I levered him into sweatpants and a T-shirt, and Clare put sheets on the sofa and covered him with a blanket. He muttered and flailed a little, and threw up once more, but I’d wrestled less cooperative drunks before.

“He showed up maybe twenty minutes ago, and I didn’t know what to do with him,” Clare whispered. She was in the kitchen, drinking tonic water and watching David sleep. “He was leaning on the buzzer and saying he was your brother, and he was covered in snow from the chest up. I couldn’t just leave him out there.”

I nodded. “You don’t have to whisper,” I said, “he’s gone. From the look of him, he must’ve walked uptown.”

“Good thing he didn’t stop to rest along the way— they’d be chipping ice off him for a month.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Besides that he was your brother, nothing that made sense. Is he like this a lot?”

“Passed out drunk, you mean?”

Clare nodded.

“This is the first I’ve seen it, but…I don’t really know what he’s like.”

Clare looked at him and looked at me and shook her head. “Jesus.”

* * *

I came awake in the middle of the night. Clare was breathing slowly beside me, and we were both sunk deep into the mattress. Beneath the wind and shaking windows, I heard a stifled cough from the living room, and the rustle of bedsheets. I got up carefully and pulled on a T-shirt and went out.

David was cross-legged on the floor. He was wrapped in a sheet and his back was to one of my bookcases. His skin was pale and his hair was damp-looking. He had a book in his lap and he was turning the pages. He looked up at me. His eyes were still confused, and his face was somehow out of focus. I closed the bedroom door.

“You should sleep,” I whispered.

“Things were spinning,” he said quietly.

“You want anything?”

“Water, maybe.”

I went to the kitchen and filled a glass. I carried it over and David took it and drank. I looked at the book he held. It was a big coffee-table volume with frayed covers and a cracked spine, a collection of BrassaД photos I hadn’t opened in years. David set the glass on the floor and turned a page, to a picture of a fog-wrapped Paris avenue. He turned again, to a picture of a woman under a streetlamp.