No Such Thing as a Lost Cause (7 page)

“What about my dog?”

Frankie snarled at him. “What dog?”

“Yeah, what dog?” The gym rats echoed like a Greek chorus.

He stood there for a minute appearing to weigh his options. “Ah, you’re all nuts.
You can keep that pain in the ass hound. I’m tired of her pissing on my rug, anyway.”

We watched him as he drove off. “So, Uncle Frankie, you want a dog?”

*****

Halfway home, my breathing began to return to normal. The puppy had settled into the
back seat and was busy gnawing on a bag of beer pretzels I keep on the floor of the
car in case I’m ever lost in a snow storm and have resort to cannibalism in order
to survive—but, wait—no, I don’t, because I had the foresight to pack a bag of pretzels!

“Don’t make crumbs,” I told her and reached for my phone to call Paul.

“I found a puppy,” I announced.

“Yeah? Where?”

“Right on the street. It followed me home. I put signs up and all, but nobody’s come
to claim her, so I was thinking maybe you’d want her.”

“Brandy, you know I’ve got asthma. How am I supposed to breathe?”

“I’ll pick up some Benadryl on the way over. Please, Paul. Just until I find a permanent
home for her. I’d take her, but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”

“I k-know,” Paul said, his stress stutter kicking in, “I’ve b-been w-worried about
you.”

“No need, Paulie. I’m fine. Honest. Listen,” I said, feeling warm, wet, puppy breath
on the back of my neck. “You don’t have to give me an answer now. Just think about
it, okay? I’ll call you tomorrow.” I drove the rest of the way home with the puppy’s
head on my shoulder.

*****

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to a ringing phone and the combined weight of two canines sitting
on my chest. Rocky was stretched out on the pillow next to me, unfazed by the puppy’s
unexpected arrival. I shoved the dogs off me and grabbed the phone.

“Brandy?” The voice was vaguely familiar.

“Yes?”

“It’s Roger King.”

I have found that early morning phone calls generally fall into two categories. Either
someone died, in which case you probably didn’t need to be woken up, they’d still
be dead at a reasonable hour, or the occasional time zone mix-up. Since we lived on
the same coast, I went straight to the worst case scenario.

“Is Candice okay?” I asked, slightly panicked.

“She’s fine. Listen, I’m sorry about calling so early, but I’ve got to get to work,
and I didn’t think I should wait on this.”

“Wait on what?”

Roger lowered his voice. “Something happened about a week before Lewis got shot. Candice
doesn’t know about it, and I want to keep it that way. Can you meet me at the McDonald’s
at Broad and Snyder in an hour?”

I had to be in Horsham by nine to cover their annual Police VS Firefighter softball
game. I was throwing out the first pitch. I did a quick mental calculation. It would
take me twenty minutes to shower, throw on some clothes, and feed and walk the dogs.
No time for breakfast, but I could grab a bite at Mickey D’s.
Oh boy, breakfast fries!

“I’ll be there,” I told him. “Can you give me a hint as to what this is about?”

Roger hesitated. “I can’t say now,” he whispered, and hung up.

Forty minutes later, I slid into a booth across from Roger King, balancing a tray
of Egg McMuffins and coffee. He waited until I settled in, and then he turned an earnest
eye on me and cleared his throat.

“A couple of weeks ago, Candice spent the night at her sister’s, and I had a boys’
night out.”

“Oh.” I said, squirming uncomfortably in my seat. “Listen, Roger, I barely know you.
Don’t you have a friend or someone more appropriate to confess that sort of thing
to?”

Roger laughed so hard that he choked on his coffee. “Candice is the only woman for
me, and she knows that. This is about something I saw that night. I’d been over to
a friend’s place for a poker game. It broke up at around two, and I came home and
parked in front of the house. I’d just shut off the engine when a car turned the corner
and cruised down the street. I got a little suspicious because they didn’t have their
lights on, so I sat there waiting to see what they were going to do.”

“Could you tell the make of the car?”

Roger shook his head. “It was too dark out. I guess the city don’t want to spend money
on street lamps. All I know is it was some kind of SUV, but I couldn’t tell the make.
Anyway, it pulled up in front of Lewis’ house and this guy got out. He made a phone
call and a few minutes later, Lewis came out of his house. He wasn’t wearing nothin’
but a pair of shorts, and it looked like he’d just woke up.

“The next thing I knew, two more fellas piled out of the car. Can’t be sure, but I
think one of them was white. The other one was black. The black guy was holding a
bat, and the white guy grabbed Lewis as he tried to run back into the house. The one
with the bat started swinging at Lewis’ head. Lewis raised his arms up and tried to
protect himself, but they wouldn’t let up. I could swear they was gonna kill him,
but they just messed him up a whole lot.”

“Could you hear what they were saying?”

“Clear as can be. He was laid out on the sidewalk, moaning the same name over and
over.
Donte
. That’s when the guy with the phone went over to him, and Mario started blubbering
something about blood. I thought he meant he was bleeding, but then Donte went off
on him. He said, ‘Yeah, we blood, but this is business, bro. You fuckin’ up. You fuck
up again, you dead.’ Then he said he blew the whole deal with the dogs.”

“The dogs?”

“That’s right. Then the white guy pulls out a gun and says he don’t wanna wait. He
just wanna cap his ass. So that guy, Donte, said he’d see to it that Lewis wasn’t
any more trouble. That’s when the guy with the bat looked over to my car and saw me
sitting there.

“I’ll tell you, my heart just about leaped right out of my chest. He crossed the street
and threatened to smash the window if I didn’t open up. I thought about leaning on
the horn to scare him off, but in this neighborhood it’s unlikely anyone would pay
much mind. So I started fumbling around a bunch, pretending I was drunk and he finally
walked back to his car.

“I thought I was in the clear, but a minute later he came back, and damn if he wasn’t
holding a blow torch. He fired it up, and said I’d better mind my own business or
he’d burn my house down. Then Donte yelled for him to come on. He said, ‘Hey, Torch.
Stop fuckin’ around, man.’

“After that, Donte helped Lewis off the ground and got him back inside, and they all
piled back in the car and took off. I waited until they turned the corner and then
I got in my house real quick. The next night when I came home from work, the dogs
were gone.”

So, Mario was in business with a relative named Donte, some white guy with anger management
issues, and a gentleman named Torch who liked to set people on fire. Rough crowd.

“Roger, do you think you would recognize these guys if you saw them again?”

Roger shook his head. “Honey, I made it a point not to. If they thought I had the
potential to identify them in a line up, they might’ve killed me on the spot.”

I put down my sandwich mid bite. “Wow. No wonder you don’t want Candice to know.”

“Look, this may amount to a whole lot of nothin’, but I wanted someone to know—just
in case…”

*****

“You wanna keep them pearly whites? Tuck in your chin and get those hands up.”

I did as I was told and fended off a couple of sharp jabs. I even managed to throw
a quick counter punch. Although it never actually landed, Danny Jenkins, my sparring
partner, winked and assured me I was “doin’ just fine.” Danny works at my uncle’s
gym. He’s old enough to be my grandfather, but he’s the best trainer in Philly, and
I needed all the help I could get.

After my talk with Roger King, I’d resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going
to let this thing with Mario Lewis go. Something fishy was going on, and whatever
it was, it put King and his family in jeopardy. So, if I was going to stick my nose
in other people’s business, I had to learn how to protect it.

“I’d be careful, Danny. She’s short, but she’s scrappy,” a familiar voice teased from
ringside.

I peered over my shoulder and found DiCarlo watching me. He looked damn good in new
boxing trunks and a fresh, white tee shirt that showcased tanned, sculpted arms. Bobby
had shaved. It was a departure from his usual scruffy look. Plus, I couldn’t be sure,
but I thought I smelled cologne.

“Think I’ll take a break,” I told Danny and hopped out of the ring.

Bobby gave me his usual greeting. “Yo.”

“What’s the occasion?” I asked, taking in a whiff of
Polo Extreme Sport
. I recognized the scent from a shopping excursion with John, pre-Garrett, when he
was looking to “exude a manlier image” for some guy he’d met at a shoe sale at Barney’s.

DiCarlo shrugged. “No occasion. Can’t a guy smell nice every once in a while?”

Before I could come up with a clever retort, he asked, “What happened to your face?”
I guessed that was going to be the question of the week.

“Tripped over the cat. Listen, I need to talk to you about something. Got a minute?”

Bobby glanced at the front door. “Sure.”

We walked over to the bench, and he untied my gloves while I filled him in on my conversation
with Roger King. DiCarlo listened with the ear of a cop, taking mental notes, and
interrupting only to ask the occasional clarifying question.

“Mario and those guys were involved in some kind of business, probably something to
do with dog fighting,” I concluded. “And Mario screwed up the operation somehow, so
they killed him.”

“I don’t know, Brandy. That’s a really big assumption. Look, if they’d wanted him
dead, why would they wait until he was in the hospital with an armed guard standing
outside his door? They would have killed him that night. If anything, they were just
trying to scare Lewis.”

“They
would’ve
killed him that night, Bobby, if it hadn’t been for the one guy speaking up for him.
Something else must’ve happened to make them change their minds. But what?”

“Beats me. But I see where this is heading.” DiCarlo set his smoky blues on me. “Cut
yourself a break and stay out of this. And if your pal, Roger King, is so concerned
for his safety, he needs to talk to the cops.”

“Yeah?” I challenged. “Well, who’s gonna speak for the dogs? Listen, I’ve got a gut
feeling about this, Bobby. I saw with my own eyes what Lewis did to those puppies.
What if there’s more to that story? What if Lewis was only a small part of a much
bigger operation? What if—”

DiCarlo cut me off. “Okay, okay. I get it. Look,” he sighed, “if it was anybody else
talking about ‘gut feelings’ I’d say they were crazy. But it’s you, and I’ve never
known you to be wrong.”

Bobby ran his fingers through his hair, messing up the perfect “do” he had going.

“Listen,” he said, finally. “I heard from a buddy that’s working the case that the
night Lewis died, there was some sort of distraction on the floor. And the cop watching
his room left his post for a few minutes.”

I considered playing dumb, but if DiCarlo was willing to be honest with me, I had
to do the same. “I know,” I confessed.

“How the hell did you—ah, never mind.”

“According to my source (Mohindar, the future laundry mogul), it was an officer named
Carl Abrams. Can you get him to talk to me? Off the record, of course.”

“Not on a bet.”

“Don’t you mean you’ll think it over and get back to me?”

But Bobby had checked out. “Listen, Bran,” he said, standing up, “my, uh, sparring
partner’s here.”

I followed his gaze and spotted the blond cop from DiVinci’s headed our way. Oh. Now
the cologne, the shave, and the haircut all made sense.

“I’ll see ya later, okay?” And he was gone like a shot.
Crap.

*****

“My life sucks.”

“True,” Franny agreed and hand me her baby. “But this should cheer you up.”

Gazing down at my beautiful goddaughter lying in my lap, I watched in awe as she grabbed
my thumb in her tiny little baby hand.

“You are the sweetest thing ever,” I cooed. “How can people like Mario Lewis exist
in the world alongside someone as precious as you? Oh, look, Fran, she loves me. See
how she’s smiling?”

“That’s gas.”

“Oh…are you sure?”

“Yeah. But she really does love you, hon.” Franny wiped some spit-up off my sleeve
and tossed me a burp cloth. “You should feel honored. She doesn’t spit up on just
anyone.”

I suspected she did, but being desperate for approval, I didn’t argue the point.

We sat outside on Fran’s stoop slurping Italian ice and watching the neighborhood
kids play tag in the street. It was 90 degrees out, and the public pool was closed
for repairs, so someone had taken pity on them and opened up the fire hydrant.

“What kind of moron would open the hydrant?” Fran grumbled. “No wonder there’s no
water pressure in the house.”

I shrugged. “It was probably the guy up the street with the spider monkey. It just
seems like something he would do.”

A barefoot kid in knee-length swim trunks moved toward us. Discreetly I tried to shoo
him away, but he kept on coming. Maybe he was dyslexic and thought I meant “come closer.”
He stopped in front of me, one arm extended. “Hey, Lady. Here’s your pipe wrench back.
Thanks for the loan.”

Franny eyed me. “You’re such a pushover.”

“Well, it’s hot out. And look how much fun they’re having. Besides, it’s only slightly
illegal.” I put the wrench down next to me and handed the baby back to Fran. She placed
her in her infant swing and gave it a gentle shove.

“So where were we?” she said. “Oh yeah, your sucky life. By the way, I’m with Vince
and DiCarlo on the Lewis thing. Your life will suck way less if you just stay out
of it.”