The Charlie Parker Collection 2

by John Connolly

  And all of these thoughts and reflections he added to his notes.

  Mickey checked into a hotel over by Penn Station, a typical tourist trap with a warren of tiny rooms occupied by noisy but polite Asians, and families of rubes trying to see New York on the cheap. By late that afternoon he was sitting in what was, by his standards, and the standards of most other people who weren’t bums, a dive bar, and considering what he could order without endangering his health. He wanted coffee, but this looked like the kind of place where ordering coffee for any reason unconnected with a hangover would be frowned upon, if not considered actual evidence of homosexual leanings. In fact, thought Mickey, even washing one’s hands after visiting the restroom might be viewed as suspect in a hole like this.

  There was a bar menu beside him, and a list of specials chalked on a board that might as well have been written in Sanskrit, they’d been there so long and unchanged, but nobody was eating. Nobody was doing much of anything, because Mickey was the only person in the place, the bartender excepted, and he looked like he’d consumed nothing but human growth hormone for the past decade or so. He bulged in places where no normal person should have bulged. There were even bulges on his bald head, as though the top of his skull had developed muscles so as not to feel excluded from the rest of his body.

  ‘Get you something?’ His voice was pitched higher than Mickey had anticipated. He wondered if it was something to do with the steroids. There were peculiar swellings on the bartender’s chest, as though his breasts had grown secondary breasts of their own. He was so tan that he seemed to fade into the wood and grime of the bar. To Mickey, he looked like a pair of women’s stockings that had been stuffed with footballs.

  ‘I’m waiting for someone.’

  ‘Well, order something while you’re waiting. Look on it as rent for the stool.’

  ‘Friendly place,’ said Mickey.

  ‘You want friends, call the Samaritans. This is a business.’

  Mickey ordered a light beer. He rarely drank before nightfall, and even then he tended to limit his intake to a beer or two, the night of the visit to Parker’s house excepted, and that night had been exceptional in so many ways. He wasn’t thirsting for a beer now, and even the thought of sipping it made him feel queasy, but he wasn’t about to offend someone who looked like he could turn Mickey inside out and back again before he’d even realized what was happening. The beer arrived. Mickey stared at it, and the beer stared back. Its head began to disappear, as though responding in kind to Mickey’s lack of enthusiasm for it.

  The door opened, and a man stepped inside. He was tall, with the natural bulk of someone who had never felt the need to use any form of artificial growth enhancers stronger than meat and milk. He wore a long blue overcoat that hung open, revealing a substantial gut. His hair was short and very white. His nose was red, and not just from the cold wind outside. Mickey realized that he’d made the right choice in ordering a beer.

  ‘Hey,’ said the bartender. ‘It’s the Captain. Long time, no see.’

  He reached out a hand, and the newcomer took it and shook it warmly, using his free hand to slap the man’s substantial upper arm.

  ‘How you doin’, Hector? See you’re still using that shit.’

  ‘Keeps me big and lean, Captain.’

  ‘You’ve grown tits, and you must be shaving your back twice a day.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll keep it long, give the boys something to hold on to.’

  ‘You’re a deviant, Hector.’

  ‘And proud of it. What can I get you? First one is on the house.’

  ‘That’s decent of you, Hector. A Redbreast, if you don’t mind, to get the cold out of my bones.’

  He walked down to the end of the bar where Mickey was sitting.

  ‘You Wallace?’ he asked.

  Mickey stood up. He was about five-ten, and the newcomer towered over him by seven or eight inches.

  ‘Captain Tyrrell.’ They shook hands. ‘I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.’

  ‘Well, after Hector has obliged me, the drinks are on you.’

  ‘It’ll be my pleasure.’

  Hector placed a substantial glass of whiskey, untroubled by ice or water, beside Tyrrell’s right hand. Tyrrell gestured to a booth against the back wall. ‘Let’s take our drinks down there. You eaten yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They do a good hamburger here. You eat hamburger?’

  Mickey doubted that this place did a good anything, but he knew better than to refuse.

  ‘Yes. A hamburger sounds fine.’

  Tyrrell raised a hand and shouted the order to Hector: two hamburgers, medium, with all the trimmings. Medium, thought Mickey. Jesus. He’d prefer it charred to within an inch of its life in the hope of killing whatever bacteria might have taken up residence in the meat. Hell, this might be the last burger he ever ate.

  Hector duly entered the order on a surprisingly modern-looking register, even if he operated it like a monkey.

  ‘Wallace: that’s a good Irish name,’ said Tyrrell.

  ‘Irish-Belgian.’

  ‘That’s some mix.’

  ‘Europe. The war.’

  Tyrrell’s face softened unpleasantly with sentimentality, like a marshmallow melting. ‘My grandfather served in Europe. Royal Irish Fusiliers. Got shot for his troubles.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

  ‘Ah, he didn’t die. Lost his left leg below the knee, though. They didn’t have prosthetics then, or not like they do now. He used to pin up his trouser leg every morning. Think he was kind of proud of it.’

  He raised his glass to Mickey.

  ‘Sláinte,’ he said.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Mickey. He took a mouthful of beer. Mercifully, it was so cold that he could barely taste it. He reached into his satchel and produced a notebook and pen.

  ‘Straight down to business,’ said Tyrrell.

  ‘If you’d prefer to wait . . .’

  ‘Nah, it’s good.’

  Mickey took a little Olympus digital voice recorder from his jacket pocket, and showed it to Tyrrell.

  ‘Would you object if—?’

  ‘Yes, I would. Put it away. Better still, take the batteries out and leave that thing where I can see it.’

  Mickey did as he was told. It would make things more difficult, but Mickey had reasonable shorthand and a good memory. In any case, he wouldn’t be quoting Tyrrell directly. This was background, and deep background. Tyrrell had been quite clear about that when he had agreed to meet with Mickey. If his name appeared anywhere near the book, he’d stomp Mickey’s fingers until they looked like corkscrews.

  ‘Tell me some more about this book you’re writing.’

  So Mickey did. He left out the more artistic and philosophical elements of his proposal, and tried to tread as neutral a path as possible as he described his interest in Parker. Although he hadn’t yet ascertained Tyrrell’s views on the subject, he suspected that they were largely negative, if only because, so far, anyone who liked or respected Parker had refused point-blank to talk to him.

  ‘And have you met Parker?’ asked Tyrrell.

  ‘I have. I approached him about an interview.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He sucker-punched me in the gut.’

  ‘That’s him all right. He’s a sonofabitch, a thug. And that’s not the worst of it.’

  He took a sip of his whiskey. It was already half gone.

  ‘You want another one?’ asked Mickey.

  ‘Sure.’

  Mickey turned to the bar. He didn’t even have to order. Hector just nodded and went for the bottle.

  ‘So, what do you want to know about him?’ said Tyrrell.

  ‘I want to know what you know.’

  And Tyrrell began to talk. He spoke first of Parker’s father, who had killed two young people in a car and then taken his own life. He could offer no insights into the killings, beyond suggesting there was something wrong with the father
that had passed itself on to the son: a faulty gene, perhaps; a predilection toward violence.

  The hamburgers arrived, along with Tyrrell’s second drink. Tyrrell ate, but Mickey did not. He was too busy taking notes, or that would be his excuse if he were asked.

  ‘We think the first man he killed was named Johnny Friday,’ said Tyrrell. ‘He was a pimp, beaten to death in the washroom of a bus station. He was no loss to the world, but that’s not the point.’

  ‘Why do you suspect Parker?’

  ‘Because he was there. Cameras picked him up entering and leaving the station during the killing window.’

  ‘Were there cameras on the bathroom door?’

  ‘There were cameras everywhere, but he didn’t appear on them. We just got him entering and leaving the station.’

  Mickey was puzzled. ‘How could that be?’

  For the first time, Tyrrell looked uncertain. ‘I don’t know. The cameras weren’t fixed then, except for the ones on the doors. It was a cost-cutting measure. They moved from side to side. I guess he timed them, then moved in conjunction with them.’

  ‘Difficult to do, though.’

  ‘Difficult. Not impossible. Still, it was odd.’

  ‘Was he interviewed?’

  ‘We had a witness who placed him at the scene: washroom attendant. Guy was Korean. Couldn’t speak more than about three words of English, but he picked out Parker’s image from the door cameras. Well, he picked out Parker’s image as one of five possibles from a series of images. Trouble was, we all looked alike to him. Of those five people, four were as different from one another as I am from you. Anyway, Parker was hauled in, and agreed to be questioned. He didn’t even lawyer up. He admitted to being at the bus station, but nothing more than that. Said it was in connection with some runaway he’d been asked to find. It checked out. He was working a teen case at the time.’

  ‘And that’s as far as it went?’

  ‘There wasn’t enough to charge him on, and no appetite for it anyway. Here was an ex-cop who had lost his wife and child only months before. He may not have been loved by his fellow officers, but cops support their own in times of trouble. It would have been a more unpopular case to prosecute than charging Goldilocks with burglary. And like I said, Johnny Friday was no Eagle Scout. A lot of people out there felt that someone had done humanity a service by taking him off the team permanently.’

  ‘Why wasn’t Parker popular?’

  ‘Dunno. He wasn’t meant to be a cop. He never fit in. There was always something odd about him.’

  ‘So why did he join?’

  ‘Some misplaced loyalty to his old man’s memory, I suppose. Maybe he thought he could make up for those kids’ deaths by being a better cop than his father was. You ask me, it’s about the only admirable thing he ever did.’

  Mickey let that slide. He was startled by the depths of Tyrrell’s bitterness toward Parker. He couldn’t figure out what Parker might have done to deserve it, short of burning Tyrrell’s house down and then screwing his wife in the ashes.

  ‘You said that Johnny Friday was the first killing. There were others?’

  ‘I’d guess so.’

  ‘You’d guess?’

  Tyrrell signaled for a third whiskey. He was slowing down some, but he was also getting tetchy.

  ‘Look, most are a matter of record: here, in Louisiana, in Maine, in Virginia, in South Carolina. He’s like the Grim Reaper, or cancer. If those are the ones that we know about, don’t you think there are others that we don’t know about? You think he called the cops every time he or one of his buddies punched someone’s clock?’

  ‘His buddies? You mean the men known as Angel and Louis?’

  ‘Shadows,’ said Tyrrell softly. ‘Shadows with teeth.’

  ‘What can you tell me about them?’

  ‘Rumors, mostly. Angel, he did time for theft. From what I can tell, Parker might have used him as a source, and in return he offered him protection.’

  ‘So it started out as a professional relationship?’

  ‘You could say that. The other one, Louis, he’s harder to pin down. No arrests, no history: he’s a wraith. There was some stuff last year. An auto shop he was reputed to have a silent interest in got targeted. A guy, one of the shooters, ended up in the hospital, then died a week later of his injuries. After that—’

  Hector appeared at his elbow and replaced an empty glass with a full one. Tyrrell paused to take a mouthful.

  ‘Well, this is where it gets strange. One of Louis’s friends, business partners, whatever, he died too. They said that he had a heart attack, but I heard different. One of the mortuary attendants said that they had to fill in a bullet hole in his throat.’

  ‘Who did it? Louis?’

  ‘Nah, he doesn’t hurt those close to him. He’s not that kind of killer. The whispers were that this was a revenge raid gone wrong.’

  ‘That’s what he was doing up in Massena,’ said Mickey, more to himself than to Tyrrell, who didn’t seem to notice anyway.

  ‘They’re like him: they’re being looked after,’ said Tyrrell.

  ‘Looked after?’

  ‘A man doesn’t get to do what Parker has done, to kill with impunity, unless someone is watching his back.’

  ‘The ones on record were justifiable homicides, I heard.’

  ‘Justifiable! You don’t find it strange that none of them ever even made it to the steps of a court, that every investigation into his actions exonerated him or just petered out?’

  ‘You’re talking about a conspiracy.’

  ‘I’m talking about protection. I’m talking about people with a vested interest in keeping Parker on the streets.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Could be because they approve of what he’s done.’

  ‘But he’s lost his PI’s license. He can’t own a firearm.’

  ‘He can’t legally carry a firearm in the state of Maine. You can be damned sure he has guns squirreled away somewhere.’

  ‘What I’m saying is, if there was a conspiracy to protect him, then something has changed.’

  ‘Not enough to land him behind bars, where he belongs.’ Tyrrell rapped an index finger on the table to emphasize his point.

  Mickey leaned back. He had filled pages and pages of notes. His hand ached. He watched Tyrrell. The older man was staring into his third glass. They’d been huge measures, as big as any Mickey had ever seen poured in a bar. Had he himself drunk that much alcohol he would be asleep by now. Tyrrell was still upright, but he was on the ropes. Mickey wasn’t going to get anything more of use from him.

  ‘Why do you hate him so much?’

  ‘Huh?’ Tyrrell looked up. Even through a fug of progressive intoxication, he was still surprised by the directness of the question.

  ‘Parker. Why do you hate him?’

  ‘Because he’s a killer.’

  ‘Just that?’

  Tyrrell blinked slowly. ‘No. Because he’s wrong. He’s all wrong. It’s like – It’s like he doesn’t cast a shadow, or there’s no reflection when he looks in a mirror. He seems normal, but then you look closer and he isn’t. He’s an aberration, an abomination.’

  Christ, thought Mickey.

  ‘You go to church?’ asked Tyrrell.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should. A man ought to go to church. Helps him to keep himself in perspective.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  Tyrrell looked up, his face transformed. Mickey had overstepped the mark.

  ‘Don’t get smart with me, boy. Look at you, scrabbling in the dirt, hoping to make a few bucks off another man’s life. You’re a parasite. You don’t believe in anything. I believe. I believe in God, and I believe in the law. I know right from wrong, good from evil. I’ve spent my life living by those beliefs. I cleaned out precinct after precinct in this city, rooting out the ones who thought that being lawmen made them above the law. Well, I showed them the error of their ways. Nobody should be ab
ove the law, especially not cops, doesn’t matter if they wear a badge now or wore one ten years ago, twenty years ago. I found the ones who stole, who ripped off dealers and whores, who dispensed their version of street justice in alleyways and empty apartments, and I brought them to book. I called them on it, and I found them wanting.

  ‘Because there is a process in place. There is a system of justice. It’s imperfect, and it doesn’t always work the way it should, but it’s the best we have. And anyone – anyone – who steps outside that system to act as judge, jury, and executioner on others is an enemy of that system. Parker is an enemy of that system. His friends are enemies of that system. By their actions, they render it acceptable for others to act the same way. Their violence begets more violence. You cannot perform acts of evil in the name of a greater good, because the good suffers. It is corrupted and polluted by what has been done in its name. Do you understand, Mr. Wallace? These are gray men. They shift the boundaries of morality to suit themselves, and they use the ends to justify the means. That is unacceptable to me, and if you have a shred of decency, it should be unacceptable to you too.’ He pushed the glass away. ‘We’re finished here.’

  ‘But what if others won’t act, can’t act?’ asked Mickey. ‘Is it better to let evil go unchecked than to sacrifice a little of the good to resist it?’

  ‘And who decides that?’ asked Tyrrell. He was swaying slightly as he pulled on his coat, struggling to find the armholes. ‘You? Parker? Who decides what is an acceptable level of good to sacrifice? How much evil has to be committed in the name of good before it becomes an evil in itself ?’

  He patted his pockets, and heard the satisfying jangle of his keys. Mickey hoped that they weren’t car keys.

  ‘Go write your book, Mr. Wallace. I won’t be reading it. I don’t think you’ll have anything to tell me that I don’t already know. I’ll give you one piece of advice for free, though. No matter how bad his friends are, Parker is worse. I’d step lightly when I’m asking about them, and maybe I’d be inclined to leave them out of your story altogether, but Parker is lethal because he believes that he’s on a crusade. I hope that you expose him for the wretch he is, but I’d watch my back all the way.’