by Ann McMan
Finally, J.C. yanked his ancient desk chair out and dropped down into it. That seemed like a courageous move to her. The thing groaned like it was on the verge of collapsing beneath his weight.
“What do you want?” he asked, in a more conversational tone. “Make it snappy. I got shit to do.”
“So, you were working a homicide last night. On 15th Street. Guy named Joey Mazzetta.”
“Yeah. So what?” She noticed J.C. slide some other papers over to cover up what he’d been looking at when she showed up.
“The priest you interviewed,” she reminded him. “The one who showed up at the Mazzettas’ house on South Bouvier? He’s a friend of mine. A good friend.”
J.C. held up his hands. “Again, I ask, so what?”
“So . . . what happened to Joey Mazzetta? I know he was shot and killed. Was it a robbery? Gang related? Drugs? What?”
He leaned toward her. “You know I can’t discuss any of that with you—even if I did know what happened. And I don’t.”
“C’mon, J.C. This ain’t your first rodeo. Joey was an out-of-work loser. Unarmed. Probably drunk. He was walking south on 15th Street in the middle of the night to meet a goddamn priest for pancakes at the Melrose Diner. He wasn’t a gang-banger, he wasn’t a drug dealer, and he wasn’t out lookin’ for love. What do you think happened to him? Were there any clues at the scene?”
He sat back in his chair. “So, you’re asking me to speculate?”
“Yeah. I’m asking you to speculate, J.C. It’s Joey Mazzetta we’re talking about. I know you remember him. He shot hoops with your brother, Luis.”
“Okay, Reed. Since we share such a sacred bond, I’ll tell you what I do know for sure. You might wanna take notes on this so you can remember it in the future. I’m a half-black, half-Puerto Rican fag named fucking Jesus, who’s managed, after six and a half years of bigoted bullshit, to make Detective in this shithole precinct. And what that means is that there’s no fucking way I’m going to blow all that up to help you jack off some rich, white politician who doesn’t give two fucks about the people who are stuck in this neighborhood because they’re too poor, too stupid or have the wrong goddamn skin color.” He grabbed one of the empty coffee mugs. “Now get the fuck out of my office and go play golf. I’ve got real work to do—for people who can’t afford to pay me.”
He pushed his creaking chair back, and stormed off—leaving her alone in a sea of ringing telephones.
That went better than I thought it would . . .
She pulled a small card out of her jacket pocket and tossed it on his desk before walking out.
She’d made it halfway to her car when her cell phone rang. She was relieved when she read the caller ID.
“What took you so long?”
“Hey,” J.C. said. “The walls in this fucking place have ears.”
“Yeah. I gathered. Nice performance. You always were a good actor.”
“It comes in useful sometimes. Listen . . . you wanna meet me someplace? Like in half an hour?”
“Sure. Just say where.”
“You know Stargazy?” he asked. “On East Passyunk?”
“No. But I’ll find it.”
“See you there.”
He hung up.
Good ol’ J.C.
She wondered if he still wore pirate shirts.
◊ ◊ ◊
Stargazy was a storefront, bangers and mash kind of place in what could only be called a “transitional” block on East Passyunk. It wasn’t quite lunchtime, but the joint was doing a steady business—mostly takeout, although the place had a few metal tables with mismatched chairs. Evan ordered a Pimms & lemonade, and sat down to wait on J.C.
Cops. They always knew the best places to eat.
J.C., for all his youthful fashion excesses, had always been a good kid. His father had been a beat cop in the same district where Joey earned his gold shield. Officer Alfonso Ortiz had been killed when he was dispatched to respond to a domestic dispute on McKean Street, only a few blocks from where Joey Mazzetta met his untimely end.
J.C. arrived exactly thirty minutes after his call. That impressed her. Most gay men she knew weren’t exactly punctual. In her experience, “Gay People’s Time” was more than just a charming expression.
J.C. pulled out a chair and sat down at her small table. Evan noticed that he was carrying a couple sheets of folded-up paper.
“Did you order anything?” he asked.
She held up her bottle. “Just this.”
“Trust me to order for you? It’ll save time.”
“Sure.”
“Cool.” He swiveled on his chair and signaled to the big man behind the counter. “Hey, Sam? Bring us two of those beef and onion pies with mash and parsley liquor. Same tab.”
Sam gave him a thumbs-up.
J.C. turned back to face Evan. “I assume you’re buying?”
“It’s the least I can do for making you queer.”
“Yeah. Mom still talks about that, you know.”
“How is Sofia?” Evan asked.
“Pregnant. She’s on her fourth one.”
“Damn, four kids?”
“Fuck no.” He laughed. “Fourth husband.”
“That girl never could commit.”
J.C. laughed.
Evan thought that if J.C.’s detective gig didn’t work out, he could always make a living as a Differio model. He really looked great.
“You know,” he said, “Mrs. Mazzetta cooked food for our family for more than a month after Pop was killed—longer than anyone else. Even after the women’s guild at the Tabernacle stopped coming, she kept at it. Every couple of days, she’d show up in that POS car of hers and unload shit. Lasagna. Casseroles. Even cakes. And she had to be doing all of that at night, after she got home from her job at the Acme.” J.C. drummed his fingers on the table. “Joey was always a total asshole. He used to call me ‘butt plug’ in school. But I’ll never forget how nice his Mom was to us. She didn’t deserve this.”
“Nobody does,” Evan said.
J.C. stopped drumming. “I suppose we should save our reminiscing for another time.” Sam brought J.C.’s complimentary tea over and deposited it on the table. “Thanks, man,” J.C. said to him. He dipped his Darjeeling tea bag in and out of the steaming cup. “So, you wanna know about Joey?”
“Yeah. Tim Donovan is my best friend.”
J.C. raised a perfect eyebrow. “A priest is your best friend? What the fuck? You get religion or something?”
“Or something,” Evan said. “But Joey also happens to be tangentially involved in another case I’m working on. So it’s possible that his death was related to that.”
“You wanna say more about why you think that?”
“I will after you tell me why you might think I might be right.”
“I never could fool you.” He unfolded the papers he’d brought along. “Joey was shot twice at close range—in the back. No gun at the scene.”
“Tim said his wallet was lying beside his body.”
“That’s right. It was empty—meaning no cash. But his Discover Card and driver’s license were still in it.” J.C. shrugged. “He also had a couple of prepaid Visa cards. No way to know if they had any balances left on them, but whoever capped him didn’t seem interested in those.”
“Meaning you don’t think it was a robbery?”
“No. For starters, muggers don’t usually shoot people in the back.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah.” He pushed what looked like a ballistics report across the table toward her. “We recovered two shell casings at the scene. Both of them were rimless, bottlenecked shells. You can see them here.” He pointed out the scans of the casings. “They’re stamped S&B—Sellier & Bellot—pretty distinctive shells. They were unusual enough that when the M.E. removed the rounds from Mazzetta, we rushed them over to the local ATF office. They did us a solid and ran an integrated ballistics ID report. Turns out we had a perfect match for a
Tokarev 7.62.”
“What?”
‘Right.” J.C. nodded his head. “Not the usual sidearm favored by your common junkie who’s out looking for quick cash.”
“Isn’t that a Soviet-era firearm?” Evan asked.
“Good guess. The TT30 is a single stack, suppressed pistol that was the weapon of choice in Soviet bloc countries back in the ’30s. They’re not common around here, but you can get them from collectors. And the M.E. who removed the rounds from Joey said the fabric tears and powder burns were consistent with this type of weapon—fast and powerful. They tore Joey up pretty good.”
“Jesus.”
“You rang?” He smirked at her.
Evan laughed before taking a moment to assess everything J.C. had shared. “Shit. This wasn’t what I thought you’d say.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty much a goat fuck. And that’s not all. Apparently, your pal Joey had a busy night—before he ended up face down in that alley.”
“What do you mean?”
J.C. flipped to another page in the papers he’d brought along. “It seems he broke into some high-brow private club on South Broad Street and stumbled his way into the dining room—where he proceeded to start popping off at some of the bluebloods who were in there, stuffing their faces with Beluga caviar. Somebody called the cops, but by the time they got there, club security had already tossed his drunk ass out on the street.”
“Did they press charges?” Evan asked, knowing full well they probably hadn’t.
“Nope. Surprised?”
“Not really. What time did all that happen?”
J.C. consulted the copy of the police report. “About 8 p.m.”
“That’s four hours before he called Tim.”
“Yeah. That’s what Donovan said when he gave his statement.” J.C. drank some of his tea. “Mazzetta must’ve used that time to keep bar hopping.”
Evan didn’t want to ask her next question, but she knew she had to.
“What’s the name of the club?”
“Let’s see . . . The Galileo Club. It’s on a corner of South Broad Street.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Corner? Shit. It’s the whole fucking block.”
Evan felt sick, and it wasn’t the Pimms.
Sam was headed their way with two heaping plates of food. Great.
J.C. picked up his papers, refolded them, and tucked them into his jacket pocket. “Sorry. Can’t let you keep these.”
“No sweat. Thanks for sharing.”
Sam left their plates and some silverware wrapped in paper napkins. “Lemme know if you need a refill, J.C.,” he said.
“Will do. Thanks, man.” J.C. slid the grease-stained check across the table toward Evan. “Yours, I think.”
“Yeah.” Evan picked it up and tucked it beneath the edge of her plate. The steam rising off the parsley liquor was making her feel woozy.
Who was she kidding? It wasn’t the food. The food was fine. It was this whole damn mess. This case was an ongoing nightmare showing no signs of ending any time soon.
And now Julia’s father was right in the goddamn middle of it.
J.C. was already digging into his food.
“So, Evangeline,” he said. “It’s your turn to share. Tell me why you think Joey was murdered.”
“Yeah. About that.” Evan sat back and ran a hand through her short hair. “How much time do you get for lunch?”
◊ ◊ ◊
Dan and Kayla arrived at Evan’s house about fifteen minutes early. Tim and Stevie had already returned from Stevie’s driver’s ed lesson, but Evan was still a no-show. Before leaving, Evan had tasked the pair with sweeping off the back porch, in the event it warmed up enough that the party might be able sit outside. Temperatures were rumored to reach into the low fifties.
Julia doubted that would happen.
After greeting her father in the driveway, Stevie informed him that they only had about five minutes’ more work to do before joining the group inside.
Evan’s not being at home was like the ring of a coffin nail for Dan.
Julia wasn’t worried, although Dan rarely missed an opportunity to grouse about anything related to Evan’s behavior.
“She knew we were getting here at two, right?” He handed a bottle of nondescript wine to Julia. “This is pretty shitty.”
“Relax, Dan.” Kayla nudged him. “She probably got held up.”
He huffed. “Held up. That’s about right. Where the fuck is she?”
“I’m not sure,” Julia said apologetically. “She had a meeting in town. Why don’t you two go sit down? I’ll get us some glasses.”
“Let me help you, Julia.” Kayla followed Julia into the kitchen.
“I’ll go out and hang with Tim and Stevie until Evan gets here,” Dan said.
Julia had only met Kayla twice before, and both occasions had been fairly abbreviated encounters. But she liked her. Kayla was smart and vivacious—but not in an obnoxious, millennial way. Kayla’s energy was more about her personal drive and determination to work hard enough to earn the notice of a more mainstream news outlet. She’d been at Media Matters for about eighteen months when Dan first met her. She’d been assigned to a team of environmental impact reporters tasked with promoting green energy policy initiatives, and Dan was working with a couple of congressional campaigns where fossil fuel debates were hot-button issues.
The first time Dan asked Kayla out, he’d had the very great misfortune to run into Evan and Julia at CHIKO, a Chinese-Korean fusion restaurant on 8th Street near Capitol Hill. Evan later laughed like hell at Dan’s obvious embarrassment about being busted on what clearly was a date with someone young enough to be his daughter. Thankfully, she managed to behave better than expected, and the two couples chatted amiably for a few minutes before they were seated at different tables. Julia had to kick Evan beneath the table—twice—to get her to stop snickering whenever she looked over at Dan’s table.
“Stop it,” Julia hissed. “Behave yourself.”
“Will you quit kicking me?” Evan rubbed her chin. “It’s going to leave a mark.”
“You’re the one who’s going to leave a mark if you don’t start acting like a grown-up.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Evan was still rubbing her leg.
“It means they’re obviously on a date. Judging by Dan’s mortification at running into us, I’d venture a guess that it’s a first date. If you keep acting out, there probably won’t be a second.”
“I’m not acting out.”
“Oh, really?” Julia leaned forward across the small table and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “How would you characterize your demeanor?”
“I’m just . . .” Evan fiddled with her water glass. “Curious.”
“Curious? If I didn’t know you better, I’d be jealous.”
Evan looked shell-shocked by her comment. “You’re not, are you?”
As tempted as Julia had been to let her twist in the wind a bit, she relented. “No. I’m not.”
“Good,” Evan seemed to relax. “It’s nothing like that. It could never be.”
“It’s comforting to hear that. So if your nose isn’t out of joint because Dan’s actually out on a date with someone, then what is bugging you?”
Evan seemed to balk at Julia’s question. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No,” Julia said “I don’t believe I am.”
It was Evan’s turn to lean forward over the table. “Did you see her?” she whispered.
“Of course I did. There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight, except a bit of early-onset presbyopia.”
“And?”
“And, what?”
“Come on, Julia. She’s practically Stevie’s age.”
“That’s an overstatement, and you know it. Besides, what possible relevance does it have? I should be shocked that you, of all people, would display such churlish prejudice.”
“Churlish?” Evan appeared miffed by Julia’s comment.
> “That’s what I’d call expressions of baseless ageism.”
“Ageism?” Now Evan simply looked baffled.
“Are you going to continue to repeat everything I say?” Julia said. “If so, this is going to be a very dull evening.”
Evan sat back and stared at the tabletop for a moment. Then she cut her eyes up at Julia and gave her a sly smile.
“It’s really sexy when you get pissed. It’s like getting dressed-down by Dixie Carter.”
“Except for the accent . . .”
“Well,” Evan said. “There is that.”
Julia stared at the ceiling. “I love you, but sometimes you act like a sophomoric frat boy.”
“Oh, yeah?” Evan waggled her brows. “I can think of a few occasions where that behavior was actually to your liking.”
“Don’t prevaricate. Let’s try to stay in the moment.”
“Oh, I’m in the moment, all right. If I were any more in the moment, I’d slide right off my chair.”
Julia laughed. “It’s good to see that your sense of humor has returned. Now can you try to focus that good energy and fucking leave those two alone for the rest of their meal?”
“Ohhhhh. Profanity. That ain’t helpin’ your cause, Miz Julia.”
Julia raised an eyebrow. “Keep it up. I’m sure you and the rest of your Designing Women will enjoy a night on the sofa.”
“Okay, okay.” Evan reached a hand across the table to take hold of Julia’s arm. “I’ll behave.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my black heart.”
To be fair, Evan had managed to constrain herself for the rest of that evening . . . mostly. But ever since, she’d been engaged in a nonstop diatribe about the root of Dan’s foolishness. And that editorializing shifted into high gear when he and Kayla had got married last year. This gathering today would give Evan her first real shot at exercising her recent pledge to be more understanding and less judgmental.
It was anybody’s guess how successful she’d be sticking with her recent resolution when she finally got home.
Julia stole a surreptitious look at her watch. Evan was now twenty minutes late. It wasn’t like her to be tardy—and even less like her not to call or text if she were running late.
