Every officer stood with his or her gun pointed in Jimmy’s direction, finger around the trigger.
Not again, not Marisa, Steel thought, and his throat tingled; he swallowed hard but couldn’t muster up any saliva, as if his mouth were stuffed with cotton balls.
He locked eyes with Marisa, and she stared straight into his own, her body twisted and contorted, her fingertips gripping Jimmy’s forearm, the barrel of the gun indenting the soft skin of her temple. She looked stoic, save for her eyes that didn’t blink since Jimmy had grabbed her, but Steel knew she was terrified. He angled his gun toward Jimmy, both hands around it, his back slightly bent over, finger on the trigger. His body trembled from anxiety but he shook it off.
“Drop your weapon, Jimmy!” he yelled.
Steel’s chest heaved, so he sucked back air, closed his mouth, wanted Jimmy to think he was composed. His eyesight got fuzzy and a flashback of the body on the ground and the EMTs slamming ambulance doors and the mangled human remains at the bottom of the highway from last summer circled in his mind in quick, sharp images and sounds as if he were watching a movie in fast forward mode but with sound. His heart pounded in hard, warm thuds. Sweat swept over his body. He blinked, shook his head. But he was reliving it. His legs got wobbly and he wanted to vomit but squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard, flipped open each eyelid, the day’s natural light causing pain behind his eyeballs.
“Let her go,” Steel forced out in a low, jumbled voice. “She didn’t do anything to you. I’ll put a bullet in your fuckin’ head right now you son of a bitch.”
Jimmy’s eyeballs were red and icy and crazy and tears trickled down his face and sank into his beard. “How does it feel, Steel?” Jimmy said, crying hysterically. “To be powerless, to get fucked in the end?”
Steel gripped the gun tight, knew it was Jimmy’s question to mankind and not to him personally, attempting to justify the evil actions and course he had decided to take, to make himself a victim, to save face for crossing over and descending into darkness.
Jimmy frowned and curled his bicep and tightened his hold of Marisa, dragged the gun down to her neck. She grimaced and slammed her eyes shut, and Steel’s neck warmed as if Jimmy were digging into his own, as if he were in Marisa’s place. Steel lunged forward, rage exploding in his gut, his extremities tingling. He wanted to rip Jimmy’s throat out with his bare hands.
Jimmy’s eyes sprung open and he dug his gun deeper into the crook of Marisa’s neck. She shrieked. “Don’t move another inch, Steel, or I’ll fucking kill her. I swear I will.”
Steel took a step back, didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say. Wind blew from behind Jimmy and hit Steel and he could almost sense the evil seeping off Jimmy, hear demons laughing in the breeze.
Jimmy yelled, tears streaking his red cheeks, “How does it feel?” Now he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Tell me! Tell me how it fucking feels to be helpless, to be someone else’s door-fucking-mat?” His lips creased and his eyes bulged. “Tell meeeeeeee!”
Steel’s eyes zoned in on Jimmy’s forehead. He squeezed a finger along the trigger. The gun cocked back against his palm. He fired one shot, the pop like a single firecracker, the cloud of gunpowder residue thick in the air like a burned steak at a barbeque.
The moment froze, went in slow motion. The bullet ripped through Jimmy’s forehead and snapped his head back. A blast of blood sprayed from the hole and splashed the pavement. His arms flung up in the air from shock and he dropped head-first and cracked his skull against the cement. Puddles of blood slithered into the cracks in the pavement. Jimmy twitched and trembled, his eyes wide open. He gasped and spit up blood, choking and wheezing for air until the life left his body. He lay motionless, dead, unable to inflict pain on anyone else any longer.
Snapping lights from cameras and more gasps and yells and crying, and, to Steel’s surprise, applause carried over in a tunnel of wind from the park and echoed together like a crowd in a stadium at a sporting event.
The officers surrounding the scene rushed over to Jimmy’s lifeless body and began conversing with the hostages and waving over the paramedics who ran through yellow caution tape in navy blue pants and navy blue shirts with blue gloves over their hands.
Steel hurried over to Marisa, slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him, the warmth of the flesh of her cheek on his own. The warmth of love. He didn’t want to let go and cradled her head against his chest, ran his fingertips through her soft hair and warm scalp. He inhaled and exhaled and breathed out the air against her hair, stayed in the embrace, almost forgot there were others there, almost forgot they weren’t alone in their own universe. At this moment, he wished he could have articulated a little better to Jimmy what he meant by the meaning of life was love, wished Jimmy could have seen it first hand as he hugged Marisa.
Williams and Raynes patted Steel’s shoulders from behind. Steel released his grip of Marisa, shook their hands, and walked to the far end of the building and cut up a small alleyway, out of sight from the scene, no one could see him. He was alone, and his conscience was getting to him, the thoughts in his head beating up his brain. He vomited into a green trash dumpster filled with black and white bags that stunk of urine and sour food until his throat was sore and his eyeballs were bloodshot, until his mouth tasted like he’d eaten a pound of raw ground beef. A wave of guilt rolled over him, and he trembled, couldn’t stop, fear that he thought would never disappear. He could barely move without getting nauseated. His fingers twitched and he couldn’t breathe and he wanted to run for miles to escape his own presence. Even though Jimmy had killed all of those people and wanted to kill more, Steel’s gut burned and he could barely lift his arms, a reminder that he had killed another man, taken a person from this Earth, even if just doing his job. It was the first time he’d had to kill in his young career. He’d been shot at and had shot at people, but it never ended in death. Steel always valued mercy over justice, in allowing a person to get right with God while being justly punished or imprisoned by the society they had betrayed, but he’d had no choice but to kill the man. He pulled his head from the dumpster and peeked at the cloudy gray sky, almost collapsed, his body still shaking, as though this emptiness and fear was now his new reality. He pleaded with whatever deity was up there for forgiveness, for guidance to accept the fact that he’d played God for a day. He dropped his kneecaps into the ground and pounded the cement with balled up fists, dry heaved, a few tears dripping down his face until he sniffed them away, as though this affliction would follow him around beyond this moment, that he’d stay this way forever.
After a few moments, he wandered back over to the scene and his legs still trembled from fear and anxiety and his dexterity was off as his steps were wide and off balance, his calf muscles Jell-O. Through blurry vision, he noticed the paramedics flipping Jimmy’s body onto a stretcher and he felt like shit, rotten, tainted, that his soul had darkened, his spiritual growth thwarted. Rationally, he knew it was what he’d signed up for, and that killing when necessary was part of the job, that it was Marisa’s life on the line. But his mind also reminded him that in the big scheme of things the police were just people going after other people, the rules to kill all man-made. He knew he had done the right thing, but also knew that no one could ever know how they’d feel the moment after taking another’s life. His emotional turmoil and feelings erased any logic his mind spit out. He was exhausted and drained. His heart rate slowed to a tired beat, its muscles sore and ticking with effort. His breathing almost stopped, but he took a deep breath. He tipped his head, and it throbbed, foggy and confused.
Marisa brushed by him and slid a hand through the back of his hair and his scalp tingled.
She whispered a warm breath in his ear, “You did the right thing, Benny. You did what you had to do.”
His body shuddered and he fought back sharp tears and wanted to die but forced a nod and pulled her close to him, didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to leave but knew
he had to. He hoped she was right, hoped the deity had heard her words.
48
S
teel squinted up at the sky and the top of the Earth was a sea of baby blue, not one visible cloud. A silver airplane soared through the blue, a white strip of gas trailing behind. The sun was so bright it turned the tan payments white and reflected sharp flashes of light off glass windows of buildings and cars. The temperatures were in the high-forties, high for January 1st, and the sun’s warmth mimicked a summer day and was a relief from the frigid weather Philadelphia had been experiencing that past week.
Although roughly just over a week since the case had opened, and just days after it had closed, Steel knew it was one that would lay heavy on his mind for a long time. He had killed a man and struggled to get the image of Jimmy’s lifeless body out of his head, the blood pouring from his mouth still etched in his memories which recurred throughout the day. He had killed him, what would God think? What would he become? He didn’t know and reasoned that he had just done his job. But even thinking of that question made his body shake, made salty tears sting behind his eyes. He never envisioned he’d feel this way after doing his duty, but deep down he knew he’d get over it, just not yet, the case still raw and fresh. Jimmy had had a family, his kids would be fatherless because of Steel. He knew Jimmy wouldn’t have been around to see his children but maybe he could have made peace with God and had his kids visit him in prison. Steel had replayed the standoff over and over in his mind and tossed around different endings over that week, just like the movies, maybe a sniper shooting Jimmy in the shoulder, or if he’d just waited another minute, Jimmy may have come to his senses. But he also considered that Jimmy was a piece of shit who got what he had coming to him, that he stopped a monster who murdered six people for fun. His emotions and thoughts mixed and shifted from “Fuck Jimmy” to “Poor Jimmy” to “What did I do?” to “He deserved it,” and he felt oddly powerful but equally terrible for taking another man’s life. It was odd, Steel couldn’t explain it, concluded that the mind was a strange place.
Steel stopped at the corner of Broad and Wolf in South Philly, in front of the Methodist Hospital and across the street from 711. Marisa had suggested they stop by The Mummers Parade, and he agreed since he hadn’t been there since he was a kid.
Broad Street was blocked off for the event and long-standing tradition that was aired nationally. Yellow-painted wooden guardrails lined the front of each curb on either side of the large two-way street, and a few uniformed officers kept the road clear and prepared for the next act and floats. Swarms of people tightly packed in on each side, behind the guardrails, waving their arms, pressing their lips to horns and sounding off, whistling, laughing, conversing with old friends and neighbors while shouting across the street to one another. Street vendors gripped tongs and flipped and twirled hot dogs on silver carts and the clouds of burned meat floated through the air. Locals who were looking to make a few extra dollars set up small stands that sold water bottles, warm soft pretzels, horns, silly string and glittering silver hats with Happy New Year written across the center. Little kids sprayed the silly string, and small children’s legs wrapped around their fathers’ shoulders viewing the festivities. Everyone was happy, laughing, smiling, hugging family and friends who they hadn’t seen in a while. The horns and laughter and thousands of voices mixed together in conversation and lingered in the background and reverberated in a high-pitched wave throughout the streets. Every so often Steel heard an Eagles chant of “E-A-G-L-E-S—Eagles!” and a random shout of “Happy New Year,” followed by a collective blowing of horns and claps to celebrate the occasion. Some locals snuck beer and liquor in soda bottles and flasks and brown paper bags and laughed and cheered louder than the others.
Steel stared out into the streets. He and Marisa awaited a performance from one of the string bands that took place at a designated street corner every couple of blocks, which started from South Philly, not far from the sports stadiums, and progressed all the way up Broad Street to City Hall. I haven’t seen Broad Street this packed since the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, he thought. What a great time for baseball that was. These streets were a sea of red Phillies apparel. He dug his toes into the ground and lifted his body, stuck his head over the crowd, inhaled a nose-full of burned tobacco from someone smoking a cigar in front of him, and watched an Irish-American string band stomp up the street, dressed in white costumes, orange and green feathers sticking out of their shoulders. In unison, each poked their fingers at their instruments and played their notes on key and the deep bass and pounding of the drums rattled the cool payments under Steel’s shoes and the vibrations from the drums hummed against the balls of his feet. The banjos whined and the smooth horns buzzed. The crowd tossed their arms up and down and two-stepped the famous “Mummers Strut” along to the music. A news reporter rushed into the street and interviewed the captain of the band and the man smiled and spoke to the viewers at home about the preparation it took to pull off the performance.
A little kid with messy blonde hair and a red Phillies jacket, about nine or ten, ran by Steel and sprayed a shot of slimy green silly string on his black peacoat and dark blue jeans, but he laughed and brushed it off. The kid’s mother snatched the child’s hand, smiled, blushed, and apologized multiple times. Steel smiled and waved her off, didn’t care, the kid was having fun, was how he viewed it.
A hand slid over his shoulder, squeezed.
“No fuckin’ way,” a man said. “Benny Steel, get outta here.”
“Oh shit,” Steel said, his eyes grew and lit up. “Chris Linneio. I haven’t seen you since high school. How ya been, man? You still live around here?”
Chris grinned from ear to ear, the edge of his lips almost reaching his earlobes, and shook Steel’s hand.
Steel noticed that Chris looked almost the same except his black hair had receded a bit, his skin had creased at the eyes, and he’d put on about twenty pounds. In high school, he was lean and thin, could outrun anyone all four years, played center field and batted lead-off for the school team.
“I’m great, ya’ know, still live around here, same shit, yeah,” Chris said. He pointed a few feet over. “My wife and two kids are over there…” He rolled his eyes. “…talking to somebody, I don’t know.” He tossed up a hand and laughed. “But how you been, haven’t seen you in years?”
“Can’t complain,” Steel said. He slid his left arm around Marisa’s waist and pulled her close to him. “Chris, this is my fiancé, Marisa.”
Chris flipped up a hand and waved before dropping it by his side, glancing over again at his wife and kids, and turned back to Steel and Marisa. He smiled. “Nice to meet you, Marisa. I think I seen you around the neighborhood, though. You live in Packer Park, right?”
Marisa squinted, pressed a finger to her lips, and thought. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen you around…you grew up in Epiphany’s parish, right? My parents live in Packer Park. I don’t live there anymore. You have a younger sister? Jen—”
“Jennifer? Yeah.” Chris laughed.
“Oh my God,” Marisa said. “Yeah, I went to Goretti with her…all four years of high school.” She tossed a hand forward and smiled. “Tell her Marisa Tulli said hi.”
Chris nodded, held the smile, shifted his eyes back to Steel. “Small world, huh?”
“Yep, sure is,” Steel said.
“So, what’re you up to these days, Steel?”
“Detective.”
“No shit? I remember you always talked about bein’ a cop.” Chris smiled again and rubbed his belly, and Steel thought he looked as happy and energetic as he had been in high school. “That’s great, though. I’m working for the city now, with the courts, working for a judge, administrative clerk.”
“Nice, good to hear you’re doing well. That’s a good job,” Steel said. “You look great though, man, and you have a beautiful family.”
“Thanks, Ben. You didn’t change much from high school, either. Practically lo
ok the same.” He pointed at Steel’s chest and joked around like they were still sixteen years old. “Look at dis guy, cleanin’ up these streets just like he always wanted to, right?”
Steel laughed and it was sincere. He felt like a high schooler all over again just bullshitting with an old friend, thought back to a time when he and Chris were wide-eyed kids with their whole lives in front of them, their so-sure-teenage-ideals of how they’d succeed in life, to a time when their biggest concerns were how they’d get beer for Saturday night, what girls liked them, and who was the best player on the Phillies.
“Still fast?” Steel said.
Chris patted his small gut. “Too much of the wife’s cookin’, can’t run anymore.”
Steel glanced at Marisa and all three of them laughed.
Chris stuck a finger in the air and pointed to his wife and kids, and his wife waved a hand toward where she was standing. “Look, Steel, gotta get back to the family. It was great seeing you, man.”
“You too, Chris,” Steel said and shook his hand. “Take care.” Steel passed him a business card. “Keep in touch, all right. Maybe grab a coffee sometime when I swing by the courts, catch up.”
“You got it, Ben, for sure.” He waved at Marisa. “Nice meeting you, take care.”
“Tell your sister I said hello,” Marisa said.
“I will, see yas later.”
They shook hands again and Chris left. A jolt of energy coursed through Steel’s body and he smirked. There was something about seeing old friends that made him come alive, feel young forever. Maybe because they’d known each other before the world had gotten to them, before reality had hit, when they were naïve and innocent. And a few of his childhood friends from his old neighborhood came to mind, guys he’d known since kindergarten, guys he’d shared youth with. He made a mental note to contact them, to catch up, because there was something unique and sacred about childhood friendships and bonds—when you had known one another since even before puberty, grew up and wondered about the world from toddlers, watched Hulk Hogan dominate the WWF, rescued the princess in Super Mario Brothers after hours of failed attempts, played pick-up games of football and tag in the streets and got dirty, built forts in the snow, made your Holy Communion together, ate dinner over one another’s houses, lent each other a dollar or clothes and didn’t have many material things but had a good friend, bartered candy for baseball cards and talked sports for hours, got into kid-trouble together at school or around the neighborhood, and then later on spent summers at the shore or traveled or hit the clubs together or went out on double-dates with girls from the neighborhood, when you had known the true person before they had put up their defenses against the world, before they had assumed multiple life-titles—career, family, and so on—when your minds were still molding. Even in adulthood a single look between childhood friends could read each other’s mind, sense the thoughts circulating, comparing current experiences against old similar experiences and memories, could spark remember-whens for days. He and his friends could sit around and laugh and bust one another’s balls for hours with old stories. Those guys knew him best and instantly recognized any changes or growth in him because they’d been friends forever, could pick up a conversation after not seeing one another for years. It didn’t matter what his job was, or what material possessions he had acquired, or if he had it all or nothing, they didn’t judge him, but accepted him unconditionally—a scared bond between old boyhood blood. He’d gone through every stage and season of life with them as the world’s current events shaped their experiences and outlooks. He had to reconnect and stay in touch, he knew, because he hadn’t seen or spoken to them in over a year.
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