The skin Gods jbakb-2

by Richard Montanari

  He ran the tub. After five minutes or so he toed the water. He cracked one of the two remaining little bottles of bourbon, poured it into a water glass, drank it in one gulp. He stepped out of his robe, slipped into the hot water. He had thought about a Roman death, but had quickly ruled it out. Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather: Part II. He didn't have the courage for such a thing, if courage was indeed what it took.

  He closed his eyes, just for a minute. Just for a minute, then he would call the police and start talking.

  When had it begun? He wanted to examine his life in terms of grand themes, but he knew the simple answer. It began with the girl. She had never shot heroin before. She had been scared, but willing. So willing. As they all had been. He remembered her eyes, her cold dead eyes. He remembered loading her into the car. The terrifying ride into North Philly. The filthy gas station. The guilt. Had he slept through the night even once since that terrible evening?

  Soon, Seth knew, there would be another knock at the door. The police would want to talk to him in earnest. But not just yet. Just a few minutes.

  Just a few.

  Then, faintly, he heard… moaning? Yes. It sounded like one of the porno tapes. Was it in the adjoining hotel room? No. It took a moment, but Seth soon realized that the sound was coming from his hotel room. From his television.

  He sat up in the tub, his heart racing. The water was warm, not hot. He had been out for a while.

  Someone was in the hotel room.

  Seth craned his neck, trying to look around the bathroom door. It was ajar, but the angle was such that could not see more than a few feet into the room. He looked up. There was a lock on the bathroom door. Could he get out of the tub quietly, slam shut the door and lock it? Maybe. But then what? What would he do then? He had no cell phone in the bathroom.

  Then, from right outside the bathroom door, just inches away, he heard a voice.

  Seth thought of T. S. Eliot's line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

  Till human voices wake us…

  "I'm new to this city," the voice outside his door said. "I haven't seen a friendly face in weeks."

  And we drown.

  66

  Jessica and Byrne drove to the offices of Alhambra LLC. They had called the main number, and also Seth Goldman's cell phone. Both offered voice mail. They had called Ian Whitestone's hotel room at the Park Hyatt. They were told that Mr. Whitestone was not in, and he could not be reached.

  They parked across the street from the small, nondescript building on Race Street. They sat in silence for a while.

  "How the hell could Matisse's print be on the gun?" Jessica asked. The weapon had been reported stolen six years earlier. It could have passed though a hundred hands in the meantime.

  "The Actor had to have taken it when he killed Matisse," Byrne said.

  Jessica had a lot of questions to ask about that night, about Byrne's actions in that basement. She wasn't sure how to ask. Like a lot of things in her life, she just bulled ahead. "So when you were down in that basement with Matisse, did you search him? Did you search the house?"

  "I patted him down, yeah," Byrne said. "But I didn't clear the whole house. Matisse could have had that.25 stashed anywhere."

  Jessica considered this. "I think he got it another way. I have no idea why, but it's a gut feeling I have."

  He just nodded. He was a man who ran on gut feelings. The two of them fell silent again. Not an uncommon thing on stakeouts.

  Finally, Jessica asked, "How is Victoria?"

  Byrne shrugged. "Still critical."

  Jessica didn't know what to say. She suspected there mght be more than friendship between Byrne and Victoria, but even if she was just a friend, what had happened to her was horrifying. And it was clear that Kevin Byrne blamed himself. "I'm so sorry, Kevin."

  Byrne looked out the side window, his emotions rushing him.

  Jessica studied him. She recalled how he had looked in the hospital, months earlier. He looked so much better now, physically, almost as robust and strong as the day she'd met him. But she knew that what made a man like Kevin Byrne strong was on the inside, and she could not penetrate that shell. Not yet.

  "And Colleen?" Jessica asked, hoping the talk didn't sound as small as it seemed. "How is she?"

  "Tall. Independent. Becoming her mother. Other than that, nearly opaque."

  He turned, looked at her, smiled. Jessica was glad for that. She'd just been getting to know him when he had been shot, but what she had learned in that short time was that he loved his daughter more than anything else in this world. She hoped that he wasn't growing distant from Colleen.

  Jessica had begun a relationship with Colleen and Donna Byrne after Byrne had been attacked. They had seen each other at the hospital every day for more than a month, and had bonded through the tragedy. She had meant to get in touch with both of them but life, as it will, had intervened. Jessica had even learned a little sign language in that time. She vowed to rekindle the relationships.

  "Was Porter the other man in Philadelphia Skin?" Jessica asked. They had run a check on a list of Julian Matisse's known associates. Matisse and Darryl Porter had known each other for at least a decade. The connection was there.

  "Certainly possible," Byrne said. "Why else would Porter have three copies of the movie?"

  Porter was, at that moment, on the ME's table. They would compare any distinguishing body marks to the masked actor in the film. Roberta Stoneking's viewing of the film was inconclusive, despite her claim.

  "How do Stephanie Chandler and Erin Halliwell fit in?" Jessica asked. So far, they had not been able to establish a solid link between the women.

  "The million-dollar question."

  Suddenly a shadow darkened Jessica's window. It was a uniformed officer. Female, twenties, eager. A little too eager, maybe. Jessica nearly came out of her skin. She rolled down the window.

  "Detective Balzano?" the officer asked, looking a little shamefaced at having scared the crap out of a detective.

  "Yes."

  "This is for you." It was a nine-by-twelve manila envelope.

  "Thanks."

  The young officer all but ran away. Jessica rolled the window back up. The few seconds it had been down had let out all the cool air from the AC. The city was a sauna.

  "Getting jumpy in your old age?" Byrne asked, trying to sip his coffee and smile at the same time.

  "Still younger than you, Pops."

  Jessica tore open the envelope. It was the sketch of the man seen with Faith Chandler, courtesy of Atkins Pace. Pace had been right. His powers of observation and recall were stunning. She showed the sketch to Byrne.

  "Son of a bitch," Byrne said. He decked a blue light on the dashboard of the Taurus.

  The man in the sketch was Seth Goldman. THE HEAD OF hotel security let them into the room. They had phoned the room from the hallway, knocked three times. From the hallway they could hear the unmistakable sounds of an adult film coming from inside the room.

  When the door was open, Byrne and Jessica drew their weapons. The security man, a former PPD officer in his sixties, looked eager and willing and ready to take part, but he knew his job was complete. He backed off.

  Byrne was first in. The sound of the porno tape was louder. It was coming from the hotel TV. The immediate room was empty. Byrne checked the beds and beneath; Jessica, the closet. Both clear. They edged open the bathroom door. They holstered their weapons.

  "Ah, shit," Byrne said.

  Seth Goldman was floating in the red tub. It appeared that he had been shot twice in the chest. The feathers scattered about the room like so much fallen snow said that the shooter had used one of the hotel pillows to muffle the blast. The water was tepid, but not cold.

  Byrne met Jessica's eyes. They were of one mind. This was all escalating so quickly, so violently, that it threatened to get well away from their abilities to investigate. It meant that the FBI would probably be taking over, bringing to bear the full force o
f its massive manpower and forensic capabilities.

  Jessica began to sift through Seth Goldman's toiletries and other personal items in the bathroom. Byrne worked the closets, the dresser drawers. In the back of one of the drawers was a box of eight-millimeter videocassettes. Byrne called Jessica over to the television, slipped one of the tapes into the attached camcorder, hit PLAY.

  It was a homemade S amp;M porno tape.

  The image was of a dreary room with a queen-size mattress on the floor. A harsh light came from overhead. After a few seconds a young woman walked into the frame, sat down on the bed. She was about twenty- five or so, dark-haired, slender and plain. She wore a man's V-neck T-shirt, nothing else.

  The woman lit a cigarette. A few seconds later, a man entered the frame. The man was naked, except for a leather mask. He carried a small bullwhip. He was white, in fairly toned shape, probably between thirty and forty. He began to whip the woman on the bed. Not hard, not at first.

  Byrne glanced at Jessica. They had both seen a lot in their time on the force. It was never a surprise when they ran across the ugliness of what one person could do to another, but that knowledge never made it easier.

  Jessica walked out of the room, her exhaustion a palpable thing inside her, her revulsion a bright red ember in her chest, her rage a gathering gale.

  67

  He had missed her. You don't always get to choose your partners on this job, but from the moment he met her, he knew she was the real thing. The sky was the limit for a woman like Jessica Balzano, and although he was only ten or twelve years older than she, he felt ancient in her company. She was the future of the unit, he was the past.

  Byrne sat at one of the plastic booths in the Roundhouse lunchroom, sipped his cold coffee, thought about being back. How it felt. What it meant. He watched the younger detectives breeze through the room, their eyes so bright and clear, their loafers polished, their suits pressed. He envied them their energy. Had he looked like that at one point? Had he walked through this room twenty years earlier, a chest full of confidence, observed by some damaged cop?

  He had just called the hospital for the tenth time that day. Victoria was listed in serious but stable condition. No change. He'd call again in an hour.

  He had seen the crime scene photos of Julian Matisse. Although there was nothing human left, Byrne gazed upon the raw tissue as if he were looking at a shattered talisman of evil. The world was cleaner without him. He felt nothing.

  It still did not answer the question of whether or not Jimmy Purify had planted the evidence in the Gracie Devlin case.

  Nick Palladino entered the room, looking as tired as Byrne felt. "Did Jess go home?"

  "Yeah," Byrne said. "She's been burning both ends."

  Palladino nodded. "You hear about Phil Kessler?" he asked.

  "What about him?"

  "He died."

  Byrne was neither shocked nor surprised. Kessler had looked bad the last time he had seen him, a man resolved to his fate, a man seemingly without the will or doggedness to fight.

  We didn't do right by that girl.

  If Kessler had not meant Gracie Devlin, it could only be one other person. Byrne struggled to his feet, downed his coffee, and headed off to Records. The answer, if there was an answer, would be there. TRY AS HE might, he could not remember the girl's name. Obviously, he couldn't ask Kessler. Or Jimmy. He tried to zero in on the exact date. Nothing came back. There had been so many cases, so many names. Every time he seemed to get close, within a few months, something occurred to him to change his mind. He put together a brief list of notes about the case as he remembered them, then handed it off to an officer in Records. Sergeant Bobby Powell, a lifer like himself, and far better with computers, told Byrne he would get to the bottom of it, and get the file to him as soon as possible.

  Byrne piled the photocopies of the Actor's case files in the middle of his living room floor. Next to it he placed a six-pack of Yuengling. He took off his tie, his shoes. He found some cold Chinese food in the fridge. The old air conditioner barely cooled the room, even though it was rattling on high. He flipped on the TV.

  He cracked a beer, picked up the remote. It was nearly midnight. He had not yet heard from Records.

  As he cruised the cable channels, the images melted into each other. Jay Leno, Edward G. Robinson, Don Knotts, Bart Simpson, each face a6 8 — blur, linking to the next. Drama, comedy, musical, farce. I settle on an old noir, maybe from the 1940s. It isn't one of the major noir films, but it looks as if it was shot fairly well. In this scene, the femme fatale is trying to get something out of the heavy's raincoat while he talks on a pay phone.

  Eyes, hands, lips, fingers.

  Why do people watch movies? What do they see? Do they see who they want to be? Or do they see who they fear becoming? They sit in the darkness, next to total strangers, and for two hours they are the villains, the victims, the heroes, the forsaken. Then they get up, walk into the light and live their lives of despair.

  I should rest, but I cannot sleep. Tomorrow is a very big day. I look back at the screen, turn the channel. A love story, now. Black-and-white emotions storm my heart as6 9 — Jessica flipped through the channels. She was having a hard time staying awake. She had wanted to sift through the time line of the case one more time before going to bed, but everything was fog.

  She glanced at the clock. Midnight.

  She turned off the TV, sat at her dining room table. She spread the evidence out in front of her. To the right was the pile of three books on crime cinema she had gotten from Nigel Butler. She picked up one of them. In it, Ian Whitestone was briefly mentioned. She learned that his idol was a Spanish director named Luis Bunuel.

  As with every homicide, there was a wire. A wire that plugged into every aspect of the crime, ran through every person. Like the old-style Christmas lights, the string did not light up until all the bulbs were snapped into place.

  She wrote the names down on a legal pad.

  Faith Chandler. Stephanie Chandler. Erin Halliwell. Julian Matisse. Ian Whitestone. Seth Goldman. Darryl Porter.

  What was the wire that ran through all these people?

  She looked at the notes on Julian Matisse. How did his print get on that gun? There had been a break-in at the home of Edwina Matisse a year earlier. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was when their doer had obtained Matisse's gun and the blue jacket. Matisse had been in prison, and he might very likely have stored these items at his mother's house. Jessica got on the phone and had the police report faxed over to her. When she read it, nothing out of the ordinary popped out at her. She knew the uniformed officers who took the initial call. She knew the detectives who caught the case. Edwina Matisse reported that the only thing that was stolen was a pair of candlesticks.

  Jessica looked at the clock. It was still a reasonable hour. She called one of the detectives on that case, a longtime veteran named Dennis Las- sar. They got their pleasantries out of the way quickly, in deference to the hour. Jessica got to the point.

  "Do you remember a break-in at a row house on Nineteenth? A woman named Edwina Matisse?"

  "When was it?"

  Jessica gave him the date.

  "Yeah, yeah. Older woman. Kinda nuts. Had a grown son doing time."

  "That's her."

  Lassar detailed the case as he remembered it.

  "So the woman reported that the only thing stolen was a pair of candlesticks? That sound right?" Jessica asked.

  "If you say so. Lotta assholes under the bridge since then."

  "I hear you," Jessica said. "Do you remember if the place was really ransacked? I mean, a lot more roughed up than a pair of candlesticks would have warranted?"

  "Now that you mention it, it was. The son's room was torn apart," Lassar said. "But hey, if the vic says nothing's missing, then nothing's missing. I remember being in a hurry to get the hell out of there. Smelled like chicken broth and cat piss."

  "Okay," Jessica said. "Do you remember anything else about the cas
e?"

  "I seem to recall there was something else about the son."

  "What about him?"

  "I think the FBI had been watching him before he went up."

  The FBI had been watching a lowlife like Matisse? "Do you remember what that was about?"

  "I think it was some Mann Act violation. Interstate transport of underaged girls. Don't quote me on it, though."

  "Did an agent show up at the crime scene?"

  "Yeah," Lassar said. "Funny how this shit comes back to you. Young guy."

  "Do you remember the agent's name?"

  "Now, that part's lost to the Wild Turkey forever. Sorry."

  "No problem. Thanks."

  She hung up, thought about calling Terry Cahill. He had been released from the hospital and was back working a desk. Still, it was probably a little late for a choirboy like Terry to be up. She'd talk to him tomorrow.

  She put Philadelphia Skin into her laptop's DVD drive, forwarded it. She freeze-framed the scene near the beginning. The young woman in the feather mask stared out at her, her wide eyes vacant and pleading. She ran a check on the name Angel Blue, even though she knew it was false. Even Eugene Kilbane had no idea who the girl was. He said he'd never seen her before or after Philadelphia Skin.

  But why do I know those eyes?

  Suddenly Jessica heard a sound at the dining room window. It sounded as if it might be the laughter of a young woman. Both of Jessica's neighbors had children, but they were boys. She heard it again. A girl's giggle.

  Close.

  Very close.

  She turned and looked at the window. There was a face staring at her. It was the girl from the video, the girl in the teal feather mask. Except now the girl was skeletal, her pale skin stretched tight over her skull, her mouth a ragged grin, a red slash in her pallid smear of features.

  Then, in an instant, the girl was gone. Jessica soon sensed a presence right behind her. The girl was right behind her. Someone flipped on the lights.

  Someone is in my house. How did No, the light was coming from the windows.