Dancer in the Flames

by Stephen Solomita

  Table of Contents

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Stephen Solomita

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Stephen Solomita

  DAMAGED GOODS

  A GOOD DAY TO DIE

  NO CONTROL

  A PIECE OF THE ACTION

  THE POSTER BOY

  TRICK ME TWICE

  MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE *

  CRACKER BLING *

  MERCY KILLING *

  ANGEL FACE *

  DANCER IN THE FLAMES *

  * available from Severn House

  DANCER IN THE FLAMES

  Stephen Solomita

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2012 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  First published in the USA 2013 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2012 by Stephen Solomita.

  The right of Stephen Solomita to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Solomita, Stephen.

  Dancer in the flames.

  1. Police—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.

  2. Police murders—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.

  3. Police corruption—New York (State)—New York—

  Fiction. 4. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.

  5. Suspense fiction.

  I. Title

  813.5‘4-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-358-7 (epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8228-8 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  I’m not big on philosophy, Boots.

  In fact, as far as I’m concerned,

  The examined life’s not worth living.

  Crazy Jill Kelly

  ONE

  Detective Boots Littlewood shook out a handful of Tic Tacs and popped them into his mouth. He sucked on them for a moment, intending to savor the flavor, as he liked to say. But on this particular night, what with the disagreeable job at hand and the unusually cold April weather, he quickly grew impatient. Very deliberately, he straightened the lapels of his overcoat before crunching down hard enough to produce an explosion of spearmint that saturated his entire mouth, from his lips to his tonsils. Finally, he rang the doorbell.

  The outdoor light came on a moment later and a face appeared in the door’s small window, a round face made rounder by the window’s beveled glass. Then the door opened to reveal Frankie Drago, the man Littlewood had come to see.

  ‘Gimme a break, Boots,’ Drago said. ‘It’s after ten o’clock.’

  Detective Littlewood stepped into the house, forcing Drago aside. As he passed, he pulled a transistor radio from his overcoat and held it up for Drago’s inspection.

  ‘Batteries went dead on me,’ he explained. ‘I don’t wanna miss the end of the Yankee game. Plus, I’m killin’ two birds with one stone. The autopsy’s complete and you asked me to stop by, let you know how it went.’

  Passing through the foyer and into the living room, Boots placed himself in front of a gigantic flat-screen television. He watched the Yankee reliever, Joba Chamberlain, deliver a high outside fastball that David Ortiz, the Red Sox batter, was taking all the way. Then he said, ‘You don’t mind, I’m gonna keep an eye on the game while we talk. I got a bet down, if you remember.’

  Boots shrugged off his overcoat, folded it across the back of an armchair, finally settled himself on the couch, only pausing to tug at the crease in his trousers and press the remote’s mute button.

  ‘You think I don’t know you got a bet down?’ Drago followed Boots into the room. ‘I’m your goddamned bookie.’

  ‘Hey, do me a favor, Frankie. Lay off. I got a thing about takin’ the Lord’s name in vain. Which you already know.’

  Drago was about to respond when Chamberlain began his wind-up and the Yankee catcher stepped to the left, setting a target on the inside corner, a target Joba missed by eight inches when the ball sailed away from Ortiz before centering itself, belt-high, over the heart of the plate.

  ‘You mother-fucker,’ Boots shouted as the bat of David Ortiz ripped through the hitting zone.

  ‘Boots,’ Frankie Drago said, ‘you can open your eyes. He popped it up.’

  Littlewood followed instructions, regaining his sight in time to watch the ball drop into Bret Gardner’s glove. The score was tied six–six and the Yankees were coming up to start the tenth inning.

  ‘Chamberlain,’ Boots complained, ‘that prick. You see him walkin’ around out there? This is a guy, lemme tell ya, he’d rather be takin’ a shower.’

  ‘Cut the man some slack,’ Drago objected. ‘It’s thirty degrees and he’s tryin’ to grip a goddamned baseball.’

  ‘Frankie, what’d I just say about blasphemy? Have some consideration here.’

  Drago raised a meaty hand to scratch his left ear. He was a short man, grossly overweight, and his movements were slow enough to appear grave. ‘Didn’t you just call Chamberlain a prick and a mother-fucker?’ he asked.

 
; ‘That’s different.’ Boots turned far enough to look up at the bookie. ‘The Commandment only says you can’t take the Lord’s name in vain.’

  Drago sat down in a massive rocking chair to Littlewood’s left. For a long moment, he stared at the side of the detective’s head. Drago had known Boots for more than twenty years – their relationship went all the way back to high school. And that was the wonder of it, because he still couldn’t peg the big cop. The gray three-piece suit? The baby-blue tie? The gleaming ankle-high boots? The nearly transparent silver socks? The coarse iron-gray hair that hugged the top of his head as though afraid to move?

  ‘Bullshit’ was the word that popped into Drago’s mind. Just like the rest of the cop’s life. Here was a man who went to mass every Sunday, but tolerated Frankie Drago because he needed a place to lay down his bets. Here was a man who called himself Boots because his real name, Irwin, didn’t square with his image. You couldn’t be a hard-ass cop in a suit too expensive for your paycheck and have a name like Irwin Littlewood. Impossible. So, whatta ya do? You make up a name that fits your image like the handmade Italian boots on your feet. Then, as if that wasn’t phony enough, you swear that you only spend that kinda money on shoes because you got bad wheels.

  Drago ran a hand across the top of his nearly bald head. It came back slick with sweat and he wiped it on his pants. ‘You wanna tell me what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Wait a second, Frankie.’

  The requested second stretched on for a full two minutes as the Red Sox pitcher, Alfredo Aceves, walked the Yankee center fielder, Curtis Granderson, on four straight pitches. The Red Sox manager, Bobby Valentine, was out of the dugout before the catcher reached into his mitt for the ball, his head shaking in disgust as he signaled for Tim Wakefield, the last available pitcher in the Red Sox bullpen.

  Boots crossed his legs and let his gaze drift over to Frankie Drago as the network cut to a commercial. ‘It’s a question here of how much you wanna know, Frankie,’ he said. ‘Bein’ as we’re talkin’ about your sister.’

  When Drago shook his head, his many chins slogged from side to side like water in a bathtub. ‘It can’t be no worse,’ he insisted, ‘than what I already imagined.’

  ‘OK, then let me get this part over with. Angie was naked when we found her body, with her arms tied behind her back and a thin rope tied around her neck. There was an unused condom next to her leg, still in its wrapper, a ribbed Trojan. Keep in mind, Frankie, this was a disposal site. She wasn’t killed in Prospect Park.’

  Drago thought it over for a moment, then said, ‘Angie, she was forty-nine years old and looked every day of it. Why would …?’

  ‘That part doesn’t matter. Some of these perverts specialize in older women, and some of them just grab whoever’s available. Anyway, we at least determined when her body was put in the park.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘You remember March fifteenth? The blizzard?’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t get my car out for a week.’

  ‘Well, we found a little snow beneath Angie’s body and we’re certain there wasn’t any snow on the ground before the storm hit. That means the blizzard started right before she was dumped, two days after your mom reported her missing.’

  ‘You think she was held somewhere?’

  ‘There’s no other possibility.’

  ‘Was she …’

  ‘Dead or alive?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She was dead, Frankie.’

  ‘And you can tell how long?’

  ‘Thirty-six to forty-eight hours, accordin’ to the pathologist who did the autopsy. That’s how long the perp held on to her body.’

  Boots’s attention returned to the television as Tim Wakefield threw his last warm-up pitch. ‘Valentine’s gotta be pissing his pants,’ he told Frankie.

  ‘He ain’t the only one,’ Drago replied. ‘I took a lotta Yankee action this afternoon. They win, I’m up shit creek.’

  ‘You didn’t lay it off?’

  ‘Sometimes in life you gotta take a chance, Boots. With Beckett goin’ against Freddy Garcia, I figured I had an edge.’

  Boots shook his head. ‘The way I saw it, with all the injuries to the Red Sox bullpen, after the Yanks got past Beckett, they’d be the ones with the edge.’

  An instant later, the Red Sox pitcher took an important step toward neutralizing whatever edge the Yankees may have had when he picked off Curtis Granderson. Boots’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened as he absorbed the extent of his misfortune. He started to speak, stopped, then started again. Still, no words came out.

  Flashing a wolf’s grin, Drago took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He lit one up, then blew a narrow line of smoke at the ceiling. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘how’s the quittin’ goin’? You still nicotine-free? It’s been, what, a month now?’

  Boots drew his arms over his chest, but didn’t respond. Wakefield’s knuckleball was dancing out of the strike zone and Mark Teixeira, the Yankee’s first baseman, was flailing away. It came as no surprise when he struck out on the fourth pitch.

  ‘Could we get back to Angie?’ Drago asked. ‘The game’s liable to go on for another two hours.’

  ‘Angie’s been dead for more than three weeks. She’ll keep.’

  ‘That’s pretty hard, Boots. It’s not like we’re talkin’ about a stranger. You grew up with Angie and you might wanna consider her last hours.’

  ‘Right, her last hours. How do you figure they went? What do ya think happened to Angie?’ Boots let his eyes dart from the screen to Drago, then back to the screen. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said as Alex Rodriguez stepped to the plate, ‘I’m listenin’.’

  Drago rocked back and forth for a moment before responding. ‘This kinda pervert, Boots, he oughta be shot down like a dog. Forget the handcuffs, forget the lawyers. Shoot him down. Leave him to rot where he falls.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Boots finally said, ‘but what do you think actually happened? Was she on her way someplace? Did he drag her out of the house without your mom noticing? And where did he take her? And why did he hang on to the body for two days? And why didn’t she put up a fight? I mean, Angie never backed away from anyone, not that I ever noticed. Meanwhile, she doesn’t have a bruise on her body.’

  ‘What if he had a gun? You put a gun to someone’s head, they tend to get very docile.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘He forces her into a car and takes her wherever.’

  ‘And who does the drivin’?’

  Drago thought this over for a moment, then said, ‘It’d make more sense if there was two of them.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s possible, but what I’m thinkin’, it’s most likely she was killed by someone who knew her. A scumbag who lives in the neighborhood. Somebody who could take her by surprise.’

  Tim Wakefield finally made a mistake on the fifth pitch he threw to Alex Rodriguez. His knuckleball failed to knuckle and the ball rolled over the outside half of the plate, waist-high, at seventy miles an hour. A few seconds later, it came to rest in the center-field seats, five hundred feet away.

  Boots jumped up and did a little dance. ‘Patience,’ he told Drago as he spun around. ‘That’s what it’s all about. That’s the lesson here. A-Rod took four straight pitches, didn’t move the bat an inch. That’s because he knows that hitters are always overmatched. They gotta wait for the pitcher to make a mistake. Hitters hit mistakes.’

  ‘Yeah? What about Vladimir Guerrero? He hits whatever’s thrown up there.’

  ‘Fuck Vladimir Guerrero.’

  ‘And what about Alfonso Soriano?’

  ‘Fuck him, too.’

  Littlewood retrieved his Tic Tacs, shoveled a few into his mouth and crunched down. At the same time, he inhaled deeply, taking the smoky air down into his lungs. ‘So, who do you think it could have been?’ he asked as Nick Swisher stepped up to the plate.

  Again, Drago took his time, sucking thoughtfully on his cigarette while he regarded t
he detective. ‘How about one of the freaks down the fuckin’ block,’ he finally asked.

  Drago was referring to a bohemian enclave centered around the subway stop at Bedford Avenue and North Seventh Street, but the cop wasn’t buying. ‘Angie hated those people,’ Boots said. ‘She was strictly old school when it came to preserving her neighborhood. If she asked me, which she didn’t, I would’ve told her the truth. The neighborhood moved out to the burbs thirty years ago. There’s nothin’ left to preserve.’

  Boots continued to stare at the television as Wakefield threw one knuckleball after another to Nick Swisher. As usual, Swisher’s attitude was intense. When he swung, as he did on three of the five pitches thrown to him, his bat tore across the plate as though reaching into another dimension. Fortunately for the Red Sox, ball and bat never came within a foot of each other and Swisher slammed his bat into the dirt when he finally struck out to end the inning. The camera lingered on his features for a moment, then cut to the Yankee’s ace reliever, Mariano Rivera, as he trotted across the outfield. Up a run, the Yankees were going with their best.

  Boots watched Drago grind the stub of his cigarette into an aluminum ashtray stamped into the shape of a mermaid. His eyes lingered on the butt for a moment before he spoke.

  ‘What we’re thinkin’ now,’ he told Frankie Drago, ‘is that Angie’s dump site was staged. We’re not thinkin’ her killer was sexually motivated.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Drago asked.

  Littlewood’s grin was as quick as A-Rod’s bat, here and gone, a blur. ‘First thing is the cause of death, which I’m surprised you didn’t ask me about sooner. Most times, the family asks right away. They wanna know how their loved one died.’