The Wolves of Fairmount Park

by Dennis Tafoya

  It took a long time to make the walk out across the tracks and onto the pier, and there were luminous clouds threaded with lightning piling up over the Grays Ferry neighborhoods. Cops and bystanders watched him come, a fat guy in red shorts and flip-flops holding a beer and sitting in the back of a white powerboat stained green at the waterline and named Margin Call. The wooden planks gave a little and made Danny feel unsteady, though he liked looking at the boats and the river at night. Thought he’d like to get a sailboat someday, just go from island to island somewhere where the water was that green color he’d seen in pictures. Was that real, that color from the pictures? Could he get away, take Jelan? He saw her sitting on the end of a dock in the white sunshine, wearing a bright bathing suit and one of those wraparound things women wore after they’d been swimming.

  They were waiting for him at the end of the dock, arrayed motionless like it was one of those school nativity pageants and they were waiting for him to take his place. There were two cops from the Marine Unit wearing their ball caps; one of them he knew slightly. The guy from the medical examiner’s office was down on his knees, but he was looking to Danny. The big lights on the patrol boat were on, and the body was stretched out on a black plastic bag that they’d use to carry it out.

  The kid had been in the water almost a week, but he was dressed the same as when Danny’d last seen him. The Marine Unit guy was telling him the body had been caught in an anchor chain, given some weekend boater a hell of a scare, and Danny took in (small, quick glances) where the fish had been at the lips, the ragged hole in the side of the head. The horror-movie skin dissolving to slime. Danny let himself really look only at the shriveled, colorless hands.

  Danny swore to himself, dropped to his haunches a few feet away from the body. The ME’s guy asked if this was the one, and Danny said yes. This was the one. This was Soap, this was Darius. They’d talked for what, ten minutes? Twenty? Then Danny was off and running and Darius got a hole in his head and a trip in the river.

  The guy from the ME’s office was pointing at other holes in the body, through the shirt, and Danny was nodding, but he was thinking of what was next, of Jelan holding her mother in the ME’s office, and that terrible refrigerated meat smell of the place, and the merciless green light, and the pictures they’d carry in their heads forever of this river-bottom skeleton that had been the boy they’d loved.

  The clouds kept coming, drowning the stars. The wind picked up, the air got cold, and it started to rain. One of the Marine Unit guys swore, and somebody else said, “Here it comes.”

  Angel stood in the dark, listening to the wind. He stood at the open trunk of his car on Fifteenth and looked up toward Broad along the shuttered fronts of businesses on Fairmount. After a minute standing motionless, he reached into his trunk and got out a short pry bar and a long black duffel bag. He closed the trunk and walked up Fairmount toward Ridge, his head down. On his right as he walked he came to a peeling wooden door in a steel frame and without looking around jammed the pry bar into the gap between the door and the jamb. He tensed his arms and popped the door open, quickly stepping inside and closing the door soundlessly behind him. It was almost black in the stairwell, the blood-colored light from the street coming through the crack along the door, and Angel pulled a small army surplus flashlight from his pocket and snapped it on.

  He stood still again for a minute, listening to the cars go by, the sound of wind pouring like water through the cracks in the windows, the small animals burrowing in the walls. Finally he climbed the stairs, conscious of planting his feet on each step, as quiet as someone trying not to wake a sleeping neighbor. He paused at each landing and listened again, satisfying himself that the place was empty, and at the top of the stairs he got out the pry bar again and popped the lock on the metal fire door to the roof.

  The roof was black asphalt, empty but for the abandoned nest of some homeless person; bunched and filthy blankets faded to the color of rain, plastic bags stuffed with cans and bottles. Angel walked to the front of the building overlooking Ridge and Broad and snapped off his light, looked across to the dun-colored brick front of the abandoned hotel. Heard music far away up Fairmount. A party or some unlicensed club. Men shouted and women laughed and the music was filtered by distance to a single drum pounding a steady tattoo. Angel liked the sound and nodded to it, moving low to where a massive signboard hid most of the top of the building. He made himself small in the shadow at the corner of the sign, then opened the duffel, exposing the long barrel of the AR-15 and the old Remington pump gun. He pulled a splintered crate to the low wall at the lip of the building and sat.

  He waited, thought about having a drink, about getting high. About Hannah, picturing her with a small white cap pinned to her blond braids and standing at the edge of a field of green corn. Rows of tall stalks disappearing into the distance, contoured to low hills under a dark sky. The wind got louder, pushed at his hair and made him narrow his eyes. There was a light ticking noise from the asphalt around his feet, and it was raining.

  Through a cracked window across the street he saw a small light flare for a second, go out. He smiled, thought about showing his own light to whoever was in there, the African or his man. You’re in there, and I’m out here, friend. Let’s go.

  . . .

  Orlando sat at Audie Murphy’s kitchen table, watching Audie tie himself off while he hummed tunelessly, intent on the belt on his arm and watching his girlfriend Fran cooking the dope in a wide-mouthed spoon with a tiny holly leaf engraved in the handle. Orlando licked his lips, and Audie slid his eyes over him and Fran.

  “Am I taking too long? I feel like I’m holding up the drive-through at fucking Burger King.” Fran giggled and thumped Orlando’s bicep and he laughed, too. Audie was short, compact, and muscular, a second-story man and a car thief, and Orlando watched him punch the needle into his arm through a tattoo of a smiling dragon he’d gotten in Korea, where he’d been in the army.

  After Audie hit it, Fran took the needle and did herself, then pushed the spoon across the table with a languid, boneless arm and motioned extravagantly for Orlando to help himself. She reached behind her to turn up the CD player, Cities doing “Cons, Thieves, and Murderers.” On the table, the CDs from George Parkman’s room were splayed out like a collapsed deck of playing cards.

  There was lightning outside the window and the room dropped into blackness for a minute and then the light buzzed and blinked back on and Audie made an approving moan. Fran nodded and got up unsteadily, her thin hips waving as if she were caught in a windstorm, and she made it to the wall and snapped off the lights and they listened to the wind and watched out the kitchen window as tongues of lightning dropped from the clouds.

  They sat there a long time saying nothing, Fran letting her head drop to Audie’s lap while he stroked her hair, Orlando watching the lightning and applauding in his head for every white, twitching filament of light that seemed to reach down for the tops of the houses. He missed Zoe, home sleeping so she could work a day shift. The song ended and there was nothing for a while. Orlando wanted that song the Irish guy had played, the one about the wolves. He let his head drop and he might have been out for a while.

  Later Franny poured whiskey and Orlando picked up the conversation from earlier, when he’d come in with a bottle of wine from Chile that he knew Franny liked, and they’d all sat at the table and Audie had brought down a box of Franken Berry cereal and dumped out an ounce of Mexican heroin the color of wet beach sand.

  “So you know those guys from Green Lane, do you think they did what the cops said?”

  Audie shrugged and nodded and there was a long pause. Audie getting ready to talk, taking his time. “I don’t know. Darnell is stupid, that’s for sure. And him and Trey, they love guns.” He lowered his head and talked out of the side of his mouth. “I did that, you know, business with them and all they wanted was guns, guns, guns. I think they were the only dope dealers I know who spent more on guns than dope.”


  “But?”

  He made a face. “But I don’t think Darnell has the heart for any move like that. Ivan is the brains, Ivan has the connections. Darnell’s all show. All mouth. You know Pook, right? No? Pook’s a good kid, smart. He runs with Green Lane cause Ivan and Darnell are his cousins, but he’s smarter than those guys. Me and him were out at Camp Hill together. He went with me when I went down to do that thing at the shore. He said Darnell was letting it all go with Ivan locked up.”

  Orlando nodded, trying to think what that meant, if it meant something. How did you sort out why anybody did anything? If Darnell was too stupid and lazy to even do what the cops accused him of, hit the Dominican house, then who did? And why? And did it matter? He wanted to ask more questions but didn’t know what to ask. He wondered if he could figure this out, wondered if trying to know, trying to help, would be just one more aimless junkie misadventure.

  When he got up to leave, Audie walked him out, Franny sleeping openmouthed on the couch and clutching a stuffed dog. At the curb, Audie grabbed his arm.

  “Listen, man. I know you want to know what happened to your brother’s kid. I get it.”

  “Yeah, I’m just, you know.” His heart sped up a little; he was trying to read Audie’s face. Where was this going?

  Audie leaned in and lowered his voice the way he did when he was talking about business. “I’m just saying, you know? Watch who the fuck you say shit to, okay? I know you, man, I know you don’t mean to get into anything. But somebody else might not, right?”

  Orlando nodded and turned away, but he began to see it differently. What he was doing, where it might go. Somebody out there had turned a gun on two kids. Whoever did it might be locked up now, and they might not. If they weren’t locked up, then they were out on the street, and not far away. It wasn’t six degrees out here, separating the guilty from the innocent, the living from the dead. It was two degrees. The city was a box between the rivers, a couple of miles up and down. Chances were he really did already know the shooters. And that they knew him.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Michael was awake for a while, and then had to close his eyes again. Kathleen had been giving him ice chips when Brendan came in, still in his uniform, and kissed Michael’s clammy forehead and let himself go, finally, the way she had. Balling the thin hospital blanket in his hands and shaking, butting his head against his son’s shoulder and sobbing for a full minute before getting himself under control, lifting his head again and wiping at his eyes, touching Michael’s face and asking questions that ran into each other. Are you okay, what were you doing, what do you remember, are you hungry, thirsty? Kathleen had started crying again to see Brendan so upset, and Michael caught Jeannette’s eyes and lifted his eyebrows, embarrassed, like What are you going to do? Parents.

  The doctors and nurses came in and out; there were a thousand calls to make to let everyone know he was okay. Jeannette texting and calling and tearing up each time in the retelling. Brendan and Kathleen feeling wrung out, the long week catching up with them, and both of them falling asleep themselves, Brendan in the ancient vinyl-covered chair, Kathleen tucked into herself on the other bed. She kept waking herself up, looking at Michael, checking compulsively, as she knew she’d keep doing after this was long over.

  He was in and out, not saying much, asking about his car. Not understanding at first why he was at the hospital. Not remembering much of the day he’d been shot. He wanted to answer, to account for what had happened, but he’d get little bits and then shrug. At midnight he woke up again and started talking. He remembered getting out of the car at school. Seeing Jeannette between second and third period. There was more, though, he knew it. There was something else. Something about Geo and looking for a girl.

  Gerry Dunn had been arrested more than anybody else Chris Black knew. He was huge through the shoulders and wore a black beater with a gray hoodie and steel-toed boots. He had the thickened brows of a street fighter and tattoos that were lines pointing to his scars and legends explaining their origins. There was a pink runnel on his neck and a tattoo of an arrow with the words 3/24/2004 PAT M. HIT ME WITH A POKER HE IS WITH THE OTHER PUNKS IN HELL. On his arm was a stellate patch of brown skin with the label 3/17/2003 FRANK CRASHED HIS LINCOLN INTO A DAIRY QUEEN I BURNED MY ARM HERE HE IS A DOUCHEBAG WHO CAN’T HOLD HIS LIQUOR. Gerry got into fights whenever he was drunk, and he went to bed drunk every night, but Chris knew he was afraid of nothing and could be relied on to stand his ground no matter what came at him. He had been shot, stabbed, and beaten, including the loss of two toes to an axe wielded by his own father, though Gerry would only tell that story when he was drunk and teary and Chris could never dope out whether it had been an accident or for cause.

  In the car now, Gerry kept looking over at Chris until he said, “What?”

  Gerry put his hands up. “I’m just saying. I see how the man treats you. You must get something off it, I guess.”

  “I’m making money.”

  “And you have to eat shit from that little freak, huh? It comes with the territory.”

  “Fuck you. You know how much more I made with Asa than all that time we did strong-arm in Fishtown?”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah, I’m making money, so back the fuck off. This, right here? This is me doing you a favor ’cause we go back. This is me throwing you a bone. What do you got to show for all that fucking around, getting in bar fights in every joint on Frankford Avenue? What do you got for two years in the can, Gerry?”

  “Nothing. I got nothing. But nobody talks to me like I’m a fucking idiot. That’s what I got to show.” He looked out the window while he said this, like a little kid with a fuck-you attitude being dragged along on an errand by his mother. Chris shook his head.

  Gerry talked to the closed window. “How much is in the briefcase?”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “I’m not saying shit.”

  “Shit is all you ever say. Why did I call you?”

  “That’s right, why did you call me? You called me ’cause you needed me here to pull your head out of your ass. You knew. You knew exactly what I’d say. You knew I’d take one look at this here setup and tell you exactly what you needed to hear. The man’s got you turned around. Doing his errands, taking his risks. Where’s the man going to be when we’re down on Broad Street with the shine? Do you even fucking know? Asa Carmody. Who the fuck is he? Nobody knows him. You say that name on Frankford Avenue, you get blank looks. Gerry Dunn, they know. Chris Black, they know. Shannon Black, God rest, they knew.”

  “That’s what he wants, shit-for-brains. The man is invisible. He moves without getting his fucking hands on things. Without his fingerprints showing up. He’s got a guy who runs his corners in North Philly, and another guy who runs the corners in West Philly. Guys from Frankford and Christ-knows-what-all. He’s got guys I’ve never even met. He’s the puppet master.”

  Gerry finally turned back and leaned toward Chris. “Yeah? What’s that make you, then?”

  Before they went into the old hotel, he called Asa. Gerry shook his head, and Chris gave him hard eyes.

  “You ready?”

  “Yeah, Asa. I know what to do.”

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “This is easy. You walk in, show the man his money, he shows you what he brung, you walk out. This is a test. It goes good, we get the whole thing.”

  “I know. I’m not stupid.”

  “You’re giving me a bad feeling. What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing. How many times I did these things for you, you don’t have to tell me every fucking thing.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “I have to be there? You got your head right on this?”

  “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to come down.”

  “Anything goes wrong, come right back out to the street where you are right now. Angel’s got the street in front, you understand?”


  “Angel.”

  “Yeah, he’s covering the street. You come right back out here, let him take care of it. Why do I have the feeling you’re not listening to me?”

  “I’m listening. We got trouble, Angel is out here to cover us.”

  “That’s right.”

  Angel took out his cell and laid it on the asphalt, fit an earpiece, and leaned back on the crate, the barrel of the AR-15 resting on the metal lip of the low wall at the edge of the roof. He watched a long, old car pull up in front of the hotel and idle there. The doors opened slowly, and there were a lot of pauses and discussion as Chris Black and Gerry Dunn got out on the curbside, then Frank pulled slowly away to circle back around at Brown Street. The glass in the hotel windows was frosted with dust and grime; the street was quiet except for sirens far away.

  Chris had a briefcase under one arm, and he stood talking to Gerry for a minute in the rain, his shoulders hunched, before Gerry punched him lightly on the arm and turned to the front door, his hand on something at his waist. They squared themselves to the door like gunfighters and went in, Gerry stopping to slowly push the old barricade aside where it had been loosened to let them in.

  Then the street was empty and quiet for a while. The music changed at the party up the street, the drumming faster, louder, and there was a cry, maybe the sound of one dancer encouraging another. Frank’s car reappeared on Fairmount, coming back west toward Broad, and he edged it to the curb and idled, killing the lights. Angel took his hands off the rifle one at a time and wiped them on his shirt under his jacket. He waited, staring at the empty face of the old hotel.