Solitary Dancer

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  Now why’s Grizz want to do away with the Jolt? Django frowned at the thought, shook his head. What’d McGuire do, piss off Grizz so bad? Nothin’, that’s what. Ain’t Grizz that’s pissed, it’s somebody else, somebody Grizz owes, tells Grizz, “You do the man, hear?” and Grizz’ll do it, see that it’s done. That’s the way Grizz works. That’s the way Grizz’ll act if Django says he can’t, says he won’t finger the Jolt. Grizz’ll demolish me. . . .

  And then there she was, coming out of the front door of the apartment building looking good, dressed like she’s got somewhere to go, some place special, maybe out to meet the Jolt . . .

  And then there’s some white dude behind her and he’s talking to her now, a hand pressed against her back.

  Jesus, Django thought. Guy looks like a cop. Billie’s going out, looking good, with a cop. Django could spot a cop hiding in a herd of elephants. How you gonna talk to Billie, finger the Jolt, all a that, with a cop on her ass? The cop hears Django ask Billie about McGuire one day, the next day the Jolt turns up, him in one end of an alley and his guts at the other end, and Django’s the guy they get after, Django’s the one whose ass they haul down to Berkeley Street.

  Billie’s walking away now, her head down and her hands in her coat pockets, the cop trailing along, keeping up easy with her, tall red-haired guy, out for the night with Billie who maybe knows where the Jolt is.

  Django remained across the street, walking a little behind Billie and Donovan, following and watching, wondering if maybe this is the time when it all comes down on his head like he always knew it would eventually.

  “There’s a guy coming around tomorrow, giving me a price for everything. The furniture and Heather’s jewelry, I mean. The rest of it, her clothes and all, I’m giving to a charity.”

  Micki pursed her lips together and studied her reflection in the mirror of her compact. An open makeup bag sat on the small kitchen table, its contents spilled out. “The good stuff, the antiques, I’m selling to what’s-his-name downstairs, the antique guy, he’s taking the good pieces. He’ll probably screw me out of what it’s really worth but I don’t care.”

  “You plan to take anything of Heather’s with you?” McGuire asked. He was sitting across from her, an untouched cup of black instant coffee in front of him, watching Micki in fascination as she painted and prepared her face, watching her perform her practised application of foundation cream and rouge and eye shadow and liner the way he used to watch her in the good years of their marriage. She wore an old, pale blue silk blouse stained with makeup and buttoned low so he could see the lacy fringe of her brassiere. Her hair was pulled back with a simple elastic band. A sand-coloured mohair sweater lay across the back of a chair.

  “Nothing.” She folded the compact closed and placed it in her purse. “There’s nothing here I want.”

  “It’s a nice apartment.”

  “It’s okay. Actually, it’s pretty nice. Sometimes I almost forget about . . . about what happened to Heather here.”

  “Mind if I look around?”

  She looked at him, then away for an instant and back again. “Will you tell me something? Honestly?”

  “Sure.”

  “Were you ever here? With Heather?”

  “No. I was never here before. With anybody.”

  “But you knew where she lived. How did you know that?”

  “She told me.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  Micki turned away and removed the elastic band from her hair. It cascaded onto her shoulders, catching the light and shining like crimped silk. “I think she was attracted to you in a way,” she said. “I think she was even a little jealous when we were married.”

  “She was always jealous of you,” McGuire said, standing. “That was something you never fully understood, how much she envied you. Not for me, but for who you were. You were better than her. Prettier, nicer, more popular.”

  Micki reached for her brush and began stroking her hair, her eyes avoiding McGuire’s.

  He crossed the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs and began climbing to the upper level of the apartment. The door at the summit stood ajar and he pushed it open silently. On the threshold a large square portion of broadloom, the carpet thick and crusty with Heather’s dried blood, had been cut away and removed, exposing the hardwood floor beneath the spot where she had bled to death.

  McGuire’s eyes traced a path of freshly scrubbed carpeting from the patch of bare floor to the bathroom entrance, the trail marking Heather’s journey as she crawled toward the door before losing consciousness. Other patches led across the rug from the bedroom into the upper office. McGuire followed the trail to Heather’s telephone answering machine on the oak desk, its lights dead, the power cord removed.

  He left the office, crossed the alcove again and entered Heather’s bedroom. The sheets and blanket of Heather’s bed had been pulled loosely up to the pillows by Micki. Heather’s collection of vases stood on the high shelf near the ceiling where scatterings of fingerprint dust remained from Norm Cooper’s forensic kit. McGuire stepped back far enough to examine the holes for the mounting screws with which Heather had fastened the motor-drive camera aimed at her bed. Tim Fox’s report speculated that the camera was equipped with a timer, blinking every minute or so in near darkness illuminated by infrared light.

  He sat on the edge of Heather’s bed and glanced around. A compact stereo system, several fringed pillow shams, a telephone, a photo of a teenaged Heather delivering what seemed to be a high school valedictorian address, china figurines of small children with animals . . .

  McGuire frowned, stood, walked out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs again.

  There had been flecks of blood leading from the bedroom through the hallway and into the office.

  He retraced the route into the office, visualizing the fleeing woman, already wounded by a blow or the thrust from a weapon.

  There was more blood in the office, suggesting another vicious assault, and a return from there to the bathroom. . . .

  McGuire lowered himself slowly onto a large leather sofa, his eyes flicking from the heavy oak desk to the doorway and back again.

  She hadn’t tried to flee downstairs. There was no blood on the door at the top of the stairs, no indication that she had even attempted to escape that way. Why not? Wouldn’t that be the natural instinct?

  He rose and returned to the alcove area in front of the bathroom, standing on the bare floor where a woman he once despised as much as he thought possible had died a week earlier.

  Why not escape down the stairs? he wondered again.

  Something nagged at him, standing there with the image of a mortally wounded Heather running in panic through the second floor of her apartment.

  “Joe?”

  McGuire turned and opened the door inward, looking down the stairs.

  Micki was waiting, her makeup complete, her hair tied back with a golden ribbon. She had replaced the silk blouse with the mohair sweater worn over a tight camel’s-hair skirt, and she stood looking up at him expectantly.

  “I’m starving,” she said. “Can we go now?”

  McGuire inhaled deeply, his eyes smiling down at her, marveling at the power of a woman’s beauty, however contrived, however temporary, to ransom his resolve.

  Donovan ignored the little black guy at first, didn’t know it was Django, thought it could be just some street tough figuring he’s cool, nothing to worry about.

  Donovan was about to say something, come up with a wisecrack that’d make Billie laugh, walking with her arm through his, but he turned away to look across the street and behind, and there he was again, same little guy, matching their pace, walking with that funny bounce like he’s getting ready to dance, do a number with his feet for spare change from the tourists or something.

  Thing is, Donovan�
��d rather’ve just gone to bed with Billie soon’s he arrived. Ten hours of chasing each other’s tails in the Task Force room, three days of crap, and they still didn’t know much more about Fox’s murder than that somebody put a thirty-eight into his chest. It wears a guy down.

  All day Donovan had thought about hiding his face against Billie’s chest, all that nice smooth flesh. Then he shows up half an hour ago and she’s dressed like they’ve been invited to the governor’s mansion for tea, long blue velvet dress with some kind of frilly neckline, makes her look like a stripper getting set to teach a first grade class.

  “Ever been to Jingles?” she asks him, and he says, “What, that little dive behind the Hilton?” She tells him, “It’s not a dive, it’s a nice quiet place where you can have some drinks and dance a bit. I wanta go dancing,” she says, and Donovan says, “Goddamn, I’m really tired,” and she pouts.

  “Okay,” he says finally, “drinks, coupla dances, if it makes you happy, we’ll do it.”

  Things a guy’s gotta do to get laid these days . . .

  So here they are on Mass Avenue and some little black guy’s tailin’ ’em across the street, all the way from Billie’s place.

  Jingles was on the mezzanine level of a new office building, you rode up in a stainless steel elevator one floor. Inside, the place was dark and shiny, a lot of chrome and black leather, big darkened windows looking out on Boylston, and three guys playing some kind of jazz rock next to a glass dance floor lit from underneath. Some guy in a tuxedo with a little pencil-thin mustache met them at the door and showed them to a table next to the windows.

  Billie turned her back to Donovan so he could remove her topcoat. Then she fluffed her hair and sat down, but as Donovan started to shrug out of his coat he paused with it half off his shoulders, looking through the window at the other side of the street. “Order me a beer,” he said, slipping into his coat again.

  “A what?”

  “A beer. Any kind.”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Outside for a minute.”

  Billie made a face and turned her head to look out the window. Traffic was light and three young kids in baseball caps were walking past on the street below, their shoulders hunched and their hands thrust in the pockets of their jeans. At a bus stop, a heavy black woman stood patiently, her eyes moving from side to side behind heavy-rimmed glasses. Billie watched Donovan emerge from the building, trot across Dalton and disappear around the corner, heading for the Sheraton. Then he was back again, this time keeping himself close to the buildings for the first few steps before breaking into a sprint just as a small black figure burst from behind a concrete pillar of the Hynes Convention Center across the street.

  Django didn’t know what was in the office building, ten maybe twelve stories of it. What’s this cop want with Billie in an office, this time of night? The cold was getting to him, standing there, watching people come out of the Sheraton down the way and the Hilton across the street, flagging down cabs, heading out for a little fun, big dinner, few drinks maybe. He was thinking about the rooms in those hotels, how they must look, got your own bar fridge in there, got your cable TV with porno movies, flick the switch, got room service, send you up some steak and ribs, what you want to go outside for, night like this?

  Then the cop was out the door alone now, heading for the Sheraton. Django watched him disappear from sight, wondering if Billie was alone now up in that office building, if maybe Django walked in the front door, looked around, he could figure where she might be. Or should he just stay where he’s at, wait for Billie to show on her own?

  He took some time thinking about that, about what he should do, and he decided maybe he’d go in the front door of the building, see what’s happening. But he took one step out from behind the pillar and the man was on him, one big pink hand grabbing Django’s shoulder, the other flashing a gold badge at him.

  “What’re you up to, asshole?”

  Donovan spun Django around, taking a good look at his face, knowing him from somewhere, then shoved him face first against the locked door of the Hynes Convention Center.

  “Nothin’, darlin’,” Django managed to say.

  “Cut the crap.” Donovan slipped his badge back into his coat and used the hand to yank Django’s arm up his back. “You’ve been on our ass for six blocks. You think I didn’t spot you, you two-bit amateur? What’s goin’ on?”

  “I’m lookin’ out for her’s all.”

  “Lookin’ out for who?”

  “For Billie. She a friend a mine, you ask her. Ask her if she ain’t a friend a Django’s.”

  Donovan released him and stood staring at Django who turned calmly around and smoothed the sleeves of his coat. “You hang around the Flamingo,” Donovan said.

  “Used to.” Django examined the buttons on his coat and stepped deeper into the shadowy doorway, out of sight. “Don’t no more. Bird’s closed for good ’cause a what happened to MaryLou and the Afro cop.”

  “You’re a dealer.”

  Django looked at him blankly. “Ain’t never been convicted. Ain’t never even been charged.”

  “You supply McGuire, right?”

  “I know the Jolt.” Django looked up and down the street. No percentage in being seen talking to the law, even this far from home ground. “Seen him in the Bird a few times, that’s all.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I gotta go, man.” Django thrust his hands into his pockets. “You tell Billie Django says hey an’ I hope she’s stayin’ well, keepin’ healthy, eatin’ right.”

  Donovan clamped a hand on the small man’s shoulder. “Tell me what else you know about McGuire.”

  Donovan was enjoying it, watching Django squirm there in the darkened doorway. Little black prick was a source, you could see it. Dealing on the street, feeding McGuire what he needed, he was a source.

  “The Jolt’s okay, he all right.”

  “He could be involved in two murders, you know that?”

  “Not for me to know.” Django’s eyes were flying around in their sockets like a couple of ping-pong balls.

  “If you’re hiding anything on him, I’ll nail your ass as an accessory and you’ll spend ten years at Cedar Hill, you got that?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ to know.” Django shook his head and forced himself to look into Donovan’s eyes.

  “You ever meet Fox?”

  “Good-lookin’ dude, got shot in the Jolt’s door? No, sir.”

  “You ever meet a woman named Heather Lorenzo?”

  Django shook his head.

  “Your buddy McGuire did her, over in her apartment. . . .”

  Django’s eyes shot to the left and he said something.

  “What’d you say?” Donovan asked.

  “Maybe—”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe I met her once.” Oh, Jesus, Django thought. Oh shit, here it goes, and he remembered Elsie.

  Donovan let go of Django and Django slumped against the door. “You wanta tell me about it now?” he said, smiling. “Or you wanta tell me when your balls are between my shoe and the sidewalk?”

  Could save the Jolt’s life, Django thought. Maybe save mine too. They get me down on Nashua Street, Grizz think I’m talking, he’d do it, spread the word whether I’m talking or not, and Grizz’ll get a guy, bury a shiv in my ribs. ’Sides, this has nothin’ to do with Grizz, the woman on Newbury. Nothin’ to do with him.

  “She give me a message,” Django said. “She finds me one day, her and her car. Leans out the window, gives me a message for the Jolt. That night she’s dead. But it ain’t the Jolt did it.”

  “’Course it ain’t.” Donovan leaned casually against the side of the doorway, watching Django. “So tell me the message. Tell me what she wanted you to say to McGuire.”

  “She want him to come see her, hold some m
oney, somethin’ like that.”

  “Why’d she pick you to tell him?” Donovan looked Django up and down. “You’re hardly the Newbury Street type.”

  “Saw me once. Over by the river. On the ’Splanade. Then she see me in front of the Bird, come to find the Jolt. Gave me twenty bucks, find McGuire, tell him something.”

  “Tell him what?”

  “Just come see her, else him and me, we’d both be in trouble.”

  “Him and you?”

  “That’s what she say.” Django drew circles on the concrete with the toe of a shoe. “You tryin’ to nail the Jolt for what happened, that woman?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And the black cop, got his ass shot at the Bird, goin’ in Jolt’s apartment?”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “I seen him.”

  “Who? McGuire? You saw McGuire?”

  Django felt sick. Right there he felt his stomach do a flip and he told himself, here we go. Here we go, fool.

  Through the window of the dance club Billie had watched Donovan sprint across the street and disappear into the shadows of the buildings along Dalton. A waiter appeared and spoke to her, and by the time Billie had turned to order drinks and then looked out the window again, a bus had arrived, blocking the view. When the bus pulled away the shadows were black and lifeless again. Billie finally gave up and leaned back in her seat, watching the waiter arrive with a beer and a C.C. and water.

  She was halfway through the C.C. and water when Donovan returned, walking with his hands in his topcoat and his head down, looking at the floor and frowning. When he slid across from her and sipped his beer without looking at her, she knew he reminded her of something or somebody, and when she sat back against the booth and he raised his head to give her a small smile that looked as though he wanted it to explain everything, she knew what it was. Or who. He reminded her of McGuire, the surface toughness over the quizzical expression, like a small boy puzzling over a riddle he knew he could never solve.