The Violet Hour

by Richard Montanari

  ‘Two . . .’ Kral and Nicky said in perfect unison, drawing a breath afterward. On that upbeat of air, Nicky knew he was going to live through this. He saw the break in Frank Corso’s resolve. He also saw Frank mouth the words you are fucking dead, asshole as he slowly lowered the gun to his side and let it drop to the floor.

  Nicky figured that Kral would now reach behind his back, grab a pair of cuffs, and slip them on Corso. What Nicky didn’t expect was what actually happened. The moment that Frank Corso’s gun hit the carpet, Kral leaned to his left, putting all of his weight on his left foot, spun in place, and slammed his right foot into Frank Corso’s liver. Hard. Frank Corso folded to the floor like an accordion pleat.

  The banded roll of bills, which Corso still had in his left hand when the impact occurred, went flying across the room and rolled under the couch. Incredibly, Kral didn’t see it, and Frank Corso was far too busy puking to care. Nicky backed to the couch slowly, sat down, not having to feign relief at all. Kral spoke into his two-way radio, and within a few minutes two uniformed officers came up the stairs and took the folded-up version of Frank Corso into custody. While everyone’s back was turned, Nicky reached under the couch, grabbed the roll, and shoved it into his pocket.

  He sat there, his pulse racing, waiting, the roll of bills against his leg like a big green erection.

  Five minutes later, he got the shock of his life.

  ‘You’ve got two choices, Nicky,’ Kral said. ‘Downtown or here. But I will tell you that we have a policy at the Homicide Unit. Your first trip is always an overnighter.’

  ‘You gonna tell me what this is all about first?’ he asked, although he knew his bargaining power was nil.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll tell you,’ Kral said, as he put the handcuffs on Nicky. ‘Ronnie Choi is dead.’

  Nicky, of course, told them everything. Rolled like a fat guy down Granger Road hill. This had gotten so out of control, so fast, that it had begun to teach him one of those indelible lessons that you carry with you the rest of your life. Never lie to a cop. Stay away from the crazy shit. He explained about Frank Corso and the loan, but not about the roll. It appeared that Kral believed him, and that there was nothing prosecutable about Nicky’s end of the matter. So Kral moved on.

  ‘The girl at the drug house identified you, Nicky. We showed her your picture and she tossed.’

  Nicky recalled the pretty young hostess at Elegant Linda’s. The one with the small butterfly tattoo by her right eye. ‘Okay . . .’

  ‘Said you came in with a tranny. A hooker.’

  ‘She’s not a hooker.’

  ‘And you asked for Ronnie Choi.’

  Nicky figured he’d save the argument regarding Beverly Ahn’s virtue for another time. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you just saw Ronnie Choi that one time. At the drug house.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With this Beverly Ahn.’

  ‘Yes. But there’s no way she’s involved in any of this,’ Nicky said. ‘I mean . . . there’s just no way.’

  ‘You made her involved, Nicky. You dropped her right in the middle of it, didn’t you?’

  ‘She’s a transvestite. A show girl. The only things she’s interested in are makeup, magazines, and finding big shoes. She’s not a killer.’

  ‘She a user?’

  Nicky knew he would have to lie again to stop this particular line of questioning. ‘Well, you know what kind of lifestyle she leads. I’m sure she smokes. Little toot now and then. But I’m sure she doesn’t—’

  ‘What exactly did she want to talk to Ronnie Choi about that day?’ Kral asked.

  ‘I told you. Beverly was trying to get an interview with him. Talk him into it for me. I figured if he was selling the killer smack, I would ask him how he felt about it. But I wouldn’t have even known about him if it wasn’t for you guys. Ask Willie T. He’s the one who told me where Rat Boy was going to be that morning. Talk to him.’

  ‘I have,’ Kral said.

  ‘And what did he say?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘He said what you said.’

  ‘Well, there you go. As to all this other shit, I had no idea. The doctor in Erie, this Coldicott guy.’

  The cuffs were off, but they were sitting on Nicky’s coffee table. Alongside Nicky’s collection of memory sticks. For some reason, the stick with the poem and the e-mail was nowhere in sight.

  It looked as if he might not be making that trip downtown after all, but the Birdman’s face, now that Nicky had gotten to look at it sans disguise for much longer than he liked, was nothing if not inscrutable. It still could go either way. But still Nicky pushed. ‘And let me ask you something now,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do I have a shot at an exclusive here? I mean, there are three murders here that seem to be related, right? Four, with the girl. I’ve got the rest of the names. What do you say?’

  ‘We had most of this, Nicky.’

  Nicky was stunned for a moment. ‘What?’

  ‘The FBI is already looking into the connection between the Crane murder in Erie and the death of John Angelino. The jaguar and marmoset stamps – that is a marmoset, by the way, not a monkey – are being run through VICAP now. What we didn’t have was the poem and the list. And for that the people of the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are grateful to you.’

  ‘It’s a marmoset?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Got any idea what it means?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Kral said, rising to his feet. ‘But the bad news for us is that the feds are here already and they’re going to take this away from us. Needless to say, we want this asshole bad.’

  ‘Then let me help,’ Nicky said, remembering his father’s great disdain for the attitude of the FBI agents he had worked with. He reached over to the end table and opened a drawer. He pulled out the half of the hundred-dollar bill, held it up. ‘Let me have the story, Detective Kral. Look at my face. I’ve earned it.’

  Kral studied him. He didn’t take the half C note. ‘We’ll see.’

  Yes, Nicky thought. He put the bill in his pocket.

  ‘Now,’ Kral continued, ‘do you have that memory stick with the names here?’

  ‘Yeah. It must be in my car, though.’ Before he stood up, he looked to Kral for permission. Some things just rub off when you’re a policeman’s kid. Kral nodded and Nicky walked into his bedroom, retrieved his keys, ran down the steps and out the back door. As he was going through the papers on the passenger seat he noticed that Frank Corso’s Firebird was still parked out front. Then he remembered the roll. He took it out of his pocket and gave it a quick count.

  It looked like fifteen hundred dollars!

  Hang on, Grampa. We’re going to Atlantic City.

  He put it in an empty McDonald’s bag, crumpled it, stuffed it under the seat. Except for the swelling on the left side of his face, and the fact that he had just narrowly avoided being booked for first-degree murder, it was turning out to be a fairly decent day.

  But the memory stick was nowhere to be found.

  He generally kept his memory sticks in a box in the glove compartment when he did any mobile computing, but the only things in there now were a dozen or so foil packets of ketchup and a hairbrush with a masking-taped handle.

  Kral wrote down the name and address of a place called the Caprice Lounge.

  ‘You meet me here in an hour, Nicky. Bring the memory stick.’

  ‘No problem,’ Nicky answered, hoping he could put his hands on it. Where the hell had it gotten to? ‘I’ll be there.’

  Kral held his gaze for a few moments before speaking. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Nicky. I’m giving you a pass here. I’m trusting you. You hear me?’

  ‘I hear you,’ Nicky said.

  Kral gave Nicky a few more volts of attitude, then headed for the steps.

  Twenty minutes later, when Gil returned to Nicky’s apartment, the two men tore the place apart. The memory stick was gone.

  Nicky r
emembered copying the e-mail addresses into his notebook – but now that was missing too.

  Shit.

  Happy Hour at the Caprice Lounge was a jumble of eighties hard rock, shouted obscenities, and boisterous retellings of near-death encounters with the city’s vilest desperadoes.

  Nicky and Gil slipped into a back booth, ordered two Michelobs. The bar was dark, half-full. The waitress arrived, served, left.

  ‘I appreciate you doing this,’ Nicky said. He hadn’t told Gil much, and to Gil’s credit, he hadn’t asked. All that was said was that Nicky had to meet a cop and give him something. ‘This shouldn’t take too long.’

  ‘This is police business, Nick. I respect the police.’

  They went silent for a few minutes, listening to the music. Nicky looked at Gil – khaki chinos, Michelob in hand – and thought he looked rather at home in a blue-collar setting like this.

  ‘So you’re a beer drinker, eh?’ Nicky said with a smile.

  Gil blushed a little, looked guilty. ‘I like it just fine, Nick. Needless to say, we don’t usually have it sitting around the rectory much.’

  ‘No keg parties with the St Francis nuns?’

  ‘Not too often,’ Gil replied, playing along, but reddening further.

  ‘Well, drink up,’ Nicky said, figuring Gil was probably not too comfortable with nun jokes. ‘Beers are on me.’

  They clinked bottles, sipped. ‘Thanks, Nick.’

  He took another sip of his beer, slipped out of the booth.

  ‘You can stay,’ Nicky said.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Gil replied, zipping his jacket. ‘I’m sure this is private. I’ll be in the car out front. Take as long as you need.’

  Before Nicky could object, Gil turned on his heels and headed for the door.

  Five minutes later there came a loud burst of laughter at the front of the bar. Nicky looked up and saw Kral standing by the front door with a stocky blond woman. He was telling her an animated story, one that ended with another thunderous cackle of boozy laughter. After a minute or two, the blonde hugged him, left. Kral wobbled a bit, then began glad-handing his way around the horseshoe-shaped bar.

  Detective Ivan Kral was shit-face drunk.

  ‘Nicky. You good?’ Kral said, putting his jigger of bourbon carefully on the table. He slid clumsily into the booth opposite Nicky.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Nicky said, cautiously. ‘You look like you’re feeling no pain. Not on duty, are ya, Birdman?’

  ‘Never been better,’ Kral said. ‘Been off since six.’

  Nicky glanced at the wall clock. It was six-ten. Nobody got this loaded that fast.

  ‘Well,’ Nicky began, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but—’

  Kral held up his hand, interrupting him. ‘Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Well, let me at least—’

  ‘What I’m saying is, I don’t want to fucking hear it. Capeesh?’

  Nicky’s heart sank. Was he going to jail? ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about how it isn’t my case anymore, see? The feds are treating this as a serial murder. We’ve got G-men up the fucking ass down at the Justice Center.’

  Nicky figured it was now or never. ‘It’s gone. The memory stick is gone. Can’t find my notebook either.’

  Kral looked at him for a few moments, focusing a bit drunkenly. He smirked. ‘Feds will want your laptop. Give them something to do. They’re really good at finding shit where shit don’t grow.’ Kral grabbed Nicky’s Michelob, took a long, hard swallow. ‘But we gave them the fact that all the victims went to CWRU. Right under their fuckin’ noses.’

  He said it so casually. Nicky thought for a moment he had misunderstood. Geoffrey, too? Geoffrey went to CWRU, too? ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. Angelino, Coldicott, Crane,’ Kral said, slurring his words a little now. ‘They all went to CWRU in the late eighties. It was the one thing that popped up on all their sheets. As soon as that surfaced, the feds pounced. It’s their case now. I’m out of it.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘None,’ Kral replied. ‘And what’s more, I don’t give a fuck.’ He threw back his shot, looked for the waitress.

  ‘Case Western Reserve,’ Nicky said, softly, new wheels beginning to spin. His cousin Joseph had gone to CWRU, too. ‘Well, would it be okay if I talked to people down at Case for background?’

  Kral laughed, raised his hand, called the waitress. He looked at Nicky, his tinted glasses reflecting the neon beer signs scattered around the room. ‘As long as you keep it out of print until the feds close the case, I don’t care if you talk to the pope.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Nicky said with a smile, grateful for Kral’s inebriated mood, glad to be leaving the Caprice Lounge without handcuffs. Kral had given him inside cop stuff with the CWRU lead. He knew what was expected of him.

  ‘Are we square now, Birdman?’ Nicky asked, sliding his half of the hundred across the table.

  This time Kral pocketed the bill without even looking at it. ‘Like Pat Fuckin’ Boone.’

  Five

  The AdVerse Society

  35

  SEBASTIAN KELLER STARED at the newspaper, the type running together in a miasma of floating black and white dots: a pointillist response caused by the painkillers.

  Two dead now. At least, two that he knew of. And how many more to go? Two? Three? Four? That is, if they weren’t already gone.

  Geoffrey Coldicott, a victim of heroin.

  He thought about the strange, spindly Mr Coldicott, his fey manners and lascivious leers. He had thought Mr Coldicott furtive and strange in those years, or at least that was how it seemed from the vantage point of his arm’s-length acquaintance with him.

  Because the first thing Sebastian Keller had learned as an English teacher at Brush High School, in his mid-twenties, was that you cannot really become friends with your students. Especially at the high-school level.

  But in college, everything changes. In college a young professor can score big with the undergraduate women.

  Sebastian Keller really thought he had penetrated their little group, but on twenty years of reflection, he had concluded that he had not. Five or even ten years’ difference in age was probably surmountable at the college level, but twenty? He didn’t think so. He had certainly thought so then, but he had been wrong. He had just been a middle-aged guy with bridgework and a burgeoning paunch who had dressed and acted embarrassingly young.

  He had taken them all to dinner one evening after a particularly lively afternoon session of his 300-level poetry class. There had been seven or eight of them, the AdVerse Society in its totality plus a few hangers-on, freshmen who got a literary contact high from being in the same room with people, like themselves, who had actually read books such as Catcher in the Rye or Naked Lunch or Steppenwolf.

  One of the freshmen who tagged along to the Boarding House that night was a delicately beautiful girl named Julia Raines, a transfer student from Bowling Green who had transferred to CWRU mid-semester. Even though she was not all that far from her home in Haskins, Ohio, she said she felt quite liberated.

  Julia was the archetypal waif, he had thought that night, provincial in manner, slender and pale in her peasant dresses and sandals. She was beautiful in the sense that a willow is beautiful; sky blue eyes that squinted at the slightest change in light, soft brown hair that seemed to always be fighting the thinnest of breezes.

  By nine-thirty that night they had eaten dinner, and subsequently consumed a half dozen pitchers of beer, along with the ubiquitous Algonquin cocktails. Soon the conversation among the ten or so people at the table became both insufferably lofty and cacophonous; so much so that he remembered they had, at times, even drowned out the three-piece combo in the corner of the upstairs level at the Boarding House.

  ‘Emily Dickinson,’ John Angelino said, ‘is the only woman who could even hold a candle to her male contemporaries.’

  There was a brief moment of silence before
John Angelino was pelted with a hurricane of balled-up napkins, swizzle sticks, and bits of onion ring by the handful of women at the table.

  ‘Sylvia Plath,’ one of them hurled.

  ‘Gwendolyn Brooks,’ said another.

  ‘Sara Teasdale, Marianne Moore,’ said yet another.

  Then, as if their heads were all tied together with string, they all looked to Julia to get in her lick, but instead, Julia smiled and blushed, a little off guard and, it appeared, woefully under read on the subject. She looked at her shoes.

  A few more halfhearted projectiles came sailing John Angelino’s way as Julia excused herself from the table.

  A few moments later, Sebastian Keller followed.

  There was a pay phone at the dark end of the corridor in those days, directly across from the ladies’ room entrance. Sebastian picked up the phone but didn’t insert any coins, didn’t dial a number. He just stood there, silently, the cold, quiet plastic to his ear. He did this because he knew that, from that angle, one could see the slightest wedge of the anteroom to the ladies’ toilet, the room that held the couch and the stand-up ashtrays and one long wall with a succession of round, art deco mirrors. With the door propped open in the manner in which it was that night, he could covertly watch whoever was standing in front of the very last mirror by the door, could observe her from the cover of darkness.

  A minute or two into his voyeuristic deception, Sebastian Keller was rewarded. Julia Raines stopped at the last mirror, and he watched her do something that he had thought about a thousand times since. Something that would make Julia Raines live in his mind for what he now knew to be the rest of his life.

  He watched her speak to the mirror.

  She seemed to be rehearsing what she was going to say when she returned to the table. She practiced her laugh, the brief, courteous laugh of the cognoscenti, the laugh that lets everyone at the table know that you’ve gotten the joke, or nailed down the reference. She flicked her hair over her shoulder, cocked her head at an angle, as if rapt, listening to a story. Then, quite dramatically, she had burst into laughter, covering her mouth in response to what quite possibly had been the funniest story she had ever heard.