The Violet Hour

by Richard Montanari

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ Nicky said.

  ‘But only temporarily.’

  ‘I see,’ Nicky replied. ‘Like purgatory?’

  She smiled at him. ‘You’re a Catholic? Me too.’

  Nicky nodded.

  Then told her the whole story.

  ‘You’ve got to help me.’

  ‘Why? Why do I have to help you?’

  They were sitting at a booth at the McDonald’s near Fourteenth Street. Nicky had scanned the morning’s Plain Dealer and was pleased to see that his picture wasn’t displayed prominently anywhere inside.

  Within ten minutes of sitting down he had heard Taffy’s whole life story. Her father was a long-haul trucker who took a permanent run to the coast when she was three. Mom was a boozer, slept around the entire corporation limit of East McKeesport, Pennsylvania. She said she met a man named Jimmy Woo at the bus station on Chester. Jimmy and his family owned Elegant Linda’s. She said the cops had talked to her after Rat Boy had turned up dead, asked if anyone had owed him a large sum of money, or if anybody had asked about him lately. They showed her pictures and she had picked out Nicky. No reason to lie.

  But she had no idea where the trail led from there.

  ‘Someone is setting me up here, Taffy. You can see that, right? Someone who is willing to get to my grandfather, just to make a point. And it somehow began with me trying to interview Rat Boy. I’ve been thinking all along I was working a story. I think the story’s been working me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Taffy began, ‘but that doesn’t exactly answer the “why me” end of things.’

  Nicky shifted gears. ‘Look, you know Willie T, don’t you? Black, forties, narcotics cop.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Taffy said. ‘I know him. Everybody in my business knows Willie T.’

  ‘Well, all I want you to do is call him for me. Tell him I want to come in, but I’m not going to turn myself in to Kral. He wants to fucking kill me right now.’

  ‘Don’t know Kral, don’t wanna know him,’ Taffy said. ‘But I still don’t understand why you don’t call Willie yourself.’

  ‘Because they tape everything, Taffy. If I call him, I’ll be on tape for the rest of my life. Things like that have a nasty way of turning into evidence. Plus, I need a little time. And I don’t need to be looking over my shoulder while I try to clear myself.’

  Taffy thought about it, seemed to understand. ‘Okay, then. If I call Willie T for you, what’s in it for me?’ She looked at him as if he were having a garage sale and she was trying to negotiate over a stack of used dinnerware. He hauled out the last smile in his arsenal, hoping there wasn’t a piece of McMuffin hanging from his teeth. Either this one worked or he was fucked.

  ‘A hundred bucks. And you’ll be a big part of the book I’m going to write about this.’

  Taffy studied him for a full minute, the word ‘Hollywood’ seeming to pass through her mind, slowly, like a banner trailing a small plane. ‘You want me to call him now?’

  ‘No,’ Nicky said, relieved. ‘But soon. There’s a few things I have to do first that I’m not going to be able to do with handcuffs on.’

  ‘Like what?’ Taffy asked.

  ‘Like find the guy in the yearbook.’

  Taffy held up the 1987 CWRU yearbook. ‘He’s in this?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nicky replied. He took the book from her, riffled some pages, found page 154. He spun the book on the table, pointed to the small picture of G. Daniel Woltz.

  Taffy’s face drained of all color. Her skin turned an ashen gray. ‘This is the guy you’re talking about?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  Six

  Halloween

  45

  HE WAS ON the second floor when he heard the noise.

  It was the front door. A key, the sound of the hinge, hard soles on the quarry tile of the foyer. A woman’s step, light and purposeful. He had tuned in to her cordless phone conversations from the corner of Bendemeer Lane and Sharpe Road, and what he had heard was that Amelia had had a full morning. She had put Maddie on the bus at seven-forty, then had left the house herself at five past nine. She had said on the phone that she would not be back until eleven, and he had been counting on this two-hour window of opportunity to do what he needed to do.

  But now it seemed she was back. And he wasn’t nearly ready for her.

  If she did not come upstairs, he might be able to pull it off. If she did, and she saw the pile of objects on the bed, he would kill her. He would kill her, bury her, and move on with his day.

  And Taffy would take her place at the party.

  It was just outside the powder blue bathroom on the second floor that he took the chloroformed rag out of the zippered plastic bag and put it over her nose and mouth, held it there tightly. She struggled for a few moments, thrashing her body against him, filling him with an urge he did not have time to salve. Not at the moment, anyway. Not here.

  Then her body fell limp in his arms.

  He picked her up, brought her downstairs, and crossed the kitchen. He laid her body by the door to the garage. A short while later, he backed the van into the garage and closed the door behind him. No one would see him loading his cargo.

  She didn’t stir until forty-five minutes later.

  But by then, they were already deep into the woods.

  When he depressed the plunger on the hypodermic needle, releasing the cloudy liquid mixed with blood into her system, her eyelids fluttered once, twice, then slowly floated shut, her head now drifting downward with the debilitating rush of the heroin speeding through her veins. From where she stood – tied at the feet, waist, and neck, propped against a maple tree – it was nearly three hundred feet to the road, and even the loudest, most blood-chilling scream, were she capable of such a noise, would not be heard by any human being. Faintly, ever so faintly, one could hear the occasional passing of a car on Sperry Road.

  In spite of the chill in the air, he removed his shirt.

  And for the first time in days, felt as if he could fly, as if he could smell the worms boring through the earth beneath the sod, luxuriating in the flesh, fur, and faeces.

  A fine thread of spittle trailed out of the corner of her mouth, coming to rest in a small puddle on the top of her right breast.

  He stepped very close.

  ‘So, tell me, is Maddie going to be Pocahontas for Halloween again this year?’

  Silence. He thought for the moment that he had given her a fatal dose, but when he lifted an eyelid he saw movement. He checked her pulse. Steady, slow.

  He placed his hand beneath her chin, lifted her head.

  ‘What time does she get out of school?’

  The question seemed to energize her for a moment, allowing her to crawl through the haze that had descended over her world. She struggled against the ropes.

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to answer. It was a trick question. The Montgomery School on Fairmount. Her last class lets out at three-ten and then she takes the three-fifty bus. Today she’s wearing an orange ribbon in her hair. Today she’ll have some kind of construction-paper cutout pumpkin with her when she gets off the bus. Or maybe she’ll have one of those black cats with its back arched high.’ He stepped away, examined the blade of the scalpel for a moment, holding it up to the morning sunlight. ‘Which cat do you think it will be?’ he continued. ‘Mungojerrie? Griddlebone? Skimbleshanks? Gus?’

  He reached out, unbuttoned her jacket.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you who’ll be watching little Madeleine today. Macavity. That’s who.’ He turned and ran the scalpel, slowly, over the front of her blouse, popping the buttons, one by one. ‘And what time is trick-or-treating tonight? Six? Six-thirty? Let’s see. Will you head up Edgefield Road toward Huron? Or will you go the other way, towards Meadowood Road?’

  He popped the last button and, in one expert motion, ran the blade back up, slitting her bra. The front of her clothing fell open. He stepped back, admired her for a few moments, then t
urned his back to her and looked skyward, extending his arms straight out to his sides, flexing his muscles. He faced her again. Through the mist of the drug, in the morning sunlight, he hoped she could see the tattoo that stretched across his chest, the finely etched outline of a hawk.

  He studied her for a while, then began to spin in a circle, slowly at first, then faster, faster, churning leaves and rich, black earth, a dervish of muscle and flesh and sinew in front of her.

  Another line of heroin in her arm. Time and matter evaporated with the rush.

  Naked now. Hot. Still standing, still tied. A waft of cinnamon-sweet breath against her face . . . then he was inside her . . . but only for a moment . . . then more of his hypnotic voice . . . the poetry . . . behind her now . . . the crunch of leaves and branches . . . his warm saliva . . . and then he was inside her again.

  Hard. Angry. Big.

  But painless . . .

  Soon after, a pinch at the side of her neck. A paper-cut feeling, but deeper, followed by the icy rush of wind on her throat, the magma of her being running thick between her breasts, over her womb, her legs, down to the damp, disapproving earth . . .

  As the last of the loam and leaves were tamped on her grave, as she lay motionless, deep in Mina Coldicott’s frigid, eternal embrace, the earth, as once promised, accepted her fully.

  46

  THEY SPENT THE day at Taffy’s apartment on Hampshire, a two-room efficiency a few blocks from Coventry Village, Cleveland’s bohemian answer to Greenwich Village. Her apartment was not that much smaller than Nicky’s third floor, but he found himself thinking: She’s nineteen or so. I’m over thirty. What’s wrong with this picture?

  But the decor was secondary to what Taffy Kilbane was going through. Taffy had cried for three hours straight. Two packs of cigarettes, four boxes of tissue.

  She was only sobbing slightly when she told Nicky about the guy who called himself Mac, the guy she said was a ringer for G. Daniel. His face was different, she said, but the eyes were the same.

  She told him how they met and how Mac had told her he was from a small Ohio town called Fostoria, and that Rat Boy Choi and this woman had taken him for a lot of money. All she did was make a call. All she did was lure this woman to a deserted office. Mac had said no rough stuff.

  More tissue.

  Nicky began to pace the small apartment. He picked up Taffy’s cordless phone, called Amelia’s number, got the machine, hung up. He called his own number, but this time no one answered. There were no messages either. He dialed a third number.

  ‘Villa Corelli,’ the switchboard operator said.

  ‘Second-floor station please.’

  ‘Lemme tell you about Louie,’ the black voice said. ‘Louie wakes up this morning, looks around the room like he’s on Mars, man.’ The black man laughed. ‘I mean, we moved all of his shit, put it right where it goes. All the rooms look exactly the same, but still he knew. Don’t let that old-man shit fool ya.’

  Mac sat at the corner of Hampshire and Coventry. The signal from Taffy’s cordless phone was weak, but his scanner was very sensitive. He had been able to pick up Amelia’s conversations from almost a hundred feet away that morning, and now he listened to Nicky talk to the orderly at Villa Corelli.

  ‘But everybody who needs to know already knows, right?’ Nicky said. ‘I mean, Louie isn’t gonna get Hank’s medicine, is he?’

  ‘You took care of Sandy McCall, Nicky. Everything’s cool in two-two-oh.’

  ‘So I don’t have to worry?’

  ‘About nothin’ at all.’

  At three-thirty Taffy walked up to Tommy’s on Coventry and sprang for lunch – French onion soup and falafel. Nicky wolfed down the food, his appetite overruling his nervous stomach. Taffy picked at her sandwich, lit another cigarette.

  ‘It all makes sense now,’ Taffy said. ‘All of it.’

  ‘What does?’ Nicky said.

  ‘The dorm room, all the eighties stuff. This guy is stuck in 1988.’

  ‘You say it was definitely a dorm room?’

  ‘Definitely. And he called me Julia.’

  ‘Jesus. This has something to do with the girl on the steps. Julia Ann Raines.’ Nicky flipped to Julia Raines’s picture, showed it to Taffy. She shook her head, shrugged.

  ‘But, after twenty years, though?’ Taffy asked.

  ‘Hey,’ Nicky said. ‘The heart has no statute of limitations.’

  Then the phone rang. Taffy answered.

  Nicky took the opportunity to look around the small apartment – junk-store lamps with gauzy scarves draped over them, apple-crate end tables, hard-rock posters on the walls. At least I’ve got some real furniture, he thought, although it supplied only a morsel of solace.

  ‘Hi,’ Taffy said. ‘Uh-huh, yeah. What time tonight?’

  Then Nicky realized something was moving in the room. Flailing, like a pink pennant in the breeze. Then a bright blue fuzzy slipper hit him in the head.

  He looked at Taffy. She was desperately trying to get his attention. She pointed to the phone and mouthed the words ‘It’s . . . him!’

  ‘Okay . . . okay . . .’Taffy continued, a little unsteadily. ‘Okay. I’ll be there. Should I wear a costume or anything?’

  Nicky stood up, crossed the room, sat on the edge of the small dinette table.

  ‘Okay, then. Okay. ’Bye.’ She clicked off the phone and dropped it as if it were riddled with disease. ‘Sorry, Nicky. I can’t do this. Too fucking weird,’ she said as she began to pace. ‘Too fucking weird. Sorry. No. Uh-uh.’

  She sat down, lit a cigarette, stood up, sat back down, drew hard, blew the smoke out in a thin, seething ribbon. She began to shake.

  ‘What’s going on, Taffy?’

  ‘He said he’s having a Halloween party tonight. He wants me to come.’

  ‘At the—’

  ‘Yeah. At the warehouse. He told me not to bother with a costume. Said he’d have one for me.’

  He picked up the phone, handed it to Taffy. ‘Call Willie T,’ he said. ‘Tell him what I told you.’

  Taffy took the phone, clicked it back on, listened for a dial tone. ‘And what else?’

  Nicky looked at his watch. ‘Tell him to meet me at the warehouse at nine.’

  47

  DOUGHNUTS. THERE HAD been chocolate-iced doughnuts, covered with orange and black sprinkles, at the party. There had also been, of course, every drug and alcoholic beverage known to humankind there as well. Reefer, cocaine, pills, hashish, bourbon, scotch, gin, vodka. Even mushrooms. Someone made a cocktail of magic mushrooms and Japanese tea: frothy green madness in a primitive earthen bowl.

  He had been in charge of the doughnuts that night, so this night he dutifully pulled into the Amy Joy’s at Richmond and Mayfield Roads and parked in a dark corner, in a space farthest from the bright fluorescence of the doughnut shop.

  He got out, checked all the doors, crossed the parking lot.

  There were two uniformed police officers in the doughnut shop, both in their early thirties. Suburban, veteran cops on a Halloween night. He nodded to them, they returned the greeting, the knowing nod of worldly men, men who knew the score, the dirty realities of modern life. He pitied them, feared them, of course. Probable cause was an ever-widening thoroughfare these days.

  He bought two dozen assorted Halloween-themed doughnuts and quickly left the shop, not making any further eye contact with the officers. He had come so far, and although the notion of all of this drawing to an end, a sudden violent end, was a distinct possibility, it would be criminal to have it end before the party. A wrong, furtive glance in a doughnut shop. A stop sign not totally obeyed.

  He got in, started the van, pulled back onto Mayfield Road, and, obeying all traffic laws, headed east.

  Julia.

  She would not, of course, be at the party tonight. Not this one. Not any one, ever. The love of his life would not be in attendance because she had been hypnotized somehow into taking part in a sick, twisted orgy twenty years ago,
twenty years to the day, an orgy of hard sex and hard drugs and the night had taken her away from him.

  The pirate had taken her away from him.

  The pharmaceuticals and booze had been consumed at a frivolous, furious rate. They had smoked and drank and popped and snorted like savages, all in the name of collegiate freedom, all in the name of youthful, academic excess, the hubris of the physically strong, the mentally acute.

  He had gotten stoned a few times with the general group – having been brought into the intellectual fold by Julia, who shared a poetry class with John Angelino – but he did not know them well. It was only because of Julia that they tolerated him. He always felt unclever around them, constantly challenged, as if he were required to be witty all the time, to get every single literary reference, no matter how obscure.

  But if they tolerated him for Julia, he tolerated them for the same reason. He had to be where she was, to breathe the same air, to feel the same rain on his face, to smell the same smells.

  The party began to degenerate at around eleven-thirty, with couples moving drunkenly off to their respective dorm rooms to party one on one. By midnight the only people left were the core of the AdVerse Society and the usual gang of misfits, hangers-on. The still frame of that moment was burned into his mind, a dark acid etching that had formed the backdrop to his every thought for two decades.

  He turned onto Edgefield Road, closed his eyes, saw it again: Julia was on the floor at the foot of the bed when Jenny turned off the table lamps and lit the candles. Geoffrey had flipped through the box of albums, finally picking out the U2’s Joshua Tree. A standard frat party scene, but something was wrong. As he sat there, on the floor, unable to move, the edges of his vision vibrated and waved. Formerly straight lines doing a cartoon hula dance in front of him. And he knew why. An hour earlier, The Saint had given him the two pink pills, and now they were kicking in. ‘What are these?’ he had asked.