Pulse

by Michael Harvey

  “Simon?”

  “I was sitting right here, staring up at the window, watching him pace. Guess I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Do me a favor and leave it alone.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I saw Walter Price that night in the cellar. Had a chance to shoot him myself.”

  “I knew you never would.”

  “He didn’t kill Harry. Otherwise, I would have pulled the trigger.”

  “You can lie to yourself, Daniel, but that’s all it is.”

  He knocked her knee with his and held her hand loosely, tracing a finger across the flutter at her wrist, watching the color wash from her face.

  “We’re gonna be fine,” she said.

  That was another lie, but only he knew for sure. So he let it pass and waited for her to tell him what she’d come to say.

  “I followed your roommate.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “No. It was the middle of the night and I could barely keep up.”

  “Good. So where did he go?”

  39

  IT HAD stormed off and on all afternoon, the sky grumbling in a drizzle of purples and blacks. The artistic soul, however, would not be denied. And so Zeus Sanchez watched from the window as a couple of men painted silhouettes of strippers on the side of the building. Sanchez followed the line of dancing women to an electric sign lying flat on the bed of a pickup. Three more men had set up a pulley and winch on the roof while a fourth ran a wire through two iron loops on the top of the sign and turned his thumb up. Sanchez read the block letters as the sign started to rise—KING ARTHUR’S MOTEL AND LOUNGE.

  The Old Line Boarding House in Chelsea had been sold a few months back. Along with a new name, the owners were going to put in a bar and a couple of stripper poles downstairs. They’d keep the rooms upstairs, but now they’d rent them out by the hour. As far as he knew, Sanchez was the only guest left in the place. He hadn’t paid for his room, never saw anyone else downstairs or in the hallway. There’d just been the key in an envelope, an address, and instructions. Three rings on the phone told him when it was time to eat. He’d troop downstairs and find his meal laid out on a table by the front door. When he was finished, he’d head back upstairs and stay there. If he didn’t, they’d know and the deal would be off. At least that’s what the instructions said and Sanchez had no reason to doubt it.

  He walked over to the dresser and felt the weight of the envelope in his hand. He pulled out the cash and counted it, then counted again and put it away. He’d brought a transistor radio to keep up with the news. He wasn’t sure if they knew about that and maybe he didn’t give a fuck. He’d been scared at first, but things were changing. He was beginning to see the seams in their plan, cracks where before there’d been nothing. Was there risk? Sure. But he’d grown up immigrant poor and hungry as fuck. Plus he was a Harvard kid. Chances were he saw more than most.

  The rain had returned in driving sheets. Sanchez was thinking about heading back to the window to watch the strippers as they washed off the side of the building when he heard a footfall. Three days and it was the first hint of another person in the place. Sanchez reached under the mattress and pulled out the Saturday night special he’d bought for twenty-five bucks with money from the envelope. He pointed the gun at the doorknob and watched it turn. Fucker wasn’t knocking. And he had a key. Sanchez’s finger tightened on the trigger as the door opened.

  “You look like crap,” Sanchez said, voice neutral and strong.

  “Put it down.”

  “As soon as you tell me what’s going on.”

  The visitor stepped inside. When you came right down to it, short of pulling the trigger, the kid from Harvard didn’t really have a plan. So he dropped his gun hand as the visitor walked around the room, tugging down shades and acting like he owned the place, which he pretty much did. He sat down on the bed and the two began to talk. Actually, the visitor talked. Sanchez nodded a lot and listened.

  40

  RAIN BATTERED the windows, making a sharp sound before sliding off into infinity. Barkley paused at the top of the stairs, Kenny Soo on his shoulder. The detective put a finger to his lips. Soo was a statue even when he wasn’t and shot Barkley a look that said Let’s get on with it. Barkley led the way, easing across the hall to Nick Toney’s studio. He gave the door a light knock, then tried the knob. Locked. Barkley motioned Soo back toward the stairwell and sized up the jamb for one of his size thirteens. Soo touched the detective’s shoulder and shook his head. He crab walked around Barkley and crouched by the lock. From a pocket the little prick produced a leather case with a set of steel picks. Thirty seconds later, the door popped open. Soo was already inside. Barkley pulled his gun and followed.

  They’d talked downstairs, sitting on the curb as trash blew down the street and the first drops of rain picked at their shoulders and hair. Soo had called the station three days earlier with some information. Barkley had been tied up with Tommy’s hearing and never got the message. Now Soo wanted to pass along what he knew. And get paid.

  “Kenny . . .” Barkley moved through the darkened photography studio toward a suite of rooms in the back. He found Soo in a small office with a cot in the corner. Soo was rummaging through a set of desk drawers.

  “Stay here and shut up.” Barkley threw Soo into a chair and checked out the other two rooms. One was a bathroom, complete with a claw-foot tub. The other looked like it might be Toney’s darkroom. Barkley grabbed Soo on his way back to the main space. He sat Soo at a long table and flipped open the Fitzsimmons murder file.

  “Let’s go over what you told me again.”

  “Okay, boss.” Soo sat with his hands folded like he was in third grade. Barkley couldn’t figure out the kid and didn’t really have the time. He pulled out Harvard’s student photo of Zeus Sanchez. “This guy’s name is Sanchez. Jesus Sanchez.”

  Soo nodded, eyes moving from the photo to Barkley and back again. “I told you downstairs. He’s the guy.”

  “Go through it again, Kenny.”

  “Middle of the afternoon, three days ago.” Soo held up two fingers. “He was in Five Faces.”

  Barkley’s balls had tightened when Soo first mentioned Five Faces. Now the detective watched as Soo examined the photo a second time.

  “I need you to make sure, Kenny.”

  “I’m sure. Pay me, motherfucker.” Soo grinned and pushed the photo away. Barkley counted out three twenties.

  “Pay as we go. Now, what else?”

  “He was worried. Major-league worried. Sat in the shop for an hour before the other guy showed up.”

  “And you’ve never seen the other guy?”

  Soo shook his head. Barkley pulled out a photo of Neil Prescott, as well as the picture of Daniel Fitzsimmons.

  “Neither of these two?”

  “Come on, man.”

  “He was a white guy, right?”

  “Yeah, but older.”

  “And not Toney?”

  “No way. I haven’t seen Toney for a week.”

  “But Sanchez came up here? With the other guy?”

  “I told you. They talked for a while in Five Faces, then they walked next door to the Brompton. I don’t know if they came up here.”

  “Where else would they have gone?”

  Soo made a pumping motion with his fist. “Boom boom. Lots of girls live here, boss.”

  “How long were they in the building?”

  “Two hours, maybe.”

  “And you never saw Toney? Before or since?”

  Soo glanced around the room. Outside, the weather couldn’t make up its mind, bulleting against the glass one minute, then fading to nothing. “You think he’s dead?”

  Toney’s studio had been emptied. No camera equipment, no photos, just a few strands of wire running the width of the place.

  “I don’t know, Kenny. You didn’t see anyone moving s
hit out of here?”

  “No.”

  “And you usually see Toney a lot?”

  “Every day, in and out.”

  “Okay. I got some things I gotta do.”

  “Can I help?”

  Barkley didn’t want Soo around but figured it was better to keep him close. “Sure. How about I deputize you?”

  Barkley pulled on a pair of latex gloves and gave a pair to Soo. Then he got up and began to walk the perimeter. It took the rest of the afternoon and a good part of the evening, but he finally found what he was looking for in the bathroom. Soo had been on his shoulder the entire time, watching what Barkley watched, squatting where Barkley squatted. Now he studied the detective’s face.

  “What is it?”

  Barkley was peering down into the tub. He reached in and ran a finger around the drain.

  “Boss?”

  “I think that’s blood, Kenny.”

  “Think?”

  “It’s blood.”

  “Toney’s dead?”

  For the first time since they’d met, Soo sounded like a scared kid. Barkley led the way back to the main room.

  “Sit down, Kenny.”

  Barkley made a show of going through the Fitzsimmons murder file a second time, pulling a thick stack of photos from the alley. He picked out five shots and spread them in front of Soo. “These are pictures we took of the crowd on the night of the murder.” There were dozens of faces, smudges of color pinned back behind yellow police tape. “Sometimes a killer likes to get a look at his handiwork. So he comes back and watches.”

  Soo nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the photos.

  “Take your time.” Barkley felt the building’s prickly radiator heat laying down sweat and grime in the lines of his neck. “If you don’t see the guy who was with Sanchez . . .”

  “There he is.”

  Soo jabbed at one of the photos. Barkley had only been interested in one photo and only one person in it. Kenny Soo had nailed it.

  “You sure?”

  “He was with Sanchez in Five Faces. Ten out of ten.”

  Barkley studied the picture of Tommy Dillon, wrapped in a gray overcoat and peering over his shoulder at the camera. Then Barkley restacked the photos and put them back in the file. He locked the door on his way out and called into the station from a pay phone. He gave Toney’s address to Charlie Herbert and told him to seal the room. Barkley didn’t offer an explanation. Just seal the room and wait until he called. After he hung up, he gave Soo five more twenties and said there’d be another hondo coming if the kid did three things.

  “Whatever, boss.”

  “First, keep your mouth shut.”

  Soo nodded.

  “Second, stay out of Toney’s place. Third, let me know if anyone else shows up looking to get in. Besides the cops, that is.”

  “And what if Toney shows up?”

  “Toney ain’t gonna be showing up, son. But if he does, you can give me a call.”

  Soo rubbed his fingers together. “More money?”

  “Why not?”

  41

  BARKLEY UNWRAPPED his sandwich and inhaled. Roast beef, sliced paper thin and piled high on a pillow-soft onion roll, a slice of white cheese, slightly melted, and slathers of barbecue sauce. Barkley ate half of it in one go and looked out the scarred windows of Buzzy’s Roast Beef. He’d been driving around most of the night, figuring the angles, weighing the odds, writing his obituary in his head. All in all, it read better than he expected. A couple of college kids slipped out from behind the Red Line station, stumbling across the street and heading in the general direction of the Charles Street Jail. Buzzy’s lived in the shadow of Boston’s oldest lockup, providing an endless source of fun and amusement for a parade of drunks with a hankering for beef. Some sandwich shops gave their children crayons and paper to scribble on. Buzzy’s offered its own life-size jail, replete with barbed wire, searchlights, and a twenty-foot-high brick wall.

  Barkley watched as the drunken duo surveyed the outside of the jail, pacing first one way, then the other. Finally they found their spot and went to work, one guy giving the other ten fingers in an attempt to spider-man up and over the wall. Their efforts ended with the first kid folding back into the gutter and the would-be climber falling face-first onto the pavement. He bounced back up, both of them laughing and pushing and punching each other as they staggered the final few feet to Buzzy’s.

  Ah, the magic of booze.

  The pair each ordered a roast beef sandwich and a knish from the guy behind the counter. Barkley took his food to the far end of the place where a pay phone hung on the wall. He crunched down on an onion ring, wiped the grease off his fingers, and dropped money into the phone. Cat McShane picked up on the third ring.

  “Whoever this is, it had better be good.”

  “It’s me.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost four.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I’m down at Buzzy’s.”

  “Where?”

  “Buzzy’s. By the jail. I needed a sandwich.”

  “So you spend the night in the Combat Zone, then head over to Buzzy’s and gorge. How very original.”

  “I’m working, Cat.”

  “And I’m sleeping. What do you want?”

  “I need you to go over to the address we were at today.”

  “Five Faces? I told you, the skewers you gave me matched. There’s not much more I can do.”

  “The hotel next door. Place called the Brompton Arms.” Barkley gave her the address. “You’ll find a cop on the top floor guarding a door. I told him to expect you. Go inside. There’s a bathroom in the back.”

  “Is this someone’s apartment?”

  “It’s a photography studio. Go into the bathroom and test the tub for blood.”

  “Your guy can do that. Just spray some Luminol around.”

  “I don’t want him in there. No one but you.”

  Cat didn’t respond.

  “If you don’t want to do it, I understand.”

  “I need to know more.”

  He told her about Kenny Soo and how he’d spotted Zeus Sanchez at Five Faces with a stranger, how the two of them had paid a visit to the Brompton.

  “And this studio belongs to someone connected to the Fitzsimmons murder?”

  “The guy who took the snaps in the alley. A photographer named Nick Toney.”

  “What’s the name of the student again?”

  “Sanchez. Zeus Sanchez. He was the one who got his wallet clipped.”

  “So Harry Fitzsimmons went down the alley chasing him?”

  “Yeah. We took a statement from Sanchez that night, then he dropped off the radar. The way things shook out, it didn’t seem important.”

  “And now you have questions?”

  “Soo was able to pick out the guy who was with Sanchez at Five Faces.”

  “And how did he do that?”

  “I showed him a photo.”

  “Your partner.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “It’s in your voice, Bark. Like a fucking bell.”

  “Why would Tommy be talking to Sanchez after the Price shooting? And why would they go up and see Toney?”

  “You asking me?”

  “Been driving around all night asking myself.”

  “Tommy Dillon has already murdered one kid, Bark. And you looked the other way. Now, you’re worried it’s not over. And you’re worried you’re gonna get sucked in even deeper.”

  “I think he killed Nick Toney.”

  “Christ.”

  “I want to make sure I know what I know.”

  “Then what?”

  “You said it. This is a cop thing. And that’s how it’ll go down.”

  “Listen . . .”

  “I understand, Cat. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Give me a number where I can call you.”

  He gave her the number of the pay phone.

&nbs
p; “I’ll ring back when I have something.”

  “How long?”

  “An hour, two tops. Eat another sandwich and think about how much you’re gonna owe me.”

  Cat hung up. Barkley picked at his onion rings and sipped at a Coke. The two drunks were outside again, throwing pieces of their sandwiches over the wall of the jail and into the yard. Ninety minutes later, Buzzy’s was empty when the pay phone rang. The counterman gave Barkley a look like It sure as shit isn’t for me. The detective picked up and listened. He left money on the counter and found his Camaro where he’d left it, parked illegally in front of the Beacon Hill Pub. A college kid was swaying back and forth as he pissed on one of Barkley’s tires. He shooed the kid away and fired up the engine. The sky was just starting to lighten as he headed for the expressway.

  42

  DANIEL WOKE up and walked into the kitchen. A cantaloupe was sitting on the counter, ripe and round and firm. He took up the knife that lay beside it and worked quickly, cutting first lengthwise, then across. He ate the fruit in large chunks, letting the flesh explode in his mouth and the juice run over his teeth, lips, and down his chin. When he was done, he picked up the knife again, holding it in his left hand as he started down the hallway. The doors to both of Simon’s rooms stood wide open. That had never happened before and Daniel hesitated before going in. Simon’s workroom looked much like it did in Daniel’s dream. A long table, bare of even a scrap of paper, and a chair pushed in neatly as if the owner had washed his hands of the whole thing and wasn’t planning on coming back. In the bedroom the mattress had been stripped and the only closet was empty. Daniel climbed the stairs to the roof. No easel, no colored pencils, no sign of Simon anywhere.

  Daniel went back downstairs and sat behind the big desk in the main room. From the window, he could see an MBTA worker in one of the lanes of the bus station. The man nudged a cigarette from a pack and lit it, shaking his head at something while he shuffled his feet in the gray morning light. A bus rolled in and the station man stepped aside, acknowledging the driver with a jut of his chin. He had a newspaper stuck in his back pocket and pulled it out as he crossed the street, heading toward Charlie’s Diner and breakfast—two eggs, toast, and home fries for a buck nineteen.