Rosary girls jbakb-1

by Richard Montanari

  Wrong.

  Sparkle threw a shot over the ref's head, glancing off Jessica's shoulder; Jessica retaliated with a hard jab that caught Sparkle on the side of the jaw. Sparkle's corner rushed in, along with Uncle Vittorio and although the crowd was cheering them on-some of the best fights in Blue Horizon history took place between rounds-they managed to separate the women.

  Jessica plopped down on the stool as Uncle Vittorio stepped in front of her.

  "Muckin bidge,"Jessica muttered through the mouthpiece.

  "Just relax," Vittorio said. He pulled the mouthpiece out, wiped her face. Angela grabbed one of the water bottles in the ice bucket, popped the plastic top, and held it near Jessica's mouth.

  "Yer droppin' yer right hand every time you throw a hook," Vittorio said. "How many times we go over this? Keep yer right hand up." Vittorio slapped Jessica's right glove.

  Jessica nodded, rinsed her mouth, spat in the bucket.

  "Seconds out," yelled the referee from center ring.

  Fastest damn sixty seconds ever, Jessica thought.

  Jessica stood as Uncle Vittorio eased out of the ring-when you're seventy-nine, you ease out of everything-and grabbed the stool out of the corner. The bell rang, and the two fighters approached each other.

  For the first minute of round two, it was much the same as it was in the first round. At the midway point, however, everything changed. Sparkle worked Jessica against the ropes. Jessica took the opportunity to launch a hook and, sure enough, she dropped her right hand. Sparkle countered with a left hook of her own, one that started somewhere in the Bronx, made its way down Broadway, across the bridge, and onto I-95.

  The shot caught Jessica flush on the chin, stunning her, driving her deep into the ropes. The crowd fell silent. Jessica always knew that someday she might meet her match, but, before Sparkle Munoz moved in for the kill, Jessica saw the unthinkable.

  Sparkle Munoz grabbed her crotch and yelled:

  "Who's godda balls now?"

  As Sparkle stepped in, preparing to throw what Jessica was certain would be the knockout blow, a montage of blurry images unspooled in her mind.

  Like the time, on a drunk and disorderly call on Fitzwater Street, on her second week on the job, the wino puked into her holster.

  Or the time Lisa Cefferati called her "Gio-vanni Big Fanny" on the playground of St. Paul's.

  Or the day she came home early and saw Michelle Brown's dog-piss- yellow, cheap-ass, size ten Payless-looking shoes at the foot of the stairs, right next to her husband's boots.

  At this moment the rage came from another place, a place where a young girl named Tessa Wells lived and laughed and loved. A place now silenced by the dark waters of a father's grief. That was the picture she needed.

  Jessica cranked up every one of her 130 pounds, rolled her toes into the canvas, and unleashed a right cross that caught Sparkle on the tip of her chin, turning her head for a second like a well-oiled doorknob. The sound was massive, echoing throughout the Blue Horizon, mingling with the sounds of all the other great shots ever thrown in the building. Jessica saw Sparkle's eyes flash Tilt! and roll back into her head for a second before she collapsed to the canvas.

  "Geddup!" Jessica shouted. "Geddafuggup!"

  The referee ordered Jessica to a neutral corner before returning to the supine form of Sparkle Munoz and resuming his count. But the count was moot. Sparkle rolled onto her side like a beached manatee. This fight was over.

  The crowd at the Blue Horizon shot to its collective feet with a roar that shook the rafters.

  Jessica raised both hands in the air and did her victory dance as Angela ran into the ring and threw her arms around her.

  Jessica looked around the room. She spotted Vincent in the front row of the balcony. He had attended every one of her fights when they were together, but Jessica hadn't been sure if he'd be at this one.

  A few seconds later Jessica's father stepped into the ring, Sophie in his arms. Sophie never watched Jessica fight in the ring, of course, but she seemed to like the spotlight after a victory every bit as much as her mother. This night, Sophie wore her matching raspberry fleece separates and little Nike sweatband, looking like a toddlerweight contender herself. Jessica smiled, gave her father and daughter a wink. She was okay. Better than okay. The adrenaline hit her in a rush and she felt as if she could take on the world.

  She held her cousin tighter as the crowd continued to bellow, chanting, "Balls, Balls, Balls, Balls.. "

  Over the roar, Jessica shouted into Angela's ear. "Angie?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Do me a favor."

  "What?"

  "Don't ever let me fight this fuckin' gorilla again."

  Forty minutes later, on the sidewalk in front of the Blue, Jessica signed a few autographs for a pair of twelve-year-old girls who looked at her with a mixture of admiration and idol worship. She gave them the standard stay-in-school, stay off drugs sermons and they promised they would.

  Jessica was just about to head to her car when she sensed a presence nearby.

  "Remind me never to get you mad at me." The deep voice came from behind her.

  Jessica's hair was wet with sweat and heading in six directions. She smelled like Seabiscuit after a mile-and-a-quarter run and she could feel the right side of her face swelling to the approximate size, shape, and color of a ripe eggplant.

  She turned around to see one of the most beautiful men she had ever known.

  It was Patrick Farrell.

  And he was holding a rose.

  While Peter took Sophie to his house, Jessica and Patrick sat in a dark corner of the Quiet Man Pub on the lower floor of Finnigan's Wake, a popular Irish pub and cop hangout on Third and Spring Garden Streets, their backs to the Strawbridge's wall.

  It was not, however, dark enough for Jessica, even though she had done a quick remodeling of her face and hair in the ladies' room.

  She nursed a double scotch.

  "That was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life," Patrick said.

  He wore a charcoal cashmere turtleneck and black pleated slacks. He smelled great, which was one of the many things that time-tunneled her back to the days when they had been an item. Patrick Farrell always smelled great. And those eyes. Jessica wondered how many women over the years had tumbled headfirst into those deep blue eyes.

  "Thanks," she said, instead of something remotely witty or minutely intelligent. She held her drink glass against her face. The swelling was down. Thank God. She didn't relish looking like the Elephant Woman in front of Patrick Farrell.

  "I don't know how you do it."

  Jessica shrugged her best aw shucks. "Well, the hard part is learning how to take a shot with your eyes open."

  "Doesn't it hurt?"

  "Of course it hurts," she said. "You know what it feels like?"

  "What?"

  "It feels like getting punched in the face."

  Patrick laughed. "Touche."

  "On the other hand, there's no feeling I can think of like the one you get from decking your opponent. God help me, I love that part."

  "So, do you know it when you land it?"

  "The knockout punch?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh yeah," Jessica said. "It's just like when you catch a baseball on the fat part of the bat. Remember that? No vibration, no effort. Just… contact."

  Patrick smiled, shaking his head as if to concede that she was a hundred times braver than he. But Jessica knew this wasn't true. Patrick was an ER physician, and she couldn't think of any job tougher than that.

  What took even more courage, Jessica thought, was that Patrick long ago stood up to his father, one of the most renowned heart surgeons in Philadelphia. Martin Farrell had expected Patrick to pursue a career as a cardiac surgeon. Patrick grew up in Bryn Mawr, attended Harvard Medical School, did his residency at Johns Hopkins, the path to stardom all but furrowed in front of him.

  But when his kid sister Dana was killed in a Center City drive-by
shooting, an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, Patrick decided to devote his life to working as a trauma physician at an inner-city hospital. Martin Farrell all but disowned his son.

  It was something Jessica and Patrick shared-a career selecting them, as a result of a tragedy, instead of the other way around. Jessica wanted to ask how Patrick was getting along with his father now that so much time had passed, but she didn't want to open any old wounds.

  They fell silent, listening to the music, catching each other's eyes, mooning like a pair of teenagers. A few cops from the Third District stopped by with congratulations for Jessica, drunkenly shadowboxing their way to the table.

  Eventually, Patrick brought the conversation around to work. Safe territory for a married woman and an old flame.

  "How is it working in the big leagues?"

  Big leagues, Jessica thought. The big leagues have a way of making you seem small. "It's still early days, but it's a long way from my days in a sector car," she said.

  "So, what, you don't miss chasing down purse snatchers, breaking up bar fights, and shuttling pregnant women to the hospital?"

  Jessica smiled a little wistfully. "Purse snatchers and bar fights? No love lost there. As far as pregnant women go, I guess I retired with a record of one and one in that department."

  "What do you mean?"

  "When I was in a sector car," Jessica said, "I had one baby born in the backseat. Lost one."

  Patrick sat a little straighter. Interested, now. This was his world. "What do you mean? How did you lose one?"

  This was not Jessica's favorite story. She was already sorry she brought it up. It looked like she had to tell it. "It was Christmas Eve, three years ago. Remember that storm?"

  It had been one of the worst blizzards in a decade. Ten inches of fresh snow, howling winds, temperatures around zero. The city all but shut down.

  "Oh, yeah," Patrick said.

  "Anyway, I was on last-out. It's just after midnight and I'm in a Dunkin' Donuts, getting coffee for me and my partner."

  Patrick raised an eyebrow, meaning: Dunkin'Donuts?

  "Don't even say it," Jessica said, smiling.

  Patrick zipped his lips.

  "I was just about to leave, when I hear this moaning. Turns out there was a pregnant woman in one of the booths. She was seven or eight months pregnant, and something was definitely wrong. I called for a rescue but all the EMS units were on runs, skidded out, frozen fuel lines. A nightmare. We were just a few blocks from Jefferson so I got her in the squad car and we took off. We get to around Third and Walnut and we hit this patch of ice, skidded into a line of parked cars. We got stuck."

  Jessica sipped her drink. If telling the story made her feel bad, wrapping it up made her feel worse. "I called for assistance but by the time they got there, it was too late. The baby was stillborn."

  The look in Patrick's eyes said he understood. It is never easy to lose one, no matter what the circumstances. "Sorry to hear it."

  "Yeah, well, I made up for it a few weeks later," Jessica said. "My partner and I delivered a big baby boy down on South. And I mean big. Nine pounds and change. Like delivering a calf. I still get a Christmas card every year from the parents. After that, I applied for the Auto Unit. I had my fill of ob-gyn work."

  Patrick smiled. "God has a way of evening the score, doesn't he?"

  "He does," Jessica said.

  "If I remember correctly, there was a lot of craziness that Christmas Eve, wasn't there?"

  It was true. Generally, when a blizzard hits, it keeps the nut jobs indoors. But for some reason, the stars lined up that night and they were all out. Shootings, arson, muggings, vandalism.

  "Yeah. We were running all night," Jessica said.

  "Didn't somebody throw blood on the door of some church, or something like that?"

  Jessica nodded. "St. Katherine's. Up in Torresdale."

  Patrick shook his head. "So much for peace on earth, huh?"

  Jessica had to agree. Although if there suddenly was peace on earth, she'd be out of a job.

  Patrick sipped his drink. "Speaking of insanity, I hear you caught that homicide on Eighth Street."

  "Where did you hear that?

  With a wink: "I have my sources."

  "Yeah," Jessica said. "My first case. Thank you, Lord."

  "Bad as I heard?"

  "Worse."

  Jessica gave him a brief rundown of the scene.

  "My God," Patrick said, reacting to the litany of horrors that befell Tessa Wells. "Every day I think I've heard it all. Every day I hear something new."

  "I really feel for her father," Jessica said. "He's pretty sick. He lost his wife a few years ago. Tessa was his only daughter."

  "I can't imagine what he's going through. Losing a child."

  Jessica couldn't either. If she ever lost Sophie, her life would be over.

  "Pretty tough assignment right out of the box," Patrick said.

  "Tell me about it."

  "Are you okay?"

  Jessica thought about it before answering. Patrick had a way of asking questions like that.You got the feeling he really cared. "Yeah. I'm okay."

  "How's your new partner?"

  This one was easy. "Good. Really good."

  "How so?"

  "Well, he's got this way of handling people," Jessica said. "This way of getting people to talk to him. I don't know if it's fear or respect, but it works. And I've asked around about his solve rate. It's off the charts."

  Patrick looked around the room, back at Jessica. He formed a half- smile, the one that had always made her stomach go a bit spongy.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Mirabile visu," Patrick said.

  "That's what I always say," Jessica said.

  Patrick laughed. "It's Latin."

  "Latin for what? Who beat the crap out of you?"

  "Latin for You are wonderful to behold."

  Doctors, Jessica thought. Smooth talk in Latin.

  "Well… sono sposato, "Jessica replied. "That's Italian for My husband would shoot us both in thefriggin'forehead if he walked in here right now."

  Patrick put both hands up in surrender.

  "Enough about me," Jessica said, silently berating herself for even bringing up Vincent. He wasn't invited to this party. "Tell me what's up with you these days."

  "Well, it's always busy at St. Joseph's. Never a dull moment," Patrick said. "Also, I might have a showing lined up at the Boyce Gallery."

  Besides being a hell of a doctor, Patrick played the cello and was a talented painter. He had done a pastel sketch of Jessica one night when they were dating. Needless to say, Jessica had it well buried in the garage.

  Jessica nursed her drink while Patrick had another. They caught up fully, effortlessly flirting just like the old days. The hand touching, the electric brush of feet under the table. Patrick also told her that he was donating his time to a new free clinic opening on Poplar. Jessica told him that she was thinking about painting the living room. Whenever she was around Patrick Farrell, she felt like she was a drain on society.

  At around eleven Patrick walked her to her car, which was parked on Third Street. Then came the moment, as she knew it would. The scotch helped smooth it over.

  "So… dinner next week, maybe?" Patrick asked.

  "Well, I… you know…"Jessica hemmed and hawed.

  "Just friends," Patrick added. "Nothing untoward."

  "Well, then, forget it," Jessica said. "If we can't be toward, what's the point?"

  Patrick laughed again. Jessica had forgotten how magical that sound could be. It had been a long time since she and Vincent had found anything to laugh about.

  "Okay. Sure," Jessica said, trying, and failing, to find a single reason not to go to dinner with an old friend. "Why not?"

  "Great," Patrick said. He leaned over and gently kissed the bruise on her right cheek. "Irish preop," he added. "It'll be better in the morning. Wait and see."

  "Thanks, D
oc."

  "I'll call you."

  "Okay."

  Patrick winked, setting loose a few hundred sparrows in Jessica's chest. He put up his hands, in a defensive boxing posture, then reached out, smoothed her hair. He turned and walked to his car.

  Jessica watched him drive away.

  She touched her cheek, felt the lingering warmth of his lips. And was not at all surprised to discover that her face was starting to feel better

  16

  MONDAY, 11:00 PM

  Simon Close was in love.

  Jessica Balzano was absolutely incredible. Tall and slender and sexy as hell. The way she dispatched her opponent in the ring gave him, perhaps, the single most feral charge he had ever felt just looking at a woman. He felt like a schoolboy watching her.

  She was going to make great copy.

  She was going to make even better artwork.

  He had flashed his smile and press ID at the Blue Horizon and gotten in with relative ease. Granted, it wasn't like getting into the Linc for an Eagles game, or the Wachovia Center to see the Sixers, but still, it gave him a sense of pride and purpose whenever he was treated like part of the mainstream press. Tabloid writers rarely got free tickets, never went on the press junkets, had to beg for press kits. He had misspelled many names in his career, due to the fact that he never got a decent press kit.

  After Jessica's fight, Simon parked half a block from the crime scene tape on North Eighth Street. The only other vehicles were a Ford Taurus, parked inside the perimeter, along with a Crime Scene Unit van.

  He watched the eleven o'clock news on his Watchman. The lead story was the murdered young girl. The victim's name was Tessa Ann Wells, seventeen, of North Philly. Immediately, Simon had his Philadelphia white pages open on his lap, his Maglite in his teeth. There were a total of twelve possibilities in North Philly: eight spelled Welles, four spelled Wells.

  He pulled out his cell phone, dialed the first number.

  "Mr. Welles?"

  "Yes?"

  "Sir, my name is Simon Close. I'm a writer with The Report"

  Silence.