by David Levien
Bullshit and bravado were a quarter of the gig when it came to police work. This was according to Behr ’ s experience. Paperwork and eating shit were another quarter. Taking care of yourself, staying sharp and busy, and sitting on your ass the right way made up the rest, save a sliver for luck. Behr had witnessed it to be true many times in his career, and today was no different as far as the first bit went. Nye and Feeley hadn ’ t wanted a piece of him or his problems. They had left, loudly but peacefully, suggesting he come clean or, better yet, drop off the face of the earth for a while. He had a moment ’ s satisfaction at their frustration as they carted his computer away, but the fact was, his case had gone down the dumper.
He sat motionless in his living room for a long time, until the sound of the alarm bleeping from the bedroom stirred him. He willed himself up, shut it off, and got fully dressed. Thoughts of what to do next were slow to come and sluggish upon arrival. Tad Ford had been shot dead at home. After talking to Behr. And he had missed it. He could try to be heartened, that he ’ d applied pressure and someone had made a move. But enthusiasm like that was for beat cops in their twenties or detectives just out of the bag. In order to take the next step in this case, he now faced having to unravel a murder. No. Not in this world. Ford could ’ ve been popped for a dozen reasons. He and his crimes might have been miles away from Jamie Gabriel ’ s disappearance in the first place.
Behr got his keys and went out to his car. He had never been particularly good at starting over. The problem lay in letting go of the labor and results he ’ d already put forth. They were gone now. They no longer existed, that time and effort. If the decision was not to abandon the case, then there was no choice other than to pick up the strands and begin again. It was unfair that work done well could come to nothing and had to be done again. But like time and effort, fair only existed in the past. Behr headed toward Tibbs, where he ’ d gotten on the scent in the first place. He hoped he ’ d find inspiration there. He didn ’ t know where else to go.
Paul sat on the curb a few feet away from his car. He crossed his arms against the wind. He didn ’ t deserve what had happened. No family did. But he was plagued by a secret knowledge. He hadn ’ t wanted a child. He ’ d believed that this world was no place for a baby, for any innocent life. He ’ d had doubts about his own ability to raise a kid. He ’ d had greater doubts as to why he should. His vanity didn ’ t run toward re-creating in his own image, and that ’ s what having children had felt like back then. But Carol had pushed him on it. She had a certitude he ’ d envied. It was time, she ’ d said. He ’ d held her off, month upon month. He ’ d dug in and grabbed a season here, a quarter there, using various reasons. A move. The need for more money to come in. A trip that would be easier to take if she weren ’ t pregnant. He ’ d been waiting for his own sign, an annunciation that he should have a child of his own. Finally, after a good year and a half had passed, he ’ d realized there was no mystical sign coming for him. He had talked about it with his own father. It doesn ’ t work that way for men, his father had said. You only figure out what ’ s important about it later.
“How do you know if you ’ re supposed to do it? And when?” Paul had asked.
His father had just smiled. His cigarette-stained teeth barely showed behind his lips, but his eyes had twinkled in a way Paul had never seen before. He knew the answer then though his father hadn ’ t said the word. Faith.
Even after they had conceived, after Carol had come out of the bathroom giddy with excitement, holding the stick with the line that had turned blue, the idea of it hadn ’ t clicked for Paul. Even after the doctor confirmed the test, and Carol started to grow and get sick in the mornings, Paul hadn ’ t felt sure about what they ’ d done. But three months in they had gone for the first sonogram. The room was small and dark. An exam table covered by a paper strip and carts full of equipment awaited them. A nurse came in and moved the sensor over Carol ’ s gel-covered belly and Paul turned toward the monitor. There, in the pitch darkness that was her womb, was a tiny figure outlined in gray, and the hummingbird pulse that was his heartbeat, like a ray of light that came piercing the blackness. There was life. There was Jamie.
Then the nurse put away her sonogram sensor and placed another instrument against Carol ’ s abdomen. This one emitted a washy liquid background noise that filled the closetlike space of the exam room. Sitting there on the curb all these years later, Paul could still hear it, the sound of his son ’ s heart coming through the Doppler, a rhythmic swishing, an insistent hammering. His doubts had vanished in that moment.
This was where Behr had said it happened, Paul thought of the spot where he sat on Tibbs. He looked up and down the street. Could he go door to door knocking, gauging those who answered? If they looked suspicious, could he push his way in and search those closets, attics, basements, and crawl spaces for his son or any clue that he had been there? Why couldn ’ t he? It seemed possible and yet impossible at once. The front doors lining the block were like a crooked, mocking smile. They would shut him out for all time.
The sound of a car passing was distant in his ears. In rebound effect he heard a door slam and feet land on the pavement. A dark shadow crossed over him.
“You might not want to sit here too long, we got thunder bumpers coming in.”
Paul looked from the large boots that had stopped before him, up the endless legs and broad torso. He tilted his head to see Behr ’ s face. He nodded and looked off over the big man ’ s shoulder at the angry clouds that loomed in the sky. Neither man said anything for quite a while. They merely absorbed the street, the smell of coming rain in the air.
“Why do you do it?” Paul asked, aloud it seemed.
“It ’ s what I know now. One foot in front of the other. Automatic.” Behr thought for a moment. “Originally, because I wanted answers, I guess. I knew they were out there, that I could find them if I worked hard enough.” He fell silent, and Paul considered what he had heard. “Now I see that I can ’ t know, not really. Especially the why. I see that now.” Behr leaned back against Paul ’ s car and looked up at the clouds.
Paul climbed to his feet. It was hard to talk, but he wanted to. “It ’ s my fault, you know. I always believed in a work ethic. That it wouldn ’ t serve him well to have it too easy. It was my idea, his job delivering papers.” Paul had finally said it, what he ’ d believed but had been unable to voice since the first moment Jamie had gone missing.
Paul glanced to Behr and saw pain in his eyes and an understanding of guilt that was perhaps deeper even than his own.
“I can ’ t tell you much about fatherhood — my term only lasted seven years.” Behr spoke, his voice rough-edged as fresh-quarried limestone. “All I know is that you make ’ em and raise ’ em. You love the hell out of ’ em. But they live in the world and every day it takes a piece of ’ em. Until maybe there ’ s nothing left.”
The landscape Behr ’ s words created was too bleak for Paul to endure. “But we ’ re their fathers. We ’ re supposed to protect them.”
Behr knew he was right. He nodded, a longtime resident welcoming a newer arrival to his neighborhood. The two sonless fathers rested a moment in their defeat.
Paul finally broke it. “Are you here looking for more clues?” he wondered with guarded hope.
Behr shrugged. “A lot ’ s changed since yesterday.”
Paul looked to him.
“You want closure,” Behr said, his voice harder now. “But there is no closure, not in something like this” — and he added the rest, perhaps cruelly, but necessarily, he believed — “when a murder is involved.”
Paul had mulled the idea already, so Behr ’ s words didn ’ t stop him. “Is that what happened to your son?” he asked.
“No.” Fat drops of cold rain began to fall. Paul flipped up his suit jacket collar against it. Behr did nothing.
“I meant what I said. I want to be a part of this thing. I will hire someone else if that ’ s what it takes.” Paul ’
s words weren ’ t a threat. In that instant they became a stark reality. And Behr recognized in the same instant that he didn ’ t want off it.
“You ’ re putting me in a position here,” Behr said, rubbing his chin. It was axiomatic not to take employers along on cases, on the endless stakeouts and the dead ends, lest they confuse surveillance with just sitting around. A chilly wind joined the accelerating raindrops that now splattered on the street between them.
“I won ’ t bring any expectations, if that ’ s what you ’ re worried about.”
Behr looked at Paul and nodded as if that was his concern and not what he had seen on the Web sites. Behr knew those images would destroy the man across from him. “Why do you want to put yourself through this?”
“I can ’ t give him my love anymore. The only thing I ’ ve got left is my labor.” Paul sounded like a preacher when he said it, and while Behr hadn ’ t known the man to be religious, he understood the flame of loss and the changes it wrought.
The rain began to teem, but that wasn ’ t what convinced him. “Don ’ t wear aftershave. I can ’ t be in the car all day with the smell.”
“I don ’ t use it.”
“Good. I ’ ll pick you up tomorrow, when you ’ re off work.”
Paul nodded and both men moved to their cars to get out of the rain.
TWENTY
They sat in Behr’s Toronado, parked across the street from the Golden Lady. Behr didn ’ t feel great about reentering the club in light of what had happened since he ’ d been there, especially with a civilian in tow, but something in him had snapped and crossed over. Perhaps his tolerance for the terrible things that can happen to children had run dry, but he knew now he was not going to back off this case. He looked over at Paul, who was staring out the windshield, and considered how much it would be fair to tell him of his dealings with Ford and what had happened since then. More than I ’ m going to was the amount he arrived at.
“Listen, when we interview people, I do the talking,” Behr said. Paul nodded almost imperceptibly. “Whatever I say, even if it doesn ’ t make sense, whatever you hear — keep a poker face.”
“Poker face.”
“Don ’ t try to help. And when I say it ’ s time to leave it alone — we go.”
“Okay.”
Behr took another look at the club. If anybody inside was upset about Ford ’ s passing, they weren ’ t showing it. There was no black bunting hanging outside in his honor. Just a board announcing drink specials and featured entertainers.
“All right. Go in and sit at the bar. Don ’ t talk to anyone much. I ’ ll come in a few minutes later. We don ’ t know each other unless I say so. Good?”
“Good.”
Paul got out of the car and walked toward the club. Behr watched him. His stride was full of purpose, an attempt at concealing his nerves. Behr had him as anxious the minute he ’ d picked him up. Paul was dressed in carefully selected clothes: khaki pants, trail shoes, button-down shirt under a maroon pullover sweater, and canvas barn jacket. Not too fancy, not too sloppy. He didn ’ t know what he was in for and so had tried to be ready for everything. He hadn ’ t done badly at it, either.
Paul breathed deep as he made his way inside the Golden Lady. He could feel the bass of the music in his crotch even as he paid his cover charge. Entering the main room of the dark club, he felt dizzy and strange. A flash of white and pink flesh tore across his field of vision. He hardly dared to look. Brass and smoke and mirrors and strobes led him to the bar. He sat and raised a finger to a bartender who didn ’ t see it. He left the finger up, then felt like an amateur and lowered it. He didn ’ t go to these types of places. It wasn ’ t that he wasn ’ t allowed, like a lot of the married guys at the office. Carol wasn ’ t that way with him. She ’ d always trusted him. When they were young, she trusted him too much. Nothing he could think to do in relation to other women could cause her to react jealously, in fact. She didn ’ t take him at all seriously then. Later on, when he ’ d managed to move things well beyond friendship, she ’ d started to regard him but still had never worried about his nightlife.
The bartender paid him a visit as Paul negotiated with himself over whether to stare at the young dancer onstage or casually look away.
“What can I get you?” the barman asked.
Paul wasn ’ t sure. He didn ’ t know if he should drink to blend in or abstain to try to stay sharp. “Scotch and soda.” He decided he ’ d just sip it.
“Rail or premium? Whitehall ’ s in the well, Cutty ’ s on the shelf.”
“Cutty.”
Paul ’ s drink arrived and he took a big sip. Bigger than he ’ d meant to. It stung the back of his throat and smacked him in the head. He ’ d watched the bartender pour but doubted it was actually Cutty in the glass. He remembered he hadn ’ t eaten dinner after work. He ’ d gotten home and changed out of his suit quickly. Carol had walked in and started the “What do you want for dinner?” “I don ’ t know, what do you want?” It was dialogue that had become rote for them, passing for real conversation. She ’ d been a bit surprised when she heard he was heading out but hadn ’ t said a word to stop him.
Paul picked up his drink and spun around on his barstool, ready to ogle the strippers like a regular customer. He was in time to see a dancer in her early twenties peel out of a leather brassiere. He felt a stab in his chest at the sight of her near-naked body. He also saw Behr make his way into the club. The man moved with a loose, shambling gait that was at once bad-assed and unassuming. Behr sprawled out at a table right by the stage. He tossed some money at the dancer ’ s feet and stared up at her appreciatively, nodding as if he approved of her every undulation.
A waitress was on a path toward Behr ’ s table when something made her try to veer away. It appeared as if Behr snapped his fingers in her direction, his hand shot out, his arm telescoping with incredible reach, and he got ahold of her wrist. She pulled against his grasp for a moment, then sagged and stepped closer to him.
“You ’ re here about Tad. Well, I ’ m not supposed to talk to anybody about him,” said the waitress from the other night, then cast her eyes about the club.
“Yeah? Who said that?”
“The owners. The manager.”
“Oh, Rudy,” Behr said, confusing her with his familiarity with the name.
“Tad didn ’ t really owe you money,” she said accusingly.
“No.”
“Who are you?”
“Who do you think?”
The music ended and onstage the dancer collected her tips. She smiled toward him as she picked up the money he ’ d left her. He smiled back and then she left the stage.
“You ’ re the police?” the waitress asked.
Behr shrugged, then threw a half salute toward Paul at the bar. Paul half raised his drink in return. He watched the waitress watching the exchange. Paul appeared to be the most ill-concealed undercover of all time.
“Do me a favor and get out of my section,” the waitress said, and hurried away. Behr didn ’ t move. Paul gestured if he should come over and Behr shook his head not to. Before long the dancer who had been onstage appeared beside Behr ’ s table. She now wore a clingy lavender nightgown over revealing underwear. Her hair was sandy blond and she looked younger standing next to him.
“You want a table dance, big man?”
“No, honey.”
“Buy me a drink then?”
Behr pushed out a chair for her with his foot. She sat down. “Sure, but I don ’ t expect the service will be that good.” She didn ’ t know what he meant and looked around for a waitress. None were around, so she waved to the bartender.
“You mind?” she asked as she pulled a pack of Capris out of her tiny handbag.
“Nope. Tell me about Tad Ford.” Concern passed across the dancer ’ s eyes, but it wasn ’ t fear exactly. She didn ’ t move to get up. She ’ d been told the same thing as the waitress about not talking, but at ten years her junior, she felt mo
re secure with her place at the club. She crossed one bronzed thigh over the other and pulled the hem of the nightgown to cover a purple-yellow bruise there. “I know you ’ re not supposed to,” Behr added. He slid her twenty dollars. She snapped it into her handbag with her cigarettes.
“What do you want to know? The guy was a loser who lost.”
“Yeah,” he concurred. “Who did he hang around with? Friends, anybody.”
“I ’ ve only been here like two months. I don ’ t know, papi chulo.”
“You know anything?”
“Not really,” she said, not at all sorry to disappoint him. He waited her out. “You know who would know some shit, though?”
“Who?”
“Brandi.”
“She a dancer?”
“That ’ s right.”
“Real name?”
“Michelle Ginelle.”
“Can you get me back into the dressing room?”
She laughed at him. “Oh, that ’ s the sixty-four-dollar question, as my dad would say. I ’ ve heard that one more than a few times since I ’ ve been here.” He waited her out again. “Anyhow, she ’ s not here.”
“No? Where ’ s she at?”
“She hasn ’ t been around much the last few weeks. But Tad used to drool all over her. Followed her around like a dog, yo.”
“Is that right. Anything ever happen between them?” This really broke her up. Michelle Ginelle, it seemed, was a woman of real standards.
“Hah, not. Michelle says ‘ you can marry more in a minute than you can make in a lifetime. ’ She taught me that. So I don ’ t think Tad really qualified, if you know what I mean.”
“Right,” Behr said as the bartender arrived with a tiny split of Spanish champagne. He set down a fake crystal flute in front of the dancer and went about opening the bottle.
