Revolver

by Duane Swierczynski

  (Or he’s already done it, and you’re too late, Jimbo. Once again.)

  He wonders if he should call the place, just to see…

  (If what? There are any suspicious characters lurking about it? It’s a Mayfair bar. The place will be full of them.)

  Jim is busy working up an excuse for Claire so he can head out again—after all, the bar is barely a two-minute drive away—when Staś arrives home. He’s also surprised to find his father sitting at the kitchen table.

  (Don’t worry, son, I wouldn’t ordinarily be here, but I suspect a crime is going to happen nearby, and I want to be there quick if it does.)

  “STOSHIE!” Audrey screams. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  “She had to go home. Hey, Dad.”

  “How was your movie?” Claire asks.

  “Eh, it was okay. Look, Dad…you got a minute to talk?”

  Jim realizes he’s only half-paying attention. Some part of his brain screams at him: Hey. Asshole. Your older son wants to talk to you. Don’t fuck this up by asking him to repeat himself.

  “Sure, Staś,” Jim says.

  Then, after a moment’s thought, adds almost casually,

  “Hey—want to go for a short ride?”

  They head south on Frankford Avenue. Jim plays it like it’s random—just somewhere to drive. At first they don’t say much to each other. Jim can tell Staś needs to unburden himself of something, but he’s not going to force it. He’ll talk when he’s ready. And sure enough…

  “I’ve been thinking about school,” Staś says.

  “You mean, where to apply? I guess it is that time of senior year.”

  “No. I’m not talking about college. I want to join the department.”

  Oh boy. Claire will not like this. Jim’s not sure how he feels about it, either. To be honest, he didn’t see this one coming. Staś is at that age when he’s more interested in Bethanne than anything else in his life. Jim assumed his boy would follow his girlfriend to whichever college she chose and figure it all out later.

  “Dad?”

  “No, I heard you. I’m just processing it.”

  The boy sulks.

  “Thought you’d be happy.”

  Jim, of course, is torn over the news. What man wouldn’t be overjoyed by the news that his firstborn child wants to follow him into his chosen profession? But not when the profession is police work. Jim realizes now that he didn’t ever really choose it. It was inevitable. Someone kills your father, you seek vengeance. You can do so through extralegal means, or you can do it within the boundaries of the law.

  (Like you stalking Stanton last night and this morning, Jimbo? Was that within the boundaries of the law?)

  Jim finds an empty space directly across the street from Mugsy’s. He thinks about coming up with some excuse for being here—some kind of surveillance work tied in to the Kelly Anne Farrace murders. But no, this is his firstborn son here. Staś doesn’t deserve a charade. The air is cold and crisp, dipping below freezing. He turns off the car.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “The man who killed your grandfather has been casing this bar.”

  “Are you for real? Where?” Staś peers out of the window, cupping his hands on the glass. It’s night and too cold for anyone to be standing outside.

  “He’s not here now. But I have a feeling he could wander by at some point. I think he wants to rob it.”

  Staś considers this.

  “If he killed Grandpop, how’s he walking around free?”

  “He was never convicted of the murders. He was put away for a drug-related murder back in 1972. He got out just a few months ago. I didn’t know until just a few days ago.”

  “Terrill Lee Stanton,” Staś says.

  Jim turns to look at him. “How did you know that name?”

  “I looked in your scrapbook a few years ago.”

  Jim should smack him upside the head for snooping through his private papers, but it’s a relief to be honest. He doesn’t have to explain it all to Staś the way he would the other kids.

  “So you know the whole story, then.”

  “I think I do.”

  “I became a police officer because I felt I owed something to your grandfather. I swore I would avenge him. Find the guy who did it. By the time I found out who that was, it was too late.”

  “It’s not too late! Can’t you reopen the case? Nail his ass?”

  Jim sighs. He meant it was too late to choose another profession—not too late to go after Stanton for murder.

  “I know how you feel, but sadly, that’s never gonna happen. This case is thirty years old. All the witnesses are dead, there’s no physical evidence. When I was your age I thought I could do that, but I’ve worked enough homicides to know the truth. Best chance they had to nail this son of a bitch was back in sixty-five and that didn’t happen.”

  Jim hears himself speaking the words while Inner Jim heckles him simultaneously.

  (If that’s what you really think, then why are you out here?)

  “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to do this. Forget the police for now. Go to college, earn your degree. If police work is still something you want to do, then great. Department needs guys with college training. Especially forensics. Point is, I want you to have the chances I never did.”

  “But Dad, this is what I want to do right now. I don’t want to waste time.”

  “The family debt is paid. I think the Walczaks have done plenty for the Philadelphia Police Department.”

  Staś squirms in the passenger seat. “It’s not about that,” he says finally.

  “What’s it about, then?”

  “The Kelly Anne Farrace murder. When I saw the story, I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been following the case in the newspapers. I follow all your cases, Dad. But this one…I don’t know. It’s horrible and all, but I’m also glad you’re the one trying to find the asshole who did this. I don’t even know if that makes any sense. I want to do what you do. Catch the guys who think they can get away with it.”

  Jim leans back in his seat, sort of stunned. The two of them sit there in silence on Frankford Avenue.

  The heat in the car has disappeared and a chill has set in. For a moment, Jim feels the tiniest bit redeemed. He and Claire had a really tough time five years ago—they’d come incredibly close to ending things, and Staś and Cary were old enough to know what was going on. Sometimes Jim was afraid that Staś only saw the worst in him, and he’d spend the rest of his life making decisions based on doing the opposite of what he imagined Jim would do. It was reassuring to know all was not lost. That he hadn’t completely failed at this.

  “I think we’re close to finding out who killed that girl,” Jim says after a while.

  “Really? Who?”

  “Just between you and me?”

  “Of course.”

  Jim tells him a little about the recent developments in the case, trying to make a “teachable moment” (as they say) about looking for the little details, about not picking the low-hanging fruit, about sticking with your gut. But he’s also bragging a little. Showing off for his kid, who wants to be like him when he grows up. And for a minute, Jim feels good about himself and what he does, feels that he doesn’t have to explain or justify it to Staś. The boy gets it. Maybe he would make a good cop after all.

  “Dad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is that him?”

  Jim looks.

  And shit, yeah, it’s him.

  Terrill Lee Stanton. Out in front of Mugsy’s Tavern. His head no longer hangs low. He’s feeling confident. He’s made up his mind about what he’s going to do. And he’s going to do it soon.

  “Stay here,” Jim tells his son.

  “I can help you.”

  Jim turns to lock eyes with Staś. “I mean it. No matter what you do, do not leave this car. Not until I come back.”
>
  Staś doesn’t like it, but what choice does he have but to agree?

  Jim moves without consciously controlling his body, it seems. All at once he’s out of the car and he’s got his revolver in his hands and he’s moving across Frankford Avenue and reality slows to a languid crawl as Stanton straightens his shoulders, then reaches for the door handle…

  “Stop!”

  Maybe it’s the presence of Staś across the street, but things play out much different than Jim would have imagined. For one: he tucks away his gun and reaches out and grabs Stanton’s arm before he can open the bar door.

  “Hey—what’s going on? Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m the guy telling you to get against the wall, that’s who I am,” Jim says.

  Stanton’s face is slammed up against brick, arm twisted up behind him, while Jim pats him down. Inside the bar are the sounds of laughter and piano chord changes and off-key singing.

  “What are you doing? You a cop or something?”

  “Shut up, asshole.”

  Jim finds Stanton’s wallet tucked away in the left front pocket of his fleece jacket—hah, so no one will rob you, is that it? He flips it open, sees his state ID card, confirms his identity. Not that he had any doubt.

  It’s surreal to be touching him. The skin of Jim’s right hand, touching the skin of Stanton’s right hand, the hand he used to hold the gun and squeeze the trigger thirty years ago. Though cells grow and die, don’t they? Every seven years, as Jim read once? So this collection of cells wasn’t there when his father and Officer Wildey were killed. They’re the great-great-grandsons of those cells, even if the man who wore them is the same.

  “Please, man, I don’t have anything.”

  “I don’t want your money. I’ve been watching you.”

  “What?”

  “Last night. This morning. Now. This bar. What are you going to do? Rob it? Just like you used to in the old days!”

  But as Jim continues to pat down his suspect, there’s nothing in the way of weapons. Not even a comb. If he intends to stick up the bar, he’s either going to do it with an index finger poking the inner lining of his jacket pocket, or with no small amount of sheer balls.

  “No way! I’ve never robbed a bar in my life, I swear!”

  Jim decides to let that one go. For the moment.

  “So what are you doing here, felon? You’re a long way from the halfway house.”

  The situation is still tense as fuck, but Jim can feel Stanton’s back muscles relax a little. “So you a cop after all.”

  “Yeah, I’m a cop.”

  “Can I see your badge, Officer?”

  “Shut the fuck up and answer my question. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see someone.”

  “Who?”

  “My kid. My boy. He works inside.”

  This wasn’t something Jim expected. This fuckhead has children? Jim would ordinarily chide himself for not knowing this, but he didn’t even think about the possibility. Monsters don’t have kids. Monsters eat kids. Ruin lives.

  Jim sighs, then orders Stanton to sit on the sidewalk, hands behind his back, back against the wall.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Who? My son? It’s Roger. Roger Howarth. His mama named him.”

  “So if I go in there and ask this Roger Howarth who his daddy is, he’s going to say Terrill Lee Stanton.”

  Stanton shakes his head. “He doesn’t know me. We never met. My girl was pregnant went I got sent away. So he wouldn’t know who the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Convenient.”

  “It’s why I was up here last night and this morning,” Stanton says. “Trying to work up the nerve to talk to him. I must have walked up and down that block a million times. But somebody told me he works at this bar, so I had to try, you know? You got kids, man?”

  “Yeah,” Jim says. “And I used to have a daddy, too.”

  Confusion breaks over Terrill Lee Stanton’s face. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit about never robbing bars. Why else were you put away for thirty years?”

  “Look, man, I’ve said it too many times to expect anybody to believe me, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill those police officers. I was trying to help them.”

  Right now, in this moment, Jim would very much like to grab Terrill Lee Stanton’s ears and bash his head back against the brick wall of this bar, over and over, over and over, BAM, BAM, BAM, until the back of his skull was nothing but smashed fruit, so he could watch the lights of his lying eyes slowly flicker away to nothing.

  Oh, that would be so nice.

  But Staś is in the car, watching him closely, so all Jim can do is whisper you fucking liar, then tell Stanton to get going back to Erie Avenue before he reports him.

  When Jim finally climbs back into the car and Staś asks what happened, he tells him,

  “It was the wrong guy.”

  Go Home, Audrey

  May 10, 2015

  As they drive away from the Woods, Audrey steals glances at her father. The Captain looks troubled. Not his usual grim, nor his usual gruff—the man is truly bothered, as if he’s eaten something that has disagreed with him. Like a baby goat.

  “What is it?” Audrey says. “Trying to phrase the right way to say I told you so?”

  “No, that’s not it. I’m thinking about the story Taney told us. The drugs, Wildey, Stanton, the whole thing.”

  “What about it?”

  “The story he told me forty-five years ago was very different.”

  They drive in silence, headed back down Frankford Avenue toward home. Audrey resists the urge to gloat. Guess Little Miss Forensics Expert has a point, now doesn’t she? But it’s no fun to gloat when your target looks like he’s had his dick knocked in the dirt.

  “How different?”

  The Captain says nothing as he keeps the car moving at a steady thirty-five miles per hour down Frankford Avenue. Audrey looks out of her window. There are campaign signs all in the storefronts. Up here, mostly the white mayoral candidates. KENNEY. DEHAVEN. Once in a while you see a lone WILLIAMS, but not too often. Not that it matters to Audrey. Whoever runs this fucked-up city is in the hands of the super-rich anyway. She’s not going to be here long enough to hear the results. She needs to finish this project and get home to Bryant.

  “Dad?”

  Nothing.

  “Dad.”

  “What, Aud, what?”

  “Can I please, please, please take a look at the stupid murder book already?”

  The Captain doesn’t have the actual murder book, of course—just his version of it, which he started gathering as a teenager obsessed with solving his father’s murder. Most kids Jimmy Walczak’s age collected baseball cards; he collected clippings of crime stories and photographs of the crime scene and his own typed notes on index cards. All of these were pasted into a scrapbook meant for dead flowers or whatever. He picks it up from his desk in the basement and underhand-tosses it to Audrey. She catches it.

  “You were probably a scream at parties,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  She flips through the pages, which are mostly newspaper clippings and photos and random notes in neat Catholic-school penmanship—the notes of a kid who wore a plaid tie to school. The final pages in the scrapbook, however, consist of a young Jim Walczak copying as much of the real murder book as he could. Including outlines of the bodies, with little red X marks showing the entry wounds.

  “How did you get a look at this?”

  “Taney checked it out for me. Gave me an hour with it, then took it back. I wrote as fast as I could and then spent the next few hours trying to write down every detail I could recall.”

  “Taney. Our drunk, racist source. Did you ever check out the murder book again? I mean, yourself, when you were a police officer?”

  “Didn’t think I needed to. I’d already copied
everything important, and by that time, Stanton was in jail.”

  He taps the scrapbook of murder. “I didn’t even look at this thing until years later, when Stanton got paroled in ninety-five.”

  “Well, we can’t trust anything that came from Taney. I don’t like him.”

  “Liking him has nothing to do with it. Are you saying he showed me phony notes? Why would he do that?”

  “I’m saying let’s go down to the Roundhouse or wherever and check out the actual murder book.”

  So of course the murder book is missing. Along with any record of who may have checked it out last.

  First they go to the Roundhouse, where they navigate crowds of back slaps and jokes as the Captain makes his way through the building. Hey, Boss, back so soon? Look who missed us! Whatsamatter, getting tired of Wheel of Fortune? That takes forever and an hour. The Captain disappears for stretches, to gab with this one or that one, leaving Audrey to wait in metal chairs with passing cops eye-fucking her as if she’s some kind of perp. It’s her tats, she knows it, along with her wrinkled jeans and ratty faux-vintage N.W.A. T-shirt. She wishes she had a sticker that read DON’T SHOOT! CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER or something.

  Turns out, after all that…all homicide records prior to 1980 were shipped over to the massive city archives near Thirty-First and Market, on the fringes of Drexel University. The archivist is polite, but the search takes forever and two hours and yields jack shit.

  “Things get misfiled,” he explains. “I’m really sorry. I can make a note to contact you if it turns up.”

  The Captain nods and thanks him. Audrey wants to frog-march him into the archives and force him to keep looking, but the Captain shakes his head. As if he didn’t expect to find it all along.

  Which of course gets the wheels in Audrey’s head spinning. What if Taney’s not the source of bad information? What if it’s her dad?