get smarter every day, Boyle,” he says, and bags the razor for evidence.
* * * *
Jim stops the car on the bridge. The night is dense and black and the river roaring. He takes my gun out of his pocket and tosses it over the railing.
“So there won’t be any questions later,” he says. “The way I see it...no girl...no gun...no sweat. Got a problem with that?”
“That’s the way I’d tell it,” I say.
We drive in silence for a while with rain pounding on the roof of the car.
“Jack,” he says, “a word of advice. Don’t obsess over the girl. Sure, you could follow her to L.A., but believe me, by the time you find her she won’t be alone.”
“Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine,” I say.
He sputters a laugh. There’s the trace of a smile on my lips, not because things are funny, just at the crap life throws at you. We pass The Blue Rose Dance Hall. The door swings open and Elmer Ganguzza sails through the air and lands on the sidewalk. Water pours off the windshield and Jim turns the wipers on high.
“Whether it’s Boston or Santa Paulina, some things never change.” I say.
“No shit. Speaking of Boston, ever work cold cases?”
“Sure, I’ve worked my share.”
“The Chief’s going to do some snooping into your solve record at B.P.D. If he likes what he sees, he’s going to ask you to have a look at some of our old cases. He’d like to put you on as a consultant. Isn’t every day we run across a big city cop. It shouldn’t interfere with what you’ve got going at The Rexford and a guy can always use a few extra bucks.
I’m about to tell a whopper, then I figure what the hell.
“Before I sign on you should know they canned my butt in Boston because I drink too much. I’m still on the bottle.”
“Too much is a relative term. The Chief says if you don’t fall off the floor you haven’t exceeded your limit. You two should get along just fine.”
“Let’s talk again on Monday,” I say. “All I can think about right now is a stiff drink and a warm sack.”
* * * *
I guess I’m moaning in my sleep because Hank calls in the doc about 3:00 A.M. and I hear them talking in the hall outside my door.
“You got to do something, Doc. No one can get any sleep with all that moaning and groaning.”
“I’ll take a shot at it,” says McBane.
He zaps me in the hip with a syringe the size of a rolling pin and the pain melts away like warm candle wax.
Alone in my room I down a shot of Jack Daniels and savor the mellow burn. I listen to the rain tick against the windowpane and watch the reflections of neon ripple across the ceiling. I’ve had one hell of a welcome to my new town.
I light the last Lucky in the pack and think of Angel and how her pale velvet skin felt against mine. I think of her soft hair on my cheek and the intoxicating waves of her perfume. One glorious night together and what do I have to show for it? A broken string of dime store pearls and an empty wallet. It’s not that funny, but I can’t help smiling.
“They say you can’t fall in love this fast,” said Angel Doll. Maybe not, but what we had was a damn good facsimile. She couldn’t take the place of Sandra...no one could...but, she was one hell of a fix for a lonely guy with a bum leg.
Angel Doll is getting off the train in L.A. about now. She’ll be wearing a torn blue raincoat and one pink shoe. She’ll have enough money for a little food and a week or two in a hotel, provided it’s near the Grayhound Station and she doesn’t mind sharing a bathroom down the hall with washed up hookers and derelicts.
Then again, with her angel face, she might nail a rich guy or a married businessman who can afford to keep a woman on the side. I wonder where she’ll be in a month or a year.
I wonder if she will ever think of me.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FORTUNE TELLER
Five-fifteen on Saturday evening and Joseph Crisalli puts the rest of the glazed donuts in a box and climbs the indoor staircase to Madame Zarina’s apartment above the bakery.
“Cookie, it’s Joe,” he calls.
To Joe, she’s Cathleen Cook. They went to parochial school together more years ago than he cares to recall. In the ensuing forty years they married other people, watched children leave home and spouses pass away. They also became best friends.
Her door opens before he reaches the top step. Her right eye is red and unfocused but she still manages a smile.
“Not the migraine again,” he says, touching her hand.
“When I was a kid, my doctor said I might outgrow them, but at sixty-five, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
As a child she was knocked unconscious in a buckboard accident and has suffered with migraines ever since. She doesn’t get them often, but when she does, she has visions in her sleep that have no resemblance to ordinary dreams. They are insights into violent deaths of people she’s never met or heard of.
“Is there anything I can do, dear?” he asks.
“I wish there was, Joe.”
“If you need to go to the hospital, promise to call me and I’ll drive you.”
“I do promise, old boy.”
“I think you just accepted my proposal,” he says. “I’ve been waiting to hear those words for years.”
She punches him playfully on the arm, but the small gesture makes her head pound and she leans against the door frame.
“Off with you now,” she says. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“I’ll leave these with you,” and he hands her the pink bakery box. “I hope you feel better in the morning.”
He goes down the stairs. She hears the bell jingle above the door as he goes out and locks up for the night. Joe is a comforting presence. She feels a bit lonely after he’s gone, like the temperature in the room has dropped a degree or two. She steps inside and closes the door.
Joe looks up at Cookie’s window through the rain-washed darkness. The sign below the sill reads:
MADAME ZARINA
FORTUNES TOLD FOR A DIME
He doesn’t envy Cookie the dubious gift that has been visited upon her by the gods of calamity. He wonders what poor soul will die on this cold night at the tag end of the year. He makes the sign of the cross like he’s done since he was a small boy at St. Finnbar’s. He looks in the rear-view mirror, pulls into the street and heads toward
