She tightened her hand on the knob, and I couldn’t help but stare at it, waiting for the bones to splinter.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
A fine question. I licked dry lips and ran a hand through my hair, my eyes on the fresh planks beneath my feet.
“Well?” she said.
“I didn’t know you were living here, too,” I said, just to fill the silence with something.
“I asked what you want.”
I straightened up and looked her in the eye again. “I guess I’d like to find Ed. Maybe I can . . . maybe I can help him.”
“Help him?
“That was a long time ago,” I said. “I can’t fix that. But I hear Ed’s in a lot of trouble now. I’d like to find him.”
She leaned back and glared at me. “You even spoken to him in the last ten years?”
It hadn’t been ten years, but I also hadn’t spoken to him. I didn’t answer, just stood there awkwardly before a woman who’d once baked me cookies and was now looking at me as if she’d like to sink her teeth into me, pour venom into my veins.
“What the hell do you think you can do, you asshole?” she said, and I was struck by her language, the stream of profanity. In all the years I’d known Alberta Gradduk, I couldn’t think of one time I’d heard her swear. “The police have it all on tape. He did it, you know. He set that fire and burned that girl up. And you want to know why he did it?”
I didn’t answer.
“Because it’s what he turned into after you turned your back on him. He made a mistake. People make mistakes. And you were supposed to be his friend. His best friend.”
“I did what I was required to do, Mrs. Gradduk. I’d taken an oath, and it didn’t stop with friends.”
“What do you think you can do now?” she said, and while there was still hostility in her voice, there was also a hint, however vague, of hope.
“I don’t know.” Down the street, the shouts and the music were getting louder, the party picking up steam. I took a glance at the Crown Victoria at the curb, saw the streetlight reflecting off the tinted windshield, then looked back at Ed Gradduk’s mother.
“I know attorneys, and I know the police,” I said. “I’m an investigator now. I don’t know what the situation was, but I do know he’s only doing himself more harm by running. He needs to come in and get legal help, get some people behind him. I can help him with that. Right now, he’s just getting himself into more trouble.”
“And you’d know all about getting him into trouble.”
“Listen,” I began, but she wasn’t having it.
“Get away from my house,” she said, stepping back inside. I saw for the first time that she was barefoot, the veins on her pale feet standing out stark and thick and purple against the skin.
“I can help him if I can find him,” I said, and somehow I believed it, though I had no reason to. “Where would he go, Mrs. Gradduk?”
But she closed the door then, the old windowpane rattling as it slammed. I heard the bolt roll shut and the security chain slip into place. For one wild moment I was ready to lean back and slam my foot against the door, kick it again and again until it was open and I could grab the crazy old bitch and shake her and tell her that it wasn’t my fault, it had never been my fault, Ed had screwed up and I’d had no choice but to be the one who made him accountable. It’s tough to raise that kind of anger and conviction over something you’re not entirely sure you believe, though. I turned and walked back down the steps.
His closest friend was Scott Draper. It had been me once, but that was long in the past, and Draper had lingered as a presence in Ed’s life while I had not. At least four years had passed since I’d seen Draper, but he wouldn’t be hard to find; the Hideaway on Clark Avenue had been in his family for three generations, and unless the building had crumbled around him, he’d be there now.
To get there, I had to walk west down the street, past the Crown Vic. I was about ten feet from it when there was the soft purr of a power window, and a drawling voice said, “How’s it going, partner?”
“Fine,” I said, walking past, but then the door opened and one of the car’s occupants stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of me. I pulled up and looked at a cop whom I’d never seen before. If he knew me, he didn’t show it.
“Nice night, huh?” he said, leaning against the car. I glanced in the vehicle, trying to see the face of the man in the passenger seat, but it was too dark.
“Fine night,” I said, trying to step around him and continue on my way. He stepped with me, though, and I pulled up again.
“Mind my asking what your business with Mrs. Gradduk was?” He was tall enough that I had to look up at him, into a face that was set in a hard scowl, dark brown eyes looking at me coldly. It wasn’t the eyes that held my attention, though, but his nose. It was swollen and purple, the bridge askew beneath the puffiness, the discoloration spreading into his eye sockets. He’d had his nose broken very recently. Probably by Ed Gradduk, if Amy’s information about his fight with police had been accurate.
“Expressing my condolences,” I said. “Heard her son had a run of bad luck today.”
“Or caused one,” the cop said. “What’s he got to do with you?”
“I’m his priest,” I said, and stepped away one more time. He reached out and put his hand on my arm, but I twisted free and kept going.
I should have stopped and talked to him. I should have explained the situation for exactly what it was, tell him that I was an old friend with no idea what I was doing here, chased by bad memories. Tell him that I’d been a cop, too, maybe swap a few stories about long nights on stakeout duty. Everything about the evening had suddenly become surreal, though, twisted and strange. And so, even while I told myself to stop and clear the air, I lengthened my stride and pulled away. He did not pursue me.
I walked west on Clark for several blocks, past the Clark Recreation Center, an ancient brick building that had started as a bath-house around the turn of the century. For decades now it had been a rec center, and I remembered many furious basketball games played on the small court inside, a handful of onlookers watching from the balcony that ringed the court. Tonight a group of Hispanic teens sat on the steps and watched me go past. The neighborhood was shifting more and more toward the Hispanic and Puerto Rican populations now, but it had been even when I was growing up. Beside the kids was a vacant lot, nothing left but a concrete pad where a house had once stood. I remembered the house, and seeing the lot empty made me feel much older than my years.
The Hideaway was just west of the rec center, tucked in a narrow building with a crumbling brick facade and a PABST BLUE RIBBON sign hanging in the window. I hesitated on the cracked sidewalk for a moment, looking up at the familiar structure. First place I’d been served a beer. I was fourteen—something the bartender had been well aware of—and I’d knocked the neck of my bottle together with Ed’s before I’d downed it. Budweiser, of course. That’s what you choose to drink when you’re fourteen; it’s got to be called the King of Beers for a reason, right? I’d spent countless hours in the place growing up, and I remembered the interior of the bar as well as my old house. Upstairs, there was a storeroom and an attic, but those windows were dark tonight. Whatever business had been next door was gone, the space empty now. I went up the steps and entered the bar.
Inside, the room seemed long and narrow, with cramped booths lining the walls and cigarette smoke hanging in the air. A broken jukebox sat beside a pay phone on the back wall. This was the dining room, and although I could remember some booths as the permanent residences of local boozehounds, I didn’t remember anyone doing much dining here. A Hideaway cheeseburger was considered a real risk; the sirloin steak, for no one but the foolish or suicidal. They could pour a cold Bud or PBR, though, fill a glass with Jack, and that’s all anyone there tended to need.
Through the doorway to my left was the bar, a long expanse of oak lined with vinyl-covered stools, the way a bar is supposed to be. Behind the bar was a massive shelving unit with liquor bottles stacked in front of a long mirror, and at the end of it stood two pool tables. Both were in use now, and only a handful of the barstools were occupied. A white kid in a sleeveless shirt and toboggan-style hat was manning the bar. Summer, and he’s wearing
