'My life,' Kessler said. 'Defending my life.'
Byrne got up. This was going nowhere, and even if it was, he couldn't bring himself to badger the man any longer. The bottom line was that Byrne could not believe it of Jimmy. Jimmy had been like his brother. He had never known a man to be more in tune with the right and wrong of a situation than Jimmy Purify. Jimmy was the cop who went back the next day and paid for the hoagies they got on the cuff. Jimmy Purify paid his fucking parking tickets.
'I was there, Kevin. I'm sorry. I know Jimmy was your partner. But this is the way it went down. I ain't saying Matisse didn't do it, but the way we got him was wrong.'
'You know Matisse is on the street, right?'
Kessler didn't respond. He closed his eyes for a few moments. Byrne wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep or not. Soon he opened his eyes. They were wet with tears. 'We didn't do right by that girl, Kevin.'
'What girl? Gracie?'
Kessler shook his head. 'No.' He held up a thin, bony hand, offering it up like evidence. 'My penance,' he said. 'How are you going to pay?'
Kessler turned his head, looked out the window again. The sunlight revealed the skull beneath the skin. Beneath that, the soul of a dying man.
As Byrne stood in the doorway he knew, the way he had known so many things over the years, that there was something else to this, something other than a man's reparation in the last moments of his life. Phil Kessler was hiding something.
We didn't do right by that girl.
Byrne took his hunch to the next level. On the promise of discretion, he called an old friend in the homicide division of the DA's office. He had trained Linda Kelly, and since that time she had risen steadily through the ranks. Discretion was certainly in her purview.
Linda ran Phil Kessler's financials, and one red flag flew high. Two weeks ago-the day Julian Matisse was released from prison-Kessler had made a ten-thousand-dollar deposit in a new account in an out-of- state bank.
27
The bar is straight out of Fat City, a North Philly dive with a broken air conditioner, a grimy tin ceiling, and a graveyard of dead plants in the window. It reeks of disinfectant and old pork fat. There are two of us at the bar, four more scattered at tables. The jukebox plays Waylon Jennings.
I glance at the guy on my right. He is one of those Blake Edwards drunks, an extra in Days of Wine and Roses. He looks like he could use another. I get the guy's attention. 'How's it going?' I ask. It doesn't take long for him to summarize. 'Been better.' 'Who hasn't?' I reply. I point to his nearly empty glass. 'One more?' He looks at me a little more closely, perhaps searching for motive. He'll never find it. His eyes are glassy, veined with drink and fatigue. There is something beneath the exhaustion, though. Something that speaks of fear. 'Why not?'
I motion to the bartender, swirl my finger over our empties. The bartender pours, grabs my check, retreats to the register. 'Tough day?' I ask.
He nods. 'Tough day.'
'Like the great George Bernard Shaw once said: 'Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.' '
'I'll drink to that,' he says on the tail of a sad smile.
'There was a movie once,' I say. 'I think it was with Ray Milland.' Of course, I know it was with Ray Milland. 'He played an alcoholic.'
The guy nods. 'Lost Weekend.'
'That's the one. There's one scene where he talks about the effect that alcohol has on him. It's a classic. An ode to the bottle.' I stand straighter, square my shoulders. I do my best Don Birnam, quoting from the movie: 'It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent. I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the great ones.'' I put my glass back down. 'Or something like that.'
The guy stares at me for a few moments, trying to focus his eyes. 'That's pretty fucking good, man,' he finally says. 'You've got a great memory.'
He is slurring his words.
I hoist my glass. 'Better days.'
'Couldn't be worse than this one.'
Of course it could.
He downs his shot, drains his beer. I follow suit. He begins to fish around in his pocket for his keys.
'One more for the road?' I ask.
'No thanks,' he says. 'I'm good.'
'You sure?'
'Yeah,' he says. 'I gotta get up early tomorrow.' He slides off his stool, heads for the rear of the bar. 'Thanks anyway.'
I drop a twenty on the bar, glance around. Four dead drunks at the rickety tables. Myopic barkeep. We don't exist. We are background. I'm wearing a Flyers cap and tinted shades. Twenty extra foam pounds around my waist.
I follow him to the back door. We step into the wet kiln of the late afternoon, emerging into the small parking lot behind the bar. There are three cars.
'Hey, thanks for the drink,' he says.
'You are more than welcome,' I reply. 'You okay to drive?'
He holds up a single key attached to a leather fob. A door key. 'Walking home.'
'Smart man.' We are standing behind my car. I open the trunk. It is lined with clear plastic. He glances inside.
'Wow, that is one clean car you've got,' he says.
'I have to keep it spotless for work.'
He nods. 'What do you do?'
'I'm an actor.'
It takes a moment for the absurdity to register. He scans my face again. Soon recognition dawns. 'We've met before, haven't we?' he asks.
'Yes.'
He waits for me to say more. I do not offer more. The moment drags out. He shrugs. 'Well, okay, good seeing you again. I'm gonna get going.'
I put my hand on his forearm. In my other hand is a straight razor. Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill. I flick open the razor. The keened steel blade shimmers in the marmalade-colored sunlight.
He looks at the razor, then back up into my eyes. It is clear that he now recalls where we met. I knew he eventually would. He remembers me from the video store, standing at the rack of classic films. Fear blossoms on his face.
'I… I have to go,' he says, suddenly sober.
I tighten my grip on his arm and say: 'I'm afraid I can't allow that, Adam.'
28
The Laurel Hill cemetery was nearly deserted at this hour. Situated on seventy-four acres overlooking Kelly Drive and the Schuylkill River, it was home to Civil War generals as well as victims of the Titanic. Its once magnificent arboretum setting was rapidly deteriorating into a scar of overturned headstones, weed-choked fields,
