or something like that.” In July, she’d approached him about freelancing, and he found out more.
“She said it was security work for her, while she was making her movies- like a bodyguard. Then she gave me the details- the where and when and why- and my fucking jaw hit the floor. I told her no way. The money was fine and all, but the whole setup was fucked, like she was scamming these guys and she wanted muscle. That kind of thing, it goes bad in a heartbeat- a fucking shitstorm waiting to happen. Where I was in my life- where I’d been- no way I wanted any part of that.
“Holly was cool with it. She didn’t push and she didn’t try to work me- she never pulled that kind of bullshit. She just asked me to take a look at one of her movies. So I did.
“I gotta tell you, it fucking blew me away. I never saw anything like it before. She was…amazing. The way she looked, the things she said- it could make your heart explode just watching. And the way she tore that guy apart at the end, the way she got all in his headJesus. I saw one, and then she showed me the rest. Fucking amazing.
“It was weird watching her with those guys- it was fucked up- but Holly wasn’t embarrassed. It was a thing she did to make her movies, she said-‘part of the process,’ like figuring out where to put the cameras, and the lights, and the editing and shit. It was just a role she played, and she was in charge the whole time. That’s what she said.
“I asked her why she did it, why she made those movies when she had enough talent to do whatever. She told me these were the stories she wanted to tell, and these were the questions she wanted to answer. I said, to me it seemed like always the same story. She thought that was funny, and said I was right, and that it was always the same questions too.”
After he’d watched the videos, Holly had offered him the job once more. And because of what he’d seen- the strangeness of her work, its power, her passion for it, and the risks she took to make it- but mostly because he was by then half in love with her, Coyle accepted.
She’d called on him only three times, and while each session had had its tense moments, he’d never had to intervene. He didn’t like the idea of her having sex with other men- it made him sick and crazy when he thought of it, he said, and he tried not to think of it- but he never stood in judgment of her.
“I learned upstate, everybody does their own time, and they do it their own way. I knew a lot of screwed-up people inside- on the street too- and the things they did to manage, to get through the day, were way more funky than anything Holly did. And they had less to show for it. Everybody does their own time.”
Gene Werner was less enlightened. He’d found out about Holly’s videos in late August, and- as Orlando Krug had told me- he’d made her life hell. It was only because Holly had insisted, that Coyle refrained from kicking his ass.
“He was up in her face all the time, and it was making her crazy. A couple of nights at the club, he made big scenes- yelling, breaking glasses, that kind of bullshit. He was a real asshole, and I was about to take him in the alley, but Holly stopped me. She didn’t give a shit what happened to Weenie, she said, she just didn’t want me getting jammed up for smacking him. She put her hand on my chest, and no shit it made me dizzy.”
He did as Holly asked that night, but Werner didn’t let up, and a week or so later, with no word to Holly, Coyle had paid him a visit. “I didn’t lay a finger on the guy. I didn’t even raise my voice. I just said some shit about fucking up his face, and that did the trick.”
That was in September. By October, Holly and Coyle had become lovers. It started one Wednesday, when Holly came into the 9:3 °Club for the first time in a week, and stayed until closing. “She asked me to take her home,” Coyle said. “Then she asked me to stay.” His voice was nearly a whisper.
“Some weeks we’d see each other four, five nights, other weeks once or not at all. Some days she’d call me up two, three times, other days she wouldn’t call. It depended on her work. When she was working, her head was in another place. She needed space and she needed quiet. And she didn’t ever like to be pushed.”
Coyle’s eyes lit with memories of Holly as he spoke, and each time a smile would crease his broad face. But then his sadness would reassert itself: his eyes would empty and his face would go blank. There were no more happy memories when I asked him about the last time he’d heard from Holly, and about the days since.
“It was a Sunday,” he said. I asked him the date and he gave it to me. It was the Sunday before she died: two days after Stephanie had visited her. “She was working on a project and I hadn’t seen her for like two weeks. We were gonna get together that night, but she called in the morning to say no- she didn’t say why. I was pissed- I wanted to see her- but you couldn’t press Holly, and it wasn’t the first time she did something like that.
“I tried her Monday and got no answer. I tried again Tuesday and Wednesday. By then I was worried. On Thursday I went over. There was nobody there, but her place was wrecked, and I was freaked. I wasn’t there ten minutes when you knocked.”
“You didn’t call the cops,” I said.
“And you think I don’t fucking kick myself about it? But I don’t deal with the cops- and besides, I didn’t know then what the hell was happening. Maybe her place got robbed; maybe she’d already reported it.”
“She wouldn’t have mentioned it to you?”
“Holly kept a lot of shit to herself.”
“You see any signs of a break-in?”
Coyle’s brow creased and blood welled in his cut. He shook his head. “No.”
I nodded. “You call anybody? Her family maybe, or friends?”
“I don’t know the family; I don’t know any friends, either. She talked about her art dealer- Krug- a few times, but I never met him.”
“So what did you do after her place?”
Coyle’s face colored. “You freaked me out. I didn’t think you were a cop, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t know what the fuck you wantedI didn’t know what to do. So I came back here and called her some more. Then I went looking for that prick Werner.”
The coffee was done and I filled two cups without scalding myself. We had no choice but to take it black. “Why Werner?” I asked.
Coyle shrugged and it looked like it hurt. “Holly was talking about him three, four weeks before. She was pissed off about something, and she was gonna talk to him about whatever it was.”
“You didn’t ask?”
Coyle colored again and he looked at the floor. “You don’t…You didn’t know her. You couldn’t push her- she told what she wanted to tell, and otherwise she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t tell me what was up with her and Werner. But I didn’t trust that little fuck, and I was gonna find out.”
“What did you think was up?” He shook his head and kept quiet. “You spoke to her on Sunday, and you went to her place on Thursday,” I said. “Where were you in between?”
“Up here.”
“Doing what?”
“Working.”
“On what?”
Coyle scowled, and thought about it. “The usual shit. Monday and Tuesday, Kenny had me painting. Then there was a plumbing problem in the D unit- we were at that till like nine or ten Tuesday night. Wednesday was garbage day. You want me to go on?”
“You didn’t work at the club?”
“It’s closed Sundays and Mondays.”
“What about Tuesday and Wednesday?”
“I called in sick,” Coyle said.
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what J.T. said.”
His scowl deepened. “So I blew it off. So what?”
“Why?”
Coyle looked at the ceiling. His chin quivered and so did his voice. “I thought Holly might be there and…I was pissed at her.” He swallowed. “Jesus Christ…I didn’t want to see her.”
I nodded. “What did you think was up with her and Werner?” I asked again.
“I didn’t think-”
“Did you think she was seeing him again?”
His face darkened and his big hand clenched around what was left of the ice pack; for a moment I thought we
