Warner interrupted.
“You pretty much knew that though.”
“Yeah, but my quality of life would have improved greatly if one of those ecstasy-popping losers would have gotten their hands on Samuel’s jacket and…”
He was half talking to himself. Warner interrupted again.
“The beating, Lynch! Come on!”
Lynch begrudgingly repeated what the boy told him.
“So, the good news is there’s no way Jeremy Sokol could have identified Reilly; the bad news is there’s no way Jeremy Sokol could have identified anybody. Why the hell, then, did the kid flip out in the ICU?”
Like Lynch, Warner had mixed emotions, but there was no denying the meteor-sized weight that left her shoulders.
“I don’t know…”
She panned one last time across the tall grass, dirt, and cow manure.
“…we should probably say good bye to Elliot’s mom. What’s her name again?”
“She didn’t say. I’m guessing something biblical”
Lynch’s cell phone rang. He answered it. The few words he spoke put a noticeable pep in his step. He switched it off, playfully tossed into the air, caught it, and slid it into his shirt pocket.
“Well, Carrie, the Lord taketh away, and the Lord giveth.”
“How so?”
“That was Gomez. Chester County Ballistics got a match on the bullet they pulled out of Bishop Ryan.”
They said a quick good bye to Mary Strausser and headed for the car. Warner checked her e-mail en route. She was expecting a scan of Gordy’s sketch. She was pleased to find that she’d received it…that was until she opened the file.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
She speed-dialed the station before Lynch had the chance to ask what was going on. The sketch artist’s name was Danny.
“Hi Boris. Get me Danny. Danny, how old are you? Thirty-five and you’ve never seen The Bad News Bears? I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. That Gordy kid is screwing with you. The sketch isn’t real. Just tell Gomez to call the parents and get the little asshole back in there. I don’t have the number on me.”
Lynch couldn’t leave it alone.
“What was that all about?”
“I swear to Christ, Jim. I sometimes wonder how we stay in charge of this town! I really do!”
9. PMMC
Ian Reilly kissed his mother on the forehead, zipped up his wind breaker, and looked toward the elevators. His eyes stung from hours of welled-up tears. He clutched his stomach as it hurt physically to leave his family in the hospital, but he had no choice. It was getting close to ten o’clock. His trophy shop needed to be opened, and the only set of keys was on a hook in his garage. He wouldn’t be gone long. He just needed to unlock the doors and disable the alarm. Quentin, the assistant manager, could handle himself for the day.
He called the elevator by pressing the down-button an unneeded number of times. His vision blurred, and his eyelids twitched as he waited for the doors to open. His toes started to tap inside his sneakers. He felt his fingernails dig into his palms. A doctor was paged, but Ian barely heard it over his own grinding teeth and impatient humming. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to stand still for six floors, so when the chime that announced the elevator’s arrival finally sounded, he gave it the finger and headed for the stairs.
He entered the lobby without any recollection of the descent. The room was air-conditioned unlike the stairwell, and it made him realize how much he was sweating. A man his size didn’t take stairs in any direction without doubling his heart rate. Thoughts of keys and revenge were overtaken by the need for fluids.
His eyes fell on the vending area. A machine bearing the blue Deer Park logo beckoned. He started walking. As he got closer, his periphery widened. To the right of the Deer Park machine stood the obligatory rotating sandwich dispenser. There were tables nearby. Sitting at one of them was a man, a man Ian might have passed without notice were it not for three things. He was black; he was nursing a head wound, and he was wearing a suit.
Ian made his purchase and tried to catch the man’s eye. The man, Tony Evans, just stared at his own bruised and folded hands.
“Hi.”
Tony looked up from his trance and responded quietly without emotion.
“Hey, what’s up, man?”
Ian uncapped his water and took a swig.
“Everything okay?”
The answer didn’t come right away.
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
Salesman Reilly gave a charismatic smile, nodded, and sat. Then he spoke.
“I saw you last night.”
Tony got up to leave, but Ian grabbed him non-confrontationally by the forearm. Tony balled up his fist.
“Get your hands off me!”
“Hey, hey, hey. Calm down. Better yet, sit down. That wasn’t a threat. Come on. Sit.”
He did.
“Sounded like a threat to me.”
“My fault. The guy that got hit with the iron is my brother.”
Tony’s face relaxed. He was relieved to hear the pasty, sweaty, Irish butter ball say “is my brother,” rather than “was my brother.”
“How is he?”
“How is he? He’ll live, but we’re not sure of much else. Look, I know you didn’t throw the brake drum. I know this because I know the piss-holes you scrapped with last night. They call themselves the Unjudged. Can you believe the arrogance?”
Tony laughed.
“Pretty bold. You got that right.”
“I mean, I don’t care who you are. No one goes through life without judgment. I bet you believe in God. Don’t you?”
Tony nodded with resolve.
“Yes, I do.”
All the torturous thoughts and memories that had robbed the young man of his sleep spilled out uncontrollably. He told fragmented anecdotes of his childhood in Franklin Village. He spoke of the scrap yard, his bedroom window, drug pushers, gun dealers, and pimps. With a lump in his throat, he spoke of his father who died of a heart attack when Tony was still in his mother’s womb, his sister who got clean and now worked as a pet groomer, his mother: his rock, his reason, his world. He spoke of his church
