“Yeah. My idiot principal at the time insisted I couldn’t go because the trip wasn’t, how did he put it, sufficiently attached to the goals of the district, I think. Hell, all I wanted to do was get a bunch of city kids out in the country for a few hours.”
“The principal, and all the red tape bullshit he represented, they kept you from doing your job, JB. And eventually, you’d had enough, and you left. You became a private cop, ‘cause you could still help people but do it on your own terms.”
The waitress came over and gave us refills on the coffee. When she’d gone, Denny smiled and said, “But you know all this, of course, on accounta you’re nowhere near as stupid as you look.”
“So, Dr. Wilcox, why am I so bothered by this particular case?”
“Partly because this is the first time you’ve had a client who’s involved with the school system, and your old school, to boot, but mostly because you’re in a situation where circumstances dictate that you have to sit around with your thumb up your ass and wait to see what happens next.”
“Nicely put,” I said. “You’ve always had a gift for imagery. Now that I know your diagnosis, what course of treatment do you recommend?”
“For getting Anthony out of the gang? Just hang in there. Something will happen, and you’ll react, and then something else will happen, and you’ll react again. You’re good at that.”
“Hang in there?” I said. “That’s all you have for me. Just hang in there? I could’ve gotten that off an embroidered pillow.”
“Well,” said Denny, “that was actually a long-term goal. On a more immediate level, I’d suggest we finish these grilled stickies. World always looks better on a full tummy, JB.”
The grilled stickies did fill my little tummy, even if they didn’t make me forget about Anthony and T-Man. I did, however, have other things to occupy my mind. Like a consultation with my tailor.
Chapter 34
Weatherwise, October is one of my favorite months in Pittsburgh. We can get nice weather other months, of course, but not with any real degree of certainty. Take May, for instance, when the weather is often wonderful: highs around 75, low humidity, clear skies. Gorgeous, right? On the other hand, we’ve had snow in Pittsburgh on Memorial Day weekend. Not a big snow, mind you, and it doesn’t happen very often. But still. Not that it can’t snow in October. We’ve had some monster downfalls in October, but you know it’s always a possibility then, especially later in the month. The first few weeks of October, though, we generally get what is sometimes the only genuinely nice stretch of weather for the whole year. Of course, according to Denny, the parameters of my comfort zone are approximately 73 to 76 degrees. This, by the way, from a man whose idea of fun is going to the top of a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, attaching his size twelves to big sticks of wood, and asking someone to give him a little push. I mean, really.
But this was one of those beautiful October days, and as I drove across the Hot Metal Bridge to the city’s South Side looking for Louis Pullman’s store, I was spiffy in my dress jeans, long-sleeve blue Oxford cloth shirt from Lands’ End, and the white New Balance running shoes I’d picked up at Dick’s Sporting Goods the week before.
Until a few years ago, the South Side was pretty much just another of the city’s declining neighborhoods, inhabited mostly by families who’d lived in the area for decades and by students from Duquesne University who were drawn by the cheap rents and the short trip across the Monongahela River to the college. There were a couple of good restaurants, but they were the exception, not the rule. Then somebody played the what-if game: What if we converted some of those empty buildings into fancy condos and apartments, lured a bunch of high-end shops into the area with a variety of tax breaks, and then pitched the whole deal to the yuppies who worked in downtown Pittsburgh? The developers called the project SouthSide Works, and it did. Almost overnight, the South Side became the place to live and shop for the city’s well-heeled twenty-and-thirty-somethings.
One of the first chains to buy into the concept was The Cheesecake Factory, which has a truly extensive menu of delicious entrees and fabulous desserts. I speak from personal experience here. It was only my iron will that allowed me to drive past the place without stopping. Well, that and the fact that I knew I’d have to drive by again on my way back home. Always have Plan B.
Louis Pullman’s shop, The Fashion Faux Pas, was located two blocks from The Cheesecake Factory, on West Carson Street. I parked at a meter out front, right behind a shiny new Jaguar, and took the place in as I walked across the extra-wide sidewalk to Louis’ front door. The shop looked small from the outside, although as I got closer, I could see that there was a partial second level in the back, accessed by a circular stairway. The whole front was one big window display area, graced today by several mannequins wearing, appropriately enough, an eclectic mix of Halloween costumes, everything from Little Bo Peep to Julius Caesar to a guy who could have been either Einstein or Larry of the Three Stooges, depending on the lighting and one’s intellectual background.
As I entered the shop, I saw a tall slender man, in his early thirties, walking down the stairway in the back. He had café latte-colored skin, very short hair, and the wiry build of a runner, which I knew him to be. I also knew
