Nick's Trip

  He was doing that imitation when Dan Boyle walked into the bar. Boyle hated Dorfman, not for his ignorant slurs (they shared roughly the same prejudices) but for what he perceived to be Len’s soft stance on criminals. Dorfman knew it and consequently settled up quietly and exited the Spot. The customers, even Happy, gave Boyle a round of applause.

  I did my part and had a mug of draught in front of Boyle before his ass spread over the wood of his barstool. His eyes traveled up and lit on the stack of shot glasses. I separated the top one from the stack and set it next to his mug. Then I poured two inches of Jack Daniels into the glass.

  “This one’s on the house.”

  “You’re the greatest,” Boyle said.

  “You Irish boys get so sentimental about your bartenders.”

  “Leave me alone. It’s been a bad fuckin’ day.”

  “Out on those mean streets, you mean?”

  “Go ahead and laugh. After you walk a mile in my shoes.”

  “ ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’?” I said. “Joe South, nineteen-sixty-nine.”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it.”

  I heard a sharp whistle and turned. Petra had done the whistling and now she was, with a perfectly angelic smile and the middle finger of her left hand pointed straight at the ceiling, flipping me off. Though she surely knew the meaning of that most universal symbol, some joker had convinced her one night that, in Washington’s bars, this was also an accepted method of ordering a quick drink.

  Boyle said, “I think that Dutch broad needs another hit.”

  I poured her a short one and while I was on that end drew a fresh pitcher for Buddy and Bubba. Buddy was a sawed-off little guy, and even while sitting straight, his wide shoulders barely cleared the lip of the bar. Now he was slouched and his blond head seemed to be sprouting directly up out of the mahogany. I placed the pitcher in front of that head. He nodded and then growled.

  I changed all the full ashtrays into empties and moved back down to Boyle. He had taken off his overcoat and beneath that was wearing an old tweed with suede patches sewn on the elbows. As he turned to fold his coat on the adjacent barstool, I could see the bulge of his Colt Python protruding from the small of his back. I slid him another mugful of draught and washed out the empty in the soap sink.

  “I checked into that thing for you,” Boyle said.

  “William Henry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing, really. No new leads, not since the initial investigation.”

  “What do you think?” I said.

  Boyle had a long drink from his mug, then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his sport coat. “It’s not in my jurisdiction,” he said. “I only looked at the jacket last night.”

  “At a glance, then.”

  “At a glance? Your friend probably knew his attacker. There weren’t any signs of forced entry. He had solid dead bolts on the door and an auxiliary lock; none of the jams were splintered. The ME’s report said he was stabbed over twenty times with a serrated knife, like the kind your buddy Darnell uses in his kitchen. Henry was probably dead or in shock before the guy was finished knifing him.”

  “What does all that mean?”

  “It could mean a lot of things. The intent was clear—he didn’t want to wound Henry, he wanted him dead. It could have been a drug deal gone bad. Or it was a crime of passion. You know, a homo burn.”

  “A homo burn?” I frowned. “Come on, Boyle, what the hell is that?”

  “We explore every possibility, Nick. That building he lived in, it had a history of homosexual tenants.”

  I sighed and drummed my fingers on the bar. “Keep going.”

  Boyle pointed to his empty shot glass. I reached behind me to the second row of call, grabbed the black-labeled bottle of Jack, and poured him some sour mash. He sipped it, chased it with some draught. “The main point I got out of the report, the angle I’d go for if I was looking into it, was how he got past the security guard in the lobby.” Boyle winked. “That’s, like I say, if I was going to look into it.”

  “What was the security guard’s name, Boyle? The one that was on duty.”

  “I’ll deny this if it ever gets out.” I nodded and looked around the bar. Our regulars were drinking peacefully. A couple of them had solemnly closed their eyes and were mouthing the words to Joe Jackson’s version of “What’s the Use of Getting Sober? (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again)” as it came through the speakers. Boyle said, “James Thomas.”

  I wrote down the name and said, “Any progress on the case?”

  Boyle snorted and closed his eyes slowly as he sipped from the shot glass he held in his thick hand. When he was finished he put the glass down. “A case gets cold after a few days, Nick. And there’s always something else. Right now we’ve got hookers gettin’ whacked down in the Midnight Zone. Detectives working double shifts.” Boyle drained half of what was left in the mug. “The thing you got to remember is, almost one out of two homicides in the District go unsolved. Pretty good odds for the bad guys, huh? You kill someone in this town, you got a fifty percent shot at getting away with it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “We’re never going to find that boy’s killer, Nick. That’s a fuckin’ bet.”

  “Thanks for the information.”

  Boyle leaned in and stared hard. He was attempting to focus his jittery pale blue eyes on mine. “If you need anything else, partner, you let me know.”

  “I will. In the meantime, I gotta be getting out of here.” I wiped the area in front of him with my bar rag. “Believe it or not, I’ve got a date.”

  “I remember those days,” Boyle said. “Dates. Now all’s I got is rotten screaming kids.”

  “There’s a solution to that.”

  “What would that be?” he said.

  “Take ’em out in the street,” I said, “and shoot ’em in the head. Public fuckin’ executions.”

  ON THE WAY HOME I stopped and picked up my package at the office of my answering service on Georgia Avenue. After that I headed west a few blocks and parked the Dodge in front of my apartment. The afternoon sun had taken care of most of the snow. What was left was gray now and in mounds near the curb. My cat ran out as I stepped along the walk. She rolled onto her back and let me scratch her stomach. As I did this her left rear paw boxed the air convulsively. When her paw stopped moving I tickled the scar tissue where her right eye had been, then entered my place.

  I changed into sweat clothes while the water boiled. Then I made coffee and took the coffee and my package to a small desk I had set up in my bedroom. I opened the package and spread its contents out on the oak top.

  Billy Goodrich had organized his wife’s file with all the efficiency and warmth of a client’s prospectus. There was a cover letter and a photograph that appeared to have been professionally taken. I tacked that one to the bulletin board that hung over my desk. I glanced over the rest of the material—family and medical history, doctors, a résumé—and placed it back in the package.

  After that I drove west and met Rodney White at a junior high gymnasium in upper Northwest. I did ten sets of abs and several sets of lat and tricep push-ups, then jumped rope while he taught his class. When he had dismissed his students we put on our sparring equipment and went to it.

  “Move to the side, Home,” Rodney said after I had taken a particularly vicious flurry of punches and squared off in front of him. “Just slide over, man, then make your move.” He demonstrated, suddenly springing to the left, throwing mock jabs to my kidneys. I was facing away from him.

  “What about doing that Hemingway thing, standing in there, going toe-to-toe?”

  “Only in gladiator movies, Nick.”

  We sparred for another fifteen minutes, until my hands became too heavy to hold up in front of my face. Rodney White removed his mouthpiece and rubbed it dry on the arm of his gi.

  “All right, that ought to do you for tonight.” He
pulled a towel from his bag and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Say,” he said. “Been a while since you’ve been in to see me, for a checkup.”

  I pulled out my own mouthpiece. A string of bloody saliva ran from the side of it and clung to my mouth. “A checkup?” I said, fighting for some air. “Doctor, I believe I could use one. Right about now.”

  A HALF HOUR LATER I was back in my apartment. I threw my wet clothes into the hamper, showered, shaved, dressed in a rented monkey suit, and fed and watered the cat. I got into my black forty-dollar Robert Hall overcoat and slipped a fresh deck of Camels into its breast pocket. Then I locked my apartment, ignitioned my Dodge Dart, and went to pick up Jackie.

  JACKIE KAHN LIVED IN a two-bedroom condo with her lover, a woman named Sherron, in a three-story building on the edge of Kalorama. The D.C. guidebooks all claim that Kalorama means “beautiful view,” from the Greek kalo. Not to split hairs, but kalo is actually the Greek word for “good.” The word for beautiful is, phonetically, orayo, but I would never lobby for the change—Orayorama sounds a little like the gimmick for a fifties horror movie.

  Jackie’s building was an elaborate Grecian knockoff with egg-and-tongue molding that ran below the roofline, with an urn pediment centered above the stone portico. It was quite regal, and I supposed she was paying for it. I entered an unlocked set of glass doors and pushed her buzzer. After the usual formalities I made it through the second set of doors and took the gated, open lift to her floor.

  Sherron opened the door on my first knock. She was wearing winter white pleated slacks and a black sweater with black buttons sewn along the top of the shoulder. On the front of the sweater hung a necklace of spheres that may or may not have been made of gold and that grew progressively larger as they converged at the center. She was taller than me and had wonderfully long legs, and in total she had the build of a Thoroughbred. I had seen reasonably intelligent men commit public stupidities in her presence.

  “Can Jackie come out and play?”

  “Come on in,” she said in an accent laced with Puerto Rican.

  “Thanks.” I kissed her hello and caught the edge of her ripe mouth. She frowned and led me through a marble foyer to an airy living room painted primarily in lavender. There was a fire burning in a marble-manteled fireplace that was centered in the west wall.

  “You look different dressed up,” she said, her idea of a compliment. “Have a seat and I’ll fix you a drink. Jackie will be out in a few minutes.”

  “Bourbon rocks,” I said. Sherron left the room, and I watched her do it. After a few minutes she came back in and placed a tumbler filled with bourbon whiskey and cubes on a cork coaster edged with a silver ring. I had a long pull, tasted Wild Turkey, and set the glass back down on the tumbler. Sherron had a seat on the divan against the wall across from my chair. She looked me over as if I were a marked-down dress, then crossed one lovely leg over the other.

  “So,” she said. “Been peeping in any windows lately?”

  “It’s very pane-full.” I drew out the last word so she could get it, but humor wasn’t her shtick. In fact I had never seen her smile. I lit a cigarette because I knew she didn’t like it and childishly bounced the match off the side of the crystal ashtray that was next to the coaster. Some smoke drifted her way and she made a small wave of her long, thin hand, like she was shaking off a bug. Mercifully, that was when Jackie walked into the room.

  She was wearing an above-the-knee black evening dress with multicolored Mylar buttons down the front and gold piping around the neckline. Above the curve of the neckline was the top of her firm cleavage, the ridge of her sternum, and the tightly muscled traps of her shoulders. She had on patterned black stockings, and on the ends of those stockings were medium-heeled black pumps. There was a black patent leather belt that was tight enough to showcase her thin waist and the curve of her hips. Her black hair was swept up on one side and held in place by a thin diamond barrette. I thought I could see a bit of the flames from the fireplace reflecting off her bright brown eyes.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  Sherron said, “Hot.”

  I said, “I’ll say.”

  Sherron ignored that, and I finished the rest of my drink while they kissed. Sherron helped Jackie on with her cashmere coat, smoothed the front it, and walked us to the door. We said our tearful good-byes and then Jackie and I were alone and out in the hall. We walked to the elevator, called for it, and waited.

  “You do look good,” I said.

  “So do you,” she said. “You clean up very nicely.”

  “I don’t think Sherron likes me too much.”

  “She’s really nice, Nick. But you can lay on that Peck’s Bad Boy act a little thick. And she’s probably a little jealous. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Yep.”

  The elevator arrived and we got into it. I closed the accordion gate and through it watched the marble staircase as it appeared to rise while we descended through its center.

  “I used to love these things when I was a kid. The old Dupont Building, where Connecticut and Nineteenth meet at the Circle, had a gated elevator and a uniformed operator to go with it.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I think this elevator was what closed the deal for me on this place.”

  “So who am I supposed to be tonight?”

  “Anyone you want. Let ’em guess. These company Christmas parties get pretty rowdy, and I figured I could use an escort.”

  “Rowdy accountants?”

  “Yeah. Once a year they’re expected to cut loose.”

  “Sounds like my meat,” I said.

  “Do me a favor, Nick. Don’t be an asshole.”

  THE PARTY WAS IN the penthouse of a new office building on the east edge of Alexandria and on the river, past National and just past Dangerfield Island. We parked Jackie’s Subaru in the garage and, with a couple of foxy receptionists who had arrived at the same time, took the elevator up as far as it would go.

  A mustachioed young man tediously took our coats when we stepped off the elevator. I retrieved my cigarettes and switched them to my jacket pocket, and we entered the party room. It was situated on the northeast corner of the building, and two of the walls were thick glass. The north view stretched past the lights of National to the Mall and the major monuments. The east view shot over Goose Island in the Potomac to Bolling Air Force Base and then into Anacostia and P.G. County.

  The floor was shiny and veined to approximate black marble. There were several freestanding Corinthian columns scattered about the room that looked to be made of papier-mâché, their shafts painted a poinsettia red. Thick green ribbons were tied and bowed around the columns that I assumed had been rented for the affair. A swing combo situated on a narrow balcony was playing jazzy Christmas standards. The violinist had Stéphane Grappelli’s style and tone down perfectly.

  The room was already crowded and predominantly suited in black. Many of the men sported red bow ties with their tuxes, and most of the women were also in black, though there were a few seasonal reds and, at a glance, one blonde squeezed into gold lamé. I took Jackie’s order and made a beeline for the bar.

  The bar was set up in the left rear corner. As I approached it I saw the offerings grouped on the white-clothed table. The bottle with the familiar orange label, the gold lettering THE HEAD OF THE BOURBON FAMILY, and the gold oval-framed granite bust in the center that had a fitting resemblance to both LBJ and Buddy Ebsen was right out front, in all its eighty-six-proof Kentucky glory. I stood behind the other kids in line and waited my turn.

  “Yes, sir?” asked a built brunet as I stepped up to the table. She had on a tuxedo shirt and a turquoise tie that was close to the color of the lenses in her wicked eyes.

  “A vodka tonic, please. And an Old Grand-Dad, rocks.”

  She marked me with one long motherly look and poured our drinks. There was a pitcher set next to the bottles that was half filled with one dollar bills, probably her own. Good bartenders always place a
tip receptacle on the bar and start it off with their own money. Wish fulfillment. I put two of mine in the pitcher, she thanked me with a wink, and I rejoined Jackie.

  Jackie was with a tall man, and they were laughing about something as I handed over her drink. He was close to my age and his face was boyish, but his hair was steel gray. Two pieces of it, like the tines of a grilling fork, had fallen over his forehead, giving him the reckless look of, say, a young millionaire who raced cars.

  “Nicky, this is John Wattersly. John, my friend Nick Stefanos.”

  We sized each other up and shook hands. “Good to meet you, Nick,” he said in a smooth baritone.

  “Same here.”

  “John’s a senior,” Jackie offered.

  “Really,” I said. “When do you graduate?”

  Wattersly laughed and then showed me a warm smile that had probably opened plenty of doors for him during his climb. He seemed intelligent but not arrogant, and I sort of liked him, but he was certainly turning that smile in Jackie’s direction an awful lot.