Pittsburgh Noir

At the Buena Vista by Hilary Masters

Mexican War Streets

At the Buena Vista, we had almost what you might call a private club, what with Malcolm keeping an eye out through the front window blinds for people off the street, black people and such who didn’t quite fit. They wouldn’t be happy in the place.

“Here comes one,” Malcolm might say. “Quick, lock the door.”

And Jerry Warner would put down his Rolling Rock and turn the latch on the front door and we’d just sit quiet, only the phony laughter on the TV show going on, as we listened to the footsteps outside pass by. They never once hesitated and we could hear them while they just kept walking, as I guess Malcolm’s attitude was well known in the neighborhood, and we didn’t about it much.

Jerry always took the stool next to the door so that if his coughing got the best of him he could whip outside in a hurry to right himself and not disturb the rest of us. The VA told him his lungs were a fucking wonder considering the shit he got into in ’Nam, but he would have his moments hacking like he might be coming apart. And he was always so apologetic, how could you be annoyed with him, and besides, anybody complaining would have to answer to one or two of us who were also vets of that war.

But that wouldn’t be the case anyways, for like I said, it was a cozy place and we had everything right there that we needed. Within reach. The cooler packed with beer; Malcolm would also put in some I.C. Light so as to offer a choice, and the different chips in their bright packages in front of the mirror gave off a warmth. Whoever ate any of the pickled eggs was a mystery to me, for there always seemed to be the same four of them resting in their juice at the bottom of the jar. Sometimes when Malcolm opened the cooler to serve one of us, all those cans of beer neatly racked reminded me of shells waiting to be loaded into a battery’s magazines. And he had a microwave to heat up the packages of dehydrated soup he’d mix up with water on order. Chicken noodle was the favorite and so we wanted for very little.

It was also a kind of haven for some of us who hadn’t quite learned how to get used to the neighborhood as new people began to fix up some of the old houses, sometimes ripping out the whole inners and putting in real fancy fittings, and repainting the fronts, new stones in the stoops — and I had a hand in some of them. You could hardly recognize a street and almost get lost going home from the Buena Vista, like the houses might have grew different while you were sipping your beer inside the bar. You’d meet some of these new people, all young and bright eyed as they came into the bar, and Malcolm would tell them what was on hand, so they never stayed long, never came back.

But the big excitement for us was hearing Malcolm tell about his old Aunt Sally and her dog. The old lady lived in Troy Hill but kept up with the news of the neighborhood because she still had distant relatives living at the top of the street. Her family had lived there since it was known as Allegheny City, and in fact she still owned the building the bar occupied and the house next door that she rented out to a welfare family. That always graveled Malcolm, he’d go on for a good hour about how the house next door was going practically rent free to that family on the roll when he could get three or four times more for it if he had any say about it. Also, he lived upstairs over the bar, and the people renting the house next door were a noisy bunch with that girl of theirs bringing men back to sit on their stoop at all hours. It was going shabby, no argument about it, and becoming an eyesore for the neighborhood.

“‘Look at that dawg. That dawg is dead, Aunt Sally,’” he told us he’d say to the old lady, hoping she’d get the idea for herself. She was close to the dog, about all she cared about. He’d visit her every Sunday, but more than a social call, he’d come to check out her breathing since she was connected to some oxygen. “‘Everything connected okay?’ I ask her, sometimes I turn up a valve to make her eyes pop. It can’t be too much longer,” he’d say like he was holding his breath under water and then pour himself a shot of the Old Overholt he kept mostly for himself. None of us favored the whiskey, as one shot nearly equaled the cost of three Rocks, and then its sipping time was short.

He’d bring his aunt little gifts he’d somehow collected at the bar. One time he brought her a package of fruit jellies that was a promotion from the beer distributor, but they weren’t a success as they got stuck in her dentures and her mouth almost had to be pried apart. That was a good laugh. “Some sight, I tell you,” Malcolm said, adding fuel to our amusement. He figured he was her closest relative, and she had no one to leave her properties to, so why not him? So he’d get cleaned up on Sundays, maybe grab a package of peanuts from behind the bar, and head up to Troy Hill to sit with her through the TV shows she watched. The Christian Hour was a favorite, followed close by a program on family antiques people brought in to have their value assessed, and Malcolm would say he’d sit through all these programs, yelling comments into her one good ear and trying to avoid the dog. The nuts got stuck in her teeth.

The dog’s name was Mitzi and she looked like a mop head that might have swept up all the floors of the Salvation Army. And it was clear she didn’t like Malcolm, and had even peed on his shoes one Sunday during the The Christian Hour. He couldn’t understand the relationship between her and Aunt Sally; he’d tell us how she would hug the little animal, even give her a whiff of the oxygen now and then like it might cement the bond between them. “But I don’t care,” he said one afternoon good-humoredly. “A little baptism now and then is good for the soul.” He put one foot up on the sink behind the bar like some high school athlete being a regular guy. “When I get down to Boca Raton in all that sunshine, I won’t care if that little mongrel has taken a dump on me. I’m going to leave all you bums behind.”

So Malcolm had his plans for after Aunt Sally passed on. He’d sell the bar and throw the welfare people out and sell that house too. It was hard not to feel happy for him about his future; he’d get so excited about his prospects that his foot on the sink would start jiggling, and once or twice he even forgot to ring up a brew.

But when would this good fortune take place? Every Sunday he’d greet her and she’d be all rigged up with her various tubes and the oxygen pumping into her like she was a ten wheeler going west. Mitzi would be scampering about, raising up the dust, a creature gone mad with her own prospects, and the programs would be blaring on the TV. Well, it was no place for a sane man, Malcolm said, and a test of his endurance. Some of us sympathized with him and all enjoyed the scene as he rendered it. Then it was suddenly over.

The report in the Post-Gazette mentioned the oxygen and that a spark of some kind had set off the explosion. There was speculation that Mitzi might have loosened a connection in her play with Aunt Sally, and Malcolm in his report to the investigators mentioned that the dog had been especially active during his visit that Sunday, running up and down and all over her owner like she was a garden ornament. He said he must have got out of the house just in time, because he had been on the front steps as it blew, one window in her bedroom went completely out, and when he ran back in, there was nothing he could do. He did pull Mitzi out from beneath the bed. “I won’t try to describe what I saw,” he told us. “It’s a sight I’ll never forget.” He shook his head and looked at the Pirates calendar taped on the mirror.

So there was a lot of talk and investigations, one special note in the P-G of how Malcolm had saved the dog. He had taken her over as her lone survivor and was something of a hero. The police asked him a lot of questions and even questioned some of us — especially Jerry. Apparently someone had told them that Malcolm had talked to Jerry a lot about the blast in ’Nam that had crippled his lungs. Of course, all of us knew about that — Jerry talked about it often, sometimes to a fault. Meanwhile, Mitzi took up residence at the Buena Vista, and she was a cute little thing the way she went up on her hind legs to greet you when you came into the bar, pawing the air, her tiny eyes bright inside all that fluffy fur. It was as if she had always belonged in the bar, belonged to us. Meanwhile, Malcolm was busy consulting with lawyers about Aunt Sally’s estate — he’d give us full reports. He must have spent much of the fall downtown. And the cops kept coming around too, until finally they just quit, and Malcolm signed a lot of papers. “Here’s the ticket to Boca Raton,” he told us one afternoon, holding up a bunch of legal papers that he asked me to witness, which I did gladly. I didn’t read them, that sort of mumbo-jumbo is not in my line, and he set up a round for us to celebrate.

Then a whole set of new lawyers and officials began to show up, looking at the bar, taking measurements, and talking to the family next door. It turns out that Aunt Sally had left the whole kit and caboodle to that television program, The Christian Hour. They kicked out the welfare family next door and put the house up for sale. It was snapped up quick by a couple that looked like people off a cereal box — and with a child of about two. And they in turn hired lawyers to start the works turning to close down the place, saying the Buena Vista was a “public nuisance.” All of which came as news to us because we weren’t loud or disorderly and most of us were vets. All through it, Malcolm kept up his spirits like a guy on a sinking ship, but I guess the final blow came when this bunch of people walked in one afternoon and started measuring the bar and the back of the place where they planned to put a kitchen. All of us were told to find a new place to go, including Malcolm who had to pack up his things as well.

I kept Mitzi, and the two of us make pretty good company for each other.

Homecoming by Kathryn Miller Haines

Wilkinsburg

He stepped onto the platform at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station and heard the Veterans of Foreign Wars Band strike up the national anthem. Mothers and fathers, children and wives had come out to see the returning soldiers. He scanned the crowd for Lorraine, but the mass of humanity crowding the platform did not include her. He felt his spirits sink. He’d tried to persuade himself she would come.

As soldier after soldier passed through the station and onto Hay Street, the sounds of the band were broken up by a new cacophony: honking horns, ringing church bells, whistles from the mills and locomotives. There was joy all around him.

My God, how women had changed — the shorter skirts, the bare, smooth legs, what seemed to him garish makeup, and then the confidence with which they took over the streets. She was changed now too. He knew it from her letters.

And her not being here—

Still, in spite of what he knew, he waited. He hung back near the entrance of the station, trying to avoid the flood of people that wanted to push him across Hay Street toward the new municipal building. The humidity was overwhelming — already his dress uniform felt damp. The clock above the train station crept toward the half hour. From his vantage he could see the trolley cars as they followed the yellow line up and down Penn Avenue. They paused and unloaded their passengers. No Lorraine.

After an hour’s wait, he started up Ross Street, following the familiar path home. He passed the post office, Buke’s Grill, and the Ross Avenue Methodist Church, where he was baptized and married. He passed beneath the shadow of the Carl Building where people streamed in and out, on their way to and from doctor’s appointments. His heart pounded. He tried to ready himself for the confrontation.

Oaks lined the road, shielding the Queen Anne and Romanesque houses from the harsh summer sun, houses similar to the one he was now headed toward. They had bought it a few months before he was called up, thinking it the perfect place to raise a family. Plans — oh, they’d made them. He was supposed to land a job at Westinghouse, just like his father had. They’d buy a brand-new car at Bauman Chevrolet. He would join the Elks and volunteer to coach one of the sandlot football teams. Lorraine said she’d volunteer for their church and the Young Women’s Christian Association (he was passing their building right now). They’d put their children, when they came, into scouts and the youth orchestra.

None of those plans had presupposed the war. Or men who didn’t go to war.

Lorraine had cried the day the telegram arrived. She cried at everything, happy or sad, granted, but she loved him then. Or so he thought.

He didn’t know anymore.

His bag was heavy. He wanted to stop, but he kept going. A couple walked in front of him, hand in hand, the guy’s blue jacket casually tossed over his shoulder. The man turned slightly and offered him a polite nod before turning back to his companion. The woman was talking, talking, filling the man in on everything he’d missed and everything they’d do now that he was home safe. The man listened in silence, a curious smile on his face.

His arm ached where a bullet wound permanently puckered the skin. He paused and massaged the muscle, then wound up his shoulder like a pitcher on the mound. He’d been soft before the war; now he was lean and sinewy, his face permanently creased by things he’d seen that he wished he could erase from his mind.

The neighborhood had changed very little in four years. There were trinkets of patriotism everywhere he looked: Old Glory waving from poles, starred flags winking from windows, flowers chosen because of their hues of red, white, and blue.

He was a hero. He’d killed four enemy soldiers, maybe more. He’d found out he was tough.

A woman tending her garden looked up at him and smiled. “Welcome back,” she said. He fought to remember her name. Mrs. Parker? Porter? She had a yippy little dog that got loose whenever it rained. He’d called the dog warden on her because of the urine pooled on his front porch. Now the woman was smiling. A new beginning, courtesy of the anonymity provided by the U.S. Armed Forces.

Letters — him trying to be the man of the house no matter how far away he was. Don’t forget to open up the damper on the furnace. You can’t let a week pass without starting the car or the engine will choke, especially in the winter. Don’t pay for a subscription if you’re not going to read the paper every day. Tell the milkman to cut the order down to a pint. He thinks now she hated those letters.

She wrote asking him to talk about himself. He didn’t. He didn’t know what to say about k-rations or the men he humped with who had nicknames like Bug and Hickory.

He kept walking and he felt his stomach drop when he passed Roger Cleveland’s family home. She didn’t have to say it in the letters. He just knew, the way you know a thing like that. They’d been best friends, Roger and him, until he was called up and Roger was declared 4-F.

He turned the corner. He was only two blocks from home. The image of his house remained crisp in his mind, everything about it, every inch of it. Lorraine wrote to him about it, things she was doing to the house and yard. She had hoed the earth on her own, turning the yard into a victory garden to help with the war. The first attempt didn’t work. The seeds got washed away by torrential rain. She’d started again a week later and her efforts were rewarded with lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

He continued up the street, surprised to find that he now conquered with ease the hilly road that had once left him breathless. Some of the neighborhood had gotten shabbier — well, the men weren’t there to fix things — porches cried for paint, sidewalks were choked with weeds, roofs needed new shingles to replace those blown off during a flurry of early-summer storms.

Lorraine had painted the inside of the house too, he knew. She’d shown him what she’d chosen by dabbing the V-mail with the wet brushes, turning the austere government-issue paper into stationery colored mint-green (living room) and a sunny yellow (kitchen). She did the work herself, she said. He didn’t believe it. The news ate a hole in his stomach.

Don’t do any more. Wait till I come home, he wrote.

In answer, she explained that staying at home, being a wife with no husband to tend to, was driving her crazy. Do you miss me? she asked in another letter. I had a dream last night that you were with another woman. She was a pretty nurse you met at the officer’s club.

At first this letter confused him. Then he realized the question was really a... sort of warning, or maybe a permission, because she didn’t want to say what was going on with her.

It wasn’t pretty young nurses the men turned to, but prostitutes. And at first he didn’t, then he did.

Her letters grew briefer. Mr. Palmer lost two apple trees in last week’s storm. We have a hornet’s nest under the front porch eaves. Roger stopped by. He’s working at U.S. Steel now. He told me to tell you hello.

He was powerless from far away, so he played the guilt game. You might want to mention the hornet’s nest to Roger and see if he can take care of it for you. I’d hate to think of my girl getting stung.

The next letter said nothing about the hornet’s nest. She told about how she had to wait in a line that stretched two blocks if she wanted to buy butter at Kregar’s. Isaly’s no longer sold meat on Mondays. Toppers Newsstand was operating twenty-four hours a day now. I’m going to get a job. All of the mills are hiring women.

Don’t, please, he wrote. Mills are dangerous.

For a while he didn’t get a response. Then: You’re right. Of course you’re right. Roger said the same thing. In fact, he says the women are paid barely a pittance, nothing compared to what the men make.

Roger Cleveland. Friend turned enemy.

The Tinsley boy hasn’t cut the grass the last two weeks. It’s starting to look like our house has been abandoned. Do you think I should ask Roger if he would be willing to mow it?

As his time overseas came to a close, her letters arrived less frequently. It was, a friend in his platoon assured him, something every man experienced as the war dragged on — the foothold they had at home had weakened. He’d been at war longer than he and Lorraine had known each other, five times as long as they’d been married. “Just divorce her,” his friend said. “Don’t look back.”

“Or kill her,” another man said, laughing.

“No. Kill him. Whoever took your place. Kill him.” And that man was not laughing.

As he continued up the street, he spotted his house and saw the lawn was trimmed and neat. When he got closer, he saw the porch floor was swept, its varnish fresh enough to catch his reflection. The windows sparkled from a recent cleaning.

He half expected to see someone else’s name on the mailbox as proof that the place was no longer his. But Boyer was still there, painted in his sure hand within days of moving in. And when he lifted the box’s lid, the mail inside bore his name, some bills addressed to him, a postcard from him. The one that told her which train he’d be arriving home on.

He pulled his postcard from the box. For a moment, his heart lightened. She hadn’t even seen it. Could she be out of town? Had she taken the mill shift after all?

He reached above the doorframe and found the spare key he had always kept there. He slid it into the lock and was surprised to find the once stubborn latch open with ease.

“Hello?” he called out as he stepped inside. “Lorraine?” He dropped his duffle to the floor, then dragged it behind the sofa. A reconnoiter. He walked around, looking. He felt like an intruder. The previous day’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sat folded on the coffee table, the page with the radio schedule face-up. A coffee mug was there beside it, still half full of the weak chicory mix she drank to start her day. Bright red lip crème smeared the rim of the cup.

In the kitchen he felt the coffee pot. No, cold.

Through the window above the sink he glimpsed the backyard where the lawn lay freshly mown. The garden was going strong.

On the table lay the letter he’d sent announcing that he’d be stateside soon. He’d guessed at his date of return in that note and Lorraine had underlined this three times in dark pencil.

He left the kitchen and crept up the stairs, not sure what he was expecting to find. The second floor was, like the rest of the house, immaculate. The guest room bed was clad in a quilt he’d never seen before. The bathroom was pin neat, except for a razor sitting on the sink.

He knew. He’d known. But what to do about it?

A door opened downstairs. He slipped off his shoes and crept out of the room and into the hallway. From his vantage he could see Lorraine framed by the front door, the taxi that had deposited her pulling away from the curb. She carried a box of groceries and a cosmetics case she used whenever they went away on overnight trips. She shut the door with her hip and proceeded to the kitchen. His heart jumped. He loved her, he still loved her. He could hear her as she moved from room to room, setting down the box of groceries and her bag, switching on the radio, kicking off her shoes. He tiptoed down the stairs and hugged the wall of the parlor so he could better observe her. She was wearing a day dress he didn’t recognize — black with white polka dots. Her hair was long. She looked... good.

She left the kitchen and began to head his way. He receded into the shadow provided by the highboy as she returned to the front door and stepped out onto the porch. With her back now to him, he took a chance and darted toward the kitchen. There he saw up close the food she’d lugged from Kregar’s: a Lady Baltimore cake, steak, a couple potatoes.

She was coming back inside, this time with the mail in her hands. Her eyes were cast downward as she rifled past the bills and landed on his postcard. She sank to the sofa. He watched her. She did not look happy when she reached for the telephone and lifted the receiver. She asked for an exchange that he didn’t recognize and waited for the operator to connect her.

He emerged from the shadows. “Hello, Lorraine,” he said.

She looked up, startled. They stared at each other. Someone said something into the receiver and she replied in a rush: “I have to go. My husband’s home.” She replaced the receiver and stared at him still.

“I thought you’d be at the station. At least that.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Remembering the postcard, she raised it toward him, as though it were a letter for him, not from him. “I didn’t see your postcard until just now. I thought... I thought next week.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you looking at?”

“You.”

“I’m glad you’re home.” She stood and came to embrace him, but he caught her wrists in his hands and held her at arm’s length.

“Don’t lie to me, Lorraine.”

Her smile faltered. “I’m not lying. You’re hurting me.”

He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to snap both of her arms in two. She tried to free herself from his grip, but he held on even tighter.

“Please, Bill.” Her voice was tense with pain. “We have to talk.”

“I think I know that.” He shook her. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Bill, let me go. You’re scaring me.” Her eyes filled with tears.

He released her. She looked at the deep red marks he’d left and again they didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered finally. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“It’s all right.” She rubbed the feeling back into her wrists.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know.”

He didn’t want to know after all. When she opened her arms wide, he sank into them and inhaled the scent of her new perfume. They held onto each other for a long time, maybe five minutes, just rocking.

The kitchen door opened and footsteps sounded behind him. He turned. It was Roger.

“Did he hurt you?” Roger asked.

“No, no.” Though he had pulled away from her, she touched his arm still.

“Buddy, we need to have a serious talk.”

“You can’t do this.” He stumbled toward his duffle, then stopped and eyed the fireplace poker, knowing he looked desperate, that he was desperate, the boy who went to war, not the soldier who had done the killing over there.

“Sometimes things change,” Roger said. “We were hoping you would understand.”

Bill started to cry. Once he started, the sobs grew louder and more ugly with each second. “I want to kill you,” he blubbered. “I want to kill the both of you.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Get him a whiskey,” Roger said. And she hurried to the cabinet to pull out a bottle of booze. “Sit down,” Roger continued. “Have a seat. Let’s take it easy.”

He was tired of killing. He didn’t think he could do it again.

“Sit.”

He didn’t know where to go. He sat. Roger handed him a tumbler of whiskey, saying something again about the way things change, they just change.

He had to go somewhere.

Tonight.

He didn’t belong.

Roger Cleveland had come home.

Cheater by Aubrey Hirsch

Squirrel Hill

Alex’s apartment looks like a hotel room after the guests have gone to check out. There are towels on the floor and dirty wine glasses scattered around. The bedspread came with the sheets, came with the curtains, came with the throw pillows on the couch. A complete set. The fireplace is fake. There is only generic art on the walls. No photographs. No real trace of a permanent personality. Maybe Alex is a different man with every girl he brings home. Or maybe there is no real Alex. Or maybe he just doesn’t care to decorate. I tend to think people have more depth than they really do.

When I wake up the first time, the sun is nowhere in sight. So I think it’ll be okay if I go back to sleep for a little while. But when I wake up again the sun has pounded its way through the shades, dropped to the floor, crawled across the carpet, over my clothes, up onto the bed, and into my hair.

I am already in a terrible mood when I gather my clothes. Luckily, it is a Saturday, so I’m not late for work. Alex is still asleep as I start to get dressed. After too many mornings spent searching in vain for my stockings, I stopped wearing them to pick up guys. So now it’s my wedding ring I’m looking for when I realize that I’ve forgotten to take it off again.

I wake Alex up to tell him I’m leaving. He says okay and doesn’t even roll over before he goes back to sleep. He stopped offering me cabs a long time ago.

April in Pittsburgh is schizophrenic. Sometimes it feels like December. Today, it feels like August. I try to read the Post-Gazette on the bus back to Squirrel Hill, but my head is brimming over with stories about last night and no one to tell them to. I’d never done it in a bar before. But when I replay the scene under my eyelids all I can see is that little band of gold on my fourth finger. My clothes feel heavy and out of place, like they’ve soaked up a little of Alex’s apartment. Maybe I have too; I feel a little generic.

By the time I get off the bus, I have taken my mind off of the bar and focused it on how badly I need a shower. I spot Evan across the street. I don’t know his real name, but he looks like an Evan. I can walk for blocks on autopilot without ever taking in the scenery, but I never miss Evan, even in a crowd. He’s on his way to work and I curse myself for going back to sleep at Alex’s. He has a folded copy of the paper in one hand and with the other he is idly twisting the little gold band mine is designed to match. I wonder if he notices me. For a second I almost feel a connection. I imagine that the rest of his paper’s sitting on the kitchen table next to my clean coffee mug. I ignore the fact that I wake up at my own place so seldom that I don’t even get a paper delivered there anymore.

When I get to my apartment, I notice that my clothes are starting to smell like me again, but my bag still reeks of stale cigar smoke and the Irish shower I took at Alex’s. Figures. It’s the only piece of my outfit I can’t wash. I bet a real designer bag would blend seamlessly from life to life. The second I came back it would smell like vanilla-scented candles and carpet that’s been vacuumed too often. Instead, my bag reminds me of the Squirrel Cage and how I had to try and clean up the mess between my thighs with cocktail napkins. They were the brown, recycled kind with the name of the bar screened onto them. The ink left little black streaks on my legs. Plus, I was sore and they were scratchy, but Alex was hissing at me to hurry up because the bartender was giving us looks. We got out of there and I tried to lighten things up a little by saying thanks and flashing him a secret smile. He ignored me until we got into his car and he asked if I was on the pill.

After my shower and a shot of Febreze to my bag, I try to meet Evan for lunch, but he doesn’t show up to the Murray Avenue Grill at the usual time. Instead, he ambles in just as I am leaving. I open my lips to say something, but he walks past.

It is moments like these that ruin my fun, when Evan refuses to play along. I know he isn’t really my husband. He’s just someone I noticed on the street once and followed to work. And then home. Then to where he eats. And shops. I bought a ring that looked like his and inserted him into my fantasy. Because I don’t have anyone to cheat on. And I love the rush. It makes me feel dangerous and exciting, and I am neither of those things without it. So I tell myself that it is worth the work I have to do in these moments. I reinvent the exchange. In my mind: I opened my lips to try and explain, but he mistook it for a smile and walked away.

I wake up on Kevin’s couch at six a.m. He isn’t next to me; I didn’t expect him to be. I look for him in the bedroom, but he isn’t there either. Even though the sun is still low enough to cling to the ceiling and not the floor, both sides of the bed are cold. I try the kitchen and the shower before I accept that he’s gone and start to get myself together. My wedding ring is in my empty champagne glass and most of my clothes are still on from the night before.

We’d met at Fanattics, a sports bar, where I’d pretended to cheer for his hometown basketball team and he took me home with him. He led me away from the bedroom, saying his girlfriend would smell me on the sheets. We did it on the couch, which is plastic, treated to look like leather. I had to spread my jacket down under my bare legs and constantly rearrange myself to keep from sticking to it. It was less than comfortable, but the champagne we spilled and anything that leaked out of the condom were easy to wipe up afterward. I only felt a little unsanitary when I woke up with my mouth pressed against the pleather. The sex was good. I was drunk enough to be loud and he was drunk enough not to notice that I was leaving the “K” off of his name.

I walk around his apartment once, slowly. I tell myself I’m making sure I haven’t left anything; but when I start to look around rooms I was never in, I realize I’m searching for some kind of goodbye. Or some sort of affirmation that I was close to someone the night before, even for a little while. I don’t find anything.

I was drunk when we left the bar, so I have no idea which bus to take home from Kevin’s building. Luckily, he bought the drinks and I have just enough money to cab home on.

The cab ride is my first chance to think about how I feel. I have come down completely from the night before, and I start to think about grade school when they taught us about drugs. My hair is crunchy from dried champagne that the couch didn’t soak up and my legs feel sunburned from peeling them off the plastic. I can still taste Kevin’s hair gel under my fingernails when I bite them. My bag smells like champagne and pine tree air freshener. I am glad I cannot smell my heart. Seven a.m. is not a good time for me. Maybe I am going through some kind of withdrawal.

I try to focus on the positive. The cool thing about sleeping with different people is the constant string of surprises. Kevin, for instance, started reciting the Our Father about twenty minutes in and didn’t stop until he came. There will probably be a time when I find that creepy, but for now I am fascinated.

By the time I get to my apartment it’s too late to catch Evan on his way to work. After an hour or so of doing nothing I start to feel transparent, like I’m bleeding into the wallpaper. So I shower and get the hell out of there. I don’t realize where I’m going until I hit Shady Avenue. Then, I instinctively walk toward Evan’s office building. Maybe it’s because I feel guilty. Examining my motivations doesn’t seem important.

Evan is outside on a cigarette break, a stubby Parliament looks ready to drop from his fingers. He stares right through me and I think, Wallpaper.

“Hey.”

“Hello,” he says.

I can’t find any emotion in his voice at all. “I’ll make this fast, I know you’ve got work to do. I was thinking maybe we could have dinner later in the week.”

He looks confused and glances over his right shoulder. “I think I’m busy,” he says, and gestures to his wedding band.

My hand instinctively goes to mine. I can’t find anything between us at all. His eyes look dead and I take a second to wonder if I’ve killed this. I try as hard as I can to think of the perfect thing to say, but I’ve got the Our Father stuck in my head and I can’t think of anything at all.

I walk back to the bus stop slowly and start to worry about my fantasy fading. I have a pretty safe cure for times like these. I buy things for Evan. Then I look at them and I can feel him in my apartment again. I stop into CVS and buy him a green toothbrush. I stop into Littles Shoes and buy him an expensive pair of boots. I stop into Orr’s and buy him a new watch. By the time I stop home to drop his things off, I feel much better. I can’t wait to go to the Squirrel Cage later. I imagine I’m telling Evan I’m heading to a meeting and will be out late.

When I wake up, Mark is making breakfast. I quickly tie my hair back and throw on some lip gloss, then walk into the kitchen. I can hear the bacon frying before I can smell it.

“Smells good,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t make enough. I figured you’d be leaving.”

“Oh,” I say. “I am.”

My stomach starts to hurt as I drag it away from the bacon smell. I think it’s mad at me for filling it with so much alcohol. Fucking tequila sunrises; they’re so pretty.

My clothes are thrown over a chair in the bedroom. There’s nothing to look around for and no reason I can think of to prolong my visit. Not that I really want to, I just hate that surreal feeling I get on the way home: Did that really happen? My imagination’s so good these days. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Luckily, Mark’s apartment smells like kitty litter and my skirt probably does too.

Mark’s place is small, but charming. The border on the wallpaper is matched up perfectly, which makes me think he has a girlfriend, even though he swore he doesn’t. The furniture looks like college leftovers. There are desk chairs where there should be recliners, futons where there should be couches, beer cans where there should be vases. He called it his “bachelor pad” but it doesn’t have foosball, so I don’t think it counts.

The sex was unremarkable. Even when I thought he was making me breakfast, it didn’t seem that great. Every time I got close he would pull back and prompt me to beg for it. I did a half-assed job just to get things going, but I wasn’t into it. I also thought he got too sweaty. I was tempted to get up halfway through and switch on the ceiling fan, but I figured that would make it last longer, and at that point I just wanted to get to sleep.

By the time we finished, I was sober again and getting restless. He passed out right away and I stayed up for a little while. I wanted to know something about him. I didn’t need his life story, or even his telephone number. Just something to make him feel like a real person. I walked around searching for the foosball table. Nothing. I checked his fridge to see if maybe he was a vegetarian. Nope. I looked through his wallet for photos, but I didn’t find any. I learned his eye color from his driver’s license and went back to bed.

On the way home I slip into withdrawal again. I feel sweaty and laced with doubt. I smell my skirt for evidence of last night. Kitty litter. I stop thinking about how delusional I might be and puzzle over why I never saw a cat.

The tequila makes my stomach feel like it’s closing in on itself. I look through the cupboards to find something to prop it up with, but the only thing I have a taste for is bacon. I head to Pamela’s, best breakfast in the ’burgh.

Evan is there with some woman I don’t recognize. I watch them flirt back and forth for a bit, but I don’t worry until he leans over to kiss her. Then I walk past, letting my heels click loudly, which I never do.

He doesn’t look over. Neither of them follows me with their eyes. Their right hands are clasped across the table and the fingers on their left hands are looped through the handles of their coffee mugs. I can see their matching wedding bands. Hers looks more expensive than mine and she wears it under a diamond solitaire. They seem right together. I don’t realize I’ve stopped to stare until Evan, or whatever his name is, glances over. I fake a yawn to hide the tears in my eyes, but he doesn’t notice them anyway.

I storm out of the diner thinking some combination of Maybe I’ll buy him that expensive bathrobe and Now I’ve gone too far. I hover over a sewer grate outside the restaurant and pull my ring from my finger. The skin is a little lighter underneath it and the feel of skin brushing skin there is foreign and unpleasant. I know Evan and I are over. I can’t fix that. I struggle to tell myself: He didn’t treat me right. I’m filing for divorce. But I know I won’t feel like my dangerous, exciting self again until I’m remarried, for better or worse, for real or... not. I palm my wedding ring, and carefully tuck it into my purse on the ride home.

The next weekend I need an adventure, so I go to Silky’s. It’s mostly Pitt students watching the Penguins game, so wouldn’t usually be my pick, but it’s ladies’ night and my drinks are free. On the way in I get a plastic cup and a black stamp on the back of each hand. I say a silent prayer that they’ll fade by Monday. I take a look at my options. Too young, too short, too skinny, not in a million years, out of my league, maybe if I was drunk enough, and then I see him: perfect. He’s too old to be here, at least forty, and when I glance over, a sorority girl is giving him a dirty look and storming off. I know he’s not having any luck and think maybe he’s as desperate as I am to get laid. I make eye contact from across the bar and sit down next to him, our legs touching. He offers me a drink and I display my ladies’ night stamps. He smiles.

He asks if I’m married.

I tell him, “We’re working on a divorce.”

Pittsburgh scores on the television over his right shoulder. He is drinking Guinness, so I am too, but I have a hard time getting it down. I look around at the few college girls with their pastel drinks in plastic cups.

He tells me he was married once.

“Didn’t like it?”

He shakes his head.

The Guinness is starting to settle in my stomach and flutter to my brain.

He tells me his name is Rick.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I say, drawing out the L so he’ll think about my tongue.

The music from the juke box is so loud I can’t feel my heartbeat over the bass line.

He tells me I have beautiful eyes.

“Rick,” I ask, leaning in a little, “are you hitting on me?”

The barstools are too high and my feet are dangling a couple of inches above the floor. It makes me feel silly and I’m anxious to get out of here, but he orders us another round.

He asks what we should drink to.

I raise my plastic cup: “Marriage.”

And we drink.

Two hours, three pints of Guinness, sixteen jam band songs, a short uphill walk, and two flights of stairs later, he’s fumbling with the keys to his place and I’m squeezing his ass through his work pants. I hear the lock click and help him turn the doorknob. As soon as we get inside, he backs me up against the wall and slips his hand between my legs. The faded blue color of the room reminds me of the backgrounds on Saturday-morning cartoon shows. In my head, the Looney Tunes theme song is the soundtrack to the rest of the evening.

When I wake up, Rick is walking out the door. I dress quickly and follow him from a safe distance. I don’t know where we’re walking to, but on the way there I slip on my ring and start to think about our wedding. At first I can’t decide where we had it, or how many bridesmaids there were. But the more I think about it, the clearer it becomes in my mind: Rick’s spontaneous wide-eyed proposal, our rehearsal dinner on Mount Washington, how mad I was when he dropped his wedding ring in the drain and lost it, how he’d never suspect any infidelity on my part, how we’re so in love.

This is my second husband, Rick. The green toothbrush in my bathroom is Rick’s. I like the sound of it already. Rick steps into a dry cleaner’s on Forbes. When thirty minutes go by and he still hasn’t emerged with a couple of shrink-wrapped shirts or an off-season jacket, I copy the address into my date book, labeling it, Rick’s job. I walk down the street quickly. I have work to do. I have a whole life to create and only twelve hours to do it in. I have to hurry if I’m going to be at the bar by nine.

Key Drop by Tom Lipinski

Lawrenceville

The uphill turn at Butler and 44th Street is a tight one. The sudden and steep incline is further complicated by an already thin roadway that is parked solid at both curbs, holding the overflow from the shops on Butler — shops that change hands from convenience stores, pizza shops, barbers, and on to simple and inviting coffee spots with each pass.

Dorsey maneuvered the old Buick through the intersection, taking care with the long front grille and bumper, hoping not to sideswipe a car parked at the corner, then squeezed the accelerator, prepping the engine for the climb. He kept an eye out for a parking spot but found none, only open spaces reserved with kitchen table chairs planted at the curb, so pulled to his right into a church lot. The church was a dark and imposing brick and Dorsey recalled his last few visits to 44th, reminding himself that it was a Polish congregation. Now what the hell was the name of that burned-up painting of the Madonna they had hanging in there?

He climbed out of the car, stretched himself to his full six feet plus, and caught a touch of summer breeze. After waiting for traffic to pass, he hustled across the street to a line of row houses with minute front yards enclosed in black wrought-iron fencing. As Dorsey undid the gate latch the front door swung open and emitted an airborne wave of gray and sudsy wash water.

“The hell is that?” Dorsey retreated to the edge of the sidewalk. “Hell of a greeting. Ask me to stop by, make it sound important, and then this.”

“Just finished the hall floor,” Mrs. Leneski told him, walking down her front stoop, metal slop bucket in her hand. She’s old, Dorsey reminded himself, man is she old. Gracing the far end of her eighties, Mrs. Leneski flirted with five feet of height, apparently so frail that a light rain could wash her, and the last of her gray hair pulled tight to the skull, down the street. She had on a sleeveless housedress that came to the midcalf and did nothing to hide the dark electronic ring that encircled her right ankle.

“Should’ve never shot that guy,” Dorsey said, looking toward her feet. “Lucky this is all they did to you, even at your age.”

“I asked you to do it,” Mrs. Leneski replied, turning over her bucket and draining the last of the water. Her voice held the last traces of a childhood spent in Eastern Europe. “Right in that kitchen, over coffee. You said no. And you had enough good reasons to do it too. So, that left me.”

Determined not to go over old and painful ground once again, Dorsey asked how she was getting along. “Tak sobie, so-so. Thing on my ankle gives me a rash. Thank God they still make the Noxzema cream.”

Dorsey gave her a soft grin. “So, are you asking me in? Maybe some coffee?” He stepped through the gate and took the bucket from her hand. “Want to tell me what this is about? Why you asked me over?”

“Sure, sure, down to business,” Mrs. Leneski said, turning to go into the house. “Mr. Detective wants to know about the case. Still call it that?’

“Sometimes,” Dorsey said, trailing behind her. “What’s on your mind?”

Mrs. Leneski stopped at the threshold and turned. “First, you take me shopping. I need a few things.”

“They let you go out?” Dorsey asked. “Somebody you have to call first? Maybe the probation office?”

Dorsey was watching her shake her head when he noticed something on the street had caught her eye. He turned and scanned the street, the only thing moving was an immaculate black Cadillac heading up the street.

“You see that? The undertaker?” Mrs. Leneski asked, looking up at Dorsey. “He steals.”

“What do you mean, he steals?”

“You know, he’s an undertaker,” she told him. “Shoes, socks, sometimes even suits. You think anybody really goes into the ground with a new pair of shoes on their feet?”

Standing behind the shopping cart in the produce section, Dorsey watched the old woman examine cabbage head after cabbage head, and recounted to himself the story behind this cockeyed friendship. She hires you, a few years back when no one was sending you work, to find her missing granddaughter. “She’s with them junkies in the park,” she had told him. She had been close, the girl was on the far side of a wrecked fence that separated the park from a cemetery. Four feet down and no marker except for a plain of broken beer and wine bottles to cover some tracks. You found her all right, and you found out who killed her. “But I can’t prove it,” you had told her, “not enough for the DA or the cops.”

“So,” Mrs. Leneski had said, “then you kill him for me. I’ll give you a bonus.” But you just shook your head and left the house, and left the woman to do the killing herself. And with some back door legal tricks, an eighty-some-year-old gets house arrest and a metal band on her ankle for a killing.

Four heads proved good enough to make it into the cart and Dorsey asked how many people she was cooking for. “Somebody will show up,” she told him. “They always do when I make halupki.”

“Polish hand grenades?”

“Irish wise-ass,” Mrs. Leneski said, and pulled on the front of the cart, directing him to the checkout lanes. “Ziggy gets the meat for me down The Strip. And a few other things. He’ll be by later.”

Dorsey began angling the cart toward a checkout line but Mrs. Leneski took hold of the front and dragged him into another aisle. “Not her,” she said, indicating a young girl behind a register. “She cheats people, charges double on things like meat sometimes. She has something going with the manager, they’re in it together.”

“Not hot enough, not yet, for iced tea,” Mrs. Leneski said, putting a cup of coffee on the Formica tabletop in front of Dorsey. They were in her kitchen now and despite a thorough going over, Dorsey could find nothing that had changed since his last visit. Refrigerator and oven still the same off-white, the sink a stand-alone with plumbing exposed. Except for a few newly acquired blemishes, even the coffee cups looked the same. Dorsey hoped her problems had changed.

He took a sip of unusually strong coffee. “So,” he said, lowering the cup to the table. “Time to tell me why I’m here. Must have someone else to take you shopping.”

Mrs. Leneski took a seat across the table from him. “You remember last time, last time you met my Catherine?”

Dorsey remembered. “Met her just the once. And she wasn’t doing so well. I met her up the street at the old hospital. She was in the east wing, the psych ward?”

She had been in her midforties then, and detoxing for the third time. Dorsey recalled the incoherent voice that could barely recall she had a daughter of her own. The one you found dead. “She clean these days?” Dorsey asked.

“So they say,” Mrs. Leneski said. “In a way, I guess. She’s on her own, has a little place about ten blocks over on Carnegie Street, the other ward. And she’s got this job, but it’s a job with bad people, I think.”

Dorsey sipped at his coffee. “What kind of work? For who?”

“One of them new places, the new ones along Butler Street, you’ve seen them. All those coffee shops, they make little sandwiches and crap for lunch, try to sell the art right off the walls? She’s at one of them near 37th Street across from where the Catholic high school was.”

“That I remember,” Dorsey said, recalling a visit there while searching for the granddaughter. Girls in uniform trying to slip things past nuns in habits. “Thought those sorts of places were popular around here now.”

“Some are, I guess,” Mrs. Leneski said, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. “She works for one of the Predic family, he owns the place where she makes the sandwiches, waits on the table. The Predics, the whole family is no good.”

“Do they steal like the undertaker or cheat like the checkout girl at the supermarket?” Dorsey asked from behind his raised coffee cup. “Sorry, it had to be asked.”

Mrs. Leneski left her chair and went to the sink, turning her back to him. “She’s old and she’s crazy, that’s what you think. Like I think people are all out to get me.” She turned to face him. “I just know things, things and people. They’re up to something at that place Catherine works. Damned Predics. I’d go there myself and find out but I have this thing on my ankle. So you have to go.”

So you have to go, Dorsey reminded himself, cruising across Carnegie Street, checking for the address on the slip of paper Mrs. Leneski had given him. Thirty years you’ve been out of the army, and you’re still intimidated by anything that sounds like a direct order. “And another thing, she only lives thirteen blocks from work, and she takes the bus along Butler. Thirteen blocks and she pays bus fare, can’t walk to work. Wastes her money. You find out what’s going on at that place and get her out of there.”

Dorsey moved along Carnegie in the Buick, the brown brick of the homes and front porches giving away to the red brick of St. Kieran’s Church. Just past the rectory, he pulled to the curb and killed the engine, focusing his attention on the house bearing the address he was looking for, apparently transformed from a one-family residence into two apartments. Dorsey checked out the second-story windows where Catherine was said to live. Windows closed and curtains drawn despite the afternoon warmth, the place was unremarkable and Dorsey considered putting in some surveillance time but decided against it. It’ll get you nowhere, he thought, best that could happen is you fall into a nap and end up with a sore lower back. Better to get some questions answered first. He twisted the ignition key, rolled over the engine, and proceeded a few more blocks and through one last intersection. At the corner was a low-slung building fronted by a large yard done over in cement and brick, the local AOH club, the only marker a small sign tacked above the front door. A buzzer and card slot was mounted next to the doorjamb and Dorsey depressed the button. The door was opened by a short man wearing a bartender’s double-wrapped apron.

“Lookin’ for Danny?”

Dorsey said that he was and the man waved him into a small vestibule followed by a wide barroom with tables and matching chairs scattered across the floor. “Danny,” the bartender called to a far corner. “Guy here for you.”

At the corner table was a thin, older man dressed in gray work pants and a sport shirt, paging his way through the newspaper. On the tabletop was a can of ginger ale, a glass with cracked ice, and a freshly opened pack of Chesterfields. When the man raised his head of white hair, Dorsey saw the blue eyes and lean good features of the Sullivan clan, his mother’s people. The slow grin reminded Dorsey that this was one of the few who had managed to hold onto his original teeth.

“How’s things, Uncle Danny?”

“Calling me uncle, huh?” the man joked. “You must be in some kind of trouble. Better sit down and tell me.”

“Trouble? I imagine so,” Dorsey said, taking the seat across the table. “Just not sure what kind it might be.” Dorsey motioned at the Chesterfields. “Thought you gave them up.”

“I don’t smoke ’em,” Uncle Danny answered, pulling one from the pack. “Don’t even light them up. Just gives me something to do with my hands. I still have to pay for ’em, but I save money on the matches.” He toyed with the smoke for a moment. “Always good to see you, don’t get me wrong, but something must’ve brought you over here.”

“Had to take an old lady cabbage shopping.” Dorsey waived down the bartender, ordered two more ginger ales, and brought his uncle up to date on his afternoon.

Uncle Danny toyed with a Chesterfield. “Between 36th and 37th? Right on Butler?” He laughed for a moment. “Might be the old whorehouse.”

“There was a whorehouse there?”

“Not much of one,” he told Dorsey, “not that I was ever in there, let’s get that straight. But you’re saying this shop is just across Butler from the old high school?”

Dorsey said that it was.

Uncle Danny laughed. “That’s who told me about it, the kids at the school. Some of my neighbors’ kids went to school there, and kids, they pick up on everything. From what they tell me, they’d be in algebra or typing class, look out the window across the street, and they’d see some guy ringing the bell at a door. Not the storefront door, but the one next to it that leads to the apartments on the second floor, know what I mean?”

Dorsey sipped at the ginger ale and nodded for his uncle to go on.

“Anyways,” Uncle Danny said, “nobody answers the door but a window on the second floor opens up and a woman kind of a pokes her head out. From what I hear she was stripped to her bra, in good weather. If she recognizes the guy she sends down the door key on a cord, the guy unlocks the door and goes inside. Then the woman in the window yanks up the cord and key and they’re off to the races.”

“Can’t imagine Catherine being able to make a living that way,” Dorsey told him. “Haven’t seen her in more than few years, but still.”

“In that business, the level of the clientele determines the level of the talent.” Uncle Danny set down the unlit smoke. “There’re sad old men and horny boys that ain’t so choosey.”

“I just don’t see it,” Dorsey said, shaking his head. “Tell me about these people, the Predics.”

It was Uncle Danny’s turn to shake his head. “Some families, I just don’t know, the kids are wild. Can’t say it was the parents, the old man had a nice business doing cement work, and the mother was okay. Kids were another story. Maybe it’s the house they live in, as if the walls tell them to be nuts. All the boys, and there was a slew of them, they start out at the Catholic school, and by sixth grade they are tossed out to the public school. And high school, don’t even give it a thought. So, some dope and drink and then vandalism. And then burglary when they finally figure out that if you don’t just destroy property, but instead haul it away and sell it to someone, you can actually make some money.”

“Anything recent?”

“I’m sure there is, but I haven’t heard of it,” Uncle Danny said. “And if one of them has a lunchroom, he’s selling more than whole wheat sandwiches and sprout salads.”

Dorsey thanked his uncle and got to his feet, heading for the door.

“Better wait a second,” Uncle Danny called out, stopping him. “If this Predic boy is the one I’m thinking of, the two of you have an acquaintance in common.”

Dorsey turned. “How’s that?”

“The big ape you had trouble with a few years back, the one everyone calls Outlaw? He’s close with the sons. Remember him, right?”

“I remember.”

“You should — last time you shot him in the foot,” Uncle Danny said. “If you get the chance, do us all a favor and shoot him in the other foot.”

By quarter past nine, the key had made four trips from the second-floor window, attached to green electric wire and let out by Catherine Leneski. Dorsey was sure of it, despite the gray in her hair and the sag of her chin. While he watched there had been two couples with children in strollers, one young fellow carrying a toddler, and a young girl chasing a three-year-old. Each had knocked at the door, the window had been raised, and the key dangled. Each had gone inside for a short bit and then left, none with children.

Dorsey was across Butler, relaxing behind the steering wheel of the Buick. Traffic had been sporadic for the most part, punctuated by the passing of trailer trucks that used every inch of the street, causing Dorsey to wince each time one moved along. Part of the morning had been spent in front of a computer screen, confirming that Anthony Predic had purchased the building two years earlier at a rock-bottom price. The previous owner had been a shoemaker with his shop on the first floor. Dorsey wondered if the shoemaker had known what was going on upstairs all those years. He also wondered if the trick with the key had been on the deed. Now, across the street, when the trucks gave him a break, he watched a young man wash the storefront window of what was now The Boilermaker Lunchbox. From his vantage point, Dorsey could see a long serving counter with restored swivel stools, several large and well-shined coffee urns, and a line of booths at the far wall.

Behind the wheel he scratched a few comments into a notebook, the sort of thing he always did because he realized that in this business, the final report is everything. Send the report and attach the invoice, and hope that the report convinces the customer to pay the invoice. His notes described the people who had left their children. All had been working class, the two couples appearing to be stuck at the bottom of the scale. The men had the half beards of hoped-for maturity and wore old jeans, T-shirts with a hockey-playing penguin on them, and matching ball caps. The women wore the same outfits, but they somehow made them appear a bit more feminine. The single woman had been dressed in the white uniform that identified her as anything from a nurse to a waitress. It convinced Dorsey that the nursing profession should find itself new, and more specific, attire.

He dropped the notebook on the seat next to him and worked his back deeper into the upholstery. Why bother with notes? He reminded himself that after his last job with Mrs. Leneski, she had refused a written final report, but she had paid. As always, she was an exception. And you, you figured she might be heading toward dementia. The undertaker steals, the checkout girl cheats customers to get in good with the manager she’s already sleeping with, and maybe the cabbage heads are talking to her. But Catherine has been nowhere near the serving counter all morning and instead is up to something on the second floor. Mostly shaky people knock on the door, she drops the key, in they go and come back without their kids. Nothing illegal in that — pretty goddamned weird, but not illegal.

Dorsey stayed on watch for another hour or so until one of the young couples who had been there earlier returned. The routine with the key was repeated, and they came back out with a child and stroller. Dorsey slipped out of the car, adjusted his sport shirt to cover the Glock he carried in a waistband holster, and crossed the street. He slipped by the young couple without a word and went into the Lunchbox.

“Where’s the back steps?” Dorsey asked the young man behind the counter. “Tony and Outlaw said I ought to use the back way, not mess around with the key.”

“Neither of them are here,” the young man said, dunking coffee cups into a sink of blue water. “Want to wait? Supposed to be back in just a bit.”

“I know all about that,” Dorsey said, “but I’m supposed to wait up top.”

Dorsey watched the young man’s eyes dart about. C’mon, kid, buy into it.

“Maybe I should call them on the cell,” the guy said.

“Fine by me, but I’m supposed to be looking over the second floor before they get back, understand?”

The man sighed. “C’mon, back this way. But I’m still gonna call.”

He led Dorsey behind the counter and past the glass doors of a cooler stocked with sliced luncheon meats and into the backroom. There was a flight of steps to the left and as they climbed Dorsey asked the young man if he had to get ready for the lunch crowd.

“What there is of it,” he answered, unlocking the door at the top of the steps. He pushed it open and stood aside. “But I still have to get it ready.”

Dorsey wedged past him and heard the door being closed and locked behind him. He was in what had once been an apartment kitchen, no appliances but a large sink decorated with rust stains was attached to the far wall. Around it, three stacks deep, were sealed cardboard cartons. Dorsey looked them over and found flat screens, microwaves ovens, and a few Bose radios. He smiled. Don’t look too bad for having fallen off the truck.

Out in a long hallway that ran the length of the building, Dorsey moved along listening to the sound of recorded music and children’s singing voices. He passed a closed door and made his way to an open doorway at the front of the building, across the hall from the front staircase. Inside were two boys and a girl, topping out at age five, Dorsey figured, half asleep on the floor in front of a flat-screen TV. An animated story was playing out; a couple of bears were singing advice to a wide-eyed girl.

None of the kids took notice as Dorsey crossed the room to three cribs against the far wall, opposite the windows. One was empty but the other two held sleeping infants, apparently undisturbed by the singing. On the floor between two of the cribs was a kitchen food scale lying on its side, plastic baggies scattered around it. He heard some light footfalls in the hallway, turned, and saw Catherine walk into the room.

“Who the hell are you?” she said in a voice that was a bit angered but also bewildered. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt and her hair was matted back against the sides of her head. It was the eyes that Dorsey concentrated on. Half shuttered and high as a kite. “I didn’t hear anyone knock.”

“And you didn’t send down the key,” Dorsey responded. “Forgot about that part.”

“That’s right,” she said. “The key.”

Dorsey shook his head and turned to the children in front of the TV. He took two of them gently by the shoulder and tried to rouse them. All he got in return were two weak yawns. He turned back to Catherine.

“Doesn’t really matter what you’re on these days,” Dorsey told her, settling his eyes on her face. “But what did you give these kids? And what are you doing with them?”

Catherine appeared to drift for a second. “Benadryl,” she said. “Just a little. Keeps them quiet.”

Dorsey stepped back to the cribs. “The infants too?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “They sleep for hours that way.”

Jesus, Dorsey thought, day care for drugged-out parents. “What is it?” he asked her. “A young couple needs to get their heads straight, so they drop the kid off while they score?”

“Some.”

And more than that, Dorsey realized, remembering the young woman in white. Poor, single, and working for a paycheck. But not one big enough to get legitimate child care. No family, no friends. The underground economy of stolen goods and drugs. Just add a little day care for the clientele. For a fee. And don’t even think about what that might entail.

Dorsey took another look at one of the infants and started digging in his pocket for his cell. “Got a problem here,” he told Catherine. “This kid’s turning blue.”

He started to punch in 911 when the young man from the Lunchbox came in from the hall. “In here,” he called out. “Right in here.” He pointed at Dorsey. “Better stay off that phone.”

“Why?” Dorsey said. “You obviously didn’t.”

Despite the intervening years, Dorsey recognized the man as soon as he entered. He had a few inches of height on Dorsey, but it was the shoulders that told the tale. Twice Dorsey’s width, Outlaw walked with a minor shuffle and Dorsey figured he hadn’t forgotten how that came to be. Even worse, there was a Louisville Slugger, brightly shellacked and the grain jumping out, in his hands.

“Hank Aaron model?” Dorsey asked, hoping to throw off the big man. “Better get this straight, we got a sick kid on our hands, not-breathing-so-well sick. I’m calling for paramedics. Whatever you want to do with me can keep for later.”

Outlaw grinned, pushed back his long black hair with his left hand, then dragged himself across the room and took his first swing. Dorsey ducked and fell back to the wall, surprised that he was more concerned with protecting the cell than his own body. The swing was wild and Outlaw lost his balance for a moment, but just that. While he righted himself, Dorsey got to the Glock at his hip.

“Hold on,” he told Outlaw, pointing the gun to the floor. “I’ll shoot you. Just to be a prick, I’ll shoot you in your other foot. Okay?”

Outlaw hesitated for a moment, then went at him. Dorsey straightened his elbow and fired. He looked down at Outlaw, checked out Catherine and the Lunchbox guy. “Now,” Dorsey told them all, punching numbers into the cell, “I’m making a phone call. All right with everybody?”

“Not the same foot?” Uncle Danny asked. “You shot him in the other foot?”

They were back at the table, a ginger ale each.

“The other foot,” Dorsey told him. “Just like you asked.”

Overheard by Reginald McKnight

Homewood

That’s the thing about this town, Merce: you cross one street — the right side of the street — and you’ve crossed over to a whole other world. Do I have to tell you this? You know. You own property everywhere your dad was allowed to buy. So-called Homewood One and so-called Homewood Two are separate planets, no closer than Earth and Pluto.

I told you what that dude Matt said to me the first week Colleen and the boy and I moved into our place on Lang—

Yes I did, man—

I did, Merce. You never—

All right, so he walks up to me while I’m out front sweeping the walk, and he says, “Welcome to the neighborhood,” and he says his name is Matt, and he lives right over there across the street. Points with his rake.

I had a broom. Him, he’d been raking. Sweeping, raking, very neighborhoody behavior, right?

Yes! He was white. Of course he was white. That’s my—

Merce, just listen to me, okay? Follow along, man, and I’ll tell you all this stuff about the girl getting beaten, and what I think happened upstairs, and what this has to do with my rent.

Man, I have never in my life missed rent. I been late once or twice, but...

So this guy Matt points with his rake and squints at me like he’s got battery acid in his eyes, and smiles like it hurts, and he shrugs at me and goes... How does he put it? “So we were just wondering why you all chose Point Breeze instead of the actual Homewood for a place to settle.” Something like that, see? And by “we,” he means the people up and down Lang, dig?

It took me a couple beats to gather this. At first I thought he was talking about just him and his own brood, but when he starts talking about what the DelGrossos had to say, and the Millers, and so forth, I see he’s talking about person-to-person, house-to-house, what the whole village — idiots included, apparently — thought about us moving in next to them. Instead of the proper one.

Dude, listen to me. I’m not from here. I grew up on military bases. We been a-integratin’ since before I was born: ’47, ’48. What the fuck do I know about living on the right side of the street?

Actually, no. He said about eighty percent of them were cool with us living there. I mean, yeah, it creeped me out that they actually clustered their heads together and practically voted on it, but yeah, they did vote us in, I guess you could say.

Where? Dancing Goats.

Dancing Goats? The place on Ellsworth, near—

Yeah, that’s the one. I don’t know. Coffee’s coffee, right?

No, it wasn’t that. Lang Avenue didn’t help the marriage, but that wasn’t the reason. I told you the reason.

Yeah.

And for your information, I didn’t move into the real Homewood because I’ve learned to agree with guys like Matt. I took your place because it’s huge and beautiful: lots of wood, full of light, high ceilings. It’s nice and quiet, except for, you know... But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Three bedrooms. Three, for seven-fifty, and manageable utilities. I’m like six blocks from the Lang place but I feel far enough away from Colleen and Brian not to hurt all the time.

I know, I know, you don’t keep tabs on old girlfriends without paying the price. I know what I did. Half the puddles I wept into your nice carpet and wood were from shame and embarrassment. The other half were because I missed Brian so much.

Yeah, yeah, I know you guys did too. You know it’s complicated, yeah. That’s why I guess I hardly noticed the people upstairs, at first. It’s the usual thing with couples who live above you. You hear their bedsprings, you hear him raise his voice or punch a wall; sometimes the music is a bit too loud, but she keeps it down. You hear them shower and flush, and hang pictures, stack dishes. Pretty soon you know the difference between his footfall and hers. Everybody’s pretty much the same.

No-no-no, that’s not my point. The thing is, they weren’t all that noisy. I used to live below a couple of opera singers in Colorado Springs. That was much worse.

I’m serious. No, they made normal noises, for the most part, and when Brian isn’t with me, it kind of made me feel a little less alone. Besides, I have this big-ass air filter in my bedroom... Of course, you’ve seen it. Duh. Anyway, I usually run it all night, and it whites out the universe.

No, I hardly ever thought about Tamara and that guy, but like this one night? Brian was with me? And we’d had a very cool weekend. We’d watched The Lion King for like the eight millionth time. He spent all day in that ridiculous lion costume, roaring at people in the mall, at The Strip, Frick Park. But anyway, the weekend’s almost done, so of course I’m depressed. The filter’s on, cause I don’t want to hear them having sex; I don’t want to hear sirens, nothing. Brian’s in his room long asleep, and I’m tipped that way myself. It’s, like, two.

Brian taps on my door. “Papa.” Barely hear him, but I’m up. “There’s a loud noise,” he says. He points to the ceiling. I shut off the filter and we listen. I hear thumping out in the stairway. I walk Brian back to his room, go out into the hallway, and see them both at the bottom of the stairs at the entrance. Tamara’s sitting on the last step, with her arms over her head, and boyfriend’s standing over her, trying to whale on her, but he’s being patient, like a boxer. He wants her face, not her arms. First time I’d seen him, actually. He’s got the tan Timberland boots, the baggy pants, hoodie, watch cap. He’s beating a woman. Very disappointing.

He’s in midswing, and she’s swollen under the eye and bleeding from the nose. I say, “Tamara, you all right?” And asshole turns around and says, “What you need, bitch?” But I look past him and repeat myself. Tamara says, “Can you call the cops?”

“Already have,” I said, which wasn’t true, but I figured it’d cool the asshole, which it did. He slams out the door, and by that time, at the bottom of the stairs, Tamara’s on her feet. I lock the front door and walk her back up to her own door. I ask her if she needs anything. She tells me no, but I just stand there for a while, not sure if I should walk her down to my place for first aid, or ice, or whatever.

You ever notice how beautiful she is? Cause I really hadn’t till then. I mean, I’d seen her a dozen times or so, more or less up close, at the mailbox, mostly, or passing on the stairway. But I’d never stood so close and face-to-face. She smells like gardenias and some kind of sweet spice. I like those almond eyes, the long lashes, her skin. It’s like smooth and the color of pecans. I mean, you have to be blind not to notice the hourglass body, but even with the swollen eye, the face is like love, like art.

Yeah, well, if it’s conventional it ain’t beauty.

Yeah, actually did call, when I went back down to my place. They showed up fairly quickly and I’m not sure my boy would have gone back to sleep at all if I hadn’t lain there with him for a while as the two of us watched the blue lights flash across the walls and ceiling.

Couldn’t tell you. We both slept till about nine.

All right, so I got back from dropping off the son, and there’s Tamara and this portly dark-skinned woman outside the landing in front of her door — her second door. You know, the one that—

Yeah. They were trying to fix it, see?

No, they weren’t changing the goddamn lock, Merce. The thing just doesn’t work, okay?

Can you blame these folks? How does she know you’re not one of those landlords who shine you on, put you off, blow you back, toss you out? You get used to things running a certain way in your world and you don’t bother.

Exactly. Let me go on. This isn’t about you.

I know I owe you money, but let me tell you what happened, all right? There are some things bigger than your money.

I know, I know, but listen.

They were actually having a good time. Giddy, giggling with frustration, seemed to me. “What are y’all up to?” I asked them, and Tamara smiles at me like I’m some kind of super Jesus and says, “Can you fix this, Reggie?” and I winced a little, but let it go, that Reggie, and just said back, “Did he break in?”

“Last night?” she said. “Naw, I let him in.”

Her friend says, “You don’t even need no credit card to open this door.”

And Tamara said, “You could blow on it and it’ll just lay open like a ho.”

“Girl,” her friend said, “you going to hell for that one!”

I told them I’d be back up in a second with my toolbox, and I was back up in two seconds. The only problem was the thing was loose, every—

All the plates and stuff, and needed a little machine oil. It was tight, and the only thing that could open it was the key. I told Tamara to buy a slap bolt for the inside, and I’d put it on for her, if they needed me to.

Don’t mention it, man. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you I’d been wearing sandals that day. And while the women were watching me work, Tamara said, “Dee, don’t he have some pretty feet, for a man?”

“You got that right, Tam. They some pretty dogs. For a man? Sheeit, I’d trade him straight up.”

“Reggie, how you get them feet?”

I know, what was I supposed to say, Footlocker, morgue, Mom and Dad, Homewood Cemetery?

Right, right, right: Well, you know how you just see feet slung up over telephone lines and on roadsides? Yeah, they’re all over the damn place. Take ’em home; throw ’em in the washer, presto! Lady’s feet, mahogany, good as new!

Anyway, it was quiet for two weeks, and I didn’t hear her come or go. Little music, TV off or turned down low after eleven, as per your lease agreement. Come to think of it, she was living pretty much as she had before the guy started coming around. Hadn’t even thought about how quiet she’d been at first. I got to figuring she was from a good home. I mean, she dressed well for her job, rarely worked the cleavage in her play clothes. But it was more than that. There was something... I don’t know, pristine about her. Yeah, that’s the word. I didn’t think she “belonged” here any more than me. Very middle class, I suppose.

She does? Okay, that proves my point. Everyone from there may know his name, or how famous he is, and they know he wrote a ton of books about Homewood, but few actually read him. Interesting.

I stopped using my fan. I was, you know, on alert, worried about her. Wanted to hear every sound. That’s why I heard all this horrible stuff last weekend.

No, he wasn’t there, thank God.

No, every other weekend.

Tell me about it.

The whole thing was so eerie because there were no voices. No arguing or screaming. There wasn’t any music, no Tupac, no Snoop, no Biggie, just hard tympanic thumps. The walls. Soles and heels rolled like thunder across my ceiling. In fact, that’s what woke me. Thought it was a storm. I lay there in the dark, Merce, and I hear knees and elbows splintering. You could hear the cracks and ghost strokes radiating back into the intermittent silence. You could hear furniture scraping across the floor. Something made of glass shattered, and pieces of it rattled and tumbled and skittered across the wood. Walls boomed; the whole frame shook and it was a good while before I picked up the phone.

Well, I don’t know, exactly, but I’m lying there and the phone’s, like, a fucking foot from my head, and I’m actually taking the time to think, He’s killing her up there.

I picked up the phone and the noise quit like someone’d thrown a mattress over it. Only thing I could hear was my ears and temples knocking. My blood rocked my whole body. I didn’t press a single button, not a nine or a one, and the thing began to bleat to be hung up, and it sounded like it was loud enough for him to hear it upstairs, so I hung it up, sat up, and listened. So, as my heart slowed, I could hear normally, more or less. Car engines, tires, woofers, tweeters. I heard drunken boys making like magpies as they walked past my window. One of them’s going, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it’s like he don’t even know when to stop and listen, so like I’m all up in his grille...” and as the boy’s voice fades, I hear in its place this low, steady, “Uh-uh-uh-uh,” and I mean it’s constant, but I can’t tell whether it’s a man or a woman. I can’t tell anything about it, but it goes on for a long, long, long, long time, and I’m pinned down there on my bed and pretty soon I tell myself they’re having sex, and I should mind my own business, and I got a right to be disgusted and pissed off and a right to some peace and quiet and sleep. I turn on the filter. I slept.

I’d have slept till noon or better if not for the smell of ammonia that socked me awake at about seven. No mystery as to why they use that stuff for smelling salts. I got up, stepped into my pants, walked the hallway from bedroom to kitchen. I stepped to the back window and gazed through the bars and dirty glass and down the fire escape. The ammonia drew tears from my eyes and I wiped them with my wrist. A nasty film ate at my throat. My feet didn’t quite touch the ground.

Down by the big blue dumpster, I saw this trim black boy of seventeen or so: trench coat, hoodie, Timberlands. The uniform, you dig?

He may or may not have been carrying, but who’s gonna ask? The suit makes the A-bomb. But other than the getup, there was nothing actually sinister about him — no shades or grim visage. All he did was nod at the cars that rolled by the dumpster like he was the town sheriff, and when people came by with their garbage, he smiled, nodded, said a couple words, even bowed a little, pointed nowhere in particular with his thumb. Every single person walked back home carrying their trash. No back talk, no heat, and no questions. I wasn’t a bit surprised, Merce, even though it was garbage day.

And I can’t say I was surprised by the first of three men carrying the black leaf bags down the fire escape. I already know because I’ve seen the movies, read the books. Ammonia tells you one thing, trench coats tell you the other, the only thing next is black garbage bags. But I don’t mean to sound blasé about it. I wasn’t. Not a bit. For every step the first guy took down the steps, I took a step away from the window. I realized that the sound I’d heard at the tail end of my night hadn’t been sex at all, and I guess I already knew that even then, before I flicked on the air filter. It was the sound of someone dying, of someone laboring with a handsaw over flesh and bone.

Uh-huh, backed up all the way till my ass met the little olive stove and amber-yellow fridge. Turned around and looked at them — clean, familiar acquaintances of mine. I grabbed the handle of the fridge, but didn’t pull it open. I looked at the stovetop, the teapot, the coffee maker and toaster, and for a couple seconds I couldn’t remember what they were called or what they were for. Turned back around in time to see the second bag make its unmistakably butcher-shop way down the fire escape. I got this galvanic zap on the back of my tongue. You know, like when you’re a kid and stupid enough to lick the anodes of a nine-volt battery. It was a kind of supercharged horror I could taste. My body, like, just dumped sweat — all at once, from every pore. I’m hot; I’m shivering. I crept back to the window as the third bag made its way down. The boy held the lid open, the guy tossed the bag in, and the boy lowered the lid. All of them stood next to the dumpster and smoked till the truck came, but I can’t remember whether they walked, drove, or flew away.

No, Merce. I did not call the cops.

Well now, see, that’s what I called to tell you. I’m not a bit surprised she’s paid her rent, because day before yesterday, she came to my place.

Yes, Tamara.

Of course I was stunned, man, are you kidding? I’d spent days feeling her ghost in my mouth. After showers, I sit on the edge of the tub and stare at my feet.

Yeah, my feet.

Talk about not eating. Talk about insomnia and silence and emptiness. I thought divorce was... I thought nothing could be worse than those days when I first moved into your place and ate cobwebs and pissed blood, and cried piss, and bayed like a hound every night Brian wasn’t under my roof.

And then one day she’s standing at my door as beautiful as a palm full of tea roses and asking me can she come in. I let her in. Says she’s been away for a while, and only back in town to get a few things. Told me the boyfriend had tried to break in a few days back, and she’d had to leave to find a new place. Said he was crazy, dealt drugs, killed people, feared nothing. She shook, she cried; her voice quavered just perfectly. She asked me for money for a bus back out of town and a hotel, till her new place was ready. Said she’d pay me back in a week, maybe two.

Of course I didn’t believe her.

Of course I gave her the money.

Three hundred bills, dude.

That’s why I called you, man.