Red Cat

32

There was a corner of Coyle’s room that we hadn’t trashed, and in it was a pint-sized refrigerator. It held two midget ice trays, and Coyle took one and sat on the cot and fashioned an icepack out of a T-shirt. I took the other and sat on the folding chair. I did the best I could with some paper towels, but it was tough going with three broken fingers, two on the right hand and one on the left. They were already beginning to swell and discolor.

Coyle held the icepack to his brow. “It’s a big surprise, I ran?” His soft voice was scratchy and tired. “The cops bring me in- with my record, it’s like they won the lottery. Who are they gonna like better than me?”

A couple of names came to mind, but I kept them to myself and nodded. He adjusted his ice and winced. Meltwater and blood ran down his face. Coyle’s sweatshirt and jeans were filthy and sodden, and so was he, and beneath the dirt, the fatigue, and the still-suspicious glances, there were other things: fear, confusion, and a deep and grueling sadness. He had, for the moment, spent his anger and panic and blind motion; now he was lost and drifting. I’d told him who I was, and a story about what I wanted, the main points of which were that I wasn’t a cop, wasn’t working with the cops, and had no particular interest in helping them out. He didn’t care much, to the extent he had energy to care at all. Elbows on his knees, he seemed to wither and deflate before my eyes. I wanted him to use the air he had left talking to me. Under the cot, only slightly crushed in the mД™lГ©e, were Uncle Kenny’s doughnuts in a cardboard box. I managed to drag them over without whimpering.

“You mind?” I asked. Coyle looked at me and shook his head. I picked a glazed one and offered him the box. He shook his head again. I got up and righted the card table, and found the little coffeemaker miraculously intact underneath.

“You have any coffee?” I asked. Coyle pointed to a cabinet over the sink. I found filter papers and Folger’s and some foam cups inside. He watched while I fumbled with the fixings. When the coffee was brewing, I turned around.

“Tell me about Holly,” I said quietly. Coyle’s mouth tightened and his chin trembled, and he stayed silent. The aroma of coffee filled the room, masking for the moment the stink of sweat and cigarettes and wet clothing. Coyle stared nowhere, a faraway, convict gaze, and I thought I’d lost him even before we started. Then he looked at me and decided something. And then- with eyes on the walls, the floor or someplace over my shoulder, and with a voice hoarse and sometimes shaky- he spoke.

They’d met last spring, at the 9:3 °Club, on a night Jamie Coyle had been on the door. Holly and Gene Werner wanted in, and Coyle had given Holly the free pass he gave all beautiful women. But something about Werner had rubbed him the wrong way.

“Fucking Weenie. Maybe it was the way he was looking at himself in the window, or maybe it was how he grabbed her arm. I don’t know, the prick just pissed me off.” Holly had interceded on Werner’s behalf, which made Werner mad. That had pleased Coyle- that, and Holly’s smile.

“Man, she could melt you. I mean, she was a prizewinner- you had to stare- but that smile…It made something bubble in your chest. She was like nobody I ever knew.”

She’d turned into a regular, occasionally with Werner, but most times not.

“She’d come early sometimes, sometimes late. She’d have a drink or two, always bourbon and ginger ale, and maybe she’d dance. Mostly though it was people watching. Guys would try to work her, girls too sometimes, but Holly was always in her own head, and she could give a damn.

“She’d always come by to shoot the shit, though; it didn’t matter if I was on the door or behind the bar or wherever. A lot of times she’d talk about the crowd. She’d make up things about this guy or that girl, whole stories about their lives. Real funny shit sometimes, and sometimes strange stuff- I didn’t always get it all. Other times she’d talk about next to nothing, the weather or whatever, or she’d ask about my job- how I knew who was gonna be a problem, and how big a problem they’d be, how I knew who would back down, and how much pushing it would take, that kind of stuff. And then there were times she’d just hang out, and not say anything at all.”

All he’d known of Holly’s work at that point was some vague talk about movies. “A director or a cameraman or something like that.” In July, she’d approached him about freelancing, and he found out more.

“She said it was security work for her, while she was making her movies- like a bodyguard. Then she gave me the details- the where and when and why- and my fucking jaw hit the floor. I told her no way. The money was fine and all, but the whole setup was fucked, like she was scamming these guys and she wanted muscle. That kind of thing, it goes bad in a heartbeat- a fucking shitstorm waiting to happen. Where I was in my life- where I’d been- no way I wanted any part of that.

“Holly was cool with it. She didn’t push and she didn’t try to work me- she never pulled that kind of bullshit. She just asked me to take a look at one of her movies. So I did.

“I gotta tell you, it fucking blew me away. I never saw anything like it before. She was…amazing. The way she looked, the things she said- it could make your heart explode just watching. And the way she tore that guy apart at the end, the way she got all in his headJesus. I saw one, and then she showed me the rest. Fucking amazing.

“It was weird watching her with those guys- it was fucked up- but Holly wasn’t embarrassed. It was a thing she did to make her movies, she said-‘part of the process,’ like figuring out where to put the cameras, and the lights, and the editing and shit. It was just a role she played, and she was in charge the whole time. That’s what she said.

“I asked her why she did it, why she made those movies when she had enough talent to do whatever. She told me these were the stories she wanted to tell, and these were the questions she wanted to answer. I said, to me it seemed like always the same story. She thought that was funny, and said I was right, and that it was always the same questions too.”

After he’d watched the videos, Holly had offered him the job once more. And because of what he’d seen- the strangeness of her work, its power, her passion for it, and the risks she took to make it- but mostly because he was by then half in love with her, Coyle accepted.

She’d called on him only three times, and while each session had had its tense moments, he’d never had to intervene. He didn’t like the idea of her having sex with other men- it made him sick and crazy when he thought of it, he said, and he tried not to think of it- but he never stood in judgment of her.

“I learned upstate, everybody does their own time, and they do it their own way. I knew a lot of screwed-up people inside- on the street too- and the things they did to manage, to get through the day, were way more funky than anything Holly did. And they had less to show for it. Everybody does their own time.”

Gene Werner was less enlightened. He’d found out about Holly’s videos in late August, and- as Orlando Krug had told me- he’d made her life hell. It was only because Holly had insisted, that Coyle refrained from kicking his ass.

“He was up in her face all the time, and it was making her crazy. A couple of nights at the club, he made big scenes- yelling, breaking glasses, that kind of bullshit. He was a real asshole, and I was about to take him in the alley, but Holly stopped me. She didn’t give a shit what happened to Weenie, she said, she just didn’t want me getting jammed up for smacking him. She put her hand on my chest, and no shit it made me dizzy.”

He did as Holly asked that night, but Werner didn’t let up, and a week or so later, with no word to Holly, Coyle had paid him a visit. “I didn’t lay a finger on the guy. I didn’t even raise my voice. I just said some shit about fucking up his face, and that did the trick.”

That was in September. By October, Holly and Coyle had become lovers. It started one Wednesday, when Holly came into the 9:3 °Club for the first time in a week, and stayed until closing. “She asked me to take her home,” Coyle said. “Then she asked me to stay.” His voice was nearly a whisper.

“Some weeks we’d see each other four, five nights, other weeks once or not at all. Some days she’d call me up two, three times, other days she wouldn’t call. It depended on her work. When she was working, her head was in another place. She needed space and she needed quiet. And she didn’t ever like to be pushed.”

Coyle’s eyes lit with memories of Holly as he spoke, and each time a smile would crease his broad face. But then his sadness would reassert itself: his eyes would empty and his face would go blank. There were no more happy memories when I asked him about the last time he’d heard from Holly, and about the days since.

“It was a Sunday,” he said. I asked him the date and he gave it to me. It was the Sunday before she died: two days after Stephanie had visited her. “She was working on a project and I hadn’t seen her for like two weeks. We were gonna get together that night, but she called in the morning to say no- she didn’t say why. I was pissed- I wanted to see her- but you couldn’t press Holly, and it wasn’t the first time she did something like that.

“I tried her Monday and got no answer. I tried again Tuesday and Wednesday. By then I was worried. On Thursday I went over. There was nobody there, but her place was wrecked, and I was freaked. I wasn’t there ten minutes when you knocked.”

“You didn’t call the cops,” I said.

“And you think I don’t fucking kick myself about it? But I don’t deal with the cops- and besides, I didn’t know then what the hell was happening. Maybe her place got robbed; maybe she’d already reported it.”

“She wouldn’t have mentioned it to you?”

“Holly kept a lot of shit to herself.”

“You see any signs of a break-in?”

Coyle’s brow creased and blood welled in his cut. He shook his head. “No.”

I nodded. “You call anybody? Her family maybe, or friends?”

“I don’t know the family; I don’t know any friends, either. She talked about her art dealer- Krug- a few times, but I never met him.”

“So what did you do after her place?”

Coyle’s face colored. “You freaked me out. I didn’t think you were a cop, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t know what the fuck you wantedI didn’t know what to do. So I came back here and called her some more. Then I went looking for that prick Werner.”

The coffee was done and I filled two cups without scalding myself. We had no choice but to take it black. “Why Werner?” I asked.

Coyle shrugged and it looked like it hurt. “Holly was talking about him three, four weeks before. She was pissed off about something, and she was gonna talk to him about whatever it was.”

“You didn’t ask?”

Coyle colored again and he looked at the floor. “You don’t…You didn’t know her. You couldn’t push her- she told what she wanted to tell, and otherwise she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t tell me what was up with her and Werner. But I didn’t trust that little fuck, and I was gonna find out.”

“What did you think was up?” He shook his head and kept quiet. “You spoke to her on Sunday, and you went to her place on Thursday,” I said. “Where were you in between?”

“Up here.”

“Doing what?”

“Working.”

“On what?”

Coyle scowled, and thought about it. “The usual shit. Monday and Tuesday, Kenny had me painting. Then there was a plumbing problem in the D unit- we were at that till like nine or ten Tuesday night. Wednesday was garbage day. You want me to go on?”

“You didn’t work at the club?”

“It’s closed Sundays and Mondays.”

“What about Tuesday and Wednesday?”

“I called in sick,” Coyle said.

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what J.T. said.”

His scowl deepened. “So I blew it off. So what?”

“Why?”

Coyle looked at the ceiling. His chin quivered and so did his voice. “I thought Holly might be there and…I was pissed at her.” He swallowed. “Jesus Christ…I didn’t want to see her.”

I nodded. “What did you think was up with her and Werner?” I asked again.

“I didn’t think-”

“Did you think she was seeing him again?”

His face darkened and his big hand clenched around what was left of the ice pack; for a moment I thought we were going to go at it again, but he had no heart for it. “Fuck you,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know what to think.”

I nodded, and thought about dates. If Holly had been talking about Werner three or four weeks before her death, that would’ve been in December. “Did Holly say anything about someone looking for her?” I asked. “Anything about a lawyer coming to see her?”

Coyle looked confused. He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“When did you realize that Holly was…”

Coyle stared at his hands, at the soaked T-shirt and his coffee cup- at things I couldn’t see. He dropped his T-shirt on the floor. “I saw the paper. I saw the picture…her tattoo.”

“And after that?”

“After that I didn’t know what to do. I went back to looking for Werner. I don’t know why, or what I would’ve done if I found him, but I didn’t know what else to do. Then I ran into you again.

“After that, I went by her apartment a few times. I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. I just…looked at the building. Then I saw cops there, and split. I figured it was just a matter of time before they came around here, and I thought about taking off- but where am I supposed to go? The last few months, every plan I had had to do with her.” Coyle shook his head and sighed. “I should’ve known better. Jesus, has it been two weeks since I saw that picture? It seems like a hundred years, or yesterday.”

“What plans did you make?”

“We talked about maybe moving in together, and maybe getting out of the city. Holly liked Philly- she said space was cheap there. She had in mind making different kinds of films- documentaries, maybe- or writing more plays.”

Coyle made a fist and examined it. Then he rubbed it over his eyes. “We talked about kids too, if you can believe it. It surprised the hell out of me Holly wanted them, but she did. She said she might be ready soon, if that was all right by me. I said sure, why not.”

I thought about Holly’s pregnancy, and I looked at Coyle- hunched and staring a hole in the concrete floor- and didn’t ask. If he’d known about it, I was pretty sure he would’ve said; if he didn’t…it wasn’t in me to tell him. I drank some of my coffee. It was cold.

“Holly ever talk about the guys from her videos? She ever worry about anything coming back at her?”

He looked up. Life came into his dirty, wrung-out face. “You think that’s what happened? You think one of them-”

I shook my head. “It’s a question, that’s all. I want to know if she ever talked about any of them, if any of them scared her.”

His shoulders slumped. “No, she never talked about them, not to me, and I didn’t ask. If she worried, it was only about the ones she was gonna question. That’s why she asked me to back her up those times. But even those she didn’t worry much about. Not enough, as far as I was concerned. She was in charge, she would say. She was always in charge.”

Coyle went back to studying the floor, and I thought more about Holly and her work. “You told Holly that the story in her videos was always the same. You said that she agreed with you, and that she said the questions she wanted to answer were all the same too.” Coyle looked at me and nodded uncertainly. “What were they?” I asked.

“What was what?”

“The story she wanted to tell, the questions she wanted to answerwhat were they?”

He shook his head slowly. “The story was always about a married guy fucking around, and the questions were all about why- why he did it, why he’d screw over his wife and kids that way. It was always the same thing, always about her family.”

“That’s what happened to her family?”

“That’s what she said. Her dad was a real asshole, I guesscouldn’t keep it in his pants, and didn’t bother keeping it a secret from anyone, including her mom. The whole time they were growing up, he was fucking around- his secretary, neighbors, even some of Holly’s teachers. The mom and dad went at it pretty good, I guess, and all the time. Her mom never left him, though. After all the yelling and shit, she just took it and took it, right up until the time she got in the tub, ate a few bottles of pills, and opened her veins. Holly came home from school and found her. She was, like, fourteen.”

“Christ.”

Coyle nodded. “It’s fucked-up shit.”

“You never met the sister?”

He shook his head. “Holly never invited me when she went up there,” he said. “I asked a few times, but she said no.”

I squinted. “How often did she go?”

“I don’t know- once or twice a month, maybe. I didn’t keep track.”

Once or twice a month. “I heard she didn’t have much to do with her family.”

“She didn’t. She and the sister didn’t get along, so when she went up there, it was mostly to see her dad. He’s in some kind of a home, and pretty out of it- too out of it to fight with much, I guess.”

I nodded. I thought about Holly’s apartment, and the video camera boxes on the floor. “Did Holly do all her editing at home?”

“Yeah- she had her computer, and software for the editing, and for burning the disks. But all that stuff was gone when I got there.”

I thought about the videos, about watching them in Todd Herring’s screening room. And then I thought of something else. “The reliquaries- the little cabinets that went with the videos- Holly didn’t make those in the apartment, did she?”

Coyle shook his head. “She did that in her studio.”

“Her studio?”

“That’s what she called it. It was just a locker in one of those self-storage places- not much more than a giant closet- but she had a workbench in there, and woodworking tools and shit.” Coyle gave me the name of the place and the address. It was in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He didn’t have a key, but he knew the unit number.

I looked down at my hands. They were throbbing and ugly, and the pain was making it hard to concentrate. A trip to the emergency room was in my near future, and I wondered about driving. I asked Coyle how I could reach him, and he sighed and gave me Kenny’s cell number. His lassitude was contagious; a wave of fatigue washed over me, and washed away what little buzz I’d gotten from the caffeine and the sugar. I hoisted myself up and pulled on my jacket. Coyle sighed again and dragged himself off the cot and to the sink. He ran the water and leaned at the edge- all out of air. I was surprised when he spoke.

“It was just a matter of time,” he said softly.

“What was a matter of time?”

“I felt lucky to be with her- too lucky, like it was all a mistake, like I got somebody else’s good luck by accident. It was like finding a wallet full of cash- you know somebody’s gonna come around looking for it eventually. It was all borrowed time.” Bent over the sink, his broad back shook. His voice was small and choked.

“You ask these fucking questions I can’t answer, and I realize I didn’t know a damn thing about her. I had no part in her life. I didn’t know her family, her friends- I don’t even know where she’s gonna be buried, or when, or who’s gonna do it. Will there be a wake or something? If I showed up, would anybody but the cops know who I was?”

Coyle leaned into the sink and began to retch. I closed the door behind me.