Rosary girls

9

Jimmy Purify had been nearly six feet tall in the seventh grade, and no one had ever called him skinny.

In his day, Jimmy Purify could walk into the toughest white bars in Gray's Ferry without uttering a word, and conversations would drop to a whisper; the hard cases would sit a little straighter.

Born and raised in West Philly, in the Black Bottom, Jimmy had endured travails from within as well as without, and he had handled it all with self-possession and a street dignity that would have broken a smaller man.

But now, as Kevin Byrne stood in the doorway of Jimmy's hospital room, the man in front of him looked like a sun-faded sketch of Jimmy Purify, a husk of the man he had once been. Jimmy had lost thirty or so pounds, his cheeks were sunken, his skin was ashen.

Byrne found that he had to clear his throat before speaking.

"Hey, Clutch."

Jimmy turned his head. He tried to frown, but the corners of his mouth turned up, betraying the game. "Jesus Christ. Doesn't this place have security?"

Byrne laughed, a little too loudly. "You look good."

"Fuck you," Jimmy said. "I look like Richard Pryor."

"Nah. Maybe Richard Roundtree," Byrne replied. "But all things considered-"

"All things considered, I should be in Wildwood with Halle Berry."

"You've got a better shot at Marion Barry."

"Fuck you again."

"However, Detective, you don't look as good as he does," Byrne said. He held up a Polaroid of the battered and bruised Gideon Pratt.

Jimmy smiled.

"Damn, these guys are clumsy," Jimmy said, bumping a weak fist with Byrne.

"It's genetic."

Byrne propped the photo against Jimmy's water pitcher. It was better than any get-well card. Jimmy and Byrne had been looking for Gideon Pratt for a long time.

"How's my angel?" Jimmy asked.

"Good," Byrne said. Jimmy Purify had three sons, all bruisers, all grown, and he lavished all his softness-what little there was of it-on Kevin Byrne's daughter, Colleen. Every year, on Colleen's birthday, some shamefully expensive, anonymous gift would show up via UPS. No one was fooled. "She's got a big Easter party coming up."

"At the deaf school?"

"Yeah."

"I've been practicing, you know," Jimmy said. "Getting pretty good."

Jimmy made a few feeble hand shapes.

"What was that supposed to be?" Byrne asked.

"It was Happy Birthday." "Actually, it looked something like Happy Sparkplug." "It did?"

"Yeah."

"Shit." Jimmy looked at his hands, as if it were their fault. He tried the hand shapes again, faring no better.

Byrne fluffed Jimmy's pillows, then sat down, arranging his weight on the chair. There followed a long comfortable silence only attainable between old friends.

Byrne left it to Jimmy to get down to business.

"So, I hear you got a virgin to sacrifice." Jimmy's voice was raspy and weak. This visit had already taken a lot out of him. The nurses at the cardiac desk had told Byrne he could stay five minutes, no longer.

"Yeah," Byrne replied. Jimmy was talking about Byrne's new partner being a first-day Homicide.

"How bad?"

"Actually, not bad at all," Byrne said. "She's got good instincts."

"She?"

Uh-oh, Byrne thought. Jimmy Purify was as old school as you could get. In fact, according to Jimmy, his first badge was in Roman numerals. If it were up to Jimmy Purify, the only women on the force would be meter maids. "Yeah."

"She a young-old detective?"

"I don't think so," Byrne replied. Jimmy was referring to the hotshot types who hit the unit running, dragging in suspects, bullying witnesses, trying to get on the clear sheet. Old detectives-like Byrne and Jimmy-pick their shots. There's a lot less untangling. It was something you either learned, or you didn't.

"She good-lookin'?"

Byrne didn't have to think about this one at all. "Yeah. She is."

"Bring her around sometime."

"Jesus.You get a dick transplant, too?"

Jimmy smiled. "Yeah. Big one, too. I figured, what the fuck. I'm here, might as well go for a whopper."

"Actually, she's Vincent Balzano's wife."

The name took a moment to register. "That fuckin' hothead from Central?"

"Yeah. The same."

"Forget I said anything."

Byrne saw a shadow near the door. A nurse poked her head in, smiled. Time to go. He stood, stretched, glanced at his watch. He had fifteen minutes until he had to meet Jessica in North Philly. "I've got to roll. We caught a case this morning."

Jimmy frowned, making Byrne feel like shit. He should've kept his mouth shut. Telling Jimmy Purify there was a new case on which he would not be working was like showing a retired thoroughbred a picture of Churchill Downs.

"Details, Riff."

Byrne wondered how much he should say. He decided to just spill. "Seventeen-year-old girl," he said. "Found in one of the abandoned row houses near Eighth and Jefferson."

The look on Jimmy's face needed no translation. Part of it said how he wished he were back in harness. The other part related how much he knew that these cases got to Kevin Byrne. If you killed a young girl on his watch, there was no rock big enough to hide under.

"Druggie?"

"I don't think so," Byrne said.

"She was dumped?"

Byrne nodded.

"What do we have?" Jimmy asked.

We, Byrne thought. This was hurting a lot more than he'd thought it was going to. "Not much."

"Keep me in the loop, eh?"

You got it, Clutch, Byrne thought. He grabbed Jimmy's hand, gave it a slight squeeze. "Need anything?"

"Slab of baby back ribs would be nice. Side of scrapple."

"And a Diet Sprite, right?"

Jimmy smiled, his lids drooping. He was tired. Byrne walked to the door, hoping he could reach the cool green sanctity of the hallway before he heard it, wishing that he was at Mercy to interview a witness, wishing that Jimmy was right behind him, smelling like Marlboros and Old Spice.

He didn't make it.

"I'm not coming back, am I?" Jimmy asked.

Byrne closed his eyes, then opened them, hoping his face was fashioned into something resembling faith. He turned. "Sure you are, Jimmy."

"For a cop, you're a terrible fuckin' liar, you know that? I'm amazed we ever made case one."

"You just get strong. You'll be back on the street by Memorial Day. You'll see. We'll fill up Finnigan's and raise a glass to little Deirdre."

Jimmy waved a weak, dismissive hand, then turned his head to the window. Within seconds, he was asleep.

Byrne watched him for a full minute. There was more he wanted to say, a lot more, but he would have time.

Wouldn't he?

He would have time to tell Jimmy how much his friendship had meant over the years, and how he had learned what real police work was all about from him. He would have time to tell Jimmy that it just wasn't the same city without him.

Kevin Byrne lingered a few more moments, then turned, stepped into the hall, and headed to the elevators.

Byrne stood in front of the hospital, his hands shaking, his throat tight with emotion. It took him five turns of the wheel of his Zippo to light a cigarette.

He hadn't cried in many years, but the feeling in the pit of his stomach recalled a time in his life when he had seen his old man cry for the first time. His father had been as big as a house, a Two-Streeter, a Mummer of citywide repute, an original stick fighter who could carry four twelve-inch concrete blocks up a ladder without a hod. Seeing him cry made him small in the ten-year-old Kevin's eyes, made him into every other kid's father. Padraig Byrne had broken down behind their Reed Street row house on the day he learned his wife needed cancer surgery. Maggie O'Connell Byrne lived another twenty-five years, but no one had known that at the time. His old man had stood by his beloved peach tree and shook like a blade of grass in a storm that day, and Kevin had sat in his bedroom window on the second floor, watching him, crying along with him.

He never forgot that image, never would.

He had not cried since.

But he wanted to now.

Jimmy.