When the Thrill Is Gone

24

“Lean your head back, boy,” Firpo — the tuba-playing, mop-wielding, sometimes cut man — commanded.

Iran was seated in Gordo’s office chair while Firpo ministered to the wound over his left eye.

Firpo was small and wiry, with shiny black skin and eyes that see without looking. He had a full head of hair with less gray than one would have expected of his advanced years.

“I coulda taken ’em if I saw ’em comin’,” the younger man complained.

I was standing guard over them, the .41 in my hand.

“If a man sees a club swingin’ at ’im, he duck and run,” Firpo said, dismissing the young man’s bravado.

“I coulda taken ’em,” Iran repeated.

“Put your head back.”

In an odd way I appreciated this disruption of my case. The rough-and-tumble of brutish men and their misplaced confidence is just the kind of forum for my talents. Figuring out who’s who among siblings and billionaires was challenging, if not out of my league completely. Lost children and their murdered mother set off an echo in my heart like a depth charge dropped on a submarine that ran silent but got found out anyway.

“Lay back, Iran,” I said. “We got to get outta here before your friends decide to find some balls.”

There was a back stairwell that led to a blocked-off alleyway. Across the alley was the door to an office building on Thirty-fifth Street. I had the only key to that door because I’d changed the lock for Gordo some months before; insurance policies aren’t all paper and ink.

We made our way to the street and I gave Firpo a twenty to get home.

“I’ll call you when we open the gym again,” I told him.

“I need that job, LT,” he said.

“You’ll keep getting a check while this shit works out.”

Iran and I headed toward my office from there.

“I coulda taken ’em,” Iran said again as we entered the Tesla’s elevator.

“So what?”

“Huh?”

“So what if you coulda? So what difference does that make? The fact is they got you. The fact is, if Firpo didn’t call and I didn’t come, your ass would be dumped in some alley and roaches would be crawlin’ in your mouth.”

“Say what?” Iran challenged. He needed to fight.

“Those men were gonna jack you up, Eye. There’s no lie to that.”

“But—”

“Tell me sumpin’, boy.”

“Wha?”

“If I was your trainer and sent you out against an opponent, a skinny little dude no one ever heard of before, and the first thing he does is throw a wild punch that sets you down for the ten count. If that happened, what would you say to me?”

The dawning of truth on the younger man’s face was a comfort to me. Just the idea that someone, somewhere, could learn even just a single line of truth meant that there was hope.

“Yeah,” he said. “I get you.”

The doors slid open and we headed down toward what might very well have been a whole new set of problems.

Carson Kitteridge was seated across the desk from Mardi, chatting happily, when Iran and I walked in. Carson stood up immediately because, in spite of any familiarity between us, we were, in the end, enemies — and you get on your feet when an enemy walks into the room.

We’re the same height, more or less, both of us under five six, at any rate. He’s balder than I am, and that’s where the similarities end. Carson is a white man, pale. He’s a featherweight where I’m a light-heavy. His eyes are the color of an overcast sky on a bright day. His suit and tie were machine washable, not the only indication that he was unmarried.

“Lieutenant,” I said.

Mardi rose behind him.

“Mr. Shelfly,” the cop said. “You been in a fight?”

“I work in a boxin’ gym, man. Of course I been in a fight. You should see the other guy.”

“Have a seat, Iran,” I said. “Get him whatever he needs to keep up his strength, Mardi. Boxer gets hit that hard, might need some coffee or something.

“Lieutenant,” I said then, “shall we go back into my office?”

Walking down the long aisle of empty cubicles, followed by the detective whose primary job it was to see me in the dock, charged with a raft of felonies, I felt at ease. Life is nothing without its challenges and only the dead are truly peaceful.

“I could tell that boy how he got convicted,” Carson suggested before we’d gotten half the way to my office.

I stopped and turned to face his threat.

“That’s the way you wanna play, we don’t have to go any further than right here,” I said.

“What?” he said. I think he was truly surprised at my anger.

“My father always told me that there’s a line you need to have that people can’t cross. I might one day be your prisoner, Lieutenant, but I will not be your bitch.”

The policeman stared at me. It was the look that had broken down many a confident thug.

“What’s with you, LT?”

“You want to drag me downtown? I can call my lawyer right now.”

“Who’s talkin’ about arrest?”

“If you want to go tell Iran some fancy guesses you got, then get on with it.”

Kitteridge put up his hands in false surrender. This reminded me of the man called Fledermaus: an emerald piece in an otherwise black-and-white jigsaw puzzle.

“I’m sorry,” the cop said. “Let’s start over. I’m here to tell you something — something you want to know.”

I turned back, leading the way to my office and wondering how long a man with my kind of temper could survive. By any sane reckoning I should already be dead and buried.

This realization in itself made me a survivor. Maybe I could start my own reality TV show. I smiled as we entered my office.

“Have a seat, Lieutenant.”

I got behind my desk while he sat down and crossed one leg over the other. The lines between us had been drawn years before. We were no longer the same men we were when we met, but we were still fighting the same war.

“A complaint has come in on you, LT,” my nemesis said, his hazy eyes reflecting a faraway, hidden sun.

“What kinda complaint?”

“Cyril Tyler says that you forced him to hire you by making accusations about his wife that he now knows are false.”

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in the visitor’s chair.

I just sat there, blinking like a suburban housewife whose insurance-salesman husband just brought home a two-hundred-pound dead stag and threw it down on the dining room table.

“So you just waltz in here and warn me about an active police investigation?”

“I owe you a favor,” he said with a pout and a shrug.

“Uh-uh, no. You too much of a cop for that. You might tell the other cops I’m no good for this, but that wouldn’t extend to you warnin’ me. No. Not the Carson Kitteridge I know.”

“Maybe I’ve changed,” he said, unable to hide his smirk.

“More likely the pope became a Unitarian — and married his sister.”

The cop squinted. This was a bad sign — for somebody. The good lieutenant was one of the smartest cops the NYPD had to offer. He was also honest to a fault. That was bad news to evildoers like myself. If Carson was on your tail, you were bound to go down, sooner or later — bound to.

“Look, LT,” he said, all pretense and banter gone. “This Tyler has two dead wives in his wake. One, a New Yorker, fell off a boat in Florida, and the other was murdered by a crazed homeless man who somehow miraculously avoided capture. I was thinking that the information you had might get me closer to understanding these deaths.”

“I did not extort the man,” I said. “I told him that a woman claiming to be his wife had come to me afraid that he might intend her harm. He said he wanted me to bring him to her. I said that that would break client confidentiality. He offered me money to deliver a message. I took his money.”

“What was the message?”

“You’ll have to ask him that question.”

“Did you deliver it?”

“Not as of yet.”

“You need me on this, LT. I’m sure that this woman really is in danger.”

“That might be true, but have you ever known me to take the easy road?” I stood up then. “I think it’s time I got back to my business, Lieutenant. If I come across something that’ll help you with these killings I promise I’ll give you a ring.”

He stayed in his chair another dozen seconds and then rose, slowly.

“Don’t take too long,” he said. “All Tyler has to do is raise his voice and you will be thrown down into a hole that even Alphonse Rinaldo can’t dig you out of.”