Baltimore Noir (15 page)
With that, I grabbed her right hand and held it up to her face.
She wrenched away from me and tried to run, but both Ahmad and the uniformed officer grabbed an arm and snatched her back. She rained down curses on me as they cuffed her and led her away. Jennifer gave me a high-five and C.P. reached out and hugged me, squeezing Bouf between us. He promptly yelped and nipped me. Bouf, not C.P.
“Well, little sister,” U smiled, “that was quite a bit of investigative work. How did you figure it out?”
“I got suspicious when she mentioned the scissors,” I said. “How did she know that? Even if someone had said he had been stabbed, she wouldn’t necessarily know that it had happened with a pair of scissors. But the clincher was her nails.”
“Her nails?” U questioned.
“Yeah. Two of her tips were broken off. She probably snagged them in Miles’s sweater dragging his body into that box of hair. I thought I saw something stuck in the crochet. Her nails were her calling card and there is no way she’d be at a hair show with them looking a hot mess like that.”
Jennifer started giggling, C.P. guffawed, and U rolled her eyes. Bouf even gave a high-pitched bark of amusement.
“Well,” U said, “good thing you knew about the tape from the security cameras.”
“Umm, yeah,” I grinned sheepishly. “If that even exists. I was bluffing. It always works on the TV shows.”
My sister actually cracked a smile and said, “Okay. But next time, find a show with better dialogue.
‘The jig is up, girlfriend’
was a bit much, even for you.”
Before I could respond, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Olive, my vice-chair for publicity, wringing her hands and looking distraught.
“Jordan, you’ve got to come,” she said in a rush. “We have, um, a situation.”
“A situation other than a murder?”
“Yeah,” she said. “See, I was being proactive and I thought we should do something to take folks’ minds off this mess, so I made an executive decision. I mean, I couldn’t find you and you are always saying, ‘Be empowered,’ so I thought, ‘WWJD. What would Jordan do?’ People are here to have a good time as well as network and show off their skills, and I started thinking,
We need to refocus here
…”
“Olive.” I used all my will not to scream at her. “Please get to the point.”
“Well,” she said, “I sent out the specialty hair models.”
“So?” I actually thought it was a good idea. The local-themed ’dos included an Oriole and a black-eyed Susan. “It’s the crab,” she sighed.
“It went haywire.”
Someone had come up with the beyond-obvious idea to construct a huge steamed crab, orange-red as if it had just emerged from the pot. The “Crustacean Creation” was to be the
pièce de résistance
of all the hair art. I had vetoed the Old Bay seasoning glitter on the grounds that it would create a mess, but gave in on the rigging that allowed the small, black beady eyes and long claws to move. The stylist, who had majored in mechanical engineering before dropping out of Morgan State University, was to follow at a discreet distance and work the contraption using a wireless remote.
“Define
haywire,
” I said, feeling a massive headache starting behind my eyes.
“Just come see,” Olive said, as she grabbed my upper arm and led me forward.
Yet another crowd had gathered, this time around local newspaper photographer Sal Dorsey, one of the old-timers. Sal was tilted forward as if he were about to take a header into the floor, and his camera swung like a pendulum from his neck. His bald patch had reddened until it was almost the same color as the hair crab that had him in its grip. Yes, the only thing keeping Sal from sprawling face-forward was a giant claw, which was giving him a crustacean wedgie. Even as the stylist pushed multiple buttons, trying to loosen the hair crab’s grip, the model continued to smile robotically at Sal’s colleagues, who were busy snapping photos even as they shook with laughter.
What can I say? The only thing more hard-shelled than the local delicacy are the locals themselves. And while I was sorry for Sal, I realized these photos would get far more play than the murder, just another Baltimore domestic, already fading in public memory with Kylani’s arrest.
Poor Miles—upstaged by a crab.
BY
C
HARLIE
S
TELLA
Memorial Stadium
A
light drizzle had just started to fall when the two men moved their conversation from the waterside tiki bar to an inside corner table still overlooking the Inner Harbor. James “Jilly” Cuomo brushed his thin gray hair back with both hands after sitting with his back to the windows. Tommy “Red” Dalton, a tall man with broad shoulders, positioned his chair so he could see the boats docked on the far side of the marina.
A short waitress with a big chest and a long ponytail had followed them with their drinks. “Anisette?” she asked.
Jilly pointed to a spot on the table directly in front of him. The waitress set a napkin down first, then his drink. She smiled at Tommy before placing his glass of water on a napkin in front of him.
“I guess this is yours,” she said.
Tommy winked at her.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Not right now,” Jilly told her.
She was still looking at Tommy.
“No thanks,” he said.
Jilly glanced at her ass when she left. “Nice rack, but she could use a little more meat, you ask me,” he said. He turned to Tommy and the conversation that had been interrupted by the rain. “He’s got you in the car, yeah, and …?”
Tommy said, “I says to him, I says, if you’re thinking she’s out there, she pro’bly is. There’s nothin not gut-check about it, what we’re talkin. A guy knows, same as a broad, it comes to that. You just do. Junior says to me, he says, ‘I’m pretty sure something is going on.’”
Jilly was mid-yawn. “The moron,” he tried to say.
“This is that day couple weeks after I first meet him at the party down here, this place. I figure he figures I’m around his age and all, he can talk to me, it won’t go nowheres. This is before I get sent for by the old man, of course, which, I gotta tell you, I first get that call, I’m thinking, uh-oh, the fuck I do to deserve this? Sometimes you get sent for, you get dead.”
Jilly nodded. “It’s a smart assumption. A guy should be prepared for whatever, especially these days.”
Tommy was enthusiastic. “Right, exactly, but at the time I get the call, I’m not thinking straight enough to figure that out. I’m just thinking I fucked up and now I gotta pay for it. Maybe get whacked for whatever the fuck and I got no clue what it is, it might be. Makes it even tougher to think, that happens, you get sent for out the blue like that.”
Jilly sipped at his anisette. “Yeah, so … back to Junior.”
Tommy said, “Right, so, Junior has me there in that old tank he drives, the Lincoln, he turns to me, he says, ‘Look at my eyes.’ I do and they’re all red, bloodshot from crying it looks like, or he didn’t sleep the last hundred years, maybe he’s a vampire or somethin. Anyway, I see they’re red and he says, right out there, just like this, ‘I think my wife is fucking around.’”
Jilly frowned.
“Exactly,” Tommy said. “I mean, all due respect, it’s a tough thing, you find your wife is out there and all, but Jesus Christ, Junior, grow a pair.”
“The kid is weak,” Jilly said. “He’s always been weak.”
“Yeah, but what the fuck am I doin there listenin to it? I mean, Jilly, I know the guy less than two, three weeks, he picks my shoulder to cry on?”
“What he say?”
“This and that, her routine the last couple weeks since she got some promotion at work, whatever. Makin excuses, findin reasons, I don’t know. He’s losin sleep, he don’t wanna confront her, he don’t know for sure. He’s all fucked up in the head, which I know for fact because I’m sitting there listenin to it. It’s pathetic is what it is. Not for nothin, he’s my kid, I gotta think about takin him out the Gunpowder River there and lose him.”
“I’m sure it’s crossed the old man’s mind more’n a couple times,” Jilly said, “except it’s his son.”
“What I figure, yeah,” Tommy said. He stopped to drink most of the water in his glass.
Jilly noticed the waitress watching Tommy from across the room. He motioned toward her with his head. “I think you got a fan.”
Tommy glanced her way and smiled. “She isn’t half bad,” he said, “except it’s a headache I don’t need right now. The wife says to me the other week, she says, ‘Don’t forget our anniversary is coming.’ That turned out to be a week ago and of course I forgot. Now I’m paying for it in spades. Every night I go out I’m not dragging one of the kids, I gotta hear it full throttle on the way out and all over again when I get back.”
Jilly motioned at the glass. “Sure you don’t want something stronger?”
Tommy waved it off. “Positive,” he said. “I never drink on a job. Never ever.”
“You’re not working now,” Jilly said. “Not yet.”
“Irregardless.”
Jilly downed his anisette. He spit a coffee bean into his open palm and then slapped the empty shot glass on the table. “Better you’n me,” he said. “Not drinkin, I mean.”
“Anyway,” Tommy continued, “Junior tells me this sob story about his wife and what he thinks is going on and how he feels he can trust me because he asked around and so on. And this is all confidential, what he says to me. He says it’s to stay between us, me and him, but that his father is aware of the situation too. Which now I know, or why’m I here tonight with you?”
Jilly yawned again before looking at his watch. “Be grateful there’s an end to this nightmare,” he said, “this New York prick ever gets here.”
Tommy gathered his thoughts. “I says to him, I says, what about her routine? She buy new clothes? She getting her hair done different? She wearing new shoes? You know, obvious shit. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘come to think of it.’”
Jilly smirked. “Dumb cocksucker.”
“Please, you don’t know the half of it,” Tommy said. “No wonder, what I’m thinking, his wife is out there. The fuck can blame her, she’s dealing with that mess every end of the day.”
“So, what, he sent you out looking?”
Tommy nodded. “Which is another thing I didn’t appreciate,” Tommy said. “Sittin around waitin on a guy, a job, whatever, is one thing. Followin some broad around, see who she’s bangin in her spare time, that I can live without. Felt too much like the law, spying like that. It’s lowlife work. Bad enough I gotta do it, but then I gotta give him a call, Junior, and meet him at the diner over West Mulberry off Forty, give him a report. Knowin she’s out there, just knowin it, wasn’t enough. This fuckin loser wants details.”
Jilly made a face. “Details?”
Tommy threw up his hands. “I says to him, I says, ‘I’m not there in the room with them, Junior. How do I know what they’re doin inside?’ What most people do, they meet at some motel on the sly, middle of the fuckin afternoon, they’re supposed to be at work. Not good enough. The jerkoff wants to know were they holdin hands before they went in. Did they kiss? Were they touchy-feely?”
“Asshole,” Jilly said.
“I couldn’t make things up, but I didn’t watch that close, tell you the truth, what they did before and after they screwed each other’s socks off. I said I didn’t know, but they seemed chummy.”
“He get a rise out of that?”
“If his eyes turn to a pool of water count for anything, yeah, I guess.”
Jilly shook his head. “This is too familiar, tell you the truth, although Senior didn’t sit around take it up the ass, I’ll tell you that much.”
Tommy seemed surprised. “The old man, the boss?”
“Was ’69, the year New York fucked us from both ends, the Jets over the Colts in the Super Bowl there, and then the Mets over the O’s in the series. You pro’ly weren’t born yet.”
“Don’t think I was. I was like, six, that other thing happened, midnight run, the Mayflower vans, whatever.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Jilly said, “we all earned. Anybody taking action made out that year, but then there’s that other thing, the pride issue. Bitter fucking pill to swallow, losing to New York twice the same year. Made Angelo crazy, that’s for sure.”
“What happened?”
Jilly glanced around the restaurant before he leaned forward to whisper. “Senior gets wind his old lady is out there with some guy with the Erioles,” he said. “Had me and Eddie Bats, which was the muscle end of his crew back then, had us thinking it was one of the team we was gonna have to whack. This is the same night the O’s take game one down Memorial. Cuellar beat Seaver, goes the distance on a six hitter. Buford nails Seaver first inning, home run. Great fucking game.”
Jilly sat back to savor the memory. He saw Tommy was waiting for more, and then leaned forward again. “Anyway,” he continued, “Angelo gets wind it’s somebody with the Erioles organization with his wife, but there’s only two of us he comes to this with. He wants it dealt with quiet, no muss, no fuss, but serious, no bullshit either.”
“Was he runnin his own crew back then?”
“Yeah and no,” Jilly said. “We were his guys, me and Eddie Bats. Like I said, his muscle, but we weren’t a formal crew. Things was different back then. Why the books never reopened here. Baltimore fell outta the loop when it came to families and so on, what they got there in New York.”
“I hope it was better’n it is today,” Tommy commented.
“Today you got rats riding shotgun,” Jilly said. “Makes it hard to get serious about taking a blood oath, the guy giving it is wearing a wire. Another New York phenomenon, the bosses rat now.”
“Yeah, well, makes it hard to earn sometimes, what we got down here,” Tommy said. “There’s strength in numbers.”
Jilly said, “Weakness, too, but you’re young yet, you’ll learn. More guys on a job, more you got to worry about. I did two bids at Maryland Pen before it become a transition center, whatever the fuck that means, because a couple too many guys on a job couldn’t hold their water.”
Tommy nodded.
“Just sit tight about earning,” Jilly said. “You’ll get your play soon enough. You’re with tight people now.”
Tommy said, “So what happened, the old man?”
Jilly leaned forward again. “Angelo was married a few years,” he whispered. “Maria was what, I don’t know, twenny-five, maybe? Twenny-six? Anyway, Angelo sends me and Eddie to the stadium see what’s what after the game. He had some guy from the dock workers’ union there feeding him tickets down to the field boxes he hands off to Maria. She was a big fan. Where he met her originally, an Erioles game.”
“No shit?”
“I shit you not.” Jilly stopped to push his empty shot glass closer to the edge of the table for the waitress. “She takes her eyes off’a you a minute, maybe she sees I’m dry over here.”
Tommy turned to the waitress and pointed at Jilly’s empty glass. She started over.
“Anyway, winds up Maria likes them young,” Jilly continued. “She married Angelo, and he was up there in age compared to her, but the kid she’s with out the stadium lot there a couple times a week, one of the kids hawking the beers and soda and whatnot, working the stands there, he’s gotta be twenny-one, I guess, he was selling the beer, but that’s a lot younger than she is, or Angelo was. Bottom line, it’s not Boog Powell, Brooks Robinson, or Jim fucking Palmer she’s banging. It’s some kid hawking shit in the stands. The time Angelo musta been thirty-five or so. Imagine what he felt like, his wife is out banging some kid sells hot dogs, pro’ly in the backseat of his father’s car.”
“Jesus Christ, was this, like, common knowledge?” Tommy asked.
Jilly stopped and waited for the waitress to replace his drink with a fresh one. She smiled at Tommy again. He returned the flirting with a wink before she left them alone.
“Yeah and no,” said Jilly. “I mean, a few more people than us knew about it, me and Eddie Bats. Some might’ve seen them at the game there, or afterward, whatever. Somebody brought it to Angelo’s attention the first place, where to look for the guy and all. She was hanging around the stadium, getting fucked in the car for Christ sakes. She didn’t try hard enough to hide it, you ask me. And it was like twice a fucking week there, whenever they were home, the O’s.”
Tommy was shaking his head in disbelief.
“I mean, Eddie wound up dead a few years later, so whoever he told must’ve known after the fact, but don’t forget now, this was more’n thirty years ago.” He paused to sip at his drink again. “Anyway, long horror story short, the Mets take game two, then three and four, and Angelo, while he’s making it hand over fist on the local book, everybody and their mother was all over the O’s, huge favorites they were going into the series that year, two twenny-game winners, that lineup and all, like I said, we all killed on that series, anybody taking action.”
“What my old man said,” Tommy interjected. “Big money year that was, the sports book.”
“Right,” Jilly said. “But it was Angelo’s pride killed a guy. After the Colts lost to the Jets, Angelo hated anything New York. Anything had to do with the place. Even though we made on that game, too, all the local money was laying the eighteen points, some guys were giving nineteen, even with the money we made off the Super Bowl there, it was after the Mets upset the O’s he went completely crazy. He tells me and Eddie after the O’s drop game four, if they lose game five, which they did, we was going back to the stadium there with the kid his wife was banging and toss him off the roof. ‘Let the cocksucker see if he can fly like an Oriole,’ he tells us.”
Tommy sat up straight. “Holy shit,” he said. “That was you?”
Jilly put a finger to his lips. “Easy does it,” he said. “No need to announce it here.”
“Holy shit,” repeated Tommy, a little lower this time. “Holy fuckin shit, Jilly. I remember my old man talkin about that one day. He was explainin to me the worst thing he ever witnessed, the Erioles losing to the Mets like that. He said some guy was so depressed, some kid worked the stadium there, he went up the roof and jumped.”
“It’s better that’s what people think,” Jilly said.
Tommy chuckled. “I wished the old man was still alive. I could straighten him out on that, him and his fuckin Erioles.”
Jilly took offense. “What, you got something against the O’s?”
“I couldn’t care less,” said Tommy, waving the question off. “Fuckin faggots making telephone-number salaries to play games. Please. I like to shake them down is what I’d like to do. I put it to a guy a couple years ago, about shakin down some of those clowns, see how tough they are with a gun in their mouths, see if they wanna part with some of that cash they make for jerkin off half speed around the bases, but he says it’d bring federal attention unless we went after the home team guys lived in Baltimore, and he wasn’t about to shake down a couple of home team guys.”