The Drop (8 page)

And it made the clock tick faster and the bell toll louder, made Evandro Torres feel crazed and helpless and needing something—anything—to anchor him in the now.

That something, since he was old enough to know about it, was flesh.

Which is how he found himself in Lisa Romsey’s bed for the first time in two years, the two of them going at it like they hadn’t missed a beat, finding their rhythm before they even landed on the mattress, their breath and skin smelling of alcohol, but it was hot breath, hot skin. And when he came, Evandro felt it even in the smallest bones in his body. Lisa came at the same time, the moan that escaped her throat so loud it lifted the ceiling.

It took about four seconds for him to get off her and five more for the regret to set in.

She sat up on the bed and reached across him for the bottle of red on the nightstand. She drank from the bottle. She said, “Jesus.” She said, “Man.” She said, “Shit.”

She handed the bottle to Torres.

He took a drink. “Hey, it happens.”

“Don’t mean it should, you asshole.”

“Why am I the asshole?”

“Because you’re married.”

“Not well.”

She took the bottle back. “You mean not happily.”

“No,” Torres said, “I mean, we’re happy mostly, but we just don’t do the whole domestic-faithful thing well. It’s like fucking string theory to us. Man, I got to look my priest in the eye tomorrow and confess this shit.”

Romsey said, “You’re the worst Catholic I’ve ever heard of.”

Torres widened his eyes at that and chuckled. “I’m not even close.”

“How’s that possible, Sinnerman?”

“The point isn’t not sinning,” he explained. “The point is accepting that you’re born fallen and life is trying to atone for that.”

Romsey rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you fall your ass out of my bed then and get gone?”

Torres sighed and climbed out from under the sheets. He sat on the edge of the bed and put on his pants, searched for his shirt and socks. He caught Romsey in the mirror watching him, and he knew that despite her best efforts, she liked him.

Thank you, Jesus, for the minor miracles.

Romsey lit a cigarette. “After you left the other day, I did a little surfing regards to your drop bar, Cousin Marv’s.”

Torres found one sock but not the other. “Yeah?”

“It got mentioned in an unsolved from a decade ago.”

Torres stopped looking for the sock for a moment. He looked up the bed at her. “No shit?”

She reached behind her back, returned with something he couldn’t quite make out. She flicked her wrist and his sock landed by his hip. “Kid named Richard Whelan walked out of there one night, no one ever saw him again. If you solved a ten-years-cold 187, Evandro?”

“I could make it back to Homicide.”

She frowned. “You’ll never make it back to Homicide.”

“Why not?”

“Ne-ver.”

“Why not?” he said again. He knew the answer but he was hoping it had somehow changed.

Her eyes bugged. “Because Scarpone runs it.”

“And?”

“And you fucked his wife, you shithead. Then drove her home drunk on duty, and smashed up the fucking unit you were driving.”

Torres closed his eyes. “Okay, so I’ll never make it back to Homicide.”

“But you solve this kind of cold case, you might make it to Major Crimes.”

“Yeah?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah.”

Torres put on his sock, liking that idea a lot.

I was lost, he’d say on the day of his transfer, but now am found.

MARV WALKED OUT OF
Cottage Market with two coffees, a bag of pastries, the
Herald
under his arm, and ten Big Buckaroo scratch tickets from Mass Millions in his coat pocket.

A long time ago, in the proudest but hardest moment of his life, Marv had walked away from cocaine. He’d fallen into some money unexpectedly and he’d done the right thing—paid off his debts and cleaned the fuck up.
Until
that day, however, he’d been a fucking degenerate with no dignity and no control. But once he paid off that debt and walked away, he took his dignity back. Since then, he may have let his body go to the point that only pros would fuck him, and it was probably true he’d burned more relationships than most people had hair, but he had his dignity.

He also had ten scratch tickets that he’d parcel out to himself slowly tonight while Dottie watched
Survivor
or
Undercover Boss
or whatever fucking “reality” show was teed up for the evening.

As he stepped off the curb, a car slowed in front of him.

Then stopped.

The passenger window whirred as it descended.

The driver leaned across the seat and said, “Hey.”

Marv glanced at the car, then the guy. Car was a 2011-or-so Jetta. Kind of car college kids or ones just out of college drove, but this guy was in his early forties. There was something memorably forgettable about him, a face so bland you couldn’t place the features when they were swimming right in front of you. Marv got a whiff of earth tones off the guy—light brown hair, light brown eyes, tan clothes.

The guy said, “You tell me where the hospital is?”

Marv said, “You need to bang a U-ey, go back two–three miles. It’s on the left.”

“On the left?”

“Yeah.”

“My left.”

“Your left.”

“Not yours.”

“We’re both facing the same direction.”

“We are?”

“Generally speaking.”

“Okay then.” The guy smiled at him. It could have been a smile of thanks, but it could have been something else, something off-kilter and unknowable. Impossible to tell. His eyes still on Marv, he pinned the wheel and executed a perfect U-turn.

Marv watched him go and tried to ignore the sweat running down his thighs on a thirty-degree day.

BOB SHRUGGED INTO HIS
coat, ready for another day at the bar. He went into the kitchen where Rocco was chewing the hell out of a rawhide stick. He filled Rocco’s water bowl, looked around the kitchen until he spied the yellow duck chew toy Rocco carried everywhere. He laid it in the corner of the crate. He put the water bowl in the other corner. He snapped his fingers lightly.

Bob said, “Come on, boy. Crate.”

Rocco trotted into the crate and curled up against the yellow duck. Bob petted his face, then closed the door.

“See you tonight.” Bob passed down the hall to the front door and opened it.

The guy on the porch was thin. Not weak-thin. Hard-thin. As if whatever burned inside of him burned so hot that fat couldn’t survive. His blue eyes were so pale they were almost gray. His lanky hair was as blond as the goatee that clung to his lips and chin. Bob recognized him immediately—the kid who’d passed him in the park the other day and said Rocco was a good-looking dog.

Upon closer inspection, no kid actually. Probably thirty when you got a close look.

He smiled and stuck out his hand. “Mr. Saginowski?”

Bob shook the hand. “Yes.”

“Bob Saginowski?” The man shook Bob’s large hand with his small one, and there was a lot of power in the grip.

“Yeah.”

“Eric Deeds, Bob.” The kid let go of his hand. “I believe you have my dog.”

Bob felt like he’d been slapped across the face with a bag of ice. “What?”

Eric Deeds hugged himself. “Brrrr. Cold out here, Bob. Not fit for man nor . . . Where is he by the way?”

He made to go past Bob. Bob stepped in front of him. He sized Bob up, smiled.

“I bet he’s back there. You keep him in the kitchen? Or down the cellar?”

Bob said, “What’re you talking about?”

Eric said, “The dog.”

Bob said, “Look, you liked my dog in the park the other day, but—”

Eric said, “He’s not your dog.”

Bob said, “What? He’s mine.”

Eric shook his head the way nuns did when they’d caught you dead in your lie. “You got a minute to talk?” He held his index finger up. “Just one minute.”

IN THE KITCHEN
,
ERIC
Deeds said, “Hey, there he is.” He said, “That’s my guy.” He said, “He got big.” He said, “The size of him.”

When Bob opened the crate, it broke his heart to see Rocco slink over to Eric Deeds. He even climbed up on his lap when Eric, unbidden, took a seat at Bob’s kitchen table and patted his inner thigh twice. Bob couldn’t even say how it was the guy had talked his way into the house; he was just one of those people had a way about him, like cops and Teamsters—he wanted in, he was coming in.

“Bob,” Eric Deeds said, “you know a chick name of Nadia Dunn?” He rubbed Rocco’s belly. Bob felt a prick of envy as Rocco kicked his left leg, even though a constant shiver—almost a palsy—ran through his fur.

“Nadia Dunn?” Bob said.

“It’s not a I-know-so-many-Nadias-I-get-’em-confused kinda name, man.” Eric Deeds scratched under Rocco’s chin. Rocco’s ears and tail stayed pressed flat to his body. He looked ashamed, his eyes staring down into their own sockets.

“I know her.” Bob reached out and lifted Rocco off Eric’s lap, plopped him down on his own, scratched behind his ears. “She’s helped me walk Rocco a few times.”

The act was between them now, Bob lifting the puppy off Eric’s lap without any warning, Eric looking at him for just a second, like, The fuck was
that
all about? Eric still had a smile on his face, but it wasn’t big anymore, and it wasn’t happy. His forehead narrowed, and it gave his eyes a surprised cast, as if they’d never expected to find themselves on his face. In that moment, he looked cruel, the kind of guy, if he was feeling sorry for himself, took a shit on the whole world.

“Rocco?” he said.

Bob nodded as Rocco’s ears unfurled from his head and he licked Bob’s wrist. “That’s his name. What did you call him?”

“Called him Dog mostly. Sometimes Hound.”

Eric Deeds looked around the kitchen, up at the old circular fluorescent in the ceiling, something going back to Bob’s mother, hell, Bob’s father around the time the old man had also been obsessed with paneling—paneled the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, would’ve paneled the toilet if he could’ve figured out how.

“Bob, I’m going to need my dog back.”

For a second, Bob lost his ability to form words. “He’s mine,” he said eventually.

Eric shook his head. “You’ve been leasing him from me.” He looked over at the dog in Bob’s arms. “Lease is up.”

“You beat him.”

Eric reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a cigarette and popped it in his mouth. He lit it, shook out the match, and tossed it on Bob’s kitchen table.

“You can’t smoke in here.”

Eric considered Bob with a level gaze and kept smoking. “I beat him?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, so what?” Eric flicked some ash on the floor. “I’m taking the dog, Bob.”

Bob stood to his full height. He held tight to Rocco, who squirmed a bit in his arms and nipped at the flat of his hand. If it came to it, Bob decided, he’d drop all six foot three inches and 250 pounds of himself on Eric Deeds, who couldn’t weigh more than a buck-seventy. Not now, not just standing there, but if Eric reached for Rocco, well then . . .

Eric Deeds smiled up at him. “You’re getting all yippee ki-yay on my shit, Bob? Sit down. Really.” Eric leaned back in the chair and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “I asked you if you knew Nadia because I know Nadia. She lives on my block, has since we were kids. It’s the funny thing about a neighborhood, you might not know a lot of people, particularly if they’re not your age, but you know
everyone
on your block.” He looked over at Bob as Bob sat back down. “I saw you that night. I was feeling bad, you know, about my temper? So I went back to see if the hound was really dead or not and I watched you pluck him out of the trash and then go up to Nadia’s porch. You all into her, Bob?”

Bob said, “I really think you should go.”

“I wouldn’t blame you. She’s no beauty queen but she’s not a schnauzer. And you’re no pinup, are you, Bob?”

Bob pulled his cell from his pocket and flipped it open. “I’m calling 911.”

“Be my guest.” Eric nodded. “You register him, all that? City says you gotta register your dog, license it. How about a chip?”

Bob said, “What?”

Eric said, “A security chip. They implant them in the dogs. Pooch goes missing, shows up at a vet, the vet scans the dog, up pops a bar code and all the owner’s info. The owner, meanwhile, he’s walking around with a slip of paper, has the security chip account number on it. Like this.”

Eric pulled a small slip of paper out of his wallet and held it up so Bob could see it. Had the bar code on it and everything. He returned it to his wallet.

Eric said, “You got my dog, Bob.”

“He’s my dog.”

Eric met his eyes and shook his head.

Bob carried Rocco across the kitchen. When he opened the crate, he could feel Eric Deeds’s eyes on his back. He put Rocco inside the crate. Straightened. Turned back to Eric and said, “We’re going now.”

“We are?”

“Yeah.”

Eric clapped his hands on his thighs and stood. “Then I guess we’re going, aren’t we?”

He and Bob walked down the dark hall and ended up in the foyer again.

Eric spied an umbrella in the stand to the right of the front door. He picked it up, looked at Bob. He slid the runner up and down the shaft a few times.

“You beat him,” Bob said again because it seemed an important detail.

“But I’ll tell the police
you
did.” Eric continued to slide the runner back and forth, flapping the cover a bit.

Bob said, “What do you want?”

Eric gave that small private smile. He wrapped the strap around the umbrella until it was tight. He opened the front door. He looked out at the day, then back at Bob.

Eric said, “It’s sunny now, but you never know.”

When he reached the sidewalk, Eric Deeds took a big sniff of air and walked up the street under a bright sky with the umbrella under his arm.

E
RIC DEEDS HAD BEEN
born and raised (if you could call it that) in East Buckingham, but he’d spent a few years away—hard years—before ending back in the house he’d grown up in a little over a year ago. For those few years he was gone, though, he’d been stuck in South Carolina.