“Yeah, I told you it was funny. Best play I ever saw. And she can’t help herself – what’s she going to do – she pushes him away. And he loses his balance, and his arms are swinging in these crazy big circles, and next thing you know, he’s falling backward. In the air. Falling, falling with a thud right onto that fake bush.
“Everyone is just stunned for a bit, and then they all start laughing again. And I’m laughing, laughing so hard the tears are coming. And next thing you know, he’s up and jumping off the stage and running right down the middle and out of the auditorium. And then the curtain, it just drops, right on top of some people who come out onstage to make sure he’s all right. And that was the play.”
“Did they stop it?”
“No, they finished it, with that stupid football coach reading out of the book with his shiny bald head while the Juliet said her lines with a T-shirt over her dress. From what I hear, first there was laughter, then silence, and then the place emptied out. But I didn’t see it, because when Terry left, I went out with my mom to try to find him.”
“Did you?”
“Sure. Right here. Sitting outside, staring. Like a zombie. He wouldn’t say a thing. Mom tried to talk to him and gave up, went inside. I just laughed and told him to forget about it, that it was nothing to get shook about. And then I lit up a bone and handed it to him.”
“He take it?”
“What do you think?”
“What happened afterward?”
“Nothing, really, he just kept smoking. And not only that night. It was every night. But he was mainly stealing from my stash, so I had to cut him off. Told him to buy his own, which he did. I even set him up with Rupert, who’d been selling to me. So he was taken care of. And he actually got back together with that girl for a while, believe it or not. But it didn’t stop him smoking, or from drifting away. He would disappear for a few days, and then a few weeks, and then he disappeared altogether. Just up and left. Never did finish school. A little later the calls started coming, from all over, California, Arizona, all the time hitting Mom up for money.”
“And now he’s in Philly.”
“Did I say that?”
“Pretty much. You got an address?”
“Something someplace, I don’t know. He stopped calling after Mom died, but he sends me a card every year on the anniversary of her death.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And then I send him a check.”
“I bet you do. Can you get that address for me?”
“Why?”
“Maybe your brother won the lottery and I’m trying to find him.”
There was a chuckle. “That loser?”
“Or maybe I might just head over to the county courthouse and check out your mother’s will. See if half this house belongs to Terrence. We can have the sheriff sell the thing right from under you, split the proceeds. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“An only child,” I said, “and suddenly damn glad for it. Let’s go get that address, shall we?”
34
The address Frankie Tipton gave me was about 250 miles north of Ashland, Virginia, in a ragged part of industrial Philadelphia called Kensington. I could have given the address to the police, left it to them to roust Terry and ask him the questions, but the task would then have ended in Sims’s hands, and I held no confidence that he wouldn’t scare off Terry like he’d scared off Jamison. Whatever angle Sims was pursuing, it wasn’t designed to be beneficial to my health. So no, this I would have to do myself. I figured I’d slip into the house, grab hold of Terry, shake out the truth, and bring him and it to my pal Detective McDeiss, along with any evidence I could grab. But as soon as I got a gander of the row house that sat at the address, I revised my plan.
“Squatters,” said Antoine from the driver’s seat of his Camaro.
We had made the drive in a straight shot, and now, in the ill-lit darkness of Kensington, we could see a swarm gathered on the front stoop of the house as we passed it slowly.
“Does that mean it’s abandoned?” I said.
“It mean anything, mon,” said Antoine. “Maybe the owner’s renting space cheap for a few dollar here and there. Or maybe he being generous, who knows? But I can tell you just by looking, there be a crowd inside.”
“Park here,” I said.
“What you doing, bo?” said Derek.
“I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
“How?”
“I’ve got a source.”
About fifty yards down from the house, on the opposite side of the street, an old man sat flat-footed in a lawn chair set up on the sidewalk. He wasn’t smoking a cigar or drinking a beer or discussing the state of the union. He was simply sitting, still as the earth, as if he had been planted in that very spot a century ago and grew up and old with the neighborhood, sitting there, losing teeth as the block lost buildings, letting time wash over him. The perfect spy. In Philadelphia there’s one on every corner. I knelt down beside him. He didn’t turn his head a degree.
“You see that house over there?” I said. “The one with all the folks milling about in front?”
“I see it.”
“You know who lives there?”
“A bunch of fools.”
“You know their names?”
“Don’t want to know their names.”
“Who owns it, do you know that?”
“The king of fools.”
“A white guy, dark hair, about my age?”
“He don’t dress as good.”
“You like the way I’m dressed?”
“Except for that tie.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“And the shoes ain’t nothing to write home about neither.”
“What are all these other people doing there at that house?”
“They do errands, keep intruders out. But mostly he lets them stay to up and rile the block.”
“Tough crowd?”
“They too drugged out to be tough. Back in the day, I would have cleared them out myself with but a baseball bat.”
“I bet you would have. Ever see a woman show up, dark hair, well dressed?”
“Pretty?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I seen her. Seeing her always cheered up my day.”
“How often she show up?”
“Once or twice a week.”
“Have you seen her in the last couple of days?”
“Come to think of it, no.”
“You see anyone peculiar show up instead of her?”
“You mean other than you?”
“Yes, other than me.”
“Bow tie.”
“You don’t say.”
“Little man, near bald, in a black Volvo.”
“When?”
“Couple times.”
“How long you been sitting out here?”
“How long you been breathing?”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Good luck to you, young man.”
“Yeah,” I said. I stood up, patted the old man on the shoulder, went back to the Camaro, where Derek and Antoine leaned against the hood, their arms crossed.
“What’s the word, bo?” said Derek.
I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t like the crowd of squatters we’d have to wade through to get inside, I didn’t trust that things wouldn’t spiral way out of control. But then I didn’t like the crowd behind me either, Trocek and Swift and Sims and Hanratty, a vicious gang of cutthroats and cops that all seemed to be aiming their malevolence at me.
“The word is,” I said, “that we’re going in.”
“Then let’s do it,” said Antoine.
I took the lead, Antoine and Derek walking on either side of me. I was like a Piper Cub with an undersize fighter plane off one wing and a Boeing 757 off the other. On the porch of the house, five or six of the squatters were lounging on a bench or on the stoop, eyeing us suspiciously as we made our approach. Let’s just say the welcome mat wasn’t being cleaned and pressed for our visit.
“What you want here?” said a woman sitting closest to the door. She had short hair and a wide jaw, and her arms were crossed.
“We came to see the owner,” I said.