Jessica continued to stare at Kilbane for a few moments, then turned to Terry Cahill.
"Memento was a story told in reverse," Cahill said.
"Uh, okay," Jessica replied. "Whatever." She turned her attention back to Kilbane. "Who rented the Fatal Attraction tape?"
"Just a regular," Kilbane said.
"We'll need the name."
Kilbane shook his head. "He's just a regular schmuck. He ain't got nothing to do with this."
"We'll need the name," Jessica repeated.
Kilbane stared at her. You'd think a two-time loser like Kilbane would know better than to try to finesse the cops. On the other hand, if he was smarter, he wouldn't be a two-time loser. Kilbane was just about to object when he glanced at Jessica. Perhaps a phantom pain in his side flared momentarily, recalling Jessica's wicked body shot. He acquiesced and gave them the name of the customer.
"Do you know the woman on the surveillance tape?" Palladino asked. "The woman who talked to that man?"
"What, that heifer?" Kilbane screwed up his face, as if GQ^ gigolo studs like him would never associate with an overweight middle-aged woman who went out in public wearing hot rollers. "Uh, no."
"Have you seen her in the store before?"
"Not that I remember."
"Did you watch the whole tape before you sent it to us?" Jessica asked, knowing the answer, knowing that someone like Eugene Kilbane could not resist.
Kilbane looked at the floor for a moment. Obviously, he had. "Yeah."
"Why didn't you bring it in yourself?"
"I thought we went over this."
"Tell us again."
"Look, you might want to be a little nicer to me."
"And why is that?"
"Because I can break this case wide open for you."
Everyone just stared at him. Kilbane cleared his throat. It sounded like a farm tractor backing out of a muddy culvert. "I want assurances that you're going to overlook my little, uh, indiscretion of the other day." At this he lifted up his shirt. The game zipper he'd had on his belt-the weapons violation that would have put him back in prison-was gone.
"We'll want to hear what you have to say first."
Kilbane seemed to think about the offer. It wasn't what he wanted, but it appeared as if it was all he was going to get. He cleared his throat again, looked around the room, perhaps expecting everyone to hold their breath in anticipation of his earth-shattering revelation. It didn't happen. He plowed ahead anyway.
"The guy on the tape?" Kilbane said. "The guy who put the Fatal Attraction tape back on the shelf?"
"What about him?" Jessica asked.
Kilbane leaned forward, playing the moment for all that it was worth, and said: "I know who he is."
43
"Smells like a slaughterhouse."
He was rake-handle-skinny, and looked like a man unstuck in time, unencumbered by history. There was good reason for that. Sammy Du- Puis was trapped in 1962. Today Sammy wore a black alpaca cardigan, blue-on-blue point-collar dress shirt, gray iridescent sharkskin pants, and pointy cap-toe oxfords. His hair was slicked back, fused with enough hair tonic to grease a Chrysler. He smoked an unfiltered Camel.
They met on Germantown Avenue, near Broad Street. The aroma of simmering barbecue and hickory smoke from Dwight's Southern permeated the air with its fatty sweet tang. It made Kevin Byrne salivate. It made Sammy DuPuis nauseous.
"What, not a big fan of soul food?" Byrne asked.
Sammy shook his head, hit his Camel hard. "How do people eat that shit? It's all fuckin' fat and gristle. You might as well just put it into a needle and shoot it into your heart."
Byrne glanced down. The gun was laid out on a black velvet cloth between them. There was something about the scent of oil on steel, Byrne thought. There was a terrible power in that smell.
Byrne picked it up, checked the action, sighted the barrel, mindful of the fact that they were in a public place. Sammy generally worked out of his house in East Camden, but Byrne didn't have time to cross the river today.
"I can do it for six fifty," Sammy said. "And that is a bargain for such a beauty-full weapon."
"Sammy," Byrne said.
Sammy was silent for a few moments, conveying poverty, oppression, destitution. It didn't work. "Okay, six," he said. "And I'm losing money."
Sammy DuPuis was a gun dealer who never dealt to drug dealers or anyone in a gang. If there was a backroom small-arms dealer with scruples, it was Sammy DuPuis.
The item for sale was a SIG-Sauer P-226. It may not have been the prettiest handgun ever made-far from it-but it was accurate, reliable, and rugged. And Sammy DuPuis was a man of deep discretion. On this day, these were Kevin Byrne's main concerns.
"This better be cold, Sammy." Byrne put the weapon in his coat pocket.
Sammy wrapped the other guns in the cloth, said: "Like my first wife's ass."
Byrne pulled his roll, peeled off six hundred-dollar bills. He handed them to Sammy. "You bring the bag?" Byrne asked.
Sammy looked up immediately. His forehead was corrugated with thought. As a rule, getting Sammy DuPuis to stop counting money was no small feat, but Byrne's question stopped him cold. If what they were doing was outside the law-and it broke at least half a dozen laws that Byrne could think of, both state and federal-what Byrne was suggesting broke just about every other.
But Sammy DuPuis did not judge. If he did, he wouldn't be in the business he was in. And he wouldn't cart around the silver case he carried in the trunk of his car, the valise that held instruments of such dark purpose that Sammy only spoke of their existence in hushed tones.
"You sure?"
Byrne just stared.
"Okay, okay," Sammy said. "Sorry I asked."
They got out of the car, walked to the trunk. Sammy looked up and down the street. He hesitated, fumbling with his keys.
"Checking for the cops?" Byrne asked.
Sammy laughed a nervous little twitter. He opened the trunk. Inside was a group of canvas bags, attache cases, duffels. Sammy moved a few of the leatherette cases to the side. He opened one. Inside was an array of cell phones. "Sure you don't want a clean cell instead? A PDA, maybe?" he asked. "I can put you in a BlackBerry 7290 for seventy-five bucks."
"Sammy."
Sammy hesitated again, then zipped up the leatherette satchel. He cracked another case. This one was ringed with dozens of amber vials. "How about pills?"
Byrne thought about it. He knew Sammy had amphetamines. He was exhausted, but the uppers would just make things worse.
"No pills."
"Fireworks? Porno? I can get you a Lexus for ten G's."
"You do remember I have a loaded weapon in my pocket, don't you?" Byrne asked.
"You're the boss," Sammy said. He pulled out a sleek Zero Halliburton suitcase, dialed the three digits, subconsciously shielding the operation from Byrne. He opened the case, then stepped away, lit another Camel. Even for Sammy DuPuis, the contents of this case were hard to look at.
44
Generally there were no more than a few officers in the AV Unit in the basement of the Roundhouse at any given time. This afternoon there were half a dozen detectives crowded around the monitor in the small editing bay next to the control room. Jessica was certain that the fact that a hard-core porno movie was running had nothing to do with it.
Jessica and Cahill had driven Kilbane back to Flickz, where he had gone into the adult section and retrieved an X-rated title called Philadelphia Skin. He had emerged from the back room like a covert government operative retrieving secret enemy files.
The movie opened with a stock footage view of the skyline of Philadelphia. The production values seemed fairly high for an adult title. Then the film cut to the inside of an apartment. This footage looked standard-bright light, slightly overexposed digital video. Within seconds there was a knock at the door.