AND A TIME TO DIE Read online

  I didn’t expect them to be deep into the catacombs. I thought it likely they’d be in one of the many storage rooms. As I felt my way along I was trying to get some sense of the geography.

  A train rumbled in overhead, steel wheels and rails screeching in protest, vibrating everything around me. The deafening noise stopped suddenly, and I was aware again of the sounds around me. I listened intently, knowing the train would be in the station for a few seconds only. I tried to separate out the sounds, tried to find a sound that shouldn’t be here. I heard something move nearby, movement that didn’t quite stop when the train did. I listened intently, but whatever was moving had stopped, as if waiting for the train to move, waiting for the noise to resume. I didn’t move, tried not to breathe.

  Every instinct told me someone was there, waiting quietly. I knew there would be enough light for him to see me, so I’d have to rely on hearing, and of course Buster. The train started abruptly, filling the catacomb with steel on steel sound once again. I listened for movement, but could hear nothing above the ear-splitting rumble of the train. In a moment the train was out of the station, the deafening noise diminishing. Above the receding rumble I heard the sound again, much closer than before.

  Something moved in front of me. Buster stiffened and let out a low growl. He was telling me someone was near, someone he didn’t particularly care for.

  “Whattya want?” a male voice demanded, guttural, hoarse, startling in its suddenness, menacing in its nearness.

  “I’m looking for Arthur Donaldson,” I said, in what I thought to be a reasonable tone of voice. The last thing I wanted was a confrontation with somebody possibly strung out on angel dust.

  “Nobody here by that name. Now git!” The voice was threatening, but he hadn’t moved, and in my experience that was a tell tale sign he didn’t want a confrontation either.

  “There’s some money in it for him.”

  “How much money?” I’d said the magic word. His attitude changed, or at any rate his tone of voice did.

  “That depends. Are you Donaldson?”

  “No I ain’t.”

  Another step in the right direction. I’d have expected him to say he was. “Do you know where he is?”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “Fifty bucks if you lead me to him.” Valerie didn’t have all that much money to play with, and Donaldson was going to take another fifty, maybe a hundred, but even if some of it came out of my fee, the enhanced reputation for bringing in difficult to find people will be worth it.

  “All right,” he said, “he’s back here. Give me the fifty and I’ll take you to him.”

  “You could tell me your uncle Bill is Arthur Donaldson,” I scoffed. I had the upper hand now. “Take me to him, and if he comes with me to a lawyer’s office, and if it turns out he’s really Donaldson, you both get paid.”

  He must have moved closer because above the stench of the warrens I caught the sudden rank pungency of body odor. A fist slammed into my face and I went backward, losing my grip on Buster’s harness. I hit something solid with my back, preventing me from going down, and felt Buster leave his feet with a full-throated snarl, heard my assailant curse and thrash about. I didn’t know what Buster was doing to him, guide dogs aren’t trained to attack, but they are trained to protect their partner, and Buster seemed to be taking that instruction literally. A fight was going on right beside me. I found the guy’s head and began pounding it against something that sounded very much like a wall. He broke free and ran. My dark glasses had come off, and I felt around with my foot till I found them, fortunately intact.

  “Let’s go, Buster,” I said, scratching his ears affectionately. “Mr. Donaldson isn’t here.”

  Back at the office, I called Valerie and told her Donaldson wasn’t there, and she said I was probably right, he’d show up in a shelter when the weather turned cold. I asked if she wanted me to stay on it, and she said if she heard something she’d give me a call.

  We don’t look for criminal suspects. That’s the job of the police. We’re hired by defense attorneys to find exculpatory witnesses to crimes their clients are accused of, witnesses who for one reason or another are reluctant to come forward. For the past five days Kelly has been looking for a young woman named Tamika Johnson for Lori Shaeffer at the Public Defender’s Office. Tamika had witnessed a drive by shooting in one of the projects. The cops arrested a couple of gang bangers and identified the shooter, but Lori was convinced they got the wrong guy. Tamika was apparently prepared to state the accused shooter was there but somebody else pulled the trigger. Lori’s problem was the guy Tamika pointed to as the real shooter threatened her and so she quite sensibly made herself scarce. Lori wants to find her and at least get her deposition in case the guy carries out his threat. Such is life in the big city.

  When I opened the agency two years ago it was just Buster and me, with Kelley doing the occasional paperwork. She wanted to help in the agency, and I reluctantly agreed, with the provision she go to karate school. She did, and after that she spent a lot of time on the pistol range, eventually becoming quite proficient. A couple of months later I sent her out on a relatively safe assignment for the Public Defender’s Office, and she brought the witness in. I didn’t tell her I had Eddie Westphal cover her back, just in case. She’s loved the work ever since, and for some reason thinks it’s exciting.

  I no sooner hung up from Valerie than the phone rang again. Sammy Weese was on the line, and he had something he needed done. I said I’d be right over.

  I put Buster’s harness back on, made sure the telephone answering machine was on and left a message on the desk for Kelley. I have a large pad I write on, and she’s getting quite good at deciphering my scrawls.

  I love being outside, and I think Buster does too. Crowded sidewalks, snatches of passing conversations, the constant din of traffic, starting, stopping, horns blowing impatiently, traffic cops’ whistles, every movement of the big city symphony clear, distinct, and on key. The nice thing about memory is it gives you a picture. I knew exactly what that lunchtime sidewalk looked like, smelled like, tasted like, sounded like. When a bus roared by, exhaust fumes filling the air, I knew exactly what it looked like. I saw that bus, saw its color, saw its number, saw the faces in the windows. If you have memory, you can see.

  We had to cross a couple of streets, but I listened for the traffic flow and felt the movement of pedestrians around me. When I thought we had the light I said, “Forward.” Most people think a guide dog watches the traffic lights, but they don’t. When I say Forward, Buster either goes or he doesn’t. He goes only when he thinks it’s safe. Intelligent disobedience is one of the things we both had to learn in school. Buster knows to disregard a command if it would lead to danger, and I’ve learned to completely trust Buster’s judgment.

  Ten minutes later we were in the law offices of Samford Weese III, Sammy the Weasel, his enemies called him, and he had plenty of those, especially in law enforcement. Sammy was one of the city’s top mob lawyers, but I’ve always found him honest and aboveboard, at least with me.

  I like Samford Weese, though we’re from entirely different worlds. I spent twelve years in Catholic schools and three years in the Marines, which is pretty much the same thing, and Sammy went to prep school and Princeton before finishing up at Yale Law School.

  Sammy and I first ran into each other during one of the interminable mob trials the Organized Crime Strike Force was always bringing. We were on opposite sides, but there was nothing personal about it. One night Sammy saw me in a bar with Kelley and bought us a drink, and we’ve been friends ever since.

  “Hiya, Doyle, hiya, Buster,” he said, when we were ushered in. Sam’s voice would’ve made a Shakespearean actor weep with envy. Years back I stopped into court to see him operate. I don’t know if clients are paying for his expertise or his voice, but that day he rang enough welkin to cause the heavens to shiver. The jury thought so too. Today, however, he spoke in his normal, everyda
y man to man rumbling sonority.

  “Hiya, Sammy,” I said, extending a hand. He grabbed it and a whiff of scent told me Sam was still wearing the same aftershave, a powerful combination of mint and alcohol and whatever else some chemist thought was especially masculine. He probably wore it for years, but I don’t think I noticed it when I could see. Goes to show, I guess, just how much we miss.

  Buster found me a chair, and Sammy said, “Need some work done, Doyle. I need you to find an alibi witness.”

  “That’s what we do,” I said. “Who for?”

  “Jimmy Pompo. He was arrested Friday in the DeMarco killing.”

  I knew Jimmy Pompo the same way I knew Louise Driscoll, from my old Homicide days, when I was assigned to the Organized Crime Strike Force. Jimmy was a low level guy, a soldier in the Carlo Senna crime family, and a typical wiseass. He started out as an enforcer for Nick The Finger DePietro, just a teenager, big for his age, and did well. That was twelve years ago, and he’d long ago graduated to other things. He was into everything that made money, from loan sharking to gambling to drugs. We’d tried for years to put him away, but could never make anything stick. He was young, good looking and connected, a swaggering, smirking mob guy, proud of his work, and a genuine lady’s man. Why the skirts go for the mob guys I don’t know, but they do. The air of danger, maybe, the undercurrent of evil. Who knows?

  “Yes, I heard it on the news,” I said. “Tommy took a couple bullets behind the ear, if I have it right.”

  “Three, to be exact.”

  I loved the sound of his voice. Olivier couldn’t have said that sentence any better. “Sitting in his car,” I said.

  “Sitting in his car.”

  In my mind’s eye I saw Sammy nod in agreement, the perfectly combed hair probably a little grayer than I remembered it. “Kind of unoriginal, don’t you think?”

  “Whatever works, I guess,” he said languidly. “The point is, Jimmy didn’t do it.”

  I laughed. “Sammy, everybody says they didn’t do it.”

  He had the grace to chuckle in agreement. “This time it’s true, though. Jimmy was in Atlantic City.”

  “Is he still in jail?”

  “Still in jail. The DA is fighting bail.”

  “All right, tell me what you want done.”

  “Jimmy can’t account for his whereabouts the night Tommy DeMarco was killed. He knows where he was, but he doesn’t have an alibi, the woman he was with can’t be found.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “That’s the problem. Jimmy only knows her first name. Maureen. He says he picked up a hooker at Jack’s Place early Thursday evening and took her to Atlantic City.”

  I smiled and said, “Sammy, if there’s one place you don’t have to bring your own hooker, it’s Atlantic City.”

  “He liked this one, says he’s taken her to Atlantic City before, says she’s good luck. According to Jimmy, he picked up Maureen in Jack’s Place about eight, went to her place for a quick one, and then headed for the casinos. He says they got to Harrah’s about eleven and went straight to the tables. The cards were running good and they didn’t leave the casino until after six Friday morning. He drove straight back to Philly and went to Maureen’s where they celebrated their good fortune with a little early morning poon. He says he gave her another five hundred on top of what she won and left. He has an ironclad alibi. The medical examiner says DeMarco was killed sometime between ten p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday. The cops who arrived at the scene were more precise. They figured between one thirty and two thirty.”

  “So all you have to do is find Maureen.”

  “That’s why you’re here. Find Maureen for me.”

  “All right. Kelley’ll send you a contract. The usual terms.”

  “Good to see you again, Matthew,” he said. I heard the chair push back. I knew he was getting up so I got up too. I extended my hand and he grabbed it.

  “There was another murder over the weekend,” I said. “Louise Driscoll. Carlo’s old girlfriend. Heard anything?”

  “Only what I read.”

  Back in the office, I picked up the phone to call Bobby Micelli at Jack’s Place. I knew Bobby from the old days. I also knew Jack’s was bedlam at lunchtime, and Bobby wouldn’t have much time to talk. I knew the smart thing to do was wait for the lunch crowd to clear, but that meant sitting here doing nothing, and I don’t like to do that. Doing nothing leads to thinking, and thinking leads to pictures I’d rather not relive. I put the phone down and Buster came over and put his head in my lap. I scratched his ears and softly said, “Buster, Buster.” Sometimes I think he knows.

  The problem with thinking was, once you started it was hard to stop. The pictures came again, unbidden, a total recall. Helene’s. Neighborhood place, nothing fancy. We had stopped at the bar before dinner, four of us. I saw the bar again, clear and sharp, panoramic vision, a flash of mirrors and mahogany, starkly illuminated in the brilliant sudden flash of mind’s eye light. I heard the laughter and the clink of glasses. I saw the people I was with, saw the people around me, saw the gun come up, so slowly I knew I could reach it if I could only force myself to move. I heard the shot, a single loud POP. I saw the flame and the smoke, smelled the sharp, raw, smell of exploding gunpowder. The picture always ends there. I guess a lot of things ended there.

  I got shot a couple of years after I joined the Strike Force, and it was my own fault. I let my guard down just once, and that was one time too many. I got shot in the face by somebody I never saw, while I was off duty, having a before dinner drink with friends. They got him, grabbed him right there, but a lot of good it did me. I spent a lot of time in the hospital, and when they took the bandages off I couldn’t see. The guy wasn’t connected to the mob, he had no reason to shoot me, and I had no reason to think he might. The whole thing was totally stupid. He thought I’d been looking at his woman, which I had been, as every guy there had been. Just another whacko. He got twenty years for assault with a deadly weapon, and I got to spend the rest of my life in the dark.

  3

  When I got out of the hospital, Kelley and I were faced with the problem of paying the mortgage and feeding the kids. I was forty-two years old and feeling absolutely useless. I got a pension from the city, and went on Social Security due to disability, enough to keep us all in genteel poverty, but outside of that I had no income, no way of supporting my family, while the whacko who put the bullet up my nose got three squares a day and a warm place to sleep, courtesy the taxpayers. I still had my .357 mag Colt Python, and don’t think I didn’t think about it. What held me back was I didn’t want to leave Kelley, didn’t want to leave the kids.

  At times of deepest depression I sat in the dark, alone, late at night, and tried to picture them going on without me. Mike, in high school, no great shakes with the books, but a terrific baseball player. I would never see him play another game, but at least I could be in the stands, listening to the crowd, listening to Kelley telling me what was happening. I could still hear the sound of the ball hitting the bat, still hear the sound of the ball hitting the first baseman’s mitt. That was Mike, first base, classy fielder. I could see him in my mind’s eye, scooping up a low throw, ballet moves, effortless, graceful, everything his dad is not.

  And Carol, just entering her teens, spiteful and loving, all at the same time. Moody at times, laughing her head off at others, screaming at her mother, boy crazy. A typical teenage girl, Kelley said. Reminded her of herself at that age. No, I couldn’t leave. They needed me, all of them, and I needed them.

  I don’t know what I would’ve done without Kelley. She nursed me, held my hand, held my head, held me together, really, with love and affection, even when I sometimes took my moods out on her. She loves me, and I love her, love her beyond description. My life changed the day she said I should think about going back to work. My first thought was yeah, sure, I’m blind, I can get a job putting brooms together. But then I thought about it, and decided she was right, I needed
to go back to work. I didn’t know yet what I was going to do, but I made arrangements for a guide dog, and a better decision I never made. Buster and I went to school together for a month and when we graduated I took him home. That was two years ago, and he and I are so close now you’d think we were brothers.

  Once Buster and I were a team, I thought I’d put my fifteen years experience as a Philadelphia Homicide detective to work. Kelley and I talked it over, and we decided to give it a shot, not without some trepidation. We found a small, inexpensive office in an old, inexpensive building in center city, and opened the Matthew J. Doyle Detective Agency. Eddie Westphal stopped in to see me one day and hired on part-time, just to keep his hand in, just for something to do. Eddie was my first partner in Homicide, the wily old veteran you might say, teaching the new kid the ropes. I had a number of partners in the next fifteen years, but I never forgot Eddie Westphal. He retired a couple of years ago and spent a lot of time on his computer, surfing the Internet, and an equal amount of time telling me about it. Valerie Bauman, an old school friend of Kelley’s, was a lawyer with the Public Defender’s Office, and she steered a few cases our way. Kelley did the paperwork, Eddie took care of the few cases we had, and Buster and I slowly got our feet under us.

  Our first big break came when Sammy Weese hired us to look into a few matters for a stockbroker client accused of raiding his customer accounts to the tune of several million dollars. Sam’s client went to jail, but thanks to a handsome check from Sam, the Mathew J. Doyle Detective Agency was a going concern.