I WAS ASLEEP when he came in.
I had dozed off. It was only my so-called alarm that alerted me. The sound of the door rattling woke me.
“What the-?”
The door swung open as I struggled to get up from the low couch. My gun fell to the floor. Pratt stepped into the room. I stood there with the rubber mallet in my grip. I was the intruder, but I had the mallet. Pratt took a step forward, then I saw his eyes noticing the gun at my feet. He turned and took off, racing back out of the apartment. I heard his feet pounding down the hallway, then I heard a grunt and the sound of something hitting the floor. This was followed by a low murmuring. Then silence.
I bent down and retrieved my gun. I checked my watch: 2:10 in the morning. I’d slept like a baby. No dreams that I could remember. I checked to see that nothing had fallen out of my pockets and slipped behind the cushions. All clear. I stood a moment, waiting for my heartbeat to come back to normal, then I left the apartment and made my way up to the roof.
He was on the ground. Jigs had him by the shoulders and was dragging him along the gravelly surface as I emerged from the stairwell.
“Nice of you to join us, sweetheart. You want to lend a hand, or are you just here to watch?”
Pratt’s hands were tied behind his back. The pervert’s face was a mess. Jigs is a kicker. Pratt’s nose and mouth were nearly indistinguishable. A single splotch of red and gristle. He was moaning very softly.
“He can breathe, can’t he? I don’t want him choking on his own teeth.”
“Your kindness always touches me, Fritzy,” Jigs said. He followed this with a hard kick to Pratt’s throat. He leaned down. “Are we breathing, John Michael? Anything we can do to clear your passages?” He grabbed Pratt by the shoulders again. “Help me here.”
I stepped over and grabbed the man’s rubbery legs, and together Jigs and I carried him to the edge of the roof. Jigs positioned Pratt so that his bloodied head was dangling over the side of the roof, five flights above the sidewalk. He kicked the man’s legs apart and settled himself between them, grabbing hold of Pratt’s belt.
“Row row row your boat.” Jigs inched his way forward on his tail, letting gravity assist as Pratt’s torso began making its way over the edge of the roof. Jigs continued wiggling forward until Pratt was halfway over the roof. Jigs had his heels dug in hard, keeping a good grip on the belt, leaning back as far as he could as a counterweight.
“Tickle me, Fritz. Go ahead.”
From below the roofline, Pratt let out a holler. He sounded something like a moose in labor. Even in the pale moonlight, I could see Jigs’s face gone red with the effort of holding on.
“I’d like to see if he’ll bounce, Fritz. Just give me the word.”
I stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. There was no one on the sidewalk below us. No one was watching. The mallet was still in my hand. I closed my eyes and saw seventeen pictures of Robin and Michelle taped on a closet door. Jigs was speaking in his low, seductive voice.
“He stabbed you, isn’t that so? This man tried to kill you. He put you in the river. The Good Lord only knows what else he did. I don’t think we need a man like this on this good earth, I really don’t.”
I opened my eyes. Jigs was tilted so far back his head was nearly touching the graveled roof. His eyes were wide and white in the moonlight.
“Well?”
I shook my head. “Reel him in.” I dropped the mallet and grabbed hold of Pratt’s belt and jerked him back onto the roof. He was blubbering, snot and blood in equal measure. I got hold of the lapels of his coat and jerked him onto his knees. I got right into his face, disgusting as it was.
“What do you want to tell me about Robin Burrell?” I jerked on his lapels. “What do you want to tell me, Pratt? You can either tell me or you can tell my friend here. Are you clear on this? It’s your choice.”
There was a stench of beer mixed in with the smell of blood. I had to turn my head to get a hit of fresh air. Jigs was on his feet, wiping gravel off the back of his pants. Pratt made a sound.
“What was that? I missed that.”
“Never. Touched her.”
“Never touched who? Never touched Robin? Or are you talking about Michelle now?”
“Nobody. Never touched nobody.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you? Is that it? Just take your word for it?” I rattled him again. He moved in my hands as if he were boneless. “You don’t have a healthy take on women, John. You’re aware of that, aren’t you? Did Robin Burrell excite you? Did she piss you off? What was it? Were you jealous because she was friends with Michelle? Did you want to be friends with Michelle? Was that it? Was Robin standing in your way?”
His eyes found a semblance of focus on my face, one eye more than the other. “You’re out of your mind.”
I jerked my hands and brought his head down hard on the roof. It bounced once, then fell back to the gravel. I stood up and went back down to Pratt’s apartment and fetched the roll of duct tape I’d used to rig up the dead bolt. I noticed a skylight in the kitchen. I went back into the bedroom and got a half-dozen T-shirts from the dresser. Back on the roof, I knotted the T-shirts together. I located the skylight over Pratt’s kitchen and kicked in some of the glass. Along with the duct tape and the knotted T-shirts, Jigs and I secured the man to the metal framing of the skylight. Jigs wanted to snap his knees and tape his legs up in a funny way, but I persuaded him to back off.
Before we left the roof, I taped one of the police sketches to Pratt’s back. I scribbled a note on it: SPECIAL DELIVERY. JOSEPH P. GALLO. Jigs and I made our way downstairs and called the police from an all-night diner on Twenty-third Street. We told the woman on the other end of the phone that there was a package for Joe Gallo and where to find it. I was famished and asked Jigs if he wanted something to eat. I planned on something with lots of carbs and lots of protein and lots of fat. Jigs demurred.
“I’ve got to see a man about a dog,” he said, producing a comb and moving it over his wavy black hair.
“What man?”
“Well, it’s not really a man,” he said. He gave me the smile so many mothers fear. “Not really a dog, either.”
36
THE ACTRESS Greer Garson was balanced on the branch of an apple tree, laughing that little-bells laugh of hers and jogging the branch in order to send a cascade of apples falling to the ground. That’s where I was, standing below her. Scores of war planes darkened the sky overhead, but the lovely Miss Garson was oblivious. Look out belooow, she sang as the apples plummeted earthward. I’d just caught one of them and was about to bite into it when the ringing telephone fought its way into my consciousness. Greer Garson and her apples dissolved.
I dragged the phone onto the bed, hoping in my guilty haze that it wasn’t Margo. It wasn’t. It was Joe Gallo.
“Did I wake you?”
“You ask that with a smile in your voice.”
“I wanted to thank you for the package.”
“The…? Right. Anytime.”
“I’m not going to ask you how you were able to track down our friend so quickly.”
“I have elves.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
I threw the blankets off and brought my feet to the floor. I don’t use the word “rarified” too often, but that was how the light in my room felt. I cranked my eyes open. Snow was falling steadily outside the window.
“Your special delivery arrived pretty banged up,” Gallo said. “I guess he offered some resistance.”
I took the phone to the window. It was a beautiful snowfall. “Joe, it was so long ago.”
“So do you want to ask me the sixty-four-dollar question, or should I just tell you?”