Read Online Walter Mosley_Leonid McGill_01 by The Long Fall - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: The Long Fall
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, Police Procedural, New York, New York (State), Fathers and sons, gangs, Private Investigators - New York (State) - New York, Gangs - New York (State), McGill; Leonid (Fictitious Character)
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relationship with it.
“I’m not gonna have my son out there murdering people, Tiny. No way.”
“Twill’s a smart kid,” the self-made scientist said. “Maybe he could get away with it.”
“I need to know everything about the person he’s communicating with,” I said, cutting off any further discussion.
Tiny drew up his shoulders and nodded, submitting to my demand. Despite his particulate aspirations, Tiny’s father was his lifeline, and Simon owed me big.
I WALKED FROM Tiny’s to a small bar on East Houston named the Naked Ear. It was a place where I used to drink with Gert before she was murdered. Back then it had been a neighborhood bar that sponsored poetry readings after ten but now it catered to twenty-something stockbrokers who made more in a week than I did in three months.
If I got there early enough I could get a corner table, away from the crowd of flirty children. There I would down my cognac, toasting a memory.
I DRANK UNTIL standing up was a serious challenge but still I managed to stumble out into the street and hail a cab.
That night I remembered to call Katrina, so she was in bed when I got home. I dropped my jacket in the hallway and kicked off my shoes in the dining room. On the way to our bedroom I looked in on Twill. I didn’t do that because he was my favorite (even though he is) but because Twill often went out at night when the rest of us were asleep. And when Twill was on the prowl there was no telling what mischief he’d get into.
But that evening he was sound asleep under a thin blanket. I smiled at him and staggered off to bed.
KATRINA WAS SNORING and the TV was on. My wife could not sleep without the drone of the television, so I dropped the rest of my clothes on the floor and rolled into my side of the bed.
I lay there in an alcoholic stupor, not really worried about anything. I had to do something about The Suit’s problem, and there was Twill to worry about. But there was nothing I could do right then and so I stared into the bright glare of the TV screen, hoping that sleep would ambush me.
“. . . murder in lower Manhattan this evening,” a woman reporter was saying. The image of a clean-cut and youngish black face appeared on the screen behind her. The face looked vaguely familiar. “Frank Tork, only hours out on bail from police custody, was found beaten and strangled to death in a small alley off of Maiden Lane this evening. Mr. Tork was awaiting sentencing on a burglary conviction. Police say that an investigation is under way . . .”
I lifted my head to get a better look but then the dizziness from seven or maybe eleven shots of brandy pushed me down into unconsciousness.
12
I didn’t sleep long. Frank Tork kept entering my dreams, asking me for twenty dollars or maybe a lifeline.
“I ain’t got no idea where B-Brain is, man,” he’d said in the visitor’s cubicle, and also in the dream. “Georgie Girl said that she seen ’im that one time but he could be dead for all I know.”
That phrase roused me at 5:34. My body wanted either to be sick or allowed to return to sleep—I didn’t give in to either urge.
AN ICE-COLD SHOWER numbers among the most painful experiences I’ve ever willingly experienced, but it does wonders for hangovers and fear. I came out of the stall shivering like a wet dog and ready for the hunt.
ON BROADWAY AT Ninety-first at a few minutes shy of seven I was smoking Ambrose Thurman’s last cigarette and reading about Frank Tork’s demise. He didn’t make the New York Times , or even the Daily News , but they had Frankie on page eight of the Post .
Bail was filed in the early afternoon through an online system from a bail bondsman in the Bronx. Along with the article there was a shadowy digital picture of a man with a wide-brimmed hat taken from above. This allegedly bearded man paid ten percent of Frank’s bail in cash: thirty-seven hundred, fifty-nine
“I’m not gonna have my son out there murdering people, Tiny. No way.”
“Twill’s a smart kid,” the self-made scientist said. “Maybe he could get away with it.”
“I need to know everything about the person he’s communicating with,” I said, cutting off any further discussion.
Tiny drew up his shoulders and nodded, submitting to my demand. Despite his particulate aspirations, Tiny’s father was his lifeline, and Simon owed me big.
I WALKED FROM Tiny’s to a small bar on East Houston named the Naked Ear. It was a place where I used to drink with Gert before she was murdered. Back then it had been a neighborhood bar that sponsored poetry readings after ten but now it catered to twenty-something stockbrokers who made more in a week than I did in three months.
If I got there early enough I could get a corner table, away from the crowd of flirty children. There I would down my cognac, toasting a memory.
I DRANK UNTIL standing up was a serious challenge but still I managed to stumble out into the street and hail a cab.
That night I remembered to call Katrina, so she was in bed when I got home. I dropped my jacket in the hallway and kicked off my shoes in the dining room. On the way to our bedroom I looked in on Twill. I didn’t do that because he was my favorite (even though he is) but because Twill often went out at night when the rest of us were asleep. And when Twill was on the prowl there was no telling what mischief he’d get into.
But that evening he was sound asleep under a thin blanket. I smiled at him and staggered off to bed.
KATRINA WAS SNORING and the TV was on. My wife could not sleep without the drone of the television, so I dropped the rest of my clothes on the floor and rolled into my side of the bed.
I lay there in an alcoholic stupor, not really worried about anything. I had to do something about The Suit’s problem, and there was Twill to worry about. But there was nothing I could do right then and so I stared into the bright glare of the TV screen, hoping that sleep would ambush me.
“. . . murder in lower Manhattan this evening,” a woman reporter was saying. The image of a clean-cut and youngish black face appeared on the screen behind her. The face looked vaguely familiar. “Frank Tork, only hours out on bail from police custody, was found beaten and strangled to death in a small alley off of Maiden Lane this evening. Mr. Tork was awaiting sentencing on a burglary conviction. Police say that an investigation is under way . . .”
I lifted my head to get a better look but then the dizziness from seven or maybe eleven shots of brandy pushed me down into unconsciousness.
12
I didn’t sleep long. Frank Tork kept entering my dreams, asking me for twenty dollars or maybe a lifeline.
“I ain’t got no idea where B-Brain is, man,” he’d said in the visitor’s cubicle, and also in the dream. “Georgie Girl said that she seen ’im that one time but he could be dead for all I know.”
That phrase roused me at 5:34. My body wanted either to be sick or allowed to return to sleep—I didn’t give in to either urge.
AN ICE-COLD SHOWER numbers among the most painful experiences I’ve ever willingly experienced, but it does wonders for hangovers and fear. I came out of the stall shivering like a wet dog and ready for the hunt.
ON BROADWAY AT Ninety-first at a few minutes shy of seven I was smoking Ambrose Thurman’s last cigarette and reading about Frank Tork’s demise. He didn’t make the New York Times , or even the Daily News , but they had Frankie on page eight of the Post .
Bail was filed in the early afternoon through an online system from a bail bondsman in the Bronx. Along with the article there was a shadowy digital picture of a man with a wide-brimmed hat taken from above. This allegedly bearded man paid ten percent of Frank’s bail in cash: thirty-seven hundred, fifty-nine
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