A Visible Darkness - By Jonathon King Page 0,38

And now he was home. He’d come in at night, through the back using his old key, and sat down in the middle of the living room floor and listened.

It wasn’t the old man suddenly coming out of the bathroom that confused him. It was bothersome. Bothersome that someone else was with Ms. Thompson and he hadn’t known. But the old man’s neck was weak and Eddie could feel the rickety bones inside and it really hadn’t taken much effort. Afterwards he’d been careful to lay the old fella out and slipped out quiet. He’d even remembered the chain before he put each glass pane back in its place.

No. That part had gone all right. But then he’d waited, just like he always had before, at the post box on Seventh Avenue and Mr. Harold never came by and now he was confused.

Mr. Harold always brought the rest of the money after it was done, an envelope with cash and a date written on one of the bills so Eddie would know when to meet him again at the liquor store. But Eddie waited at the mail drop box at the far end of the parking lot and Mr. Harold never showed. The old Caprice never pulled up and he never dropped the envelope in Eddie’s hand instead of in the box. Eddie waited until the security guard finally came out and told him to get the hell off the property, it was federal land and what the hell was he doin’ there anyway. And Eddie answered, “I do not know.”

That’s what had confused him. What had he done to make Mr. Harold not come? What had he done wrong? Ms. Thompson was gone like she was supposed to be. The old man was just extra. Eddie had tried to figure it out by going down to the Brown Man’s and buying another bundle. He’d gone over to Riverside Park and done the heroin until dark. But he ended up here, back at his mother’s house.

He sat listening for her now, facing the kitchen. He had stuffed the towels from the bathroom under her door. He’d used the gray duct tape (“best damn thing ever made for fixin’ ”) and sealed all the cracks. He’d done the same on her closet and inside all the windows in her room. He’d done a good job and he didn’t want to see it again. So he sat with his back to her door and listened. Momma had never stopped tellin’ him what to do. Now the least she could do was help him figure out what to do next.

I drove back north on I-95, heading to Billy’s apartment, where he said he’d been working on another case but couldn’t keep his head out of the insurance and murders he was convinced were connected. On the main interstate through South Florida you are best off being a lemming. You fit yourself into one of the middle lanes and then stay in time with those in front of you. If they do seventy, that’s what you do. If they crawl at thirty-five, you join them. There will always be someone faster, more impatient, more aggressive than you. Let them, I reminded myself.

At Billy’s I waved at Murray and he raised one eyebrow in return. Upstairs Billy hit the electronic lock and when I came in he was at the kitchen counter, starting coffee.

“I also h-have beer if it’s not too early. Help yourself. I still have s-some work,” he said, going back into his study. In his working room Billy had two computer systems, one almost always connected to local, state and federal government sites. The walls of the room were lined with law and reference books. He is a workaholic, a trait I did not envy.

I got a beer. It wasn’t too early. I unscrewed the cap and walked out to the balcony through the already opened glass door. Billy’s abuse of A.C., I believe, was a spiteful reaction to his years growing up on the broiling summer streets of North Philly. In the summer only Mustafa’s Groceries had air conditioning through one rattling wall unit. You could go over to Blizzards Billiards on Fifth Street and take a chance at getting your ass kicked by whatever gang controlled that corner. But Billy had stayed home instead with a fan set up in his second-story staircase window and read.

I drank half the beer with two long, breathless swallows and the cold spread up