The skin Gods jbakb-2 Read online

  Tarver stared at her, trying to melt her cool with his jailhouse burn. After a few seconds, he saw the South Philly in her eyes and realized it wouldn't work. He put his hands behind his head and interlaced his fingers.

  "Now turn around," Jessica said.

  Trey Tarver looked at her legs, her short dress. He smiled. His diamond tooth glimmered in the streetlight. "You first, bitch."

  Bitch?

  Bitch?

  Jessica glanced back up the alley. The Chinese kid was back in the restaurant. The door was closed. They were alone.

  She looked at the ground. Trey was standing on a discarded two-by- six. One end of the board was perched precariously on a discarded paint can. The can was inches from Jessica's right foot.

  "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

  Cold flames in his eyes. "I said 'You first, bitch.'"

  Jessica kicked the can. At that moment, the look on Trey Tarver's face said it all. His expression was not unlike that of Wile E. Coyote at the moment the hapless cartoon character realizes the cliff is no longer beneath him. Trey crumpled to the ground like wet origami, on the way down smacking his head on the edge of the Dumpster.

  Jessica looked at his eyes. Or, more accurately, the whites of his eyes. Trey Tarver was out cold.

  Oops.

  Jessica rolled him over just as a pair of detectives from the Fugitive Squad finally arrived on the scene. No one had seen anything and, even if they had, Trey Tarver didn't exactly have a big fan club in the department. One of the detectives tossed her a pair of handcuffs.

  "Oh yeah," Jessica said to her unconscious suspect. "We gonna do some bidness." She clicked the cuffs shut on his wrists. "Bitch."

  Thereis a time for police officers, after a successful hunt, when they decelerate from the chase, when they assess the operation, congratulate each other, grade their performance, brake. It is a time when morale is at its peak. They went where the darkness was and emerged into the light.

  They gathered at the Melrose Diner, a twenty-four-hour spoon on Snyder Avenue.

  They had taken down two very bad people. There was no loss of life, and the only serious injury came to someone who deserved it. The good news was that the shooting, as far as they could tell, was clean.

  Jessica had been a police officer for eight years. She was in uniform for the first four, followed by a stint on the Auto Unit, a division of the city's Major Case Squad. In April of this year she had joined the Homicide Unit. In that short time she had seen her share of horrors. There was the young Latina woman murdered in a vacant lot in Northern Liberties, rolled into a rug, put on top of a car, and dumped in Fairmount Park. There was the case of the young man lured into the park by three of his classmates only to be robbed and beaten to death. And there was the Rosary Killer case.

  Jessica wasn't the first or only woman in the unit, but anytime someone new joins a small, tightly knit squad in the department there is the requisite distrust, the unspoken probationary period. Her father had been a legend in the department, but those were shoes to fill, not walk in.

  After her incident debriefing, Jessica entered the diner. Immediately the four detectives who were already there-Tony Park, Eric Chavez, Nick Palladino, and a patched-up John Shepherd-got up from their stools, put their hands against the wall, and assumed the position in tribute.

  Jessica had to laugh.

  She was in.

  3

  She is hard to look at now: her skin is no longer perfect, but rather torn silk. The blood pools around her head, nearly black in the dim light thrown from the trunk lid.

  I look around the parking area. We are alone, just a few feet from the Schuylkill River. Water laps the dock-the eternal meter of the city.

  I take the money and put it into the fold of the newspaper. I toss the newspaper onto the girl in the trunk of the car, then slam the lid.

  Poor Marion.

  She really was pretty. She had about her a certain freckled charm that reminded me of Tuesday Weld in High Time.

  Before we left the motel, I cleaned the room, tore up the room receipt, and flushed it down the toilet. There had been no mop, no bucket. When you shoot on a shoestring, you make do.

  She stares up at me now, her eyes no longer blue. She may have been pretty, she may have been someone's idea of perfection, but for all she was, she was no Angel.

  The house lights are down, the screen flickers to life. In the next few weeks the city of Philadelphia will hear a great deal about me. It will be said that I am a psychopath, a madman, an evil force from the soul of hell. As the bodies fall and the rivers run red, I will receive some horrendous reviews. Don't believe a word of it. I wouldn't hurt a fly.

  4

  Six days later she looked completely normal. Some might even say friendly, in a doting, spinster-aunt sort of way. She stood five three and could not have weighed more than ninety-five pounds in her black span- dex one-piece and pristine white Reeboks. She had short, brick-red hair and clear blue eyes. Her fingers were long and slender, her nails groomed and unpainted. She wore no jewelry.

  To the outside world, she was a pleasant looking, physically fit woman nearing middle age.

  For Detective Kevin Francis Byrne, she was a combination Lizzie Borden, Lucrezia Borgia, and Ma Barker, all wrapped up in a package resembling Mary Lou Retton.

  "You can do better than that," she said.

  "What do you mean?" Byrne managed.

  "The name you called me in your mind. You can do better than that."

  She is a witch, he thought. "What makes you think I called you a name?"

  She laughed her shrill, Cruella De Vil laugh. Dogs three counties away cringed. "I've been at this almost twenty years, Detective," she said. "I've been called every name in the book. I've been called names that aren't even scheduled in the next book. I've been spat upon, swung upon, cursed in a dozen languages, including Apache. I've had voodoo dolls made in my likeness, novenas offered up for my painful demise. I assure you, there is no torture you could possibly conjure that has not been wished upon me."

  Byrne just stared. He had no idea he was that transparent. Some detective.

  Kevin Byrne was two weeks into a twelve-week physical therapy program at HUP, the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. He had been shot at close range in the basement of a house in Northeast Philadelphia on Easter Sunday. Although he was expected to make a full recovery, he had learned early on that phrases like full recovery usually involved a lot of wishful thinking.

  The bullet, the one with his name on it, had lodged in his occipital lobe, approximately one centimeter from his brain stem. And even though there was no nerve involvement, and the damage was all vascular, he had endured nearly twelve hours of cranial surgery, six weeks of induced coma, and nearly two months in the hospital.

  The offending slug was now encased in a small Lucite cube and sitting on his nightstand, a macabre trophy courtesy of the Homicide Unit.

  The most serious damage came not from injury to his brain, but rather from the way his body had twisted on the way to the floor, an unnatural wrenching of the lower back. This move had caused damage to his sciatic nerve, the long nerve that runs from each side of the lower spine, through deep in the buttock and back of the thigh, and all the way down to the foot, connecting the spinal cord with the leg and foot muscles.

  And while his laundry list of ailments was painful enough, the bullet he took to his head was a mere inconvenience compared with the pain generated by the sciatic nerve. Sometimes it felt like someone was running a carving knife up his right leg and across his lower back, stopping along the way to twist at various vertebrae.

  He was free to return to duty as soon as the city doctors cleared him, and as soon as he felt ready. Until then, he was officially IOD: injured on duty. Full pay, no work, and a bottle of Early Times every week from the unit.

  While his acute sciatica was about as much agony as he had ever endured, pain, as a way of life, was an old friend. He had tolerated fifte
en years of savage migraine headaches, ever since the first time he had been shot and nearly drowned in the icy Delaware River.

  It had taken a second bullet to rid him of the malady. Although he wouldn't recommend getting shot in the head as a therapy for migraine sufferers, he wasn't about to second-guess the cure. Since the day he had been shot for the second-and hopefully final-time, he hadn't suffered a single headache.

  Take two hollow points and call me in the morning.

  Still, he was tired. Two decades on the force of one of the toughest cities in the country had drained his will. He had put in his time. And although he had faced some of the most violent and depraved people east of Pittsburgh, his current antagonist was a petite physical therapist named Olivia Leftwich and her bottomless bag of tortures.

  Byrne was standing along one wall of the physical therapy room, against a waist-high bar, his right leg propped parallel to the floor. He held the position, stoically, despite the murder in his heart. The slightest movement lit him up like a Roman candle.

  "You're making great improvements," she said. "I'm impressed."

  Byrne glared daggers at her. Her horns receded and she smiled. No fangs visible.

  All part of the illusion, he thought.

  All part of the con.

  Although City Hall was the official epicenter of Center City, and the historical heart and soul of Philadelphia was Independence Hall, the city's pride was still Rittenhouse Square, located on Walnut Street between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets. Although not as well known as Times Square in New York City, or Picadilly Circus in London, Philadelphia was rightfully proud of Rittenhouse Square, which remained one of the city's toniest addresses. In the shadow of posh hotels, historic churches, towering office buildings, and fashionable boutiques, on a summer day, at noontime, the crowds on the square were enormous.

  Byrne sat on a bench near the Barye sculpture Lion Crushing a Serpent in the center of the square. He had been nearly six feet tall in eighth grade, and had grown to his height of six three by the time he was a junior in high school. In his time in school and in the service, and in all of his time on the force, he had used his size and weight to his advantage, many times shutting down potential trouble before it began by merely standing up.

  But now, with his cane, his ashen complexion, and the sluggish limping gait caused by the pain pills he took, he felt small, unimportant, easily swallowed by the mass of humanity on the square.

  As with every time he left a physical therapy session, he vowed never to go back. What kind of therapy actually makes the pain worse? Whose idea was this? Not his. See you around, Matilda the Hun.

  He distributed his weight on the bench, finding a reasonably comfortable position. After a few moments he looked up and saw a teenaged girl crossing the square, weaving her way through the bike boys, the businessmen, the vendors, the tourists. Slender and athletic, feline in her movement, her fine, nearly white-blond hair was pulled back into a pony- tail. She wore a peach sundress and sandals. She had dazzlingly bright aquamarine eyes. Every young man under the age of twenty-one was thoroughly captivated with her, as were far too many men over twenty- one. She had about her a patrician poise that can only come from true inner grace, a cool and enchanting beauty that said to the world that this was someone special.

  As she got closer, Byrne realized why he knew all this. It was Colleen. The young woman was his own daughter and, for a moment, he nearly hadn't recognized her.

  She stood in the center of the square, looking for him, hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun. Soon she found him in the crowd. She waved and smiled the slight, blushing smile that she had used to her advantage her whole life, the one that got her the Barbie Bike with the pink-and-white handlebar streamers when she was six; the one that got her into the chichi summer camp for deaf kids this year, the camp her father could barely just afford.

  God, she is beautiful, Byrne thought.

  Colleen Siobhan Byrne was both blessed and cursed with her mother's incandescent Irish skin. Cursed, because she could sunburn in minutes on a day like this. Blessed because she was the fairest of the fair, her skin nearly translucent. What was flawless splendor at the age of thirteen would surely blossom into heart-stopping beauty as a woman in her twenties and thirties.

  Colleen kissed him on the cheek, and hugged him closely-but gently, fully aware of his myriad aches and pains. She thumbed the lipstick off his cheek.

  When had she started wearing lipstick? Byrne wondered.

  "Is it too crowded for you?" she signed.

  "No," Byrne signed back.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," Byrne signed. "I love crowds."

  It was a bald-faced lie, and Colleen knew it. She smiled.

  Colleen Byrne had been deaf since birth, caused by a genetic disorder that had planted far more obstacles in her father's path than her own. Where Kevin Byrne had wasted many years lamenting what he had arrogantly considered a handicap in his daughter's life, Colleen had simply attacked life full-on, never once slowing down to bemoan her alleged misfortune. She was an A student, a terrific athlete, highly proficient in American Sign Language, as well as being an expert lip-reader. She was even learning Norwegian Sign Language.

  A lot of deaf people, Byrne had learned a long time ago, were very straightforward in their communication, not wasting their time on a great deal of pointless, inhibited conversation the way hearing people did. Many operated on what was jokingly referred to as DST-Deaf Standard Time-a reference to the notion that deaf people tend to be late, owing to their penchant for long conversations. Once they got going, it was hard to shut them up.

  Sign language, although highly nuanced in its own right, was, after all, a form of shorthand. Byrne did his best to keep up. He had learned the language when Colleen was still very young, had taken to it surprisingly well, considering what a lousy student he had been in school.

  Colleen found a spot on the bench, sat down. Byrne had stopped at a Cosi and picked up a pair of salads. He was pretty sure that Colleen was not going to eat-what thirteen-year-old girl actually ate lunch these days? — and he was right. She took the Diet Snapple out of the bag, worked off the plastic seal.

  Byrne opened the bag, began to pick at his salad. He got her attention and signed: "Sure you're not hungry?"

  She gave him the look: Dad.

  They sat for a while, enjoying each other's company, enjoying the warmth of the day. Byrne listened to the dissonance of summertime sounds around them: the discordant symphony of five different types of music, the laughter of children, the high spirits of a political argument coming from somewhere behind them, the endless traffic noise. As he had so many times in his life, he tried to imagine what it was like for Colleen to be in a place like this, the deep silence of her world.

  Byrne put the remainder of his salad back in the bag, got Colleen's eye.

  "When do you leave for camp?" he signed.

  "Monday."

  Byrne nodded. "Are you excited?"

  Colleen's face lit up. "Yes."

  "Do you want me to give you a ride there?"

  Byrne saw the slightest hesitation in Colleen's eyes. The camp was just south of Lancaster, a pleasant two-hour ride west of Philadelphia. The delay in Colleen's answer meant one thing. Her mother was going to take her, probably in the company of her new boyfriend. Colleen was as poor at concealing emotions as her father was practiced at it. "No. I've got it covered," she signed.

  As they signed, Byrne could see people watching them. This was nothing new. He used to get upset about it, but had long since given that up. People were curious. A year earlier, he and Colleen had been in Fair- mount Park when a teenaged boy who had been trying to impress Colleen on his skateboard had hopped a rail and wiped out big time, crashing to the ground right near Colleen's feet.

  As he picked himself up, he tried to make light of it. Right in front of him, Colleen had looked at Byrne and signed: What an asshole.

  The kid smile
d, thinking he had scored a point.

  There were advantages to being deaf, and Colleen Byrne knew them all.

  As the businesspeople began to reluctantly make their way back to their offices, the crowd thinned a little. Byrne and Colleen watched a brindle-and-white Jack Russell terrier try to climb a nearby tree, harassing a squirrel vibrating on the first branch.

  Byrne watched his daughter watching the dog. His heart wanted to burst. She was so calm, so even. She was becoming a woman right before his eyes and he was scared to death that she would feel he had no part in it. It had been a long time since they lived together as a family, and Byrne felt that his influence-that part of him that was still positive-was waning.

  Colleen looked at her watch, frowned. "I've got to get going," she signed.

  Byrne nodded. The great and terrible irony of getting older was that time went way too fast.

  Colleen took their trash over to a nearby trash can. Byrne noticed that every breathing male within eyeshot watched her. He wasn't handling this well.

  "Are you going to be okay?" she signed.

  "I'm fine," Byrne lied. "See you over the weekend?"

  Colleen nodded. "I love you."

  "I love you, too, baby."

  She hugged him again, kissed him on the top of his head. He watched her walk into the crowd, into the rush of the noontime city.

  In an instant she was gone.

  He looked lost.

  He sat at the bus stop, reading The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary, a very important reference book for anyone learning to speak American Sign Language. He was attempting to balance the book on his knees while at the same time trying to fingerspell words with his right hand. From where Colleen stood, it appeared that he was speaking in a language either long dead or not yet invented. It certainly wasn't ASL.