Shutter Man Read online

  Jimmy Doyle had spent the night on his living room couch, his baseball bat in hand, his open blade next to him, drinking Cokes, waiting for Danny or Patrick Farren to come storming through the door.

  Neither did.

  The four friends met at the south end of Schuylkill River Park, where people from all over came to watch the fireworks.

  They gathered near the home plate on the ball field.

  When Jimmy showed up, a six-pack of Colt 45 in tow, the night officially commenced. The beer was warm, but it was Colt. Within fifteen minutes they all had a pleasant buzz. Then came the first of the fireworks.

  More than once the boys turned around to see Old Man Flagg watching them, his goofy neighborhood watch badge pinned to his shirt. He had clearly noticed them drinking the beer, but now that it was gone, there was nothing he could do about it.

  After the sixth massive volley, a canopy of red, white and blue sparks overhead, the four boys looked at each other.

  ‘The Pocket,’ they said in unanimity.

  The fireworks show was the best any of them had ever seen. Maybe it was the Colt.

  Earlier in the day, they had conscripted Dave’s two cousins, Big George and Little George, to retrieve the batteries from the sewer. Big George had moved the iron grate with relative ease, and Little George had found the batteries in short order. It had not rained, and the batteries were just fine.

  Tommy Doyle had paid for them, after all.

  Most of the fireworks show was spent communicating the whereabouts of neighborhood girls using the walkie-talkies.

  As the crowd prepared for the big spectacular finale, the four boys noticed a sideshow through the trees at the western end of the park. Apparently, someone had set off one of those spinning fire wheels. Because it was illegal to set your own fireworks off at Schuylkill River Park, the boys were automatically drawn to the sideshow, if for no other reason than to see who got busted.

  But as they made their way through the trees, they saw that it was not a fireworks side show.

  It was a police car.

  There were two officers standing in front of the vehicle, talking to a woman. Without getting closer, the four boys angled for a better position.

  The woman, they could now see, was Catriona’s mother. A man in a brown suit had his arm around her. He seemed to be propping her up.

  What the boys would forever recall was the slight delay between the time Catriona’s mother opened her mouth and the moment her scream reached their ears.

  There, in the headlights of the police car, they saw what had made the woman scream, the small form lying on the grass.

  It didn’t look real, but it was.

  Catriona Daugherty was dead. Catriona Daugherty was dead and the world would never be the same. The sun might come up in the morning, the Inquirer might hit the door on time, but nothing would ever be the same.

  Catriona wore the same lemon-yellow dress she’d worn the day before, but her hair ribbon was gone.

  ‘He’s here,’ Dave said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Who’s here?’

  ‘That psycho fuck. Des Farren. I saw him.’

  They all looked around. Des Farren was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Where?’ Kevin asked. ‘I don’t see him.’

  ‘By the tracks,’ Dave replied. ‘I saw him by the tracks.’

  They walked as quickly as they could without drawing attention to themselves. They reached the tracks and saw him.

  Des Farren was sitting on the ground, gazing at the moon. While fireworks were going off behind him, he was looking the other way. He had a single pink rose in his hands.

  ‘I’m gonna go tell the cops,’ Dave said.

  ‘No,’ Jimmy replied. He put a hand on Dave’s arm, stopping him. ‘I want you guys to keep him here.’

  Dave’s eyes grew wide. ‘What do you mean, keep him here? How do we do that?’

  Having earlier collected the walkie-talkies, Jimmy reached into his bag, took out three of them, handed one to Dave, one to Ronan, the third to Kevin. He held the last one in his left hand.

  ‘I want you guys to keep an eye on him,’ he said. ‘If he moves, I want you to let me know.’

  Dave looked confused. ‘Aren’t you gonna tell the cops?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you gonna tell them what we caught him doing yesterday?’

  ‘What, so he can tell the cops what I did to him? Just what I need. His fucking brothers are probably looking for me right now.’

  The reality of the huge mistake Jimmy had made bracing Des Farren settled over them all. They knew it was bad, but it seemed to be getting worse by the minute.

  Jimmy put a hand on each of Dave’s shoulders, squared the other boy in front of him. ‘I want you guys to keep an eye on him. The three of you. Split up, but don’t take your eyes off him. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, you tell me on the walkie. Don’t let him out of your sight.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘I’ll be right back.’

  A few moments later, as the final volley of fireworks began to light the night sky over Philadelphia, Kevin Byrne glanced to where his three friends had just been standing.

  The boys were already gone.

  The second week in July was the hottest on record. The Phillies slid to fourth place.

  On July 9th, the body of a man was found in the Schuylkill River, just beneath the South Street bridge. According to police, he had been shot once in the back of the head. A .38 bullet was found lodged in his neck. No weapon was recovered.

  The man was identified as Desmond Malcolm Farren, late of Schuylkill, no wife, no children, no place of employment.

  The homicide unit of the PPD launched an investigation. Due to the nature of the Farren family’s many criminal activities, it was thought that the murder was in some way connected to Desmond’s brothers Danny and Patrick, or to the legacy of their late father Liam.

  No arrest was made.

  II

  In the Shadow of the Spire

  2

  Philadelphia, 2015

  They circled the block twice, watching for people who were watching for people like them.

  They saw none.

  It was just before midnight on an unseasonably warm spring evening. Despite the heat, only a handful of people had their windows open, especially at the ground and basement levels, even though most of the windows had iron bars over them.

  Sometimes iron bars and heavily secured window air-conditioners were not enough to keep people out. There was a tale of a North Philly rapist who specialized in coming in through windows with portable air-conditioners. The man was eventually caught because he could not stop.

  Billy wondered if he would ever stop.

  As they pulled up to the curb, the driver cut the SUV’s headlights. From the distance came the din of talk radio. It was too far away, too indistinct, to discern the topic under discussion. Beneath this, the only sound was the hum of the vehicle’s engine.

  They watched the street. Lights went off, shades and blinds were drawn, doors were locked and chained. Televisions went black as street dogs circled three times and lay down to sleep.

  As one city shed its day, the other city–Billy’s city–slipped it on like a blistered skin.

  The man driving the SUV looked over, pointed at the row house. The house was in fine repair, looking to have recently had a red-brick facade installed. Each window had a flower box in full bloom.

  ‘He’s awake,’ the driver said.

  Billy glanced at him. The desire to look inside his coat was all but overwhelming. He found a way not to do it.

  ‘Now?’ he asked.

  The driver shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  The driver was Billy’s age. He had sandy hair. But unlike Billy’s hair, which he wore to his shoulders, the driver’s hair was cropped short like a soldier’s. He had hard blue eyes, the color of a comic-book sky, as well as a scar on his right cheek, a ropy fingerling that ran from j
ust below his eye to the top of his cheek, about an inch in length.

  Billy could not recall with any precision or confidence how the man got this scar, although he had been present. He remembered the moment as he remembered everything from his first life, as if seeing it through a panel of glass block, a diffused and long-shadowed play, figures frozen in white ice.

  They said Billy immediately picked up a broken teacup and cut his own face in exactly the same manner. A folie à deux, one doctor called it, an overweight woman named Roxanne. She had brittle red hair, and an ear-splitting laugh.

  Like the man sitting next to Billy tonight, Billy did not go to the hospital to have his wound treated. His kind never did. It would have been impractical, they said, engendering too many questions. As it was sometimes uttered on TV, Billy did not require stitches.

  But that was many years ago. Billy didn’t think of himself as being this age, or see himself as others must see him. He was twenty-six years of this life. Ten before that.

  The driver retrieved a small vial from his coat pocket, unscrewed the cap. He took a furious snort of methamphetamine, looked into the rear-view mirror and wiped his nose. He took a final hit on his cigarette, carefully butted it out in the ashtray. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  Without a word, Billy opened the SUV’s passenger door and stepped into the night.

  Having unscrewed the overhead bulb, they stood on the back porch. The driver looked at Billy, nodded.

  ‘Coat,’ he said softly.

  Billy opened his coat. There were six photographs pinned inside, on the right, three rows of two. The man pointed to the second picture in the top row. It was a daytime portrait, taken against a backdrop of a painted concrete block wall such as one might find in a prison yard, or a department of motor vehicles.

  The man in the photograph wore dark blue workman’s coveralls, a lighter blue shirt beneath, buttoned to the top. Over the right breast of the coveralls was a ravel of red thread, perhaps where a name had once been embroidered.

  The man in the photograph was wearing exactly what the man standing next to Billy was wearing.

  He was the man standing next to Billy.

  Billy looked at the name printed in blocky black letters at the bottom of the photograph.

  ‘Sean,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, Billy.’

  With one hand on the grip of his Makarov, Billy rang the doorbell.

  A few seconds later, they heard the sound of the security chain moving left to right, the turn of a deadbolt.

  The man who opened the door was older than Billy had expected. He wore a lemon-yellow cotton robe over dark-blue pajamas. Billy saw that there was a brown stain on the right lapel of the man’s robe. Perhaps he’d been drinking hot cocoa when the bell rang. Perhaps the doorbell startled him.

  Yellow robe. Blue pajamas. Stain.

  Billy glanced down. There was nothing in the man’s hands. He knew to watch people’s hands when they talked to him. Watch a man’s hands, watch the man, his father always said. He noticed that the man had dirt beneath his fingernails. He might be a gardener, Billy thought, or a tradesman, though he was surely retired at this age. Perhaps he had a hobby workshop in the basement. Billy made a mental note to take a look, if there was time, even though he knew he wouldn’t remember to do this.

  ‘Can I help you boys?’ the old man asked. He took turns looking at each of them, a guarded smile on his lips.

  ‘We’re having a bit of car trouble,’ Billy said. He pointed over his shoulder, across the vacant lot, to the next street over. Like Billy, the SUV was in shadow. There was no street lamp above.

  ‘Are you now?’ the old man asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The old man leaned forward, glanced one way down the alley, then the other. There were only a handful of lights burning in the row houses, over the rear entrances to the small retail stores. Night lights and security lights.

  ‘No cell phones?’ the man asked.

  Sean held up an empty hand, the one not on the grip of the weapon in his pocket.

  ‘Ran out of minutes,’ he said. ‘Forgot to top it up at Radio Shack.’

  The old man nodded in kinship. ‘Happy to help,’ he says. ‘You boys stand tight. I’ll just go get the cordless and bring it to ya. Call whoever ya like. I got the unlimited long-distance.’

  Billy went through the door first, pushing past the old man with ease. The kitchen and eating areas were small, just like most row houses of this design. To the right was a stove and refrigerator. To the left, the sink and cupboards. The only thing on the refrigerator, held in place by a ceramic magnet in the shape of a banana, was a coupon for takeout pizza.

  Ahead was a short hallway leading to the front room. Halfway down the hall, on the right, there was a small bathroom, long in need of upgrade, as well as staircases leading upstairs and down to the basement.

  Billy heard the back door close and latch, footsteps approaching.

  A few moments later the old man walked down the hallway into the living room.

  Yellow robe. Blue pajamas. Stain.

  Billy picked up a dining room chair and set it in the center of the living room. He then walked to the front windows, and the front door, making sure that the blinds were drawn and that there were no lights on in front of the house. He checked the deadbolt. The door was locked.

  When he returned, Sean had the old man seated in the chair. The old man’s face had gone slack. His eyes were open, but they were drooping. In short order Sean had his duffel bag unzipped, the duct tape removed. He tore off a length and wrapped it around the old man’s head, covering his mouth. A few seconds later he had the old man’s hands bound together behind him, his legs now secured to the legs of the chair, around the ankles.

  Billy knelt down in front of the old man, waited for him to focus on his face. The old man no longer looked familiar. Billy had his picture in his book. He decided to look at it later, before they left.

  ‘Is there anyone else in the house?’ he asked.

  The old man just stared. It seemed as if he might be about to go into shock. Behind him, in the corner, Billy noticed a green oxygen canister. There was a thin tube wrapped around the nozzle at the top; a nasal cannula dangled down. This close, he could hear a slight wheeze in the man’s breathing.

  ‘I need you to answer me,’ Billy said. ‘Shake your head no, or nod your head yes.’ He leaned in, close to the man’s right ear. ‘I will ask you once again. Is there anyone else in the house right now?’

  The old man slowly shook his head.

  ‘Okay. Is anyone else expected here soon?’

  Again the old man shook his head.

  ‘Good,’ Billy said. ‘We’re going to do what we need to do, then we will leave you in peace.’

  With the old man silenced and secured, Billy fully took in the room. It was clearly a retiree’s burrow, with sturdy, comfortable furniture, an oval braided rug in the center. The recliner had far more wear than the loveseat and sofa, which were all upholstered in a deep green plaid. There was an unopened package of butter mints on the end table, next to a small glen of amber pill vials. None of the cascaded magazines on the coffee table were current. They all had the address labels cut out.

  Billy again considered the man before him.

  Yellow robe. Blue pajamas. Stain.

  ‘It’s not him,’ Billy said.

  Sean looked at the man, back at Billy. ‘Of course it’s him.’

  Billy reached into his bag, took out his tattered book of photographs. Strangers all. Yet each person had a face, a name, a connection, every one an ember glowing red and round like a cigarette lighter in a darkened car.

  Billy found the photograph he was looking for. It was stuck to the page with a dot of child’s kindergarten paste.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It’s not him. He’s not the man we want.’

  Sean took the book from his hands. He walked over to the old man, held the photograph next to his face. ‘It’s him. I told you
it’s him.’

  Billy tried to search his memory for the first time he saw the man, back to when he took this very picture. There was nothing there. It was blank canvas, white and opaque.

  ‘We’re making a mistake,’ he said. ‘It won’t work if we make a mistake.’

  The old man began to tremble. With lightning quickness Sean tore the duct tape from his mouth. The old man gulped for air.

  ‘Which room is your bedroom?’

  The old man opened his mouth. A few syllables tumbled forth.

  ‘Fuh… fuh…’

  ‘First room at the top?’ Sean asked, his impatience boiling to the surface.

  As Sean ran up the stairs, taking three at a time, Billy pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the old man, wondering how they could have made this error.

  A few moments later, Sean returned to the front room, a bundle of clothing in his arms. He took the M&P 9 mm semi-automatic from his waistband and placed it on the dining room table.

  He reached into his pocket, took out his straight razor, flicked it open and with four short cuts had the tape removed from the old man’s hands and feet.

  ‘Stand up,’ he said.

  The old man did not move.

  Sean picked up his M&P, rocked back the hammer. He placed the barrel of the weapon against the back of the man’s head.

  ‘Stand up, or I will put your fucking brains in your fucking lap.’

  The man tried to stand, but Billy could see that his legs would not support him. He stepped forward and offered his hand. The old man took it. The skin on the man’s palm was soft. Whatever he had done in life, he had not been a tradesman, Billy thought.

  Sean rummaged through one pile of clothing on the floor, extracted a blue dress shirt and a burgundy necktie. In the second pile he found a navy-blue two-button blazer.

  ‘Take off your robe, take off your pajama top, and put this shit on.’

  With arthritic slowness, the old man took off his pajama top, slipped into the dress shirt. His hands were trembling, his fingers knotty from the joint disease.

  He put on the blazer but could not tie his tie. Billy did it for him.