The Fall-Down Artist (26 page)

All of
ten minutes. That's as long as he took.

Dorsey watched Father Melcic standing over the coffin, mumbling his way through a small black prayerbook. The coffin sat on a wheeled gurney standing at the communion rail's center gates; the priest held the prayer book to his chest and blessed the air above it with the sign of the cross. Finished, he motioned for the undertaker to wheel the coffin away, up the center aisle of the church.

All of ten minutes, Dorsey thought again, and you sleep-walked all the way.

The six mourners had taken the first two pews to the right of the center aisle, three in each. Dorsey stood in the second aisle behind Al and watched Father Melcic retreat across the altar to the sanctuary. “Give anything to the priest yet?” Dorsey asked, tapping Al on the shoulder.

“Cash.” Al tilted back on his heels to whisper his reply. “Twenty-five. Should've used a check. Could've stopped payment.”

Martin Dorsey, dressed in dark blue and wearing a black mourner's band on his left upper arm, stepped from the first pew to follow the coffin. In the aisle he waited to take the arm of Mrs. Rosek, and Al followed solemnly behind. Waiting in the second pew for Bernie and Ironbox Boyle to step out ahead of him, Dorsey considered the difference between Father Melcic and Father Jancek. This guy here,
Melcic, he's only got ten or twelve years on Jancek, but they've been hard ones and they show. Years spent putting the fear of God in guys who got drunk and beat their families and slapped their wives around, and years spent knocking the stuffing out of kids who were two steps away from the juvenile detention center. So Melcic is all business and hard at the edges, a little bitter and disillusioned, while Jancek stays young drinking the elixir of public acclaim. Young enough to have an older man die.

Dorsey started up the center aisle, keeping a few paces behind Mrs. Boyle. As they moved outside to the church steps, facing the cramped row houses of Twenty-second Street, Dorsey spotted a white van with a Channel Three logo parked ten feet behind the hearse. A two-man film crew kept the light and the camera trained on the coffin as it was wheeled down a handicapped ramp and across the sidewalk to the hearse. Without success, Dorsey searched the street for Sam Hickcock.

“The voice-over, they do that later.” Martin Dorsey stood at his son's side. “In the studio. The reporter adds the narration as they play the tape for editing. You learn that when you try to get elected in the so-called Electronic Age. They'll want shots of us, too.” Martin Dorsey gestured to Mrs. Boyle, and she followed as he descended the steps and crossed the sidewalk to his rented car and driver. As he had predicted, the camera followed him each step of the way.

Bernie told Dorsey he had to get back to the office and left, saying he would call later. Out on the sidewalk, satisfied that the coffin had been loaded into the hearse without mishap, Al told the undertaker he could start for the cemetery. “We'll visit the grave later,” Al said, after rejoining his wife and Dorsey at the top of the steps. “The priest won't be there for the last farewell, so there's no sense in goin' now.”

Rose agreed and invited Dorsey back to the bar for lunch. “We hoped Bernie and your father would've come. Hoped to make something of a wake out of it.” She was all South
Side in Dorsey's eyes. Short and squat, with years of hard and devoted work showing on her face but not in her eyes. They stayed clear and bright with love. That face could work you over but good, and the eyes said you were better off for it.

“I'll be along this evening,” Dorsey said.

Rose dug into her square black purse. “Better give this to you now, then. Good thing I brought it along.” She handed a small note-sized white envelope to Dorsey.

Slipping a thumbnail under the flap, Dorsey tore open the envelope and took out a color snapshot of Russie and his father sitting at dinner. The setting, decorated for Christmas, was his father's dining room. On the back, in what must have been Russie's scrawl, the photo was dated
Christmas Day, 1973
. When you were in the service, Dorsey reminded himself. Most likely, Ironbox took the shot.

“It was in the drawer where he kept what he figured to be his important papers,” Al said. “Russie, I mean. Him havin' no family anybody knows of, we had to sort out the stuff. The clothes, they all went to St. Vincent de Paul's. There was some more stuff like this: souvenirs. There was a stack of old ball-game tickets, thick as your hand is long. Mostly from Forbes Field and basketball at the Arena. Some of your old games, I bet. We might frame a bunch of 'em, hang it behind the bar.”

Dorsey slipped the photo into the envelope and put it in his coat pocket. “Thanks, Al. You too, Rose. Thanks a lot.”

“Take care,” Rose said, patting his arm. “You look after yourself. The big one, the guy they showed grabbing at you on the TV. That son of a bum, he's still around. You take good care.”

As Al and Rose walked away, descending the church steps, Dorsey dug into his pocket to retrieve the snapshot. Dressed in coat and tie, Martin Dorsey sat at the head of the table, his glass raised in a holiday toast. Russie sat to his left, wearing a plaid flannel shirt and a dark green tie. Neither one—neither the old man nor Russie—ever mentioned
it, or any other get-together that might have taken place, except for when the old man slipped Russie a five for a new wax job on his car. The old man must have it in him, he thought. Look at him: one hell of a picture, and it never made its way into a newspaper or election brochure.

The heavy oak church door behind Dorsey opened and Father Melcic stepped out, pulling at the hem of his black cassock to keep it from catching as the door closed. Against the cold, he wore a heavy sweater of matching black. Taking Dorsey's hand, he offered his condolences. “Nice thing you and the others did, arranging for the memorial service. Wish I could have done more for you, but with no proof of the deceased being Catholic, there was only so far I could go. But it was a very good thing you did. Most indigents go from the morgue to the grave without a blessing.”

“He was no indigent,” Dorsey said, his voice carrying a sting. “He had a roof over his head that he paid the rent on each month. The guy worked all his life and had a pension coming from the county. He was just alone.”

“My misunderstanding,” Father Melcic said in an even voice. “Still, it was a nice thing. I suppose you're waiting for your friend?”

“My friend just left. In the back of a hearse.”

The priest looked at Dorsey and shook his head. “You feel bad, I know. But I was referring to the fellow who is still inside.” Father Melcic again shook his head and walked off.

Dorsey stepped into the vestibule, ticking off a list of possible mourners, wondering who he and Al had forgotten. None of the names caused a stir as he worked his way through the bar patrons and Carson Street people who might have known Russie. County workers were out too, he thought. Russie had been retired for years.

Dorsey slipped through the swinging doors into the church proper and spotted a man who had not been there before, kneeling in one of the front rows near the altar, far to the left and near the side door. He wore a trenchcoat
with the collar turned up, leaving only his bald pate exposed. Dorsey started down the center aisle, walking softly, respecting the man's prayers. When Dorsey was halfway down the aisle, the man blessed himself, rose to his feet, and began moving to the far end of the pew. Dorsey was somewhat surprised; he had not expected the man to be so short. Stepping out into the side aisle, the man made a half turn toward the altar and genuflected. Only then did Dorsey see the gray and white of the beard and the silver wire-frame eyeglasses.

“Jancek!”

Dorsey watched the priest jump at the sound of his voice and quickly turn to face him. As recognition worked its way across Father Jancek's face, Dorsey started forward, sliding sideways through a pew, careful not to trip over the kneeler. Backpedaling, Father Jancek made for the side door, reaching backward for the door handle. He went through the door as Dorsey reached the aisle.

Sprinting to the door, Dorsey seethed, outraged at the desecration. No cameras, no press release, he thought, pushing open the exit. There's no mileage to get out of this, no chance to show his piety and his ability to pray for the enemy's casualties. Dorsey chugged down the steps to the sidewalk and spotted Father Jancek climbing into the rear seat of a worn and rusted Chrysler. He watched as the Chrysler screeched away from the curb toward an intersection, where it blew through a stop sign and turned right, disappearing onto Carson.

Standing at the curb, Dorsey wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand and pulled at his tie. “Fuckin' bastard round-collar. The fuck is he doin'?” He spat into the gutter. Helps the deceased become the deceased, and he wants the honor of saying the requiem. Dorsey shook his shoulders to work out the hatred, rolling his head to loosen the neck muscles. Satisfied, he gathered his coat around him and smoothed the lapels. It was then he felt a gentle yet firm nudge at the base of his spine.

“Slowly, very slowly.”

The gunman, Jesus Christ, the gunman. Dorsey recognized the smooth southern voice, free of the hard edge of a northern city. He made a cautious half-turn and faced the black man who had sent Damjani and his partner packing. Sent 'em packing, he thought, after Russie was face down in the slush. The gunman worked a wide smile across his face, exposing a gold-capped tooth, just left of center. He was as tall as Dorsey but slender. Dorsey likened his skin tone to well-polished black marble.

“Hell of a gun you got there,” Dorsey said, looking down at the automatic, its barrel pointed just to the right of his coat's center seam. Stay with it, he told himself, stay calm and play it out. As if there was a choice. “No Saturday-night special, right?”

“That's true,” the gunman said. “Forty-five. It'll get you through the whole week.”

A dark late-model Riviera pulled up to the curb and its black driver slipped across the front seat and pushed open the passenger door. “Hop in,” the gunman said, pushing Dorsey inside with the gun barrel.

“Thought you were sent to look after me.” The gunman had climbed into the backseat and Dorsey addressed him through the rearview mirror.

“The other night,” the gunman said, “I was lookin' after you. Today I'm fetchin' you.”

The Riviera cruised across the Birmingham bridge, away from South Side. In the rearview Dorsey watched the gunman, pistol hanging loosely in his hand, and wondered if the Chrysler carrying Father Jancek had just taken the same route. Well, Dorsey, at least you get to ride in a nicer car. Jancek or Stockman, either one, sent two guys to crack your skull and the strong-arm man in the backseat pulls you out of the fire. Now the same strong-arm man is the snare in the trap baited with the priest. You're the detective in this car, so where's the logic? Tell us how it all comes together.

“I'm meeting the priest, huh?” Dorsey asked.

“Sure, if that's what you want.” The gunman peered out
the window and down at the river. “Headed for the Hill. You ever hear this one, Dorsey? This is supposed to be the longest bridge in the world. Goes from Poland to Africa. Polacks in South Side, niggers on the Hill. A white guy told it to me. But I like it.”

At the foot of the bridge, the driver, silent and concentrating on the road, pushed the accelerator, and the Riviera roared through the intersection and up a steep grade. Dorsey watched the streets go from mean to worse, block after block of gutted buildings and collapsing wooden homes, some with Insulbrick hanging in sheets from the walls. Between the buildings were weed-covered lots with paths beaten through them. City weeds, Dorsey thought, the kind that look eternally gray and stand seven feet tall. Excellent spots for dumping stolen cars, moving junk, or just taking a wine-drunk piss. And Father Jancek's old parish, the black one, is nearby. Dorsey's palms went wet and clammy, and he tried to convince himself that he was safe. That whatever this was he'd come out in one piece. The media coverage, it makes you invulnerable. Your picture's been all over the papers and the tube. You turn up dead, and the only suspects are the priest, Personal Injury, and the Movement. But who says you're going to turn up? Think about it. Might be different if you just disappeared. No body, no crime, and no charges. And it blows over when the cops get tired of looking. My God. Jesus fuckin' Christ.

The Riviera went left onto Centre Avenue, the driver handling the steering wheel with just the tip of a finger. Thick through the shoulders and thicker yet at the waist, he wore a slouch cap with the visor pulled low. Dorsey wondered if he was armed but realized it made no difference. He knows you won't make a move when the car slows for a turn, which it hasn't. Or if we have to stop for a red light. Must be one bad son of a bitch in the back seat.

They went another two blocks along Centre, and Dorsey's pulse quickened with each black face and boarded window they passed. The driver made a fast right and then an even quicker left into an alley running parallel to Centre.
The Riviera pulled over by the rear door of a building facing Centre, the driver's-side tires resting on the curb. The driver killed the engine and struggled out from behind the steering wheel.

“This is it.” The gunman tapped Dorsey's shoulder with the gun barrel. “Gotta go inside.”