“It wasn’t like your partner was saying,” said Gleason after we both listened a bit to Harvey from Huntingdon Valley, who was not too awful at all. “There wasn’t anything sexual about it.”

“You don’t have to hitch up your pants and talk about the Eagles. It doesn’t matter much to me.”

“But see, that’s the thing. Everyone thinks they understand when they think the worst. But the worst isn’t always the truth.”

“So what was the truth?”

“He was a kid in trouble. I was trying to help.” Gleason finished off his bourbon. “And that, my friend, is the whole sordid story.”

There was something in his voice that didn’t seem to care whether I believed him or not.

“How’d you meet him?” I said.

“There was a killing in Juniata. We crashed a drug house, looking for a witness. Seamus was cowering in a room up the stairs, hugging his guitar. I put away my gun, asked him if he could play that thing. He showed me.”

Priscilla came back with our drinks. I told her to make up another round and to run a tab. Gleason took a gulp of his bourbon and winced, more from the memories, I thought, than the drink. The Blue Hawaii was cold and too sweet, but it looked good in the glass. The thing I love about a blue drink is that it isn’t pretending to be anything other than a prissy, made-up concoction for people who can’t drink their whiskey straight. A cocktail with the courage of its lack of conviction.

“Was Seamus good at the guitar?” I said.

“Better than good. You ever hear any recordings of Robert Johnson playing his old Kalamazoo archtop?”

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t understand. Physically he was a mess, filthy, strung out, a black eye, but he could play some blues. So I took him out of there and bought him a cup of coffee. He told me all about the drugs, the things he had done with those friends of his, everything. It was a brutal, sad story, but I saw something in him. He was really sorry. In my racket it’s rare to see it like that, sincere and not put on as a show for a judge. So I got him treatment, got him a job running files. And when it started working out, I helped him even more. Let him stay at my place. We used to play guitar and sing together. Spirituals, believe it or not. I did what I could for him.”

“Like fixing his teeth.”

“God knows he needed it. I found a dentist to do it for free. Some guy who had come to the station, passing out his card, looking to do a little public service.”

“And the karate?”

“A boy that big, not able to defend himself. It wasn’t right. I asked myself, what would Elvis do? He’d teach him karate, so that’s what I did. I’m a third-degree black belt, I help out at an inner-city dojo on weekends. I brought him along. After enough years in homicide, you get tired of helping corpses. It was nice to help a boy with still some hope. And I was helping, I could tell. He cleaned up quick.”

How to get down with the King, Harvey from Huntingdon Valley. There was clapping, whistles. Next we have a first-timer. Let’s hear a warm welcome for Franz. Come on up, Franz, and do your thing.

“If he was so clean,” I said, figuring I could ignore the DJ, “what was he doing in the crack house where he was killed?”

Gleason closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“You ever find out?”

“I tried.”

Come on, Franz, no hiding. Let’s hear it for Franz, everybody. The crowd started chanting, “Franz, Franz, Franz!” Where are you, Franz?

“It’s hard to find the truth with a bullet,” I said.

“I didn’t go out there to kill that man, not that he didn’t deserve it. I was just looking for answers, but maybe, yeah, I was looking a little too hard. I saw Seamus’s body and I went a little over the edge.”

There you are, Franz. Sitting with our own Patrick Gleason. Franz, Franz, Franz. Come on down, Franz.

Gleason looked at the stage, then at me. “You’re Franz?”

“That’s my nickname in the lawyers’ bund.”

“It’s your turn then, big boy. Go on up.”

“I didn’t come here to sing.”

“You don’t have any choice,” said Detective Gleason. “Everybody sings. It’s karaoke night.”

17

I was caught in a trap. I couldn’t walk out. So instead I snatched down the rest of my Blue Hawaii, marched right to the stage, hopped on up, grabbed the mike, shielded my eyes from the spotlight. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but barrel forward with misplaced confidence.

“This is for the ladies out there,” I said, loosening my tie. “Just toss on up those hotel keys.”

That got a laugh, which was good, because then the music started.

A numb, dumb silence fell across the crowd at the first note. Jaws dropped and stayed dropped, eyes glazed, thumbs reached for ears. I don’t know if it was the beat, the tone, the key, maybe it was the lack of all three, but as I sang out on “Suspicious Minds,” I could feel the recoil of the audience. And there were grimaces of horror when I shook my hips, gut-wrenching, bladder-loosening horror. I was the Texas Chain Saw Massacre of karaoke night. At one point, during the chorus, I thought a cat was screeching somewhere in the corner of the room, and then I realized it was my voice coming out of the speakers.

Thank you, Franz, for that interesting rendition of a number one hit from 1969, said the DJ as the music faded out. It used to be one of our favorites.

I again shielded my eyes from the spotlight. “That seemed really short, didn’t it?”

Not to us it didn’t, Franz, said the DJ as heads shook in agreement across the club. Thank you so much for coming on down, and take care of that head cold.

“But there are more words scrolling up on the screen,” I said. “And what about the slow part? I was really looking forward to that slow part.”

And so were we, Franz, but trust us, there’s only so much damage a song can take. Next, all the way from Mantua, singing one of the good old old ones, and good advice for Franz on his singing career, let’s hear it for Marvelous Marv, performing “Surrender.”

An old bald man with a bent back and gnarled hands climbed onto the stage. His ears came up to my hip. He grabbed the mike out of my hands, shooed me away. “Get off my stage, you butcher,” said Marv in his rasp of a voice. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

And he did, the little crapper.

When I got back to the booth, Gleason was collapsed on the table, his head resting on his arms. I thought for a moment he had passed out, drunk with sorrow over the sad fate of Seamus Dent, but then I noticed his shoulders shaking with laughter.

“I told you I didn’t come here to sing,” I said.

“Is that what you call it?” He lifted his head, his cheeks wet with his tears.

“Was it that bad?”

“Like the bleat of a goat in heat.”

“Cute. You ever bring Seamus here?”

“Oh, yeah.” He smiled at the memory.

“How’d he do?”

“Seamus could sing. He did a version of ‘American Trilogy’ that would send you right straight to the army recruitment office. And his ‘In My Father’s House’ would bring even an atheist to tears.”

“So what happened? What was he doing with Red Rover? What was the fight about?”

“I don’t know,” said Gleason. “I just don’t know. I traced that bastard Red Rover back to his mother. I went alone, that was my mistake. My partner was on something else, and I should have waited, but I wanted to know. I knocked on the door. The mother answered. I was just identifying myself. Next thing I know, the bastard runs over me on his way out. I charge after him. He stops, whirls, pulls something out of his waistband. I didn’t have any choice.”

“Was there an investigation of the shooting?”

“There always is.”

“What did they find?”

“I came up clean.”