Supernatural Noir

When she reaches the corner, Sylvia lifts her hand to wave. Louis shoves his hands in the pocket of his slacks in a gesture meant to show his irritation.

Behind Louis, a tall, burly man, wearing a black woolen overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low to hide his face, appears on the sidewalk. His stride is purposeful. With his left hand he draws a handgun from the pocket of his coat and swings it up in a smooth arc. Sylvia’s heart and lungs turn to ice water, and she opens her mouth to call a warning.

The muzzle of the gun flares. Then, in unison with the crack of the pistol’s report, a hole appears in Louis’s face, producing a spray of brain and blood and teeth to shower the sidewalk before he collapses. The giant of a man leans down and puts another bullet in the head of Sylvia Newman’s lover.

Sylvia pivots on her toes and hurries back the way she came.

——

Sylvia did not attend Louis Towne’s funeral, but I did. Being Towne’s lawyer, I felt a professional obligation to say farewell to my client; the decision certainly had nothing to do with respect or affection for the man.

The service was held at St. Michael’s Cathedral, an institution to which Towne had donated considerably over the years. A bishop presided over the ceremony, standing behind the altar and speaking exalted words above a polished mahogany coffin that contained the earthly remains of a base and violent man—a man I had come to see as evil in every possible way. The irony that the church should so laud such a monster seemed lost on the other mourners. Members of the congregation wept and held each other for comfort. Hard faces, streaked with tears, looked heavenward for answers. “Why?” a woman sobbed in the pew ahead of mine.

I, too, asked why. Why had it taken so long for God to rid the world of this filth? At least they’d kept the coffin closed for the mass, so I didn’t have to lay my eyes on him again.

Louis Towne had come to me fifteen years ago to hire my services. Despite ample clues—unheeded because of my naivetй and a certain level of professional denial—it took me a year to discover the nature of my client’s business, and I’d almost dropped him on the spot once I did. But the truth was Towne paid well. He paid on time. And Towne scared me. Part of the fear was rational; he was a gun-toting thug, whose curriculum vitae included maiming and murder and a hundred lesser crimes. In this, he was not unique. More than likely, dozens of men who had acquired the same level of brutal experience occupied the cathedral’s pews, but Towne’s intimidation did not end with the obvious. There was another level to his threat, one which I could only call mystical. Even before he entered a room I would feel the air thicken, grow dense with his detestable presence. Sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, Towne’s eyes would harden and he’d begin speaking phrases in Latin. Occasionally a familiar word would emerge from the babble, and though I could never put together exactly what he was saying, hearing him quote this dead language soon had the power to shrivel my skin into goose flesh.

Ahead of me and to the left, a man with broad shoulders bowed his head, revealing a scarred nape. I wondered if he had carried his gun into the cathedral, and then I wondered how many murderers shared the room with me, and the mockery of God and His house settled in my gut like writhing worms.

I didn’t buy into the macho glamour of the mobs. I saw nothing honorable in the rackets, and the lifestyle they promoted—easy wealth carried over the bodies of the ignorant and unfortunate. They talked about respect and brotherhood and family, but it was all grease for the cogs, making sure the greed machine didn’t break down. Friends were as expendable as rivals if it cleared the path to a buck.

At the altar, the bishop began a prayer in Latin. I shuddered.

——

Sylvia carries a photograph of her father in her purse. He is tall and wiry, and his flat nose and lipless mouth call to mind the face of a python.

Sylvia is nine years old. She is on the floor watching television when she hears her father shouting. Her body tenses, and a web of ice-cold filaments locks to the back of her skull. Matt, her older brother, shouts, and a great crash follows. Her father bellows, his voice shaking the thin walls of the house like an approaching train.

This scene is familiar to Sylvia. Her father is at turns sweet and doting and cruel and violent. Alcohol flicks the switch. At least once a week her father beats her siblings, laying them flat like a scythe moving through wheat. He has never raised his hand to Sylvia, but that fact does nothing to alleviate her fear. Even so young she understands the indiscretion of blind rage.

Matt comes charging into the living room and barrels into the kitchen. He throws open the back door and vanishes into the night.

Sylvia’s father stumbles into the room, growling deep in his throat like an angry dog. He swings his head from side to side and then his eyes lock on Sylvia, causing the icy web at her skull to spread over her entire body. She crawls away from the man and climbs to her feet as her father stomps forward. Confused and frightened, she follows Matt’s path, but she stops in the kitchen. She doesn’t want to run from her father, shouldn’t have to run from him.

“You brats ruined my life,” he says. Spit foams at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are hard as glass and burn hate as if lit from within. “I could have gone places.”

Backed to the stove, Sylvia pulls a saucepan of boiling water off the burner. She ignores the too-hot handle, and splashes her father’s crotch with the contents, and when he bends over, howling in pain, she cracks the saucepan across his skull. He drops to his knees, and she hits him again.

——

Sylvia checks her hair in the reflection of the glass door before pulling it open. She enters Club Barlow like a movie star walking the red carpet, wearing the awkward smile of grief she has spent hours practicing in front of a mirror—makes a show of waving at familiar faces, some of which aren’t even looking her way. She walks through the room, her steps landing in perfect time to the bossa nova track pouring from the club’s speakers. She takes a small booth on the far side of the dance floor with a gilt mirror at her back, and when the waitress comes for her order, she says, “Martini. Dry.”

The dance floor is empty. Nobody dances anymore. Sylvia thinks that’s a shame.

As she sips her drink a series of men come to her table. They do not sit beside her. Instead, they lean in close and tell Sylvia they are sorry for her loss, and if she ever needs anything—anything at all—she should call them. She promises to do so, though she never will. Their definition of “needing anything” goes no further than her crotch. Louis’s murder has left her a pretty shell, vacant on the sand, and every fucking hermit crab on the beach is trying to wriggle its way in. Sylvia expects this. In fact, she knows it will work to her advantage, but not with these men. None of them has what Sylvia needs. They run their numbers and sell their smack and boost electronics from the backs of trucks. Graceless. Useless. Before her first drink is gone, she has already tucked five business cards into her handbag.

Across the room she sees Mickey Rossini, the man she was hoping to find. He is a large man, with thick salt-and-pepper hair brushed back from his brow in a lush wave. His suit is ash gray and cheap. With his arm around a bleach job half his age, he looks as happy as a bear with a mouth full of honey. His overly broad grin and hooded eyes show he’s devoted much of his night to drinking. He has a reputation among the ladies—gentle, sweet, affectionate. Sylvia thinks that’s a shame, though she can live with it until she gets what she needs. She stands from the booth and smoothes the sides of her dress before lifting her handbag and crossing to Rossini’s table.