Free Godchild by Vincent Zandri

MOURNING!
    It was a black-and-white photo I had probably seen before in passing maybe back in 1995 while I was still warden at Green Haven Prison. A photo that showed a man who would mean absolutely nothing to me, until a year later when he would mean everything. Just a simple, grainy black-and-white shot of a defeated Richard clutched tightly to Renata’s arm —more for his own support than hers—as they descended the stairs outside St. Mary’s Cathedral, dressed all in black. But it wasn’t them I was concerned with. What concerned me now was the man who stood only a couple of people back. The man walking out with the crowd of mourners toward what must have been a long line of waiting limousines. A burly man with an earring in his left earlobe and a thin mustache that barely covered his lip and a shiny, shaved head.
    The Bald Man.
    Up close and personal.

Chapter 10

    I dialed Tony.
    He answered after the third ring. Music in the background, some voices spilling across the earpiece. Men and women.
    “What’s up?”
    I said, “I’ll take the job.”
    He breathed. “I thought you wanted to sleep on it.”
    “I can explain tomorrow.”
    “I’ll get started,” he said.
    I hung up.

Chapter 11

    In the dream she holds the newborn Charlie in her arms. She is crouched at the knees, the baby cradled over her shoulder while she runs the hath, holding her free hand under the warm—getting warmer—water. She feels the good feel of Charlie’s warm face cuddled into that sensitive space between her shoulder and neck, feels his warm breath. She can’t remember ever being so happy. So happy, she hasn’t even thought about writing. Her computer just sits there on the desk in the bedroom, idle. And she doesn’t care.
    What a trip. Having a little baby. What a fantastic trip.
    And as she sets the baby into the water, she feels the bathwater soaking her cotton shirt sleeves, feels it soaking her entire shirt, as the baby slips under the water, headfirst. .
    She awakes in a pool of wet.
    Startled.
    The mustached man is back in her cell. He’s alone this time and he’s just tossed an entire bucket of water on her.
    “1 hope you’re ready to talk,” he says .

Chapter 12

    At half-past seven in the morning I was sitting at the counter of the downtown Dunkin Donuts. While the early-bird suits rushed past the picture windows, briefcases in hand, on their way to their office cubbies, I was attempting to sort out my intentions regarding the Barnes job over black coffee and two blueberry cake doughnuts. The Dunkin Donuts was set between a Burger King and Breugger’s Bagels and was located only a short walk from Tony’s Pearl Street office. The place was new and it occupied what had once been a Buster Brown Shoes back when I was a kid. Back before all the downtown shops were forced to vacate the empty city streets and move out to the mall, where they died an even slower death. Before people could eat doughnuts at plastic-covered tables inside window spaces that once displayed the newest in children’s footwear.
    The night had been a long one.
    What little sleep I got had been interrupted by long interludes of lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling, at the red neon letters that reflected backward against the ceiling, thinking the same thoughts I was thinking now. Thoughts about the Bald Man, thoughts about Barnes and Renata. Thoughts about connecting the three together. If the man in the photo was actually the Bald Man, what had he been doing at Charlie Barnes’s funeral? Were the Barneses and the Bald Man friends? Were they family? Was I out of my mind for even making the connection? Or was I just plain reaching for something that didn’t exist?
    Without a name or identification of some sort, I had no idea who the man in the photo really was. What I did know was that he looked an awful lot like the man I saw driving the black Buick. But in a real way, it was reason enough to take on the job of going after Renata