Free My Brother's Keeper by Keith Gilman

few paces behind, allowing her the luxury of ignoring him if that’s what she preferred. She’d seemed intent on keeping their meeting a secret, though it wouldn’t remain a secret for very long, not if he was going to saddle up a stool at the Arramingo Club and start asking a lot of stupid questions.
    The light at the corner changed from green to red and the old man behind the wheel still sat there confused, his hat tilted back on his head, the nose of his Mercedes blocking the freshly painted crosswalk. The drivers behind him became infuriated. With no room to go around, all they could do was wait for him to figure it out: either shoot through the light as soon as it turned green or just after it turned red. Those were his only choices.
    The old cop in Lou was tempted to step out into all that congestion and start directing traffic but instead he watched from the sidewalk as Franny jumped into a black Audi and started it up. It purred like a cougar sunning itself on a rock. Franny put on a pair of dark sunglasses. He tried to help her with the door as she swung it open and it almost caught him in the knee. He straightened up and pushed the door gently closed.
    She lowered the window without turning her head and Lou leaned in. Her face was a mask behind the sunglasses, smooth and hard and unmoving. She had nothing more to say to him. She turned the volume up on the stereo and slammed the car into gear. Lou jumped back as she peeled out, forcing her way across two lanes of congested traffic in a U-turn that pointed her back down Lancaster Avenue and deeper into the city.
    Lou’s car was parked up the block in front of the camera shop. His cell phone beeped and he flipped it open. It was a text message from Joey. Joey’s text messages were beginning to read like pulp fiction. He knew that Lou wasn’t much of a talker on the phone and rather than listen to his sighs of impatience and his long silences, Joey had learned how to text. Lou often wondered how Joey managed the dexterity it required with those stubs he called thumbs. He read as he walked.
    Jimmy Patterson had caused a disturbance at Fortunato’s and got himself thrown out. He’d flung an empty beer glass at Butchy DeLuca, smashing a mirror behind the bar. The argument started after Jimmy got a full house on the video poker machine and DeLuca refused to pay out. Luckily Jimmy missed or it could have started a war with Joey in the middle. Joey thought he’d missed on purpose, that he just needed to flex his muscles. The point was don’t disrespect Jimmy Patterson and don’t turn your back on him either. Jimmy had made the same point in half the bars in West Philly. Joey had gotten him out of there and loaded into his Cadillac. He would drop Jimmy off and meet Lou back at Heshy’s.
    Maggie’s shift was over at four and Lou had promised to take her out for Chinese food at the Peking Dragon. It had become their custom, a quiet dinner once a week at their favorite restaurant. He’d taken her there as a child, before the separation and divorce. She’d always been mesmerized by the tropical fish floating aimlessly in hundred-gallon tanks. It was dark in the Peking Dragon and it seemed like the only light came from those aquariums. The fish seemed to glow in the clear water, brilliant yellows lacquered with black, rusty orange over translucent silver and azure blue with spots of white. But their eyes were opaque, black and round and empty as painted glass.
    Whether it was the colors or the slow, languid movement of the fish that captured their attention, Lou and Maggie could sip tea and stare at them complacently for hours. Sometimes they’d eat egg rolls or an occasional bowl of soup. Lou had been surprised to find himself hypnotized by the fish as well, matching Maggie’s fascination with their motion, constantly flowing, never still. He’d imagine himself swimming in one of those tanks, swimming as if in