Last Chance for Glory Read Free

doin’?”
    “I’m doin’ okay.”
    “My name is Detective Brannigan. Do you wanna see my badge?”
    “No. I believe you.”
    “I need to talk to you, Billy. About something that happened two weeks ago.”
    “A few weeks?” That’s bad. Billy has problems remembering. He wants to make the cop happy so the cop will go away, but now he doesn’t think he can do it. “I can’t remember two weeks.”
    “No, Billy, this is something very important. This is something you can remember.”
    Billy shuts his eyes, attempts to remember two weeks ago. He sees a blur, a smudge. When he tries to concentrate, the smudge begins to spin.
    “Billy? Open your eyes, Billy.” The cop waits until Billy smiles, before continuing. “This is about a woman who was murdered near Gramercy Park? Do you know where that is?”
    Billy nods.
    “Someone told me that you killed the woman, Billy. He told me that you stabbed her with a knife. That would be very serious. Did you kill that woman, Billy?”
    Billy shakes his head. The smile fades. He’s not good at this, at explaining things.
    “I wouldn’t do anything like that,” he finally says.
    “I believe you, Billy, but when someone makes an accusation, I have to check it out. That’s my job. But it won’t take long. I promise. We’ll just go down to my office and straighten it out. I’ve got coffee and sandwiches there. We can have lunch. Do you wanna go with me?”
    Billy doesn’t know what “accusation” means, but he’s been on the street long enough to know that cops mean trouble. And that going someplace with a cop means bad trouble.
    “I wanna stay here,” he says. The smile is now frozen to his face. His lips feel numb.
    “Don’t you want to clear this up?”
    The cop seems unhappy, which Billy doesn’t understand. But the cop’s not mad, which is good.
    “Sure I’d like to,” Billy says, “but I didn’t do it.”
    “That’s the whole point, Billy. If we can just clear it up, you won’t be a suspect any more. But you have to tell me what you were doing when the murder happened.”
    “Two weeks ago?”
    “That’s right. On November twenty-seventh.”
    “What if I can’t remember?”
    “Don’t worry, Billy. I’ll help you remember. Between the two of us, we can work it out.”
    1:35 PM
    “Jesus, Billy, you’re not doin’ too well. You don’t seem to remember a damn thing.”
    “But I’m trying, Detective Brannigan. I’m trying as hard as I can.”
    “You drink a lot don’t you, Billy? An awful lot. You drink a lot of booze.”
    Billy hangs his head, nods yes.
    “Do you drink every day?”
    Another nod.
    “You know what that means, Billy? It means we can’t establish an alibi for you.”
    Billy Sowell looks up. “What’s an alibi?”
    “It means we can’t prove you were somewhere else when the murder was committed. By the way, did you know Sondra Tillson?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure, Billy? She was the lady who got murdered.”
    “I don’t know any ladies except for Batbrain Mary and Lisa MacCready. They live down by the bridge. The Williamsburg Bridge.”
    “I believe you, Billy, but we’re going to have to prove that.”
    Billy, perched on a stool in an otherwise empty room, a room with barred windows, watches Brannigan pace back and forth, back and forth. Billy wishes he’d never come to the station house with Detective Brannigan. He hasn’t had the sandwiches Detective Brannigan promised. He hasn’t even had a glass of water.
    “I got it.” Detective Brannigan stops pacing. He holds one finger in the air, a huge smile lighting his face. “We could check the evidence. All we need is a little bit of your hair and some of the hairs from your overcoat. And we need to take your picture to show to a witness. And we need a little bit of your blood, too.”
    “My blood?”
    “A little.”
    “With a needle?”
    “It won’t hurt, Billy. Just a teeny pinch.”
    “I don’t want a needle, Detective Brannigan. Can’t we find