‘But Kathy was charged with the murder.’
‘Charles, you’re gettin’ ahead of the story. So we’re in the bar with Sparrow, and we wanna take her back to the hospital. But the whore won’t go. She’s sweatin’ and she’s got the shakes real bad. Lou figures she’s strung out from withdrawal pains. So he empties out his damn wallet. It was maybe eighty dollars, a fortune to a sick junkie. And he slides the money down the bar. Now Sparrow says, „Her name is Kathy, and I’m tellin’ you that kid is unnatural. She could be alive.“ And Lou says, „No, Sparrow – only if you believe in Superman comic books. Kathy was just a little girl… She didn’t fly away… She died.“‘held up his glass and stared at the last drops of liquid gold. ‘There’s not much difference between me and a junkie. As long as I got my booze, I’m an okay guy. But take it away from me?’ He shook his head. ‘Much as I like you, Charles, I’d slit your throat for the next drink. With Sparrow it was heroin. Well, she’s too bloody to work the street. No money to score her next needle. She’s dope-sick, dying for a fix, but she pushes Lou’s money back across the bar and says, „You gotta find the kid. She might be hurt.’„
‘So she knew Kathy was alive.’
‘No, she didn’t. That’s the kicker. Sparrow was going on faith. And that’s what the whore was buying when she gave the money back. She had to make Lou believe in Kathy, too. Because the kid might be out there alone in the dark, maybe hurt real bad.’drained his glass. ‘That night, Sparrow was more of a man than I was. Well, she’s got our attention. She says this drag queen commissioned the kid to steal parts off a Jaguar. Sparrow only found out ‘cause Kathy had to ask what a Jag was before she could rob one. Now this happened way before the dicks tell Sparrow the kid is dead. She’s still in the hospital and thinkin’ ahead to her next needle. She tells Kathy about this rich yuppie who trolls East Village clubs and whores every weekend. And he’s got a Jag. Well, it’s Saturday night. I’m three sheets to the wind when Lou grabs my arm. And off we go with Sparrow.’fools with absolute faith in comic-book heroes.could still see Lou Markowitz driving through the wet streets at a crawl of ten miles an hour, haunting every place where they had ever seen Kathy, chased her and lost her. It was insane to believe that the child had escaped from that fire. Yet they drove on through drizzling rain. ‘We knew she was dead, but we couldn’t stop looking for her. How crazy was that?’if it were happening all over again, Riker watched his old friend tune the car radio. Rock ‘n’ roll did not suit him that night. Lou picked a station that played bluesy music from an earlier era. There were pauses between the sad notes and phrases, like a conversation with the sorry man behind the wheel. ‘And then we found the Jag. Lou pulls over to the curb and cuts the lights.’three of them listened to a sweet ripple of ivory keys tapering off in the low notes. Three pairs of eyes were trained on the sports car parked across the street. Piano chords dropped into spaces of silence, like footsteps of a child. And then, as if Duke Ellington had orchestrated the moment – along came Kathy. The golden head was bobbing and dodging behind the garbage cans. Out on the open street now, barefooting down the pavement, homing in on the Jaguar’s trademark hood ornament.needs new shoes.and out of the lamplight, her small wet face glistened through the rain and the smoky gray cover of steam hissing up through a subway grate. The child was coming closer. Sparrow sank low in the back seat. Lou Markowitz and Riker slumped down behind the dashboard and watched, fascinated, as a little girl worked bits of metal in a lock. No crude coat hangers or broken windows for this kid. She opened the door with the finesse of a pro.the child was inside the Jaguar, the two policemen left their vehicle, moving quickly, silently. It was a fight not to laugh out loud – or cry. When Markowitz bent down to the open door of the Jaguar, the little girl was sitting on the front seat, calmly dismantling the dashboard toys, tape deck and radio, using Sparrow’s knife as a screwdriver. Lou leaned in close, saying, ‘Hey, kid, whatcha doin’?’little girl smelled of sulfur and smoke; that should have been a warning. How indignant she was, and so angry, pointing her knife and yelling, ‘Back off, old man, or I’ll cut you.’’s right hand flashed out, and startled, Kathy looked down to see that her tiny fist was empty.
‘So then, Lou says to the kid, „Pretty fast moves for a fat man, huh, Kathy?“ He pulled her out of the car, but she got away from him. Ran straight into Sparrow’s arms. And then, what happened next – well, the kid never saw that coming. It was brutal. The whore drags Kathy back to Lou, and she’s saying, „Baby, if you don’t go with the man, how am I gonna get paid?“ ‘
‘So she did accept the – ’
‘Not one dime. At the end of the day, that whore showed a lotta class.’ The detective lifted his glass in a salute, not noticing that it was empty, for he was still looking at Kathy’s face, the confusion in her eyes. Her world was collapsing all around her, above and beneath her. ‘The kid’s survival was geared on running. Sparrow made sure she had no one to run to – no one who cared.’that was the moment when the little girl died, her bones going to liquid as she was sliding to the ground, trying to save herself by grabbing Sparrow’s skirt, then collapsing and crying at the whore’s feet. ‘Kathy risked her life – and this was her payback. Sparrow just walked away. No goodbye, nothin’.’ Riker looked down at his glass for a moment. ‘So Kathy thinks she’s been sold for money, right? That’s all she’s worth to the whore, another damn needle – and still she tried to run after Sparrow.’
‘Because she loved her?’
‘Because that whore was all she had.’ Riker could hear the small needy voice crying, begging Sparrow to come back, please, please. So much pain – the child’s and his own. Oh, the panic in Kathy’s eyes when Sparrow turned a corner and disappeared.
‘And then the kid went wild. All the guns and knives came out. I mean that literally. She drew on us with a damn pellet gun. God, how she hated Lou. He’d run her ragged, took everything away from her – first her books and then her whore.’
‘Well, that explains the early animosity,’ said Charles. ‘Why she never called him anything but Markowitz.’
‘Yeah, she blamed him for turning Sparrow against her. He spent years paying for that. So did I. That brat never forgets, never forgives.’ Riker pushed his glass to the edge of the bar. ‘So now we’re headin’ for Brooklyn. I’m in the back seat, and the kid’s up front with Lou.’ He recalled every detail of that drive, the smell of rain-washed air, the suburban lawns Uttered with bicycles and tricycles. The car radio was cranked up all the way, breaking the peace in a rock ‘n’ roll celebration. Dogs barked to the high notes, and the lights of fireflies winked in sync with the beat of a golden oldie by Buddy Holly.a feral child was manacled to the dashboard. Kathy was a hellmouth of obscenities, a small storm of energy fighting against her chains, though she must have known she could never break them.
‘Now it gets a little spooky.’ And the music had changed to the Rolling Stones. ‘But it helps if you know that Lou’s wife could hear lost children crying on other planets.’ The old green sedan pulled up to the curb in front of the house, where Helen Markowitz was framed in a square of yellow light – waiting. Suddenly, she was drawn away from the window and moving toward the front door with a sense of great urgency.car and the music should have reassured her that nothing was wrong. Bad news was so seldom announced by loud rock ‘n’ roll. And Lou’s wife could not have seen the baby thief in the dark of the car, nor heard one small angry voice above a chorus of wailing rockers, steel guitars and drums. Yet Helen was clearly on a mission when she burst through the front door, flew down the porch steps and ran across the wet grass.little girl was screaming death threats at the top of her tiny lungs while Lou Markowitz grinned broadly and foolishly. His life was complete. His wife was busy ripping the passenger door off its hinges, and Kathy was almost home.
long summer fever was over. The heat was dying off in cool wet gusts of air and rain. The two men stepped out on to the sidewalk and stood beneath the awning.
‘Louis must have told Mallory about the murder charge,’ said Charles. ‘When she joined the police department, he would’ve – ’
‘Yeah.’ Riker was on the lookout for a cab to carry him home. ‘He told her that much. Now she thinks it was Sparrow who pinned the murder on her. Lou couldn’t set her straight. She would’ve wondered why he didn’t make a case against the whore.’kept silent for a moment and listened to the steady rain. ‘Mallory will never have any peace.’
‘Neither will you… Me either.’Riker’s plans to take a cab, Charles opened the door of his Mercedes and guided him into the passenger seat, then politely looked the other way while the man wrestled with a drunk’s problem of fastening a safety belt.started the engine, then pulled into traffic. ‘Did Sparrow tell you she was defending Kathy when she got stabbed?’
‘No, we couldn’t ask her anything about that night. Guilty knowledge. If you know about a murder, then you’re part of the crime. But it wasn’t hard to work out. Frankie Delight was outmatched, a real flyweight. But good as Sparrow was in a street fight, she was never the aggressor. She would’ve kicked off her high heels and run when that knife came out. But she’s got the kid with her, and little legs can’t run as fast as a barefoot whore. So we figured Frankie stabbed her while she was shielding Kathy. I know he made the first cut, ‘cause the whore was on her knees when she put her shiv in his leg.’vividly recalled the photograph of Sparrow’s scar. He could see it now – not a slit, but a gaping hole dug into her side. Yet she had found the strength to drive a knife through a man’s clothing and muscle.read his mind and said, ‘Sparrow’s knife was razor sharp, and she got damn lucky when she hit that artery.’nodded absently, listening to the rain on the roof. ‘Mallory’s at the hospital now, isn’t she? That’s why you didn’t go. She wouldn’t allow it.’friend wore a look of surprise, perhaps wondering what he might have said to give that away. One hand on the armrest, he tapped his fingers to the beat of the windshield wipers.
‘So,’ said Charles, ‘you’re planning to let her bludgeon a dying woman? Oh, not with her fists – but you know what’s going on in that hospital room. You know.’
‘I can’t tell her the truth. And neither can you. I had to pick a memory she could believe in. I’m gonna let her hold on to Lou.’she would never discover that Louis had ripped out her ten-year-old heart with a conspiracy of lies. ‘And she goes on hating Sparrow until it’s too late?’
‘It won’t be long now.’ Riker rolled down the window and sent his cigarette flying into the rain.sensed a door closing here, and he picked up the thread of the previous conversation. ‘Lucky the wound was in Frankie’s thigh. I suppose that made it easy to blame a child.’
‘You make it sound like we framed the kid.’ Riker almost smiled. ‘It wasn’t even our case. Two other detectives closed out the paperwork. The death was self-defense, but connected to felony arson. Sparrow would’ve gone to prison.’
‘So you kept silent, and Kathy took the blame.’
‘Well, the kid was guilty on the arson charge. Kathy decided to get rid of all the evidence. She soaked the body with kerosene. Very thorough. All the medical examiner had to work with was some charcoaled meat and bone. So a nameless, dead kid took the blame for everything.’ Riker yawned. ‘Case closed.’ And then his eyes closed.minutes passed in silence before Charles pulled up to the curb at Riker’s address. Rather than disturb his sleep, Charles gathered the man into his arms, then carried him through the door and up the stairs to the apartment. He laid the detective down on an unmade bed, then removed the revolver and put it away in a drawer. After slipping the shoes from Riker’s feet, Charles followed the last of Mallory’s instructions. He entered the bathroom and flicked on the switch for a plastic Jesus night-light.the lonely ride home, he thought about Riker’s version of events and then the way it had really happened. On one point, he and the detective agreed. The drug dealer had made the first strike before his artery became a fountain of spraying blood. Sparrow’s wound had come first – but not while shielding a child. That woman had been laughing when Frankie Delight put his knife in her side – Mallory’s own words, the testimony of an eyewitness.by surprise, Sparrow had fallen to her knees, crippled with blood loss and shock, then a sudden drop in blood pressure and the resulting lightness in head and chest – the weakness of limbs. He could see her hands trying to plug that hideous hole.there had been time to pull a weapon, but no strength to drive it home. And the dealer would have been on his guard against reprisal.were two chips in the thigh bone of Frankie Delight, an act of violence powered by rage and fear. Only a ten-year-old girl could have taken him down by stealth and surprise. Charles could see the small thief stealing the knife from the hand of the fallen prostitute, then driving it into a man’s thigh once – twice – getting even. How surprised the child must have been to see Frankie Delight fall and die, wondering then, how could such a wound be mortal?little girl had killed a man for Sparrow’s sake, then risked her life in trial by fire, and Kathy’s reward was not the ongoing love she needed so badly, but betrayal and desertion. That was the only scenario to fit every fact and explain why the prostitute remained unforgiven.knew what was happening in Sparrow’s hospital room. The dying woman, though deep in coma dreams, had been defeating the death sentences of her doctors for days. And this will to live suggested the stuff of her dreams, unfinished business. All this time, Sparrow had been waiting for Mallory.car rolled to a stop, and he closed his eyes in pain, not wanting to imagine this reunion, a chanted litany of hateful acts and trespasses, music to die by.so he turned his mind to the last riddle, expecting to make short work of it: how had Kathy escaped the fire?could not carry him everywhere, but damned close. He liked Sparrow’s theory best. The child must have been thrown clear in the explosion. He envisioned Kathy surrounded by fire and running past the corpse of Frankie Delight as it burned brightly head to toe. Kathy’s feet barely touched the ground, all but flying to gain that staircase before the flames could eat her. Behind her, the boards were awash in roiling liquid fire. He could hear her scream the only prayer a child knows to ask for pity and mercy, ‘Mama!’ Or had she called out for Sparrow? The flames raced up the stairs with her, singeing hair as she climbed higher and higher. Bombs were going off on the floors below.! Bang! Bang!pushed through the rooftop door and saw the sky and – then what? No fire escape, no way out. She raised her arms like thin white wings. And what happened next? The whole world exploded under her feet. She must have been thrown clear, but how to account for her lack of injuries? How far could one throw a child without harming her? Given the probable force of the blast, the speed of propulsion, and the sudden impact – the child lay dead or badly broken in every logical scenario all night long.the ensuing years, Charles would come to understand the persistence of whores, their book salon and the maddening quest for the end of a story. The problem of the escape would never be solved – unless one counted the last words he would write in his journal toward the end of a very long life. Because he had never betrayed his role as a keeper of secrets, an eater of sins, his children and grandchildren would be forever confounded by his homage to Sparrow’s faith in comic-book heroes, a single line at the center of the page, ‘Kathy, can you fly?’
Mallory shuddered so slightly that the doctor beside her failed to notice. She dug her fingernails into her palms to bring on the pain – to stay awake and focused, to see this thing through..drummed on the window of Sparrow’s hospital room. The lights were low, and Father Rose hovered over the sickbed, armed with his magical rosary beads. Mallory watched him don his surplice to perform the sacrament of last rites – a waste of precious time.young intern affirmed this idea, saying, ‘I don’t think she knows what’s going on.’ Mallory stared at the woman on the bed, eyes rolling, mouth drooling. Sparrow seemed smaller now, as houses do when children revisit them later in life. ‘How can you tell if she’s awake?’doctor shrugged. ‘Does it matter? There’s a big difference between awake and aware. She only has a few hours, I’m sure of that much. Her organs are shutting down.’the physician did not want to be here at the end. Why linger over his failure? He left the room quickly – escaping. Mallory listened to his footsteps hurrying down the corridor, outrunning death. Only a priest would be attracted to Sparrow now.
‘Do you heartily repent your sins?’
‘Father, that would take years. She’s a whore.’ Mallory opened the door as an invitation for the man to leave, and soon. The priest stared at her in surprise, as though her hint might have been too subtle. ‘Speed it up,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got all night – and neither does Sparrow.’Rose bent over his parishioner. ‘Can you give me a sign of contrition?’
‘She’s sorry,’ said Mallory. ‘I saw her eyes move.’
‘You’re heartless.’
‘I know that.’
‘She’s dying. Why can’t you leave her in peace?’ The rest of his words to Sparrow were close to mime, inaudible and ending with the sign of the cross.
‘You’re done. Good.’ Mallory walked across the room and stood very close to the man. ‘Father, leave now.’ She held up her gold shield to remind him that she was the law. ‘I’ve got official business here. I’m not giving you a choice.’would have liked him better if he had put up a fight, but he turned his eyes to Sparrow’s, and every thought in his head was there to read when he shrugged. The priest was already writing off the whore as a corpse. What more damage could be done to her now? What comfort could his presence bring? None.left the room quietly, and Mallory shut the door behind him, then jammed a straight-back chair beneath the knob to keep it closed. There would be no more visitors tonight.walked back to her old enemy on the hospital bed, the woman who had betrayed her and, worse, abandoned her. Now the whore was the one who was utterly helpless, unable to lift one hand in defense. Her skin was as pale as the sheets.
‘Sparrow? It’s me!’was no response beyond ragged breathing and the endless demented motion of blue eyes that saw nothing. Could Sparrow hear? Could she understand the words? There was no way to tell. The only certainty in this room was death; it was coming.young detective leaned over the woman, bending low enough for her lips to lightly brush a tuft of hair near Sparrow’s ear, then whispered, ‘It’s Kathy.’I’m lost.settled into a chair beside the bed, then opened an old paperback book – the last western. Her head was bowed, eyes fixed on the page. ‘I’m going to read you a story,’ she said, as one blind hand reached out for the comfort of Sparrow’s.
O'Connell
in 1947, Carol O'Connell studied at the California Institute or Arts/Chouinard and the Arizona State University. For many years she survived on occasional sales of her paintings as well as freelance proof-reading and copy-editing.the age of 46, Carol O'Connell sent the manuscript of Mallory's Oracle to Hutchinson, because she felt that a British publisher would be sympathetic to a first time novelist and because Hutchinson also publish Ruth Rendell. Having miraculously found the book on the 'slush pile', Hutchinson immediately came back with an offer for world rights, not just for, Mallory's Oracle but for the second book featuring the same captivating heroine.the Frankfurt Book Fair, Hutchinson sold the rights to Dutch, French and German publishers for six figure sums. Mallory's Oracle was then taken back to the States where it was sold, at auction, to Putnam for over $800,000.O'Connell is now writing full time.
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