Angel of the Dark

“I prefer ‘you talk, I pay,’ if it’s all the same to you, Mr. Dublenko.”

Without taking his eyes off the pocket with the money in it, the pimp said flatly, “So whaddaya want to know?”

Danny handed over the yearbook picture. “Do you remember this guy?”

“Jesus!” Dublenko smiled, revealing a crooked collection of mostly gold teeth. “Frankie Mancini, man. Where the fuck you get this?” The coughing was back with a vengeance. Danny McGuire waited for Victor to clear his tobacco-ruined lungs, gasping for breath like a stranded fish.

“From the Beeches. I was there earlier. A Mrs. Waites mentioned that you and Frankie were both residents of the home between 1986 and 1988 and that you were close. Is that correct?”

Victor Dublenko’s green eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Waites. That old bitch is still alive?”

“Is that correct, Mr. Dublenko?”

Victor nodded. “You know a lot about my past, Detective. I’m flattered.”

Danny didn’t bother to conceal his contempt. “Frankly, I’m not interested in your past. I’m interested in Frankie Mancini. When did you last see him?”

Dublenko shook his head. “A long time ago, man. Years, too many years. Maybe twenty?”

“Where?”

“Right here, in New York. He got transferred to another home the year after this picture was taken and we kept in touch for a while. But then he got a job out west somewhere and that was that.”

Out west. Los Angeles…Where he became Lyle Renalto and met Angela Jakes…Where it all started.

“You never heard from him again?”

“We weren’t exactly the pen-pal types,” Dublenko sneered. “So what are you after him for? He done something wrong? Robbed a bank?”

“Would it surprise you if he had?”

Dublenko reflected for a moment. “Yeah, it would, actually. I always figured he’d do well for himself.”

“Why’d you figure that?”

“Well, for one thing, he was smart. Foreign languages, math, there was nothing that kid couldn’t do. And for another, just look at him. With a face like that, your life is easy.”

The words could have been interpreted as bitter, but there was no resentment in Dublenko’s tone. Quite the opposite in fact. He sounded admiring. Nostalgic. Affectionate, even.

“Easy in what way? You mean he was successful with girls?”

A grin spread across Dublenko’s toadlike features. “Frankie wasn’t interested in girls, Detective. That wasn’t his team, if you know what I mean.”

A shiver ran down Danny’s spine. What had Claire Michaels said to him about Matt Daley’s call from Italy? “Lisa’s lover wasn’t her lover. He was gay. He couldn’t be Azrael. You’re on the wrong track.”

“Now, that’s not to say women weren’t interested in him. The bitches were all over him like flies. And like I say, Frankie was smart. He used that power to his advantage.”

Danny thought of Lyle Renalto, the way that he’d wheedled his way into Angela Jakes’s life, how he’d gotten her to trust him, perhaps even lured her to her death.

“Used it in what way?”

“Oh, you know. He’d get girls to do stuff for him, get him gifts, cover for him when he broke curfew. Little shit like that. But he never really dug women, if you know what I mean.”

Danny was growing tired of Dublenko’s less than subtle euphemisms. “I get it, Dublenko. Frankie was gay.”

“Yeah, he was gay, all right, but it was more than that. I kinda got the feeling that women, like, repulsed him. Not just sexually, but as people. Apart from the princess, of course.”

“The princess?”