by Adam Sommers
“Originally from Brooklyn.”
“There it is!” said Tarkanian triumphantly.
“What?”
“The accent. Got a cousin from Queens, and I knew it wasn’t quite the same, but it’s close.”
Eric chuckled and felt a little bit more at ease. “I have people in Queens, too. My mom’s side.”
They chatted about New York versus Washington and their roots for a while. Unlike Tark, who could go back several generations to the old country, Eric was only vaguely aware that his dad’s relatives came from somewhere over in what used to either be Russia or Poland or Germany. It was all the same in his mind.
After ten minutes of chitchat, neither had mentioned the occasion for the gathering, so finally Eric said, “It’s pretty quiet up here?”
“Quiet,” agreed Tark. “Just the way I like it.”
“Doesn’t drive you nuts?”
“Mmm, yeah, we get bored, but then again, we’re not going into some Anacostia shithole to pull a crack addict out of a basement fire he just set with his flamethrower only to have him get fixed up and do the same thing next week.”
He had a point, Eric admitted, there was a lot of that sort of thing to deal with downtown.
“I do not miss that crap at all,” he said.
“Oh, you used to?”
“When I started. In the Three-Five.” He rolled up a sleeve to show Eric a nasty scar on his forearm, obviously a burn and some type of skin graft. To Eric, it looked like Tark must have gone through a lot of pain before it healed all the way to where it was now, slightly different colored skin pulled tight like Saran wrap over his forearm and up the back of his elbow.
“I have twenty-two years in, three more to go and I can take my seventy percent pension, go fishing and drink beer. Speaking of which, you drink?”
“Beer?”
“Beer. Beer is good.”
“It’s barely noon and you’re on duty, no?”
Tark raised an eyebrow. “Oh, a goody-two-shoes.”
“No, not like that. I like beer.”
“Come down to the Drop Inn. Arlington Drive and Connecticut. Guys are always there. I’ll be there after my shift, 9:30 or so. I’ll tell you some war stories make your ass pucker right up.”
“Oh,” said Eric Berger, who was 1) glad the firefighters weren’t drinking on duty, 2) disappointed because that would have make a decent story, and 3) uncomfortable that a stranger had talked about his ass puckering.
Chapter 11
“Can you stop rubbing my arm like that? It’s annoying.”
Ignoring her, Warren continued to lightly run his finger from her shoulder down past her triceps then circled back to her shoulder, but he whispered, “Okay, I’m sorry. Just the way the light is coming in on your skin, it’s nice. It’s kind of got a glow.”
“I’ve got to go soon.”
“I know. You always run away.”
“Just because I like your magic cock doesn’t mean I want anything else.”
“You’re such a bitch.”
“Yeah, and you love me anyway. That’s why you’re an imbecile.”
Warren just nodded and smiled. She was one hundred percent right about both points. He loved her and he was indeed an imbecile for it. But still, he had evidence to suggest that there was something under her titanium shell, something she was afraid of, and he kept trying to reach it, believing that if she let him in they’d have something spectacular. What exactly was this evidence? He’d asked himself that question many times and could not put his finger on any specific thing. Sure, they chatted, but never about anything deep. They ate food together, as most couples do, especially in the early days, and shared laughs about people they knew at work. But there was nothing to point to specifically that would indicate an emotional connection or reliance. At least not on her end.
He touched above her left breast, ran his finger down hoping he could entice her to stay just a little longer. Instead, she pulled away, threw her clothes on, patted his bearded cheek, and, without a kiss goodbye, was gone.
How long he could endure the relationship, he did not know. Neither could he understand why it was he wanted to be with her in the first place, when all she seemed to want from him was to satisfy her sexual peculiarities. The only way Warren, who had a passing interest in astrophysics, could make sense of it was to draw an analogy to astronomers’ hunt for a new planet. They know it is there even if they can’t see it because of the way other objects around it are affected or disturbed in their motions. The thing that is invisible produces a reaction in things that are visible. So, Warren concluded that the proof that something lay hidden within her was the fact that he kept circling back. And, more importantly, that she allowed him to. There had to be something that produced the magnetism. There just had to be.
Chapter 12
One of the big drawbacks to Eric’s journalistic career, and his life in general, was that as much as he liked to drink beer, he was a relative lightweight. Three beers made him tipsy, and after five or six, he was pretty much blotto.
He was always jealous of the way people he went to school with like Bobby Viser, John Kamong, and Billy Joe McCarthy could go through a case and not seem much worse for wear.
If those guys at Montclair State College were good drinkers, the firemen were Olympic champions. For the guys in uniform, drinking was not so much a leisure activity or even a sport. They seemed to approach it as a kind of chore, like chopping wood: something you did hard and relentlessly until the job was done, however long it took.
The bartender at the Drop Inn had a hard time keeping up with them, and yet, to Eric’s amazement, pitcher after pitcher of beer was drained as if they were sipping Kool-Aid.
After Eric had nursed his way through four beers he recognized that he was drunk enough and switched to ginger ale. Tark, loaded, but functional, sat down heavily at the opposite side of the table from Eric. “Wassamatta?” he asked. “You don’t drink beer?”
Eric, glassy-eyed and trying to keep the room from spinning, held up his ginger ale defensively, “All I can handle right now. Curse of my life.”
“Bullshit.” Tark produced as if from thin air a pitcher of beer and two shots. “Drink up, rookie.”
Oh, God, thought Eric. It was a mistake, but he did not want to turn down a drink from a possibly valuable source. Barfing, if that’s what happened, might be worth it in the long run. He slugged down the shot even though he did not know what it was, and chased it with the beer.
That was the last memory Eric Berger had of being in the bar.
He dreamed that he was a vampire and the good people from the village had found him and were trying to kill him with a wooden stick. He wanted to tell them that they were going about it all wrong. Everyone knows you’re supposed to drive the stake through the vampire’s heart, not his rib cage, where his stabbing pain originated. That was just stupid. And, wait a second, I’m not a vampire, anyway. What are you fools doing?
Then he fell back into unconsciousness without saying anything.
Whether ten minutes or five hours elapsed before he came to again he did not know. In fact, he did not “know” anything because his brain was too strongly focused on how much pain he was in. The wooden stake the villagers had used to kill him felt like it was on fire, with metal spikes protruding. Coupled with that was the elephant thundering around in his skull, turning his mind into mush.
Slowly he figured out that he must be in his car because he recognized the color and feel of the beige cloth interior. He could not work out in his mind in what position he was laying. There was no feeling in his right leg or his right arm, so he concluded he could be laying on his right side. But not necessarily. He could just as easily be upside down.
Through the pain in his side and the pounding in his head, he began to hear voices, softly at first, then louder and
clearer.
“You’re stoned.”
“No, fool, I’m drunk,” thought Eric, responding to some invisible person who was evaluating his condition.
“C’mere, I’ll show you who’s stoned.”
“Get off me.”
“I paid for this.”
“You stink. You need a shower.”
“You need a shower, too. Golden shower.”
“Ugh, you’re disgusting.”
“Don’t give me shit. You owe me.”
“I don’t owe you shit. You got yours upstairs.”
“Come on. I even got a little candy left if you’re a good girl.”
“I don’t want no more. I’m good.”
“Mmmm. Come on, baby. You want a little more, don’t you? Just a little.”
“No…” But she was weakening.
“I need to see that fine ass of yours one more time.”
“You should get out of here. It’s going to be morning soon.”
Through the pain, Eric shifted in his car. His brain was clearing. Human drama got his blood flowing. Anything could happen, and he wanted to see it. Slowly, he unfolded himself. Because there was no blood in his right leg or arm, he used his left hand to move his numb leg to the floor, twisted around and gradually came to a position in which he was roughly on all fours on the floor in the back seat of his Honda, with his head peering over the widow into the parking lot of the Drop Inn.
He barely breathed. The couple was no longer outside the car and the talking had stopped. From a rear window of the sedan Eric saw a stream of smoke. Then another similar stream on the opposite side. The slight breeze carried the smell toward him and it was an odor he did not recognize. Certainly it was not cigarettes, definitely not the sweet, pungent aroma of weed. It smelled a little like a chemical plant or like floor cleaner.
In a few minutes the woman emerged from the back seat. She was naked from the waist down and wobbled in her bare feet as she tried to pull on her skirt. She was black, had an ample rear end that made it difficult to get the skirt back in place. Along with her skirt, her hair was also askew and she quickly tugged the wig back into position, or as close to it as she could get in her state without a mirror.
The door did not close, but she walked a little away from it, then back and reached inside, apparently for her purse. Then she got in the front passenger seat. Almost immediately, the other back door opened and a white guy, about six-one, came out. He was in a charcoal gray suit with purple stripes. With the goatee and close-cropped black hair, he looked just like…
“Mayor Lester,” Eric could not help but whisper to himself in disbelief. Must be the beer, he thought, rubbed his eyes, looked away, looked back, and there he still was Mayor Grissom Lester. Ho-Lee Shit!
Chapter 13
The smudge of light was just starting to come up in the east. Eric pulled his little thirty-five millimeter Nikon from his pocket. Still groggy, he guessed at the focus and fired. It was pretty dark, and his eyes weren’t able to focus, so he had no idea what the picture might turn out looking like, but it would be something. He waited and watched as the man, the mayor of Washington, D.C., strode around the car like a rooster around a henhouse, obviously in no hurry.
“Got all day if I want to.”
Eric had seen that strut before. Cool cat in a cool suit, fine woman, good drugs, got the world on a string, alligator-skin shoes included. The wife waiting at home? Oh, well, what can you do? Man has his needs.
Eric clicked off a couple more pictures as the light increased. The mayor leaned into the car and Eric heard, “Stop it. I don’t like that.”
“Not what you said before.”
“Stop it now. You had enough of me.”
“Mmm, who could ever have enough of you?”
Click.
“Please, honey. You’re so sweet. You know my needs.”
“But I’m worn out and I need to get back. My kid’s got school.”
The mayor stood up, seeming to surrender.
Click.
That one I got good, Eric said to himself.
Mayor Lester walked to the driver’s side door. Despite his cool demeanor, the mayor looked a little wobbly. It might be fatigue, it might be the drugs, but as he went to get in he came to rest, just for a second, on the hood of the car before sliding his long body behind the wheel. The engine started and they drove off.
Eric, by now sobered up well enough to know that he was on to a potentially monumental story, surprised himself by not completely freaking out. He pulled himself into the driver’s seat and tried to start the car as quietly as he could—which was ridiculous because the car makes the same exact noise no matter how slowly and carefully you turn the key. He let the mayor’s car go about five hundred yards before he put his in gear and slowly, gently followed.
It was five-twenty-seven a.m., according to the clock on Eric’s dash, but the city was already well on its way to being awake and on the road. Traffic would build, making it hard to follow. He moved to within a couple of car lengths behind the mayor on Connecticut Avenue. The mayor drove just as he walked—cool cat in a cool car. No worries.
But when he turned up onto the Beltway, Mayor Lester nailed the accelerator on the BMW.
Shit, thought Eric, I’m gonna lose him. His jalopy could never hope to keep up with the mayor’s luxury car. It zoomed ahead, six car lengths, then ten, then it was a quarter-mile. Eric could barely make out the flashy car, when suddenly he saw a puff of smoke and dust kick up. An instant later the sound reached him, a screech, thump and glass shattering.
It only took a second for him to get there and see the mayor’s car spun around, facing the wrong way on the shoulder of the highway, its left side smashed and scraped, the airbags deployed, side-view mirror dangling. No other cars were involved, so it was hard to say what exactly caused the mayor to crash. Maybe he got cut off, maybe he fell asleep, or got distracted. It looked like he had suddenly yanked the wheel to the left, sending the car into the barrier and spinning it one-hundred-eighty degrees around.
A couple of cars had pulled over as Eric approached and slowed down as he passed the scene. He didn’t feel the need to rush to any rescue. The last thing he wanted was to be part of the story. He only wanted to cover it—and this one just kept getting better.
He pulled over about fifty yards up the highway, but stayed in his car.
The mayor also stayed in his car.
The lady got out and tried to shoo the other would-be heroes away. With her high heels and wig set at a crazy angle on her head, none of the three or four drivers had any intention of leaving this show before it was over. She could barely stand and one of the male good Samaritans edged closer. But before he even reached her, the first police car arrived. Then two more showed up. With astonishing efficiency, they got the onlookers back in their cars and on their way. Eric, a little further up the highway, did not budge. He crossed his fingers and closed his eyes hoping this would be far enough away that the cops would not bother with him.
In an instant those hopes were dashed. Two uniformed officers approached, hands on the butts of their Glock 9-mms as he sat frozen in his car, realizing he did not present a pretty picture. Disheveled and puffy-eyed, unshaven and reeking of beer, this could wind up going badly, he thought.
“Morning, sir.” Super polite, thought Eric, encouraged.
“Morning, officer.”
“You stop for the accident?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks for the concern. You can be on your way.”
“Uh,” was all Eric could manage. He didn’t have any response or rebuttal ready. He was only stalling for time and hoping he could come up with a reason for him to stay at the scene.
“There a problem?”
“Uh, no…but you…The driver in the car….”
“Yes?
”
Eric had to be careful. He could read the body language of the officer making the switch from “buzz off, pal” to “maybe we’ll lock your ass up” so he backed way off. Clearly they did not need him to tell them who was driving the car. And, anyway, how would he, a random motorist, know who was in a crash?
“Oh, I just wondered if he was hurt is all. Saw the woman get out of the car but not the driver.”
“Seems like it’s a minor sort of thing, no one’s hurt. It’s time for you to go.”
“Of course,” Eric took note of the tone, and, just in case, the nametag. “Clemens.”
He very much wanted to take a picture but he dared not pull out the camera.
Clemens, sensing the hesitation, shifted into full-on offensive mode. “You been drinking?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Eric replied. Never lie to a cop. They know it’s a lie, and it just pisses them off. “But not since last night around ten. Fell asleep in the parking lot in my car and I’m on my way home now.”
“Then why don’t you get there?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Eric as he rolled his window up and pulled away at a really polite speed. However, that was not the end for Mr. Eric Berger. Leaving the scene of an accident before all the cars or bodies were gone was against every bone in his body. He pulled off at the next exit, made a couple of U-turns, headed back in the opposite direction on the opposite side of the highway. The traffic was building quickly for the morning rush. This was good. Eric would not be noticed, he hoped, as he pulled to the side once again at the site of the accident.
But it was not to be.
By the time he could make his way back on the correct side of the Beltway to pass the accident, there was nothing left to see except the last cop car pulling off the shoulder and into traffic. No mayor. No woman. No car. Gone, as if nothing had ever happened.