Incompetence

by Rob Grant

'They do?'

  'They do.'

  'You welcome everyone this way... I'm sorry, I don't know your name. I know what your buttocks taste like, but I don't know your name.'

  'Gina. Gina Pallister.'

  'You welcome everyone so warmly, Gina?'

  'No, of course not. Not couples. Not women.'

  'Of course not.'

  'Not unless they specifically register as lesbians.'

  'But single men?'

  She nodded.

  'And lesbians?'

  She nodded again. 'Do you think that's wrong?'

  'For me, Gina, you could never do anything wrong.'

  'I can never judge, you see. I have this Sexually Inappropriate Response thing. There's a little bit of my silly little brain that doesn't kick in when I'm being overfamiliar.'

  She was SIR. That's one my mental bookmaker didn't give me odds on.

  'You know and I know there's nothing small or silly about your brain, Coppertop.'

  'Did they grow you in bunches, Mr Salt? Only I could use a whole bouquet of you and that silver tongue of yours.'

  'Well, you won't be getting any complaints from me, Ms Pallister.'

  'Honestly?'

  'Nuh-huh. I'm going to write a personal letter to the hotel manager with a glowing report on the welcome you gave me. Believe me, it will glow like it's made of uranium.'

  'Great. Great. But you won't mention the nakedness?'

  'I won't mention the nakedness. I won't mention the nakedness and I won't mention the netherwear licking.'

  'Thanks Mr Salt. You're a straight shooter. 'Cause, truth be told, the nasty old managerooni's about a gnat's foreskin away from firing me.'

  'He'd have to be crazy.'

  She rose. She rose like Venus on the half shell. My shirt fell away from where it had dreamed of being since it was born and lay there on the sofa in a limp kind of post-coital ecstasy. 'I'd better get me gorn, pardner. Can I get my clothes from your bathroom?'

  I nodded. I doubted I was capable of any other form of communication.

  She clicked my bathroom door closed.

  Eventually, I clicked my mouth closed.

  By the time she emerged from my bathroom in her business suit, my voice was almost fully operational again. I have to tell you: she looked pretty damned fine. She looked almost as good in her own clothes as she did in mine. She smoothed down her skirt and held out her hand. 'It's been a pleasure, Mr Salt.'

  I took her hand and shook it. 'All mine, Ms Pallister.'

  'If there's anything I can help you with during your stay...'

  'There are two things you can help me with, Coppertop: one, you can call me Harry.'

  That smile. 'And the second?'

  'You could see me for dinner tonight.'

  'I'm sorry, Harry.' Hey -- it wasn't a slap in the face, which I'd been braced for, and it wasn't a final, out and out rejection, neither: she didn't look away from me, she kept her eyes steady on mine, which meant I had manoeuvring room. 'I can't say I haven't taken to you; you're sharp, and you don't like yourself so much you've got no like left over for someone else. That's a rare thing in the male of the species where I've been finding 'em. But the fact is, I like my job, and nasty old manager man comes down distinctly unambiguous about the consequences of carousing with the guests.'

  'I'll move hotels.'

  'There's a bar across the street. Eight thirty?'

  'I couldn't possibly wait that long. Eight twenty-nine?'

  'I'll be there, you impetuous fool.'

  ELEVEN

  I know what you're thinking. You're thinking all I cared about was the inappropriate sexual response thing. You're thinking I was planning to take advantage of that beautiful girl's over-friendly nature, but that's not true. That's not even part of it. I was smitten. Old Harry Salt finally got the thunderbolt.

  See, I have my own rule about carousing; just the one: don't do it. No, not and never. Not under any circumstances. That's Salt's First Law. No exceptions. No by-laws, no loopholes, no excuses. There are a million reasons why, and you can probably imagine most of them. I have a hell of a business just looking after myself, as you may have spotted. But I just couldn't not, this time. I couldn't even think that she'd walk out of that hotel room, and I'd never in my life see her again. That was the very definition of unthinkable.

  And did I feel bad? Did I feel bad that I was about to break my one, inviolable law, as I lay there bubbling away in the ridiculously superb comfort of the jacuzzi hot tub?

  Yeah, I felt bad. I felt awful, with my cheeks aching from the insanely wide idiot grin that had encamped itself on my face with the relentless determination of Agamemnon's boys outside Troy. I was singing opera, for crying out loud. I don't even like opera. I didn't even know I knew any opera.

  I had a date. I might as well have been fourteen years old. In fact, mentally, I would probably have rated less than half that. And I still had business to attend to 'ere nightfall. I still had a killer to catch.

  I scrubbed away until I was fairly sure my hands no longer smelled of Roman bananas, doused my vocal cords with a gallon of brutal mouthwash and got dressed for business.

  I can't tell you how good it was to slip my feet into clean, fresh socks and comfortable shoes. It was like wading in the river Jordan, my friend. It was like walking on a carpet made of angel wings.

  I bundled up my old clothes and stuffed them into a hotel laundry bag. Here's a tip: if you ever go to the Hotel Ambassadeur in Paris, don't use the tongs from the ice bucket in room 777. I used them to handle my discarded socks -- I didn't want to undo all the good I'd done myself in the jacuzzi by actually touching the toxic sons of bitches. I had it in mind to do all of Paris a favour by dumping the bag in the hotel's incinerator.

  I scrubbed up pretty good, all things considered. As far as I could tell, I hardly smelled at all of rotten fruit or cheese, and there was only the faintest aroma of faecal material about me. In any case, I figured I'd have time for another couple of baths before the evening.

  I was wrong.

  I didn't wear the shirt that had adorned Gina. I didn't plan to ever wear it anymore. I planned to treat it like a favoured child. I planned to save up so I could put it through college.

  I wrapped it up and laid it safe in the wardrobe.

  I would never see that shirt again.

  TWELVE

  I have an apartment in Paris. Well, it's just a shell of a place, really. It's a bed with a room round it. I keep a couple of things there, including a key to a sports locker in a mid-town health spa.

  I picked up the key and headed off to the spa.

  You may think a health club locker is a fairly flimsy, pretty public spot to be storing anything of importance, but in my experience you're less likely to get anyone poking around a place like that looking for valuables. I've never had any problems with it.

  Where I was going, a straightforward Europol detective shield probably wouldn't cut too much ice. The Fabrizi dinner party deaths had got a lot of press exposure. A lot of the victims were fairly high profile, from several different states, too, and chances were there might well be federal agents on the case already. So I picked out a PCID badge, which ought to do the trick.

  Food crime takes up a lot of police resources in the United States of Europe. Food kills, my friend. Food crime is apparently the fifth biggest killer in the Union. The FC department handles not only the thousands of food poisoning and catering malpractice cases that occur every day, it's also responsible for enforcing all the food production and sale regulations, of which there are literally millions, and dozens more pour out of Brussels every day.

  So, in most jurisdictions, the Food Crime department is big and well resourced, if not exactly garlanded with respect by other branches of law enforcement. It lacks the grit and glamour of Narcotics or Vice. Let's face it: few food criminals are likely to try blasting their way out of a catering bust with an AK-47 and a bandolier stuffed with grenades. The most exhilarating danger y
ou're likely to face is a desperate greengrocer wielding an oversized leek with a disproportionate percentage of green in a threatening manner. Which tends to mean that senior FC officers feel undervalued, are permanently grumpy, and have a deserved reputation for throwing their weight around unnecessarily.

  Which is why I decided to wear my PCID detective badge in plain view, dangling from my jacket pocket. Police Corruption Investigation Department. It's like a snowplough for bullshit when you're dealing with the rank and file. Nobody likes you, but you get their attention.

  The departmental office was large, and thrumming. I reckoned there must have been about a hundred desks, most of them manned by report-typing, phone-call-making, suspect-interviewing food detectives. Two long ranks of glum-faced kitchen staff were seated morosely in the waiting area, identically dressed in their white smocks and caps, blue and white checked catering trousers and standard-issue cooking clogs, waiting their turn for interrogation. I picked a desk whose tenant seemed unoccupied by work. He was a young, plain-clothes officer: feet on the desk, gigantic sandwich in one hand, folded newspaper in the other.

  'Hey, friend. Eating the evidence?' I made an ill-judged stab at humour.

  'Say what?' he mumbled through half-chewed cheese and ham.

  I should have let it drop, but I didn't. I grinned and nodded at his sandwich. 'Eating the evidence, I see.'

  He tore his attention away from the newspaper, looked up and swallowed. 'What evidence?'

  'The sandwich.' I smiled.

  He looked at the sandwich in his hand. 'The sandwich is evidence?'

  'I was making a dumb joke.' I shrugged. 'Listen, do you know where I can find--?'

  He slid his feet off the desk. 'Are you saying this sandwich was involved in the commission of a crime?' Gingerly, he put the sandwich down on the greaseproof wrap on his desk as if he'd suddenly discovered it was spread with nitroglycerine.

  'No, no. It was just a wisecrack.'

  'Because, listen, I swear, I just bought this baguette from Henrie's. Round the corner. He makes a straight sandwich. All the cops use him.'

  'No, look, seriously, I was kidding. Really.'

  'So it's not an illegal sandwich?'

  'No. As far as I can tell, that is an upstanding, law-abiding sandwich.'

  'You were just joking about its legal status?'

  'Can we forget about the sandwich now?

  'What kind of a joke is that, buddy? To imply I'm eating a criminal sandwich?'

  'It's a bad joke, I agree. I apologise.'

  'Because you come here, I look up, you're PCI and for all I know, you're looking to bust me for felonious snacking, or some such.'

  'We got off on the wrong foot here. Can we start again?'

  'I mean, for Christ's sake: it's a cheese and ham baguette, is all.'

  'One last time, son: there is nothing wrong with your sandwich.'

  'Are you saying there's too much ham, or what? It's really a ham and cheese sandwich, not the other way around? Is that what you're saying?'

  I wasn't getting through, now was I? 'Let me ask you a question.'

  'A question? Am I going to need my union rep?'

  'I don't think so. It's a very simple question.'

  'Well, go ahead. But I reserve the right, and all that.'

  'You ready for the question?'

  'Fire away.'

  'Are you stupid?'

  'Yes, I am.' He hooked his finger in his shirt collar, tugged out an ID card dangling from a short, plastic chain around his neck, and thrust it towards me with what I could have sworn was pride. 'I'm registered NSS.'

  I craned forward. He meant it, too. NSS. Non-Specific Stupidity. It was a fairly new catch-all categorisation for people who weren't classifiable under any of the acknowledged learning disorders or mentally diminishing diseases.

  'NSS.' I nodded. 'I see. You're actually officially stupid.'

  'Non-Specifically Stupid,' he corrected me. 'Wait a minute!' He held the card up to his face and studied it intently. 'That's wrong. It says SSN. What the fuck is SSN?'

  'No.' I coughed quietly. 'The card is upside down from your point of view.'

  He twisted the card, tightening the chain around his neck. He studied the inscription intensely. His face began to turn red, and veins started bulging on his temples. 'Right you are,' he concurred throatily, and released himself from his own choke hold. 'For a moment then,' he swallowed dryly, 'I thought I'd been reclassified. That could've screwed up my promotion prospects.'

  'I wouldn't worry about that, kid. You'll probably make captain before the week's out.'

  'Really?' The kid grinned. 'You've heard something?'

  'I'm looking for the officer who headed up the Fabrizi investigation.'

  'DSI Debary?'

  'Him, yeah.'

  'He in trouble?'

  'Not yet, he isn't.'

  'He should be in the squad room. They're tooling up for some big bust or some such. Captain, you say? You really think?'

  'Trust me; it's in the bag.'

  I patted the kid on the shoulder, thanked him and turned to go. He called me back.

  'Hey! What should I do with the sandwich?'

  I had some seriously interesting suggestions, but I kept them to myself. 'What do you think you should do with the sandwich?'

  He inspected the sandwich at arm's length. 'I'm guessing I should send it down to the evidence lock-up.'

  'Good plan.' I nodded tightly. 'Bag it and tag it, and lock it away.'

  He opened his drawer and slammed a thick wad of paper and an evidence bag on the desk. 'Fucking paperwork,' he mumbled grimly. 'For a cheese and ham bag-fucking-uette.'

  I left him filling out the forms.

  Amazingly, the kid had got it right. Debary was in the squad room, briefing his team on the bust. The room was fairly packed, but my PCID badge bought me a seat at the back and a whole lifetime's worth of filthy looks. Thankfully, the briefing was almost over.

  Clearly, news travelled fast. Debary dismissed the squad and strode straight up to me. 'I hear you're looking for me, cop fucker.' He swept past me, forcing me to follow in his wake at a fairly fierce stride. 'If this is about those Pascal girls, you're wasting your time.'

  'I am?'

  'Because my arse is covered, bud. They all three of them consented to have sex with me, one at a time and all together. Of their own free will. In writing. I still have the papers.'

  'I'm sure you do, but that's not--'

  'And their father's restaurant? That would have got a clean bill of health whether or not they slept with me. You can take that to the bank.'

  'It's not about that. It's about the Fabrizi dinner party...'

  'Fabrizi? What the hell's that got to do with PCI?'

  'I'm afraid I can't go into that at this time.'

  'Of course you can't. You people, you've got to sneak around. Like a carrion feeder.'

  We swept into the gun dispensary. Debary ordered an armoured vest and a semi-automatic Glock, with five clips.

  I couldn't help asking: 'You always go on restaurant raids armed?'

  'We do now.' He checked out a magazine and chocked it into the gun. 'Ever since my sergeant lost a big chunk of his marrying meat to an overly excitable Chinese chef with a king-sized cleaver.' He snapped the magazine back into place. 'Wouldn't you?'

  'Me? I wouldn't leave mine dangling.'

  'You? You probably don't have much to dangle.' He holstered the weapon. 'OK. The Fabrizi thing: what about it?'

  'I just want copies of the files, is all.'

  'Again? What is it with this case? That guy from Homicide took the files less than a week ago.'

  Less than a week? That was good news. I probably wasn't as far behind Klingferm's investigation as I'd feared. I smiled. 'Well, now we want the files. No rush. Absolutely immediately will be fine.'

  'Hey, why would I care?' He took out a pad and started scribbling. 'Only, like I told Mr Homicide, you're wasting your time. The whole thing wa
s just a gigantic screw-up. But I guess a couple of high-profile corpses in the headlines stirred up a big stink downtown.'

  'You could say that.'

  Debary tore off a sheet and handed it to me. 'They'll give you everything you want in Records.' He nodded down the corridor. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I actually have some police work to do. You remember what that's like, don't you? You must have done some yourself way back when.' He smiled, all nasty like, and patted my shoulder just hard enough to hurt.

  I smiled right back at him and returned the pat with interest. 'Thanks, Debary. Watch how you dangle, now; those Pascal girls are going to need you fully equipped if it comes to an identity parade.'

  I picked up the files from Records. I don't want to make that sound like an easy accomplishment, because the clerk in charge of the photocopier had lost both his hands, and his metal hooks shredded several of the files several times before I managed to secure a complete record. But, eventually, I picked up the files from Records, and headed for home.

  On the way out, I passed Mr Non-Specifically Stupid at his desk, raking through his drawer. He had a bad-tempered guy in an apron sitting opposite him. I assumed this was poor old Henrie the sandwich maker. I called over: 'Nailed the bastard, eh?'

  The kid looked up. 'Damn right.' He nodded. 'Only...' He held up his hands. They were manacled. 'I accidentally went and cuffed myself. You don't know where I keep the key, do you?'

  Captain? The kid would probably make chief commissioner before sunset.

  THIRTEEN

  I flashed my gold detective badge at Path Lab Reception, and asked for Dr Rutter. He'd been in charge of the Fabrizi dinner party autopsies. A pretty nurse at Reception with a very bad stutter told me where I could find him. In less than ten minutes, too.

  The main cutting rooms were three floors down, deep in the basement. I chose to take the stairs. I was developing a thing about elevators.

  The lab was bright and large: there must have been fifty operating slabs spread out over the chamber, and most of them were occupied. It looked like the unexplained-death business was flourishing.

  There was a sick-looking intern on a chair by the door. From the greenness of his pallor, I surmised that he'd just finished enjoying his first autopsy. He pointed out Dr Rutter, who was at a slab in the corner of the room, busy working away on some corpse or other. I approached him from behind, so we didn't have to conduct a conversation over some half dissected dead person with his entrails dangling out. Call me squeamish.