by R.J. Ellory
Looks down at the narrow spray of Tommy Franklin on the white porcelain.
Hindsight: the stark and obvious illumination of history.
He says the prayer, the one they all say in such moments: If nothing else, Lord, grant me just one more day.
Frank Parrish leaves a hundred bucks on the bureau near the front door of Eve Challoner's apartment. Three years he's been coming here, ever since he turned over a solicitation bust on her. Lost the paperwork, made it go away. Not because he figured he could fuck her for free, but because he felt something else for her. Sympathy? No, not sympathy. Empathy.
We're all fucking someone for money.
He closes the door quietly behind him and makes his way down the stairwell to the ground floor. It's ten after nine. He has a report to write about the Franklin fiasco, and then, if he's lucky, he can be late for his appointment. Half an hour late, maybe even forty minutes.
En route to the subway station he steps to the edge of the sidewalk and is sick into the gutter. He feels that burning in his stomach, his trachea, his throat. He figures he's got to get a checkup. Tomorrow. Maybe Wednesday.
THREE
'You're late.'
'I am.'
'I think you should try and be on time.'
'I did try.'
'Could you try harder?'
'Sure I could.'
'So take a seat, Frank . . . tell me what happened this morning?'
'You can read my report.'
'I want to hear it in your own words.'
'I wrote the report. Those are my own words.'
'You know what I mean, Frank. I want to hear you tell me what happened.'
'He cut his girlfriend's throat. He cut his own throat. There was so much fucking blood it was like a water slide at Tomahawk Lake or something. How's that for you?'
'Tell me from the beginning, Frank. From the point you got the call about how he was holding the girl hostage.'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because I can't be bothered, that's why. Jesus, what the fuck is this?'
'This is therapeutic counselling, designed to help you deal with the stress of your job and make you feel better. You know that.'
'You want to make me feel better?'
'Sure. That's what I'm here for.'
Then come over here and take care of me.'
'No, Frank, I am not going to come over there and take care of you.'
'You married?'
'Is that important?' 'Maybe . . . I'm just thinking . . . you got no wedding band, but maybe you just don't wear it 'cause you kinda like burned-out alcoholic cops hitting on you.'
'No, Frank. I don't wear one because I'm not married.'
'Well, how 'bout that! I ain't married neither. So what say I come down here to your cozy little office, we draw the blinds . . . you know how it is. That's the kinda stress counselling I could really use right now.'
'Is that what you feel?'
'Damn right it's what I feel. And I bet you do too, Doctor. If only it wasn't for professional ethics, eh?'
'Whatever you say, Frank.'
'Now we're talking.'
'No, Frank, I don't think we're talking at all. You're trying to offend me, and I'm humoring you.'
'Is that what you think I'm doing? Saying shit that will offend you?'
'I do think that. You're trying to shock me. That stuff about coming over to take care of you, for example.'
'No, Ma'm, that's how I go about courting someone.'
'Well, if that's true, then I figure we're all pretty much safe from the charms of Frank Parrish.'
'That's funny. Now you're trying to make me laugh.'
'No, I'm not. But I am trying to give you an opportunity to release some of the stress and trauma that goes with your particular line of work.'
'Oh, shee-it. Save it for the rookies and the faggots and the female officers.'
'That's a very slanted viewpoint.'
'Hey, lady, it's a very fucking slanted world.'
'So you don't want to talk about Tommy Scott and Heather Wallace.'
'That a question or a statement?'
'Whichever.'
'No, I don't want to talk about Tommy Scott and Heather Wallace. What the fuck use would that be?'
'Sometimes people need to talk.'
'Sometimes people need to have other people urinate all over them. Don't mean it does 'em any good.' 'Why do you think you're doing this, Frank?'
'What?'
'Trying to offend me.'
'Lordy, lordy, little girl, you have led a sheltered life. You think that's so offensive? Hell, you should hear what I say to members of the general public.'
'I've heard about some of those things.'
'Well, this is me being polite, okay? On my best behavior.'
'Well, your best behavior has gotten you eleven verbal cautions, two written warnings, your driver's license suspended, and a one- third pay hold until Christmas. Oh yes - and a recommendation that you see me on a regular basis until your attitude improves.'
'And you think it'll do me some good? Coming on down here and talking to you?'
'I hope so.'
'Why?'
'Because it's what I do, Frank. It's my job, my purpose.'
'And you're a shrink, right?'
'I am a psychotherapist.'
'Psycho-the-rapist.'
'No, Frank, a psychotherapist.'
'I've met a few rapist psychos in my time.'
'I know.'
'You know?'
'Yes, Frank, I know some of the people you've had to deal with. I know about some of the things that you've seen.'
'And what does that tell you?'
'It tells me that you're a troubled man. That you might need someone to talk to.'
'Am I that obvious?'
'Well, yes, I think you are, Frank. I think you are that obvious.'
'You wanna know something we were taught in Keystone Cop School?'
'Sure.'
'Sometimes the obvious occludes the truth. And sometimes things are exactly as they appear.'
'Meaning what?'
'Well, it's real simple. I appear to be an aggressive, fucked-up, alcoholic loser with some twenty years on the career clock . . . and you can throw into that incendiary mix my dangerously low self-esteem and a taste for cheap women and expensive whiskey, and you wind up with someone that you really don't want to get involved with. And like I said, even though that is only who I appear to be, I think you're gonna find out it's exactly who I am.'
'Well, it looks like we're going to be spending a few really interesting weeks together.'
'You're worried I'm gonna go crazy, aren't you?'
'I don't like to use that term.'
'Oh for God's sake, when did everyone start getting so goddamn scared of words? It's just a word, okay? Just a fucking word. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.'
'Okay, so I'm worried that you might go crazy.'
'Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.'
'You think that?'
'Bukowsky said it. You know Charles Bukowsky?'
'He was a drunk, I believe.'
'He was a writer. A writer. Like I am a cop, like you are psychotherapist. The booze doesn't define us lady, it augments the already rich fullness of our lives.'
'You are so full of shit, Frank Parrish.'
'Are you actually allowed to say that to me? Doesn't your professional ethical code prevent you from telling me that I am full of shit?'
'Go home and get some sleep, Frank. Come back and talk to me when you're in a better mood.'
'Hey, that might just be never, Doctor Griffin.
'
FOUR
Somewhere on his desk - somewhere beneath the first officers' reports, the supplemental, the evidence submission slips, the body custody forms, the fingerprint dockets and the interview notes - was a cell phone. It rang now, with a harsh sound, almost bitter, as if accusing Frank Parrish
of something.
There were few phone calls that did not have a dead body at the other end. Before the cell phone age those who attended to such matters could have been elsewhere, unreachable. Now the dead bodies found them wherever they were: no hiding and no heroics for the detectives of Homicide Unit Two, Nineteenth Precinct, South Brooklyn. We get there when the killing's done, they say. They will also tell you that most murders are brief, brutal and uninteresting. Nine times out of ten they are also pointless.
Like the old saying Tutte e Mafia in Italia, everything - just everything - is dead in Homicide.
Parrish located the phone, answered it.
'Frank, it's Hayes here.'
'Hey there. What's up?'
'You know a guy called Danny Lange?'
'Sure I do. Mid-twenties, weaselly-faced kid, did a three-to-five for robbing a drugstore.'
'Yeah. Well, he's dead. Someone put a .22 in his head. You wanna come down here and sort it out?'
Parrish glanced at his watch: it was quarter after five. 'Can do. Where are you?'
Parrish scribbled down the directions, then grabbed one of the uniforms to give him a ride in a squad car. The traffic was bad, jammed up and tight along Adams. They took a right after the Polytechnic University, made better time along Jay, and came out opposite Cathedral Place. Parrish could already see the red flicker from the black-and-whites. They pulled over sharply and Parrish got out, telling the uniform to head on back. To Parrish's left was an empty lot, a derelict coupe hunched like a sad dog, a handful of federal yellow flowers escaping from beneath the hood.
Back of the tapes Danny Lange was spread-eagled on the ground, head at an awkward angle, the expression on his face something akin to mild surprise. He was looking back towards the church at the end of the street. There was a neon sign up there, the light from its tubes subdued by smog and dirt, that Parrish knew well. Sin Will Find You Out. No shit, Sherlock, he had thought the first time he saw it.
'You turned him yet?' Parrish asked Paul Hayes.
'Ain't done a thing,' Hayes said.
'No change there then,' Parrish quipped.
'Go fuck yourself, Parrish,' Hayes replied, but he was half- smiling. 'There's a deli half a block down. You want anything?'
'See if you can get me some Vicodin. If not, aspirin. And a cup of coffee. Black and strong.'
Hayes disappeared.
Down on his haunches, Frank Parrish surveyed the body silently for some minutes, aware that darkness was dropping fast. He sensed the uniforms watching him from the black-and-whites.
Danny had leaked, just a little. That was not unusual for such a small caliber. It would be up to the ME to make a call on this as the primary or secondary crime scene. This was the drop, nothing more. Parrish put on latex gloves, went through Danny's pockets, found the better part of a hundred bucks which he tucked discreetly into his shoe. No ID, no driver's license, no billfold, no watch. Still, despite such missing artifacts, this was no robbery. Danny Lange was not a man to wear a watch or carry a billfold, or even a man who washed, for that matter. Dying had not tempered his characteristically rank odor.
The hole in his throat was the only wound. Entry, no exit. Looked like the .22 had actually been pointed upwards at a steep angle, leaving the bullet still inside his head. Those little slugs had insufficient power to make it a through-and-through; they would just ricochet around like a fairground ride and mush the brain. Number of times they collided with the internal wall of the cranium just pancaked the shit out of them. Difficult to pull any lands, grooves, striations. Parrish used his little finger to push up into the entry wound. It was still moist an inch or so in, telling him Danny had been dead no more than a couple of hours. Danny Lange was small time. No money, no future, little of anything at all. He would have pissed someone off, short-changed them, cut a deal with something obvious like baby laxative or baking soda, and that was that. It was all the same, and it was all war. Parrish knew his Cormac McCarthy. The old judge in Blood Meridian said, "It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before Man was, war waited for him . . . That is the way it was and will be."
The war had reached Danny Lange, and he was now one of its countless casualties.
Frank Parrish called one of the uniforms over, gave him some gloves, told him to help him roll the vic. They did. Danny had crapped himself.
'You call the DC?' Frank asked.
'Yes, sir, I did.'
'Good man. You wait here and keep an eye on him. Make sure he don't do a runner. I'm gonna go drink some coffee with my friend, and I'll speak to the deputy coroner when he comes down, okay?'
'Yes, sir.'
Hayes had made it as far as Starbucks. No Vicodin, only aspirin, but at least the coffee was passable. Parrish chewed a couple of tablets and washed them down.
'Anything?' Hayes asked.
Parrish shook his head. 'Usual shit. He must've upset someone. Someone said something. Like the Sicilians say, a word in the right ear can make or murder a man.'
'How many you got on?'
'Three,' Parrish replied.
'I already got five open. Can you take this one?'
Parrish hesitated.
'You take this one and I'll give you a credit on my next bust.'
Parrish nodded. 'Deal.'
'You got your partner yet?' Hayes asked.
'Tomorrow' Parrish said. 'Some nineteen-year-old out of detective school.'
'Hope that works out for you.'
'Me I ain't worried about. It's whatever dumb schmuck they give me'll have the problem. He better be able to look round corners.'
'So, we're good? I'm away. Leave you to deal with the DC.'
Hayes walked back two steps, turned and disappeared. Parrish heard his car start around the corner and pull away sharply.
He drank half the coffee, tipped the rest into the road, dropped the cup into a basket at the corner, and walked back to Danny Lange.
FIVE
The Deputy Coroner came and went. Parrish watched the wagon take Danny away, and then walked to the nearest subway station.
Danny Lange's place was a flea-bitten rat-hole of a shithouse up on the ninth floor of some project building. Even as Parrish approached the entrance, he remembered an earlier time he'd been there. Two years ago, maybe three. He'd come away feeling the need to wash his hair and dry-clean his clothes. It was a sad day when a man lost his reason, sadder when he lost his respect. Danny Lange had lost both a long time ago.
The inner hallway smelled of piss and puke. A scattering of used hypodermics crunched underfoot as Parrish skirted the elevators and headed for the stairwell. The elevators were notoriously unreliable, the very worst kind of place to get trapped.
He reached the third and was already out of breath. He was alone. Shouldn't have been, but partners wore out quicker than they used to - last one took a permanent rain check. Parrish had done his first three years as a detective in Vice, the next six in Robbery-Homicide, and when they split the units he stayed with the dead people. Robbery was bullshit. Penny-ante liquor store hold-ups, some Korean guy dead for the sake of twenty-nine dollars and change. Junkies working for enough money to score pep-pills, trying to stave off the heebie-jeebies. Heebie-jeebies gonna getcha no matter how many stores you rob. That was just the way of things.
Fifth floor and Parrish took a break. He would have smoked a cigarette but he couldn't breathe. He stopped, tried not to think of Caitlin, his daughter, but she came at him every which way. Get more exercise, Dad. Smoke less cigarettes. And don't even get me started on the drinking. He wasn't winning. She was almost done
with her training, and he wanted her close - Brooklyn Hospital, Cumberland, even Holy Family down on Dean Street, but Caitlin wanted to go to Manhattan. St. Vincent's perhaps. She had gone for nursing; something her mother had always supported. And Caitlin's mother was Frank's ex-wife. Clare Parrish. Except now she'd reverted to her maiden nam
e of Baxter. Fuck it. How did that ever go so wrong? Sure, they were married young, but it had been good. December '85 they'd gotten hitched. Robert was born just four months later in April of '86, Caitlin in June of '88. Good kids. Better than their parents. Such a great start. Difficulties, yes of course, but nothing major, nothing serious. How that deteriorated into a barrage of vitriolic accusations - unfounded for the most part - he would never know. Silent grievances saved up like bad pennies. He was aggressive, bull-headed, ignorant, forgetful. She was shallow, cynical, untrusting, dismissive of his friends. Friends . . . What friends?
And then it turned really bitter. He failed to understand even the most rudimentary requirements for social interaction. She could not cook, clean, she had no culture, no passion. Afterwards, the argument spent, they would get drunk and fuck like rampant teenagers, but it was never the same and they both knew it. Each had uttered sharp words, and between them - neither more guilty than the other - they had pricked the matrimonial bubble. Tolerance deflated. He had rented a three-room apartment on South Portland, started an affair with a twenty-seven-year-old paralegal named Holly. Clare started screwing her hairstylist - half-Italian with a ponytail - who called her bambino and left fingernail crescents on her ass.
Hindsight, ever and again the cruelest and most astute advisor, gave him harsh lessons in responsibility. He should have had a better attitude. He should have appreciated that his wife - despite the fact that she did not work in Homicide - nevertheless had an important job raising a family. All well and good now, after it had blown itself skywards. Most guys, she used to say, you have to wait for them to fuck up. You? With you there ain't no waiting. You're a fuck-up before you arrive.
Divorce had gone through in November 2001, when Caitlin was thirteen, Robert two years older. Clare got them weekdays, Frank had them weekends. They got their diplomas, went to college, started to take their own bold steps in the world. They were undoubtedly the best thing that came out of it. They were the very best part of him.