Wolfman - Art Bourgeau

by Art Bourgeau

  "Why did you accept?"

  He looked at her. She knew the answer for God's sake. It was so ordinary. The only ordinary part of the whole thing.

  "I felt obligated to my friend. I guess . . . Anyway, Treadwell's always makes me uncomfortable. It’s so . . . stiff."

  "Stiff. . . is that the best word to describe it?"

  Her question angered him. Why was she picking this way at what he was telling her? It made him want to shake her, upset her cool detachment, make her feel what he was feeling . . . "No, 'fartsy' is a better word." She didn't react. "It's one of those places you almost have to shop at if you're in my business . . . The thing that bothers me most about it is the fitting room. Having to stand there while they adjust you and touch you, it makes my skin crawl. It makes me feel like. . . I don’t know," he said, not wanting even to think about how he felt violated whenever someone even touched him.

  "Do you always feel this way when you go there, or was it something that made this particular time different?"

  He watched her put her cigarette to her lips. There was a beauty to her actions . . . at the same time they were almost a torment for him. She knew. His doctor must have told her. Why was she doing this to him? Another base thought came to mind, of them alone together — he pushed it back, didn't want to think of her that way. The thought of doing it to another person was repulsive . . . Concentrate, he ordered himself. If you don’t finish now you'll never be able to . . . "I never like to be touched, I admit it. But this time was worse, much worse. There was something there . . . something in the air . . . I can’t describe it. All I remember is that when I tried on the second suit my heart started to race and I knew . . .well, I didn't know, but I thought I was . . . this sounds so crazy . . . I thought I was shrinking. That's when I left and went to my doctor."

  "Has anything like this happened to you since?" Her face showed no reaction to what he had just said, and that infuriated him. She was stripping him, laughing to herself. A tease, like girls his classmates had talked about long ago. . .Only this was worse. They just teased with the flesh. She teased with something deeper. . .

  There was more but he wouldn't tell her. She'd laughed enough. She didn't need to know how he'd felt afterward, or how he woke up in his leather chair not knowing how the hell he’d gotten there. Wondering how he'd gotten from his I bed to there. Or about the dreams . . .

  When he didn't answer she said, "You mentioned that your day had been bad from start to finish. What made it bad?"

  Hearing her voice, he felt alone, more alone than in a long time. He didn't like the feeling. Sitting across from her he had felt a closeness, now it was gone. There was no future in answering. He already knew that. Still, there was the moment, maybe that would be enough . . .

  He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. "My sister called. . . to invite me to her wedding, and my mother and her. . . husband were on the extension"

  The memory of the conversation made his stomach knot.

  The pain he felt was the drawing kind, like thin lines of wire coming out weblike, reeling him in, wanting to bow his back and fold him like an old pocketknife. He pushed against the chair to keep himself straight.

  "Your mother's husband is not your father. . . ?"

  "No," he said, trying to will away the pain. "My father died when I was young . . . in an accident. My mother married his business partner. . . afterward"

  She stubbed out her cigarette. She’d taken him far enough for now. Reliving the episode had made him afraid again, and it was clear he was emotionally exhausted. So, she realized, was she. But they'd been good together, she felt. They had chemistry. His problem was an interesting one. He'd fought, held back, but had also revealed. To get at the source would take time and work, but she believed she could at least help him. It was too early to tell for sure, but the episode in the store seemed linked somehow to the phone call and his family. Maybe his sister, maybe his mother's remarriage, maybe marriage period. Time would tell, if he gave her the chance and she was good enough . . .

  "I think we've covered enough ground for our first session."

  Her words pleased and displeased him. He felt like he was all in pieces, but he knew he also wanted to stay, to look at her beauty, be with her. It was a new sensation.

  "What do I call you?" he heard himself say. "I'm not too comfortable calling you Dr. Priest."

  She sat, weighing whether it was wise to risk closeness with a patient so new. But she also felt he needed to leave with something, some small triumph. "My given name is Margaret."

  He stood up to go. As he walked toward the door he turned and stopped. "Wasn’t Margaret the name of the woman Faust sold his soul for. . . ?"

  "I’m sure I don't know," she said. And she felt a chill.

  CHAPTER 4

  NATE MERCANTO pulled his old Camaro to the curb and stopped in front of the warehouse on American Street near Third and Spring Garden. Huddled in the passenger seat, an Irish walking-hat covering his now total baldness, was his brother Frank. This was the day each week Mercanto hated the most.

  As he reached for the door handle his brother raised a hand to stop him. "You stay. I’m fine. Besides, you have to get to the stationhouse or you'll be late for your shift."

  Mercanto wanted to protest, but Frank was right. The captain had ordered him to report at four, and it was already a quarter past three. Still, he didn’t like being forced to choose, or even hurry, not with Frank so sick.

  Frank fumbled with the door handle and pushed it open. It was a scene they had played weekly for the past three months as they made the trip home from the hospital, only each week the door seemed to get heavier. Frank slowly swung his feet out and looked back. "Call me." There was pain in his face when he said it. The man who spoke bore little resemblance to the older brother Mercanto had idolized all his life — the one in the picture in his wallet of the two of them on the fishing boat out of Atlantic City laughing, carefree, but that's how he tried to think of him.

  "You know I will, and I’ll stop by during the week," Mercanto said. He hadn’t mentioned finding the body. Frank already had enough on his mind. He watched as his brother started toward the warehouse.

  The first floor housed a garage specializing in repairs to foreign cars: lags, Porsches, Ferraris, Mercedes. The second floor was Frank's living quarters and studio where for years he’d tried so hard to get his thoughts and feelings on canvas. The garage was closed now, had been since the cancer and treatments had weakened him too much to work. He could still drive and care for himself, but not on the day each week when he went for chemotherapy; the treatment made him too sick. At the sound of the car door a young black man dressed in work clothes and wearing a cap advertising Colt .45 malt liquor appeared from inside and hurried up to help.

  Mercanto watched them step-by-step as they started up the stairs to the second floor, put the Camaro in gear and started for the stationhouse in lousy spirits. Frank was all the family he had left.

  * * *

  The Park Squad's headquarters was on Henry Avenue near the Valley Green section. In the twilight, as Mercanto pulled into the parking lot, it looked like a small-town city hall with its stone front, double glass doors and a bit of green on either side of the walk. He parked and started in to change into uniform.

  The desk sergeant looked up as he came in. "The captain wants to see you."

  Mercanto nodded and walked toward the rear of the first floor. The building had two floors and a basement, the first was reception and administration, the second was lockers, squad room and a small room with a microwave, Mr. Coffee, and three vending machines, designated on the fire map of the building as the "Cafeteria." The holding cells and interrogation rooms were in the basement.

  He stopped in front of a frosted glass door and knocked. Behind the desk was Captain Mabel Zinkowsky, a black woman of about fifty. She had joined the force during the Rizzo years as part of an affirmative action program, but it wasn't her sex or her race that had brou
ght her to a captaincy, it was the desire to carry on for her patrolman-husband, killed in the line of duty. Now, because of her age and the way the force was changing, all that was behind her and what was left for her, like for him, was the Park Squad. Unlike him she never let her disappointments show.

  Seated in front of her desk was Detective George Sloan from homicide. She motioned to the empty chair beside him. "Sit down, officer."

  "What now?" Mercanto had given them everything in his report. As far as he was concerned his business with Sloan was finished.

  "You two know each other," the captain said. Both nodded, neither looked at the other. If the captain noticed the hostility between them she did not acknowledge it. In her blunt way she came right to the point. "George, I’m glad you asked for this meeting because it gives me a chance to let everybody know my decision. I’m assigning Officer Mercanto to work with you until we solve the murder in the park."

  Mercanto couldn’t believe it. It could be a big step toward putting his career back together. On the other hand it meant working with George Sloan.

  "Over my dead body," Sloan said. "Homicide rules the roost on murder cases. When I asked for help on this case I didn’t mean him."

  "George, you're wrong on this one. The Gunther situation was unfortunate, but it doesn't alter the fact that Officer Mercanto is a good cop — "

  "He’s not going to work on this case — "

  "Don't get premenstrual on me, George. I've been trying to be nice and act like everyone's mama lately, so don't force me to remind you that captains still outrank lieutenants — and while you are in charge of the case, since it happened in my precinct I can make any administrative decisions I like. What I've decided is to assign Officer Mercanto to the case."

  "I can go over your head."

  "I don't think so. You're a good cop, too."

  Sloan chewed on it for a moment, nodded. Nothing else to do . . .

  Mercanto settled back in his chair. The thought of doing some real police work for a change felt good. The closest he'd come lately was investigating some missing rabbits from a pen behind a house on the West Mt. Airy side of the Wissahickon and keeping an eye out for something, probably a stray dog that had killed some ducks near Devil's Pool.

  "You understand he’s going to have to carry the ball a lot," Sloan said. "Our people are jammed up with that house of death in North Philly. This morning the mayor gave it top priority, and we can't be two places at once."

  "He can handle it. He has more experience in plainclothes than anyone in my command. That’s why I picked him," the captain said. She took off her bifocals and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I can appreciate the mayor’s priorities but I have mine, too . . . the Valley Green section is a nice little cabbage patch and I don’t want it dirtied up. I want the son of a bitch who did this. I want this murder solved . . ."

  Mercanto wanted to say amen.

  Sloan got down to business. "Here's what we have. The victim’s name was Stanley Hightower. . ."

  Mercanto frowned. The name meant something to him but he couldn’t place it until Sloan said, "He was a Center City optometrist. There was a piece about him in the Sunday paper. He’s the guy near Rittenhouse Square who makes the glasses for all the stars . . ."

  "You remember?" the captain said.

  Mercanto nodded. "Yeah, I saw the piece. He makes stuff like prescription diving-masks and ski-goggles. I think it said he even replaced the windshield in a Porsche with prescription glass for some Hollywood hotshot who didn't want to be seen wearing glasses."

  Sloan took it up again. "He's divorced and lived in a condo on Washington Square. Before that he was married to a French clothes designer. . . Dominique’s her name."

  Mercanto let out a soft whistle. Stanley Hightower was a high-profile citizen. That’s why Sloan was willing to let him in on it. Even short-handed this was a case that had to be solved.

  Sloan consulted a file in his lap. "The Medical Examiner's report is in. Death was caused by one shot to the right temple from a .22 caliber gun. The bullet was a hollow point. The impact splattered it too much for it to be of any use ballistically — "

  "A pro’s gun . . ." Mercanto said.

  "Maybe. Death occurred between three and three-thirty a.m. Just before you found the body," Sloan said, glancing in Mercanto's direction.

  "What about the mutilation, his hand?" Mercanto asked.

  "According to the M.E. that happened after death. He said he could tell by the destruction of the arteries and the coagulation of the blood."

  Mercanto nodded, remembering the peaceful look on the victim’s face. That’s what he'd thought, too. "How was it done?"

  "The M.E. identified bite marks on the hand . . . human bite marks . . ."

  "Human?" There was shock in the captain's voice.

  "Yes," said Sloan, keeping it clinical as he could. "The M.E. couldn't make a cast of them because of the destruction to the hand, but he says they were definitely human bites."

  Nobody said anything, and after a moment Sloan continued.

  "Robbery was the apparent motive. The victim’s wallet was gone. We made the identification through motor vehicles."

  "No, definitely not robbery," the captain said. "Nobody does something like this for a robbery. There’s a helluva lot more here than that. Any ideas?"

  Sloan closed the file. "We’ve some possibilities. The simplest first — it could have been a robbery, a sex-related one. He was divorced. Maybe he picked up the wrong person, a prostitute, took her out there to park and she killed him."

  The captain nodded. "It’s true, the sex-related ones are always the most gruesome. What do you think, Mercanto?"

  "I wouldn’t rule it out, still with AIDS everywhere why would a guy like him risk going to a prostitute? He'd have no trouble getting girls. Of course he could have been kinky, or maybe it wasn't a prostitute. Maybe it was just someone he picked up. Or maybe he was gay and picked up a basher. Is there anything in the M.E.'s report about it?"

  "They ran an AIDS test and he was clean. There were no traces of semen, so he hadn’t come before he died, which doesn't prove anything one way or the other. If it was like we just said, it would have happened before he had a chance to."

  Sloan paused. "Another possibility is his ex-wife. Maybe she did it, maybe she hired it done, or had a boyfriend do it and was there for it. Next to sex crimes, domestic murders are the roughest." He paused again. "When she came to identify the body we showed her everything, including the mutilation, and she didn't bat an eyelash."

  "She either hated him, or that’s one tough woman," said the captain.

  Nobody disputed it. "Our third possibility is drugs. The M.E. found traces of cocaine in Hightower’s body. We have the pro-type hit. Maybe he was a white-collar dealer who got out of line, and his wallet was taken to confirm the hit. The mutilation could have been to put the fear of God into others involved, or it may even have been part of some damn ritual. He wouldn't be the first. You know how the Jamaicans have been raising hell around town lately. Remember what they did to those kids — "

  "That was in the section of the park near the zoo. We haven't had that problem up here," the captain said quickly.

  "There’s always a first time. . ."

  Mercanto had to agree with him. Drugs were big business, crossed all ethnic and social lines, and the Jamaicans had been responsible for a number of recent murders, each more sensational than the last.

  "Well, that's what we have so far," Sloan said. "We released Hightower’s death to the newspapers this morning. There's no way we could keep it out. But we held back the mutilation angle."

  "Good, that's not the sort of thing we want the public to hear about," the captain said.

  Sloan turned to Mercanto. "The ball, like they say, is in your court now. You think you can handle it?"

  Mercanto just looked at him.

  "Do you have any thoughts on it? Something we might have missed. After all, you found the body," the
captain said. He looked at her, then at Sloan. "You left out one possibility."

  "What's that?" Sloan said.

  "That it was a random killing, and we have a psycho loose in the park."

  CHAPTER 5

  LORING WEATHERBY ignored the view from his corner table at Moselle’s. Outside, students from Taft and Penn, bundled against the chill in the best from Goldberg’s and Eddie Bauer, bustled up and down the University City section of Walnut Street, but he did not give them a second glance. He sat staring at the piece of paper he was holding.

  A waiter appeared, menu in hand, and stood in front of his table. Loring looked up. “No, I'm waiting for someone," he said. As the waiter turned to go Loring stopped him. "On second thought, would you bring a Bombay martini on the rocks with a twist?"

  The waiter nodded and for a moment Loring felt compelled to explain himself. To say it was after two. That he wasn’t going back to the office. That the stock market had already done all the damage it could to him for one more day. He looked back at the paper in his hand. On it was written the name Margaret Priest and two phone numbers. Her office number and her home, the latter of which he had gotten from the phone book, although it was listed as "M. Priest." In one corner of the paper was written the word "Margaret" three times. It didn't look like his handwriting, but he knew he must have done it, doodling absent-mindedly as he sometimes did.

  A busboy filled two water glasses and brought bread. As Loring watched him he could hear the words she had spoken to him at the close of their first session . . . My given name is Margaret . . ." Now she called him by his given name, too. At first she had been reluctant, but when she saw that it was important to him she gave in. Good . . .

  He looked around and wondered what he was doing here. The thought of another business lunch sent his stomach into a spasm of pain. He breathed deeply and pressed his diaphragm down, willing the pain to go away. Sometimes that helped. This time it didn't, but it didn't frighten him either. The pain was only tension, the doctor said. However, if he didn't do something for it he knew he would not be able to eat. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a small bottle with a medicine dropper. The label read: "Belladonna, ten drops in water, three times per day." He never traveled without it. Deadly nightshade, the only thing that would relieve the pain, and later the only thing that would bring sleep. He reached for his water and counted the drops of the brownish liquid, barely stopping at twenty-five.