Bleeding in Black and White

by Colin Cotterill

  The early questions on the drive were all from Denholm about his lover’s wellbeing. He seemed to know about the depression and the suicide attempt. It was all Bodge could do to persuade him that Palmer’s state of mind had settled and that the man was back in control of himself.

  “But, they don’t have any actual evidence against either of you,” Bodge went on.

  “Nothing physical — but enough circumstantial to force us out of our respective jobs. They interviewed neighbors, talked to the building superintendent. You know? We’d naturally been careful but once the virus takes root people’s memories tend to turn even the most innocent comments and gestures into blatant queer behavior. You saw the reaction when people thought your pal was homosexual.”

  “I sure did.”

  “Look, Bodge. I don’t know how you feel about all this, but, if you’d sooner work with someone else on clearing Lou’s name I could put you on to a private dick I trust. I can help you out with money. I’d understand. My badge isn’t going to do us a lot of good. I’d sooner keep it in my wallet unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Is there really no one in the department who supports you?”

  “Are you kidding? You know cops, Bodge. Even if someone did have doubts about people like us being disease-carrying perverts there’s no way on God’s earth they’d let anyone else know that. Most of the guys I worked with believe I’ve betrayed them. There are one or two who’ve kept quiet but I don’t dare approach them for help. I guess they’re as close as I am to anyone in the force these days.”

  “But do you think we could call on them if we need official backup?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. I know a guy with the FBI who — shall we say — has a vested interest in busting a few queer myths.”

  “He’s—?”

  “Yup!”

  “You don’t say? Gee. The government service actually is riddled with perversion.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “So, when you were coordinating Lou’s exhumation from my place—?”

  “It was all done through him. I didn’t have any direct contact with the police.”

  “Could he get us an appointment with a coroner, do you suppose?”

  “Already taken care of.”

  “There you go. Organization. I think you and I are going to be just fine partners.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  As the high-rises of the Upper East Side loomed up in front of him, Bodge felt like an unarmed gladiator on his way into the coliseum. As far as he was concerned this was enemy territory. There was an Agency warrant out on him. The police were probably looking for him, too. Whatever ferreting around they did would have to be discreet and clever.

  Their first stop was the Cornell Medical Center morgue where most of the Agency related autopsies were conducted. Denholm’s name on the visitor’s list got them past a receptionist who didn’t seem too interested and down into the basement office of Dr. Lee, the head coroner. His secretary went through the records and found that the doctor himself had performed the autopsy on Lou Vistarini.

  Dr. Lee was a small Asian with a troubled expression. He hurried into the office from the dissection room, ignored the big man on a chair in the corner, and the tall man reading a wall chart, and rushed to his desk. The only thing on his mind seemed to be getting the Lucky Strike from his drawer and breathing in some life-saving nicotine. After three puffs, a look of divine enlightenment came over his face and he sat in his chair and smiled. That’s when he noticed the visitors.

  “Oh, hi. Can I help you?”

  Bodge introduced himself as Agent Rogers from Operations. Denholm kept quiet. Bodge said he was following up on the Lou Vistarini case and needed to ask one or two questions. The coroner, with his beloved cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, gladly went through the files. He emerged with a thin folder with Lou’s name typed at the top.

  “Here he is,” Lee said. “What specifically do you need to know?”

  “Did you find any traces of drugs? Anything that could have knocked him out?”

  “Let’s see. Stomach contents. Stomach contents. Oh, wait. I recall this case, now. This is the chap that had been buried once and exhumed.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, it would have been a few days after he died before I got to see him. Some traces would have dissipated after that long. But, let’s see.”

  Bodge was surprised Dr. Lee could read the file with his eyelids squeezed together to keep out the smoke. “Yes, here we are. There was some chemical and natural residue in the stomach I couldn’t identify.”

  “You don’t do tests?”

  “We can only test for things we know about. This seemed to be a cocktail of weird and wonderful compounds. Probably something new from overseas. In fact there were only two components that I could positively identify.”

  “And, what were they?”

  “One was an opiate of some kind. The other was an alkaloid of the belladonna family.”

  “Belladonna’s a poison.”

  “In large doses, yes. But it can also be used as a medicine. In some of its forms it may work as a sedative. I believe it also has hallucinatory effects. It all depends on the dosage and what it was mixed with. It’s odd, though.”

  “What is?”

  “Well, opium and belladonna are antagonistic.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Opium is an antidote to belladonna. They should cancel each other out. Taken together…I can’t imagine what would happen.”

  “Disorientation?”

  “I’d certainly think so. But again it would depend on what these other traces were. And if alcohol were involved, whoosh.” He threw his hand into the air like a rocket taking off.

  “You don’t think it’s anything he’d be likely to administer himself for a medical complaint?”

  “Oh, absolutely not. Belladonna can have a disastrous effect on someone with a medical condition — heart problems for example.”

  “Could this cocktail have been lethal by itself?”

  Lee held up the file. “I doubt it. I have here as cause of death; ‘Cardiac arrest’. I confess that’s often a catch all for a coroner to use if he hasn’t got a clue, but in this case I wrote here; ‘clear signs of subintimal hemorrhage’.”

  “And that means?”

  “There was a rupture that caused an obstruction in the blood vessel. Mr. Vistarini’s heart shut down.”

  “Is there anything else that could have caused it?”

  “I don’t know. Shock, sometimes in older people. Respiratory paralysis due to an overdose of stimulants, perhaps.”

  “Was there any evidence that he might have overdosed? Drink, for example?”

  “Like I say, I got him a few days late. If he’d drunk himself to death it would have been hard to tell from the autopsy. His liver didn’t look too bad so I didn’t consider alcoholic poisoning. There was this, though.”

  “What?”

  Lee produced a photograph he’d taken of the face. Bodge was shocked to see the condition of his friend. His face was a death mask — all humour and kindness and verve had been drained from it. Bodge’s stomach heaved. There were bruises and cuts around the mouth.

  “Could that have happened when he was being buried?”

  “No. This bruising could only have happened when he was still alive.” When Bodge last saw his friend in the cab, there were no face wounds. He stared up at his reservoir of explanations and plucked one down.

  “Could these wounds have been caused by someone force-feeding him booze, doctor?”

  “That’s not impossible, son. Not impossible at all. In fact, as far as I could see, one of his teeth was cracked too. Could have been caused by a glass bottle. Only conjecture of course but not impossible.”

  Bodge breathed deeply and took in a lungful of cigarette smoke. “Dr. Lee, did you happen to send a copy of this to the Security division?”

  The doctor looked a
t the attached note. “Yes. Someone came from there to pick it up.”

  “So, they knew all this.”

  “Yup.”

  “Thank you, doctor. You’ve been very helpful.”

  They didn’t voice their opinions on what they’d just heard until they were back in the car.

  “All right,” Denholm said. “So we have a possibility that your friend was force-fed, and the possibility that he died from an alcohol overdose. Where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves us with the fact that Lou picked up those cuts and bruises after I left him in the cab. I wasn’t at my most observant that night so I guess we could use a second opinion.”

  62.

  The little guy with the nose was just arriving for his shift when Denholm and Bodge stepped out of the shadows.

  “Holy shit. You two scared the daylights out of me.” His edgy twitch had become more pronounced. It was either generic or he got nervous in the company of guys in suits.

  “How are you doing, bud?” Denholm asked.

  “A lot better for not having you two jump out at me. Now what is it?”

  “Just a couple more questions.”

  “You know?” the cabby said, trying to edge past them. “I’d love to gas with you boys, but I really gotta cab to drive.”

  “That’s perfect, then,” said Bodge. “Because we’re looking to hire one. What do you say we go for a drive?”

  Either the guy was a naturally bad driver or something had spooked him badly because they hadn’t gone a hundred yards and he’d already screwed up the gears twice.

  “Something bothering you?” Denholm asked.

  “Me? No, sir. I’m as right as rain, me.”

  “You know?” said Bodge. “I’ve kind of been expecting you to ask whether we found my friend.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah! So, did ya?”

  “We found his body.”

  Even through the rear view mirror they could detect a drastic loss of colour in the cabby’s face.

  “He’s dead?”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Yeah! Well, why…why shouldn’t it?”

  He was driving so slowly the cabbie behind them started leaning on his horn. Their driver nearly jumped out of his seat.

  “Why don’t you pull over for a second?” Bodge suggested.

  Once they’d come to a stop the two passengers leaned on the back of the front seat.

  “And when they found him,” Denholm went on, “his mouth was bloodied and he’d broken a tooth.”

  “As if he’d been beaten up,” Bodge added.

  “And, as you were the last person to see him alive…”

  “Don’t you try that one on me,” the driver said, swinging around in his seat. “That ain’t true.”

  “But that’s what you told us,” said Bodge.

  “I said he went to his door.”

  “And nobody let him in. And that’s where they found his dead body four hours later in the step down of his own building.”

  “No, you know? That ain’t possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look. I can’t…”

  “It’s a murder rap,” Denholm reminded him.

  “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “So you keep telling us.”

  “Oh, man. They got my registration. They’ll know it was me.”

  “You’re being squeezed to keep quiet?”

  “He said he’d find my family. I don’t want my family hurt.”

  “If your information turns out to be reliable we might be able to offer them protection. Ninety nine percent of threats don’t lead to anything. It’s either that or you’re looking at jail time.”

  There was silence for a full minute but Denholm and Bodge let it ride. The driver’s eyes darted back and forth between the two men and out into the street.

  “All right. But I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

  “That’s for us to decide.”

  “Okay. Okay. We was almost back at his place when he comes round. I mean the guy you’re asking about. He asks me where he is and I tell him. He asks where you are and I say I just dropped you off. He’s confused, you know? Not all there. And it’s like he remembers something. He says, ‘Sons of bitches’ or some such thing and tells me we gotta go back.”

  “Back to where you picked him up?” Bodge asked.

  “Yeah. And I got no problem with that long as he’s got money to pay me. He was out of it — not firing on all rockets you might say. So I had to check he had enough for the fare. He goes through his wallet and throws me a twenty. So I’m just about to turn back when he decides he wants to make a phone call. Seeing as we’re close to his place he says he’ll stop off there and call.”

  “Did he say who to?” Bodge asked.

  “Nah. I didn’t get half of what he was saying. He staggers over to the door and I guess he can’t find his key cause I see him reach up and ring the bell. He’s swaying away, you know? Getting mad. Then he makes his way back to the cab and climbs in. Again he wants me to take him back to where I found him so off we go. I didn’t see nothing strange in it. A lot of drunks forget stuff in bars and get me to turn round. It must have been about, I don’t know, three? And he gets me to cruise up and down 8th real slow and I point out the garbage cans I found him in front of. So we stop there and he just sits and looks around.”

  “And this is in front of Bouncers?” Bodge asked.

  “That’s right. We’re sitting there twenty minutes, I guess. Just sitting. Then, all of a sudden, my door flies open and this guy leans in and sticks a derringer in my face. I don’t mind telling you I shit myself. A couple of other guys are in the back seat and wrestling your buddy out and onto the sidewalk.”

  “Did you see where they took him?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? Man, I got a gun barrel against my teeth. And the guy holding it gives me a choice. He says I can choose for him to shoot me right there and then, or I can turn blind, deaf and dumb. He says he’s got the cab numbers and if I ever remembered what I just seen he wouldn’t think twice about coming after me. And, I tell you, I believed him. I had to keep quiet. You can see that, can’t ya?”

  “And you drove off?”

  “Fast as I could.”

  “Would you recognize the guys if you saw them again?”

  “The punk that was in my face, sure. But it was all too fast and dark to get a handle on the others.”

  “Okay,” Denholm said at last. “What’s the fare?”

  “What? That’s it?”

  “Sure. You’ve been very cooperative. Thanks. We’ll be in touch.”

  “What about the threat?”

  “Did he look at your drivers license?”

  “No, but he got the cab registration.”

  “And is this the same cab as that night?”

  “No. We switch.”

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. It was just a threat. They won’t come after you.”

  “You two found me easy enough.”

  “Yeah, but you forget. We’re the good guys. We’re a lot smarter.”

  It was Friday night — long after midnight, and Bodge was into his third hour of surveillance. A hundred yards up ahead, on the other side of the street the normally flashing light out front of Bouncers was dark. Drunks had passed him, looked in the car and decided not to hassle the big guy in the dark fedora. He could have been a cop, or a mobster or just a late night murderer waiting for a victim. It was safer to leave him be.

  In all the time he’d been there, only two teenagers had gone into the café down from the clip joint. Bodge thought about Denholm’s comment the night they’d gone in there for their twenty-five cent instants. “I smell something odd here and it sure isn’t coffee.” Who’d own a place like this in such a neighborhood? Why would he want to price himself out of the market unless he wasn’t so keen on attracting customers and making money? Bodge tapped his fingers on the dash and considered that last thought.
/>   “Unless he wanted to keep the place empty.”

  He decided it was time to stretch his legs. He locked the car and strolled along his side of the road. The street smelled of smoke and garbage. When he came level to the café, he looked across into the dim interior. He recognized the same long-haired kid reading a magazine behind the counter. But, it was odd. He was in there by himself. Bodge was sure the other two boys hadn’t left. So, where were they?

  He continued walking past the dark front of Bouncers and all the way to the corner of the street. All the while he glanced back to be sure he wasn’t missing anything. You can only stand on a street corner for so long around 42nd Street without feeling uncomfortable. Bodge turned and headed back toward his car. A cab pulled up in front of the café and two drunks got out. No — they weren’t both drunk. One was propping up the other, paying the cab fare, telling the driver to keep the change. But, boy, was his friend smashed. Bodge stopped walking and watched.

  The cab drove off and the sober friend half-carried the other to the door of the café. The boy inside saw the new customers arriving and hurried out to give a hand. Between them they got the drunk inside and the door closed. Bodge walked on, trying to keep out of the lamplight, until he reached a spot opposite the window once again. He got there just in time to see the threesome vanish somewhere at the rear of the café. “Bathroom”, Bodge thought straight away, but the disappearance of the earlier customers was still on his mind. He decided it was time for a cup of fancy coffee.