by Jerry Stahl
“You’re just lucky I stayed focused,” McCardle nagged, now cleaning his minor bruise with a stray slipper-sock soaked in beer. “You never give me credit, but when you zone, you’re useless, homes.”
“Yeah, right. So who’d your mother fuck, anyway, Dean Martin or Prince?”
McCardle ignored him, and Tony made a show of scratching his crotch and sifting through the dozen or so pages they’d pilfered from the reporter’s car. He did have a sketchy memory of Mac tugging him from behind the wheel, then propping him up in the passenger seat. He semiremembered seeing his partner scramble over to the Toyota and reach through the scrunched window, right past the smoking engine that had rammed through the dashboard. Mostly, what he recalled was the awful quiet after the crash. He’d listened to the drip and hiss of bleeding motor oil, thinking Car sleep now. (Zank always thought in baby talk when he zombied off. Me sad…. I hope Mommy dies…That kind of thing, when he was out cold with his eyes open.)
Right after the accident, Mac had snatched Dee-Dee’s notebook and her purse. That’s how the priest found him, bleeding from the forehead and rifling her wallet. He’d roared onto the scene in a ’66 Mustang and lumbered out with an audible grunt. “Whoa, the knees….”
Once out of his ’Stang, the man of God looked like a professional wrestler. A middle-aged wrestler, in a collar. In spite of everything, Mac couldn’t help but admire the pecs and traps under the man’s snug black shirt. The priest called over his shoulder as he half-ran, half-hobbled to the totaled Camry. “I’m Father Bob. What the hell happened here? And what are you doing with that purse?”
McCardle began to sweat. Did they have cop-priests? In his shock and stupor he thought he remembered a TV show called Father Cuffs. He seemed to recall that it starred Eddie Albert.
Mac had to think fast. “I was, uh, I was just looking for some ID on the lady here.” By now he’d already slipped the notebook in his pants. He also pocketed her cash, and a corporate AmEx, which read DEE-DEE WALKER, UPPER MARILYN TRUMPET. That’s when he knew they’d been following the wrong woman.
The way Father Bob kept staring at him, McCardle was convinced the wrestler-priest must have made him from America’s Most Wanted. After he’d poked his head in the remains of the Toyota and phoned for help, the hardy man of God snatched Dee-Dee’s wallet out of Mac’s hand. “I’ll take that,” he spoke solemnly. “There’s nothing we can do for her now. What happened, boy?”
All he had to hear was that “boy,” and McCardle shifted instantly into his Good Negro mode. Shaking his head in simple confusion, he explained that they’d come around the corner just in time to see “that po’ lady” jump the curb and hit the utility pole. They decided to pull over and help. “In all the excitement,” he said, scratching his head in dumb wonder, “I guess I done run over the curb my own self. I jus’ wanted to help, Father. This ol’ head o’ mine’s all confused.”
“Uh-huh,” said the priest, neither buying nor not buying. “What’s up with your buddy there?”
“Sleepin’ one off,” McCardle lied again. “Fool caught his wife with the mailman. It’s like some dirty joke, ain’t it?”
The priest frowned. “Show me your license, boy, we got a dead lady over there. Is that what dead ladies do for you? Put you in the mood for dirty jokes?”
“No, suh!” Mac stalled. Maybe it wasn’t Eddie Albert. Maybe Bill Shatner was the tough detective-priest, pre–T. J. Hooker. He mentally kicked himself as he shuffled his feet. Zank had been on him to get a fake driver’s license. They were twenty bucks, but McCardle figured he could save some dough and make one himself. An old-timer in County showed him how. It was Mickey Mouse. All you needed was somebody else’s license, a photo booth photo, and access to a laminating machine. Stone simple. Except he hadn’t done it, and now Father Macho was going to nail his ass.
“Must be in the car,” Mac hedged, heading for the Gremlin. If he made a run for it, he might have a chance. It would mean bailing on Tony, but he’d explain later. If Tony didn’t kill him first.
The muscular padre grabbed him before he could make a move. “Hey, don’t I know you? I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
Zank chose this moment to stumble out of the Gremlin. “Musta bumped my head,” he mumbled. “What happened?” Tony pretended to gasp at the sight of the dead woman and the accordianed Toyota. “Oh my God, are you here to administer the last ripes?”
The priest had peeled off his jacket and laid it over Dee-Dee’s severed head. McCardle kept waiting for it to move, like a bunny under a blanket, and couldn’t stop staring.
“That’s last rites, son. This lady’s already bound for eternity. The ambulance’ll be here in a second to take her away.” Then he turned suddenly to McCardle. “You’re on TV, right?”
McCardle wanted to cry. The priest seemed to have forgotten about his driver’s license, but he was still fucked—until Zank swung into action. Leaking blood from the scalp and face, he smiled big and threw up his arms. “I guess we might as well tell him, huh, Scooter?”
McCardle swallowed. “Tell him what?”
“You know,” Zank said. “Okay, I’ll tell him. Y’see, Father, Scooter here was a child star. Only he don’t like to talk about it.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s right,” said Zank. “Remember the old Cosby show? Scooter was one of the kids.”
The priest screwed up his face. He crossed his arms at his massive chest, Mister Clean–style, and squinted hard.
“Not, you know, one of the main kids,” Zank back-pedaled, “a neighbor kid. Only Hollywood got to him. He didn’t like the, what do you call it…?”
“The sin,” Mac chimed in, praying another car didn’t come around the corner. It was a street, like so many in Lower Marilyn, lined with dead warehouses and storefronts with cockeyed FOR LEASE signs in their grimy windows.
“The sin, exactly,” Zank followed up. “There’s just too much sin out there. Y’see, Scoot here is a real church-goer. Confession once a week, whether he touches himself or not! Just kiddin’, of course. I’m his manager, Mack Mustang. Just like the car. Nice to meet you.”
Zank stuck out his hand and the priest ignored it. Instead he stared at McCardle, who shuffled his feet, aw shucks, trying to look plantation earnest.
“As a matter of fact,” Zank went on, “we’re on our way to Pittsburgh now. Doing some dinner theater.”
“The Dean Martin Story,” McCardle blurted, feeling smart until he saw Tony’s eyes. He didn’t look happy.
The priest seemed incredulous. “The Dean Martin story?”
“Well, um, yeah, it’s a musical. An all-black musical.”
For a second, things were hugely silent. Nothing but clicks and hissing from the shattered cars. The sound of an approaching siren. Father Bob scrunched up his eyes. Then he smiled and showed front teeth the size of Chiclets. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” Zank returned the smile. He kept smiling as he climbed back into Carmella’s car. “Let me ask you something, Father. Does being a priest make you closer to the Big Dog Upstairs?”
Father Bob rolled his shoulders as Tony tried to start the Gremlin. When it finally turned over, black smoke billowed from under the hood. The priest had to raise his voice over the coughing engine. “To answer you, Son, I believe I am closer, though I can’t say I appreciate you referring to Our Lord as some kind of Divine Canine.”
“I apologize,” Zank hollered, letting his swollen, mutt-lapped face loll out the window. “The good news is, I guess you won’t have as far to travel.”
Tony hit the gas before Father Bob could make his reply. The Gremlin whined like a spoon in a garbage disposal and clipped the priest at the knees, sending him straight in the air, where he did a half-gainer and landed chin first on the windshield, eye level with Zank. Tony slammed into reverse, which launched the priest off again, onto the asphalt.
“My bad!” Tony hollered, but the priest didn’t hear him. Collar as
kew, one arm curled behind him like a paper clip, the gym-bodied cleric had begun crawling toward McCardle. Fresh blood stained his mouth like sloppy lipstick.
Zank, meanwhile, had jumped out of the Gremlin and made for the Mustang. He hopped in and shouted, “Hurry up, fuckwad. He left the keys.”
Father Bob groaned and grabbed for Mac’s ankle. He hung on, making sounds like a deaf person trying to talk. “Mah cacchhhh…Mah cacchhh!”
McCardle didn’t want to leave him. “He’s a priest, Tony!”
“That’s nice,” said Zank, “but we hang around here, he’s gonna be sprinkling your ass with holy water on death row.”
Mac tried to shake the priest loose as Zank backed the Mustang into the driveway of a defunct doughnut shop and turned around. When he broke free, he jumped over the priest’s head and clambered into the front seat. Once he was upright, Mac started rocking back and forth and hugging himself. “Now what?” he whimpered.
“What do you think?”
Tony touched a finger to his blood-scalloped ear. He winced and checked the powder burns on his temple, then did inventory on the twin bumps on his forehead and the comb-swipes under his nose.
“We know where she lives, don’t we?”
McCardle decided now was the time to mention their little mistake. “Listen, T, there’s somethin’ you oughta know.”
Zank took a corner wide. “What’s that? You still worried about the priest? Trust me, God will provide.”
“It’s not the priest. It’s the lady. We got the wrong one. The chick in the Camry was a reporter. Her name’s Dee-Dee Walker. She musta been doing some kind of story on the real Tina, the one we’re after.”
Zank pounded the steering wheel. “No fucking way!”
“I saw her wallet, man. I got her notebook, too. Maybe there’s something we can use.”
Zank scratched the burned patch on his scalp. “Okay. We dump the car, go back to my place. Then I’ll take a look at that shit.” He smacked the steering wheel, down-shifted, and smiled. “I could live with these wheels, I’ll tell you what….”
McCardle dug up an Old Spice deodorant stick and rubbed it under his nostrils. Anything was better than breathing in musty Bundthouse sausage fumes. He wondered if that’s why Tony chewed Slim Jims, so his mouth would taste even worse than his apartment smelled. Compared to jerky-breath, maybe the stench of old meat seemed minty fresh. Then the thought grabbed him, maybe it wasn’t the usual apartment stench. Maybe it wasn’t old meat. Maybe it wasn’t jerky. Maybe it was—
“Oh fuck!” McCardle forgot about the deodorant. He let the green stick slip out of his hands and and looked frantically around the apartment. “Oh fuck, T, what happened to Puppy?”
“Puppy? Oh yeah!” Zank’s mouth split into the snaggled, bloody slit, which, with Zank, passed for a smile. “Where is that l’il guy?”
Puppy—they’d found the spotted little thing, soaked and shivering, under the Dumpster a few days (or was it weeks?) ago, and couldn’t agree on a name. Zank wanted “Killer” or “Savage,” McCardle was holding out for “Malcolm.” So they stuck with Puppy. For a couple of nights it was ‘Puppy this,” “Puppy that,” until they ran out of money, and ran out of rock, and Tony had the bright idea of staging a little breaking and entering to make things right again.
“Fuck it,” Zank groaned. He slapped the notebook on his molting carpet and rubbed his eyes. “The little fucker’s fine. He’s in here somewhere, isn’t he? We’re in here and we’re fine, so what the fuck? You got your panties up your crack over nothing!”
“What?”
Zank was always doing that: making arguments that Mac knew were insane but somehow, when he tried to get a grip on them, just kind of slipped out of his grasp. “He still has to eat!” McCardle declared finally, hearing his voice go high and getting a bad feeling in his stomach. “Maybe he’s all starved and sick under a major appliance.”
“He had worms,” Zank answered, as if that were the solution to everything. “If he gets hungry he can eat them. Hell, I’ve eaten ’em. Last time I was in the joint, the bologna sandwiches had these little worm-things in them that tasted better than the damn bologna. I ate the fuckers, and I’m the only guy in the cell who didn’t get crabs. The little bastards are good for you, hear what I’m sayin’?”
Before Mac could respond to this bit of logic, Tony picked up the reporter’s notebook, again banged it off his forehead, and threw it across the room. “I can’t read any more, y’hear me? I can’t do it. This don’t say squat about Mister Biobrain. Just stuff about the husband, who was some kind of swami. I still think the chick’s sitting on the pictures.”
“Meaning what?” Mac knew there was no point talking about Puppy anymore. Puppy would have to fend for himself, until the next time they thought about him. Being sort of an abandoned child himself, he felt extra-bad, but right now Tony was talking and he had to listen.
Zank shot Mac his how-can-you-be-such-a-moron look.
“What do you think I mean? I mean Tina baby’s got the envelope stashed in her pad. We go over, show her we’re serious, and walk out with Georgie’s happy-bag and the mayor’s kisser. Then we’re back in business. Get me another brewski, and one for yourself.”
“You know nine’s my limit,” McCardle said. “We’ve been through that.”
“Then get two for me. I like to be in a good mood when I gotta get something out of a lady. That’s my specialty!”
Tony belched and Mac swore he saw a little brown cloud puff out of his mouth, like Chernobyl.
FIFTEEN
Manny tapped a pair of Codeine Number Fours into his palm. He stared at them, dropped them back in the pill bottle, closed the lid, then popped it off again, tapped four into his hand, and made the mistake of catching his own eyes in the rearview mirror.
I know, I know, he sighed. But I’ve got a day ahead of me….
Mornings were the worst. If he could make it through the first half hour of being awake, he could usually stay clean. Before that, staring down the barrel of another day, it seemed to make more sense to lay in some chemical buffers. He knew codeine wasn’t exactly good for you, but once you’ve been through heroin, everything else felt like health food. Especially this morning. In the middle of a creepy dream that his penis turned into a fork as he was mounting Tina, he got the call. On one level, he was still asleep, groping for a way to tell a naked murder suspect that he was usually normal but had somehow morphed into a kitchen utensil. On another, he was listening, savoring the lavish islands of silence between rings, yet hating them, too, knowing the more peace he let himself feel, the more shattered he’d be when the little Princess rang again.
Finally, tearing himself from his fork-and-Tina dream, he answered the phone, and was drop-kicked into the sunshine of awareness with news that a honeymoon couple at the Pawnee Lodge had noticed the dread SOSO—Strange or Suspicious Odor—from the room next door. (In policeville, if somebody asked how you were, and you said “So-So,” it wasn’t good.)
Manny’s first thought, after absorbing the notion of anybody “honeymooning” at a motel wedged between an Earl Scheib and a discount truck parts outlet, was that his chops were slipping. He’d gone to the Pawnee yesterday, straight from Mrs. Zank’s hospital room, and checked it out. According to the day manager, a clammy fellow with some kind of crust on his lips, the dude with the bruises on his face and the fucked-up ear, had paid for Cottage Number Two. “So was he alone?” Manny’d asked, expecting a simple yes or no. But, as happens occasionally, his interviewee relished the chance to be part of some “real police work” and weighed in with the long-form answer.
“Was he alone? That I couldn’t say, Detective. Sometimes, if they’re doin’ some skorkin’, they keep the girly in the car when they register. Like I’m gonna ding ’em for a wedding ring,” the crust-man snickered. He touched a tongue to his bearded lips and leaned his elbows on the greasy check-in desk, getting intimate. “I guess you plainclothes boys see a lotta act
ion, huh? A lotta sex stuff?”
Manny’d assured him it was mostly paperwork, then excused himself with the duplicate key to check things out. In the room, he had found nothing more heinous than a damp copy of Teen People under a chair. But what did that prove? Zank was some kind of ’N Sync freak? After his minor poke-around, Manny headed back to the office to ask if the maid had cleaned the room.
“Maid?” His new pal, the Pawnee desk clerk, thought he was making a joke. “That’s a good one. We got fourteen units and maybe two customers a week. Mostly we hold off on cleaning till all the rooms are used, then we bring in some rummy from the Salvation Army to change the sheets and mop up. It ain’t the Hyatt, if you get my drift.”
Manny told him he did, and drove off wondering if Tony Zank was the neatest felon in history. Or if, for reasons of his own, he’d checked in, gotten cold feet, and headed elsewhere. No doubt pining for a place with free Danish and cable.
Parked in the Pawnee parking lot a day later, contemplating his codeines and gearing up for another crime scene, Manny realized his mistake. Zank, God bless him, was a craftier thug than he’d originally made him for. After registering, he must have pocketed the key to Number Two, then discreetly picked the lock on Three, from which the night manager—Crusty the Day Man didn’t show up till eight—informed him that the SOSO was emanating. Sometimes it took a week for the dead to stink, sometimes half a day. A coroner once told him it had to do with polyester and fat consumption. After that Manny stopped asking questions. The honeymooners, in any event, had cut short their dream vacation and vanished.