The Black Marble

by Joseph Wambaugh

  The Molokan heard his name and grinned. One tooth was missing in front. Whack! went the cleaver.

  “It’s kind of a continuing soap opera,” said Alex Valnikov. “My brother has a way with old people. Look at her. She’s telling him about his own family who she never met. Have some tea.” He served the tea in a glass. “Russian style,” he explained.

  “Tastes good,” Natalie Zimmerman said, sipping the hot tea carefully.

  The big man lowered his voice and said, “How long you been working with my brother?”

  “Not long.”

  “What do you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My brother drinks all the time. He didn’t used to do that. Even after his divorce. My brother wasn’t a drunk even after the divorce. Now my brother’s a drunk. Do all the other cops talk about it?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Natalie Zimmerman said, putting her glass of hot tea on the meat counter. “Lots of veteran detectives are known to take a drink. I don’t think he’s known as a particularly heavy drinker.”

  “My brother started acting different a few months ago.” Now he was whispering. “He had a partner, Charlie Lightfoot.”

  “I know about that,” she nodded.

  “About the time Charlie died, he started acting … different. Sort of absent-minded. Sort of like his mind wanders. Then the heavy boozing started. Hell, we never see him anymore! I’m not his only family. We got a cousin lives in San Pedro and we got a cousin in Sylmar. Nobody sees him. We were a close family once. I worry about my brother. I got four kids that can make you stay up nights, all the crap they step in, but I worry most about my little brother.”

  “I don’t think he’s a real heavy drinker,” Natalie Zimmerman lied, unable to look in the passionate blue eyes of Valnikov the elder. No, he’s not a heavy drinker. Just a 14 karat alcoholic, is all. And a 21 karat dingaling to boot. And I’m the one fate elected to dispatch the clown with my terrible swift sword.

  “Come get your tea, kid,” Alex Valnikov said, and the detective got up, patted Mrs. Rosenfeldt’s hand, and joined them.

  “That’s very sad,” Natalie Zimmerman said, looking at the old woman who was now telling the Molokan butcher about Myer the whoremonger. That’s what philanderers deserve. A cleaver. Whack!

  “Well, we don’t mind sadness,” Alex Valnikov grinned. “Haven’t you seen Russian plays? We’re only happy when we’re sad.” He turned to his younger brother and said, “You changed your mind? Staying for some borscht, right?”

  Valnikov smiled apologetically and sipped the tea from his glass and his elder brother sighed and handed the heavy paper bag to Natalie Zimmerman.

  “It was nice to meet you, hon,” the big man said. Then he leaned over and gave her a friendly hug which didn’t roll up her bra this time.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Iosif,” Valnikov said to the butcher, who by now was caught up in Mrs. Rosenfeldt’s story of sex and depravity in the Jewish Home for the Aged.

  “I see you, Andrei Mikhailovich!” the Molokan said, waving his cleaver.

  Then Valnikov stopped at the door, where Natalie was taking money out of her purse to pay at the register.

  “Don’t be silly, honey,” the elder Valnikov said. Then he turned to his brother and said, “You come for dinner. Soon. You and me haven’t had a talk in a hell of a long time, boy.”

  “Bye, Alex. Thanks for the eats,” Valnikov said, putting an arm around his brother. Then the bears danced for another moment and the elder Valnikov kissed him on the mouth. “You take care, Andrushka. You hear me?”

  When they got back in the car, Valnikov took the wheel again and headed downtown. “Now comes the best part,” he said to Natalie Zimmerman, who was lost in unhappy contemplation of black marbles.

  He surprised her by parking at the Music Center. “Follow me,” he said with that grin of his. She was sure now after meeting his brother. It was childlike. On Alex Valnikov the big grin didn’t look so dumb.

  She’d go along with anything on this, the last day. It was the least she could do before … before she went to see Hipless Hooker.

  He parked on Hope Street and led her up the steps between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Mark Taper Forum. There were a few people roaming around, mostly coming from the restaurant on the Grand Avenue level. There were tourists taking pictures of the three neoclassical buildings which make up the Music Center complex, and of the enormous contemporary sculpture called Peace on Earth. Some decided it was a totem, no, a pyramid of bodies, animals and people, piled one on top of the other like a Hollywood orgy.

  Valnikov led Natalie past the Mark Taper Forum with its quiet, asexual reflecting pool. It was windy and the snow-capped San Gabriels were visible from Bunker Hill today. Across the avenue was the county courthouse and a sculpted relief of a hopeful knight in chain mail brandishing the Magna Charta.

  Then Valnikov beckoned Natalie toward a small cluster of people: tourists, downtown civil servants, pensioners, students, who were gathered around a young man with a full black beard and a war-surplus, navy peacoat, playing “Midnight in Moscow” for all he was worth. He was only worth a few bucks.

  “They call him Horst,” Valnikov whispered when they were sitting on the steps. “He’s a fair musician. Plays here in the afternoons. I’ve heard he’s a medical student.”

  The bearded young violinist had an old top hat upside down on the pavement. There were a few dollar bills and some change inside, but clearly, today’s session was a bummer. Horst Vanderhoof was getting set to trip on home when he opened his eyes and saw that the small audience had grown by two.

  “Charlie and I used to listen to him sometimes in the afternoons and have lunch like this. For a while, Charlie wanted to learn something about music.”

  Valnikov unwrapped a mound of hot cabbage rolls and set the paper plates, plastic forks, and paper napkins in front of Natalie on the concrete steps as though he were waiting on a table.

  “Is your brother a caterer?” Natalie asked.

  “The best,” Valnikov smiled. “That’s a big part of his business. He caters Russian weddings and parties. There’s always an excuse for a celebration. If it isn’t Pushkin’s birthday it’s Tolstoy’s. Or it’s the jubilee of the Bolshoi Ballet. Or the jubilee of the day somebody’s cousin became an American citizen. Or somebody graduated from barber college. Anything.”

  “Cabbage rolls,” she said. “I had a Polish grandmother made these.”

  “Oh, you’re Polish!” said Valnikov, unwrapping the black bread and little cartons of whipped butter.

  “I had a grandmother from Poland and I think a great-grandfather from Germany. Hell, I’m an American. What’s that stuff?”

  Valnikov held a paper plate stacked with golden pastries and said, “Piroshki. They’re very light and filled with cheese or meat. My brother usually makes them both ways. And these others are fruit pastries.”

  “Looks good,” Natalie said, as Valnikov presented the array of homemade Russian food.

  “I think you’ll like this black bread, Natalie,” he said. “My mother used to make white bread only on Christmas or Easter. Sometime I’ll bring some plastic containers and we’ll get some borscht. My brother makes the best borscht you’ll ever taste. The secret’s in boiling the beef beforehand. And you add dusha last. That means soul. Oh, this is lamb, marinated and barbequed. He doesn’t have it every day. We’re lucky.”

  “It smells fantastic,” Natalie Zimmerman said.

  Then Valnikov noticed the music had stopped and he saw Horst packing up his violin case and emptying out the top hat. Most of the onlookers had strolled off.

  “Wait, wait!” Valnikov yelled, putting down his plate and scurrying up the steps toward the reflecting pool.

  Then Natalie Zimmerman saw him reach in his pocket and give some money to Horst. The kid nodded, took off his top hat again, put down the violin case and opened it up.

  When he returned, Valnikov said, “The be
st part is having music when you eat.”

  And then came the pièce de résistance. Valnikov drew from the bag a half bottle of Bulgarian wine which Alex had uncorked and capped.

  “Wine too? I can’t believe it!” Natalie Zimmerman said, as Valnikov chuckled and poured into styrofoam cups.

  “There’s a Russian toast which says, ‘If we must die, let’s do it with music’” And then Horst burst forth with five bucks’ worth of Rimsky-Korsakov. Horst could burst forth much better for a tenner, but Valnikov was satisfied.

  Then Valnikov said, shyly, “Well, this is the surprise. How do you like it?”

  And Natalie Zimmerman pushed terrible thoughts from her mind and concentrated on the wonderful food and the reflecting pool, and the clear sky and the mountains in the distance. She said, “This is the loveliest lunch I’ve ever had.”

  “Na zdorovye!” he grinned happily, toasting her with the styrofoam cup.

  Jesus, he had fine table manners. The poor doomed bastard. Jesus. Then for the first time, it occurred to her she had never called him by his first name. She didn’t even know his first name! Sergeant A.M. Valnikov. Val.

  “Andrei something, the butcher called you.”

  “Andrei Mikhailovich,” he said, careful to swallow and dab his lips with the paper napkin before speaking.

  “But what did your brother call you when he kissed you good-bye?”

  “Silly, isn’t it? Kissing like that. My brother never really escaped the old ways. He’s still an émigré in his heart. He’s saving to make a long vacation in Leningrad someday. I think this might be the year. Business is pretty good now.”

  “But what did he call you?”

  “Andrushka,” Valnikov said softly. “My mother always called me that.”

  “That’s a nice name,” Natalie Zimmerman said, looking at Horst the fiddler, who struggled a little, then got hot with Tchaikovsky.

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Sure. And what would be the Russian equivalent of my name? Of Natalie?”

  Valnikov put down the cup and listened to the music for a moment. “The equivalent would be Natalia.”

  “Natalia,” she said. “I’ve never liked Natalie.”

  “How about Natasha?” he said, looking deep in her eyes. “It’s more endearing. Like Andrushka.”

  “Natasha,” she said, pushing her drooping glasses up. “I like that better.”

  “Natasha,” he whispered. Then he concentrated on buttering his black bread, but his Russian heart was advancing fifteen beats a minute.

  While Natalie Zimmerman and Valnikov were having a memorable lunch, Madeline Whitfield and Philo Skinner were having a memorable phone conversation.

  “It’s Richard,” Philo whispered into the mouthpiece. He was asphyxiating himself inside a smoky phone booth, in the heat of the afternoon, outside a motel five blocks from his business. It was the motel where he had dreamed of taking Pattie Mae to before she quit on him after the Sunday dog show. The miserable little cunt.

  “Yes, I’ve been waiting for your call,” said Madeline, fighting to keep her voice businesslike and unwavering.

  “When do I get the money?” Philo croaked.

  “You’ve got to control yourself, Richard, and let me talk,” Madeline began. She’d rehearsed it and believed she could even deal with the threats and obscenities.

  “Make it quick.”

  “I’ve been on the phone all day with my accountant and banker and …”

  “You told someone about this!”

  “No, no,” she said quickly. “About needing money only. I just told them I had a pressing need for as much as I could possibly get. I even called an old classmate whose husband is chairman of the board of a savings and loan.”

  “What’s the bottom line, lady?” Philo snarled.

  “I will have, by noon tomorrow, twelve thousand dollars,” Madeline said, and despite herself, her voice broke on the number.

  “What did you say? WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Philo began hacking and gagging on the ubiquitous phlegm balls.

  Madeline waited until the coughing stopped. When he came back he was wheezing: “Lady … lady …” Then he gasped and said, “You cunt!”

  “Please, Richard,” Madeline begged.

  “You … you rotten cunt. Twelve thousand!”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “It’s not only all I have in the world. It represents borrowed money. I’m looking for a job. I’ve never worked in my life. I’m not qualified for anything but I’m looking for a job, and this house was refinanced, and the money’s all gone. My mother was sick for four years before she died! Do you know what round-the-clock nursing costs? Do you know what hospital bills are like? Please, Richard. Please!”

  He didn’t hear a complete sentence she uttered. Twelve thousand. It wouldn’t even pay Arnold for the gambling losses. The kike and the nigger would be coming for him with the stripping knife. And he promised Arnold the money by Thursday, plus three hundred interest for waiting past Monday. Twelve thousand?

  “Twelve thousand,” he said, then he felt it grow within him. Philo Skinner had spent much of his life being afraid. He was afraid right now of what the bookmakers would do to him, but he felt the fear being consumed by anger. Twelve thousand!

  “I’m cutting off one of that bitch’s toes right now. Stay on the line you cunt and you can hear her scream!”

  “Noooooooo!” It was Madeline Whitfield who screamed.

  “You wanna hear her scream, you cunt!” Philo yelled in the mouthpiece. “You lying, stingy rich cunt!”

  “Can’t we talk face to face, Richard?” Madeline babbled. “I swear I won’t call the police. I’ll come anywhere. Do anything you want. Oh, please don’t hurt Vickie!”

  “How’s she gonna do in the next dog show, you cunt!”

  “Please, please, please. I’ll get more money. I swear! Give me one more day. One more.”

  “I told you I want eighty-five thousand, you … you …”

  “I’ll get more! I can get more. If … if you let me have Vickie back. I can … I can send you five hundred a month until I pay it all. I’m going to get a—” Madeline began weeping brokenly “—job. Please.”

  “I can’t believe it!” Philo said, dropping the paper towel he had wrapped over the mouthpiece. “I can’t believe it!” He’d never seen anything like this in kidnapping movies. She wanted him to return the bitch and she’d pay the ransom on the installment plan? Ransom by credit card? “Lady I’m gonna cut off a toe,” Philo croaked weakly before another coughing spasm made him open the door of the phone booth and hack and wheeze and spit in the motel parking lot.

  At which time the motel proprietor, Bessie Callahan, a woman Phil’s age, with a surly red face and broken teeth, opened the screen door of the manager’s office and yelled, “Hey, fella, go and spit your goopers in the gutter, not on my property!”

  “Fuck you too, you miserable cunt,” Philo barked, which cost him yet another coughing spasm and another gooper on her sidewalk.

  “What’d you call me, you scrawny coyote?” Bessie Callahan challenged. “If my husband was here he’d tie you in a knot, you filthy coyote!”

  Then, wracked with pain and gasping for breath, and filled with consummate frustration and outrage and anger, Philo Skinner dropped the phone and stepped out of the phone booth, and for the first time in memory challenged someone to a fight. “Step out here, you fat cunt,” Philo gasped. “Come out here and I’ll punch your fat face in, you fat cunt!”

  “Prick!” yelled Bessie Callahan. “Skinny prick! How dare you talk to a lady like this!”

  And while a trembling Philo Skinner got control of himself, and lit his forty-seventh cigarette of the day, and picked up the phone only to find Madeline Whitfield hysterical because she thought the extortionist was cutting off Vickie’s toe, Bessie Callahan had a little surprise for Philo Skinner.

  “Control yourself, woman,” he ordered Madeline Whitfield. “Get yourself under control and lis
ten to me, goddamnit!”

  “Sir … sir … please don’t, please!” Madeline wailed.

  “I’m calling you again at six o’clock tonight,” Philo Skinner gasped. “Have some good news for me then. I won’t cut off any toes until we have one more talk. Understand? I won’t cut off any toes. Yet.”

  “Sir … sir … thank … thank you,” Madeline sobbed.

  “I’ll be calling at six. Remember that! Six o’cl—” But he never finished it. He thought he heard running water. Then the door of the phone booth burst open and Philo Skinner was drowning! He couldn’t even scream. He swallowed his cigarette butt along with a mouthful of water. He breathed another mouthful into his lungs! He threw his hands out in front of him and fell down in the phone booth. Drowning.

  Bessie Callahan, like the sewer worker, Tyrone McGee, had been pushed around all her life, but not by alligators. And certainly not by filthy coyotes who used her telephone and spit goopers on her parking lot. At first she just intended to use the motel fire hose to wash up the wads of filthy goopers he’d deposited all over her sidewalk, but the more she thought of this coyote telling her he’d punch her in the face, and calling her a fat cunt—and heard the coyote screaming over the telephone, calling someone else a cunt—the more she decided he wasn’t going to get away with it. How about some water for your filthy mouth, you chauvinist prick!

  Bessie, her pale eyes bulging with the thrill of it, had Philo helpless on the floor of the phone booth before she knew what she was doing. Still, she kept the fire hose trained on his face. Philo flopped on his belly to breathe. He was finally able to scream but Bessie still wouldn’t turn off the hose. Only when she realized what she was doing did she pull the nozzle lever stopping the powerful water jet and hightail it back to her apartment.

  “I’ll … I’ll get you for this,” Philo croaked, coughing water. The soggy cigarette came up in his throat. He swallowed it down but it came back up with his breakfast. Now Bessie had something else to hose away.

  “I’m calling the cops, you coyote!” Bessie screamed through the latched screen door. “You can’t attack a woman and get away with it. I’m calling the cops!”