by Tom Rich
“You could have told me you weren’t interested. It could have saved us from wasting each other’s time.”
“I do not consider our time together wasted, Detective. I fully intend on bringing your unorthodox methods to people I know. Don’t worry, you’ll get all the credit. I won’t steal from you unless you become an arrived member of the entertainment industry. And when these people do contact you? They’ll be discrete. You’ll be of more value to them if you’re able to continue your police work.”
Pelfry broke the connection. He dropped the phone onto his car seat.
He was sitting in his Mustang, parked in the visitors’ lot of Franz World Headquarters. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on the steering wheel. He raked his hair with both hands, reached up and turned his rearview mirror. “What are you doing?” The sun in the mirror made his facial bruises look like open wounds. “Using a drug enhanced Biblical fantasy as evidence against the rich man. Not to mention sucking up to a film director.” A wave of paranoia passed through Pelfry. “And he has you fingered as an imposter.” The paranoia was something Pelfry could control, to an extent. But this was an all-new level of crazy. “And it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the real Jones Pelfry.”
He twisted the mirror away. “Time to move on.”
~ ~ ~
When he’d joined the force, Pelfry meant to ease himself in gradually, perhaps actually learn something about homicide investigation so he could stick around a while. Drawing attention was the last thing he’d wanted. But his rapid successes in the Adelphus Barnes and Sweet Daddy Sol cases stuck him out like a sore thumb. The increasing resentment and alienation from the department—who saw him as incredibly lucky—compounded his difficulties.
Captain Weeks told Pelfry that perhaps the young detective was lucky. But it might be he possessed a unique gift for insight into criminal activities. Whatever was at work, it produced results.
“Whatever Works” being Captain Weeks’ overruling philosophy, he sent Pelfry to a suburban neighborhood to see what he could do with a murder case fast growing cold. Pelfry parked his car in front of the victim’s house…and froze. He sat in a near catatonic state for hours, not knowing where to begin, feeling every bit the imposter, and wishing he’d mixed a second batch of his Existential Cocktail. The only thing that kept him from going completely under that day were the exploits of a cat scrambling up and down a tree in the victim’s front yard. Pelfry finally realized the cat went up the tree only when a certain car passed. The car went four times up the street, once he’d started counting, and four times down during the course of an afternoon and early evening, resulting in eight trips up and down the tree by the cat. Pelfry took the results of his observation to Captain Weeks. Several days later Pelfry was three for three.
His three early successes came during Pelfry’s first two months on the force. Now entering his ninth month, Pelfry had no further collars.
Nor did he have any Existential Cocktail, thanks to the real Jones Pelfry.
Soren Kane was diagnosed as bipolar at an early age. Because his erratic, often uncontrollable behavior alienated him in the classroom, his parents began home schooling him when he was eleven. His father, a philosophy instructor at Philips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, set up a curriculum that Soren’s mother carried out.
By his mid teens Soren found he could control his mood swings through an intense focus on scholastics. His father, a proud and pompous man, even grew jealous over his son’s superior intellect.
Because of his lack of social opportunities during the school year, his parents encouraged Soren during summers off to go out and pursue whatever games and adventures children his age enjoyed. Soren left the house early nearly every sunny day, then returned home worn and exhausted only to plop down in front of the television his parents allowed him to have in his room; another concession to “normalcy.” The parents congratulated themselves on curing their son’s malady with behavioral means rather than drugs. Unbeknownst to them, Soren spent his summer days wandering aimlessly. The lack of focus scholastics gave him rendered him at the low end of the bipolar scale, which made it impossible for him to engage with others. He never found a special place to sit and watch clouds or listen to a babbling brook while thinking things out. He just wandered, finally glad to be home each evening and in front of the television, which demanded nothing from him.
By the time Soren went away to college, his need for movement was deeply ingrained. He had no problem getting into Northwestern, where he excelled. But the thoughts of a second year there brought on an agitated restlessness. Washington University, in St. Louis, gladly accepted his transfer. Soren’s father had to exert influence when Vanderbilt questioned Soren’s motives for attending his a third school in three years. Ohio State embraced Soren’s diversity, accepting him for his senior year.
It was while attending Ohio State that Soren developed his Existential Cocktail: a thermos full of vodka heavily laced with barbiturates he’d procured from a friend in medical school. The concoction was not for suicide, but to prevent it. The idea of life after attaining his undergraduate degree—a life of attempting an existence where periods of highly focused activity were followed by months of listless wandering and television addiction—terrified Soren. Keeping a chemically induced death a few swallows away made tangible the absurdity that it was a mere imbalance of chemicals in his body keeping him at the margins of society. In that tangibility, Soren found comfort.
While in Columbus Soren shared an apartment with a Ph. D. candidate in criminal psychology. It had been Jones Pelfry’s lifelong ambition to work for the FBI. When Soren came home one afternoon to discover that Pelfry had found and tasted the hidden Existential Cocktail, he had no idea if his roommate had taken a glassful in despair over being rejected by the FBI, or in celebration over having succeeded, as per the E-mail on his computer, in attaining an interview with Indianapolis Homicide. Either way, Jones Pelfry was just as dead.
Soren felt responsible. But the idea of the focus it would take to assume someone else’s identity, especially if he succeeded in entering a field he knew nothing about, could be consuming enough to break the cycle of his childhood disease. After successfully hiding the body, Soren severed all ties with his family, packed up Pelfry’s papers and textbooks, and made the westward trip to Indianapolis. As Jones Pelfry, Soren Kane aced the interview and, backed by the transcripts and teacher recommendations that preceded his arrival, was admitted into the police academy for basic training. Six weeks later the new Jones Pelfry was fast tracked into the Commonwealth of Indiana’s talent strapped Junior Grade Detective Program.
~ ~ ~
Pelfry’s phone went off. He took his elbows off his steering wheel and picked the phone off the seat. “Yeah?”
It was Lt. Lloyd Baney, Captain Weeks’ second in command. “You got a real hardon for Kurtwood Franz.”
“You had me followed? On your own initiative, Baney?”
“Where else would you be when you’re needed? Get your hands off your pecker and drive out to Speedway. Someone has a tip on the Quik Stop killings.”
“You’re throwing me a bone? Must be a weak lead.”
“You’re on to me, Jo-wones. Actually, it’s a setup to finish off the beating you took the other night.”
“Got an address?”
“How about the Quik Stop. You know, where the crimes took place.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Don’t know why you think what you think. Don’t care.”
“Baney, wait.”
“So you do want a name. Try Bruce Tebbens. Just got rehired. Benefit of recent terminations. Said he’s working a double. I’m just saying, in case you get lost on the way, he’ll be there a while.”
“Yeah, look, I know you think I’ve been lucky in the past, but—”
“But that luck has run out, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, guess it has.”
The connection broke. Pelfry dropped the
phone and started his car.
“I could get more mushrooms from Trish. Drive out to the middle of some desert, flatten all four tires and become a holy man.” He swung his car around the long arcing drive of Franz World Headquarters. “That’s it, then. I’ll give my two weeks tomorrow.”
26: Clove
“Just say hey to Trish, then I’m out.”
Aly stepped up two steps, pulled open the door and made her debut to Clove’s End of the World Café.
A long and narrow shotgun room had landed intact after slipping through a slender crack in time. Bronze gaslights turned low hung on a wall of richly burled paneling and cast soft ripples on a copper ceiling. A slate-topped bar with a brass railing cut the room into a neat one-third/two-thirds proportion. Narrow tables lined the open wall, each flanked by two ebony chairs with green baize cushions, their backs pulled against the wall to leave a straight, unobstructed corridor up the middle. “Fire marshal’s wet dream,” mumbled Aly. “Whoa. Barstools with cushioned backs.” Four slender tap handles in the shape of bare-breasted mermaids rose above the bar top. Another lovely lady, plump, naked, her hands discreetly covering her privates, lounged on a divan on the wall behind the bar. “This place is so classy Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt might drop in to guzzle brandy and wield cigars.”
Aly wondered what class of clientele the owner meant to draw from this melting pot neighborhood. Was that her answer perched on a stool at the far end of the bar?
The only other person in the room was clad in a cream-colored skirt with matching waist-length jacket. The skirt may have been a tad short, the jacket a smidgen tight, the heels a bit urgent in their extreme tilt, but there was a unique balance; an expression of femininity where allure gave off a complex message that finished with, “And never fuck with this broad when doing business!” The coppery makeup job looked hours in the making, the honey blond bob was obviously a dye job or a wig, but the gal had found her middle-aged look. She kissed the end of a long, thin cigarette held by index finger and thumb, then kissed it again. The rising smoke gathered in a cloud just above her eyes. She gazed into her cloud. Gazed as if somewhere in there was listed the day’s instructions on how to wheel and deal and gain control in a man’s world while taking the most noble as lovers and scorning the weak and emasculated leftovers. Once every few kisses her extended pinky raked a sculpted nail along the corner of her painted mouth.
Aly heard shoes clopping behind the painting of the nude.
“Fee, fie, fum, foe,” the naked lady seemed to say. “I smell the blood of a No’side ho.” Trish stepped through a small opening in the back bar. “Looking good, girl. Lost weight, I see.” She leaned back. “I believe we’re talking tonnage. Had to mail yourself home?”
“How’d you know…? Don’t tell me that naked lady’s eyes are peepholes.”
“Something like that.”
They leaned over the bar for a hug. Aly lost her balance from the weight of her backpack. She slipped it off and stowed it between two stools. They completed the hug.
“Don’t know what’s with the Dodgers cap,” said Trish, “but—”
“It stays.”
Trish held up open palms. “It’s your head.”
“For now.”
“I see.” Trish scanned Aly’s face. “So, fast month. Apparently time passes more quickly as the end draws nigh.”
“Oh, that. Just Central American lullabies. You know how those rock-a-byes are always tossing kids out of trees. They do it on a bigger scale down there.”
“Speaking of which, you have a drink coming.”
“No. No, no, no, no, no. Don’t even start. There’s no way I can pay for a follow up. In fact, we have to—”
“It’s not on me.”
“Even so, I don’t have the right currency for a tip. But…who?”
Trish nodded toward the figure at the end of the bar.
The woman finished up her business with the cloud, tamped out her cigarette, then wiggled off her stool. She tugged at the hem of her skirt. She may have been winning the war against men in the business world, but her struggle with weight appeared another matter. She ran her hands down her jacket’s lapels, then put her heels to work.
After five steps, “Chin-chilla,” said Aly. “I think Marilyn Monroe would have given up sleeping pills to learn that walk.”
She drew closer. Aly said, “Uhh.” She looked at Trish. “Is she, er…a he?”
“Eeeyup.”
Aly tried not to stare. Then she tried to make staring not look impolite. Too late.
“Patricia. Now, I would know your good friend anywhere. No need for introductions. Allison.” She clasped Aly’s right hand. “Dear, it would be the pleasure of the house to offer you your preference of the evening.” The smoke from half a million cigarettes mellowed the deep voice and aided its endeavor to sound feminine.
“Thanks, but—”
“No nonsense, now. After all, Allison, you’ve done so much for Clove’s. Yes? Don’t look so incredulous. Make yourself comfortable. Patricia, make Allison’s preference the pleasure of the house, if you would be so kind.” Clove went behind the bar and disappeared through the small opening. Heels tapped up the rear stairwell.
“I’m afraid to ask,” said Aly.
“Just name your poison. That’s all you ever need do. Clove’s does all the rest.”
“Man, I haven’t… I mean, it’s been a while, so I shouldn’t…” The weight of the past week suddenly hit her full broadside. “What the hell. Make it a Tailgater.”
“Ooo, youch.” Trish acted as if the bar top had scorched her fingertips. “Sorry. No more Tailgaters.”
“What? What’d you do, bury the recipe along with Night Town? Shit, Trish, I’m gone five—”
“Yo. Time out. Not a problem.” Trish got busy upending bottles over a Collins glass. “Same old specialty. Only the name has changed. Clove thought Tailgater sounded derogatory towards certain of her clientele. That, and she wanted something to honor you with.” One dash from a final bottle. She raised the finished product and placed it on the bar. “Aly, meet your Apocalypse.”
Aly looked back and forth between Trish and the drink. “I don’t know.” She turned the glass. “Something here reeks of a sellout.”
“What’s in a name? Four Roses by any other would taste just as gnarly. But fear not, my friend.” Trish flipped the lid on her garnish tray and drew a maraschino cherry out by its stem. Like a magician’s assistant showing off a prop, she turned at the waist to present the cherry to different sections of an invisible audience. The bright, glossy red emitted a pulse that rendered all other colors in the room jaded. At the end of a nothing-up-my-sleeve flourish Trish let the cherry drop. Sitting alone on the bar top greatly enhanced the orb’s expectant perkiness and eagerness to please. Trish brought her fist down and crushed it. She held it up once again for all to see, then dropped the damaged fruit into the drink. “Happy?”
Aly shrugged. “Some metaphor.” She poked the garnish through a gap in the ice. She leaned forward and took a sip through the stir-straw. “Ooo, hello, old friend.” She leaned back. “Yep. Clam happy.” She couldn’t resist a second sip.
Trish let a few more sips go by. “So. Back early. Story?”
“Wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Trish, hands on hip, narrowed her eyes. “Gotcha. When the tongue loosens, I’m here.”
Aly stirred her drink. “Think it would offend Clove if I told her Aly is short for Alyssa?”
“Wouldn’t bother. I don’t mind Patricia.”
Aly stirred the other direction. “Isn’t that funny? We know each other so well yet I don’t…” She looked up from her drink. “If not Patricia, what?”
“Just…Trish.”
“Oh.”
“Yep.”
“Last name?”
“Nope.”
“I see.” Aly stared into her drink. “I came up with a new unit for measuring time while I was down there.”
“Something to do with the end of love. I call it a Blue. It’s the exact amount of time it takes—”
“Whoa, girl. You’re way too young to settle into bitterness. I thought you went down there to forget him.”
“Forget the man, never forget the treachery.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that.”
Heels clopped down the stairwell behind the naked lady. Clove reappeared through the opening. Her bursting-red face made her look as if she’d been up and down Everest without oxygen.
Trish tapped her heart and shook her head.
Suddenly the spare-no-expense room made sense to Aly.
Clove hoisted herself onto the stool next to Aly. She took a deep, wheezy breath, then said, “I considered every facet of Clove’s End of the World Café very carefully over the years. Yet, when it finally materialized, something seemed to be missing. Imagine. Fulfilling a lifetime dream only to find it’s been incomplete all along. I had no clue regarding the missing component. Then Patricia told me about the work you, Allison, were doing in Central America, and it all fell into place. Finitude. That’s what Clove’s lacked. The absolute, undeniable focus that finitude lends to our existence.” She placed a full-sized ledger on the bar top. A single date exploded from the center of the otherwise blank cover: 12/ 21/ 2012.
Aly sucked a gurgle of air and ice sweat through her straw.
“Oh. Patricia, would you be so kind as to freshen Allison’s preference. Pleasure of the house.”
“Really, Clove, I appreciate it, but…” Aly nodded at the ledger. “What is this?”
Clove rubbed her hand slowly up and down the binding. She eased open the cover. “Everyone who comes into Clove’s gets a full page.” She gently folded pages over, one at a time, as if they were delicate, ephemeral sheets that might dissolve in a rough hand. “There’s plenty of the usual on these pages. Global warming. Nuclear war. Viruses escaping government laboratories. Everyone is entitled to his or her own vision. I place no restrictions upon the book. But there are others far more interesting. This one, for example. Monsters rising from the sea. Drawn in such vivid detail. See how they practically come off the page to get you? Patricia? Did we ever determine if Nahm is of Japanese descent?”