Losers, Weepers

by Jessica Thomas

  “Don’t be an idiot, Alex. She’s all of eighteen.”

  “Wonderful. You won’t have that nasty ol’ problem of statutory rape.”

  “Alex,” his voice was dangerously soft. “Why did you call me?”

  I told him, as briefly as possible. His reply sounded more like the Sonny I knew and sometimes loved.

  “Shit.”

  “Indeed,” I agreed with a nod. “What do I do if Mark walks through the door as we speak?”

  “Don’t let him get your gun. You do have it with you? Are there any other firearms in the house?” He was suddenly all business.

  “I have mine, yes. I don’t know if there are others in the house. Hold on.” I looked at Karen, who was studying the lemon in her drink. “Karen, are there any guns in the house?”

  Wherever she was, she brought herself back with difficulty. “Guns? Harry used to have a bunch of cap pistols. Oh, and he had a BB rifle.”

  “Karen,” I said gently, “real guns.”

  “Oh.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Mark has a shotgun—maybe two. He goes duck hunting once in a while. And I think maybe a pistol, I’m not sure.”

  “Will you please get the shotguns now, and see if you can find the handgun. Bring them down here pronto. And be careful, he may have left them loaded.” I turned back to the phone. “Did you hear that, Sonny?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll stay on the line until you have them. Look, no funny remarks, please. I really need to finish talking to Dana. We have to get that kid Zoe out of there soon, but we also want to nail everyone involved. I probably include Reed in that list, and it may take a little time to set it all up.” I heard him sip something that was probably better than what I had. He cleared his throat and went on.

  “So I’m tied up here for the next few hours. I’m sending Jeanine out to you. She’s the only person I have available except Officer Mendes, who is still learning how to extract his pistol from its holster without endangering himself and everyone else within a one hundred and eighty degree arc. Can you and she handle Maddock if he shows up drunk? He can be pretty obnoxious.”

  I took the last swallow of my watery drink with its slight aftertaste of kerosene. “Jeanine could handle a Bengal tiger by herself. We’ll be okay. What shall we do with him if he shows?”

  “Ask him sweetly where he got the money. He’s going to be very upset when he sees it laid out wherever you’ve got it. Be careful with this guy.”

  “Yeah. Oh, here’s Karen bringing all three guns. Jesus, Karen, watch where the hell you point them. Sonny, I’ve got to go. Quick, tell me, do I get into the Charlie thing with Mark?”

  “Sure, you and Jeanine can put him into a good sweat. Bring him in for more questioning if you want, or if you get enough, arrest him. If you really need Mendes, call Nacho. Okay? See you later.”

  I said good-bye to a dead line and turned carefully to relieve Karen of two shotguns and a revolver. I broke the shotguns and found both empty. The revolver was loaded, but dirty, and didn’t smell as if it had been fired lately. I dumped the cartridges in Karen’s hand and suggested she put them in a baggie somewhere obscure.

  I took all three weapons out and locked them in the trunk of my car and let an anxious Fargo out to trot for the nearest tree. Output taken care of, we turned to input, and he had a drink from his little bowl and the thermos of water I keep in the car. About this time I spotted Jeanine walking up the sidewalk, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, looking most unlike a policewoman. She had parked her unmarked car around the corner so Mark wouldn’t be suspicious at two strange cars in his yard.

  I looked pointedly at her garb and mine and remarked that Mark would probably think we were both lesbians, on our weekly visits to various homes, handing out literature recommending the lifestyle.

  We turned toward the house and she laughed. “Maybe we should tell him we’re members of a twelve-step program to help make conversion easy. I told my husband if he gets me pregnant one more time, I’m turning gay.”

  I smiled and shook my finger at her. “Be careful of the promises you make. You could end up with no husband and four kids.”

  I took Fargo in with us, mainly because the car was getting a little warm to leave him and partly because he makes an impressive appearance.

  We spent a long, boring, nerve-wracking afternoon waiting for Mark—and possibly his pal Richard—to show up. Jeanine and I carefully counted the money and finally got the same total: $19,050. If this were indeed the money from the Tellman Gallery, it was some $6,000 short of what it should be. Between what he spent on drinks for his barfly buddies last evening and what he took to the track today, surely even Mark wouldn’t have gone through that much money. I wondered where it was.

  Then the lightbulb went on above my head. No, Mark wouldn’t have spent six grand on drinks for the house, but he might have given a generous present to his ‘pal.’ Especially if that friend had been with him when he robbed Tellman’s . . . and probably shot Charlie. I didn’t say this to Jeanine because Karen was nearby futzing with something in the kitchen.

  I did get up, take my 9 mm Glock out of my purse and stick it in the rear pocket of my jeans, pulling my shirttail out to cover it. Jeanine raised her eyebrows. “You just had a thought?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “That there may have been some help from the junior partner.”

  She thought a minute and then got it. “So if the partner is here, too, we might have two to take in?”

  “Yup.”

  “That could get interesting. Do you have cuffs?”

  “Yeah, I got them out of the car earlier, just in case Mark beat you here and got rambunctious.”

  The day dragged on. Karen gave us coffee and cheesecake, for which I was duly grateful, having missed my lunch.

  We sat around the dining room table and tried to chat—three women with little in common. If they talked about kids, that left me out. If Jeanine and I talked about cops, it left Karen out. If Karen and I talked of looking for a third catering partner, it left Jeanine out. Finally, of course, we got to the weather and wrung it dry. We started with today’s autumn loveliness and worked all the way back to the myths we had heard about the hurricane of 1938.

  We almost missed the sound of a motor in the driveway. Karen jumped up and peeked out the window. I wondered for a moment if she were about to dash out and tell Mark to run for it, but she came back and sat down.

  “It’s Richard’s truck. I guess he brought Mark home.”

  “Will he come in, too?” Jeanine asked.

  Karen shook her head. “I doubt it. If they have been drinking and didn’t go to work, he knows I’ll be well and truly pissed.”

  A car door slammed. We waited a few seconds and there was no second door. I think we all let out a breath. Mark was enough to handle. Richard could wait. Jeanine was on her radio, advising headquarters Mark was here at last, and that Richard drove a green Ford pickup approximately three years old, plates unseen.

  Mark entered the front door, crossed the living room and came into the dining room with a tentative smile for the three women seated innocently at his dining room table. Then he spotted the money neatly stacked in the middle of it.

  “What’s going on here? Who the hell are you? Karen, where did you get that money? Answer me!”

  Karen seemed as frozen as her cookie dough, so I answered for her. “She found it in the garage freezer, where you hid it, Mark. I’m Deputy Officer Peres, and this is Officer Marcus. We’d like to know where you got the money. Sit down, Mark, and tell us how the horses have been treating you.”

  “Oh,” he laughed a little too loudly. “Horses’re like women. You never know, one minute to th’ next. You jus’ got to hope for the best.” You could smell the booze, and he was slurring slightly, but he was far from dead drunk. I wasn’t sure if I was glad or sorry.

  “How did you fare today? Were they good to you?” I hoped they had been. Mark in an expansive mood might be more likely to talk. He still hadn’t s
at down.

  “Fared fine, fine. Woulda had a real good day if my last pick hadn’t stumbled comin’ outa the gate. Stupid jockey’s fault.” He shook his head in disgust. “But I’m on a real roll here. Got the system beat all to hell and back. Gonna double my money in a month or less.”

  Karen found her tongue and produced a truly wifely statement. “You’d better more than double it. Your boss says you’re fired. You and that Richard calling in sick on the same day! You think Mr. Ambrosio is such an idiot that he wouldn’t know? And now you’ve got the police involved saying you stole the money from Tellman’s Art Gallery. Are you really that big a fool? Did you actually rob them? I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”

  Mark turned pale and leaned both hands to steady himself against the table. But his mouth was hard-set now and his tone no longer jocular. “Jesus, Karen, you stupid cow. What have you been telling people? I knew once you got mixed up with them queers, you’d be less than worthless. Now you’re callin’ your own husband a crook and a thief. You know that money came from our savings account. I never stole a penny from anybody. Karen, go get me a beer.”

  He swung his index finger back and forth, pointing at Jeanine and me, swaying slightly. “Now you two dykes got no business coming into my house, trying to influence my wife and insult me. So you can just get the hell out and right now!” He gestured grandly toward the front door.

  Karen set a can of beer on the table and scampered for the kitchen.

  Jeanine does not suffer fools lightly. With her around, I would greatly prefer to be on the side of the law. She stood, reached across the table and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him toward her. “Dykes is not a friendly word, cowboy. If you use it once more, you may be talking with a cute little baby boy lisp because your front teeth are missing.”

  She pushed him and he sat down so hard that the chair beneath him gave an ominous crack. Jeanine sat herself down more gently and continued. “Now everybody knows you saw that twenty-five thousand dollars all neatly stacked up on Charlie Cohane’s desk, and it was just too pretty to pass by. You might as well admit it, Mark. We can prove it.”

  “I’m admitting nothing, and you’re not proving nothing.” He crossed his arms and smirked. “Now, I am telling you nicely to get the fuck out of my house before I throw you out.”

  Before Jeanine could make him try to prove that he could, I said, “Look, Mark, you are in trouble, and it will cause hardship on your family. About twenty-five thousand worth. We have checked the bank. This money”—I waved my hand over the table—“did not come from your savings account. And the bank doesn’t give out those little green canvas bags to every customer to pack his lunch. They go to a few really heavy hitters. And you ain’t one of them. If you cooperate, things will be nicer for everyone involved, including you.”

  Jeanine took up the tale. “Yeah, Mark, you know, you weren’t too clever leaving the bands around the bills. How much do you want to bet your fingerprints are all over them? I’d say the odds are approximately nine to one. Then there’s the five grand missing from the Tellman deposit—and which we know you gave to your blond Adonis for all his help . . . one way or another. Just how long do you think he’ll sit quietly when he gets pulled in as an accessory to murder?”

  I came back on the scene after a sip of coffee. Mark was swinging his head from one to the other of us like a stunned bull. But still a potentially dangerous one. “One other thing, Mark, the bank deposit slip you tossed into Marie Santos’s yard. She found it and called the Tellmans. What would you say if it had your thumbprint right smack in the middle of it?”

  I had no idea if it did or didn’t, but it sounded good.

  “You have no way of checking my fingerprints.” Mark sneered. “I’ve never been arrested. Man, you dykes are dumb. You think I’d fall for that?”

  “You don’t have to fall for that. You left your fingerprints all over Charlie Cohane’s desk.”

  “The hell I did!” he shouted. “We wiped that desk cleaner than a whistle. I didn’t kill her!”

  We all realized what he had said at about the same moment. Jeanine and I looked at each other and smiled. Karen let out a groan from wherever she was lurking in the kitchen. Mark, with upper arm strength, due no doubt to lifting sofas in and out of trucks, turned the dining table over. Glasses, cups, dirty dishes and money cascaded into Jeanine’s and my laps, and the edge of the table itself pinned our upper legs to the chairs in which we sat.

  Mark bolted through the kitchen toward the back door. Jeanine and I finally got a coordinated lift and got the table off us. She ran toward the kitchen door after Mark. Strangely, Fargo followed her, I suppose because that was the door he had come in. I went for the front door, assuming Mark was headed for the garage and his car.

  I hoped to get there first and be standing by the door, gun in hand and saying sternly, “All right, Mark, hands against the garage, legs spread out, and don’t move.” Then Jeanine would cuff him, we would march him to the unmarked car, and away to the police station we would triumphantly go.

  It didn’t work out quite that way. My script bore little resemblance to the performance. First of all, I seemed to be having some trouble extricating my weapon from my hip pocket. It seemed caught on some errant threads. Perhaps Officer Mendes and I should schedule a date to go to the firing range.

  Secondly, where was Jeanine? Nowhere in sight.

  Fargo came dashing around the corner of the garage—obviously ahead of everyone else—and jumped for my arms to tell me he would protect me. Trying to fend him off, I didn’t see Mark careen around the corner, skidding on the long grass, and running headlong into Fargo and me. We all three went down in a messy heap, winded and confused.

  Fargo recovered first and began to struggle to get out of the pile. I got my breath back and grabbed the dog’s collar and held him tight. He hates being collared and complains bitterly with high-pitched whines and yelps and barks. He’s only protesting, but most people think it is prelude to an attack. Mark obviously thought so, and began an effort to roll free.

  I managed to prop on one elbow and said, “Don’t move an inch or I’ll let the dog loose, and he’ll have your balls before you know they’re gone.” Mark laid his head slowly and carefully back on the grass. I had just begun to wonder how long the three of us could maintain this tableau, when Jeanine appeared.

  She was moving at a crawl and limping heavily, face twisted in pain. But trouper that she was, she had her revolver out and cocked. We got Mark handcuffed. I couldn’t stand Fargo’s shrieks any more and let him loose. Unthinking, I swatted him lightly on the butt and said, “Oh, okay, Tiger, go ahead and kill.”

  Mark sank to his knees and wet his pants.

  At that moment Officer Mendes pulled up, wheels squealing, siren dying away to a low whine, answering a neighborhood call that someone was torturing an animal.

  Chapter 23

  I recall last year, when Cindy’s father had a mild heart attack, and she was frantically waiting for Cassie to return from a charter and fly her down to Connecticut. She cleaned the whole house, including windows, in just about two hours. I was very worried about him, too, of course, but I did the sensible thing. I quietly sat at the kitchen table, drank cup after cup of ever-stronger coffee, smoked half a pack of cigarettes, ate two or three doughnuts and worried.

  Karen Maddock, it would seem, was of the Cindy ilk. I would never understand people like that. Anyway, while Jeanine and I had been questioning Mark in the dining room, she had begun to mop the kitchen floor. When Mark had run through the room he accidentally—or purposely—kicked the bucket of water over, and Jeanine slipped in it and twisted her ankle badly.

  She needed a hospital. I needed another cop to ride with Mendes and Mark while I took Jeanine for medical care. Fargo needed a ride home. The unmarked police car needed a driver, and Mark needed a bath and clean clothes. Our Abbott and Costello act seemed destined for a long run.

  Karen offered to pack
some clean clothes and personal items for Mark and send them with us. Somehow, I did not want either Mendes or me walking into the station carrying the suitcase for a smelly murder suspect, more the bellboy than the dauntless law enforcer. I suggested she bring it down later.

  Finally, finally! After standing around forever, we put Jeanine and Mark, sitting as far apart as possible, in the back of the police cruiser, driven by Mendes with all windows down—first to police headquarters to install Mark in a cell and get the money in a safe, then to the clinic to install Jeanine in a cast. I drove my car home, with Fargo now dozing in the front seat, weary of it all. The unmarked police car would doubtless be picked up sometime by someone.

  Cindy met me at the door with a big hug and kiss, followed by a look at my clothes and a wrinkled nose. “I was getting a little worried. What on earth have you been doing? Rolling in a pasture? You’re covered with dirt and grass stains and you smell of cat piss.”

  “Not cat piss,” I sighed. “Mark Maddock got scared.”

  “What on earth scared him that badly?”

  “I told him Fargo was going to bite off his balls.”

  She looked at me sharply to see if I were kidding. Realizing I was not, she burst into laughter.

  “My sweet creampuff? Never! Oh, Fargo, such an insult! My poor baby, let me feed you. We can’t have you reduced to cannibalism.”

  I wished she had offered to feed me, but I said meekly, “I guess I’ll go take a shower.” No one argued with me.

  Resting my eyes. I was only resting my eyes as I listened to the TV. I was not asleep. I was listening to several people prove they were not smarter than a bunch of fifth graders. Neither was I, to my chagrin. Some of the science questions were not even understandable, much less answerable. Yet, the kids mostly just rattled them off, while the contestant stood looking humiliated. I opened my eyes to find my brother standing over me, smiling.