Backlash

by Paula Gosling

This was getting dangerous, he should have kept his mouth shut. ‘I suppose it’s because she’s a redhead. Personally, I’d say the real reason is that she’s a burning pain in the ass.’

  ‘But if she’s beautiful . . .’

  ‘Who said she was beautiful?’

  ‘She must be – because you didn’t say she wasn’t.’ And this was a Professor of English.

  ‘I didn’t say she was, either. What have her looks got to do with it, anyway?’

  ‘Then she is beautiful – or Neilson wouldn’t be so interested in her.’

  ‘Did I say he was interested in her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, to me she’s not so beautiful. Would you believe she marched into my office and tried to take over the case?’

  Kate giggled. ‘Which you loved, I bet.’

  He sighed. Not even Kate could see his point. ‘I did not. She has no reason to think it’s her case instead of mine. Only one of their precious investigators got knocked off.’

  ‘Oh, Jack – I wish . . .’

  ‘That I was an insurance salesman. I know. I’m sorry. You get on with your work and I’ll get on with mine, okay? I love you, you know. I also love me. I’ll be careful.’ It took quite a while to reassure her, and he hated to think what the telephone bill was going to be like but, eventually and reluctantly, they hung up.

  He padded downstairs, still dripping, went over to the bookshelves and scanned along them until he found what he wanted. In Love With Language by Richard Cotterell. He turned the book over and stared at the photograph on the back. How could she have thought he was old? A long, intelligent face under a thick mop of romantically tousled hair, a sensuous mouth curling around a pipe stem, tweeds and an open collar, long legs stretched out athletically as Professor Richard Damned Cotterell leaned against a fencepost and gazed into the middle distance.

  Well, he hadn’t really told her what Dana Marchant looked like, either.

  He wondered if that made things even.

  SIX

  French Street at eight a.m. is not a sight to lift the heart – although if you are a police detective hoping to interview some drunks, the vista offered possibilities.

  They were everywhere – huddled in doorways, curled up on heaps of plastic rubbish bags, snuggled into skips with the rest of the refuse. Of course, many more were living in flophouse luxury – a bed, a blanket, a place to throw up.

  French Street had a very orderly progression of existence.

  At dawn it was relatively quiet. Later on a few shops would open, always cautiously. Rents were low and chances of survival were slim, but people kept trying to sell aspirin and newspapers and bread and pickles and, of course, booze. Gradually the drunks would lurch forth pale and bleary, heading with slow determined steps toward the nearest off licence or bar. Later still would appear the drug wholesalers in their dark limousines, rolling along the side streets slowly to set bait – supplying their pushers who would hang loose in their usual shadows, ready for customers with the God!-It’s-morning-and-a-whole-day-ahead-of-me blues. After five, the dark limousines would roll up again to empty the nets, count the catch, and replenish supplies of bait. By early evening the place would be jumping again. The tawdry strip bars and sex shops would flicker up their fluorescent fingers and beckon. The patrolling pimps in their suits of lights and their spangled Caddies would trawl the main line, checking out their girls, taking their cuts, and maybe making a few to keep discipline. In between all this twinkling high-life would stagger the drunks, eyes glazed, mouths open, lurching from one bottle to the next, one doorway to the next, one handout to the next, neon flashing bright colour on to cheeks that had none, and shadows hiding the dirt and the fraying edges. The dream-time, the all-right dark, the let’s pretend.

  But the mornings were cruel.

  Stryker parked around the corner, on Delaney Avenue, and locked up tight. They walked to the end of the street and surveyed the vista of closed bars and boarded-up stores.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Dana Marchant said.

  ‘You didn’t have to come,’ Stryker snapped.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ she snapped back. ‘I could have stayed in my hotel and had a manicure. That would have accomplished a lot, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Touchy, touchy,’ Tos said, mildly. ‘Just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you can forget your manners.’

  She looked up at him. ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ Tos said.

  She stared at him for a minute, then grinned. ‘It’s a little early in the morning for me. I work nine to five in Washington.’

  For a moment Tos wavered, then he broke, and grinned back.

  ‘Not here,’ Stryker said, unamused.

  ‘I’m not asking for favours, Lieutenant,’ Dana said. By the time her eyes reached his the grin was gone. ‘Just the one – to do my job on your turf. I promise not to cry.’ She was dressed in jeans, boots, and a couple of thick sweaters under a pea-jacket, a knitted cap covering her red hair. She still looked entirely female.

  ‘And to think Rivera voluntarily spends his time down here,’ Tos said, shaking his head. ‘No wonder half the guys think he’s a saint, and half think he’s nuts.’

  ‘Who’s Rivera?’ Dana asked.

  ‘What they call a legend in his own time,’ Tos said.

  ‘He’s just a real good undercover cop,’ Stryker said, impatiently. ‘Brilliant at taking on a character and sustaining it. He’s got a new angle on this area, and they’ve let him do his own thing.’

  ‘We might run into him,’ Tos said.

  ‘Yeah, and not recognise him,’ Stryker smiled. ‘His own mother wouldn’t recognise him, some days.’

  ‘How do you want to do this?’ Tos asked, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. He hated this area, hated everything it was and everything it represented. His own father had ended up down here, and the memories of having to track him down, dry him out, and drag him home were the most horrific of his adolescence. When the old man had died there was more relief than sorrow in his mourning, but he never spoke of it. Even Stryker didn’t know. ‘Split up or stay together?’

  ‘They’re too hung over to be dangerous,’ Stryker said. ‘Do you want to rephrase that?’ Tos asked. ‘How would you feel if you had a hangover, a bellyache, and low blood sugar, and some bastard cop shook you awake and asked you dumb questions?’

  Stryker had slept badly the night before, and he nodded wearily. ‘Right, right – we’ll take this side first. Together. Does that make you feel better?’

  ‘Yeah. Not good, I don’t claim good, but better.’

  ‘Wonderful.’

  They moved along about ten yards, stopped at a drunk, then moved on. After viewing two or three, Stryker found what he was looking for.

  ‘And here we have our first customer, whose name I believe is Grunt, and who hails from the doorway of Sal’s Bar-B-Cue, spit-roasted cardboard a speciality. Good morning, Grunt.’

  ‘Good morning, Grunt,’ Tos echoed.

  Grunt opened one blazing eye. ‘Go shit yourself, Stryker,’ he said. ‘You and them both.’

  Stryker turned to Tos. ‘Well, we’re in luck – Grunt seems to be in a good mood this morning.’

  ‘Swell,’ Tos said, sourly.

  ‘You know the guy who got killed here last Sunday morning?’ Stryker asked the heap of rags. ‘How would you like to join him?’ He reached out and dragged the man upright into a sitting position.

  ‘What the hell?’ Grunt pulled away from Stryker’s grasp. ‘Are you rousting me or what?’

  ‘There’s a killer loose on French Street,’ Stryker said, softly. ‘Maybe he’s the kind of killer that likes to pick on street people, easy meat, for fun. For fun, Grunt. Want to be somebody’s fun, Grunt?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop with the Hollywood dialogue, will you
, Stryker? You been watching too many B movies.’ Grunt unwound himself and shook his clothes into place, rubbing his face. ‘What the fuck do you want? Who’s the broad?’

  ‘Look at the picture.’ Tos held out the photograph of Gabriel Hawthorne.

  ‘Okay, so I looked. What the hell time is it, anyway?’ Grunt pulled off his ragged stocking cap so as to better pursue whatever it was that lived in his shaggy mop of hair. He shifted from one buttock to the other and gave a grimace of pain. ‘Goddamn, my balls are froze to the step.’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock and all is not well,’ Stryker announced to the sky. He watched as the ragged man continued to groan and squirm with discomfort. ‘Are you serious?’

  Grunt shook his head. ‘Naw – just felt like it for a minute there. Why, were you going to call a goddamn ambulance or something?’

  Stryker, who had been caught off-guard in a moment of startled sympathy, shook his head. ‘Tell me about the man in the picture.’

  ‘He’s a talent scout for MGM. He promised me everything, said I could be a – did you say eight o’clock?’ Grunt interrupted himself in a horrified voice. ‘You mean you woke me up with an hour to go before I can get a fucking drink? You bastards.’

  Stryker felt in his pocket and produced a miniature of whisky. He held it out in front of Grunt’s filthy face. ‘Tell me about the man in the picture.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, you’re a decent man,’ said Grunt with heartfelt greed, and reached.

  ‘The man in the picture,’ Stryker insisted, moving the little bottle away.

  ‘I gotta look again,’ Grunt said, his eyes on the bottle. Tos interposed the photograph between it and his glittering eyes. ‘So now I’m looking again. Oh, him. Yeah, so?’

  ‘What name did he give?’

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Stryker said, straightening up and starting to replace the bottle in his pocket. He had brought several, to take advantage of the delay before the package stores opened.

  ‘Frank, Frank, he said his name was Frank,’ Grunt said, his voice thinning with desperation. ‘That’s what he told us and that’s how we left it.’

  Stryker retrieved the bottle from his pocket. ‘Where did he put up?’

  ‘At the Cot,’ Grunt said.

  ‘Did he have much money?’ Dana asked.

  Grunt eyed her. ‘If he did I never saw it. I said he was frank, I didn’t say he was stupid,’ he cackled. He looked at her, suddenly suspicious. ‘If he had money, why would he stay down here, girlie?’

  Stryker handed him the tiny bottle, and added a ten- dollar bill to it. ‘Thank you and good morning.’

  Grunt, having finished off the miniature in one gulp, looked after them reproachfully. ‘What’s this shit? I solve your whole damn case for you and all I get is a crappy ten-spot?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me how many teeth he had, you didn’t say the magic password, you didn’t know the capital of Swaziland, you didn’t—’ Stryker called back over his shoulder.

  ‘All right, all RIGHT!’ shouted Grunt, who knew when he was beaten. ‘Next time I want fifty.’

  ‘Next time we’ll ask somebody else,’ Tos said.

  Grunt turned to a fellow alky who was struggling to his knees in the next doorway, his eyes on the miniature bottle. ‘See? See? You do good work and what thanks do you get?’ With a grand gesture, Grunt tossed the empty bottle away. The alky scrambled after it, licked a drop from its tiny neck, and then put it carefully into some inner recess of his clothing.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the alky, and sat back down again. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank—’

  Grunt groaned. ‘Don’t start up with me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ concluded the alky, and went back to sleep.

  The Cot was the street nickname for the men’s refuge run by a local charity. It was in a large building that backed on to a silted-up tributary of the Grantham River, and had formerly been a warehouse. It did a roaring business in the winter, but in the summer many beds were empty because the French Street drunks preferred sleeping rough to abiding by its curfew and rules.

  They were strict. Off the street by nine, a supper of soup and bread while being read uplifting literature, in bed by ten-thirty, up again at seven to a breakfast of porridge, bread and milky coffee, followed by an hour of cleaning duties before release again on to the street by nine. If you had slept there the previous night your hand was stamped as you left, so you could return for lunch – stew and bread and wash up your own dishes. The dishwater contained a bleach which removed the ink of the stamp. (When the Cot had originally opened, they had issued lunch tickets, but when they discovered the tickets were being traded for booze money, they went over to the ink-stamp. At first it was a picture-stamp, but when they realised the men were washing dishes one-handed in order to preserve the stamp, they switched to a day-stamp. When some men were discovered to be wearing gloves on the stamped hand to ensure a meal the following week, they switched to a progressive numbering system. And so the struggle continued.)

  The Cot – more properly known as the French Street Men’s Hostel – had been opened about two years before amid much publicity. The idea had been to provide a simple, regular pattern of life for those who wanted to break free of alcohol and the street. Many tried. Some succeeded. Most failed.

  The great thing about it was that aside from the lunch-stamp system, no records were kept. Life at the Cot was strictly on a day-to-day basis, for the faces were always changing. Still, the man in charge, one Brother Feeney, had a remarkable memory. The Cot was not strictly a religious establishment, but it suited Feeney – origins, philosophical convictions, and outlook unknown – to dress himself in monk-like garb. His was a nondescript face beneath a natural tonsure – growing baldness lending verisimilitude to his appearance. His floor-length habit of rough brown homespun was belted with a length of rope, and he wore sandals over thick, bright red socks. It seemed he must be fond of bright red socks, for several of his helpers sported them, too. Perhaps they had been donated by some company or other. There were signs all around that many of the things in the Cot had been donated by sympathetic companies or charities, and undoubtedly Brother Feeney had got them all, from ballpoint pens to toilet paper, by the sheer force of his personality and his dedication to the cause of down and outs.

  There was no doubt Feeney was eccentric, but he was clean, fair, and would listen to any man’s troubles without judging him. If it had not been for Brother Feeney, the place would have fallen apart.

  ‘Frank? Yes, I remember Frank.’ Feeney was scraping carrots for the stew which was bubbling in two huge cauldrons on the big stove in the kitchen. Around him several other men in more conventional garb moved, scrubbing, chopping, seasoning, stirring. The weather still being on the chilly side, they expected a good number for lunch. Feeney had told them, proudly, that the hostel had been nearly full the previous night. The current reading matter at the evening meal was Moby Dick – this had increased attendance considerably.

  ‘Is he in some kind of trouble?’ Feeney dropped the carrot he’d been scraping into the bowl and selected another from the heap.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Stryker said, quietly.

  The paring knife jerked. ‘Oh, dear,’ Feeney said, wiping his bleeding hand down the side of his habit. ‘Poor man. He didn’t seem ill at all. And he did not drink, I am certain of that.’

  ‘He was murdered, Brother Feeney,’ Tos said. ‘Shot to death last week-end. It was at the other end of the street – didn’t you hear about it?’

  ‘I heard a man had been killed, yes. I didn’t connect it with Frank at all, just assumed it had been a drunken argument. I think that’s what somebody said, and I didn’t pursue it. They’re like children, you see, such strong passions, such rages. They don’t think. They don’t take time to think.’ He seemed genuinely upset. ‘I had hope
s of Frank. He was an interesting person. Intelligent. He seemed very interested in the work we do here. He helped me out in the office quite a bit – I’m rather better at stews than bookkeeping, unfortunately. When he didn’t come back, well – they don’t, you know. They stay for a while and then . . .’ He sighed deeply, and picked up another carrot. ‘I try not to think too much about what goes on outside. It’s what happens in here I care about.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  Brother Feeney scratched his nose, still holding the paring knife, which went back and forth in front of his unfocused eyes. ‘Let me see – you say he was killed on the week-end?’

  ‘Saturday night or early Sunday morning,’ Stryker said.

  ‘Yes, well – it was before that, you know. I would say it was the previous day, Friday, that he left us. I thought he had succumbed to the lure of Bacchus, to be honest. He’d come to us in a sober period, you understand, with the hope of making it last, but I thought he had weakened. Some are like that – two weeks dry and then off on another binge. I thought he was one of those.’

  ‘So you didn’t see him after Friday?’

  ‘That’s right. Lunchtime at the latest.’

  ‘Did he make any particular friends here? Or enemies?’

  Feeney shook his head. ‘No, not that I recall. He had an interest, a lively interest, but it was in everyone, if you see what I mean. He talked to a great many of the men, he was a very good listener. That’s important in this work, you know, listening.’

  ‘In ours, too,’ Stryker said, closing his notebook.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell they want to take her down to French Street for,’ Neilson griped, as he and Pinsky drove over to Richmond’s house. ‘That’s no place for a woman like her.’

  ‘She’s a federal agent, isn’t she?’ Pinsky said. ‘She’s been trained for things like that.’

  ‘Oh, sure – in a book and classroom kind of way. That’s nothing like being a street cop, Ned. Federal investigations are all talk – when they want dirty work done, they call us half the time,’ Neilson said. ‘I mean, she probably did her college degree in psychology, did a quick stint at the sharp end so she could say she did, and then got transferred right out of the sunshine.’