The phone was ringing as I fumbled with the door key—I’d forgotten to put on the answering machine. Then I dropped one of the bags, which split open and kitty litter spilled in the hall. By the time I got inside, the phone had stopped. I went out and swept up the litter, but the call got me thinking about who’d rung earlier on my cell and if I’d missed any other calls. I had. One had come from a private line—Number Withheld. Maybe it was her. Although it could’ve been McInnes. Hell, it could’ve been anyone. One was from Polly’s shyster. She was griping about me paying for her tickets to Wicked. Christ, how petty. The other was the Long Room. Suddenly I remembered Jimmie. I’d said I was going to go by St. Pat’s to visit him.
Pico, my new playmate, didn’t want to have anything to do with me. She’d taken up a defensive position under my bed and seemed inclined to give me another taste of her claws rather than come out. I ripped open a can of jellied pilchards. As soon as she got a whiff of the stinking fish goop, she was there, sidling up against my leg in a way that reminded me uncomfortably of the way Genevieve had touched me … and the feel of Sophia. I wondered how that poor girl had gotten into the clutches of Eyrie Street. What was she, some kind of love slave? A chattel? I couldn’t think about it. I had to go see Jimmie. He’d be conscious now, scared, and lying in a ward with strangers all hooked up to bleeping machines.
I rummaged through the junk in the apartment trying to find something to use as a litter box. In the closet I pulled out an old carton. Photos, postcards and my first citation. There was a kewpie doll from Funland—and my old transistor radio I used to listen to ball games at night on, trying to drown out the noise of Rod porking my mother. The man was a machine.
The photos were creased Army pics from Germany. Me and this girl named Johanna sharing a bratwurst in front of the university in Heidelberg. She probably had five kids by now. Then there were others of Ft. Sill and Ft. Ord, where I’d done my Basic … long shuttered now and being sold off for housing lots. They brought back all the hours spent shining boots, the ordeal of shaved heads and ice-cold toilets—huffing double time in the damp chill of dawn. So long ago. So many thoughts.
They made me think of the yellow scarf and what it had seemed to reveal—even though I knew it had been just stuff in my head. Except the dog collar. All the things piled somewhere in some dark, waiting to be found again.
One day at Ft. Ord we were out on the rifle range, squeezing off rounds into the targets embedded in the side of the hill. Suddenly, without any warning, this guy we nicknamed Trigger started firing in the air. It was one of those days when the blue sky seems to be moving very fast behind still white clouds that are so low you think you can hit them with a stone. Trigger started plinking away. He pointed his gun into the glare of the sun and the bullets seemed to whack into the shining air, tearing off bits of cloud. For every crack of the rifle, a seagull fell into the sand. Sergeant Perada later congratulated him on his shooting. Then he ordered Trigger to bury each of the gulls in a grave that was deep enough for him to stand in. The MP’s came for him one night. We never saw him again.
Down at the very bottom of the box, wrapped in tissue, I found the last wrestling trophy I’d ever received. I pulled it out. A wooden base with a golden pillar rising out of it, and on top two identical male figures grappling with each other. I set it down on the kitchen table and tore off the top of the box. Then I lined it with newspaper and dumped in a layer of litter, which made my throat constrict. I filled a dish with water and set everything down on the floor. I didn’t think the cat would ever want to see water again. But, hell. Cats are survivors. The phone rang again. It was Wardell.
“Aw, Rit,” he moaned. “You home.”
“I’m just heading over there now …” I started to say, and then I heard him hyperventilating. He may have only been as sharp as a bowling ball but he was loyal to the core. I knew instantly what he was going to say.
All I could do was stand there, listening to Pico consume her food, trying to make sense of his words. He kept saying “Complications”—and the way he said it was complicated. But it didn’t change the meaning. Jimmie, damn his old ass—had died on the table. They’d gone in with keyhole surgery to insert a stent in the bile duct, then found there was a swelling—a mixture of retained fluid and internal bleeding. They had to cut him all the way open. He lost blood pressure and when they acted to bring it up, he went into arrest. Maybe a clot had broken free and rushed to his lungs or heart, they weren’t sure. He was in no shape for major surgery, and the tumor was pronounced, with secondaries advancing in the liver. No wonder he’d looked so thin, with jaundice setting in.
I felt numb hearing Wardell pour his guts out on the other end of the line, but I let him go until he was empty. He went back a long way with Jimmie—before Jimmie had met his “last wife,” a puffy old Florida beauty queen who drank martinis for breakfast. She looked like Peggy Lee but she had connections, which is how Jimmie got his cigars. After she passed away, Wardell had looked after Jimmie like a wife. He may have even known the truth of how Jimmie lost his leg.
I always suspected it had to with horseracing. One day a couple of summers back I’d spotted through his thin cotton shirt, two telltale burn marks on his shoulders—the kind that old-time jockeys would get before a weigh-in when they’d spend so long in the steam room, they’d pass out and burn their backs. I figured some time back in ancient history Jimmie might’ve taken a fall in the stretch.
Wardell felt guilty for not having pushed him into going to see a doctor ages ago, but I reminded him that no one could get that little squib firecracker to do anything he didn’t want to. Jimmie had lived his life on his own terms and maybe a quick end wasn’t so bad, given what lay ahead. Wardell sniffled but agreed. I asked about a service, and the big guy said that Jimmie had left strict instructions when he went in for the stent. He’d obviously had the hunch. He’d asked to be cremated quick and Wardell had pulled some strings with his cousin over at Greenlawn to have the job done in the morning. A small service would be held at the Long Room the next afternoon. That was Jimmie—he’d put off going to the doc for two years, but he’d want a funeral arranged at the drop of a hat.
“His note say he want you to spread ’em, Rit. Out onna harbor near Fairy Point.”
I’d been holding up pretty well until then. Being asked to spread Jimmie’s ashes got me a little choked up though, even in the weirded out state I was in—and that got Wardell choked up again too. I told him I’d be by for the service and then take the ashes out on the ferry. Whatever Jimmie wanted.
“An’ Rit … he left somepen for you. Bless his sweet soul, he did.”
I smiled and started crying all at once, stifling it down so Wardell wouldn’t hear and get to blubbering himself again. I can’t remember when the last time was I’d really let go with some tears. I figured old Jimmie had left me some Cubans.
After I hung up the phone I sat at the table staring at the wrestling trophy for about 200 years. The raindrops flicking against the windowpane sounded like the plastic pennants rattling over Otto the Auto King’s lot. I raised one of the windows enough to let in some fresh air. Some of the city grit had been calmed by the moisture and there was an edge of ozone and blossoms. Made me think of Eyrie Street. Almost everything made me think of Eyrie Street now. I couldn’t even stay sad about Jimmie. I wondered where in hell that was going to lead.
The idea that Genevieve was some high tone hooker didn’t play. What she was playing with was my head, and the damn thing was I sensed some pattern to the game. For a lug, I’ve always had sort of a sense, like my mother had—for queer stuff. I don’t mean gay queer stuff—I mean bizarre stuff that a lot of men like me don’t like to think about—and never talk about. Like the kind of things that happen in dreams, only you’re walking around. El Miedo stuff. But what had just happened on Eyrie Street wasn’t like any kind of dream or even nightmare I’d ever had. It was like looking into a window—then realizing it was actually a mirror. O
nly something was missing. Someone you expected to see wasn’t there.
I couldn’t make her out at all and that just got me more curious. Why had she chosen me? A cop in the pocket? Maybe. But she had the moxie to take bigger scalps than mine. It was like an undercover assignment where everything’s last minute need-to-know. Play in the dark so you’ll keep it real.
The first night I’d thought she was using drugs or hypnosis on me somehow. With the rats and Sophia, I was certain I’d been straight. Too clear. I had some connection with her—on a level I hadn’t been aware of before. Gave me the heebies.
So far, I’d only seen her as a civilian. No money had changed hands. If she had any idea what I was interested in from an official point of view, no one else did. Now I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone else to find out, least of all Chris. Even if there hadn’t been any link between Whitney and Stoakes—and I don’t know why, but I didn’t believe that anymore—Genevieve had an unnatural influence over men. A means of coercion—or collusion with some part of them that lay below their awareness. I could feel it working in me. Her. Transmitting on some unassigned frequency. A black new angle started to form in my mind. Maybe those two guys, who may or may not have even known each other, had been compelled to kill themselves for reasons they didn’t understand—and maybe by means they couldn’t understand. I wished I could get drunk. I ordered in Vietnamese instead and tuned in the familiar realm of the scanner.
Some guys need to keep up with the stock market or the sports news. I like listening to the city—what the mood is. 415. Man with a gun. No outstandings. Just checking in. I listened until the food arrived. Then while I slurped coriander noodles, I watched Rico Salazar’s press conference before the upcoming fight with the big Nigerian on the tube. His opponent looked like he was on fast forward in the clips. 19-0 with 10 TKO’s and three other men knocked so cold you could’ve chilled beer with them. Poor Rico seemed both frail and flabby by comparison—all the aggressive style and voraciousness of his earlier career gone.
I felt as full and as lonely as an impound lot and turned to a rerun of Barnaby Jones. Then I threw some old blankets down for Pico and threw myself in bed. I figured I’d sleep like the dead. But I had dream after dream that I couldn’t quite remember. Except for Stacy singing that song … “Wayward Heart …”
I woke up and went and sat on the toilet. I sit down to pee at night because I can’t stand turning on the light and I don’t want to miss the bowl. I figured it was the coriander flipping me out. It was still outside, and foreboding, like when you’ve heard someone chamber a round just behind you. My body was humid and tense.
Back to the cot. There were more dreams—about experiments and tortured animals—erotic scenes. I woke up again, my skin bathed in sweat. I heard a low rumble like the sound of luggage being wheeled on pavement—and a whip of lightning tore through the sky overhead—just like the crank that had doomed those rodents in the cage on Eyrie Street.
Just then something licked my ear—rough but warm. I flinched—and a motorish purr began softly right beside my face as the night itself seemed to drizzle down, the memory of Genevieve’s scent invading the room as it had my head.
Y THE TIME I WOKE UP I WAS RUNNING LATE. THE storm had cleared the air but not my mind or the inside of my apartment. All my joints were tender and the water pressure in the shower was actually painful. I figured I was coming down with a monster flu. I just hoped it wasn’t something more serious. Pico panicked when she heard the splashing. When I got on the scales I noticed that I’d lost 10 pounds since the last time I’d weighed myself, although I couldn’t remember when that was.
Of course I couldn’t find anything to wear. Polly had always joked me about my Thanksgiving suit, but this wasn’t funny. Racing stripe underwear and piles of old shirts that looked like second hand Don Ho. The newer stuff either looked faggy or really didn’t fit. I must’ve shed the flab when I gave up the booze. I’d have to schedule in some shopping. Chris the Cub Scout always looked so neat and fashionable.
I do have OK eyes though, milky blue like my father’s but shaped like my mother’s. My face seemed to have less of that clenched fist look and my beard was light enough not to need a shave. Even the old pockmarks seemed smoother. I’d have a good healthy dinner that night and hop in the tub and listen to Chet Baker, and maybe I could stave off whatever bug I’d picked up—or whatever I may have been dosed with that first night at Eyrie Street.
I zipped around closing up the windows and putting out some dry food for Pico, then I was off like a bride’s nightgown. We had to sort out the Whitney investigation and I had to make a decision on the Stoakes case. And I had to be sharp, especially if I was going to be out at Jimmie’s service in the afternoon. It struck me again that he was gone. Before it had been too painful to deal with—especially after the “experiment.” Now it was like missing a limb.
That made me grin—and then I was bawling my eyes out behind the wheel. It was partly about Jimmie—and it was partly because I suddenly missed Polly—she’d have made sure I didn’t look like a stewbum when I went out the door. I wanted to call her, but I knew I couldn’t. That would be total defeat. I was just so tired and lonely. I kept hearing the one thing Genevieve had said that gave me hope. “This is your first chance to make love to me.” I made it to the station house without thinking of anything else.
Chris was already in, looking like a cross between Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt. It annoyed me how handsome he was, how sure of himself. After his usual español pleasantries, he hit me between the eyes the minute I got back from telling the Captain about Jimmie and the service I had to go to in the afternoon. (I also took the liberty of giving the Boss a heads-up on us going limp on any murder charge with Whitney. It was suicide. We’d had it right the first time. I had to get some breathing room to have more to do with Genevieve—whatever way that turned out. Tanking the case was the way to do it. And who knows—maybe the truth.)
“I want you to come to lunch with us on Sunday, Rit. We’re going to that new seafood place in BayFair. The Lobster Trap.”
“Who’s us?” I wanted to know. He’d said it kind of awkwardly and Chris didn’t do much that was awkward. I caught a hint of pity.
“Me and the girl. And her folks,” he grinned, Colgate-white.
He always called his wife “the girl.” She could’ve been on the partnership track at any firm in town, not messing around with slimeballs and jail fodder. As D.A, her father was officially her boss adversary, so she obviously had some little girl issues. And her liposucked mother chaired the Ballet Company board. I thought shucking some oysters with that team might be an education—or a punishment.
“Why me?” I wondered. It worried me that he was worried about me.
“I want them to meet my partner,” he answered—and almost convinced me. You’d have to have shaken down a lot of people—and animals too—to have seen it. But I did.
“Worried about me?” I queried, and what I meant was, embarrassed.
“Yeah,” he replied. “A little. But I really thought it would be fun.”
“I don’t know if I have anything to wear to a fancy place like that,” I said.
He stalled. “Maybe you should think about how you spend your paycheck and get yourself some clothes that fit.”
That cut. First Lance and now Chris. And come to think of it, the Indian guy at the 7-11 had made some crack too. I’d filtered it out because I was focused on the cat.
“That sounds good,” I tried to recover. Maybe I was in a deeper nosedive than I’d thought.
“Great. We’re on for one o’clock.”
“Llegaré a tiempo,” I replied and his eyes lit up like a silent burglar alarm.
“Bueno, por lo menos te podemos prometer que sin ti no vamos a empezar el partido.”
I clapped at that, and he rose and bowed like a bullfighter.
“And the best news of all …” he smiled, sitting back down. “Ole Humph is footin’ the bill. I just do
n’t want to be the only one at the table not to recognize things on the menu. I made a slip the other night—and the mother-in-law gave me a look like a cattle prod.”
“I understand,” I mumbled … instantly back in that chair on Eyrie Street with the sound of the wheel turning and the water flowing … Sophia’s warm wet mouth …
If he hadn’t lobbed a file on my desk, I would’ve phased out right there.
It was from the Two-Four, the close-out paperwork on Stoakes. Just as I’d predicted, they were definitely pushing to have the case sealed up as suicide, and with no extenuating circumstances as in the Whitney matter—at least not that they knew about. In the state I was in, I couldn’t see any reason to cough up any more info and stir the pot. Better to sign off. Maybe a man who takes his own life so violently deserves to rest in peace. Besides, going against the grain meant taking Lance’s opinion head-on, and with the possible exception of Chris, he was my ace boon coon now that Jimmie was gone. Plus, no one else had the dimmest idea of any connection between Stoakes’ and Whitney’s business affairs—and I wasn’t sure there really was one. I’d dug up a few things, but that was a long way from evidence and a very long way from proof—of anything. Whitney was in real estate. Stoakes dished out or denied permits—that was the only association, and nobody would take any notice. The connecting rod was Genevieve. But I had only hunches and suppositions and none of it I felt good sharing with anyone, certainly not Chris. I may have been a bit jealous of the guy but I had no intention of doing anything to damage his career—or put him in the way of something so far out of his comfort zone.
If I was going to go after her, I’d need something a lot more probative than I had, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hunt that hard. No—that was the one thing I was sure about. I wanted to know much more about her, but not for the sake of the badge and any investigation. For me. She could’ve also been that Denita Kent woman whose name had poked up in Whitney’s affairs. She might’ve had a chain of aliases and Interpol warnings running around the globe. Something in her brought to mind duct tape and bandage scissors—and a lynx stole in Gstaad. What kind of con was she running? And what the hell did it have to do with me? That’s what I wanted to know. Didn’t I?
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