Rico Salazar scored a KO in the 6th round. Huge upset, big money moving around … excited totacho smell of the crowd. I didn’t think it was possible. I’d stayed too late at that nightmare nightclub to have made the fight.
McInness had stood me up. Then the beastly queen thing hit on me. I remembered that. But I couldn’t put it together with the Auditorium. If, somehow, I had made it to the fight, something else had gone down in between and that was lost in the fog. Maybe GHB or midazolam that the lizards use to spike drinks. I glanced at my cell. There was a text message from McInnes. TPTB. The powers that be. I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe some shorthand explanation why he hadn’t showed. My keys were down on the floor below the dash—and dash is what I did to my apartment, wrapped up in the overcoat, feeling like some Bacardi prom date trying to make it back to her bedroom. Except I was scared shitless. What in the Lord’s name had happened?
My stomach felt too rough for black strap. My body was one big cramp and my head was a rage in a cage. I needed proper sleep in my own bed with Pico purring softly. I wasn’t supposed to meet the Padgett group for lunch until 1 PM. I fed Pico some liver-smelling paste. Then I popped half of one of the Sidewinder’s lights-out pills. At least I knew where I’d gotten it. I figured after whatever had occurred the night before, it would help me replenish my energy. And I didn’t want to risk the chance of more harrowing dreams. I pulled down the blinds, took the phone off the hook and switched off my cell. Maybe McInnes would ring and leave a message. I didn’t like it that Jack was in the wind. Maybe trouble. Maybe in trouble. Either way, I didn’t like it at all. I dove into the sack, trying not to think about what lay ahead that day.
But sleeping pill or not, I ended up having a dream—and a very harrowing one at that. I was with Genevieve—ravishing in a see-through white robe, while I was anxious and perspiring in a silly kid’s Buster Brown suit. We were lunching at the Country Club. Padgett was there with his wife and in-laws, lots of honchos from City Hall and various local celebrities.
In the center of the room was a long white table. At the ends were two ice sculptures. One was a big breasted woman’s torso, like the masthead from a ship. The other was a translucent Roman garden god—with a long handle. I thought it seemed a bit racy for the Country Club set, but no one seemed to be fussed. They were paying more attention to the larger ice sculpture that dominated the center of the table. It was an elaborately detailed dragon with spread wings. Contained within it like little hearts were maraschino cherries and juniper berries, so that it was tinted red, cherry syrup flowing from its nostrils like flames.
Little men in white starched jackets with sailor’s hats and blue satin eye masks were boiling miniature lobsters, while outside, a group of topless women in fly fisherman’s waders hauled rainbow trout out of the water hazard at the 18th hole.
Everyone ate in silence, except for the sound of the shells breaking open. Every once in a while, someone would bing a fork against a crystal goblet to get attention and then stand to make a speech. People would turn their heads as though they were listening, but nothing that I could hear was said, and one by one the “speakers” sat down.
Then the dishes were removed by old people, dithery and crippled nursing home patients, some in wheelchairs, others inching about on walking frames, so that they kept dropping plates and glasses, which crashed on the floor. No one cared because the special entertainment was about to begin.
A woman appeared, hair up in a bun, wearing a plaid skirt and a crinoline blouse, with a silver whistle in her mouth. Two high school boys stepped from out of a storage closet dressed in graduation robes and mortarboards, one in black, the other white. When they took them off, they were naked underneath. Both of them very well hung. The woman blew the whistle and they crouched down in the taut ready position of wrestlers amidst all the broken glass and crockery.
A tribe of little girls in fairy princess costumes filed in next. To each of the luncheon guests, except Genevieve and me, the girls handed a silk scarf as a blindfold. When they were tied tight, the woman with the hair bun blew the whistle again. The naked boys came to life and began to wrestle. Their exertion was loud and violent—their bodies clashing against each other viciously—as the shards of glasses and plates pierced their skin, drawing blood. The grunting slam of meat and bone brought the dining room to life. Until one of the boys lost his balance and the other pounced. The blindfolded crowd began to chant—how they understood what was happening I don’t know. Perhaps from the panic in the breath of the boy on the bottom. Or the tense alkaline smell of the bodies. Then the superior boy, who had a huge erection, bore down on his victim until there was a gasp of defeat and collapse. He plunged his pelvis forward—the crowd saluted with upraised arms. He proceeded to pump like an engine, pounding to the hilt with a sickening violence as the guests at table began singing that Queen song “We Are the Champions.” The boy on the bottom squealed horribly. Their bodies began to lose skin tone. They became transparent. When the boy on top at last let loose with a groan that shook every chandelier, the barbarous centaur they made froze. They’d turned into an ice sculpture, the leakage from their cuts dripping like cherry syrup. The ice sculptures on the center table began to tremble and the see-through Roman fertility god toppled over, snapping off his exaggerated extension at the clawed feet of the ruby-tinged dragon.
I woke with a jolt, my pillow damp from sweat, my head all oily with it. For a moment I feared I’d wet bed too. Fuck.
I’d needed the rest so bad I’d put out of my mind the lunch date with Padgett and the wife’s parents. It was already 11:45!
I fell in the shower. I couldn’t find anything decent to wear. Nothing fit! I didn’t have time to think. The last thing I wanted to do was sit around a table with Padgett and his stuffed-shirt parents-in-law at a swank restaurant. He meant well. But he didn’t know what was happening to me. I didn’t know! They were going to laugh at me. Just like in the dream.
I slipped into the tightest fitting track suit pants and t-shirt I could find, a floppy old pair of sandals and threw on the overcoat from the night before and drove straight down to Kettletons to do some emergency shopping. The store people looked at me like I’d hopped out of a boxcar. I didn’t care. There was too much else to stress about. And yet, the physical evidence gave my old cop mind a bit of relief, perverse as it may seem.
I used to take a 44 long. I knew that. I was certain. Now I was a 40 regular. I wondered what Lance Harrigan would make of it. All in my head?
No time. I bought a suit, a couple of shirts, a new pair of shoes that fit (a narrow size 8 down from a wide 11) a new pair of sunglasses to hide my face—and some Jockeys. In this wilderness of price tags, there are so many hidden costs.
I got to the fish joint in a fluff, blood pressure rising like the aroma of mussels and lemongrass. I kept thinking about those white-jacketed men in my dream boiling up tiny lobsters. In the foyer was a marble pedestal with a carved wooden mermaid set into it. I knew the mermaid was set in place because I gave it a nudge anyway. How many people, particularly men had stroked the mermaid on the way to their table? I was completely off-balance. I whisked past the bar and got as far as the maitre d’s podium. Padgett and party were being served drinks, his father-in-law looking like a hardboiled egg in an Armani suit.
I think I still maybe could’ve pulled it off—or would’ve tried—until …
Until I saw Genevieve. Everything inside my head had jumped parole.
Her hair was jet black now and richly braided, the way I imagine Japanese pearl-diving women wear theirs. But I knew it was her. I was certain.
She was dressed to the nines in a trim turquoise suit with a simple diamond necklace. What was even harder—was that she was dining with the Mayor. They were sitting at a cozy table right beneath a Giant Grouper on the wall. The Mayor actually bore a resemblance to the Grouper. Maybe that’s why Genevieve had picked that table. Was the Mayor one of her subjects? Or were they just business associa
tes? Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I glanced back at the Padgett group. It was now or never. The maitre d’ slid up behind his podium and ran his eyes over me with an expectant and demanding expression. I saw Chris peek at his watch. Genevieve peered over the Mayor’s shoulder. I wondered if she’d seen me—or if she knew by some other means that I was there. She must’ve known that I was coming. That’s why she was sitting there. She’d come to observe me—to distract me so I’d really put my foot in it. My insides turned to gelatin and I booked. I knocked someone down on the way out—and someone else shouted. It was only when I reached my car that I saw that I’d grabbed the mermaid from the pedestal. I’d broken it neatly off at the base and stuck it under my arm. Jesus H. Christ.
Genevieve had told me to bring her a gift that I’d stolen. Without even consciously thinking of it, I’d followed her instructions. Her order.
It took me a few minutes to get my breath back and to get the car out of the underground lot. I was very glad I hadn’t done valet parking through the restaurant—that would’ve been a goddamned disaster. I drove two streets over where the phone reception was better and I could get my thoughts together. Then I texted Chris that I was sorry I couldn’t make lunch, but I was feeling very sick—which was very true. He probably suspected I wasn’t going to show.
When I got back to my apartment I took off my new clothes and carefully hung everything up. Now that the place was clean, I wanted to keep it that way, and because nothing else fit, my new togs were my new uniform—and my fragile wrestling hold on reality.
I gave Pico a saucer of milk. Then I took the phone off the hook again, switched off my cell (no message back from Chris) and shook out two of the Sidewinder’s knockout bombs. I couldn’t face anything else. All I could think of was Genevieve. I wanted her so much. The thought that one day, somehow, I might be sitting down at a table for lunch with her—out in the open—in plain respected view of everyone …
What on earth was I thinking? Call it psychotic delusions. Call it love. Or an aging uncovered alcoholic’s last chance at something worth living for. Worth dying to know the truth about. Call it whatever the hell you want, I couldn’t shake it. I just shook.
I took the pills and rolled into bed. Two Sidewinders and lights out until the next morning. That was what I hoped anyway. A day lost to recovery and refuge … and for a few hours at least no chaos of nightmares. Or El Miedo.
I crashed out cold. But later, when the drugs started wearing off, I guess the dreams came back. One did anyway.
I was up on a stainless steel stage. High above, mounted against a wall, was a massive projection screen, designed so that it appeared to be looking into a stone courtyard. It reminded me of where the lions might’ve been kept in the Coliseum. In this case the creatures it contained were giant reptiles—beautifully stylized dragons. Six of them. One was white, with skin so clear you could see the veins and arteries pulsing. Another gold—so bright it was almost reflective. The third was as green as moss with a pale fungal radiance like those toadstools they say exist in the Amazon jungle that emit a light strong enough to read by. The rest were all a brilliant vermilion with fleshy blue filigree patterns—and long blue forked tongues the texture of suede.
The idea was for people to stand alone on the stainless steel platform. Their image was then projected onto the screen above so that they appeared to be amongst the dragons. As you moved on the platform, the dragons reacted, hissing and threatening—each ready to claw the others to shreds to be the one who devours you. Compared to an average person, the dragons looked about 20 feet high and 60 feet long. Depending on how you moved on the metal stage, you could play the monsters off against each other. That was the goal. When a player stepped off the stage the dragons would pause, then slink away into their separate shadows to await the next player.
Monday morning. Heavy rain at dawn slowing to a trickle and then fading away. Just like I felt. I was back awake in my bed—not the bath or my car. I sat with the windows open trying to suck in the fresh air with Pico on my lap. When the stores opened, I hauled myself to the Koreans in my new bonaroos and bought some supplies, went home and made breakfast. The Koreans didn’t give any indication they’d ever seen me before. I didn’t care. I made toast, coffee, a three-egg mess with four slices of bacon and mopped up the grease with a puffy blueberry muffin. It tasted wonderful. And I threw up every last bit a half-hour later.
I broke into a cold sweat thinking about the job. The smells of the squad cars. The ash tray tasting coffee in the station house. The sound of the phones ringing … the feel of the papers—my desk—like my old desk in school. The routine. Now it seemed like I could put my hand right through the wall. What was I going to do? I couldn’t just unravel in front of them all. And I couldn’t put them at risk out on the streets with me either.
Pros and cons. Backwards and forwards. I debated with myself like in some hostage negotiation. But no matter how I twisted the cap, I knew what I had to do.
I finally phoned into the Precinct and said I was sick for real—I had to get some tests. After that I called Lance Harrigan and told him I was going to follow his advice. He was right, I was having some trouble I couldn’t ignore. Boy, was he right.
I was going to see the shrink and my doctor, too. He seemed pleased—you’d have thought I’d told him I’d won a cruise to Puerto Vallarta. Then I phoned the Captain and the union rep. I laid it all out. I never thought I’d be able to say “unfit for duty,” even when I had been, but it turned out to be a load off my mind. For all of about two minutes. Then pure blind frenzy worse than El Miedo ever. What if I was never fit for duty anymore? I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to never Mirandize anyone again. What would my life be like without Probable Cause?
I just had to suck it up. There was no other choice. I knew. The way you know.
I spent the next hour and a half making file notes for Chris, everything I could think of about everything that was on the go or still in progress. I poured it out in nice tight bullet point form, just like shooting off rounds at the range. It made me feel a little better. Then I sealed it all up in a creamy manila envelope and drove over to the Precinct, hoping it would be either frantic with activity or as vacant as it gets. Colby and Strothers were heading into an interview room with a young black hustler. Haslett was at his desk but didn’t look up. Chris was out and I dropped the envelope on his desk. Our desk. Then I skedaddled.
It was a clutching-falling-into-space sort of feeling turning in my shield and weapons, which I did down at the front desk to a taciturn duty Sergeant I fortunately hadn’t met before. Like losing an arm and going cold sober at all once. But it was the stand-up thing to do for the sake of guys like Padgett and Novak. Out of respect for the job. Some last hint of respect for myself.
The really hard thing was I knew a sigh of relief would be echoed around a lot of lockers. Even Padgett’s. That was the one that hurt the most. I couldn’t bring myself to call him straight. I had to send a wussy text message. He was off doing an honest morning’s work trying to catch bad guys.
When I got back to the cat box I had another spew and took a long lukewarm shower. I didn’t have to shave. All my body hair seemed to just wash down the drain and my face, despite how I felt, was smoother and younger looking than I could recall. When I was dressed again in the only clothes that fit me—including some real men’s underwear—I stowed the money Jimmie had left me, minus some walking around cash, left food for Pico and picked up the thieved mermaid. At least I’d fulfilled my mission on that score. Now I had some time up my sleeve.
And suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t have a set of handcuffs on me anymore. I didn’t have authority. I didn’t … know who I was …
All I had was a fantasy that lay behind the door of 4 Eyrie Street. And more shadows than I could count behind.
So I went looking for McInnes. I scouted the apartment he’d been living in on Tolbert. He still had three months left on his
lease, but the neighbors weren’t talking and the manager had no idea. Jack hadn’t been seen in the last few days. I didn’t like that. Then I jawed with the ham-and-eggers at Rooster Booster. I visited the desk at the Coolidge. I hit a titty bar and a watering hole called The Sportsman’s Paradise I knew he used to frequent. I even swung by this karate dojo he’d been connected with. He’d either flown the coop or was lying very low. I didn’t want to think about the other possibility. He was, after all, the guy who’d gotten me into this predicament. The appointed time rolled around and I headed to Cliffhaven, feeling like someone had slipped me a nitroglycerine tab. The thought of seeing Genevieve again made my heart beat faster than El Miedo ever had.
DOWN
A
BLONDE
ALLEY
DROVE OVER TO CLIFFHAVEN LISTENING TO JOHNNY CASH singing “A Boy Named Sue” on the radio. For the first time in a long while my cell phone wasn’t bleeping at me constantly. It was as if I’d become telephone invisible.
The giant African met me at the door. I’d been wondering when I was going to confront him. Up close he reminded me of Def Lov, the MC at the Congo Club, only with ridges of scars down both cheeks. He was dressed in a butler’s uniform, but it made him look like an ambassador. Without saying a word he took the pilfered mermaid from my hands and led me upstairs to the second floor, which I’d been excluded from earlier.
The room he escorted me to gave the impression of being the size of the whole house. There was a grandfather clock with the dimensions of a totem pole and I half expected to find a giraffe grazing amongst the chandeliers. I couldn’t imagine how the effect was achieved.
Masks of all descriptions covered the walls, as well as library case after case sagging under the weight of books. Despite the seeming authenticity of the objects, I couldn’t help wonder if someone else had entered that room, would they have seen a different room?
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