Rather than call up to Lola, I stood at the bottom of the stairs. I listened for the sound of her breathing. It was impossible to hear anything. I pictured her curled up in my bed, long black hair covering the side of her long face, full lips trembling gently as she slept and breathed.
I went back into the kitchen, pulled a clean coffee mug from out of the dishwasher and the bottle of Jack from the wall-mounted cabinet above it. I sat myself down at the kitchen table, poured myself a shot, drank it down in one swift swallow. Then I poured another with the intention to sip it.
Reaching into my right-hand pocket, I pulled out that little Scarlet leather bag. I peeled back the string that opened it, dumped the contents out onto the table.
Three items.
A small silver skeleton key, like the kind of key that might go to a strongbox—an antique strongbox.
A flock of blond hair tied together in a knot.
A folded piece of loose-leaf paper upon which was drawn a jagged line that extended to a perpendicular straight line. Located in the center of the diagram was an arrow. I knew right away that the drawing must have been some kind of map or diagram. But to what? Or was it a diagram at all? Maybe just some kind of silly doodling.
But then, instinct told me different.
I replaced all the items back into the pouch, got up from the table, set the pouch inside a spice tin on the counter near the sink. A white tin that was marked COFFEE in big black letters.
Back at the table I took another sip of the whiskey, tried to make some kind of sense out of what had happened last night.
I thought about two different Scarlet Montanas.
The first one alive and sexy, kissing me with a full soft mouth. The other lying naked, flat on her back, throat cut from ear to ear, chest bearing the scraped scars of a “Y” incision, as if somebody were trying to get at her insides.
The first thing I had to do was get it out of my head that I had played a part in Scarlet’s killing. What I had to do was relegate my paranoia to … well … paranoia. If I didn’t start looking at Scarlet’s death as a murder somebody else committed then I would lose the one chance I had for finding out who the real killer was and why he or she could have done such a thing to such a sweet girl.
Questions:
Who the hell could have mutilated her if she hadn’t managed it herself?
Where was Jake through this whole thing and why wouldn’t Cain let me talk to him if they didn’t have something to hide or, on the other hand, they didn’t have something on me?
Where had the weapon of death gone? Had it just disappeared? Could I possibly trust Cain when he told me that Jake had somehow disposed of it in all his grief?
If Cain wanted me to rubberstamp what obviously required a full police investigation, what the hell could he be covering up? Why be so afraid of I.A. or the County Prosecutor if a psychotic act of self-mutilation was not only possible, but also probable? Was he that intent on protecting Jake from his own people?
Christ, if anybody other than Jake had anything to fear, it was me. It was my bodily fluids they were going to find, my D.N.A. on her person. Maybe Cain and Jake were fully aware of it, maybe not.
Maybe my head was playing tricks on me again.
Questions but no answers.
I did have whiskey.
At times like these, sometimes whiskey was all the answer you needed. I drank down what was left in my cup, poured one more shot, drank it down. I felt the smoky tasting liquid coat the back of my throat, trickle down my insides like mother’s medicine. I hoped it would erase the taste of blood in my mouth. No such luck.
My thinking process shifted gears.
Was it possible that Scarlet hadn’t been murdered at all? Was it possible that she could have committed suicide?
I knew that if she had been able to work up enough strength necessary to dig a gash so deep that it nearly scraped the interior vertebra inside her neck, her psychosis would have been exceptional. Super human. Where even the point of extraordinary strength had been surpassed. I’d heard of people so out of their minds they could muster the spontaneous strength necessary to lift a car’s trunk end up off the ground or walk across red hot coals or shove nine-inch nails through the palms of their hands. But nothing like this.
Did people commit suicide with knives?
Of course they did. But only on the rarest of occasions.
But as for Scarlet, if only you could have seen her, the way she looked in her death state. It defied all reason and boundaries of suicide.
Maybe the drugs had something to do with it? Maybe she was taking more than sleeping pills? Maybe she had more to drink than just a few Stolis? Maybe Jake had held her down, forced a whole bunch of pills and drink down her throat before he cut her?
Appearances could be deceiving. Especially when it came to homicide and suicide.
The truth of the matter was this: without an opportunity to open her up, examine her the way S.O.P. dictated, I wouldn’t know a goddamned thing. Nor would I be in a position to support their cause or to protect my own. Not to mention Scarlet’s ultimate dignity in the matter. Sure, they could go to another dick to corroborate their conclusions. But then that might be too risky for them. Another man or woman wouldn’t even come close to being the team player that I had proven myself over the past couple of years. At least potentially.
Besides, they weren’t about to give up on me now.
I’d already been witness to too many things. They had no choice but to work with me. In turn, maybe I could control the situation for Scarlet, for me.
Whether I followed their rules of engagement or not.
15
THE MORNING LIGHT BEGAN to emerge red, orange and blue through the stained glass windows of the Saint Pious Roman Catholic Church. Aside from Jake Montana, the place was empty. It was too early, even for the early morning mass. But that didn’t bother Jake. He liked the quiet, the peace, the serenity.
Seated in the back pew, he stared unblinking at the altar, at the crucified Christ that hung high on the wall, at the blood that dripped from the hands, the feet and the right side where the spear pierced it. Maybe it was the events of the night, the effect it was having on his brain. But after a time he could not help but see someone else hanging from that cross.
The body was no longer that of Jesus, but instead his wife.
He saw her cut up body hanging from the wood boards as if someone had somehow transported her from her bed to the church, nailed her up to the wall.
Jake’s heart began to beat. He was suddenly very afraid. Maybe he was sitting inside a church, but he had the distinct feeling that the devil was watching him, touching him. He wanted to get up and run, but his body was glued to the pew. He was paralyzed. He saw it standing below the vision of his crucified wife. The shape of a human figure. A dark, shady image. The face of the image had bright red eyes. It was the devil himself. Or so Jake was convinced. He thought he would die sitting there all alone in the church with the devil. But it was impossible to move.
He had no choice but to close his eyes, wish the vision away.
He did it. He closed his eyes.
Then, slowly opening them, he apprehensively peered back at the crucified image. He saw that Jesus had returned. He also saw that the ghost devil was gone, disappeared.
He breathed a short sigh of relief before the tears finally erupted.
16
DAWN, ON THE EASTERN edge of the horizon.
Quietly I slipped in bed beside Lola, spooned into her, felt her smooth warm skin against my own. I ran my hand down her long black hair, leaned into her. Maybe we weren’t lovers, or girlfriend and boyfriend. But we had something between us, Lola and me. A trust, a bond. She’d been there for me—for my head—ever since the accident in ‘99. Now I loved her like a wife, and I believe she loved me the same way. What we didn’t have together was a relationship that included sex. Abstinence, or so Lola claimed, was the one thing that would make our friendship last
forever.
Our special friendship.
Of course, I couldn’t agree with her more. But with those big brown eyes, long brown hair and long, shapely body, it wasn’t exactly difficult abstaining from sex, it was damn near impossible. Exactly the opposite problem I’d encountered immediately following my accident. The bullet frag inside my head had somehow lodged itself against a bundle of nerves that caused total impotence—perpetual limp, flaccid, half-staff impotence. Sure, I tried everything from Viagra to implants but nothing could stop the dreaded sag. And after a year of this, shall we say, non-action, it didn’t really surprise me in the least that my wife of nine years had decided to bid me a fond farewell. ‘Course, what did come as a surprise was when, after another two years had passed, she hooked up with Mitch Cain and married him. Not weeks after their wedding day the frag decided to shift its position once more and from that point on, the flag resumed flying at full staff.
Lola rolled over, smiled.
“I was worried,” she said. “You didn’t return my phone calls.”
“Jake and Cain called me in.”
“Did you eat?”
“I think so.”
“Why did they call you in?”
I told her why.
When I was through it was almost full light out. Some of the gray-filtered daylight leaked in around the drawn blinds.
Like I said, Lola and I were just best friends. But sometimes friend-to-friend honesty can still be a real bitch.
You see, she didn’t offer up anything in response to my night with Scarlet—before her death and after. No opinion about my apparent lack of control; my decision to do the wrong thing by once more sleeping with someone as vulnerable as Scarlet.
Nothing.
But then, on the other hand altogether, it’s not like she up and walked out on me.
In typical Lola fashion, she just rolled back over onto her side, faced the opposite direction.
“How stupid am I?” I said, hoping that I wouldn’t get an answer.
Silently, Lola got out of bed, went downstairs to make the coffee.
That stupid, I told myself.
17
IN MY NEW DREAM I see her.
She is as real to me as she was last night.
Flesh and blood and that soft red hair.
She comes to me where I’m lying in my bed. She is fully naked, but no longer cut up or scared. She bends over, kisses me gently on the lips.
She says, “I’m happy now. I don’t need to be rescued.”
She turns, disappears …
But then the vision shifts to an old dream.
I’m back inside my kitchen. There’s a thunderstorm going full bore outside the big picture window. There’s a glass of whiskey set out on the table, the open bottle beside it. Set in between the bottle and the drinking glass are six .22 caliber bullets. But I only need one.
I open the revolver cylinder, slide the single bullet inside.
I raise the gun up to my head, press the barrel against my right temple, cock back the hammer. I feel my body trembling, the tears running from my eyes, down my face, dripping off my chin. I begin to squeeze the trigger. But that’s when I see the face of my boy. The pistol slips, drops from out of my hand at the exact moment, the hammer comes down …
When I woke, I thought I heard the rain.
But I was mistaken. The shower was running.
Short, sharp rivulets against the old glass-enclosed shower stall in the bathroom off the master bedroom. I looked at the empty space that once contained Lola. Now just a dented pillow and a rumpled sheet.
Is there anything lonelier?
I sunk down further in the bed, closed my eyes, tried like hell to empty my brain. Tried to allow sleep to take over once more.
The shower, it wasn’t as good as the rain—didn’t quite have that same sedative effect.
But for now, it would have to do.
18
IT WAS NEARLY MID-AFTERNOON by the time I woke up.
I needed my sleep. Doctor’s orders.
I needed my exercise too. Also doctor’s orders.
The long distance running and the weight lifting (squats, bench press, dead lifts) would have to wait till that night however. Half the day was already gone.
I was feeling more awake by the time I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my waist, sat down at my writing desk, stared at the blank sheet of paper rolled into my dad’s old, Olympia Wilhelmshaven portable typewriter.
A few minutes later I was downstairs in the kitchen, washing down a vitamin and an anti-inflammatory with cold orange juice. I mixed my protein shake while sipping on a cup of hot coffee.
Decaf—per doctor’s orders.
A few minutes later, after downing my shake, I opened the front door to retrieve what had been the morning paper. Maybe the sky was still terribly overcast, but it was impossible not to see him. The white-skinned man standing at the foot of my driveway. A whiter-than-white-skinned man dressed in tan slacks and a white button down shirt. He wore sunglasses and a hat, as if to protect him from the sun on a rainy, cloudy day. He looked directly at me from across the lawn and smiled.
There was a Blue Toyota Landcruiser parked behind him, the engine still running.
I bent over in my towel, feeling the chill in the overcast afternoon air, and picked up the paper. Not knowing what else to do, I smiled back at him.
Then he did something that took me by surprise.
He lifted his right hand, made like a knife with extended index finger, ran it across his neck. From where he stood at the foot of the driveway, I could actually hear him laughing.
I didn’t waste a second. I ran back inside, tossed the paper onto the stone vestibule floor.
Up in the bedroom I found my loaded Browning High Power 9 mm in the drawer of the nightstand.
By the time I made it back outside, the Albino man was already in his car speeding down Hope Lane. Hope is shaped like a horseshoe. I knew there was a chance I might intercept the son of a bitch as he exited the opposite east side.
But I was dressed in a bath towel, no shoes. I had to hold the towel tight around my waist while I ran along the main road, Browning out front, all the time the wet gravel cutting into my heels and soles.
In the end, I wasn’t even close.
By the time I’d even made it half way to the other leg of the horse shoe, the Toyota was already making its way east.
I stopped, sucked in a deep breath and passed out.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was that the blue Toyota was pulled up alongside the road. The second thing I noticed was that the Albino man was standing directly over me. Actually, he was in the act of kneeling, maybe to get a closer look at my face. The one thing I remember was trying to raise up the Browning, aim it at him. But my right arm was dead.
He went down on one knee, this white-skinned man who wore dark, aviator sunglasses even in the rain. A man with whiter than white hair, red lips and tongue. Kneeling there, he coughed up a wad of phlegm, spit it out onto the narrow strip of gravel-covered shoulder.
When I worked up the strength to talk, I asked him who the hell he was, and why he was standing outside my house.
But he just raised an extended index finger, pressed it to pursed lips.
“Shhh,” he smiled. “Don’t try to talk, yes.”
He spoke English but with a heavy foreign accent.
From where I lay, I could see that his button-down shirt was unbuttoned at the bottom, exposing a protruding white belly. I guess he noticed me noticing him, or his pale underbelly anyway. Because his face suddenly went stone stiff. Reaching down, he picked up my Browning. My hand lifted up along with it. When he let go, the whole thing just slapped back down to the ground.
A car went by and then another. The second one slowed down a little as it passed, but then sped up again. The Albino man stood up, brushed off his knees, and without another word got back in his car and burned rubber.
> What in God’s name was going on? Who the hell was the Albino man? Maybe some creep I helped put away a long time ago. You never know in my business. Sad fact of the matter was this: criminals were paroled. You couldn’t fight the system. But then, I think I would have remembered somebody that white; somebody that creepy. Maybe he was a hatchet man hired by Cain or Jake to keep me in order. But that didn’t make any sense either. Jake controlled a hundred hatchet men in the form of the S.P.D.
One thing was for sure: I was going to start packing my Browning again.
I had been pretty bad about it since my accident. Carrying it only when absolutely necessary, especially in light of my permit being revoked. Even the cops wouldn’t allow a man in my condition to carry a loaded firearm.
On the record, that is.
Off the record, they insisted that I carry it. Still, I felt better sometimes without it. I don’t know why I should feel better, especially when my line of work involved the occasional shoot-or-be-shot. I suppose it all had to do with the death thing. Rather, the proximity of death. As for me, I might have felt healthier than an ox, but for every minute of every day I could see, taste and smell my death as if it were being hastily prepared for me in the very next room.
There was a bullet in my head. Actually, just a fragment of a .22 caliber slug barely half a centimeter wide by the same distance long.
The doctors had assured me of this: one day the fragment was going to shift and leave me, for all intents and purposes, brain dead. It would be the day that Divine fell for good. That was the reality of it all; my reality.
Lifting myself up off the ground, I breathed in deep and felt the life return to my right arm. I about-faced, began the march back home.
For now anyway, Dick Divine lives.
19
BACK INSIDE MY KITCHEN I popped a second anti-inflammatory and a couple of Advils. Then I poured myself a coffee at an hour of the day when I might have been having my first beer. First I pushed away the mail that had been piling up for some days now. Overdue bills, circulars, catalogues, credit card applications, a notification for a local Gilda’s Club meeting. I spread the paper onto the counter between the sink and the telephone, searched for a headline.
Dick Moonlight - 01 - Moonlight Falls Page 6