“All gone home, Officer. Can you come back tomorrow?”
The detective wasn’t much older than Sam and like Sam he had a moustache. His suit coat was thrown over a chair. He wore an uncomfortable looking shoulder holster.
“I’d like to see the death report on Baxter Slate,” Sam Niles said.
“I can’t go into homicide’s cases. Come back tomorrow. You can talk to …”
“Please,” said Sam Niles. “I only want to see the report. Please.”
And the detective was about to refuse, but he looked at Harold Bloomguard who turned and walked out of the office, and he looked at Sam Niles who did not walk away. He looked at Sam’s face and asked, “Was he a friend?”
“Please let me see the report. I have to see it. I don’t know why.”
“Have a seat,” the detective said and walked to a filing cabinet drawer marked “Suicides -1974” and pulled out a manila folder, removed the pictures in the file which Sam Niles definitely did not want to see and gave the file to the choirboy.
Sam read the perfunctory death report which listed the landlady as the person discovering the body. The person hearing the shot was a neighbor, Mrs. Flynn. He saw that Baxter’s mother who was in Hawaii had not been contacted as yet. His married sister in San Diego was the nearest relative notified. The speckled pup which Baxter had been caring for since he found her on the street outside Wilshire Station was taken to the animal shelter where she would soon be as dead as her master. The narrative told him nothing except that Baxter had fired one shot into his mouth at 11:00 A.M. that morning on a sunny smogless delightful day.
In the file was a note to the milkman which Baxter had written asking that two quarts of skim milk be left. The handwriting was scratchy, halting, not the sure flowing stroke of Baxter Slate. No more than that horrible grimace of consummate humiliation in Gina Summers’ apartment had been a Baxter Slate grin.
The report said that several books were scattered around the table where the body was found. Baxter Slate had gone to his classics at the end. Disjointedly. Desperately. The detective had torn several pages from the clothbound texts. He had thought the pages marked by that same spidery crawl might prove enlightening.
One marked passage from Socrates read: “No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.”
Another from Euripides said: “When good men die their goodness does not perish, but lives though they are gone. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies and is buried with them.”
Baxter had marked a passage from Cicero, the only one not specifically mentioning good and evil and death. It made Sam Niles moan aloud which startled the nightwatch detective. It said: “He removes the greatest ornament of friendship who takes away from it respect.”
Sam removed his glasses and cleaned them before reading the last page. The page was powdery from dried blood. Sam’s hands were shaking so badly the nightwatch detective was alarmed. Sam read it and left the squad room without thanking the detective for his help. The passage was underlined. It simply said: “What is it, Catullus? Why do you not make haste to die?”
FOURTEEN
THE MOANING MAN
At the end of that tour of duty on the day Baxter Slate died, the choirboys were more anxious for a choir practice than they had ever been. When Father Willie asked quietly, “Are we still going to have choir practice?” Spencer Van Moot said angrily, “Of course we’re having choir practice. What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Never had the choirboys drunk so obsessively in MacArthur Park. They were snarling at each other and guzzling sullenly all except Roscoe who had gotten a station call to transfer an overflow of five drunks from Wilshire to Central Jail and had not yet shown up at choir practice by 1:00 A.M.
Before they could be too thankful for the absence of Roscoe a blue panel truck appeared from nowhere, grinding and rumbling across the grass in MacArthur Park with its lights out, clanking to a stop under the trees in the darkest shadows.
“I was hopin I could get drunk painlessly,” Calvin Potts said as Roscoe Rules, still in uniform, jumped out of the drunk wagon and came trotting across the grass.
“Hey!” yelled Roscoe cheerfully, which was enough to make everyone mad to begin with, “I was on my way back to the station but I couldn’t wait to tell you!”
“Tell us what, Roscoe?” Spermwhale grumbled. He was lying on his blanket, a can of beer on his huge stomach, looking up at the moonless, smog-filled summer sky which even hid Baxter Slate’s great star.
“Down at Central Jail after I transported the drunks I ran into a guy I know. Works homicide downtown. Guess what they found when the coroner posted Baxter Slate’s body? Whip marks! All over his back! Whip marks! They think he musta been a pervert. I always said he was weird, but whip marks!”
“What? What did you say?” Sam Niles said as he sat in the darkness on the cool grass and cut his hands when he suddenly tore an empty beer can in half.
“Well I liked him as much as the next guy” said Roscoe, “but kee-rist, whip marks on his back! The dicks think he was some kind a freak or pervert. You know how faggy he always talked…”
Then Roscoe Rules was even more astonished than Gina Summers had been at how quickly Sam Niles could move. Roscoe was hit twice with each of Sam’s fists before he fell heavily on his back. Sam lifted him by the front of his uniform and hit him so hard the third time that Sam’s glasses flew farther than the chip from Roscoe’s tooth.
Spermwhale Whalen overpowered Sam and several others restrained Roscoe who tried to kneedrop Sam as he lay pinned to the ground by Spermwhale, and the park was alive with shouting choirboys and quacking ducks, and four park fairies came running to the sounds of fighting.
Father Willie Wright staggered drunkenly over to examine the body of Roscoe Rules who fell in the bushes just as a park fairy said, “A policeman! What happened to him?”
“Stand back, give him room to breath,” commanded Father Willie. “Lemme work on him.”
“Are you a doctor?” asked the second fairy.
“I’m a priest,” answered Father Willie as Spermwhale roared the fairies away.
“People like you killed him!” Sam Niles yelled as Spermwhale Whalen enveloped him in his enormous arms and pinned him to the ground saying, “Calm down, kid. Calm down.”
“I’ll kill you, you scrote!” screamed the revived Roscoe Rules as three choirboys held him and took away his gun.
“Shut up, Roscoe!” Spermwhale barked as Sam Niles began to weep for the first time since the spider holes. But only Spermwhale saw and he said softly, “Listen, son, Roscoe’s an asshole but he didn’t kill Baxter.”
“I’ll puncture your kidneys and rupture your spleen, Niles!” screamed the thrashing Roscoe Rules.
Now that Spermwhale was sure he could release his grip on Sam Niles he did so. Spermwhale then stood up and walked across the grass to the pile of bodies on the ground and said, “Roscoe, if you don’t get your mind together and relax, I’m gonna relax you.”
And he held up a big red fist which Roscoe Rules remembered.
After that it was only a matter of everyone dusting Roscoe’s uniform off and apologies all around except from Sam Niles who stalked off to the duck pond to sit and drink and try not to think of Baxter Slate.
Roscoe Rules rubbed his lumpy jaw and touched the broken tooth with his tongue and became appeased by everyone apologizing for Sam Niles and patting him on the shoulder and being nice which he was totally unused to. And Roscoe said, “I’m already long past end-of-watch. I’ll just have a beer before I drive the wagon back in.”
With the police drunk wagon parked on the grass in MacArthur Park under the trees, Roscoe sat there in uniform and had a beer which led to three while Sam Niles drank Scotch without mercy to his flaming throat and stomach. He relentlessly sought the intellectual oblivion which alcohol brought to Whaddayamean Dean Pratt.
At 2:00 A.M. Harold Bloomguard walked quietly up behind his brooding partner an
d startled him by saying, “Sam, let’s talk.”
“I’ve got nothing to talk about, Harold. Leave me alone.”
“We have to talk.”
“Look, goddamn you. You got problems? A new neurosis that’s bothering you? Eat your fucking gun. Like Baxter. But leave me alone.”
“I don’t wanna talk, Sam. I wanna listen. Please talk to me. About Baxter. About anything you want.”
But Sam Niles cursed and struggled to his knees and pushed up his drooping glasses and held up a fist bloodied by Roscoe’s teeth and said: “I don’t need you. I’ve never needed you. Or anybody. Now you get away from me. YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Harold Bloomguard nodded and trudged back to his blanket, back to the others, and drank silently.
At 2:30 A.M. Spencer Van Moot said, “Hey Roscoe, don’t start on that hard stuff. You’re sitting here in uniform, case you didn’t know. And that funny blue wagon over there is a police vehicle.”
“So bust me for drunk driving,” Roscoe giggled, the pain in his jaw almost anesthetized by now. “Besides, Ora Lee and Carolina might be here soon and they ain’t never seen how good looking I am in uniform.”
“I wish he’d just walk toward Duck Island till his hat floats,” said Calvin Potts.
The choirboys drank quietly and speculated about Baxter Slate and felt the closeness of death and stole glances at Roscoe’s gun and thought how near and familiar the instrument always was to men who somehow contract this policeman’s disease. They wondered if the closeness and familiarity of the instrument had something to do with it or was it the nature of the work which Baxter always called emotionally perilous? Or was it a clutch of other things? And since they didn’t know they drank. And drank.
It was a miserable choir practice. All attempts at jokes fell flat. Harold often looked toward the duck pond where Sam was drinking himself into paralysis but did not go to him. Whaddayamean Dean got on a usual crying jag but this time he cried without respite. Spermwhale took him away from the others and put him down on his blanket and gave him a pint of bourbon.
“Spermwhale! Spermwhale!” Dean cried. “Baxter’s dead! Baxter’s dead!”
“I know, son. I know,” said Spermwhale Whalen, leaving Dean to drink alone on the grass on a gloomy night under a very black sky.
They were grateful that Ora Lee and Carolina didn’t show up that night. Finally as the moon misted over, Spermwhale looked at the glowing Roscoe Rules and said, “Roscoe, you better get that fuckin wagon back to the station. You’re gettin swacked.”
“You guys gonna be here when I come back?”
“I’m going home,” said the miserable Francis Tanaguchi.
“Gimme that fuckin Scotch,” said Calvin Potts as he raised himself up on an elbow.
“I’m going home too,” said Father Willie Wright who was sitting quietly by the trees.
Then Spencer Van Moot stood and tried to walk toward the pond but fell flat on his face.
“Jesus!” said Spermwhale as three choirboys struggled to their feet dizzily and tried to pick up their groaning comrade.
“He can’t drive home,” Father Willie said.
“Somebody drive him home,” said Spermwhale. “Padre, why don’t you drive his car to the station parking lot and one of us’ll take him home?”
But then the body of Spencer Van Moot reacted logically to the abuse being done to it. Spencer sat up and retched and vomited all over himself in enormous bilious waves as the choirboys cursed and scattered.
And that normal physical reaction sealed the fate of a human being in that park.
“Oh shit, he’s covered with puke!” Francis Tanaguchi said.
“Oh gross!” said Harold Bloomguard.
“I ain’t taking him in my car,” said Calvin Potts who strangely enough could not get drunk while thinking of the suicide of Baxter Slate.
“Okay okay” said Spermwhale. “Put him in the back of the wagon. Roscoe, you drive him to the station parking lot. Padre, you drive his car there and put him in it and let him sleep it off for a few hours. I’ll get up at six o’clock or so and go down to the station and wake him up so he can get cleaned up before anybody notices him.”
“Can’t he sleep in the wagon all night?” offered Roscoe.
“Fuck no, stupid!” said Spermwhale. “A sergeant finds him there tomorrow he’ll get racked. Do like I say.”
“Well who’s gonna put him in the wagon now? I don’t wanna touch him!”
“Goddamnit, get outta the way,” Spermwhale said. He grabbed the semiconscious Spencer by the feet and dragged him across the grass and rolled him over on his stomach and back to wipe off some of the vomit. Then he and Calvin Potts took his wrists and ankles and flipped him up to the floor of the wagon and got inside and lifted him up on the bench.
“Better put him on the floor,” Father Willie said. “He’ll fall off the way Roscoe drives.”
As Spencer Van Moot was being ministered to and as Sam Niles was finding himself too drunk to get to his feet and was searching in vain for Baxter Slate’s great star Jupiter, an eighteen year old boy was strolling toward Sam on the other side of the pond, tossing bread crumbs to the ducks, making hopeful plans about his life, how he would make a career for himself and care for his parents.
When Alexander Blaney approached the staggering figure by the pond he stopped in the shadows. He saw that it was a drunken man and he heard the voices off by the trees and saw a blue panel truck parked between the drunken man on the grass and the others. He knew it was the group of policemen again and he debated about whether to try to help the drunken one or to mind his own business. For all he knew the drunken policeman might be the one called Roscoe who raged about fags and might kneedrop him, whatever that meant.
Then Sam Niles, who did not see Alexander Blaney managed to get to his feet and swayed toward the subdued choir practice. But he made it only as far as the panel truck where he found the doors open and saw a pair of feet and a body on the floor.
“That you, Harold?” mumbled Sam as he leaned into the foul and shadowy truck and tugged on the sleeve of the snoring figure.
“That you, Dean?” asked Sam Niles who crawled into the truck and collapsed on the floor next to Spencer Van Moot.
“That you, Padre?” he asked, and tried to help the sleeping figure up to the bench in the truck but got dizzy and sat down on the opposite bench. Then Sam Niles became nauseated and violently light-headed and he had to lie down on the bench while the earth spun madly. Within seconds he was dozing.
Alexander Blaney watched all this and saw that the policeman was safely inside the blue truck and he sat down on the grass closer to the choir practice than he had ever been before and listened to the voices which were not loud and funny tonight. But quiet and bitter.
Then Alexander backed into the shadow of the trees when he saw a uniformed policeman and another man walking toward the truck.
“Hey, look at this, Padre,” Roscoe Rules said when he got to the back of the wagon.
“Sam!” said Father Willie.
“Spencer’s got another drunk for company. Fuckin scrote, probably been smoking pot and passed out. Just like that dope-head friend of his, Baxter Slate.”
“Baxter’s dead,” Father Willie reminded, thinking Roscoe didn’t look sober enough to drive.
“I liked him as much as the next guy,” Roscoe said. “I just didn’t like his pervert ways.”
“What’ll we do about Sam?”
“Take him with Spencer, I guess,” said Roscoe.
“So somebody’s gonna have to drive two cars to the station.”
“Let’s get it over with before we have the whole fucking bunch back here,” Roscoe Rules said, pushing Spencer’s feet inside and slamming the door to the wagon.
After the wagon was closed Roscoe urinated on the grass and Alexander Blaney heard him laughing as he rejoined the dying choir practice.
Then when they were out of sight Alexander Blaney heard a muffled scream from
inside the wagon.
It was less the clanging wagon door and the snapping of the lock than it was the feel of the body on the floor beside him, but Sam Niles’ eyes popped open. It was black. There was no light. He didn’t know where he was. For a brief instant he didn’t know who he was. Then he felt the body. He leaped to his feet in the darkness and slammed his head against the metal roof. He screamed and turned to his right, smashing his glasses on the wall of the wagon. He clawed at those unyielding walls.
He walked on the body and his alcohol weakened legs slipped and his ankle turned and he fell on the body. He screamed again.
“Harold! Harold!” Sam screamed. And he smelled fish sauce and garlic and pressed his face to the slimy wall and awaited the molten horror from the flame thrower.
Then he wept and screamed, “Harold! Harold!” But instead of saying, “Now now now Hush now, I’m with you. You’re not alone,” the body said nothing. Because it was dead. It was Baxter Slate!
While Roscoe was laughingly reporting to Spermwhale Whalen that he found Sam Niles asleep in the wagon, Sam Niles was pleading, “Baxter! Baxter! Baxter!”
But the body beside him did not answer. Not in a human tongue. It only said, “Mmmmmmmmmm. Uuuuuuuuhh.”
The top of Baxter’s head was gone and crackled under Sam Niles shoes as he backed against the doors of the wagon, his head bent from the low roof, his face bleeding from the broken glasses. He screamed. He couldn’t breathe. He was hyperventilating.
But the only one who could hear those dreadful cries was a boy named Alexander Blaney who summoned enough courage and came out of the shadows and hurried to the back of the truck to open the doors for the screaming policeman.
Back at the blankets Harold Bloomguard said, “You what!”
“We left him in the back of the wagon,” said Roscoe.
“Did you close the doors?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Sam doesn’t like to be closed in. I better go have a look!”
But before he could get there Alexander Blaney was standing at the back door of the wagon trying to get the rusty bolt slid to the right as Sam Niles was hiding his bloody face in his hands, screaming like a woman, trying hopelessly to escape the body that was Baxter Slate. And the Moaning Man. Trying to breathe.
The Choirboys Page 36