by Tom Schreck
I smiled and laughed while he shook his head. I sipped my beer.
“It was a thing of beauty, kid,” Smitty said. “I’m proud of you.”
“Smitty, if it wasn’t for you, where would I be-shit, who would I be?” I said.
Rudy came in from getting a beer and joined us.
“Hey, let’s get out of here and celebrate. I don’t feel like watching another three hours of boxing. Let’s get to AJ’s,” Rudy said, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
The hour-and-half ride was the best time I ever spent in a car-a few cold Schlitz travelers and fresh memories of something special. We were almost to the front door of AJ’s when I remembered the fact that I hadn’t divulged to anyone that I had gotten a phone call from a suspected serial killer the day before. Sooner or later I’d figure out what to do about all that, but for now all I knew was that it was Schlitz City.
Smitty passed on beers, as he often did, and shook my hand before Rudy and I went inside. He pulled away smiling from ear to ear.
“No, I ain’t buying it,” TC said.
“I’m tellin’ you, it’s the truth,” Rocco said.
“Hold it.” Jerry Number One was now involved. “You believe that men think of sex every seven seconds?”
“That’s what they say,” TC said.
Jerry Number Two was already counting.
“Five… six… seven… All right, Rocco, what are you thinking of?” Jerry Number Two asked.
“That you’re an asshole,” Rocco said.
“That could be considered sexual,” TC said.
“Hey, what are you saying, asshole?” Rocco said.
“He didn’t wait another seven seconds that time,” Jerry Number One said.
Jerry Number Two was counting again.
“Six… seven… TC, what are you thinking of?” Jerry Number Two asked. TC was in the process of ordering.
“AJ, I need another B amp;B,” TC said.
“Hmm… what does that tell us?” Jerry Number Two said.
“Huh, were you talking to me?” TC said.
“What sexual thought did you just have?” Rocco asked.
“I was just thinking about a drink. You can’t count those seven seconds.”
Jerry Number Two was into another cycle.
“Five… six… seven… TC, what sexual thought are you having right now?”
“I wasn’t ready. Maybe tits,” TC said.
“Whatyamean ‘maybe tits’?” Rocco said.
“It wasn’t a deep thought. Do they have to be deep thoughts?” TC said.
“Define deep,” Jerry Number One said.
“Six… seven… Jerry, what sexual thought are you having?” Jerry Number Two said.
“Huh? Uh… uh… tits, I guess,” Jerry Number Two said.
Everyone groaned.
“Hey, no one said they had to be original thoughts,” Jerry Number One said.
Due to the intense intellectual demands of the discussion, my entrance wasn’t noticed until I sat next to Kelley. He did notice me, even though it looked like he’d been around for a while and the Coors Lights had slowed him a tad.
“Hey, Duff. How’d it go?”
“I won.”
“No, seriously.”
“Fuckin’ A-I am serious. I cut him and won the TKO,” I said.
“Holy shit! Congratulations!”
The Foursome heard Kelley’s exclamation and cut off Jerry Number Two’s counting at three.
“What’s up, Kell?” TC said.
“Duffy beat the undefeated stud kid in the Garden tonight!”
“Seriously?” Rocco said.
“Yep,” I said. “This is cause for a celebration. AJ, set up everyone with a shot of Jameson.”
Everyone threw the shots back and slapped me on the back. I let Rudy fill in the guys with the details, which he happily did. I enjoyed the Jameson and the Schlitzes that followed it. Kelley was watching an ESPN Classic hockey game from the ’80s and I knew he hated hockey, so I didn’t feel that I would be interrupting him.
“What ya hear about Howard?” I asked.
“I think they know where he is.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, yesterday I heard something about them being able to trace his calls,” Kelley said.
“Yesterday? Shit-”
“Don’t tell me.”
“He called me at four thirty and I had to get to the Garden. It wasn’t like I was going to hide anything.”
“Duff, the guy’s a fuckin’ serial killer.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Ugh… you’re fuckin’ nuts, you know that? People at the station know you know me, and when you do shit like that it makes me look like an asshole.”
“I’ll call Morris first thing in the morning. I’m sorry, really,” I said.
It was tough to evaluate how pissed off Kelley ever got because he always looked annoyed, but I understood that tonight his annoyance was legit.
It was heading toward five in the morning and I figured I had crammed enough into a single day. I really wanted to stay up and have this day last forever, but I knew it wasn’t possible, so when everyone else called it a night, I did too.
11
Marquason’s screwdriver shots started to hurt and between the Schlitz and the endorphins wearing off, sleep didn’t come easy. I was in and out, sort of hovering around sleep when the phone rang. I looked up at the nightstand and the alarm clock with Elvis and the hound dog said 7:15.
In general, Al objected to phones and he was not pleased when they rang because they interrupted part of the twenty-two hours he slept each day. The woofing commenced. I tried to answer the damn thing and knocked it to the ground. When I reached over to pick it up, Al half licked, half nibbled on my ear, the sound violently bouncing off my eardrum. The Schlitz-induced blood ran to my head. I tried to say hello but the woofing was getting intense.
I opened the drawer to the nightstand and retrieved my side arm. The rapid-fire Israeli-looking piece was my trusty companion and something I brought out only when absolutely necessary. I aimed and fired, the shots catching Al right between the eyes. He spun around from the force of the blast and laid down whimpering.
The water Uzi was the only thing that would shut Al up. He would try to control his barking for a few minutes after taking fire, but I didn’t like to use it because he really did get shot in the head once and I didn’t want to bring back any bad trauma for the guy. A Schlitz hangover was an exception.
“Hello,” I finally got to say into the receiver.
“Duff?”
“Who is this?”
“Howard,” he said, and nothing else, as if he was expecting me to scold him.
“Howard-what’s going on? You’ve got to come see the cops and clear things up,” I said.
“Duff, I don’t expect you to understand, but I can’t. I can’t trust the police.”
“I know what you’ve been through, but I have a friend who’s a cop and he’s a good man.”
“I don’t think so, Duff.”
“Howard, they’ve tapped the lines and they know where you are. Come meet me and my friend and we’ll do this the right way. I’ll help you out.”
“I don’t know, Duff. I don’t like cops. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“Then you’ve got to tell me, Howard-I don’t like this guessing what’s going on stuff.”
“Meet me today in Jefferson Park by the bridge when the sun goes down. I’ll tell you what I’m going through,” he said.
“Look, Howard, I’m not a cop. I-” Before I could finish, he hung up.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
What I wanted to get myself into was bed. The Schlitz/Marquason hangover was brutal and all I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep for a week. For once, Al seemed to agree and he jumped up on my bed, did a double 360, and lay down in the center of the bed. I tried to push him to one side, and it was like trying to move a g
rowling sack of sand.
After a Herculean effort stopping just short of a hernia, Al flopped over on his back, immediately fell asleep with all four legs in the air, and almost instantly began to snore. His snoring was proportionate to the size of his nose, so my bedroom sounded like a Southwest Airlines hangar. An IV of Valium wouldn’t get me to sleep.
I tried once again to get Al to roll over, but there was something about him being on his back that perverted the laws of physics and made it impossible for him to right himself. I tried to get my hands underneath him to roll him when I was interrupted by a banging on the door. The banging made Al blast off the bed like a black, brown, and white space shuttle, and he headbutted me during his takeoff. Al ran to the door, barking the whole way while I grabbed my head and repeated the word “fuck” loudly.
When the pain subsided enough for me to get to the door, Al bounced up in his excitement and kicked me in the nuts, which normally I’ve trained myself to parry, but because I was still rubbing the knot that was forming on the side of my head, I didn’t see it coming. There were to be no miracle hangover cures for Duff on this blessed morning.
Peering through the curtain of my trailer door, I realized the morning was getting absurdly painful. It was Billy and he had on a brand-new Bad-Breath Karateka pajama set, this one bright red. He also had two new pimples, one on the corner of his mouth and one on the left side of his forehead that appeared to have two heads.
“Billy, it’s Sunday morning. What are you doing here at… what time is it, anyway?” I said.
“It’s 7:21 a.m., sir,” he said and then bowed.
I sort of nodded my head to bow because I didn’t want to violate any ancient karate rules.
“Billy, did I say anything about training this morning?”
“No, sir. That is why I am here.”
“Uh-”
“I’ve been practicing a new technique and I wanted to show you my progress as a surprise.”
“Great-let’s see,” I said.
“Permission to demonstrate, sir?”
“What?”
“Permission to demonstrate, sir?”
“Fine,” I said.
Billy backed up onto the little front lawn that I had and got into a formal stance and bowed. He stared at me motionlessly until I realized I hadn’t returned his bow. I bowed in his general direction and felt the blood rush to my throbbing head.
“WASABIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”
Following his enthusiastic tribute to Japanese horseradish, Billy ran toward the Moody Blue, leaped into the air, threw a front-leg kick, and landed uncomfortably on his shoulder and head. Then he started to scream in pain.
I ran down the stairs to make sure the goofy bastard was all right. He was rolling around in the gravel of my driveway, getting his new outfit all dirty.
“Sorry, sir. Sorry I failed,” he said.
“Kid, you did fine. Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“I failed you, sir. I won’t again.”
“Kid you didn’t fail, you established the wrong way to execute the flying front kick.”
He sat up and stopped grimacing.
“Sir, your wisdom knows no bounds-it is clear you are a master.”
He jumped to his feet, bowed formally, and thanked me again. Then he started his run home.
I began to wonder if I was hallucinating.
Al interrupted my introspection. He barked and looked up at me and then down between his legs where he had captured my newest TV remote. The life expectancy of my remotes was measured in hours, and I didn’t feel like spending my hungover day watching Lifetime because for some twistedly evil reason it was the only channel I got when I had no remote.
I ran toward Al who became Barry Sanders in the open field of the Blue, darting through the living room, to the bedroom, back out, and into the kitchen. He zigzagged like a crazy hound but as he went to go through the living room a second time, he made the mistake of jumping on the sofa. I had him cornered and I went to box him in when he shifted in midair. I tried to cut back but he went right under the coffee table. I made the mistake of trying to shift my momentum in that direction and I went full force into the coffee table, shin first.
I fell to the carpet, holding my shin, and listened to Al chew his new electronic toy. I repeated the word “fuck” over and over.
I spent the day in bed, hovering over sleep-the kind of state that actually makes you feel less rested than if you had just gone on with your day and forgot about getting rested. I began to think that getting punched in the head, followed by greater than moderate consumption of Schlitz may not be the way to a holistic lifestyle. Whether that axiom was true or not, this was a lifestyle I took years to hone, and I didn’t really see the utility in trying to move away from it.
I did feel like moving toward AJ’s before my rendezvous with my new best friend, the alleged serial killer, Howard. A few Schlitzes and the intellectual stimulation of the Fearsome Foursome was just what the doctor ordered.
“It was in some medical journal,” Jerry Number One said.
“Bullshit,” Rocco said.
“Let me get this straight.” TC tried to add some sanity to the discussion. “If you light up a cigarette from the wrong end it stops the flow of blood to your wiener?”
“Exactly, and if you do that once a month, in about two years you won’t be able to get it up at all,” Jerry Number One said.
“I wonder if this qualifies for the seven-second rule,” Jerry Number Two said.
“I swear, if you start counting I’m going to whack you with this glass,” Rocco said.
“There’s some sort of chemical in the cigarette that has an anti-Viagra effect,” Jerry Number One said.
“You mean you see a color other than blue?” Jerry Number Two asked.
“I’m still thinking of tits-that’s all I can come up with,” TC said.
“What’s the name of the chemical in the cigarette, Jer?” Rocco asked.
“Let me think… it’s something like limpfadoraphyl… no that’s not it. It was woodrowdeflatus, I think… hold it, it was micoxaphlopin,” Jerry Number One said.
“My-cock’s-a-floppin’? That can’t be right,” Rocco said.
“Nothin’ right about that at all,” Jerry Number Two said.
“Tits-it’s all I get ever since Jerry Number Two put this seven-second thing in my head,” TC said.
I didn’t interrupt the brain trust and instead took my seat next to Kelley who was staring at a retrospective featuring a replay of the time Havlicek stole the ball. The Johnny Most call was probably great the first thousand times I heard it, but now it was getting on my nerves.
“I’m hoping there’s no micoxaphlopin in Coors Light,” I said.
“Hey, Duff,” Kelley said.
“I talked to Howard this morning and promised to meet him tonight. You wanna come?” I somehow thought if I just blurted it out, Kelley would take it easier. I was mistaken.
“You’re fuckin’ nuts, you know that? Do you realize the kind of trouble you’re putting yourself in? I thought you said you were going to call Morris.”
“The guy’s scared to death and I promised him. I told him you’re cool and that I’d bring you.”
Kelley didn’t say anything. He just stared at me. His eyes almost bore laser holes through my skin. I took a pull off the Schlitz longneck.
“I’m meeting him at sundown at the bridge in the park-you in?”
“Uh geez,” was all Kelley said. He turned away and watched Havlicek sink the runner against Phoenix in ’77.
12
Jefferson Park is across town from AJ’s, and with the lights it’s a ten- or fifteen-minute drive. I threw in Elvis’s Promised Land eight-track and clicked through to the fourth program to listen to “If You Talk In Your Sleep.” It’s a haunting song about a couple slinking away to have an affair. It was dark and a little sleazy, which was how I felt going to see a man who had murdered four people and whom most folks beli
eved was responsible for murdering four more.
I parked by the tennis courts and walked through the rolling knolls of the park, past the statue of Moses, the modern-art sculptures, and the empty tulip beds. I had hit the cobblestone walkway that led toward the bridge when I heard a voice call me from behind.
“Wait up, nutcase.” It was Kelley.
“Hey, what’re you doing here?” I said.
“The Foursome started talking about John Wayne’s colon again, and I figured meeting Howard had to be more pleasant than that.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said.
We walked the final fifty yards to the bridge and the twilight had given way to the night. The corner of the bridge was dimly lit with one of those retro streetlamps that throw a soft amber hue to everything, which gave the bridge area an even creepier feel. There was no one there yet.
“I hope we didn’t miss him,” I said.
“Yeah, that would be a shame,” Kelley said.
We walked the fifty-foot span of the bridge to check the other side, and there was no sign of Howard or anyone else. The silence Kelley and I stood in made me a tad more nervous, though with Kelley, silence didn’t necessarily mean anything. Still, the nervousness gave me a knot in the left side of my chest and my breathing wasn’t as smooth as I liked.
After a moment passed, Kelley started to walk around the entrance to the bridge in a way that most people would consider mindless strolling. I knew better. He stopped and suddenly squatted.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Blood,” he said.
Kelley was squatting over a pool of blood the size of a Frisbee.
“I should call and get a crime-scene team out here, Duff. You okay with that?”
“Of course.”
We hung around and waited for the circus to begin. Morris and his gang came along with the special crime-scene guys who looked remarkably less glamorous and, for that matter, less intelligent, than the people on those CSI shows. There were three of them and they scooped up the blood, set up crime-scene tape, and poked around the bushes and the grass. I sort of expected them to wear asbestos suits and have electron microscopes fixed to their heads, but they did most of their work with tweezers and Ziploc bags you could get at CVS. Morris and his guys had their badges clipped to their jackets just like the cops on Law amp; Order do, though it looked more natural and less forced on Jerry Orbach. My best friend Mullings walked by me and shook his head like he disapproved of my existence, which probably wasn’t going to keep me from sleeping. I had plenty of things running around my head that kept me from sleeping, but whether or not detective Mullings approved of me wasn’t one of them.