The Serialist

by David Gordon

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “And they don’t fry them anyway, it’s lethal injection.”

  “Right, the spike.”

  “And meanwhile, the cops think I did it.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Tell them.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to come over? I’ll just get in a cab.”

  “No thanks, it’s fine.”

  “OK, but one more thing. If the cops ask, don’t tell them you dress like your mother.”

  She hung up and now I didn’t go back to sleep. I watched the news as it repeated the whole thing from the beginning. It felt uncanny to see places and people I had just visited and then had bad dreams about suddenly appearing on TV: Sandra’s building and a picture of her, Morgan’s street and her photo, Marie’s house and her crying mother. I saw Townes talking to reporters with the other detectives shuffling behind him. When they returned to Flosky for the third time, I shut it off and ran a shower. I was just getting in when the phone rang. It was Dani. She’d seen the news. I told her about my day, and my night, again leaving out the gory details, but there was enough on the news by then so that she could imagine the worst, almost.

  “That would give me nightmares,” she said.

  “It is. I keep waking up. And falling asleep. I can’t do either one.”

  “I know the feeling. I used to dream about my sister all the time. About her asking me to help her find her head.”

  “Jesus, that’s horrible.”

  “Do you want me to come over?” she suddenly blurted.

  “What?” I heard a jet engine screech by over the phone.

  “I mean, not if you don’t want me to. I’m at work but I’m leaving anyway. It’s on the TV in there. I left to call you, but I’m not going back. I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot. So can I? Do you mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  “If I come over.”

  “Yes. Sure. If you want to,” I said.

  44

  This is the part of the story where the detective sleeps with the girl. I suppose it’s inevitable. It felt that way. There was no reason for us to be together except that suddenly we needed to be.

  She wasn’t looking her best. She was in the sweats and bulky coat she had changed into when leaving work, but with her makeup and hair still done up. Except that she’d been crying and now her foundation was streaked with mascara and her eyes were glazed. As for me, well my best and worst weren’t as far apart as hers, but that night I had a swollen lip, bruises on the right cheek and the left temple, and a goose egg growing on the back of my head, plus the effects of whatever the mixture of no sleep and too much sleep and nightmares does to a person. Plus that smell I kept smelling. But I guess I was lucky. Dani liked the pathetic type.

  “My God,” she said, when I let her in. I flinched as she hugged me and her hand brushed the lump on my head. “You should have ice on that.”

  “I should just soak my whole head in a bucket.”

  “It’s true.” She laughed. “You look awful.”

  “Well, thanks for coming over to cheer me up.”

  “Sorry.” She laughed harder. “I can’t help it. Your lip is huge.”

  “Look who’s talking. You look like the sad clown.”

  She wiped her eyes and peeked into the bathroom mirror. “Eek!” she said. “I look like a witch. A blond witch.”

  “A bitch!” I said, and she giggled. She considered us both in the mirror.

  “Two losers,” she said, sniffling. “I guess we belong together.” She smiled at me and I kissed her.

  I wasn’t like that, normally. Actually that’s a huge understatement. I hadn’t kissed anyone since Jane, and she was the one who made the first move on me. But I guess something about the last day, awful as it sounds, made me brave for once, or reckless, or just desperate. Anyway I kissed her and she kissed me back, harder. She pushed against my body, grasping with all her strength, and crushed her mouth into mine.

  “Ow, shit, my lip, my face.”

  “Oh sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling back. Then she burst into laughter again. “You’re really the sensitive type, aren’t you?”

  I laughed too. “I know. I’m blowing the chance of a lifetime.”

  “Totally. You’re so lame. And what about me? Throwing myself at a guy and getting rejected.”

  “For excessive roughness,” I said and kissed her again, softly. She kissed me softly back. Then I pulled her to me and kissed her hard. It hurt. I tasted blood. But I didn’t care. We stumbled into the bedroom together and fell onto the bed. My head banged loudly against the headboard. She froze and waited.

  “Ow,” I said quietly.

  She broke out into wild laughter again and then I realized she wasn’t laughing anymore. She was crying.

  “I know,” I said, rubbing her back, though I wasn’t sure I did. I let her sob into my chest while I stared at the ceiling in silence. Tears slowly filled my own eyes and ran down into my ears. I fell asleep and woke up in the darkness to feel her squirming out of her clothes. I did the same and she crawled into my arms, pressing her skin to mine. It wasn’t like any other sex I’d ever had. It wasn’t like two people in love and happy. It wasn’t like two people drunk and lustful either. It was rageful, tender, blind. It was sad sex. It was angry sex. And it was sweet.

  45

  From Double Down on the Deuce, chapter 2:

  Cherry Blaze and I drove out to Queens, where old Manhattanites bury their dead. Maybe you’ve seen it from the highway, on your way to the airport—acres of tombstones mocking the skyline behind them, the real eternal city, the necropolis. At least that’s how it looked to me just then, with that knot in my gut telling me something was wrong. Or maybe it was just my old Impala SS knocking, like it always did, and flicking its low oil light in warning. Either way, I should have listened.

  We parked, and I got a shovel from the trunk, wrapping it in a blanket. I also grabbed a pint of rye and a flashlight from the glove box. In the cemetery, she pointed out her dad’s stone. Then we wandered off, found a tree to spread the blanket under, and settled in for a macabre little picnic while we waited for the graveyard to close.

  Night came slow that day, and while the sun slipped into the river behind the city, we had plenty of time to talk and drink. Then we fell silent and just lay there, watching the sky change. When darkness finally fell, and the last light in the guardhouse blinked out, and the night-lights, man-made and otherwise, came on, I flicked my orange butt into the shadows and turned to Cherry.

  “OK, let’s go.”

  “Wait,” she said in a small voice, and her small hand gripped my wrist. “Please.”

  “What’s wrong?” I lit a match to see her, but she blew it out.

  “No, please.” She gripped me harder. “Now that we’re here, I’m scared to see him.” I felt a tremor run through her bones. Her teeth knocked. “Mordechai?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?” I whispered back.

  “Hold me, please. I’m cold.”

  Well, what can I say? I’m half-Jew, half-Indian, and neither tribe has the best history with white girls, but I guess the combination of too much booze, too much talk, and then too much silence and too many stars went to my head. I pulled her close. Her lips found mine in the dark. Next thing I knew that dress was peeling away and we were down on the ground, doing dirty. She moaned like a ghost when I entered her, and her skin was ghost white in the moon glow, but when I shut my eyes, she was hot and alive like an animal beneath me.

  “Smack me, smack me,” she pleaded, and I brought my hand down hard on her high firm haunches, pulling her hair back, like I was bucking a wild thing. She gave as good as she got, too, scratching and biting like an alley cat. Finally, we lay back, exhausted. She lit a smoke. I checked my watch. It was midnight. Time to work.

  We found her dad’s grave and I dug. Now it was as if both the fear and the fight had gone out of her and we were silent. There was nothing l
eft to say. The moon came out from the clouds and filled the grave with light. About an hour later, the tip of my spade hit wood.

  “OK,” I said, catching my breath. “This is it. You ready?”

  “Yes,” she said, in a quiet, calm voice. She trained the flashlight’s beam on the box. “Go ahead.”

  The coffin was old and rotten and it was easy to wedge the shovel in the lid. I leaned hard and popped it open. And there, lying in the open grave, resting very peacefully and even shining in the moonbeam, was a trumpet.

  Cherry gasped. The flashlight went out. And then I heard a man laughing. A laugh I’d heard somewhere before. I scrambled to climb out, but a foot kicked me back and I fell into the grave, beside the trumpet. The flashlight came back on, shining on me, though even in the moonlight I could see who it was.

  “Hey, Fats,” I said. “What’re you doing in the neighborhood? Dropping off a date?”

  The throaty laugh boomed again. It was Fat Daddy Slims, trader in flesh, dope, corruption and most recently, condos. I’d put him in prison once and shot him twice, but at three hundred pounds I guess he was hard to sink.

  “Hey, Rabbi Jones,” he said. “I could ask you the same thing. Jewish cemetery’s next door. Now get up slow and hand me the trumpet.”

  I grabbed the horn and stood, handing it up to Fats. He was dressed flash as always, in a three-piece, hat and a long fur, hands and teeth glittering. But the most impressive part of his ensemble to me was the .357 Magnum pointing at my brain.

  “OK, Fats,” I said. “Whatever business you got with me, leave Cherry out of it.”

  “Cherry? Who dat? Oh . . . you mean this fine bitch here?” He grabbed her. “She belongs to me. But she ain’t been cherry for a long time, have you, baby?”

  He squeezed her and she squealed gleefully. “That’s right, Daddy.”

  “But don’t worry, Rabbi,” he went on. “Cherry’s safe and sound. Show him, baby.”

  She waved the flashlight, and there beside the stone marked Juniper “Honky” Blaze, was another just like it. It read Cherry Blaze, Beloved Daughter, 1980–2008. Then the light went out again and the shovel hit my head.

  A second later I came to, flat on my back in the grave. What a way to end up, I told myself. Tits up in the dirt, like a five-dollar ho. But isn’t that where we all end up? The wise guys, the tough guys, the big shots and the ladykillers: they were all here, lying right beside me. Sooner or later, every player gets played. And then I started to laugh, like a madman, as the first shovel of earth filled my mouth.

  46

  At eight the next morning, I was woken from a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep by Special Agent Townes and Co. relentlessly buzzing at my door. I pulled on my robe, checked to make sure Dani was really there curled beneath my sheet, and staggered out to squint through the peephole.

  “What is it? I’m sleeping.”

  “FBI. Police. Open up.” A cop in a blue cap held ID up to the fish-eye lens.

  “I’m not dressed. Let me come down to the station.”

  “Open up, sir. We have a warrant. We can break it in.”

  “Hold on.” I unlocked the door. The cop handed me some paper and a whole crew swept in. Townes was last.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Is this really necessary? Why don’t you just tell me what you’re looking for?”

  “It says on the warrant.”

  “It’s too early to read.”

  “All materials relevant to Darian Clay, including but not limited to notes, transcripts, tapes, photos, notebooks . . .”

  Dani came out of the bedroom. Her hair was a mess and she wore my old Ramones T-shirt with her sweatpants. She looked stunning.

  “Ms. Giancarlo.” Townes grinned at her. She gave him a look of utter disdain.

  “Come on,” she said to me. “Let’s make coffee and wait for Agent Asshole and his friends to finish.”

  Townes chuckled. “That’s Special Agent Asshole to you.”

  Then the door buzzed again, frantically, but before anyone could reach it, the lock turned and it opened. Claire stormed in, trailed by a gray-haired man in a dark blue pinstriped suit. She was wearing her uniform, complete with blazer and kneesocks, and her hair was up in pigtails. Livid, she took in the scene, hands in fists on her hips.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” she demanded. She seemed to be equally accusing of Townes, Dani and me.

  “Is this your daughter?” Dani asked.

  “Ha,” Claire barked. “As if.”

  “The feds and cops are searching the place,” I said. “They’re confiscating all my stuff from the book.”

  “The fuck they are. Who’s in charge?”

  I pointed at Townes. He frowned at the angry teenager and turned back to me.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “My business partner,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Claire said, stepping up to him. “And this is our lawyer.”

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” the lawyer said, stepping forward with the confidence of the man with the most expensive suit in the room. He took out a card. “My name is—”

  “I know who you are,” Townes said, ignoring the proffered card.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  The lawyer smiled and handed the card to me. “Don’t worry. It’s pro bono. I’m a family friend. Can I see the warrant?” I handed him the paper I was holding and he glanced at it. “Ah, Judge Franklin. We’re having lunch tomorrow anyway.”

  I glanced at the card. Turner C. Robertson, Esq., of Mosk, Porter, Robertson and Leen. The card was a rich cream with raised ink and it felt like it would crack if you bent it. I dropped it in my robe pocket. He and Townes put their heads together and mumbled. Meanwhile Claire had sidled up to me.

  “Who’s that?” she said under her breath, and cut her eyes toward Dani.

  I told her and she sighed. “Figures. The stripper.” Then she turned, smiling sweetly. “That T-shirt looks good on you.”

  “Thanks,” Dani said evenly.

  “It’s comfy to sleep in, isn’t it? I love it.”

  Dani didn’t react but her eyes scanned Claire’s nubile form and then slid to me.

  “Claire helps handle my affairs,” I explained.

  “Is that what you call it?” Dani asked. Claire narrowed her eyes and I could see her back go up.

  “What do you call your job? Dancing?”

  I gulped. “OK. Let’s focus on keeping me out of prison here.”

  Then one of the junior agents, the one who’d cried yesterday, came out of my office looking upset again.

  “There’s nothing here,” he announced.

  Townes looked over. “What do you mean?”

  “Yeah, what do you mean?” I chimed in.

  “There’s nothing here about Clay. No notes, interviews, nothing. Just a lot of crap about these other books. Vampires and planets and shit like that. And a bunch of old porn.”

  “Well?” Townes turned to me. I was in a panic myself.

  “What are you pulling?” I asked him. “Where’s my stuff?”

  “You tell me. You understand it’s contempt if you don’t turn everything over.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” I insisted. “You guys must be hiding it. Search everyone,” I ordered, inanely, as if I were the head detective.

  “Don’t worry,” Claire said, proudly stepping forward. “I have everything. As soon as I heard you got arrested, I came right over and moved it all to a safe place.”

  Townes sighed. “Look, little girl, I don’t care who your friends are. It’s illegal to withhold or conceal evidence in a murder.”

  “Excuse me, Special Agent.” Robertson now stepped in. “But this warrant gives you permission to search these premises only and compels Mr. Bloch alone to turn this purported evidence over. Ms. Nash is under no such compulsion, and I will ask you to refrain from threatening and coercing a minor.”

  Townes shrugged. “Counselor, you know
full well all you’re doing is wasting time. I’ll get a new warrant.”

  “Yes, and this time I’ll be there to argue it. This is a First Amendment issue regarding the freedom of the press and my clients are prepared to defend it.”

  “Are they prepared to go to jail?” Townes asked.

  “Yes,” Claire announced, stepping forward and tossing her pigtails. “We are.”

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “Quiet,” Claire said. “We won’t go anywhere. My lawyer will handle it.”

  “Yeah, be quiet, Harry,” Dani agreed.

  I retied my robe and sat down on the couch. Dani and Claire sat beside me. Robertson and Townes went into another huddle and quickly came to an agreement: all the materials, including the stuff they had already confiscated from me yesterday, would be copied, with me retaining sole rights to publication and distribution at the end of the investigation.

  “That sounds fine,” Claire said, when the two men came over and explained the deal.

  “Yeah, that’s good,” Dani concurred.

  I lifted my empty hands. “I guess it’s fine then.”

  “This is conditional,” Townes pointed out, “on Harry not being arrested or charged with the murders. Then he forfeits all rights, of course.”

  “Of course,” Claire said.

  “That’s fair,” Dani said.

  “What?” I spoke up. “Who said it’s fair?”