The Serialist

by David Gordon

  “What’s wrong?” In a panic, I pushed open the door. She was taking a bath, tucked chin-deep in the bubbles.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “No, I want to hear.” She brushed a puff of suds from her nose. “Sit.”

  So I sat on the toilet lid. She listened wide-eyed to my whole story and almost sat up, splashing over the rim, when the shoot-out occurred. Then I told her about Dani’s trunk.

  “Maybe they were just in there from a long time ago,” she suggested.

  “OK, fine, but why?”

  “Well, she’s a stripper. In your book The Stone Cold Deadly Fox, that stripper packs a rod, remember? She has a holster built right into her G-spot.”

  “G-string. Don’t quote my own books to me. That’s just some bullshit I thought up.”

  “So what do you think she’s up to?” She faced me through her steam and froth. Her toes appeared over the tub’s rim like a little row of pebbles. I shrugged.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said, shutting my eyes to try and clear my head. I yawned and sniffed the air. It was warm, moist and oily. Some familiar feeling was drifting back to me and I yawned again. I was infinitely tired.

  “What’s that smell? Where did you get the bubble bath stuff?”

  “It’s bath salts,” she said, holding up a frosted bottle. “I found it under the sink.”

  It was an ancient bottle of Jean Naté.

  “You smell like my mom,” I said. “It’s sweet and creepy at the same time.”

  “Look who’s talking. At least I’m sweet.”

  Smiling for the first time that day, I went into the kitchen, poured Coke over ice, and then went to my office. I got out a fresh yellow legal pad and a new Uni-ball Vision fine point and sat down to think. Nothing happened, which is generally the case. I tried writing up notes of the day’s events, making columns down the page for an easy chart to refer to, but got discouraged when, three pages later, there was still nothing but a question mark in the column entitled, “Clues.” I finished the Coke and got a refill. I told Claire to hurry up because I had to use the bathroom. Then I remembered the Fontaine letters.

  Honestly, I had been putting it off: the erotic correspondence of a dim-bulb psychokiller and his newly slaughtered would-be paramour wasn’t something I looked forward to digging into. I just wasn’t in the mood that night. I was sufficiently depressed and freaked out already, with enough ugly ideas in my head to last a lifetime. Anyway, I opened the box. The letters were all neatly folded in two stacks. I picked one at random and took it from its envelope. It was, like my own mash letter from Clay, handwritten in blue ballpoint on cheap lined paper, the kind with the thick lines and chips of wood, like for kids.

  When Claire finally got out of the bath, an hour later, and came in wrapped in a towel, I was still reading.

  “You can pee now, sorry. I had to wash my hair.”

  “What?” I didn’t look up. I slammed a page facedown and read the next. “Motherfucker,” I grunted.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I looked up and my expression made her frown. “This goddamn motherfucker.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Clay,” I said, waving the letter.

  “What about him?”

  “The goddamn fucking sick bastard is a better writer than me.”

  62

  In the morning, I left to go see Clay again. I’d slept only in snatches, waking up from dreams that I was glad not to remember, and my nerves were strung between fear and anger. My unknown stalker was now trying to kill me; my protector, Dani, was a potential nutcase; and still I was no closer to the truth. My one clue was the letters, which made Clay himself my only hope of solving the murders. That thought didn’t mix so well with my breakfast of coffee and vitamins. It sat like a stone on the bottom of my stomach.

  So when I left for the subway, with a small travel bag over one shoulder and my briefcase-computer-bag thing over the other, and I began to get the creepy feeling that I was being followed, I wrote it off as nerves and ignored that little something that made me wriggle, like a tongue on the back of my neck.

  It was the wind, I decided. The changeable weather of that spring, which kept trying and failing to break the grip of winter, had backslid again, and after a warm morning, suddenly it was cold. This is always when I get sick. I soldier through winter’s assault, then collapse at the first caress of spring. I stopped to get out a sweater. A man walking behind me—tall, in a navy sweatshirt with the hood up—stopped in his tracks for a second, then kept walking around me. He went into Macy’s. I pulled on my sweater and popped into Flushing Noodle for some pork buns to take on the trip (four for a dollar, the best deal in town), then went down to the subway.

  Approaching Manhattan from Queens on the elevated track is, in my opinion, the most beautiful way into the city, especially at dusk or on a day of variable skies. The train emerges from the depths of the subway to float above the roofs, then sinks once more under the river. The outer edge of the raised railway platform has no guardrail or boundary; you sail along among the water towers and antennae and peer down into the streets. You can see a long way out, over brick apartment blocks full of living windows and warehouses swarming in graffiti, past the train yards like a nest of track, all the way to the wide green belt of Flushing Meadows Park, with the steel globe big as a building. You pause at Shea Stadium (Oops, sorry dear editor: Citifield now, alas), asleep amid vast parking lots and auto graveyards all day, but on game nights suddenly alive and close, a giant bowl of light. And beyond that, drawing nearer, as we fly in out of the east, is the city, showing its older, braver, gray and silver front: the Empire State, the Chrysler Building, the bridges and docks and the massive orange projects of East Harlem.

  We slid then into that darkness, beneath the earth and the river, and when we emerged, with everyone on the train half dazed, Times Square felt feverish, the sudden blast of sound and people and bad light. I changed for the 1 to Penn Station and was still shaking off the fog as I crossed the open concourse to catch my train upstate.

  That was when I saw him again, the guy in the sweatshirt. I was mixed up like I always am at Penn, walking back and forth to find my train on the big board overhead, and I turned to check the track and there he was. This time I showed no reaction but simply walked as fast as I could, choking the urge to run. I cut through a magazine shop, rode up and down an escalator and then, in a surprise burst, hurried to my train and climbed aboard. Only then did I let myself look back. He was gone. Or at least I couldn’t see him. If I really had seen him at all. I was now rethinking it. To be honest, I could barely describe the guy, just a white face, stooped shoulders, jeans. And after yesterday I was certain to be jumpy, seeing unreal things, like a hooded figure ghosting me, the ghost.

  I slid low in my seat and pretended to read the paper until the train left, and even then I didn’t really start to breathe normally until we cleared the city, slipping through a series of tunnels and tracks that ran behind the backs of blocks, as if the train itself were trying to slip away unseen. But there were no more sightings. I got out at Ossining, took a cab to the gates, went through the by now familiar procedure of clearing security, and then, in the visitors’ waiting room, ran into my pals, Theresa Trio and Carol Flosky.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” was Flosky’s greeting.

  “What do you think?” I said. “I’m here for a haircut.”

  Flosky grinned, showing some gold. “I assumed you would have figured it out for yourself, but work on the book is suspended until the legal issue is resolved.”

  “Which legal issue? Catching the killer? Or is that irrelevant now?”

  “That’s the cops’ job. I thought we were clear on that. My job is freeing my client, who didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Well, someone did. And yesterday they tried to kill me too.”

  Her smile faded. For a moment she really looked like she gave a shit, but she recovered. “That’s very
unfortunate. I told you my fears. You should inform the police.”

  The guard appeared in the door, and Flosky went in to see Clay. Theresa smiled apologetically, but I could tell she was in a happy mood.

  “What’s with her?” I asked. “What legal issue?”

  “Didn’t you see the news last night? We were in court all day.”

  “Sorry. I was distracted by getting shot at.”

  “Really?” That paused her. “Well, the judge granted a temporary stay while her petition for reopening the case is considered. It looks like Darian has a chance at a new trial.”

  “I see,” I said, and sat down.

  63

  Ten long minutes later, Flosky came out. She shrugged, took out a cigarette, acknowledged the guard’s warning, shrugged again and sat down. Darian had decided to see me after all.

  “I advised him not to, but whatever, he wants to talk,” she told me. “But no tape recorder, no notebook, no nothing. And remember, this is all off the record.”

  I agreed. The guard let me store my stuff in a locker and then led me through. Clay looked cheerful in his orange jumpsuit, his slippers and cuffs, a toothpick in his mouth and a fat legal-size folder on the table. From where he sat, things were looking up.

  “Hey, look who’s here,” he said. “My Boswell.”

  I laughed flatly, without smiling. I sat down. I spoke in a low, even voice. “You used me, motherfucker.”

  “What?” he looked genuinely surprised, and maybe even a little stung.

  “The book,” I said. “It was just a scheme. Part of this plan, whatever it is, to get you out or off death row.”

  “What’re you accusing me of, exactly? I can’t kill anyone in here. Not even you.” He rattled his cuffs. “I used you? How? Are you saying that I, as an innocent man facing death, used you, a writer, as a way to get my story heard? Sure. Of course.”

  “But your story isn’t being told, is it? Not now.”

  He shrugged. “Events intervened. That’s not my fault.”

  “Why didn’t you just write it yourself?” I asked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I read some of your letters. To Marie Fontaine. You can write. You’re a well-read man. Boswell, indeed. The thick-skulled porn hound I met in here before wouldn’t know Boswell from Hugh Hefner.”

  He smiled. “Well, I appreciate your opinion of my writing. As a professional to an amateur.”

  “Is this act just for me? What about Flosky? Does she see the dumbass or the smartass? Is it part of the innocent act? Too dumb to kill?”

  He chewed his toothpick. I shrugged.

  “I don’t expect you to answer that,” I said. “But tell me this. Why the porn stories? OK, you needed a patsy, someone to ghost your book, a desperate deadbeat writer to help with the scheme. But why the sex stories, when you were clearly capable of writing up your own little fantasies? Why did you need me?”

  “Why?” He took the toothpick out. “Because I wasn’t there. I never even met these fucking girls, remember? I’m Mr. Innocent. I needed you because I couldn’t be there, with them, in their homes. I needed you to make it real for me.” He leaned toward me now, and his eyes glittered, maliciously. “But you, you were there and still you noticed nothing, learned nothing. What did these girls sound like when they laughed, screamed, came? What did they smell like, their hair, their armpits, their pussies? Did their odor change after sex, grow stronger, sweeter? Did they sweat much? How wet did they get? What were their cunts like? The lips, the clits, the hair. Describe their assholes. What was it like in their rooms? How did the light enter during the day and the darkness by night? What sounds were in the air? Cars, birds, voices from other rooms? Did they have to hear a TV laugh track or an old lady snoring as they died? What were they wearing? Did their breath smell? Of what? What do these women eat, anyway? Are they vegetarian, and if so does this effect their odor and the color of their urine? Were they on some ridiculous, pathetic diet hoping to slim down for me? What was in their bellies when you split them open? Brown rice and organic tofu? Chocolate and wine? Piss and sperm? How did the blood look in the bed? Did they beg for their lives? Did they cry? What was in their eyes as they died?”

  He flipped the folder open and shoved it across. A pile of letters spilled toward me. I saw an upside-down photo of a naked blonde. “Want to try again?” he asked. “Because they keep coming. They never stop writing to me. No wonder you’re just a hack. For fuck’s sake, learn to describe a little bit what life is like already. You want to be a real writer? I am reality. Describe me. You want to write literature? I am literature. You should be grateful to me.”

  64

  When I left, Theresa and Flosky were gone. I called a taxi and spent the night brooding at the motel. The TV bolted to the tabletop, the hangers trapped on the rod, the pile of thin towels, worn nearly transparent, all made me desperate to flee but at the same time unable to move, lying immobile on the tightly wrapped bedspread till long after dark. Who knew what kind of horribly sad or sadly horrible acts had occurred on this very blanket, in this bed? This was the room I pictured Clay and his mother living in, out in Queens. A room where someone might check in to drink himself to death or eat a gun. A room where you could murder someone while the TV blared and not worry about the neighbors, snoring or fucking beyond the wall, then chop the body up in the bathtub, pack it into a garment bag like a wrinkled suit and hit the road.

  Outside, the truckers were pulling in, on their way up to or down from Canada, giant semis snorting and swaying as they herded into the lot for the night. I went over to the coffee shop and ate a dry cheeseburger deluxe at a counter with several hunched truckers and one woman who I guessed was visiting a prisoner: she was dressed up nice, with a frilly synthetic blouse, a wool coat, a skirt and heels. A few of the truckers tried to talk her up but she ignored them and they let her be when they realized she’d been crying. The mix of cheaply sexy clothes and tears made her seem tragic, and I couldn’t help picturing her with a steak knife between her freckled breasts. At a back table, a family of very large people, one with a little dog in a carrier, was making a lot of noise, laughing and yelling, giving the old waitress a hard time. I imagined each of them with their own severed head on their plate before them. This is what happens when you enter the world of killing, even as a detective: everyone becomes a potential victim, a body that hasn’t lain down yet, walking meat.

  I went back up to my room and watched TV for hours and hours until I finally fell asleep. The sound of trucks woke me early. I went out to get the free coffee and Cremora from the office, and on the way back I noticed a few women climbing from the parked trucks, lowering themselves carefully in high heels. One was bleached blond and stringy, bone white in her dirty white miniskirt but with ruddy chapped knees. A fuzzy, busty brunette was choked into dark jeans that forced her flesh to spill out in other odd places. The third was a crack-thin black woman with red hair, tiny shorts and high red boots. They were lot lizards, prostitutes who had spent the night in the truckers’ cabs, but in this early air, with the blue of night still shining, it was impossible not to look beautiful. Now they tottered together toward a waiting Buick with a mismatched door. They laughed. The black girl stumbled on the uneven ground and the other women held her arms. The first rose of dawn was spread. The mountains smelled like melted snow, wet trees and diesel fuel. The asphalt shone.

  I took a shower, used every towel (to me this is the real luxury of even the worst hotels) and caught the train. I was waiting for it to pull out, staring at nothing, drinking weak coffee and eating a bagel that tasted like a bad doughnut, when I saw him, my ghost in the jeans and sweatshirt. He was coming down the aisle, with a small bag over his shoulder. I was so shocked that for a second I forgot to be scared. He started too, when he saw me, and our eyes met. Then, I don’t know why, but I smiled. I gave a little wave. He seemed annoyed and immediately looked away, ignoring me as he hurried down the aisle and out of the car.

&
nbsp; On an impulse, I stood and followed him. The train lurched into motion and I grabbed the handle of the connecting door as it slid back and forth. I swung into the next car and there he was, sitting in the front row and staring up at me in surprise.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He turned his head to the window, pretending I wasn’t there.

  “Hey,” I said, “what’s going on? Why are you following me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, without looking at me.

  “All right.” I shrugged. “See you in Penn Station. And then in Flushing.”

  He sighed, looked around, checking, I suppose, to make sure no one was spying on him, and then reached into his coat for his wallet. He showed me ID with a picture of himself in a suit. Terence Bateson, it read, FBI.

  In the end, we sat together. It was easier for him than following me from a distance, I argued, and less unsettling for me. I felt safer knowing I had my own bodyguard. Terence was reluctant at first, but I assured him that I wouldn’t tell anyone I’d spotted him, and once I’d promised to let him follow me back to my apartment undercover, he readily agreed. He’d been stuck on this mission solo, with no one to relieve him, and he was exhausted. We chatted for much of the ride or read in companionable silence. I told him what I could about Clay, whom he’d studied at the academy. He told me about Townes. The man was a legend, Terence felt lucky to be working for him, but, he admitted when pressed, everyone agreed he was kind of a prick.

  Finally I asked him, “You don’t really think I murdered those girls, do you?”

  “Probably not.” He ate a Tic Tac and offered me the box. I rattled two out. No doubt my breath was stale. “But Townes knew you were involved somehow, most likely as a dupe,” he added amiably. “We thought that if we put the pressure on you, it would shake something loose.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “My brains. My teeth. My kidneys.”

  Now he frowned. “I shouldn’t have told you that. He also said maybe you’re an extremely clever sociopath.”