All silver again. Looking good.
He’d brought his stuff back from Baby, because he’d realized he just couldn’t wait any longer to get out there. Brought his face paint and silver eye make-up and special clothes and shoes. And, of course, Daisy, which had maybe drawn a little more attention to himself than was wise as he’d turned into the alley and opened the door to his godforsaken pit.
Not nearly so much attention as he planned to attract a little later.
They didn’t all care for bike-riding, but the fun ones did, the worthwhile ones.
So no more rotting away in this hole, waiting.
Cal the joy-giver was aching to walk his walk again.
First find the one.
Then ride away to Baby.
Share the joy.
He’d decided to go straight back to Menagerie on Washington, partly because it was one place that opened every night except Monday and was always jammed, but mostly because of the luck it had brought him the last time.
That thought jarred him, made him stop to wonder just what it said about him that he considered that chain of events lucky. And then he chose to stop wondering about it.
Life was all about choices, and whatever worked for you.
He’d never had as many opportunities to choose before.
Different now. He was different.
Growing more so every day.
Every night.
40
Sam couldn’t get to sleep, which often happened in the early stages of a new case, and especially when progress was as frustratingly slow as on this one. Part of the problem being that cases stayed new for such a brief time – and they were already way past those critical first seventy-two hours after the discovery of the crime, which was bad news in itself.
They owed Sanjiv Adani more than this.
Grace was sound asleep, for which Sam was grateful, and Lord knew he was fond of Claudia, but he was worried that this whole thing was going to bring Grace down again just when she’d been getting back on track, and so he couldn’t help but hope it might not be too long before her sister felt ready to go home.
He got up as silently as he could, pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, and headed for the nursery for a swift fix of Joshua Jude Becket.
Except his aunt had gotten there before him, was standing over his crib.
Sam stopped outside, not wanting to intrude, but Claudia had already seen him.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t mind me.’
He came inside, and for a few moments they both watched the small boy, deep in the sleep of perfect innocence, his soft baby mouth slightly open, both arms out to the sides, little hands palms up.
No fears yet in this sweet, trusting human. Even when strangers came to call or stopped to take a closer look at him out of doors, for the most part Joshua either just smiled or looked back at them with interest or, sometimes, open curiosity.
Watch over him, Sam prayed silently, as he did each night.
Claudia smiled at him, and he saw that her eyes were wet.
He felt guilty for wanting her gone.
‘Cup of tea?’ he asked softly.
Claudia shook her head. ‘I’m going to try and sleep now.’
‘You OK?’ Sam asked.
‘Getting there,’ she answered.
But looking at her, even in the dim light, Sam didn’t really believe her.
41
Menagerie was heaving.
Bodies everywhere, thrashing to the pounding music, ninety per cent male, young, middle-aged and older, black, white and all shades in between. Good times.
Cal had been here for a while, and there was no shortage of meat around, that was for sure, but no one yet to light his fuse. He’d been drinking Taaka Dry, which was supposed to taste of juniper berries, though if he could, he’d be sipping a really great Tanqueray, but with the costs of keeping Baby safe, not to mention renting the scuzzy pit, plus no tricks, he guessed he was lucky he could still afford to buy any gin at all.
Besides, his luck was about to change, because there was a guy looking at him.
Really looking.
Not Cal’s type at all, no way.
But there was something buzzing between them, something going down.
And if this dude had a wad to match the bulge in his pants . . .
Cal downed the rest of his Taaka, took a long, steamy look right into the guy’s dark eyes, and then he turned and walked his slow walk, kept on going until he was out of the bar and in the lobby and through the door out into the night heat on the sidewalk.
And if that guy was not following him right now, being tugged along in the joy-giver’s wake, then Cal would most certainly eat his proverbial hat.
Here he comes.
Wouldn’t be hat he’d be eating.
42
Mildred Bleeker could not sleep.
It was one of those nights when she just couldn’t seem to settle, and usually the mix of ocean and the constant thump of SoBe partying back on the Drive lulled her to rest, but once in a while she got what she could best describe as spiky. Not unrelated to what her mother used to call ‘ants in her pants’, but not exactly the same either.
Edgier than that.
And the only thing she could do when she got this way was to walk.
When she’d been younger, more vigorous and less unsightly, she’d swum in daylight hours, but as she’d grown older and more wrinkled she’d taken to swimming late at night, which might be against the law but was kinder on the eyes. These days, though, having become less spry, she walked instead, during the day and at night too.
Anyway, as content as Mildred was with her lot, she figured everyone needed a little change of scene now and again. So she window-shopped like other people and, towards the end of opening hours, she picked up little snacks from her regulars, most of them spread out along Washington Avenue all the way from 7th to 11th Streets. Lord knew those leftover tacos and sandwiches were better off inside her than in a garbage can, and on occasions Mildred liked running errands for those good people who trusted her to mail their letters or even make deliveries for them, and there was nothing like a little mutual respect to make the world go round. Though some people’s faces when they saw her coming in, say, to the dry cleaners with one of her regular’s dresses or suits, could be a picture, but that didn’t offend Mildred, no, sir, it just tickled her.
She didn’t do trash cans, ever.
‘Never ever,’ she’d promised Donny a long time ago, one night on the street when she’d imagined he was watching and distraught and maybe even mad at her for sinking so low.
She had done soup kitchens when she’d had no choice; same with hurricane shelters, but she’d only slept in a homeless shelter once, and as kind as those people had been, it had just about killed her foolish pride, and that was one of the reasons she stayed around Miami Beach, because at least, she reasoned, it wouldn’t be the cold that finally got her.
Lord, she hated the cold, always had.
Planting her feet one after the other on the stony sidewalk this night, she hoped she wouldn’t have to walk too far before she got tired enough to go back to her bench and sleep, because her calluses were extra painful and her knees weren’t what they had been either.
Then again, nothing much was.
43
‘Call me Tabby,’ the guy had said, out on the sidewalk.
A weird beginning, Cal thought, though maybe there was a little something kitty about the way the man moved, all dark brown in his silk-looking shirt and slinky-tight pants and pricey looking leather belt, and he remembered seeing a cat one time with chocolate-coloured fur kind of like this guy’s.
Good Lord, Jewel would spit poison if she could see him now.
‘I’m Cal,’ he’d said, then elaborated: ‘Short for Caligula.’
The other man’s smile had been amused. ‘I like that,’ he’d said. ‘But just so you know, I’m not interested in paying.’
They were
still outside Menagerie, customers walking in and out.
Cal had been silent for a moment, disappointed, and a little pissed off too, because this guy could afford to pay.
‘No offence,’ Tabby had added, ‘but I don’t need to pay for what you can give me.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Cal had said, ‘what I can give you.’
‘Works both ways,’ said the other man. ‘Believe me.’
The glint in his black eyes had hit Cal’s groin hard, and suddenly he’d known he didn’t give a damn about the money.
‘Take my arm?’ he’d invited.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Tabby had said.
They were strolling now, sauntering along Washington, first past Mansion (closed tonight, which was fine by Cal, because he hated the types who stood in line and put up with bouncers picking and choosing who got through the doors and then paid through their stupid spoiled noses to drink with a zillion tourists) and then passing across from the great white cop shop on the corner of 11th, and they weren’t all that far now from his pit – not that they were going there, no sirree – and it gave Cal something of a buzz knowing his hideout was practically under the cops’ noses. Still, that was one of the reasons he’d chained up the tandem three whole blocks from Menagerie: too close to the club might have maybe been like leaving some kind of calling card, in case someone had noticed it the other night, and too near the police station was just asking for trouble.
‘So where are we going?’ the stranger asked.
He smelled of something Cal believed might be jasmine, and though he had no gift for identifying perfumes, he knew what he liked, and that nice scent seemed like a bonus, so he paused for a moment and kissed Tabby on the mouth, and found that he tasted of Jack Daniel’s, which Cal had never liked, but then again, he’d tasted a whole lot worse on the mouths of strangers.
‘We’re going to my boat.’ Cal started walking again. ‘If that’s OK with you.’
‘You have a boat?’ Tabby smiled and tucked his arm a little more snugly through Cal’s.
‘A small cruiser,’ Cal said. ‘Nothing fancy, but all mine.’
‘Boats make me horny,’ Tabby said.
And Cal realized – not for the first time, though he guessed he’d always done his damnedest to suppress it – that the fact was black men made him hornier than white men or women, which amused him because of how appalled Jewel would be if she knew, but which also made him simmer with a weird kind of deep-down rage.
‘How about bicycles?’ he asked, seeing Daisy up ahead, right where he’d left her, chained to a black lamppost outside an upscale fashion store.
Tabby laughed. ‘Last time I rode a bike, I was ten.’
‘It’ll come right back,’ Cal said, unlocking the padlock. ‘And I’ll do most of the pedalling.’
‘In those?’ The other man looked at his platform boots.
‘Easy.’ Cal patted the front saddle, remembered the guy who’d sold it to him third-hand back in Wilmington talking about it. ‘Spring gel,’ he said. ‘Very comfy.’ His new friend swung one leg over the crossbar. ‘All aboard then,’ he said.
Which was when Cal saw her.
The old bag lady – his stinky old bird – again. Stepping along Washington Avenue like she had a right to be there same as anyone else, as if she had a real life and a home to go to now, instead of just some lousy bench.
Cal didn’t like coincidences.
And what if she was not the old derelict she seemed – what if she was an undercover pig?
Except he’d seen her out there a few times now, had smelled her, and if she wasn’t the real thing, then he was a fucking nun.
‘What’s up?’ Tabby asked, all poised and ready on the back saddle.
Cal stepped closer, took the brown-skinned hand and laid it over his dick.
‘Only me,’ he said, putting the old woman out of his mind.
‘Not only,’ the other man said.
His eyes were deep and dark as night, Cal observed close up, and there was something in them that was making him . . .
Shiver.
44
Mildred, on her way back to her bench, wished she had not seen him again.
Wished, even more, that he had not seen her.
He’d been too far away, on the opposite side of the street, for her to see his eyes, but she had felt them resting on her, no doubt about that, had felt his disrespect, even, she’d fancied, his dislike.
Maybe worse.
All silver again, tonight.
Riding off into the night with that spiffily dressed young black man.
She wondered about that one, about how well he knew her angel.
Not well enough, she suspected, and feared for him, though it was hard to say exactly why.
Mildred so hoped to be wrong.
But she did surely wish she had not seen him again.
45
Cal and Tabby were on Alton Road, pedalling smoothly through light traffic.
‘How much further?’ Tabby asked.
‘Just a few blocks,’ Cal said over his shoulder.
‘I still don’t see why you left this damned thing so far from the club when it wasn’t even on our way.’
‘Her name’s Daisy,’ Cal said, staying amiable. ‘I need the exercise.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Tabby.
‘It’ll be worth the trip,’ Cal said.
‘I sure hope so,’ the other man said.
He stayed silent for the next five blocks.
Then stayed silent when Cal turned left on to 16th.
‘You OK?’ Cal asked.
‘Getting bored,’ Tabby said.
Two turnings on, and Cal saw the road to the right where his first friend had told him he lived.
‘We could just as easily go to my place,’ he’d said.
‘But I have a boat,’ Cal had told him.
‘And I have a comfortable bed,’ the other man had said, ‘just around the corner.’
‘My cruiser is sexier,’ Cal had insisted and kept on pedalling.
And the other man had quit arguing and gone with the flow.
Straight on now, past the No Outlet sign.
The sound of the water was tranquil and welcoming.
And of boats, being rocked like babies, their bottoms gently slapped.
Nice and easy tonight.
‘Almost there,’ Cal said.
46
He had not expected this.
That was a lie. It was exactly what he’d anticipated – just not, perhaps, the speed with which it had happened.
He’d thought there would be heat first, like the last time; a little sensuality, some rolling around on the new quilt – which he accepted now that he had bought for fucking, not sleeping.
Not even for fucking, as it turned out.
‘Oh,’ Tabby had said, when they came down the steps into the tiny, dark, claustrophobic cabin.
Cal, behind him, stooping a little because of his height, had turned on the light and glanced at the small blacked out portholes.
‘It’s not much, I know,’ he’d said modestly.
‘That’s true enough,’ the other man had said.
Which, after all the griping on the way, had made Cal really mad.
The cord had been there, on the bench seat, ready and waiting, looking as harmless as a fat comatose towelling worm.
Cal wasn’t sure just how deliberately he’d prepared that earlier, when he’d come for his clothes and face paint, and he didn’t suppose it mattered much now.
What mattered was that it had been there.
So that when the anger had risen in him, hot and fast as a rocket, the other man still standing just ahead of him, Cal hadn’t had to stop to consider, had just gone for it.
Picked up the cord.
Now.
Smooth and seamless, the motion almost graceful, like a cowboy lassoing a stallion, the white cord looping over the dark head, around the sinewy neck, yanking hard, p
ulling the man off balance – and that had been so easy, because the guy was relaxed, believing Cal wanted him.
Easy.
Just like the last time.
Harder to describe the rest of it, the killing, and Cal thought that he might want, in time, to chronicle it in the Epistle, but it wouldn’t be easy to put on paper.
A roaring going through him, a power surge, consuming him completely, and he might almost have been some wild, ravening beast or a Harley or maybe even a goddamned combat jet . . .
Not just a man anymore, in other words.
A killer.
Only now, afterwards, he had this dead guy at his feet, didn’t he, lying sprawled face down on Cal’s nice new quilt, which was really messed up because sudden death was like that, all kinds of fluids spilling out, and that made him mad all over again.
You disgust me.
That was what Jewel had said the first time she’d seen him speaking to a black person in the street.
‘You disgust me,’ Cal said now to the dead man.
You know what I have to do now, she’d said to him later, when they were alone.
‘You know what I have to do now,’ Cal told Tabby.
Who said nothing, did nothing, just lay there in a heap.
What Jewel had done that time was whip him first.
But Cal didn’t have a whip.
And after she’d whipped him, she’d kissed and then cleaned the fresh wheals on his back and chest and stomach and limbs with chlorine bleach, which had burned him and stabbed at his eyes and nasal passages and choked his throat. And from then on, if he came home with so much as a little dirt on him, she’d order him into the bathtub – and sometimes just the sound of Jewel’s voice ordering him that way would make him shiver with excitement – but then she’d scrub him until his skin was raw, and sometimes, because she hated body hair as much as stubble, she’d want to shave him, and if he fought her off, he’d always end up getting cut, and then those wounds would have to be disinfected with more bleach. And he knew he should have, could have stopped her, but Jewel was always telling him that if he hurt her, she’d see to it that he’d be locked away in one of those places where they lived, and he knew what would become of him then.
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