Mating Season

by Jon Loomis

“Right,” he said. “I forget about the stink test.”

  “What can I say?” Gemma said. “Women will smell you. Come on in.”

  The studio was spacious and high-ceilinged, with tall windows running its entire length, facing east, toward Fishermen’s Bank. There was the usual artist’s collection of driftwood and seashells on the windowsills, the usual artist’s ashtray overflowing with butts. A small refrigerator hummed in the corner; a row of empty beer bottles stood on a rack of metal shelves, along with a variety of paint cans, bottles, tubes, brushes, and other art supplies. A big roll of kraft paper lay on the floor. Much of the wall space was covered in large, unstretched canvases—big, florid nudes, mostly, rendered in bright oranges and pinks. The studio smelled like marijuana smoke; a joint smoldered briefly on the edge of the table and then went out.

  “So Rudy came home when?” Coffin said, not quite knowing what to do with himself. A black lace bra hung from the only chair; a bright red G-string lay on the floor beside it.

  “About three,” Gemma said. “Maybe a few minutes after.”

  “Went straight to bed?” Coffin said.

  Gemma looked at Coffin and smiled. Her eyes were green. “Well,” she said, “more or less. Rudy believes it’s his moral obligation to screw my brains out at least once a night, no matter what. We probably got to sleep around four.”

  “He said that? About it being a moral obligation?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “He’s got something that belongs to me,” Coffin said, feeling slightly overwhelmed. “It looks like a hard drive, kind of.”

  “Oh,” Gemma said. “Of course—this is about the DVR. I was wondering what was up with all the questions.”

  “Sorry,” Coffin said. “It’s a cop thing.”

  Gemma frowned. “You know anything about art?”

  “One of my best friends is an artist, and I never know what the hell he’s talking about,” Coffin said. “So no, not really.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest about it,” Gemma said. She picked up the piece of charcoal, put it back down. “I’m supposed to have a couple of pieces in the erotica show at the Art League this weekend, and I wanted to do a self-portrait—but something kind of unexpected.”

  Coffin pursed his lips and nodded. “Unexpected,” he said. “Absolutely.”

  “This charcoal thing isn’t really working out the way I thought it would, though. It’s just kind of lifeless, you know?”

  “Ah,” Coffin said. “Lifeless. Right.”

  “So I was thinking I’d paint myself all over with tempera—’cause it’s nontoxic, right?—and then lie down on the paper. Sort of make a life-size print of myself.” Gemma walked over to the metal shelves and selected three large plastic squeeze bottles of tempera: blue, yellow, and red.

  “Great!” Coffin said. “Sounds good.”

  “It would have to be really a lot of paint to make a bold image, though,” Gemma said. She tore another big sheet of kraft paper off the roll and spread it out on the floor. “And tempera dries really fast. I’d probably have to have someone help me slather it on. Like an assistant.”

  “An assistant,” Coffin said. “Good idea. So there was a DVR? That’s what you said, right?”

  “How about you?” Gemma said, smiling brightly. “You busy right now?”

  “Well,” Coffin said, looking at his watch, “I really should go find Rudy.”

  “You help me, I’ll help you,” Gemma said, pulling off her T-shirt. “Fair enough?”

  Her breasts were spectacular. Coffin wondered if she’d had them done. He tried not to stare. “Fair enough,” he said.

  Jamie sat down on the couch, Frank’s World War II–vintage Colt .45 still in her hand. She felt a little shaky. There had been something about the man in the pink jacket that was wrong—she saw it from the upstairs window as he’d gotten out of his car, saw it again in the yellowed whites of his eyes as he’d taken off his tinted glasses to gaze in at her from the screen porch. Something avid and wolfish—it was hard to find a word for it. She was not sure why she’d grabbed Frank’s gun from the nightstand before trotting downstairs, but she was glad she did, glad she’d decided to keep it there and not in the box in the closet where it had lived until the incident two years ago. She took a deep breath. She was glad Duckworth had not tried to open the door; if he had, she would have shot him. She set the pistol on the coffee table and called Frank’s office. No one answered. He refused to carry a cell phone—his Luddite streak was one of the things she liked about him, but now it was aggravating. Where would he be? She thought for a minute, then called Lola’s apartment.

  ______

  Gemma Skolnick lived in a converted barn on Pearl Street, just where it kinked to the right and joined with Brewster Street, which connected Bradford and Harry Kemp Way. The barn was one of two similar structures that stood barely a hundred yards apart; the other belonged to the Fine Art Center complex and was divided into three “rustic” apartments. Gemma’s barn had recently been rehabbed and was now a single, open studio structure with a half loft: kitchen and living/studio space downstairs, large bedroom/office/bath upstairs. Coffin wondered how she was able to afford it but thought it better not to ask.

  “This is my humble abode,” Gemma said, tossing her leather backpack onto the couch and spreading her arms. “Pretty great, huh?”

  “No kidding,” Coffin said. “This place looked like it was about to fall down a couple of years ago. From the outside, anyway.”

  “Come on upstairs,” Gemma said. “Rudy’s probably gone by now, but let’s see if we can find your gadget.”

  Coffin followed her up the wide staircase. The loft was a good-sized open space with windows overlooking Pearl Street to the south and Harry Kemp Way to the north. A big antique Persian rug covered much of the floor, and an unmade king-sized bed stood diagonally in one corner. The bath was not physically divided from the sleeping area. A big tub/Jacuzzi and shower stall stood out in the open; only the toilet was hidden in a little alcove. Everything was done in weathered wood, polished to a warm semigloss. Four big north-facing skylights provided most of the light. To Coffin it felt a bit like the interior of a Berkshires resort from the fifties or early sixties.

  “Let’s see,” Gemma said, poking around her desk. “Here we go. One gadget.” She held up the DVR, which was still connected to a white iMac flat-screen.

  “Oh my God,” Coffin said. “Hooray. You’re a lifesaver.”

  “But you can’t have it.”

  “I can’t? It’s important evidence in a murder case, Gemma.”

  “Are you kidding me? Without Rudy’s permission?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so, Frank. You can watch what’s on it if you want to, though. That’s some funny shit, I don’t mind telling you.” She peeled off her T-shirt again, wiggled out of her jeans, and tossed them at the hamper; her bra and panties were downstairs, stuffed into her backpack. She’d cleaned off most of the tempera with wet paper towels back in her studio, but her pubic hair was crusted with dried green paint, and she was still multicolored in a few hard-to-reach places. “You do what you want. I’m getting in the shower.”

  What I want, Coffin thought, would get me in a lot of trouble. “Somebody likes to be naked,” he said, sitting at the desk and turning on the computer.

  Gemma laughed, reached into the shower, and turned on the hot water. “I used to be an exotic dancer,” she said. “I guess it’s kind of my accustomed state.” She stepped into the big glass-and-granite shower stall. “It’s nice in here,” she said, water streaming down her belly. She looked out at Coffin. “You can join me if you like.”

  I like, Coffin thought. Jesus. I like. “I would,” he said. “Really. But there’s Rudy to think about. And I’ve got a nice girlfriend.”

  “If your girlfriend’s so nice,” Gemma said, “why are you sitting in my bedroom, watching me take a shower?” She slid the shower door shut, steam already forming on the glass.

 
; Coffin unplugged the DVR from the power strip on the floor, then unhooked it from the computer.

  “You know,” Gemma said, her back to Coffin as she soaped her breasts, “if you were still here when I got out, I wouldn’t be responsible for what happened.”

  “You’re right about that, Gemma,” Coffin said softly, tiptoeing down the stairs. “You are right about that.”

  Duckworth parked his beige rental car in the parking lot beside the girl-cop’s apartment and climbed out. She was taking a half day off, the PPD day officer had told him—very accommodating, giving out information like that over the phone. He’d found her address in the phone book. It was that kind of town.

  He hitched up his pants, took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, and flicked a bit of dust from his shoes. Not so lucky, those alligators. The thought made him smile.

  As he climbed the stairs, he realized he wasn’t entirely sure what he was hoping to accomplish here. Find the girl-cop, who would tell him where to find Coffin, the detective, who would tell him where to find Rudy, the cop gone bad, who would tell him where the DVR was? It was a lot of finding and telling, but that, too, was detective work.

  Duckworth paused on the landing. It was a very pretty place, this Provincetown. He liked the little boats in the harbor, the slightly forlorn drag queens standing in front of the Crown and Anchor, passing out flyers for that night’s drag show. It was, he thought, a fine place to visit—though he preferred the vibrant nightlife of his neighborhood in East Boston, where the girls were, for the most part, actual girls.

  Duckworth raised his hand to knock on the door, then noted the splintered jamb where someone had very recently broken in. “My, my,” he said. “Murders, break-ins, blackmail—it’s not such a nice little town, after all, is it, Lucille?” He pushed the door open silently and stepped inside.

  ______

  Lola had all but finished sweeping up the kitchen; she’d bought a big pushbroom and a wide metal dustpan and brought her regular assortment of mops, brooms, Swiffers, and dustpans out of their kitchen cabinet. A green Rubbermaid trash can sat in the middle of the room, full of broken glass and crockery shards. For the last hour or so she’d been working in the bedroom, hanging up shirts, pants, and her few skirts and dresses, putting T-shirts, socks, and underwear back in the drawers. She’d ordered a new mattress, tossed the remains of her nightstand into the apartment complex Dumpster, and called a carpenter to fix and reinforce her front door. Call waiting had bleeped when she was on the phone, but she’d let the call go through to voice mail. In all, not a bad half-day’s work. She folded a half-dozen T-shirts and a couple of pairs of gym shorts, put them in their drawers, then decided to call it quits and get dressed for work. She was buttoning up her uniform shirt when she heard a small sound. She looked up. Something moved in the living room, just at the edge of her peripheral vision.

  “Frank?” she said. “Is that you?”

  Coffin walked the half mile or so from Gemma’s barn back to Town Hall with the DVR tucked under his arm. He wouldn’t have felt more conspicuous, he thought, if he’d been walking around Provincetown in broad daylight with a dead body thrown over his shoulder. Town was getting busier by the minute: He passed a pair of large, outrageously muscled men dressed in black leather jackets, boots, chaps, and hats. One of the men was walking a tiny, fluffy Pekingese on a pink leash. It was a kind of Provincetown inverse corollary, Coffin thought: The more pierced, tattooed, and muscular the leather-daddy, the smaller, prissier, and more beribboned the dog was likely to be.

  When he got to the parking lot, Coffin put the DVR gently onto the Fiesta’s passenger seat and then climbed in, the springs emitting a rusty groan as they absorbed his weight. He turned the key, and the engine roared to life, a cloud of black exhaust erupting from the tailpipe. He put the transmission in drive and pressed the gas gently. The Fiesta bucked twice and stalled.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Coffin said. He put the Fiesta in PARK and turned the key. The engine sputtered, then caught, but it stalled when Coffin put his hand on the gear shifter.

  “Fuck,” he said. “Come on now—be a good little car, you piece of shit.” He turned the key, and for a second nothing happened; then the engine cranked, caught, and ran smoothly. “Okay,” Coffin said, hand poised above the shifter. “Don’t stall.”

  “No, ma’am,” Duckworth said. He stood just outside the bedroom door, smiling brightly. “It’s not Frank. It’s just little old me.”

  Lola’s stomach lurched. Duckworth’s pink jacket was unbuttoned. She caught a glimpse of emerald green lining and the stag-handled hunting knife in its sheath. “Trooper Duckworth,” she said. She wiped her palms on her jeans. Her off-duty pistol was resting on the kitchen counter in its clip holster, about twelve feet away. “What brings you here?”

  “Well,” Duckworth said, “it’s a funny thing. I was looking for Detective Coffin’s uncle, and when I couldn’t find him I tried to find Detective Coffin, and when I couldn’t find him I came looking for you, and here you are.”

  “Yes,” Lola said. “Sounds like you’ve had a busy day.”

  “Well, maybe not quite as busy as you,” Duckworth said. “Quite the little mess you’ve got here.”

  “I had a break-in.” Lola took two steps toward the kitchen and picked up a broken cup handle that had bounced onto the carpet. Now her gun was only seven feet away.

  “I saw your doorjamb,” Duckworth said. He shook his big head. “They sure did a number on your place.”

  “Yes,” Lola said, taking a step into the kitchen and dropping the cup handle into the big green trash can. “They sure did.”

  Duckworth had his knife out of the sheath almost before she saw him move. “I had some neighborhood boys break into my place a few years back,” he said. He smiled; his teeth were very white. “Me and Lucille carved our initials in one of their backsides, and we never had any trouble after that.”

  Jesus, Lola thought. Another whacko with a knife.

  Coffin turned left out of the parking lot, then right on Commercial, past Poochie’s—the bakery for dogs—and past the Crown and Anchor, where two slender drag queens in green sequined minidresses, giant beehive wigs, and six-inch platforms passed out flyers for that night’s drag show. The Fiesta gargled and burped but didn’t stall. Traffic on Commercial Street was surprisingly heavy ahead of the holiday weekend; Coffin was stuck behind a huge Winnebago as it waddled past the Unitarian Church at four miles per hour.

  “Come on,” Coffin said. He wanted to roll down the window and give the retiree driving the Winnebago the finger. RVs had been banned from the town center some years ago. Their elderly drivers had trouble navigating the narrow streets; they’d rammed parked cars, clipped telephone poles, injured pedestrians and cyclists, gotten wedged going around tight corners, driven on sidewalks, and crashed into buildings. Where the hell is a cop when you need one? Coffin thought. He leaned on the Fiesta’s horn. At first it did nothing; then, after a second or two, it produced a weak, warbly bleat. “Oh my God,” Coffin said. “Even the horn is a piece of shit.”

  “Are you thirsty?” Duckworth said, sliding his knife back into its sheath. “I know I am. I mean, I could definitely use a cool drink of something. This has been one thirsty day of work for me, I don’t mind telling you.”

  Lola watched his face. She tried to stay calm. “Would you like some water?” she said. “I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got at the moment. I think I have one intact mug.”

  “A cool drink of water would be fine, yes, thank you very much.” Duckworth smiled. He took off his glasses and put them in his inside pocket. His eyes were bright and flat, without emotion—like the eyes of a ventriloquist’s dummy. “So, these fellas who broke into your place. What was it they were after? Any idea?”

  Lola’s one unbroken mug stood on the counter, two feet from her holstered pistol. “Just your basic robbery, I guess,” she said, rinsing the mug under the tap, then filling it with water. “Probably jun
kies, looking for cash.”

  She held out the cup of water. Duckworth advanced a couple of steps and took it.

  “We thank you, ma’am,” he said. He raised the mug in a mock toast and took a drink. “You get a lot of that out here, do you?” he said. “Junkies breaking into people’s houses, looking for cash?”

  “Not a lot,” Lola said, “but it happens.”

  “Funny it would happen to you,” Duckworth said. “You being a cop and all. Funny strange, I mean.”

  “Junkies aren’t exactly known for their judgment,” Lola said. Duckworth was too close now; if he could move his feet as fast as his hands, he’d be on her before she could get the gun out of its holster.

  “No,” Duckworth said. He sipped his water, sipped again, set the mug down on the counter, took another step toward Lola—sliding his bulk between her and the gun. “I don’t suppose they are.”

  There was a long silence. Duckworth smiled, his gaze intense, unblinking.

  Jesus, Lola thought. I’m going to have to kill this fucking freak, aren’t I? She looked at her watch. “I should be going,” she said. “My shift’s about to start.”

  The knife was in Duckworth’s hand again, held low, glinting in the harbor light. “Let’s not be in a hurry,” he said. “We’ve got some things to talk about, you and Lucille and me.”

  Lola took a step back, then another. Away from the knife, and her gun. “I don’t talk to people who pull knives on me,” she said.

  Duckworth chuckled. “Oh, don’t mind Lucille,” he said. “She’s just going to help you remember the details.”

  He moved like a dancer—a kind of muscular glide across the floor, hips slightly forward, shoulders back. Faster than Lola thought he’d move, faster than a man his size should be able to move in a tight space. She was out of room—nothing behind her but wall and window, nothing between her and Duckworth but six feet of blue linoleum and a broom, leaning against the counter. She could not, she thought, get to the broom without being cut.