He stepped closer to her. “You’re smelling me. Let’s shower together,” he said, slipping out of his boxer briefs.
“I ain’t in the mood.”
“Oh, really. Your lips say ‘no’, but I think you want me to beg you to say ‘yes.”’ He pressed a growing erection against her.
“You’re just like your little brother.”
“Not quite. I don’t charge.” He winked.
“You’ve got me there.”
A TAD LATER, DOTTY lay catching her breath on the carpeted floor of Hank Robinson’s bedroom. He hadn’t had time to get around to buying a bed, which was of no concern to Dotty, as the plush carpet was more comfortable than her bed. She had her head on Hank’s chest and a leg thrown carelessly over his groin. He was so out of it that she wanted to check his pulse.
Lying there in the darkness, waiting to get her breath back, she wondered about how Naim Butler had made out with the dogs, Lynch and the tall man. It scared her that she cared at all. She was getting soft for the kid and the old Dotty would’ve cared less about the young man. But alas even the great Dotty couldn’t swim through the dead clergy and landlord dilemma without being a changed woman.
Her cell phone rang and she jumped up to press the silent button so Hank didn’t wake up.
Hank, still asleep made a pit bull noise of annoyance and nestled his head in the crook of his elbow. Dotty knew it was a policeman calling; cops had their own sound. How had they traced her to Cheltenham? Her mind raced for a crimes code for impersonating an Animal Control Officer, and how much time would she get on top of the LIFE sentence for doing Chen and the bishop. To Dotty LIFE plus five years was the dumbest sentence ever. How was a man supposed to serve five years after death? Maybe the government had proof of an afterlife.
She answered the call but didn’t say anything.
“Dotty Davis?” The caller said.
She felt her breast shrivel up. Dotty knew the sepulchral voice and slammed her thumb on the button to end the call. After a pause, the phone came back to life.
The bright light blinded Hank. “Please answer that.”
Dotty stood in a puddle of sweat-soaked carpet and answered. “I don’t know who you are, but I will hunt you...”
Lynch cut her off. “Don’t hang up again, Dotty. It could get worse.”
“Look, I don’t have time to deal with you.”
“It’s me or a trip to prison.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d take prison over death. What you do to the kid, kill him, too?”
“You mean the young black kid you’ve been running around with corrupting? He’s at the hospital, getting a tetanus shot. He was bit by a prince.”
“What did his flesh taste like?”
“Fuck you. I want to chat with you in person.”
“Let me guess, Smith and Wesson will be representing you?”
“No gun. We can go anywhere you want, but it has to be now.”
“Yup. Now, so talk.”
“In person.”
Dotty said. “Let me tell you what I’m doing. Hand on a bible, other hand in the air, and I’m not saying present to some teacher. That clear or you need me to send you a picture?”
“See, pictures is what I want to discuss.”
“Not interested. What do I have to do flash you in the middle of Dilworth Plaza?”
“I’ll pay you five thousand dollars to meet.”
Dotty scratched her ass. That stimulated her thinking. “You got cash?:”
“Big or small bills?”
“Bring the small bills, I like a fat knot.”
“So, you’ll meet me?”
“The five is just to talk, right? Pictures are going to reach six figures.”
“Just talk.”
“Five. Someone will know my whereabouts and if I don’t check in, there will be photos of you on the wire by morning news.”
“Where and when?”
“I have the perfect place,” Dotty said.
Dotty told him and then hung up. She called Patrick Swayze.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Not quite,” said Dotty. “The Virgin Mary. Minus the virgin.”
“It’s after two.”
“Thanks. Before you tell me to go away, clear your head and listen. I’m meeting Lynch.”
“Dotty they haven’t lynched in decades. It’s against the Eighth Amendment.”
“Not lynch like that, asshole. Lynch. The file clerk that logs people in as DOA, recall him?”
He paused. “Look, when you’re dying call nine-one-one. I gotta work in the morning.”
“We talked over the phone. We’re meeting in an hour to chat about the pictures of him and Sister Tudor.”
“What damn pictures?”
“The Big Bad Wolf’s dick, shit-for-brains.”
“OK. OK. I remember. I did almost forget about that considering no money was exchanged for them. He’s paying up?”
“Not sure. He wants to talk about them.”
“He’s paying to talk? How much?”
“Who says he’s paying?”
“He kills people and you have footage. You’d sell your ass for a three-dollar bill. How much?”
“One thousand.”
“The spirit is telling me that you’re lying.”
“OK, dammit, fifteen-hundred.”
“Fifty percent for moi?”
“Sure, Swayze. I’d rather fuck a partner.”
“Ex-partner. And you’ve fucked me so many times, raw, and without grease, I fart air. What time you checking in?”
“Five a.m.”
“Make it seven. I have to get to work on time in the morning.”
“I could be dead, idiot. What the hell?”
“Don’t ‘what the hell’ me. You’d be just as dead at seven or five. Where’re you meeting this ruthless serial killer?” He chuckled.
“Moriarty’s Pub. You know, my spot.”
“They still have that shitty fire-breathing dog?’
“No doubt.”
“Take a can of Febreeze.” Swayze hung up.
As Dotty tossed the phone onto her pile of clothes, Hank looked at her and grinned. He was suddenly wide awake. “Do you always use the phone nude?”
She looked down at herself. “You know what. You got any shoes that I can fit?”
21
Dotty walked in fanning away the funk. “Bebo, I thought you were going to stop feeding that thing food made for humans.”
“Don’t you think I tried. He won’t eat dog food.” As he spoke, Puffy the pit bull, yawned and passed gas. The stench from both ends was horrific. Bebo used the bar rag to fan away the smell. He said, “So, I heard you were wanted.”
“There’s no reward. You still gone turn me in?”
“Nope. Far as I can tell, this bar is in Armenia. Usual?”
“Make it gin and tonic. Over there.” Dotty pointed to the area furthest from the dog—she had had enough of dogs or cats for an eternity—and headed that way, shuffling in Hank’s fuzzy leopard print slippers that he’d gotten as a gift from Macy’s for buying a larger bottle of Dolce and Gabbana cologne. They were too big for her.
“Love the footwear. Spring collection?”
“Fuck you.”
But for Dotty, the bar had two other customers: Bob the psycho, guzzling NyQuil in a booth with a side of vodka, and two boys in their early twenties with dark black hair, matching dark makeup and clothing, sharing an appetizer and drinks with whipped cream on top.
“Place kind of empty tonight,” said Dotty when Bebo brought her gin to her booth. “Where’s everyone?”
“Well, I don’t know. I like it this way.”
“Is that so? I would have never guessed that.”
Bebo smirked.
Dotty gulped down most of her gin. One of the boys left money on the table and the two went out.
“You still got the sawed-off back there, right?” Dotty asked her favorite bartender.
“You’r
e so far gone, but don’t kill yourself. Make a better life for yourself.”
“It ain’t for me, dummy.”
“That’s fine. Either way, I’m not mopping up blood.” He smacked a roach off of the wall with the bar rag. “You must really be in some shit. Besides with the cops, I mean.”
Dotty laughed, leaned back in the booth and ran her fingers through her hair. “A few days ago, the life that I lived was perfect. I went to work, pissed off my boss, while doing a job a twelve-year-old could do if the pay was minimum wage, got wasted, went home to an apartment the size of a shot glass, passed out. One morning, I took the wrong call. Since then, I’ve been drugged, chased, held at gunpoint, fucked, busted for a crime I didn’t commit, almost burned and thrown to the dogs. I quit my job in the midst of all of that. I’m wanted for a few murders, so I can’t go to my shit hole that I call home. I got an appointment with the true killer. On the bright side, the Governor has placed a moratorium on the death penalty, so that may save my poisoned liver. Hell, I don’t even have shoes. My life’s always been shit, but now it’s green with chunks in it. What makes you think, I have trouble?”
“You’re gripe is getting fucked?”
Dotty huffed.
“Bebo, you’re a piece-of-work. Do you ever listen? You’d think as a bartender you would. You know why I keep marching in here?”
“‘Cause you’ve been kicked out of every other watering hole in downtown. More gin?”
“No, what I want is the shotgun. If you can’t stand me shooting someone in here, I want you to stand close to it while I talk to this clown that I’m meeting. You won’t be able to miss him. He looks like the artist formerly known as Michael Jackson on crack. Full blown.”
“Bebo’s eyes widened. “You better not be making no damn drug deals in my bar. See, I knew it was a reason I only did the lunchtime shift. The suits don’t cause trouble.”
“Please, they snort the most coke. You should know me by now. How long I’ve been coming here?”
“Let me check your ballooning tab.”
“No drugs. No breaking the law.”
“OK, I have a water gun for you, fully loaded,” he said, tossing her the gun. It was lime-green with a red tip.
The bartender smirked again and then returned to the bar.
Dotty sipped the balance of her gin slowly. She wanted to throw it back and order another, but she needed to be as clear-headed and sane as she could be. She truly wanted to get her hands on her gun, which she surmised was in somebody’s evidence room, tagged, and under lock and guard. What she also wanted to do was go to Frankie’s hospital room and pull his plug for calling her and trapping her into his debauchery. She watched the roach that Bebo had exiled drag its battered body back across the table with two legs inoperable. She flattened it with a bar napkin and took it out of its misery. Despite what Bebo thought, she wasn’t so far gone that she valued the life of an insect.
“Dotty Davis?”
She jumped up and hopped in Lynch’s face. She hadn’t seen him slither in and he had caught her off guard. Ignoring her aggression, Lynch slid into the booth and she sat across from him. He looked more emaciated than the last time and his coat remained buttoned to the neck. His face was beet-red and his hands were a yellowish tint. He was surely one breakfast away from meeting his maker.
Looking at his torn and bleeding hands, Dotty said, “You’re a tad chewed up, I see.” It was said nonchalantly as she picked up her cocktail and gave it a whirl.
“Pit bulls are so overrated. Men in good condition can take on a few of them. Your friend couldn’t though. I watched the ambulance take him away.”
Dotty smiled. “How nice? I know you morticians really care.”
“Mortician?”
“Stop the tomfoolery. Where’s my five-G’s?”
The gaunt man drew an envelope from his waistband like it was a gun and startled Dotty until he showed her a sheaf of bills. She reached out to snatch the money.
“Look, you offered cash to talk. I’ve been talking. Let me get you a drink. I’m sure it’s too cold in Alaska this time of year for a cold one.”
“I guess it is, but I can careless.”
“Fine, Albert. OK, if I keep it informal?”
“Who’s that?”
Dotty reached across the table and slapped the man. At least she imagined that she did. She coolly sipped her drink to give her a second to plot the next part of her script. “Look, let’s stop the bullshit, OK? I know you are, Albert Lynch. You’re a file clerk for the Justice Department, and you should be in Fairbanks. But then again a killer has to be somewhere and he can’t jot down ‘shooter’ on an income tax form.”
“Hunter is my birth name. I don’t even know any Albert’s. And I don’t work for the Justice Department, either.”
“FBI. CIA. One of them alphabet boys, you do. You can careless about who your employer is or who signs the check as long as it cashes after you commit murder. You killer.”
22
“So, where’s Pat Albert?” Dotty asked after choreographing the balance of the conversation. Her version, anyway.
“According to you, Alaska.” Lynch put his business card away, claiming to be a reporter. “Where’re you getting your facts?’
“A fucking computer. Can you believe it? I hate those things.”
Bebo joined them and squatted down in front of the booth, now looking up at them. “What can I get you two? More gin, Dotty? Brandy? Pine Sol?”
“Yes, more gin for me. I’m not mixing my colors tonight,” Dotty said. To Lynch: “You?”
“I don’t do alcohol.”
“You ain’t no damn reporter,” said Dotty and growled.
“Quiet down, Jesus!” Lynch ordered an iced tea. When Bebo left: “You going to talk or not? I can keep this money.”
“How did Sister Tudor and Bishop Sinclair die?” Dotty asked.
“I was going to ask you that same damn thing.”
“Who strangled Chen, my beloved landlord, to death with my ascot? God, may he rest in peace.”
“I was going to ask you the same damn thing.”
“Who burned Frankie Robinson?”
“I was going—”
Dotty picked up the water gun from the seat and pointed it at Lynch. “You better start telling me something, or your ass will look like a yellow plant to me. And I’m not afraid of jail, so don’t try me.” She was lying miserably.
Their drinks arrived. Dotty waited for Bebo to get back into position behind the bar. “I need you to make some sense of some things that’s on my beautiful little mind. I think that I earned that right.”
“OK, shoot,” Lynch said.
“You asked for it,” Dotty said, shooting the water pistol in Lynch’s face. When it was empty, she put it down. “I called to DC, specifically to the Justice Department, because I found the number in a journal at Bishop Sinclair’s parish. Loretta Scalia answered. That name ring a bell?”
“The U.S. attorney general.” He continued wiping water from his face.
“OK, ivy league. No one else has known her.”
“Interesting. She’s the woman Politico is after.”
“After her for what?”
“It’s more of an investigation. But before I can tell you, I need to know what do you know?”
“All I know is when I called and told her that I was calling from Philadelphia, she said, ‘Lynch, I told you not to ever call me here.’ Which Lynch is that, Albert or Gunter?”
“Hunter.”
“Who the hell is Hunter?”
“For crying out loud, I’m Hunter.”
“I thought you were Albert.”
“Albert’s my middle name.”
“I’m glad that I don’t have a middle name. Yours is horrible.”
“Olivia. You’re such a bad little liar,” Lynch said.
“Huh?”
“Dorothy Olivia Davis. I use computers too. You don’t like your name?”
“It�
�s the initials that I hate.” Dotty sipped her libation. “So you were employed by Scalia, not Bishop Sin.”
“I work for an online political news agency, Politico. I’m investigating Loretta Scalia.”
“For what?”
“What’s Frankie Robinson to you?” Lynch asked.
“My neighbor and potential brother-in-law. He asked for help to get Sister Tudor out of his bed.”
“Shameful, you two took pictures?”
“He had nothing to do with that. Prostitutes have no imagination; hence, the reason they give up on pursuing a career to simply sell sex. You grabbed the body though, only you ain’t working for the bishop who ordered the removal. And I presume the cleanup; hence, the explosion.”
“Exactly, except, I know nothing about an explosion. I’m just a reporter.”
“What kind?”
“Investigative.”
“Investigating, why?”
“What the hell? We’ve been over this. Twice! No wonder you were fired, you don’t listen very well.” Lynch tapped the table with the envelope full of cash. “Where are the flicks?”
“The money is to talk, not to purchase pics.”
Lynch slid the envelope to the middle of the table. When Dotty reached for it, he sat his Sprite on top of it. Dotty sat back, staring at him with daggers in her eyes.
“Let’s narrow things up,” Dotty said. “You don’t work for Loretta Scalia, but she thinks you do. You don’t and never worked for Bishop Sinclair, and he thinks, well, thought that you did. Why else you pick up a dead nun. And let me guess, you didn’t blow up any apartment?”
“Correct. Three for three.”
“But who drugged me?”
He raised his hand. She picked up the gun and pulled the trigger. No water came out. “I did because he ordered me too.”
“You dumped me at a cemetery?”
“Yup.”
“And you tossed my humble abode, too, before or after you killed Chen.”
“I did not toss the place, and I’ve killed no one in this whole charade.”
“Then, who did Mr. Lynch?”
“You’re the damn private dickhead. I guess you don’t need this money,” Lynch said. “I’ve actually worked for it. Do you really have pictures, or not? Was it a cheap ploy to blackmail and extort the Church?”
The Drunk Detective Page 11