“Which was?”
“I decided to lay in wait until Francis Hoyt returned and…”
I knew what was coming next. I knew because, although I might not admit it to Manny or anyone else, it would be exactly what I would do. But from what I knew about Manny, a cop who always went by the book, every single word of the book, right down to the punctuation, it was totally against the grain.
“…I turned off the lights waited almost two hours before he returned. I heard him come up to the door, but he did not open it. I have told you many times, Charlie Floyd, that Francis Hoyt is a brilliant man. But more than mere brilliance I believe he must be in possession of a heightened survival instinct. I believe either he attached something to the door so that he could see if someone had entered, or he intuited that something was amiss, and that is why he hesitated before entering.”
“So, did he enter?”
“No.”
“You went out after him, didn’t you? That’s what I would have done.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“By the time I reached the door he had started to run. I ran after him. I would never have caught him, he was much too quick, but a car drove into the parking area at that very moment and Francis Hoyt had to veer out of the way. When he stumbled slightly, I caught him. There was a struggle. He is surprisingly strong for such a small man. Even I am bigger than he is yet I could not hold onto him. It was as if his body was greased with oil. He twisted my arm and wriggled away from me. Someone watching from the motel or perhaps it was the driver of the vehicle that almost hit Francis Hoyt, had called nine-one-one. Within moments a police cruiser arrived on the scene, only to find me chasing Francis Hoyt down Collins Avenue. Since I was the closest one, and since they had no idea who I was, it was I who they stopped. By this time, Francis Hoyt had disappeared into the night. I was questioned and when they found I had no jurisdiction and that I had entered Francis Hoyt’s room without permission, well, I am sure you can imagine what happened next.”
“The proverbial shit hit the fan.”
“I am much ashamed, Charlie Floyd. I failed to live up to my own code of conduct.”
“I don’t know what to say. It’s ironic that you’re the one who got suspended while I somehow always managed to escape any kind of official reprimand. And believe me, I’ve done lot worse. How long?”
“Three months.”
“Three months. Hell, Manny, that’s a vacation not a suspension.”
“Not for me, Charlie Floyd. For me it is a grave embarrassment. My heart is heavy. It is something that will go on my permanent record. It is something I will carry around with me for the rest of my life. Perhaps now you can understand my need to find Francis Hoyt and put him where he belongs. It is the only way I can make things right.”
“I get that. He’s the cause of you screwing up and getting suspended.”
“No, Charlie Floyd. Only I am responsible for, as you say, ‘screwing up.’ I am the only one responsible for my suspension. Francis Hoyt was simply the flame that ignited the fuse. I wanted him too badly and because of that I allowed myself to go beyond the purview of the law I swore to uphold. As a result of my own foolish obsession and the behavior that emanated from that obsession, I have brought shame on me and on my family.”
“No offense, but that’s a lot of BS. I think you’re taking this way too seriously. I’d wear it as a badge of honor. We do what we do for personal reasons. My white whale was a guy named John Hartman, who killed his entire family then disappeared. It took me years to find him and in the end, it was he who found himself. You and I are very different people, Manny. But there are ways we’re the same. We both want to do our jobs better than anyone else. We both share a hatred of failure. I failed to find that murderer. I won’t fail this time. Hoyt will not remain a free man. I don’t care how good he is, he’s going down. And it’s going to be because of us.”
Manny smiled.
“Thank you, Charlie Floyd. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.”
He took my hand and shook it.
“If we can do this together I can hold my head up high again and I will gladly serve out the rest of my suspension. But I do not see it as a vacation, Charlie Floyd. Instead, I see it as an opportunity to do something good and right.”
I don’t know why, but at that moment I wanted to hug Manny and believe me, I am not a hugging sort of guy.
Francis Hoyt
I go too long without a woman, I get horny.
Lucky for me, I’ve never had a problem getting chicks. It’s probably the “bad boy” vibe I’ve got going and believe me, I don’t have to fake it.
The first thing I did when I hit the city was give Melinda a call. She likes to be called Mel. Melinda, Mel, makes no fucking difference to me.
She’s a good-looking chick, late thirties, brunette, an inch or two taller than me, more when she wears those ridiculous elevator-to-the-penthouse, fuck-me platform heels. How the hell she can walk on those is beyond me. Looks like she’s going to topple over any second. She’s always complaining about her weight, but she looks plenty okay to me. No matter how skinny chicks are they still think they need to lose weight. Nice boobs. Nice ass. Nice legs. Most of her money goes into clothes and makeup and shit like that. She lives on the Upper West Side in a tiny studio she pays a fortune for. She doesn’t care. That’s where she wants to be, “in the middle of the action,” she says, so she’s willing to pay for it. I like to joke that if I sat in a chair in the middle of the room I could touch all four walls. I was exaggerating, but not by much. She laughed when I said it, but I could see it bothered her. Like I was criticizing her lifestyle choices, which I wasn’t. If I did, that would mean I gave a shit.
She’s been divorced from her husband for a couple years now. No kids. He was a cheapskate and she didn’t get much in the divorce. She claims she got screwed in the divorce settlement because she was stepping out with me while she was still with him and he found out about it. I think maybe he hired some private dick to follow her. But I didn’t twist her arm. I didn’t hold a gun to her head. I’m no pied piper. She wanted to be with me, that’s her business. Don’t blame me.
I met her in a bar, asked her out, and she said yes. It took me two dates to get her into bed but since then it’s been pretty easy sledding. The way I see it, that makes her a lot guiltier in this scenario than me. Still, I try to help her out when I can. A little dough toward the rent. A little dough for “maintenance.” And I did buy her that car and I pay for the garage, since she was always bitching about finding parking on the street.
“I have to get up so much earlier, Francis. And sometimes I have to drive around for half an hour before I find something.”
That was enough for me to open up my wallet. What the fuck, I can afford it and forking out the dough was a lot better than hearing her complaining all the fucking time. Besides, I don’t mind. I’ve got enough dough to last me a couple lifetimes, even spending it the way I do. She’s happy, I’m happy. That’s the way it works. Just so she doesn’t crowd me, if you know what I mean.
She’s got a regular job. I think she’s somebody’s private secretary or something like that. We don’t talk much about work. Mine or hers.
She likes to party. I don’t kid myself, that’s why she likes hearing from me. I stay away from drugs. I’ve seen too many guys ruined by snorting stuff up their nose or shooting it into their veins. Far as I’m concerned, it’s a one-way ticket to hell.
We’ve got an understanding. She sees me when I’m in town, but only when I feel like it. Let’s face it, chicks are pretty much interchangeable. And nothing is forever. Everything fades and one of the first things to fade is love, if there really is such a thing. Don’t go by me because I’m not much acquainted with the feeling. I don’t know what it is or how it feels. There wasn’t any of it in my house growing up. Unless you call what my old man had for a bottle love. My old man showed love by smacking my mother around.
By cheating on her. By verbally abusing her. By putting her down. But no matter what he did, either to her or me and my sister, she never stood up to him. It wasn’t because she loved him, that’s for sure. Standing up to him would have taken guts and guts is something my mother lacked. My old man, too. Doesn’t take much guts to wail on an eight-year-old kid and a woman half your size, does it?
My sister favors my mother. Passive. Classic case. She lets things happen to her. Somehow, she always manages wind up with the wrong guy. The guy who treats her just like our mother was treated by the old man. A while ago she was with this asshole who used to knock her around when he got drunk—sound familiar? One time, I had to go all Sonny Corleone on him. Sent him to the hospital for almost a week. He was half a foot taller than me and had me by fifty, sixty pounds, but if you surprise a guy, get in the first shot—the nose is best, it breaks easy and once they’re in pain they’re vulnerable—the fight is pretty much yours. I beat the crap out of him. I almost couldn’t stop. Someone had to pull me off him. Maybe I would have killed him if they hadn’t. I came out of it without a scratch. He was going to press charges because he was embarrassed, a little guy like me kicking his ass. My sister talked him out of it. Said I’d kill him if he did go to the cops. I probably wouldn’t have gone that far but who knows, maybe I would have had someone take care of it. Plenty of guys owe me favors. Whatever. It worked. He never laid a finger on her again and a couple months later he took off and she never heard from him again. But people don’t change and it didn’t take her long to hook up with another fucking loser who was maybe even worse than the one I just got rid of for her. Now, I stay out of it. She gets in trouble, she’s on her own.
She’s married now, second time, and this one seems to be the pick of the litter. She’s got one kid from her first husband and one kid from this one. She lives close to our old lady, just outside Minneapolis. Every so often I send her some dough. She doesn’t ask for it but I know she could use it. We used to be close when we were kids—probably a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing—but we kinda drifted apart once we were both out of the house. Every so often, when I get out there and visit my old lady, I stop by Brenda’s to pay my respects. You can’t count on many people in this life, but if there’s anyone I could count on it would probably be Brenda. We got that brother-sister bond thing of growing up in a train wreck of a household.
I guess my mom loves my sister and me. She just don’t know how to show it. Maybe now she feels bad she didn’t protect us. I don’t worry about things like that. The past is the past. She says she worries about me so maybe that’s her way of showing she loves me. Especially ’cause I send her dough every month. That’s the kind of love everybody understands.
I don’t call these chicks girlfriends because that implies there’s more to it than there is, than there can ever be. Of course, that’s not the way they see it. But women and men think different. I mean there are chicks who think like a man and men who think like chicks, but that’s only up to a point. They create this whole story in their head and you’re supposed to know what it is and say, “Yeah, I’m down with that.” How are you supposed to know anything if they don’t tell you? As far as I’m concerned, it’s a draw. They can’t figure us out and we can’t figure them out.
Mel seemed happy to hear from me.
“You’re in town, Francis?”
Of course, I was in town. There’d be absolutely no reason for me to call her if I wasn’t in town. But she doesn’t know that. Like I said, these women make more out of it than there is. She thinks she’s my girlfriend. Fine. Let her think whatever the hell she wants to think.
“Just pulled in. You’re the first person I called.”
That happened to be the truth, but it could have been a lie. This is one of those cases where the truth is really a lie. Just shows how blurred the lines can be.
“You’re very sweet, Francis.”
“Don’t I know it. And I come bearing gifts.”
She screeched so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
“You’re the best. The absolute best. When am I going to see you?”
“I’m free tonight. You wouldn’t happen to be available, would you?”
I knew she would be. But it would have been bad if I assumed she was. This is just part of the game men and women play. We lie to each other all the time and we usually assume the other one buys the lie. Not me. I don’t believe anything anyone says. And that goes for me. That’s why I’ve survived as long as I have.
“Of course, I’m available, sweetie. Do you want to go out or do you want to come over here?”
Truth is, I was beat. I just wanted to go over there, fuck her brains out then get the hell out and go to sleep. But that’s not the way it works with chicks. You’ve got to play the game.
“Why don’t I take you out to a nice dinner and we’ll see where we go from there.”
“That would be very nice. Should I dress up?”
“Dress any way you like, baby. You look good no matter what you’re wearing.”
She laughed. Chicks love that shit. They eat up compliments like Godiva chocolates. Now I’d either have to go out and actually buy her something or just score some good drugs. Probably both.
By the time we finished dinner she was a little tipsy. Okay, more than a little. Three glasses of wine and an after-dinner aperitif. Like I said, I don’t drink at all anymore. You drink, you lose control. You lose control, you make mistakes. You make mistakes, there are consequences. I don’t believe in consequences, therefore I don’t like to lose control. Ever. The joint is filled with assholes who can’t control themselves.
We went back to her place, that small studio off Amsterdam and 71st. I have a place I keep in the East Village. But no one knows about that, except me. Ditto the studio apartment I keep in Westport and the one I have in Miami. They’re places to crash between jobs. There’s a bed, clothes, a few books. Stuff like that. Nothing that’ll give the cops anything to chew on in case they somehow track me down. Every time I leave I give the place a thorough cleaning. By the time I’m outta there it smells like a combination of Mr. Clean and Pledge. I pay the rent a year in advance by bank check and the utilities are under one of my aliases, a different one for each of the three apartments. Sounds like I’ve thought of everything, but I know there are always ways I can improve.
I wasn’t in the city long enough to score any coke, but I had a pocketful of Percocets and a few ’ludes I’d brought up with me from Miami, and that was good enough to keep the party going. But I got a line and I watch that no one goes over it. She gets too fucked up, that’s not good. I don’t want an overdose happening on my watch. That means complications. The cops, EMTs get involved. Moderation isn’t one of Mel’s strong points. She’s got an incredible capacity. She’d swallow fucking everything I had if I gave her the chance. But I don’t give her that chance. I know what her capacity is, even if she don’t. Look, I am kinda fond of her and I don’t want her to get hurt. Bottom line: You’re with me, I take care of you. That’s the way I am. But don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t feel anything special for her. I’m just all about protecting my interests, and right now, she’s one of my interests.
Once we were back in her apartment I pulled a little box out of my pocket and waved it in the air.
“Francis, is that for me?”
“Have you been a good girl?” I said, offering it to her then pulling it back.
“A very good girl.”
“Are you going to be an even better girl tonight?”
“No. Tonight I’m going to be a very bad girl. The box is blue, Francis,” she said.
“Yeah. It’s blue.”
“Is it from where I think it’s from?”
“Take it and find out for yourself.” I smiled and handed her the box. No time to get it wrapped, but it didn’t seem to matter. She opened it and squealed. She took the earrings out of the box and held them up to her ears.
“They’re beaut
iful. Do you like the way they look on me?”
“Like they were made for you, baby.”
“Tiffany’s!” she could hardly contain herself.
She took off the earrings she was wearing and put on the new ones. She looked at the full length attached to the door of the apartment. I stood behind her.
“You like the way they look, baby?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
She threw her arms around me and kissed me.
“And I think you’ve got something else for me, haven’t you?” she said, pulling away.
“Greedy little bitch, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she purred, “I certainly am.”
I put my hand back in my pocket and pulled out a baggie of pills and waved them in front of her. She grabbed the baggie then me. Let the games being!
I tried not to wake her when I got up early the next morning, but when I came out of the bathroom, she was sitting up in bed, the sheet pulled up to her chin.
“Francis,” she started, and I knew by the way she said my name we were headed into territory where I did not want to go.
“You know, honey, you never like to talk about yourself. How am I going to get to know you better if you never talk about yourself?”
I don’t like to talk much in the morning and I certainly didn’t want to get into any kind of personal discussion.
“I’m not a very interesting guy, Mel.”
“That’s not true, honey. Everyone’s interesting if you get to know them. For instance, I don’t have any idea where you are when you’re not in New York, and that’s only for a few months of the year. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
“I have to travel a lot, Mel. It’s as simple as that.”
Second Story Man Page 9