Good To The Last Kiss: Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

by Ronald Tierney

  ‘You ever read Genet?’

  ‘Not my cup of tea.’

  ‘ The Balcony , remember. The judges needed to do penance for all the punishment they’d dished out. They’d go to prostitutes and humiliate themselves in front of them, kiss their feet, beg for the rod?’

  ‘I didn’t read it.’ David’s face was in full blush.

  ‘Here, you, Mr Prosecutor, punish the guilty and those who can’t afford to be innocent,’ Thaddeus said, putting on his shirt. ‘You try to be fair, I know. But you win most of the time. Still some criminals go free, some innocents are punished. You must be punished. The riding crop, or whip?’ Maldeaux’s laugh continued.

  ‘I don’t want this kind of talk.’

  ‘I’m just having a little fun with you. Learn how to laugh, David. It makes life much more bearable. Enjoy life. Live.’

  ‘You’re such an ass.’

  ‘Aren’t you at all curious about what makes us tick? Look at that preacher. What was his name? Swaggart. Preaching hellfire and damnation during the day and then has some woman in black lingerie whip him. Gets his butt in a sling, more or less, with some dominatrix. You know what a dominatrix is, don’t you?’

  ‘Will you get off it?’ Seidman said. He stood. ‘You don’t see what I see every day in court. You, in your fairy tale life know nothing about what really goes on out there. Just because you’ve seen the Ganges, Teddy, doesn’t mean you suddenly know what it’s like to be an Indian.’

  Maldeaux smiled. ‘I don’t think you quite get it.’

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘What I do, how I live. I do live, David. That’s where we’re really different.’

  ‘I’ll see you around, Teddy.’

  NINETEEN

  ‘ H ow about dinner?’ Gratelli asked McClellan.

  ‘We can go shopping first. I know this little boutique on Maiden Lane.’

  ‘All right, all right. I make a friendly gesture. I just thought we’d grab a bite. On me.’

  ‘Now I know there’s something wacky on this fucking planet.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Sorry Gratelli, me and Jack Daniels got a date this evening.’

  ‘I know it’s not Friday, but I’m in the mood for stew at Joe’s. And I hate eating alone in that place,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘Let’s stop by our boy’s abode first,’ McClellan said, waiving a warrant, ‘while he’s still filling out papers.’

  ‘Eerie, huh?’ McClellan said. ‘How can you live without windows? Fucking bat.’

  ‘Vampire maybe,’ Gratelli said, going through the drawers of the bureau.

  ‘No teeth marks, but definitely a neck fixation.’

  ‘Kid’s got a lot of underwear, but all of it appears to be his.’

  ‘The place is fucking strange,’ McClellan said, looking at all the half-burned candles. ‘No books, no letters, no dirty magazines. Nothing. Just candles. Fucking candles everywhere.’

  ‘Candles in the john,’ Gratelli said from inside. ‘Body oil of some kind. Oh, here are some magazines. Some muscle magazines.’

  ‘Naked guys?’

  ‘Half naked guys. Not porno. Muscle shit.’

  ‘Sheets, lots of sheets, sheets and towels,’ McClellan said, opening a door and examining the shelves. ‘The kid’s clean enough. His mother would be proud of him.’

  ‘No pictures, you notice that?’

  ‘No nothing. Oil, lots of oil, and candles and sheets, towels and some magazines.’ McClellan looked under the bed, lifted the mattress. ‘These guys are supposed to keep something.’

  ‘Not a trophy in sight. No locks of hair, no panties, no newspaper clippings.’

  ‘Like I said, this guy’s not bright enough to be as smart as he is.’

  Gratelli laughed. ‘OK, Yogi.’

  The restaurant was in the Tenderloin, on the corner of Limbo and Hell. There was a crowd, but it was really too early for dinner. The dinner crowd at Original Joe’s didn’t get there until eight.

  McClellan, slipping across the leather seat of a booth, recognized a few judges. There were some District Attorneys and lawyer types and some cop types as well, but there were no friendly waves of recognition. No one thought a whole lot of Mickey McClellan.

  Even so, the crowd was more to his liking. He wasn’t uncomfortable. Here, no one sampled the latest release from Napa. No one was asking for some strange beer from a microbrewery in Oregon. This was the hard stuff the guys were sipping on. Vodka. Scotch. Gin. Later, it’d be rack of lamb or stew like your momma made.

  ‘Hey!’ the waiter said. ‘Don’t tell me it’s Friday.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ McClellan said. ‘Gratelli’s feeling sentimental.’

  ‘Jack Daniels?’ the waiter asked McClellan.

  ‘Right. Double.’

  ‘How about a martini?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘You want that huh? A martini?’ the waiter grinned.

  ‘A sudden wave of nostalgia along with the sentiment,’ Gratelli said. ‘You still know how to make one.’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ the waiter said. ‘It’s all the rage. Everybody wants a Martini now. A Martini and a cigar. Regular Dean Martins. So you want a Martini? Absolooootly. Whatever you guys say.’

  ‘That’s Gratelli, Mr Trendy,’ McClellan said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Whatever,’ the waiter said.

  ‘That’s what I like about this place, Vincent,’ McClellan said when the waiter was out of earshot.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The waiter is a heterosexual. Where do you see that? Everybody in here is a fucking heterosexual. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. All is right with the world.’

  ‘What do you care? You think you’re some movie star, guys are gonna fall all over you if they see you?’

  ‘Oh shit, I don’t. I don’t. I don’t care. OK. Just an observation. I don’t care about fucking anything.’

  ‘Where did you move?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘Found a little place around the Panhandle. Not too expensive.’ He was calming down again.

  ‘Good,’ Gratelli said. ‘I get a place to open up in my building, we’ll talk.’

  ‘Rent’s too high.’

  ‘I just said we’ll talk. That’s all. You got something against talking?’ McClellan shrugged. Gratelli continued. ‘So you got plans?’

  ‘Plans? Plans for what?’

  ‘You’re out of the house. Your life is changing. I was just wondering.’

  ‘Is that what this is? A little therapy for a deranged cop?’

  ‘You have to do something. You can’t just go home from work, drink the night away and come to work and that’s it?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan to me.’

  ‘It doesn’t to me,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘You’re not living my life the last time I looked.’ There was a moment of silence as the waiter brought back the drinks. When he was gone, McClellan leaned over the table. ‘So your life is so fucking exciting?’ McClellan asked, taking a gulp of the drink the waiter put in front of him.

  ‘I don’t say it has to be exciting,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘I don’t like opera.’

  ‘Doesn’t have to be opera. You could take up woodworking or a…’

  ‘Strangle some kid, go to prison, learn a trade. How’s that?’

  ‘Leave work at work.’

  ‘You know a fucking leopard goes off, kills one of those little gazelles. And you say that’s terrible. But you know that’s nature. And you bite the fucking bullet on that kind of shit. Gotta eat. But this isn’t nature anymore. It’s something else.’ McClellan’s face reddened as his voice rose. ‘I don’t know what it is. It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s survival of the sickest. What the hell did those little girls do to wind up naked and dead and rotting in the fucking sun? This isn’t nature’s balancing act. It’s fucking sick.’

  He realized that everyone was looking at him. He let out a deep sigh, shook his head, fiddled with the menu.


  ‘One of them is found by a dog, a fucking dog. Another is discovered by some little kid in a backyard, the corpse being swallowed up by nature. Doesn’t that get to you?’ McClellan asked in an intense whisper.

  ‘I don’t dwell on it.’

  ‘You can do that. Just go off to the opera. Leave work at work, right?’

  ‘It’s always been that way,’ Gratelli said.

  ‘You always been around? You’ve been observing the human condition since the day Christ was born?’

  The two were quiet for a while. Halfway through the stew, McClellan asked Gratelli what else he did when he wasn’t working.

  ‘I play my records,’ Gratelli said. ‘I read. On Saturday I catch a game or maybe a movie. Once a week I take the train to Colma.’

  ‘You visit the dead people? That’s all there is in Colma.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but I go to the cemetery, yes. On a sunny day, I sit in Washington Park. Sometimes there are weddings at St Peters and Paul. Or maybe I watch the people. The sad people, the happy people. The dogs. The point is there is life there. Life goes on. It’s good. Sunday I go to Church.’

  ‘Church? You believe in God, Gratelli?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how not to.’

  ‘You figure out the great mystery?’

  ‘I’m a little man, Mickey. I try to solve the little day to day mysteries.’

  ‘Well Vincent, I’m happy we had this talk so we could discover just how much we have in common.’

  ‘We’re both trying to stop this guy, aren’t we?’

  ‘Forget about work,’ McClellan said. ‘Isn’t that what you keep sayin’? Eat, drink and be merry, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’

  Earl’s lawyer had arranged things. Most things. Not the car. Earl had to wait until he got some money before he could wheel his Camaro out of hock. But the rent had been paid. Nearly anyway. He was only a month behind and he couldn’t be evicted on that. The money came out of his vacation pay at the store when he was terminated. The mail had been taken in by the landlord. Other than the stuff that went to ‘occupant,’ there wasn’t much of anything. But the lawyer didn’t want people to know the place was unoccupied.

  There wasn’t enough money to keep the phone and to pay for the electricity, but, according to the lawyer, Earl should be happy he salvaged the living quarters.

  The bodily injury charges had been dropped; and even though he was glad to be in his dark little one-room cave, he was on edge, a scary, dangerous edge.

  The dead phone reminded Earl how long it had been since he had talked with his grandmother. She would be worried. He might have to call her collect. He didn’t want to do that. It would make her worry more. But she had probably tried to call. She’d be worried anyway. Hell, he was worried.

  That last conversation with the two cops in that little room was too close. He was pretty sure they were just checking it out. If they had something, really had something, they’d have said more. His past arrest record was no big thing. The Camaro I.D. was the worst part of it.

  But if they had a license plate, or even a color, they wouldn’t have let him off so easy. And the homo thing, that was just to get him all screwed up, make him crazy, so he’d give something away. He didn’t give away anything, he was sure. He ran the conversation back over his brain as best he could. No. No slips.

  He looked around the room. He couldn’t tell if anyone had been there messin’ around other than his lawyer. Maybe the lawyer had been a little nosy. Probably. The cops maybe. But there was nothing to see. He didn’t keep anything. Just the photos. For a moment, he was seized with panic.

  Nothing about the killing, he thought, then relaxed. Embarrassing yeah, but not anything they could use against him. Earl went to the refrigerator, pulled out the meat tray, undid the tape holding the envelope underneath.

  Didn’t look tampered with. He’d check anyway. All three Polaroids were there. He’d taken fifty or so, but saved only the three. He cut the others into little pieces and threw them in the neighbor’s trash.

  If the cops took a peek at these, they would think he was all fucked up, taking naked pictures of himself. Fuck, he thought, they think he’s all fucked up anyway. They were right, weren’t they? But taking pictures of yourself all shaved and naked wasn’t illegal. Just weird.

  The photos looked good. Sharp definition to the muscles. He’d have to work like hell to get that back. Even a few months without the right equipment and off the ’roids and you’re screwed. He went to the bathroom, lit the candles, catching glimpses of himself in the full-length mirror on one wall. He undressed. Somehow, it didn’t excite him. Maybe he should go ahead and shave his body. Maybe that would help. He was tired. That seemed like a lot of effort. Later.

  Maybe he should dump the photos. He put the photos, one on top of the other, and grabbed the scissors. He would cut them up in little pieces and scatter the cuttings in trash cans around the city so no one could put them back together again.

  Even that required more effort or interest than he could muster. Later, he thought. He put them back where he found them, using new tape.

  In bed he felt empty. He ought to be glad he didn’t have the desire. He didn’t feel driven. Not to do that, anyway. He was edgy though. Unsettled. Not his body. There was nothing left to drive it. But his mind. He couldn’t make sense of what was going on there. Edgy, angry, impatient. But he had no idea how to calm it. The way he felt, though, he almost wished he had the desire. Somehow, not knowing what he wanted, he was starting to feel worse. Now there was no reason to move, to open his eyes.

  It was like something filled his chest, a pressure kind of; a kind of pressure that started to feel like it was going to explode, like it was all out of his control. But what? What could he do about it. It was anger, he was pretty sure. But at what? At who? He knew life was unfair. That couldn’t be it. It wasn’t just unfair to him. It was just the way of things.

  He was free from the family. No one was calling him names any more. He was out of jail. What was it? What was this thing that was so ready to explode?

  It was rare when Gratelli couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was McClellan, and those thoughts were disturbing. If one were sensitive, any conversation with his partner could be disturbing; but what made Gratelli uneasy was that his partner had been getting quieter. He wasn’t bothering so much with keeping up the tough guy act. He seemed to be taking the deaths of the girls personally. Anger had turned to futility. The ‘end of the line’ remark wasn’t vintage McClellan.

  McClellan had grown increasingly quiet during dinner, refused to respond to guaranteed hot buttons and was nearly morose by the time dinner was over.

  A lot of things were coming down on the guy. All at once. The marriage, the embarrassment of having the investigation taken away – most of it anyway, and the case itself. Nothing to do really. Julia’s survival was supposed to have moved the whole thing along. But she wasn’t much help. Now things were at a standstill. Gratelli knew that the only hope for finding the killer, besides an unexpected confession, would have to come from another victim. A new victim. Would there be one? Was he wishing for one?

  The Panhandle was a drive across town from North Beach, but not a long one. Even in the rain – the heavy drizzle – at this time of night Gratelli could be there in ten minutes. There was a space out front – the same space that had been there when he dropped McClellan off at his new digs.

  There were four apartments in the building. Three had names, none of which were McClellan’s. One was unmarked. That was apartment A, just as you came in. Gratelli knocked. No sound. No answer. There weren’t many places near there where a guy could go for a drink. Maybe down into the Haight, but the bars down there weren’t likely McClellan hangouts.

  He knocked again. He put his ear to the door.

  Gratelli wondered if he’d done the right thing. Maybe Mickey had called one of the various ‘escort’ or ‘massage’
services. Maybe the pot-bellied Irishman had tanked up on a bottle of Jack Daniels and was out. Then again, the reason Gratelli drove all the way across town was to find out. And Gratelli wasn’t acting on curiosity. He had a bad feeling. McClellan’s normally abnormal behavior was more abnormal than usual.

  ‘Mickey! You in there?’

  No answer.

  The lock wouldn’t be much of a challenge. One more time. McClellan may be inside, half drunk, and think that the guy busting in was some stranger. Like any cop, McClellan had to be considered armed. And if he was drunk – a likely condition given the hour – also dangerous. Gratelli was content enough with life. He didn’t want to die just yet.

  ‘This is Vincent, Mickey. I’m coming in.’

  This time, Gratelli heard a sound.

  ‘Shit.’

  He heard a thud on the floor, the scraping of furniture and then the knob turned. But the door didn’t open. ‘Shit.’ There were some clicks and the door opened to reveal a half-steady, bleary-eyed McClellan. He still had on his suit jacket, but was without pants and shoes. His dress shirt was open. The tails hung down over the boxer shorts.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ McClellan asked.

  ‘Welcome wagon,’ Gratelli said. ‘I’ve been asked to officially welcome you to the neighborhood.’ Gratelli looked over the slouching McClellan to see the Irish cop’s gun on the table beside the bed. ‘You got company?’

  ‘You. Don’t I see too fucking much of you during the day, you gotta haunt my nights as well.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ Gratelli stammered. He’d forgotten what excuse he’d thought up on the way over, the one he’d use when called upon to explain his presence.

  ‘Yeah, well what?’

  ‘I wanted to talk about that kid, what’s his name? Falwell?’

  ‘Earl,’ McClellan said.

  ‘Yeah, Earl Falwell. You gotta minute?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ McClellan said. ‘You never wanted to talk about a case…’

  ‘I’m spooked. I’m afraid we didn’t search his place all that well.’