by Josh Cook
“Get the fuck out.”
“It couldn’t be more obvious,” Lola said, turning to address the next clause to the door frame, hand on her hip, presenting an eviscerating profile. “Joyce practically tells you what it is. Often, in fact.”
“Mother.”
“No.”
“Sex.”
“No.”
“Metempyschosis … inelectable … word … home … God … drink.”
Lola shook her head at each guess.
“No, what are we talking about, Rabelais?” Lola turned to consider the other side of the doorjamb, presenting the other eviscerating profile. “We could have a great discussion about this … if you would get the fuck out of bed.”
Trike glared as much as one could with one eye through an upturned blanket corner.
“A contest of wills, is it? Well, there are few clear-cut rules in this vague yet compelling world, Lola, and one of them is don’t get into a contest of wills with a high-functioning sociopath.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Lola sighed, and turned so she was halfway out the door. “Anyway, it’s free bacon day at the diner.”
Trike threw the blanket off so hard it draped over the desk on the opposite wall. He shouted while he scampered around the room looking for acceptable clothing.
“Goddammit, Lola, that deal ends at one-thirty. Why didn’t you fucking say something sooner? Fucking goddammit Jesus fucking Christ. You saw the sign jogging this morning, didn’t you? You fucking joggers.”
Trike stuffed himself into a pair of pants. He did not bother giving the nearest shirt to hand a thorough smell test.
“Morning people, spending their mornings figuring out ways to fuck the rest of us. Holy fucking Christ in a Harold Ramis movie. Fucking let’s go,” he shouted as he grabbed a stick of deodorant from his dresser and stormed past her into the hallway.
He threw his coat on and opened the door. He looked back at Lola. She was still standing in his bedroom door, wearing a crooked smile.
“Well?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just nice to see you so chipper and energetic after losing all that sleep.”
“I swear on Watson’s bum knee, Lola, you are the interior decorator of my own personal hell.”
THE OLD-TIMER HAS HIS SECOND SAY
It rained again. Empty streets. The cardboard on the northern window in 3E had come loose from the frame. The spider plant in the window pot in 5A, after a noble struggle, had died. There was a new oily stain on the floor just inside the front door. The “OUT OF ORDR” sign had fallen off the elevator. Never let someone point a gun at you without pointing one back. Paint had flaked off the railing. There was a dead rat on The Old-Timer’s landing.
Trike brought a few movies he’d picked up at the pawnshop. He knocked on the door.
“Fucking Christ, two visits in one case. Is Moriarty fucking your mom? You better have some whiskey in your pocket, making me think about the same case twice. I’m too old to think about the same case twice. Fucking kids these days. Think I’ve got nothing better to do than take what they give me and shit out my mouth for half an hour. Well, if you want in, pick the l—” Trike walked in.
“Next time I’m going to set something up for you. See how well you dance when you don’t know the tune. Whatchoo got there?”
“Some movies.”
“Anything good?”
Trike shrugged. “Couple of kung fu movies. One of them is a Lau Kar-leung so that might be good.”
Trike put the movies on the floor by the TV and walked toward the kitchen.
“Don’t bother with glasses,” The Old-Timer said. “If I’m too old to think about the same case twice, I’m sure as fuck too old to bother with glasses. You brought swiggin’ whiskey anyway. Kind that lets you know you’re sinning. Always bring swiggin’ whiskey when you’re a few months from reward money.”
Trike took a fifth of swiggin’ whiskey out of his trench-coat pocket, opened it, threw the cap on the floor, and handed the bottle to The Old-Timer. The Old-Timer took a swig and handed it back. Trike took a swig and leaned back in his chair. The Old-Timer motioned frantically with his hand. Trike passed the bottle back.
“Fuckin’ kid. You brought it here for me, might as well let me hold it. Jesus, no grasp of economics, this one.” The Old-Timer shook his head and bolted another portion of whiskey. “Okay, you’ve tossed your nickel. I’ll dance. And I’m a fucking fantastic dancer. What woulda happened if Fred Astaire had fucked Ginger Rogers like we all wanted him to and the thunked-out cunt sprog signed a deal with the devil to dance better than St. Paul at a stoning party. I’m so good I even know when to keep my shirt on, and you know what, I know you want a beware story, because you’re afraid some shit is happening to you right the fuck now. So here’s my soft-shoe routine. Beware the cases that don’t make sense after you’ve solved them. Some bastard rotting in jail because you put him there and he ain’t never getting out and you still wake up in the middle of the night because even the truth doesn’t make sense. The one time I hit a wife, I came to from a blackout with this case through my brain like a railroad spike.
“The wife of a wealthy banker was assassinated in her home. Not murdered, assassinated. No signs of forced entry. No struggle. Commando style. Knife in the liver. She was making fresh pasta. Never heard the attacker. Maid was in the next room sweeping. Didn’t hear a thing either. Husband was plenty rich, so there were all kinds of motives to track down. Stuff at the bank of course, but he also sat on the boards of a half-dozen other firms and companies. Had himself a fat investment portfolio. Friends in politics. In the law. Basic rich-prick stuff. Which accumulates enemies, known and unknown. When a murder’s done that well, there are two paths of investigation. Dig around the motives for people who have the money to buy a pro and wait for the next shoe. Someone gets a knife in the liver and goes down like she fainted, you expect a note that says, ‘You’re next.’ Note never came. Nothing ever came. Cops had the guy under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Phones tapped. Watched everybody with a curly’s worth of motive. Nothing. They call me in. I get the background. Looked like a mob hit to me, warning to the rest of the world. So the Feds got into it and started putting the squeeze on their mob connections. Which meant they squeezed the banker himself, which is just how the shit works. Found some tax shit, because, well, fucker was a rich asshole. Rich assholes always have tax shit. Once you get there you’re not looking for the guy holding the knife or cutting the check. Those guys are fucking shadows. You’re looking for anybody to stick in jail so the world can go on knowing somebody goes to jail when an innocent housewife gets a knife in the liver. Couldn’t even find a patsy. Figuring I didn’t have anything better to do and needed the money they paid me to dig around in his past and I didn’t have anything better to do and I needed the money. And I did it without a computer and without a brilliant fuck hot piece of assistant and without a fucking computer in my head. I discovered that back in Nam this rich fuck’s rich-fuck father paid some money and pulled some strings and got the guy’s draft number switched so, lo and behold, he didn’t go. But somebody did. And that somebody ended up pretty good with a commando knife. So thanks to me and my three sleepless weeks, which worked out to one percent of fuckall per hour, they got this guy. But this shit stuck with me. Why the wife? What the fuck did she ever do? And why not the guy’s father? That old bastard was still alive. Or why not all of them? Lash out at the whole fucking world where rich assholes start wars and poor kids die in them. Just the wife. And this guy would have known she was raised by a single mother and worked her ass off her whole fucking life and just happened to marry this rich fuck. The killer was a pro. It didn’t make sense. Yeah, I caught him, I got shit for it like I always do, but it sits with me. I know what happened, but I don’t know what the fuck happened.”
“That was Reggie Birchall, right?” Trike asked.
“If you know, you fucking know.”
Trike’s face went slack. His hand froze in the process of
receiving the bottle from The Old-Timer.
“Fuck’s gonna come out of you now?”
“His wife was murdered while he was in Nam,” came out of Trike. “House was broken into while she was there. Never found the killers. It’s in the cold-case files. I read through them every now and again.”
The Old-Timer snatched the bottle back. Chugged the remains and threw the bottle against the wall. It smashed. Its broken glass showered down on a pile of broken glass.
“Fuck,” he slurred and gagged. “Once they pegged him, there was no point in digging deeper and he kept his trap shut. They never would have told me anyway. You don’t explain shit to the sniffer dog. You are fucked, fucker. Yours will be a hellacious maelstrom of self-disintegration that will take two weeks from your conscious life and who the fuck knows what will be in your hand when you come out of it. You got enough cash for pizza and another whiskey?”
“Yeah. No toppings, though.”
“On your fucking way, then. Tell you about the cops I hated when you get back. Even listen to you bitch about that nostalgic asshole you fuck around with.”
THE ANNUAL MUNICIPAL FANCY-DRESS BALL
The front doors were the least-used doors at the John Wilson Murray Memorial Armory. They were fifteen feet high and four feet wide apiece and opened out from the middle. The almost-black green of ponderous architecture, they were preceded by fifteen deep weather-dulled granite steps. There was a decorative arch with an inscription of thanks to John Wilson Murray in the decorative keystone. There was a coat of arms above that. A discrepancy in the official records left the sigil unidentified.
The parking lot was in the back, so the back doors were the most used. If there were a big event, like a high school basketball game, or the monthly flea market, the side doors would be used too.
But, because it was The Annual Municipal Fancy-Dress Ball, they used the front doors. And rented tuxes for the two volunteer doormen to wear while they checked invitations. They said the doors added gravitas. Gravitas is a hard element to add on purpose. The junior high was next door and, somewhere, for some reason, a power-driven machine vibrated dully.
Trike and Lola showed up an hour late as planned. Trike wore a navy modern-cut two-button jacket with gray pinstripes, matching vest and slacks, a maroon shirt, and a gray tie. A watch-chain parabolaed beneath his vest pocket.
Lola wore a sparkling blue satin-and-tulle strapless evening dress. Before they’d gotten to the volunteer doormen, Trike concluded it was a Goodwill job done up real nice for the occasion.
Trike handed over their invitation like he’d spent his life going to invitation-only parties. The doorman inspected the card. He nodded to his partner and they opened the doors with all the almost-gravitas three minutes’ practice could produce.
The armory was packed everywhere but the dance floor. Crowds around the stand-up tables and in the gaps between them. The buffet line folded back on itself several times, blending into the general mass of people standing where they happened to be. Some of the more rebellious attendees climbed over ropes at the bases of stairs to find seated repose in the minimally restricted balconies. The only place you could feel lonely was the dance floor, but there was no one there to feel lonely.
Trike and Lola stood in the doorway. And stood there. Awkward. Anxious. Out of place.
“Why is it so crowded?” Lola asked, to say something.
“More people decided to attend.”
“I figured that, asshole. Why did more people decide to attend?”
Trike shrugged. “Ask them. I’ve got nothing better to do for a while.” His face was so still and reflective that it seemed stupid.
Two minutes of time and four hours of feeling later, Janice shrugged her way through the crowd. Lola would’ve hugged anybody she knew. The fact of Janice was a sweet bonus.
Janice wore a satin gown with chalcedony straps and a matching pendant. A tall man, thick enough around the chest and shoulders to daydream about lumberjacking and mean it, followed Janice. He wore a gray suit with a white shirt and a salmon tie.
“Lola, Trike, this is Dave. We work together,” Janice introduced.
Dave shook hands with Trike and Lola. They both decided he wasn’t as tough as he could have been. Unless he was one of those big guys with a bomb buried deep inside him.
“Wait—Trike?” Dave said. “Trike Augustine?”
“If you feel like believing my driver’s license.”
“Wow. I am just. So honored to meet you,” Dave fawned. “My dad teaches criminology at the university and he’s told me about your work. It’s really. Amazing.”
“I just keep my eyes open. Isn’t that right, Angel?” Trike said, nodding over at Lola.
Lola rolled her yellow-gray eyes.
“How have you been keeping in shape since the knee surgery, by the way?” Trike asked Dave.
“Mostly water calisthe—” Dave cut himself off and stared at Trike with an intenseness that suggested myopia. “How did you?”
“Your father teaches criminology at the university. Not a huge department, and only one of them teaches me. That makes you Dave Lacassagne, which makes you the All-State tight end whose senior season was cut short by a patellar subluxation which, as we all know, is easily reinjured, especially if you play pickup football on the weekend, which, unless you spend your afternoons punching the ground for fun, it’s obvious from the range of small cuts, nicks, and little scars on your hands that you’ve been doing just that. Since they’ve almost healed, I can see you haven’t played in a little while, and, if you’re anything like your mother, and I’m just going to go ahead and assume you are, you’ll only stop when they cart you off on a stretcher. Which would certainly mean surgery on that knee. And since you’re still in shape, the only thing I couldn’t conclude was how you were staying that way. Water calisthenics would’ve been my guess, but I didn’t feel like showing off.”
“Wow. That is just amazing.”
“That’s kid’s stuff. What’s amazing is that I also know you are not getting laid tonight.”
Dave laughed like Trike had told a joke. “You think … with Janice? Come on, we work. Together. That’s ridiculous.”
Trike shrugged. “Say what you want, but nobody buys cologne for the first time in a decade to just hang out with a friend from work. Even if he has to put on a suit to do it.”
“Trike!” Lola interceded. “Turn it off for a bit.”
Trike shrugged again. “Can’t.”
“No. No. Don’t worry about it,” Dave said. “Wow. It’s something you can’t really believe until you’ve seen it.” Dave shook his head again and his face was twisted with pain and chagrin. He cleared his throat and looked at Janice. “I’m sorry. I know when you asked me to come with you, it was because it was so last-minute and you kind of needed a date, and you just wanted somebody you could hang out with, but, you know,” Dave shrugged and held his hands out, his pinkened face slowly returning to its natural color, “I’m really attracted to you and I think you’re really cool, and you know, well, that’s kind of it, and you know, I totally understand.”
Trike let out a low whistle. “No. That is amazing. You meant every word of that. Even the commas. Let me know if you run for office, because I am voting for you. Whatever the race. Bastards in politics will eat you alive, though. Sad. Really. This world we live in.”
They all stood there for a minute. Nobody saying anything. Just standing there. Happened often around Trike.
But that awkward silence was preferable to the conversation threatened by The Mayor’s approach.
The Mayor wore a square-cut ruby, its sides paralleled by four baguette diamonds that gleamed against the deep green of his cravat. His black coat, cut tight to narrow shoulders, flared a little over slightly plump hips. His trousers fitted round his legs more snugly than was the current fashion. The uppers of his patent-leather shoes were hidden by fawn spats. He wore chamois gloves and a black derby under which the edges of the h
air left by his pattern baldness poked. A fragrance of chypre came with him. Altogether, he looked like someone who had dressed according to strict instructions.
Trike hoped for a moment that The Mayor could be avoided. To The Mayor, subtlety was a word that knocked him out of spelling bees, and the plan required subtlety. But the crowd was too dense for any quick movements and The Mayor was on them like a sniffer dog.
“Well, if it isn’t the great Trike Augustine and his LOVELY DATE Lola Lenore. How do you both do?”
“What is he doing?” Lola hissed in Trike’s ear.
“Ruining everything. He’ll practically tell Joyce there’s a plan,” Trike hissed back.
“You BOTH look DIVINE.” The Mayor hoisted the phrase over the crowd like he was handing a sweater to someone in a boat.
“Why does he know about the plan?”
“It was the only way to get Janice invited.”
The Mayor reached them.
“Wonderful to see you, Mr. Mayor,” Lola said before anybody else could speak. “We’ll have to catch up again soon. Trike and I figured we’d break the ice on the dance floor, so if you’ll excuse us, and do have a lovely evening. Nice spats. Fawn?”
Lola grabbed Trike’s hand and his hand in her hand spun his brain around like a man in a crowded lobby who just noticed that his wallet was missing. He didn’t recover in time to warn Lola about the DJ. Or his dancing. It’s not always easy to know what to do.
Trike shuddered and trembled to the abominable pop music as though knitting needles were poking parts of his brain. He made angry gestures with mouth, eyebrows, hands, and shoulders. A demon was being exorcised sideways. As much as it helped, which wasn’t much, Lola restrained her natural grace.
The DJ faded the song out, and if you guessed it was a mercy killing, you guessed before all the facts were in. The inquisitor was just putting on clean gloves. Inquisitors love clean gloves. The pause was long enough for people to think the first syllable of “awkward.” The audience groaned when it recognized the song. “Wonderful Tonight.” Lola couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling. The upper part of her face frowned, while the lower part smiled. Clumps of the crowd snickered. Max thought about popping the DJ between the eyes just to make it all stop. And Trike, well, Trike had a soft spot for Clapton.