“Sure, Sherlock. What is it?”
“That porn video.”
I could hear the wheels turning in Ratso’s head. I could feel his mind moving to a different track. I took the opportunity to strike a kitchen match on my jeans and resurrect a dead Cuban soldier.
“All right, Kinkstah! She seems like a nice person, Kinkstah! Maybe she’s naughty and nice, Kinkstah! Maybe she likes big, mean cowboys! Maybe you’ll throw on the porn tape and then ride her hard and put her up wet, Kinkstah!”
“Ah, Watson, your mind, my friend, is so facile and intuitive! Is there any aspect of any relationship that can evade your prying, prurient gaze?”
“I guess not, Sherlock,” said Ratso, with a sadly misguided measure of pride. “I’ll drop it by later this morning.”
“Good work, Watson! Of those to whom much has been given, much is expected.”
True to his word, Ratso dropped the porn video off later that morning. As the lesbian dance class had temporarily fallen silent, I encouraged him to speak in guarded tones. It was a challenge for him to whisper.
“Heather’s going to love this!” he said. “Give her a few shots from the ol’ bull’s horn as a leg-opener, then put the video on and you’ll probably ram the ol’ avenger home on the first date!”
“Ah, Watson, even in this jaded Victorian age, it’s comforting to know that chivalry is not dead.”
After Ratso had taken his leave, I made one more call. Without entirely tipping my hand, I revealed a few cards. They were enough to set up a rendezvous for later that night.
Thirty-Five
I was feeding the cat some tuna and feeding myself a leftover bagel when the phones rang. It was the middle of the afternoon and things were pretty quiet; the lesbian dance class, apparently, having gone into remission. I walked over to the desk with a lit cigar in my mouth, a cup of hot coffee in one hand, and a lukewarm bagel in the other, and tried to pick up the phone. It was one of the more difficult things I’ve attempted to do in my life and it was not entirely met with success. As I sat down in the chair, a dollop of very hot coffee splashed onto my crotch, the receiver dropped to the floor, and my cigar fell into my half-full cup of coffee. I cursed loudly enough for the cat to stop eating her tuna and to jump onto the desk and shamelessly rubberneck for some moments. I reached to pick up the blower from off the floor, breathing hard and still cursing under my breath. Then the chair fell over.
“Start talkin’,” I said gruffly, once I’d righted myself.
“If I knew you were going to be this excited to hear from me,” said Rambam, “I never would’ve left. What the hell’s going on? A terrorist attack in the West Village? The Tourette Syndrome Olympics? A do-it-yourself hemorrectomy?”
“All of the above. Welcome back.”
“Was that the lesbian dance class?”
“No. I think they’ve taken five.”
“Five what? It sounded like the circus got to town just about the time the sky was falling.”
“No, it’s nothing. I’m just a little jumpy I guess.”
“What’s there to be jumpy about? Just because a psycho’s croaked eight scumbags and the cops think you did it? Nothin’ to be jumpy about. Hell, if it was me, I’d jump on the next plane back to Angkor Wat.”
“Wat? Can’t hear you. I’ve got a lesbian dance class in my ear.”
To tell the truth, everything was pretty quiet now. No lesbian dance class. No terrorists. Just waiting for the anointed hour when I would drop the axe.
“What are you doing about the investigation?” asked Rambam pointedly. “Of course if the murder spree goes on much longer it might develop into a rather effective method of dealing with sex abuse. Not to mention population control.”
“Oh, the investigation. I think I’ve solved it. I’m meeting with my own person of interest at an undisclosed location tonight.”
“What undisclosed location?” shouted Rambam. “You mean you’ve got no backup? Other than Ratso, I mean.”
“Ratso wasn’t invited.”
“Well, at least you’ll have the cops.”
“No cops. My person of interest is too cagey for that. Besides, if the cops are along I’ll never get the goods.”
“Surely they’ve had you under surveillance for some time. And your place is probably bugged as we speak. How do you plan to avoid them?”
“I’ll use a trick an old friend of mine named Steve Rambam once told me about. It involves an X-rated video on loan from the Ratso Collection.”
“Fucking great. Suppose you’re one on one with your person of interest and he does turn out to be the killer? Then what do you do? Call 911?”
“Can’t say more. Little ears may be listening.”
“Okay. It’s your funeral.”
After I’d cradled the blower with Rambam, I typed up some notes for a while, fed the cat some more tuna, and then the two of us took a peaceful power nap together on the davenport by the front fire escape. By the time we leapt sideways it was eight o’clock and dark outside. I took an espresso over to the window and looked down at Vandam Street. There seemed to be a lot of activity tonight and the sleeping garbage trucks tended to obscure some of the view, so it was hard to pick out any signs of surveillance. The cops were probably there, all right. In a strange way I suppose you could say we were both looking out for each other.
The cat jumped up on the windowsill and looked out into the dark, cold night. She was watching the place we call New York. An old lady moving ever-so-slowly with her aluminum Jerry Jeff Walker. A wino that looked like Walt Whitman whizzing on a wall. A young woman trying vainly to hail a cab, her hand held high like the Statue of Liberty. Lots of traffic going by. Lots of pedestrians moving like chess pieces from one square to another.
“So many people,” I said to the cat. “So few comets.”
I put Ratso’s porn tape on the machine and turned up the volume. Just in case anybody was listening, they’d hear sounds of heated lovemaking, indicating I’d gotten lucky and would be in for the evening. At about eight-thirty I put on McGovern’s old overcoat, grabbed three cigars from Sherlock’s head, and walked to the door.
I left the cat in charge.
Transcript of Interview
With Steven Rambam
Case # 2004—743 (Friedman, Kinky)
(Homicide, multiple)
MC = Mort Cooperman
SR = Steve Rambam
MC: This is February 2, 200_. I’m Detective Sergeant Mort Cooperman of the New York Police Department. I’m continuing the interview with Steve Rambam, a white male, forty-two years old. Place of residence (refused). Place of employment (refused). Also present is Detective Sergeant Buddy Fox. Mr. Rambam is aware that this interview is being recorded.
MC: Okay, Rambam. So how’d you know what time the subject would be leaving his loft?
SR: I didn’t. I staked the place out just like your guys. When he exited through a back alley I tailed him, just like your guys didn’t.
MC: Why am I not surprised? Where’d the subject go?
SR: Walked two blocks to Hudson. Got into a cab.
MC: All right. And you followed the cab?
SR: No. I followed a large double-decker sight-seeing bus.
MC: Don’t get smart with me, Rambam. Where’d the cab take the subject?
SR: Kinky got out of the cab at the Brooklyn Bridge.
MC: The Brooklyn Bridge.
SR: You know. The big steel thing they built across the river?
MC: I’m warning you, Rambam. What happened next?
SR: He paid the cab and started heading up the pedestrian walk onto the bridge.
MC: What’d you do?
SR: It was pretty dark. So I pulled the car over and got out my night vision scope. There was no activity on the pedestrian walk so it was pretty easy for me to keep sight of him.
MC: What’d you do next?
SR: The further he went up the bridge, the more nervous I got. I thought for sure the cops would b
e monitoring him. I got out of the car and looked around. No cops. Nobody.
MC: Okay. Then what?
SR: I followed him on foot. I kept a good distance between us, stayed behind the girders as much as possible.
MC: You took the night vision scope with you?
SR: Yes. From behind the girders I could see him clearly.
MC: Did you see anyone else on the pedestrian walk?
SR: Yes. There was somebody waiting at the middle of the bridge.
MC: Did you recognize that person.
SR: Yes.
MC: Who was that person?
SR: Winnie Katz.
MC: What did you think when you saw her there?
SR: I thought she was a long way from her lesbian dance class.
MC: Were you surprised?
SR: At first, yes. Then I thought about it for a second and it all made sense.
MC: What made sense?
SR: She’s the one who supposedly found the dead guy’s wallet in Kinky’s loft. She could’ve just as easily placed it there herself. Also, the victims were all scumbags whose hobby was abusing women. It fit perfectly. I later learned that the eighth victim, the old geezer, was her child-molesting, dirtbag stepfather, who no doubt played a large hand in getting her started on the wrong track.
MC: Save the psychology. Okay. You’re on the bridge now. What’d you see?
SR: Kinky walked up to the middle of the bridge.
MC: And?
SR: They started talking.
MC: How close were you to them?
SR: Maybe halfway from the base of the bridge to where they were standing.
MC: You could see them but they couldn’t see you?
SR: Right. I was behind a girder with the night scope.
MC: What happened then?
SR: They talked. She seemed to be very distraught. Kinky appeared to be trying to talk her down from the bridge.
MC: Go on.
SR: It seemed to be working. She seemed to become more relaxed. Kinky was holding a hand out to her. She was slowly moving toward him.
MC: Go on.
SR: Then she suddenly broke and lunged for the side. Kinky tried to grab her. They struggled.
MC: What did you do?
SR: I ran toward them as fast as I could. As I ran, I saw them both go over the side.
MC: What did you do then?
SR: Well, I didn’t jump in after them. I called 911. Asked for the Harbor Patrol.
MC: Yes. We have transcripts of that 911 call. What’d you do then?
SR: What the hell do you think I did? I cursed the goddamn cops for letting the whole thing spin out of control like this. It was your fucking investigation, not Kinky’s. By this time, you should’ve been right on top of both of them. If the cops had been doing their job, this never would’ve happened. Where the hell were you? Why weren’t you monitoring them? What were you doing? Investigating the Dunkin’ Donuts Crime Family?
MC: Look, I know you’re upset. I don’t really blame you. Is there anything else? Any questions?
SR: Just one. I’ve always wondered about this. Which one of you two guys is Beavis?
Special to The New York Times
Two Die in Suicide Pact
by Jayson Blair
Larry “Kinky” Friedman, a rapper from Receda, California, and Winnie Katz, who ran a day-care center in Queens, died last night in a fall from the Triboro Bridge. Mr. Friedman, best known for his recent hit, “Ol’ Bill Lucas Had a Lotta Mucus,” had been currently working on his autobiography with this writer. His friends remember him as a quiet, well-mannered, impeccably attired, pipe-smoking opera buff. Though Mr. Friedman’s musical tastes included rap and opera, he was a man of many other pursuits, passions, and hobbies.
“He collected matchbooks from many restaurants,” said his close friend Dr. Stephen Rambam, of the Midtown Ophthalmology Clinic. “He never missed a Yankee game,” said Larry “Ratso” Sloman, a large, somewhat inebriated Irishman, “or was it the Mets?” “I’m sure he’s now wandering in the raw poetry of time,” said Mike McGovern, a priest at Our Lady of the Tire Iron.
Ms. Katz apparently met Mr. Friedman through an Internet chat room for Jewish singles. Their relationship, according to Chinga “Chonga” Chavin, a ventriloquist friend of Ms. Katz’s, was loving, but could be stormy at times. “That’s because she was a Mets fan,” said Chavin. “Or was it the Yankees?” The autobiography upon which Mr. Friedman and I had been diligently working will now be published posthumously. The book contains stories about Mr. Friedman and his close friends, Willie Nelson and George W. Bush. Mr. Friedman had titled his book My Willie, Your Bush.
Though divers have searched the river, the bodies of the two star-crossed lovers have not been found.
This brings to 12,984 the number of suicides this year in the city. Police Captain Buddy Cooperman believes it’s mostly due to overcrowding. “There are, of course,” he says, “other factors.” Ms. Katz has no next of kin. Mr. Friedman’s family could not be located in Receda, California. He leaves behind only a stray cat who apparently had wandered into his loft.
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