Boyfriend from Hell

by Avery Corman

  Seething, Bob went into the kitchen and Mitch also went in to help as people scurried about, ill at ease with the tension. Nancy took Ronnie aside in Ronnie’s bedroom.

  “We were supposed to have a fun evening. That was almost violent, what he did to Bob. Bob was foolish, he baited him. Still—”

  “I know. Could you bring Bob in? I want to apologize.”

  Nancy retrieved Bob, who was still furious.

  “I’m very sorry. He talks … professionally. He’s an authority and it looks like he doesn’t have that integrated into his personal life very well.”

  “I’ll say. Ronnie, only my affection for you, and possible criminal proceedings, prevented me from punching him out.”

  Mitch and Sally left, Nancy and Bob withdrew to Nancy’s room, and Ronnie came in to Richard in the living room.

  “That was astonishingly rude. Are you so undersocialized you have to obliterate somebody like that?”

  “I should’ve just kept quiet.”

  “Keeping quiet is how we got there. Not participating is condescension and people were feeling it.”

  “I’m like a racehorse. Put me on the track and I run. He got into me, the bell went off, and I ran. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble with these people.”

  “These people are my friends. Nancy and Bob love me. I’m willing to bet they don’t love you.”

  “I was making a point that seemed to have gotten lost in the personal drama. I believe there is a greater struggle than anything on the political scene.”

  “I got the point, Richard. With people in a room, you don’t have to lecture. There’s something called being conversational if you’re in a conversation.”

  “You’re absolutely right.”

  “I sure am, Professor.”

  She was inclined to cap the night, send him home. Richard’s superior, competitive attitude was a pin in the balloon of Bob’s party, and yet Richard would be gone the following day, she had not seen him in a while, she wouldn’t see him for another two weeks, and she left with him. She had to have his hands, his lips on her, she had to have him inside her.

  11

  IF HE REARRANGED HIS schedule to include seeing her when he was going to be between cities, if he exhibited concern for her, to not allow gaps of time to intrude so blatantly on their relationship that they reached a tip point, if he wanted, perhaps needed, to be with her and would be back in New York in a couple of weeks and this was a bonus, a chance to steal time together that he went out of his way to arrange, then this was probably not the time for a major confrontation, not after they went back to his apartment and she spent the night followed by breakfast in their place, in their little morning-after ritual. She could see an argument being made that having a place that was theirs for breakfast was romantic, even an ordinary coffee shop, the idea of it was romantic; except he was so impossible with Bob that she was still annoyed with him the next day and not inclined to let him go off to Stockholm with his smile and his blazer without extracting some solid information.

  “You’ll be back—”

  “In two weeks.”

  “And why exactly are you going?”

  “There’s a new Internet magazine called Behavior. Doing a piece on a man named Piers Larssen, a behavioral scientist. He’s been studying whether there might be a genetic predilection toward cult participation, examining people who gravitated to cults, their ancestors, and the ancestors’ behavior. Sounds a little dicey to me, but he has a lot of data, and wants me to meet with people—”

  “And after that, you’ll be traveling to where, for how long? Just curious. I would like to book my fall season, figure out how available I am.”

  “I would never presume, given the way I travel, to expect an exclusive relationship, Ronnie.”

  “You’d expect me to sleep around?”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, then it’s about you sleeping around? Should we talk about that, whether my sleeping with you in any way means you should only be sleeping with me. Or is that something I shouldn’t presume?”

  “You’re still angry about last night.”

  “I don’t see where last night is what we’re talking about.”

  “What I’m saying is I just wouldn’t presume anything for myself about your exclusivity to me—at least until now.”

  “And what does ‘at least until now’ mean?”

  “This is a little premature, but when I’m done with this piece, which should be a little after Labor Day, I’m pretty sure I’m doing a new book for Antoine. Not on the Munich cult. Something else entirely. It would need some travel, here and there around the States, but I’d be writing it in New York and I’d just be here much, much more of the time.”

  “Really? Richard Smith settles down, more or less.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what’s the subject of this book?”

  “Satanic ritual abuse. The conspiracy theories. The known facts. Is there a network? What does exist? There’s a slight, only a slight bit of an overlap with material you might cover, but this is the whole ball of wax on whether people are out there, or under there, allied in secret groups, looking to take over our children, sexually abusing them in cult rituals, spreading their word, looking to move in on our institutions, as some of these theories claim.”

  “A little sensational for you, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s say it’s a bit more box office than I usually go for, but if the conspiracy theorists are sizable in number, and I suspect they are, then it’s a major subject that’s been operating sub rosa. And if there’s nothing there, then I get to write about why the conspiracy theories got started in the first place, what need it fulfilled, what kind of people believed in them.”

  “Sounds like you have it either way; a conspiracy exists and this is it, or it doesn’t, and this is why people thought it did. I do like the writing in New York part.”

  “So do I. By the way, I’m sending Bob a bottle of excellent cognac with an apology.”

  “Okay.”

  “I may turn out to be an all-around good guy, after all,” and he smiled, handsomely; the best-looking man in any restaurant he walked into was the best-looking man in a neighborhood coffee shop at nine in the morning.

  The detectives continued to work the list of cult members, looking for any possibility that could possibly lead to a possibility. Mike Gabler, a former cult member who lived on West 139th Street, had been arrested on a charge of spousal abuse. His wife claimed he tried to choke her in the middle of an argument, a charge she later dropped. This was a flag to the detectives; Cummings was strangled, this member of the cult choked his wife; they weren’t getting any better connections to the crime.

  Carter and Greenberg buzzed on the intercom of a three-story walk-up and after an unintelligible exchange over broken wires, walked up to the top floor. A hulking man, late thirties, six feet tall, nearly three hundred pounds, in a filthy Belle’s Auto Repair work shirt and filthier jeans, with unruly blond hair, massive neck, tattoos up and down his arms, was standing at the door when they came to the landing.

  “You buzz me?”

  “Mr. Gabler?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Police department,” and Carter flashed his badge.

  “She dropped the charges. Don’t you people check?”

  “This isn’t about your wife,” Carter said.

  “Ex-wife. We’re getting a divorce.”

  “This is about Randall Cummings.”

  “I didn’t kill him, so get lost.”

  “We can talk here, pleasant,” Greenberg said, “or you can come down, and we’ll talk at the station house.”

  Gabler left the door open for them to enter. The dark rear studio apartment reeked with urine from an unclean bathroom and beer from opened cans scattered about. The bed was unmade. Surfaces in the room—a bridge table, chest of drawers, an end table—were covered with soiled underwear, socks, tossed shirts, items that w
ould be put away somewhere under normal living conditions. The television set was tuned to the Cartoon Network and in a move toward self-respect Gabler turned it off. He stood, back to the wall, not offering the detectives a place to sit, and the only chair in the room was being used for dirty laundry.

  “I gave the maid the day off,” he said.

  “You were a member of the Dark Angel Church?” Greenberg asked.

  “For a couple of minutes.”

  “Why did you join?”

  “I was looking to improve my station in life,” he said acidly.

  “Your wife, she didn’t join?”

  “No, just me.”

  “Got another reason why you joined?” Carter asked.

  “Sounded interesting, like I could get something out of it. Lost my job and figured what the hell.”

  “What was your job?”

  “Security in a club called Horizon in SoHo. Some guy wanted to get in, had to wait, called me a bozo. You don’t call me a bozo. Got a little rough, they sided with him.”

  “Your wife, did she call you a bozo?” Carter asked.

  “My wife is garbage. Ex-wife.”

  “You had an argument, so you choked her.”

  “Wouldn’t call it an argument exactly. I told her she might get off her ass and look for a job and she kicked me in the balls.”

  “So you choked her,” Greenberg said.

  “If I punched her, I would’ve killed her.”

  “A lot of logic there,” Greenberg offered.

  “But she dropped the charges. Why was that?” Carter asked.

  “Part of our predivorce agreement,” and he laughed for his own enjoyment.

  “What happened at the church, why did you quit?” Carter asked.

  “Was a sham. One night after a mass I say to Cummings, ‘I’d like to throw my wife out the window. Do I have Satan’s permission?’ I mean, I didn’t need Satan’s permission, but I thought I’d ask, see what he’d say, whether he was just conning us, which is what I was getting. And he says, ‘What’s the problem?’ And I say, ‘I got fired and she won’t get a job to help out. She watches TV all day’ And he says, ‘Maybe you should get some help,’ and he tries to give me a number of somebody at a goddamn health services place. Health services! I’m in a satanic cult and this guy is telling me to get help from some health services? ‘Take Satan into your heart. Do something evil.’ It was a joke.”

  “Sounds like you had a lot of anger for Cummings,” Greenberg said.

  “Sounds like you had a lot of anger for Cummings,” he repeated in singsong, mockingly. “I got a lot of anger for a lot of people. What else is new?”

  “May twentieth, Tuesday, in the afternoon. Where were you?” Carter asked.

  “You want to book me for the murder of Cummings? What’s your evidence? Monday, Thursday, any day, I play cards at Farrell’s Bar on 136th.”

  “That’s your alibi?” Carter said.

  “No, that’s my goddamn life. I drink some beer, I play some cards. My pal scores tickets for a ball game, maybe I go. You got nothing here, guys.”

  “Don’t book any trips to exotic places,” Greenberg said. “We’re going to want to talk to you some more.”

  He gave them an I-could-care-less look, and didn’t hold the door open for them to leave.

  The detectives went to Farrell’s, a long, narrow, musty bar, the only occupants an elderly man at one end, and a burly bartender in his forties with a toothpick in his mouth watching stock car racing on television. To the side were a couple of booths with torn red cushioning. Posters from beer promotions were peeling off the walls. Carter flashed his badge at the bartender, who nodded, expressionless.

  “What’s your name?” Carter said.

  “Jim Meehan.”

  “Jim, know Mike Gabler?”

  “He’s a friend of mine.”

  “And he comes in here?” Carter asked.

  “Every day now he’s not working. We play cards, watch a game, he has a few beers. What’s the problem?”

  “Every day?”

  “Yeah. Hey, Sal—how often Mike come in?”

  Sal was at a barstool; a gaunt man in his forties who did not look up, using the bar counter as a pillow.

  “All the time.”

  “We’re thinking specifically the afternoon of Tuesday, May twentieth,” Greenberg said to Meehan.

  “Hey, man, I don’t know if I can remember one day from the next. Tuesdays, though, that’s easier. Tuesdays, I open. I would’ve been here.”

  “What time did he come in, can you remember that?” Greenberg said.

  “He always comes in around noon. He would’ve come in around noon. Sal—”

  “What time Mike comes in?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Around noon.”

  “And you remember him here on Tuesday, May twentieth from two until …”

  “Five, when I got off. End of story.”

  The detectives went around again, getting the same answers to the same questions.

  Carter and Greenberg met with Rourke and reported on this round of interviews. Gabler was physically capable of performing the crime. He was known to Cummings so it might have enabled him to gain entrance to the church. Cummings could have let him in. And he resented Cummings. The elements were closer to fitting the profile of a crime than anything they had thus far. He was a big, angry man, probably angry at Cummings, and he was someone who had used his hands in violence. However, nothing directly linked him to the murder. Gabler had someone providing an alibi for the time the crime was committed and possibly Sal would be a second person vouching for Gabler being in the bar. They brought Gabler in for further questioning, a lawyer was provided; he never wavered from his basic story, he was in Farrell’s all that afternoon. This wasn’t anything they could begin legal proceedings on and when Rourke discussed it with the district attorney and with the police commissioner, they were in agreement. Gabler was the definition of unindictable circumstantiality.

  They added Gabler to Ronnie as people they were keeping an eye out for, although Ronnie was a special case; “Gomez’s Folly,” Santini called the random surveillance.

  Gabler’s anger over his exchange with Cummings fascinated Rourke, Cummings looking more and more to Rourke like having been the wrong person for the wrong work. The next day when Mr. Cummings phoned to ask, “Anything new on my son?” Rourke said, “We’re still working on it,” thinking the murder victim, despite his public presentation of himself as a man extolling the powers of evil, was oddly, and sadly, an innocent who played with fire.

  In writing the Cummings piece, Ronnie had been interested in getting a representative from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York on the record as to the presence of a satanic cult in the area. She played telephone tag with someone for a few days, her deadline was closing in on her, and she finished the piece without a quote from anyone. She suspected they preferred not to go near the subject and not give Cummings the dignity of a comment. She considered the Catholic Church the prime authority on Satan matters, they had been at it for so long, and she sent a letter with her bona fides to the archdiocese, looking to give herself some lead time on what she thought was essential for the book, the church position on possession and exorcism. She received a reply from Father John G. McElene, suggesting they talk in his office. She arranged the meeting with his secretary and brought her notebook and tape recorder to the archdiocese offices on First Avenue and Fifty-third Street.

  Father McElene was a fit sixty-four, white hair, six feet one, and as the framed photographs on the walls indicated, a former army chaplain. Other images showed him with church luminaries, Pope John Paul II, Cardinal O’Connor, Cardinal Egan, photographs with civilians and with children in several settings, and there were several framed awards for public service.

  “An impressive life,” Ronnie said.

  “A life in service of the Lord. Impressive isn’t in my reference, Ms. Delaney.”

 
; “My apology. So you understand, I’m trying to give an overview of satanic possession in this book and somewhere along the line I’m obliged to deal with where the Catholic Church stands on the subject and on exorcism.”