Fall Guy

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  “Did you?”

  He’d said his piece. He waited. The truth was, I did want to talk to him, but I didn’t want to say so.

  “And you’re hoping to get your things,” I said.

  “I am. The police said that you…” He stopped and smiled, showing me his perfect white teeth and the half-dimples his smile made in his cheeks, visible even beneath the artful one-day growth of stubble. I thought about Nick’s unshaven face and how different that looked, the real thing versus the fashion statement. “Look at me,” Parker said. And I did. Slowly, from head to toe. “I’ve been wearing the same things for days.”

  But of course that wasn’t true. His chambray work shirt, another affectation unless you count hustling as a blue-collar profession, was immaculate. His jeans were just this side of pressed. Even his shoes, scuffed boots, seemed chosen to complete the picture rather than what he’d been stuck with. His hair was picking up the light from the lamppost. He could have done an Herbal Essence ad with hair that thick and shiny. Whatever it was he needed so badly from Tim’s apartment, it wasn’t a change of clothes.

  “You shouldn’t have come here. You should have called,” I said.

  Parker smiled and nodded. “I did. You were never home.”

  “You should have left your number.”

  He looked away and sighed. Then he took a step closer. I felt Dashiell, close to my left leg, inch forward and angle himself so that his head was between Parker and me. Had Parker wanted to come any closer, he would have had to push Dashiell out of his way.

  “Look, I didn’t know what else to do. I thought if I came here, I might be able to make you understand. I mean, I was living there, it was my home, and when the cops came and said I had to get out, they didn’t let me take anything. Not one thing. I was hoping…”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I’m very busy settling Detective O’Fallon’s affairs and you didn’t leave me a number, so I couldn’t call you back,” remembering the cell phone number in O’Fallon’s book as I said it. “I just got into the apartment myself and I need to gather things for O’Fallon’s attorney. You’ll have to wait another day or two.”

  “That’s Tim’s, isn’t it?” Pointing to the briefcase.

  I looked down at the briefcase and back at Parker.

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I didn’t know you’d be taking anything out.”

  “You mean before you got your things?”

  He nodded, clearly upset, moving from one foot to the other. I wondered how long he’d been standing there and if I’d adopted Brody’s attitude before ever talking to Parker myself. He didn’t look scary now, just pitiful. Tim had taken him in, hadn’t he? Was he now my responsibility, too?

  “I can pack up your clothes, if that’s what you need. Yours is the closet to the left, isn’t it? The one with the shrine?”

  “Look, I…”

  I glanced across the street. “I can drop them off at the Sixth,” I said. “You can pick them up there, from Detective Brody.”

  He began to shake his head again. Not the clothes. Not the shrine. Then what?

  I looked across the street again, thinking about those newspaper articles, thinking about talking to Brody about them, old stone face, as if that were going to do me any good.

  But Parker might talk, especially if he thought there was something in it for him.

  “How about a trade?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you thought I’d want to talk to you. The truth is, I do. I need information. You tell me anything you can about O’Fallon, I’ll make sure you get into the apartment sooner. Deal?”

  “Sure, okay,” he said, those intense eyes watching me. “When?”

  “Right now.”

  “We’re going to Tim’s now? Great.”

  But the more he wanted in, the more I wanted to keep him out, at least until I’d had the chance to check everything out on my own. “Let’s take one step at a time,” I said. “I haven’t eaten all day. You don’t want to bargain with a hungry woman.”

  “We’re going in?” he asked, indicating the gate with a nod of his head. The man was shameless.

  “Not hardly. We’re going to grab a burger.”

  Parker shrugged. He’d waited this long, he could wait another forty-five minutes, an hour if I ate slowly.

  I was going to ask if he was hungry, too, but then I didn’t. He looked as if he’d been starving all his life. I just didn’t know for what.

  I wasn’t getting the picture Brody had tried to give me, nor the one Jin Mei had painted of Parker Bowling aka Dick Parker, Richard Lee Bowling and Parker Lee. I needed to sketch one of my own. Most of all, I needed to see what O’Fallon had seen in this man. I needed to understand why he had taken him in. Even if I had to cut what Parker told me in half, and then in half again, I’d still learn something about O’Fallon’s life and that’s what I wanted to do now, more than anything.

  I headed back to Hudson Street, Dashiell on one side, Parker on the other. We walked over to the White Horse, where we could sit outside. There’d be lots of people there and no one minded a dog being there as long as he was on the outside of the fence. I thought the rule ridiculous. I thought the way the French did it made more sense. But we were in New York, not Paris, and the rules about dogs in places that served food were getting tighter all the time. Some places cared. Others didn’t. But the White Horse was close and cheap and there was an empty table near the rail. It would do.

  We ordered burgers and Cokes. I had the feeling that Parker would have liked something a bit stronger than a Coke. I thought he was trying to impress me with his sterling behavior and that was okay with me.

  “So how did you meet Timothy O’Fallon?” I asked, not one for beating around the bush.

  “He arrested me. Petty larceny. I was flat broke and I ate in a restaurant and tried to leave without paying. The waiter tripped me, then the owner punched me and called the cops.”

  I began to laugh. “No shit? Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  “I thought so, too,” he said, flashing me a grin that seemed to light up the whole block. “Especially after I told him that I was temporarily unemployed and had recently lost my residence and he said I could bunk with him until I got back on my feet. He said he’d help me out. I couldn’t believe I was hearing that from a cop. It was too good to be true. And you know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

  “You mean living with O’Fallon wasn’t all you expected it to be?”

  Parker reached out, as if to cover my hand with his, but stopped and put his hand down in the middle of the table instead. “It’s not that he didn’t help me. He did. And I’m grateful to him for it.”

  So grateful that while he was lying dead in the bathroom, you were stealing his stuff, I thought.

  “But it was hard to live with him.”

  “How so?”

  “His depression. It was relentless.”

  The waitress came with our burgers and fries. She had a ring in one eyebrow, another in one nostril, a chain tattooed around her upper arm. Her hair was half yellow and half green. By the time she set down the plates, the fries were half on the plate and half on the table. I thought it might be a good idea to slide to the far side of the bench when she brought the drinks.

  Parker took a bite of the burger as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  “He was depressed all the time?” I asked.

  “Anyone drinks the way he did would be. Practically nonstop when he got home from work until he went to bed.”

  “Did you drink with him? Was that something you did together?”

  “I’d have one drink, you know, to be sociable, but not like Tim.”

  “Funny, I thought his letting you live there had to do with your addictions.”

  He took another bite of his burger.

  I waited.

  “I’ve had my problems. I’m not denying
that. And I did slip a couple of times. But that was on the table, if you know what I mean. My using was up for discussion. His wasn’t.”

  “Was it the job? Was that what was getting him down?”

  Parker shrugged and picked up a handful of fries, dipping them in the pool of ketchup he’d made on his plate. “He wasn’t going to talk to me about police work.”

  “Right.”

  “I just know it was bad. He was one unhappy dude. It didn’t surprise me, what he did. Well, it did. But not really.”

  “Tell me why you went through the window.”

  For the first time, Parker was caught off-guard, but he recovered almost immediately. Practice makes perfect.

  “Lost my keys.”

  “How, Parker?”

  “You’re starting to sound like him now and I gotta tell you, it’s not attractive.”

  “Right. Didn’t you lose your keys because O’Fallon finally got fed up with your behavior?” I asked. “Didn’t he take them back and ask you to leave?”

  “Look, I didn’t do anything wrong. If I did, I’d be in jail now, not sitting here and eating this burger.” His steady gaze bit into me, making sure I got the point. “He was hot under the collar, you know. I had a couple of close friends over and he didn’t like that. I thought, big deal, he wasn’t home, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.”

  I didn’t interrupt to tell him what a lying sack of shit he was. I was sure he’d been told before.

  “I figured, have a few friends in, then get the hell out before he came home. I guess we lost track of time, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded. I knew exactly what he meant. I’d seen the decimated liquor cabinet and the empties everywhere, the cans and bottles Brody had bagged and carried out.

  “He was pissed, irrational. It was just a few guys having a beer, shooting the shit. Cops.” He shook his head, took a few fries, passed them through the ketchup, opened his mouth wide and dropped them in.

  There was something sexual about the way he did that, his eyes on me and not on the food, everything in slow motion. I thought it was a survival response, trying to seduce anything that moved to get whatever it was he needed at the time—a smoke, some money, a place to live, his possessions. But it wasn’t working on me and I didn’t think it had worked on Tim. I didn’t know Tim’s motive for taking Parker into his home, but whatever it was, I didn’t believe he’d been fooled into it.

  “He was really pissed, huh?”

  “You better believe it. He just blew up and shoved us out the door. No one could get a word in edgewise.”

  “Same as the cops the next day, not even letting you get your stuff?”

  He nodded.

  “Only Tim took the keys before he kicked you out.”

  “No, he didn’t. He was too angry to think about something like that. I really lost them. I mean, maybe I left them in the apartment. I don’t remember what the hell I did with them after I unlocked the door. You never have trouble finding yours?”

  “So what fucking choice did you have, right? You needed your stuff, you had to break the window to get in?”

  “I called him, you know. I figured he had the night to calm down, get over himself. I figured at least he’d let me get my stuff. Worst-case scenario, I figured he’d pitch it out the door.”

  “But there was no answer.”

  He nodded, his expression never changing. He was playing the sincerity gambit, portraying himself as the aggrieved person, doing so without a trace of irony. And as far as I could tell, sitting across from him, there was no sign he didn’t believe every single word he was saying.

  “I figured, even better, you know what I mean? He didn’t want me there, fine, to hell with him. He must have gone back to his sister’s house, caught an early shift, whatever; I could get in there, grab my stuff and get out, not even have to see him.”

  “But it didn’t work out that way. First, you get there and you stick your hand in your pocket, and there aren’t any keys.”

  He sat back, smiling. “I rang a few bells. Someone always rings you in.”

  “And the door to the garden was unlocked.”

  “Usually is.”

  “Then you pried the window with Jin Mei’s palette knife.”

  “Lock was a piece of shit,” he said, “just for show.”

  “And then what?”

  “I went in to get my stuff. What do you think?”

  “I think you had a terrific shock when you went for your toothbrush. That’s what I think.”

  Parker drummed his long fingers on the table. “I’ve seen dead people before,” he said. He picked up his glass and took a long drink. “He need anything?” He was looking at Dashiell. He picked up a fry, danced it up and down in the ketchup and dangled it over Dash’s head. A glob of ketchup landed on Dashiell’s white fur. Parker shrugged and dropped the fry back on his plate. “So when can I get my stuff, Rachel?”

  I took my napkin, dipped it in the water glass, told Dashiell to put his paws up on the fence and wiped his head.

  “Where were you Saturday night? Where did you stay?”

  He shrugged. “With a friend.”

  “Does the friend have a name?”

  He shook his head. No name. Not one he was about to tell me. Or not one he’d thought up yet.

  “What about now? Where are you living these days?”

  “My aunt’s apartment. Why, you got a better idea?”

  “Lucky you,” I said, “you always end up with a place to stay, one way or another.”

  “Yeah, it worked out okay. But I need my stuff.”

  “Give me the number there. I’ll call you, okay?” He wrote the number on a napkin and passed it across the table to me. I opened O’Fallon’s briefcase and dropped it in.

  “I won’t take but five minutes,” he said.

  “Okay. Friday afternoon, between one and two.”

  “Not tomorrow?”

  “You don’t want to be there tomorrow,” I told him, not wanting to tell him the truth, that I wouldn’t be there tomorrow.

  “Why not?”

  I waited for him to draw his own conclusion.

  “The cops? Shit.”

  I picked up my burger, broke off a piece for Dashiell, took a bite of what was left.

  “I thought they were done with it. I thought that they’d released it. I thought that’s why…”

  Even the cops were allowed to lie to people in order to get the information they were after. What’s good enough for New York’s finest was surely good enough for me. “Like I’m going to tell them,” I said, as sincerely as I could, “sorry, boys, it’s not convenient. You can’t come back, check around again, see if you missed anything.”

  I could see him thinking, trying to work out a way around this new information. The check came. He took out his pack of cigarettes, tapped the bottom, offered me a smoke. I took out some money, but Parker held up his hand. He reached into his pocket and took out some bills and counted them, scowling. “I’m a little short,” he said, putting the money back in his pocket. “I’ll grab it next time.”

  I paid the check and walked around to the outside of the fence to untie Dashiell’s leash.

  I turned to leave, then turned back.

  “Did you go into the bathroom?” I asked. “Or did you just stand in the doorway?”

  Parker stared up at me, then looked around at the other people eating there—young women with halter tops and work boots, couples with baby strollers next to their tables, a couple of guys with tattoos having beers. He got up and came out the exit, as I had just done, coming over to where I stood with Dashiell.

  “Let’s get away from here,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else wants to hear this.”

  The air had cooled off a bit. The humidity was down and there was a breeze. Parker indicated the way he wanted to walk with a nod. We headed uptown, neither of us saying anything. In a moment, I saw where he was going. We walked into Abingdon Square Park, whe
re I had once met the most unusual clients I’d ever had. The park was empty except for a homeless man and his shopping cart at the far end. We sat on a bench and Parker finally lit his cigarette.

  “Start with opening the bathroom door,” I said.

  “The shower was running, the room all steamed up, the shower curtain closed. I think, shit, he’s here. He’s going to go ballistic when he finds out I broke the lock on the window to get in. I’m about to close the door, leave the fucking toothbrush and the razor, and I would have, except for the water coming over the lip of the tub. It’s on the floor, about a half inch high, not quite enough to get over the door saddle. And it’s red.” He took a puff on his cigarette, blowing the smoke off to the side.

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I grabbed the towels first and threw them down on the floor so that I could walk in. I still got the shit all over my shoes. I pulled the curtain back and saw him. He was sort of crumpled, on his back, underwater. The gun was near his right hand. The wall, you don’t want to know. Looked like fireworks, you know, starting in the middle and exploding out. Only it was blood and bone and brains.” Parker shook his head and inhaled deeply on the cigarette. “I shut off the shower. I was going to move his foot and the washcloth off the drain, but it was way too gross in there to stick my hand in. Then I remembered that there was a plunger under the kitchen sink, so I went out and got that.”

  I pictured the wet, bloody footprints going from the bathroom to the sink and back.

  “I used the plunger to move the foot and the washcloth so the hot soapy red water could drain. It took me a minute or so, all that water holding it down. Then I called 911.”

  “And you packed your things while you waited for them.”

  “Fat lot of good that did me.”

  I wondered why he hadn’t just grabbed his stuff and left. Perhaps he’d noticed Netty in the garden and knew he’d been seen. Perhaps he knew it would go worse for him if he fled. Perhaps he was really stunned by what he saw, going on automatic when he packed, that’s what he’d come for, after all, not thinking clearly. And who could blame him if that was the case?