by Eoin Colfer
A horse’s head sleeping with the fishes.
That’s double points in Mafia Monopoly.
I rest my hands on my knees and hawk as much of the river as I can from my lungs. I don’t see how any could have gotten in there, but a pint or so comes out all the same. My limbs seemed poisoned and weak, and my tongue feels chemically dry and scaled.
An old homeless guy is sitting on top of his shopping-cart kingdom smoking an impossibly thin cigarette. He seems pretty jaunty, probably because for once he can compare his situation to someone else’s and not feel too shit on by life.
“Morning, son,” he says. He’s got a voice that sounds like a bear went to elocution classes in Texas.
“Morning,” I return, after all, none of this crap is his fault.
He nods toward the river. “New York cabbies, huh.”
That gets a smile outta me, which I wouldn’t have thought possible, so I give him twenty sopping bucks.
As I stumble up the embankment toward the brightening day, I glance behind me, toward the spot that has become Freckles’s tomb, and I swear I see the glow of a taxi sign shining piss yellow from the depths.
I catch up with Shea pretty quickly, though in actual fact he was disorientated and stumbling toward me. We meet on the shoulder of the highway, two individuals who are not in full control of their emotions, so maybe a reasonable conversation was never in the cards. He looks a fright, doused in his own blood from the bullet wound and a hundred grazes he must have incurred when he face-planted on the asphalt. Stupid dick doesn’t even know how to tuck and roll. In fairness, I probably don’t look much better: dildo whipped and dipped in sludge.
When Shea catches sight of me, he squeaks like that square cartoon guy with the pants, and makes a run for the road. I am too goddamn weary to go after him so I let the kid run. Sadly for him, he slips on the shoulder and rolls practically to my feet.
I feel encouraged by this little favor from lady luck and feel my energy levels rising. I lean down, grab his lapels and hoist him to his tippy-toes. I have no idea what’s gonna come out of my mouth but I start talking anyway.
“You see that pier down there?” I say.
And Shea looks, there are several piers. “Which pier?” he asks, terrified that he doesn’t get to ask questions.
“Which fucking pier. The melted one. The collapsed one.”
“Yeah. I see it. All twisted and shit.”
“Yeah, twisted and shit. That’s the one, Shea-ster. You know what made that pier collapse?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Do you fucking know what made that pier collapse?”
Shea is crying now, he breaks down easily.
“No. I’m sorry, I don’t know. I swear.”
I wait a beat, then: “Pier pressure.”
He looks at me dumbly as he has every right to.
“I . . . I don’t get it.”
“Pier pressure,” I repeat then. “Ha ha ha haaaa.”
I don’t know if I am actually laughing maniacally or just saying ha ha ha haaaa. Either way it scares the bejaysus out of Shea, which is all he had left in him to scare as I already scared the crap out of him back in the taxi.
I hoist the kid a little higher. “Shit, sorry, that joke was for a friend of mine; what I meant to say was: if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you. If anyone takes a shot at me, I’m gonna blame you and come looking. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good, ’cause Freckles was my favorite. You can’t even eat with your mouth closed.”
“I’ll fix that,” promises Shea, and I know he won’t cause me any more trouble for a few months at least. It’s in his eyes. I toss him down the embankment, where a cement bollard breaks his fall and he curls himself around it like it’s his wet nurse and I can hear him sobbing as I walk away. He should get that wound seen to or it might get infected.
I don’t care. I’m gonna have to get this jacket dry-cleaned and it’s his fault.
CHAPTER 8
LIEUTENANT RONELLE DEACON IS THE ONLY COP I KNOW who could play herself in a movie, especially if the movie was one of those 1970s blaxploitation flicks. She wears her Afro pulled back tight for the first section, then it blooms out behind her in an explosion of ringlets. Takes some confidence to wear a hairstyle like that, but Ronnie has more than confidence, she has anger hanging over her like a heat shimmer. Anytime Ronelle walks into a room, every guy in there feels like he just got his boner rapped with a spoon. They don’t know if they’re horny or terrified. She’s a one-woman flimflam. A walking conundrum.
Ronnie and me got tossed together last year by one of her cases, which was also one of my problems, and I saved her life a couple of times and she saved my bacon. It all turned out pretty good: she got to be loot and I got to keep breathing free air. Oh, and she tumbled me into the hay one night for a tension screw as she called it. Sometimes that can be awkward between friends, but it ain’t awkward between us because Ronnie doesn’t really do friends the way normal people do, just people that aren’t suspects at the moment.
Lieutenant Deacon keeps me waiting in the diner but that’s okay because I burn out a washroom drier getting the river outta my shirt. I am not even gonna attempt the pants. It’s gonna take more than a wall-mounted Dyson to blast the Hudson from a pair of black jeans. So I’m in a booth working on some eggs and bacon, with a puddle of slime congealing around my nethers, when Ronnie finally breezes in the door like she’s fashionably late for an award gig and slides into the booth opposite me.
“McEvoy,” she says working a toothpick between her strong, white teeth.
“It looks like you’re trying to be a cop,” I say. “The toothpick is too much.”
Ronelle spits the pick onto the tabletop. “Yeah? A pity I couldn’t say the same about your toothpick.”
“Straight to that level, huh? No five-minute truce or nothing?”
Ronelle leans back, shucking the lapels of her long leather coat aside, giving me a good look at the gun and the badge.
“I only got one level, McEvoy. The Deacon level. That’s where shit gets done.”
“You have your movie and tagline right there: The Deacon Level. Where Shit Gets Done.”
“Is that why I’m here, Dan? So you can take a pop?”
These conversations are always tense because Ronnie lives on a hair trigger. She puts out more or less the same vibe whether she wants to kiss me or kill me. And that one night we did have a little tryst you can bet your favorite organ that I kept her pistola out of reach.
“No, I got a few good tips for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Remember that Arabian horse that was stolen?”
“Scimitar? Apparently that nag was worth twenty million bucks. Mares lining up to get inseminated.”
“Yeah, well you can call off those dogs. Old Scimitar is in a trash bag down by Pier Forty nine.”
Ronelle takes a note on her phone. “That is indeed a juicy tip. Outta my zone but I can trade it in for something. What else?”
“A mob button man. Twenty feet out, in a taxi. Bodies in the trunk, and I’m betting you get enough DNA from the inside of that trunk to close a dozen unsolveds.”
Ronelle goes girly for a second and giggles. “Ooh. I love it when you say button man. Makes a lady go all quivery inside.”
This conversation is getting a little flippant for my liking.
“I’m in deep trouble, Deacon,” I tell her. “The deepest.”
Ronnie places her iPhone on the table and makes a show of watching a video. “I see that Dan. Is that a thong you got going there?”
“So you saw the clip. I was severely provoked.”
Ronnie taps her screen. “Looks to me like you were doing a spot of provoking, yourself. That’s two brother officers you’re beating on there. Fortz has been decorated twice.”
“Decorated? Like a Christmas tree.”
Ronnie smiles, reminds me of a wolf I saw once. “Ch
ristmas tree. You crack me up, Dan,” she says, displaying none of the traditional signs associated with cracking up.
“I need help, Ronnie.”
“Yeah, with your wardrobe for a start.”
“This is serious, Ronelle. A woman’s life is in danger. It may already be too late.”
“Speaking of taglines, there’s yours. Daniel McEvoy is the Pink Thong. Pray he’s not too late.”
I pound the table. “Pink? That’s red. Any idiot can see it’s red. The sequins make it look a little pink in the light. That’s all.”
Ronnie is delighted. “Whoa there, Thongmaster. I’m here, aren’t I? Alone as requested, against orders and protocol, I might add. So whose life is in danger and how do you account for this video?”
I lay it out in brief strokes. The abduction, the porn studio, my Aunt Evelyn. It’s a good story, so Ronnie listens attentively. She may be a little out there but Ronnie is 100 percent police. She said to me once:
I’m a straight cop, Dan. If you cut me, guess what happens?
Don’t tell me, you bleed blue.
No. I bleed red, you moron, but I will read you your Mirandas before I beat the crap outta you for assaulting an officer.
When I’m finished talking, Ronnie lets it percolate for a minute, getting her questions straight.
“You ain’t bullshitting me?”
“Nope. Straight up.”
“’Cause if you’re bullshitting me. . .”
“I am not bullshitting you. Do I look like a bullshitter?”
“You smell like one.”
“It’s that fecking Hudson. I probably got hepatitis.”
Ronelle lines up the condiments.
“Okay. This woman Costello hires Fortz and Krieger to take you out of the picture?”
“Yeah. I reckon the torture porn was their own little wrinkle in the plan.”
Ronnie knocks over the salt and pepper. “Those guys have been making skin crawl ever since they left the City precinct under a cloud. They’re in the wind now, last seen hobbling away from the scene of an accident out by the Silvercup.”
I am disappointed by this as I had been wishing on a star that Krieger and Fortz had been found dead in their cruiser, having crapped themselves, with their dicks out, wearing mankinis.
Ronnie stands the ketchup and the hot sauce up on the napkin holder. “So your aunt is stuck in the penthouse with the evil stepmom?”
“Is my aunt the ketchup?”
Ronelle scowls. “No. Your aunt is the fucking sauce. What, are you retarded?”
“Sorry. Mayo, right. Yep, that’s about it. My aunt and Edit are up in the napkin holder’s penthouse.”
“You making fun of my diorama?”
“What? God no. It’s very effective.”
“Because this is legitimate policing technique-ing. And if it ain’t swish enough for Mr. Pink Thong, maybe you should find yourself another blue buddy.”
I know Ronelle is playing me but she’s holding all the condiments.
“No. I like the diorama. It crystallizes everything.”
Ronnie is placated by the effort I have put into my verb. “Crystallizes, huh? You really are desperate.”
“Come on, Ronnie, all I need for you to do is badge me into that penthouse. Then Ev can walk out of there of her own free will.”
Ronelle peels the paper from a sugar lump.
“Is that me?” I ask her. “The lump?”
“It’s not all about you, Dan,” she says, and pops the lump into her mouth. On most days, when Ronnie does some tiny unexpected thing like this, it reminds me how singular she is, how striking. This morning I just feel helpless and outplayed.
“The problem is that you’re wanted for questioning,” she says. “I should be escorting you downtown right now.”
I like how this statement is going. Plenty of scope for a but, so I prompt.
“But?”
“But I know how you are about protecting women, in your big-dog, alpha-bullshit, dick-swinging way.”
“So?”
“So if this aunt of yours were to turn up dead, you might cross out one of the Fs in our matching BFF tattoos.”
“Maybe a B too,” I say, playing along.
“So, we’re gonna drive down there ’cause I have probable cause from a reliable source. Kidnapping or some bullshit. Is that enough for you?”
“Plenty, Ronelle. You’re saving a life.”
Ronelle plants her elbows on the table, which in itself is enough to scare off the waitress who was coming over with refills.
“But if you’re setting me up, Dan, then I’m gonna look a little deeper into all the criminal shit that happened in your vicinity last year.”
I am prepared to take any deal at this point. “Okay, Ronnie. I’ll sign whatever confession you want.”
“And you promise me now: no throwing punches, none of your black-ops, wet-work bullshit.”
I am squirming to be off. “No bullshit of any kind.”
“You better believe it, Dan,” says Ronelle, tossing a twenty on the table, even though she didn’t have anything. “I just got the lieutenant’s desk and I want to hang on to it for a while.”
My phone burbles rather than tweets after its time in the river. I can’t help checking it.
Stop waiting for that white knight to come rescue you. You are your own white knight.
I cover the phone with my hand.
Ronelle squints suspiciously. “Got something interesting there, cowboy?”
“Nope,” I say, sliding out of the booth. “Not interesting and not helpful.”
Ronnie slides out her side and suddenly we’re standing very close to each other and I don’t know whether I’m supposed to back away or not. Ronnie steps even closer and puts the flat of her hand on my back. Her eyes are two chocolate drops and her lips when she smiles could belong to a nice person. She’s smiling now.
“Ronnie,” I say, but that’s as far as I get because I don’t know what to say next and also her hand is sliding lower under the band of my jeans.
This is all very public and I don’t really have the time, but I can’t help thinking back to the night we had together, which was pretty wild.
Something must show on my face, because Ronnie laughs.
“Don’t flatter yourself, McEvoy, I’m just checking something.”
She slips two fingers under the thong strap and snaps it good.
“Still wearing it, huh?”
I nod, hoping that none of the diner’s half dozen early birds are watching this little show.
“It’s been a busy day and I don’t carry spares.”
“That could be a problem,” says Ronnie, wiping the river mud from her hand with a napkin. “You’re never gonna get into the Broadway Park looking like a decrepit old bum.”
There was absolutely no need for old in that sentence.
We swing by a twenty-four-hour Kmart on Broadway to pick up some clothes for me that don’t smell of river sewage. With a little persuasion from Ronelle’s badge, the manager relinquishes the employees’ bathroom key and I spend a few minutes scooping crud out of my cavities and staring at myself in a mirror that seems to have some kind of fungus growing between the glass and aluminium. I look pretty shook up, like the zombie version of myself, and this impression is reinforced by the sound of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” playing over the store speakers, or maybe that’s what put the idea in my head in the first place. I stand still to listen to the Vincent Price section, which I have always liked, and realize that there is no song playing over the speakers—in fact there are no speakers.
I need to pull myself together pronto.
I stuff most of my wet clothes in the trash apart from the boots and jacket, which I bag.
Outside the restroom there’s an old Asian guy holding a cup so I toss in a five figuring I’ll take whatever karma can be bought and the guy says:
“Screw you, cue ball. I’m waiting to use the facilities.”
> Shite. I can’t put a foot right these days.
“Sorry, man. I assumed you were looking for a buck.”
“’Cause I’m Korean, right?”
I am too weary for this and I’m afraid to stand up for myself in case I spark off another conflict.
“I apologize, okay? Whatever. Just give me back the five or keep it, whatever. No bad blood. Annyeonghi gyeseyo.”
The old dude is patriotically unimpressed by my mangling of his birdsong language.
“Stop talking, cue ball. Your words hurt my brain.”
For some reason, getting into it with this ancient Korean brings on something of a mini-breakdown. I think it’s partly the randomness of it—this guy doesn’t have a beef with me—and partly the cue-ball thing. Sure I have a forehead the size of JFK’s proposed new runway, but thanks to Zeb’s surgical skills my bald patch is gone, so I thought my hair wouldn’t be such a target. Yet this restroom-waiting, empty-cup-holding, angry old motherfucker has nailed me twice already. Would it pain Jesus so much to send a few more decent people my way every once in a while? I know they’re out there. Jason is one. Evelyn is another, underneath the layer of pickling.
Yeah. And Edit was one too. Remember?
I want to bawl like a drunken aunt. I wanna grind my teeth to stumps and punch the wall, but I don’t and the effort of containing it starts me shaking all over. For a moment I think I might actually be having a heart attack, then the moment passes and I collapse onto a chair beside the Korean guy.
He drapes his spindly arm around my shoulder and says:
“My son.”
And I think: Wow. Is this guy going to surprise me by playing into his stereotype and delivering a nugget of wisdom?
“I never see a man shake after taking a dump before.” He pats me on the back. “That must have been a hell of a dump. Hollowed you right out. I think maybe I’ll wait here a few minutes, let the extractor fan do its work.”
Clever but not very wise. I pluck my five dollars from his cup and go back outside, into my life.
Predawn lasts a little longer in Manhattan because of the urban topography and what light does manage to find a through line is faded and whittled until it arrives gray and limpid on the sidewalks.