Blackout, page 23
He moved along the corridor, thinking of Darcy and the great prairie spaces in their relationship. Quit the job, spend time with her, take early retirement, your pension – but it wasn’t enough to live on, let alone replace the college fund.
He slipped the key in the lock, turned it.
He’d never done anything like this in his life.
Sweat from his fingers adhered to the key. He entered the room, shut the door behind him, pulled the drawstring for the light. He was tense beyond reckoning. He stared around the windowless room, the shelves half in shadow, the piles of stuff stacked there. The air smelled of trapped heat and cardboard.
He’d do it quickly, he wouldn’t even think about what he was doing, he’d be out of here in a few seconds, a minute at most. He walked to the shelves, moving past cartons and boxes filled with items wrapped in Ziploc bags – guns, money, clothing. You didn’t know what you were going to find here: a bloodstained clawhammer, tufts of human hair, broken spectacles, false teeth.
The evidence room was a museum of horror.
There would be a box somewhere with the name SUAREZ, C, freshly inked on the side with a fat black marker.
The boxes were supposed to be alphabetized, but sometimes people didn’t put things back where they belonged. He was searching for a carton marked WEEKS, BILLY LEE. Billy Lee Weeks, a known dope dealer, had been shot through the head in his suburban home six weeks ago by a cheap hood named Clarence Newborn.
Hurry hurry.
He found the carton stacked in the wrong place. He drew it forward, quickly looked inside, located what he wanted and stuffed it in the left pocket of his pants. He pushed the carton back in place –
‘I was told I’d find you here.’
Startled, Samsa turned. Eve was standing in the doorway. He wondered how long she’d been there, if she’d seen him rummage inside the box. He felt his tension grow as if it were pushing out barbed new shoots in the depths of himself.
‘Eve,’ he said. ‘You surprised me.’ He heard himself laugh.
‘You look like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar.’
‘Do I?’
‘How is your hand, by the way?’
‘It’s fine.’ But it still pulsed and he kept trying to ignore it.
She touched it gently and said, ‘You need to change that bandage. I’ll do it for you, if you like.’
‘People are going to start talking if we hang around in here like this,’ and he laughed again, thinking how shallow and insincere it sounded.
‘People always talk. Haven’t you heard I’m the scarlet woman of the department?’
‘I don’t listen to rumors,’ Samsa said. He had an urge to hold her, to bury his face between her breasts. Just to be enclosed by her in a safe place beyond the reaches of the rancid waters rising around him.
‘I’ve been looking all over for you,’ she said.
‘I was checking on something,’ he said. ‘It’s not important. I can’t breathe in this place. Let’s get out of here.’
He opened the door, let Eve go out before him. Her scent hung delicately in the air. He locked the door and dropped off the key with Docherty. The narrow corridor, the green walls, the light strips overhead – these things combined to make him feel he was institutionalized, that this was not a police precinct but some hospital where he happened to be a patient whose illness no physician could diagnose.
Eve said, ‘The shrink spent an hour with Ryan Pritt. That’s what I wanted to tell you.’
‘And?’
‘According to the good Dr Mcalister, who likes to put things in layman’s terms, Pritt is probably schizophrenic, a condition exacerbated by prolonged use of antidepressants.’
‘What does that mean in terms of his confession?’
‘Mcalister wants more time. He did venture to say that Pritt’s violent tendencies might just edge him in the direction of believing the confession. He emphasized might. Mcalister is never happy unless he’s sitting on a fence. I also talked with Pritt’s physician, who claims he only ever prescribed Librium. Which means Pritt’s been getting drugs from other doctors.’
‘So we wait for Mcalister to come back to us?’
Eve said, ‘I guess we do.’
‘And hold Pritt in the meantime.’
‘Looks that way. He still rejects the idea of a lawyer.’
‘How long will it take Mcalister?’
‘He says a couple of days. Maybe more, maybe less.’
They were outside Samsa’s office now. Phones were ringing non-stop in the maze of rooms, people hustling, shouting at each other, Billy Fogue blowing smoke, Cullinan complaining about something. For a strange moment all this sound was stilled and Samsa, as if struck by a sudden deafness, felt himself slide into a world of utter silence. It was a weird experience, like a blip on his mental screen. He was dizzy, too, and he had to lean against a filing cabinet. Then the strangeness passed and sounds came flooding in again.
Eve asked, ‘Something wrong?’
‘No, not really.’ He wanted to shout, It’s me you’re looking for.
‘You look white, Greg. Can I get you something? Water? Aspirin?’
‘I’m okay, Eve.’
‘Kind of snarly all of a sudden, aren’t we?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be.’
She touched his arm and looked mildly distressed. Billy Fogue raised his face from his desk and said, ‘Hey-hey, what’s going on here? Touchy-feely time, huh?’
‘Shut up, Fogue,’ Samsa said.
‘A joke, Lew Tenant. A joke, awright? Excuse me.’
‘I’m laughing my goddam head off, Billy.’
‘Somebody didn’t get out of bed this morning, they fell out,’ Fogue muttered.
Samsa entered his office and sat behind his desk. Eve leaned in the doorway. She looked good, red hair lustrous, those green eyes suggestive of limpid marine depths. She wore a black sports coat, a white T-shirt and gray jeans, all very plain and understated, but she transformed them. He wondered again if she’d seen him pull his stunt in the evidence room, but she hadn’t said anything. Maybe she wouldn’t mention it anyway. He had every right to be in that room.
But not the right to steal.
Al Brodsky materialized holding a plain brown envelope. ‘Hey, Greg. I just got Zane’s report here. You want to see it?’ He tossed the envelope onto Samsa’s desk. ‘I don’t think you’ll find it entirely enlightening.’
Samsa opened the envelope, saw three typed sheets, the bottom corner of each initialed by Zane in purple ink. He always found coroner’s reports masterpieces of cold prose. He scanned it quickly, ‘… petroleum-based prophylactic lubricant in vaginal orifice … evidence of intravenous use of cocaine hydrochloride …’
Brodsky said, ‘The long and the short of it is she was killed by that notorious old culprit, a blunt instrument. A human hand would be consistent with the bruising, Zane says. Or a fall, if she hit the right object at the appropriate angle.’
Samsa stared at the sheets until all the letters ran as if they were moist. The dead girl distilled in three pages of forensic jargon. An epitaph in a chilly language.
Brodsky said, ‘She’s got some scratchmarks on her hands. Zane says they could be attributed to the fact that she might have come in post-mortem contact with some jagged “vegetable material”. I like the word vegetable in there. Why couldn’t Zane come out and say it was thorns, or something like that? If Pritt was carrying her around he could easily have brushed her against a bush.’
Stephen Rebb suddenly appeared behind Brodsky. His dyed hair must have been freshly tinted that afternoon because it was an almost cruel black, the kind you never saw naturally on any human. ‘I was out all night,’ he said.
‘And?’ Brodsky asked.
‘The last recorded sighting I can find of our little hooker was on the night of her death.’
‘Sighted by whom?’ Samsa asked.
Rebb said, ‘This stripper called Marilyn Cooley, aka Bonny Bodymachine, that works out of a place called the Zoom Boom Room over on Clitheroe, more commonly known as – no prizes for guessing, folks – Clitoris Street. Excuse my language, Detective Lassiter. Bonny says Cecily Suarez came in there around eight, looking to score coke. She was alone.’
Eight o’clock, Samsa thought. She had roughly two hours to live.
‘Did she score?’ Brodsky asked.
‘Bonny is coy on that point,’ Rebb said. ‘She deals small-time, so naturally she isn’t forthcoming. The kid hung around for a while, then split.’
‘Back to work,’ Brodsky said.
‘An appointment to keep with her killer,’ Rebb said. ‘Nobody saw her after that. But those hookers tend to turn a blind eye. They see only what they want, and half of them are wasted anyhow. It’s like a Masonic club, and if you don’t know the right passwords you don’t learn shit. I’ve been trying, believe me. And if I can’t get anything out of them, it’s damn sure nobody else can.’
Brodsky sighed. ‘So what have we got? Not much of anything, so far as I can see. Unless you count the quote unquote confession. I’d love somebody to pop up out of nowhere and say, Guys, great news, I saw her get into Pritt’s car.’ He looked at Samsa, eyes suddenly wide. ‘Speaking of said car, has anybody gone through Pritt’s? Searched for any trace the girl was ever in the goddam thing? Does anybody even know the location of the car?’
Samsa stood up. He’d overlooked this elementary procedure, something he’d normally have delegated without thinking. But it had been crowded out of his mind. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I must be slipping in my old age.’ Trying to make light of his forgetfulness even as he wondered if he’d subconsciously ignored such a basic routine – because, God help him, he wanted to believe deep down in some dismal ravine of himself that Pritt was guilty, Pritt would take the fall.
‘I’ll get it done immediately, Chief.’
Brodsky said, ‘Do that, Greg.’ There was a stony little tone in the chief’s voice, almost a reprimand. Brodsky the Blade. ‘Then get back to me.’
Brodsky walked away.
‘Oops,’ Rebb said. ‘Quelle oversight, Lieutenant.’
Eve said, ‘I’ll see to it, Greg.’
‘No, it’s my fault, I’ll attend to it myself.’ He sat down again. He had a burning sensation in his ears. He looked at Eve. ‘Why don’t you find out the names of the other physicians who prescribed for Pritt, see if they can tell you anything about why they gave him these drugs.’
She seemed a little disappointed, as if she’d expected a more demanding task. ‘Will do.’
Samsa listened to her footsteps in the outer office, and heard Fogue say something like, ‘Is he a bear today, or is he a bear?’
Samsa said to Rebb, ‘Keep checking.’
‘I’ll check what’s left to check, but the cupboard’s just about empty,’ Rebb said. ‘And that Jack Spratt lead, if you can call it a lead, fizzled out.’
There’s a print, Samsa thought. And for a terrible second he thought he’d said it out loud without meaning to, but Rebb had already moved away.
For a time Samsa sat very still. He thought of Rebb snooping the dark streets and trying to reconstruct Almond’s movements, of Al Brodsky’s unexpectedly sharp little sound of disapproval. He thought about Eve coming across him in the evidence room, and the fact she knew he wasn’t operating on all pistons – and he felt he was tangled inside a fabric that was about to unravel. Threads were popping audibly, and it was all he could do to keep them from coming asunder altogether.
He left his office and walked out of City Hall with the pilfered plastic bag in his pocket, his neck scorching his collar and his heart pounding, expecting at any moment to be stopped and interrogated and eventually disgraced.
35
Boyle heard Samsa’s voice through the intercom. He pressed the buzzer and listened to the cop climb the stairs. He opened the door and Samsa entered the room and said, ‘I want in and out of here quickly, Boyle. Where’s the print?’
‘First the stuff,’ Boyle said.
Samsa took a plastic bag from his pocket, handed it to Boyle, who dipped a fingertip inside and raised a small quantity of the powder to his mouth. It had a rich bitter taste.
‘Now the print,’ Samsa said.
‘One crucial little test and the print’s yours.’ Boyle removed another small amount of the powder and spread it out on a mirror that lay on the coffee table. He chopped it with his razor blade. This sacred ritual. He raised a quantity on the tip of his finger and held it to his nose. It roared into his bloodstream, no afterburn, no clogged sinuses. ‘I declare this is the goods, Gregory J.’
He went to the bookshelf, opened a copy of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, and slipped the print out from between the pages. He gave it to Samsa, who folded it angrily in half, then folded it again and put it in his pocket.
‘This is the end of it,’ Samsa said.
‘Totally.’
‘You said that before.’
‘I don’t have another print. I just happened to kind of overlook the fact I had a copy. Confusion, probably.’ This speed of Samsa’s was brilliant. No bathtub crank. Boyle was riding a big smooth Cadillac through a sunny landscape.
Samsa walked to the window, looked down into the street. ‘You had the second print all along, but I was dumb enough to think you’d keep your word. What the fuck does that make me?’
‘That rara avis,’ Boyle said. ‘A trusting soul.’
‘A fool,’ Samsa said.
‘But with honor, Gregory.’
Samsa turned from the window. He had a gun in his hand. He’d slipped it out of his holster and was pointing it at Boyle.
‘You’re not going to use that.’
Samsa held the gun level. ‘I might, I swear to God, if I’m pushed another inch.’
‘Nobody’s going to push you again,’ Boyle said. ‘It’s over.’
‘This time I’m supposed to believe you.’
‘There’s no logic to gunplay. You’re overlooking the fact I have at least one partner in this enterprise.’
‘What if I suddenly decide there’s only you and the rest is bluff?’
‘I told you I don’t work alone. When it comes to a camera I’m a buffoon.’
‘And if I have a sudden brainstorm, say I lose control, the gun goes off. One dead small-time pimp. The world isn’t going to attend your funeral, Boyle. Not many people are going to be crying into their hankies.’
‘It’s a big gamble,’ Boyle said, wondering just how demented Samsa might be. ‘You shoot me. An associate of mine shows up. You shoot him, too?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And then let’s say, for the sake of argument, a third associate pops up. You do what? Just keep on killing?’
Samsa stepped across the room. He pointed the gun at Boyle’s chest, and in that moment Boyle knew he wasn’t going to pull the trigger. Something just yielded in the cop’s expression: his purposeful look dissipated, his eyes lost their hard sheen. Boyle thought, A scare tactic, a desperate little piece of improvisational theater.
‘Why kill me anyhow, Gregory? I’m the only guy you’ve shared your secret with, right? And if you think about it, that makes me your confessor. Stuff like that gets you all choked up – and stress is a killer, Lieutenant. I saved you money you’d have wasted on a fucking therapist. Look at it that way.’
Samsa let the gun hang at his side. ‘My confessor,’ he said. ‘A pimp and a blackmailer and a speed-freak.’
‘Life’s like that, Gregory. Sometimes you just don’t get to choose your confidantes.’
Samsa looked into Boyle’s eyes, as if he were looking for something he needed to find. Boyle knew what he wanted: reassurance. No more demands. This was the final hook. The last print had been handed over and all the rest was silence. Welcome to hell.
Boyle felt the familiar mind-rush, the pulse-beats, words coming in a streak. ‘Let me tell you how it’s going to be, Gregory. You’ll have some sleepless nights for a time, a few bad dreams, and you’ll wake up sweating, and now and then you’ll feel a little twinge of pain and guilt. But that’s going to fade. Believe me.’
Samsa was concentrating, and even if his expression was one of distaste, you could see he wanted to buy into this picture of salvation. He wanted to believe Boyle was painting a true portrait of a guilt-free future.
Then Samsa shook his head in exasperation. ‘What the fuck am I doing listening to you? Jesus Christ.’
‘I’m only laying it out so you can look at it,’ Boyle said. ‘Anyway, from what I see on the TV you’re off the hook. According to the intrepid reporters on the evening news, somebody’s already confessed.’
‘That confession’s going to fall apart sooner or later.’
‘Let’s say it holds.’
‘That’s hypothetical, Boyle.’
‘I’m fond of dickering around with the hypothetical. If it holds, do you go along with it?’
‘Which is what you’d do in my position,’ Samsa said.
‘I wouldn’t give it a second thought. I’d grab this sucker’s confession with both hands, man. I’d fall on my knees and give thanks to the one upstairs, I’d stuff all my spare change in mission boxes for isolated priests baptizing savages in the jungles of Peru, then I’d go down the church and light a thousand candles. People in the wax business would be working night shifts. Wick-makers couldn’t meet their quotas.’
Samsa said, ‘You turn my stomach, Boyle.’
‘I affect different people different ways, amigo.’
Samsa holstered his gun, then moved toward the door. Watching him, Boyle detected some slight resemblance to Darcy.
Samsa opened the door. His shoulders seemed to sag a little. ‘I never want to see you again, Boyle. Under any circumstances. Not in the street, not in a bar, not in a restaurant. Nowhere.’
‘Hey, I’m your genie, Lieutenant. Your wish is granted.’
‘Enjoy the speed,’ Samsa said. ‘In fact, why don’t you do the whole three ounces in one swoop? Have yourself a hell of a trip, Boyle.’
Boyle smiled and said, ‘One thing you might consider in future, Lieutenant.’
Samsa moved to the stairs. ‘And what’s that?’
