Blackout, page 24
‘Save yourself further hassle and stay home with the little woman at nights.’
Samsa turned. He looked as if somebody had thrown a blazing firework into his eyes. He stepped away from the edge of the stairs, moved quickly and shoved Boyle against the door jamb, elbow pressed into Boyle’s neck.
Boyle could see great heaving currents of hatred and hurt in Samsa’s face. The pressure from Samsa’s elbow was giving him trouble breathing. He flattened a hand against Samsa’s chest and tried to push the cop away, but Samsa was like a stone wall leaning against him. What raw thing have I touched? he wondered. He smelled a faint medicinal odor rising from Samsa’s discolored bandage, some kind of anti-bacterial cream maybe.
‘Hey,’ Boyle said, struggling a little for air. ‘This is becoming a problem, Gregory.’
‘Never mention my family,’ Samsa said. He squeezed the words out angrily between clenched teeth. ‘You understand that, Boyle? Never, ever mention my goddam family.’
‘Jesus,’ Boyle gasped.
Samsa relaxed his arm, drew it back to his side and moved toward the stairs.
Boyle shut the door, rubbed his throat and coughed. His telephone was ringing. He thought about ignoring it, but in the end he picked it up. It was The Kid. Joshua – the name came back to him now.
Silver? Or was it Gold? What did it matter?
‘Anything nice happening?’ Gold asked.
‘It’s too soon,’ Boyle said, wishing he’d let the call go unanswered. ‘These things take a little time.’
‘I guess. I was checking, that’s all.’
‘Listen, I have company. I’ll call you back.’
‘Can you give me, uh, an estimated time?’
‘Later.’ Boyle put the handset down. He didn’t need to be hassled by The Kid. It could become a regular thing, The Kid calling to know what was going on. He might give him 500 bucks, keep him quiet. He might not.
He had to get out of here. Time was a force.
He rubbed his neck again and noticed the lit message digit on the answering machine. He pressed Playback and heard, I don’t know why I’m doing this, really I don’t. I don’t even know you … but you gave me your number and I figured, oh what the hell, I’d call …
36
Eve Lassiter parked outside the apartment building, and for a time didn’t move. This was a tangent she really didn’t need to explore. She remembered Greg in the evidence room, the way he’d spun round in astonishment when she’d spoken, the sense she’d had of just missing out on something – that tingly feeling of entering a space where some furtive activity has happened a split second before your arrival.
She opened the door of her car, got out and entered the building.
The carton she’d seen him shoving back in place was marked WEEKS, BILLY LEE. She was familiar with the case. A dealer shot in his home – banal, commonplace. Ed Duff was in charge of the homicide and Greg’s involvement a supervisory one. What had he been looking for?
She felt locked out of an enormous secret he was keeping, and yet she wasn’t sure she had any rights of access to his world. You made love with him once, which didn’t exactly give you a license to pry, but he was like a man trapped. An aura of despair hung about him. And I care, she thought.
She knocked on the door of the apartment. She heard a voice calling out. ‘Coming, coming.’ The door opened.
She smiled. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Do you have a warrant, Detective?’
‘A warrant?’
‘Just my feeble little joke. Enter.’
Eve stepped past Joshua Gold, who’d recently showered and was wrapped in a blue terry robe, his hair wet and glistening. ‘I hope you’re not here to ask me to be a model citizen again.’
Eve shook her head. ‘Not this time.’
‘And you haven’t come to arrest me, or have you?’
‘Not yet,’ she said.
‘That’s a relief.’
She sat. Make an excuse, get up, leave. This isn’t necessary.
But it was. She couldn’t leave it alone.
Gold began to fuss with his plants in the window, using an eye-dropper to apply a pale-green liquid to the soil and leaves. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s a little delicate,’ she said.
‘Ah, now I’m intrigued.’
She watched him a second, wondering at his nervous energy, the way he fidgeted with the plants. Despite his initial attempt at levity she had the strong feeling he wasn’t happy to see her again, didn’t want her here in his apartment.
‘The last time we spoke you said you’d seen Lieutenant Samsa …’ She paused. It wasn’t too late to back off.
‘Let me hazard a guess. You don’t want to believe your nice lieutenant goes slumming for his pleasures?’ Gold asked. ‘You hold him in very high regard.’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘It shows on your face, Detective.’ Gold ran fingers through his damp hair. ‘But he’s only human, after all. As my mother always says, even the Pope needs to take a dump now and then.’
‘You’re sure you saw him?’ she said.
‘You want me to say I didn’t, don’t you? The great man must be positively untarnished.’
‘I don’t want you to lie, Joshua.’
‘Okay. I didn’t see him. It was a fable, Detective, from start to finish. Really. What difference does it make in the long run?’
Maybe Gold was right. If Greg had had a need to go on nocturnal prowls, checking the scene, fantasizing, did it really matter? She could understand it up to a point. But it was more than this. She was chasing something else, and at the same time she didn’t want to get close enough to bring it into focus. Let it be.
‘Why would you make it up?’ she asked.
‘Oh, total mischief.’ He moved across the room, sprinkled food in the fish tank.
‘I asked the lieutenant. He says you’re mistaken.’
Gold expelled air in a flustered way. ‘What do you want me to say?’
Eve had no direct answer to this question. She’d need to dig too deep to come up with one, and she wasn’t prepared for that archaeology of the self. She got up, looked at the pictures on the wall, Joshua’s neat signature on each one. ‘Nice work,’ she said. ‘I like it.’
‘It’s an old hobby, but way too expensive for me. I quit a while ago. Are you through with your questions, Detective?’
‘You still say you made it up about the lieutenant cruising?’
‘Ask my friends. They’ll tell you what a prankster I am.’
He isn’t telling the truth, she thought. He’s fudging. Only she wasn’t sure why. She glanced again at the photographs – young muscular men with artfully brooding expressions, a whole lot of shadows.
‘I don’t mean to kick you out, Detective, but I have somewhere to go very soon,’ Gold said.
‘Why do I get this odd feeling you’re protecting him for some reason?’
‘Why would I want to protect the lieutenant? I don’t have any good reason. It was a story, that was all. Accept that.’ He looked impatient now.
‘I’m having a hard time with it, Joshua.’
‘Don’t you ever make things up, Detective? Just for the sheer hell of it? Because you want to sort of spice things up. You want to pour a pinch of real fiery chili powder into everyday humdrum. Maybe you just don’t have a malicious streak the way I do.’
‘You’re playing with me, Joshua. I don’t like that.’
‘I have to dress. I have to go out. I wish you’d believe me, I really do. I’ve given it my best shot, and if you won’t accept that it’s not my problem. I’ll walk you to the door.’
She heard the sound of a buzzer going off in another room, and her first thought was of some household appliance – a microwave, a tumble-dryer – signaling the end of its operation. The noise agitated Gold, who looked suddenly anxious, as if the buzzer meant something urgent to him.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
He was ushering her toward the door. ‘It’s only my alarm clock,’ he said.
‘Funny time to go off,’ she said.
He had his hand placed in the small of her back, edging her in the direction of the door, pressuring her. He wanted her out quickly, even feverishly, because the buzzer was ringing, because he wanted to turn it off, he had to turn it off, and she knew no simple alarm clock could have this effect. It was a timer, she thought. But not a clock. And whatever it was, he had to attend to it fast.
‘You’re pushing me, Josh. I don’t like being pushed.’
‘Please. Just go.’
‘Why don’t you switch that thing off?’
‘Go,’ he said.
She swung round and faced him. The noise was coming from behind a door to the left. Gold, who looked stricken, flapped his hands in the manner of someone who doesn’t know which way to turn.
‘What’s the big secret, Josh?’ she asked, and she took a step toward the door.
‘Wait,’ and he tried to block her way.
‘What the fuck are you hiding?’ she asked.
‘I’m not hiding anything.’
‘You give a damn good impression of a guy who is,’ she said, and she thrust a hand past him and grabbed the door handle. The buzzer kept going and going.
She twisted the handle, managed to reach beyond him and nudge the door with her foot, and it opened a crack.
‘You lied to me, Josh.’
He shrugged and looked foolish, like an eavesdropper caught with his ear to a keyhole.
‘Why don’t you give me the guided tour,’ she said.
37
Boyle hit the freeway at ninety miles an hour. He had the windows and the air-conditioner blasting. The radio played a somber passage from Ravel’s Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello, suggestive of a night funeral, slouched pallbearers shouldering a coffin under a full moon. It was Almond in the box, waxy and dead. To cease upon the midnight with no pain.
He wondered what she’d felt. If it was all over in a flash. Into the void immediately. He heard rats scamper in his skull. They were busy chewing things, building nests, breeding.
Who needs a boyfriend in the picture anyhow. He’s bad news.
Braking only lightly, he left the freeway. The tires whined, rubber burning. He slowed when he reached the suburb, where it was all yield signs and intersections and kids on bikes half hidden under trees. He reached his destination, parked and got out the car in one fluid movement. He walked along the alley, came to the iron gate, opened it, wondered how much time had passed since he was last here. Sixty minutes max. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
Sixty minutes was nothing when you were a kid with fire in your gonads. You could come and come again, maybe with a couple of cigarette interludes and some chitchat between times.
Allow me to show you the downside of all this, asshole.
The rats were gnawing on timbers. Chomp chomp. The way to deal with them was to ignore them. They were figments anyhow, they were products of Samsa’s dope. But that didn’t go any way toward explaining why their small sharp teeth caused him flashes of pain in his head. Why he could smell their fur and their rancid breath and the small excited squeaks they made.
He looked through glass.
The pair on the floor were so caught up in their pursuit of the wild goose of gratification they didn’t hear him. He stood and watched. He wondered how many times they’d fucked during the last hour.
He slid open a door and stood unnoticed.
What did he have to do to get some attention here? Introduce himself?
The girl opened her eyes and saw him, and with a look of surprise pushed the young man away from her. ‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked. ‘Is this a robbery or something?’
Boyle said nothing. The rats had scurried away to some deeper level, and now there were steam valves opening in his head and hissing, a whole load of pressure. This was a real piece of chicanery going on here. This was dirty work.
The kid turned over and said, ‘What the fuck?’
‘What the fuck indeed,’ Boyle said.
The kid snatched at his turquoise boxer shorts, which were lying at his feet. He got them straightened out and was drawing them up over his red erection when Boyle, stooping slightly, hearing the valves in his head release steam, punched him in the throat. Once, twice, a third time in quick succession. ‘She’s way.’ Punch. ‘Outta.’ Punch. ‘Your.’ Punch. ‘League.’
The kid moaned and the girl, covering her tits, yelled. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
Boyle sideswiped her abruptly, a knuckle job. He felt her teeth against his bone. She flopped over, dazed, drooling blood. The kid was feeling his larynx with anxious fingers. ‘Oh, man,’ and his voice was just above a croak.
‘I hate fucking turquoise,’ Boyle said. ‘If there’s one color that goddam pisses me off it’s turquoise.’
‘Who are you?’ the kid asked, froggy-voiced.
‘I’m the fucking avenging angel,’ Boyle said. ‘I punish guys for their sordid deeds. I’m the one who tells you you’re shit, you piece of scum.’
‘You’re insane, crazy fuck.’
Boyle pressed himself down on the guy, throttling him one-handed, driving his head into the floor. The sheer energy he felt. The unfettered strength to destroy. ‘What’s your name, asshole?’
‘Nick.’
Boyle hammered him across the face with a solid fist. The kid’s eye began to darken and swell almost immediately. ‘Nick who?’
‘Mancu … so. Shit. What’s this all about?’
Boyle relaxed his grip a moment. ‘This is about the company you keep, fuckhead.’
‘What company?’
Boyle got up, walked a few paces away, seething, boiling, his heart like a yo-yo, then he turned round and kicked the kid in the mouth. He felt the lips yield to slackness, and the slackness give way to an open hollow. ‘I’ve taken a fucking serious dislike to you.’
Wiping blood from his lip, Nick Mancuso said, ‘What the fuck have I ever done to you? I’ve never even –’
‘You don’t have to do any one particular thing for me not to like you,’ Boyle said. ‘I flare up at stuff other people wouldn’t even notice, hotshot.’
‘Look, hey, please, leave us alone, go away. I don’t know what you want. Here, take my watch. It’s a Rolex.’
‘Fuck your watch,’ Boyle said. ‘Did Daddy buy it for you, huh? Daddy lay out the bread for your goddam Rolex?’
‘Yeah,’ Mancuso said.
‘Good old Daddy. May his name be blessed.’ Boyle reached down, gripped one of the kid’s nipples and twisted it viciously, then slapped his face back and forth.
‘Hey – hey – hey,’ Mancuso kept saying, blinking, trying to twist his head out of the way.
‘And the car? Daddy buy the fucking car?’
‘He helped.’
‘I bet he did. Good for picking up babes, huh? A genuine pussy-wagon, huh? Chicks just want to jump in that car, right? It’s a piece of shit, that’s what it is. A piece of goddam flash German shit.’ He was in freefall, hypersthenic, charged with the need to keep havoc going. He walked to the mantelpiece, where various sports trophies were lined up. He swiped his hand across them, and they tumbled to the floor and rolled away.
‘Why?’ Mancuso asked.
‘You stay the fuck away from her,’ Boyle said.
‘Who?’
‘Don’t fuck with me, lover boy.’
Mancuso was looking at the prone girl, who was breathing badly. ‘She’s hurt.’
‘That’s the whole idea,’ Boyle said. What else could he smash? What else could he just fucking destroy? He saw the fireside implements, horse-headed brass doodahs. Monique had taken riding lessons – dressage, of course – every Saturday morning. One time, when she was eleven, she brought home a ribbon she’d won and Hugh hung it on the wall of his office. It was probably still hanging there, that goddam green ribbon, a souvenir of Monique’s achievement. She had a horse called Mambo, a monster skewbald that had died in mysterious circumstances.
I poisoned its fucking food, Boyle thought. You never even knew that, did you, Monique? You wept in the stable over the horse’s big dead body. I can still hear your tears, you spoiled bitch. I can still see the truck from the abattoir coming to dispose of Mambo, the horse stiff, mouth gaping. I can remember feeling absolutely great. I remember the foul stench of the truck.
He gripped the poker and hauled it out of the stand. He whacked it through the air, listening to the swish it made. Mancuso was starting to rise, hands held out in front of him, shaking his head as he watched the poker lash space.
‘No,’ he said.
Boyle stared at this spoiled-brat kid with his swollen eye and his mouth running blood. He heard the sirens of chaos, the whole choir of destruction singing in his head. ‘You ever fuck her, Nick?’
‘Who?’
‘Darcy, you asshole.’
‘Darcy?’
‘You ever FUCK her, I asked.’
‘No, I never did.’
‘But you try.’
‘Sure I try.’
‘She doesn’t let you.’
‘Listen, why don’t you put that poker down?’
‘You tell her you love her?’
‘Yeah, I tell her that. It’s true.’
‘Lying fuck.’ Boyle whipped the poker just under Nick Mancuso’s nose. The kid stepped back fast. ‘You tell her you love her because you figure that’s the numero uno route to screwing her. But the thing is she’s too smart for you. You’re unworthy. You’re some links down the great chain of life, Nick. She’s floating on the pond like a lily, and you’re down there in the dark-green slime with the fucking mosquito larvae. This blonde heap of shit is your level, just about.’
‘What’s Darcy got to do with you?’
‘That’s none of your goddam business. You just stay the hell out of her life,’ Boyle said. He sliced the air with the brass poker. Mancuso stepped further back. The blonde, Mandy, raised her face and made a small choking sound of pain. She gazed at Mancuso, then at Boyle, as if she were trying to piece the events of her world together.
