Freaky Deaky

by Elmore Leonard

  "Is that where the assault took place?"

  "Uh-unh, it was at Mr. Ricks's. I don't know the address, but he isn't there anyway, he's at the Playhouse. You know where I mean? That theater, it's just a few blocks from here. His big ugly limo was parked in front. I tried to see him. . . . I went there originally to see his brother. But they wouldn't let me in."

  "What were you gonna say to him?"

  "The rapist? Ask him if he'd like to come here with me, the son of a bitch. You want to meet him? Come on."

  "We have to complete this report and have you sign a statement," Chris said. "Then what we do, advise him a complaint has been filed that could bring him up on a charge of criminal sexual conduct."

  Greta said, "I love that police way you have of saying things. You're gonna advise him of a complaint--"

  "I have to know his address," Chris said. "If it isn't in the City of Detroit it belongs in some other jurisdiction."

  "It's in Palmer Woods off Seven Mile, great big mansion."

  "That's the Twelfth." Good, it was a Detroit Police matter, he wouldn't have to give it to some cops out in a suburb. He wanted this one. "You were with this guy on a date and you went back to his house?"

  "I was with his brother, Mark, the one owns the theater. He invited me on a cruise with him, this past Saturday, some kind of society thing to raise money, and after we got back we went to Woody's house for a party."

  Chris took his time, looked up from the report form to Greta Wyatt. "Nice crowd of people, and here's this guy eating off the buffet table with both hands."

  That opened her eyes.

  "With a fur coat on," Chris said. "Is that the Woody we're talking about?"

  "You know him?"

  "You got off the boat and went out to Woody's. . . . Just you and Mark?"

  "No, there were some other girls too. There were four of us from the boat, and then Mark picked up another one at Brownie's, but she was older. Somebody he used to know by the name of Robin. He spent practically the whole time with her."

  "That make you mad?"

  "Not a bit. I didn't know why he asked me, I just met him the day before. They were having auditions for Seesaw and I tried out because I played Gittel just a few years ago at the Dearborn Community Theater."

  Chris said, "Gittel, huh?"

  "Gittel Mosca. I thought I had the part, the way Mark was talking. Then I find out I have to go to bed with Woody."

  "He told you that?"

  "He practically did."

  "Who, Mark or Woody?"

  "It was when I went upstairs to change. Well, to dry off and put my dress back on." Greta stopped. "I forgot to mention, everybody had to go in swimming. If you didn't, Woody said his chauffeur would throw you in with your clothes on."

  "Wasn't it cold?"

  "The pool's inside the house, in a big room with a ceiling that goes up--like in a church."

  "You have a bathing suit with you?"

  Greta hesitated, but kept looking right at him. "I went in in my bra and panties."

  Chris said, "Oh."

  "The other girls didn't have bras. They looked at me like I was some kind of strange creature. It was like when we were little and we'd go swimming in the lake, this one girl's mama always made her wear a rubber inner tube. I felt like that little girl."

  "The others didn't wear anything?"

  "Couple of them didn't."

  "So you were upstairs . . ."

  "Uh-huh, and Woody came in the bedroom. I asked him to please leave, in a nice way, but he wouldn't."

  "You have your clothes on?"

  "I didn't have anything on. He comes right in, goes 'Ooops,' but he knew I was there. He had two glasses of champagne with him."

  "He make the moves on you earlier?"

  "Uh-unh, not till then. He offered me a glass of champagne, I said no thanks, so he drank them both like in two gulps, dropped the glasses and came at me. That's when he said, 'Yes, you're Gittel.' See what I mean? It was fairly obvious what the deal was. I told him no thank you, I didn't need the part that bad. But I could've been talking to the wall."

  "What did Woody have on?"

  "These tiny trunks you could barely see under his big stomach."

  "Did he hit you?"

  "Worse, he started kissing me, his mouth all wet and he had this awful breath from drinking so much."

  "You scream?"

  "For what? Who's gonna do anything? They're all downstairs getting stoned. Woody just threw me down on the bed and got on top of me. You know what he kept saying? 'Boy-oh-boy.' "

  "You tried to resist?"

  "He turned me over so I couldn't, got my heinie up in the air and my face pressed down in the bedspread. I never felt so humiliated in my life."

  Chris didn't want to ask her the next question, but had to. "He sodomized you?"

  "No, he turned me over so I couldn't hit him. It wasn't long after that he got off me, rolled over on the bed and went to sleep."

  Chris said, "Did he, you know, perform the act?"

  "I guess as far as he was concerned. He's laying there, this big tub, he starts snoring with his mouth open. That's a sight's gonna stay with me, if you can picture it."

  "What'd you do then?"

  "I got up and looked for something to hit him with."

  "You didn't, did you?"

  "I left."

  Chris wasn't sure if that was an answer to his question.

  "You didn't tell anybody what happened?"

  "I came downstairs, Mark and his friend Robin were gone."

  "You know Robin's last name?"

  "I wasn't introduced to any of them. The other girls had cute names like Suzie and Duzie. The chauffeur opened the front door for me, gives me a little smile and goes, 'You come back and see us, you hear?' If I had thought of it at the time I would've said, 'Yeah, with cops.' I walked all the way over to Seven Mile and Woodward, went in a place to call a taxi and you know what it was? A motorcycle gay bar. I'll tell you something--what's your name again?"

  "Chris."

  "Chris, you live half your life in a house the refrigerator's on the front porch and come up here a teenager, I'll tell you, it's a shock to your system."

  Chris said, "You're really from a place called Lake Dick?"

  "Don't ask me who Dick was," Greta said. "I left there innocent and grew up as fast as I could. I got into acting and have worked for scale or below all my life, waiting for the big break. I was in that movie they were shooting here. I read for a part, it was a scene in a bar where I've just met this cop and I try to guess what he does for a living. The director said, 'Do it again, just like that.' I took the part not knowing anything about the movie or how much I'd get paid. But I had a choice. They tell me I have to go to bed with a fat drunk if I want a part, that's a choice too. I'll do it or I won't, it's up to me. But when I get raped against my will, then I'm gonna make some noise and tell in a court of law what the son of a bitch did to me. I don't care who he is."

  Chris said, "Well"--taking his time--"what's gonna make it difficult, you report a one-on-one type of situation two days later, there's no evidence, nothing to use against him outside of your testimony."

  Greta was frowning. "What do you mean, evidence?"

  "See, ordinarily, if the complainant calls us right away a radio car goes to the scene, the woman is brought to Detroit General for a physical exam and usually her panties are taken as evidence."

  "Her panties?"

  "They might be torn, they might have traces of semen. Or they find semen, you know, inside the complainant. It's checked for blood type to match against the suspect's. But we don't have any evidence like that, nothing."

  "So you aren't gonna do anything."

  "I'll call him, have him come in . . ."

  "When, next week sometime? I just saw his limousine over at the theater, but you're gonna call him when you feel like it."

  "I'll call him as soon as we finish," Chris said, willing to be patient with Greta Wyatt,
have a reason to look at her, listen to her talk. "I'll have him come in, ask him if he wants to bring a lawyer. . . . You understand, we can know beyond a reasonable doubt the man's guilty, but if we violate his rights in any way he's gonna walk."

  Greta said, "Well, thank you very much," getting up, pulling at her short skirt. "I already tried to see his brother, Mark. 'Greta who?' the girl in the office wants to know. 'What is this about?' I work up my nerve to come here, you're worried about Woody's rights being violated. Hell with mine. I wish you'd taped this so you could play it back and hear what a pathetic little weenie you sound like."

  Chris said, "Wait, okay? If I type up your statement, will you sign it?"

  It didn't seem likely. She was walking out.

  "Greta, if you'll cooperate we can at least bring him in. See if we can get him to admit it."

  That turned her around at the door.

  "Woody put it a little different. He said if I'd cooperate we could fall in love."

  Chapter 9.

  Chris left his dad's Cadillac in the lot on Macomb, across from 1300, and walked down to Galligan's, thinking:

  What kind of an impression was he making lately? There was the St. Antoine Clinic doctor accusing him of being a macho fraud if not bisexual. There was Phyllis practically calling him a pervert for going to Sex Crimes. His own dad looking at him funny, wondering why he was having so much trouble with women. Now a rape victim, a really good-looking one, had accused him of being a weenie. Walking along Beaubien in this old downtown section, past Greektown now, cars jammed into the narrow street, he couldn't get it out of his mind. Back when he was driving a radio car, a drunk, some guy being restrained from knocking the shit out of his wife, might look at Chris's nameplate on his uniform and call him a dumb fucking Polack. But no one had ever insinuated he was a pervert or called him a weenie. Jesus. He had never met a girl named Greta before, either.

  He walked with his head down, serious, looking at the sidewalk, telling himself, Well, you go through shitty periods, things happen, you get your car stolen. . . . Things build up and you see everything at once instead of taking them one at a time. You start looking into the future and then you have doubts. The fuck are you doing? You should've gone into something else, computers, robotics. Right, get into something guaranteed to bore the shit out of you. Deal with things. Get a boat. He thought of times when he was a uniform, and kids, every once in a while, would do that number, "Your old man work? No, he's a cop." His dad had his own version of it. "You could've taken over the business, lease a new Cadillac every year." Estimating how many yards of "ashphalt" to do a shopping center parking lot. He'd say to his dad, "What I always wanted, a new car every year," and his dad wouldn't get it. Except he had to admit his dad's Cadillac Seville wasn't bad, sitting in there in all that quiet, effortless luxury. It beat the shit out of his Mustang that was now down south somewhere, repainted. Chris looked up and it was strange, in that moment, the way his mood suddenly changed and he came to life.

  Parked at the curb next to Galligan's, on the Beaubien side of the two-story building, was a gray stretch limo.

  He knew who the car belonged to even as he approached, walked past, and there it was confirmed on the rear end, the vanity plate that said WOODY. It was a nice day for a change, about 68 degrees, late-afternoon sun hot on the glass towers of the Renaissance Center, right there across Jefferson rising up seven hundred feet against a clear sky. A nice day to be out. Chris put his hands in his pants pockets and stood looking at the car with a feeling he liked. Being on the edge of something about to happen. At least the possibility. His dad had said one time, "You guys, you walk into a situation you get to quit thinking and act like cops." Maybe there was some truth in it.

  See what happens and react. There was no way to make an arrest. But the guy who'd raped the girl who called him a weenie was close by. In Galligan's or in the car, hidden behind the black windows. Chris was standing there with his hands in his pockets when the driver appeared, rising from the street side of the limo, the driver saying, "The man should be back presently."

  "Is that right?" Chris said. "What're you telling me for?"

  "Say up there on the sign No Parking," the driver said, "and you the police, aren't you?" The guy politely offhand about it in his tailored black suit, his white shirt and black tie. Neat mustache, hair lacquered back. . . .

  But also with a dull threat in his stare, a look Chris recognized, knew all about, though he said to the guy, "I don't know you. I remember times and places and you're not in any of them." Chris walked up to the limo to get a closer look across the pale gray top.

  The driver shook his head back and forth, twice. "No, we never met."

  "Then it must be my sporty attire caught your eye," Chris said. He was wearing his navy blazer with tan corduroy pants, a deep blue shirt and tie. "Is that it?"

  "Must be," the driver said. "Or how you got something wrong with your hip, make your coat stick out funny."

  Chris said, "Where'd you do your time, Jackson? Or they send you to Marquette?"

  "Man, what're you coming down on me for?"

  Chris said, "Because you're about an inch away from fucking with me, but now you know better. You're gonna watch that attitude your parole officer told you about."

  The driver said, "Oh, man," shaking his head. "You right out of the book. Old-time dick like all of 'em, dumb as shit."

  Chris laid his hands on the round edge of the car roof. "Where do you want to go with this?"

  The driver said, "I don't want to take it no place. I don't want to take nothing. You understand what I'm saying to you?"

  Chris said, "Why don't you get in the car and drive around the block. You'll feel better and I'll feel better." Chris already felt better. The driver was a stand-up guy and wanted him to know it, that's all. Okay, Chris knew the guy and now the guy knew him, the guy still giving him the look but with a little more life in his eyes. The look with the heavy lids would be a natural part of him, his style, to warn people he was bad and they better know it. That was okay, it was probably true. But it wasn't something between them that had to be settled. Chris said, "We're too old and mature to get in a fist fight," and saw the guy's expression give a little more. The guy seemed about to say something, but then his gaze moved. Chris looked over his shoulder.

  A beefy guy, his sportcoat open, trousers riding below his belly, was coming along the sidewalk from Galligan's corner entrance. And now the driver was at the back of the car, coming around to this side to open the door. Chris had to step away. Now he saw, beyond the guy, Greta Wyatt coming, trying to run in her heels, grabbing the strap of the handbag slipping from her shoulder. She was swinging it at the fat guy now as she caught up with him, yelling, "Chris, it's Woody!"

  Look at her, hanging on to the guy, fighting him. But what amazed Chris more than anything--she remembered his name. Yelling it again, "Chris, help me!" He was moving toward them now, hurrying as he saw Woody grab hold of her wrist in both hands and slam her, hardly with an effort, against the side of the building. Chris saw her head hit the wall, got there and caught her bouncing off, stumbling into his arms, as Woody walked past them to his car.

  Chris held her against the wall now, his hands gripping her shoulders. He said, "Look at me." Late sunlight in her face; he could see freckles beneath her makeup, her cheekbone scraped. "Can you see me?" Greta nodded, brown eyes staring at him. She seemed dazed. "Can you stand up by yourself?" She nodded again. "You better sit down." She shook her head. "Okay, but don't move." He took his hands away slowly, making sure. "I'll be right back."

  Woody was inside the limo, the driver closing the door as Chris walked up.

  "Open it."

  "Nothing happened, man. Let it go."

  "Open it."

  "The lady was bothering him."

  "Lean on the car," Chris said. "You know how, with your legs spread. You got two seconds. One . . ."

  Woody's driver said, "Let me tell you something."


  "Two . . ."

  Woody's driver said, "All right. But don't touch me. You understand? Don't touch me." He turned to the car.

  Chris opened the rear door. He had to stoop, lean in to see Woody in the dark against gray upholstery, the man's size filling half the seat. Chris said, "I'm a police officer. Will you step out of the car, please?"

  Woody wasn't looking at him. He had a remote control switch in his right hand and he was watching television, the set mounted next to decanter bottles on a corner shelf behind the facing seat. Woody said, "What?"

  "I said I want you to step out of the car."

  Woody frowned, his tongue moving around in his mouth. He said, "I just got in the car," still not looking at Chris. "Didn't I just get in? Yeah, I'm watching 'People's Court.' It's good. See, this woman says her boyfriend borrowed eighty bucks and won't pay her back."

  Chris could smell salted peanuts. The guy was eating them from a can wedged between his fat thighs, raising his hand in a fist to his mouth, then wiping the palm of his hand on his pants.

  "Sir, are you gonna step out of the car?"

  Woody glanced at Chris now as he said, "I told you, I'm watching TV."

  Chris said, "You don't get your ass out of there right now I'm gonna pull you out," and couldn't believe it when the guy put both of his hands over the can of peanuts, turned a shoulder to Chris and yelled, "Donnell! Who is this?"

  Chris said, "I don't want your peanuts, I want you." He stared at the guy another moment before coming out of the car to see the driver looking past his shoulder at him.

  "Gonna pull the man out? I have to see this."

  "He's resisting arrest. Explain it to him."

  "You asking me to help you?"

  "You'll feel better," Chris said. "Citizen cooperation being the key to a safer community. Tell him, he behaves I won't cuff him."

  Donnell said, "Shit," and smiled, showing himself for the first time. "You never gonna bring him up. Print that man, his lawyer will sue your police ass."

  "I've got assault on him, and that's just for openers."

  Donnell said, "The man watches 'People's Court,' on the TV? Now and again I take him to Frank Murphy, see felony exams, see a guy standing on first degree cut up his woman, it's the same as TV to him, you dig? It's a show. That's the only time, the only reason the man will ever be in a court. You understand what I'm saying?"