The Canal

by Daniel Morris

  "Tell me what you saw, Rose, help me."

  He was getting no response. Total disconnect. Her eyes were already closing. He let her head slip out of his hands.

  Joe sat and quietly looked at her. His hand began to twitch, in preparation for another Wap! But then he thought better of it and nervously squelched his cigarette in the ashtray. He reached toward her one more time, to touch her cheek...but he stopped himself. There was no use.

  Joe felt brittle, fragile, like a stack of uneven stones. Rose appearing like this, it was not a good thing. Fortunately, there were others he could speak to, who would know what was going on. But he had to find them, and he had to do it quickly.

  Joe let himself out of the room. He felt a change immediately -- something unfamiliar in the way the air settled, something stirring in the nostrils. A waft, a quaff, a breeze. Not just Alan's cologne. But a fellow perfumer as well. And an audacious one at that.

  He encountered a strange vision, a kind of before and after. Alan, the young one, standing beside his older self. Two men who shopped identical department store catalogs and who practiced thrice-half-hourly flossings. It was The Incredible Perfect Man and his smiling sidekick, Mr. Alan Unnatural -- two antiseptic freaks.

  "You must be Lombardi," said the older version. His lips sliced at the air, like sword blades. "I've heard many things. Even amazing things." He extended his hand, but stopped short. After getting a good look at the gastric camouflage sprayed all over Joe's coat, sever distaste quickly crept across the man's well-lotioned face.

  Alan stepped in. Joe couldn't help but notice that Alan seemed distinctly pleased.

  "Joe, this is Lieutenant Bleecker."

  "Oh," said Joe. He looked at Bleecker. "Can't say I give a shit."

  Bleecker's eyes, two lifeless marbles, quickly narrowed to slits. Beside him, a smile -- authentic, robust, pure pleasure -- swallowed Alan's face.

  "That woman needs to be in a hospital," said Joe. "Get her a doctor. Get..." He stopped short with a frustrated wave of the arms, discharging a ripe wind from the sleeve. "She can't help you. Even if you get her to talk, it won't make any goddamn sense." Then he jammed his hands into his pockets and stepped quickly toward the hallway, saying, "I've got to see some people," to no one in particular.

  "I didn't say you could leave," boomed Bleecker. Joe could sense those formidable eyes on him still, like twin flame-throwers laying waste. Bleecker jabbed a gloss-helmeted finger at Joe's back.

  "I'm talking to you, Lombardi!"

  Joe was already out the door. He had no time for the Bleeckers' of this world. People like him and Alan; they thought they had it figured. They thought they knew the answers. They didn't.

  Halfway down the hall, something poked Joe in the back of the shoulder. He spun around to find Alan, Jesus, prodding him with a stick? A pencil, Joe realized. The sharpened end. Alan didn't say anything at first.

  "What the hell are you staring at?" said Joe.

  "So," said Alan. "Rose, is it?"

  Joe shrank back for a moment. Had they been watching? He should have been more careful. Had they heard?

  But Alan, the way he stood there; he was trying to look like he knew more than he did. The expectancy in the eyes. The tension in the grin. Alan was pushing for information. He'd heard a name, and that was all he'd heard. A name that meant nothing to anybody.

  "Give me your gun," said Joe.

  "I wonder," said Alan, enjoying this, "is there anything you're not telling me? Because these secrets of yours, Joe -- of all your faults, the entire long list, that's at the top. And secrets are dark things, Joe. Yet, here you are, sitting on a whole stack of them."

  "Give me your goddamn gun."

  "Who is she, Joe? Answer me. Tell me or I swear I'll fucking bury you."

  Joe didn't have time for this. He was suddenly in Alan's face, deep inside the man's vector of cleanliness. He reached around Alan's waist and yanked the gun out of its holster.

  "Joe! What--" Alan looked warily at the gun in Joe's hand. But Joe was already forgetting about Alan. He had a bigger, more pressing crisis: the past. Joe left Alan behind, and continued down the hall.

  "You're done," Alan shouted after him. "You're just too dumb to see it. Change is coming, asshole. CHANGE IS COMING."

  *

  The moment Alan walked back in, Bleecker was screaming at him. "What the hell was that?"

  "I have to apologize for my partner, sir."

  "Joe, he runs hot sometimes," Womack chimed in.

  "We all run hot," said Bleecker. "My fucking leased Porsche runs hot. That's no fucking excuse."

  It wasn't an excuse. It was no fucking excuse! Alan wanted to shout it. On a megaphone, on a mountain, into a bottomless trench: Joe Lombardi is a soil, a stain, a grease spot. He's an antique, he's a throw away, a past tense. Joe is a bane to manicured men.

  "That's your partner?" asked Bleecker, summoning a very righteous wrath, almost evangelical in nature; the high priest cursing the devil, curing grandma's hip with a Hallelujah! and a roundhouse.

  "I don't trust him," he said flatly. "I mean, the way some guys talk, you'd think he was the second coming. But he's-- That's fucking Lombardi? Him? The guy, he doesn't respect his superiors. He's a loose cannon. You, D'Angelo, you're not a loose cannon are you?"

  "No," said Alan, with conviction. "No, sir." I'm the good guy and I've got the pressed pants to prove it. I use anti-perspirant. I shave.

  "Are you gonna go around, pissing me off?"

  "No, sir. Never."

  Bleecker was getting incrementally louder and redder, building, in Alan's imagination, toward something almost mythological in scope, toward a crescendo involving thunderbolts and, possibly, a war hammer.

  "Have you picked up any of his habits, Alan? Insubordination? Disrespect? Those can be contagious, detective. Have you caught that germ?"

  "Absolutely not," said Alan, defiantly. This was becoming alarming. I'm on your side, sir!

  Womack quickly waded between the two. "Boss, boss, Alan here, he's your guy."

  In one brief beat, all of Bleecker's hostility was gone. From Hyde to Jekyll in the turn of a page. From mad, tendons bulging, to regular, yawning. He put the whip to his emotions, this man, and when they were no longer of use, he threw them in a vat of acid.

  "You're right," he smiled. He looked at Womack, "You. Guy. Coffee. Now."

  "Yes. Yes sir!"

  "Sorry," said Bleecker, zeroing in on Alan. "That Lombardi character got my goat. I need guys I can trust, guys who play by my rules. Based on what I just saw -- Lombardi is not one of those guys. Obviously. The man looks like he rolled out of a gutter. I mean, we're professionals here.

  "To be honest, Alan, in my mind's eye, I had figured him as looking otherwise. Rather more like you. Neat. All business. This was a mistake on my part, and that's already one mistake too many. Hence my previous line of questioning, D'Angelo. If I can't count on Lombardi, will I be able to count on you?"

  "Yes, sir. I'm on your side."

  "My side...that's good, real good. I mean, there is no other side, but that's good. HEY GUY, GET D'ANGELO A CUP. How you want it?"

  "One cream, one sugar," said Alan.

  "ONE CREAM, ONE SUGAR."

  Womack waved from the coffeepot. "Ahoy that."

  "Then Alan, are you gonna solve this thing? Because when I say to the people of this city, 'You can sleep safe, we're on the job, nobody's gonna stuff you under no bridge,' I've got to mean it. I've got to know that I've got guys I can trust to do the job. Am I right?"

  "Right."

  "Golden. Then all I ask is that you make this case gone. However you do it, whatever you do, I don't care. And as far as Lombardi goes... Just remember, you're the one I trust. You're the one I'm gonna count on to do as I require and bring this thing home."

  "Yes, sir."

  Bleecker smiled. Teeth so white! Capped! Gums so fine!

  "Good man, good man." He placed one of his royal hands on Alan's shoulder. "An
d let me just add that, well, you do this thing for me, and... When I say the word 'promotion' down at City Hall, they tend to listen."

  He had said... The man had said promotion. That word. And it had heft, substance, like you could pick it up off the floor and roll it around in the palm of your hand. You could drop it in your pocket and feel it jangling there, like change.

  It felt strange to Alan, in that moment. Like he was looking at himself from across the room. So much of his ambitions had seemed so elusive, for so long. And now, here it all was. All that he'd thought he ever wanted, delivered as mandate, inscribed on holy tablet. All he had to do was act.

  Womack returned with the coffees, passing them out. Bleecker drained his in one go. It had to be scalding, but he didn't seem to notice.

  "I'm leaving now," Bleecker said. "Gentlemen, its been a laugh." He thought about that. "No, not really." Then he carefully wiped his lips with a napkin. "Now make yourselves useful."

  "Thank you, sir," said Alan.

  "Please," said Bleecker, "call me Bob."

  Alan averted his eyes as the man exited. Alan wasn't worthy, in the most cosmic sense. How must people appear, to such a man? Inferior, surely. Like a vast tribe of gaggle-toothed natives, come across on expedition, with rods through their penises and snorting zebra dung.

  "Bob," said Womack, slowly. And there wasn't anything more to say than that.

  Alan looked in on the woman. Pavement sleeper, trashcan digger, missionary meal'er. No rose was she. You had to wonder about these types. These untouchables. Out in the mud. Out past the frontier. They were to Alan as grit was to gold, these types. Plotters. Schemers. Usurpers. Lazing in the damp with their good buddies, Disorder and Disarray.

  And if she was as sick as Joe said, well, Alan wasn't going in that room. He could just imagine the germs -- big-bellied, bleary-eyed, forbiddingly Slavic.

  No, he was not going in that room.

  "Get her to a hospital," said Alan. "Let them clean her up. I'll deal with her later."

  "Hope she's not contagious."

  "Wear gloves if you go in. Don't breathe."

  "No breathing, got it. Anything else?" asked Womack. "The autopsy..."

  "The autopsy..." Alan had been planning on going to the autopsy. It was an ideal process -- the private body made public, its secrets weighed and measured, notes taken, reports filed. The coarse and mysterious flesh transformed into cool numerals and diagrams. He should be there. He should be dismantling that body into its component cellular parts, into slurry, looking for answers.

  But...

  But Alan couldn't ignore what he'd seen -- that wobble in Joe's sad clown disguise, the tremor at the mention of this woman's name. Joe knew something. And when it came to these cases, he always knew something. How did he always know? And why was he always hiding it? Why was he always so vague? That's what got Alan outraged. That's what made Alan burn, a slow simmer of indignation. This was data we were talking about. This was information. The truth deserved better.

  "Vincent goes to the autopsy," said Alan. It wasn't an easy decision to make. But Alan had an opportunity that couldn't be ignored, a chance to possibly neutralize Joe's maddening advantage, all those fucking secrets.

  "And you?" said Womack.

  "Me, I've got to see some people."

  But first Alan needed a gun.

  >> CHAPTER SIX <<

  Zzzzzerttt...Zzzzzerttt.

  Paul was. He was confused.

  Zzzzzzzzerttt...

  A couch. His couch. And there was something...something above him. On the ceiling, a stain, spreading like a jellyfish, a billowing skirt with stingers and poison. There it was on the walls. And on the carpet, a trail of it leading to the back door.

  Oh thank God. Now he remembered. Thank God, it was only blood.

  Zzzzzerttt...

  Now he remembered. Wanting to rest. Taking a nap to let the dizziness pass. But it had been morning then and it was morning now, the day still early, still ungrown. Was today, tomorrow? Had he lost an entire day?

  His strength, it was still...erstwhile. It waved to him from the back seat of a cross-country bus, shrinking in the distance. And what remained, what remained was barely anything at all. Even his sweat had a finality to it -- a tar, yellow and tacky, almost an amber. Some deep substance. His soul, maybe? Finally escaping in physical form? Could the soul be a juice? Or a dew, even? He hoped so. And Paul didn't mind it getting wiped on the couch. He figured he'd be better without it, he'd be lighter, able to make more moves.

  Zzzzerttt... And that sound. Now it made sense. It was the doorbell.

  The doorbell. The doorbell urged him onto his feet. He may have felt broken, wasted, but Paul could still think. He could still plot. And New Paul sensed an opportunity worth getting up for, worth hurting for. Something that couldn't be missed.

  Zzzer-- Paul opened the door just wide enough to let his head creep out. He blinked. A caller.

  "Morning, sir." A man on Paul's doorstep. He was holding something for Paul to examine. Perhaps this was important, although Paul needed time to be sure. Wait, don't put it away, not yet... Stop. What did he say? The man was tall. He was as big as, as...could feed a family. Yes, an opportunity indeed.

  "I'm with the police."

  Now that, that did it. That brought the old Paul around. Here he comes -- couldn't pass this up, could he. The p-p-police, whined Old Paul. Did you hear?

  "The neighborhood..." said the policeman. "Last night. Can I ask your name? Yesterday... Anything of note?" Anything strange. Strangers. Catch your eye. The canal. Suspicion. Noises. Voices. Missing persons. Everything okay? What was he saying?

  The police, hissed Old.

  Shut up, thought New Paul. I'm trying to listen! And he was, but the policeman's words were escaping in a thousand different directions, losing themselves down the corridors of Paul's ears. And if Paul did manage to grab hold of one, a victorious verb or noun, well by that time the man was already moving on, onto new questions and new confusions.

  Time of day. Yesterday. Whereabouts. Been upriver? Do you like the water? Name please. My name is New Paul. You haven't heard? Murdered. Seen it on the TV? Scared by anything at night? Loners. Motors. Where were you? Anyone else home? Just you? Just us. Name, please.

  "My name is New Paul."

  "Paul, huh?" The policeman leaned back on his heels. "I have an uncle named Paul." He clicked his pen and tucked it in his pocket, then folded his notebook shut.

  Paul had to say something, he had to save this opportunity -- there was dinner to consider.

  "Arrryewwuhhhlownn..." The words came out all stuck together, a verbal smear. Are you alone. New Paul scolded himself -- he couldn't even speak properly. Now his body chooses to quit? Not all those years ago when he'd actually wanted it, but now, just when he needs to keep going, to keep feeding.

  "I think I missed that."

  Paul tried to repeat it, but the breath wasn't coming, the lips weren't moving...he couldn't, he just couldn't manage it. Even if he could say the words, he couldn't do what would need to come after. Not now, not in this state -- he was just a husk, every heartbeat ending in a cliffhanger. He couldn't accomplish the job. Not like he'd done with the last gentlemen who came to his door.

  The police, wailed Old. You're in trouble...

  The man handed him something. Paper. Stiff and small. Then, "Think of anything, you can call me." He looked at Paul, a long time maybe.

  "Thank you," Paul said at last.

  The policeman went away. Paul turned to the card the man had given him -- its print was elusive, every letter a mess of slashes and squiggles. A business card. Detective. Vincent. Burnham. 76th. Precinct.

  They know, said Old.

  Paul shut the door and the floor came up to catch him, almost gently. It was better on the ground.

  If they knew, thought New Paul, they would have taken me away.

  Murderer, murderer, murderer... And on he went, this old Paul. He was becoming a bit hyste
rical, a bit wild.

  New Paul was rather amused. Murderer, he teased. Murderer? We are all murderers, old friend. Oh I'm sorry, did you forget? Did you not realize? That survival is, in and of itself, a process of murder? Life feeds on life. Life gorges on itself, it does. The strong prey on the weak. Why, man is the greatest murderer this world has ever seen. We'll devour a species to extinction -- and yet, we feel no guilt. We sleep blameless in our beds, our stomachs full with flesh. But it's the order of things though, isn't it? We're just following the rules. Its been ordained, not by us, but by life itself. We're all just part of the machine.

  But, wait, what's that you say? What's that about man killing man? Oh, you say it's wrong, do you. It's different. Who says that? The carrion? The flies? The worms? WHAT DID I TELL YOU, YOU SNIVELING, HIDING, SHIT! EXISTENCE IS NOTHING BUT APPETITE. AND I, FOR ONE, INTEND TO KEEP THAT APPETITE FED!

  Old Paul could keep all his sentimental yester-year's, all those cried on Polaroids. But what New Paul had, well, that was something truly special. Something that actually mattered and was real.

  He had his dear friend, the twilight visitor. Appetite incarnate.

  And in spite of New Paul's distaste for the past, there was one reminiscence that he allowed himself. One indulgent memory. It was his sole pleasure.

  It wasn't a new memory. Although it had taken place after his family had died, and after New Paul had come to be. He'd been in the backyard, which at the time still had some momentum, some green. The sun neared the horizon. A lone cloud prepared to meet its maker over the Atlantic. Summer. Paul was at the barbecue. He used to keep the barbecue clean, but now zits of rust pitted its dome, spider cocoons hung from beneath. Paul had begun to make a habit of cooking here. He liked being outdoors. He liked monitoring the decline of his yard. He liked to cook meat.

  Tonight, dinner was a steak of primitive gristle, the lobes of fat shimmering on the grill. Beside it was a can of beans, the label already charred away. Paul was watching his dinner transform in the flames when he heard a noise coming from the canal. A splash, like chimes. It was probably nothing. Probably a piece of canal bulkhead falling in.