Bleeding in Black and White

by Colin Cotterill

  “Then I think we should get ourselves upstairs.” The three men reached forward with relief to put their almost-full cups on the table. “Just as soon as we’ve all finished our tea.”

  Lou’s room was impeccably neat, as if he’d been expecting guests that didn’t show up. This was the first thing that worried Bodge. Lou was an organized man, but Bodge had been to this apartment hundreds of times and never seen it so fussy. There was nothing lying around: no breakfast things from Friday morning, no trash. Even the bath towels and face cloths in the bathroom smelled of washing powder.

  “Is your friend Lou normally this attentive to detail?” Palmer whispered to Bodge out of earshot of the super.

  “No. it’s like the place has been overrun by hotel chamber maids. There isn’t even any dirty laundry in the basket.”

  “Either he tidied up because he knew he’d be going away…”

  “Or someone’s done a thorough job of cleaning up evidence. I bet there isn’t a fingerprint in the entire place.” That being as it may, the two able-bodied men used clean handkerchiefs to handle everything. Mrs. Harris was very impressed at their efficiency, but Palmer knew they could be even more efficient without her breathing down their necks.

  “Michelle, my sweet.”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “I’m afraid we might be some time. Perhaps you’d prefer to go down and take a little rest.”

  “Well, I…”

  “And I’m sure this has all been very disturbing for you, too. Perhaps you’d benefit from a little drink to steady your nerves. Do you have any alcohol in your apartment?”

  “Are fish waterproof?” Bodge asked Denholm under his breath.

  “There may be a little something down there, Marion. I tell you, being here in poor Mr. Vistarini’s rooms is starting to get to me. Perhaps you’re right. I’ll wait for you all downstairs.”

  Once the idea of booze was in her mind there was nothing human that could keep her from its pursuit. She closed the door and left them there to their work. Palmer had a way of dismissing menials that made them think it was a favor. Bodge was impressed.

  “Perhaps you’d benefit from a little drink to steady your nerves?” he mocked.

  “Marion?”

  “I needed a name in a hurry.”

  “And that was the first one that came to your mind?”

  “It’s my father’s name,” Bodge confessed.

  “Then I guess I should consider myself honored.”

  “Look, let’s get organized,” Denholm told them. “I’ll go through the kitchen and bathroom. Bodge, you take the bedroom. Maid Marion, this room’s yours. Fine tooth comb the whole place. Imagine you live here. Where would you keep your secrets hidden?”

  Bodge stood in the doorway of the bedroom. He looked around the room and wondered whether it had any secrets to share with him. On one of their many unutilized training programs, the instructor had told his CIA operatives to always begin a search in the most obvious place because basically people were obvious creatures. Bodge went to the bed and lifted the mattress. The instructor had been right. Half way back were three glossy journals. Bodge had little doubt they were girlie magazines kept there out of the eyesight of his prying landlady. And if Lou felt he needed to hide them, Bodge figured these were perhaps a little steamier than the loose bikinis and nothing-visible nudes you could buy behind Penn Station. If he knew Lou at all, they were pornographic.

  He held up the mattress with one hand and pulled out the magazines with the other. The cover of the first wasn’t what he’d expected. It was written in Italian. The title in large blue letters read, ‘Signori’ superimposed over a photo of a good-looking chap with a cigarette. Small sub-headings sat across its smoke. Bodge wondered whether Lou had taken a sudden interest in his grooming.

  He opened the magazine at a random page and when his eyes focused, something sharp and cold seemed to puncture his lung. The magazine shook itself from his hands and he let go of the mattress. In those few seconds the world seemed to be pulled inside out. Although he’d done nothing wrong he was consumed by fear.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Bodge, caught like a rat under a flashlight beam, froze and looked up towards the bedroom door. Palmer stood there with a handkerchief wrapped around the handle. “Bodge? Are you okay? …Bodge?”

  Bodge snapped out of his trance.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. It’s…the mattress was a little heavier than I expected. I’m still a bit weak from yesterday’s incident. I came over faint there for a second. I’m okay now.”

  “You sure? You want me to give you a hand?”

  “No. No. Sorry. What was it you said?”

  “I was remarking on that rumpled quilt you’ve left there. I’d forgotten to mention we need to put everything back exactly as it was found. It would probably help if nobody knows we’ve been here.”

  “I can remember how everything was.”

  Palmer returned to the bathroom and Bodge searched for a breath. His heart was pumping.

  “Oh, Lou. No.”

  Bodge had only seconds to consider all the consequences of what he was to do next. His actions there and then could change the future — and the past. His discovery had already altered one person in his mind, maybe two. He wasn’t sure just how much more damage it could do. The magazines were pornographic right enough, but none of the performers were female.

  15.

  Bodge woke still dazed from a fitful night of shallow dozing. He wasn’t sure where he was at first till he saw the curtains he’d bought and his art nouveau wall piece hanging foolishly from a nail. Then, all the other facts came clattering one into the back of the next till he had more information than he needed. He looked at the clock beside the bed. It was set for seven but there was still half an hour before it could do any alarming. Palmer would pick him up at seven-thirty. They’d eat breakfast then spend another day looking for Lou. Palmer, the ever-present, the shadow. Bodge lay still and tried to remember how different he and Lou and life had been only a few days earlier before Palmer turned up. Everything had been so uncomplicated then. Now look at it all.

  He rose from the bed, lifted the mattress a few inches and dragged out the magazines. It would be crazy to take them with him today but even crazier to leave them behind. He found an unused manila envelope in his desk drawer, a large internal mail type. It was big enough for all three magazines. He wanted to tape the flap shut but his stupid clumsy hands couldn’t find the end of the roll. Instead he folded the package into the inside pocket of his top coat. It was October and although the Indian summer had extended into September that year, the temperature was dropping fast. He didn’t feel the cold and usually settled for a jacket, but his heavy wool coat wouldn’t look out of place on the city streets.

  Later, in the car while Denholm drove, Palmer asked Bodge if he’d remembered the photographs.

  “The ph...? Oh, yeah.” He reached into his hip pocket and handed his boss three photos of Bodge and Lou together. All three were of the two smiling men in a bar or a restaurant raising a glass to the cameraman.

  “You two seem very close.”

  “You know, that’s how it occurred to me when I went through my pictures. It’s funny. I guess we take each other for granted. At the time it always felt as if we were hanging out together until some better life came along. When something’s too familiar you tend not to notice its good points. Lou is (he almost said ‘was’) a nice guy. In all this time together we haven’t once fought; not even a word in anger that I can recall.

  “You spend a lot of time together?”

  “Some weeks we go for a drink, usually go for a meal on Fridays. There were one or two fishing trips. Sometimes when we both had a date, he’d come over to my place and I’d order in, or we’d go to his and he’d cook.”

  “He cooks well?”

  “He’s the best. Always Italian, but delicious.”

  “And baseball?”

 
“No. Lou isn’t into sport. He’d sit through a game if I was really interested, but he doesn’t really know much about baseball.”

  “How does he spend his nights, his weekends, when you aren’t around?”

  “That’s just it. All these years and I can’t say I really know what he likes to do. Either that or he really doesn’t do anything at all. He’d come in on Monday mornings and I’d ask him how he spent the weekend. He’d say things like, ‘Just sitting around’ or ‘Read a couple of things’”.

  “So it’s quite conceivable that you’re his only social life.”

  “I guess.” Although in Bodge’s hip pocket was a suggestion otherwise. If Lou could keep that a secret from his best friend, who knows what else he was up to? “But he has so much energy. I can’t see him sitting around.”

  “He doesn’t have a steady girl?” Every new question got Bodge thinking at a new level. One he’d never thought he’d have to sink to.

  “He’s had plenty but he gets bored with them soon enough. They’d be too keen on him or not keen enough; too chatty or too quiet. He usually finds a reason to get rid of them.”

  “Something like you, in fact.”

  It was an accurate observation which Palmer had every right to make but it still made Bodge feel resentful at his prying. There was something else now too. Bodge might not have been anything at all like Lou. A deep rooted prejudice seemed to be bubbling beneath the surface, one he hadn’t realized he held. But Bodge kept to the track.

  “I wonder whether we’ve talked about ‘that perfect woman’ so often, we subconsciously stopped giving the imperfect ones a shot.” Bodge was certainly talking about himself now. “Lou’s, how can I put it? He’s a confused person. He has questions about everything.”

  “Meaning of life questions?”

  “Meaning of life and all it contains. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for, professionally or socially. I understand that now. He’s wanted to get out of that office for as long as me, but doesn’t really have any idea what he’d do instead.”

  The car drove into the forecourt of St. Vincent’s hospital on Seventh.

  “Do you suppose that might be relevant?”

  “To his disappearance?”

  “You, his friend, get an overseas posting at last and he sees himself stuck in the office all by himself. I can see that being terribly depressing. Can’t you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it. I can’t really imagine Lou being depressed, but I guess he must get that way like any of us. I don’t know. He seemed especially happy on our nights out last week. I suppose it could have been a show. But it was almost as if my victory was his victory. He’d been freed vicariously. Who can say? Perhaps I don’t really know him at all.”

  Denholm didn’t drive into the car park, just pulled off to one side and idled there reading the sports section. Palmer produced a sheet of paper from his pocket.

  “Okay, Bodge. This is what I propose. I have here a list of hospitals and doctor’s offices within a two mile radius of Lou’s apartment. The one we’re in right now is the closest. You and I will work our way down it and find out whether any place admitted Lou on Saturday morning. Nothing official. Just claim to be a relative — find a sympathetic nurse. We can take half the list each. Denholm has agreed to visit the neighbourhood police precinct houses and see if there were any reports on Friday or Saturday. We can meet up for lunch at La Casa around one and compare notes; decide if we need to spend the afternoon on it as well. Before we go our separate ways, have you given any thought to what we may have learned yesterday?”

  Denholm put down his paper to pay attention.

  “I do have a sort of mental list of main points.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay, in reverse order. One, we’re assuming that Lou disappeared from his apartment, which is fair enough as we have no other starting point. But there’s no proof anyone let him in. As nobody saw Lou after that, the cab driver is at the end of the line. He may have lied about taking Lou home. I think we’ll have to go have another chat with our cabby sometime. Two, early on Friday evening young Eddie had us both believing he couldn’t hold his booze. But it appears he was stone cold sober — and organized. It was as if he had something planned for us. Or, perhaps he had something planned for Lou and I was incidental.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I got home unscathed and Lou didn’t.” This was one theory that made more sense to Bodge with the package burning in his pocket. “Three, it appears we were in the area around Bouncers for a hell of a long time, but we still don’t know where we went. Given our conditions when the cabby picked us up, we couldn’t have traveled far. I think we need to get a second opinion as to whether the joint was open on Friday or not.?

  “Good point. I’ll check with the licensing section,” Denholm agreed.

  “Four, if Friday night was all planned, then it has to connect back to our office and your letter. If the letter wasn’t just a lucky excuse to get introduced to Lou and myself, then somebody’s taking a very personal interest in the mission. That increases the likelihood that my truck encounter in DC wasn’t an accident. It also suggests the security surrounding this supposedly covert operation in Vietnam has been compromised. Although I don’t doubt you’re concerned about my friend Lou, it seems more likely to me you’re going to all this trouble so you can find out how your project will be affected.”

  Palmer was delighted. “Excellent. Excellent, Bodge. You see why I wanted you on this mission?”

  “To compile lists of questions?”

  “Without questions there can be no answers. Let’s hope, by the end of the day we both know better where we stand. I’ll see you two later.” He climbed out of the car, slammed the door and jogged off across the forecourt in yet another two-hundred-buck suit. He and Denholm had refused the offer to sleep at Bodge’s the previous night. Denholm presumably had somewhere of his own. Palmer said he had access to a place in town. Whatever that place was, it apparently had a wardrobe of clothes to fit him.

  The day was a frustrating waste of time when it came to getting information. It wasn’t like the various institutions were deliberately holding back. It was just that the wheels of administration everywhere in New York ground so slowly even the simplest questions took forever to find answers to. At his first opportunity, Bodge ditched the magazines. He felt like himself as a teenager hiding a Health and Efficiency naturist brochure from his parents. Out back of Lenox Hill Hospital he found the furnace. There was nobody minding it so he pulled down the checking flap in the door and slotted the brown envelope though it like mail to the devil. It was a weight off his mind.

  At lunch the only news they had to share was that Bouncers didn’t have a license to operate at weekends. That, Denholm informed Bodge, was the police way of saying the old lady hadn’t offered enough for them to turn a blind eye to her staying open. The afternoon wasn’t any better. When he met with Palmer and Denholm at Smokey Joe’s that evening, no-one had a shred of information about Lou. There was no joy from the hospitals, the doctors or the police. There had been no accidents or arrests on Saturday morning involving anyone whose identity remained unknown. Lou had merely vanished from the face of the earth.

  Smokey Joe’s was a bar with a juke box, warped wood paneling and only one light bulb. The owner claimed that made the place atmospheric but what it really made it was dark. Bodge and Palmer had a Millers each. They drank from the bottle because it was impossible to see just how dirty the glasses were. Denholm had a lemon squash. He didn’t drink.

  The only redeeming feature of Smokey Joe’s, the only reason they’d arranged to meet there at all, was that it was a short walk from Bouncers. Being Thursday, there was a good chance the place would be open and they could get past St. Peter’s grandmother, thus christened by Bodge. They still needed to find Bodge and Lou’s destination on their night out and the clip joint was the only lead they had.

  Bouncers was even more horr
ible than any of them could have imagined. They’d run the gauntlet past the owner who sniffed their money before giving change, and told them she’d known they wouldn’t be able to resist a peek inside. They walked along a narrow cave of papier-mâché rocks toward the source of the music.

  They’d been expecting a cabaret affair with tables and sexy cocktail waitresses; the usual type of dive. But they emerged from their tunnel into a small damp room with a lighted stage on one side. Eight rows of cinema seats faced the stage and beyond them was a bar. Given the setting, it was a surprisingly splendid bar with mirrors and lines of exotic spirit bottles. The barman was a bald Chinese man in a white undershirt that stretched over a pregnant dome of a stomach.

  On the stage was a bewigged woman in her late forties luminous with makeup. She was prancing back and forth barely in time to the tune of “Jezebel”. It whined from an old gramophone through an amplification trumpet and made Frankie Lane sound like a chipmunk. She wore a two-piece summer suit apparently made of orange crepe paper that crunched as she walked. She perked up noticeably when the three well-heeled newcomers appeared at the back of the room. Bodge and his party doubled the audience and halved its average age.

  There were no stools on the customer side of the bar but four behind it. Bodge assumed they were supposed to take their drinks to the cinema seats although none of the three old men had one. The Chinese looked up from the chaotic script of his newspaper as they approached him. He didn’t bother to stand up.

  “How much is a beer?” Denholm asked.

  “Beer? Sure.” Before they could stop him, the barman had popped the cap from a small bottle of Budweiser and banged it down on the bar.

  “No. I didn’t say I wanted one. I just asked how much.”

  “I open already. You gotta pay.”

  “I don’t…”

  “You look for trouble?” he reached under the bar where all of them were certain he kept an arsenal of threatening weapons. This house scam had obviously worked in the past. The customers paid up rather than get shot. For obvious reasons, few would complain to the police. But Denholm already had his badge in his hand and he held it up for the barman to see.