by Jerry Stahl
“The police,” Mister Edward repeated, his voice clearing suddenly.
Tina pictured an acned, prematurely bald fellow in pinstripes. She often had these clairvoyant moments, and often as not her creepier premonitions proved accurate.
“To be honest, my husband took his own life.”
She let her voice trail off, and Mister Edward seemed relieved, almost upbeat, when he replied.
“We understand! Completely. And we want you to know we can certainly assist you with any…special arrangements.”
Tina was trying to absorb this—and at the same time suppress the image of Marvin writhing on the floor with bleeding eyeballs and lip foam—when she heard the call-waiting beep. She asked Mister Edward to hang on and hit Flash.
“Tina, it’s me,” said Manny immediately. “What are you wearing?”
“Manny, really, I’m on the line with the funeral home. Is this one of those calls?”
“One of what calls? I just heard there’s a reporter coming to your house. I wanted to make sure you look like a grieving widow.”
“Well, I usually answer the door in hot pants and a SPANK ME T-shirt, but if you think that’s a bad idea, I’ll change.”
“Change back when I come over. Meanwhile, I’m just telling you, I got the word. A woman from the Trumpet is on her way.”
“Don’t they call first?”
“Not after a death. People might tell them to fuck off. Anyway, you should try and look, I don’t know….”
“Sad?”
“Start off sad, then get angry. Those people love it when you throw them out. It shows you’re sincere.”
He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, and silently thanked himself for making the call from the Thrifty Drugs pay phone. Fayton loved to tape calls from the station, and the transcript of this one would be hard to explain.
“You want,” said Tina, “I can throw myself on the floor and rent my hair, then hit her with a table leg. But right now I gotta go.”
“No, wait.” Manny swallowed and paused. “Just one more thing. I have to ask, what about insurance?”
“What about it?”
“Did Marvin have any? You know, is there anything coming to you?”
“He didn’t believe in it,” she answered. “His theory was, if you really believed in eternal life, life insurance was a waste of cash.”
Manny was beyond relieved. Now there really wasn’t any pressing motive. One more reason to let it ride as suicide. A pregnant widow left with nothing…. Who’d want to make her life any more miserable?
“Wait,” Tina said, in a tone he hadn’t heard before, something harder and tougher fortifying her words. “Do you remember what I showed you in the car?”
“That’s not something you forget.”
“Well, that’s my insurance.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said, and plunged on before he could summon one of the eight zillion reasons for stopping before things went any further. “You’re going to need some.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re pregnant,” he told her. “And you’re going to name the baby Marvin, in case anybody asks.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said choking up on cue. “Now I wish I had told him. Maybe then, he could have found a reason to live.”
She sounded so convincing, Manny got a chill. “You’re scaring me.”
“I scare myself,” Tina said.
She clicked off without saying good-bye, and Manny wondered just what it was he thought he was doing. This woman had just murdered her husband, and now he was conspiring with her. Oh well…. He sighed and checked his watch. Que sera fucking sera.
For an extra second, Manny hunkered in the phone booth and took in his fellow losers milling around the prescription window. He made two home boys for stone dope fiends—the fell as liked to take the edge off with Tussionex, cough syrup of the gods, when smack was scarce—and made a jumpy young skeleton with a boob job as a mommy speed freak, no doubt stealing Ritalin from the hyperactive twins pounding the shit out of each other with Tonka toys while she fine-tuned her eyeliner. Manny’s own scrip was under a name he’d momentarily forgotten. He had a few different ones, in different parts of town. If this was Thrifty’s, he was Martino. That was it. The name of the mortuary advertising on the bus bench in front of the Thrifty minimall.
“I apologize,” Tina was saying to Mister Edward, who’d been on hold, “there are just so many loose ends to tie up. I’ve forgotten my manners under all this stress.”
“That’s understandable,” he said, a man of studied intonation. “Under the circumstances, I think you’re bearing up beautifully.”
“Thank you,” she said, and announced, by way of trying it out, “I’m actually expecting. This is all such a terrible blow.”
Mister Edward said nothing for a moment. Tina pictured him staring in a hand mirror, rubbing ointment on his problem skin. Then he spoke into the phone, if possible, with even more professional sympathy than before. He’d begun to sound like the butler in a thirties movie. “Rest assured, Mrs….?”
“Podolsky.”
“Mrs. Podolsky, yes. Rest assured, Mrs. Podolsky, I will do everything in my power to make the transition process a smooth one. It’s never easy, but you have a friend at Martino and Sons.”
“Thank you again,” said Tina, catching his formality like a bug. She was trying to think of a way of asking how much this bullshit will cost when Mister Edward addressed the issue for her.
“We have a number of burial packages, Mrs. Podolsky. You’re welcome to visit us here and select the casket and service you prefer. Or, if you’d like, I or one of my associates can come by for a home consultation. Whatever the method,” he continued delicately, “we recommend that the bereaved make arrangements at their earliest convenience. Is there, perhaps, a friend or family member we can contact? We find it wise to establish viewing hours and decide on the type of service that best suits your needs as soon as possible.”
“There’s just…just me,” she said, putting some quiver in it.
“I see. And did you and the late Mr. Podolsky have a cemetery you preferred? Have you selected a plot?”
“Not exactly. He was sort of Indian,” Tina said, fondling Marv’s turban, as if this would somehow explain everything.
Tina was still clutching the turban when the knock came on her door. She peeped through the curtain to see a whip-thin, short-haired woman in a business suit speaking into a cell phone. By now, the new widow had changed into a black skirt and sweater, the closest she had to actual mourning-wear.
Oddly enough, Marvin’s face had shown up in the Trumpet two weeks ago, in the lifestyle section, as part of a series on Alternative Worship. He’d been interviewed over the phone. The headline read COSMIC CASH-IN. Below that: LOCAL MAN LEADS MOVEMENT TO MONEY MEDITATION. In the story, Marv explained that chanting the proper mantra was a way of not just creating prosperity but establishing a harmony with the cosmos that made possible a life without fear of death overshadowing the joy of living. “If we find the right vibration of joy in the moment,” the reporter quoted him, “then we are guaranteed to live forever.”
Apparently, he’d been wrong.
Tina thought about that as she opened the door. “I hope this isn’t a bad time,” said the lady in the business suit, before Tina could get out a hello. “I’m Dee-Dee Walker, from the Trumpet?”
The way she left it, like a question, let Tina know she was supposed to recognize her, probably even be impressed. Tina remained noncommittal. She decided to let the reporter do the talking, as though her own grief had rendered her mute.
“Is this,” Dee-Dee Walker wondered again, “a bad time?”
Tina thought of a few responses, none polite. But Ms. Walker answered her own question.
“Of course it’s a bad time! I know how it is. My Buddy died last summer. He was a St. Bernard, but you’d have thought he was human! He was my everything.
” She sighed, then found the strength to continue. “Since your husband, your late husband, was recently profiled in the paper, my editor thought that we should get a few words, something about what happened. Whether you’ll be continuing his work, and so on. It would be, I guess you could say, a way for all of us to get closure.”
Tina found herself fascinated by the woman’s delivery, the way she kept looking around but pretending not to. Her eyes wandered over Tina’s shoulder, into the living room. Looking for clues.
“May I come in?” Ms. Walker finally asked. “This won’t take more than a mo, I promise.”
An hour later, having duly recorded the details of Marvin’s tragic suicide, Tina’s heartbreak, and the difficulty of being left with baby Marvin due in a matter of months, Dee-Dee Walker seemed to expect the sudden mood swing.
“I can’t talk about this anymore!” Tina cried. She let her grief metamorphose into rage, just as Manny had advised. “How can you barge into somebody’s home and talk to them like this, when they’ve just lost someone they loved? And I’m not talking about a fucking dog!”
Dee-Dee chose this moment to request a picture, and snapped three quick ones with her point-and-shoot before Tina could think about it. With luck, the photo would show a pretty woman crazed by grief. Either that, Tina thought, or I’ll look like some heartless bim who pan-fries kittens….
The whole thing made her so indignant, by the time she showed her uninvited guest the door, she wasn’t sure she was acting.
NINE
The Pawnee Lodge was pretty much empty this time of the week, and nobody seemed to notice the trio unloading themselves from Carmella’s Gremlin. The motel consisted of a dozen “cottages,” each more or less a cinder-block hut with an Indian headdress mounted over the door. Why the Pawnee people had decided to open up on a strip of auto upholstery shops and parts outlets was anybody’s guess. But Zank said he’d used the place before and the owner kept his mouth shut.
“Nice place for a honeymoon,” McCardle teased, holding the door for Carmella as Zank pushed her through to Number Three.
“Which is exactly what this ain’t,” Zank said.
The big lady sat on the bed without saying a word. She fixed her gaze on McCardle, who winked at her. Her peach capri pants, he noted happily, matched the bedspread. The walls were the color of ball park mustard. If his plan went the way it did in his head, he’d have her under the blankets and ready to tussle in not too long. That, or she’d be dead. Either way.
“Tony,” Mac said to his partner, “we need to talk. Private-ito.”
But Zank was in no mood. “Can’t it wait?”
McCardle sulked. Tony grabbed him by the arm and moved him to a corner of the room, beside a battered color TV chained to the wall. “What is it? We got business here.”
“You got beez-iness,” Carmella chimed in, “at least let me watch the goddamn television.”
Tony tossed her the remote, and she clicked on Jerry Springer as the kidnappers huddled. Today’s topic was “Women Who Love Men Who Call Them Mommy.” McCardle caught a glimpse of a Chinese man in a diaper and had to look away.
“So spill,” Zank hissed, giving Mac’s shoulder a serious whack to let him know it better be good.
McCardle licked his lips and looked at Carmella. She was so sexy! And there was so much of her…. Yum!
His plan, he knew, could go two ways. That was the genius part. He’d worked it out in the Gremlin while holding Zank’s piece on Carmella. The idea was to tell Zank about the money between Carmella’s tits, then finagle Tony into going for it himself. Tony didn’t know what their hostage was capable of, but McCardle did. All she’d done to Tony was comb his nostrils. What was that? McCardle knew better. And not just because his foot still throbbed where she’d spiked him. Twice. No, he’d seen something in her eyes. He knew how to spot a thrill-killer from his stint at Lewisburg. You had to, or you’d end up somebody’s thrill.
If Tony tried anything, Carmella would definitely fuck him up. But Tony was his own kind of monster. As soon as Carmella made her move, whatever it was, Tony would go berserk. He couldn’t help himself. One time, at a Pirates game, when a blind teenager accidentally bumped him at the water fountain, Tony spun around and punched him in the mouth. Then he pushed the terrified youngster to the ground and yanked his shoes off. The blind boy man kept screaming “Why?” But Tony didn’t care. He threw the kid’s Hush Puppies in the trash and started throttling him.
That’s how Tony was wired. He was a throttler. Which was perfect. The second Carmella provoked Tony into choking her, Mac would step in and kill him, thereby saving her life and, in his much-mulled-over fantasy, gaining her outsize, willing body in gratitude.
On the other hand—Plan B—if Tony killed Carmella before Mac could intervene, that worked, too. They could share the money. Tony was a maniac, but he was a fair maniac. On every job they’d done, he’d split the take a clean sixty–forty.
“How much you say she’s holding?” Tony whispered, eyeing the saucy rest home supervisor while Mac explained that he didn’t know for sure, but it looked like a tasty wad.
Much to McCardle’s disappointment, Tony didn’t take the bait. “I don’t believe you! We got the chance for serious money, and you’re tripping over chump change some pudge stuffed in her boob-wedgie.”
“Well…yeah,” Mac said, a little hurt. “Why not?”
Disgust curled Zank’s lips. “You want it, you take it,” he said. “I got better fish to fry. You even know why we checked in here?”
“THEY LOVE THEIR MOMS!” Jerry Springer shouted, and Tony ripped the plug out of the wall so hard the TV nearly toppled.
McCardle was stung. Though, come to think of it, he wasn’t 100 percent sure what they were doing at the Pawnee. The embarrassing truth showed up on his face.
“The Black Dino doesn’t know,” Zank mocked, pinching Mac’s cheeks and squeezing them until his eyes watered. Zank’s voice was getting louder, and McCardle watched Carmella, perched on the edge of the queen-size bed, straining to hear. “The Black Dino thinks we dropped my mother out a fucking window, took off with some fat Spic bitch, and checked into this fleapit so he could pinch a chunk of lunch money. The Black Dino’s not too fucking bright is he? Is he?” he repeated, louder still, pretend bitch-slapping him as Carmella slipped off the peach bedspread.
She padded forward with the remote held high over her beehive and a look in her eye that stuck McCardle’s tongue to the roof of his mouth.
“I can’t hear you!” Zank shouted, at the exact second Carmella whipped the remote off his temple. She reared back and banged him again before he could even turn around.
“Spic bitch, huh?”
“Spic bitch,” Tony smiled, shaking off the second blow. His temple sprouted a bloodless egg, as if something under the skin had hatched and wanted out.
Carmella was so stunned by his disturbo grin she forgot to hit him again. The remote dangled from her raised hand, neglected.
“You wanna play?” Zank asked her, as happy as McCardle’d ever seen him. “The fat Spic bitch wants to play with a white boy?”
Tony let out a yip, and Carmella dodged his first punch with surprising grace. Ducking under it, she caught Zank on the chin with a punishing uppercut. McCardle had to admit, she fought like a man. He was still thinking about it when he saw the big-barreled .357 in his partner’s hand. Tony held the thing like he meant to shoot, but instead he just poked her. He shoved the barrel hard in Carmella’s stomach, then giggled and jabbed her in her breast.
“Doughy,” he laughed. “We got us the Pillsburita Dough-girl.”
Zank eeny-miney-moed Carmella’s bosoms with the muzzle. “So where’s the dough-girl keep her dough? A dumb-ass black birdy told me there’s some dough-re-mi in there somewhere.”
Zank turned to McCardle and waggled his eyebrows, sharing the fun, and Carmella made for the gun. She ripped it from Tony’s hand, then Tony snatched it back. Carmella slapped at the barr
el and for one frantic second, Zank bobbled the weapon, which is when McCardle tried to grab it and fired in his face.
The shot was so loud it left McCardle deaf. When he opened his eyes, Tony was screaming silent movie–style. He must have juked at the last instant because his face was still there, though something was off with the right side of his head. A patch of hair had been blasted down to scalp. The flesh at his temple was scorched, as if he’d napped on a hot radiator. A tarry blotch showed up where his ear used to be.
The ringing in Mac’s skull blotted out whatever his partner was screaming. He watched Zank reel in a tight circle, stretching the collar of his Ban-Lon to the side of his head. Tony wore nothing but Ban-Lon, and now McCardle knew why. In a pinch, it could stretch neatly over a head wound.
The stench of cordite watered McCardle’s eyes, and he all but forgot Carmella until he saw her plunge a nail file toward Tony’s other ear. Slightly giddy, he heard himself think: It’s Get Tony in the Ear Day! He felt sad that his good friend only had two ears. Soon the fun would have to stop. He felt worse when he realized she wasn’t going for Tony, she was going for him. He jerked, and the flimsy metal pierced the skin under his jaw.
“Ow, shit!” McCardle cried, barely hearing himself.
By the time he plucked the file out—he closed his eyes and tugged—Carmella had the gun on Zank. Mac hadn’t seen how she’d gotten ahold of it, but it didn’t matter. She had the thing, and she was bug-eyed with fury. With her free hand, she rubbed her breasts where Zank had abused her. McCardle found the gesture spectacularly arousing, despite his injury.
“I might not shoot you,” Carmella informed them, “but I’m gonna make you wish I did.”
Poking Tony with the gun, the exact way he’d gun-poked her, Carmella nudged him to the battered desk by the bed.
“Hands on the chair,” she ordered. “I’ve got to think.”
Tony’s ear bled freely now, and Mac could see that he had not, in fact, shot the whole thing off. Just the top part, drenching the rest in blood. It looked, to McCardle, like Tony was wearing a wet red ear-muff. His own wound turned out to be no more than a scratch.
