by Jerry Stahl
“Fuck it,” Manny mumbled, and tossed the four tablets off the roof of his mouth. He crunched them dry, punishing his tongue with the sour, chalky crumbs of Tylenol-and-codeine as he ground them to powder. Twisting out of the Impala, he stopped to crack his back. If waking up to murder didn’t justify a fistful of minor opiates, having to contort his spine behind the wheel of the Skankmobile definitely did.
There wasn’t much you could do to prepare yourself for a violent crime scene. But you had to do something. All cops had their own rituals, and Manny’s was no stranger than most. He plucked a couple of Salems from a pack he kept in the glove compartment, then snapped off the filters—recalling, in a warm and fuzzy way, Tina’s peculiar habit—and plugged his nostrils with the menthol stubs. After that he slapped on headphones and tuned his Walkman to KMLD. K-MOLD, as it was known locally, catered to a demographic, he could only assume, whose average age was dead. The station featured songs of such execrable corniness it was hard to imagine anyone listening voluntarily. In a given hour, willing souls endured anything from Wayne Newton to the Carpenters, each tune more revolting than the one before, and all announced by deejays whose sepulchral drone made them sound like they’d been buried alive before every broadcast. But what made it extra-special for Manny were the K-MOLD advertisers: a low-end collection of rib joints, keypunch academies, discount dental offices, and miracle weight-loss products that never failed to make him pause and imagine just what breed of audience the swells in charge were shooting for.
This morning, having mentholed his nostrils, covered his ears, and gulped his battery of Code Fours—the same term, strangely enough, the Upper Marilyn P.D. used for Violent Crime—Manny stepped into the room expecting the worst and knowing, from a long and checkered career, that he would not be disappointed. If nothing else, he decided, trying to look on the bright side, a dead body would take his mind off his penis-fork.
Victim heavy Latino female…. Cause of death appears to be knife wound in throat…. No contusions, no ligatures…. Nothing under victim’s fingernails…. Bed made…. Victim dressed in—wait, what the fuck?
Manny held his cell phone in one plastic-gloved hand, speaking to his answering machine as he leaned over the dead woman. Every time he put on the plastic gloves (or “meat-mitts,” as the pros liked to call them), he felt like a wage slave at Burger King. Disease was rampant, but it still felt weird holding your own phone in plastic-wrapped fingers.
Chief Fayton believed your modern police-worker should dictate his reports, which was fine with Manny, except he always forgot his Radio Shack tape recorder and ended up calling himself at the station and leaving lengthy messages. Since he couldn’t stand the sound of his own voice—the slight lisp that seemed to spray out of the receiver—he kept the headphones on, swinging to K-MOLD faves like Engelbert Humperdinck and Captain and Tennille, pushing the whole process to a level of excruciation that was almost cosmic.
Right now, what caught him up short was the label on the lady’s capri pants: L & L, Size 22. Manny’d been staring at it, wondering idly if the initials stood for “Large and Lovely,” when the obvious hit him: The label shouldn’t be on the outside. A closer look revealed that the seam was exposed. Sure enough, when he slipped a finger in the pant leg and flipped it up, the peach-colored polyblend was seamless.
Victim’s, what do you call them, capri pants, inside out….
That’s when Manny realized that he’d met the dead woman. About two years ago. At his rape prevention class at the Y. He squelched a smile thinking about it. Beyond the paycheck, teaching rape prevention was a great way to meet women. If nothing else, they figured he wouldn’t try anything. But what the fuck was her name?
Holding his breath, Manny struggled to tug down her capris. Now, for better or worse, he’d get to see how well his class worked.
Handprint on left hip, he rattled into the phone. Where perp held on trying to tug victim’s pants off? Or was he pulling them back on? Blood traces on handprint. Struggle? Consensual? Party-that-got-out-of-hand? Possible necro?
Nice, he added, allowing himself a little editorial comment.
Manny maneuvered the body gingerly, doing his best to ease the elastic waistband down over the woman’s ample hips. He’d handled enough newly dead to know the possibility of a corpse going Pearl Harbor, bladder and bowels erupting in a sudden farewell burst. As a rookie, it was his job to wrap the departed. More than once, hoisting a stiff in the bag, he’d jostled them just enough to unleash a soul-blotting storm of urine and feces. “One of the perks,” Merch would chuckle, standing in the corner chewing his Cheroot. At the moment, though, Michael Bolton was trying to get soulful on “Dock of the Bay,” which was even more nauseating.
No panties, Manny told his answering machine, after a couple of deep breaths. No pubic hair, either. Jesus….
In his morning haze, Manny’d forgotten his rape kit, but to the naked eye, it did not look like anything untoward had happened to the woman’s sex. Often as not, your rapists would leave bruises on the inner thigh, bite marks on the face, that kind of thing. But you never knew. Inside might be a whole different story. He’d once seen some perfectly untouched-seeming genitalia on a teenage runaway outside Pittsburgh. They’d found her wearing nothing but Mickey Mouse socks in a WalMart Dumpster. Other than being dead, the girl looked fine, until the chuckling coroner plucked a crack pipe, a wad of fifties, and the key to a bus station locker out of her. “I guess,” the jaded professional told Manny at the time, “the guy planned on a second date.”
Still, there was enough visible weirdness without speculating on what you couldn’t see. Now that he looked, the dead woman’s genitalia did strike him as peculiar, though he opted not to leave that on his machine. Can’t put my finger on it, he said to the room, entertaining no one but himself. Then he shut up. It was too bizarre. The left labia looked like raw steak and, unless he was hallucinating, appeared five times the size of the right, which resembled a twisted rubber band. Stranger still, the clit—no, Jesus!—the clit seemed less like a little man in a boat than Don King on a yacht. The departed, there was no other way to say it, sported a stubby miniature penis. With hair.
Thanks, I’ll pass, Manny mumbled, feeling the codeine kick in with a grateful sigh.
Eschewing further investigation, he massaged the capri pants north again. He prayed to the Waste Angels that whatever was bubbled up inside her would stay put until he could make her decent and back off.
All right, Sir!
Thanks to the codeine rush, he was starting to feel chipper. Optimistic! Perky to a hugely inappropriate degree.
We’ve got sexual assault. Possible torture? Zank hung own mother out window. That scamp….
He knew the buzz would be gone before long, and resumed his narrative with new vigor as he dropped down on one knee to peek under the bed. You never knew what might turn up. Sure enough, lodged like a fallen cruise missile in a nest of dust bunnies, he found a standard-issue plastic vibrator. For whatever reason, some guys loved to beat women with dildos and vibrators. It was Manny’s theory that they were jealous. The burly marital aids made them feel inadequate.
Vibrator found at scene. Sex party?
Restless, he stepped away from the bed, seeking a new vantage point. By now his feet were tired, but when he leaned on the desk, to take a load off, he spotted the wadded towel wedged behind it.
Uh-oh.
Plucking the towel out by a corner, he unbunched the thing and tried to read it. Brown smudges, red stains…. He closed his eyes, going narcotic-philosophical. Blood and shit—the History of Western Civilization right there….
Now Tony Orlando and Dawn seeped out of the headphones. “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” The perfect soundtrack for hell.
Manny felt a sudden urge to speak to the dead lady. He remembered how she’d hip-rolled him at the Y. How she seemed to enjoy it….
The stuff on the towel, it’s not yours, is it? No, they wouldn’t care enough to wipe your blood off.
Your blouse is soaked. You died surprised. Whoever did this to you was bleeding, too. Maybe Zank and McCardle were fighting. The Dangerous Duo, in bicker mode. Mister America’s Most Wanted and Mister Drop His Mommy Out the Rest Home Window.
Come on, asshole, THINK! Manny yelled at himself. He stuffed the towel in a plastic bag, then dropped it. The Code Fours were floating him now. He’d entered the Opiate Zone: pure brain and rushing insight. Sailing smooth through rough-and-tumble psychic waters. He raised the cell phone and started up again.
Shit on the towel. Meaning somebody was doing somebody. Sodom and Cremora. By this desk? Did they finish and jam the towel behind it? But it wasn’t you, was it, honey? No, you were on the bed, watching the show. Señora Buddha. Is that it? You were watching. Was that your thing? Watching? Or, wait, no, did they MAKE you watch? Old Tony Z and Mini-Mac. Are they THAT WAY? Little lovebirds? Maybe they’ll be bunkies in Lewisburg. Up there on Section Three, the Femme Tier. Bitch City….
Manny moved to the door, pacing in a straight line to the bed and back again. He tried another angle. A game he played with himself. If I burst in, right in the middle of it, the flaming, insane middle, what do I see? Two guys, two bonehead small-time criminals, one fucking the other, and this big lady on the bed with her vibrator? What? What? WHAT? That’s not right. Not these guys. Tony’s a crackhead. A lapdance-and-hooker guy. McCardle, I don’t know, a bodybuilder…. Maybe a steroid freak. Killed a gay guy with a shovel. In the Parakeet Lounge. The Parakeet bathroom. Maybe HE was the romantic.
Maybe…Maybe not.
Manny stopped pacing and stared at Carmella. Her face had settled, in rictus, in a sagelike smile.
You had the gun, didn’t you, Gorgeous? It was you all along. You did something. But what?
Absently, he snatched up the vibrator, which he hadn’t bagged yet. He flipped it over, smacking it off his palm when—Whoops!—a piece of the top fell off. What the fuck? A curved slab of plastic and, James Bond time, inside was a little lens. And wait, wait…Down at the bottom, what’s this? A button. He pressed it, heard the click of a shutter. Amazing.
Victim, he intoned into his cell, in possession of Dildo-cam. What’ll they think of next? Tugging a sandwich bag from his pocket, he dropped in the vibrator. For the girl who has everything.
He was on fire now. Did you make them do it, baby? So you could take pictures? You did, didn’t you? These bastards dragged you to the motel and you turned it around. You got revenge, didn’t you, Beautiful? Well good for you! You shamed the Cock Monsters. You saved your life. Until you lost it….
Manny was impressed. Tickled, even. If she were alive, he would have kissed her. Because that was it. He felt the truth in his liver, with all the other toxins.
Zank was a convict. They all carry shivs. He’d been down three times. Two years in juvey, a bit in County, thirteen months upstate. He’d know how to fight dirty. Suspected of smoking his own Daddy when he was twelve. Social workers knew something nasty happened. But mom wanted to make nice. Alibied her pride and joy. Bad move for moms. Kid grows up and uses her to prove gravity. No wonder she became a lush….
K-MOLD was playing an ad for a funeral home. Martino and Sons. “We understand your needs,” said a voice like rancid honey. I’ll bet you do….
Manny paced the room, eyes unfocused, muttering, thinking about McCardle’s jacket. He’d read his file in the car.
Little Mac, he went on, another freak. Small-time nothing, two-time loser turned gay-killer. A straight fruitbat. Lure some shlub who wanted chocolate cake to a dark corner, then turn around, clock him and cop his wallet. Only one time, he picked the wrong john. This one fought back. Swung a fire extinguisher. The Parakeet crowd heard screams from the Men’s Room, knew they weren’t the fun kind, and piled in to protect their own. McCardle, cornered, grabs the closest weapon, a shovel—there God knows why—and whacks his date in the head. Kills him dead. A fucking hate crime. Ends up with his face on America’s Most Wanted. The poor fuck needs twenty bucks for rock and ends up buyin’ himself a federal beef. Not to mention that tasty reward put up by friends of the deceased. No doubt he’d just as soon have conked an old lady for her pin money, but that’s not much of a legal defense. “Your honor, I got nothin’ against homosexuals, I’d mug anybody, I just needed some fuckin’ green!” McCardle had bad luck like some guys had psoriasis.
So here they are, Manny mumbled into the now-damp mouthpiece, Mac and Tony in the Pawnee Lodge. With their hefty lady friend….
He smacked his forehead, recoiling at the feel of plastic on skin. Stop thinking, he hissed at himself, “look look look look look”.
He started in the desk drawer. Nothing. A red Bible and crumpled condom wrapper. Good old Trojan, choice of the working man. Nightstand, left side. Nothing. Right side, Hello hello! A purse. Wallet still there. Flip through. Driver’s license. She wore rouge for the photo. Carmella Dendez, now I remember. Nice to see you again. Don’t get up.
More cards…. Price Club, Weight Watchers, credit union, Jenny Craig. Manny put them carefully back. Respect the dead. Nothing else, except—what’s this? Slipped behind a faded picture of three husky lads and a toddler in matching Easter suits. Employee ID: Seventh Heaven Convalescent Services. Oh shit….
He clicked off the cell. Stared at nothing. Taking shallow breaths.
She works the same place as Tina. Make that “worked….”
The ice water shock of that: Tina killed once—that he knew about. The late Guru Marv. And now, now, a fellow rest homer found dead, cut by the guys who wanted what Tina had: the fratboy President’s balls in black-and-white, the mayor’s smiling face….
Unless—he had to go there—they were in it together: Tina, Zank, and Mac the Shovel. Quite the little crew, until she ripped them off. Jesus! Unless, even worse, Tina had been here, too. Behind Door Number Three at the Pawnee Lodge. Unless, whatever the grim particulars, she was involved in more than she let on. Unless, there lurked some still more vile possibility that had not yet wormed its way out of his overworked cerebellum.
What was a detective’s job, on a good day, but compiling an encyclopedia of worst-case scenarios?
The only certainty, and it made his own testicles tighten—minus the magic happy face—people died young around Tina Podolsky.
One way or another, if your paths crossed, you might wake up dead. Over the years, Manny’d encountered a few people with this lethal predilection. Gentlemen whose friends fell down elevator shafts, though the gents weren’t actually to blame. Not technically…. Housewives whose exes all bumped into ice picks or slipped off cliffs, though the ladies, themselves, were never implicated. These things happened….
Oh shit, said Manny again. And, just like that, his high was gone. Just like that, it was time for the low.
SIXTEEN
On her way home from the mortuary, Tina pulled over in a 7-Eleven parking lot to return Manny’s call. She dialed the number Mister Edward gave her, and he picked up on one ring. “Tina?”
“I’m calling from a pay phone, how’d you know it was me?”
Manny told her to relax. “Cops always have a lot of cell phones. Perps leave ’em in the car. I’ve never used this one before so I knew it was you. Nobody else has the number.”
Tina seemed to believe him, so Manny saw no need to tell her he was parked in the Pizza Hut across the street. He’d been following her since she left her house. After the Pawnee Lodge he’d decided to go to her place and sniff around, to check out any connection with the Mac and Tony show. When he got there, Tina was just unlocking her Honda. So he cruised on by, pulled a U-ey and tailed her, two cars behind. When she hit the pawnshop, he parked up the street, watching her make two trips with Marv’s computer and video equipment.
Tina didn’t have a record, Manny’d already checked. But since her name might be fake, and he didn’t have her maiden, that didn’t mean much. He could have snagged her prints and run them, but if they came up in the system, he’d be obligated to do som
ething. Even if they didn’t, the fact that he punched them up would arouse suspicion. Fayton kept tabs. He had nothing better to do. The chief would be thrilled to catch a man in some bit of police chicanery, to uncover some L. A.–style corruption he could scam to plant his face on the front page of the Sunday Trumpet. Manny could already hear the chief’s self-righteous harangue at the arraignment. “But I thought you said she wasn’t a suspect, Detective Rubert? I thought you said she was a grieving widow?”
Fuck that. The only way to play it was to steer clear of channels and snoop around on the home front. He was tits-deep in a criminal venture—protecting Tina made him an accessory to murder—and ready to make the move with Mister Biobrain. He couldn’t afford to find out after he crossed the line that his partner was hinky. Or hinky the wrong way…. The trick was not to con himself that she was solid if she wasn’t. Tina was sex-on-a-stick, so he had to be vigilant. One wrong move and they were remaking Double Indemnity, with the high crime of White House nutbag blackmail added to murder. And Fayton replacing the feisty Edward G. Robinson.
“Here’s what’s going on,” Manny said, keeping an eye on the lush swell of Tina’s ass in her mourning wear as she faced the pay phone. The girl had his nose open, big-time, and he had to concentrate. “I heard today the chief is suspicious about Marv. He wants to make a canoe.”
“He wants to what?” Tina scratched an ankle with the black high heel of her opposite foot.
“Cop-speak,” he explained. “I apologize. That’s what your jaded police-types call doing an autopsy. But don’t worry. Just tell me if there’s anything else I should know about.”
