by Jeff Klima
“See, Sergeant? I told you he’d show up,” Stack says to the officer when I walk in with Ivy beside me.
“Does she need to come too?” Stack asks me.
“No,” I tell him, and shake free of Ivy’s grasp.
“He’s innocent,” Ivy snaps at the detective.
“Now, why would she say that?” Stack asks anyone but Ivy.
“Everyone’s going,” the sergeant decides, pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
“Separate cars.”
“You heard what he said,” Stack sneers coldly, pulling out his own set of cuffs. “You couldn’t resist, could you? You killed the daughter and you had to have the father as a notch on your belt too, huh? Tom Tanner, you’re under arrest for the murder of Hank Kelly.”
Chapter 15
Stack sets me up in a room that is two parts thin blue carpeting, one part table and chairs. “You going to beg for an attorney?” he carps as he turns to leave the room.
“No.”
“Good.”
He comes back after twenty minutes and takes the seat across from me. “Anything you say or do…” he reminds me, pointing to a mounted security camera in the corner that is also wired for sound.
He turns professional for a moment. “Tom Tanner, you have been placed under arrest on suspicion for the murder of Hank Kelly. Have you fully been advised of your rights, and do you fully comprehend them?”
“Yes.”
“Yes to both?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He spreads his hands before me. “So you killed a cop tonight—a major boo-boo. If I were you, I’d start talking.”
“Ex-cop. And the girl was right, I’m innocent.”
“You know a trixie like her isn’t going to work as an alibi. All tatted up like that? What is she, a hooker?”
“How did Hank Kelly die?”
“You tell me.”
“I have no idea.”
“You realize that—not that it matters—but I’m going to tell the DA that you’re being a hardass.”
“That’s fine. I’m innocent.”
“So you said. Hank Kelly was shot outside his home tonight by a…masked assailant.”
“Tonight?” I try not to visibly relax. “What time?”
“Eight forty-seven p.m. I’ve got several witnesses who heard the shots, and one lady who saw everything.”
“Is Julie Kelly alright?”
“How kind of you to ask. She’s fine. Don’t dance around this one, Tanner. Just confess and make everyone’s life a little easier.”
“Except Hank Kelly’s.”
“Keep jawing, numbnuts.”
“Go and get the broadcast tape of tonight’s Dodger game. Me…and…my girl…we were there all night. Right behind home plate.”
“Don’t feed me this shit,” Stack grumbles. “You sneaky cunt. Wait here.”
I can feel the agitation exuding from the detective as he bangs up from the desk and out of the room. Unable to help myself, I look up into the video recorder and smile. The whole ride down to the station I’d been sick to my stomach for trusting A. Guy. Now, I can’t help but admire him a little bit; he is damn good at being creepy. Sure, the cops will fuck me over on my drug habit, but a parole violation is shit compared to what I’d been facing. And besides, when they find what is left of my rig, they will also find all A. Guy’s letters. Hell, I might even walk on the drug charges.
—
It is three hours later when Detective Stack walks back in to find me just as he left me. “Was I lying?”
“I’m not letting you off that easy, you smug cunt.”
“You use that word too much…it’s probably why you’re not married.” I nod to the absence of a ring on his left hand.
Stack momentarily and instinctively balls the hand and then releases it. “Think you’re smart, huh? What, you have one of your jailbird buddies pull this off in exchange for some head?”
“If this goes to court, I’m going to make my attorney replay that last line over and over. It’ll fly real well with a jury.”
“How’d you pay for those tickets?”
“I didn’t—I was the lucky tenth caller on a radio show. Look, I didn’t have shit to do with this; I proved that to you already. So do you have anything else you need to talk with me about or can I go?”
“It sure is convenient that you happened to be seated front and center on national television when the guy that you alone have a motive for killing gets gunned down.”
“Well, now that you mention it,” I say, nodding, “yeah, it is pretty convenient. Can I go?”
“I’m going to bury you for this, you realize that, right?”
“Don’t let this vendetta against me shade your judgment, Detective. There’s a bad man running around out there right now, and it sounds to me like you don’t have shit on him.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you right back.”
His calculated policeman’s rage is replaced with genuine seething dislike. It’s fine; I don’t like him either. And if he isn’t smart enough to find A. Guy’s letters, I’m not going to hand them over. Finally, Detective Stack holds the door open to let me out. “Oh…and can that ‘my girl’ shit, slugger,” he sneers as I walk past. “We found your stash. Prison can change a guy, right?” I stare quizzically, but he doesn’t elaborate or try to detain me, so I keep moving.
—
Ivy appears casual when I find her sitting in the lobby. “How’d it go?” I ask.
She stands, nonchalant, and slides her arm into mine. “Beats a Pap smear.”
—
I insist that the cabbie drive Ivy to her apartment, against Ivy’s protests. “My place is going to be a mess,” I tell her somewhat tongue in cheek, but she doesn’t know this. “And I’m going to flip out about it. When I do, I want to be alone.” She insists on kissing me goodbye, but I turn my head at the last second so she can only connect with my cheek. “Fucker,” she chides, and stays in the cab. “Call when you’re done freaking out.”
My apartment is just as pathetically ravaged as I figured it would be. The kitchen drawers are pulled out of the counters to reveal their barren shells, cabinets are splayed open to reveal I have no dishes, and the ice cube trays that came with the refrigerator that came with the apartment are tossed carelessly on the counter, the ice within now just a wet memory. I’m sure if I had a goldfish, the cops would have tossed it in the garbage disposal. The living room is even worse: they unscrewed the glass lampshade on my overhead light and left it, with the bolt, next to a couple of old books they’d leafed through. I am a ghost of a person living in a cave with no personality and few possessions other than those on my back and the equipment it takes to inject poison into my veins.
In the bedroom, my clothes have been pulled from the drawers and closet. The thick, unpainted dowel that serves as a crossbar in my closet has been popped free and inspected to ensure it is, in fact, whole. My mattress, akimbo from the box spring, hangs off just enough to reveal a stack of gay porno mags piled beneath it. On the cover of the top one, someone has drawn a telltale happy face over the man’s head. Motherfucker. So that’s what Stack meant about finding my “stash.”
Curiously, my cigar box and any trace of my habit are not to be found. I move into the bathroom, where I’ve stockpiled A. Guy’s previous letters in a drawer next to the sink. The drawer has been pulled out in the search and left upside down on the bathroom rug. When I flip it over, it’s empty. Either the cops seized them or A. Guy did. Neither scenario makes me particularly happy. I’d anticipated being embarrassed from discovering my home in this state and knowing that the cops knew just how empty my life was; instead, I find I am just curious about what A. Guy is up to with all of this, and what he is planning next.
—
A sudden, frenzied knock on my front door kicks me back to consciousness and I realize there’s daylight outside my window. I’d only managed to throw the mattress back on my bed before
I’d evidently fallen asleep on it. The minimalist “mess” of my living room shocks me back to the events of the previous evening. “Who’s there?” I ask, and stand, barely awake. My pants and shoes are obnoxiously out of reach at the moment, and so I attend to the knocking in my boxer briefs and a T-shirt. A quick glance through the keyhole tells me nothing, and I’ve got a very simple choice to make. Is this the police? Or is it A. Guy? I swing the door open wide and am suddenly inundated by the unblinking focus of a video camera’s flood lens. A wispy man in tweed steps in from the left and places a microphone before my mouth.
“Tom Tanner, what can you tell us about Hank Kelly’s death?”
I slam the door forcefully, before the reporter can jam his foot in to block it, and, for good measure, lock the security chain. Through the wood, I can hear the man running spiel for a bullshit news piece. I am fully awake now and want to do something—throw water on them or yell “Fuck off” through the door, but I will be mercilessly crucified in the court of public opinion for it. Not that it matters, I suppose. Every pundit who will weigh in on the matter will decide that I orchestrated the murder of an innocent, God-fearing family man.
In the end, I begin cleaning up the dissected remnants of my apartment and let the reporters do their job. It’s times like these I’m happiest I never bothered to shell out for a television.
After a couple minutes of putting my apartment back together, I lean up against the door and take a listen—nothing. Slowly I pull open the door and take a glance; the hallway is empty and they’ve gone.
—
Pulling up short of the Trauma-Gone office, I find that the news crew has only relocated—and multiplied. Several news vans await my presence with their cameramen and reporters standing around chatting, bored. Among them, I recognize the duo from my hallway. I park down the street and keep a low profile as I move behind the vans and toward headquarters. I emerge briskly into view and there is a murmur into a roar as the news folk scramble to get activated. Bulky, shoulder-mounted video cameras switch on as the reporters, gripping wireless mikes, move to intercept me. Male and female voices call my name, pleading for me to look in their direction, answer their questions, make a statement, but I am inside the office and pulling the sturdy door shut behind me before anyone can intercept. Harold looks up from the computer.
“What you do to me, Tom?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“We didn’t even get contract for cleanup here. This job go to CleanMasters.”
“I don’t think the Kellys would hire us, regardless.”
“Tom, did you do this?” It was the most clear and articulate English I’d ever heard out of the little Asian.
“No.”
“I don’ know what to do now. I said I’d fight for you…this puts me in bad place. People call all morning—they want me fire you. They call me bad man. Me!” He rubs his head with his hands and I can see he is severely affected by the public’s perception of him and his business. I have the sudden inkling that he is going to fire me. After a moment of quiet introspection, Harold finally looks back up at me.
“I stick with you, Tom. Since you have come, you do good work. Make this company grow. I believe you, Tom.” Harold makes it a point to come around the desk and offer me a big handshake, which I accept gratefully.
“We’ll get through this,” I find myself saying, and I am genuinely glad to have him in my corner.
“Of course.” He suddenly continues, eyes downcast and ashamed, “We have to take some off you paycheck…help with new expenses.”
I don’t know what new expenses could be accrued from all of this, but I nod. “I understand.”
“Oh, yes,” Harold exclaims, hurrying back around the desk, the shame completely vanished. “Your parole officer…he call here. He want you to call right away.”
Fuck. It isn’t yet time for my monthly check-in with Duane, so that means he evidently has been watching the news. There is also a very good chance that Harold’s continued faith in me might be moot—Officer Caruzzi can revoke my parole anytime he wants; I could be headed back to jail.
Chapter 16
We meet up, Duane and I, at a BBQ joint in Pacoima. He’s already ordered a plate of beef ribs and is sucking on a Pepsi, waiting for them to arrive. I sit down at the table feeling reassured that since we are meeting at a restaurant, he probably isn’t going to arrest me, but the first thing he says is, “I think I’m gonna have to take you back into custody.”
It isn’t a dramatic pronouncement either, just a simple statement of fact.
“Why?” I say, with more surprise than I want.
“I think you know why. I’ve spoken with…” He pauses, allowing the waitress to deposit his food in front of him and then take up his emptied cup for a refill. “…Detective Stack. He filled me in on a few things. It just seems like the sensible option.”
“Did Detective Stack tell you I was at a baseball game that night?”
“Aww, don’t twist my gut, Tommy. Between your landlady and Mr. Kelly, your proximity to dead bodies lately is uncanny—even for your line of work.”
“She OD’d, and, as for him, I was one hundred percent proven not to be there. You can’t punish me based on that.”
The waitress brings back Duane’s Pepsi and he intercepts it before she can set it on the table. “Detective Stack and I just happen to feel that if you went back inside, somehow, someway, these deaths would stop.” He takes a long sip.
“Officer Caruzzi—sir—don’t send me back…Please?”
He puts up a hand with freshly sauced fingers. “Do me the courtesy of letting me eat my ribs in silence. You can hassle me in the car on the way in, but for now, I just want to eat my ribs.” I respectfully sit back in my chair, fingers interwoven, and stare glumly at the man as he attacks his ribs with a determined absence of grace. He gets halfway through the first one, notices me noticing him, and breaks. “You know I like you, Tom—I have since I met you. I could tell you weren’t a punk-ass.”
“Thanks,” I admit, and meet his gaze, hopeful.
“Yeah, I’ve dealt with some punk-asses on this job, boy, I tell you—some real low-life motherfuckers. But you aren’t one, I can tell. The way I got it figured, you made a few mistakes, you did your time and you were better for it. So I can’t for the life of me figure out what you’ve gotten yourself into that I gotta take you back in. Good white kid like you? Shit, Tommy.”
“I don’t fully understand what I’m involved with either, but it’s bad.”
“You wanna know bad?” He laughs suddenly. “One time I do a house check on this new parolee. I walk in…house smells good—something good cooking in the oven. I scope the place out a little—standard Boyle Heights shithole. The guy’s acting real cagey, and it’s clear his wife is out of it. Gone. So then I notice there’s a baby crib, but no baby. I say to the guy—I say, ‘Where’s the baby?’ ” Caruzzi delights in telling this story, probably more than a healthy person should. “And the guy’s eyes glance over to the stove! Well, my policeman’s intuition kicks in, and I go look inside to see what’s smelling so good. It’s the fucking kid, baking up like a meatloaf!” He doesn’t care who hears this story or what they’re eating when they do. “Low-life nigger couldn’t get the baby to stop crying, and his old lady was hopped up on goofballs, so he threw the kid in the oven and turned it to 425.” Duane pauses to take a bite of his rib. “Fuckin’ moolies…you don’t see the Italians doing that shit.”
He’s told me this story before but I don’t tell him that. “I gotta believe that was a one-time thing…for any race.”
“You think the wetbacks are any better? The shit I’ve had to deal with from them, Jesus Almighty. Mexico’s fucking lousy so they come over here, do they make it better? Shit no. They’re just making another Mexico! I gotta believe it’s payback for the Alamo.”
“This thing I’m involved in, sir, I can deal with it. I just need more time.”
“Time? You’d
better explain these escalating dead bodies to me if you want more time.”
I exhale, fully expecting him to call me a liar or a lunatic, but I’ve got no other option. “There’s this killer out there. He’s been offing people in motel rooms, changing it up each time, making it look random.” I study Caruzzi’s face as I tell him this. Disbelief is plastered on his mug, but I press on. “The police don’t know anything about it. I figured him out by accident, now I’m on his radar. He killed my landlady to get the key to my apartment; he killed Hank Kelly because he took a liking to me. Now he thinks I’ll join him.” The disbelief mutates slightly—my words sinking in—and forms into twisted frustration.
“Christ, why didn’t you call the cops about this?”
“The Hank Kelly connection—I’ve got a big scar next to my heart because of cops. If most cops had their way, I’d be dead and buried in an unmarked grave somewhere out near Joshua Tree. No, I can’t even imagine a scenario in which I’d ever call the police—for anything.”
“I don’t want to hear that shit—I’m a cop.”
“And yet, I told you.” I lean in, using my body language to convey a sense of closeness and nervous despair. Him being a cop, he knows I’m not lying about the policemen’s code of ethics. Fuck with one cop and you fuck with all the brothers in blue. I’ve got that going for me at least. My best bet is that he’s got some sense of humanity that runs deeper than the badge.
“Would you be telling me any of this if I wasn’t going to take you in?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I feel like it’s my problem.”
He shakes his head in disagreement. “Innocent people are dead because you didn’t feel like calling the police—I should take you in just for that.”
“You can do whatever you like with me, but let me stop him first. I’m asking you…”
“Nah, Tom, uh-uh. Not possible. I gotta take you in. We’ll let Officer Stack deal with it.”
I glance around quickly and lower my voice to convey that this is now a conversation within the conversation. “You know what Detective Stack said about you? He said you shouldn’t be allowed near a badge. He said that you got demoted because of the racial stuff.” I’m embellishing a little but I’m sure I’m not too far off.
