I turned off the TV after the special—just doing my part—took a shower with colder water than usual, and tried to read an online manual Felicia had printed out, before I flunked the last time, called Passing the PI Exam, Tennessee Edition.
I fell asleep with the thing on my chest, clutching a highlighter.
NOVEMBER 8
FOUR
The phone rang a little after ten. It was Felicia. “Did I wake you?” she asked.
I admitted she did. She asked if I had had a late night. I said I was up studying.
“See, that’s what disturbs me about you, Ruzak. You studied before the last test and still flunked. Maybe you’re going about this all wrong. Maybe you need some vices to overcome.”
“Well,” I said. “I think too much. I’m overburdened with memories. I’m extremely sensitive to loud noises and ethical quagmires, and I’ve got a soft heart.” I told her about giving my hat to the old bum and the dog named Archie.
“I was thinking more along the lines of alcohol or gambling or even cheap, meaningless one-night stands. You know, the stereotypical hardboiled detective thing.”
“How would that help?”
“It might give you some depth.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe she was implying I was boring.
“I’m not a very accomplished drunk,” I told her. “Some drunks are belligerent or funny or loud or sentimental. I just fall asleep.”
I asked her if she wanted to have lunch. She asked if I had looked out my window. I looked out my window. The low-slung clouds had departed and the midmorning sunlight was harsh, reflecting off the rows of icicles glittering like silver thorns on the bare branches of the trees and the crystalline stalactites hanging from the power lines.
“Downtown got hit the worst,” Felicia told me. “Over an inch.”
“I was going to the office to pick up the ferns,” I said.
“Probably best to wait till this afternoon.”
“How about dinner?” I asked. “I’ll take you and Tommy to Steak-N-Shake.” Steak-N-Shake was Tommy’s favorite.
“We’ll have to take a rain check,” Felicia said. “Bob’s off tonight.” Then she changed the subject. “I hope you’re not going to spend all your time studying for this test, Ruzak. Maybe you should join a gym.”
“Okay. I know I’m out of shape—”
“That’s not what I meant. Or maybe one of those continuing education classes they offer at the university. I mean, dear God, you’re interested in practically everything.”
“I have been thinking about a photography class,” I said. “Or videography—if that’s a word. You know, I could write off the cost of the class that way.”
“You remember Beatrice from the diner? We were talking the other day and—”
“Don’t set me up.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t try to set me up, Felicia. I don’t need setting up. As a matter of fact, I’ve got a little more on my plate than I can handle right now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Why? Why do you think that’s something I’d kid about? Hang on. I’ve got another call.”
I pressed the mouthpiece against my stomach and stared out the window at the ice-gripped landscape. I had a terrific view of the railroad yard from my bedroom. On a clear day, you could see the tracks stretching far into the horizon, until they disappeared into the mists of the Smoky Mountains.
I brought the receiver back to my ear.
“You still there?” I asked. “Sorry. That was Amanda.”
“Oh. Who’s Amanda?”
“This girl philosopher I know.”
“I’m sorry. You said … girl philosopher?”
“We’ve begun to mesh. Say, would you say it’s unethical of me to adopt a dog, seeing it’s forbidden on my lease, and if I get busted I probably won’t get kicked out but the dog sure will?”
“You could always say you were pet-sitting.”
“Well, the issue was ethics, and I’m pretty sure lying like that would be that. Unethical.”
“You never mentioned any Amanda to me.”
“We keep our personal lives personal, remember?”
I think I pissed her off with that remark, because she got off the phone pretty quick. I looked out the window one more time and thought Nature, like a woman, was beautiful, but treacherous … or maybe they were beautiful by virtue of their treachery.
“It’s ironic,” I said to the empty room, “that I debate ethics right in the middle of a lie about a girl calling.” If I had a dog, I could talk to it and not to an empty room. If you talk to a dog, you’re just being a kind owner. But talk to an empty room and you’re being a weirdo.
The thought of staying inside until that afternoon was unbearable, so I dressed, pulling on an extra pair of socks (“Layers, layers, layers,” my mom always lectured) and my tan overcoat with Archie’s muddy prints still embossed on it, and took the elevator down to the parking lot beneath the building.
The sunlight had that late-fall-early-winter fierceness, bright but heatless, hard-edged, bordering on cruel, the way it cut the shadows of the trees and the buildings along Gay Street, and a million little suns sparkled in the ice that hung from the branches and glittered like rows of teeth belonging to some under-the-bed monster along the edges of the awnings. Nearly every building along this stretch of Gay was being renovated, into condos mostly, even the old Tennessee Theater Building, and one-bedroom lofts there were going for four hundred thousand dollars a pop.
At dawn, the salt trucks must have covered downtown, because I encountered no ice on the road on the seven-minute drive to the Ely Building. I turned left into the Park Rite lot and parked beside my building. The attendant, a guy named Lonny, left the sanctuary of his little lean-to and sauntered over as I climbed out of my Sentra.
“You’re two weeks late,” he informed me.
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” I said. I told him I was taking a sabbatical and wouldn’t be using the space for the next couple of months.
“We can’t hold it,” he said, meaning my space. “What’s a sabbatical?”
“A working vacation.”
“What are you working on?”
“I’m not, really.”
“Then why’d you say you were?”
“I was trying to sound important.”
He laughed and lit a cigarette. He wore a blue jacket too thin for the weather, jeans, and brown work boots. He accompanied me toward the front of the Ely, and the sand he must have shoveled earlier to clear the ice crunched beneath his boots.
“Actually, I’ve got to study for my PI exam,” I admitted. “I just dropped by to pick up my ferns.”
Smoke roiled from his nose. “I didn’t know you were a PI.”
“I’m not. I’ve got to pass the test first, hence the sabbatical.”
“I’m starting trucking school in January.”
“I’ve always admired truckers,” I told him. “All those long, lonely hours behind the wheel.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I have a romantic streak.”
He gave me a look, like he suspected I was trying out a pickup line on him.
“Seriously, you can’t just hold my space?” I asked.
“Not unless you want to keep paying.”
“I’m thinking that might be a foolish use of my funds.”
“Because you might fail?”
“I’m trying to get out of that habit,” I said. We had reached the front steps. I wondered how I would manage it, sitting in that little shacklike structure for eight hours with nobody to talk to. It probably wouldn’t be hard for me at all—before I almost became a detective, I had worked fourteen years on the nightshift as a security guard, sitting in an armless chair, watching video monitors showing empty halls.
“What habit?” he asked. His hands belonged to an older man, the skin bunched tight around the knuckles, fingers stained by tobacco, sligh
tly red from the cold.
“The habit of planning for failure instead of success. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but sometimes the evidence points the other way.”
“I could talk to the boss about holding it,” he said. Back to the real issue at hand.
“Hey, I’d appreciate that, Lonny.”
We stood in silence for a second, then he said, “S’posed to warm up this afternoon. Toppin’ forty-five.”
“At least the sun finally came out,” I said.
“Yeah-a. He lifted his face, turning it slightly to the left to bathe in the light. “Gotta enjoy it while you can.”
I thanked him again and went up the narrow stairwell to my office. Yesterday’s mail lay on the floor and I scooped it up. Bills. I unlocked Felicia’s desk, grabbed the checkbook, and sat behind my desk. I wrote the checks, stuffed the envelopes, and then got up and started a pot of Starbucks coffee, turning the bag around so I wouldn’t have to look at the lady. While I waited for the coffee to brew, I hunted for some stamps, but came up dry. I went back to my desk and drank my coffee. When two-thirds of it was inside me, I got up again (I never drain the dregs; I don’t know why) and filled my mister from the bathroom tap. The sunlight could not penetrate into the alley; the arc of the sun was too low this time of year.
I was leaning over the wide ledge, misting the final fern, when something caught my eye in the alley below. My finger froze on the trigger. I brought my face closer to the window. My breath fogged the glass and I couldn’t see. I wiped the moisture away with my shirtsleeve and peered again into the narrow space. It was a trick of light below, in the jumble of refuse crowded against the wall of the building behind me; it had to be. I threw the latch and, grunting with the effort because the window must have been literally painted shut, heaved the thing open, bending over the fern so the outstretched tips tickled my Adam’s apple, and squinted two stories down, into the face of a dead man, wearing ratty old jeans and a brown jacket, with a beard encrusted with ice and eyes staring up into mine, unblinking and wide with horror.
FIVE
I dialed 911, and after I dialed 911 I dialed Felicia’s number.
“There’s a dead body in the alley,” I told her.
A second of silence, then: “What alley?”
“The alley behind the Ely.” I tipped my cup and the lukewarm coffee caressed the tip of my tongue. “I think it’s the panhandler.”
“What panhandler?”
“The one I gave my hat to yesterday.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure there’s a body or sure it’s the guy from yesterday? Pretty sure about both.”
“Ruzak, are you okay?”
“I’m a little shaky. I shouldn’t be drinking coffee on an empty stomach. I wanted some Krispy Kremes but I was afraid of black ice.”
“Black ice.”
“You know, that ice on the road you can’t see and all of sudden you’re spinning out of control at forty-five miles per hour. So I drove straight to work and I was misting the ferns before I lugged them downstairs to my car, though I probably shouldn’t have done that. They’re heavier now with fresh water, but if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have seen the dead body. Well, I don’t know for a hundred percent certain that he’s dead, which raises a conundrum. If he’s dead, I think there’s a good chance that’s a crime scene down there and I don’t want to muck up any evidence. But if he’s alive, I have a moral responsibility to do everything I can to save him.”
“Did you call the cops?”
“They’re on their way.”
“You want me to come down there? You don’t sound right.”
“I’m okay. He has my hat, though.”
“Your hat?”
“Yeah, I gave him my big floppy hat yesterday … protection from the elements.” I gave a dry, little laugh. “Anyway, I’m gonna have to explain why he has my hat.”
“Ruzak, I don’t have a sitter for Tommy or I’d—”
“No, I’m okay, really.” I wondered what happened to Bob. She had said Bob had the day off. Maybe she didn’t like to leave Tommy alone with Bob—but why wouldn’t Felicia like that? Maybe Bob got called in on a fire emergency. That sounded redundant to me. Weren’t all fires emergencies? My head began to hurt.
“Are you there?” she asked.
I told her I was.
“I’ll stay on till the cops get there.”
“No, really, that’s okay. I just called to let you know. I better get down there.”
“Don’t touch anything, Ruzak.”
“Why would I do that?” I snapped. Then I said, “Sorry. It’s the damn coffee. I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up, slung my coat over my shoulders, and pounded down the stairs and onto the sidewalk, turning left into the parking lot, and Lonny came out of his little shack, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Where’s the ferns?” he asked.
“Upstairs,” I answered. He fell into step beside me as I marched toward the back of the building. The sun actually felt warm against my back. I stopped at the southwest corner of the Ely and turned to Lonny.
“I’m ninety-nine percent certain there’s a dead body in that alley,” I said. He blinked at me a couple of times.
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“I’ve already called the cops.”
He stood behind me as I pivoted to look into the alley. A wrought-iron gate blocked the entrance, but the gate’s latch was broken and it hung open about a foot. Five feet in, the man lay crumpled against an old rusting filing cabinet, legs draped over a black plastic trash bag that had broken open, his face with its glittering ice mask craning upward, as if he were looking at the bright blue ribbon of cloudless sky between the buildings.
“You think he’s really dead?” Lonny whispered.
“I don’t see him breathing,” I said.
“Exposure, poor bastard,” he said. “The cold must’ve killed him.”
I had seen dark marks on his forehead from my window, but at street level, with his head thrown back, my angle was bad. They looked like some kind of hieroglyphics from two stories above, but I didn’t think so. I didn’t think anyone had scribbled hieroglyphics on his forehead. I stepped into the little opening between the gate and the wall of the Ely, raising my hands so I wouldn’t touch anything, and rose to my tiptoes. I lost my balance and stumbled forward. Lonny clawed at my overcoat, trying to catch me before I tripped and landed flat on my face, but he missed. I didn’t fall, though. I found my balance and now, with only a couple of feet separating me from the body, I could see clearly what someone had written on his forehead.
YHWH.
“What is it, Ruzak?” Lonny, hovering at the gate, hissed at me. “Letters,” I said, lowering my voice and not sure why. “Y-h-w-h.”
“Y-h-w-h? What’s it mean?”
His arms were flung straight out from his sides, and he clutched in his right hand the scrap of cardboard I saw the day before: We all need a little help now and then. God Bless. I didn’t see my hat.
“Hey, I know that guy!” Lonny said. “I had to run him off the lot a couple times.”
Where was my hat? “What’s his name?” I asked.
“No clue, man.”
I shuffled backward, out of the alley, and Lonny lit a cigarette. He held out the pack and I shook my head.
“Somebody told me I need more vices, but I smoked one time when I was thirteen and it made my brain feel like Swiss cheese.”
“Swiss cheese. Right.” Lonny’s hands were quivering.
“And every time I drink I get very sleepy. Not so much with beer, though.”
“Once I drank a fifth of bourbon and put my head through a wall.”
“A solid wall?”
“Drywall. So it didn’t hurt much.”
“People used to use it as an anesthetic.”
“People still do.”
We waited for the sirens. I turned away from the dead man in the all
ey. It felt like the watched-pot phenomenon.
“You see any blood?” he asked.
“No.”
“Got drunk, passed out, and froze to death.”
“Before or after somebody wrote on his forehead?”
“Maybe he wrote on it himself.”
“I gave him my hat,” I said. “Just yesterday.”
I lifted my face toward the cloudless sky. The Discovery Channel had shown examples of my carbon output as big black blocks, each block representing a certain amount of greenhouse gas, pouring into the atmosphere in choking abundance. This November sky made that difficult to believe. But if science has taught us anything since Galileo, it’s taught us you can’t always trust your senses. Ever since I heard about it, I was troubled by the string theory in physics. I didn’t pretend to understand everything about it, or even a hundredth of it, but the thrust of the argument that there might be an infinite number of equally plausible universes, that reality as I knew it wasn’t the only reality, had cost me at least six hours of sleep, cumulatively. I was relieved to read that the string theory was falling out of favor with some highly placed eggheads, one of them saying that it didn’t even rise to the level of being wrong.
“Why’d you give him your hat?”
“It was raining.”
I looked down at Lonny. He was at least a foot shorter. He was looking up at me.
“What’s your dog’s name?” he asked, nodding toward the stains on my coat.
“I don’t have a dog.”
“You give him that, too?”
“I went to the pound and met a beagle named Archie.”
“I would have taken you for a cat man.”
“I’m allergic.”
“I’m allergic to shellfish.”
“I saw this show on … well, I can’t remember now, but it was one of the networks, about this woman who was allergic to her own sweat. She basically suffered from an autoimmune response to her own body.”
“You gotta wonder why something like that happens,” Lonny said. He flicked his cigarette into the lot, where it bounced and rolled until it hit the front wheel of my car.
The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs Page 3
