by Mike Knowles
2
“Do you think I’m fat, Jennifer?”
There was a groan that was too short to suggest anything pleasurable before the answer came. “It’s Jenny, baby. I tol’ you.”
Dennis forgot his stomach for a second, and he laughed a bit too loud for the room. “You are definitely not a Jenny.”
Jennifer inhaled sharply and pulled her head back. Her lips were pursed as though she had just tasted something off-putting. “Nobody calls me Jennifer.”
Dennis smirked. “I do.”
Jennifer saw something mean in the smirk that told her it wasn’t worth the fight. “It makes you sound like you’re my father.” The mean changed into something a little wicked.
“Really?”
Jennifer smiled as she inched forward. If she was anything, she was a girl who could go with the flow. “Yes—Daddy.”
Dennis sighed as Jennifer went back to earning her fifty. She was good and things had been going well until Dennis caught sight of himself in the reflection of the balcony doors. He couldn’t stop himself from looking again.
“Seriously, do you think I’m fat?”
Jennifer sighed as she got off her knees and moved to the couch. “You want a personal trainer or to personally train me? ’Cause we don’t got time for both.”
Dennis ignored the question and ran his hands over his stomach. In the window reflection, he watched his hands as they moved across the expanse of flesh. The window confirmed for his eyes what his hands had been telling him—he was fat. He lifted his belly and looked at each of the stretch marks crawling up his pale skin. The deep pink marks were visible in the reflection ten feet away.
“I’m fat,” Dennis said more to himself than to his companion.
“You’re not fat, baby. You look like a man. A man who works hard. I can see the muscle on your body and it makes me hot.”
Dennis looked away from his reflection to Jennifer. She had her knees tucked under her. The sunlight-faded fabric on the couch was once a colourful pattern of different birds swirling over a beige background. The little black dress, stretched taut and exposing one of Jennifer’s shoulders, stood out in front of the faded birds. The high heels she had kicked off were tipped over on their sides on the floor below.
Dennis shook his head and gestured with his chin at the flesh that had been revealed where the dress had ridden up. “You’re lying. I’m too fat for you.”
Jennifer eased herself back onto the floor and slowly crawled towards Dennis like a cat on the prowl.
“You’re not fat, you’re powerful. And that turns me on. It’s not something you can see—it’s something you can feel. Let me show you.”
Dennis forgot about the window. He forgot about everything except Jennifer’s mouth until his cell phone began to buzz. The phone was on the glass-top coffee table, and its vibration caused it to slowly inch across the table. He tried to concentrate on the purring sounds Jennifer was making, but the phone won—it always won. Dennis pulled Jennifer away and walked over to the coffee table. He caught sight of his head and shoulders in the mirror by the front door to his apartment, and for a second he thought Jennifer might have been right—he did look sort of powerful. He swiped the phone screen as he walked closer to the mirror. Seeing the stretch marks up close made him turn away.
“Hamlet.”
“Dennis, it’s Jerry. I need you to get over to one-ten Ferguson Avenue South.”
“Jerry, it’s my day off. I know the day is almost technically over, but the night is mine too. C’mon, man, I got a girl over.”
Jennifer flipped her hair behind her ear and blew him a kiss.
“We got one of our own down. Julie Owen, a detective out of the GANG unit. I don’t care if it’s Christmas, you’re on this.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Dennis closed his phone, walked back to the couch, and picked up his underwear.
“Get out,” he said.
“Daddy, I thought we were having a good time.”
Dennis got his pants on and fished out three twenties from his wallet. “Take this and go, Benjamin.”
Jennifer got to her feet and pulled the dress back into place. “Who—”
“I’ve seen your sheet—all the places you have been and the things you have done. I know what your father called you, Benjamin.”
Dennis shook the money until Jennifer pulled it from his fingers. As soon as the transaction was complete, Dennis took Jennifer by the arm and walked her to the door. “Wait, my heels.”
Dennis walked Jennifer the rest of the way to the door. “Stay here,” he said. He walked back into the living room and collected the high heels from the rug. He lobbed the shoes one at a time towards the door. Jennifer shielded her head both times and let the shoes hit the wall.
“You catch worse than a girl,” Dennis said.
“I do a lot of things better than most girls. Too bad you won’t find out. Maybe tomorrow?”
Dennis opened the door and guided Jennifer out. He started to close the door but stopped himself when there was a few inches left. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said through the crack.
“It’s a date, Daddy.”
Dennis shut the door the rest of the way and got ready to go.
3
“Where is that fucking slice?”
Nobody answered Woody; he was talking to himself. It was a bad habit that had grown on him like a rash over the last year. Woody was flipping through stacks of old pizza boxes as though they were folders in a file cabinet, looking for the leftovers from yesterday’s pizza. The boxes were identical, and Woody was trying to figure out which side of the kitchen counter was the beginning and which was the end. There had to be forty boxes, and he had a gut feeling he was on the wrong side. He was standing next to the fridge. Cop logic was working, even though Woody had just finished a twelve-hour shift and three beers.
“Boxes by the fridge would be the oldest because that’s where I’d stand and eat if the kitchen was empty. I’d want a drink while I ate, so I’d put the box down there so I could get a beer.”
Checking his hypothesis, Woody lifted the lid of the lowest box next to the fridge and reached inside. He didn’t find a slice, but there was something inside he had to peel off the bottom of the box. Woody dug a fingernail in and pried into the greasy paper. He pulled his hand free from the box and held it up in front of his face. He had to turn around so that his back was away from the light. The 40-watt bulb he had put in the kitchen to replace the last bulb was too dim. The 40-watt had been the only bulb in the house, and Woody had never bothered to buy something better. The low light showed that the lump Woody had found had once been a green olive. There was a lump of fuzzy mould over the top, but the half that had bonded to the cardboard still had some green left in the shrivelled skin.
Woody nodded to himself and walked around the island, the granite countertop covered in junk mail and old Chinese food containers, to the other side of the kitchen. The countertop ended by the garbage can. Woody could smell the garbage even with the lid on, and he tried to remember the last time he had taken the trash out. It was a bad sign that he wasn’t exactly sure which day was garbage day. The rumble in his stomach made him forget the garbage, and he went straight for the box on the top of the last pile. He pulled out a day-old slice that was covered in bacon and pineapple.
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” he said to himself.
The pizza was cold and a bit stale, but the pineapple was still a little moist. Woody had never been a pineapple fan—that was her favourite topping. Woody was sure she used to get it just to keep him from eating her half of the pizza. But almost a year straight of pizza changed Woody’s standard order. He lasted six months on pepperoni and sausage before the thought of the toppings made him nauseous. It was either branch out or learn to cook. Woody started picking different toppings and found he was able to stomach the p
izza again. He avoided pineapple for a few months, but he eventually broke down and ordered it. For a while, the presence of pineapple just meant he ate less. Woody would stare at the food until he started to cry. But one night, the pineapple half was all that was left in the house, so he ate it. It didn’t feel as wrong as he thought it would. It almost felt like she was still around. The fruit had no place on a pizza, but the thought of her maybe coming through the door to eat it made it palatable.
Woody shovelled the last two pieces into his mouth, chewing just enough to get it down. Whatever stuck in his throat moved into his stomach when a swig of his fourth beer hit it. Woody wasn’t really hungry, he was itching for something else. The cold pizza and beer was just foreplay. He found a leftover crust still in the box. The crust had aged differently than the slice, and Woody had to break pieces off and let them soften in his mouth before attempting to swallow the jagged shards of bread. He stared at the drawer while he gnawed on the last of the crust. He didn’t want pizza at all.
“Fuck it,” he said to himself.
Woody tossed the crust towards the sink and heard it ping off a glass sitting on top of the pile of unwashed dishes. He had stopped doing dishes months ago when he ran out of plates, glasses, cutlery, and bowls. Now, if it couldn’t be eaten out of a box or drunk out of a bottle or can, it wasn’t consumed in the house. Woody opened the drawer and reached inside. The drawer was almost empty. The knives and cooking utensils it once held were now buried in the sink or under piles of garbage on the counter. The only things left inside were a bottle opener and a small makeup bag that used to belong to her. When Woody first picked up the bag, it smelled like her perfume. He sat for hours huffing the bag until it just smelled like his stale breath. The bag smelled awful now, but the terrible odour got his pulse racing. He was embarrassed that the stink got him more excited than her perfume ever had. Woody stopped for a moment, with his hand on the bag, and mentally ticked off the days it had been since he last picked it up—only two. For a second, he considered putting it down. But he had been sick lately, and so tired. He was working too much and not sleeping enough. He was run-down and edgy, and he needed to relax. That was all. He was going back to the bag sooner than he liked, but he had some time off this weekend to catch up on sleep. A little sleep would get things back to normal. Woody got over his moment of hesitation and took the bag to the living room.
The floor of the living room was covered in old newspapers and even older pizza boxes. Each couch and chair had a neat pile of empty bottles around their perimeter. The La-Z-Boy had a row three deep—it was Woody’s favourite place to sit. Woody put the bag down on the table next to the chair and carefully sat down so that he wouldn’t knock over any of the bottles. The worn brown leather groaned as Woody adjusted his way into the cushions. He cracked his knuckles and unzipped the makeup bag. Inside was a glass pipe, a lighter, and a small ball of tinfoil. Woody opened the foil so that it was a craggy flat surface and looked at what he had left. There were only three small rocks of heroin inside—less than he remembered.
“Cheap shit never lasts,” Woody said. Whatever Joanne had sold him this time must have been cut with something. Buyer beware. It didn’t matter, this would get him through tonight. He could get some sleep, and then he wouldn’t need anything else for a while. Unless the cold he was coming down with got worse. Then he would need a little more help, but it probably wouldn’t come to that. Woody never got really sick very often.
Woody sparked the lighter and ran it under the foil. The flame woke the heroin and it hissed like a snake being charmed. The rocks changed state from solid to smoke and danced upward like a cobra before Woody used the pipe to pull it into his lungs. He held the smoke there until he felt his head swoon, then he let it out. He quickly inhaled more of the smoke and held it in even longer. He coughed as the second inhalation left his body. The third drag got Woody seeing stars. It took only a minute to breathe in everything on the foil. Woody used the scorched foil as a coaster for the lighter and pipe. He used his free hands to search on both sides of his ass for the stereo remote. He found it on the right and thumbed on the stereo. A few seconds later the opening sounds of “Gimmie Shelter” floated out of the speakers. Woody yanked the arm release on the La-Z-Boy and reclined as far as he could. He wasn’t high, just relaxed and forgetful. His mind was at ease, and he wasn’t thinking about anything.
Woody drifted until a new sound in the song, an offbeat squeal, pulled him out of his blank stare into nothing. Eventually, Woody processed the sound and connected it to his phone. Woody got out of his chair and staggered back to the kitchen. He picked up his jacket off the pile of mail on the island and found his phone.
“Yeah?”
“What the fuck, Woody? I was going to hang up on you.”
“No time like the present, Jerry.”
“Funny. I need you at one-ten Ferguson Avenue South.”
“I just got off shift, Jerry. Someone else is up. Call them.”
“I’d love to, but I got a dead cop here, and I’m calling you in.”
“Who?”
“Julie Owen. She was in the GANG unit. Someone did some nasty shit here, Woody. I need you on this.”
“You call Os?”
“Yeah, he’s on his way.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
When Woody put down the phone, he heard Mick singing “Love in Vain.” Woody slowly walked through the kitchen to the first-floor bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror while the sink filled with cold water. He looked tired. He had to be coming down with something serious. When the sink was full, he submerged his face in the cold water. He held himself there until the shock wore off. When he took his head out, he noticed that he had sent water all over the counter. Woody took the hand towel he never washed and dried off his face and hair. He emptied the sink and left the counter to air dry. He felt more awake and alert as he put on his jacket and walked out the front door.
4
There was nowhere to park—every inch of Ferguson Avenue within sight of the building was full of patrol cars and unmarked sedans.
Os took a handicap spot in the parking lot behind the building and got out of the Jeep. He took a few steps back and looked at the worn exterior of the building—the structure was dated, and no one seemed committed to anything resembling upkeep. He crashed into the first wave of blue when he rounded the corner. Cops in uniform crowded the entrance. A few seemed to be doing some half-assed crowd control, but most of the unis seemed to be standing around talking. There weren’t any reporters around yet, and people didn’t usually approach a huge crowd of cops. Crowd control was just a formality.
As Os got closer to the building, he noticed the flower bed had been trampled in several spots. Os immediately got pissed that the flower bed wasn’t taped off for forensics to photograph. He was about to yank one of the unis blabbering his way through crowd control when something caught his eye. Os turned to the flower bed and stepped up onto the concrete-block border. With his eyes, Os followed the footprints and flattened flowers to a huge puddle of vomit. The puddle was full of undigested food and Os knew whoever had puked had been eating pizza not too long ago. Five feet over was another puddle. This one was older than the first and mostly foam and bile. Os’s heart sank as he saw a third puddle a few feet away from the second. The flower garden wasn’t evidence; no perp had run through it. The first responders on scene had thrown up their dinners after going inside. Os stared at the vomit and wondered what would have caused three cops to do that? Cops had tougher stomachs than most seagulls. Os had seen corpses and then gone out for wings. He had eaten burgers after pulling charred bodies out of auto wrecks. He had never once lost his lunch on the job. The army had taken that cherry and ruined his appetite for months until he had become blissfully desensitized to every type of human cruelty. Os had seen plenty of fresh-faced newbies toss their guts at the sight of a fresh body, but he had
never seen three people react so badly at a scene. Os tore himself away from the flowerbed and weaved through the crowd of cops to the entrance. Along the way, he caught the eye of several of the uniformed cops standing around, but they quickly broke away from his stare so they could look at the ground. Everyone was talking in low tones—another bad sign. Cops were the best at making the worst jokes. Os could remember a joke to go along with everybody he had ever come across. The jokes weren’t usually his, but a few of them were. A quiet crowd of cops was bad.
None of the unis stopped Os as he walked through the front door of Julie’s apartment building. Someone had wedged the door open to avoid having to use the buzzer. Inside the door were the plainclothes detectives. It was weird how the police on scene organized themselves into groups based on their spot in the food chain. Plainclothes stood with plainclothes inside the building while the uniforms stood farther away from the scene outside on the pavement. Os knew many of the faces inside the entryway, and he stopped when he saw Paul Daniels.
“Paul,” Os said.
Paul looked up from the floor and gave Os a nod.
“You just get here?” Paul asked.
“Got called down ten minutes ago. You?”
“Heard it on the radio and showed up when they said it was one of us.”
“Julie,” Os said. His voice cracked a bit when he said her name, and he cleared his throat to cover it.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “Julie.” He didn’t have to clear his throat after he said her name. “It’s bad up there, Os. Real bad. You don’t want to go up.”
“Jerry told me to get down here. Where is he?”
“Upstairs.”
“Don’t have much of a choice then,” Os said.
Paul shrugged, and Os shouldered his way through the rest of the crowd to the elevator. The entryway was tight with bodies and the smell of body odour and aftershave. The crowd ended suddenly as though the plainclothes cops were standing on the edge of a cliff. No one wanted to be near the elevators. Os stepped into the empty space and hit the up button. He could feel the eyes of the other cops on his back, but he didn’t turn. He was thinking about Julie and what was waiting for him upstairs. When the doors opened, Os stepped into the car and pressed the number nine.
