Charlie seldom looked at his daughter, which was why he was always surprised when he actually saw her face. In his head, she was a chubby, sticky little girl with fat fingers that reminded him of Vienna sausages who could be bribed to go away with either candy or cash.
He saw her now. She was fifteen years old. The baby fat had left her waist but still settled in her cheeks. She was wearing too much makeup. The foundation was thick enough to scratch his name in. The green eye shadow was the wrong color for her complexion. Her eyebrows were plucked into shaky lines over her eyes. Why did she do that to herself? She’d never be pretty, but she could pass for all right if she didn’t paint herself up like that.
His wife said, “That sounds exciting. I wish I could go.”
Charlie picked up his knife. He cut into the steak. Instead of taking another bite, he looked at the knife.
This is how you end it.
That’s what the homeless man had said right before he died. He had told Charlie he was going to end up the same as him, and then he’d driven a knife into his own belly.
“Charlie?”
Charlie looked up from the knife. His wife was standing in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing her bathrobe. Pink foam curlers were in her hair. His daughter was gone. He looked out the window. The sun was down. He couldn’t remember when that had happened.
“Charlie?”
He put the knife down beside his plate. The pat of butter on his mashed potatoes had congealed.
“Are you going to tell me what happened today?”
The ice was melted in his scotch. He drank it anyway. “Nothing happened. I’m just stressed from work.”
“You always say you’re stressed.” She frowned, but her eyes softened around the edges. Fine lines spread at the corners. She was getting older. Most days, he thought this was a bad thing, but right now, all he could think about was that no matter how shit Charlie’s world could be, this woman in front of him always made sure that he had a safe place to come home to.
“Charlie?” Her voice was pitched low. “Are you all right?”
Charlie gritted his teeth, not because the question annoyed him but because he had the sudden urge to tell her what had happened outside the dry cleaner’s. The fear. The blood. The terror he couldn’t shake even when it was over.
Salmeri had told Charlie to leave before the cops got there. Charlie wasn’t about to argue. He’d thrown the suit into the back of his car and peeled out of the parking lot. Between the blood and the hot sun, the flesh of his hands had been glued to the steering wheel.
He’d driven around for hours, finally pulling to a stop on the gravel road across from the Lenox Square shopping mall in Buckhead. Charlie got out of the car. He wiped his hands on the grass. He spat on them to try to get the blood off.
When he reached into his jacket pocket for his handkerchief, he found the knife. Six-inch blade. Pearl handle with gold rivets. A finger ring at the guard. The pommel had a deep slash across the bottom like the knife itself had been cut.
This is how you end it.
Charlie didn’t know how the knife had come into his possession. He didn’t remember picking it up from the ground. He didn’t remember wiping off the blood. He sure as shit didn’t remember putting it in his pocket. The blade was sharp. Why hadn’t it sliced through the cloth?
You’re gonna end up just like me.
What the hell did that mean? That Charlie was going to be homeless? Fuck that. He’d been homeless before. If he ended up on the streets again, he’d do the same thing he did the last time: fight tooth and nail to get back on top. No way would Charlie Lam ever put a knife in his own gut. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a coward.
His wife put her hand on his shoulder. “Charlie? Charlie?”
“I got work to do.” Charlie stood up from the table. He grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter and he walked out the door.
Charlie forced his jaw to unclench as he walked toward his girlfriend’s apartment. His palms felt sticky. His sweat had rewet the blood on the Buick’s steering wheel. His hands were never going to be clean again.
“Charlie!” The door flew open before he could knock. She was always happy to see him.
“You look good,” he said, because she did. Even at ten o’clock, even without knowing he was coming over, she still made an effort.
“You look good, too, baby.” She started kissing him before he had time to shut the door. And then her hands were all over him—fingers scratching through his hair, hand grabbing his ass and pulling him close.
They never took their clothes off anymore. It was always fast. She was always ready. Charlie’s belt, his pants, his briefs, were ripped down. They were on the floor. Her skirt was up. Her bra was unclasped. Her legs wrapped around him. Her fingernails dug into his back.
And then—nothing.
She didn’t give up. She rolled on top of him. She bit his neck. She unbuttoned his shirt and licked her way down his chest. Charlie watched her work her way down. He’d put on some weight lately. His belly rounded off like the side of a barrel. The trail of hair from his navel disappeared like a roadway melting into the horizon.
Charlie stared at the top of her head as she tried to get him hard. He’d never noticed before, but she bleached her hair. The roots were at least an inch long. How had he never noticed? Her bush was as black as Sambo. Her eyebrows were darker than his.
He pushed up onto his elbows. “Look at me.”
She looked up. Her hand was cupping him. His cock lay flat as a ballpark wiener against the hairy bun of his testicles. She asked, “What is it, Charlie?”
“Your eyebrows,” he said. “You pluck ’em, right?”
She stared at him for a few confused seconds before nodding.
He studied the fine hairs of her eyebrows. There was an arch in the middle. It looked natural, but there was an art to it. Why couldn’t his daughter learn to do that?
“Is something wrong, baby?” She took his hand and wrapped it around her breast. “Talk to me.”
Charlie couldn’t support his weight on one arm. He dropped back to the floor. He stared up at the ceiling. She straddled him. He felt the firm rise of her breast. He stared at her perfect bow tie of a mouth. Her thin waist he could almost wrap both his hands around.
He said, “I saw something bad today. A man died.” He swallowed. “Killed himself.”
“Killed himself?” Her eyes went wide. “That’s horrible. Are you okay?”
“I’m all right.” He was aware there was a catch in his voice, and he didn’t like it. He lifted up onto his elbows again. “Come on. Get off me.”
“Baby.” She moved her hips, grinding against him. “What can I do to make things better?”
“You can do what I said.” He bucked her with his hips. “Come on. Get off me.”
“What are you—what did I—”
“Get off.” He bucked her again.
“What are you—”
“Move!” He shoved her away. She fell back onto the floor. Charlie stood. He pulled up his underwear, his pants.
“Charlie! What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“Just shut up.” His fingers wouldn’t work. He couldn’t get the belt to buckle. “If I wanted to be around a hysterical broad, I would’ve stayed home.”
“I’m sorry.” She got up on her knees. She was begging him. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
She put her hands over his. “Baby, don’t go.”
He pushed her harder than before. She banged her head against the arm of the couch. The impact must’ve rattled something loose in her brain. Her voice turned hard. “I was just trying to talk to you, you asshole.”
“Whatever, doll.” His head was aching like he was the one who hit the couch. His heart was thumping in his chest. He felt dizzy. His back was killing him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t come here to talk.”
“Tell that to your dingaling.”
Ch
arlie’s breath caught. The air froze in his lungs.
He saw her do the quick calculation: the apartment, the clothes, the pocket money—all the shit she got in return for rushing through five minutes of fucking before Charlie scampered back to his wife.
She stood up from the floor. “I’m sorry, baby.” Her smile was so forced that her lips looked like they were going to crack. “Let me make it up to you. How about we try that thing you wanted?” She turned around and rubbed up against him like a cat. “Come on, baby. You can be as rough as you want.”
Charlie felt himself start to stir. This was more like it. He put his hands on her waist, felt the muscles underneath. She pressed back against him. She had to go on her tippytoes to kiss his neck. Charlie realized his stomach was in the way. She practically had to do a backbend over his gut.
“Charlie?”
He pulled away from her. He felt weird, like he wasn’t himself anymore. “This is over.”
“What?” She said it quietly at first, but then screamed, “What?”
“You heard me. It’s over.”
“The fuck it is.” Her fingernails dug into his arm. “You’re not leaving me.”
Charlie couldn’t figure out what was wrong at first. He was aware of several things at once: that his heart was jackhammering against his ribs, that he couldn’t make himself move, that her fingernails really hurt.
And then he realized that he was scared.
Which was ridiculous, because he could break her over his knee without even thinking about it.
He grabbed his suit jacket off the floor. The knife fell out of the pocket. The overhead light caught the metal blade as it spun through the air and landed flat on the carpet.
“Shit.” She took three steps back.
Charlie remembered the knife sinking into the homeless man’s gut. The popping sound when the skin broke. The way the blood dripped onto the sidewalk.
This is how you end it.
They both jumped when there was a knock at the door.
A muffled woman’s voice said, “Open up. Police.”
Chapter Three
There were two female cops. They stood with their feet planted wide, shoulders straight, taking up all the air in the apartment. The first was the same ballbreaker he’d had a run-in with at Salmeri’s this afternoon. She looked tired. Her collar was unbuttoned. Her hair was coming down. She was pretty. Charlie could see that now. She just needed to make more of an effort.
The second cop was harder, more seasoned. She was blonde, but her hair was in a ponytail that pulled back her face so tight she could’ve passed for Hanoi Hannah.
She told Charlie, “My partner here says you were at Salmeri’s today. Is that right?”
“Yes.” Charlie shook his head. He hoped to hell they couldn’t hear his heart pounding. “I was there maybe two minutes. I picked up a suit.”
She walked over and took the chair beside Charlie. “That’s all that happened? You picked up a suit?”
“Yeah.” He loosened his collar. The apartment was stuffy. They were crowding his space.
“And you didn’t see anything else?”
“No. I told you already.” He put his hand in his jacket pocket. Instead of finding his handkerchief, he found the knife. How the hell did that get there? Charlie couldn’t even remember picking it up off the floor.
“Mr. Lam?”
He looked up. “Can you tell me what this is about?”
“Sure I could.” The first cop nodded toward the closed bedroom door, where his girlfriend probably had her ear pressed to the wood. “That your daughter?”
Charlie took his hand out of his pocket. “What do you want, honey? I’m a busy man.”
The other cop cackled. “Wish I was gettin’ busy like that.”
Charlie ignored her. “How’d you know I was here anyway?”
The first cop shrugged, offering, “I was on my way home and saw your car. The back window’s still cracked. It’s very distinctive.”
Charlie said nothing, though he knew there was more to it than that. He could buy that the cop was on her way home. The apartment complex was in a shitty area of town, exactly the kind of neighborhood a lady cop could afford. It was the other cop’s presence that put a hole in the story. Unless they were a couple of dykes going home together.
That was an interesting thought. Charlie couldn’t help himself. His cock twigged like a dog’s ear.
The second cop asked, “You sure you didn’t see anything unusual at the dry cleaner’s? Maybe there was someone in the parking lot as you were leaving?”
Charlie crossed his ankle over his knee. He was getting hard. Why hadn’t this happened ten minutes ago when he could do something about it?
“Mr. Lam?”
He shifted on the couch. “No. Parking lot was empty.”
“Well, that’s funny, because not long after my partner saw you there, she got a call that a man had stabbed himself to death with a knife.”
Charlie put his hand to his mouth. It was a stupid thing to do, like someone had yelled “Action” and his direction was to act like a scared broad.
The cop rummaged around in her purse. “His name was Melvin Finkelmeyer. Left a wife and six kids.”
Charlie laughed because the name sounded like a joke.
“What?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Funny name for a black man.”
Her eyebrow went up, but she didn’t ask how he knew the victim was black when he claimed not to be there in the first place. Instead, she pulled a Polaroid out of her purse and showed it to Charlie. “This is the man.”
Charlie didn’t take the photo, which showed a middle-aged Jew with a comb-over. “What man?”
“The man who killed himself outside Salmeri’s.”
Charlie scowled, because he thought even a lady cop would be smarter than to play this kind of trick. Besides, she’d already caught him in a lie. He’d all but admitted he was there.
She said, “Finkelmeyer’s wife took that picture five years ago before it all went to hell for him. Look at his eyes. Maybe that’ll jog your memory?”
Charlie gave a perfunctory glance, then he did a double take. The eyes were startlingly blue. The same blue as the homeless man’s.
He leaned closer.
Finkelmeyer’s jawline was hard and clean-shaven, but Charlie could easily imagine what he’d look like with a full beard, his hair grown wild, his skin unwashed.
He would look exactly like a white version of the homeless man.
Charlie said, “That can’t be right.”
“Not surprised you didn’t recognize him.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. “After what happened to him.” She tapped the pack against the heel of her hand. “Five years ago.”
Charlie could hear the blood pulsing through his arteries. “What happened?”
“Not sure. Something bad. He went from being a successful businessman to living on the streets.”
Charlie got a lump in his throat.
You’re gonna end up just like me.
The cop lit her cigarette. She dropped the match into the ashtray on the coffee table. She blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “We looked into it. Don’t worry, the fact that he was keeping books for Mike Thevis had nothing to do with his downfall. I’m sure you know that people who screw over Thevis end up dead in the gutter, not living on the streets.”
The lump in Charlie’s throat turned to sand. He coughed around the fine particles.
“You’ve heard of Thevis. He did that movie. What’s it called?”
The first cop provided, “Deep Throat,” and Charlie startled. He had forgotten she was standing by the door.
“Deep Throat.” The woman sucked on her cigarette. “You seen it?”
“No,” Charlie lied. He put his hand to the back of his neck like he could stop the sweat. “This homeless guy—Finkelmeyer. He was a successful businessman before?”
She smiled, obviously pleased with
his reaction. “That’s right. He had a bunch of fleabag motels, rented rooms by the hour. Girls in and out all the time, if you get my meaning.”
“He was a pimp?”
“Only black men are pimps. Finkelmeyer was a slumlord. He rented to hippies and students, but his big business was giving the pimps a place to do business.” She shrugged. “Worked out fine until he got greedy. Crossed the wrong people. Bunch of pimps got together and burned down all his motels. He ended up homeless. Kind of funny when you think about it.”
Charlie didn’t see what was funny.
“Slumlord ends up homeless.”
Charlie realized he was sitting on the edge of the couch. The photograph was in his hand, though he didn’t remember taking it. He looked down at Melvin Finkelmeyer. The man’s skin was almost as white as Charlie’s. Maybe it was the dirt and the grime of the street that had made the guy look black. Maybe it was his life being snatched out from under him. He had a wife. He had kids. And then he had nothing.
Charlie asked the picture, “What happened?”
There was a loud bang in the bedroom. Both cops put their hands on their guns.
“Jesus Christ, how long is this gonna take?” his girlfriend asked through the door. “I need some cigarettes.”
The two cops exchanged a look. They didn’t take their hands off their guns.
“The store’s two blocks up the street,” she whined. “Come on.”
The first cop walked across the room and opened the door.
Charlie’s girlfriend almost fell into the room.
The cop offered, “I’ll walk you to the store.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“You want your cigarettes or not?”
Charlie watched her lower lip stick out like she was three. But she needed her smokes, so she walked toward the door. She slowed down long enough to give Charlie a wink, like he hadn’t told her ten minutes ago that he was leaving her.
Maybe he wasn’t. She’d changed into a new dress. The material was clingy. He could see the perfect crest of her ass. She was wearing high heels that made her calves flex like cut stone.
“Radio if you need me,” the first cop called. The door clicked shut behind them.
Three Twisted Stories Page 3
