I wandered aimlessly into Chinatown, a few blocks west of the Roundhouse. I walked into a restaurant with a name that I forgot as soon as I entered the doorway and headed straight for the bar. I drank a bottle of Tsingtao while still standing. I was too scared to sit; I was too scared to piss.
All I had wanted was to keep my train on the gravy track. I liked carrying a fancy bag filled with cash. I liked the office waiting room filled with people, and the escrow accounts filled with retainers. I liked being full. Like every working stiff, my job was to keep my job. But it was no longer enough to sit back and let the facts pile up without my worry, not when they were piling up like a prison cell around me.
And then I remembered the pressure Melanie had put on me to stay out of the investigation.
Sure, stay out of the way and don’t muck up their work as they construct their frame. She must be up to her eyeballs in the whole bad ball of wax, murder included. Machiavelli indeed. But if I was a fall guy, they wouldn’t stop with a number scrawled on an envelope. They would keep applying the pressure, step-by-step, until something snapped. And they already had, hadn’t they? Breaking into my apartment and searching for the blood swath of proof that Jessica Barnes had given me. What else had they done? What else would they do?
I gulped down my beer, let the heady brightness of the lager mute my terror and clear my thinking, ordered another to clarify my thinking even further. What else?
I began to wonder who had called the cops right after my attack. A concerned neighbor was what I had thought. But then McDeiss had said the call was anonymous. Why would a concerned neighbor go to a pay phone to remain anonymous? I didn’t even know there still were pay phones. You had to go quite a ways in this town now to find a pay phone. So it most likely wasn’t a concerned neighbor. It most likely was the unconcerned asshole who had brained me in the first place. Why would he want to call the police?
Maybe because—
I slammed down the still unfinished beer, fished some bills out of my wallet, rushed for the door, and then, thinking better of it, went back to the bar and downed the rest of the Tsingtao. I sensed I would need it.
After a frantic and messy search of my apartment, I found it in a bureau drawer, within a pile of T-shirts I didn’t much wear anymore, one of those drawers you wouldn’t know I didn’t use unless you were me. Beneath something blue, atop something white, there it rested, like an undetonated bomb.
A wooden handle, a rusted metal head, the entire tool smeared thickly with dried blood and sprinkled with horrid bits of gunk.
It was the hammer that had battered the face of Jessica Barnes. The hammer the police were supposed to find in my apartment when the anonymous tipster rang. The tipster had thought we would search the whole of the apartment together to make a list of any missing items. We hadn’t—I had signed the report without a search because I don’t have anything worth stealing and wanted the cops out of there as quickly as possible. The hammer had escaped police attention once, but I had no doubt that they’d be called back to find it a second time, this time with more detailed information. And they’d be coming quickly.
I reached down to grab hold of it and stopped myself just in the nick of time. Then I paced, and muttered expletives, and slammed a fist into my head repeatedly, and all the while I tried to figure out what the hell to do. I couldn’t destroy it; it could lead directly to the killer. I couldn’t call in the cops, because they would link it straight to me. What the hell could I do? And then it crashed over me like a wave of crazed inspiration, a brilliantly cockeyed solution to an intractable problem.
I mailed the damn thing to Duddleman.
I shouldn’t have brought her into it, I can see that now from the vantage of time. I should have said, “No. Fuck, no.” But I needed to do something, anything, something to protect my ass, and I didn’t just then see an option other than Amanda Duddleman, with her scrubbed and eager face. My phone number had been scrawled on an envelope belonging to a murder victim, the killing weapon had been planted in my apartment, and they had these convenient flat-rate boxes at the post office.
A few days after I sent off the hammer, I went to the Walmart on Columbus Boulevard, bought a prepaid phone, registered it to one Jack Herbert, and sent a text to Amanda Duddleman:
IT’S KIP. DID YOU GET MY PACKAGE?
She responded: OMG!!
WE NEED TO MEET.
K ?
SOMEPLACE HIDDEN
?
AIRPORT, GARAGE D, LEVEL 4, 3:30 TODAY.
K
“Did you touch it?” I said to her as we leaned against a cement pillar in the long-term parking garage at the airport.
“No,” she said. “I kept it in the box.”
“Good. Do you know what it is?”
“Is it . . . ?”
“I think.”
“My God, Kip. What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Take pictures for your article, it will be a hell of a scoop, and then take it directly to McDeiss. But tell him you can’t say where you got it from.”
“Okay.”
“Can you protect your source?”
“We studied that.”
“It’s a little different in the real world.”
It was quiet where we were speaking, deserted, real Deep Throat territory. Anyone who passed by was more concerned with catching a plane than catching co-conspirators. Amanda was dressed in jeans, a dark jacket, and glasses that made her look collegiate and made me regret bringing her in, but not enough to do anything about it.
“Whatever prints McDeiss finds will lead him to a murderer. I only touched it with gloves when I put it in the bag. But, Amanda, he can’t know it’s from me.”
“Okay.”
“Now has McDeiss announced anything about the victim? Has he released the name?”
“Not yet. He says he’s looking to notify the family before he releases it to the press.”
“Okay. I can help you there.”
“I’ll quote you as an anonymous source.”
“You won’t quote me at all.”
“Then what good are you?”
“I don’t know as much as you think I know, but maybe I can give you prods that will send you in the right direction. Leads that will lead to bigger things. But if I do this, you won’t be coming to my apartment anymore and I can’t be summoned to pay you a visit, so no more acting crazy with the Congressman.”
“I’ll try.”
“Amanda.”
“Yes. Okay. I’ll turn off the crazy.”
“And you have to tell me everything you find.”
“It will be in the paper.”
“Before the paper.”
“Fine, that’s a deal.”
“Good. But no Internet, no e-mails. I sent you that text from a new phone that can’t be traced to me. I’ll check it a couple of times each day. If you find something, text me a time and place to meet but nothing specific about the information. The same thing goes if I want to talk to you.”
“Cloak-and-dagger.”
“In a world lousy with information, we’re going to leave a clean slate. Whatever you’re going to discover, someone wants to keep hidden in the worst way, as Jessica Barnes learned. Wherever you go, leave no footprints. And don’t tell anyone what you’ve found until it’s printed in the paper.”
“Except you.”
“That’s right, except me. Okay, let’s start with a name.”
“Whose?”
“Shoeless Joan’s.”
I gave her name to Amanda Duddleman, along with the rest of Jessica Barnes’s sad story.
And so it began.
CHAPTER 24
MONKEY’S PAW
At about six o’clock in the evening I grabbed a spot at the window of a coffee bar where I could suck down a jolt of espres
so while keeping an eye on Eighteenth Street.
“I need to see you,” Ossana DeMathis had said over the phone that morning. “When can you shake free?”
“I have a couple of meetings this afternoon. Maybe six?”
“Okay, where?”
I thought on this a second, and let a flame of suspicion rise to lick my jaw. “There’s a place called the Franklin on Eighteenth. Do you know it?”
Perhaps I imagined the slightest hesitation before she said, “No. No, I don’t.”
“South of Chestnut. It’s just a small place. Let’s say six fifteen to be safe.”
“Okay, yes. To be safe. See you then, Victor. And thank you.”
No, I thought. Thank you.
Why did I find Ossana DeMathis so enthralling? Of course there were her sharp aristocratic looks, her lithe hard body, her skin pale as an acquiescence, her deranged green eyes that haunted the soul. But the allure of a woman always goes beyond raw physicality into the land of self-transcendence. I’m not looking for a woman to complete me; my God, just the thought of it horrifies. Why would I ever want to become a complete me when I could be something new and shiny? And that’s what the most attractive women promise.
With a thin waif with tight black pants spackled with paint, I could become bohemian Victor. With a saintly earnest type with long legs and arms full of pamphlets, I could become dedicated-to-a-cause-greater-than-myself Victor. With a laughing woman at a bar with the big drink and breasts like twin gerbils ready to spring from their cages, I could become hedonistic Victor, sucking the very marrow of life right through her nipples. And with Ossana—connected Ossana, red-haired and distant Ossana, dressed-to-the-max Ossana, haughty and naughty Ossana—I could become political Victor, rising, rising.
But no matter how much I wanted to rise with Ossana, I wasn’t going to be her sap. Somebody had spied on my meeting with Jessica Barnes, and I wasn’t ready to exclude anyone. My time for being less than utterly careful had passed.
At precisely a quarter past six, there she came, checking the street addresses with a piece of paper in her hand. She looked good walking up the street, her body slim, her copper hair glossy, her eyes mascaraed to within an ounce of their lives, her outfit formal enough to make it seem she had dressed for the occasion, but still kicky, with a pair of shocking-red fishnets scissoring out of a flat black skirt. She stopped in front of the bar, looked left and right, hesitated a moment, glanced down as if she had never before considered that a bar might live down that stairway.
Was her uncertainty real? Was it an act? Did it seem slightly staged, as if she knew I was somewhere watching? Did it matter? Just the sight of her blurred my suspicion into something else, a fizzle and pop of possibility. I drained the espresso and waited a moment to make sure no one was following her. I hitched up my pants in eagerness when I hit the street.
She was sitting at one of the small tables in the middle of the room, right next to the table I had shared with Jessica Barnes. When she saw me, her mouth twitched just enough so that I felt it in my chest, at the exact spot, in fact, she had placed her hand at our meeting before.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Is this one of your regular spots?”
“No, but my regular spot is a bit regular.” I pulled out a chair and joined her at the table. “You’ve never been here before?”
“No, never.”
“You found it easy enough.”
“I got the address from the Google.”
“Handy, that thing. They don’t serve much food here, but they’re pretty clever with their drinks.”
When the waitress came amidst the smallest of small talk, Ossana ordered herself a cosmo, and I asked for a Sazerac.
“I thought your drink was a Sea Breeze.”
“A harder cocktail fits the new line of work I’m trying.”
“What line is that?”
“Upholstery.”
She laughed and then grew quiet. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Is that why you needed to see me?”
“No, but still I have.”
“Good, then whatever I’m doing, it’s working.”
When the drinks came, Ossana thanked the waitress and lapped at her reddish liquid like a cat. My Sazerac was brilliant enough to make me think of taking hold of Ossana’s wrist and licking off her flock-of-birds tattoo.
“It was something you told me the other day,” she said. “How you welcomed the way all the people at the Governor’s Ball stared at you like you were a leper.”
“Aren’t you sick of it all?” I said. “Dressing right, acting right, minding your precious manners.”
“My God, yes.”
“Then stop.”
Her lips slipped into a sad smile with a hint of wistfulness. “I don’t have your courage. But just once I’d like to watch them shrink away like leeches from salt when they see me.”
“Your time will come.”
“Victor, you’re sweet. But there’s a reason we all wear our masks. Except for you.”
“Oh, I wear mine, like any opportunistic striver in this foul little world. Did you see the shoes I wore to the ball?”
“They were darling.”
“See, I try. I’m just not very good at sucking up, thus my fallback position. As the man said, ‘There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.’ ”
“I don’t think Camus meant the scorn that others feel for you.”
“You know the quote? I’m impressed.”
“I majored in French literature in college.”
“I’m sure that was useful in the job market.”
“I wasn’t very good at making café au laits, but my pronunciation was sterling. Do you like being the new Colin Frost?”
“It pays well and sure beats what I was doing before.”
“And what was that?”
“Wallowing in poverty.”
“You?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I can’t imagine it. You’re such a go-getter.”
“Is that what I am?”
“Like a regular Sammy Glick. Has anyone told you that before?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you don’t like it.”
“No.”
“I meant it as a compliment. That reminds me, I have this for you.”
She reached into her bag, an expensive one, I could tell, because it was a gaudy advertisement for itself, and pulled out an envelope, which she slid across the table. The Franklin was getting to be quite the place for envelopes. I opened hers, took out the paper, gave it a quick scan, put it back into the envelope. It was a list of names, each followed by a figure. I supposed it was time to start spreading the love for the Congressman’s reelection campaign, which meant that Ossana was my new contact. Somehow I didn’t like that. Somehow, along with the Sammy Glick crack, it made me feel like the help, which, to be honest, was exactly what I was. But still.
“Last time I was in this bar,” I said, deciding to shake things up a bit, “I was having drinks with a murder victim.”
“Here?” She looked around, her expression a bit theatrical. But then everything she did was a bit theatrical. “This very bar?”
“That table right there,” I said, tapping the marble next to us.
“What did she tell you?”
“The story of her life.”
“Was it captivating?”
“No, it was just sad. And then it ended.”
“Do they know who killed that woman yet?”
“No. Nor why.”
“What do they think?”
“That it was robbery. Or maybe something else. They’re still at sea.”
“Then what do they know?”
“They know that I took money from Mrs. Devereaux and gave it to the wo
man and that the money wasn’t on her when they found her body.”
“My God, where did they learn all that?”
“Not from me,” I said.
“There’s a leak.”
“Yes, there’s a leak. But I’ll take care of it. That’s what I do for my dollar, take care of things.”
“Yes, that’s what you do,” she said, putting her hand on mine. “And we’re all so grateful.”
“So let’s get back to the darkness at the base of your soul that you are sick to death of hiding.”
“Can we please not?”
“Maybe it’s time to show someone.”
She pulled her hand away. “Trust me, Victor, you don’t want to see.”
“But I do. You’ve whetted my appetite.”
Her bright lips twitched. “You’re like the little boy saying he wants to go to the horror movie. ‘Please, Mommy, I can handle it.’ And if she relents, he’s the first one to run out screaming.”
“Are you saying you think your darkness is darker than mine?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. Listen closely, Victor. What I’m saying is that my darkness eats your darkness for brunch with a lemon hollandaise and a flute of champagne.”
“Oh, Ossana, you’re a sunny day in Spain.”
She laughed. “Are we really fighting over which of us is more vile?”
“I guess we are.”
“Why do I find that so stimulating?”
“Because it’s as twisted as we are.”
“We might both be twisted, yes, but not similarly, and not to the same degree.”
“Want to bet?”
“Now you’re just being silly.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m serious as sin.”
“All right then, if you insist. We’ll bet.”
“What stakes?”
“Something small and mean, I would think, something as abominable as our worthless souls. A penny?”
Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) Page 14
