Harlot's Moon

by Edward Gorman

  "You still sound angry."

  I whistled a couple bars of Moon River.

  She laughed. "I knew you'd have a sense of humor. I saw that in your eyes tonight. You know, at the rectory"

  "Now that I'm in such a good mood, Ellie, why don't you tell me why you called?"

  "They'll think I did it, won't they?"

  "The police?"

  "Yes."

  "Think you killed Father Daly?"

  Hesitation. "You saw the earring when it fell out of my purse tonight."

  "Yes, I did." Obviously I did. I picked it up. Was she on something?

  I kept seeing her face, her beautiful, beautiful face. I felt almost giddy, her ridiculously lovely fashion, my ridiculously painful loneliness despite Felice's presence. Ellie had me dreaming high school dreams, me with a nice new red convertible, squiring the Homecoming Queen around town.

  Not that my life had ever been like that. The only convertible I'd ever owned had been a junker, and the Homecoming Queen of my senior year of high school had pronounced me a "dip-shit" in front of maybe twenty people. She'd been wearing white fabric pumps that matched her gown. During her mercy slow dance with me I'd trod mightily on her toes.

  "Bob said he knows you saw it — the other earring. Not the one in my purse, the one in the room. He knows you know he took it."

  "I kind've figured he did."

  "He'd be very angry if he knew I was talking to you."

  I sighed. "I guess I'm not sure what you'd like me to do exactly, Ellie."

  "Meet for lunch tomorrow."

  "Lunch?"

  "I need to talk to you. I may even hire you. We have plenty of money, if that's what you're concerned about."

  Her face again. Her grave wonderful eyes.

  "Where would you like to meet?" I said.

  "I was thinking of Thurber Park. There's a little restaurant down the street from the boat dock. They have good seafood."

  "I need to say something here, Ellie."

  "I know. You reserve the right to think that I'm guilty"

  "Yes. That's right."

  "My earring being there, I suppose your being suspicious is natural."

  "You were there last night with him, weren't you, Ellie?"

  "I think I hear Bob pulling in. I need to go. I'll see you about noon tomorrow then."

  She hung up fast, and I sighed. I was out of the mood for sleep now. I went back to my spare-room table.

  My cat Tasha came in and spent the next hour on my lap while I started working up the profile of Father Daly's killer and getting nowhere because I really didn't have enough data to work with.

  The problem is that no matter what anybody tells you, psychological profiling is not a science. It's an art. It works well in some cases, but almost all of the cases it works for are sex-related crimes, which includes almost all serial killings. Even a contract killer has a reason he's willing to do that work. It's also relevant to other serial crimes, especially arson that's not for profit.

  I wasn't sure I had a sex-related killing here. I wasn't sure I had a serial killing. If I did, I didn't know — or wasn't sure — what the prior crimes had been.

  If only I'd found those clippings somewhere other than in the victim's room . . .

  If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their butts when they hopped.

  Felice came in twice for kisses, and I went out there once for a kiss, and then I was back at it.

  When I heard the doorbell, the first thing I did was look at my wrist-watch on the table. It was late for visitors.

  "I'll get that," I called out.

  If there was a crazy at the door, I wanted to be the one to greet him.

  I stuffed my Luger into my pants pocket and walked through the apartment. Felice had given up on sleep. She was watching Jay Leno, clicking down the volume with the channel surfer.

  I walked to the door and peeked out through the spyhole. At first, I didn't recognize him. He looked just like any gray-haired and rather nondescript guy in his late sixties. Then I realized who he was and my stomach knotted up immediately.

  "Oh, shit," I said.

  "Is everything all right?" Felice said from the couch.

  "I'll explain later."

  I opened up the door and the first thing he said was, "Hey, I really like your new digs, Bobby. This is the kind of pad chicks love."

  New digs. Pad. Chicks.

  I only knew one person, besides Gilhooley of course, who still talked this way. And it was a person I didn't ever want to see again.

  I didn't know how he'd found me. But he always could get what he wanted. Even new addresses.

  I made three quick assessments: he looked much older, and had dropped maybe as much as fifty pounds. He was no longer a clothes horse; his sport jacket looked cheap and wrinkled, his chinos even worse. And he'd developed this very croupy cough. He stood in my doorway hacking and coughing.

  Then I took full notice of the lone battered suitcase that sat next to him.

  "Travelin' kind of light these days, Bobby," he said.

  "Is there something I can do for you, Vic?"

  Then I became aware of his gasping. It was as if he couldn't suck in sufficient air.

  "You could invite me in and let me sit down," he panted.

  "I'm sorry, Vic, but I don't want to invite you in."

  I started to close the door but then a slender, elegant hand touched mine and Felice whispered, "This isn't like you, Robert. I've never seen you this mean before. That man is sick."

  She then pulled the door open again and said, "Please, come in and sit down."

  For him, she had a smile, for me a glower.

  "Why, thank you so much, ma'am."

  "I'm Felice," she said, bending down to take his suitcase. "I'm Robert's friend."

  "I'm Vic Carney," he said. "I'm Robert's stepfather."

  He moved very slowly, as if he were afraid he might pitch over at any time.

  Felice helped him inside, and then made him a nice comfy place on the couch.

  "How about a cup of hot chocolate?"

  He grinned with cheap, store-bought teeth. "That sounds great. You sure got yourself a nice gal, Bobby."

  I followed her out to the kitchen.

  "How can you treat that sweet old man that way, Robert?"

  "One, because he isn't a sweet old man, he's a con artist. And two, because—" I stopped. "Never mind."

  She glared at me. "Never mind?"

  "He was an advertising guy. Worked for a couple of nickel and dime agencies. After my father died, my mother was very vulnerable. But even so, I couldn't believe it when she took up with Vic. My father was a geologist, a very quiet, intelligent, honorable guy. Then here comes Vic, this advertising asshole. I couldn't believe it.

  "He was always trying to impress me with how cool he was, how he played golf with the Governor, and knew a lot of the movie stars he used in his biggest commercials, and how he was making all this money. I tried never to take anything from him. If he bought me something, I always gave it back."

  She watched me quietly as I spoke. There was real rage in my voice and, I suspected, on my face.

  "I hate to say this, Robert, but it sort of sounds like you hated him because he tried to take your father's place with you and your mother."

  "All those hours with the shrinks are starting to rub off on you. I hate him because he's a jerk."

  "I'm serious," she said, as the milk came to a boil. She spooned chocolate powder into a cup. "It sounds like you had more of a problem with him than he had with you."

  "Down deep, he's a used-car salesman," I said. "He's already got you conned. He was able to con almost anybody."

  "He conned your mother?"

  "Absolutely. She was never able to see him for what he is."

  "But he didn't con you?"

  "No, he didn't. I always knew what he was."

  She smiled. "A pod person?"

  "Exactly. A ver
y dangerous pod person." I paused. "Plus, he took her away — everywhere. Europe, the South Seas, Russia . . . they were always traveling. I basically spent high school — after my dad died — alone."

  Felice plopped three small marshmallows into the hot drink and we went back to the living room. Vic was still hacking when we got there.

  Felice gave him the drink then came over and put her nice bottom on the arm of the chair where I was sitting.

  "So how long has it been since you two saw each other?" she said.

  "Not long enough," I said.

  He'd been about to take a sip of his hot chocolate but when I spoke, he stopped, the cup halfway to his lips.

  "Bobby hates me."

  "Oh. I'm sure he doesn't hate you," she said.

  He smiled grimly with his store-boughts. "You don't hear him denying it, do you?"

  "C'mon, Robert, tell Vic you don't hate him."

  I said nothing.

  "I'm sorry, Vic," she said. "Bobby's just being an asshole. Some kind of male PMS deal or something like that."

  I couldn't help it. I laughed.

  "See, he does know how to smile, Vic. Isn't that a cute little smile?"

  "I probably wasn't a very good stepfather to him," Vic said. "I mean, I'm sure I could've handled things around the house much better. And I was kind of a showboat. Laura, his mother, I think she liked that about me. She liked all the advertising people, but Bobby always thought they were con artists. He read this Sloan Wilson novel where one of the characters said, 'You don't go into advertising because you have talent; you go into advertising because you don't have talent. ' Bobby must've quoted that a hundred times at the dinner table."

  Then he was coughing again. Violently.

  Felice looked down at me, nodding her head angrily so I'd talk to him.

  "Vic?"

  "Just a minute, Bobby," he managed to say between hacks.

  "Vic, you want some Kleenex or something?"

  "God dammit," Felice whispered fiercely in my ear, "you go over there and sit by him."

  I knew her moods well enough to know that this meant something to her. This wasn't an idle threat. Right now she saw me as a total shit and if I didn't extend myself at least a little bit to Vic she was going to take some permanent points away from me.

  I'd never heard or seen anybody cough this way. He was totally caught up in it, as if in the throes of a seizure.

  He dug a bottle of dark liquid out of his coat pocket and took two big swigs of the stuff.

  He laid his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, apparently waiting for the liquid to take effect.

  Felice was waving urgently for me to move closer to him. I leaned over and said, "You all right, Vic?"

  His head came up slowly. Another store-bought smile. "The doc said this stuff would help and I guess it does."

  Then he sat up straight and I went back to my own chair again.

  "I guess I should come to the point, huh?"

  "You just take your time," Felice said. Stray puppies, cats, even raccoons, Felice had taken them all in at one time or another. Now she was taking in my stepfather. Or he was taking her in. Depends on how you mean the words.

  He said, "I have lung cancer and the docs give me about five, six months to live."

  "Oh, Lord, Vic. I'm sorry." Then she said what most of us say in such situations. "But you can never tell with those diagnoses they make. I mean, I know lots of people who're alive ten years after the doctors said they were going to die."

  We say things like that to make the sick person feel better. And we also say it to make ourselves feel better. It's a form of denial. Sure they've given you a terrible diagnosis but you're not going to die. And neither am I.

  "I've seen the X-rays, kiddo," he said gently. "I think their diagnosis is probably pretty accurate." He talked about going through chemo, and how lonely and scared and weak he'd been.

  And then he started sobbing. And somewhere between the sobs, he started coughing again, too.

  He buried his face in his hands.

  Felice went over and sat on one side of him then gestured wildly for me to come over and sit on the other side of him, which I did only reluctantly.

  "Oh Vic," she said, as he continued to cry. She held him like a baby, rocking him back and forth, back and forth.

  I still couldn't feel anything but a kind of abstract sympathy for him. I wanted to. You couldn't look at the poor bastard and not feel sorry for him. But I couldn't open myself up. I was still a teenager missing his father, and he was still my swaggering, arrogant stepfather.

  I wanted to say something comforting, but I couldn't. Maybe I really was a shit after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Not a fun night.

  For one thing, both Felice and I were intimidated about making love with Vic right down the hall in the den.

  For another, Felice spent her time, in between kisses, telling me how I had to be nice to Vic.

  She'd definitely found another stray to adopt.

  When the alarm woke me at seven, I was groggy, muscletired and cranky.

  Male PMS, as Felice would call it.

  The bed was empty.

  I put on a robe and walked down the hall.

  At the edge of the living room, I paused, listened.

  The kitchen. Conversation. The morning radio show I usually listened to.

  And the delicious smell of breakfast.

  Apparently sensing that I was nearby, Vic leaned out of the kitchen doorway and saw me.

  He wore street clothes and one of Felice's frilly aprons, and waved a good morning spatula at me.

  "Speak of the devil, Felice. Look who's here."

  Then Felice appeared in her buff blue robe. She's one of those women who looks pretty damned good in the morning.

  "Hi, hon," she said. "Vic's making us breakfast."

  And he's also making himself at home, I thought.

  But that was obviously the plan. His plan. And most likely her plan, too.

  I almost said something to him about being so presumptuous. But then he started hacking, and what the hell was I going to say to that? At least he turned his head away and didn't cough on our food.

  We ate at the dining room table that Felice had decorated brightly. "Was the rollaway comfortable?" she asked Vic as we ate the scrambled eggs and French pancakes he'd made. He'd always been a good cook. I remembered being twelve and resenting him for that particular skill. My father had been one of those guys who couldn't even successfully navigate a hamburger. But there was my mother swooning over Vic's prowess with the grill and the hibachi.

  "Just great, Felice. You fixed it up real nice for me."

  Every time Vic put his head down to eat, Felice'd do one of her nodding jobs again. Like: go ahead, talk to him. I knew I'd be in trouble if I didn't.

  "So," I said, "can I give you a ride somewhere this morning, Vic?" I was hinting that I wanted him to settle in someplace else. She kicked me.

  And I mean, she kicked me. Hard.

  "Vic and I plan to go to the city market and get some fresh vegetables for tonight," she said. "Vic knows this great casserole recipe."

  "It's vegetarian, Bobby," he said.

  Another kick. "Isn't that nice, honey? The fact that it's vegetarian?"

  "Yeah," I said. "That's nice."

  "You all right, Bobby?" Vic said.

  "Huh?"

  "You keep wincing."

  "Oh," I said, "just a little pain I have in my leg."

  Not to mention the pain in my ass, I thought, looking over at the beaming Felice.

  "We're also going to do a little clothes shopping," Felice said.

  "We are?" Vic said.

  "Uh-huh. Your clothes are a little too big for you."

  "Aw, Felice, I don't have that kind of money. Fact is, and I may as well be honest about it, I spent all my money right before I was diagnosed. After Bobby's mother died . . . well, I kind of went through a second childhood again. I boug
ht a Vette and started hitting the bottle pretty hard and . . . well, anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I'm broke and it's not anybody's fault but mine, and I certainly didn't come here looking for charity."

  "It isn't charity," Felice said. "I get tired of hanging around here all the time alone. You can be my paid companion."

  He smiled. "Like a gigolo?"

  "Exactly like a gigolo," she giggled. "It'll be fun, won't it, Robert?"

  She was able to find the exact same spot on my leg three times in a row. She had a foot that was as accurate as a heat-seeking missile.

  "Oh yeah," I said, "you two'll have a great time."

  He gave me one of his ad-man winks. "I have to warn you, Bobby, I'm going to do everything I can to steal her away from you."

  I don't know why but it pissed me off, what he said, and the way he said it. He was always the slickie, always the hustler, even when his lungs were giving out on him.

  Felice seemed to sense how unhappy I was. She touched my hand and looked at me and said, "I'm afraid you don't have any chance of stealing me, Vic. Robert here's my one true love."

  I appreciated what she said — she was a tender and loving woman, Felice was — but it didn't make me any happier about this whole situation.

  I took a quick shower and kissed Felice goodbye.

  Vic was in her bathroom.

  She walked me to the door. "This'll work out, hon. You'll see."

  Then she kissed me and it was a warm and wonderful kiss.

  But it didn't change my feelings any.

  "No, it won't," I said. "I hate that prick and I always will."

  In the car, I called the police department and asked for Detective Judy Holloway.

  After I identified myself, she said, "I still can't get over a priest using a French tickler."

  She had herself a war story that she'd be able to tell for years.

  "So how can I help you this morning, Mr. Payne?"

  "There are two murders I'm interested in."

  "Oh?"

  I described the murders and gave her the dates. "I wonder if you could fax me the preliminary reports."

  "I suppose I could, Mr. Payne, but now you're making me curious."

  "Oh?"

  "Why would you suddenly be interested in these two cases?"

  "Monsignor Gray asked me to just sniff around a little."