by Brian Hodge
They plunged his arm in up to the elbow, and the blood awoke the hunger of the tank. A dozen ridged mouths, razor sharp, attacked. Set about their horribly efficient task of stripping flesh to bone.
Erik shrieked. Long and loud. So long as he could scream, he could keep secrets.
Fucked — a strange word. It could either denote the most intimate of unions, or the direst of circumstances. The f-word.
And as he watched the water boil white foam, then red, a couple more f-words came to mind…
Feeding frenzy.
Chapter 11
WRECKAGE
Justin had never known a day that had so quickly swung from one polar extreme to the other. Not even last fall, when the world in St. Louis had come crashing down about his shoulders. A picnic in the country by comparison.
Saturday afternoon, slumped silent, and motionless into a chair in some featureless little room, each hand cupping the opposite elbow. The stale reek of old cigarettes clung to the walls, and he was a guest of the Tampa Police Department. Alone for the moment, but knowing they’d be back. Knowing that he was likely being watched by eyes on the other side of a two-way mirror.
When had it started, when had the flip-flop occurred? He couldn’t think straight. Was afraid that if he could, then the hurt and the grief would punch through the numb cocoon surrounding him. The deadening of sensation that set upon him as soon as he’d been sledgehammered in the heart and gut with the news that Erik was dead.
The turnaround — when? He remembered the blues clubs. April running him over to St. Pete to show him her parents’ house. He remembered the sunrise breakfast on the beach. Going back to April’s, punchy from lack of sleep, howling with laughter at cartoons. She had driven him back home around noon, and yes, that was when the happiest morning he’d known in months had begun turning inside-out to reveal the nightmare. Yes. The police cars, patrol cruisers and unmarked, were parked before and beside the building. He remembered kissing April goodbye, knowing the cars couldn’t have anything to do with him. Watching her leave in her Fiero. Feeling a chilly racing of his heart that had nothing to do with exertion as he climbed the stairs and didn’t yet see where the cops had been called to. First floor, second floor, clear. Third floor.
No, he had thought, not here.
He’d stood in the doorway, walking in on the middle of what appeared to be a very thorough search. Stammered out a few answers to questions. Identity, reason for being here. Listening to a cop tell another that his voice sounded like the one from the message on the answering machine.
Shortly thereafter — still in the dark as to everything — he’d been the recipient of a chauffeur-driven trip to the cop shop. And thus had Saturday taken its irrevocable U-turn. Decline and fall of a picture-perfect day.
He didn’t smoke, never had. Figured if he did, by now he would have chained his way through at least three packs.
The door opened, and in walked a pair with whom he had already gotten better acquainted than he wanted. Homicide detectives Harris and Espinoza. Harris looked like a high school jock trying desperately to hold on to a look from twenty years ago and losing, with receding black hair and close-set eyes. Espinoza was small, dark, black shoulder-length hair. Easy on the eyes. Any woman would be, with Harris in the room. Justin spent most of the time looking in her direction.
“Your story checks out with Miss Kingston,” Espinoza quietly told him. Voice neutral. He wondered how many rooms away April was, how long they’d grilled her to see if there were any cracks in his account.
“But let’s go over everything else again anyway, okay, sport?” Harris swung a chair around, threw his leg over it to straddle it backward.
“We’ve already been over it,” Justin murmured, then shook his head wearily. Raised his voice. “Tony Mendoza. Tony Mendoza. What, I have to spell this guy’s name out for you? Go haul him in.”
It was like dealing with the deaf. Go over it again and again. He’d told them the unadulterated truth, beginning with the night at Apocalips. The only part he had omitted was seeing Trent’s dance-floor metamorphosis. Mendoza, Lupo, the whole bathroom episode? He couldn’t keep that a secret. Trent he explained away by saying the guy had flipped out, violent PCP style. And now Mendoza was nosing around, asking about Justin, his whereabouts.
Let implication and inference do the rest. Logical minds could fill in the blanks regarding Mendoza and Erik.
But when he heard himself speak, only then did he realize how thin it truly sounded. Judges and other bastions of justice were rarely swayed by inference. Annoyingly, they demanded evidence.
“Look, Justin,” Espinoza, this time, gentler of voice, demeanor. “We appreciate your candor. You’re being very upfront with us. But there’s not a lot we can do because a guy’s asking around about where you live.”
“Maybe he just likes your pretty face,” Harris cracked.
Espinoza ignored that. “Mendoza’s a dirtbag, no arguments there. Nobody’d like anything more than to see him fall down a hole and watch the sides cave in. But guys like him, there’s a revolving door they go through down here. They can afford the lawyers that scream the loudest. We bring him in on no more than what you’ve said, all we’ll accomplish is tying up maybe an hour of his time.”
Justin felt like tearing his hair out. “What about the Apocalips thing? You got me, I’m a witness to that, I saw him supply Trent.”
Espinoza stepped up to the table, flipped through a file that lay closed. “We’ve got some problems there too. You’re not the only one that gave us Trent Pollard’s name.” She peered at a report of some kind, then looked up. “The M.E. ran something called a gas chromotography on him, and there were traces of a hallucinogen in his system. But forensics on the bodies at the club don’t lie. Those were animal wounds.”
Best not to mention that the two weren’t necessarily incompatible theories. Watch all credibility die a quick death. “So you can’t do anything about Mendoza? At all?”
“We can talk to him, for all the good it’ll do.”
“Talk to him,” Justin echoed dully. “And you know he’ll pull out a fat cushy alibi for last night.”
No answer. Justin sat, wanting to die, to melt away into nothing. No memory of this life, no recollections of the pains of the flesh. And the feeling doubled once Harris started in on him again.
“We did some checking up on you, Justin. You’re not exactly unknown to the St. Louis narc squad, are you?” Harris leered in with a satisfied smirk that dared him to be dumb enough to try knocking it off. “Well? Are you?”
He stiffened. “We had a working relationship.”
Harris leaned back, barked a humorless laugh. “Working relationship. That’s a good one.” Leaned forward. “So tell me. What kind of working relationships have you been starting up down here?”
Justin frowned. Wishing he could be anyplace else besides this chair, this room. “I don’t follow you.”
“No? Then why don’t I lay it out for you the way I see it.” Harris leaned back again. Like watching a rocking horse. “You fuck up big time in St. Louis. You’re out of a job, your wife decides she’d rather ball somebody else besides some penny-ante dope dealer. But you still get lucky, don’t you. You cut a deal and walk away clean as the day you were born. But you know nobody’s gonna trust you again in that town, so you figure, hey, why not head down to Florida, plenty of opportunities for a dumb young man.”
Justin flashed a look at Espinoza. She was watching detachedly, leaning against a wall. Jump back in here anytime, why don’t you, he willed her. Save me from this guy.
“So you’re down here, and I don’t know how, but you make some quick connections and start to set yourself up in business, and the deal goes sour. And now your goodbuddypal Erik is lying in the morgue. Pissed off the wrong people or something.” Harris crossed his arms. “So. How’d I do? Sound familiar?”
Justin couldn’t believe this. Could not. Except for the guy who’d done that to Erik in
the first place, Harris was just about the cruelest human being on earth.
“You figured that out all by yourself?” Justin asked.
“I have that knack.”
“Except you’re not even close enough to be funny.”
Harris rolled his eyes.
“Can I have a cigarette?” Justin asked.
Espinoza reached into her purse and withdrew a pack of Benson & Hedges. Gave him one. Justin tapped the filter on the tabletop a couple of times, then left it sitting in front of him. Untouched.
“Um … and a glass of water, too, please?”
She exchanged a look with Harris, and it seemed to translate Sure, why not. Harris looked disgusted for the half minute she was gone. She brought in a plastic tumbler. Not glass, so he couldn’t smash it and cut their throats and escape. So much for Plan A. He set it beside the cigarette. Without drinking.
“You need a light for that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“You know what kind of shape your friend was in?” Harris said. “Some boaters found him floating just south of the Gandy Bridge this morning. A patrol boat gets him pulled out, and the guy’s nothing but bone from the elbow down on his left arm. Now, not only had he been chewed up before he got dumped, looks like, but all these other little nibblers out there in the Bay had gotten to him too. And it looks like he’d been worked over pretty good around the head and shoulders too. Well, yech, I could go on and on—”
Justin surged to his feet. “Listen, that’s my best friend you’re talking about, and I don’t want to hear all this!”
Harris was up on his feet too, shouting. Face-to-face. And in a moment Espinoza was stepping forward, a hand on each’s shoulder, a referee breaking up a clinch. Justin was shaking, wanted to punch the guy so badly he could taste it.
“Just sit down. Sit. Both of you.” Her voice conciliatory. “And why don’t you dial down the visuals, okay, Nate? He doesn’t need those.”
They backed off from one another, and she settled into a chair at the end of the table. Peacemaker, arbitrator.
“Nobody’s accusing you of anything here,” she said.
“Could’ve fooled me.” Justin glared at Harris.
Espinoza’s dark eyes sought his own. Hinting toward warmth. “Was Erik a drug user?”
He fully knew the game they were running on him. Nice cop, mean cop. He knew, as well, that he was falling for it. Anything so as not to have to talk to Harris.
“You guys searched the apartment, didn’t you?” To Harris: “What did you find? Maybe two whole joints, right?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “That was it.”
“Impressive. Bet you’ll make captain on that one, for sure.” The sarcasm was irresistible, and Harris’s scowl was its own reward. Back to Espinoza. “He smoked a joint now and then. But that’s the extent of it.”
“He never sold?” she asked.
“Never. Not his style. And I’ve sworn off it for good, ever since last fall. I don’t know how many times I’ve got to say this before it sinks in, but I came down here to rebuild. Period. My whole life. There was never any intention of getting back into dealing. I screwed up back in St. Louis, yeah, I admit that. If I could change it, I would. But I’m not going to make the same mistake again.”
Justin wiped a wrist across his forehead. Slick, oily. He felt as awful outside as in. Maybe the worst was knowing that chances were nil that he could escape this even in sleep. “Could you answer a couple of questions?” he said to her. “If I can.”
“How did you get him ID’d so quickly? Was his wallet on him?”
She dug for a cigarette of her own, lit up. Looked curiously at the one he had requested and had hitherto ignored. “No, it wasn’t. But his, um, remaining hand was fingerprinted, and he was on file. Two years ago he was picked up for a DUI.”
“I didn’t know that.” A minor shock to the system. So Erik had had his own little secrets. “Has anybody made the positive ID of his body yet? Or do I have to do that?”
Espinoza shook her head. “It’s been taken care of. His boss, from the photo studio.”
Justin nodded, felt himself wilting. The night without sleep, however fitful, taking its toll, compounded by loss and sorrow, topped off with Harris’s absurd insinuations. A potent concoction.
“Look. My best friend is dead.” Very low, very even. Very tired. “And I loved him a lot. I came down here because he was the only person I knew I could count on to help me get things back on track.” He shut his eyes, rubbed them. Opened. They felt as red as a stoplight. “Now. Unless you plan on charging me with something, I just want to leave. Erik’s gone, And nobody’s even given me enough time to grieve about it yet. And that’s all I want to do now.”
He stood. They stood.
“Any objections?”
Espinoza shook her head. “Where can we get in touch with you?”
He gave them April’s name. Tried to reconstruct her address and phone number from memory. At least he hoped he could stay there. No way could he stay alone at Erik’s now. For more reasons than one.
“Might be a good idea if you don’t haul stakes and leave town suddenly. Okay, sport?” Harris again.
Justin frowned. “Erik’ll probably be buried in Ohio. I’m not going to miss that. But I’ll be back.” He glanced down to the tabletop, the pristine cigarette and water glass. Looked back up to Harris. “I don’t know what you think I am. Right now, I don’t much care.” Pause. “I don’t smoke and I’m not thirsty. Get it? Appearances can be deceiving. I was in advertising, so I know that as well as anybody. So thanks for all your concern.” He submerged the cigarette into the water, pushed the glass before Harris. “Drink up.”
Harris merely glared, and Justin thought he caught the faintest tic of a smile in one corner of Espinoza’s mouth. She produced a business card and handed it to him. In case he came up with something more concrete regarding Mendoza. He pocketed it and was out the door. Into the hallway. And a few paces later, in April’s arms.
They said nothing, just stood in the corridor as cops and civilians traveled in currents around them. He felt her body shaking within his arms, warmth and wetness from her face dampening the collar of the now-sour shirt he wore. Questions, nothing but tears and questions. And the hurt, oh, the hurt.
Justin knew he couldn’t hold on until they got to her car. And so let the floodgates fall.
Rene Espinoza watched Justin leave the interrogation room and briefly considered instincts.
She was thirty-four, had spent twelve years with the Tampa Police, the last four in homicide. Woman on a traditionally male turf, complete with the accompanying resentment from various sources. She held her own, gave no quarter.
Male or female, cops develop instincts to serve when facts are lacking. Honing them like surgical steel with the abrasion of years of experience.
Right now, instinct was telling her that Justin had laid it all on the table for them, hoping for the best. And they were sending him off with less than a Band-Aid’s worth of hope.
Instinct said he was in way over his head.
“I hated that,” she said, barely a whisper. “I hated every minute of that.”
She watched Justin walk away, arm around a dark-haired girl who had gotten a head start on the tears. Misery loves company.
Fifteen minutes later, they were both standing in the office of their superior. Lieutenant Chadwick was a slender, half-bald man, born to lead from behind a desk. She thought he had forgotten what it was like to look into the eyes of the constituency they’d sworn to protect and serve, only to regurgitate excuses. Excuses that, real or fabricated, boiled down to one thing: No. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.
“I was watching through the mirror,” Chadwick said. “That was good work in there.”
Rene fixed him with a narrow gaze. A chilly voice. “We just hung that guy out to dry.”
“I don’t like sacrifices any better than you do.” Chadwick sighe
d. “But the captain was breathing down my neck about this thing even before the uniforms had that Gray character in the building.” Shook his head; he put on a good show. “Narcotics has spent the last fourteen months getting a guy into Rafael Agualar’s stable. Agualar is this close to trusting him, and when he does, that ugly warthog’s going down for good. It’s the kind of payoff that gilds political careers with gold. But Agualar’s about as stable as a bottle of nitro. We start rousting somebody down on Mendoza’s level, for no more than Gray could cough up, and Agualar’s liable to clench his asshole and put a freeze on anything new.”
She concentrated on breathing evenly. It would be too easy to lose her temper, say the wrong things. Bad form for a team player. “Was it necessary to send him out of here feeling like he was the guilty one?”
Chadwick strolled to his window, overlooking a parking lot. He laced his fingers behind his back, rocked on his heels.
“C’mon, Rene, please,” Harris said.
“No, no. She’s right, in a way.” Still staring, as if all below were his toy cars. “But the more he’s convinced we think he’s in bed with people like Mendoza, the less likely he is to get self-righteous on us. We don’t need a crusader. Especially if he would think of going to the press, saying we weren’t doing our jobs. The dead friend, Webber … he used to work for the Trib. So did the girl.”
“So do we even roust Mendoza at all?”
Chadwick turned, stared evenly across the office. “What would be the point?”
Fists clenched at her sides. “I hope you take it this well when this guy turns up as a floater too.”
She left the office then, storming toward the nearest bathroom. They had done it figuratively, now she might as well make it literal—
Washing her hands.
April ran the two of them back to Davis Island, late afternoon by now. The clear sky and sunshine of morning had given way to premature duskfall and a cloud cover that wouldn’t quit. Gray, everywhere you looked. Fitting. It held in humidity like a wet, steaming blanket.
