Agnes Among the Gargoyles

by Patrick Flynn

  Bezel puts on the headset. Nervously, he presses PLAY. "The Night Has Eyes and Ears" comes on. Cass sounds terrible, as though she is drowning. Midway through the song there is the sound of shattering glass.

  My God! It's true!

  That was glass of Scotch Bezel had been drinking. He didn't pour it for himself until after Philo left the recording studio.

  The music stops.

  "Don't worry, scouse," says Cass. She always called him that, scouse, the Liverpool term of endearment.

  "Let's do it again," Cass tells the musicians.

  Bezel thought it was only a rehearsal. He didn't know there was a tape recorder running.

  Quickly, the song breaks down. Cass cries. She sends the musicians away. "It's over, boys," she says. Bezel tries to comfort her. His voice isn't clear on the tape; the musicians are making too much noise packing up.

  Only the Frenchman would have the nerve to listen to something so incriminating in Bezel's presence. The brinksman!

  The last musician leaves for the night. The studio is quiet.

  "I have something to tell you, scouse," says Cass. "You won't like it."

  That was when she told him she was having Philo's baby. That was when Bezel's rage overpowered him, and the night took a terrible turn.

  The Frenchman's grinning face appears on the stairs. Bezel snaps off the machine.

  "I was mistaken about Boris," says the Frenchman, as though he hadn't a care in the world. "He works the day watch. They've got a cub pilot on, an earnest beardless youth with not much of anything to offer."

  The Frenchman notices the Walkman in Bezel's hand.

  "A bit of sad music tonight, eh?" says the Frenchman. "The cries of a drunken chanteuse."

  Bezel goes over to where the derelict is sleeping. He picks up the cane. His anger is blinding.

  The Frenchman fires his pipe. "What are you do—"

  Bezel swings the cane and hits the Frenchman squarely in the temple. His skull gives a bit, like a speedbag. The pipe flies out of his hand and whirls through the air like a propeller, showering the deck with sparks. The Frenchman stumbles back against the railing and tumbles over, off the ferry and into the drink. He must hit the water feet or head first, because Bezel barely hears the sound.

  Thwock.

  It is no more than a gentle splash.

  Thwock.

  In the old days Bezel would finish at the gym and sneak into Cass's apartment to wait for her. He would sit in the bedroom, thinking about how she would look when she came in, how her hair in a ponytail would look funny with her evening gown, how she'd smell of liquor and smoke and sad music. He would wait for the sound of the door downstairs. He would know when it was Cass. The building was full of old ladies and pansies and Chinamen and frightened secretaries, and they would all close the door forcefully, making sure that it was locked. Not Cass. She never cared about those things. She'd just let the big door with the wired glass and the old peeling NRA blue eagle decal slide gently shut.

  Thwock.

  The derelict is still asleep. Bezel wipes the blood and hair off the cane with an old newspaper. He cleans the deck and the railing.

  No one has cried Man Overboard. The ferry chugs along. Bezel goes downstairs to the automobile deck. There are only two cars aboard. In the men's room, he tears the bloody newspaper into strips and flushes it down the toilet.

  He slides the cane down his pants leg. His limp appears no worse.

  The ferry pulls into the slip. Bezel starts to get off. He can't move. His head swims. He leans on a wall for support. He feels a hand on his shoulder.

  It belongs to a cop.

  The cop smiles at him. "Seasick?"

  Bezel nods weakly.

  "There are benches in the terminal," says the cop. "Sit down for a few minutes. Promise?"

  Bezel nods. "Thank you."

  Bezel ignores his promise. He gets out of the terminal as quickly as he can and finds a subway entrance. Workmen are washing down the station. He finds a bench on which no one is sleeping and collapses.

  He rewinds the cassette a bit. He puts on the headset and listens.

  "I have something to tell you," says Cass. "You won't like it."

  Bezel braces himself for his own reply. What he hears, instead, is the sound of a door opening.

  "I thought you'd left," says Cass thickly.

  "I did. I forgot something."

  The voice belongs to Philo. Bezel has no memory of Philo's returning. The chronology of that crazy night is muddled in his head.

  "I'll leave you two in peace," says Philo coldly, "after I kill the Ampex."

  The Ampex recorder. The last tape machine.

  Cass cries again, and the tape ends.

  Now Bezel remembers. It was after Philo left for the second time that the terrible act of violence happened. So there is actually no record of Cass's death.

  He whacked the Frenchman for nothing.

  Serves the cocksucker right.

  Bezel goes home and waits for the inevitable. He sleeps fitfully. Every car horn sounds like a police siren. The next day he has no appetite, but at night he sleeps soundly. He wakes up ravenous and goes out for pancakes and eggs.

  Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. It didn't even rain that morning, the way that Belgian shit said it would.

  Either the Frenchman got tangled in some pilings or he's getting ready to scare the life out of Bezel.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Agnes calls her mother and delivers the lawyer's report. In cases of disputed death benefits, the courts of New York State have, in the main, not been sympathetic to the claims of those not legally married.

  But, Agnes hastens to tell her, not all the news is bad. The length of time Hannah spent with Johnny, the life they created together, is in her favor. Hannah must be prepared, though, for her claim to be contested by the first Mrs. Travertine. She must assemble documentation of her years with Johnny. Snapshots, tax returns, signed report cards, home movies, sworn depositions of friends and relatives and neighbors and even laundromat attendants who might have witnessed them washing their whites together.

  "It's humiliating, but you've got to do it," says Agnes.

  "Nonsense. It might be fun. I always loved This Is Your Life."

  "Let's try to maintain some healthy indignation, Ma. Think of this as fighting for the money you'll need to live for the rest of your life. Of course, I'll help you. I'll do it all, if you like."

  Her mother's tone sharpens. "I will never be a burden to you, Agnes. I will not be a pathetic old woman. I will not sit in a room drooling Metamucil on myself. If necessary, I will end it all."

  "I can help you with that, too," says Agnes.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  "There are three living Minotaur witnesses," says Tommy, "and I have a treat for two of them."

  Into the turtle tank he empties a plastic bag containing a dozen goldfish. The fish dart speedily around, and both Agnes and Tommy worry that the turtles will be incapable of catching a single one. But the turtles' wiring is sound. They leave off basking and spring into action. They bite off the heads of their quarry like geeks, and in less than two minutes every fish is gone, the water is pink, the tank stinks and the turtles have returned to their rock. Their mouths continue to work as they savor the last morsels of fin and gill.

  Tommy was just at a meeting of the expanded Minotaur Task Force. The mayor was there, and Chief Codd, and Razumovsky. The mayor, greatly upset, announced that someone was calling up talk shows and pretending to be him. That was where the press got that absurd quote about there being nothing to do in Philadelphia and Detroit.

  "The imitation is dead on," said the mayor. "Like Gorshin's Richard Burton."

  A lieutenant from the Crime Scene Unit showed slides of some navy blue woolen fibers, probably from a rug of high quality, that were found at both crime scenes. There have been no usable latent fingerprints. There was a partial footprint found at the Chesser site, a size 10 oxford. The
lieutenant said that the origin of the metal plate found in the turtle tank at Bloch/Foucault remains a mystery. He then spoke about the silica content of the mud found at both crime scenes.

  There was semen found in Mrs. Chesser, and it probably didn't get there until after she died.

  Tommy summarized the Task Force's activities thus far, and then explained the myth of the Minotaur. The mayor himself listened intently as Tommy talked about King Minos of Crete; about Daedalus, designer of the Labyrinth, and his son Icarus; and about the Minotaur, the monster imprisoned in the Labyrinth.

  Next up to speak was the city's flamboyant chief medical examiner, Dr. Michael Prawl. A man of boundless energy, capable of dictating an analysis of one corpse while working on another, he said that, based upon his observations of the victims' bodies, he would characterize the Minotaur as certainly over six feet tall, heavyset, probably muscular, right handed, possessing no special knowledge of anatomy, and dark-complected, or at least having a heavy beard growth. Other possibilities: type O blood, long fingers, and a smaller than average volume of ejaculate.

  More presentations: ballistics analysis, powder tattooing, fragmentation, comparison of rifling angles and cannelures, neutron activation analysis—all of the bullets have probably come from the same manufacturer and been fired from the same weapon. One bullet hit Barbara's wall: recovered by Sergeant Sammy Brytell, it has the initials SB scratched lightly into its base. The bullet tweezed out of Mrs. Bloch by the imposing Dr. Prawl bears a flowery MSP, less an identifying mark than a monogram.

  A fragment of handle grip was found under Mrs. Chesser's leg. Firearms and Explosives has identified it as being peculiar to one weapon: the Hi Standard .38 Polaris revolver, known on the street as the "Big Bang Special." Specs: six shot capacity, 2 inch barrel, overall length 7 inches, walnut grips, blue finish, weight 15 ounces, suggested retail price $149.95.

  The kitchen knife used on Barbara, the one taken from her set of six, was also very likely used on Mary Chesser. That knife, an 8-inch carbon steel Sabatier, is still missing.

  Lieutenant Myra Cummings of the Sex Crimes unit spoke next. In the world of the police department, the Cummings family is the aristocracy. There has been at least one Cummings on the force continuously since 1912. Tommy describes Myra to Agnes as looking like a singer in a Holiday Inn. Lt. Cummings was joined on the platform by a police psychologist, Dr. Molly Meeter. In a joint presentation, Meeter and Cummings, having subjected the letter of the Minotaur to line-by-line scrutiny, delivered an exegesis that included the following points:

  THE FIRST LETTER

  A. "Surs"—intentional misspelling. "Labyrinth," "Minotaur" and "cur

  riculum vitae" are all spelled correctly.

  B. "wimmin"—intentional misspelling. Also, how many feminist and

  lesbian groups refer to themselves this way? Misogyny?

  C. "saved by the women in the business suit and Reeboks."—Note

  capitalization. The Minotaur loves the historical epithet; he is writing his

  own history of his crimes.

  D. "Wimmin are scum. They stupid."—crude, overt misogyny.

  E. "curriculum vitae"—British term for a resume. Is the Minotaur of

  British origin, or has he spent time in Great Britain?

  F. "Minotaur--2, NYPD--0"—cribbed from the letters sent by Zodiac to

  San Francisco newspapers. The Minotaur is a student of the history of se

  rial murder.

  "What do you think?" Agnes asks Tommy.

  "Department psychologists have to keep busy," he says. "I could write a letter that would convince everyone I'm obsessed with Glenn Close and bitter about being tossed out of the cub scouts. So could anyone with half a brain."

  THE SECOND LETTER

  A. "I am a little peeved, frankly, at not seeing my letter in print...I just

  assumed that's what was automatically done."—The publicity-hungry

  Minotaur yearns to have his ravings set in newsprint for posterity.

  B. "Nail the shutters shut"—the windows of the Morris-Jumel house

  are shuttered.

  C. "No one nose how I chuse my viktims. I have a little plan, I have."—

  The sociopathic or psychopathic personality professes to see patterns

  where the rational mind doesn't.

  D. "I maled this to Tollyvetty...he can get the job done."—Is the re

  porter Tollivetti a symbol, for the Minotaur, of male aggression? Is the

  misspelling "maled" an unconscious slip? Does the Minotaur look up to a

  man like Tollivetti, who can "get the [sexual] job done?"

  E. "How about Mrs. Rabbi's panty hose? She was wearing too sets, each with the opposite legs scissored off...It's an old Home Ec trick."— Many men would not be aware of such a fact. Perhaps the Minotaur grew up in a woman-centered household, where he would learn such things. Dominant mother and absent father? "Home Ec" is passing out of use; the Minotaur might be an older man.

  F. "Here is a piece of the kidne...It was very nice."—Direct quote from Jack the Ripper, from the "Catch Me If You Can, Mr. Lusk" letter.

  Tommy talks to Father Chris on the telephone. Tommy tells him that everything is arranged with his landlord.

  "He's serious," Tommy says to Agnes.

  "To the point of madness."

  "I told him there was never any hot water between eight and ten in the morning. He sounded overjoyed."

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Sarah's film has hit a snag.

  NYU, the source of her crew, her cinematographer and sound recordist and light person, is not really in the business of turning out cinematographers and sound recordists and light people. No, everybody is a writer/director, and as their own projects loom they can devote less time to Sarah.

  When Ivan calls on the telephone, Sarah is delighted.

  "I'm asking for your help," she says. "I'm desperate."

  "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians, I gather."

  "Can you be there at seven?"

  "Of course. I'm romantically obsessed."

  They meet Wayne in front of Hippodrome Lanes. He sits in the lotus position next to an oaktag sign.

  Help! I have AIDS.

  Anything You Can Spare Will Be Appreciated

  This is not a joke.

  Thank you.

  "Things are going well," says Wayne cheerfully. He takes a deep breath, as though bathing his vitals in oxygen. "I feel superb."

  Agnes points to the sign. "A bit dramatic, isn't it?"

  "Oh, I'm just watching that for a friend."

  Tonight's filming will take place in Little Italy. Ivan is already there, waiting for Sarah. He has a surprise for her.

  "I thought you could use these," he says, showing her a pair of microphones.

  Sarah folds her lips together, as though trying to swallow her smile of joy. Some of NYU's equipment is not in very good shape. Sound recording has been a problem.

  Sarah tries to sound casual. "Are they yours?"

  "I borrowed them from my friend. He's into recording and all that crap."

  She looks at him uncertainly. "Did Agnes tell you we were having trouble with the sound?"

  "I watched you outside that faggot bar."

  The Seven Hills Market is owned by Art Cunetta and his wife Sally Cunetta, nee Sally Piccolo, nee Salvatore Piccolo. "He had the operation in 1978," says Wayne. "I remember how confused he was. He said he didn't know if he was straight or gay or something there was no word for."

  "One thing about Sal," says Wayne. "He was always gorgeous." Wayne stares at Agnes, as though trying to imprint on her mind the image of the youthful, dark skinned, full-mouthed, virtually hairless figure. Wayne is never more precise than when describing someone's looks. "He looked like a Tintoretto, but not a painting, a sketch."

  Ivan, looking other-worldly in a headset, does the sound with his good arm. Agnes works the lights. Sarah does her own cinematography. A bell on the door tink
les as they enter the Seven Hills Market. The place is spotless. The smell of Romano cheese makes Agnes's mouth water. Mortadella and sopressata, braids of garlic and wheels of Parmesan hang from the ceiling; sun-dried tomatoes glisten in pans of oil; spheres of mozzarella sit stacked in pyramids; there are sides of streaky pancetta and platters of almond cookies. One whole wall is stacked with cans of olive oil the size of cinderblocks. The trademarks, Tuscan landscapes and rosy-cheeked maidens, haven't changed in a hundred years. Neither has the calligraphy of the brand names: Tempo di Menuetto, Ascoli Piceno, Attaccabottoni, Angio e Gramma.