The Man Who Loved Women to Death

by David Handler

  I have a new definition of the word “lame.” “Lame” is me sitting all morning at a wired table in Barney Greengrass waiting for the answer man to show up when I damned well knew he wouldn’t. “Lame” is Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very standing behind the counter in an apron and silly white paper hat pretending he actually knew how to slice smoked fish when there are maybe twelve men in all of New York City who do—and not one of them is named Romaine.

  But I sat there, me and the fleet of oh-so-obvious unmarked vans that was parked oh-so-casually outside. I had my Nova and cream cheese on a toasted bagel. I had my glass of orange juice. I had no stewed fruit. I sat there. The phone rang a few times. Delivery orders. Two little old ladies toddled in and spent an entire hour talking to each other about their gall bladders. Otherwise the place was so quiet you could have stretched out and taken a nap in there. Or at least I could have.

  Until eleven-thirty, when the door flew open and in barged Cassandra Dee. She marched right over to my table, stripped off her camel’s hair coat and plopped down in the chair opposite me. She had a blue blazer on over a gray gym shirt and torn jeans. “No luck, huh, cookie? Yeah, yeah, shewa. Dumb, he ain’t. Gawd, I’m stawved. Hey, honey!” she called out to Very, who was shooting his own starved looks at her. “Gimme a bagel and a shmear, will ya? And maybe a nice little smoked chubb on the side!” To me she added, “I wouldn’t mind his nice little smoked chubb on the side. I mean, ow, that boy is cut up and twisted.”

  A waiter brought the coffeepot over. He poured.

  I said, “Cassandra, what are you doing here?”

  She batted her eyelashes at me. “Cookie, why do you keep doubting me? I heard all about this little circle-jerk of Feldman’s last night from my source. Thought you could use the company. Besides, they got the best smoked fish in town here. I oughta know. I’m one-eighth Jewish on Grandma Trigiani’s side.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Very brought her food over and put it down in front of her. Then he took off his apron and his silly paper hat and he joined us. He wore a yellow Henley shirt unbuttoned to the chest, heavy wool lumberjack pants and an anxious expression. She stared at him with her poached-egg eyes, waiting for him to say something. He was waiting for me to say something.

  I said, “Cassandra Dee, allow me to introduce Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very, Columbia College class of … what year did you graduate, Lieutenant?”

  “Major thrill to meet you, Miss Dee,” Very exclaimed. “I’m just a total fan.”

  “Oh, that’s so fucking sweet,” Cassandra simpered, going into major meltdown mode. “How’s your sense of direction, cookie?”

  “Decent.” Very frowned at her. “Why?”

  Cassandra licked her lips. “On account of I just go bonkers for a man who knows the southern—”

  “Cassandra, behave yourself,” I interjected sternly. “This is a family-hour broadcast.”

  She shot him a look. “Is this table wired, Lieutenant? Are youse putzes recording me without my prior knowledge or consent?”

  “I didn’t ask you to sit here,” Very pointed out.

  “And you didn’t ask me not to, neither. Honey, you don’t want to tangle with me. Nuttin’ will be left when I’m done with you—I eat the bones, the head, everything. So don’t you try to play cute.”

  Very glowered at her a moment before he reached under the table and yanked the wire out of operation. “Satisfied?”

  “Not yet,” she said sweetly, running a long red fingernail along his cheek. “But I got a feeling I’m gonna be soon. Hoagy did not tell me you was such a raw dog. I mean, you can be my stuff anytime. You don’t even have to call. Just come knocking on my door, day or night. I’ll know it’s you.”

  “There you go again, Cassandra,” I said. “Playing hard to get.”

  “You down for that?” she asked him. Me, she ignored.

  “I’m down for whatever,” he said, ducking his head bashfully.

  “Ooooh, I just got shivers.” She took a giant bite out of her bagel. “I got me a plan, Hoagy,” she announced with her mouth full. “Wanna run it by you on account of you’re still the master and I’m still the lowly peasant girl in a ragged dress and bare feet.” She stabbed at the chubb with her fork, came away with a smoked morsel. “I’m gonna pull a Breslin on tonight’s show.”

  “Bad idea, Cassandra,” I said. “Really bad idea.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  Very said, “Wait, what’s a Breslin?”

  “I’m gonna offer the answer man my platform,” she explained to him. “I want him to toin himself in to me, live, on the air.” She turned back to me, puzzled. “I thought you’d love it. It’s proactive. It’s confrontational—”

  “It’s a self-promotional stunt, Cassandra.”

  “Wait, you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It’s also dangerous. This guy has killed three women. You don’t want to mess with him.”

  “It’s my kind of move, Hoagy.” She stuffed the rest of her bagel in her mouth. “I need this. My ratings need this.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “You wanted my advice, I’m giving you my advice: Don’t do it.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m hearing you now,” she huffed. “Yeah, yeah, shewa. This is like a turf thing with you, am I right? You want him all to yourself.”

  “Turf has nothing to do with it, Cassandra.”

  “I’m flattered, you wanna know the truth. This means you actually think of me as a rival now. Someone you respect. Gawd, you paid me a compliment and you don’t even know it. I mean, I’m sitting in a puddle here.” She drained her coffee and got up and put on her coat. “You can’t stop me, Hoagy. It’s not your story anymore. It belongs to the woild now. It belongs to all of us. It’s news.” She let out a yelp. “Gawd, I always wanted to say that!” She pointed a taloned finger at Very. “If I don’t see you again I’m gonna hurt myself.”

  “You’ll see me,” Very vowed, grinning after her as she went flying out the door.

  She did not offer to pay her share of the check, in case you were wondering.

  “Jump back,” Very gasped. “She’s even more her in person than she is on TV.”

  “That, she is.”

  He eyed me cagily. “You two really get after it.”

  “That, we do.”

  “She’s not yours, is she?”

  “Mine, Lieutenant?”

  “You doinking her?”

  “No, I have never had that privilege.”

  “So, there’s no reason I couldn’t call her?”

  “None that I can think of. Provided you’re up to the task, as it were.”

  “Oh, I’m up to it, all right. I been up to it for so many months I’m about ready to—”

  “Hold it. This sounds like a personal problem.”

  Very took out a piece of gum and unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth. He narrowed his eyes at me, jaw working on the gum. “Don’t say it, dude.”

  “Don’t say what, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t say, I told you the answer man wouldn’t show.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  He looked away uneasily. “It’s Feldman’s investigation. We do it his way.”

  “Just out of curiosity, Lieutenant, how do you put up with that man?”

  “My job to,” he said. “What it is. Besides, they come mucho worse than him. Man can throw down. Must have had every decent-looking babe in the whole department out there last night posing as targets. He blanketed Manhattan. Plus that hotline’s already pulling in phone calls by the hundred. And we’re checking ’em out, too. Every single goddamned one of ’em.”

  “Any luck so far?”

  “None,” he confessed glumly. “Not with any of it. Gee who mops up around the pool at the M.F.C. thinks he saw Bridget swimming laps. But he don’t remember her talking to any guy. Oh, hey …” Very had some official-looking papers folded in the bac
k pocket of his pants. He smoothed them out on the table. “Got our boy’s psychiatric profile from the shrinks this morning, if you’re up for that.”

  “I am.”

  He squinted down at the blocks of type, running a finger along the page. “Okay, what it is … Overall, they rate him in the bright range in terms of intellectual function. His common sense, his vocabulary and his social intelligence rate high. Likewise his ability to differentiate essential from nonessential environmental details, meaning he perceives reality well. Only, dig, he also appears to be delusional. Believes his victims are deeply unhappy and that he alone is making them happy by his actions—‘By performing his random act of kindness he is transferring his own inner turmoil onto them. By “healing” them he is attempting to heal himself.’ Blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah … okay, dude, now check this out: ‘There are signs of pathological elevation regarding paranoia. He displays no true, meaningful insight into his own motivation, hence his intellect may be split off from the rest of his personality, leaving him free to function without the context of his moral and emotional self.’” Very read a little more to himself, then stopped, running a hand over his stubbly, rude boy hair. “They think he’s a possible paranoid schizophrenic.”

  “Then again, he could simply be manipulating us into thinking that.”

  Very glanced down at the page, then back up at me. “They say that, too. You ever thought of being a shrink, dude?”

  “I’ve thought of going to one. Does that count?”

  “‘His cunning and neatness are consistent with many serials we’ve studied,’” Very read on, “‘as is his burning desire to call attention to himself.’”

  “What do they make of those question marks on the victims’ foreheads?”

  “Um …” Very scanned the report. “They don’t.”

  “How about why he doesn’t rape them?”

  “Killing ’em is a substitute.” He tapped the page with his finger. “The sexual force is what drives him to hunt for his prey. He wants ’em. He wants to achieve power over ’em. But at the moment when he could give ’em sexual pleasure, and get sexual pleasure in return, he freaks out. They can only speculate why—‘… most likely some form of seriously distorted sexual development.’” He stopped reading. “All we know for sure is that violence takes over for his sexual aggression.”

  “The ultimate power,” I said.

  Very nodded grimly.

  “I see. And they got all of that just from reading three chapters?”

  “Plus his letters to you.”

  “I wonder what they’d get on me if they plowed through my novels.”

  “Why, you got something to hide?”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  The phone rang. A counterman answered it and told Very it was for him. He got up and took it. I sat there looking out the window at the bright, cold morning. I was thinking about what Luz had told me about Tuttle and his sexual aggression. Thinking about Tansy and those photographs. I was thinking Merilee was right—I was a fraud.

  Very returned. “Yo, it’s Inspector Feldman—for you.”

  “I don’t much feel like talking to him.”

  “That’s what I said you’d say.”

  “Tell him to write me a letter.”

  “That’s what he said you’d say.” Very stood there waiting for me to get up. “Take the call, dude.”

  I took the call.

  “Okay, so maybe you were semi-right about this one, Hoagy,” the Human Hemorrhoid said grudgingly, his voice over the phone sounding strained and hoarse. “Maybe he does need to build up rapport with you. Get that trust thing going. You write the next ad yourself. Just clear it with me first.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. Anything else?”

  “No …” He was silent. I could hear him breathing. “No, there isn’t. Nothing.”

  “Fine. Good-bye, Inspector.” I hung up the phone and went back to the table. I sat down. “Okay, Lieutenant, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Very looked at me blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “Last night at my apartment I got the feeling you guys were holding out on me. I just got it again. What is it?”

  He cleared his throat, his eyes avoiding mine. “There’s nothing, dude. Nothing at all.”

  “Damnit, Lieutenant, I’m in this thing whether you like it or not. Whether you like me or not.”

  “This ain’t about you and me,” Very protested. “I ain’t running this thing, remember? I just do what I’m told. Break it down. I’m saying I-I …” He took a gulp of air. “I been under strict orders to tell no one.”

  “Since when does no one include me?”

  “Since Feldman was sitting right there eavesdropping on our lunch. Since he was by my side at your place last night. Since he—”

  “You can’t pick up the phone and call a person?”

  “That works both ways,” he snapped, glowering at me.

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “Meaning what aren’t you telling me?” Very demanded. “I know you, dude. You’re not being straight with me. Feldman, he don’t trust you. Me, I keep telling him, chill, I can work with you. Okay, sure, you’re egotistical. You’re argumentative. You’re irritating. You’re—”

  “Feel free to pull this over to the curb anytime.”

  “But when it’s crunch time you’re good people, okay? There’s trust between us, okay? Only I don’t see that happening here, dude. I see you fronting me, is what I see.”

  I sampled my coffee. It was cold. I said it again. “What aren’t you telling me, Lieutenant?”

  He sat there a moment in tight silence, nodding to his own internal rock ‘n’ roll beat. “All right, I’ll tell you. Because you are in this and you deserve to know. But, fuck me, if you dish to anyone …”

  “I’ll dish to no one.” I found myself leaning forward across the table. This one was deep and dark, so deep and dark not even Cassandra’s deputy commish had leaked it to her. If he had she’d have gone with it, that’s for damned sure. Cassandra did not keep secrets. “What is it? Tell me.”

  Very tugged nervously at the tuft of beard under his lower lip. “Those question marks he drew on Laurie London’s forehead …”

  “The two question marks? What about them?”

  Now he was the one leaning toward me. In a hushed, urgent voice he said, “Yo, it wasn’t two question marks. It was three. And it wasn’t three on Bridget Healey’s forehead, it was four. Understand?”

  “No, wait, I don’t understand. What happened to number two?”

  “We don’t fucking know what happened to number two! All we know is there’s another dead girl out there somewhere. You got it now?” Romaine Very’s eyes met mine across the table. “We’re missing one, dude.”

  Ten

  DEAR HOAGY,

  Funny, isn’t it, how sometimes the work just erupts right out of you and other times you can’t make it happen no matter how hard you try? I had no problem writing chapters two and three, for example. But this chapter I just couldn’t seem to lick. I don’t know why. I guess if I knew why then I would have been able to lick it, right? Boy, what a doof I am sometimes!

  This chapter you are holding, chapter 4, was originally supposed to be chapter 2. I started it more than a week ago. When I ran into trouble with it I decided to set it aside for a few days. I remember you said once in an interview that it’s important to keep on working, and so that’s what I did. I wrote the next chapters out of order and changed the dates around. I hope this doesn’t confuse you. I didn’t think it would much matter. The main thing is that the problem worked itself out. At least I think it did. I’m still not a hundred percent sold on the way this one ends. It feels a tiny bit sudden to me. If you have any ideas for improving it, please advise. You are the master. I am an apprentice.

  Which reminds me: In response to your personal ad, which I am absolutely positive you did not write yourself, I’d just as soon keep our relationship the wa
y it is. Especially since it would appear that the police are running your life now. Which I have to tell you really pisses me off. And you do not want to be around me when I am pissed off. But I have decided to forgive you. You probably had no say in this matter. They run everyone’s life, even yours. They were certainly all over the place at Barney Greengrass for our supposed meeting, weren’t they?

  Really, who do they think they are fooling?

  I have to say, in all modesty, that I’m quite pleased with the progress we’re making. Didn’t I tell you this would be big? Your phone should start ringing with mega-dollar offers any second now. Why, the Daily News ran twelve whole pages just on ME yesterday! And last night I dropped into Pete’s Tavern for a beer and I heard these three women going on and on about some guy and—guess what—they were talking about ME! What a trip! I guess you’re used to that. Hearing strangers talking about you. But for me this was a first. It excited me.

  What do you think of Keanu Reeves? For the movie, I mean. I was thinking he would make a really good me. Who do you see in the role of you? I was thinking about Kevin Costner, or is he too bland? How about Alec Baldwin? Too oily?

  I’ll be watching the Times every day for word from you on the offers that are coming in. I can’t wait, Hoagy.

  Yours truly,

  the answer man

  p.s. Johnny Depp as Lieutenant Very, am I right?

  4. the answer man changes channels

  New York City, December 7

  Friend E—This particular one was sitting cross-legged on the carpet in the Meditations section of that big Barnes and Noble on Broadway and West 82nd Street. Biggest damned bookstore you’ve ever seen, E. Not to mention one total female mosh pit. I’m talking motherlode here, thousands and thousands of square feet of hopelessly lonely career honeys searching for their white knight. Or their black knight. Or their brown or yellow knight. Or any color of knight at all. Just so long as he has a clean dick and doesn’t sell drugs for a living. They have a coffee bar there even. No alcohol though, which I consider a big mistake. Without some Chardonnay going down, these honeys seemed all the more grim and desperate to me. At least the wine gives them, however briefly, the illusion that they are glad to be alive. These girls, whew, I could see the tombstones in their eyes.