“Rubinstein thinks they’ll really get people’s attention.”
“They’ll do that.”
Alyssa drank the rest of the juice, revealing the host of little citric leeches that clung to the inside of the glass. “You don’t think they’ll sell?”
“I don’t want to say that.” Bettinger flashed his palms. “I don’t know the art world in Chicago, and those pieces are terrific.”
“But…”
“They’re provocative. They make people feel guilty or angry, maybe both, and are better suited for a museum than a banker’s condo, where they’ll sit on some wall beside a seventy-two-inch plasma screen and pictures of a blond woman who flashes the same exact smile in every photo.”
Alyssa grinned. “I look forward to meeting some museum curators who share your opinion.”
“You will.” There was no doubt in Bettinger’s voice—his belief in his wife’s art was absolute. “Rubinstein doesn’t think they’re too dark?”
The painter poured more grapefruit juice. “He’s not sure, but even if they don’t sell, they’ll establish me with his clientele.”
“To whom he’ll offer more palatable works by the very same artist?”
“That’s the plan.” Alyssa grimaced as she swallowed the astringent fluid.
“It lets these people be ‘edgy’ without actually going to the edge.”
“Exactly.” The painter extended the glass to her husband. “You can have the rest.”
“Not sure I’ll survive.”
“There are worse ways to go.”
Bettinger drank the searing remainder of juice. “It’s almost sulfuric.”
“Right?”
A door closed in an adjacent room, and the detective faced the hallway. “Gordon.”
“Yeah?”
“Dinner’s at seven thirty.”
“Okay.”
“If you’re late, you’re doing dishes for a week.”
“Relax, officer.”
“Come here.”
The lean, sleepy-eyed fifteen-year-old inhabited the doorway and plucked a white bud from his right ear. “Yeah?” His voice was sullen.
“Have you ever cooked dinner for our family?”
“Nah.”
“Do you think it’s easy?”
Gordon contemplated some smartass remark, gauging whether or not he should risk further irritating his father. Decided, he shook his head. “I know it’s not easy.”
“Don’t make me threaten you with chores like you’re ten years old. Respect and appreciate that your mother does a lot of work so that we can eat good, healthy food.”
“I do appreciate it—she cooks good.” It seemed like Gordon’s rebellion was over.
“And tell her congratulations.”
Confusion wrinkled the adolescent’s brow. “She’s pregnant?”
Alyssa chuckled. Although she was a youthful and very feminine forty-six-year-old woman, her laughter sounded like it originated in the chest of a white oldster who had pleurisy.
“Your mom’s paintings are going on display in a prestigious Chicago gallery.”
“Really?” Gordon’s face brightened. “That’s platinum.” He pulled out his second earbud, walked across the linoleum, and hugged his mother. “Seems like they got better taste up here than in Arizona. More intellectual.”
Alyssa squeezed her son’s hand. “Thanks.”
“Platinum.”
Bettinger set his empty glass in the sink. “You’ll have to watch your sister while your mother and I are at the opening.”
“Fine.” Gordon thumbed the buds back into his ears. “You’re takin’ Mom to a fancy dinner up there?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll go in a limo? Get her champagne and a hot tub?”
A couple of rheumy snickers were produced by the old man who lived inside of Alyssa’s chest.
“I’ll treat her right,” said Bettinger. “Don’t worry.”
“Do it like it’s New Year’s for the year 3000.” The adolescent activated his audio player and departed.
Ruminating, the detective rinsed his glass and set it in the washer. “He’s got some definite ideas about women.”
“Good ones.”
“Daddy,” said Karen, walking into the kitchen with a magnetic chessboard in her little hands. “You’re about to get annihilated.”
“Do you see where my bishop is?”
The girl looked at the array of white pieces. “Oh … I didn’t.”
“But your chess trash talk is really coming along.”
“Can I get a do-over?”
“After you tell your mother congratulations.”
“She’s gonna have a baby?”
“Even better.”
* * *
Flavorful and aromatic food was swept from plates into mouths, where it was squeezed by peristalsis toward gastric chambers. Karen and Gordon departed from the table, thanking their mother, and as Bettinger began the dishes, Alyssa relaxed in a nearby chair, cradling a glass of white wine.
Television voices and dim music crept into the kitchen area, and soon, the couple exchanged a meaningful glance.
The woman led her husband into the master bedroom and locked the door. Quietly, they removed clothes that smelled like cilantro and slid their bodies underneath a blanket. Gentle fingertips explored soft flesh, and Bettinger’s phallus solidified until a warm ache throbbed in its core. Alyssa straddled her husband, and together, they found a slow, deep rhythm.
The feces-spattered boy and Elaine James’s autopsied corpse did not impede the detective’s ability to ejaculate hot fluid only a moment after his wife had climaxed. Compartmentalization was something that he had learned long ago.
Modesty soon returned to the shuddering animals, and they raised the covers over their bodies, grinning idiotically at each other. Heartbeats slowed, and ten luxurious Caribbean minutes passed before either of them spoke.
“I’ve always wanted to sleep with a celebrity,” announced Bettinger.
“‘Celebrity’?” Alyssa shifted her head on the pillow so that she faced her husband. “It’s just one show.”
The detective ran a hand down the small of his wife’s back. “It’s more than that.”
“Well … I don’t want to get too excited.”
“You should get excited—this is big.”
“We’ll see.”
“Don’t hedge,” said Bettinger. “A good thing is happening for you—for your career as an artist—right now. Enjoy it.”
“But if it doesn’t go well…”
“It will go well.”
“But if it doesn’t? It’s conceivable that it won’t.”
“If it doesn’t go well, you’ll have other opportunities. And you’ll also have the experience of enjoying the uphill portion of the ride rather than just worrying about it.”
The painter considered her husband’s advice. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re a pretty optimistic pessimist.”
“That’s not the only thing I am.” The detective raised an eyebrow.
“Already?”
“I told you I have a thing for celebrities.” Bettinger placed Alyssa’s hands upon his phallus, which was stiff. “And this doesn’t lie.”
* * *
Shortly after his wife had fallen asleep, the detective donned jeans and a sweatshirt, finished the dishes, and entered the mauve study, where he put a cup of coffee beside the stack of files that Miss Bell had earlier that day left on his desk at the pillbox. He yawned, reclining in a padded chair as he examined the cover sheet. Seventy-nine Victory women had become dirt during the last eighteen months, and over half of these deaths were suspected or confirmed murders.
“Christ’s uncle.”
The detective scanned the remainder of the document. Amongst the forty-three probable homicide victims were sixteen convicted prostitutes whose files were already at the top of the stack.
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Bettinger sipped his coffee and opened the uppermost folder, which contained autopsy photographs of a woman who had no head.
XVIII
They Were Numbered
“I never understood why they call it toasted,” said Officer Dave Stanley, poking the tines of his plastic fork into a breaded ravioli. “It’s deep-fried.”
“The appearance is toasted,” replied a short, gray-haired Italian American who possessed fifty-four years, a dyed mustache, and the wheel of the parked patrol car.
“But why not just ‘fried ravioli’?”
“That’s a little obvious.”
“Less syllables.”
“True … but you don’t just call a thing what it is.” Gianetto opened his takeout bag and extracted an open-faced meat and cheese sandwich that wore more paprika than did nine hundred deviled eggs.
Dave Stanley bit into his ravioli, and a flood of warm and salty ricotta filled his mouth. “They make it good here.”
“When it’s fresh from the kitchen, it’s a seven.”
The young officer had anticipated this comment: Gianetto rated everything that he cared about on a scale that went from zero to ten. Food, movies, actresses, cars, the nine books that he had read in college, and a pantheon of classic rock albums had all received numerical classifications, as had less obvious things like cities, countries, his wife’s dresses, dog breeds, and supermarkets. The only things that had ever received tens were Italy and Rottweilers.
Gianetto bit into his open-faced sandwich, and the sound was like the destruction of a rainforest. “Six,” he said as he chewed.
“It’s gone down.”
“Half a point.” Inspecting the paprika-covered comestible, Gianetto shook his head. “It goes below a six, and we’re getting from Angelo’s.”
Dave Stanley ate another toasted ravioli. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“I don’t rate things for fun.”
The two-way squawked.
“Shit,” said the policemen.
The young officer thrust his plastic fork into a ravioli, plucked the receiver from the dashboard, and thumbed the talk bar. “Car nine. Officers Gianetto and Stanley. Over.”
“We have reports of shots fired on Worth and Leonora,” said the sexless voice that belonged to the entity in dispatch. “Proceed to the area.”
“Copy.” Dave Stanley clipped the receiver to the console.
“This call’s a zero.” Gianetto swallowed chewed food and took a new bite at the exact same time. “They should report when there aren’t any shots—then we’d know something was wrong.”
Unsure if this recommendation was a joke, the young officer replied with a shrug and a nod.
The corporal swallowed the tip of his sandwich, turned on the headlights, and shifted gears, coaxing the patrol car away from the curb outside of Paolo’s Real Italian. “The middle was a six point five.”
It took Dave Stanley a moment to realize that his partner was again talking about the open-faced sandwich. “Glad to hear it.”
“It was the olives,” Gianetto said as he turned onto Summer Drive.
The patrol car rolled south on the main road, slowing down but not stopping at the intersections. All of the prostitutes whom they passed received low ratings.
“I’m a faithful husband,” the corporal remarked, “but I remember a time when the girls out here used to be tempting. Now it’s just a bunch of threes and fours. And up in the Toilet, it’s mostly twos.”
“Maybe your standards have changed…?”
“Definitely not.”
Dave Stanley bit into a toasted ravioli that had burst in the deep fryer and contained nothing but air. “Jip.”
“An empty?”
“Yeah.”
“You can return that if you want. Get an extra the next time you order—I’ve done it before.”
“Nah.”
The patrol car passed a gaunt prostitute who had red hair, platform heels, and a blue vinyl raincoat.
Gianetto remained silent.
Dave Stanley looked at his partner. “No rating for that one?”
“It was a man.”
The young officer turned around in his seat and eyed the diminishing figure. “You sure?”
“One thousand percent.”
“You have a good eye,” said Dave Stanley, resettling.
“My vision’s good—’specially for a guy my age—but it’s my mind that does the work.” Gianetto ruminated for a moment. “Remember graph paper?”
“Sort of…” Dave Stanley was twenty-five years old and had never seen graph paper. “Maybe.”
“It’s this paper they used to make—maybe still do, I don’t know—that’s divided into squares for accounting, maps, charts, drawings—really anything can go on there. And everything you put on it is cut up into little squares, broken down into pieces in the exact same way. And that’s what I do when I rate things—I put them on paper like that, but in here—” The corporal tapped his forehead, leaving behind a paprika fingerprint.
“Okay.” Dave Stanley was uncertain if his partner was a genius or an idiot.
“We’re almost there.”
Gianetto drank the remainder of his soda and tossed the empty can into the night, where it clanked against the concrete. “You should only do that with stuff bums can recycle.”
“That’s thoughtful.”
“Keep ’em busy.” The corporal burped.
“Should we put on our vests?”
“This call’s a zero.” Gianetto patted his belly, which overhung his belt like the jowls of an Englishman. “Not sure one would fit me right now anyways.”
As the cruiser rolled south, the policemen surveyed the night. Lying upon a street corner was a brindled mongrel that twitched as it froze to death.
“Poor guy,” said Dave Stanley.
“There’re worse ways to go.” Gianetto spun the wheel counterclockwise, looked to the right, and then turned in that direction. “AIDS. Starvation. Cancer. Drowning. Concentration camp.”
“I think concentration camp’s the worst.”
“It’s a nine point five.” The corporal flung the car onto a dark, narrow road. “This is Leonora.”
“How can you remember all these streets?”
Gianetto tapped his forehead. “The graph paper.”
A dark shape slid into the middle of the road.
The corporal jammed the brakes, and tires screeched. A distance of forty feet separated the stopped patrol car and the brown cargo van that now blocked off the street.
Gianetto honked.
The other automobile did not move.
“Can you see who’s in there?” asked Dave Stanley.
The corporal thumbed the lever for the high beams. Light glared in the policemen’s eyes, reflected by something in the van’s passenger window.
Wincing, Gianetto killed the brights.
“One of those sun reflectors?” suggested Dave Stanley.
“Let’s get official.” The corporal turned the dreary block into a red-and-blue disco.
Leaning over, the young officer picked up the PA microphone and held it to his mouth. “Move that vehicle right now!”
The order echoed up and down the street, but elicited no response.
Dave Stanley surveyed the brownstones on either side of the patrol car, and when he turned around, his jaw slackened. A cargo van was blocking off the other end of the street. Red and blue lights colored the exhaust that rose from its tailpipe and flashed dimly upon its black surface. The second vehicle was as inscrutable as the first.
“We’re boxed in,” said the young officer.
“Something happens to me,” Gianetto said, “tell my wife I thought she was an eight.”
“Not a ten?”
“No way she would believe that.” The corporal snorted. “She’s really a five and a half.”
“I’ll say eight.”
Dave Stanley thought of the precinct receptionist, Sha
ron, whom he had been dating for the major part of a year, but could not think of anything that he wanted to tell her.
Gianetto grabbed the PA microphone and thumbed the talk bar. “Clear those vehicles from—”
The brown van’s side door slid open, revealing an opaque square. Something clicked within the darkness.
“Down!” yelled the corporal.
The policemen prostrated themselves.
White fire boomed. The windshield bulged and became a thousand spider webs. A second shotgun blast thundered, and the milky glass burst. Scintillating shards rained upon the backs of the huddled policemen.
Cold air swept into the vehicle, and Dave Stanley began to shake. Outside, a gun was cocked.
Gianetto thrust his revolver over the dashboard and squeezed the trigger, blindly returning fire. “Call for backup!” he yelled to his partner. “Tell them—”
Something smacked against the corporal’s skull and landed beside him.
“The fuck was that?” Gianetto asked, rubbing his head.
Dave Stanley looked over. Next to the gas pedal was a hand grenade.
Emptying his bladder, the young officer opened the door, stumbled outside, and yelled, “Grenade!” The pavement slammed into his chest, and he looked over his shoulder.
Gianetto bolted through the other door, but was jerked back into the vehicle by his seat belt, which had caught upon his holster.
“Fuck!” yelled the corporal.
Dave Stanley covered his head.
Sunlight appeared at midnight, accompanied by thunder. Shrapnel tore into the prone officer’s boots, legs, buttocks, arms, and back. It felt as if his entire body had just been dropped into a deep fryer.
The concussion echoed.
Ears ringing, Dave Stanley slid a hand across the hot pavement. The exertion agitated the bits of shrapnel that were buried in his scapula, but he persevered, fighting through his agonies. His fingertips landed upon his holster, and he mouthed the word “Motherfucker.” His gun was missing.
Dave Stanley looked over his shoulder. Smoke that glowed blue and red swirled around the police vehicle, and three feet from its muffler lay the missing firearm. The weapon appeared to be intact.
Gritting his teeth, the young officer rose to his hands and knees and crawled. Shrapnel poked muscles and bones as he proceeded, gasping and trembling, toward the gun. A glance into the patrol car revealed the dead and armless thing that had tried to grab an active hand grenade during its final living moment. Surmounting its charred collar was a mass that looked like a rotten pomegranate.
Mean Business on North Ganson Street Page 9
