The Polka Dot Girl

by Darragh McManus

  She looked at me, wide-eyed, seeking absolution. I would have lied in any case, but in this case I didn’t need to. I said gently, “Thank you, Cella. I know that can’t have been easy for you. I’ll always appreciate what you did for me last night. I mean that.”

  “Ah, stop it. Shut up, for God’s sake.”

  We smiled at each other for a moment. Then Cella said, so quietly I barely heard it, “It’s an empty warehouse. All of these rooms. Empty. There’s nobody around. That fucking psycho could have done whatever she wanted and no one would have found you. I had to come.”

  I felt a whispered shiver of own mortality. Jesus. How close I’d come to the end…

  Alright, enough of that. Get back on the horse, Genie. Forget about that and get back to work. Forget it or you might go crazy thinking about it. I stood and stretched my back out, then got that blood-rush again. I staggered like a newborn animal and had to put my hand on the sofa to steady myself.

  Cella said, “Genie, you’re a mess. Sit down, for Christ’s sake. Do you need a doctor? Will I call a doctor?”

  I shook my head. “No. Just…gimme a minute. I’m okay.” I let the moment pass, waited until I could feel some strength returning to my legs. “I’m okay. I don’t need a doctor.”

  “You’re far from okay. You’re a mess.”

  I laughed and said, “Hey, didn’t you know? I’m the hero of this noir detective story, goddamn it. Genie the gunslinger, righter of wrongs, scourge of the underworld. And you know all the great noir heroes are always willing to take an ass-kicking. At least once in every story. It’s the rule.”

  “Now I really do think you need a medic. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Come on—let’s scope this place out. See what we can see.” We scoped: still nothing much to see. Again, the joint was weirdly normal. Except, of course, for the dead body, almost headless, lying cold on the cold floor. We inched closer to it, trying not to look at the top end, the part that was missing a part.

  She still wore the thin gloves, of course; in death they looked ridiculous, almost obscene. What had she said, something about a pain in her hands…? I tried to remember and failed. But I was intrigued all the same. I looked around and found a small pair of pliers, coated with rust but useable. I knelt down and eased off Erika’s gloves with the pliers, tossing them aside. Both hands were scarred in an odd kind of way, punctured with tiny holes— not many, maybe a dozen on each palm, a few more on random fingers.

  I pointed at the wounds. “Weird, isn’t it? What do you think did that?”

  Cella gingerly leaned in, a look of unease and disgust on her face. “I…dunno, Genie. I haven’t got a clue. Look, can we get out of here? This place gives me the creeps. That gives me the creeps.” She pointed at the body, looking away. I said, “Sure, Cella. We’ll go in two seconds. Whyn’t you wait by the door there?” She nodded gratefully. I stood and wandered around the basement for another few minutes, gazing dully at the work- benches, the floor, the walls. I finished my recce at the table where Erika had customized the baton. It was a greasy, filthy mess. She hadn’t taken too much care in prepping for the job on me: there was a pool of oil under the table, small and viscous, almost gleaming, like blood mixed with rich chocolate syrup. And there on the top, brightly colored against the impenetrable darkness…I saw something. I bent down slowly: a sort of needle, resting on the oil, held buoyant by surface tension. I picked it out and stood. Hardly any oil on it; just a few molecules touching. It was some kind of spike from a plant, a cactus maybe: pale yellow-green in color, thin, extremely hard, a pointed tip. I absentmindedly put it into my pocket and went towards the door. Cella already had it open, she was standing halfway into the corridor.

  She looked back at Erika’s body and didn’t speak for a long while. Then she said quietly, “I feel bad. For killing her, you know? I, ah…I never killed anybody, Genie. I mean, she was a fucking asshole but still. …I didn’t have a choice. I mean, I mean, it was her or us, right? She wouldn’t have come quietly. It was her or us, and I fucking chose us.”

  Silence. I nodded supportively. More silence. Then Cella said, “I was, uh…I was scared, Genie. When I came in here last night and saw the two of you… Yeah. That’s the truth of it. I was scared. I didn’t… I was so fucking terrified. Of what she might do to you—or me. I couldn’t take the, you know, take the risk. Could I? I had to… It was her or me.”

  And yet more silence. I remained that way myself. Finally Cella smiled ruefully and said, “I think I always was, you know that? Scared, I mean. Of cop work, of the people we had to deal with. I was… I’m not like you. I can’t just, like, gather up my courage and say fuck it and do it anyway. The fear is stronger than me. …I think maybe that’s why I quit the force. I had a bad back, sure, but did I? Maybe it was psychosomatic. All in my head, you know. I think, uh… Hell. I know. The bad back was an excuse. I was scared.”

  She smiled again and shrugged those big strong shoulders. I smiled back.

  “Cella, don’t fret it. For God’s sake, you’ve been through a traumatic experience. Don’t, you know, don’t worry about it too much. You did come here, that’s the important thing. You saved my life, girl. And we all get scared. More often than you’d think.” Cella thought about this for a moment and seemed to accept it, or at least was able to lie to herself just enough to believe she did. She said, “It was my birthday yesterday. Can you believe that? 34 years young. Jesus. What a celebration, huh?”

  “Yeah? Well, I hope you got something nice.” “Mm. Like a bottle of whiskey and just one glass.”

  “Come on. Let’s have a drink now. I know a place. ’Sgot one of those early opening licenses. Full of dockers and other rough sorts. You’ll fit right in.” I slapped her on the back. “’Mon. Let’s blow this joint.”

  She started walking away. I stopped at the door and looked back. Another shudder of realization slithered through my body. I’d had a bad feeling about this whole thing almost from the get- go, and it had been proven right. Cella talked about feeling scared; I was starting to get that way myself. There was something about this case, something awfully hinky, askew, out- of-whack. I always reckoned I was born under a lucky star but this… It felt like my luck had to run out sometime. I’d never come so close to dying so many times.

  I had to close it off, fast. And fast is how it all played out from that moment on. So fast it made my heart leap and my head spin.

  Chapter 27

  Madeleine

  CAMILLA Castelmagno rang me at my desk in Detectives HQ about four hours later and told me she had more information. I asked what kind, she clammed up, insisting that she’d only talk to me in person. We arranged for me to swing by Coochie Coo’s some time that evening. Cella had driven straight to my docker bar from Erika’s basement and straight to where my car was parked after we’d both had a quick shot of vodka.

  Then I drove straight to HQ and marched straight to the Chief ’s office once I stepped inside, discreetly notifying Etienne about all that had happened. She agreed to keep schtum on everything until the following morning. After that it was: resolve the case or lose the case. I agreed back. We arranged for the assassin’s body to be collected and the whole place to be swept by a tech team of people she could trust. I suggested Leigh Knowles: she was good at the job and she was 100 per cent honest. Etienne was fine with that.

  I crashed out on a hammock they’d set up in one of the store- rooms—not too comfortable for a normal-sized cop but not bad for a little gal like me. I slept poorly for a few hours. Then I woke, drained a gallon of coffee and stared at the not-very-humorous humorous calendar on my desk for about an hour, trying to think about things. Failing to think about anything. Finally Camilla’s phone-call rescued me from the pretence. I signed out, went home and clocked up a higher quality 90 minutes of sack-time. I woke after six, showered and changed my clothes, made some toast and grilled two sausages. Several more quick cups of coffee, though by that stage I didn’t know if
they were having any effect, and one or two slow cigarettes.

  Then I hit for Coochie Coo’s. The place was fairly busy for that early in the evening: two or three couples enjoying a quiet one, a few old soaks looking horribly out of place drinking hard and on their own, a raucous but good-natured group of girls on a work night out. Camilla was sitting at the bar, nursing some sort of concoction that looked more like a drowned salad than an alcoholic drink. Stringy bits of green vegetation floated in a slightly opaque liquid, held under the surface by ice-cubes, a slice of lime and a cocktail umbrella. She didn’t look up as I hopped onto the stool next to her and said cheerily, “I like the brolly, Camilla. It’s, you know, it’s cute. Very you.”

  “My little genius. Prompt as always.”

  “Thanks for the tip. About the lady with the baton.”

  “You’re welcome for the tip. How’d that work out for you?” “Fine, yeah. Everything’s cool.”

  She gave me a sideways look as if to say, I know for a fucking fact that everything is very far from being cool, but I’m not going to push it. She muttered, “Work crowds. Christ. They’re always the worst.”

  I glanced over at the group of girls, who were shrieking and laughing as they handed around pieces of chocolate underwear. “Who, them? They don’t seem like any trouble.”

  “Yeah, but they’re so goddamn loud. My head is exploding here. Just one of ’em screams, just once more…”

  “You’re getting old, Camilla.” “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “Where’s Merrylegs? I wanted to buy her a drink. Say thanks.” “I gave her the night off. She’s gone to a modern art exhibition, if you can believe it. Merrylegs. Modern fucking art.” She shook her head. “You want a drink?”

  “Sure. Uh, whiskey sour.”

  Camilla gestured to the bartender. “What she said.”

  I lit a Dark Nine and settled into the stool. “You had something else for me.”

  “Yeah,” she drawled. “Yeah, I do. Okay, first thing: I lied to you—sort of—the last time you were here. About when I’d last seen the girl, the Greenhill kid. I didn’t want all that heat around me, understand what I’m saying?”

  I nodded. She went on, “But believe it or not I actually wanna help you. Me. I wanna help the HCPD. That girl was an alright kid, you know? And I didn’t like to hear about what happened to her, being dumped in the water like that, like a goddamn refuse sack… Besides, she was a good customer, and you know me, Genie: I hate to lose a good customer.”

  I allowed myself a small smile. “Alright. It’s done and done. What say we forget the past and start again? What can you tell me?”

  The girl returned with my drink and I killed half of it in one swallow. Damn, that tasted good and felt better. I could already sense the whiskey’s warming sensation, physically and psycho- logically.

  Camilla said, “I’ve had the word out with my people, and my people have reported back with some info—on Madeleine Greenhill’s movements on her last night on this earth.”

  “Right.”

  “Someone saw her earlier that day, drinking with a second girl. Some fancy-pants joint on Pasiphaë, one of the newer ones. Then she was spotted on her own, in another and another and another, really slugging them back. You know, drinking ’til it hurts. Finally she fetched up in one of mine—not this one, a different place I got, a real dive on the east side. Boozing with one of my girls for a few hours.”

  “Hold up. This other girl, in the first bar: tall, beautiful, am I right? I mean, really striking. The kind of girl you’d remember seeing.”

  “Think so, yeah. My source said she’d have screwed this broad six ways from Sunday. That’s just the way these hoodlums talk.”

  Virginia, obviously. Before she fought with Madeleine and walked out on her forever. I said, “Go on.”

  “The kid, Madeleine, she seemed real anxious, jittery, maybe even scared. More so than usual, even. I mean, let’s face it, the girl was a fucking flake. She was born jittery. But this…this was different. My girl said Madeleine was talking about ‘putting an end’ to something, quote-unquote. Your guess is as good as mine. Said she felt like she was shaming her mother and it was all getting out of control, whatever any of that means. So about 11 o’clock she gets a phone-call from some other chick: ‘Ovidie’ or ‘Odette’ or something. She throws down a 50 and splits, saying she has to meet someone across town. And that’s all I got for you, my detective pal. Hope it helps.”

  My heart just about stopped beating. A meeting across town, which would bring her towards the docks. Towards Odette. Now I knew for sure, now it was definite—she was dirty. The woman I had once trusted more than anyone in my life was centrally involved in murder. I swallowed the rest of my whiskey to wash out the bitter taste of shock and nausea. It didn’t work. Then I realized: I’d known all along. From the moment she mentioned Erika’s car, I’d known. I just didn’t admit it to myself. How could I? It was almost a mental impossibility.

  Well, the impossible had just been made real. I thanked Camilla, stubbed out my cigarette and moved.

  Back to the station and a message from Detective Littlestone, asking me to find her or call her. I mentally filed it away for later, went downstairs to the Weapons lock-up and grabbed two fresh clips for the Beretta, shoving them into my jacket pocket, and a third into the gun itself. Then I fit on a Kevlar vest under my shirt. It was uncomfortable, chafing against my skin like that; it felt like I stomped rather than walked back to my floor. Etienne had left for the evening but what difference did that make? I was set on a course now, trammeled, locked in; the whole thing would play itself out the way it played itself out. By that stage it was all or nothing.

  Odette Ségolène de Courcy Crawford. Odette, with her goddamn tongue-twisting aristocratic name and pretensions of grandeur. Odette, with the blood of a 20-year-old girl, virtually a child, on her hands. Genie is coming for you, sweetheart. I stomped downstairs, hard-faced, resolute. All or fucking nothing.

  I had reached the street exit when Littlestone cornered me. She looked like she’d been waiting around for me, and said, “Hey, Auf der Maur, I’ve been looking for you. Poison Rose is dead. You’re still working that case, right? Anyway, figured you should know this.”

  “What? What are you…” My head was reeling.

  “She’s dead. Stabbed to death in the Zig-Zag earlier today. That’s all we know so far. One of the other Homicide chicks mentioned it over coffee this afternoon. Uh, Prentiss, I think. She took the squeal. Anyway, like I say. Figured you’d want to know.”

  “Right… I do, yeah. I mean, thanks.”

  “Sure. There’s a bunch of us heading to The Pipes tonight for drinks if you’re interested. Someone’s birthday or some shit. Might see you there?”

  I muttered some noncommittal reply. She left. I stood inside the entrance, trying to work this out: it could have just been a trick gone wrong. Perils of the profession, right? Or maybe not— maybe it was someone closing off all the avenues, tying off loose ends…

  I gunned it for Datlow Street, slid the car to a halt outside Odette’s building. I rang the bell several times, hammered it with my palm, punched it once or twice; I stood back and shouted up at her window even though I knew my voice couldn’t carry that far. Then a thought: my key. Did I have my old key? In the car, maybe, or secreted inside one of the many pockets of this jacket along with all the other junk I tended to accumulate and never get around to jettisoning… I had turned back to the vehicle, absentmindedly feeling around inside my pockets, pondering whether to just shoot the lock out and be done with it, when I felt a prick. I yelped, pulled out my finger and sucked on the tiny bead of blood forming at its tip. What was that? I gingerly reached in again. The needle, the hard spike from some plant or other that I’d picked up in Erika Baton’s basement. I continued sucking on the blood as it trickled out, thick and ferrous-tasting. What sort of plant, anyway…?

  Wait. LaVey’s office. She’d had a lot of weird-looking vegetati
on in there. I remembered now, how her plants had creeped me out, like something out of a horror movie. LaVey and her cactus plants and Erika the killer and the odd little puncture marks on her hands…

  Bethany Gilbert. Her face and head ruined with dozens of holes, dead from brain injuries and blood-loss. Jesus, Erika had killed her with one of those cactuses, right there on LaVey’s campus. A bizarre way to do it but most everything about this case was off-the-wall anyway. So there was my proof: tie the dead girl to the plant to the plant’s owner. The forensics could be enough to nail the bitch. Definitely enough for full search and arrest warrants.

  Back in the car, wrenching the gearstick, putting the old girl through hell. The vehicle squealed in protest but I didn’t have time for sympathy as I slalomed through the streets, a character in a videogame, left right dead ahead quick turn brake speed up drive drive drive, my heart hammering, blood pulsing in my ears like it was marking off time, the deadening loudness of the countdown clock. Across town in record speed to the campus of the LaVey Institute…except the LaVey Institute no longer existed. The main building complex, at any rate: it had been burned to a ruin. Lecture theaters, faculty offices, the gymnasium, the concert hall, and worst of all, LaVey’s private chambers—all gone. Jagged spikes of masonry and glass rose from the ashes like giant’s teeth. Smoke so thick and black it appeared almost artificial, like a trick effect in a movie, belching into the dusk sky. The pervasive smell of gasoline, sweet and greasy, made me want to retch. Two fire trucks, two patrol cars, a handful of press reporters and photog- raphers; hundreds of disorientated or shivering or tearful students clustered around like the naïve kids they were, waiting for someone to tell them what was going on and what they should now do. Well, don’t look at me, girls. I don’t have any answers for you.