Fever City

by Tim Baker

  The cop who held the legs tore off the woman’s underwear and tossed it into the night, where it fell like a wounded bird.

  Hastings stepped forward, rage and despair in his heart. ‘Stop.’

  Both men froze. The one who had the legs let go and slowly stood and turned, facing Hastings, his badge catching the glint of a shard of light, then falling back into shadow, his hand slowly rising to his hip. ‘Take it easy, buddy, we’re making an arrest.’

  ‘That’s not what it looks like.’

  Tommy’s head inclined in consideration. He knew that voice. ‘Hastings . . . ?’ He stepped towards him, his hand dropping. That was when Hastings saw it. The insult of Tommy Alston smiling. And the smile said to both his partner and to Hastings: he’s one of us. ‘Relax . . . She’s just a coloured maid.’

  Hastings almost broke his own fist, he hit Tommy so hard. He felt the pucker and snap of Tommy’s jaw breaking. Tommy’s partner sprang to his feet, drawing his weapon. Hastings hefted the limp body of Tommy towards him, using it as a shield, unholstering Tommy’s service revolver at the same time. Mexican standoff. Almost. Hastings had Tommy as his very own bulletproof vest. ‘Put the gun down . . . ’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘You heard the man, put it down.’

  Tommy’s partner turned to the girl. A victim only seconds ago, she was now a witness. A threat. Something to be taken care of. After Hastings.

  ‘Drop it, or you’re dead.’ The cop stared hard at Hastings; recognizing his killer’s soul. He dropped the gun. ‘Turn around . . . ’

  The cop started to turn to mush. The girl had held on. She had fought them off; both of them. Tommy’s partner had lost his gun and then he had lost his fight. His snivelling filled the rushing quiet of the mastered night. Hastings spoke directly to the woman for the first time. ‘Look away, please.’ The sobbing of the policeman surged. Hastings unfolded his navaja sevillana. It travelled across skin with a silver hiss, unfolding internal mysteries. Hastings dropped the dead bundle to the ground. Sergeant Tommy ‘Frankenstein’ Alston lay motionless, only his newly-freed blood still moving, slowly snaking out of his opened throat and finding refuge in the damming pebbles of the driveway. Hastings looked up at the other cop. So riveted in his fear, he hadn’t even sensed the execution of his partner. He turned back to the woman. She watched until the swarming eddy calmed into mirrored stillness, the very last bubbles puncturing; forlorn. A universe without oxygen. Without hope. She looked up at Hastings, her eyes brilliant, as she mouthed two words: ‘Thank you.’

  There was a groan of horror—the other cop had finally worked up the courage to turn, perhaps convincing himself of salvation after all. When he saw Tommy’s voided body, he bolted; fast feet fleeing back to the universe of the squad car. Back inside the car, everything would revert to normal. He would become a cop again, not a rapist. He would become the Law. The cop reached under the dash for the shotgun. But it was already too late, a bullet had passed effortless through the windshield, spiked a passage through his skull, and hubbed its way out with a significant section of his brains—his memories; his hates. His broken promises and youthful aspirations twisted too easily by greed and the lazy solutions of bribery and corruption. It all showered out behind him; an afterthought, already drying on the trunk of the car.

  Hastings turned back to the woman. ‘What’s your name?’

  She hesitated, for a second. Enough to let him know she was smart enough to be careful, and honest enough to be trusting. ‘Greta Simmons.’

  ‘Greta, do you have a car?’ She nodded. He wiped his prints off Tommy’s revolver. ‘Can you give me a lift?’

  She considered for a long moment, then nodded again, walking ahead of him, stopping to pick up her underwear and her shoe.

  They drove in silence through the turbulent darkness. ‘Where do you want me to drop you off?’

  ‘Chinatown.’ He looked at her, the headlights of the approaching traffic illuminating her injuries. ‘You need to see a doctor.’

  ‘You got there just in time.’

  He looked at her wrists. ‘You need to put something on them.’ She looked away. The motor struggled with the silence. ‘You live back there?’

  ‘Do I look like I live in that neighbourhood . . . ?’

  ‘So you work there?’

  She turned to him, sharply. ‘I’m not a domestic.’ She muttered something he couldn’t quite catch.

  A wail rose out of the night. Greta reached over and turned on the radio. Bird with strings. Laura. The police car passed them at speed, hitting their faces with the slap-flash of red light. Hastings turned, watching the colour dissolving into the darkness behind them. He turned back to Greta. ‘Where you from?’

  She was about to answer but then stopped herself with an angry shrug of her shoulders. ‘Somewhere else.’

  ‘So what were you doing in Brentwood?’

  ‘What are you, a cop?’ Hastings looked away. She waited a moment, then sighed. ‘I was . . . seeing someone.’

  ‘Maybe you should start seeing someone else. Why didn’t he come to help you?’

  There was the simmer of consideration in the car. Of truth-sharing. Greta made her choice. ‘It was a she. And those cops have been shaking her down.’

  Hastings offered her a cigarette. The interior of the car flared with the nostalgic flicker of a campfire, then dissolved into an intense, heightened darkness. ‘Who’s their mark . . . ? I mean, who’s your—’

  ‘Companion will do nicely. Elaine Bourdonnais.’ She glances sideways at him. ‘Know her?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Depends what crowd you run with . . . ’

  He fills the car with the white glaze of smoke. ‘I don’t run with any crowd.’

  ’I believe it. Otherwise I’d know you. What’s your name anyway?’

  ‘Hastings.’

  ‘That’s it—like a city?’

  ‘Philip.’

  ‘What do you do, Phil?’

  ‘Stay out of trouble.’

  She smiles. ‘Well then, you’ve rescued the wrong person.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as the wrong person when you’re rescuing someone.’

  ‘Is that a fact . . . ?’ Greta pulled up in front of the pagoda then turned, gazing at him with intense interest, as though suddenly discovering immense possibilities. The stutter of firecrackers made her start. They both glanced over to where some teenagers were gathered on the sidewalk, dancing away from the tiny explosions. She turned back to him, her eyes reflecting the dappled colours of the Chinese lanterns. ‘I saw what you did back there . . . ’

  ‘And I saw that you hardly blinked.’

  ‘I spent some time with Madame St. Clair in Harlem. I got to see a thing or two with her . . . ’

  Hastings flicked his cigarette out the window, its golden ash pushing fire through a piece of night, a poor man’s comet, already extinguished. ‘It’s the seeing that does it.’

  ‘Does what?’

  ‘Makes it seem normal.’ Hastings got out, walked around the front of the car, than leant in towards the driver’s window. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  ’If I ever need to find you?’

  He shrugged. ‘On any given night, I could be anywhere.’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘It’s not that. I just set off in one direction and then keep walking.’ As if to demonstrate the technique, he took a few paces down the street but then stopped and turned. ‘Although . . . there’s the Casablanca. It’s a jazz club on South Kenmore. Hal Singer and Steve Potts are in residence this month. I plan to spend some time down there.’

  She called out to thank him but it was already too late.

  * * *

  Foam flooded his mind; sucked air out of his lungs. Hastings came to in the surf. He raised his wounded head, the wind moaning into his
consciousness as he clawed his way onto dry sand overlooked by the cliffs of Point Dume. He stared up at the rock face, loose sand needling his face with the sting of the wind. He had no memory of what happened from the moment they cut him down until he woke in the seething sea. They might have gotten careless. They might have been disturbed by witnesses. They must have thrown him off the edge and figured he was gone for good.

  They figured wrong.

  A king tide and luck saw to that.

  He got a lift with a Mexican fisherman who loaned him a towel that smelt of calico bass, warmed him with hot coffee and a packet of Faros, and dropped him off outside a gas station on Ventura near Agora with enough change to get back. ‘Gracias, amigo.’ The fisherman smiled, his teeth full of gold. ‘De nada, camerado.’

  While Hastings waited for the 6 A.M. bus from Salinas he went through the plan once more. He would go on to Dallas and save the president. He’d meet Mrs. Bannister at Big Bear Lake. And then they’d run.

  But before they started running, he was adding a new detail. He was going to figure out a way to kill the Old Man.

  CHAPTER 42

  Los Angeles 1960

  I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, the surface fading fast behind the blur of humidity from the shower. Just as well. I didn’t like what I was seeing. I finish shaving staring into the blind fog on the glass, the contours of my face familiar to my hands, to the rasp of the well-honed blade, avoiding the more sensitive parts of my jaw. Of my trouble-inviting big mouth.

  My body stings from the needles of hot water and the bruising of the last eighteen hours. I dry off and bandage myself up, then walk through to the kitchen wearing just a towel. The cat appears silently at the window, laps its milk, devours the curl of ground beef I share with it then disappears out through the rear window, back into the night. It got what it wanted: it doesn’t need company. Unlike the rest of us. I switch on the radio. Billie Holliday. The End of a Love Affair. Too close for comfort. The pan spits and protests as meat and eggs sizzle. The last thing I ate was the omelette prepared by Mrs. Bannister. Tonight feels like the flip side of the American Dream: the beginning of The Lost Weekend. I uncork a quart of JTS Brown and take a bottle of Golden Velvet out of the Amana. There is a noise behind me. I spin around, knocking my fork to the floor.

  ‘Nick . . . ?’ Cate bends down, picks up the fork. I catch a glimpse of her naked body through the neckline of her negligée as she leans forward. There was a time when we couldn’t get enough of each other, making love in the shower, at the movies, on the porch at midnight, in the back of taxis, in half-open doorways. Once I pulled her into the Bradbury Building and we fucked in the darkened corner of one of the balconies. It was twilight. Deserted. Silent except for the squeak of a mop and bucket somewhere far above us, echoing in the building’s empty corridors. Then the ping of an elevator. We both froze, clinging to each other as though somehow that would make us invisible. An attractive brunette stepped out, stopping when she saw us, Cate’s back to her. She opened her mouth as though to scream. I shook my head. The woman was motionless, except for her eyes. They were everywhere. I started again, sinking slowly back against the railing, gently tugging an unsuspecting Cate on top of me, hoisting her dress up high above her hips so the brunette was sure to see everything. Cate rode me as I watched the brunette, spellbound, watching us. When it was over, I kissed Cate like I’d never kissed her before; it was strange, I was so proud of her. There was a fast click of heels behind us. Cate turned but the brunette was already gone. Cate and I had our own home. We were just doing it for the kicks. It was our private fever. I remembered the brunette’s eyes that night when I made love again to Cate, but the next day I had forgotten them; even their colour. I only had eyes for Cate. She was the one. It was an obsession. But like all great passions it burnt faster the brighter it was. Now I can’t even remember the last time we made love.

  ‘I didn’t mean to wake you . . . ’ I go to switch off the radio.

  She stops me, staring for a long moment, her hands fanning my face in astonishment. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Drink?’ She shakes her head. The glowing warmth of bourbon; the frosty awakening of the beer chaser. I sigh. ‘One too many doors slammed in my face.’ There’s a frown, of concern. I remember I used to love it. Before I forgot that it was ever there. ‘Don’t worry, I saw a doctor . . . ’

  ’So did I . . . ’ She looks away. ‘Nick, I was pregnant.’

  ‘Was?’ I slowly stand. She nods, looking up at me.

  We had given up on the thing we had wanted so much for so long. It had been the thing that had led us into marriage in the first place. To have a family. And it had been the thing that had killed our marriage when we couldn’t. We didn’t formally give up on each other. It just happened, the way it always does. We just stopped loving each other, sharing confidences, living together. We drifted apart because it hurt so much when we were together. Unable to have what we wanted. Unable to even talk about it anymore. And now this. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t even know until it was over. It was all too fucking late.

  I sit down opposite her, staring into her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She takes the cigarette out of my mouth, inhales deeply. ‘Because it wasn’t yours, Nicky.’

  I hadn’t seen that coming.

  Silence. Long and hard, broken only by the gush of smoke she exhales and the internal snare drum of my furious heart. I have to clear my throat before I can speak, and even then, my voice breaks. ‘Who?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Nicky . . . ’

  ‘The hell it doesn’t!’

  ‘Let it go . . . ’ she says, grinding out my cigarette. ‘I have.’

  This had been the news I had waited for all those years, then given up on. Then forgotten about altogether. That’s what felt like a cheat. Not Cate, sleeping with another man. After all, how many women had I slept with over the past two years? I wished I had known before Cate had lost it; I wished I’d had that moment of thinking it was mine. Even if it was a lie, it would have been enough.

  She looks up at me, tears in her eyes. I grab her wrists, pull her close to me. ‘I’m so sorry, baby.’

  I feel the tightness in her beginning to crack, the low trembling growing stronger with her sobs. A married couple, at the end of their rope. Holding each other in a crappy little kitchen with a flickering fluorescent light. Good times all forgotten. Future no longer imagined. Present just passing nods through windows as one drives away from the other. Bedside lamps no longer synchronized. The end of the road. ‘When did you lose it?’

  ‘Last week . . . ’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I couldn’t. Not without lying.’

  ‘You didn’t lie now.’

  ‘Now it’s too late to lie. Now it’s all over . . . ’

  She lets go, her tears fierce as a summer storm. I hold her to me. My girl. My fiancée. My bride. My woman. We stand there, the weight of our worn history amplifying her sobs.

  The phone rings. ‘Don’t . . . ’

  ‘Baby, I have to . . . ’ Cate breaks reluctantly from me. I lean over, snatch the phone off its cradle.

  ‘Mr. Alston? You’ve got to come over.’

  Her voice is strange—tense and distant. ‘Sorry, Mrs. Bannister, I’m off duty . . . ’

  ‘It’s my husband, Mr. Alston. He’s missing.’ The dial tone purrs in my ear. I hang up. Cate takes my hand. ‘Come to bed . . . ’

  ‘I can’t sleep now, baby, I got work to do.’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’

  We step into the bedroom together. It feels both strange and familiar, like running into an old friend from school. Cate kisses me gently on my lying lips. I sigh. I can’t help myself; it’s too strong. I have to ask: ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘Let it go, will you, Nicky,’ she says, pulling the straps of her negligée ove
r one shoulder, than the other, allowing it to glide down her body. She unwraps my towel, tosses it to the floor and then pulls me into her arms.

  CHAPTER 43

  Dallas 2014

  Wayne and Granston escort me across a marble entrance. Orchestral music, majestic yet ominous, swells from somewhere beyond a curving staircase: Prokofiev. Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb. Is someone, right now, preparing my own grave?

  Wayne opens a wood-panelled door. I turn before I enter, looking back at him and Granston as though they were going to jump me. I can’t imagine why they would, and yet I can’t imagine being kidnapped either.

  I glance around the enormous living room. Formal, lifeless; resplendent with antiques. Not so much furniture as trophies; stamps of power pressed into innocent teak and oak. I turn to Wayne, who hovers at the door. ‘I’m entitled to a phone call and a lawyer.’

  He points to a phone, then catches himself, and closes the door behind him. There is the sinister rasp of a bolt turning outside. I try the door handle. Locked.

  I look around the great room, but it appears empty. Then I see her, an elderly woman with a large mouth and highly amused eyes, dressed in cashmere and silk, sitting in a Louis XV armchair. Rubies glitter on her ears and around her throat. ‘All this talk of kidnapping is really unbecoming.’ She gestures to a sofa in front of her. ‘If you were brought here, it was for your own safety. Besides, we have all the information you’ve been looking for.’