It occurred to me that sadomasochists enjoyed misery, so maybe the cops were doing them a favor, but I thought better of sharing this insight with Stefan.
“Don’t worry. I can fake being adorable and charming, when necessary. Anything else?” I asked swallowing the last of my coffee and heading to the front door.
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about our deal. I asked you to find Michelle’s killer, and I still want you to do so. I’m paying you well for that information.”
“But?”
“But I reserve the right to decide if you go to the police with the information I’ve paid for—or whether I’ll handle things on my own.”
“Let’s see how this unfolds, Stefan. I have an arrangement with a police lieutenant who’s involved in this whole mess. I might not be able to withhold information altogether, but it’s possible you could have some time between when I know the killer’s identity and when I go to the cops.”
Stefan gave a thin smile and a slight nod. I had to begrudgingly admire a fellow with the guts to settle a score himself, even if I couldn’t imagine this girlish pervert being able to inflict harm on anyone who wasn’t tied to a bed.
CHAPTER 26
I spent the early afternoon doing laundry. Having bought my own washer and dryer, I missed the warm rumble of Laundry Land but didn’t miss shoving quarters into the machines. Then I rewarded this domestic diligence by working on my insect collection to the strains of beautiful music. Earlier in the week, I’d put some sulfur butterflies in a cigar humidor to soften the specimens so they wouldn’t break during pinning. Tommy and I had spent a pleasant afternoon last fall collecting these intensely yellow insects in fields outside of the city and they’d been tucked away in my freezer until now. For some reason, Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe seemed like the right musical accompaniment to take me away from the twisted world of human perversions. And there’s no better recording than the enchanting 1959 performance by the Parisian symphony conducted by Manuel Rosenthal, who was the last of Ravel’s students.
I settled into my chair at the work table and began gently removing the butterflies from the hydrating chamber and slowly extending their wings beneath strips of acetate. As I lined up the specimens on the spreading board, their subtle color variations became apparent. Most were rather typical Orange Sulfurs, but a couple had characteristics similar to those of its kissing cousin, the Clouded Sulphur. Conversely, among the few specimens of Clouded Sulfurs was one with an unusual amount of orange coloration—a feature normally found in the other species. The identification guides fit specimens into square and round holes, but what I had were a few oblong pegs that didn’t fit neatly into either hole.
I’d attended a public lecture at the Cal Academy a couple years ago by an entomologist who studied insect hybrids. He explained that populations of sulfur butterflies were sometimes composed of individuals with features of both the Orange and Clouded species. This was something like lions and tigers producing ligers, except the cats require the matchmaking intervention of lecherous zookeepers. Setting aside the butterflies that didn’t fit nicely into either of the well-established species, I decided to show them to Scott Fortier the next time I was at Berkeley.
Thinking about how insects courted and mated with the “wrong” species—evidently being fornicating, not just kissing, cousins—got me wondering about Lane Linford. Sure, a human deriving sexual gratification from a cockroach is a larger leap than what happens between two butterflies. But then, Stefan’s little dog tried to satisfy canine urges using his owner’s leg, an encounter which wasn’t going to produce any more offspring than Lane and his mini-menagerie. Crossing the species line in the pursuit of sex seems to be natural, whatever the hell that means.
After the butterflies were pinned, I tossed the clothes into the dryer and returned to my insects. For the most part, my specimens were organized into conventional, taxonomic families. But I’ve also assembled groups of insects representing crimes—or what would be crimes if humans engaged in similar behaviors. Along with murder, theft, and fraud, I had a box devoted to vice. There were species that forced themselves on unwilling mates, copulated in public with reckless abandon, and exchanged payment—usually a bit of food—for sexual services. My conversation with Lieutenant Papadopoulos convinced me that although orgies are not technically illegal, their inclusion of underage participants and admission fees warranted a new tray in my collection.
The music was drawing to a close, having passed through an achingly beautiful softness. Playing loud is easy. True artistry comes with pianississimo of the sort found in Ravel and Debussy—the moments sumptuously contrasting with and leading up to the throbbing, shattering climax of instruments and voices. Making music is like pinning insects. A hulking beetle under glass impresses the casual viewer, but the fineness of a collection comes with the most delicate flies, double mounted by piercing the thorax with an exquisitely thin, minuten pin which is then set into a piece of cork which is itself mounted with a standard insect pin.
My pinning tray of orgiastic insects included various midges and gnats that formed mating swarms—such as those annoying clouds of tiny flies around a person’s head, although few people would guess they are the site of a six-legged sex party. I also included some March flies, aka lovebugs, which gather in enormous swarms of horny individuals, similar to the mass emergences of mayflies in their rush to copulate within the few hours of adult life they enjoy.
In the midst of the gloriously shattering musical climax, the phone started ringing. Nina had left her beloved Aran sweater at my mother’s house and, if I was not too busy, would it be possible to pick it up and bring it over? She didn’t want my mother to think she didn’t value the Christmas present. And she wanted it for Monday because there was a meeting with the finance council of the diocese where the sweater would make a good impression. And it was so wonderfully warm to wear around her apartment. And her Datsun 210 was notoriously unreliable on wet days despite my having replaced the cracked distributor cap and the spark plug wires. And so I didn’t have much choice.
I was getting stiff from sitting indoors on a damp day, so I figured that a long walk would do me good. My well-worn trench coat and a woolen paddy cap were appropriate for heading into the drizzle. It was only a couple blocks to my mother’s house, but two miles up Van Ness to Nina’s neighborhood. The wind would’ve been miserable if I hadn’t stuffed her sweater under my coat. I looked like I needed to lose twenty pounds, but comfort trumps appearance in my book. The late afternoon light was a silvery gray by the time I got to Nina’s.
“Riley, thanks so much for fetching my sweater,” she said, giving me a hug. A long, clinging hug.
“Sure. What’s wrong?” I asked.
She paused and then said, “Wrong? Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” she said, tucking a few strands of loose hair behind her ear.
For being an ex-cop with lots of interrogation experience, she wasn’t terribly adept at deception. I peeled off my coat, tossed my hat onto the coffee table, settled onto her couch and said, “It’s chilly out there. How about we have some tea?”
She headed to the kitchen.
“I’ll take mine strong,” I said, “with a splash of milk—and truth.”
Nina returned with two steaming mugs, set our drinks on the table and took the overstuffed chair across from me. She was wearing stirrup pants beneath an oversized turtleneck sweater that reached past her bottom. A pleasant look on a miserable day. I sipped my tea and waited.
“Tim pushed the boundaries too far, but I don’t want you doing anything. I can handle it,” she finally admitted.
“And ‘it’ would be?”
“I went downstairs to take the garbage to the dumpster. On my way back, he met me in the alley.”
“And?” The muscles in my neck and shoulders tensed.
“And, well, he exposed himself. Then he ran down the alley. I think he was ashamed.”
“Probably was. The sicko didn’t pick a very good day
to feature his goods. The cold probably shrank him to unimpressive dimensions.”
“Riley! Please, he’s not well. I was scared and I’m still a bit rattled, but I don’t think he’s dangerous. Just starved for attention. I wasn’t even going to tell you because I was afraid that you’d do something.”
“A reasonable guess,” I said.
“Tim needs help, not punishment. I’ll talk to him.”
“Nina, this has gone on long enough. He’s had his chances. Stay away from him. He knows the deal and more talking won’t help,” I said, taking a sip of my tea.
Nina kept Lyons tea for me and brewed it until nearly as black as coffee—as it should be. She preferred herbal teas, gentle and soothing.
“I don’t want him hurt,” she said.
There it was—comeuppance versus compassion, and I wasn’t going to lie about my intentions. Someone was going to get hurt, and I’d be damned if it would be Nina.
“I’m not looking forward to hurting him.”
“But you will.”
“Probably.”
“Because that’s who you are. That’s how you see the world. I can accept you or not, but I won’t try to change you. I couldn’t anyway,” she said.
I finished my tea and we kissed goodnight. She said that she loved me, even when she didn’t like me. There were tears in her eyes. Sometimes, even when you’re with someone, you’re still alone.
On my walk home, I mulled over how to handle Tim. Of course, my confrontation would just shift him to another, easier target. That’s how NIMBY works. You keep the mess out of your backyard which means it ends up in someone else’s. This was just like advising citizens to put deadbolts on their doors and bars on their windows. These don’t stop thieves, they just move the burglars to your more vulnerable neighbors.
And what about Tim? Maybe the guy needed help, but not as much as Nina needed protection. In a sense, he was no different than the libidinous gnats and lustful March flies, seeking to do whatever their biological urges demanded. People are animals too, but that’s not all we are. Part of our nature is self-restraint, moral boundaries, and human dignity. And screwing with abandon, seeking arousal from other species, or finding satisfaction in exposing our genitals isn’t right. It just isn’t.
~||~
Back at the house, I warmed up the leftovers from the family feast. The potato casserole went into the oven and the cocido into a sauce pan on the stove. While those were heating, I pulled out some lady beetles from the freezer. Tommy and I had decided to challenge ourselves by collecting one of every kind found in the state, which was going to be a very long-term project, as Scott Fortier informed us there was something like two hundred Californian species. We’d made a small dent in our objective last summer, and I had pill bottles stuffed with beetles neatly arranged in my ice trays.
My dinner was hot at about the same time as the insects were thawed, so I took a plate to my worktable, along with a glass of Guinness—a perfect complement to the stew which had become even tastier with reheating. I was particularly pleased with a nice series of the Ashy Gray Lady Beetles which included a black form. The common names of these insects are often a riddle, such as the California population of the Ninespotted Lady Beetle which has no spots. The best name, however, was surely the Two-stabbed Lady Beetle, so-called because its obsidian-black body has two, blood-red spots as if the creature had been attacked by a miniature Jack the Ripper. And in the last few years, the department of agriculture has been busy releasing the Asian Multicolored Lady Beetle in eastern states, so there’s speculation that it will make its way across the country and potentially outcompete our native species. I figured Tommy and I had better get cracking before California loses any of its local beauties.
Savoring food from Ireland and Spain while puzzling over insect names, pondering Lilliputian knife attacks and contemplating lady beetles from Asia, coalesced around my evening’s choice of music. Add a week of people acting out their strange desires and the only choice was Puccini’s last opera, Turandot. I put on the 1977 recording, not because it had the best soprano in the title role (Montserrat Caballé was solid but Birgit Nilsson was much better two decades earlier), but because Pavarotti was brilliant in the role of Calaf, the suitor of Turandot and this was a live recording from the San Francisco Opera, so I felt a twinge of loyalty.
I pinned a couple dozen beetles during the first act, while the beautiful, cold-hearted princess Turandot, whose ancestor had been ravished and murdered by an invading foreign prince, took out her bitterness toward men. Yet another suitor failed to answer her three wickedly difficult riddles. Had the poor bloke gotten them right, he would’ve gained a wife. Instead he lost his head to the delight of the assembled masses. Nonetheless, Calaf is smitten and decides to court the Chinese princess.
During the second act, I put away the pinning supplies and settled into my recliner with a glass of Connemara, Ireland’s whiskey challenge to Scotland. To be honest, I think the Scots do a better job incorporating peaty flavor into their Scotch, but the smoky aroma of Connemara is perfect on a cold, damp night. While I sipped, Calaf answered the three riddles—my favorite being the final: What ice can make fire? The answer is Turandot. But she gets mad at losing the game and refuses to marry him, so he offers her a deal. If she can learn his name by dawn, he’ll go to the chopping block. If not, she goes to the marriage bed.
In the final act, we learn there is a person who knows his name—his father’s servant who has an unrequited crush on Calaf. But rather than revealing his identity to Turandot, she kills herself. However, in a gallant gesture, Calaf tells the princess his name, rather than forcing himself on a woman who does not desire him. At dawn, Turandot proclaims to the gathered crowd—hoping for another gory execution—Il suo nome è ... Amor! (“His name is ... Love!”)—and the couple is soon wed.
As I finished my whiskey, I couldn’t decide whether I liked or hated the happy ending, a feature that so many operas manage to avoid. My recent days made clear that life provides an abundance of perverse passion, depraved violence, and complex riddles, but in my experience there are rarely blissful conclusions. Turandot should end with Calaf’s beheading in my estimation. That’s what happens to romantic suckers who think screwed up people will return their warmth. Maybe Lane and Stefan had the right idea. At least they weren’t figuring on insects sharing a candlelight dinner or spiders going for a long walk on the beach. My challenge would come when I found whoever was at the end of this dark drama because I was damn sure that his name was not Love.
CHAPTER 27
Opulent whiskey and operatic weirdness, following a long walk in the cold rain while contemplating a good way to handle a bad man, all conspired to create a restless night. In the morning, I rushed through a shower and headed to Gustaw’s for a quick bite. From there, I looked forward to a morning of degenerate dialogue at the Pleasure Palace—the perfect start to a week.
“Riley, you look a little rough this morning,” Ludwika said as I came into the bakery.
“Nothing that a cup of Gustaw’s coffee can’t fix,” I said.
“He put together a special treat for you, knowing you never miss a Monday morning with us.”
“Gustaw is a good man,” I said.
“Good inside, yes. But not so much the outside. He is growing a moustache like his idol, Lech Walesa. Gustaw looks more like cave man than revolutionary hero.”
The Polish Neanderthal came out from the kitchen, approached Ludwika from behind, wrapped his burly arms around his plump wife, and nuzzled his bristly upper lip into her neck.
“You cannot resist such a virile man,” he said as she squirmed unconvincingly to escape his grasp. Ludwika managed to turn and playfully push him away, declaring that if he didn’t shave soon, he’d look like the bigfoot creatures that villagers reported in the Tatra mountains along the border with Slovakia. She was a big fan of yeti and had even dragged Gustaw up to Humbolt County a couple summers ago after a flurry of reports about
furry sightings. They didn’t find the creature.
While I took a seat and tried to decide if the coffee was stronger than usual, Gustaw went back into the kitchen and returned with a plate of pierogi and a big grin.
“To celebrate the people of Poland and Ireland, I make special breakfast for you, my friend,” he said.
I poked curiously at the stuffed dumplings which were not filled with anything as prosaic as fruit, which one might expect for breakfast. The dockworker-turned-baker had an affinity for hearty food to begin the day.
“Both our people love cabbage and potato to make us strong.”
Gustaw lifted his chin and pounded his chest. I could see what Ludwika meant about the reference to ape men.
“In your honor,” he continued, “I add corned beef to pierogi!”
I tasted the concoction, a melding of Polish dumplings with corned beef hash. The result was genuinely pleasing—and far more down-to-earth than the unaccountable passion for quiche that has swept the country, with half-baked cooks dumping every imaginable frou-frou ingredient into curdled eggs and a soggy crust.
“This is a perfect start to a damp day,” I said.
“Not so cold as Chicago, where cousin Jerzy lives. He tells it was twenty-seven below zero. I say San Francisco is more like Gdansk. You get chilled but not turned into ice cube.”
“Maybe your next recipe should be something to stave off the chill at the end of a day. Perhaps a blend the finest Polish vodka with the best Irish whiskey, although I’m not sure the result will be satisfying for either nation.”
Gustaw stroked his whiskers and looked into space, contemplating the possibilities.
Lethal Fetish Page 20
