Against Nature

by Casey Barrett

  When Cass and I entered Musette, the staff family meal was just finishing. A bartender looked up from polishing glasses and called, “Sorry, guys, not open yet, about ten minutes, okay?”

  While we waited on the corner, I remembered our missed appointment with Detective Miller that morning. We’d been so consumed with the emails, the Miami connection, then visiting Uli . . . Lea would be pissed. I hoped she wouldn’t make good on that threat of obstruction. I mentioned it to Cass. She shrugged, lit a Parliament.

  “I figured you were blowing it off,” she said.

  “So you remembered and neglected to mention it?”

  “I’ve got nothing to say to them. If they need a statement, let them come get us.”

  It wasn’t the time to argue. We probably had a pair of uniforms at my front door, awaiting our return. May as well meet with this Mickey character first. I regarded his restaurant, had to acknowledge his taste. Musette was spelled out in unlit neon script over the entrance. I remembered the cover of a famous novel, of a lone figure standing beneath it. I couldn’t remember the author or the name of the book, just that enduring image. It was on the cusp of memory when a waiter came out and set a placard before us. The neon flickered above our heads and the sconces glowed in the daylight around the perimeter. As Cass took a final drag, a black Suburban came to a stop on the corner in front of us. A heavy man in a sharp black suit emerged from the back. On the other side the back door opened and shut.

  “Be still my heart,” he said. “It’s you.”

  “Hi, Mickey,” said Cass.

  “How did you—” He went to her with open arms, but before he could reach her, his passenger came into view.

  “The fuck are they doing here?” asked Susie Wingate.

  “I don’t . . . I’m as surprised as you are,” said Mickey.

  They turned and regarded us, eyes settling without welcome on me.

  “Uli Kruger suggested we speak to you,” I lied. “We’re investigating a pair of murders, and the significant others want to find out who did it.”

  “ ‘Murders’?” asked Susie. “My brother jumped to his death. This bitch must have driven him to it. What’s he talking about, Mickey?”

  “I don’t know, honey, but I’m sure Cassandra here has a good reason for her visit.” He looked from Cass to me, stuck out a meaty hand. “And I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

  “Duck Darley,” I said, taking it.

  “How do you know this lovely lady?”

  “We’re partners, Mickey,” said Cass. “We’re here—”

  “Oh, wait,” he said. “I remember you. ‘Death Darley,’ isn’t that what the Post called you? After that mess a while back? And then you were with Kruger the other night, during that robbery, the poor bastard. You’ve got some shit luck.”

  “I’m glad I’m not me,” I said.

  “Ha, clever.” His phony smile faded. He looked to Victor’s sister for some direction.

  “I want them out of here, Mickey,” said Susie. “She’s probably here trying to get something from my brother’s house. She knows you’re the executor of his will. I told her he left me everything, but she wouldn’t believe it.” She glowered at Cass. “She’ll probably fuck you for it.”

  Before I could provoke her to violence with more name-calling, Mickey put his hand on Susie’s shoulder and tried to soothe her. “There’s no need for that,” he said. “This is a difficult time for all of us. We all loved your brother, Susie. Why don’t the four of us go inside and see what they have to say?”

  He led her past with a firm grip and pushed open the door to his restaurant. The staff froze at our entry, waited for their boss to explain. He ignored them and moved straight for the bar. Cass and I followed a few paces back without glancing at each other. I admired the room. The walls were done in the same white tiles that covered the exterior. The floors were a checkered black-and-white tile, the ceiling a salvaged pressed tin. The tables were small two-tops with four chairs crowded around them. Black-and-white prints of old bicycle races, the only art. We followed Mickey to a curved bar that filled the back of the space.

  “A couple quality ones,” he said to the mustached bartender. “A white and a red.” He turned to us. “I detest wine lists,” he said. “No one understands them, except the real tools, and everyone else just pretends. At my places I make it easy. I give you three choices—Table, Good, and Quality. People love it, it cuts out the bullshit.”

  The bartender set out two carafes of wine and four small glasses. Cass nodded to the red, and Mickey joined her. Susie reached for the white. I waited until she filled herself to the rim, and then poured myself. I didn’t want either. I wanted a double Bulleit with a Stella back, but it didn’t seem Mickey was taking orders.

  He raised his glass. None of us moved in to clink.

  “To Vic,” said Mickey. “May he rest in peace.”

  “To Victor,” said Cass. “And to Carl.”

  “And to Carl. Good men, the best.” Setting down his glass, Mickey looked for Cass’s eyes and said, “You really don’t think their deaths could be connected, do you?”

  He had a wide, puffy face, the bulbous nose of a drinker, and a head of tight black curls. His body had the kind of bulk made to absorb hard living. Not handsome by any standard, but he carried himself with an animal confidence. He was a man who knew what he wanted, and knew how to get it. It took two swallows for him to finish his wine. I was already ahead of him. We reached for the carafes, poured ourselves refills, looked to the women before us. Susie was sulking with her shoulders curled in. She refused to look up at any of us. Just standing in our presence seemed to bring her physical pain. But Mickey held some kind of sway over her.

  “We’re sure their murders are connected,” said Cass.

  “Murders? Victor jumped. He killed himself,” said Mickey. “And poor Carl, they said it was a robbery gone wrong.”

  “We don’t think so,” I said.

  He ignored me, kept his eyes on my partner.

  “Victor didn’t jump, Mickey,” she said. “He was pushed.”

  “Why? Who would . . .” He looked away and stared at himself in the distressed mirror behind the bottles. He gulped from his glass and wiped at his stained lips.

  “You knew them both,” I said. “You knew what they were working on. I’m told it was you that introduced them, that you suggested Victor write about Carl.”

  Mickey kept regarding his reflection. Without turning his head, he said, “I’m sorry, why are you here again?”

  “I told you,” said Cass.

  “No, I meant your friend. Why is he here? To come into my place and drink my wine and insinuate . . . What is it you’re trying to say? Two of my friends die, within a few days of each other, and you think I had something to do with it?”

  “Throw him out,” said Susie, perking up at his flash of anger. “Throw them both out. She’s a whore and he’s a rude prick.”

  “Remember what I told you about name-calling?” I asked. “I know you’re a crazy bitch, but are you stupid too?”

  Mickey squared his shoulders toward me. He drank his wine, raised the glass, and flung it down on the marble floor. The sound of it shattering silenced the room. “This woman is a sister to me,” he said. “You mouth off like that and we’re going to have a serious problem, my friend.”

  I stared back at him. Took a sip of my wine and mimicked his raised-glass display. Then I threw it down and took a step forward.

  Mickey let out a low growl and lunged forward and tried to grab me by the shirt. I caught him by both wrists, stepped back, and used his own momentum to pull him forward and flip him over. It was a simple aikido progression, subduing a large, impulsive attacker. I stood over him and turned his wrists, made him feel how easily I could snap the tendons. Before I released him, Susie was on my back, clawing and hissing like an alley cat. I let go of Mickey and staggered forward against the bar. I felt Cass trying to peel her off, but Susie clung to me with vici
ous, feral intent.

  “That’s enough!” shouted a voice through the madness.

  I looked up to find the mustached bartender holding a. 38 Special in shaky hands. His thumb was on the hammer, his finger tight around the trigger. The damn thing was liable to fire at any moment in that amateur grasp.

  “Get the fuck out of my place,” wheezed Mickey from the floor.

  “You want me to call the cops, boss?” asked the bartender.

  “No need,” I said. “I’m leaving as soon as this bitch gets off my back. And your boss here is fine. I didn’t hurt him.”

  Susie released me and stepped away, no stranger to firearms. She was probably thinking the same thing as me: that finger needed to get off the trigger, fast. She raised her hands. Cass did the same. The room waited until the bartender figured out the threat was subdued. We let out a collective breath as he lowered the gun and set it behind the bar.

  “We’re going,” I said.

  I stepped over Mickey Knight’s heaving mass and walked out without meeting the eyes that followed me. My pulse was pumping from the unexpected altercation. I could have prevented it. I didn’t need to provoke them by name-calling, by tossing down my glass the same way. But folks like that need a gentle reminder at times. Their success, the arrogance it brings, does not grant them the right to bully everyone.

  Though I suppose I wasn’t much different. I was a bully without money, abusing a martial art to humiliate a guy who’d achieved more than I ever would. Still, I had a feeling I’d done his staff a favor, and not just those on hand to witness it. Word would spread among his restaurants. Waiters and chefs and managers would talk at family meals and over late-night drinks and blow, and they’d toast to that little episode. You’re welcome. It always felt good to use the aikido again too. I didn’t practice enough anymore. My trips to the dojo were infrequent. I needed to get back there, before my own arrogance in my black-belted abilities failed me.

  I waited outside for Cass. When she emerged, she was not pleased to find me waiting. A disgusted shake of the head, a lit Parliament, and she walked off. I tried to catch up, called, “I’m sorry! Wait up.” She didn’t stop until she reached Houston Street. She turned at the light and laid into me.

  “Asshole!” she shouted. “Did that make you feel good? Mister tough guy, breaking glasses, throwing him around like that, did that make you feel like more of a man?”

  “Cass, listen, he stepped into it first.”

  “Oh, so he started it? What are you, twelve?”

  “He’s a fucking bully,” I said. “He was trying to impress you. I didn’t like it.”

  “So you showed him? What, that you can beat up a fat fifty-year-old? Wow, Duck, you’re so badass.”

  “C’mon, Cass, it’s not like that. I didn’t even hurt him.”

  “It’s exactly like that,” she said. “And whatever we might have learned from him, we’re never gonna hear now.”

  “What did he say after I left?”

  “He said he was going to press charges, you dick. I stayed in there trying to convince him not to. Susie was begging him to call the cops.”

  “Please. I can’t be charged with anything,” I said. “I doubt there’s a scratch on him, and he made the first move.”

  “Well, he has a dozen people on his payroll who witnessed it. They might say otherwise. Susie certainly will.”

  “That chick is strong. She’s a lot more dangerous than he is.”

  “I’d like to know what she was doing there with him.”

  “Want me to go back in and ask?”

  “Fuck you, Duck.”

  “I jest,” I said. “Just trying to lighten the moment, partner.”

  The light changed and the WALK sign lit and Cass gave me a final disgusted look. Then she turned and crossed Houston, offering a raised middle finger in her wake.

  Chapter 19

  I stood on the corner like a scolded spouse. The sun was low in the sky and bright in my eyes. Traffic honked and sat and swore alongside construction in the middle of the street. A jackhammer pounded at the moods of pedestrians. I remembered an old alkie bar a few blocks down. A real shithole, the kind that opened at eight a.m. each morning and welcomed the same doomed crew. Milano’s—that was it. You could smell the decay of livers and dreams the moment you walked in. It was a place that made me feel better about myself. Drinking there would cause any man to reconsider his definition of “rock bottom.” It was a suitable venue for the moment.

  But before I could go abuse myself with my people, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I took it out and was surprised again to find a message from Juliette Cohen: My son would like to see you. Could you please come over?

  I considered a few pops before going, decided against it. There would be time for that after I saw the kid. I hailed a cab and told him to take Lafayette up. I offered a bow of the head as we passed David Bowie’s old place. When he died, after his silent, dignified battle with cancer a few years back, the city had embraced him as one of its own. He stood for the best of this town: eternal cool, sexy to all, private and proud, but, above all, stunningly creative and successful. It was that last word that most endeared him to New Yorkers. It was the prerequisite to the pantheon. You could be all the other adjectives you liked, but this city spit out failures. It priced them out and locked the doors with ruthless disregard. Sent them packing to cheaper towns, where maybe they could find their level. Bowie might have been British by birth, but he was a New Yorker by choice. He spent his final decades here and served as an ambassador in ways mayors or masters of the universe never could.

  I patted my pockets for headphones with a sudden urge to hear “The Jean Genie.” Finding none, I sat back and conjured the chorus in my head as we drove past Astor Place, went up Fourth Avenue, and turned a block before Union Square.

  The cab let me off behind a cop car in front of Juliette’s building. There was a doorman waiting outside, and another behind the lobby desk. I recognized neither. When I told them whom I was there to see, they stiffened. The muscles in their back and neck didn’t relax until they called upstairs and listened to Ms. Cohen approve my arrival. I was escorted past the overpriced abstract art to the elevator in the back. One of the new doormen joined me on my ride up. I asked him his name. He ignored me.

  The doors opened onto a pair of heavies standing in the entry foyer. They looked like retired linebackers still obsessed with weight rooms and a low-fun diet. Arms like thighs, barreled chests. Necks nonexistent. One was white, early thirties; one black, around forty. The older one had gold hoops in both ears and a scar that stretched like a headband over his scalp. The younger one came over and patted me down without introducing himself. Finding nothing, he stepped back and nodded to his boss.

  “She’s in the back,” he said. “In her room.”

  I moved past them and walked down the hall toward the bedrooms. Passed the housekeeper, Lucia, in the kitchen. She frowned when I pointed back at the company. Stevie’s room was on the other side of the apartment. I considered tiptoeing past Juliette and going to see him. But figured that would be frowned upon by the lady of the house. I knocked once and cracked her door.

  She was halfway dressed, in a pleated green skirt and black lace bra. Calves and stomach and shoulders bare, every surface smooth and toned. Her blond hair was swept up, drawing attention to her neck, where I’d spent stretches licking and nibbling the warm flesh. It would become mottled the more she became turned on, until she would grab me by the ears and force me down.

  Juliette seemed to read my thoughts. She rolled back her shoulders and thrust out her chest, and with a wicked look she said, “Don’t go getting any ideas, hotshot.”

  “I’m just here to see Stevie,” I said. “As you asked.” I tried to ignore the ache and the involuntary thickening in my jeans.

  “I know that glazed look you get. Like what you see, do you? Well, too bad for you.”

  “Where’d you find those two out there?” I aske
d.

  She picked up a black silk blouse from the bed and slipped her arms in and began to button it, a little slower than I thought necessary. She seemed to revel in the silence between us, pleased by the fact that she still held carnal power over me. The moods of any woman are a dark mystery, but Juliette’s mercurial states were on another spectrum. She claimed it wasn’t her fault, that it was genetics. She was a mix of Colombian and Italian. Her maiden name had been Fuoco. And, boy, could she burn. She could swing between seething hatred and the warmest embrace in seconds.

  “They’re ex SEALs,” she said. “Real beef hearts, aren’t they? Part of a company called Warrior Security, out of D.C. The older black one out there, Terrance, he runs it. He recruited a bunch of guys under his old command when they got out. I’m told they’re the best.”

  “By who?”

  “By people who know these things,” she said. “I have no faith in public servants, and I thought current circumstances were a little beyond your grade.”

  “No offense taken.”

  She finished buttoning her blouse and raised a hand to her neck. She traced manicured nails along the skin without taking her eyes from me. “You missed me, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “I’m worried about you,” I said. “About you and Stevie. I’m sorry for all of this.”

  She took a step closer, smiled. “You certainly owe us some apologies,” she said. Another step. Her hand rose to her mouth. She tapped her lips with an index finger. “How’s your partner?” she asked.

  “In mourning,” I said. “We just had a difficult meeting with Mickey Knight.”

  “The restaurateur? God, what a revolting man. I heard he raped one of his waitresses and paid her off. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been Me-Too’d yet.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Why were you meeting with him?”

  “He was friends with her dead ex,” I said. “Now he’s the executor of his estate. We were trying to ask him some questions. The dead guy’s sister was there too. We had an altercation. It was nothing, but he’s threatening to press charges.”