by Len Levinson
Embarrassed, she burrowed her face into his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Is it in right this time?”
“I think so.”
‘‘You’re the only girl I ever met in my life who didn’t know how to put her diaphragm in right.”
“I can’t help it, Danny.”
“Why don’t you get your act together, Francie?”
“I do have my act together.”
They kissed, rubbing against each other, touching, moaning, getting dizzy. Across the room Ziggy ran on his treadmill. Somebody was yelling in the next apartment, and a car horn blew on the street below.
“Your diaphragm isn’t in right, Francie.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because it’s supposed to be in deeper than it is right now.”
“Why don’t you fix it for me?”
“I don’t know where it’s supposed to go.”
“I did it the way my gynecologist told me to do it. Of course, she was very busy at the time.”
“You wouldn’t be trying to get pregnant by any chance, would you?”
She widened her eyes. “NO!”
“It seems to me that a woman who didn’t want to get pregnant would be more careful about the way she put in her diaphragm.”
“What would I want to get pregnant for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe so that I’d have to marry you?”
“I wouldn’t do such a thing so that you’d marry me.”
“Maybe not consciously, but in your unconscious little female mind I think you might. You can’t deny that you’d like to get married to me.”
“I don’t deny it. I’m in love with you. But you’re not in love with me.”
“I told you that I don’t believe in that baloney anymore.”
“I wish I’d met you before you met your two wives. Why is it that I keep meeting men who’ve been destroyed by other women?”
“I don’t know, Francie. Why don’t you fix your diaphragm?”
“I’m embarrassed.”
“Then go to the bathroom and fix it.”
She pulled up her underpants, stood, and walked across the living room to the bathroom. Pausing at the bathroom door, she gave him a wink, then went inside.
Chapter Six
Jackie Doolan’s clothes were tattered and his bare feet could be seen through the holes in the tops of his shoes. He’d cut the holes himself with his knife because the shoes had been too tight. Now they felt real good as he shuffled along East Ninth Street in an old tenement neighborhood for the next constellation of garbage cans in front of the building straight ahead. It was ten o’clock in the evening.
Jackie Doolan was fifty-five years old and a chronic alcoholic. He’d been on the bum for twenty years and functioned quite resourcefully at that level. One of his survival strategies was the ransacking of garbage cans for leftover bits of food and other items that he could wear or sell, stuffing them into the burlap bag slung over his shoulder. His vision wasn’t too good and his brain was pickled but he could distinguish a sardine from a piece of cat shit at twenty paces.
A streetlamp shone over his shoulder as he stopped in front of the garbage cans and put down his burlap bag. His nose had been broken in a street fight many years ago and his face was streaked with filth. Perched on the back of his head was a battered old fedora that he’d found in a trashcan last week. His grimy matted hair fell down over his wolfish eyes.
He lifted the lid off the garbage can and saw a paper bag full of garbage. Opening the top of it, his face lit up at the sight of a piece of fat with some meat on it. With his greasy fingers he brushed cigarette ashes off the lump of food and popped it into his mouth, chewing with the few teeth he had left. It was tender and juicy; must have come from an expensive piece of meat. He sifted through the rest of the garbage, finding a few more pieces of fat and some bones. Taking a plastic baggie out of his pocket, he put the meat into it, then dropped the baggie into his burlap sack.
He lifted the garbage bag out of the pail and saw another bag beneath it. At its top were some cigarette butts that only had been smoked halfway down. With trembling hands he put one of the butts to his lips, took a book of matches out of his pants pocket, lit up, and took a puff, holding the butt daintily in his fingers. His head swam for a moment as the nicotine hit his blood stream, so he inhaled again deeply, savoring the feeling. If only he could find cigarettes more often, he thought, it wouldn’t be so bad.
He blinked and saw a paper bag leaning against the iron fence in back of the garbage can. He probably wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t fallen down. You never know what’s going to bring you good luck, he thought with a silly grin. Reaching over, he pulled the bag toward him and opened it up. There were banana peels and tin cans inside. He pawed at the stuff gingerly, so as not to cut his fingers on the cans, and perceived that there were some rags underneath.
Standing, he emptied the tin cans and banana peels into another garbage can, then sniffed the rags at the bottom of the bag. They didn’t smell of paint or turpentine. Might be good for something. He reached into the bag, grabbed the rags, and pulled. The bag nearly slipped out of his arm and he realized it was one big piece of cloth, not little rags. Peering inside the bag, he could see that the cloth was wool with big red and black squares. Impatient to see the booty, he tore open the bag and held the cloth in the air. It was a jacket, a nice jacket like lumberjacks and dockworkers wore. But there must be something wrong with it: nobody would throw away a nice jacket like this. He held it in the light of the streetlamp. There were no tears and no holes. It didn’t smell too bad and was perfectly fine except for the stain on the left sleeve. A stain wouldn’t hurt anything.
He put on the jacket and looked at himself.
It was a little too big but that was no problem. He could wear it until the weather got warm, and then get three bucks for it at one of those used clothes places on the Bowery. For three bucks he could get a bottle of muscatel and drink himself into a stupor.
“Hey—whataya doin’ down there!”
Jackie Doolan looked up the stoop and saw a big guy with blonde hair. “I’m just lookin’ around.”
“Get the fuck out of here before I break your ass, you goddamn bum!”
“I ain’t hurtin’ nobody,” Jackie whined.
The man on the stoop pointed his finger. “You’re makin’ a mess on the sidewalk you cocksucker bastard and I’m the one who’ll have to clean it up! Get the fuck movin’!”
“Aw shit,” Jackie mumbled, because he really wanted to search through the other garbage cans in front of that building. It had been a big score so far and he just knew there were more valuable and edible things in the other cans.
The man took a step down toward him and made a fist. “I said move your fuckin’ stinkin’ ass.”
Jackie grimaced and slung his burlap bag over his shoulder. Some people won’t let a man live, he thought as he shuffled away. They won’t even let you have their garbage.
Chapter Seven
It was five o’clock in the afternoon four days later on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village, Patrolman Anthony Benelli and Patrolman George Shussler stood at the corner of Seventh Avenue, twirling their billy clubs and having a conversation. Benelli had black hair that covered his ears, and Shussler wore a thick brown mustache.
Walking past the street corner were pretty young girls, local businessmen dressed like hippies, and local characters. Benelli and Shussler looked at them while speculating on the terms of the contract currently under negotiation between the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association and the City.
“We oughta have a clause that guarantees no more layoffs,” Shussler said.
“Yeah,” agreed Benelli, “and they oughta restore the overtime clause we had in our other contract.”
Benelli noticed an old bum searching through trash barrels a short way down Barrow Street. He told Shussler that
he thought the Civilian Review Board ought to be done away with.
The bum finished with the trash barrels and stumbled toward the two cops. Benelli’s trained eyes checked him out, noticing the red and black wool jacket too big for him, wondering where he had stolen it from. Then he saw the bloodstain on the sleeve. To an ordinary citizen the bloodstain might look like dried coffee or vomit, but Benelli had seen lots of blood in his professional career and knew what it looked like in its various forms.
“Hey, pick up on the bird in the bloody jacket,” Benelli said.
Shussler focused on the bum. “Looks like somebody must’ve busted the poor fucker in the snoot.”
Benelli wrinkled his forehead. “Wasn’t there something on an APB about a red and black wool jacket?”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “The Slasher’s jacket—But that bummo doesn’t fit the Slasher’s description.”
“The jacket does.” Benelli waited until the bum came closer, then pointed to him and said, “Hey you!”
Jackie Doolan looked at the cop through his old rheumy eyes, then looked around to see if he meant somebody else. “Me?”
“Yeah you. C’mere.”
“I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
“Nobody said you did. C’mere.”
Jackie Doolan huddled in the collar of his jacket and crab-stepped toward the two cops. “I ain’t done nothin’,” he repeated.
“Where’d you get that jacket?” Benelli asked.
Doolan pinched the stained sleeve. “You mean this jacket here?”
“No, I mean that one up there.” Benelli pointed to the sky.
Doolan looked up and squinted. “I don’t see no jacket up there.”
“I’m talking about the one you got on. What’s your name?”
“Jackie Doolan.”
“Where’d you get that jacket, Doolan?”
“This one here?”
“That one there.”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“Then where’d you get it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you buy it?”
“Yeah, I bought it. I think.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Where’d the blood on the sleeve come from?”
“What blood?”
Benelli pointed to the sleeve. “That blood.”
Doolan looked and wrinkled his nose. “Is that blood?”
“Yeah, that’s blood.”
“I don’t know where it came from.”
“How come you bought the jacket too big for you?”
“Huh?”
“I don’t think you bought that jacket, Doolan. I think you stole it. We’re gonna have to take you over to the precinct house.”
Doolan’s eyes darted around frantically. “I didn’t steal it—honest!”
“Then where’d you buy it?”
“I didn’t buy it. I found it.”
“Where?”
“In a garbage can someplace.”
“Whereabouts?”
“I don’t remember.” A bit of saliva oozed out the corner of Doolan’s mouth.
“East side? West side? Uptown? The Village? Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
Benelli looked at Shussler. “We’d better take him to the precinct and let the guys from Midtown North figure out what to do with him.”
Chapter Eight
Rackman drove his unmarked Plymouth into the lot behind the new Sixth Precinct building on West Tenth Street in Greenwich Village. He entered the station house and walked to the sergeant’s desk. “I’m Detective Rackman from Midtown North. I understand you’ve got a suspect for me here.”
“Upstairs in the Detective Division.”
Rackman climbed the stairs and walked down the hall. The Sixth Precinct detectives had private cubicles, and Rackman found the one he wanted. The detective inside looked up, and Rackman recognized Burt Vickers, who’d been a patrolman with him in the Twenty-first Precinct of Brooklyn. They greeted each other noisily and shook hands.
“I just got a call that you’ve got a suspect for me in the Slasher case,” Rackman said.
“He’s not a suspect exactly,” replied Vickers, who had a five o’clock shadow that usually came out around noon. “But he’s wearing a jacket like the one in the APB and it’s got blood on the sleeve. C’mon, I’ll take you to the property room.”
They went downstairs to the basement, and Rackman signed for the jacket. He held it up in the air. “This is a pretty big jacket.” He looked at the collar, and it was a size 46. “Is the guy real big?”
“Naw, he’s a scarecrow and a bum. I’ll show him to you.”
“You charge him with anything?”
“He’s just a material witness so far.”
They walked down the corridor to the cellblock, which had glazed white brick walls and smelled of antiseptic. Vickers got the key from the sergeant on duty and unlocked the cell. Jackie Doolan was lying on a cot with his arm over his eyes. He needed a drink real bad.
“Sit up,” Rackman ordered.
Doolan pushed himself erect and swung his feet onto the floor. He looked at the two detectives and thought how awful it was that a person could be picked up off the street and locked up for nothing.
“What’s your name?” Rackman asked.
“Jackie Doolan.”
Rackman held up the jacket. “Where’d you get this?”
“It’s mine.” Doolan’s lips quivered and snot ran out of his nose.
“I know it’s yours, but where did you get it?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“I dunno.”
“You must have some kind of idea.”
“I need a drink.”
“I need to know where you got this jacket.”
“I can’t remember.”
“You’d better think about it if you want to get out of here. I’ll be back to see you in a little while.”
Rackman and Vickers left the cellblock and went upstairs to the main room of the station house. Rackman used the desk sergeant’s phone and called Inspector Jenkins. He told Jenkins he was taking the jacket to the lab to determine whose blood was on it, and requested that someone pick up Doolan and transfer him to Midtown North.
Rackman carried the jacket with the tips of his fingers out to his car and threw it onto the back seat. He drove across town to Broadway and downtown to police headquarters. In the lab, he told a technician that he wanted to know if the blood on the jacket matched the blood of Rene LeDoux. While the tests were taking place, Rackman sat in the waiting room, smoking cigarettes and hoping the blood was Rene LeDoux’s, so he could have a clue to the Slasher’s identity.
An hour later the technician came to the waiting room. “The blood samples match,” he said.
Rackman took the technician’s report and the jacket to Midtown North, stopping first in Jenkins’ office to apprise him of the lab finding.
Jenkins sat behind his desk and toyed with a ballpoint pen, his face betraying no emotion at the news. When Rackman was finished, Jenkins said, “You gotta squeeze that little scumbag until he remembers where he found the jacket.’’
Rackman went down to the basement and told the guard to let him into Doolan’s cell. The guard unlocked the bars and Rackman stepped into the odor of Doolan’s clogged commode. Graffiti and garish drawings covered the walls, and Doolan lay on his cot, quivering and drooling. Rackman leaned over him and shook his shoulder. “Wake up, Doolan. Your country needs you.”
Doolan unsheathed his eyes. “Huh?”
“Get up.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m sick.”
“I know what you need. A bottle of wine. Am I right or wrong?”
“You’re right.”
“Come with me and I’ll get you one.”
Doolan raised himself on one elbow. “You will?”
&n
bsp; “Sure.”
Doolan dragged himself to his feet and ran his fingers through his greasy hair before putting on his old fedora. His breath smelled almost as bad as the commode. “My favorite is muscatel.”
“Then it’s muscatel you’ll have. Come with me.”
Rackman and Doolan walked out of Midtown North and got into Rackman’s unmarked Plymouth. Doolan furrowed his brow and tried to make sense of the weird events that had befallen him during the past few hours, as Rackman drove around the corner to a liquor store on Ninth Avenue. Rackman double-parked in front of the liquor store, helped Doolan out of his seat, and together they approached the door. Dusk was falling on Manhattan, and the store had its neon lights on.
The proprietor of the liquor store wrinkled his nose when he saw Doolan wobble into his establishment. He was about to throw him out but then realized he was in the company of Rackman.
“Where do you keep your wine?” Rackman asked the proprietor, who wore a gray cotton jacket and looked like he should be a teller in a bank.
“Over there,” the proprietor replied, pointing to a section of shelves.
Rackman dragged Doolan to the shelves and pointed to the bottles. “Which one you want, champ?”
Doolan squinted at the bottles and went weak in the knees. “Muscatel.”
“Any particular brand?”
“Just muscatel.”
Rackman took down two pints of a moderately priced domestic muscatel and carried them to the proprietor, whom he paid. Rackman and Doolan went to the car and got in, while the proprietor just watched them through the front window of his store, wondering what their story was.
Rackman stashed the two bottles under his seat and started up the engine.
“Can’t I have some now?” Doolan asked pathetically.
“Wait until we get around the corner.”
With a shudder and a growl, Doolan scrambled toward the bottles under the seat. Rackman picked him up and flung him back in place.
“Stay put over there,” Rackman ordered.
“Please . . .”
“Just hang on a few minutes more.”
Doolan dove under the seat again. Rackman pulled him up and realized he wouldn’t be permitted to drive unless he gave the bum some wine.
