Who is Teddy Villanova?

by Thomas Berger

  I was at last struck by our divergence of purposes. “That’s a filthy trick!”

  “Murder is a dirty business,” he stated flatly, abandoning his erudite idiom for the TV cliche. “Some of it rubs off on us, but like they say, ‘Next time you’re mugged, call a hippie.’”

  Knox produced a notebook and prepared a Hardhead Flair for service.

  “This is ludicrous,” said I. Knox wrote that down, I assume; at least he scribbled something and continued to move his pen as I went on. As succinctly as I could, I related the events of my day, omitting only any reference to my gun. Zwingli listened impatiently for a moment and then, squatting again, returned to the examination of my tumbled library. Nevertheless, I finished my story for Knox’s transcription, concluding with a suggestion that a verification of my whereabouts during the time of Bakewell’s murder should be sought from Peggy Tumulty; and for the period immediately thereafter, from Sam Polidor, Donald Washburn II, and the secretary of Ganymede Press.

  At the last name Knox raised his oxhead and said: “My old lady’s got one of them pressure cookers. There’s a cute story goes with it. It seems…” And so for the third time I heard that sickening anecdote.

  When that was done, I lifted my bound wrists off my sacroiliac, making a pigeon chest for a moment in an effort to stretch. It is unpleasant to wear real handcuffs for more than the instant it takes to understand they are not the toy kind which can be tripped open with extended thumbs.

  “That’s it,” said I. “But I’ll be glad to answer any further questions.”

  Zwingli dropped one volume of the three comprising Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and standing erect, literary again, began to recite:

  “Take oh take those lips away

  That so sweetly were forsworn…”

  His dreamy look then suddenly turned hard. “All right, now tell us what really happened.”

  I craned my neck and eyed the surface of Knox’s notebook, seeing only several games of ticktacktoe, the latest of which he finished as I watched, with a final neat little X that was something of a surprise given his burly person.

  I then began to shout, and Zwingli winced and raised his wiry hands.

  “Once again,” said he, “my prayer that a suspect will exercise his right of silence has not been answered.” He peered at my chin. “I tend too often to rest in the thought of two and only two absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.”

  I suspected this was a quotation from some celebrated thinker, and not Zwingli’s own, but I had a greater problem at the moment than the detection of plagiarism.

  “Must I go through the whole story again? It won’t change, I assure you.”

  Zwingli continued to study me. “You give up?” said he at last. “John Henry Newman.”

  For a moment I believed he had mentioned a new suspect or victim. “…Oh, you mean the author of the Apologia pro Vita Sua?”

  “O.K.,” he replied, “you got the title. That’s half a point. I’ve been looking through your library, and I don’t mind telling you it is pretentious. No so-called light reading is in evidence. These are, to a volume, weighty tomes.” Moisture began to blur his eyes again, but he would not immediately remove it. “Frankly, whether you are Villanova or Wren is a matter of small consequence to me. If you killed the great big man, we’ll either prove it or we won’t. It is quite possible that we will not, for that matter. Citizens are not generally aware that most murders are never solved. I don’t have the statistics on that, but they are interesting…But what I can’t stand is a bogus intellectual, the type of man who would put up a wall full of highbrow literature so as to get into a girl’s pants.”

  My head reeled. “Wait a minute. You’ve got too many disparate strings in your knot. First, I’ve never met a girl who was impressed by anybody’s library—”

  Zwingli smiled and repeated, “Disparate…I don’t think I’ve ever heard that in conversation, at least not pronounced, correctly I gather, with the stress on the first syllable. You do have a way with words.” He scowled then. “But what I want is still more substantial proof. Therefore I intend to give you an oral examination consisting of ten quotations, chosen at random from your own books. For correctly identifying the author of each, you get half a point. Seven points is the lowest passing mark.”

  Why I fell in with his scheme, which was certainly another violation of my constitutional rights, I don’t know.Perhaps it was because I find quizzes irresistible. Also, I was offended by his doubts as to my sincerity in pursuing the life of the mind. He after all carried only the badge of a New York detective and not the M.A. (Oxon.) of, say, John Ruskin.

  “How about six points to pass?” I however pleaded. No one, not even Ruskin, could remember every sentence in every volume on his shelves.

  He taunted me: “Showing the white feather already?” But he sneeringly nodded his assent, and kneeled at the pile of books, his back towards me so that I could not see which he chose. Knox had sometime since lumbered away. He had found the suitcase in the closet now and was removing from it various items of wispy lingerie and sniggering.

  “O.K.,” said Zwingli, “here we go. Number One: “Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self-compassion.’”

  I saw no reason why I should be scrupulous, and while mumbling as if searching my memory, I stole quietly near his back and tried to see the book over his thin shoulder. I stupidly forgot to still my murmur when I drew close to him, however, and, though without turning, he upbraided me.

  “I knew you were a phony!”

  I retreated. “No, I’m not. That’s Emerson, Self-Reliance.”

  “Ha!” cackled Zwingli. “It’s Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft.”

  “Good gravy,” I said, unconsciously echoing Washburn. “I forgot I even owned that.”

  He rustled some pages in a new volume. “Oh, this is priceless: ‘Nothing has been so much part of one as that which turns into excrement.’”

  But now it was I who exulted, snorting and chuckling to the degree that he turned and gave me a hairy side of face above which stared a bleak eye.

  “Touche pour moi!” I gloated. “Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power.”

  Sourly, silently he averted his countenance. “One full point.” Again the susurrus of pages. Then: “‘How much do you think Homer got for his Iliad? or Dante for his Paradise?—only bitter bread and salt and going up and down other people’s stairs.’”

  Speak of the devil, that was, of course, John Ruskin, and luckily I owned only one book of his authorship, though his collected ceuvres comprise something like thirty royal-octavo volumes, an astonishing mass of work for the typewriterless age of Victoria; but I believe he was sexually inept, which is why his child-wife ran off with John Everett Millais, dauber-laureate of the bourgeoisie.

  “Ruskin’s Crown of Wild Olive!” I crowed at Zwingli’s nappy head.

  He stood up, holding the book, which was closed onto one finger. “We don’t have to go any farther. I was ready to swear you wouldn’t get a one. I want you to know I played fair and only chose passages you had underlined.”

  “Ah,” said I. “That explains the Gissing. I bought it used, and the markings in it were made by my predecessor.”

  He wore a strange smile. “That was my surmise. The name ‘Gordon C. Rossbach’ appears on the flyleaf. Whereas in both the Canetti and this Ruskin, you have written your own name.” His smile became broader, showing teeth stained as if with tobacco, though he had not smoked since entering. He flipped open the book he held and showed me. There it was: T. Villanova.

  Refusing to panic, I held the flyleaf at an angle against the light and looked for traces of the ink remover that had undoubtedly been used to eradicate the “Russel Wren” and date of purchase that I inscribe in every book I buy. Finding none, I demanded that he take the volume to the police laboratory for chemical or ultraviolet examination.

  “Why?�
� he asked. “Why don’t you abandon this ridiculous effort to be pseudonymous?” He got out a key and unlocked my handcuffs. “We don’t have any evidence that you killed that man. As you say—or did you?—anybody could have a corpse foisted on him nowadays. Good luck with your writing.”

  Rubbing my wrists, I watched him leave the apartment in his shambling stride. His style seemed eccentric in the extreme, but it was no doubt a gain for society that the stinking cigar, the snap-brim fedora, and the rubber hose were no longer among the inevitable implements of crime detection.

  No sooner had I made that tentative judgment, however, than old-fashioned Knox, from behind and without warning, disabled me with an awful blow above the right kidney, and I descended to meet the floor with knees and forehead.

  Despite the pain, I was able to reflect that he and Zwingli were practicing the time-hallowed technique of Mr. Good Guy vs. Mr. Bad, which had no doubt resulted in many triumphs of law enforcement over the years. If after Zwingli’s praise for my playwriting I was ready to be led off to jail, I was inclined for another motive to cooperate with Knox: as a man of the spirit I respect nothing more than brutal violence.

  Before I could make that clear to the stocky detective, however, he fetched me a kick in the fundament that brought me in contact with the floor along my entire length.

  Then he bestrode my body and said to it: “One thing I can’t stand is a white pimp.” He shouted in another direction. “Ain’t that right, Calvin?”

  An answer came from the region of the kitchenette, in what was obviously a gross and unbelievable parody of a black field-hand’s drawl: “Dass rat, massa.”

  I turned my head to that side and was startled to see that however counterfeit it had come from a black detective.

  Knox walked over me and said: “He’s worse than I am. All his sisters are in the life.” His voice did not have a hint of smile in it; but the Negro laughed until he cried, and added: “You forgot my mama!”

  “All right,” Knox said to me. “Get up, and if you trip again, don’t never claim I touched you.” Without understanding that it made a hash of logic, he added: “Or I’ll hurt you real bad…The doorman told us all about it. You run this operation for three weeks. You got five-six girls he knows about. Here’s the way I see it: the big fellow was a customer. He asks the little lady for something she don’t want to do even if she’s a whore. She refuses. He gets tough, starts to work her over. You was here, maybe behind them doors in the kitchenette. You come out, but he don’t care. He’s got almost a foot on you and a couple hundred pounds. You pull your piece and threaten him with it, but by now he’s like a mad dog, and you got no choice but to drop him. You might get off on self-defense, but you keep a brothel—and he might be a respectable businessman or something. You’re scared. Then the girl runs away. You panic now. You hide the body in the tub. The doorman sees the girl rush out into the street wearing only panty hose”—Knox flipped past the ticktacktoe games in his notebook and peered at the hen tracks on another page—“L’Eggs Sheer Energy, he said the brand looked like…He suspects something’s wrong. He gets you on the house phone. You’re rattled, and you confess right away.”

  This had long since got too preposterous to think of answering in detail. To show my contempt, I turned towards the black cop, who had come over from the kitchenette with the tin of pâté de foie gras.

  “Sir,” I said with conspicuous respect, “do you really think those racial slurs are funny, or could they be only the same old bigotry in a new guise, and even more vicious because—”

  He struck me in the mouth, though not, thankfully, with the hand that held the canned delicacy from Strasbourg. No teeth were loosened, but a salty taste seemed to indicate that my lip was split.

  Zwingli suddenly appeared again. He had stolen up silently behind me. He put his hand in the crook of my elbow and his mouth so close to my ear that his beard tickled me and I writhed away. But though he seemed in an advanced state of physical degeneration, he was remarkably strong in more than his breath. He pulled me back with such force that I fell onto him backwards, my head on his shoulder. He also subtly twisted my arm so that I could not have moved without spraining it to the shoulder.

  The greasy lichen-growth of his cheek was loathsome against my face. For a desperate moment I thought he might passionately glue his lips to mine in the interests of some further filthy ruse, but his hot mouth traveled to my ear, and he whispered: “Trust me.”

  He thrust his chin towards Knox and said: “The pimping can be dropped: we’re not the pussy posse. And I don’t know that even Murder Two would stick. The great big man did assault somebody: he’s got hair and skin under his fingernails and there’s blood on his signet ring, probably not his own. A man that size is a deadly weapon himself. A self-defense plea would probably hold.”

  Knox glowered and shook his head. “I don’t know. I think we should hit this scumbag with everything.”

  While I was still at the eccentric angle, Zwingli without warning let me go. It took quick measures to regain my footing. He drew Knox aside for an undertoned colloquy.

  The black detective showed me the tin. “The key is missing,” said he. “And I doubt your regular can opener can get a purchase on a container of this peculiar shape. That’s what puzzles me.” He snapped his fingers. “Of course: a needle-nosed pliers is your answer. Grasp the little tab and peel away the ribbon of metal.”

  He had put this nicely, but I decided that he was too willful for me to chance another attempt to converse with him, even on such a morally neutral subject. However, the decision to remain silent also proved impolitic.

  He snarled: “Are you so depraved that you cannot even be civil?” He took a blackjack from a rear pocket and brandished it. “I might just submit you to the bastinado.’

  Whether the situation was as sticky as it seemed—he was grinning, though cruelly—it was not allowed to develop further, owing to Zwingli’s return at that moment. He too was grinning, and an unattractive sight it was: perhaps he had drunk red wine during his absence in the hallway.

  Knox now plodded away in what looked like furious disgruntlement.

  “He owed me a favor,” said my putative friend. “Are you lucky!”

  “Look at thisheer.” The swarthy sleuth displayed the pate to Zwingli. For some reason of his own he assumed a darky accent when talking to his colleagues. “He don’t live on Hamburger Helper. Not this motherfucker.” Uttering a series of yaks, he shuffled away.

  Zwingli whispered confidentially: “God, that spade gets under my skin…Look, I went way out on a limb for you. Now you owe me something. Give me the stuff, and we’ll drop the rest of it.” He shrugged. “Simple as that.”

  “What stuff?”

  He sighed. “All right, I’ll play along with your professional interest in vocabulary. What do you want me to call it? ‘Smack’ or ‘horse’ or ‘H’ or ‘shit’?” He put a dirty finger on my chest. “Though I should advise you that nobody in the real world uses those terms. I’ve never heard a pro call it anything but heroin.” The subject seemed to exercise him. “As with the word ‘piece’ for a gun. Nobody ever says that.”

  “Knox just did.”

  “Oh, maybe for a joke,” said Zwingli, jerking his messy little face.

  Now I was struck by the essential force of his previous speech. “Heroin!”

  He seized my arm. “Shh. Keep it down.” He peered around at Knox and Calvin, who stared at us. He waved a rejection at them.

  To me he said: “This is just between you and yours truly.”

  “I have never seen so much as a pinch of heroin my life long,” I whined. “I wouldn’t know where to get any, and I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had some. I realize it bulks large in our popular culture, if one goes by television, motion pictures, and every type of periodical journalism, but to me it is as theoretical as the gold for which the old alchemists searched, or as the unicorn or the drag—”

  “How can you talk
that rot,” he asked desperately,“when you can see I’m dying for a fix—I mean, an injection?” “You?”

  “Alas,” he confessed in a tragical tone, “if you continue to break eggs to make omelets, some slime will get onto your hands. It starts by finding a quantity of white powder in the possession of a suspected user. You test it on the tip of your tongue to determine whether it might be mere talcum powder or sugar. You do this long enough and you get enough of the real stuff to acquire a certain taste for it. Then you go further: you shoot up. You like the subsequent release from care.” He jabbed me in the ribs. “Are you following this? You begin to suspect that the nirvana for which we all search, that sleep that all life is rounded with is—well, as Hopkins tells us, ‘All life death doth end and each day dies with sleep’—”

  “Are you saying that you are a heroin addict?”

  My voice had been too loud once more, and again he cautioned me. Then he whispered indignantly: “I trust you’re not getting moralistic. You know as well as I that the great big man was Giaccomo Cozzo, alias Jake the Wop, Big Jake, Big Jack, Big Dick, however you knew him. He was a major dealer, and he was here for more than a golden shower from some hooker.”

  Zwingli’s trick of turning without warning from the cultivated speech he prided himself on to some base jargon again took me by surprise.

  “I have already told you that I’m involved in these dreadful matters only by accident. I don’t know Cozzo, who called himself Bakewell when he burst into my office this morning and struck me in the frontal bone. I don’t keep a brothel, et cetera, et cetera, and if a prostitute has been using my apartment to urinate on customers, or to refuse to, I haven’t been aware of it. I’m not a junkie, either, and still less a dealer. I have occasionally taken a drag on a joint, I mean a draught from a marijuana cigarette, when with a girl who smoked it, but far from disordering my apprehension of reality, it has had little effect except to make me cough, because of the profound inhalations one is exhorted to take, probably for ritualistic motives in support of the communal mystique.”