Cold Blue Midnight

by Ed Gorman

  Five days ago, Jill had introduced Mitch to Marcy. They'd agreed that Mitch, with any time he could spare away from his socialite murder case, would check all the bars Eric Brooks had been known to hang out in. Mitch would look for the young woman who'd been in Eric's office. Jill had given him a detailed description of her. In the meantime, Marcy would go through the names and addresses of blue Volvo owners registered in and around Chicago.

  During this same time, Jill had virtually shut down her business. The press made it impossible for her to work. Either they were calling her (and getting her answering machine) or they were banging on her door (and getting no reply). Some of the more industrious ones followed her to the supermarket and mall and post office, ambushing her when she emerged from these places.

  They played just the angle she'd predicted they would:

  EX-WIFE OF SERIAL KILLER A KILLER HERSELF?

  Hints 'Mystery Woman' Can Prove Her Innocence

  It didn't hurt (from their point of view) that she was attractive, single, worked in what was considered a 'fashionable' occupation, and had once been associated with one of the state's wealthiest and most prominent families. All this made it easier to portray her as the femme fatale. They hinted darkly that Jill and Eric had been lovers as well as co-owners of the ad agency; and then there'd been a falling out, leading Jill to murder him. One TV station, in a news segment they called You Be The Judge, asked twenty-five people on the street if they thought that Jill had killed Eric. Twenty-three said yes; one said no; one wasn't sure. Jill had been convicted.

  Jill had spent a good portion of each day at her lawyer's, going over and over her story of the night Eric had been murdered. She'd talked about the man in the blue Volvo who'd been watching her house, and she'd talked about the young woman in Eric's office. And she'd talked, over and over again, about how unreal all this seemed. She was plain old Jill Coffey. Anybody who knew her, was aware that she could never kill anybody. Not plain old Jill Coffey.

  She eased the bathroom door open and waggled the front page of a morning newspaper at him. 'Guess who's on the front page again?'

  He turned, still shaving, toothbrush still in his mouth but finally done tinkling and looked at the story in the upper right-hand section, complete with a close-up shot of Jill that had been taken one night when she was all dressed up for an AIDS fund-raising ball. She looked beautiful. The headline read:

  BEAUTIFUL WOMEN WHO KILL

  'They've got me in with some good company, anyway. A few actresses remembering Andy Williams' wife who killed that skier she was having an affair with and several prominent society matrons.'

  'Those bastards.' He clicked off the shaver, set it down, took the toothbrush from his mouth, rinsed, spat and then walked over to her.

  He pulled her to him.

  She pushed him away. 'Oh God, no, Mitch. Morning mouth. Not fair. You've already brushed your teeth.'

  'Then give me a hug.'

  A hug she was willing to give him.

  He knew she was trying to be tough about it all but he could gauge by the slight frantic air of her derisive laughter as she'd shown him the newspaper how the assault by the press was taking its toll on her.

  They were convicting her long before she would ever come to trial, long before the police had a decent chance to find the real killer.

  He hugged her. Tight. 'Have I told you how much I love you?'

  She laughed. 'Not for five minutes.'

  'Well then, I'm overdue.'

  'Oh God, Mitch, I'd never make it through this without you. I really wouldn't.'

  She put her face deep into his neck and after a moment he could feel her soft warm little-girl tears.

  He held her more gently than he ever had before, trying to convey through the physical act of embracing all the tenderness and respect and abiding love he felt for her.

  ***

  God granted one of Marcy's wishes, anyway.

  She was able to find a rock and roll station that played, in order, 'My Sharona, Love Shack' and 'Give Me That Old-Time Rock And Roll'.

  She was pounding the dash and having a great time.

  The other wish He could have done a little better with, trying to match the James Coburn guy in the photo to the guy who lived in this house.

  Not even close. He was fat, bald, old.

  He came out of the side door of the house and ran with his head down against the whipping wind and slashing spiky snow toward the garage, where he emerged a few minutes later in his blue, four-door Volvo.

  Marcy gave him a few minutes to leave then headed back to her office.

  At least they kept on playing rock and roll.

  ***

  On the scale this morning, Cini weighed nine pounds more than she had exactly one week ago today.

  Didn't take her long to calculate that within two months, she'd be knocking on the door of the Whales Club and asking for re-admittance.

  Nine pounds in seven days. My Lord.

  She went out to the tiny kitchen and opened a box of powdered donuts and ate them.

  Then she went to the refrigerator and took out the Snickers King-Size she'd been keeping in the freezer. They slowed you down, frozen like that; felt as if they were going to crack all your teeth they were so hard.

  After that, she went into the living room and sat on the couch and bawled. 'Cried' was not the proper word, nor was 'sobbed' what Cini did was bawl. Like a six-year-old trying to understand why her dog has been run over. Everything was just so effing incomprehensible sometimes. Why had she let herself please that scumbag Eric that way, just so she could please that cold-hearted ass-bandit Michael? And why, of all nights, did she have to please Eric on the night he was being murdered? And why did she have to go back up to his office at the exact moment the killer was stabbing away with his scissors?

  Her life had actually been better when she'd been fat. She'd been an outcast, sure, but there were at least no terrible surprises in being an outcast. People smirked at you sometimes but mostly they left you alone. And your friends, unlike some worthless men she could name, never betrayed you or let you down. And inside your fortress of fat you felt safe and protected. Nobody could get to you. Not as long as you kept the walls of the fortress tall and deep.

  She hadn't been to class for over a week now, having spent her time in the apartment reading romantic suspense novels in which most of the heroines seemed to be extremely horny TV reporters, and making a daily foray out for thirty, forty dollars' worth of goodies. She chose a different store each day. It was too humiliating to let the same clerk in on her awful secret.

  Twice she'd forced herself to vomit, two days in a row she'd taken diuretics. But unlike bulimics, she did these things not so she could maintain her weight, she did them so that her stomach would have more capacity for food.

  She lay on her side on the couch and looked out her front window. Even at 9 a.m. it was dark as dusk. She could hear the snowplow in the street below, its motor obstinately pushing against piles of the white stuff. She could even hear its two-way radio inside, crackling loud.

  She kept thinking about last night.

  She'd almost done it.

  In fact, she'd gone as far as getting out of bed, putting on her robe, walking to the kitchen, picking up the wallphone and dialing the number of the nearest police station, which was on a sticker (along with ambulance and fire numbers) on the wall.

  A lady cop had answered, asked if she could help.

  And Cini almost said it.

  Almost said, 'You know that woman you think killed Eric Brooks? Well, she didn't. I saw the real killer. My name is Cini and I'm coming in.'

  But then, just when she was about to get the words out, she imagined the press reports of what she'd been doing up in Eric's office.

  All those horny women TV reporters in those trashy romance novels. They'd descend on her relentlessly.

  'Did you reallywell, you know, have oral sex with Eric?'

  'Do you usually have sex w
ith men you don't know? Don't you ever worry about AIDS?'

  'Were you always this promiscuous? Even when you were in high school?'

  And then the faces of her parents. God, that would be the worst thing of all. Something would die in their eyesrespect, maybe, or the hope of ever seeing their 'problem child' get her life straightened out. They would become old then, old of their humiliation, old of their despair, and they would open their arms to Death in hopes that there really was a better life beyond this one.

  She just couldn't do it to them.

  She felt sorry for Jill Coffey but she just couldn't to this to her parents.

  After awhile, she got up from the couch and went out to the kitchen and took down a fresh package of Oreos.

  And who could eat Oreos without a pint of French Vanilla Haagen Daz to go with them?

  She sat at the kitchen table and utterly destroyed both Oreos and ice cream and then she went back to the living room and turned on an old Perry Mason show and tried to guess whodunnit.

  A couple times more that morning, she thought again of calling the police, telling them the truth.

  But whenever the urge came, she'd trot out and grab a quick candy bar. And then the urge went away.

  ***

  Rick Corday was on the Stairmaster in the den when the call came. He'd been expecting it.

  ' 'lo.'

  'Rick. You looked out the window yet?'

  'I looked.'

  'No way I can fly in today.'

  'Convenient.'

  'Oh shit, Rick, I don't need this. I really don't'

  'Poor baby.'

  'Believe it or not, I'd like to be back there, sitting in our homenotice I said ''our" home, Rickhaving a nice sandwich and a glass of beer and watching one of those old sci-fi flicks you like so much. In fact, babe, why don't you go rent 'This Island Earth' and we'll watch it tomorrow, when I get in?'

  'I thought we had an understanding about "babe."'

  'Did I say "babe"?'

  'You said "babe."'

  'When?'

  'A little while back.'

  'I apologize, Rick. I truly apologize.'

  'That what you call all the guys you pick up in bars?'

  'Could you have a little fucking compassion, Rick? I've had a tough week.'

  'I bet.'

  'How're things going with Jill Coffey?'

  Rick said nothing. Scare the bastard a little.

  'Rick?'

  'They're going fine.'

  'Man, you had me worried there for a minute.'

  'I'll bet you really hate to see Chicago have a blizzard, don't you?'

  'Rick, this isn't'

  'Have to stay in New York one more day and hit all the bars. Sounds like real tough duty.'

  'I'm going now, Rick. I'd hoped we'd have a pleasant conversation.'

  'We're going to have a real serious conversation when you get back here.'

  'Yes we are, Rick. I want a real serious conversation just as much as you do.'

  'Unless you die in an airplane crash or something.'

  'Thanks, Rick. That's all I need. Somebody sending out that kind of karma.'

  Rick slammed down the phone.

  ***

  Arthur K. Halliwell came out of the bathroom feeling uncomfortable. Darned prostate gland, anyway. No matter how frequently you urinated, you never quite felt that you'd gotten it allnot when you had a chronic infection, you didn't.

  He returned to his office just as his secretary buzzed him that his banker was on line two.

  He picked up immediately.

  'Hello, Walter, good to hear your voice,' James B. Roehler said after Halliwell had greeted him.

  'Good to hear yours,' Halliwell said, unable to keep the note of irritation from his voice. This was no time for pleasantries. This was time for a simple yes or no.

  'You met with the loan committee?'

  'I did indeed, Walter.'

  'And they said what exactly?'

  'Walter, I'm afraid that'

  'Those bastards!'

  'Walter'

  'I helped build that bank. Me and my clients!'

  'Walter, please, listen'

  But Arthur K. Halliwell was in no mood to listen. None at all. He hung up.

  He sat for several long moments, half-dazed, half-confused, feeling his age in a way that was almost horrific. How did a dashing, handsome man turn into a feeble old man who was deaf in his left ear, got gas whenever he drank milk, and was growing cataracts?

  And who, even worse, was broke. Flat broke. Too many bad investments over the past ten years had done it. He was one of the few in his crowd to play all those late-eighties games and lose. All his other friends

  Now his arrangement with Adam Morrow was more important than ever.

  He reached an arthritic hand out to the phone.

  Felt the bloated bag of his prostate between his legs.

  Heard his breath wheeze in his windpipeand yet he'd never been a smoker.

  He did not want to die in humiliation.

  He needed money desperately.

  He tried Morrow's number again.

  All he got was that stupid answering machine.

  He slammed the receiver down, not once but eight times, again and again and again, until his secretary came to the door and said, 'Is everything all right, sir?'

  'Get out of here, you stupid bitch,' Arthur K. Halliwell snarled. 'Get out of here right now.'

  CHAPTER 55

  The dermatome is his most specialized instrument, one used to take skin from one part of the body and graft it onto another part. The surgery has been going seven hours now, the dermatome in constant use for the past two; for the first time the surgeon is beginning to see his work start to take shape, the way a portrait artist first glimpses the face on his canvas. Blood, pus, urine, the stench of human flesh burningthese are some of the vulgar realities of the craftbut the art… The surgeon pauses a moment in his work to admire what he's accomplished.

  ***

  STATEMENT

  The bars used to get to me, the singles bars along the Strip especially, the rainy Wednesday night just starting to roll. The first exultant beat of the disco music summoning the dancers to the floor. The first roaring snort of coke shared in both the men's and women's bathrooms. The first inkling in the minds of otherwise faithful wives out with girlfriends that maybe… just maybe… well, who can be faithful forever, right? And over it all a kind of despair… everybody knowing that soon enough their looks will be gone and the dancefloor given over to younger and prettier people… and that life will be measured out in paychecks and annual health checkups and the ever-increasing number of funerals one attends as one gets older. But if the music is loud enough… if the drugs are spellbinding enough… if the sex is hard and fast and explosive enough… well, then all these terrible intimations of age and grief can be held at bay for one boozy night.

  I was of them, the dancers, and yet not of them because I knew the secret: that it doesn't matter. That you can go out and carve up as many people as you want because memory passes so quickly… collective memory… generation unto generation. All those people coming out of Loop office buildings today, soon enough they'll all be gone and gone utterly and gone for ever… in the dust and ash of relentless Time… the Time I'm always so aware of… the Death I see in the faces of infants… the Smile, there at the last, on the faces of the women, as if they're glad to finally have it over with.

  And so turn the music up louder; and take an extra hit of coke; and cut her up real goodbutcher her, in factbecause in the end, despite all the bullshit the priests and the politicians try and fill us with, in the end, it doesn't matter.

  ***

  It just doesn't matter at all.

  CHAPTER 56

  Rick was back at Jill's place at 7 a.m. The media references to 'the mystery woman' and the inference that her former boyfriend Mitch was working on the case had made him curious. Was there really a 'mystery woman?' Could she truly prove
Jill's innocence?

  He decided to spend part of the morning following Mitch around, as he had the last two mornings.

  CHAPTER 57

  Mitch tended to remember neighborhoods by the murders that had been committed in them.

  This one, where the young woman Cini lived, had been the site of three rather spectacular shootings a few years ago. A Yale man, no less, had been the shooter. He'd come to Northwestern to visit his fiancee and found that she'd fallen in with people he didn't care for, college theater people, a black, a gay male and a gay femaleand one night during his four-night visit, the Yale man just went crazy and popped all three of them right in the living room.

  The houses that lined the street ran to variations on Victorian. Most of them appeared to be forty, fifty years old, the kind of rental properties that investors were always looking for. You couldn't go wrong renting to college kids in an overcrowded market. They'd pay premium rates and they'd put up with just about anything you pushed their way.

  The sun was out now and Mitch felt better. He'd read a piece in Time about the effects of cabin fever really being the result of lack of sunshine. He could believe it.

  On his way up the steps he noticed a squat little snowman complete with an old watchplaid hunting cap, scarf and broom held in extended snow hand. And one more thing: in addition to the eyes and nose and mouth made of tiny sticks, the artist had also endowed the snowman with a penis. A large dirty carrot shot from his crotch.

  There was probably some kind of city ordinance against this kind of thing, but what with the socialite murder still accounting for most of his time, Mitch figured he'd better not let Lieutenant Sievers find out he was busting snowmen.

  Cini lived in a graying, two-story Victorian with a downslanting porch and several strips of masking tape on each window to cover cracks.

  The vestibule smelled of dust, wet rubber snowshoes and cigarette smoke. He checked the mailbox then walked down a long dark narrow hallway toward a small window of light. Everything smelled old. You could smell the decades.