by Lolita Files
“So you are fishing for a sexual harassment suit.”
“It was just a piece of ass,” O’Hearn spat as he sat back in his chair.
The rookie was staring right at them. Jameson coughed and leaned toward O’Hearn.
“So of all the asses in Manhattan,” he whispered, “you had to go after one that worked for you.”
“She works for the precinct.”
“Which includes working for you.”
O’Hearn’s belly rumbled. He rested his palms on top of it, jiggling the meat. It was a beachball, an unnatural feature on an otherwise normal build.
“Listen, J. Rex,” he said, “never nail a broad over fifty. They don’t take letdowns too easy. Buncha vindictive bitches, they are.”
“Didn’t you say the same thing last week about that twenty-something you dumped?”
“Fuck ’em. They’re all crazy. Broads. If it wasn’t for fucking, I’d leave ’em alone.”
The rookie got up and left.
“You think she heard us?” O’Hearn asked.
“I almost think you wanted her to. That’s your ass on the line if she did, not mine.”
The captain waved it off.
“You got the right idea, Jameson, staying unencumbered and all.”
“It’s not by choice.”
“Still, better they should leave you than you leave them. You might get your heart broke, but at least you get to keep all your shit.”
O’Hearn’s stomach roared with impatience. He laughed as he patted the gelatinous meat.
“My better half calls.”
“Paula took everything,” said Jameson. “The whole place was empty when I came home.”
“Yeah? Well, fuck stuff. You can always get more. Least you have your dignity.”
Jameson pressed his lips together so tight, the blood drained away. He picked up the file.
“Mabel’s been off for hours. When did this come in?”
“This afternoon. I been sitting on it, waiting for you. I figured you’d be pulling another one of your double shifts. Seeing as this precinct seems to be your favorite place these days. Cheers.”
“Right. Thanks.”
O’Hearn stood. His stomach popped. He tapped the edge of the desk.
“Gotta go feed the beast. Want I should get you something?”
“Where you going?”
“That place around the corner with the hot bar. What do you want?”
“Some soup would be good.”
“What kind?”
“Anything, as long it’s not something creamy or with cheese.”
“Done.”
The captain was just about to disappear when Jameson called out.
“And a Pepsi. Cold.” He ran his tongue across his teeth again as he fingered the file and studied the name scrawled across the top. Unger, Beryl.
“Damn,” he muttered, dropping the file on his desk as he got up for another drink of water. “I can’t seem to get this fucking taste out of my mouth.”
Jameson needed something to pour himself into.
This had an odd feel to it. A missing girl and a fire? Unlike O’Hearn, he didn’t believe in coincidences.
Who was Unger, Beryl?
All he had was a photo, a clipping from a recent society page. Something in her twisted face spoke to him, begging his attention.
She deserved that much. Besides, he was curious. He was determined to find out who Beryl was and why she would suddenly just disappear.
There were no real leads at her apartment. Everything had been destroyed. He was hoping forensics could have salvaged something, maybe the hard drive on her computer, but the place was ruined. The computer had been melted to nothing. There were no leads on the teens who allegedly vandalized the building and set the fire.
“They were black,” said one resident who hadn’t seen anything firsthand, but was merely repeating a rumor in the building. “There were a bunch of them. They were looking for crack.”
Jameson contacted the contractors who had been working on Beryl’s apartment.
“How long have you been on this project?”
“At least three months,” said the lead guy, Mercury. “I’ve got all the permits, licenses, and paperwork, if you need to see them. It’s been a tough job. She changed her mind a lot.”
“How’s that?”
“As soon as we’d get everything done the way she wanted, she’d make us rip it out and do it again.”
Jameson scribbled on a notepad.
“Did she seem disturbed, troubled, anything like that?”
He could see Mercury thinking about it.
“Not really. She was just kinda high-strung. She changed her mind a lot. I guess you really can’t hold that against a person. We were on this job a lot longer than expected, and I know it must have been pretty annoying to her neighbors, even though we did all our work during the day.”
Jameson gave Mercury his card.
“Would you call me if you think of anything I might need to know?”
“Sure. What’s going on? We’ve been concerned. I’m used to her calling me at least once a day.”
“She’s been missing for a couple of weeks. We’re just investigating things to make sure there’s no foul play.”
“I need some help with this,” Jameson said.
“What kind of help?” asked O’Hearn. “What’ve you got so far?”
“Not much. Basic background stuff, but nothing really out of the ordinary.” He slid into the chair in front of his boss’s desk. “I’ve got a shitload of e-mails that she’s sent from her computer at home to people at her office, but nothing rings odd in any of it.”
“That’s it?” O’Hearn crammed a whole cruller into his mouth, talking around the words. “A bunch of fucking e-mails?”
“She had contract work going on at her apartment. I talked to the guys who were doing the work. Nothing there, either. I talked to all the doormen. Nobody really knew much about her, but they didn’t notice anything strange, either.”
“What about her coworkers?”
“Same thing. This Beryl chick was apparently pretty intense, always caught up in putting together the next book with one of her authors.”
“So what kind of help are you asking me for here?”
Jameson scratched his head, eyeing the sugary crumbs around the edges of O’Hearn’s mouth.
“I’m thinking maybe you can let me have a couple of guys on this,” he said. “I need some more legs. Maybe I can come up with something.”
“Can’t do it,” O’Hearn said, inhaling another cruller. Five more sat in a box on his desk, awaiting inevitable slaughter.
“Why not?” asked Jameson. “It’s not like this is some bullshit situation. This is a fairly high-profile person we’re talking about here.”
“A person who sent an e-mail that said she was taking leave. A person who’s got a right to do that. Think about it, Rex…her boss reported her missing. Who knows what kind of hard-ass broad her boss is? Some people don’t like being left in the lurch.”
“That’s silly, Captain, and you sound silly saying it. You know you do. This woman’s mail is piling up. She had a fire in her apartment. Don’t you think it’s odd she hasn’t had her mail put on hold or contacted her building and insurance company about the damage done to her property?”
“Sometimes people just walk away.”
“Captain.”
The big man pawed another cruller.
“I can’t justify more men,” O’Hearn said, clobbering the doughnut. “I don’t care how important this Beryl girl was. Vandals trashed her building. Yeah, so what? Her apartment wasn’t the only one that got worked over. And she quits her job on Labor Day weekend. I still say she’s run off with another Beryl. Two Beryls on a bush hunt, that’s what I think.”
Jameson stood.
“I can’t believe I report to you.”
“Believe it, buddy. I know from whence I speak. We got twenty-five repor
ts of missing persons on our website, and that’s just in Manhattan. Most of ’em have been missing for years. We do what we can. I can’t have guys running around chasing theories. Gimme something to go on and I’ll think about it. That’s the only way I’ll give this some heat, unless the order comes down to push it further. Otherwise, wrap this shit up. I can’t have you chasing AWOL writers all fucking day.”
“She’s an editor,” Jameson growled.
He snatched up a cruller and walked away.
He was able to trace Beryl back to Galena, Ohio, and from there learned that her parents were dead. That was more than her acquaintances and coworkers knew. He talked to people who had worked with her at PaleFire, then he went back to Kittell Press for a second round of what he hoped would be greater details.
“Did she date a lot?” he asked Beryl’s assistant, whom he found unusually attractive. “Did she have a boyfriend?”
“I’ve never seen one,” Shecky said. “But then, I didn’t know a lot about her outside of the office. She was pretty guarded about her personal life.”
Jameson scribbled on his pad, sneaking peeks at the girl.
“So no men ever called here for her?”
“Sure, but it was always business. I mean, um, have you seen a photo of Beryl?”
“Yes, I have,” Jameson said, looking up from his note-jotting, taking in the smug expression on Shecky’s face.
“Well…”
“Well what?” he asked, putting away his pad and pen.
“Well…” Shecky dragged, “she was rather sophisticated, in a put-on kind of way, I guess…not naturally…but it’s not like guys were knocking down her door.”
Jameson squinted.
“Sounds like you have some issues with your boss, Ms. Lehman.”
“No, no, not at all,” Shecky said, full of sugary brightness. “It’s just…I mean, you know…everybody thought that. Page Six even joked about it.”
“What did Page Six say?”
Shecky giggled, shook out her lustrous curls, flashed some sort of oddly coy look at the desk and then at Jameson, then showed her ultrabrite, ultrawhite pearlies. She leaned forward a bit, her voice almost a whisper.
“They called her face ‘the ultimate contraceptive.’”
Jameson studied Shecky with growing dislike, watching the smile widen so much, it threatened to slice her head in half. He could tell she was waiting for him to join her in the derision. He jotted the comment on his notepad instead.
Shecky shook out her hair again and leaned back, serious again.
“She spent the most time with her authors. If anybody got to know her better, it would be one of them.”
“Thank you, Ms. Lehman. I appreciate your efforts. Do you still have my card?”
“Yes, I do.”
“If you come across anything you think is important, even if it doesn’t seem important, any details…”
“Of course,” Shecky said.
He talked to Canon Messier, a misanthropic, self-indulgent, insufferable character who was not much help.
“That fucking cunt just abandoned me! Selfish bitch! She knows how I feel about public appearances. She knows it. You would think, as much as I’ve done for her career, she would at least take me into consideration. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t that just make sense?”
Jameson jotted and nodded, starting to believe that perhaps Beryl had indeed just bailed, if this guy was any indication of the stress she’d had to deal with.
They were at Jean Georges at the Trump International in Columbus Circle, Jean Georges Vongerichten’s venerable establishment that consistently ranked among the best restaurants in the world. Messier had insisted this was the only place he would meet Jameson, and only over a meal plus drinks, as much of both as he wanted, all of which he expected Jameson to cover.
“You’re lucky I don’t charge an honorarium for this,” Messier said. “I can do that, you know. I’m very spare with my public appearances. Very spare. I can get very Salinger when I want to. If it wasn’t for the money, I’d never set foot out—”
“This isn’t a public appearance,” said Jameson. “I’m conducting an investigation.”
“Doesn’t matter. Time is money, and my time comes pretty high.”
As evidenced by the way he proceeded to eat.
They were meeting too late for the prix fixe lunch. Jameson watched the entire food chain pass across their table as Messier sucked down Mexican papaya with microbasil, roasted squab, fennel-glazed skate wing, beef tenderloin with Japanese eggplant, a loin of lamb, some kind of dessert with rhubarb in it, and at least three bottles of wines selected to complement the flavor collision going on in his mouth.
Jameson, in an attempt to keep costs down, only had the tomato fennel soup.
Meanwhile, Messier was a Visigoth, sacking the menu with unbridled fervor. Teams of waiters scurried about the room, rushing to meet his demands.
“Forks! Forks! I need more forks! I can’t keep mixing tastes with the same fork!”
Diners looked on at the spectacle of gluttony, many recognizing the beast at its center. Most were just annoyed at his cretinous behavior.
“Hey! Where’s that fork!”
A waitress arrived with a stack of fresh utensils. Messier immediately snatched one from her and examined it.
“There’s a spot on this. Bring back clean ones. And make sure they’re hot, that way I can tell they’ve been sterilized. Just forks. Why do I need all those fucking spoons?”
Jameson jotted in his pad.
“So how long have you known Beryl?”
“I don’t know,” Messier said, slugging his wine. “Forever, I guess. That’s why this whole thing pisses me off. That cunt!”
Jameson was ringside at a freak show. He made more notes.
“Did you ever meet her family?” he asked. “A boyfriend? Any of her close friends?”
“Friends! Beryl? She didn’t have any friends! Not outside of work. Her writers are her life.”
“What about boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends!” he croaked, shoveling skate in his mouth. “Have you seen Beryl?”
“I have a newspaper clipping. She looks very well put-together.”
“She is,” said Messier, “but I wouldn’t fuck her. Not with that face. Fork! Where’s the fucking forks!”
People in the restaurant began to stir uncomfortably. The waitstaff apologized, offering up complimentary desserts to compensate.
Tony DiSalvo, one of the two esteemed chefs de cuisine that ran the kitchen, brought the hot forks himself.
“About time!” Messier barked.
DiSalvo apparently knew this drill. He smiled, nodded, and placed a friendly hand on Messier’s shoulder.
“Is everything to your satisfaction?”
“Yes, it’s great,” said Messier, much calmer now that he was being indulged by someone he deemed more worthy.
“Just let us know whatever it is you need,” said DiSalvo, “and it will be taken care of.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Messier turned to Jameson. “This guy”—he jerked his thumb toward the chef—“he knows how to treat me. That’s why I always come here. I love this fucking place!”
The chef offered a humble smile.
“Thank you, Mr. Messier.” He looked at Jameson. “And how is your soup?”
“Excellent.”
“Very good.”
DiSalvo had barely taken his leave before Messier was swearing again, hurling more “cunts!” “selfish whores!” and other delightful terms across the table at Jameson as he expressed his absolute disgust with Beryl’s unannounced departure.
Three full hours of orgiastic eating, with Messier never once offering to share with his patron the items he’d ordered.
The meeting cost Jameson over five hundred dollars, an amount he knew he could never submit to the department for reimbursement, so it would have to come out of his pocket. He departed with no more ins
ight into Beryl than the fact that she was surrounded by a conspiracy of idiots.
He’d gotten nothing.
Messier, however, for all intents, had gotten his honorarium.
It was the same with Sharlyn Tate. She was going through a divorce and was emotionally volatile. The mere mention of Beryl’s name had sent her reeling.
“It’s been more than a month now. Why can’t you guys find her? Are you the only person they’ve got on top of this?”
“I’m just doing the groundwork. Once we get more leads, others will join in a wider search. We don’t have much evidence to go on. She sent an e-mail from her home saying she needed some time away. You can’t really mount too heavy a search based on that. The missing persons report didn’t come from a relative. It came from her boss.”
“But she’s family to us!” Sharlyn screamed.
“Then why didn’t you report her missing?”
“Huh?”
“Why didn’t you report her missing?”
“Because I thought she was away dealing with an emergency.”
“Even though she’s never done anything like that before?”
“How would I know that? We’re not that close.”
“Right.”
Jameson gave Sharlyn Tate a card and went on his way.
He found his lucky break with a tenant in the apartment building of another of Beryl’s authors. A three-hundred-pound man who happened to be returning just as Jameson was about to leave after interviewing other tenants in the building. He was holding a paper bag teeming with Subway sandwiches.
Jameson showed him a photo.
“Sure I’ve seen her,” the man said, struggling to breathe. “All the time. She’s real sophisticated, you know, elegantlike, but kinda homely. She practically lives with him, she sleeps over so much. I hear them down there late at night with their stupid giggling and loud opera music and loud sex, not so much that anymore, but it’s rude, all of it. It comes right up through the floor and keeps me awake.”
“So they’re dating?”
“Yes. He’s all big and famous now with his books and billboards and On Fiyah shit, so I guess he’ll be moving, thank God, but yeah. They’re a couple. I’ve seen them plenty of times kissing and holding hands.”
