American Quartet (10 page)

THE
body of the dead man, Jorge Perfidio, flesh peeled away like a banana skin, innards exposed, lay in the glare of the bright fluorescent lights on the medical examiner’s autopsy table. With so many spectators crowded around the action, it looked like a demonstration for a cooking class, a lesson in butchery. Out of a corner of her eye, Fiona observed the eggplant, his face glistening with perspiration, scowling at the corpse as Dr. Benton’s fingers maneuvered an instrument into the carcass of the dead man, his apron stained with bile and blood.

Directly in front of her were two men from the FBI, an official from the Executive Protection Agency and another neatly dressed intense man, whose officious look marked him unmistakably as Central Intelligence Agency. There were others—Roy Howard, the chief himself, God Almighty in their special police universe, an unsmiling middle-aged black man. Beside him stood two nervous men from the Argentine embassy. In the background she caught a glimpse of Teddy’s gray, gloomy face. Jorge Perfidio was the Argentine representative to the Organization of American States.

Fiona was deliberately hanging back, not wishing to appear conspicuous. Teddy had called her, wakening her from a sound sleep. She had come off duty at midnight and found it impossible to sleep until ten, keeping busy by cleaning her apartment, dusty from her summer’s absence. Their paths had not crossed since their separation.

“It reminded me of the Damato case, Fi. I got scene.” He sounded agitated, talking police shorthand. He explained that a man had been shot in the lobby of the Pan American Union Building, and sketched in the details. To both of them, the Damato case had been traumatic, changing the course of their police careers. It was a natural impulse on Teddy’s part to seek vindication in some way. There was no doubt why he had called.

“He was DOA,” Teddy said. “There was a guard witness. This one had fantasies. Said that the killer’s right hand spit fire.”

“Like an avenging angel.” The comment reminded her of her father and his vivid religious imagery.

“We got a height and sex fix. A man in a raincoat. Medium height. He was bundled up. Wore a hat.” Teddy paused as if reading from a notebook. “Apparently the Argentinian was walking down the stairs. Then bang bang.”

“And the gun?”

“If it’s the same one, the shit will hit the fan. The eggplant will have a hemorrhage. Why the hell did it happen to me?”

“Hell, you could close it. Be a hero.”

“No way. There’s not one fucking real clue. But I know they’re connected. I know it.”

“Take it easy.”

“I just thought you’d like to know. Maybe you can help.”

“Maybe.” But she doubted it.

“Look at it from my point of view. I tell you, Fi, it’s going to be like last time.”

Had they missed something? It had nagged at her, a lingering itch that would not go away.

She knew what he meant. Destiny had struck the poor bastard a rotten blow. It was okay to abuse a woman, to ridicule her ability, but fate had set him up to be a scapegoat. A white male!

“The body is over at the medical examiner’s now. I’m going. Everybody’s going.”

“So am I,” she said, jumping out of bed.

But when she started to dress, she realized her tactical stupidity. It wasn’t her case, it wasn’t her business. She was about to give them something else to resent about her.

Dictating into a small microphone headset, Dr. Benton described the wounds, traced the path of the bullets, one of which had punctured the heart. The other had struck the left side of the abdomen and passed through both the outer and inner walls of the stomach.

As he paused in his dictation, Fiona noted that his eyes had squinted, had become reflective, as if his mind had paused to contemplate something he couldn’t pin down. She didn’t have time to wonder about it. The ping of an extracted bullet on a metal tray alerted everyone in the room.

“A thirty-two,” one of the FBI men said.

“Sure?” the eggplant asked. The FBI man nodded. The eggplant’s sense relief was tangible and he lit a cigarette. He looked over to Fiona and smiled, obviously relieved by the lack of connection to the previous killing. Her own feelings were ambivalent. Had she actually wished for the connection?

“This one looks political,” the eggplant said, clearing his throat.

“Well, it’s finally come,” the chief agreed.

The Argentinians looked at each other as if they possessed some secret knowledge.

“Everything is political,” one of them said.

“So far, we’ve pretty well managed to avoid this terrorist shit. Hate to see it happen here,” the eggplant said.

He was going to great pains to sell the idea. Lucky bastard. She could understand the ploy. No need to stir up dying embers. Suddenly Dr. Benton popped another bullet into the metal tray.

“Same,” the eggplant said.

“You can go home now.” The eggplant had edged over to her.

“I thought . . .”

“I know what you thought,” he interrupted. His nicotine breath washed over her. “The other is a goddamned open case.”

“At least the heat will be off of us,” she said. It was an effort to be ingratiating. She detested the reflex.

“Me,” he retorted, patting his chest. “Off me.”

Teddy had been watching them from a bench in the far corner of the room. Autopsies always made him queasy.

“I hope that guy’s right. I was praying for anything but a forty-four.” His eyes were sunk in deep dark circles. He reminded her of Bruce, confronting his own abyss. His weakness irritated her and she turned back to Dr. Benton. He untied the back strings of his apron, then lit a cigarette, pinching it between thumb and forefinger.

She hung back until the other men had finished their inquiries and left the room. The corpse lay on the metal table, covered with a rubber pad. For some reason, Benson struck her as being more thoughtful than fatigued. A nest of wrinkles etched his brow.

“What is it?” she asked softly. He did not reply at once, and glanced around the room, as if to assure himself that they were alone.

“The two shots,” he whispered. There was a touch of the bureaucrat about him. His reports were always concise and accurate, never speculative, and he rarely volunteered extraneous theories to his superiors. Because she admired him, she liked to think this reticence was wisdom but she knew better. He was a brilliant man but no hero.

“Why would a murderer fire a second bullet at close range in the man’s belly, after blowing apart his heart?”

“You know that?”

“Know?” He looked at her. “Suspect. It is different. It’s something one doesn’t put in a report. Not precise enough.”

“Maybe he didn’t know about anatomy.”

“But why actually lower the gun? The belly shot wasn’t the fatal one in the first place. Why not just shoot the bullets into the chest and head, the places of sure death?”

“Accident,” she countered. “Or he simply couldn’t stop himself. Who knows what was in the man’s mind?” A killer’s logic, she had learned, never traveled in a straight line.

“A terrorist would be thinking only of elimination. Why waste a shot? He was already at close range.”

“Just because the eggplant . . .” She corrected herself, not wanting to draw him into her private war. “. . . Captain Greene said it was. Doesn’t mean it’s so.” Out of respect for his caution she did not elaborate.

“And if a terrorist was looking for an insurance shot, why move the barrel out of range of the vital organ?” He was repeating himself as if to emphasize the point.

“Are you on this case?” he asked suddenly, his cool eyes alert and cautious.

“I was looking for some connection between this and Damato.”

He thought a moment and nodded.

“A public building. A single killer . . .” she began, trailing off as the list of similarities spent themselves. “Intuition . . .” She hated the term.

“Subconscious thinking,” he corrected.

“Maybe I have something to prove,” she confessed, lowering her voice as if to further reassure him that this was a purely private consultation.

“Dangerous,” he sighed, understanding instantly. “It sometimes interferes with one’s strategy for survival.”

“You think maybe they’ll think I’m an uppity honky broad?”

“They think that anyhow,” he smiled. “The power structure doesn’t like anyone to stand up in the rowboat.” He sighed. “Aside from medicine, this is my particular expertise.” His concentration drifted. “It was my wife’s fatal flaw. That kind of courage can kill.”

“So far I’ve been a good little girl.” She paused, rethinking. “That’s bullshit. They think I’m a bumbling bitch. Since that gallery case I’m getting the treatment. You haven’t helped. I could have left this room like them. Without doubts.”

“So it’s a form of vengeance,” he said, his smile fading. “Maybe you shouldn’t take my speculations so seriously.”

She felt on the verge of indignation. It was narrow, small-minded. Clouding one’s objectivity sapped one’s strength. She went over it in her mind, then concluded that he was partially right.

“Maybe.”

“I’m not against it,” he said. “But if you’re not subtle about it, it can backfire, go against your self-interest.” He waited for her reaction. For him, talking in riddles apparently offered a kind of cerebral pleasure. She nodded her understanding. Beneath the facade of amiability were the scarred remains of thwarted ambition. Reaching out, she squeezed his upper arm. It was a distinctly manly gesture.

“I’ll be careful,” she said.

He removed his bloodstained apron, like the proprietor of a butcher shop closing for the day.

“If I find a connection in my mind, I’ll let you know,” he said, putting on his jacket. “But I’d be willing to wager that this killing was not political.”

“I won’t take the bet,” she said. There was not a single hard clue to support her own instinct.

The killing of Jorge Perfidio was the banner headline in the
Post
. To his credit, the eggplant had maintained a low profile. But to her horror, as she read the news account, she discovered the chief had stuck his nose into the limelight.

“D.C. Police Chief Roy Howard told reporters that he had called in the FBI, Interpol, the Argentine security agency and other government agencies to investigate the killing. ‘We cannot have this in our town,’ he said. ‘We must all join forces to stem the import of foreign terrorism. If this continues, we will have to develop a capability to combat the menace. This will take some recognition on the part of the Congress, fundwise.’ “

There was no reference in the story to the previous killing. It was as though it had been deliberately excised as irrelevant. Not only had the chief taken the heat off the department, he had begun to lobby for more funds.

By evening the story had built. The President held a special press conference to decry terrorism. The Argentines had also gotten into the act. The ambassador was shown before a bank of microphones after carrying a protest message to the Secretary of State. Three days later the story was still simmering.

“Everybody into the sludge,” Bruce said, openly envious as he slouched on her sofa, drink in hand. “I need something like that to boost my campaign.”

He had come back from New York, discouraged and edgy. Taking the day off, she had devoted the time to preparing a nice dinner for him to chase his blues. He ate little, preferring instead to sip Scotch. To take his mind off his own troubles, she had told him the details of the case, expressing her intuitive doubts.

“They could be wrong,” Fiona said. It seemed to spark his interest.

“That doesn’t matter. It’s the exposure. It’s the style, not the substance. Besides, the conclusion is safe. A little killing has just slopped over from Argentina. So what else is new?” His perception came from light miles away and she could tell that his reactions related only to his campaign. Discouragement had also deepened his cynicism. Getting up from the table, he sprawled on the couch. She sat down beside him and gently nudged his head into her lap, massaging his temples.

“It’s getting worse, Fi,” he said grimly. “I can’t seem to rally the troops. My opponent, the spic bastard, calls me irrelevant and there’s an undercurrent of Jew stuff just surfacing. The district’s changing so fast I just can’t relate to it.”

“Everything’s changing,” she said.

“What the hell is your frame of reference?” he said with sudden anger, pushing her away. She did not respond, hoping it would pass.

“If only she wasn’t a woman,” he said after a pause, his anger vented. “I don’t know how to handle it.” He let her hands soothe him again. “I just don’t know how to handle women.”

“Maybe we should come with an instruction kit?”

“No maybes.”

“You expect every woman to be like your mommy.”

“Now there’s insight. You bet your ass. I fear now for all those little boys approaching puberty.”

“They’ll be tougher. The next generation will know how to handle us girls.”

“They won’t handle nothing. They’ll all be castrated.”

“Now that would be a pity.” She reached for him there as if to reassure him. In the soft light his eyes glistened moistly.