Night-Bloom (5 page)

The embarrassment she sensed he felt, gross and naked before her made her doubly solicitous. She called him “Poppy” and kissed him over and over again, as if she truly meant it. Determined to please him, she was still young enough in the trade not to have had the last ounce of human tenderness flayed out of her.

At last, when it came time to culminate his pleasure, she sat astride him, then proceeded to move up and down, rotating her hips as she went. Eyes closed, Mooney lay dazed and panting in the overheated room that reeked of perspiration and cheap incense.

Slowly the motion continued, gathering momentum, peaking finally for Mooney with a long rush of release. The girl, sighing and moaning, might have been merely simulating passion, making him feel as though he’d given her more pleasure than she’d ever known. He may have half-suspected this was the case. In any event, when he left there somewhere in the early part of Sunday evening, several thousand dollars bulging in his pockets, he was, for the moment at least, at peace.

Mooney had little in the way of religious feelings. Spiritual intimations were not his strong suit. Only in the presence of the evening sky did he feel some vague, troublesome notion of things stirring outside himself. Call it wonder. If it was, he did not perceive it as such. He did not consciously go out on evenings to encounter deities. All he knew was that on rare occasions when he found himself gazing upward at the starry vault of heaven, he experienced a sharp anger in the face of stubborn puzzles intimating things that, in more guarded moments, he brusquely discounted. And of course it is axiomatic that detectives loathe insoluble puzzles.

Still, wonder notwithstanding, he watched the stars, knew the evening sky and could read it like his own newspaper. On the rooftop, where he stood now, leaning on the brick parapet, he watched Virgo recumbent in the southeastern sky; Draco looped and coiled above his head with Bootes, the Plowman, just to the left, and Arcturus glowing like a beacon in its tail. Mooney patted the bulge of dollars swelling in the pocket above his breast, leaned far out over the edge, and peered down into the teeming nighttime life swarming below him.

It was nearly 11:00
P.M.
Theaters were just beginning to let out, disgorging their audiences onto the street. Horns blared, taxis streamed crosstown and up Eighth Avenue. The marquees were still lit, setting the sky above the theater district ablaze. Even at the seven-story elevation, Mooney could feel the bustle and heat of mortal nervous energy emanating from below. From where he stood, he reasoned another man had stood six nights ago, at the same time and in that precise spot. No doubt, that man had stood at the ledge, just as Mooney did now, and peered down into the swarming dizzy tide of life below.

What occupied the detective’s attention was a shallow pit in the outside wall just below him, where a slab of concrete had either fallen of its own accord or was chiseled out of the brick facade. Mooney leaned way over, hanging head down from the waist, as if nailed inverted to the wall and probed the damaged area with his stubby fingers.

The forensic unit that had examined the spot two days before had determined that the slab had come dislodged of its own accord. Indeed, he could see no sign of any tool that may have been used to pry the section loose. Had a chisel been used, it would certainly have left a cleaner, more uniform, defacement than the big ragged scar that gaped there now. Also, his fingers probing the area had encountered a good deal of moisture within the open fissure—moisture from rotting, leaky gutters that had no doubt over the years undermined the laths and joists below.

Grunting, red-faced, Mooney hauled himself upright and stood panting in the shadows. Shortly, he stopped and scooped up several bits of stone and pebble off the tarred rooftop. Back at the ledge he stood rolling the pebbles in his palm with the icy intensity of a crap-shooter.

Standing alone amid the transoms and chimney pots, antennas and sheets hung on laundry lines flapping ghostly in the light breeze, Mooney made an effort to re-create in his own mind the scene of the murder. Initially, the man he saw was young, Hispanic—although he couldn’t say why, except that the hallway and staircase leading to the roof had been liberally scored with graffiti clearly of Spanish origin.
PUMO
134,
GAETANO
108,
HONCHO
128, indicating that the roof was heavily trafficked; used for assignations. In his mind he suddenly saw two young Spanish males. They’d been drinking up there on the roof. From a vision of two, he was able to posit a third. Possibly a girl. Sixteen or seventeen years old. All of them potheads, soaked in grass. One of them had found the slab of cinder block, or inadvertently found the damaged area, and was able to pry it out of the mortar below. Mooney visualized one of the youths—hypothetically, he called him Pumo, because of the graffiti on the stairway wall—eighteen, full of junk; swaggering in black leather studded with cheap chrome points; possibly a tattoo or so— skulls, swastikas, whatever. The typical nickel-dime Halloween costume of gang cultures.

The boy is now hefting the slab of mortar, holding it out over the ledge, defying the others. The presence of the girl makes him cocky, more reckless. He swaggers for her benefit, but deep down he does not intend to drop the slab.

The other youth jeers and taunts him. The girl laughs. She senses that her presence there makes Pumo’s position doubly difficult. She enjoys his dilemma.

“Hey, Pumo. Drop it man. Gawhead—Drop it. Drop it.
Cobarde maricón.
”

Mooney could hear the taunts as clearly as if they were occurring at that moment. “Drop it, man. Drop it. Gawhead.” The voices reverberated across the ghostly vacancy of the roof.

Leaning far out over the ledge, trying to follow the progress of their downward descent, one by one, Mooney let the pebbles fall from his hand.

But there was something profoundly unsatisfying about this vision. It was a set piece. It lacked authority or any ring of truth. For one thing, he found no sign that a gang of youths had been up there. Gangs, in Mooney’s experience, tended to leave behind their spoor—beer cans, wine bottles, reefer stubs, condoms. He found no such signs there.

But why should he persist? The forensic unit had been thorough enough. They had pored over the area. They had not been able to find a single piece of evidence, or lift a single fingerprint from the area where the slab had broken off. And other than three or four similar incidents that had occurred over the past four years, and the somewhat dubious testimony of an eleven-year-old street rat, there was absolutely no compelling reason to believe that last week’s crushed skull was anything more than an accident. No perceivable human cause.

It was 11:00
P.M.
Spica glared in the tail of Virgo; Castor and Pollux, the twins, glittered out of Gemini. Both Venus and Mars were in Pisces. Love and contention within the fish. He had won money that day and known love of a sort. What more was there? Mooney patted the bulge of cash above his breast and turned to go.

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

“It’s true. See for yourself.”

“All I can see is that the boy is faking. He doesn’t want to go to school.”

“Be sensible, Cyril. How could the boy be faking? Look at the flush on his cheek.”

“A hundred and two degrees. Very convenient. Sickness invariably occurs on the morning of school examinations.”

“That’s unfair. Can’t you see he’s sick? I wouldn’t send a dog out in this weather, little less my own child. He’d be back in an hour with pneumonia.”

“You’re ruining the boy, Mary. Mark my words, you’re bringing him up to be a welcher. Well, Charles, congratulations. You win again.”

The door slammed and his father was gone, leaving in his wake the odor of leather and cologne. He loathed that odor and would always loathe it. It filled his bathroom. It was in his clothing and his drawers. Sometimes he could even smell it on his mother when she’d been with him.

Now he’d gone, yet the odor lingered. His mother’s cool hand was on his brow. It rested there ever so lightly, with an air of quiet anticipation. “Charley?”

He didn’t answer.

“Charley? Are you sleeping, dear?”

She leaned over him, rested her head on the pillow near his and whispered into his ear. “It’s all right, dear. Your father’s gone now. He doesn’t mean what he says. It’s just that sometimes he’d like to see you up and ever so much more active. Football. Hockey. Boy Scouts. You know. Charley—Charley—do you hear me?”

He nodded and felt the dammed-up tears start to spring at the corners of his eyes and track down his cheeks.

“I’ll call Mr. Mortimer at school.” She fussed over him. “We’ll arrange to have you make up your test when you’re feeling better. But, you know, dear, your father is right. I know for a fact that you’ve been neglecting your Latin. Skipping your homework. How could you possibly be prepared for an examination this morning? Now come, we won’t discuss this any further. It’s just between you and me, but we both know that there must be an improvement. Is that understood? Very good. Well then, Doctor says you must have plenty of fluids and rest. Meanwhile, just roll down your pajama trousers and let me take your temperature.”

After she’d gone he listened to her puttering out in the kitchen. Soon she’d be back with soft eggs and toast. Just the way he liked them. Quickly he switched the thermometer she’d stuck in him for the one he kept wrapped in an old sock beneath the hissing radiator beside his bed.

“Charley.” She reappeared, smiling at the door. “Charley, darling. Here are your eggs and there’s some nice hot …”

“Mr. Watford …” He felt himself gently prodded. “Wake up, Mr. Watford. Dr. Kramer is here.” Watford cracked an eye and looked up into the solemn, doleful features of the young internist.

“Good morning, Mr. Watford.” The doctor perused his chart. “How are we doing this morning?”

Watford started up, winced conspicuously, then lay back in bed.

“That head still bothering you, is it?”

“It’s awful, Doctor. Like a sledgehammer. And my stomach …”

“Hurting you?”

“Something fierce. And the vomiting …”

“When did that start?”

The intern, standing above him, arms akimbo, watched him with an air of consternation. “We’d better have a look.” As he drew the covers down from Watford’s chest, Watford raised the gown above his hips while the nurse slowly encircled them in a floor-to-ceiling curtain hung on tracks.

“Ow.”

“That hurts, does it?” The doctor probed Watford’s pelvis with a finger. “Is the pain generalized or at a certain spot?”

“It’s right here, Doctor,” Watford groaned and guided the intern’s hand to an area just above the navel.

“Ow,” he squealed again and sat bolt upright, suggesting exquisite tenderness.

The physician pulled Watford’s gown back down over his knees and drew the covers up over him. “There’s a great deal of tenderness there. Your fever is still high and your leukocytic count is way up over two hundred thousand. Could be an abscess or possibly peritonitis. In any case, I think you ought to plan on being here a few more days till we can get to the bottom of this.” The young man turned to the nurse. “Will you have them get Mr. Watford ready for radiology within the hour.” The doctor turned back to Watford, smiling. “See you shortly.”

As he started out, Watford called feebly to him. “Doctor. My head.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Demerol, wasn’t it?” The doctor picked up the house phone beside Watford’s bed and dialed the hospital dispensary. “Hello, Dr. Kramer here. Will you send up eighty milligrams meperidine, parenteral dosage. Room 815, please. Thank you.”

Left suddenly to himself, enclosed in the hushed white sanctity of the privacy curtain, encased in the starched antiseptic dignity of hospital linen, Charles Watford, smiling to himself, quite peacefully awaited the hospital attendants who would shortly come to wheel him to the radiology room.

Stretching beneath the blankets he experienced the most wonderfully comforting sense of languor and well-being. In this briskly efficient, deeply caring temple of healing, he felt as if nothing again could ever possibly harm him.